US Strikes ISIL Targets In Syria

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US Strikes ISIL Targets In Syria

Posted by timothy on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @12:55AM from the 140-characters-at-a-time dept.

Taco Cowboy writes The United States of America has launched airstrikes, along with some of its Arab partners such as Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar, against ISIL targets in Syria. ... Before the airstrike was officially announced to the press, a Syrian man living in Raqqa, Syria, tweeted about the bombings and the sounds of air drones all over Raqqa. ... Tomahawk missiles were launched from USS Arleigh Burke in the Red Sea. Stealth fighters such as F-22s were also involved in the strike.

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I'll just let my sig do the talking by NotDrWho · 2014-09-23 00:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

'nuff said

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SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
1. Re:I'll just let my sig do the talking by meta-monkey · 2014-09-23 02:40 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  What? Bombs and guns and tanks don't contribute anything to society. They're necessary, yes, but they don't create wealth, they consume it. Every dime spent on defense and prisons is a loss to infrastructure and progress. It's just make-work.
  
  --
  We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
2. Re:I'll just let my sig do the talking by HeckRuler · 2014-09-23 03:12 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  He's falling for the common mistake that "job creation" is good for the economy, regardless of what that job is.
  We could form companies that employed people to literally rob you in the street and some politicians would argue that they need a tax break "FER DA JERBS!"
  The classic example is the broken window fallacy. Just as breaking windows does not produce a net gain for society, "running through inventory" does not help society, even if a few people are paid to clean up the mess afterwards.
  As assuredly as a rising tide raises all boats, the drain on society that the DoD represents sinks all boats. They are a burden bringing us down and, frankly, making us non-competitive with China. We need some defense, but not this much.
3. Re:I'll just let my sig do the talking by meta-monkey · 2014-09-23 03:21 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  This isn't even Keynesian. Well, actually kind of as he used WWII as an example in explaining his theory.
  But damn, if we're going to have government make-work programs, have them do something constructive. Fix our roads and bridges. Build schools and hospitals. Make things that improve infrastructure, which improves our ability to trade. But you build a tank, and it just...sits there.
  
  --
  We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
4. Re:I'll just let my sig do the talking by hermitdev · 2014-09-23 03:21 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Loss to infrastructure? Why did the US interstate highway system get built? It was a direct result of the US Army's difficulty in moving troops and equipment cross country. There are also requirements that every so often they roads remain straight long enough to be used emergency runways. I don't buy loss to progress, either. A lot of technological progress has been pioneered through military research. That I'm able to even post this comment right now was a result of DARPA funded work.
5. Re:I'll just let my sig do the talking by HeckRuler · 2014-09-23 05:13 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Remember, you are a citizen of your state first and a THEN a citizen of the United States.
  Fuck the Governor! I'm backing my Mayor's god-given authority over man and we'll fight tooth and nail if the state troopers try and pry the hard-earned cash from our poor hungry neighbors. You've got to have community! You've got to stand up together and fight the oppressive gubernational tyrants! What do I care if some shmuck in a city way out over there has a tornado plow through his home, what's that to me? I don't know that guy. He's not my neighbor.
  If those farmboys think they can get fat off of the hard-working city-man, then they have another thing coming! GOGO CITY POWER!
  And pay no heed to these poor rabble-rousers that think groups of people WITHIN the city need representation. We either stand together under the mayor, or we all fall apart.
  (SARCASM)
How? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-23 01:00 · Score: 3, Insightful

How is this tech news?
DAESH, not ISIL by Lilith's+Heart-shape · 2014-09-23 01:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

Don't grant these pigfuckers undeserved legitimacy by calling them an "Islamic State". They are neither Islamic, nor a legitimate state. They are a gang of murderers and rapists, nothing more.

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I write sci-fi for metalheads
1. Re:DAESH, not ISIL by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2014-09-23 01:10 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Well, they based their state on what they divined from the Quran, right? That certainly doesn't make them Buddhist. Regarding the "state" part, State of Palestine is also considered to be a state by many countries. Legitimacy is merely about how many people you can convince. It's not a thing you can measure with a multimeter or something.
  
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  Ezekiel 23:20
2. Re:DAESH, not ISIL by Locmar · 2014-09-23 01:25 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Well, they based their state on what they divined from the Quran, right? That certainly doesn't make them Buddhist. Regarding the "state" part, State of Palestine is also considered to be a state by many countries. Legitimacy is merely about how many people you can convince. It's not a thing you can measure with a multimeter or something.
  That doesn't mean we're obligated to help them gain legitimacy by volunteering to use the name they want us to. Their goal is to be seen as a legitimate state representing all Muslims. They aren't and they don't. Also, "daesh" pisses them off, which should give all decent folk a twinge of slightly immature pleasure.
3. Re:DAESH, not ISIL by Flavianoep · 2014-09-23 01:55 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Just because they decided to call themselves "Islamic," doesn't mean they deserve that name. There are many Muslim scholars who will not, and do not, accept that such a group be called so.
  Besides, avoiding to call them "Islamic," helps to break, or at least, tone down the association between Islam and terrorism.
  Finally, calling them Daesh, Un-Islamic State, QSIL, or the like, is a way to stress out that they are being attacked not for being "Islamic," but for being terrorists.
  
  --
  Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
4. Re:DAESH, not ISIL by itzly · 2014-09-23 01:57 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  For every muslim, there's another muslim who will claim that the first is not a muslim.
5. Re:DAESH, not ISIL by Oligonicella · 2014-09-23 02:06 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  No, political persecution was invented about a couple millennia or so earlier. The Nazis needed scapegoats. The Jews were different and low in number, therefore convenient. Like political hectoring today, it had nothing to do with reality. Hitler's religion had nothing to do with his goals or implementation.
6. Re:DAESH, not ISIL by professionalfurryele · 2014-09-23 02:27 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The KKK are Christian. They aren't exactly representative of modern Christianity (or of Christianity back when the KKK was more substantial), although there was a big subset of the South who were sympathetic to them. The comparison is actually very apt. IS or Daesh or whatever you want to call them (I'd prefer Daesh as it is what the locals call them when they aren't pointing guns at them), is Islamic. It isn't representative of modern Islam, or even of Islam in the region. Thier theology is also a pretty piss poor interpretation of the source text of Islam, an argument you would be right to make, just like the KKK bastardised the Bible (note, I don't like the Quran and think it has some horrid ideas but it is pretty fucking clear that many of Daesh actions are reprehensible). But you cant ignore the fact that they appear to be sincere a fair chunk of the time when they say part of their motivation is religious.
7. Re:DAESH, not ISIL by jedidiah · 2014-09-23 02:45 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  s/muslim/xian/g
  This works for every ism out there. That's why the "no true scottsman" fallacy is such a fallacy. You can only ever judge something by what it produces. This includes the battle of Tours, the siege of Vienna, and ISIL.
  They are "muslim enough" to take and hold half of Syria and half of Iraq without being ejected from either by the native population.
  
  --
  A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
8. Re:DAESH, not ISIL by cowwoc2001 · 2014-09-23 02:46 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  At what point will the political-correctness stop?
  Either there is a not-so-small extremist element in Islam, or a silent majority who refuses to do anything about it.
  What kind of a message are we supposed to get when tens of thousands protest in the streets when the West attacks their extremists but barely a handful Muslim protesters after each time Islamic terrorists kill innocents?
  If their moderates truly outnumber their extremists 10:1 we should expect to see 10x more protesters after each terrorist attack. They have both the capability and numbers to crack down on their extremists, but they do not. Their silence is deafening.
9. Re:DAESH, not ISIL by Creedo · 2014-09-23 02:58 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Hitler's religion had nothing to do with his goals or implementation.
  Yeah, it's not like he was drawing upon a rich history of persecution against the Jews. This doesn't sound the least bit familiar to you in this context?
  
  The penalties for Jews accused of defiling hosts were severe. Many Jews, after accusations and torture, "confessed" to abusing hosts, and the accused Jews were condemned and burned, sometimes with all the other Jews in the community, as happened in Beelitz in 1243, in Prague in 1389, and in many German cities, according to Ocker's writings in the Harvard Theological Review. According to William Nichol in Christian Antisemitism, "over 100 instances of the charge have been recorded, in many cases leading to massacres."
  Hitler's attempt to scapegoat the Jews was primed for success by European Christian society.
  
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  All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
Why is this on Slashdot by damicatz · 2014-09-23 01:03 · Score: 2, Insightful

Unless they bombed a data center, I fail to see the relevance.
Re:F-22's don't drop bombs. by qwijibo · 2014-09-23 01:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

The locking clamps disengage from the ordinance hugging configuration. Gravity is at fault for everything that happens from that point forward.
Aggression in practice, right? by bogaboga · 2014-09-23 01:19 · Score: 3, Insightful

Can someone convince me that in the absence of a specific invitation by the legitimate Syrian government, which is the case this time, this [US] action cannot be defined as aggression?
1. Re:Aggression in practice, right? by halivar · 2014-09-23 01:56 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The Ukrainians weren't cutting heads off or systematically slaughtering entire towns for being the wrong religion, so no, it's not "exactly as justified." Not even close.
2. Re:Aggression in practice, right? by _xeno_ · 2014-09-23 02:04 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I can't help but feel like there are three very important words you've ignored: "under international law."
  You can argue which is more justified from a humanitarian point of view, but under international law, we're invading Syria in exactly the same way Russia invaded Ukraine.
  
  --
  You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Re:F-22's don't drop bombs. by niks42 · 2014-09-23 01:19 · Score: 4, Insightful

Bombs don't kill people, gravity kills people?
Re:F-22's don't drop bombs. by halivar · 2014-09-23 01:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

It's never the fall that kills you. It's always the sudden stop at the end.
Re:My only question... by just_another_sean · 2014-09-23 01:33 · Score: 1, Insightful

So invading a sovereign nation based on lies to the American people (and the world) is the same as bombing a terrorist group that's killed thousands of people, many whom are innocent bystanders, and invaded several sovereign nations is the same thing?
I'm not 100% convinced that our involvement in this at the moment is the right thing to do but I'm also convinced that Obama's reluctant return to the ME is in no way the same as Bush's eager "time to finish what Daddy started" invasion of Iraq.

--
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Re:My only question... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-23 01:41 · Score: 0, Insightful

Nothing anyone in the US is doing now comes close to the crimes that Bush and his administration committed, and Obama most certainly does not have the cowboy mentality and murderous intent of the former. I know some people love to pretend otherwise to try and make themselves feel better about the utter crap they believed in and the incompetent piece of shit excuse for a president they supported a decade ago, but that's irrelevant.
And regardless, if the best defense someone has is "well look they're just as bad now!" (wrong as it is) then that's kind of telling about one's preferred administration, isn't it?
Re:My only question... by halivar · 2014-09-23 01:54 · Score: 3, Insightful

That, and the fact that he is not obtaining or even seeking to obtain congressional authority to do so, unlike his predecessor.
I'm not political... by Thud457 · 2014-09-23 03:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

I'm just sitting here waiting to watch the archduke drive by.

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the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Re:Points of interest. by phantomfive · 2014-09-23 04:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

You're getting deep into conspiracy there. One of your major source websites is serious about chemtrails. That's just one clue of irrationality......

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"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."