Air strikes against Islamic State/ISIS..

...or whatever they're calling themselves this week.

The US, along with Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, used fighter jets, bombers and Tomahawk cruise missiles against IS targets in Syria on Tuesday.

David Cameron has stated his support for the air strikes and has affirmed that the fight against Islamic State (IS) militants is one "you cannot opt out of".

Cameron is meeting the new Iraqi Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, later and it is thought Mr Abadi might make a formal request for the UK to join US air strikes against IS in Iraq.

Should we join in with air strikes? We are already providing arms and support to Kurds fighting IS but following the US air strikes should we get more directly involved?

Or should we leave it up to the countries in the region to fight the battle? We've sold enough planes and missiles to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in the past so it would be nice to see them being used for something other than domestic oppression for a change.

Or do you believe the threat of IS is just made up and they are a creation of Washington and Israel?

Yeah, I think you'll find British aircraft have already taking action against IS and Cameron is desperate to send troops too despite saying he wouldn't. It wouldn't be surprising if he did, he seems to have completely forgot he wanted to arm and equip IS a few months back.

Some time back, didn't Assad say that the rebels he was fighting, were terrorists?

While our media gave the impression they were freedom fighters trying to overthrow a corrupt government, and that Assad calling them terrorists, was just his propaganda machine doing it's thing?

If that wasn't the case, were we being deceived then? Or now?

Some time back, didn't Assad say that the rebels he was fighting, were terrorists?

 

While our media gave the impression they were freedom fighters trying to overthrow a corrupt government, and that Assad calling them terrorists, was just his propaganda machine doing it's thing?

 

If that wasn't the case, were we being deceived then? Or now?

I think that Assad was being opposed by a number of factions. Some were fanatics whilst some were moderate. When Cameron wanted Parliament's approval to fight Assad and support the rebels he had little clue who the rebels were or how he would differentiate between the rival rebal groups. That was one of the main reasons his plans were rejected. People could see that Assad was a butcher, but they also realised that some of his opponents were crazier than a bag of frogs.

Made up to get access to the oil.we have had the dirty bombs,the kids used and they fell on their face now it's pure bull. They were always going in...

---------- Post added 24-09-2014 at 09:04 ----------

Forgot the fake beheadings sorry...

It's a tad more complicated than that, I think.

It's now well known that Saudi intelligence services (Bandar bin Sultan) bootstrapped IS in the early days of the Syrian insurrection, but got double-played/rolled by IS (one of the main reasons why old Bandar fell on his proverbial sword earlier this year; another very probable reason being that he played his carte blanche about Assad without seeking US/CIA opinion/approval, so Washington will expectedly have wanted his head before setting about cleaning up the mess).

Regardless of who 'started' IS, the problem is that it is now large, completely autonomous, very well funded and equipped, and has very experienced fighters. Stating that IS is head and shoulders over Al Qaeda is no exaggeration, I think: it's got billions in cash and gold, non-trivial amount of seized US and Russian military hardware, 30.000 fighters many of whom know how to put that hardware to good use, and you can bet your bottom dollar they've been busy building cells globally over the past 2 years at least.

And the geopolitical problem is that it's knocking at both of Israel's and Turkey's doors.

Turkey is NATO and the Israel<>US relationship is such that Israel might as well be NATO.

So, if Turkey starts to get 'properly' attacked by IS...and then all of NATO would have to go in without much of a say about putting boots on the grounds.

A friend recently returned from Altinkum in Turkey. He witnessed a couple of police raids on youth to catch national service dodgers. The style "25 cops turn up at the restaurant/bar/etc., lock up (everyone, incl. patrons), then check all Turkish IDs". Any dodger they found was handcuffed, driven straight to the nearest army base (without going home for seeing off family or grabbing personal effects or whatnot) and dropped off.

Now, that friend owns a property there, and he and his family have been going there every year for the last 8 years at least, spending at least a full month and a half (aggregate), and he's never seen anything like it - neither have the locals (many of whom he and we know as good friends by now). Granted, it's a bit of tea leaf reading...but make of that what you will.

Let's hope the bombings take out some of our own home grown Jihadists who have gone over there to fight with IS.

Regards

Doom

Parliament set to be recalled this Friday to debate/agree air strikes.

Some time back, didn't Assad say that the rebels he was fighting, were terrorists?

 

While our media gave the impression they were freedom fighters trying to overthrow a corrupt government, and that Assad calling them terrorists, was just his propaganda machine doing it's thing?

 

If that wasn't the case, were we being deceived then? Or now?

This, except for the final question, we have in fact been deceived regarding this for a hell of a long time, this is just the next chapter. Gotta find reasons to spend on arms anyway, so oil and terrorists is a good toxic mix to use.

The Middle East is an absolute cesspit of deranged religiously inspired nut cases. It has been this way since the Romans left.

They are totally incapable of governing themselves. We should secure the oilfields until they are dry, leaving them to knock each other off as they see fit.

Let's hope the bombings take out some of our own home grown Jihadists who have gone over there to fight with IS.

 

Regards

 

Doom

As most of our home grown jihadists will be from Pakistani backgrounds how do they decide which side they want to die for? I heard say that up to 3000 British Muslims were fighting for IS. Would there be a similar number fighting against them?

As most of our home grown jihadists will be from Pakistani backgrounds how do they decide which side they want to die for? I heard say that up to 3000 British Muslims were fighting for IS. Would there be a similar number fighting against them?

Wrong actually, most are of Arab descent......