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ISIS Threatens Life of Twitter Founder After Thousands of Account Suspensions
Patrick O'Neill writes After a wave of account bannings that marks Twitter's most aggressive move ever against ISIS, new images circulated from militants shows founder Jack Dorsey in crosshairs with the caption "Twitter, you started this war." The famously tech-savy ISIS has met a number of defeats on American-built social media recently with sites like Twitter and YouTube banning the group's efforts in unprecedented numbers.
wonder if this is why YouTube never blocked or removed ISIS' videos.
Isis has access to Photoshop.
What horrors can they inflict with that?
if they aren't stopped now, you'll be fighting them in your streets someday
Precisely the argument used to rationalize the war in Vietnam.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
And basically every military action from 9/11 to today.
How will Europe stop Isis? Double down on appeasement?
If they begin to become an existential threat to the US, we have a big nuclear arsenal to keep them off our shores.
But they aren't even close right now. The challenge is to defeat them without killing tons of people in "collateral damage" that ends up turning people into militants who weren't before.
Fighting them in the streets? What silly notion is this? Are you trying to run for the Republican nomination or something?
Speaking of the Republican nomination I have to laugh that the Chicken hawk Commander-in-Chief wannabes when asked what they would do against ISIS list specifics pretty much right along the lines that which Obama is currently pursuing.
if they aren't stopped now, you'll be fighting them in your streets someday Precisely the argument used to rationalize the war in Vietnam. You mean precisely the rationalization for every war ever.
Funny how short your memory is. The last 10 years of fighting in foreign countries has worked out real well for us, hasn't it.
I think we'd have a much better chance fighting ISIS on our own turf than invading yet another Arab country that we could never hold and win.
Probably not. His head is too far up Mohammed's ass to see the real world.
According to the Wikipedia article on the subject, as of "15 January 2015, it was reported that over 16,000 airstrikes had been carried out by the Coalition". Please note that this coalition consists of both a backbone of U.S. military power, and surrounding Islam-majority states like Jordan, which the Obama administration has coaxed into the war.
Let me repeat that, in case you appear to misread it. 16,000 airstrikes
I'm not exactly sure how anyone can say we're not "stopping them". Indeed, about the only thing they can really do at this point is make snuff videos of idiots who wander into the region.
But go back to watching your wall-to-wall CPAC coverage and FOX lies. That seems to be what you prefer. No actual facts seem likely to persuade you.
He says they just need a job, but a majority had jobs before becoming radicalized. They often have college too. So to come out and say it's not faith based, when clearly they tie everything to their perverted version of Islam, either means he thinks we are not paying attention, or he's not.
Or he is smarter and more strategic than you are. By refusing to acknowledge ISIS as 'real' Islam he takes away ISIS primary claim to legitimacy and hands that legitimacy to the moderate Muslims (ie Jordan) that will join in the fight against ISIS.
Stop being a bunch of PIG DICKS and we'll stop hating you.
Love,
The Sane Part of The World
and the opposite argument was used to allow germany to take over poland. My guess is the right argument is somewhere in the middle
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The challenge is to defeat them without killing tons of people ...
Before we try to defeat them, maybe we should think about what will replace them. The reason we have ISIS is because we defeated Saddam Hussein without thinking much about what would come next. The rationale at the time was that whatever replaced him couldn't possibly be worse. Well, that was wrong.
Put "beheading" in the list of "against EULA" policies. Reopen the accounts. Play with the tweets to sow disorder in their ranks. If ISIS were "famously tech-savy" they could communicate without Twitter.
He removes no such thing. He's in no position to confer or remove legitimacy of ISIS in the Muslim world. Not when Islamic leaders and clergy are supporting ISIS and openly mocking him. The only reason those states are beginning to address ISIS is that ISIS is a beast out of control in their back yard.
The reason for the short term memory is that for the average voter the last two wars cost them personally _nothing_ and were if anything entertainment. Now if the president came out and said we are going to mobilize again to fight ISIS and a new 2015 tax of $200/person will be levied to pay for the war you would see a change of heart in minute.
We're all in ISIS' gunsights. It's just a question of who's first
Finally, someone uses their brain. Sure, we could send a big army over there and stomp them into the ground. But then what?
And if anyone thinks Saddam's dead-enders were a big headache, what do you suppose a bunch of religious zealots will be?
Cue Mencken on problems and solutions.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
WE need that freedom. An implacable enemy that we're at war with, not so much. Turning off ISIS tweets just a small operation in that war. Compare it, if you wish, to kidnappings and beheadings.
The reason we have ISIS is that we were in such a rush to leave IRAQ we didn't bother to finish stabilizing the situation.
Seeing as Vietnam has been mentioned, I'll point out the exact same thing happened there. The war was brought to an acceptable conclusion and we pulled out before stability had been achieved. The cost that time was 4million dead Vietnamese and Cambodians. What do you think it will be this time around ?
If ISIS, Boko Haram, and Al Queda aren't stopped now, pretty soon they'll all be fighting each other... the plan each one has to be the only Muslims to establish a global caliphate are pretty much mutually exclusive, don't you think?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
That's like saying the KKK, Westboro Baptist Church, Jehovah's Witnesses, (insert dangerous cult here) aren't "real" Christians. They still believe they are, it doesn't matter what the rest of the world thinks about them, as long as they believe they are doing the right thing.
The problem with Islam is that unlike Christianity they are loosely unified in their belief systems. They in large lines won't call each other out for the hypocrisy or violence. Most Islamists, even the 'moderates' will, if nothing else, quietly avert their eyes when it comes to their interpretation of the Prophet and the Koran. There are some pockets of progressive Islamists that will call out against the violence but they won't go as far as to say that the Koran is incorrect.
Christians have progressed far enough where the progressive Christians will say that the Bible is on occasion incorrect, moderates will say it's allegorical while all but the staunchest of conservatives will say that it's up to God or government to do the punishing. Doesn't mean that the Christian faith is any 'better', it's just slightly better adjusted so as not to upset the majority of people although they still want to take over the world as much as ISIS does (look at how much they have been pushing creationism and anti-science in the last decade)
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
No, they can also continue kidnapping young women to hand out to their soldiers as sex slaves, which as near as I can tell is their primary recruiting tool. I appreciate the air strikes, but air strikes alone don't solve the problem. What is needed is a regional coalition to put boots on the ground. The country in the best position to put boots on the ground is Iran, which may be why we are currently attempting to cozy up to them -- we share a common enemy.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Can i have the rabbit? Oh and the lettuce....I named him lenny
As I recall, the U.S. LOST the war in Vietnam; From your statement, I can only assume that you are seeing a lot of V.C. activity and heavy guerilla warfare in your neighbourhood these days?
-AC
Appeasement? Where have they engaged in "appeasement"?
Or he is smarter and more strategic than you are. By refusing to acknowledge ISIS as 'real' Islam he takes away ISIS primary claim to legitimacy and hands that legitimacy to the moderate Muslims (ie Jordan) that will join in the fight against ISIS.
Do you really think that an organization of many thousands of people which slaughters other Muslims for being insufficiently Muslim will give a rat's ass whether or not a politician in the US considers them to be sufficiently Muslim? Obama can no more "take away" their embrace of fundamental Islam than he can turned to by millions of other Muslims as an authority on whether they are legitimately following the Koran. What nonsense, to even suggest such a thing.
People like the Jordanians will demonstrate their "legitimacy" through their own actions, not through having the president of the United States proclaiming their particular adherence to their own cherry-picked passages in the Koran as being the "right" one. Would you consider Obama to be also a strategic genius for weighing in on which groups in Israel or Brooklyn or Poland are legitimately Jewish? Please.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
That's part of it. The other parts were talking tough about Assad in Syria (and not DOING anything), and killing Khadaffi in Libya.
Vietnam: Crashmarik is exactly correct. The United States _won_ the war in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese were powerless, and the US left. But then the Soviets spent 2 years giving the North everything they needed, and then the North attacked again. The Dems in the Senate banned any additional military aid to the South. The South fell to the communists.
That's one of the reasons why ISIS is so fierce now; they know that the US is an inconsistent ally, especially with this administration. We're not going to do anything about it. (Of course, that's what the Germans and the Japanese were counting in in 1940 and 1941.)
Our problem is that we believe the best way to stabilize Iraq is to force it to maintain unity under the borders dictated by the end of World War 1, while not recognizing there are three distinct cultures there who have a lot of bad blood betweeen them.
They are half a world away from the States. Why not let European countries, who are practically next door, take care of them?
"Here are the countries most concerned about ISIS" http://www.dailydot.com/politi... (Google Trends)
linked from summery link http://www.dailydot.com/tags/i... listing any news story they printed over ISIS.
"It is worth pointing out, however, that Brazil’s outsized interest most likely stems not from a concern with the terrorist group but from a fascination with the 27-year-old actress Ísis Valverde, who appears under the country's "related searches."
That's like saying the KKK, Westboro Baptist Church, Jehovah's Witnesses, (insert dangerous cult here) aren't "real" Christians.
Well there are plenty of Christians who would make that exact claim! Most Evangelical for instance will be happy to tell you the JW's are not "real" Christians.
But that is not the point here. We are not fighting a war against any of those groups and Obama position is purely strategic. You need to know your enemy and this approach strikes directly at the image ISMS has made for themselves and throws water on the ISIS tactic of eliciting a religious war and invoking the crusader and other such rubbish.
I'd point out that you are almost certainly a chicken-hawk too, but that would be an insult to poultry.
The US Quit the war in Vietnam. Big difference.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Snowden is in exile for exposing "just a small operation in that war".... and a much bigger war called The Government vs the People of America.
Well then you must have missed the speeches and questions asked of the candidates at the recent CPAC.
BTW the Afghanistan and Iraq war price tag topped 6 Trillion dollars! Wars started by the last presidency. And the same crowd is now asking for another war! And you talk about deficits... LOL.
Great subversion of what was said. When I or others call out the KKK for not being Christian, it's not the KKK's opinion or believe I or others give a rat's ass about. The point is to public and loudly denounce them when others don't either out of fear, lack of a voice, or merely a disinterest in taking up the cause of denouncing the KKK.
But in the eyes of millions of other Muslims, when Obama calls what ISIS does as not an embrace of fundamental Islam, it makes it clear that Obama (and presumably plenty of other Americans) don't believe that that's what fundamental Islam is about any more than the KKK...etc. Honestly, you seem to be missing the point of who the audience is and what the real message is.
No shit. And by the same extension, when the PotUS acknowledges that ISIS is no more Islamic than the KKK is Christian, it's harder for the hard line Jordanians to rally against "the evil puppets of the US" in Jordan who would fight ISIS. Because the US has a bad habit of using other countries to proxy fight for them while outright condemning everyone involved as if they're all the same thing. It's just bad for morale.
Certainly if there was a bunch of "Jews" in Poland that we wanted to be fought and didn't want it to be seem as an attempt to repeat the Holocaust, sure as fuck we'd want Obama to be calling them out for not being really Jews. But, yea, great way to ignore the obvious implications of your own example. As for Brooklyn, are we fighting a [proxy] war there? And as for Israel, do you think anything we could say would really help by arguing over who's more or less Jewish? Last I checked, the major issue there wasn't per se the Jews or Jews-in-name-only. It was the hardliner Jews and the hardliner Palestinians and an unwillingness to act clearly as one or two separate countries--with even the discussion of moving to a one or two country system being off the table.
PS - But please, go on about how the PotUS demonstrating a better understanding of the situation and not being yet another ignorant fuck who embraces attacking allies and enemies alike in an area is somehow the way forward and not at all a concern for future peace or even short-term success.
The situation in Iraq could never be stabilised without essentially destroying part of the population. Successive decisions by external powers have weakened the various states that exist in that region. If the countries that surrounded Iraq had been strong enough to control their own borders and internationally integrated enough to not want to risk economic backlash by extending their borders we perhaps could have seen another Yugoslavia civil war and break up as a best possible outcome.
But instead Iraq was destabilised along with Afghanistan at the same time. This led to massive numbers of people moving around and their supporting infrastructure being destroyed. Pakistan then started to follow Afghanistan down the toilet as militant forces crossed the border causing even more people to join the fight. Then Syria started to collapse and support was given to the rebels meaning weapons and funds leaked into ever more radical hands.
At the moment the only things holding ISIS back is Asad in Syria and Iran.
The irony of this is so sad.
Attacking people who believe in free press and then threatening those that deny it to you on their own platform makes me both sad and happy at the same time.
What a confused, sad group of people.
Indeed evil will eventually turn on itself.
What if he just dropped money, and the terrorists bought TVs and sat around getting high on all that good hash, watching cartoons, instead of terrorizing.
They've destroyed 6000 old artefacts. They'll destroy the TVs too.
Scapegoat the Greeks, and double down on austerity.
I wonder, would the people screaming loudest to get involved yet again in that neighborhood be so loud if we tried to fund a war the proper way, with tax increases and belt tightening? Would you make personal sacrifices like pay cuts, strategic material rating,
If so, write your congresscritter and let them know.
Otherise you are pretty fscking financially irresponsible, or believe in some sort of infinite money supply, where we can be at war forever, and never have to pay the bill.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The US Quit the war in Vietnam. Big difference.
For really small values of Big. Ask the people of Vietnam who won.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Oh, wait, did you mean the airstrikes were IMPROVING our safety? ROFL WAFL!
It has allowed the Kurds to take back some territory. Without it, ISIS would have continued to expand their territory, and become a greater threat.
Oh yes, that's so very relevant. *eyeroll*
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Before we try to defeat them, maybe we should think about what will replace them.
Exactly. We have fallen into the same mentality of the people who live in that area. The problem is that they use whatever excuse is handy to justify killing their enemy. And their enemy does the same. And their enemy is everyone around them wh odoesn't pick their version of their diety. And they have been doing it forever and ever, world without end, amen.
If people want understand, read the bible. Not as a God so loved the world book, but as expressing the constant and neverending killing and war going on in it.
1. It's what they do.
2. They is all of 'em. 2. They will not stop until they decide to stop.
3. There is no forseeable time that will happen.
4. Because at some level, they enjoy it. You don't kill enemies for religion for thousands of years without enjoying it. It is religion and faith, and parts of that faith want the war to go on forever And we've been dropped ass deep into that shitstorm by people who want the world to end also. Just a different flavor of jerks. It's not hard to fan the flames of most of us either, because it is horrible what they are doing to each other, and yeah, that area is populated by some of the most evil motherfuckers ever hatched. They deserve death.
But, our involvement won't change a thing, except drive us bankrupt, and get people killed. 500 years from now if there are humans on the planet, they'll still be killing each other for their religion.Maybe they'll go high tech and lop of ftheir enemies heads with a laser.
And the asshats can spare us the "appeasement" crap, because I don't think Chamberlain was dropping bombs on (that place that shall not be named on the Internet) when he waved that stupid piece of paper at the British people.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The US military don't get to make policy. They get to follow orders from the C-in-C.
Or maybe you forgot what happened during the Korean War when a certain US general tried to slip his leash?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Do you really think that an organization of many thousands of people which slaughters other Muslims for being insufficiently Muslim will give a rat's ass whether or not a politician in the US considers them to be sufficiently Muslim?
Probably not, but ISIS is not the audience. Everyone else is. Ponder it a bit more.
The reason we have ISIS is because we defeated Saddam Hussein without thinking much about what would come next.
Not true. There were people talking in front of the UN audience, warning exactly what would come next in 2003.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Is it good to cut off access to the modern equivalent of the public square just because we don't like what is being said? Our ideas are better; must we fear, and attempt to silence, the toxic ideas we do not agree with? Which toxic ideas should we silence next?
Is it a victory to beat them by cutting off their ability to speak? How is this different from cutting off Mega's cashflow via PayPal and the credit cards?
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
As someone who has a lot of business interests in the Middle East and especially Jordan I think that you will find that the Jordanians hate what ISIS/IS/??? are doing.
They might have some internal tribal rivalries but they are united in wanting to keep their relatively liberal society out of the hands of the likes of IS/ISIS.
There is also a lot of belief that if IS attaches Jordan then Israel will see that as a direct threat to them and join in to fight alongside the Anti-IS fighters.
My friends in Kuwait are divided about 'would this be a good thing or not?'.
On one hand Yes because Israel are helping the Liberal Muslims fight the extremists
On the other hand, No because this is a conflict that is mostly Muslim on Muslim.
If you are commenting from the relative safety of the US then until you have lived and travelled around the Region as I have for the past 20+ years you can't even begin to understand how complex it is in terms of relationships etc.
They're perfectly free to express themselves. We're in no way obligated to provide them a platform.
Let them build their own Twitter, with blackjack and hookers.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
They can't, because they force all their children to spend all their time memorizing the arcane rules of their sky friend. They fail to see the hypocrisy in constantly decrying the west meanwhile using all of it's technology. Either that or they feel themselves superior and thus they are "owed" technology on account that they are better friends with their sky friend and his child molester messenger.
Monstar L
Should I take it as an unflattering reflection of the true strength of The Caliphate(tm) that it is being actively butthurt about having its twitter privileges revoked? That's the sort of thing that is pretty pathetic among individuals, much less would-be nation states allegedly arranged allong deity-ordained lines.
I heard one theory that ISIS is really a creation of Bashar al-Assad. Before ISIS was around, the West was all for regime change in Syria. Now we are effectively supporting the dictatorship in Syria.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
He says they just need a job, but a majority had jobs before becoming radicalized. They often have college too.
Well, there's the leaders and then there's the followers. There are certainly cases where brutal leaders have come to power in the context of severe socioeconomic dysfunction and injustice - but where the leaders themselves were from an upper class and were not, themselves, direct victims of the dysfunction and injustice.
But what motivates someone to become a leader against (perceived) dysfunction and injustice? What motivates someone to associate with some larger cause - rather than simply living out of a life that is focused on their own personal comfort and security?
So to come out and say it's not faith based, when clearly...
OK, but suppose it is "faith based"? Is it possible to simply select some random person off the street, read then a few pages of religious text, and suddenly have them decide to devote their lives to a (misguided) struggle against socioeconomic dysfunction and injustice? Is the reason that Obama, and Clinton and Bush all sought the presidency because at some point in their past someone read them some passages of a religious text?
Somewhere around 20,000 children die of poverty every day. So perhaps understanding the causes of poverty is a more pressing endeavor. But it is still interesting to ponder what it is that has motivated a small handful of individuals, out of all the teeming billions on the planet, to don the mantel of extraordinary leadership. From Gandhi to Hitler and Thomas Jefferson to Mao Zedong, what motivated them to eschew a quiet life of comfort and security for the immortal halls of fame and infamy?
Ask the people of Vietnam who won.
Oh, that's easy! The people who won are the ones who emigrated to the US and opened a chain of restaurants named "What the Pho . . . ?"
Slightly off topic, but Pho tastes absolutely delicious. An Asian shop nearby sells soup-base for Pho in jars. One teaspoon of that in boiling water and anything tastes great!
I actually speculated that my own, sweaty tennis shoes, would taste good when cooked in that stuff!
Back on topic, maybe if those ISIS folks sat down, with the rest of their enemies, for a communal meal of PolygamousRanchKid tennis shoes Pho . . . maybe they could hammer out a peace plan . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
A very easy thing to say when it isn't your boots.
Well, if you live in San Francisco you may well have been forced out of your home by V.C. activity; but that's a slightly different operation...
"'You know you never defeated us on the battlefield,' said the American colonel. The North Vietnamese colonel pondered this remark a moment. 'That may be so,' he replied, 'but it is also irrelevant.'"
-- Colonel Harry G. Summers Jr. and Colonel Tu, April 1975, described in the book On Strategy.
Christians don't want to take over the world for the same reason that corporations don't want to take over the US, the same reason that Rupert Murdoch doesn't want to take over News Corp or Fox.
now that i think about it i can see that you're absolutely right -saying "come and murder people for god" is totally acceptable and preventing people from saying it is just as bad - worse, even - than beheading people.
It's relevant. It's not particularly topical, I'll grant you that.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
yeah, that will maybe piss everyone off, but still not enable ISIS to spread their terror messages.
Atari rules... ermm... ruled.
Boko Haram are active in Chad. Chad borders Libya, where ISIS operate. Iran is currently in the way between ISIS and the Taliban, but it's debatable whether that makes things better or worse. It's not like two apparent enemies haven't attacked a third party before.
The world's smaller than you think.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Before we try to defeat them, maybe we should think about what will replace them. The reason we have ISIS is because we defeated Saddam Hussein without thinking much about what would come next. The rationale at the time was that whatever replaced him couldn't possibly be worse. Well, that was wrong.
Depends on your perspective. From a national security standpoint, if you really thought Saddam Hussein was going to be unleashing terrible modern weaponry, I would say job well-done. ISIS can probably keep that region from developing nuclear weapons any time in the next thousand years.
But from a humanitarian standpoint, what is worse than the prevalent rape, torture, murder, forced conversion, and the kind of oppression that outlaws any opposing thought? The oppressive leaders in the region such as Saddam Hussein have deserved credit for holding back the tide of lawless extremism, but what evil is it that ISIS could be credited with standing in the way of? Being as evil as possible is pretty much their objective. Saddam tried to conceal his atrocities. They literally publish theirs in their newsletters.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
What if he just dropped money, and the terrorists bought TVs and sat around getting high on all that good hash, watching cartoons, instead of terrorizing.
A thought just occurred to me. It seems to me we may have been going at this all wrong. We keep on dropping bombs on them and they keep going more batshit insane with rage. What would happen if instead we started a black market to funnel liquor, cocaine, meth, and heroine into ISIS controlled territory? If we got their soldiers more interested in getting high and/or drunk would this effectively crush their will to fight?
...and not one has said that killing the founder of Twitter is a good idea!? </s>
So they sent a death threat.
But what did they REALLY want to say?
We can counter their claims with arguments.
Religion is not a valid argument for anything.
Sadly though many westerners also depend on religion, so they don't make that argument.
So instead: oppression.
Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
We hate you and want to kill you. And if you don't let us use your things we will threaten to kill you even harder. They have the logic of a whiny three year old..
Terrorism builds on fear, but when one leaves out emotion and rationally looks at numbers, daily traffic is still far deadlier than these nincompoops. So any fear built has to be irrational for terrorism to work. Without fear, they have no power. Without media attention, they'd likely go mostly unnoticed. Social media are media too, but things aren't working their way there due to the terms and conditions (what a bummer!) ... hence the death threats. Which made the news. Aaaand presto! They got what they wanted.
People always bring up Neville Chamberlain and his "peace in our time" speech - let me ask you this: what would you have done in his stead?
Go to war? Kick Germany's butt? Yeah, lets put Nazi aggression in its place, teach them a lesson.
Ok. Go to war with what? in 1938 we didn't have an effective army or airforce, our only real might was in the Royal Navy. Which works wonders for stopping land based aggression. Our airforce was still largely made up of older designs, especially the Hawker Hurricane which was a design based on a biplane... It would be a few years yet until we had an airforce of any real capability.
So he tried a different approach - it was well recognised even back then that Germany had been royally screwed over by the agreements at the end of the first world war, so perhaps some appeasement was in order to try and placate that issue - was Germany just taking back what should never have been taken from it in the first place?
Of course we went to war anyway, and under Chamberlains watch - and guess what happened on our first outing? We got our butts kicked and sand kicked in our face. We lost 40,000 troops to German prison camps and got thrown off the continent at Dunkirk.
And that was after we had stepped up our war footing. Imagine what it would have been like if we didn't have have Neville Chamberlains two years to get to a point where we were able to just about ensure that Nazi Germany didn't take the British Isles as well as the continent...
You are confusing money - liquid institutional financial liabilities - with real resources. The United States can never run out of US dollars. It can run out of real resources. You have to make the case that the US is in danger of running out of food, metal or human capital, since it can never run out of a financial asset of which it is sole issuer.
.: Semper Absurda
Simple. Because political correctness and spineless coward politicians prevents European countries from doing anything that would in anyway inconvenience the islam enemy that is already heavily infiltrated in many European societies and upper establishment. Those brave enough to stand up and speak out are quickly labeled racist, compared to Hitler or otherwise framed so their worries don't count. Muslims have made it an art to label themselves 'victim' of every attempt to stop their sick ideology. They even go as far as trying to change the laws so criticism on their fascist ideology will be made illegal.
Europe is lost. I tell my kids to move to another country as far away as they can, and if they find a place that isn't infested with islam, set up defenses.
Ask me how I really feel..
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
The country in the best position to put boots on the ground is Iran, which may be why we are currently attempting to cozy up to them -- we share a common enemy.
Huh? The Iranian dictator was put in place by the US. Cozening up shouldn't be needed unless they screwed up majorly and put a psychopath in charge as usual.
The Iranian people once looked up to western democracies, removed their dictator and got a democracy. When their elected leader started talking about nationalizing the oil (As a way to build a welfare society without having extreme taxes.) CIA decided that it was against the interest of the US and helped with reinstating the dictatorship.
As someone who has a lot of business interests in the Middle East and especially Jordan I think that you will find that the Jordanians hate what ISIS/IS/??? are doing.
They might have some internal tribal rivalries but they are united in wanting to keep their relatively liberal society out of the hands of the likes of IS/ISIS.
There is also a lot of belief that if IS attaches Jordan then Israel will see that as a direct threat to them and join in to fight alongside the Anti-IS fighters.
My friends in Kuwait are divided about 'would this be a good thing or not?'.
On one hand Yes because Israel are helping the Liberal Muslims fight the extremists
On the other hand, No because this is a conflict that is mostly Muslim on Muslim.
If you are commenting from the relative safety of the US then until you have lived and travelled around the Region as I have for the past 20+ years you can't even begin to understand how complex it is in terms of relationships etc.
As much as I would like to see it, I don't think you'll ever see Isreal 'fighting beside' Muslims.
Isreal will do whatever it feels like doing to expand it's borders and, secondarily, defend itself. Helping Muslims will not factor into it.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Now's the time for ISIS to launch their own TerrorTwitter© service. They can charge a subscription for the use of the service :)
@ShanghaiBill: "The reason we have ISIS is because we defeated Saddam Hussein without thinking much about what would come next."
@hcs_$reboot: "Not true. There were people talking in front of the UN audience, warning exactly what would come next in 2003."
I think what ShanghaiBill meant is that no one in the Bush administration did much thinking, if indeed they were capable of rational introspection.
Ehh... Hawker Hurricane based on a biplane? Are you serious?
Yes, the punishment of Germany after WWI was way to harsh and we should kick the French in their nuts for that... but Nazi Germany could have been stopped early 1930's.
Chamberlain was only thinking shortterm and was to eager to preserve peace while war was inevitable...
Nice troll man.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Its interesting that you brought up the foreing aid aspect of military spending. Its also world security as most of Europe has demonstrated through history that whenever they have large armies, they tend to use them against each other. But your point is proven recently as Itally made a few threats against ISIS and had to walk them back when they realized ISIS forces outnumbered their own troop strength significantly. While not a permenant problem, it shows how little concern they had for their national protection because of the strength of allies.
No, the reason we have ISIS is because Obama tried to defeat Assad without actually fighting him. Obama empowered anyone who wanted to overthrow Assad in Syria to do so and provided them with some logistical support without paying any attention to what they wanted to put in his place. Further he did so without providing them sufficient support to actually overthrow Assad. He did the same thing in Libya, although there he provided sufficient support to overthrow a stable government. For that matter he attempted to do the same thing in Egypt, but it turned out that Egypt had not only a stable government, but a legitimate one (as in the people actually supported the government they had despite not supporting its head--Mubarak).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
"You know you never defeated us on the battlefield.."
Actually, not true. Many battles were lost by the US during the Vietnam war. I indicate a few below. There were more, but hiding embarrassing losses is standard procedure in any military organization, and the American military were HUGELY anxious to present a victory to the American public.. This is shown in that documentary about the Battle of Ong Thanh, where survivors tell how commanders tried to spin that loss as a victory, while the loss of FSB Ripcord was hidden from the public until 1985, and the slaughter at Ho Bo Woods wasn't recognized until 2011.
Battle of Ap Bac
Battle of Dong Xoai
Death of Supply Column 21
Battle for LZ Albany
Operation Paul Revere IV
Battle of Cu Nghi
Battle of Ho Bo Woods
August 1967 Air Battle
Kingfisher Battle
Slaughter at LZ Margo
Convoy Ambush near An Khe
Operation Houston II
Battle for LZ Loon
Battle of Two July
Battle of Hamburger Hill
Battle near FSB Professional
Firebase Airborne Overrun
Well we thought we'd copy America's lead but you dive headfist into dumb-fuck un-winnable wars so fast we never got the chance. Also, before you get too smug about the mistake European leaders made with appeasement 60 years ago, look at how your own country was reacting to the exact same threat at the same time.
That likely could have been stopped before poland was even invaded had the allies from WWI enforced the provisions of the versailes treaty and did something when germany remilitarized the rhine.
But yes,we often forget that Russis was aiding germany at the start of WWII.
> Doesn't mean that the Christian faith is any 'better', it's just slightly better
Yeah. It's not better at all.
No. Appeasement in the context of WWII was the other European powers lack of response to German militarisation and its actions in Czechoslovakia. It should be highlighted that the American president at the time openly praised Chamberlain for appeasing Germany. People who think appeasement was a mistake see Poland as the consequence of this (Germany got away with earlier actions and thought it could get away with this), but the response to Hitler's invasion of Poland was to go to war.
If you're going to use historical examples then at least stick to the established facts.
I disagree vehemently with a huge amount of what Israel does but they clearly aren't completely stupid. Jordan may not be the ideal neighbour but it is on the other side of around half their land border and infinitely better as a neighbour than Lebanon. Israel isn't going to just sit by and let Jordan get overrun by people who actively want to annihilate them, must easier to provide support to Jordan and fight in their territory.
But that was te phony war(Sep 1939-May 1940): the English helped the French man the Maginot line, but not anything else. In May, Hitler then really started the war and overran Belgium, Holland and France.
These people (ha, such a word for that kind of pond scum) do not want peace. What they really want is that other Islamic people say: yes, you do get a free card for murdering people if you are a muslim, even if you kill other muslims.
And the Kurds
"Lost" and "Won" are very relative things when it comes to wars. The US bogged down and drained the communists in Vietnam. It did not achieve total military victory, no, but not did it did it lose the big-picture fight (the cold war) in the end either.
The heads of several other South East Asian states (Singapore, Malysia) have stated that US presence in Vietnam did state that US action in Vietnam did reduce communist influence. Eliminate, no. Reduce, yes. The US did win die Cold war without much of a shooting war too.
Wars do not have to end with military victory or loss. Nor do they have to be fought in the classic sense either. Witness peacekeeping forces in Africa. They do not (too often) get involved in shooting, nor is there much hope for something like total victory, but they do use the threat of force to limit more serious violence.
In the much larger context of the cold war the US intervention in Vietnam was something like this. A battle that showed other allies that the US was, in fact, prepared to put boots on the ground when it came down to it.
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
This. The Sykes-Picot Agreements were a bad idea and now, 100 years later, the world is paying. The fighting would have happened sooner or later in any case.
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
Oh, wait, did you mean the airstrikes were IMPROVING our safety? ROFL WAFL!
It has allowed the Kurds to take back some territory. Without it, ISIS would have continued to expand their territory, and become a greater threat.
I firmly believe that the Kurds are the only ones with the willpower to stand up to and defeat ISIS. The problem is that the US cannot supply arms to the Kurds because they also want an independent Kurdish state which would essentially destroy the friendly government we have in Iraq.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
The Hurricane was descended from the Hawker Fury biplane, and more generally used "proven" design methods rather than innovating like the Spitfire did, which meant it was quicker & cheaper to manufacture and repair.
Drivel. There was no "second" Vietnam war, it was all just part of the same struggle between capitalist West and communist East that started in the early '50s when Ho Chi Minh rebelled against France.
The North Vietnamese won because of Ho Chi Minh's strategy of attrition. His people would tolerate terrible casualties for far longer than we would, so he didn't need to win, he just had to not lose until we couldn't take the toll any longer.
This time it's different though.
Because of the Arab Spring, Western Muslims started to be more engaged around freedom in the Arab countries.
The civil war in Syria (where at first freedom fighters started fighting against the Assad government) succeeded in actually engaging young and influenceable Western Muslims on the field who struggled with their mixed Western and Muslim identity.
ISIS was very successful in utilizing that momentum to draw more young Western Muslims into their ranks later on and many tens of thousands European young muslims (many of them under-age) are now fighting with ISIS.
This is very worrisome because these can get back into Europe since they have passports and under the Visa-Waiver program could just board a plane to the US for example.
In that sense, this is now a global conflict. It's not just some tribes fighting against each other and the US intervening to keep control of the oil. It's an exodus of young people who are getting brainwashed and are ticking time-bombs when/if they get back to their actual Western home country.
You'll find that the people you want to kill aren't as docile as we were in the 1930s.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Where in Europe are we talking about? The UK has only just withdrawn troops from Muslim Afghanistan and is currently bombing Muslim ISIS. The government also enacted the extremely unIslamic gay marriage law last year, so if the Muslims are taking over our country and imposing whatever on us then where are they?
Actually France and the UK both had a better Army and Air Force than Germany in 1938. They were in even better position than in 1936 when the allowed Germany to re occupy the Rhineland. Of course WWII might have been avoided if the UK and France had listened to the US and tried to create a just peace. Instead they threatened to not pay back the loans they took out...
BTW France and the UK never did repay the loans for WWI. They thought that the US was being greedy. I guess 116,000 American lives plus the billions the US spent on a war that had nothing to do with the US was not enough.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
It also shot down more German aircraft than the Spitfire.
Frankly the Spitfire is one of those aircraft that was built way too long. After about 1943 it was just not all that useful since it lacked range.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
What I really can't understand is why young girls are leaving Europe to go and be with these guys in Syria. They don't get to fight, that is forbidden except in the most desperate of circumstances. Instead they get to be sex toys and baby factories for beaded losers with poor personal hygiene, who will eventually die and quickly forget about them while indulging in their 72 virgins.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Nothing like censorship.
Such bullshit, imo - you don't think they knew of the possibilities? the mil plans for all sorts of things, don't rule this out.
At the time they said we'd be greeted warmly as liberators by the Iraqi populace. Bush is not a smart man.
On the other hand, splitting up the country in three parts isn't a happy solution either, when one of the territories has most of the oil.
Nonsense. Germany was zero threat to the US. The Japanese threatened our naval power in the Pacific, but were never the slightest threat against the homeland. What should the US have done? Act as the hired mercenaries of Europe?
How is that in ANY WAY different from the US.
> Maybe the USA should stop sending weapons.
Fixed That For You. It's utterly *amazing* how much of the weaponry in the Middle East is US made. They do buy Russian weaponry, but for the better quality ammo and weapons, they've been buying from NATO since, well, the end of World War II.
I would imagine that he can afford some pretty bad ass security. Maybe attacking him can help thin their ranks a bit.
Taking on the 1938 German army would have been a relative cakewalk. The problem with Dunkirk (wasn't that a great victory?) is that the British stayed on the defensive, and by definition it's impossible to win whilst playing defense.
Add the Czechs and their surprisingly good army, and the Little Maginot Line (the Germans tested the fortifications after invading and found them shockingly sound) , and 1938 Germany has big problems. Its army gets bogged down in Czechoslovakia while the British drive for Berlin.
People always bring up this "educated, balanced" riposte to Chamberlain's infamous act. It's bullshit. Let's put the dagger in the back of this theory once and for all: you know who Chamberlain saw fit NOT to invite to the Munich conference? The Czechs! He gave them the middle finger and handed them a fait accompli. Don't even get me started about the great betrayal of Poland, a nation Britain was pledged to defend and yet did fuck-all to help. Fuck Chamberlain and fuck appeasement.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
So, here you are, twisting and turning, trying to avoid the actual commented-on issue, which asserts that Obama has the power to "take away" Islamist street cred, or bestow it. Limit your comments to whether that's actually true, or not. Which Muslim, in which country, is going to be thinking one moment that ISIS adherents are strictly faithful Muslims fighting the good fight against evil things like women who want to read and write, and then based on something Obama says, change their mind and decide that position (and thus ISIS) is no longer actually Islamic? What kind of person do you think holds ISIS as being defender of the faith but who also holds Obama as someone they should listen to as an authority on what is, or is not, authentically Muslim? Can you point to a single person, anywhere, who holds both positions?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Probably not, but ISIS is not the audience. Everyone else is. Ponder it a bit more.
And "everyone else" is going to look to Obama as the arbiter of what is, and is not, proper interpretation of the Koran? Really?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Rapist or wannabe.
Girls are for doing whatever they want to do.
Read the law.
Lots of people seem to not understand what "free speech" means. All it means is that the government can't arrest you or otherwise stop you from expressing an opinion. This does not apply to a privately owned corporation, they are free to refuse service to anyone for any reason. Daesh are free to spout their drivel in a cave in middleofnowherestan as much as they like, we don't have to listen or provide them with a soapbox to stand on.
This is as old as the bible. In fact, it's in the bible and it's not only approved of by God, it's actually Moses that gives the order to do it in at least one case. That wise, gentle and worthy in the sight of God man.
Numbers 31:7-18
They attacked Midian just as the LORD had commanded Moses, and they killed all the men. All five of the Midianite kings – Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba – died in the battle. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. Then the Israelite army captured the Midianite women and children and seized their cattle and flocks and all their wealth as plunder. They burned all the towns and villages where the Midianites had lived. After they had gathered the plunder and captives, both people and animals, they brought them all to Moses and Eleazar the priest, and to the whole community of Israel, which was camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho.
Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the people went to meet them outside the camp. But Moses was furious with all the military commanders who had returned from the battle. "Why have you let all the women live?" he demanded. "These are the very ones who followed Balaam's advice and caused the people of Israel to rebel against the LORD at Mount Peor. They are the ones who caused the plague to strike the LORD's people. Now kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man. Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves.
Here he is clearly calling to murder all the civilians (a war crime), except for teenage and pre-teen girls who are virgins. Those are handed out to his troops to rape and force into marriage.
BTW France and the UK never did repay the loans for WWI. They thought that the US was being greedy. I guess 116,000 American lives plus the billions the US spent on a war that had nothing to do with the US was not enough.
That's okay. Eisenhower broke them over the 1956 Suez Crisis. The UK, in particular, was taught a hard lesson about its new role in the world.
Interestingly, the major point of leverage against the UK was their debt held by the US government. Ike threatened to dump their debt, which would have destroyed their currency.
There is actually a growing consensus not only that Chamberlain did what he could, but that he also doesn't get enough credit, especially since a good bit of the common knowledge of the war's history came from Churchill himself and his books, who not only didn't like Chamberlain but had little reason to give him any credit (and was rather fond of giving himself a lot of credit*). The worldwide depression had hurt everyone, the Brits included. England wasn't ready for war. And Chamberlain wasn't "just an appeaser". So while he declared "peace in our time", which I honestly see as little more than basic politicking, he also upon his return began gearing up for the coming conflict. Chamberlain is the one that began the rebuilding of England's military and industrial forces, and if he hadn't done that when he did we may very well have lost England.
(*this is not to overly denigrate Churchill who was an exceptional wartime leader. but there is a reason he didn't stay in power long after the war.)
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
again: we've bombing them since September.
and they are actually losing at this point because they aren't running an insurgency, but instead conventional combat tactics. which leaves them very susceptible to our superior tech, training, and numbers.
remember: there actually aren't that many ISIS fighters.
what they got, they got through surprise and the time it took us to organize a response.
and they are all over in Iraq/Syria with no way or means of attacking the US let alone getting here.
They aren't interested in fighting an insurgency or committing terror attacks because they truly believe their eventual victory has been ordained by God, therefore they have been fighting us, the Jordanians, the Kurd, and everyone else in open combat. Whether that will last, remains to be seen. But for now, they are not a threat outside the region they've claimed for themselves, and they are losing.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
ISIS may have come to the fore because of the vacuum, but don't make the mistake of thinking these groups are all the same.
They are not.
Particularly in this case.
ISIS is an outgrowth of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
But it's worldview is fundamentally different.
AQII was an insurgency.
ISIS is not.
ISIS began attacking Bashar Asad's forces in Syria, but not because they supported the rebellion, but because it was to them the beginning of the building of the caliphate they believe in. And that's also were they first began alienating people as they also attacked other rebel group, or basically anyone who didn't support their quest for the caliphate.
Then they began moving into Iraq, again to seize the territory they believe to the sacred caliphate. They moved fast, taking advantage of the fact it always takes the west time to organize any sort of response. But they haven't made any progress since we've started engaging them in combat. They are actually losing now, as they have alienated everyone in the area. Everyone is fighting against them.
And they aren't waging an insurgency, but open conventional warfare.
And because they are outmatched in terms of training, equipment, and numbers, that has led to their momentum being halted, and them losing ground.
But they don't seem to case because they don't believe they can lose. So that also so far show no signs of converting to an insurgency. This isn't like the Taliban, who prior to our invasion was essentially the ruling party of Afghanistan, in charge of everything, but once we showed up they gave everything up and melted away, blending into the population to fight an insurgency.
No, ISIS is instead intent on meeting us and our coalition head to head.
And as long as they continue to do so, they will continue to lose, their horrific videos and social media propaganda not withstanding.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Complete bollocks Im afraid - the Hurricane was a good, stable gun platform but it lacked the speed, rate of climb and agility of either the Spitfire MkI or MkII or the Bf109 during the Battle of Britain - the reason the Hurricane achieved higher kill numbers than the Spitfires was because Hurricane squadrons were tasked with bomber interception, while the Spitfire squadrons were tasked with ensuring the accompanying Bf109 fighter escort was kept off the Hurricanes.
The Hurricane had no developmental capacity in the airframe, by the time of the Battle of Britain it was pretty much done as an airframe - once the later marks of Bf109 and the Fw190 were introduced by the Luftwaffe, the Hurricane was horrifically outclassed and relegated to other duties (most either shipped out to Africa or the far east, where they were still a match for early Japanese fighters or could carry out convoy escort duties - you also saw Hurricanes used as catapult launched convoy protection aircraft, because they were considered disposable).
The Spitfire, on the other hand, was developed into the MkV as a stop gap measure, and then into the MkIX as a full Fw190 competitor which more than held its own. The Spitfire was then further developed into later marks, including a full engine change with the switch from the Merlin to the Griffon engine.
The Spitfire didn't have the legs of later aircraft because it was designed as a home country defence fighter - in its later guises it certainly spent time over occupied France and Germany from home bases in the UK (hence the camo cahnge from green and brown to green and grey - that was purely for aircraft intended to fly over occupied europe), but it was never designed as a long range bomber escort, which is why the RAF asked for the North American P-51 Mustang to be developed (yup, would never have been built if the RAF hadn't asked for it - the USAAF wasn't interested until it received several demonstrator examples from the RAF production line).
the problem is in thinking that its only possible for poor, desperate people to become radicalized.
those rich kids are also often from families that are more secular and less orthodox.
disillusionment comes in many flavors.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
This is how out of touch a growing number of RWNJs are:
"Growing Number Of Conservatives Seem Utterly Unaware That Obama Is Attacking ISIS"
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/...
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Actually France and the UK both had a better Army and Air Force than Germany in 1938. They were in even better position than in 1936 when the allowed Germany to re occupy the Rhineland.
I disagree with both of those assertions - the Luftwaffe already had 2,100 Bf109 aircraft delivered pre-1939, while the RAF had a grand total of 500 Hurricanes (which were already outclassed by the Bf109) and no Supermarine Spitfires until mid-1938.
The Luftwaffe were also combat experienced through their involvement in the Spanish Civil War etc, while RAF pilots were not.
Also, the UK did repay our WW1 loans - they were paid back by the proceeds of a War Bond issued by Neville Chamberlain in 1932 (which the current government is refinancing this month).
These people (ha, such a word for that kind of pond scum) do not want peace. What they really want is that other Islamic people say: yes, you do get a free card for murdering people if you are a muslim, even if you kill other muslims.
Even more than that, they just have a deep seated need for, and joy of, killing other humans. It's in all humans to some extent - witness our long history of death dealing to other humans - but the middle east has what I think is a genetic predisposition to the trait.
If the entire world was converted to whatever they worship, they'd certainly not stop killing.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I always thought about this. What if in all these war torn areas instead of becoming militarily involved we just started doing massive aerial drops of food, water, possibly some simple tech for getting online, maybe some power generators. Everything dropped would have the american flag plastered all over it. Over time imagine the amount of good will that would begin to foster with local populations. If you did it long enough and on a large enough scale, whenever some fundamentalist comes along and starts spouting about America being the great Satan how many would get behind him then. And I bet it would cost a lot less than direct military action anyway.
...and not one has said that killing the founder of Twitter is a good idea!? </s>
Why would someone say that? Most sane people are not in support of the murder of others.
The guy does have a point.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
ISIS just needs a little minding. Waves of drone attacks like starlings in migration ought to keep them dodging instead of slicing.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
So we "rushed" to leave the single longest military engagement in the history of the United States? (Afghanistan is probably #1 now, but we're having problems with stability)
What would stability have looked like? Everyone getting lattes at Starbucks?
The reason we have ISIS is because the US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a war of attrition from day one on the part of those who call the area home. The current result is not a surprise, the only question was how long would we occupy? The balance of power shifted and the bad guys just went underground, planning what they would do after the US left. And then they did it.
BlameBillCosby.com
Unless you have an enemy with obvious logistical targets, airstrikes are pretty useless. Great, you blew up a jeep with a machine gun on it. The cost of your bomb plus the flight time of the drone is probably more than the jeep was worth. Oh, by the way, which side was that jeep on? With intermingled and fluid borders, and little direct intelligence, it's kind of hard to be sure...
Anyway, as others have pointed out, all US intervention has accomplished since 9/11 (and before, but that's a different discussion) is to make bad situations even worse. What's the saying? "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result". US interventions are not working. It's time for the US to mind it's own business, and let the Middle East sort itself out.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
and Iraq
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
And the even bigger concern that an independent Kurdistan would also include a sizeable chunk of NATO ally Turkey? That is a bigger concern than Iraq. I'd bet we would have carved out an independent Kurdistan in a heartbeat if not for Turkey.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
It's well known that the EU routinely negotiates with terrorists. They've paid millions to ISIS: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07...
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
If that's what you got from the Bible maybe you do belong over in the Middle East.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Back in my day, it was 'get a funny haircut to piss off dad'.
Now, its 'behead non-believers to piss off dad'.
If these people were true believers, they would come out with their identities. Because they would have no expectation of ever needing to live outside the Caliphate for the rest of their lives. Jihad John wore a mask with the mistaken belief that he could conceal his identity and eventually return home to England, blend into society and earn a living as an IT guy.
Have gnu, will travel.
The BBC says you are wrong.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_...
"And while the UK dutifully pays off its World War II debts, those from World War I remain resolutely unpaid. And are by no means trifling. In 1934, Britain owed the US $4.4bn of World War I debt (about £866m at 1934 exchange rates). Adjusted by the Retail Price Index, a typical measure of inflation, £866m would equate to £40bn now, and if adjusted by the growth of GDP, to about £225bn.
"We just sort of gave up around 1932 when the interwar economy was in turmoil, currencies were collapsing," says Prof Harrison."
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
What killed the ME-109 in the Battle of Britain was lack of range. The need for a defensive fighter for the allies was pretty much done by 1943. Even without the Mustang the US had the P-47 and the P-38 both of which could do escort duty. The problem with 38 where solved with the j model. The UK had a much better aircraft in the Tempest and could have had an even better one if they had developed the Fury.
The UK really seems to have an odd obsession with some aircraft and keep them around way longer than the should have. The Spitfire, Meteor, and the Nimrod are three that come to mind while letting other really good aircraft rot away like the Victor and Vulcan.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
And forced impregnation. "Sons for Soldiers" you can call.
Life is not for the lazy.
Not likely. It isn't like simply making that stuff available makes a user out of you.
These guys are brainwashed into killing people with rusty, dull knives, they can certainly be brainwashed into not buying some smack.
What will actually happen is that the "targets" will collect the drugs and then sell them back to the West to make more money to kill more people.
These guys are already high on something completely different.
We already sort of do that. All they need to do is either tell everyone that they have bombs in them, or go collecting them in pickup trucks with machine guns. At that point, they'll re-paint them with ISIS logos and "provide" them to themselves or their population.
These guys aren't stupid, they control the ground, and they've been turning our own shit back on us for years. You need to give the regular people some hope that ISIS isn't going to rule them forever and then you may have some uptake. Maybe.
Is it good to cut off access to the modern equivalent of the public square just because we don't like what is being said?
Let's not pretend that anything this ISIL group does is in any way an attempt at a discussion. These are psychopaths who even other terrorist groups have cut ties with because they think they have gone too far. These are people who would subjugate and kill you in a brutal and public manner without a hint of remorse. This isn't a public square debate. This is a war. Never confuse the one with the other. This isn't two civilized groups agreeing to disagree. ISIS has engaged in genocidal activities. And you seriously think that is a situation where we should just sit back and respect their rights?
Is it a victory to beat them by cutting off their ability to speak?
Very possibly. While I don't pretend to understand everything about them, literally everything I've heard from this group leads me to believe these are people who promote extreme violence and use the islamic faith to justify their psychosis.
How is this different from cutting off Mega's cashflow via PayPal and the credit cards?
How many people has Mega executed?
Figures the PC pussies would label it a "troll."
ISIS behaves exactly as Muhammad did, and exactly as Muhammad instructed his followers to behave.
If you don't know that, then you don't know the history of Islam, or the teachings of Islam.
ISIS was inevitable.
Time for the west to pull it's head out of it's ass and see Islam for it is.
The United States _won_ the war in Vietnam.
In what universe? I've been to Vietnam. If you think the US won you have no idea what actually happened there. There is no point at which you can claim the US "won" that war by any reasonable definition of the term. The US rarely lost battles in Vietnam but ultimately accomplished none of their objectives and the moment the US pulled out, South Vietnam fell.
The North Vietnamese were powerless, and the US left.
Really? Then explain why the Vietnam war ended with the fall of Saigon. The US did the largest air evacuation in history. That is not what you do when you have won a war. "North Vietnamese were powerless"? Don't make me laugh.
It would be a waste of ink and paint. Good cartoons do require the viewer have *some* brainpower and *some* willingness to learn / embrace new things.
Now, if we expose them to 24x7 Barney, their collective heads would surely implode!
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
No. We need to send sugar. Everyone knows, first you get the sugar...
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
No, thats a common misconception - the Bf109 had time enough for between 30 minutes and 45 minutes over target, while also escorting their bombers to and from the target. While carrying out bomber escort duties you do not want to loiter, so there was no requirement for a longer loiter time for the Bf109s - as such, it was a very effective aircraft during the Battle of Britain. BTW there was no such thing as the ME 109 - the aircraft didn't carry that designation, its been a long running post war media misconception.
And once again, you are wrong - Germany was still attacking mainland Britain and the convoys in the English Channel right up until Germany was overrun, so there was plenty of defensive roles to be filled by the Spitfire. And of course you ignore that by 1943 the bulk of Spitfire sorties were over occupied France, Belgium and northern Germany in roving attacks and enemy air force suppression. So it wasn't as if we had a pointless load of Spitfires sat around waiting for the Luftwaffe to attack while the USAAF took the fight to the continent...
British bombing policy was, after fairly disastrous attempts early on in the conflict, limited to the night stream approach - a steady stream of bombers attacking a single area target from night fall to dawn. As such, the British had no requirement for a bomber escort aircraft, unlike the USAAF which conducted "precision" daylight bombing and as such needed long range escort fighters to protect the bombers.
Both the Tempest and the Fury were decent aircraft, and the fact that over 1,700 Tempests were built shows that - however it was hampered by low availability of the Napier engines after its introduction in 1944. The Fury didn't even make it into service during WW2, so while it was a nice aircraft, its beyond the scope of discussion.
I'm also not sure that your comparison between "favoured aircraft" and "aircraft left to rot" is valid - the Spitfire performed exceedingly well throughout the war, and was even being produced after the war in certain versions. It is the only aircraft that was in continuous production throughout the war on all sides - even the Bf109 production ended before the war did.
The Meteor was a fair aircraft for its time, and it was in turn fairly quickly replaced in its role by the Hawker Hunter in 1954, so the RAF hardly had an obsession with it. The Nimrod was a damn fine airframe for the duties it was given to - it was the only fully British airframe which could carry out the post war roles it was put in, hence why it was chosen. Neither the Victor nor the Vulcan could fulfil the same role, so no comparison there.
As for those two, well, we used their conventional bombing capabilities once - the Black Buck raids over the Falkland Islands. They weren't used in anger before or after that - and right at that time the Tornado was being delivered, along with the capability of laser guided bombs, so we no longer had the need for a heavy bomber, and both the Victor and Vulcan were expensive to operate as tankers, so they were simply removed from service altogether when the time came (the Victor struggled on until we had enough L1011s and VC-10s converted, but once they were delivered the Victor was dropped like the proverbial hot potato).
We're not talking about "those who disagree" in the western world, but ISIS itself. This is war; rather than just canceling ISIS accounts, our intelligence agencies should be faking traffic to set one ISIS faction against others, causing them to misinterpret coalition counterattack information, and disrupting their funding and supply networks. It's what we're paying the NSA and CIA to do.
The BBC doesn't say that, Professor Harrison says that.
The BBC does say that this year we will have paid off the last outstanding WW1 debt when we refinance the outstanding £1.9Billion balance of the 1932 war bond.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/busi...
The author of the article you point to, Finlo Rohrer, has also been heavily criticised in the past of biased and misleading articles, so I would take whatever he writes with a pinch of salt...
You need to read General Giap's book. He knew full well the North Vietnamese had not one hope in hell of beating the USA in a war. He said the war will be won on the streets of Washington DC, not in Vietnam. He was 100% correct. By being an ongoing large PITA that would not quit no matter how many times we kicked his ass combined with the war becoming massively unpopular back home, he knew sooner or later we would decide we had "won" enough times and go home. And we did.
I wasn't writing in absolutes, I'm aware there are factions opposing them and laud that. I'm also sure that you're not writing in absolutes and are aware of factions that *have* supported ISIS in both governments and clergy. All I'm saying is that these have influenced ISIS, not anything Obama may say or think. He's been openly mocked in the Mid East, so I can't believe they take him all that seriously. Also that, just like here in the US, people there only became active about it when the beast grew large enough to force it. Human nature, here and there.
The Nimrod started out to be a fine aircraft for ASW but it is the only Aircraft that I know of that was a program disaster not once but twice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
And
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Have a carefully constructed, but plausible figure that claims to be Twitter's founder tweet pictures of him wiping his ass with the Koran and ISIS' flag in front of what no one knows is a safehouse in Kansas or Arizona, with the address readily visible/obvious. Wait for the jihad-bent buffoons to approach the house with the intent of doing him in, and let them fall into carefully placed containment pits. When the pits start to get full, unleash the Rancor and save a fortune in Purina Rancor Chow. Problem solved.
And which of those failures were down to fundamental airframe issues rather than program failures?
i don't believe in any sky friends, so I don't know what you are ranting about.
Monstar L
He just demonstrates to Muslims that even a non-Muslim can tell ISIS isn't Muslim
More than a quarter of British Muslims recently polled said they support militant Islamists who attack westerners they consider out of line with jihaddi sensibilities. That's 27% who applaud the slaughter of magazine publishers by ISIS-associated Muslim fanboys/girls. Those people think that ISIS is very Muslim, and is in fact a better example of practicing Islam than the more "moderate" groups who don't practice or support such violence. What is it, exactly, that you think Obama is demonstrating to those millions of people who simply laugh at his assessment of the Muslim-ness of one group or the next?
bombs don't differentiate whether someone is Muslim or not
With whom are you having that debate? Bombs aren't supposed to make distinctions between innocent people and medieval-minded wackadoos following the Koran's guidance and lopping heads off of the local insufficiently-Islmaic villagers. It's human intel, targeting, and decisions that make that distinction.
totally misunderstand the meaning of the words others say
No, you're just annoyed that someone actually paid attention to the words someone said.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The reason we have ISIS is that we were in such a rush to leave IRAQ we didn't bother to finish stabilizing the situation.
We could be there 50 years and still have no hope of stabilizing the situation (maybe if we just installed another dictator like Saddam). Stabilizing is not something we can impose but is something they'll have to work out internally.
also, everybody in the western world bends over backwards to say that the issue isn't with islam or muslims because it is the religion of peace and we are a multicultural society and we welcome all muslim faiths and no profiling or restrictions are allowed except oh yeah muslims are trying to kill americans and europeans. sounds like appeasement to me.
Well, you broke it and now the chickens are coming home to roost.
Doesn't matter that the bleeding heart left just wants to be left alone, and the hard right just wants to blame Obama.
The rest of the world doesnt give a f*** about these internal squabbles.
The US broke it, you own it.
It's not like you haven't been warned.
It could be stopped by allying with USSR before the latter allied with Germany. USSR did in fact explore the option of an alliance with UK and France first, specifically over the issue of providing protection guarantees for Poland. The USSR specifically wanted a clear and firm guarantee that if Poland were to be attacked, the Western countries would enter the war with Germany alongside with the Soviets in more than a token effort (i.e. they didn't want to end up being the only ones facing the Germans there). As the Phony War has shown later, it was not an unreasonable fear. The French were interested in exploring such an approach, but the Brits still believed the war was not imminent, and refused on the fear of being dragged into a war on behalf of someone else.
Additionally, Soviets wanted to extend the agreement beyond just Poland, and in particular to prevent the then-independent Baltic states from openly allying with Germany by treating such an act as German aggression that would trigger the joint military intervention provisions of the agreement.
While Soviets were already in talks with the Germans, it was the collapse of the tripartite agreement talks that prompted them to switch gears and seek a full fledged treaty with the Germans, which resulted in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
The run-up to WW2 was really quite a mess in terms of who was supporting whom. Most people do remember the pact, but fewer are aware of the fact that Poland has participated in the partitioning of Czechoslovakia in 1938 on Nazi side, for example.
Finally, someone uses their brain. Sure, we could send a big army over there and stomp them into the ground. But then what?
Then you occupy the country for 20 years or so. No games with grassroots democracy, just old fashioned military administration, rebuilding the infrastructure and de-radicalizing the society and enforcing stability by force, until it can actually have a stable government and economy on its own.
Which, yeah, is basically colonialism. Except for the part where you don't extract resources, so it's also crazy expensive (and remember, 20 years!). So about the only country that might be interested in anything similar is Iran, on the grounds that it can simply annex huge parts of Iraq on a permanent basis.
The single longest military engagement in the history of the USA was likely the occupation of the Philippines (1898-1935).
The problem is no-one actually understood what the hell "stabilizing the situation" even means, and most certainly what American forces were doing there wasn't that. Instead, it was all make-pretend that they could actually establish a democratic government run by the locals. But such a thing, built on as shaky grounds as it was, in a country that is by its very nature split, would never have held for long. In other words, with the way this was done from day 1, it wouldn't matter if American soldiers left when they did, or 5 years later, the end result would have still been the same.
They don't need to develop nuclear weapons, merely acquire them. That's much easier given that e.g. Pakistan already has them, and its military and intelligence services have been infested by Islamists for many years now. Granted, those are mostly people affiliated with al-Qaeda, but who's to say some of them won't switch their allegiance to ISIS? It already happened for large parts of the Pakistani Taliban.
How about actually allying with the Soviets against the Germans before WW2 began, and striking together as soon as Poland was invaded?
It was a very likely possibility, and USSR has actively explored just such an alliance. But it demanded a firm commitment to such a joint military action, with full involvement by all sides, that Brits weren't willing to sign up for (because they didn't think that a full-scale European war was inevitable even if Poland were to be invaded). So Soviets walked away and signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact instead.
That idealism doesn't even work in this country. It hasn't fixed Detroit or St. Louis. Why should we have to build infrastructure when they are sitting on nearly unlimited wealth from oil?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I am not saying you are wrong but you are not right.
Da'esh got their initial serious funding from Kuwaiti and Saudi citizens who had family wronged by Iraqis during the US-led invasion of Iraq. Da'esh went into Iraq in small teams and started killing ex-military personnel, judges, etc. They made a video of these executions and other activities (which I can not say more about) and distributed the video to the "proper" personnel to prove what they had done. Those personnel then provided much larger funding and MUCH better equipment.
In short, Obama's actions may have created some of the "environment" but it was Bush, Kuwaitis, and Saudis who really created Da'esh, aka ISIS/ISIL.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
We weren't exactly on good terms with the Soviets at the start of the second world war - remember that the continental royal families still had fresh memories of their Russian relations being massacred despite offers to secure their exile? When we did ally with them during WW2, it was more a case of a deal with the devil than a friendship, and it was acknowledged as such - Churchill even wanted WW2 to continue on against the soviet forces after Germany surrendered but was (thankfully) talked out of that stance.
If Obama had not created instability in Syria and refused to negotiate a status of forces agreement with Iraq, Da'esh/ISIS would never have come into existence. The group which became Da'esh/ISIS may have existed before that, but that was what allowed it to become a "state".
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Both.
The for the AEW it was too small for the task using the tech the UK selected.
The MRA4 the airframes where not built to a common standard and frankly the engine location made mounting high bypass turbofans impossible.
Even the VC-10 would have been a better choice for the AEW but the UK had to keep the Comet line alive for some odd reason.
They really blew it by not buying older P-3 Orions and upgrading them. They where a newer design and used by nations around the world. The UK could have made a good bit of money upgrading P3s for other nations. Now they will go with the P-8 just as they went with the E3 for the AEW program.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I disagree vehemently with a huge amount of what Israel does but they clearly aren't completely stupid. Jordan may not be the ideal neighbour but it is on the other side of around half their land border and infinitely better as a neighbour than Lebanon. Israel isn't going to just sit by and let Jordan get overrun by people who actively want to annihilate them, must easier to provide support to Jordan and fight in their territory.
While what you say may normally be correct tactically, it is not going to happen strategically, politically or religiously.
Israel will wait until they are directly threatened by whoever overruns Jordan and then they will attack in force using the exorcise as an excuse to annex more land.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
1. With meth or Cocaine you'd have a bunch of amped up religious fanatics going all berseker crazy on you.
2. With heroin or alcohol you'd have a bunch of religious fanatics with no inhibitions going crazy on you.
3. With Meth and heroin amped up religious fanatics with no inhibitions going berseker crazy on you and would be too high to realise they are suposed to fall down when you kill them.
4. it would probably be considered chemical warefare or something equally repugnant.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
To the rest of the human race. After all, most people are on ISIS hit list if you understand their theology.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
remember that the continental royal families still had fresh memories of their Russian relations being massacred despite offers to secure their exile?
The Brits (or rather specifically George V) actually explicitly refused to shelter Nicholas after abdication. So did the French (granted, not a royal family, but a WW1 ally nevertheless). I'm not aware of any other offers.
As for the alliance - it was very seriously discussed by all sides from March to about July 1939 (UK and France kept talking after that, but Soviets weren't really listening anymore). So they were quite willing to make a deal with a devil. They - well, the Brits specifically, the French were more appreciative of the danger - just didn't want to go all the way in and "provoke" the Germans, especially since most everyone assumed that Soviets would be the next after Poland, so any committed allies of theirs would be dragged into war alongside.
Since you asked:
http://www.religioustolerance....
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
the DAESH sub-human animals started this war...against everything moral and decent in the world. Good for twitter!
This is an interesting view, in particular because the Czech army was not at all small, and definitely not a walkover. All they wanted was some support from the Western countries. But Chamberlain determined otherwise and gave up an army that would have been pretty useful when the inevitable happened. Maybe the Brits weren't ready for war, but the Czech's were, and that army got lost. So either Chamberlain was a lousy strategist, or he did believe that he could contain Hitler by giving him ground. Probably both.
So once they quit there was no longer a danger for the commies to wreak havoc in our streets? How does that work? Your mind I mean.
So drop more. How could it be any worse than what we're doing now?
I bet you got an A in your DARE class. Idiot.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Duh. But why are you calling out military spending in particular? It's a small slice and shrinking.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It gave Germany time to build it's army. England not so much. Russia was still executing officers based on Stalin's paranoia up to a few months before Hitler invaded.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You need more practice reading non-native speakers English. The point is clear.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
They knew exactly what would replace Saddam. Sunni Shia war, just like what predated Saddam and what he carried out for a decade himself.
The only thing we're lying about is being against it.
But Bush could not have said 'We're going into Iraq to get them fighting among themselves until they pump the last of their oil'. It would have defeated the purpose.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Korea. 1950-today.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You can bet there is a US spy satellite that watches the Paki nukes full time and a pre-planned mission to pulverize them at a moments notice.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Kurdistan is already a semi-autonomous region of Iraq. The Turks have a problem.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You guys are funny.
Someone, spare some +1 Funny mods for this shit!
Huh? The Iranian dictator was put in place by the US. Cozening up shouldn't be needed unless they screwed up majorly and put a psychopath in charge as usual.
I... what?
The Iranian people once looked up to western democracies, removed their dictator and got a democracy. When their elected leader started talking about nationalizing the oil (As a way to build a welfare society without having extreme taxes.) CIA decided that it was against the interest of the US and helped with reinstating the dictatorship.
Are you confusing Iran with Iraq or something? The current leadership in Iran has been in place since 1979.
The problem seems to be with Greek society, specifically the corruption that has become a matter of course there. I was a bit sad that "austerity" did nothing to address one of the bigger issues: tax evasion.
You do realize that the ISIS uprising is a direct consequence of pulling out too early after the second Iraqi war, don't you?
How long were we supposed to stay? We had already been there for 10 years. Do we stay and send our soldiers to die from IEDs for ... 20 years? 25? 30? What is the cut-off?
When will we admit that maybe the Middle East has to solve their own problems, and that peace can't be militarily imposed upon them?
And we wouldn't have caused WWII if we hadn't insisted on such punitive reparations after WWI, and had backed the League of Nations. But nope, that would have been too rational, so we had WWII to remind us that if we aren't reasonable, we'll forever repeat history.
Learn to love Alaska
The reason we have ISIS is that we were in such a rush to leave IRAQ we didn't bother to finish stabilizing the situation.
No, the reason we have ISIS is that we were in such a rush to ENTER Iraq we didn't think how we'd destabilize the situation. FTFY. Which is what Republicans and hawkish Democrats are plumping for again. They needs their wargasms to make 'em feel like men. Even Conservatard Hillary.
That is all.
ROFL
I am sorry I have never seen anyone stretch so hard to make their point. We waited nearly half a year while giving Saddam time to comply with the treaty obligations and allow U.N. inspectors in.
It started under a Republican, but it got bad under a Democrat, so let's blame the Democrats. I've heard that with Vietnam as well. It was Eisenhower that ordered democratic elections in Vietnam be disrupted to prevent democracy, fearing a vote favoring the North, and Eisenhower who sent in the first US troops, and under Eisenhower when the first US soldier was killed. But Kennedy sent more people in trying to clean up Eisenhower's mess, and LBJ get the largest share of the "blame". ISIS started under Bush, but got worse under Obama, so it's 100% Obama's fault. Got it. It's all the Democrat's fault. Care to blame Obama for the lunar and solar calendars not lining up?
And no, I'm not a Democrat. I don't like either of them. But the hypocrisy doesn't seem to be even between their supporters.
Learn to love Alaska
You need to read General Giap's book. He knew full well the North Vietnamese had not one hope in hell of beating the USA in a war. He said the war will be won on the streets of Washington DC, not in Vietnam. ...
More than you know...
The Russians and North Vietnamese had an active "fifth column" operation in the US to convince people to be anti-war and anti-South Vietnam. And it worked. You can even see the effects still today in the more rabid "liberals".
(Note that I put "liberals" in quotes, I used to consider myself Liberal, but not like that...)
So we "rushed" to leave the single longest military engagement in the history of the United States? ...
That depends on how you measure it. We are still in Japan, that might be longer.
Korea would probably be a better choice (still a declared war by the two Koreas).
I was more considering active wars, which, according to this Wikipedia page, Afghanistan is the longest ever:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
BlameBillCosby.com
That's like saying the KKK, Westboro Baptist Church, Jehovah's Witnesses, (insert dangerous cult here) aren't "real" Christians. ...
You are right, but still wrong in your conclusion.
I don't know about the JW, but the KKK and such are -just- like the IS bandits. And they are not real Christians because they go against everything Christ said. Just like IS does.
The Bible has a paragraph where God says "Vengence is mine." They think that gives them the right to take vengence. Wrong!
It should be read as: "Vengence is -mine-." As in, only God has the right to take vengence, -no one- else.
But criminals will seize on anything that they think will slow down the honest people... and they are indeed criminals.
Undo mods