Rapefugees Crisis

[Dukasaur]

Seems like good part of the "refuges" are ISIS soldiers...

People join rebel armies for a wide variety of reasons, some good, some bad.

In a civil war a majority of military-age men will have spent some time fighting on one side or the other. I would be more suspicious of someone who stood by and did nothing while their neighbours died, than someone who took up arms.

Of course you'll find some evil among them, but you'll also find a lot of good, if you take an honest look.

Hmmm I admit I didn't saw this coming, so now ISIS are the good guys?

I didn't say that ISIS are the good guys, but just because somebody serves in an evil army doesn't make him evil. Stalin was the biggest asshole in all of history, but that doesn't mean that every one of the 12 million men who served in the Red Army was an asshole. The vast majority of them were probably nice guys who would have preferred to stay on the farm choking chickens and collecting eggs, but the draft notice came and off to the front they went.

lol what? Are you trying to justify being an ISIS militant?
Every single one of them needs to die, no exceptions.

Don't know if you're trolling, or just being silly.

In any army, it's usually only the leaders that are evil. The vast majority of the rank-and-file are just ordinary farmers and shopkeepers who would love nothing more that to go back to their farms and their shops.

If you watched your father getting his eyes gouged out by Battista's secret police, you would run out to the hills and sign up with Castro's army. I does NOT mean that you agree with communism.

Similarly, if you watched your mother turned into a human torch by Assad's triggerhappy flamethrower tanks, you would run off to the hills and join ISIS. It does NOT mean that you agree with jihad.

Most of the participants in a rebel force are just ordinary peace-loving folks, who just can't stand by any more and watch the government killing and torturing their family, friends, and neighbours. Their leaders, of course, are evil folks. In an army, just like anything else, shit rises to the top, and the leaders will be those willing to exploit their fellow man to pursue their own agenda. If you are talking about their Central Committee or whatever they have, I would agree with you: kill them without exception. But that doesn't apply to the ordinary man on the firing line.

[waauw]

Don't know if you're trolling, or just being silly.

In any army, it's usually only the leaders that are evil. The vast majority of the rank-and-file are just ordinary farmers and shopkeepers who would love nothing more that to go back to their farms and their shops.

If you watched your father getting his eyes gouged out by Battista's secret police, you would run out to the hills and sign up with Castro's army. I does NOT mean that you agree with communism.

Similarly, if you watched your mother turned into a human torch by Assad's triggerhappy flamethrower tanks, you would run off to the hills and join ISIS. It does NOT mean that you agree with jihad.

Most of the participants in a rebel force are just ordinary peace-loving folks, who just can't stand by any more and watch the government killing and torturing their family, friends, and neighbours. Their leaders, of course, are evil folks. In an army, just like anything else, shit rises to the top, and the leaders will be those willing to exploit their fellow man to pursue their own agenda. If you are talking about their Central Committee or whatever they have, I would agree with you: kill them without exception. But that doesn't apply to the ordinary man on the firing line.

Except that ISIS is not the moderate rebels. Many thousands of them are foreign immigrants who came searching for jihad, and many other thousands joined up because they wanted to join the winning team, which in my opinion is equally horrifying. If you're willing to join up with extremists, you should be prepared to suffer the same fate. It's not like they didn't have a choice, because they did.

If someone aids someone else in comitting murder, but doesn't do the deed himself, he is held liable in front of court. In my opinion the same rule should be applied to any member of ISIS. If you're willing to collaborate with genocidal slave-trading jihadists, you should be held liable for that too. Choices have consequences.

But considering your opinion, I have to ask you: "Do you then condemn western governments bombing ISIS? Should we let ISIS go rampant purely because a few sheep chose to stand beside maniacs despite being non-extremists themselves? Because that's what your reasoning seems to allude to.

[enjoycocacola]

....

[Dukasaur]

In any army, it's usually only the leaders that are evil. The vast majority of the rank-and-file are just ordinary farmers and shopkeepers who would love nothing more that to go back to their farms and their shops.

If you watched your father getting his eyes gouged out by Battista's secret police, you would run out to the hills and sign up with Castro's army. I does NOT mean that you agree with communism.

Similarly, if you watched your mother turned into a human torch by Assad's triggerhappy flamethrower tanks, you would run off to the hills and join ISIS. It does NOT mean that you agree with jihad.

Most of the participants in a rebel force are just ordinary peace-loving folks, who just can't stand by any more and watch the government killing and torturing their family, friends, and neighbours. Their leaders, of course, are evil folks. In an army, just like anything else, shit rises to the top, and the leaders will be those willing to exploit their fellow man to pursue their own agenda. If you are talking about their Central Committee or whatever they have, I would agree with you: kill them without exception. But that doesn't apply to the ordinary man on the firing line.

Except that ISIS is not the moderate rebels. Many thousands of them are foreign immigrants who came searching for jihad, and many other thousands joined up because they wanted to join the winning team, which in my opinion is equally horrifying. If you're willing to join up with extremists, you should be prepared to suffer the same fate. It's not like they didn't have a choice, because they did.

If someone aids someone else in comitting murder, but doesn't do the deed himself, he is held liable in front of court. In my opinion the same rule should be applied to any member of ISIS. If you're willing to collaborate with genocidal slave-trading jihadists, you should be held liable for that too. Choices have consequences.

Did we hunt down all 12 million or so Red Army soldiers and execute them for Stalin's crimes? Did we hunt down however many survived in the German army and execute them for Hitler's crimes? Did we hunt down however many were were in Mao's army and prosecute them for the millions deliberately starved to death in the Great Leap Forward?

And if you say those things were a long time ago (not that long... many survivors remain that we could still hunt if we chose to) then I pose for you recent events. Genocidal civil wars in Rwanda and in Darfur have occurred in very recent memory. Are you in favour of killing everyone who served in the Hutu forces and the Sudanese forces?

Your analogy about criminals being jointly guilty doesn't wash. That applies to criminal conspiracies when all the participants have an independent decision to make. Joining an army doesn't make you criminally liable for war crimes committed by that army unless you actually participated in those war crimes, and even then the precedent is that we almost never prosecute low-ranking soldiers unless they personally committed the war crime.

But considering your opinion, I have to ask you: "Do you then condemn western governments bombing ISIS? Should we let ISIS go rampant purely because a few sheep chose to stand beside maniacs despite being non-extremists themselves? Because that's what your reasoning seems to allude to.

That's a very different question, not directly relevant, but I'll answer it anyway so you can't accuse me of waffling. I don't think we should be bombing ISIS. Our record of meddling in civil wars is really poor. Rarely have we accomplished anything useful meddling in civil wars. Rwanda might be the standout case, where maybe we reduced the death toll slightly with our meddling. Maybe in Bosnia. But certainly in Vietnam, in Cambodia, in Angola, in Cuba, in Rhodesia, in Nigeria, in Bangladesh, in Afghanistan, in Indonesia, in Bolivia, in Chile, in Haiti, oh god the list goes on and on, Western meddling did little except prolong the conflict and increase the death toll.

In the end, the bad guys will win. That is pretty much certain regardless of our meddling. Shit rises to the top. If the outcome is different, you'll get a slightly different flavour of shit. By interfering, only five things change, none for the better.

1. It is likely that the conflict will take longer
2. It is likely that there will be a lot more deaths in the process
3. It is likely that moderates will lose traction, and the most extreme and hateful factions will gain
4. it is certain that our taxpayers will get burned for an enormous amount of money
5. It is possible that the conflict will broaden and spread to even more places.

[waauw]

Did we hunt down all 12 million or so Red Army soldiers and execute them for Stalin's crimes? Did we hunt down however many survived in the German army and execute them for Hitler's crimes? Did we hunt down however many were were in Mao's army and prosecute them for the millions deliberately starved to death in the Great Leap Forward?

And if you say those things were a long time ago (not that long... many survivors remain that we could still hunt if we chose to) then I pose for you recent events. Genocidal civil wars in Rwanda and in Darfur have occurred in very recent memory. Are you in favour of killing everyone who served in the Hutu forces and the Sudanese forces?

Your analogy about criminals being jointly guilty doesn't wash. That applies to criminal conspiracies when all the participants have an independent decision to make. Joining an army doesn't make you criminally liable for war crimes committed by that army unless you actually participated in those war crimes, and even then the precedent is that we almost never prosecute low-ranking soldiers unless they personally committed the war crime.

Very different situations.

• Communist Russia only crumbled many decades after Stalin and never did much effort to track down offenders of human rights. Same for Mao, China wasn't invaded and never did track anyone down for their crimes. I don't think invading Russia and China just to find those bastards is a solution.
• Nazi Germany was well-known for closing down their borders, to hinder anyone trying to escape their clutch and just as the rest of the western world were well trained to keep their secrets from their own people. And yes, even mere guards of concentration camps who did nothing but stand post, were convicted.
• I do think the same should have happened to the Hutu forces when found.
• I'm not very familiar with the Sudanese situation so can't comment there.

Conversely, most of ISIS are people who actually wanted to be part of ISIS, wheres the germans, the russians and the chinese had a much harder time escaping their tiranical leaders.

That's a very different question, not directly relevant, but I'll answer it anyway so you can't accuse me of waffling. I don't think we should be bombing ISIS. Our record of meddling in civil wars is really poor. Rarely have we accomplished anything useful meddling in civil wars. Rwanda might be the standout case, where maybe we reduced the death toll slightly with our meddling. Maybe in Bosnia. But certainly in Vietnam, in Cambodia, in Angola, in Cuba, in Rhodesia, in Nigeria, in Bangladesh, in Afghanistan, in Indonesia, in Bolivia, in Chile, in Haiti, oh god the list goes on and on, Western meddling did little except prolong the conflict and increase the death toll.

In the end, the bad guys will win. That is pretty much certain regardless of our meddling. Shit rises to the top. If the outcome is different, you'll get a slightly different flavour of shit. By interfering, only five things change, none for the better.

1. It is likely that the conflict will take longer
2. It is likely that there will be a lot more deaths in the process
3. It is likely that moderates will lose traction, and the most extreme and hateful factions will gain
4. it is certain that our taxpayers will get burned for an enormous amount of money
5. It is possible that the conflict will broaden and spread to even more places.

So basically you're saying, don't do anything?

what is ALREADY happening:

• The conflict has already been taking years with no end in sight.
• Creating more deaths is what needs to be obtained, you can't stop a war without killing. Playing Gandhi won't work.
• Doing nothing, has gained europe a strong increase in racism, and you can be certain this will lead to increased muslim fundamentalism within europe as well.
• The taxpayers are already spending bucketloads of money on immigrants, that money might as well be spent on tackling the root of the issue. Don't get me wrong, the ordinary war refugees are more than welcome.
• ISIS is already spreading, most notably theh're training people to spread them into europe.

Europe has no other choice but to at least try SOMETHING. Our non-interventionism in Syria up until now obviously hasn't worked out for us. It's time for a new strategy.

[waauw]

Honestly duk, what is your solution? If we find (former) ISIS members among the refugees entering europe. What should we do with them? Just let them walk wherever they want?
Personally, I think that's too big a risk. If even just one person dies because you put too much trust in an ISIS fighter, you'll have the entire continent in uproar and the only one gaining from this is the far right.

[Dukasaur]

Honestly duk, what is your solution? If we find (former) ISIS members among the refugees entering europe. What should we do with them? Just let them walk wherever they want?

For the most part, yes. Just because someone was in the army last year doesn't mean they have any desire to continue fighting. Most people, once they get out of the army, just want to get back to civilian life. When's the last time a former member of the Luftwaffe tried to strafe your house?

Take a former soldier down to the pub and you'll find his main interests are baseball, beer, and blowjobs, just like anyone else. I suppose if he's a devout Muslim you'll have to skip the beer, but a little whiff of ganja will be quite welcome.

Yes, of course there are exceptions. There will be some among the refugees who are active ISIS agents planning to start terror cells, of course there will be. That's why you have police and intelligence agencies.

The "fake refugee" is always attempted, but very rarely are they successful. Most of them fail their first interview with the immigration people. You'd be surprised how successful those initial interviews are at nailing the majority of the fakers. In 1940 dozens of abwehr agents were brought to Britain as fake refugees. Almost all of them were caught. Of the few that weren't, not a single one actually carried out a successful act of sabotage.

Personally, I think that's too big a risk. If even just one person dies because you put too much trust in an ISIS fighter, you'll have the entire continent in uproar and the only one gaining from this is the far right.

That's crazy. If you change your world in response to potential terrorists, the terrorists have already won.

Destroying the basis of liberal democracy because of the risk of terrorist attack is shooting yourself in the head. More people die from bee-stings than from terrorist attacks. Should we slaughter all the bees and impose on ourselves the duty of hand-pollinating all the crops? Even more people die from lightning strikes. Maybe we should ban going outdoors? Even more drown in the bathtub. Perhaps bathing should be outlawed?

A rational response to terrorist gang is hunting them through normal and legal police methods, including surveillance and infiltration. It does not involve destroying the society or turning a nation into an armed camp. Will normal methods sometimes fail? Of course they will, but the alternative -- living in a locked-down police state -- is far worse that the disease, nor in fact does it carry any guarantees of safety. Russia, China, Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are all very militarized societies with high levels of vigilance and impaired civil liberties, but still they suffer terrorist attacks.

By interfering, only five things change, none for the better.

1. It is likely that the conflict will take longer
2. It is likely that there will be a lot more deaths in the process
3. It is likely that moderates will lose traction, and the most extreme and hateful factions will gain
4. it is certain that our taxpayers will get burned for an enormous amount of money
5. It is possible that the conflict will broaden and spread to even more places.

So basically you're saying, don't do anything?

what is ALREADY happening:

• The conflict has already been taking years with no end in sight.
• Creating more deaths is what needs to be obtained, you can't stop a war without killing. Playing Gandhi won't work.
• Doing nothing, has gained europe a strong increase in racism, and you can be certain this will lead to increased muslim fundamentalism within europe as well.
• The taxpayers are already spending bucketloads of money on immigrants, that money might as well be spent on tackling the root of the issue. Don't get me wrong, the ordinary war refugees are more than welcome.
• ISIS is already spreading, most notably theh're training people to spread them into europe.

Europe has no other choice but to at least try SOMETHING. Our non-interventionism in Syria up until now obviously hasn't worked out for us. It's time for a new strategy.

Lol, on what day was non-interventionism our strategy? I must have slept through it.

We started this war. ISIS would not even exist if we hadn't destabilized Iraq and Syria. In that sense, every minute of this war is something you can lay at NATO's feet.

"[*]Creating more deaths is what needs to be obtained, you can't stop a war without killing."
Of course a war will have killing before it ends. But deliberately prolonging it will multiply the deaths.

Phase 1: If we hadn't been supplying arms to ISIS in the beginning, Assad would have killed them, and yes there would be some tragic consequences for some people, but by now it would be over and people would be rebuilding their lives. Be feeding arms to ISIS, we ensured the prolongation of the war, in the beginning.

Phase 2: With ISIS ascendant, they might have finished off Assad. And again, there would have been some tragic consequences for some people, but it would be over by now and people could be rebuilding their lives. But we got scared and changed sides. We wanted Assad under attack, you see, but we didn't want him to be removed. As long as Assad is frightening the Gulf sheikhs, they have to lick America's knuckles. So we wanted to make a big show of how we're slapping Assad around, but we didn't want (oh! HORROR!) for his government to actually fall. So in the eleventh hour, we changed sides and started bombing the shit out of ISIS.

Phase 3: Now the Russians are arriving, and we don't want them to get the glory, so we're going to keep up the pretense of bombing ISIS, but we're going to surreptitiously slip them some more modern weapons so they don't make it look too easy for the Russians. We'll also start some diplomatic initiatives now. It has to be seen that the Russians are more dangerous than the Arabs, so you can be sure that the intense propaganda effort will switch gears now. We've worked hard at painting ISIS as slobbering rabid dogs with no human qualities, but now we'll start seeing the "human" sides of ISIS, so that we can start exposing Russian "atrocities". Once again, ISIS will be on the point of extinction, but we will start pulling our punches more and more, trying to keep the whole boggle going a little longer, prolonging the agony and turning what might have been a quick end to the war into a decades-long mess.

{Everything I said about Syria could be adapted, with minor differences, to Iraq.}

So yeah, to get back to the point. Of course a war won't end without killing, but the war could end quickly and involve a lot fewer deaths if we didn't meddle. We started the war by destabilizing Iraq. We nursed the little spark of rebellion in Syria into the flame of a full-blown civil war by air-dropping weapons to ISIS. We got scared by the size of the blaze that followed, so we tried to put out fire with fire by bombing ISIS. Now, if it looks like ISIS will die, we will change sides yet again and keep them from extinction, and ultimately a rebellion that might have lasted two weeks, followed by a healing period, will turn into a quagmire that will destroy lives and suck up resources for decades.

In Vietnam, we took a civil war that might have lasted two years and cost 100,000 lives, and we nursed it along until it lasted 45 years and cost millions of lives.

And just for perspective:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/9359763/Bee-stings-killed-as-many-in-UK-as-terrorists-says-watchdog.html

[waauw]

For the most part, yes. Just because someone was in the army last year doesn't mean they have any desire to continue fighting. Most people, once they get out of the army, just want to get back to civilian life. When's the last time a former member of the Luftwaffe tried to strafe your house?

Take a former soldier down to the pub and you'll find his main interests are baseball, beer, and blowjobs, just like anyone else. I suppose if he's a devout Muslim you'll have to skip the beer, but a little whiff of ganja will be quite welcome.

Yes, of course there are exceptions. There will be some among the refugees who are active ISIS agents planning to start terror cells, of course there will be. That's why you have police and intelligence agencies.

The "fake refugee" is always attempted, but very rarely are they successful. Most of them fail their first interview with the immigration people. You'd be surprised how successful those initial interviews are at nailing the majority of the fakers. In 1940 dozens of abwehr agents were brought to Britain as fake refugees. Almost all of them were caught. Of the few that weren't, not a single one actually carried out a successful act of sabotage.

It doesn't matter that ALMOST all of them get caught. If only a few make it through the net and are capable of going nuts, the societal consequences could be huge. It would inspire even more racism vs muslims(which is already reaching more and more extreme levels) and it might inspire politicians to go big brother on the population as is the case in america.

It doesn't take many succesful terrorist to act as cathalists. Even just a few of them could incite drastic political shifts, which is already happening. All over europe you can see far right extremism rising.

That's crazy. If you change your world in response to potential terrorists, the terrorists have already won.

Destroying the basis of liberal democracy because of the risk of terrorist attack is shooting yourself in the head. More people die from bee-stings than from terrorist attacks. Should we slaughter all the bees and impose on ourselves the duty of hand-pollinating all the crops? Even more people die from lightning strikes. Maybe we should ban going outdoors? Even more drown in the bathtub. Perhaps bathing should be outlawed?

A rational response to terrorist gang is hunting them through normal and legal police methods, including surveillance and infiltration. It does not involve destroying the society or turning a nation into an armed camp. Will normal methods sometimes fail? Of course they will, but the alternative -- living in a locked-down police state -- is far worse that the disease, nor in fact does it carry any guarantees of safety. Russia, China, Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are all very militarized societies with high levels of vigilance and impaired civil liberties, but still they suffer terrorist attacks.

You might not like it, but that doesn't change the fact that societies do tend to transform when terrorist attacks dominate the tabloids. The US changed when 9/11 happened and europe is changing as well. Reality doesn't always correspond with your "rational response".

Lol, on what day was non-interventionism our strategy? I must have slept through it.

We started this war. ISIS would not even exist if we hadn't destabilized Iraq and Syria. In that sense, every minute of this war is something you can lay at NATO's feet.

"[*]Creating more deaths is what needs to be obtained, you can't stop a war without killing."
Of course a war will have killing before it ends. But deliberately prolonging it will multiply the deaths.

Phase 1: If we hadn't been supplying arms to ISIS in the beginning, Assad would have killed them, and yes there would be some tragic consequences for some people, but by now it would be over and people would be rebuilding their lives. Be feeding arms to ISIS, we ensured the prolongation of the war, in the beginning.

Phase 2: With ISIS ascendant, they might have finished off Assad. And again, there would have been some tragic consequences for some people, but it would be over by now and people could be rebuilding their lives. But we got scared and changed sides. We wanted Assad under attack, you see, but we didn't want him to be removed. As long as Assad is frightening the Gulf sheikhs, they have to lick America's knuckles. So we wanted to make a big show of how we're slapping Assad around, but we didn't want (oh! HORROR!) for his government to actually fall. So in the eleventh hour, we changed sides and started bombing the shit out of ISIS.

Phase 3: Now the Russians are arriving, and we don't want them to get the glory, so we're going to keep up the pretense of bombing ISIS, but we're going to surreptitiously slip them some more modern weapons so they don't make it look too easy for the Russians. We'll also start some diplomatic initiatives now. It has to be seen that the Russians are more dangerous than the Arabs, so you can be sure that the intense propaganda effort will switch gears now. We've worked hard at painting ISIS as slobbering rabid dogs with no human qualities, but now we'll start seeing the "human" sides of ISIS, so that we can start exposing Russian "atrocities". Once again, ISIS will be on the point of extinction, but we will start pulling our punches more and more, trying to keep the whole boggle going a little longer, prolonging the agony and turning what might have been a quick end to the war into a decades-long mess.

{Everything I said about Syria could be adapted, with minor differences, to Iraq.}

So yeah, to get back to the point. Of course a war won't end without killing, but the war could end quickly and involve a lot fewer deaths if we didn't meddle. We started the war by destabilizing Iraq. We nursed the little spark of rebellion in Syria into the flame of a full-blown civil war by air-dropping weapons to ISIS. We got scared by the size of the blaze that followed, so we tried to put out fire with fire by bombing ISIS. Now, if it looks like ISIS will die, we will change sides yet again and keep them from extinction, and ultimately a rebellion that might have lasted two weeks, followed by a healing period, will turn into a quagmire that will destroy lives and suck up resources for decades.

In Vietnam, we took a civil war that might have lasted two years and cost 100,000 lives, and we nursed it along until it lasted 45 years and cost millions of lives.

There is no certainty that war will be prolonged if we further intervene. Yet you try to make that generalization.
I seem to remember that the french swiftly cleaned up in Mali.

Phase 1: I admit my bad for this point. I thought it were only a couple of countries within NATO delivered weapons to Syria, but there were quite a number more than I initially thought.

Phase 2: Very unlikely story. ISIS has the desire to grow and spread. They have been killing off both Assad's men, moderate rebels, kurds, shiites, non-muslims, etc. all alike. The war would not have ended with the death of Assad.

Phase 3: The Russians worse than ISIS? I hardly think so. FYI, I'm strongly opposed to NATO and european enmity towards Russia. I'd love nothing more than the EU working with Russia. Only with them on our side can we guarantee peace on our continent. We don't need the Americans for this. In fact I'd love nothing more than to see NATO disbanded.

[warmonger1981]

Thoughts people

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... ooked.html


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ality.html


http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/09 ... l-scandal/


WTF is going on here???

[Dukasaur]

Thoughts people

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... ooked.html


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ality.html


http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/09 ... l-scandal/


WTF is going on here???

From the CIA's own website:
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/cia-and-the-vietnam-policymakers-three-episodes-1962-1968/epis3.html

As we have seen, in the first decade of direct US involvement in Vietnam, dating from the French surrender at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, policymakers seeking good news had encouraged optimistic reporting and ignored or complained about intelligence analysis that failed to support their expectations. The bliss of ignorance had several times cost the US war effort dearly, but worse was in store at the end of January 1968, when a misreading of the enemy's intentions and a calculated understating of his strength left the nation and its political leaders wide open to the shock of the Communists' unprecedentedly massive spring military campaign, the "Tet (Spring) Offensive." This episode portrays the role CIA played in the related episodes of the MACV order-of-battle (O/B) controversy and the runup to the Tet offensive. We will see that CIA's estimates of the enemy's strength were considerably more accurate than those turned out elsewhere; that CIA's Saigon Station accurately warned that a Tet-like general offensive was coming; that CIA Headquarters did not share that warning; and that senior policymakers, in any event, both overrode CIA's insistence that MACV's estimates of the enemy's order of battle were much too low, and ignored Saigon Station's warning that an unprecedented enemy offensive was at hand.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

[GoranZ]

In any army, it's usually only the leaders that are evil. The vast majority of the rank-and-file are just ordinary farmers and shopkeepers who would love nothing more that to go back to their farms and their shops.

If you watched your father getting his eyes gouged out by Battista's secret police, you would run out to the hills and sign up with Castro's army. I does NOT mean that you agree with communism.

Similarly, if you watched your mother turned into a human torch by Assad's triggerhappy flamethrower tanks, you would run off to the hills and join ISIS. It does NOT mean that you agree with jihad.

Most of the participants in a rebel force are just ordinary peace-loving folks, who just can't stand by any more and watch the government killing and torturing their family, friends, and neighbours. Their leaders, of course, are evil folks. In an army, just like anything else, shit rises to the top, and the leaders will be those willing to exploit their fellow man to pursue their own agenda. If you are talking about their Central Committee or whatever they have, I would agree with you: kill them without exception. But that doesn't apply to the ordinary man on the firing line.

Except that ISIS is not the moderate rebels. Many thousands of them are foreign immigrants who came searching for jihad, and many other thousands joined up because they wanted to join the winning team, which in my opinion is equally horrifying. If you're willing to join up with extremists, you should be prepared to suffer the same fate. It's not like they didn't have a choice, because they did.

If someone aids someone else in comitting murder, but doesn't do the deed himself, he is held liable in front of court. In my opinion the same rule should be applied to any member of ISIS. If you're willing to collaborate with genocidal slave-trading jihadists, you should be held liable for that too. Choices have consequences.

Did we hunt down all 12 million or so Red Army soldiers and execute them for Stalin's crimes? Did we hunt down however many survived in the German army and execute them for Hitler's crimes? Did we hunt down however many were were in Mao's army and prosecute them for the millions deliberately starved to death in the Great Leap Forward?

And if you say those things were a long time ago (not that long... many survivors remain that we could still hunt if we chose to) then I pose for you recent events. Genocidal civil wars in Rwanda and in Darfur have occurred in very recent memory. Are you in favour of killing everyone who served in the Hutu forces and the Sudanese forces?

Your analogy about criminals being jointly guilty doesn't wash. That applies to criminal conspiracies when all the participants have an independent decision to make. Joining an army doesn't make you criminally liable for war crimes committed by that army unless you actually participated in those war crimes, and even then the precedent is that we almost never prosecute low-ranking soldiers unless they personally committed the war crime.

I still cant believe how can a westerner cheer ISIS No matter how you look ISIS are bad, no matter how hard you try you wont find anything good in them.

Usually if the people doesn't agree with the regime they look for ways to end it, like the person bellow


Or Hitlers assassination attempt(Resistance in Germany was way closer at taking out Hitler then any ally attempt ever): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_July_plot
Also Communism in Europe fall apart from the hands of its own people.

In the end, the bad guys will win. That is pretty much certain regardless of our meddling. Shit rises to the top. If the outcome is different, you'll get a slightly different flavour of shit. By interfering, only five things change, none for the better.

1. It is likely that the conflict will take longer
2. It is likely that there will be a lot more deaths in the process
3. It is likely that moderates will lose traction, and the most extreme and hateful factions will gain
4. it is certain that our taxpayers will get burned for an enormous amount of money
5. It is possible that the conflict will broaden and spread to even more places.

Wrong, bad guys never win on a long run... Only guys that are able to bring progress and prosperity win.
Syrian conflict will take some time, Gulf states and Turkey are openly supporting ISIS, Russia and Iran are openly supporting Assad, and Kurds are supported by the west(Free Syrian Army is not longer decisive factor in Syrian civil war)

"[*]Creating more deaths is what needs to be obtained, you can't stop a war without killing."
Of course a war will have killing before it ends. But deliberately prolonging it will multiply the deaths.

Phase 1: If we hadn't been supplying arms to ISIS in the beginning, Assad would have killed them, and yes there would be some tragic consequences for some people, but by now it would be over and people would be rebuilding their lives. Be feeding arms to ISIS, we ensured the prolongation of the war, in the beginning.

Phase 2: With ISIS ascendant, they might have finished off Assad. And again, there would have been some tragic consequences for some people, but it would be over by now and people could be rebuilding their lives. But we got scared and changed sides. We wanted Assad under attack, you see, but we didn't want him to be removed. As long as Assad is frightening the Gulf sheikhs, they have to lick America's knuckles. So we wanted to make a big show of how we're slapping Assad around, but we didn't want (oh! HORROR!) for his government to actually fall. So in the eleventh hour, we changed sides and started bombing the shit out of ISIS.

Phase 3: Now the Russians are arriving, and we don't want them to get the glory, so we're going to keep up the pretense of bombing ISIS, but we're going to surreptitiously slip them some more modern weapons so they don't make it look too easy for the Russians. We'll also start some diplomatic initiatives now. It has to be seen that the Russians are more dangerous than the Arabs, so you can be sure that the intense propaganda effort will switch gears now. We've worked hard at painting ISIS as slobbering rabid dogs with no human qualities, but now we'll start seeing the "human" sides of ISIS, so that we can start exposing Russian "atrocities". Once again, ISIS will be on the point of extinction, but we will start pulling our punches more and more, trying to keep the whole boggle going a little longer, prolonging the agony and turning what might have been a quick end to the war into a decades-long mess.

So between bad blade Assad and worst blade ISIS west is choosing the worst blade .
I'm not surprised, Russians have good horse for racing(Assad) from the start, West never had any horse in the first place but they want to win
As long as the West wants to win in Syria, the civil war will continue.
The problem is that the West doesn't want Assad to be part of the solution that will end the civil war.

{Everything I said about Syria could be adapted, with minor differences, to Iraq.}

I disagree, problems in Iraq are simple, split the country in 3 parts and problems are solved. But Turkey opposes any creation of Kurdish state.

Back on subject, now Saudi Arabia wants to build 200 mosques in Germany for the new "European" Muslims
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/09 ... 15492.html
Maybe Muslims survive without food, they only need "Good to hear them".

P.S. Macedonia, Greece, Serbia, Hungary and Austria want High speed railway, so we can transport the "refuges" faster to their mosques in Germany
*and back if they start making problems in Germany

[mrswdk]

Did we hunt down however many were were in Mao's army and prosecute them for the millions deliberately starved to death in the Great Leap Forward?

Still peddling this tired old lie la.

[Dukasaur]

In any army, it's usually only the leaders that are evil. The vast majority of the rank-and-file are just ordinary farmers and shopkeepers who would love nothing more that to go back to their farms and their shops.

If you watched your father getting his eyes gouged out by Battista's secret police, you would run out to the hills and sign up with Castro's army. I does NOT mean that you agree with communism.

Similarly, if you watched your mother turned into a human torch by Assad's triggerhappy flamethrower tanks, you would run off to the hills and join ISIS. It does NOT mean that you agree with jihad.

Most of the participants in a rebel force are just ordinary peace-loving folks, who just can't stand by any more and watch the government killing and torturing their family, friends, and neighbours. Their leaders, of course, are evil folks. In an army, just like anything else, shit rises to the top, and the leaders will be those willing to exploit their fellow man to pursue their own agenda. If you are talking about their Central Committee or whatever they have, I would agree with you: kill them without exception. But that doesn't apply to the ordinary man on the firing line.

Except that ISIS is not the moderate rebels. Many thousands of them are foreign immigrants who came searching for jihad, and many other thousands joined up because they wanted to join the winning team, which in my opinion is equally horrifying. If you're willing to join up with extremists, you should be prepared to suffer the same fate. It's not like they didn't have a choice, because they did.

If someone aids someone else in comitting murder, but doesn't do the deed himself, he is held liable in front of court. In my opinion the same rule should be applied to any member of ISIS. If you're willing to collaborate with genocidal slave-trading jihadists, you should be held liable for that too. Choices have consequences.

Did we hunt down all 12 million or so Red Army soldiers and execute them for Stalin's crimes? Did we hunt down however many survived in the German army and execute them for Hitler's crimes? Did we hunt down however many were were in Mao's army and prosecute them for the millions deliberately starved to death in the Great Leap Forward?

And if you say those things were a long time ago (not that long... many survivors remain that we could still hunt if we chose to) then I pose for you recent events. Genocidal civil wars in Rwanda and in Darfur have occurred in very recent memory. Are you in favour of killing everyone who served in the Hutu forces and the Sudanese forces?

Your analogy about criminals being jointly guilty doesn't wash. That applies to criminal conspiracies when all the participants have an independent decision to make. Joining an army doesn't make you criminally liable for war crimes committed by that army unless you actually participated in those war crimes, and even then the precedent is that we almost never prosecute low-ranking soldiers unless they personally committed the war crime.

I still cant believe how can a westerner cheer ISIS No matter how you look ISIS are bad, no matter how hard you try you wont find anything good in them.

Where did I cheer ISIS? Where did I say there was anything good in it? Absolutely nothing of the kind have I said. Nothing.

But what waauw said was that every single member of ISIS is personally responsible for the evil of ISIS, which is clearly nonsense. Do you think that every single German soldier was personally responsible for Hitler's war crimes? Do you think that every single Chinese soldier was personally responsible for Mao's war crimes? Do you think that every single American soldier was personally responsible for Bush's war crimes? Do you think that each and every fighter in Castro's army was a personal believer in communism? Do you think that each and every soldier in Pol Pot's army personally believed in the forced labour camps where a quarter of his neighbours died? Do you think that each and every man in Mugabe's army personally endorsed the massacres of Matabele.

Ridiculous.

[warmonger1981]

I say yes to thee above. So if I belong to ISIS am I guilty of a crime? If I belong to a terrorist cell am I a terrorist? If I belong to a right wing extremist group am I an extremist? If I'm a color do I belong to the spectrum of optics? If I'm human do I belong to the human race?

[GoranZ]

But what waauw said was that every single member of ISIS is personally responsible for the evil of ISIS, which is clearly nonsense.

Every ISIS is personally responsible, in order to be valuable ISIS member need to make war crime. Large part of ISIS army are not even Syrians.

Do you think that every single German soldier was personally responsible for Hitler's war crimes?

Of course not, some German soldiers even made an assassination attempt(I enlisted it in my previous post). And most of the Germans were fighting for Germany, not for Hitler.

Do you think that every single Chinese soldier was personally responsible for Mao's war crimes?

I dont think that all Chinese soldiers were involved in crimes against humanity, so I cant say that all are responsible. Most of the soldiers did what they did for China, not for Mao.

Do you think that every single American soldier was personally responsible for Bush's war crimes?

When it comes to Afghanistan I can say that everything that Americans did there is justified, if it was up to me I would have wiped every Taliban town and village to the ground that contributed with men in Taliban army. With objective, Taliban movement to be "forgotten" once for all in Afghanistan. And if Pakistan doesn't do the same attack it also(regardless of its nuclear capabilities).
Most of American soldiers did what they did for revenge for America, not for Bush.

Do you think that each and every fighter in Castro's army was a personal believer in communism?

I dont know, but neater do you, this can not be confirmed nor denied. Most of communist Cuban soldiers did what they did for Cuba, and not for Castro.
...

You know what is the difference between ISIS and all others, all ISIS soldiers(no exceptions) are religious soldiers that don't honor Geneva Conventions, they honor Wahhabi ideology.
Thats why they must die, all of them. From my perspective I can not be sure about a single one of them, if they even consider to honor Geneva Conventions.

[Dukasaur]

But what waauw said was that every single member of ISIS is personally responsible for the evil of ISIS, which is clearly nonsense.

Every ISIS is personally responsible, in order to be valuable ISIS member need to make war crime. Large part of ISIS army are not even Syrians.

Do you think that every single German soldier was personally responsible for Hitler's war crimes?

Of course not, some German soldiers even made an assassination attempt(I enlisted it in my previous post). And most of the Germans were fighting for Germany, not for Hitler.

Do you think that every single Chinese soldier was personally responsible for Mao's war crimes?

I dont think that all Chinese soldiers were involved in crimes against humanity, so I cant say that all are responsible. Most of the soldiers did what they did for China, not for Mao.

Do you think that every single American soldier was personally responsible for Bush's war crimes?

When it comes to Afghanistan I can say that everything that Americans did there is justified, if it was up to me I would have wiped every Taliban town and village to the ground that contributed with men in Taliban army. With objective, Taliban movement to be "forgotten" once for all in Afghanistan. And if Pakistan doesn't do the same attack it also(regardless of its nuclear capabilities).
Most of American soldiers did what they did for revenge for America, not for Bush.

Do you think that each and every fighter in Castro's army was a personal believer in communism?

I dont know, but neater do you, this can not be confirmed nor denied. Most of communist Cuban soldiers did what they did for Cuba, and not for Castro.
...

You know what is the difference between ISIS and all others, all ISIS soldiers(no exceptions) are religious soldiers that don't honor Geneva Conventions, they honor Wahhabi ideology.
Thats why they must die, all of them. From my perspective I can not be sure about a single one of them, if they even consider to honor Geneva Conventions.

Okay, so nobody is guilty, except every member of ISIS is guilty. Got it. Everybody had a good reason for what they did in the war, except no ISIS soldier had a good reason for what he did in the war. Understood.

My only regret is that I tried to reason with you instead of posting a Star Trek gif.

[waauw]

Do you think that every single American soldier was personally responsible for Bush's war crimes?

Any further discussion is useless as we'll both just revert back to the same arguments. It's clear that neither can convince the other.
About the above question, my answer is "yes". If a democratically elected president does something wrong in a continuous and publicly visible manner, the entire population carries part of the burden. It's a population's job to keep their leaders under a leash. That being said; it's unfeasible, unrealistic and pointless to to punish a population that large.

[Dukasaur]

Any further discussion is useless as we'll both just revert back to the same arguments. It's clear that neither can convince the other.

I agree completely. We've both clearly said what we have to say on this topic. Any more would just be repetition and a waste of words.

While I doubt if talking to me will convince you any, I hope you will at some point try for yourself to see what lies in the mind of a former guerilla fighter. Go down to the nearest refugee ghetto and take a former ISIS fighter out to the pub. Or if that is too extreme for you, try someone less threatening. Maybe you are lucky enough to have a former Sandinista living in your neighbourhood, or a former member of UNITA. Take him out for a beer, and see if he is a crazy animal wanting to destroy society, or if he is just a peace-loving cheesemaker who watched one too many government atrocity taking place and felt he he had no choice but to join the rebel camp.

My life has been much enriched by such encounters. Of course several of my relatives were involved in the Sokol resistance movement and fought both Hitler and Stalin. But far beyond the old-timers' stories, I have, through my travels and through my political activism, met a former FLQ member, a former Weatherman, a former FMLN member, and best of all I worked for six months with a former Biafran rebel soldier, probably the most helpful, friendly, genuinely kind person I have ever met, but a sniper who during the war killed 20 enemy soldiers, because that was just what was required at the time.

I think maybe, just maybe, you will discover that former soldiers are just people who did what they had to do in the circumstances they were in, and now that they are in civilian life they have no more propensity to violence or destruction than anyone else.

[mrswdk]

Do you think that every single Chinese soldier was personally responsible for Mao's war crimes?

You mean, 9/11 and the genocide of the Klingons?

[mrswdk]

Absolutely nothing of the kind have I said.

[Dukasaur]

Do you think that every single Chinese soldier was personally responsible for Mao's war crimes?

You mean, 9/11 and the genocide of the Klingons?

http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/china/deaths2.html

Gong Xiaoxia recalls the blank expression on the man’s face as he was beaten to death by a Chinese mob.

He died without a name, becoming another statistic among millions.

“I remember him so vividly, he really had no expression on his face,” Gong said. “After about 10 or 20 minutes, God knows how long, someone took out a knife and hit him right into the heart.”

He was then strung on a pole and left dangling and rotting for two months.

“I think the most terrible thing, when I recall that period, the most terrible thing that struck me was our indifference,” said Gong, today a 38-year-old graduate student at Harvard researching her own history.

That terrible period was China’s 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution. The blinding indifference was in the name of Chairman Mao Tse-tung and the Communist Party.

Gong is among a new wave of scholars and intellectuals, both Western and Chinese, who believe modern Chinese history needs rewriting.

While the focus of many books and articles today is on China’s successful economic reforms, dramatic new figures for the number of people who died as a result of Mao Tse-tung’s policies are surfacing, along with horrifying proof of cannibalism during the Cultural Revolution.

It is now believed that as many as 60 million to 80 million people may have died because of Mao’s policies-making him responsible for more deaths than Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin combined.

[mrswdk]

ambiguoususeofthewordkilled.jpg

*Anecdote from the Cultural Revolution, which has nothing to do with ‘Mao's soldiers' and in any case was a 10-year period of political turmoil during which 0.3% of the population died.*

As ever, glad to see your claims about Mao are supported by thorough research and a desire to understand that time period, rather than hyperbole and your general knee-jerk loathing of anything/anyone that carries the label 'communist'.

[subtleknifewield]

Lebanon and Turkey are Islamic countries and are currently housing nearly 3 million Syrian refugees between them.

Lebanon is actually a Christian nation, not an Islamic one, if it has to be labeled with a religion.

[subtleknifewield]

I would be more suspicious of someone who stood by and did nothing while their neighbours died, than someone who took up arms.

Right. Because the person who took up arms got themselves shot and killed, and so is no longer alive to be suspicious of.

Except in most wars, far more survive the war than are killed in it.