Further signs that Islamic State/ISIS are a thoroughly bad lot..

Didn't say that, did I?

There was obviously a hat tip towards hyperbole in Chris_Sleeps's reply, but it hints towards some truth.

It could be argued that years of this "western interference and our greed" nonsense has paid off as far as ISIS is concerned. There is not now one major or middle ranking western country that would willingly propose the kind of military action against ISIS that would defeat it.

Not only that, but it also feeds the grievance narrative and identity politics which results in people going to fight for ISIS.

The need to stop ISIS has got to be the best reason since Vietnam to bring back carpet-bombing by B52's in parts of Syria and Iraq, providing that Isis occupied areas evacuated by civilians are targeted..... there again, it was NEVER a sensible idea in Vietnam, as the Viet Cong were a tremenndously popular movement fighting for the common people whereas ISIS are most definitely a modern Middle-Eastern reincarnation of the Nazi Party with exactly the same agenda of genocide, dictatorship, oppression, cultural destruction and general barbarism....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Vietnam war was fought with a different view from two sides. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were the Domino Theory advocates who believed that if South Vietnam fell to the Communist North then Cambodia and Laos and quite possibly the rest of the South East Asia countries would follow suit.

The North Vietnamese on the other hand were nationalists first and Communists second. After a couple of centuries under colonial rule and seeing the white man get his rear end kicked hard by the Japanese earlier on Ho Chi Minh knew that the European could be beaten in a long drawn out war if the sacrifices were ready to be made. He also knew that the Catholic rulers of South Vietnam were completely disconnected from the great majority South Vietnamese peasantry.

The VC and the NVA weren't overwhelmingly popular either. They committed atrocities against the rural villagers that rivaled the Nazis in every way. For whatever reasons they had the media and the US leaders chose not to show photographs of these atrocities on the evening news. It was a mistake because if they had then it would have knocked the wind out of the Marxist orientated intellectuals and university professors who brainwashed the students that the horrors of that war were all America's doing. It was probably the first war that was largely won and lost through the use of the media.

When Walter Cronkite went to Vietnam after the Tet offensive and declared later on in his news hour that the war was unwinnable Johnson just about decided to throw in the towel and not run for a second term. Quite incredible !

No, there should be no carpet bombing of ISIS and neither should US policy necessarily be focused on ridding the region of that group. Policy should only be centered around US interests and if those interests are not affected then the iSIS problem should be left for the Arab States and Iran alone to solve.

the iSIS problem should be left for the Arab States and Iran alone to solve.

And have the Arab states ever recently solved any inter-State or intra-State disputes peaceably?

And have the Arab states ever recently solved any inter-State or intra-State disputes peaceably?

No they have not but neither have we helped in our meddling. The Iraqi army has proved itself ineffective against ISIS so now the Shi'ite Militias have been drafted to help fight ISIS. If they fail then it will be up to Iran to deal with them

I hate to think that the US under whoever is elected president in 2016 will end up having to send thousands of boots on the ground to that part of the world once more. Obama certainly wont for the remainder of his term

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Would France, Germany and Britain agree to send troops in support in the event that a future President decided to do so? Far from sure on that

In the end if ISIS do prevail then we would just have to make an accommodation with them of some sort