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

--
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
1. Re:I'll just let my sig do the talking by TheCarp · 2014-09-23 01:08 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I watched that speech recently. If anyone in history could have his words called prophetic, it would be him, and those words would be that speech. For as radical and terrible as what he described was; the truth is he never dreamed the real extent of it. He had no way to see that the model he so rightly feared would be replicated and used again to create a permanent prison population..... do you think he had any idea that he was only a prophet of the tip of the iceberg?
  
  --
  "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
2. Re:I'll just let my sig do the talking by rmdingler · 2014-09-23 01:14 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Indeed. Once again engaging in Missile Diplomacy. Sigh!
  The theory is that this sort of military action makes a point in response to ISIL's activities.
  Ironically, the Sunnis and Shia in the region were better kept in check under Saddam's former regime, than they ever will be in a post-invasion government. Western policy makers seem to have a difficult time understanding this, but there is no separation of church and state for these people.
  
  --
  Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
  Ernest Hemingway
3. Re:I'll just let my sig do the talking by chthon · 2014-09-23 02:12 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  That is the big problem from North Africa to the Middle East: quelling sectarian unrest between all kinds of religions apparently needs a dictator.
4. Re:I'll just let my sig do the talking by nblender · 2014-09-23 02:34 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  So what you're saying is that every mushroom cloud has a silver lining?
5. 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.
6. Re:I'll just let my sig do the talking by Ozeroc · 2014-09-23 03:02 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  That would be Eisenhower's farewell address where "he famously warned the nation about the potentially corrupting influence of the "military-industrial complex"." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
  
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  ...
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. Re:I'll just let my sig do the talking by camperdave · 2014-09-23 03:32 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  If you're going to link to the speech, then link to the speech.
  
  --
  When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
11. 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.

--
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 K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2014-09-23 01:31 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I'm not saying we should consider them legitimate or anything of the kind. But claiming that they are "not Islamic" sounds like claiming that the child molesting Irish priests weren't Catholic.
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
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 01:59 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  They are Muslims, extreme and aberrant but Muslims, just as Phelps and crew are aberrant Christians (albeit not murderous). As for legitimacy, name them, make them a legitimate target and bomb them to oblivion. If you don't make them legitimate, some group of squealers will claim we're waging war against civilians.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
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.
  
  --
  All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
10. Re:DAESH, not ISIL by gtall · 2014-09-23 03:45 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Yeah, but they need Allah to back them up so they don't all dissolve into Western-style guilt trips and require Vitamin P to live with the inner demons they've created or themselves. It is sort of the Flip in Flip Wilson, i.e., Allah made me do it.
  This Allah, he's a funny guy, never says squat, can only communicate through angels and then via dreams. Doesn't bestow riches or anything on this dirtball planet. Yet legions are running around claiming anything they do is because Allah wills it. Allah at this point is indistinguishable from Satan.
My only question... by argStyopa · 2014-09-23 01:10 · Score: 5, Funny

Do you think I could start a business with protest signs?
I mean, since the Left was so prolific in producing "war monger" and "the president is a war criminal" signs from 2001-2007, and they don't really seem to use them anymore, I bet I could buy them cheap and sell them to the Right, who apparently need them now?

--
-Styopa
1. 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.
2. Re:My only question... by just_another_sean · 2014-09-23 02:26 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Well sure and I had no real issue with Bush Sr. going into Iraq at the invitation of neighboring Arab countries. We went in with a clear objective and when that was complete we withdrew, told Saddam what he had to do to keep us from coming back and left with the approval of the international community. And whatever anyone's feeling on Saddam was he was the recognized sovereign leader of his country, not a terrorist leader announcing the creation of a new state in other countries' territory. He was an evil man and I was not sorry to see him go but my and others' emotions toward the man are not legal justifications for war.
  The second time around the initiative was predicated on lies and innuendo about terrorism and Bush's "bring Democracy to the desert" was obviously not well defined or planned, thus the situation we have now. Both democrats and republicans have plenty of blame to share when it comes to F'ing up in the ME but I stand by my statement that what Obama doing now is not really comparable to what Bush Jr. did then.
  
  --
  Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
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?
Yes they do by pastafazou · 2014-09-23 01:22 · Score: 5, Informative

The Raptor has three internal weapons bays: a large bay on the bottom of the fuselage, and two smaller bays on the sides of the fuselage, aft of the engine intakes.[140] It can carry six medium range missiles in the center bay and one short–range missile in each side bay;[141] Four of the medium range missiles can be replaced with two bomb racks that can each carry one medium-size or four smaller bombs.
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.
south park called it years ago by Cardoor · 2014-09-23 03:01 · Score: 4, Funny

everything you need to know about us foreign policy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
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:F-22's don't drop bombs. by qwijibo · 2014-09-23 03:45 · Score: 3, Funny

Now I want to see wood veneer completely covering every outer surface of a fully functional F-22. That combined with a low capacity fuel tank would make it a sporting aircraft. Maybe paint the nose orange so people know it's a hobby plane, not a fighter when it's invading your airspace.
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."