• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Obama: No ground troops against Islamic State

Status
Not open for further replies.

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
No point in putting boots there, eventually the US would have to leave anyway and it would start all over. Stronger local governments are needed.
 
The unfortunate truth is that many of the Gulf States' wealthiest citizens (with the exception of Oman) condone or financially support the actions of ISIS.

Isn't most of that wealth tied to oil? Or that the running of ISIS generates them profit somehow?

Either way, if somehow they can make ISIS appear like an expense or at least cut into however they generate their revenue, it might impact the longetivity of the group.
 
Bernie is right. Its the gulf countries that need to contain Islamic State , for their own benefit as they want to stretch their middle eastern borders.

The gulf states have enough of an army and financial backing to prevent IS from encroaching on their territory. But Daesh will still try and destabilize them from within by trying to trigger a sectarian war from suicide bombings.
 
Of course, yet this thread is about American intervention. Regardless, up to this point, the current ground troops haven't been effective enough anyway. Even looking past the death toll and the amount of territory under ISIS control, as an ancient historian, my heart bleeds. I see no reason to think that, if nothing changes, the conflict won't still be ongoing for another decade. I'm not criticising inaction, by the way -- I'm just frustrated that there's no obvious solution that can be followed.



Yet generally keeping a distance when change has to take place on-site. Most definitely for the best, and most likely following sound military strategy, but what they're doing is not effectively destroying the organisation. They may use a drone to take out a high-ranking leader, but another will replace him. There's no end in sight, and no chance of a diplomatic conclusion.


Much of ISIL infrastructure like HQs, supply lines, oil trucks, oil wells, staging areas, camps, weapon storage, vehicles, etc has been destroyed many times and those things are not cheap and they get some of those things are captured. They can't replace them and ISIL actually has not had a single successful long term or short term offensive. They have lost a lot of territory. If anything they are on the defensive, although they can still conduct terror attacks or strike weak points, but that does not mean they are gaining strength; not many forces in history was losing 100%.

US is playing a supporting and leadership role, if anyone wants to know what exactly is the US doing then there is something called Google. The US is not doing nothing, it appears that way because people barely know anything about the conflict and most people see actual physical direct action as doing something anything else is doing nothing.
 

ISOM

Member
Yeah, certain parts of the Right are chomping at the bit to go to war with someone.

Remember pre 2012 and the idiocy about going to war with Iran if Romney won? Now there's an actual justifiable target, and the Republicans are going to hammer Clinton about that the entire cycle.

If ISIS somehow hits the States? Might be game over for the Democrats as war fever takes over.

Not really. Not all Democrats are the same. If the people want a prowar message then Hillary will very easily slide into that role since she is a lot more hawkish than Obama.
 
What a stupid suggestion. I'm sure you're joking given the "from orbit" bit but it's still fucking stupid.

Anyway, the problem is difficult and multifaceted. I'm skeptical that ISIS can ever be fully wiped out, or even effectively neutralized via strikes or ground forces.


Whatever man

Beat them hard enough that they shut up and fade back into obscurity, ala japan WW2. They'll never be wiped out but they'll think twice before doing shit like that again.
 
I don't think there is much the West CAN do at this point, other than continue to sanction ISIS and maintain a strong intelligence network that will allow them to thwart attacks and prevent Westerners from traveling there to bolster their ranks. Eventually, ISIS will push too far and end up at war with one of the bigger powers in the region, and when this happens, the West can provide military and financial aid to bolster this power's move against ISIS while simultaneously using that power to try and positively impact subsequent political developments.

I mean, really, short of outright invasion, what options does the West have other than protecting itself while waiting to see what develops? You can't support Syria, you can't support any rebel groups, you can only provide so much aid to Iraq without risking another occupation.
 

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
The Nazis were crushed and obliterated but Neo-Nazism survives and, as we are seeing now, fascism and ultra nationalism are once again beginning to reappear in Europe.

The 2014 report of Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution estimates that there are currently 5200 Neo-Nazis ins Germany, out of a population of over 81 million people. Despite being reported in the media occasionally, Neo-Nazism is virtually dead. The estimated number of violent far-right extremists is estimate to be 10500 people.

https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/en...mism/right-wing-extremist-following-2014.html

While nationalism is always a threat in any society, you can get rid of ideologies nonetheless.
 
Alls we need to do is show up in Dabiq, call 'em out & then kick their asses with our latest laser guns & what have you.

I am mostly joking but still.

I think to tackle the issue it needs to be looked at realistically not as a problem that is facing us (USA, Europe etc), but one that is facing the people of the region. Not that we have no responsibility, but to acknowledge for a sec that we aren't even the primary victims.

If I was playing god though, I'd focus military efforts on liberating slaves, sabotaging infrastructure, and generally diminishing and belittling the caliphates functional reality.
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Whatever man

Beat them hard enough that they shut up and fade back into obscurity, ala japan WW2. They'll never be wiped out but they'll think twice before doing shit like that again.

Your grasp of geopolitical matters is breathtaking.
 

pgtl_10

Member
Word. Once the fighting is over and the dust settles you are stuck in a devastated wasteland with millions of people living below the line of poverty. Do you just leave them there to die or will you feed them for the next decade? These kinds of people have very little drive to restore the infrastructure that they lost and I doubt anybody would be willing to rebuild the Middle East.

Why won't these people rebuild?
 
Whatever man

Beat them hard enough that they shut up and fade back into obscurity, ala japan WW2. They'll never be wiped out but they'll think twice before doing shit like that again.

Yeah, let's just punch everyone in the face over and over until they stop doing stuff. That's all the nuance I need!
 
Alls we need to do is show up in Dabiq, call 'em out & then kick their asses with our latest laser guns & what have you.

I am mostly joking but still.

I think to tackle the issue it needs to be looked at realistically not as a problem that is facing us (USA, Europe etc), but one that is facing the people of the region. Not that we have no responsibility, but to acknowledge for a sec that we aren't even the primary victims.

If I was playing god though, I'd focus military efforts on liberating slaves, sabotaging infrastructure, and generally diminishing and belittling the caliphates functional reality.

The coalition has been doing that since start of the bombings since 2014.
 

Ominym

Banned
Whatever man

Beat them hard enough that they shut up and fade back into obscurity, ala japan WW2. They'll never be wiped out but they'll think twice before doing shit like that again.

Yeah, you're right. The organization that doesn't fear death is all the sudden going to start fearing death and respect the Western world because we "beat them hard enough."

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about whatsoever.
 

Cipherr

Member
Our memories really are short as hell. It genuinely surprises me that our economy is juuuuuust starting to recover and we have already forgotten what the last war did in terms of fucking shit up. Now we are all "LETS SEND MORE TROOPS TO THE MIDDLE EAST".

How about no.
 
Yeah, you're right. The organization that doesn't fear death is all the sudden going to start fearing death and respect the Western world because we "beat them hard enough."

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about whatsoever.

Yeah, let's just punch everyone in the face over and over until they stop doing stuff. That's all the nuance I need!

Your grasp of geopolitical matters is breathtaking.



I would love to see what you guys would suggest be the best option to deal with these scums of the earth , oh social justice warriors. Enlighten me with your wisdom.
 
Most of the candidates are hawkish so it's pretty much a guarantee that we're going to see a rise in pro-war sentiment especially if another attack like the Paris one happens in another ally country (or the United States). My hope is that we don't go to war but I think whichever candidate we elect will send the US into another war. Hopefully I'm wrong.
If there is another attack like this or larger in the west or especially the US, there is going to be war no matter who is in office. There will be very few that will have the view of just more airstrikes and percieved status quo.
 
I would love to see what you guys would suggest be the best option to deal with these scums of the earth , oh social justice warriors. Enlighten me with your wisdom.

Are we only allowed to call your solution stupid as fuck if we solve the problem ourselves?

If you propose going to Mars by tying yourself to a bunch of balloons, are we only allowed to call it the dumbest fucking thing ever if we submit our own Mars mission plan?

If the answer to stopping terrorism was obvious then we wouldn't still be dealing with it for many decades. Keep in mind terrorism didn't start with 9/11 and goes back several decades before that.
 

Sheroking

Member
Whatever man

Beat them hard enough that they shut up and fade back into obscurity, ala japan WW2. They'll never be wiped out but they'll think twice before doing shit like that again.

You just don't know what the hell you're talking about.

You can't "beat them hard enough ala Japan in WW2" because Japan is a Country. There's no government to topple or infrastructure to target, they're an insurgent force. You can't bomb that away, you're only going to kill a bunch of civilians, stir up hatred and HELP them recruit more insurgents for their war. In that sense, a ground war against ISIS would be a lot more like Korea (which is a war the US lost precisely because they hadn't learned this lesson) than World World II.

You need to fight smart. Target their higher-ups with drones and ops, help build a stronger government and military force in the region and take back more territory. Destabilize them, put them on the defensive and then help improve the quality of life in the region. A happier people means fewer recruits, and fewer recruits means a less effective Islamic State.
 
I would love to see what you guys would suggest be the best option to deal with these scums of the earth , oh social justice warriors. Enlighten me with your wisdom.

I got nothing, man. Your idea is too good. I don't know why no one else in the world ever thought of "nuke them from orbit" before. That's the kind of outside the box thinking we need in this country.
 
No one has a solution besides vague solutions.

Exactly I offered my vague solution so there's that. I don't see anybody else offering there's . I'm not afraid of people disagreeing with my way of thinking.

Are we only allowed to call your solution stupid as fuck if we solve the problem ourselves?

If you propose going to Mars by tying yourself to a bunch of balloons, are we only allowed to call it the dumbest fucking thing ever if we submit our own Mars mission plan?

If the answer to stopping terrorism was obvious then we wouldn't still be dealing with it for many decades. Keep in mind terrorism didn't start with 9/11 and goes back several decades before that.


Nah you can call it dumb all you want, just note your solution (the one in your head right now) probably wouldn't be any better since as you said terrorism has started decades ago and I doubt anybody on gaf has "the perfect plan" for such a ingrained problem in our society.

I got nothing, man. Your idea is too good. I don't know why no one else in the world ever thought of "nuke them from orbit" before. That's the kind of outside the box thinking we need in this country.

Lol what started as a joke, you guys took to heart way to seriously, now I back that joke for real. Nuke them all I say.
 

Ominym

Banned
I would love to see what you guys would suggest be the best option to deal with these scums of the earth , oh social justice warriors. Enlighten me with your wisdom.

lol, seeya.

I wasn't aware that not wanting to nuke the Middle East made me anything more than just a decent human being. But hey, sorry I don't share your pointless bloodlust. I'm sure your theory of "beating them till they listen" has a well founded basis in practice as well as historically.
 
Lol what started as a joke, you guys took to heart way to seriously, now I back that joke for real.

Lol, you tell em dude! Those damn whiny liberals always overreact so quickly and rashly to people calling for millions of innocent deaths. I'm just glad there are some people like you pushing forward a more moderate response to these calls to violence. We need more restraint it when it comes to people wanting to kill off entire populations.
 

danm999

Member
Exactly I offered my vague solution so there's that. I don't see anybody else offering there's . I'm not afraid of people disagreeing with my way of thinking.

You don't have a solution you have pablum.

This whack em so hard they never get up again nonsense is half the reason ISIS exists in the first place.
 
Lol, you tell em dude! Those damn whiny liberals always overreact so quickly and rashly to people calling for millions of innocent deaths. I'm just glad there are some people like you pushing forward a more moderate response to these calls to violence. We need more restraint it when it comes to people wanting to kill off entire populations.

I don't even know how this is a liberal vs whatever debate. What military or counter-terrorism expert would say yeah let's just blow it all away?

Sounds like the ghost of Curtis LeMay talking. Although I'd imagine even he would realize he's not fighting a conventional war after 15 years of Afghanistan and Iraq.
 

benjipwns

Banned
Seems like the alternative is hoping someone else sends in ground troops.

I'm against it personally but I really don't see any ideas from the "ground troops are stupid!" camp.
Not everything in the world is within our capability to solve.

Or our responsibility.
 
I don't even know how this is a liberal vs whatever debate. What military or counter-terrorism expert would say yeah let's just blow it all away?

Sounds like the ghost of Curtis LeMay talking. Although I'd imagine even he would realize he's not fighting a conventional war after 15 years of Afghanistan and Iraq.

No expert would recommend it. That's why we haven't won yet. But Omega Kirby is a radical. Not your usual Washington Elite insider from inside the beltway insider Washington elite type. He's a maverick. He's what we need to #MakeAmericaGreatAgain. We just need to nuke them, but then keep nuking them. I mean, we've got enough to spare.
 
Not everything in the world is within our capability to solve.

Or our responsibility.

Conflict/war is globalized now so it is partially our responsibility including regional and some other countries. If a conflict becomes the scale of ISIS it is many people's responsibility.
 

besada

Banned
So long as people are oppressed, there will be terrorism. So long as our countries support the people oppressing them, we will be the targets of that terrorism. The long term solution to terrorism is to create societies in which young men have better things to do then blow themselves up for god. As long as we're okay with, and contributing to, the oppression of people, those people are going to hate us, and so long as they have nothing to lose, they're going to be willing to die to make us understand what they're living with daily.

The causes of terrorism aren't confusing, and the solutions aren't hard to understand. They're hard to implement, in part because we benefit by not implementing them more than we lose from terrorism. Our countries have made conscious choices to make the region worse, as well as to fill it with weapons. It doesn't take a nobel prize winning statesman to figure out what happens when guns are easily available, there's no reasonable government, and the population has suffered decades of abuse at the hands of leaders propped up by the west.

None of that excuses the behavior of terrorists, of course, but the idea that we can bomb and shoot people into submission is a fantasy. The west likes to think it can have a standard of living significantly higher than the rest of the world without consequences, and that's untrue in so many ways. This is one of the ways. If you spend your life saturated by media showing western lives, while you live in an oppressive shithole, some folks are going to try hard to get to the west, and some are simply going to hate us, and be more than happy sharing what they have, which is misery, fear, and death.
 
It can't, you can't fight a group like ISIS with violence, it only creates more violence and continues the cycle.

However, as long as the military industrial complex guides US (and ultimately world) policies, nothing will change.
I'm not suggesting we need US troops there but how in the world would anyone stop ISIS without violence? Hit them with pillows until they see the error of their ways?

There needs to be a joint coalition lead by the surrounding countries to stop them. They need to crush every last bit of their organization. It's not going to happen, but I think that'd be the ideal strategy.
 

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
So long as people are oppressed, there will be terrorism. So long as our countries support the people oppressing them, we will be the targets of that terrorism. The long term solution to terrorism is to create societies in which young men have better things to do then blow themselves up for god. As long as we're okay with, and contributing to, the oppression of people, those people are going to hate us, and so long as they have nothing to lose, they're going to be willing to die to make us understand what they're living with daily.

An issue that I have with these analyses is that the majority of Muslims in Western Europe seem hardly oppressed to me. For instance, here in German—where many radicalized Muslims involved in terror attacks grew up or lived—they have the same rights as other citizens, access to social security and education. While there is of course racism against anyone who is not white, we have prominent Muslims in all areas, including leadership positions in politics. Yet it is these Western European countries where many Islamists got radicalized.
 
I agree completely. First of all ISIS, like Al Quada before them, would love to see American embroiled in another shitty war. Don't give them that. Don't give them a face to the enemy. Surely the psychology of air strikes - any place, any time - is the equivalent to their techniques of terror over here? Good.

Second, as others have said the western governments have spent any goodwill or nerve westerners might have for another war in the middle east. I was against Iraq. I might've been for going after ISIS, guess I'll never know. I know I'm not, because at this point I honestly don't give a single shit about what happens in or to the middle east. When Syria was heating up, it was all "these guys are good, no those guys are good, and these guys are bad." Like, whoever we ended up supporting would be the better of two (three, four?) evils. It doesn't sound like there are any good guys over there other than the Kurds. I'm exhausted even trying to understand.

Let's just be us, enjoy our free society and keep on defending its freedom.

I agree. I'd reckon the best thing to do is to continue providing intelligence and committing air strikes of our own, and spend the money saved from sending troops over there to die with projects Obama has been pushing back home.

But I also realize two important things that most people on the internet and along the lovely state of South Carolina don't seem to understand. 1) This is not the decision of the president alone. 2) He has access to way more information than I have or ever will, and none of us are more qualified than him at the moment to make a judgment call.
 

besada

Banned
An issue that I have with these analyses is that the majority of Muslims in Western Europe seem hardly oppressed to me. For instance, here in German—where many radicalized Muslims involved in terror attacks grew up or lived—they have the same rights as other citizens, access to social security and education. While there is of course racism against anyone who is not white, we have prominent Muslims in all areas, including leadership positions in politics. Yet it is these Western European countries where many Islamists got radicalized.
While I don't know, I'd guess most of the radicalized young men and women born in western nations are disaffected, either because they feel as if they're treated as second class citizens, or they're just those fucked up teens that all cultures have with nothing to latch onto until someone charismatic comes by and and finds a use for them. In America our disaffected youth take guns and shoot up their schools. Elsewhere they strap on a suicide vest and bomb a cafe. You're never going to rid the world of crazy fuckers. But you can reduce the number of people willing to buy into it -- which reduces the power base and reach of the organizations that rely on the misery of their people to produce soldiers.

The goal is to up the level of crazy you need to be to buy into the idea that bombing and shooting people is the only solution. You're never going to stop it completely, but we're in a situation right now where bombing and shooting make sense to a lot of people, because they feel there's no other choices left. People whose basic psychological needs are being met are much less likely to join death cults. That doesn't mean that getting someone whose life has been wrecked by the violence into Europe is going to suddenly make them forget and as long as they can watch their aunts and uncles being hammered on Youtube by planes with their new flag on them, they're really unlikely to forget.

But helping build functional societies both reduces the number of people miserable enough to pick up the gun, it also reduces the number of immigrants who are going to come slamming into the west. It's a win-win for us, but I assume we'll do what we always do, which is put out the fire with a shitload of bombs, ensure another generation of people who hate us enough to blow us up, and continue to act surprised when it happens.
 

dabig2

Member
An issue that I have with these analyses is that the majority of Muslims in Western Europe seem hardly oppressed to me. For instance, here in German—where many radicalized Muslims involved in terror attacks grew up or lived—they have the same rights as other citizens, access to social security and education. While there is of course racism against anyone who is not white, we have prominent Muslims in all areas, including leadership positions in politics. Yet it is these Western European countries where many Islamists got radicalized.

A lot of people deal with different shit in different ways. For instance, why do white males in the USA go on suicidal mass shooting sprees or engage in terrorist actions more often?
 
If they do, bombing the hell out of their capital city should be our priority.

The problem is that ISIS is a government that governs captured territory, and it's pretty well-innervated with innocents. And we're not exactly in a WWII scenario, where the scale of death is so great that we simply have to take the gamble that the loss of innocent life will be less, en toto, than the total loss of life that would occur were we to engage in traditional warfare.
 
Just for the record Japan post-WW2 is a terrible analogy. It had a functional government for one and a very good economy afterwards for another. Unless you plan to bring pretty much the entire Middle East up to those standards beating them (whoever they are this time around) down is at best a temporary solution (see also the difference between the treatment of Germany post WW1 and WW2 and the outcomes).
 
The problem is that ISIS is a government that governs captured territory, and it's pretty well-innervated with innocents. And we're not exactly in a WWII scenario, where the scale of death is so great that we simply have to take the gamble that the loss of innocent life will be less, en toto, than the total loss of life that would occur were we to engage in traditional warfare.


Ughh... I should start informing myself on how ISIS operates. This is such a shitty problem. Bomb them? Reach out to the middle eastern world and help them build modern cities. I don't even know anymore.
 
Ughh... I should start informing myself on how ISIS operates. This is such a shitty problem. Bomb them? Reach out to the middle eastern world and help them build modern cities. I don't even know anymore.

Any help from the west is seen as "meddling" or worse, so in theory we have to let them bring themselves out of the stone age. But unfortunately they intend to keep attacking us in the meantime and furthermore they're constantly killing tons of innocent people and forcing them to run to our doorstep for refuge. The latter isn't as much of an issue if they were contained (see: North Korea) but the whole attacking thing really causes big problems that mean we can't feasibly do the "right" thing.
 

Abounder

Banned
Ughh... I should start informing myself on how ISIS operates. This is such a shitty problem. Bomb them? Reach out to the middle eastern world and help them build modern cities. I don't even know anymore.

Definitely bomb them. NATO and co. drop leaflets telling civilians to GTFO ahead of bombs when they bomb cities like Raqa. The 'middle eastern world' is a bunch of nations and groups that hate eachother, they never do much other than that..they're not a union
 
T

thepotatoman

Unconfirmed Member
On one hand, ISIL is a little different from Al-Queda in that it's trying to be an offical country, not just a terrorist organization. That requires them to have clear control over an area of land in order to acheive that goal. I'd imagine it'd be pretty easy to make ISIL no longer control the land they control if we went in full force to take it away, relative to the goals we've had in Iraq and Afghanistan after the first year of being there.

On the other hand, the people in ISIL would probably then just go back to Al-Queda or something similar, while the west is stuck with control of an area they don't know what to do with, and still suffering constant terrorist attacks.
 

Abounder

Banned
This seems counterproductive.

Imagine finding this on the ground one day:

HT_isis_syria_pentagon_leaflet_propaganda_sk_150326_12x5_1600.jpg


"The message of this leaflet is if you allow yourself to be recruited by Daesh you will find yourself in a meat grinder,” said Warren, using the Islamic acronym for the group.

The leaflet shows a room identified by a sign with the arrow as a "Daesh Recruiting Office," and the meat grinder is labelled "Daesh."
..
The leaflets were dropped by a single U.S. Air Force F-15E fighter aircraft carrying a PDU-5B leaflet canister, according to the Pentagon.


http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-drops-anti-isis-leaflets-syria/story?id=29930980
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom