ISIS

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**LordofHats**

Then maybe you should be more careful with your wording, because the way you wrote it out like this;

Iron_Captain wrote:
Has the US military done anything like that in Syria? No. US soldiers don't risk their lifes like that, they stay safely far from the warzone.

Makes it seem like your jumping to wildly inaccurate conclusions in a vain attempt to pretend that having boots on the ground doing good things somehow excuses boots on the ground also doing bad things, and that you can shift blame by decrying X for not doing good things to (while making insulting generalized statements). It's almost like a fallacy of some kind...

**jhe90**

Russia have been taking a big role in leading the counter attack.

In places they where dropping thermobaric bombs and other nasty ordinance. To there credit they are getting the job done

**Iron_Captain**

LordofHats wrote:
Then maybe you should be more careful with your wording, because the way you wrote it out like this;

Iron_Captain wrote:
Has the US military done anything like that in Syria? No. US soldiers don't risk their lifes like that, they stay safely far from the warzone.

Makes it seem like your jumping to wildly inaccurate conclusions in a vain attempt to pretend that having boots on the ground doing good things somehow excuses boots on the ground also doing bad things, and that you can shift blame by decrying X for not doing good things to (while making insulting generalized statements). It's almost like a fallacy of some kind...

I am not excusing or blaming anyone, sorry if it seems like that. Killing innocent civilians is always bad, no matter what. My previous post was not trying to give a judgement about the US/Russia at all, I am merely observing the differences between nations. It is understandable, sensible even that not everyone is so willing to put themselves at needless risk for heroic deeds.

Nonetheless, wouldn't you agree that in general, while good deeds don't excuse bad ones, someone doing both good and bad deeds is a better person than the one just doing bad deeds?

**LordofHats**

Iron_Captain wrote:

Nonetheless, wouldn't you agree that in general, while good deeds don't excuse bad ones, someone doing both good and bad deeds is a better person than the one just doing bad deeds?

I think doing good deeds is good, and acknowledging bad deeds and not pretending that other good deeds forgive them is also good. A good deed does not forgive a bad deed anymore than a bad deed negates a good deed. A specific criticism that something bad is not hand waved away by by pointing something that's good, nor does saying that someone else isn't doing anything at all. It doesn't lend a basis to broad statements about people's courage. Lots of soldiers in the US probably think we should do something more than we're doing, but better or worse the current administration seems bent on being as hands off as it can manage about ISIS. Soldiers don't get to make that decision (not in the US anyway...).

EDIT: There's also probably credence to the idea that ISIS is a no win scenario. If the purpose of defeating them is to restore stability and "not mass murdering" everyone in sight to the region, the current situation seems self defeating. We have a dictator on on side who was using chemical gas en masse on civilians, a quasi-dictator on the other who probably would if he could and has masterfully manipulated the crisis to increase his own power, another country that wasn't exactly stable before the crisis, and a mass arming of a quasi-state group that I think is undoubtedly going to start their own war sooner or later. What is right (i.e. good), about the entire situation? I'm not sure the US is really wrong for being hands off anymore.

**BaronIveagh**

Freakazoitt wrote:
Oh, just bomb them and that's all. You left a lot of unfinished work in Iraq

So did Hulagu Khan, despite putting most of Iraq, particularly the entire city of Baghdad, to the sword, as well as diverting and damming rivers, destroying canals, and generally creating the dusty arid Iraq we know today.

**Vaktathi**

Indeed, agricultural production only returned to pre-Mongol levels in the last half century or so, potentially still not having fully recovered according to some sources. The Mongols almost totally obliterated civilization (and most of the population) in much of the middle east.

**Freakazoitt**

BaronIveagh wrote:
Freakazoitt wrote:
Oh, just bomb them and that's all. You left a lot of unfinished work in Iraq

So did Hulagu Khan, despite putting most of Iraq, particularly the entire city of Baghdad, to the sword, as well as diverting and damming rivers, destroying canals, and generally creating the dusty arid Iraq we know today.

Finish off ISIS and then all can be rebuilded. If Russia will bomb IS in Syria, USA will bomb them in Iraq...

**BaronIveagh**

Freakazoitt wrote:

Finish off ISIS and then all can be rebuilded. If Russia will bomb IS in Syria, USA will bomb them in Iraq...

*sigh* I'm really surprised I have to explain this to someone so radically Russian.

What you have to defeat is their Ideology.

Trying to defeat ISIS in the field is like playing whack a mole. Smash them one place, two more pop up someplace else. All Russia and the US are doing right now is feeding various propaganda machines.

**jhe90**

BaronIveagh wrote:
Freakazoitt wrote:

Finish off ISIS and then all can be rebuilded. If Russia will bomb IS in Syria, USA will bomb them in Iraq...

*sigh* I'm really surprised I have to explain this to someone so radically Russian.

What you have to defeat is their Ideology.

Trying to defeat ISIS in the field is like playing whack a mole. Smash them one place, two more pop up someplace else. All Russia and the US are doing right now is feeding various propaganda machines.

And Europe is frontline, we have them popping up every damn week.
Something has to end.

Why should people doe because of these backward lunatics...

Even beaten as a idea. They need ending on the battlefield also.

**AlmightyWalrus**

jhe90 wrote:
BaronIveagh wrote:
Freakazoitt wrote:

Finish off ISIS and then all can be rebuilded. If Russia will bomb IS in Syria, USA will bomb them in Iraq...

*sigh* I'm really surprised I have to explain this to someone so radically Russian.

What you have to defeat is their Ideology.

Trying to defeat ISIS in the field is like playing whack a mole. Smash them one place, two more pop up someplace else. All Russia and the US are doing right now is feeding various propaganda machines.

And Europe is frontline, we have them popping up every damn week.

I'm pretty sure Syria and Iraq are the frontlines.

**jhe90**

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
jhe90 wrote:
BaronIveagh wrote:
Freakazoitt wrote:

Finish off ISIS and then all can be rebuilded. If Russia will bomb IS in Syria, USA will bomb them in Iraq...

*sigh* I'm really surprised I have to explain this to someone so radically Russian.

What you have to defeat is their Ideology.

Trying to defeat ISIS in the field is like playing whack a mole. Smash them one place, two more pop up someplace else. All Russia and the US are doing right now is feeding various propaganda machines.

And Europe is frontline, we have them popping up every damn week.

I'm pretty sure Syria and Iraq are the frontlines.

Weekly attacks near on.
Armed police and soldiers making regular city patrols.
UK training more armed Police units, France state of emergency,

Yeah, we are basiacly running on not if but when we get hit again...

**Yaraton**

The last time jokes about Russians deliberately killing civilians were funny when Hitler was alive and well. If you seriously believe in that crap posted by one-man operation called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights from his home in London there is something wrong with you mentally or you just a big fan Dr. Goebbels' speeches about subhuman races.

===========================================================

Amnesty in wartime

https://www.rt.com/shows/documentary/354592-amnesty-syria-army-wartime/

**SomeRandomEvilGuy**

BaronIveagh wrote:
Well, yeah. To paraphrase the Little Red Book, the terrorist is the fish, the people the water. If you kill all the regular people, there's no one to hide the terrorists from you.

Gas the area, anyone who dies obviously was either a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer. It's the great thing about chemical weapons and civilians. There's usually no one left to protest the innocence of the dead.

Remember, Russia's terror policy has been and probably always will be 'shoot through the hostages' even when they're fellow Russians.

Except the fish is killing the water itself. I highly doubt Russia is trying to exterminate the entire population. Evidence being; they haven't been killing everyone they can.

You what's great? How easy it is to just take a weapon from a dead fighter and say he was a civilian. Nice and easy propaganda.

Russia has been doing more good in Syria than the West has.

**Vaktathi**

Yaraton wrote:
The last time jokes about Russians deliberately killing civilians were funny when Hitler was alive and well. If you seriously believe in that crap posted by one-man operation called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights from his home in London there is something wrong with you mentally or you just a big fan Dr. Goebbels' speeches about subhuman races.

===========================================================

Amnesty in wartime

https://www.rt.com/shows/documentary/354592-amnesty-syria-army-wartime/

If you're going to criticize a source in such...dramatic terms, and then link to a media outlet that's a directly owned and financed by the government that source was criticizing, a media outlet with a history of its own reporters quitting (on air) over its bias, don't expect many people to take it seriously.

**Freakazoitt**

BaronIveagh wrote:
Freakazoitt wrote:

Finish off ISIS and then all can be rebuilded. If Russia will bomb IS in Syria, USA will bomb them in Iraq...

*sigh* I'm really surprised I have to explain this to someone so radically Russian.

What you have to defeat is their Ideology.

Trying to defeat ISIS in the field is like playing whack a mole. Smash them one place, two more pop up someplace else. All Russia and the US are doing right now is feeding various propaganda machines.

Their "ideology" already defeated, because we all don't like that.

**Vaktathi**

Freakazoitt wrote:
BaronIveagh wrote:
Freakazoitt wrote:

Finish off ISIS and then all can be rebuilded. If Russia will bomb IS in Syria, USA will bomb them in Iraq...

*sigh* I'm really surprised I have to explain this to someone so radically Russian.

What you have to defeat is their Ideology.

Trying to defeat ISIS in the field is like playing whack a mole. Smash them one place, two more pop up someplace else. All Russia and the US are doing right now is feeding various propaganda machines.

Their "ideology" already defeated, because we all don't like that.

Honestly, you could wipe their ideology out and delete Islam from existence and youd have a similar group still exist because of the nature of the region.

A hundred years ago the region was ruled by Ottomans with something of an iron fist, which was then arbitrarily broken up by outside foreign powers along nonsensical border lines that paid no attention to the economic, ethnic and cultural realities on the ground. Once these powers left, the same borders remained under oppressive regimes, often with significant foreign domineering or support or attempts to tear them down. Under this artificial pressure cooker, it should have been obvious it would explode once the regimes in power were weakened or removed, and the region is attempting to finally organically reshape itself into a more coherent configuration, but because of the history its been driven to the most extreme methods of doing so. Every time one group is taken down, something nastier takes its place.

So, you could wipe out ISIS tomorrow to a man and obliterate their ideology, but the pressures that created them will continue to generate conflict, and until those are resolved violence and horror will continue.

**Yaraton**

Vaktathi wrote:
If you're going to criticize a source in such...dramatic terms, and then link to a media outlet that's a directly owned and financed by the government that source was criticizing, a media outlet with a history of its own reporters quitting (on air) over its bias, don't expect many people to take it seriously.

That "journalist" who quit her job on air hasn't been working in any capacity as a journalist ever since, instead going around the Globe with lectures for the specific audience about "bad, bad Russia" which makes the calls that it was a CIA mole job very plausible.

As for "independent" media, that thing doesn't exist. All media networks in US belong though the different corporate strictures to the Military complex. BBC is directly subsidized by the UK government, CBC is a Crown corporation of the Canadian government, ABC is owned by the Australian government, Al-Jazeera is financed by Qatar, etc.. Still this are broadcasting corporations and not some dude typing horse gak from his London clothing shop. If you see them all being equal, it's your personal problem. As for RT, they re-print a lot of materials from other news agencies.
=================================================================

Arab monarchies pour in funds to support terrorist militants in Aleppo – report

Militants in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo continue to receive help from foreign powers that support the forces opposing President Assad’s troops, the Financial Times reports. That’s despite Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists forming a large part of the opposition.

The militants encircled inside Aleppo allege they have no shortage of weapons and ammo, having been supplied by “tens of trucks” from Turkey, the FT reports, citing an activist working on both sides of the border.

Regional powers such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar are paying for weapons and supplies being delivered into rebel-controlled areas of Syria, turning a blind eye to some of the militants’ terrorist affiliations. “The Americans, of course, knew what was going on. They ignored it to put some pressure back on Russia and Iran,” the FT quotes a Western diplomat in contact with the opposition as saying.

https://www.rt.com/news/355205-aleppo-terrorists-humanitarian-crisis/

**AlmightyWalrus**

Is this the part where we explain why "no media is unbiased, so they're all equally biased!" is an awful argument and it just gets ignored again?

**Vaktathi**

As noted, there's a difference between an organization being established, owned, and operated by a government and commenting on issues that government is directly involved in, and media sources that you have to connect through an Illuminati-style web to vaguely defined "complexes" that operate as much against their governments as for them.

Sure, everything has its bias, and there's lots of situation where you can call BS on all sorts of media outlets (I wouldn't trust Fox News for most anything involving US Military actions for example), but lets also be real, RT isnt a source most people are going to trust (and has been banned or heavily restricted from large numbers of news aggregation sites for biased reporting and vote manipulation) on this issue for some good reasons. When all you have to fall back on for any criticism of RT is whataboutist conspiracy connections or practically pre-conditioned auto-response copypasta "CIA" allegations (seriously...apparently the CIA is responsible for *everything*), it's hard to take seriously.

If you're going to call people Goebbels fans for citing one source and then turn around and cite RT, thats not going to be something that's going to sway peoples minds. Tone down the rhetoric and pull a source that's less directly involved and you'll get better responses.

**Iron_Captain**

Vaktathi wrote:
As noted, there's a difference between an organization being established, owned, and operated by a government and commenting on issues that government is directly involved in, and media sources that you have to connect through an Illuminati-style web to vaguely defined "complexes" that operate as much against their governments as for them.

Sure, everything has its bias, and there's lots of situation where you can call BS on all sorts of media outlets (I wouldn't trust Fox News for most anything involving US Military actions for example), but lets also be real, RT isnt a source most people are going to trust (and has been banned or heavily restricted from large numbers of news aggregation sites for biased reporting and vote manipulation) on this issue for some good reasons. When all you have to fall back on for any criticism of RT is whataboutist conspiracy connections or practically pre-conditioned auto-response copypasta "CIA" allegations (seriously...apparently the CIA is responsible for *everything*), it's hard to take seriously.

If you're going to call people Goebbels fans for citing one source and then turn around and cite RT, thats not going to be something that's going to sway peoples minds. Tone down the rhetoric and pull a source that's less directly involved and you'll get better responses.

Do you even read or watch RT? They really are pretty good and objective. Really, it is going to be hard to find a better Russian source than RT. Most privately-owned media in Russia is actually less trustworthy than government media (and that is true in the West as well, in most cases). Private media rarely is trustworthy because its owners virtually always have agendas and biases that are much harder to know than those of government media.
But really, when it is about a subject involving the Russian government, especially under Putin, you aren't going to be able to find any reliable objective sources. A source will either be pro-Russia (all Russian media) or anti-Russia (all Western media). RT in those cases is equally unreliable as the BBC or the NY Times for example. If there is any media source in existance that takes an objective middle ground, I have yet to see it.

**Vaktathi**

In some respects I'd agree RT does an admirable job, in others not so much. Yes, other sources also have bias issues, but arent as directly linked to the events either (the NYT is privately owned and is frequently critical of US military action). Being owned and funded by the state, under an organization claimed to be of strategic importance by the Russian state, is far less independent than other media, regardless of their bias (obviously excepting something like the BBC which would be fair to criticize similarly in many instances). The assumption that anything not Russian being obviously anti-Russian by default is also rather contentious.

Ultimately however, again, my point primarily was that if someone is going to sling the kind of mud being slung around above about Goebbels and whatnot when talking about the Syrian Human Rights thingy, and *then* cite RT in response without any disclaimer, that's going to be difficult for people to take with a straight face.

**BaronIveagh**

Yaraton wrote:
which makes the calls that it was a CIA mole job very plausible.

Yaraton, I hate to point this out, but at the rate that CIA Moles are blamed for things going wrong in Russia, the CIA must be the single largest employer in Russia.

**AlmightyWalrus**

Iron_Captain wrote:

But really, when it is about a subject involving the Russian government, especially under Putin, you aren't going to be able to find any reliable objective sources. A source will either be pro-Russia (all Russian media) or anti-Russia (all Western media). RT in those cases is equally unreliable as the BBC or the NY Times for example. If there is any media source in existance that takes an objective middle ground, I have yet to see it.

There are degrees of bias. The existence of bias in every form of media does not mean that every form of media is equally biased. You're once again assuming that all Western media (and all Russian too, for that matter) is a monolith; last time we had this debate you tried linking a paper that explicitly pointed out that Western media is not monolithic as supporting evidence to your claim that Western media is monolithic. There isn't going to be any point in having this debate until you recognize that different media actors have differing views, arguments, and degrees of honesty, and thus different levels of bias in different questions. Otherwise we'd have to assume that the Daily Mail is on the same level of journalistic integrity as Reuters, which is silly. In fact (and I believe I made this point last time we had this discussion as well), I'd probably trust RT over the Daily Mail.

**motyak**

Yaraton wrote:
ABC is owned by the Australian government

This is the...well I was going to say this is the point I know you have no idea what you're talking about/are making overly simplistic comments because you can't/don't want to understand, but really that was a while ago. The ABC and the Australian government hardly have a harmonious relationship, especially the last/current gov. I can't speak to the others since I've never really looked into the BBC's relationship with their government, but I can say for certainty your point is foolish when it comes to the ABC and Aus gov.

**Yaraton**

Vaktathi wrote:

If you're going to call people Goebbels fans for citing one source and then turn around and cite RT, thats not going to be something that's going to sway peoples minds. Tone down the rhetoric and pull a source that's less directly involved and you'll get better responses.

You've totally missed the point. I haven't called people "Goebbels fans for citing one source" only that they use ONE source of dubious information the confirm their personal believe in subhuman Russians who deliberately kill civilians because... they are Russians. This is a Nazi type of view and it has been shown here before again and again, including the members of the Dakka Dakka staff who outright refuse to do anything about the posters who post derogatory names when referring to Russian citing a "jokey nature" rather than any bigotry.

motyak wrote:

This is the...well I was going to say this is the point I know you have no idea what you're talking about/are making overly simplistic comments because you can't/don't want to understand, but really that was a while ago. The ABC and the Australian government hardly have a harmonious relationship, especially the last/current gov. I can't speak to the others since I've never really looked into the BBC's relationship with their government, but I can say for certainty your point is foolish when it comes to the ABC and Aus gov.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australia's state-owned and funded national public broadcaster. The ABC plays a leading role in the history of broadcasting in Australia. With a total annual budget of A$1.22 billion,the corporation provides television, radio, online and mobile services throughout metropolitan and regional Australia, as well as overseas through the Australia Network and Radio Australia and is well regarded for quality and reliability as well as for offering educational and cultural programming that the commercial sector would be unlikely to supply on its own.

Founded in 1929 as the Australian Broadcasting Company, it was subsequently made a state-owned corporation on 1 July 1932 as the Australian Broadcasting Commission. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983[3] changed the name of the organisation to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, effective 1 July 1983. Although funded and owned by the government, the ABC remains editorially independent as ensured through the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Broadcasting_Corporation

Is it state-owned? Yes.
Does it publish multiple views when it comes to foreigner policy, say about Russia? No.
Is it critical of its own government when it comes to domestic policies? Irrelevant.

So, you were saying..?

**motyak**

I was saying you're arguing from an incredibly simplistic point of view, either from necessity or choice. And now I'm realising it's not worth engaging you on it, since arguing at that level isn't fruitful for actual discussion.

**Ashiraya**

jhe90 wrote:
Why should people doe because of these backward lunatics...

Even beaten as a idea. They need ending on the battlefield also.

I would like to highlight that making an ISIS-purge-via-battlefield operation is going to make a lot of non-ISIS die too, because it is often awfully hard to tell who is a civilian and who is an ISIS fanatic in hiding who will stab your back the moment you turn it.

So, there is a fair deal of irony in your claim.

**Yaraton**

‘Kill Russians and Iranians, threaten Assad,’ says ex-CIA chief backing Clinton

Former CIA deputy director Michael Morell, who supports Hillary Clinton and insists that Donald Trump is being manipulated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that Russians and Iranians in Syria should be killed covertly to “pay the price.”

The top CIA official, who twice served as the acting director of the agency, and worked with Clinton while she was secretary of state, told PBS host Charlie Rose that Iran and Russia should “pay a big price” in Syria – and by that he meant killing them.
“When we were in Iraq, the Iranians were giving weapons to the Shia militia who were killing American soldiers,” Morell said. “The Iranians were making us pay a price.”
“We need to make the Iranians pay a price in Syria, we need to make the Russians pay a price,” he continued.

When asked if that meant killing Russians and Iranians, Morell fully agreed, qualifying the answer with “covertly.”

“Tell the world about it, right?” he went on. “You don’t stand up at the Pentagon and say ‘we did this,’ but you make sure they know it in Moscow and Tehran.”
Referring to the US-backed rebels in Syria, Morell said he wanted Washington to support them in more aggressive actions, not only against Bashar Assad’s government, but against Iranians and Russians.

Morrell then went on a diatribe about how the US should “scare” Assad, including going after his national guard and “bombing his offices in the middle of the night.”

“I’m not advocating assassinating him, I’m advocating going after what he thinks is his power base and what he needs to survive. I want to put pressure on him, I want to put pressure on the Iranians, I want to put pressure on the Russians to come to that diplomatic settlement.”

https://www.rt.com/usa/355291-morrell-kill-russians-clinton/

Ahhh, so much freedom and democracy.

**AlmightyWalrus**

You're going to have to explain what that has to do with freedom and democracy.

**Iron_Captain**

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Iron_Captain wrote:

But really, when it is about a subject involving the Russian government, especially under Putin, you aren't going to be able to find any reliable objective sources. A source will either be pro-Russia (all Russian media) or anti-Russia (all Western media). RT in those cases is equally unreliable as the BBC or the NY Times for example. If there is any media source in existance that takes an objective middle ground, I have yet to see it.

There are degrees of bias. The existence of bias in every form of media does not mean that every form of media is equally biased. You're once again assuming that all Western media (and all Russian too, for that matter) is a monolith; last time we had this debate you tried linking a paper that explicitly pointed out that Western media is not monolithic as supporting evidence to your claim that Western media is monolithic. There isn't going to be any point in having this debate until you recognize that different media actors have differing views, arguments, and degrees of honesty, and thus different levels of bias in different questions. Otherwise we'd have to assume that the Daily Mail is on the same level of journalistic integrity as Reuters, which is silly. In fact (and I believe I made this point last time we had this discussion as well), I'd probably trust RT over the Daily Mail.

I mostly agree with you. But when it is about Russia, the degrees of bias on both sides are the same. The West is the enemy of Russia, and every westerner has an inherent cultural-historic bias against Russians. What is written by a westerner about the Russian government is therefore just as unreliable as that what the Russian government writes about itself. Less even, because apart from biased, virtually all westerners are also very ignorant of Russia. The same is true for Western stories about the Middle-East. Because the West is so strongly islamophobic, those stories are usually going to have a very, very strong bias. There are exceptions of course, but exceptions prove the rule.

Furthermore, we are just going to have to agree to disagree. The West is a monolithic cultural-historic bloc. That doesn't mean it doesn't have internal differences, but it does mean that those internal differences are not very significant when measured against the differences that exist between the West and say, the Islamic or the Russian world. Of course, if you never leave the West and have never actually lived in a different civilisation, this is not something you are ever going to be able to see.