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 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
If this story is true (and I suspect that it's propaganda 101) then fair play to the guy for saving lives.

In all honesty, though, I am sick to the back teeth of hearing about the British military in the Middle East. We've had two hundred years of that gak.

High time we got the hell out.

Well, seeing as that the British are to a large degree responsible for the mess the Middle East is nowadays (where did the British not make a mess ), don't you think they should help in cleaning up?

Russia has played a big helping hand as well in turning the Middle East into a giant sinking gakhole...

Hell, due to both it's vast mineral & oil resources and geographical location as the main trade route linking west to east, pretty much every major country outside of the Americas (excluding the US of course!) and Australia have fought over and tried to control the Middle East at some point throughout history.

Experiment 626 wrote:


Russia has played a big helping hand as well in turning the Middle East into a giant sinking gakhole.

I wouldn't put that in the past tense. Putin propped up Assad long enough for the Syrian pot to stew. Had 'Arab Spring' completed its circle and and either a return to peace or a regime change occured in all the countries Islamic State would have been stillborn. The entire current gakstorm is an overspill from Syria, and would otherwise have been contained.

Relapse wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
It could well be true, ISIS are directly gunning for us and it will play well to the people if headchoppers are headcapped. I could see this being an authorised leak for national morale purposes.

Especially since revelations of an even more serious nature. Like this:

http://www.inquisitr.com/2319795/queen-elizabeth-terror-plot-isis-plan-to-assassinate-her-next-week/

What would be the repercussions of that? I am thinking things would get real ugly for terrorists.

Look at how Mountbatten's death in Ireland went.
Prince Charles' uncle and the Queen's cousin got blown up by the IRA ('terrorists').

 Skinnereal wrote:

Relapse wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
It could well be true, ISIS are directly gunning for us and it will play well to the people if headchoppers are headcapped. I could see this being an authorised leak for national morale purposes.

Especially since revelations of an even more serious nature. Like this:

http://www.inquisitr.com/2319795/queen-elizabeth-terror-plot-isis-plan-to-assassinate-her-next-week/

What would be the repercussions of that? I am thinking things would get real ugly for terrorists.

Look at how Mountbatten's death in Ireland went.
Prince Charles' uncle and the Queen's cousin got blown up by the IRA ('terrorists').

There was a lid on this, and it also wasn't the Queen herself.
Also murdering Mountbatten didn't help the Provos as he was one of the last of the WW2 allied commanders still alive and has a much respected man internationally.
He did however ignore his own security, he shouldnt have been where he was to begin with and there was a belief up to that point that he wasn't a target.


The IRA are a completely different case to ISIS, the IRA were ultimately bought off. John Major was responsible for the diplomatic moves that ended the Troubles, though Blair claimed the credit.

There is no negotiation possible with ISIS.

 Orlanth wrote:
There is no negotiation possible with ISIS.

No. Nor should there be at this point, in my opinion. Their death can't come soon enough. The unfortunate truth of the matter, however, is that we'll either never be able to get rid of them fully, or that by the time we do they will have simply evolved into something else/another group will take their place.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
If this story is true (and I suspect that it's propaganda 101) then fair play to the guy for saving lives.

In all honesty, though, I am sick to the back teeth of hearing about the British military in the Middle East. We've had two hundred years of that gak.

High time we got the hell out.

Well, seeing as that the British are to a large degree responsible for the mess the Middle East is nowadays (where did the British not make a mess ), don't you think they should help in cleaning up?

What about your lot in Afghanistan?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Orlanth wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:


Russia has played a big helping hand as well in turning the Middle East into a giant sinking gakhole.

I wouldn't put that in the past tense. Putin propped up Assad long enough for the Syrian pot to stew. Had 'Arab Spring' completed its circle and and either a return to peace or a regime change occured in all the countries Islamic State would have been stillborn. The entire current gakstorm is an overspill from Syria, and would otherwise have been contained.

Wishful thinking. That power vacuum was always getting filled by some bad guy.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:


Russia has played a big helping hand as well in turning the Middle East into a giant sinking gakhole.

I wouldn't put that in the past tense. Putin propped up Assad long enough for the Syrian pot to stew. Had 'Arab Spring' completed its circle and and either a return to peace or a regime change occured in all the countries Islamic State would have been stillborn. The entire current gakstorm is an overspill from Syria, and would otherwise have been contained.

Wishful thinking. That power vacuum was always getting filled by some bad guy.

I wouldn't consider that wishful thinking, regime change doesn't mean bringing in Mr Nice, it means bringing in Mr Different or Mr Can-Deal-With. Both of which reset the regime clock and make things more stable assuming a smooth enough transition.
Assads unwelcome habit of not curling up and dying on queue with the rest of the regimes targeted by Arab Spring kept the war simmering until real nasties were able to sprout and grow.

 Orlanth wrote:

There is no negotiation possible with ISIS.

There has to be or this will never end. It will take years to beat ISIS on the ground and even then they will probably revert to being an insurgency or simply pop up somewhere else. Its functionally impossible to kill them all; just look at the Taliban, well over a decade and they are still rumbling on despite a superpower throwing its full conventional military might at them. In the short term dialogue is the only option while in the long term the entire Middle East requires strong, stable and representative governments and there also need to be a real Palestinian state.

 Orlanth wrote:

I wouldn't consider that wishful thinking, regime change doesn't mean bringing in Mr Nice, it means bringing in Mr Different or Mr Can-Deal-With. Both of which reset the regime clock and make things more stable assuming a smooth enough transition.
Assads unwelcome habit of not curling up and dying on queue with the rest of the regimes targeted by Arab Spring kept the war simmering until real nasties were able to sprout and grow.

Egypt's military 'government' and Lybia's multiple competing and ineffective 'governments' strongly suggest that ISIS would still be a very real threat if Assad had stepped down, its even possible that things would be worse.

Half of ISIS's command structure are ex Iraqi army, just the sort or people who would take advantage of the political instability created by a rapidly collapsing state.

Shout out to the "Iraqi spy" who tipped the SAS off. It takes balls of steel to act as an informant in ISIS territory.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:
... and there also need to be a real Palestinian state.

What does this have to do with ISIS?

So predictable...it always comes back to Blame The Jews (tm).

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

So predictable...it always comes back to Blame The Jews (tm).

Engage your brain for a moment and think, given your last statement I realise that this may be breaking some habits. What has been the single biggest issue destablising the middle east in the last 50 years? What is the best, and in fact only, way of allowing this issue to drain away?

BLAME IT ON THE JEWS....honestly?

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

So predictable...it always comes back to Blame The Jews (tm).

Engage your brain for a moment and think, given your last statement I realise that this may be breaking some habits. What has been the single biggest issue destablising the middle east in the last 50 years? What is the best, and in fact only, way of allowing this issue to drain away?

BLAME IT ON THE JEWS....honestly?

Single biggest issue destabilising the ME? Err... the War for Oil on Terror? Not that I'm condoning the disconnect between insulting the state of Israel and therefore insulting the Jewish people.

Israel has to share a portion of the blame of destabilising Syria. Though they will wriggle to avoid doing so.

They have launched attacks of their own in Syria, denied doing so and been outed by the Obama administration.

Kicking over the hornets nest in Syria fueled further extremism. Bombing a country, claiming you didnt and not getting away with it doesn't achieve anything positive. Frankly everyone would have been better off if they just sat this one out.

Saying that in this case Israel is clearly only a secondary factor with regards to the moral disintegration of Syria and the rise of ISIS. It turned up the heat on a pot already boiling over and in all fairness hasnt affected the outcome too much.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

So predictable...it always comes back to Blame The Jews (tm).

Engage your brain for a moment and think, given your last statement I realise that this may be breaking some habits. What has been the single biggest issue destablising the middle east in the last 50 years? What is the best, and in fact only, way of allowing this issue to drain away?

BLAME IT ON THE JEWS....honestly?

Israel is the only stable country in the Middle East without a dictatorship.

Bloodthirsty Arab Muslim death cultists can't stop killing each other in their own countries, and yet it's somehow Israel's fault?

Please, keep going though. I love this stuff.

I wouldnt think a .75 musket ball would be that bad, much lower muzzle velocity, loses speed and energy extremely rapidly, quite a few historical figures took a musketball and survived limbs intact and lived reasonably decent lives (until the lead posioning got them) afterwards, anecdotal stories of men snatching musketballs out of the sky by hand and using it to return fire at the enemy, etc.

Hell yeah, Go SAS

There's plenty of bloodthirsty Jewish death cultists, one of which just murdered a 16 year old girl a short while ago.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

There is no negotiation possible with ISIS.

There has to be or this will never end. It will take years to beat ISIS on the ground and even then they will probably revert to being an insurgency or simply pop up somewhere else. Its functionally impossible to kill them all; just look at the Taliban, well over a decade and they are still rumbling on despite a superpower throwing its full conventional military might at them. In the short term dialogue is the only option while in the long term the entire Middle East requires strong, stable and representative governments and there also need to be a real Palestinian state.

Actually, there is a key facet of ISIS which does allow us to defeat them quickly. They've got the balls to openly operate as a conventional force instead of insurgents.

But even the Taliban could be eradicated if we loosened our moronically strict ROE.

The US of 1940 would have swatted down the Taliban and ISIS like flys.

 dusara217 wrote:
This sounds like half a dozen stories my father told me about his tour in Iraq...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

xraytango wrote:
.50 cal is an anti-materiel round.

As such it was not purpose intended for use on combatants.

It can however be used to put great big holes in their uniforms which are materiel.

I think the sniper was really aiming for the guy's sword, but he missed, probably ruined his nice hat.

Messed up his hair a bit too no doubt.

Wouldn't a .50 calibre rifle round basically make the head explode?

His head and likely a majority of his torso, you have to think of the amount of concussive energy transferred upon impact.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

There is no negotiation possible with ISIS.

There has to be or this will never end. It will take years to beat ISIS on the ground and even then they will probably revert to being an insurgency or simply pop up somewhere else. Its functionally impossible to kill them all; just look at the Taliban, well over a decade and they are still rumbling on despite a superpower throwing its full conventional military might at them. In the short term dialogue is the only option while in the long term the entire Middle East requires strong, stable and representative governments and there also need to be a real Palestinian state.

Actually, there is a key facet of ISIS which does allow us to defeat them quickly. They've got the balls to openly operate as a conventional force instead of insurgents.

But even the Taliban could be eradicated if we loosened our moronically strict ROE.

The US of 1940 would have swatted down the Taliban and ISIS like flys.

I disagree, they have staying power because of their religion. Your thinking along the same lines as Westmoreland during Vietnam. Sure you can knock them down in a stand up fight, and keep on doing so, but that is not how the struggle is won or lost.

I thimnk radical Islam is more motivated than the North Vietnamese were, because they are in a holy war and not just following a poltical agenda. Bombing them is not a deterent.

Its less about deterrent and more about just killing them all.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

Israel is the only stable country in the Middle East without a dictatorship.

Usual spoonfed Zionist crap. "We are the only democracy in the Middle East" That isnt true because a large percentage of the people born in Israel and its occupied territories cant vote on account of their ethnicity, and have precious few other freedoms besides. Also is Israel truly stable when it has continued illegal occupation of territory with an overly harsh ansd grossly discriminatory treatment of its inhabitants. For you to even consider Israel 'stable' betrays that you don't even consider the Palestinian population as actually of any relevance. This is not of any surprise.

What about Turkey, what about Cyprus. both are democracies, and while Turkey has its rough edges it has good grounds to claim to be more democratic than Israel has ever been. At least in Turkey if you are of age you can vote, even if a Kurd. Israel doesnt recognise huge numbers of people born and raised there to people born and raised there as even qualifying for any form of citizenship, let along a vote, let along most of what the rest of the world takes forgranted as basic human rights.

Also some of the monarchies have good human rights records, and personal freedom Jordan for instance. The presence of a monarchy doesn't mean the absence of political freedom.

Sure tyou can haver democracy is you are in Israel and are a Jew, but you could have freedom and democracy in apartheid South Africa, so long as you were of the correct colour and background. Though in fairness to you I must add that some 'Israeli Arabs' but not Palestinians can aspire to a second class citizenship denied to apartheid era blacks, but remain as always second class citizens, and their continued rights are not secure.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

Bloodthirsty Arab Muslim death cultists can't stop killing each other in their own countries, and yet it's somehow Israel's fault?

Suicide bombing is a recent phenomena and started with the infitada, and that began because many Palestinian people, after so long subjugated, felt they had no remaining freedoms except how they would have thier lives end. This sparked the imagination of extremist fethwits throughout the Islamic world.
Suicide bombing did occur prior to this, but it was rare and sporadic.

Also as most of the western world does not persecute Islam to any great degree, though due to Bush and Blair the US and Uk cant count themselves in that number; the justifiable anger at the excesses of Israel is one of the few points an Islamic extremist can raise which is hard to counter with actual facts. Most moderate Islamics who want to make theologies to counter extremist theology find it difficult to counter the aergument that the west doesnt do enough to hold Israel to account for its flagrant breaches of the rights of common Moslems.

So do all the Illegal immigrants in the US make us not a Democracy?

 Grey Templar wrote:
So do all the Illegal immigrants in the US make us not a Democracy?

I didn't include the USA as an example of democratic nation states of the Middle East for a single simple reason.

So just because some people in a country don't get to vote makes it not a democracy?

Grey Templar wrote:Its less about deterrent and more about just killing them all.

Who is 'them all'?
Does that include just the confirmed ISIS members? Everyone who raises a weapon against another? Every muslim in the region even unto the last child?

At this point you're argument holds little more weight than 'Nuke em'.

Orlanth wrote: what about Cyprus.

Probably not the best example, given the Greco and Turk population had to have their hands held for years by the UN to avoid a total bloodbath.

It's more stable now than the rest of the Middle East, but hardly 'good'.

Context would tell you its ISIS. Anyone who is a confirmed or suspected member.

 Humble Guardsman wrote:

Orlanth wrote: what about Cyprus.

Probably not the best example, given the Greco and Turk population had to have their hands held for years by the UN to avoid a total bloodbath.

It's more stable now than the rest of the Middle East, but hardly 'good'.

Having lived in Cyprus for several years, albeit not recently I must disagree. The border is stable, and the UN presence is seen more like a relaxing job than any real flashpoint. In the Uk the Cyprus border defence UN campaign medal is called the 'suntan medal'.
Greek Cyrpus and Turkish Cyprus are not on good terms, but there has been de facto peace since 1974, and it doesn't look like it will erupt anytime soon.
While there is a strong element of race politics involved, this was in fact solved by the part invasion, if not to anyone elses satisfaction and elections occur on both sides of the island, and both communities consider themselves self governing. Turkish Cypriots are not in any hurry to be reunited with Greek Cypriots as they are a numerical minority and Greeks and Turks do not really get on under any circumstances.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Its less about deterrent and more about just killing them all.

If colonial history teaches us anything is that 'killing them all' only works in small and isolated communities unless you literally mean killing everyone, which is problematic to say the least. You may well kill the majority of that particular generation but what happens in 10 years time, especially as the collateral damage would undoubtedly have created all kinds of bad will in the neutral or even friendly local populace?

 Grey Templar wrote:
Context would tell you its ISIS. Anyone who is a confirmed or suspected member.

Suspected by whom? Military intelligence with its stellar track record? Local agencies with their own axes to grind? People in the wrong place at the wrong time? All that happens when you are heavy handed is that you inflame tensions in the short term and create a fertile environment for conflict to flare up in the future. Surely you must have had all kinds of COIN briefs?

RoE are there for very good reasons.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

Bloodthirsty Arab Muslim death cultists can't stop killing each other in their own countries, and yet it's somehow Israel's fault?

Please, keep going though. I love this stuff.

I urge you to actually read peoples posts.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Its less about deterrent and more about just killing them all.

If colonial history teaches us anything is that 'killing them all' only works in small and isolated communities unless you literally mean killing everyone, which is problematic to say the least. You may well kill the majority of that particular generation but what happens in 10 years time, especially as the collateral damage would undoubtedly have created all kinds of bad will in the neutral or even friendly local populace?

This deserves a second round of critique. There are two main problems with an annihilation strategy.

First you wont get them all no matter how hard you try, there will always be survivors. Second, your excesses will cause a gain of sympathy from third parties for your victims.

This leads to two consequences.

First the survivors will ensure by one means or another, no matter how long it takes to launch a large scale attack probably with WMD.
Because of the genocidal policies in a very real sense the horrors of such a response would be seen as deserved.

Genocidal policy against an ideological rather than racial opponent is never a sound option, even if the opposition is scum. You cant kill ideas.

ISIS will need top be countered by encouraging the proliferation of moderate groups