A plan to defeat ISIS

[Childlike Empress]

As an addition: The area that the Yazidis occupied in Iraq was in Sinjar. Sinjar has recently been liberated from ISIL with the US providing air support. There are plenty of references to such action by the US. e.g:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/world/middleeast/isis-iraq-syria.html

Unfortunately, what's left of Sinjar looks just like Kobane. A giant pile of rubble.

 

[Craig B]

No, not just because of the Yazidis. You are missing the point in reference to the Yazidis.

The Yazidi's left ISIS alone, and in exchange were brutally massacred and driven into the mountains by ISIS.

The Yazidi's should be viewed as part of a larger picture.

Are you sure that's the message the post I was commenting on is trying to get across? Please peruse it again.

Could you please tell that to the Yazidis in Iraq.

I'm sure that they would be enthralled to hear such wisdom seeing as they never attacked ISIL but they themselves were not only over-run, but subjected to the most horrific violations. I'm sure the families of the children who died from exposure on Mt Sinjar would happily listen.

Perhaps you'd like to tell this to Yazidis women who have been kidnapped by ISIL and sold in slave markets. Perhaps you'd like to tell the girls who've been sold and gang raped that if only they had left ISIL alone then ISIL would have left them alone.

You could always get to Sinjar, which has just been liberated by YPG and the Peshmerga and perhaps preach to the rotting bodies found in mass graves who turned out to be old women that ISIL had no "use" for.

Honestly, I've read some absolute drivel on this forum regarding ISIL and Syria (it's full of misinformed opinion), but this post is without doubt the most naive.

Try educating yourself about ISIL.

 

[Sunstealer]

Unfortunately, what's left of Sinjar looks just like Kobane. A giant pile of rubble.

So was Stalingrad. A great many other towns and cities that were reduced to rubble during many wars throughout the world have managed to rebuild.

Ramadi and Fallujah are slowly being retaken from ISIL and the damage is there all for to see just as it is across the region in many cities. Mosul will be the same when the time comes to liberate it.

It's a sad state of affairs when you see the damage reaped, but it's been going on for eons. My great grandfather fought in the First World War and you'd never have known it had happened when visiting the towns and fields of France where he fought. The reminders are the cemeteries and the ordnance the farmers plough up each year.

"Only the dead have seen the end to war".

 

[tuco]

I got a solution: we leave them alone. And they leave us alone.

While I do agree that violence breads more violence, I am lead to believe we are beyond this point. The question to me is, how we will "fight" back? And the answer seems fairly obvious and agreed upon, with violence.

 

[Blaster]

but I don't even know which 10th century "scholary" decision you're refering to and who considers them as authoritative

Well the decision I'm referring to is known as "closing the gate of ijtihad" - which was, as I understand it, less of a decision and more of a cultural shift that deferred Quranic interpretation to established views arrived at in the first few centuries after Muhammad's death.

I konw I've posted this a few times already, but for posterity's sake: https://theconversation.com/how-islamic-law-can-take-on-isis-50113

and would disagree that only a minority of a minority have an understanding of Islam that is compatible with secular democracy.

What I mean to say is the school of thought in Islam that leads to places like Indonesia being successful isn't held by the majority of the world's Muslims. The Shafi'i, who practice ijtihad when there isn't something laid out clearly in the quran or hadith, are concentrated heavily in places like Indonesia and Malaysia (the latter being the home of Sisters in Islam). The majority of Sunni belong to the Hanafi school of thought which puts stock in an authority (all the way down to the local level) interpreting the tenants of the faith and disseminating it to the masses that way - it's less about personal interpretation and more about custom, which was my point above.

Anyway, back to topic, your view that the Wahhabi/Salafi slime ISIS crawled out of is "reformist" already is interesting and likely true in some limited senses.

I would say they're revisionist. Reform implies an attempt to make something better.

 

[Childlike Empress]

So was Stalingrad. A great many other towns and cities that were reduced to rubble during many wars throughout the world have managed to rebuild.

Ramadi and Fallujah are slowly being retaken from ISIL and the damage is there all for to see just as it is across the region in many cities. Mosul will be the same when the time comes to liberate it.

It's a sad state of affairs when you see the damage reaped, but it's been going on for eons. My great grandfather fought in the First World War and you'd never have known it had happened when visiting the towns and fields of France where he fought. The reminders are the cemeteries and the ordnance the farmers plough up each year.

"Only the dead have seen the end to war".

I know. My father was rescued miraculously out of the rubble of my grandfather's bombed house when he was a baby.

 

[Craig B]

So was Stalingrad. A great many other towns and cities that were reduced to rubble during many wars throughout the world have managed to rebuild.

Ramadi and Fallujah are slowly being retaken from ISIL and the damage is there all for to see just as it is across the region in many cities. Mosul will be the same when the time comes to liberate it.

It's a sad state of affairs when you see the damage reaped, but it's been going on for eons. My great grandfather fought in the First World War and you'd never have known it had happened when visiting the towns and fields of France where he fought. The reminders are the cemeteries and the ordnance the farmers plough up each year.

"Only the dead have seen the end to war".

Dear God! What a post. Anyway, Stalingrad isn't really a good advertisement for aerial bombing as a way of securing the wellbeing of civilians.

Anywhere from 25,000 to 40,000 Soviet civilians died in Stalingrad and its suburbs during a single week of aerial bombing by Luftflotte 4 as the German 4th Panzer and 6th Armies approached the city. The total number of civilians killed in Stalingrad is unknown.​

 

[Blaster]

Are you sure that's the message the post I was commenting on is trying to get across? Please peruse it again.

Yes, it was. Jules was saying that if we leave ISIS alone, they will leave us alone. The Yazidis left ISIS alone, and were butchered.

 

[Sunstealer]

Dear God! What a post. Anyway, Stalingrad isn't really a good advertisement for aerial bombing as a way of securing the wellbeing of civilians.

Anywhere from 25,000 to 40,000 Soviet civilians died in Stalingrad and its suburbs during a single week of aerial bombing by Luftflotte 4 as the German 4th Panzer and 6th Armies approached the city. The total number of civilians killed in Stalingrad is unknown.​

I'm not sure where you are coming from. I'm confused. Maybe I have read you wrongly.

Perhaps it's the nature of the internet and the medium in which text can be misconstrued. My apologies if I've read you wrong, but I'm not sure if you've understood the context with which I posted in response to Childlike Empress.

My post was to show that even after the horrific ravages of war, cities are rebuilt and end up with thriving populations. Nothing more, nothing less.

Let me try and clarify my response:

CE expressed sorrow for the state of the city of Sinjar. I too see the destruction, but posted, showing that cities and people do recover in the end. Predominately the state of the city is due to the fighting within it and not aerial bombardment.

Kobani is a better example if that is your point, but even then the "green shoots" of life and normality are slowly returning. And don't forget that such bombing was carried out predominately by the US using precision guided munitions using technologically advanced aircraft such as the B1-B. This was not "carpet bombing" using unguided weapons, but targeted using "forward air controllers" who were part of the force trying to recover the city whether they were Kurds or US special forces.

Built up areas get trashed due to the nature of fighting in built up areas.

My post was intended to show that a city such as Stalingrad, even after such devastating destruction, could be rebuilt and become a thriving metropolis for the people within. It was in no way an advancement for aerial bombing for the benefit of civilians.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

This may come as a total surprise and shock but people and organizations are capable of being murderous terrorists regardless of how they are treated by any outside entity.

I'm asking a genuine question here so do you have examples of groups/organisations becoming murderous terrorists without some grudge against an outside entity because of its actions (regardless of whether its justified or not in your opinion)

 

[Toontown]

Not much. The advance of Empire of the Rising Sun was headed in your direction. It was stopped and turned back at Guadalcanal, and eventually driven off it's stepping stone at Truk.

NZ would have been a juicy morsel.

I would say Coral Sea rather then Guadalcanal, and would give the Aussies some credit for stopping the Japanese in the Kokoda Trail campaign.but basic point taken.
And the Kiwis were glad as hell when US troops begun arriving in the Summer of 1942......

In the context of Jules Galen's failure to comprehend the reason he exists, I think stopping the Japanese advance down the Solomons chain was a greater boon to his future existence than stopping their New Guinea advance.

If the Japanese could have driven the Americans out of the Solomons, they could have isolated the US from Australia and New Zealand. But the carrier battles off Guadalcanal cost the IJN so many carrier aircraft and crews that they were forced to retire their remaining fleet carriers until 1944. This left one US carrier, Enterprise, still operating in the area, which was enough to tip the balance in the future Jules Galen's favor.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Well the decision I'm referring to is known as "closing the gate of ijtihad" - which was, as I understand it, less of a decision and more of a cultural shift that deferred Quranic interpretation to established views arrived at in the first few centuries after Muhammad's death.

I konw I've posted this a few times already, but for posterity's sake: https://theconversation.com/how-islamic-law-can-take-on-isis-50113

An interesting text. After he introduces the concept you mention, he follows with:

There was, of course, no “Gate of Ijtihad” to be closed, and nobody had the authority to close the gate even if one had existed. The metaphor, however, highlighted the contrast between the cultivation of diversity in the first three centuries of Sharia and the stalemate and rigidity of the study of Islamic law since then.

The first sentence seems plausible, the rest is a bare assertion and doesn't fit with my understanding of the history, especially after I've watched an extremely interesting interview about Islamic Law lately with details (I can't reproduce) like 14th century scholars who brought new live to the discussion, which unfortunately is in German. This in related videos seems to be an English language lecture "Sharia and Europe" by the same Islamologist (and German civil law professor and judge), so maybe that would be interesting to watch. I for one will put it on my list.

 

[Toontown]

I got a solution: we leave them alone. And they leave us alone.

...

Honestly, I've read some absolute drivel on this forum regarding ISIL and Syria (it's full of misinformed opinion), but this post is without doubt the most naive.

...

Diplomatic of you to call it naive.

 

[Craig B]

Yes, it was. Jules was saying that if we leave ISIS alone, they will leave us alone. The Yazidis left ISIS alone, and were butchered.

I don't know if ISIS intends to leave the West alone, but I do agree that Tony Blair was right when he admitted the responsibility of the Iraq invasion for creating the circumstances in which such a monstrous outfit could flourish. But I fail to see how bombing by us - it's already being done by others - can help. We're not bombing for the Yezidis, any more than we invaded Iraq to save the Kurds from Saddam. After the poison gas attack on Halabja

International response at the time was muted. The United States intelligence and government suggested that that Kurdish civilians were not a deliberate target, and even that Iran was indeed responsible. A briefing paper by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office stated: "We believe it better to maintain a dialogue with others if we want to influence their actions. Punitive measures such as unilateral sanctions would not be effective in changing Iraq's behaviour over chemical weapons, and would damage British interests to no avail."​

The Kurds, by allying with the Yezidis and arming them, are doing more than bombing will to rescue that population from ISIS' rule. If we bomb, and if ISIS thinks we're concerned about the Yezidis, they'll simply subject them to worse repression. Bombing won't stop that, any more than bombing stopped the Nazis from murdering Jews. Nor will it stop outrages in Paris. How could it? Will bombing in Syria stop some maniac in Brussels from going to Paris - or some other place we can't foresee - with an AK 47? No. Only police work can stop that.

And it is the attack on the West, not the repression of the Yezidis, that has induced Cameron to propose this ill-advised course of action. We've been bombing bits of the ME for more than ten years now. What good has it done? It has produced in ISIS an organisation that even Al Quaeda finds too extreme. Some success that is!

Similarly, UK troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan without much fanfare, suggesting that the war there (the UK's fourth such intervention, I think) achieved few results worth celebrating.

 

[Loss Leader]

A de-stabilised Turkey wouldn't be an ideal outcome, neither would a fragmented Iran, or problems in the Caucuses. We certainly shouldn't leap on it as a solution because it appears easy.

The aspect of this type of solution that I like is that it allows the native populations to make their own decisions about how they want to be governed. A lot of these borders were arbitrarily drawn by Western powers who neither knew nor cared about what the inhabitants wanted. Of course, a theocracy intent on harboring and supporting terrorists must be removed from power.

 

[tuco]

Just curiosity, what Mr Assad thinks of the issue as part of interview with Czech TV from yesterday:

Rozhovor s Bašárem Asadem - http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/ivysila...24/215411034000172-rozhovor-s-basarem-asadem/

the interview is in English, around 35 mins. According to the reporter, Michal Kubal, Mr Assad before the interview noted: ask anything you want. Well ..

He seems confident to be part of the solution, on pragmatic level, ground troops. Seeking partners for dialogue. Also: Your role? To save the country, and its values ~ secularism. Alright?

 

[The Don]

The aspect of this type of solution that I like is that it allows the native populations to make their own decisions about how they want to be governed. A lot of these borders were arbitrarily drawn by Western powers who neither knew nor cared about what the inhabitants wanted.

That's nice, but in many parts of the world there are groups in the same patch of land who have diametrically opposed views about how that patch of land should be governed. Territorial claims overlap, even more so when historical claims are taken into account. If the Kurds get an independent Kurdistan then as sure as eggs are eggs, they'll be settling old scores and any Iraqi Sunnis would be advised to get the hell out of there.

If the lessons of the former Yugoslavia are taken as example, we then end up with ethnic cleansing on a huge scale and an uneasy peace.

Of course, a theocracy intent on harboring and supporting terrorists must be removed from power.

Even if that's the will of the majority of the people living there ? On one hand we're all about letting groups define their own borders but we're not going to let them have the system of government that they want ?

Regarding terrorists, ISIS is an extreme example and there are very few people who would support their aims or actions but in other cases one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. Those groups we are supporting in Syria are described by the Syrian government as terrorists. Those terrorist groups that the U.S. was fighting in Central America in the 70's and 80's were regarded by many as freedom fighters and the regimes that the U.S. was supporting were (nearly) as poorly regarded as Assad's regime in Syria.

 

[ponderingturtle]

The aspect of this type of solution that I like is that it allows the native populations to make their own decisions about how they want to be governed. A lot of these borders were arbitrarily drawn by Western powers who neither knew nor cared about what the inhabitants wanted. Of course, a theocracy intent on harboring and supporting terrorists must be removed from power.

And how much blood shed should we support along the way to that? There will be a lot of ethnic cleansing to make the area pure, and wars over territory. These are things we would have to simply accept for this to work.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

And how much blood shed should we support along the way to that? There will be a lot of ethnic cleansing to make the area pure, and wars over territory. These are things we would have to simply accept for this to work.

I would think it would be possibly doable if the strategy wasn't just leave them to work it out.

If you can get all relevant parties to agree to a deal, with borders agreed to and defended by the UN/Nato and Xbn in aid for everyone as a sweetener.

Of course long term solutions aren't really what politicians do.

 

[tuco]

Politicians do .. my hands are clean, despite living in democracy .. anyway, well Mr Assad was right in the interview about one thing, there is no armed political movement. From here, to guarantee chance of various groups the right of independence, international law regarding these matters needs to be changed. And who has the power to change the said law? How much bloodshed we should support? Thats not valid question, because it has no valid answer. As much as the situation requires. There will be a lot of ethnic cleansing .. predictions eh. Sure there probably would be, given status quo of international law and community. So what needs to be done? Bomb them .. alright.