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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: IS have turned me into a hawk
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Tyler Durden
Shipmate
# 2996
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Posted
In an ideal world, I'd be a pacifist. And theologically I feel I should be. But I guess I sort of accept Just War theory when confronted with either Nazism or indeed the so-called Islamic State. And to be blunt, at this moment, the truth is I'd be quite happy for the SAS (UK special forces) and their US counterparts to just go in and take them all out. Or would I?
Militarily, is it even doable or would it be another Vietnam/Afghanistan?
And theologically, does violence ALWAYS beget more violence? But what's the alternative?
[ 08. January 2015, 14:38: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Have you ever noticed that anyone driving slower than you is a moron, while anyone driving faster is a maniac? Jerry Seinfeld
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I must admit I have felt that my pacifism is wearing a bit thin - I don't know why more so with this than with the militia wandering round Congo doing similar things.
And I'm thinking it would be very easy for people to disguise themselves in IS gear and work their way in and then do the sort of thing special forces did on the Falklands - which I was not happy about, the other side being conscripts with no choice about being there. Like Richard Hannay's Greenmantle. Easy to look like them, not so easy to sound like them, of course. And once it has been done once, then it could not be repeated, and the British jihadis would not be given the opportunity to change their minds and repent, as they would become suspect and be dealt with by the war hardened Chechens and Moroccans.
I gather from the paper that some among the Iraqis do not regard the outlanders as the brothers that Islam teaches.
With my tinfoil hat on, isn't it convenient for other world events that people radiacalised by Putin have taken over the headlines?
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
I've always been capable of a hawkish position, but this is the first war since the Gulf in which I agree with Western involvement.
Faced with a violent foe, it's not a question of whether there'll be violence. There'll be violence regardless. It's a question of whether force can make things better. Given ISIS's chaotic barbarism, it can scarcely make things worse.
[ 03. September 2014, 20:37: Message edited by: Byron ]
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Another 2000 years then.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I must admit I have felt that my pacifism is wearing a bit thin - I don't know why more so with this than with the militia wandering round Congo doing similar things. [...]
Perhaps 'cause this situation's a lot more clear-cut than the Congo morass?
Speaking of Africa, the international community is still haunted by its failure to end the Rwandan genocide. Inaction in the name of pacifism might be more principled, but the result would be the same. These chilling words of Mohandas Gandhi stand testament to the evil of absolutes:-
quote:
The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Possibly because it's easier to find them, as well. I notice that the maps in the paper show how thinly spread out they are along the lines of communication. Presumably something could be done with cutting their supply routes and knocking out their gear. And presumably they are concerned about that, hence the executions and threats.
I don't know why I have a part of my brain that gets interested in that sort of thing...
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
I completely empathise. Ferguson has had this effect on me too, actually - it seems to me that not everyone has the privilege to be able to be a pacifist. Resisting an oppressive force does seem to require violence at least sometimes.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I completely empathise. Ferguson has had this effect on me too, actually - it seems to me that not everyone has the privilege to be able to be a pacifist. Resisting an oppressive force does seem to require violence at least sometimes.
It's undoubtedly easier to be an armchair pacifist, but plenty have put the philosophy to the test. Pacifism in the face of violence is heroic. My belief that pacifism's wrong is combined with a deep respect for those with the guts to live it out.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Theologically the alternative is peace. Only, always, ever peace. Peace conquered the Roman Empire. Peace gave India independence. Peace gave southern blacks their civil rights.
It's easy to give up. To never grasp. To loosen one's grip. I did in the face of the IS two weeks ago.
Coming in half way in to the movies of Hitler and Rwanda and saying that peace has failed when it hasn't been tried in the slightest by the massive nominal Christian majorities in those situations and therefore we must resort to war is ... theologically absurd.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
I do wonder sometimes if Jesus truly had the wherewithal to create an uprising. I'm sure he would have garnered more disciples who felt that what he was asking was not a hard thing. Giving in to that temptation would have had a very different result for the world, but I guess the very fact that I couch it in terms of a 'temptation' reveals where I stand. I find it somewhat difficult to dismiss pacifism when the person I follow demonstrated it emphatically right to the end. I honestly don't think I could do it, but the calling is a hard thing.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Theologically the alternative is peace. Only, always, ever peace. Peace conquered the Roman Empire. Peace gave India independence. Peace gave southern blacks their civil rights.
It's easy to give up. To never grasp. To loosen one's grip. I did in the face of the IS two weeks ago.
Coming in half way in to the movies of Hitler and Rwanda and saying that peace has failed when it hasn't been tried in the slightest by the massive nominal Christian majorities in those situations and therefore we must resort to war is ... theologically absurd.
If that theology's anything like Gandhi's, with all due respect, screw it.
In any case, Jesus was a technical pacifist at most. He thought Adonai was about to call in an airstrike, smite his enemies, and set up heaven on earth. Peace out? Hardly.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
aye fletch
And yes Byron, it is so easy to stay in the same armchair and flip from warrior to pacifist. And no I'm not being funny at all.
But like fletch, Jesus stares me down, in the face of Hitler, Rwanda, IS. I want to hear Francis speak more clearly on this. I want to hear a powerful, open, honest Christian witness on it. I fear that even Francis cannot do this. That he has also lost his grip. Which is INFINITELY understandable.
I DON'T want to beat US up any more. We Christians in the main aren't very Christian when it comes down to it in this regard. And it cannot be our deliberate fault. Our successes are lights in our vast helpless, feckless, innocent darkness.
Come Lord Jesus.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
It was OK for Ghandi- he was up against the British Empire, not Hitler, Stalin, etc.....
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I'm having trouble understanding IS/ISIS and Israel, Guantanamo and Guatemala, Ukraine and USA. And have Pogo tumbling from my brains: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us, or to quote Kelly "Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly."
The strategic plans of nation states ignore the fate of the individuals. And are brutal and cruel. Is beheading worse than collateral damage bombs or starvation due to sanctions?
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
What sets ISIS apart is their genocidal ideology, which the decapitations illustrate to bloody effect.
Collateral killings are tragic, but there's a crucial difference in the intent of the people responsible.
You can't negotiate with zealots like ISIS. There's a straight choice: fight, or surrender.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Byron, Jesus was a man of His culture. He transcended it like no other could, but could not transcend its myths of redemptive violence in His words, His public discourse, even if He somehow did in His feeling and thinking. But He did by His actions.
And no, I am not advocating supine acquiescence. We must be clever, subtle, subversive like He was, like His followers were in the very main for the first three hundred years, like Martin Luther King was.
Kwesi - Hitler and Stalin were forged in Christianity's inevitable failure, the failure to be peaceful. They happened, like Rwanda in the vacuum of Christianity, that is Christianity.
And I know Lamb Chopped and Beeswax Altar for two will be depressed by my saying that.
Come Lord Jesus.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
Hitler and Stalin were forged by fanatical ideology and mental defect, and came to power due to historical circumstance.
The world was, I think, better off for toppling Hilter's regime with violence. It would've been better still had the CCCP been strangled at birth.
Violence might not be redemptive, but it can sure be effective.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Their historical circumstance was the vacuum in Christianity.
Justin Welby agrees with you. Francis is sitting on the fence for weeks now.
So, Jesus doesn't come then. He can't. We don't want Him to. May be in another two thousand years.
Time was Byron I'd have regarded you from the comfort of my armchair as half hearted.
[ 03. September 2014, 22:26: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
Gladly half-hearted when it comes to violence! If it can be avoided, it should be.
Ironically, the early church only emerged from the shadows when it converted a warlord. Without Constantine, I suspect that Christianity, and its message, would've vanished into the mists of history.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
You're a better man than I was at least Byron.
And yes, Christianity was defeated by becoming the establishment for 1700 years.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
You can't negotiate with zealots like ISIS. There's a straight choice: fight, or surrender.
You're forgetting 'leave'. Thousands haven't, and are starting new lives in other countries.
We need to welcome them, no matter how many of them there are. They're the ones who have rejected the IS, and are peaceable people.
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Forward the New Republic
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tyler Durden:
In an ideal world, I'd be a pacifist. And theologically I feel I should be. But I guess I sort of accept Just War theory when confronted with either Nazism or indeed the so-called Islamic State. And to be blunt, at this moment, the truth is I'd be quite happy for the SAS (UK special forces) and their US counterparts to just go in and take them all out. Or would I?
Militarily, is it even doable or would it be another Vietnam/Afghanistan?
And theologically, does violence ALWAYS beget more violence? But what's the alternative?
Would you be happy to go in and take out all the Sunni tribes, currently supporting IS? I think that would be a real bloodbath, and could spark off even more violence.
It seems to me that at the moment, Western tactics are to help those Iraqui troops, Kurdish peshmerga, and Shia militia, who are prepared to fight IS. There is no guarantee, of course, but you are helping local forces against IS.
To send in Western troops against the Sunni tribes would be hazardous, I feel.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
It was OK for Ghandi- he was up against the British Empire, not Hitler, Stalin, etc.....
The British Empire that invented the concentration camp, you mean?
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
What sets ISIS apart is their genocidal ideology, which the decapitations illustrate to bloody effect.
Collateral killings are tragic, but there's a crucial difference in the intent of the people responsible.
You can't negotiate with zealots like ISIS. There's a straight choice: fight, or surrender.
You have stated the commonality among them all. It is just a matter of degree. Not saying I want to live under IS, and not denying I personally don't benefit from the system we have, but it is all blood soaked. I'm also not content to say that intent is a crucial difference if the end result is dead people. The dead people aspect makes it all similar.
The stupidity and lack of intelligence among intelligence agencies who apparently collect all the wrong data is astounding in their stupidity.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
I recall a cartoon from the time that the US was preparing to invade Haiti. Uncle Sam, with the crooked smile of an unabashed huckster on his face, is holding up a sign that read "We must invade_______to support democracy and human rights." The blank space is a hole in the sign, behind which is a wheel that can be turned to place the name of whatever country in the space. Grenada, Panama, Haiti, etc.
I guess the well-meaning western liberal version of the sign is "______ has made me a hawk."
Like I said before: Just walk away from this, folks. The results will be, at the very least, no worse than if you intervene.
[ 03. September 2014, 23:19: Message edited by: Stetson ]
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
Tyler Durden quote:
In an ideal world, I'd be a pacifist.
The point, of course, is that neither you nor I live in an ideal world. Our problem as Christians is how to live in it knowing that we are forced to make all sorts of choices across a whole spectrum of social activity that fall short of the ideal, and that it is often difficult to reconcile ideal principles, as Reinhold Niebuhr discussed in Moral Man and Immoral Society, where he pointed out that injustice was the price of peace and conflict was the price of justice.
Tyler Durden quote:
And theologically, does violence ALWAYS beget more violence?
I can't answer you theologically, but violence if it restrains the violent can produce more peace than if it had not been exercised. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Anyone who has been turned into a hawk by events in the Middle East (assuming that, I have not misunderstood and we are not actually discussing an obscure form of lycanthropy) is subject to Talleyrand's verdict on the Bourbons: They have forgotten nothing and they have learned nothing.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I have two children who are officers in the US Army. So my chief desire is for wisdom. Nay, cunning. I want a national leader who is as cunning as a fox, whose spine you can use to draw corks out of wine bottles. Who will expend resources and pour out blood only in the most clever and effective way.
George W. Bush appalled me. Purely on his ability to nail Osama bin Laden, Obama has my approval. My daughter was gunning for Osama, and I am very glad the Navy Seals got there first.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
I guess the well-meaning western liberal version of the sign is "______ has made me a hawk."
And it's too close to "I'm not a racist, but".
(thanks for the cue, Stetson)
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
I'm not a pacifist and I believe in Just War--and I don't think it conflicts with my faith as a Christian.
But I also believe, as the Wicked Witch of the West said (and, I think rightly), "These things have to be done delicately." I believe that whatever is done has to be done with an eye toward protecting the innocents (and victims) of ISIS in the region, toward not destabilizing things more, toward working with others rather than going in like -- well, like Bush did, bluntly -- and, after the ghastly mess the US was responsible for that made all of this possible, in as moral and ethical and Geneva-Conventional as humanly possible. No more F-ing waterboarding, no twilight zone holding people without trial, none of that bad guy crap we got dragged into. Over the whole Bush War mess needs to be written, not "Mission Accomplished," but "NEVER AGAIN."
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
But I also believe, as the Wicked Witch of the West said (and, I think rightly), "These things have to be done delicately."
Name one war which has been conducted delicately.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Tyler, in an ideal world you wouldn't need to be a pacifist.
My grammar school chemistry teacher was a pacifist in WW2. I always vastly admired him. Because he joined a unit with the highest casualty rate of all. Bomb disposal.
That's Christian pacifism - where the pacifism is also superfluous, should go without saying - in action. That's ideal Christianity.
For 1700 years we've had Babylonian, compromised, confused Christianity. So much so that we can justify war.
How, in Christ's name, can we do that?
Justify peace.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
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Posted
I have not turned into a hawk.
I find my theology/spiritual resources/ideology unable to cope with the reality with which IS presents me.
Is "I don't know" an acceptable answer (at least temporarily).
I don't have to know or organise a response - do I?
Sometimes I scream it, sometimes I whisper it, sometimes I can't even speak...
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She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I'm just rereading Geoffrey Ashe on the collapse of Rome in Britain. Not exactly ended by peace. Not at all.
Well done chemistry teacher. That's what my Dad aimed for, but somehow got washed up on the shores of managing pay and rail warrants after clearing bombed heaps of rubble.
I still abjure Hartley products because the MD wouldn't let the Pioneer Corps who were clearing his factory eat with the workers in the canteen because he had a conscientious objection to conscientious objectors. (Apparently. There may have been another reason he didn't want to have talked about, which my Dad did not know about. I know he didn't know about it because he could sing the Boys Brigade song about marmalade.)
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
But I also believe, as the Wicked Witch of the West said (and, I think rightly), "These things have to be done delicately."
Name one war which has been conducted delicately.
Delicately no, but some have been conducted more carefully than others.
Penny S: as far as your Dad is concerned, clearing bombed out and ruined buildings is itself hazardous.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Aye, good men often do the bad thing well.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
The British Empire that invented the concentration camp, you mean?
In the British concentration camps, people were not tortured, starved, or killed. They were simply confined.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
The British Empire that invented the concentration camp, you mean?
In the British concentration camps, people were not tortured, starved, or killed. They were simply confined.
Moo
You may be correct about the first and last on your list, but probably incorrect on starvation. No summer camp them. Link to wikipedia article on Boer War, concentration camps segment: "By August 1901, it was clear to government and opposition ... worst fears were being confirmed – 93,940 Boers and 24,457 black Africans were reported to be in "camps of refuge" and the crisis was becoming a catastrophe as the death rates appeared very high, especially among the children."
Again, though, death = death.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
In the Kenyan camps in the 1950s, some prisoners were castrated.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Jade Constable:
I completely empathise. Ferguson has had this effect on me too, actually - it seems to me that not everyone has the privilege to be able to be a pacifist. Resisting an oppressive force does seem to require violence at least sometimes.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Yeah, many Americans are horrified at all the beheadings in Missouri. What are we, French? Decapitations are so un-American.
quote:
originally posted by Martin:
Theologically the alternative is peace. Only, always, ever peace. Peace conquered the Roman Empire. Peace gave India independence. Peace gave southern blacks their civil rights.
Actually, Germanic tribes conquered the Western Empire and the Turks conquered the Byzantine Empire. Neither used nonviolent means. Did you mean Christianity conquered the Roman Empire through pacifism? Well, persecution only stopped when Christianity became the religion of the empire and the Roman Empire became Christendom. Normally, you rant against Christendom but apparently here it is a good thing. I suppose that's only a problem if you are troubled by incoherence.
Peace led to civil rights for African-Americans? Let me give you a brief history lesson, Martin. In 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the Supreme Court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and the doctrine of separate but equal paving the way for the integration of previously segregated schools. The first attempt at integration took place in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. Here is a picture of that peaceful event.
Peace liberated India? Peace and the UK deciding after two world wars that it neither could nor wanted to maintain an empire liberated India. Peace will defeat ISIS when ISIS becomes tired of fighting wars. Unfortunately, the only way ISIS can grow tired of fighting wars is if they have to fight wars.
quote:
originally posted by Martin:
And I know Lamb Chopped and Beeswax Altar for two will be depressed by my saying that.
LC maybe. Baseless assertions continually repeated don't depress me. At worst, said assertions annoy me.
quote:
originally posted by Jade Constable:
The British Empire that invented the concentration camp, you mean?
I know, right. Tragic how the British Empire systematically killed millions of Boers. Hard to believe they managed to maintain power in South Africa for nearly a 100 years after the Boer Wars.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
A neat and intelligent and delicate military operation? How about the eradication of Osama bin Laden? That was about as tight as one could hope for.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Let's turn it around: if we stand by and do nothing, being possessed of the means to prevent or at least mitigate atrocities, to what extent are we joined in culpability for the deaths at the hands of IS, Congolese militias, etc?
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
A neat and intelligent and delicate military operation? How about the eradication of Osama bin Laden? That was about as tight as one could hope for.
Tight, swift and effective. Also entailed entering a supposed ally's airspace without notifying them and dumping Bin Laden at sea so he couldn't have a proper burial.
It doesn't score very highly on intelligence and delicacy.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Let's turn it around: if we stand by and do nothing, being possessed of the means to prevent or at least mitigate atrocities, to what extent are we joined in culpability for the deaths at the hands of IS, Congolese militias, etc?
Let's consider that seriously. Taking a longer term view, beyond each individual case (ie fighting the war not the battle of the week), what good would intervention do? I'm sure some could be justified but there's a lot being done that is akin to poking a bear.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
It depends on what you mean by 'do something'. If Western forces were to invade Iraq and Syria, in order to remove IS, I think that could produce blowback. In fact, it could be a disaster.
As far as I can see, Obama is finding a middle ground, by helping those who want to fight IS on the ground, e.g. Iraqui army units, Kurdish fighters, Shia militia, and so on.
If these forces are inadequate, think again.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Byron
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# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
You can't negotiate with zealots like ISIS. There's a straight choice: fight, or surrender.
You're forgetting 'leave'. Thousands haven't, and are starting new lives in other countries.
We need to welcome them, no matter how many of them there are. They're the ones who have rejected the IS, and are peaceable people.
Totally agree about offering refuge.
"Leave" is a type of surrender. I don't blame the refugees at all: surrender is wholly justified if meaningful resistance isn't an option.
Equation's different when governments have the ability to fight, but choose not to.
Posts: 1112 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Byron
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# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It depends on what you mean by 'do something'. If Western forces were to invade Iraq and Syria, in order to remove IS, I think that could produce blowback. In fact, it could be a disaster.
As far as I can see, Obama is finding a middle ground, by helping those who want to fight IS on the ground, e.g. Iraqui army units, Kurdish fighters, Shia militia, and so on.
If these forces are inadequate, think again.
Arming the Peshmerga to the teeth does seem the best policy on the ground. Even Germany recently voted to flood them with arms.
The downside, of course, is the risk of destabilization, but that's a lesser evil, at worst. The Kurds don't want to conquer Iraq; they want a country, which they already have de facto.
It may be that the international community needs to deploy troops as backup. If that happens, I hope the U.N. can finally prove useful, and rubber-stamp any deployment. If it can't authorize force in this situation, it truly is a dead letter.
Posts: 1112 | Registered: Mar 2010
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Incidentally, I mentioned on the other thread, that while you can't negotiate with IS, you can with those tribes which are supporting them at the moment, and I would be amazed if this is not happening right now, offering inducements and whatnot to tribal leaders to ditch IS, and help build Iraq - that is code for 'we will offer you millions of dollars, you will have your own oil-wells, and Maliki is yesterday's poison'. Whether or not this will succeed, who knows? But who would have believed that Sunni tribal leaders would fight AQ - but some of them did.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Let's turn it around: if we stand by and do nothing, being possessed of the means to prevent or at least mitigate atrocities , to what extent are we joined in culpability for the deaths at the hands of IS, Congolese militias, etc?
It's that bolded part I'm skeptical about. We might have the means to prevent a particular round of atrocities, but in the long run, I don't think anything we can do is gonna prevent further atrocities, and may very well aggravate those that do occur.
Basically, the position of the west in all this is like a man watching some maniac across the street getting ready to hack up an entire family he's got tied up on their front lawn.
MANIAC: This is payback for your uncle hacking up my family five years ago!!
FATHER: Oh yeah? Well that was nothing compared to what we're gonna do to your family after that guy across the street comes to our rescue! You better hope they make coffins in baby-size!
To make things more parallel to real life, let's say that one or several of the whackjobs involved in this blood-feud have at one time or another been on the paytoll of the Guy Across The Street, doing dirty work around the neighbourhood for him. Rumour has it that the killing of the uncle was connected to some of these operations.
So, with that scenario, is there really any good that ls likely to result from The Guy Across The Street coming to the rescue? Even assuming(and it's a pretty huge leap of faith) that his motivations this time around are pure as the driven snow, the only likely thing he'll do is set the stage for the next round of atrocities.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
I am not pretending I know the solution. But a large part of the cause is Western military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. This has been a major source of fuel in the growth of ISIS. Doing nothing will, at this point, serve to strengthen them. At least temporarily.
Anyone who thinks the situation is easy or clear is a fool. Thank you once again, Mr. Bush.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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