Terror Attack: 130 Dead in Paris

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Russia and France are teaming up to fight ISIS.


Also, not looking at anyone in particular but everyone needs to think before they post a personal attack. I already shut down one thread because of it and I do not want to have to do it again. Ive been lax about enforcing rules so far but if need be I will crack down like what happened two months ago.

I blame our American overlords for the entente between Russia and France.

If you had deployed more ships then the French would ally with YOU!

[Strike For The South]

Well ISIS would count as a facist organization.

And here you were, thinking we couldn't find common ground.

[Papewaio]

And here you were, thinking we couldn't find common ground.

We have a lot more in common then not.

[Strike For The South]

We have a lot more in common then not.

I would agree. Looks, intelligence, charm, and that's just to start.

[Csargo]

I cannot keep up with all these sig changes SFTS. Please calm down sir.

[Papewaio]

I would agree. Looks, intelligence, charm, and that's just to start.

My condolences if you look like me ...

[Shaka_Khan]

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/17/eu...led/index.html

'Serious plans for explosions' cancel Netherlands-Germany soccer match

(CNN)—"Serious plans for explosions" forced the evacuation of a stadium in Hannover, Germany, on Tuesday night before a Netherlands-Germany friendly soccer match, the police chief for Germany's Lower Saxony region told Germany's public broadcaster NDR....

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/17/wo...ted/index.html

Air France flight from Los Angeles to Paris diverted after bomb threat

(CNN)—Air France Flight 65, headed from Los Angeles to Paris, was diverted to Salt Lake City after bomb threat was called in from the ground, a U.S. government official said...

[Husar]

I get the sense we're in much more danger than we realise

That is what they want, no?

The Chinese are capable of building things to a high standard but they won't bother if they can get away with it.

You mean like VW, GM and Toyota?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

That is what they want, no?

To make us afraid?

Well, I am not - but I do recognise the danger.

[a completely inoffensive name]

To make us afraid?

Well, I am not - but I do recognise the danger.

At least you can go the hospital free of charge after getting shot by a terrorist.

[a completely inoffensive name]

More gunfire in the St Denis section of Paris as police track down suspects.

[Fragony]

Wir schaffen das

[a completely inoffensive name]

Well, it will be obvious who did it - the same operators as usual, no? The value isn't really in "trimming the hedges", but in comforting the electorates and in martial posturing between world powers. Better than throwing around nukes, I suppose, but still pretty wasteful.

This is what I am talking about Monty. http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...whistleblowers

When you send special forces in the middle of the night, people in the neighborhood will get woken up. When you drop a bomb from a drone, the entire city hears it. Minimize the exposure, change our tactics because our current strategy simply plays into the Islamist propaganda machine. This is what I am talking about when I say that the US simply does propaganda in the middle east wrong. No message you send out will resonate when they hear American bombs going off every day.

As it comes to "my fantasy", I maintain that encouragement from the West will not have much impact on Islamism either way; it must deflate itself through fraternal bloodshed.

What I am saying is that we can have an impact on Islamism by moving towards energy self-reliance, which will weaken the Arab governments in the region. We know that elements of the House of Saud are funding ISIS, but that is not the reason that ISIS chooses to avoid war with Saudi Arabia. ISIS is currently focused on the two destabilized areas of Syria and Iraq which are weak in comparison to their neighbors. Once the West (and China) remove their dependence on Middle East oil, Saudi Arabia and other oil exporting states become vulnerable. The goal of ISIS is to create a single Islamic Caliphate (if we take them at their word), and thus eventually they will try to control the cities that are most valuable to the Islamic faith. When ISIS takes the step to challenge the Arab governments, you will get your Islamist showdown.

[Kagemusha]

My prediction is that inside couple months we are going to see mainly European and Russian land troops at Syria. France is lobbying around Europe in order to free some of its land components from Africa additional to forces being deployed from France. Russian Duma has today approved the use of land forces at Syria. As act of solidarity i think other EU nations are going to either send smaller detachments to Syria or replace French troops at their current deployments. Hopefully some Arab countries like Jordan will join the forces. Im not sure what US is going to do, but i think we will know rather soon when next week Hollande will visit Washington. It seems behind the curtains US and Russia are working hard in order to get an cease fire at Syria between rebels and Assad.

I dont think this land operation will be very large scale as Isis has less then 50k fighters. Basically we need enough boots on the ground to draw Isis out to fight by attacking their area directly and then they can be destroyed from the air. Thats the easy part. What comes after that is a complete mystery.

[Husar]

When you send special forces in the middle of the night, people in the neighborhood will get woken up. When you drop a bomb from a drone, the entire city hears it.

When you lase someone from space in the middle of the night, only his wife smells it. When you poison someone's water or deliver a pill into his mouth via micro-drone, no one will know anything. Where are the movie/game assassins when you need them? Why not send ninjas? They won't even wake up the neighborhood. Why not exchange his Quran with one that looks the same but has only peaceful messages?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Mock it if you want. When you and Kage get your boots on the ground and it doesn't do jack shit against the bigger threat, there will be threads on who mismanaged the troops and which country is to blame and Islamic extremists will only have more converts.

But you are right, when we all hold hands and get ISIS to "draw out to fight", we will turn the tide of this war.

What comes after that is a complete mystery.

How well thought out!

[Kagemusha]

Mock it if you want. When you and Kage get your boots on the ground and it doesn't do jack shit against the bigger threat, there will be threads on who mismanaged the troops and which country is to blame and Islamic extremists will only have more converts.

But you are right, when we all hold hands and get ISIS to "draw out to fight", we will turn the tide of this war.



How well thought out![/COLOR]

Im not mocking you,nor commenting your post in any way. im just predicting what is going to happen and i liked Hus posts because thought of sending ninjas is rather funny. Whats up with you Yanks as of late?

[Rhyfelwyr]

What I am saying is that we can have an impact on Islamism by moving towards energy self-reliance, which will weaken the Arab governments in the region. We know that elements of the House of Saud are funding ISIS, but that is not the reason that ISIS chooses to avoid war with Saudi Arabia. ISIS is currently focused on the two destabilized areas of Syria and Iraq which are weak in comparison to their neighbors. Once the West (and China) remove their dependence on Middle East oil, Saudi Arabia and other oil exporting states become vulnerable. The goal of ISIS is to create a single Islamic Caliphate (if we take them at their word), and thus eventually they will try to control the cities that are most valuable to the Islamic faith. When ISIS takes the step to challenge the Arab governments, you will get your Islamist showdown.

Will ISIS ever be that strong? The impression I got is that they are starting to be forced back a bit now, for all their pretensions of being a state they're still a pretty lightly-armed army in the tens of thousands. Could they really fight a conventional war against a rival state?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Im not mocking you,nor commenting your post in any way. im just predicting what is going to happen and i liked Hus posts because though of sending ninjas is rather funny. Whats up with you Yanks as of late?

My apologies then to both you and Husar. I think it's a bit touchy because us Yanks have been through a gamut of policies aimed at preventing Islamic terrorism both domestic and abroad and we are all frustrated because nothing we have done seems to work. None of us wants France and the EU to fall into the same trap the US did after 9/11. Just remember that Iraq was no better in 2012 than in 2006, the surge did not work, the TSA does not work, Afghanistan the country might as well be a collection of cities surrounded by Taliban controlled countryside.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Will ISIS ever be that strong? The impression I got is that they are starting to be forced back a bit now, for all their pretensions of being a state they're still a pretty lightly-armed army in the tens of thousands. Could they really fight a conventional war against a rival state?

Well, IF their propaganda takes hold in these rival states, and IF they have consolidated their holds in Iraq and Syria, and IF they continue to have money coming in from black market oil sales as well as donors from high officials in these rival states, I think there is a case to be made that ISIS has a chance of being a very annoying pest to kill if they choose to be one.

Didn't matter how many troops the US sent into Iraq, 2007-2008 there must have been 150,000. We could have sent 500,000 and it wouldn't have made a difference in the end. They hide, we anger the population and when weakness appears the Islamists return with more recruits.

[AE Bravo]

Get Saudi Arabia to stop importing IS militants to Yemen. AQ and IS is quickly gaining a front in Yemen and there's really no need for them considering the coalition forces have already paid Senegal, Eritrea, and Sudan to fight the north. Those Colombian mercenaries are fighting side by side with IS too. There is a tactical alliance with IS and coalition forces, as long as that's not broken IS is not going anywhere soon. Their presence is stamped in the region. They're awarded some form of legitimacy every day.

[Kagemusha]

My apologies then to both you and Husar. I think it's a bit touchy because us Yanks have been through a gamut of policies aimed at preventing Islamic terrorism both domestic and abroad and we are all frustrated because nothing we have done seems to work. None of us wants France and the EU to fall into the same trap the US did after 9/11. Just remember that Iraq was no better in 2012 than in 2006, the surge did not work, the TSA does not work, Afghanistan the country might as well be a collection of cities surrounded by Taliban controlled countryside.

I think you are right that there is no magic solution to this can of worms. The thing is that ISIS just needs their teeth kicked in, because they want to kill us that bad. It is inevitable or soon all the cool kids in Europe think that joining them is the best deal ever.

What can be done afterwards is that the Kurds should get their state in order to balance the North Iraq and Syria somewhat.

Iraq may have to be split into several states. The Southern Shia and central Sunni will just not fit into one country.

If we can get free elections at Syria after defeating ISIS maybe Baath will actually win. Maybe Sunni parts of Iraq could be actually merged into Syria, or a new country be created.

None of that might not happen. Some might or all might, but it could still all go down the toilet. But what is certain is that ISIS cant be allowed to continue running around in their pseudo state.

[Montmorency]

Interestingly, Hollande's reactions may all be part of a confrontation between Merkel (i.e. Germany) in her insistence on a narrowly-utilitarian domestic and foreign policy for Europe - and more generally over France's role in the leadership of Europe.

It is true that Obama has basically ruled out participation in a ground coalition, and that both France and the US are still eager to sell weapons to the Saudis without criticism, so the one real political goal at stake here may well be a reassertion of France's leading role in the politics of Europe, uncharacteristically-muted as it has been over the past generations. After all, if Germany has managed to push through past all the many grumblings on its periphery, then France has to present an alternative in the one place where Germany refuses to: the military. Thus, Hollande proclaims that he will fund military ventures against ISIS (and beyond) regardless of violations of Euro-zone fiscal and monetary rules, and urges as many other European countries to join him in doing so. Reaching out to the US and Russia simultaneously is an indicator of how serious he is.

I wonder, then, if Obama is taking a Merkelian stance by refusing to join in, keeping faith in Germany to hold Europe together, holding out on disrupting relations with Saudi Arabia (even though he has clearly wanted to make a partnership with Iran)...

Regardless, Hollande is forcing many countries, including those more powerful than his own, to make some hard choices.

[Viking]

#JeSuisChien, the latest sign racist westerners care more about dead dogs than dead humans



The Onion should hire this guy. Salon delivers again.

Now excuse me while I go and write an angry article about all the people who died of gangrene this week, and whose stories didn't make it to international media.

[Montmorency]

#JeSuisChien, the latest sign racist westerners care more about dead dogs than dead humans



The Onion should hire this guy. Salon delivers again.

Now excuse me while I go and write an angry article about all the people who died of gangrene this week, and whose stories didn't make it to international media.

Even so, the incidental point of the article still stands: there is a funny disproportion in how popular sentiment manifests vis-a-vis humans coming to harm and other mammals (especially cat-dogs) coming to harm.

[AE Bravo]

I dunno. Maybe animals dying is more saddening at this point.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I would say it has to do with the perception that animals are innocent and helpless - like children.

[Papewaio]

I'm I do find it interesting that France is calling this an act of war and there first response was to bomb ISIS.

Something they have been doing since September.

At what point do us Western nations expected that bombing opponents was risk free?

Yes we prioritize military targets and have a euphemism for civilians that get in the way of collateral damage.

Yes the terrorists attack soft targets first which in general are the same civilians who are big as collateral damage.

But that is what guerrilla warfare is. And it is not such a big leap to understand that the move from countryside to urban conflict is because that is where the populations have moved. As of this century we now live in a world where over half of the population is urban based.

So asymmetric warfare is going to follow the population, it is going to go for the easiest most high publicity events. Olympic Games has been done, more sports events to follow.

[HopAlongBunny]

Military solutions appear to be no win.
USA or allies do drone strikes=> ISIS: "See? We told you THEY are out to kill US"
USA or allies occupy ISIS territories=> "THEY have occupied our lands, we shall never be free unless we kill them all!"
Every military action results in grist for the propaganda mill.

If the impetus for the removal of ISIS does not come from within the area, I think it is ultimately doomed to fail.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Mass graves of older Yazidi women: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/wom...-fighting.html

According to IS the Yazadi are devil worshippers (they aren't, they're a minor monotheistic group who worship what is theoretically the same God as the Jews, Christians and Muslims).

Anyway, IS has been using the younger women as sex slaves - which is both horrible and a sign of their disjointed thinking, giving their fighters these "non human" devil worshippers seems decidedly dangerous from here.

Lest we forget, for all that IS are happy to attack fellow Muslims the real horrors are reserved for the minority faiths who have lived mostly unmolested for centuries.