ebola?
Bluelight Crew
Draven said:
The irony is. . .well, it's palpable. . .
ebola
The ISIS Megathread
- Thread starter bit_pattern
- Start date
The irony is. . .well, it's palpable. . .
ebola
quiet roar
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2003
- Messages
- 4,990
Yep, exactly.
bit_pattern
Ex-Bluelighter
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2008
- Messages
- 8,127
If you had a real desire, and intention to conquer my sisters household and make her daughters do what you dream, I'd get my friend in intelligence, or/and whomever, to help me out in locating you, and then I'd come and kill you.
Lol - says he who has never so much as been in a fist fight. And your "friend in intelligence"? I'm imagining a scene out of Napoleon Dynamite right now
Yup.
And their biggest recruitment tool will be western airstrikes which they will successfully frame as an attack on Islam.
Only to those who live in fear.
What 23
Ex-Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2013
- Messages
- 3,905
I guess wrestling isn't a viable form of combat... You keep bringing that up. If I attacked you I wouldn't give you the chance to fight back. That would be stupid. I have been in physical altercations. I've never 'lost'. Buuut... I'm not 19 anymore either, and have a few reasons why I'd avoid letting another have a chance at me if I can.
Yea, I have a friend in military intelligence, who probably has more connections. Just saying, if you were somehow a threat I'd find a way to find out who you were and where you are.
Isis threatens places/people. It's kind of a damned if we do and damned if we don't situation. But, I think it would be best if as others have said, the majority of handling is done by local and regional people. Strengthen themselves so ISIS isn't appealing to them. Make the environment inhospitable to them. I do agree that fighting them directly, holding the majority of the weight, has potential to have it explode in our faces.
Yea, I have a friend in military intelligence, who probably has more connections. Just saying, if you were somehow a threat I'd find a way to find out who you were and where you are.
Isis threatens places/people. It's kind of a damned if we do and damned if we don't situation. But, I think it would be best if as others have said, the majority of handling is done by local and regional people. Strengthen themselves so ISIS isn't appealing to them. Make the environment inhospitable to them. I do agree that fighting them directly, holding the majority of the weight, has potential to have it explode in our faces.
Last edited:
bit_pattern
Ex-Bluelighter
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2008
- Messages
- 8,127
realtalkloc
Bluelighter
just when we thought we heard it all8)
the guy who couldn't tell the difference between a bangladeshi and an arab supposedly has intelligence connects.
Last edited:
realtalkloc
Bluelighter
like that's really worked well in the last decade, thanks for the unique insight thomas edison8)
What 23
Ex-Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2013
- Messages
- 3,905
just when we thought we heard it all8)
the guy who couldn't tell the difference between a bangladeshi and an arab supposedly has intelligence connects.
Heh. Yep. He speaks three languages, and one of them is Arabic. Intelligence comes in different packages.
Bangladeshi people are no doubt a mixed people, with Arabic influence, as are Persians, Pakistanis, Afghanis... Though I admit I was driving and watching the video (not very intelligent but at 2 A.M. or so on the highway...), and his nose seemed 'semitic' at a glance, and I focused on his name, which, wasn't it Arabic? I was wrong. I don't look at Arab people every day.
Anyways, what do you offer this forum in these posts, other than 'hahaha' critique? You really need to give some substance. Please. Give us your (somewhat) original thoughts on subjects and actually contribute.
Edit: It was a good part inattention. The guy looked a little like my cousins husband, who is an Arab looking Jew, just with darker skin. And his nose doesn't look as 'Semitic' as I thought it did, at all. I was going off of my association with my cousins husband, and his name, and perhaps cultural association. Again I admit I'm wrong, but I can't agree with the guy. He does make me laugh, but to his "time machine" reverse racism joke about other places invading Europe... Its not as if they didn't try. Its not as if they didn't. And its not as if Arab Muslims didn't do their thing in many places.
Last edited:
^ what do you think you "offer these forums"?
I mean, do you really think you're in a position to ask that of another member?
You're a self-described white supremacist with a range of bigoted opinions that you regularly expouse at length.
How about sticking to the issues (if that is what you expect of others) and focus on yourself?
I mean, do you really think you're in a position to ask that of another member?
You're a self-described white supremacist with a range of bigoted opinions that you regularly expouse at length.
How about sticking to the issues (if that is what you expect of others) and focus on yourself?
What 23
Ex-Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2013
- Messages
- 3,905
Uhhm. I do.
What do I offer? My thoughts on issues. You can take them how you will.
Meanwhile, you get people like realtalkloc who just come in and personally attack people, and don't really offer anything to discussion.
Why would I focus on myself? Didn't you just say focus on the issues?
What do I offer? My thoughts on issues. You can take them how you will.
Meanwhile, you get people like realtalkloc who just come in and personally attack people, and don't really offer anything to discussion.
Why would I focus on myself? Didn't you just say focus on the issues?
bit_pattern
Ex-Bluelighter
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2008
- Messages
- 8,127
Shorter LulWut23 - "they all look the same anyway"
bit_pattern
Ex-Bluelighter
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2008
- Messages
- 8,127
I'm not on your team
And you're most definitely not on mine - I can think of a hundred people on non "white" backgrounds that I would prefer to be around - so much for your idiotic little white supremacist fantasy that "white" people get along better together
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
bit_pattern
Ex-Bluelighter
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2008
- Messages
- 8,127
bit_pattern
Ex-Bluelighter
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2008
- Messages
- 8,127
MARK COLVIN: So can it work? President Obama's plan, like Bill Clinton's Kosovo campaign, is concentrated on an air war. But even that took far longer than NATO expected.
Classic counter terrorism strategy involves troops on the ground. Iraqi troops haven't so far proved very reliable against IS (Islamic State). And IS in Syria is itself the result of chaos and infighting among anti-Bashar al-Assad forces.
Richard Barrett is a senior vice president at the Soufan Group, a security consultancy based in New York. He's a former director of Global Counter Terrorism for Britain's SIS, also known as MI6. He also headed the UN monitoring team on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban from 2004 to 2014.
David Mark asked Richard Barrett first whether president Obama could achieve his aim of degrading and destroying Islamic State.
RICHARD BARRETT: He may be able to degrade and he probably will be able to degrade ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), but to destroy it will take a lot more. And to destroy it will really take the engagement of the community and the region much more than it will the engagement of the United States.
He talked about fighting for opportunity and progress and a brighter future for the people of the region, well he will, he will fight for that. But it's a different culture, it's a different people, it's a different set of circumstances. And it's not something that is going to be changed dramatically by knocking over some of the people who are fighting there.
You have to understand a little more, I think, why those people are fighting, why they're attracting support and what it will take ultimately to destroy them altogether.
DAVID MARK: Richard Barrett, the great lesson out of the Iraq war was that in order to run an effective counter terrorism strategy, you must win the hearts and minds of the people. Is Barack Obama's four point strategy going to win the hearts and minds of the people who are fighting the IS fighters?
RICHARD BARRETT: Well as he said himself, it's a questioning of mobilising the Sunni communities. It's a question of, as he put it, standing with the people who fight for their own freedoms. But if the Sunni tribes fight for their own freedoms against the Islamic State, they're not necessarily guaranteed to achieve them from the Iraqi government.
So those issues are, to a certain extent, outside American control.
There's only so much he can do because some of the problems that are faced by the region are deeply ingrained in society; the Sunni/Shia sectarianism for example; the difficulty of the ordinary person to have a say in the government of this country; the endemic corruption; and all sorts of problems like that, which however much leadership you provide from outside can only really be solved from inside.
DAVID MARK: Well let's look at president Obama's strategy in a little bit more detail. There are four parts to it, beginning with air strikes, be they in Syria or Iraq. Now what is that going to entail?
RICHARD BARRETT: Well yes, he says air strikes in conjunction with the Iraqi security forces of course. So I think it will entail quite a lot of very close coordination and of course a lot of intelligence because you can't just strike the odd truck wandering around in the Iraqi desert. You have to do a concerted attack that knows what the tactics of the Islamic State are and is countering them directly.
He also says of course that he won't hesitate to strike elsewhere, meaning in Syria, if the Islamic State is threatening American interest there. But I wonder still what it is that is going to trigger American air strikes in Syria, because clearly he doesn't have ground troops there. And nor of course does he have the agreement of the Syrian government to mount air strikes.
DAVID MARK: In the previous Iraq wars, you know I go back to 2003, the "shock and awe" campaign, huge amounts of munitions were dropped on Iraqi fighters. But it never does the job, does it? So can air strikes alone do the job?
RICHARD BARRETT: No they cannot. I think you're absolutely right on that. Air strikes are fine in remote and rural areas, but as soon as you start striking the Islamic State in cities, then you're bound to be affecting civilians. Civilians will certainly be in danger and then you'll come into all sorts of complications. Not just the fact that you've killed civilians, but also of course that you're alienating their families, their tribes and indeed the broader population.
DAVID MARK: Let's look at point two, which is essentially providing support to fighters in Iraq, Kurds-Iraqi forces and also opposition forces in Syria. There's going to 475 American servicemen on the ground, how much can they do and how much support can the US really provide?
RICHARD BARRETT: I guess that 475 troops doesn't sound like very much, but 475 specialists of course will make quite a difference.
But again you make a very valid and good point; that this is not going to happen overnight. You can't put 475 additional troops in there and hope that somehow that's going to transform the Iraqi army even in a matter of weeks. This is going to take a long time.
DAVID MARK: I just want to go back very briefly, if I could, to one of the very specific premises that's underlying this, the fact that IS represents a threat to the people of the US and beyond. Is he right?
RICHARD BARRETT: No, I don't think they're really interested in America, and I don't think that they really see much advantage in attacking America or American interests or Australian interests, or Australia itself.
But nonetheless, we can all think of plenty of examples of citizens of Australia, the United Kingdom, and even of America, doing things which would threaten us and they say that they're going to come and get us and so on. Well is it bravado, is it bluster, or is there some sort of element of truth in that, or of intention in that?
I think at the moment it's bravado and bluster. But if ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) get really knocked back, if they become really too weak to operate a state anymore and collapse, then there will be a dispersal of a lot of radicalised people and many of them will find their way home and perhaps they'll still be resentful of the activities which led to the downfall of ISIS sufficiently to launch an attack on those they see responsible.
MARK COLVIN: Counter terrorism expert Richard Barrett speaking to David Mark.
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2014/s4085923.htm
Classic counter terrorism strategy involves troops on the ground. Iraqi troops haven't so far proved very reliable against IS (Islamic State). And IS in Syria is itself the result of chaos and infighting among anti-Bashar al-Assad forces.
Richard Barrett is a senior vice president at the Soufan Group, a security consultancy based in New York. He's a former director of Global Counter Terrorism for Britain's SIS, also known as MI6. He also headed the UN monitoring team on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban from 2004 to 2014.
David Mark asked Richard Barrett first whether president Obama could achieve his aim of degrading and destroying Islamic State.
RICHARD BARRETT: He may be able to degrade and he probably will be able to degrade ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), but to destroy it will take a lot more. And to destroy it will really take the engagement of the community and the region much more than it will the engagement of the United States.
He talked about fighting for opportunity and progress and a brighter future for the people of the region, well he will, he will fight for that. But it's a different culture, it's a different people, it's a different set of circumstances. And it's not something that is going to be changed dramatically by knocking over some of the people who are fighting there.
You have to understand a little more, I think, why those people are fighting, why they're attracting support and what it will take ultimately to destroy them altogether.
DAVID MARK: Richard Barrett, the great lesson out of the Iraq war was that in order to run an effective counter terrorism strategy, you must win the hearts and minds of the people. Is Barack Obama's four point strategy going to win the hearts and minds of the people who are fighting the IS fighters?
RICHARD BARRETT: Well as he said himself, it's a questioning of mobilising the Sunni communities. It's a question of, as he put it, standing with the people who fight for their own freedoms. But if the Sunni tribes fight for their own freedoms against the Islamic State, they're not necessarily guaranteed to achieve them from the Iraqi government.
So those issues are, to a certain extent, outside American control.
There's only so much he can do because some of the problems that are faced by the region are deeply ingrained in society; the Sunni/Shia sectarianism for example; the difficulty of the ordinary person to have a say in the government of this country; the endemic corruption; and all sorts of problems like that, which however much leadership you provide from outside can only really be solved from inside.
DAVID MARK: Well let's look at president Obama's strategy in a little bit more detail. There are four parts to it, beginning with air strikes, be they in Syria or Iraq. Now what is that going to entail?
RICHARD BARRETT: Well yes, he says air strikes in conjunction with the Iraqi security forces of course. So I think it will entail quite a lot of very close coordination and of course a lot of intelligence because you can't just strike the odd truck wandering around in the Iraqi desert. You have to do a concerted attack that knows what the tactics of the Islamic State are and is countering them directly.
He also says of course that he won't hesitate to strike elsewhere, meaning in Syria, if the Islamic State is threatening American interest there. But I wonder still what it is that is going to trigger American air strikes in Syria, because clearly he doesn't have ground troops there. And nor of course does he have the agreement of the Syrian government to mount air strikes.
DAVID MARK: In the previous Iraq wars, you know I go back to 2003, the "shock and awe" campaign, huge amounts of munitions were dropped on Iraqi fighters. But it never does the job, does it? So can air strikes alone do the job?
RICHARD BARRETT: No they cannot. I think you're absolutely right on that. Air strikes are fine in remote and rural areas, but as soon as you start striking the Islamic State in cities, then you're bound to be affecting civilians. Civilians will certainly be in danger and then you'll come into all sorts of complications. Not just the fact that you've killed civilians, but also of course that you're alienating their families, their tribes and indeed the broader population.
DAVID MARK: Let's look at point two, which is essentially providing support to fighters in Iraq, Kurds-Iraqi forces and also opposition forces in Syria. There's going to 475 American servicemen on the ground, how much can they do and how much support can the US really provide?
RICHARD BARRETT: I guess that 475 troops doesn't sound like very much, but 475 specialists of course will make quite a difference.
But again you make a very valid and good point; that this is not going to happen overnight. You can't put 475 additional troops in there and hope that somehow that's going to transform the Iraqi army even in a matter of weeks. This is going to take a long time.
DAVID MARK: I just want to go back very briefly, if I could, to one of the very specific premises that's underlying this, the fact that IS represents a threat to the people of the US and beyond. Is he right?
RICHARD BARRETT: No, I don't think they're really interested in America, and I don't think that they really see much advantage in attacking America or American interests or Australian interests, or Australia itself.
But nonetheless, we can all think of plenty of examples of citizens of Australia, the United Kingdom, and even of America, doing things which would threaten us and they say that they're going to come and get us and so on. Well is it bravado, is it bluster, or is there some sort of element of truth in that, or of intention in that?
I think at the moment it's bravado and bluster. But if ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) get really knocked back, if they become really too weak to operate a state anymore and collapse, then there will be a dispersal of a lot of radicalised people and many of them will find their way home and perhaps they'll still be resentful of the activities which led to the downfall of ISIS sufficiently to launch an attack on those they see responsible.
MARK COLVIN: Counter terrorism expert Richard Barrett speaking to David Mark.
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2014/s4085923.htm
cashfl0w_d0nkey
Bluelight Crew
Oh FFS people, get a grip. It's no wonder the posters I enjoy reading from are nowhere to be seen nowadays. Look at what this forum has become. I think this forum would be well served by a well-enforced "respect your fellow posters" rule.
You guys ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Not being mature enough to hold adult conversations doesn't speak highly to your ability to have mature political opinions.
You guys ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Not being mature enough to hold adult conversations doesn't speak highly to your ability to have mature political opinions.