Afghanistan

[chartpolski 20,416]

1 minute ago, SheepChaser said:

Aye I’m fairly sure all of those attacks were on military stuff and embassies etc which the would count as ‘American or European soil’. They don’t tend to attack other Muslims for being not Muslim enough and they don’t tend to attack western countries without (in their mind) ‘a reason’. As opposed to isis who basically think we are all evil and need wiping out. 
 

Basically isis are the Islamic direct action equivalent of wilf. Only with more guns. 

See my above reply to Wilf .

Cheers.

[SheepChaser 8,082]

28 minutes ago, Born Hunter said:

Fair mate and an important point imo.

I remember when ISIS/ISIL/IS/Daesh first came on the scene and their MO was considered to be as you describe, brutal ideology but focussed on establishing territory, not attacking the West. For that reason they were considered less of a threat to our homelands than Al-Qaeda. The threat they posed was stability to the region whereas Al-Qaeda, though severely degraded, were still totally focussed on hurting the West to make our involvement in their backyard too painful.

But that changed with the onslaught of IS inspired lone wolf terrorist attacks. They still operate differently to Al-Qaeda, but the threat they pose now I think is similar. Fortunately all players in the Levant, on the many different sides of that mess, have taken the view that IS need exterminating. 

I would say that al queada are just playing the game that we all play.

Isis are wanting to rip the board up and play their own game with less players! 

[chartpolski 20,416]

I'm no terrorism expert, but there is overlap in the aims of most of these groups.

To reduce it to basics, as I see it;

The Taliban want an Islamic republic, based on Sharia law, only in their own country, Afghanistan.

ISIS want an Islamic caliphate , based on Sharia law stretching across all Islamic countries from North Africa to Indonesia.

Al Qaeda want nothing less than all democracies across the world replaced  with Islam and Sharia.

Cheers.

[WILF 44,325]

5 minutes ago, SheepChaser said:

Which is another great jingoistic line but it’s not quite that simple. For example getting rid of sadam hussein was a direct contributor to the rise of isis. Etc. It pays to understand your enemy to a point. 

We understand them only too well but too many people think you can apply Western European rules to them…..and you can’t.

Why?……because these people are not like us and we have nothing in common with them.

Nobody wants to talk about the reality of these people, it don’t fit the narrative.

I completely take and agree with your point about Saddam but we have to understand that we are just replacing one bit of backwards filth with another……who cares if we rinse Saddam, he was a bit of shit and who cares if we rinse the next bloke because he will be a bit of shit too…..

[SheepChaser 8,082]

1 minute ago, WILF said:

We understand them only too well but too many people think you can apply Western European rules to them…..and you can’t.

Why?……because these people are not like us and we have nothing in common with them.

Nobody wants to talk about the reality of these people, it don’t fit the narrative.

I completely take and agree with your point about Saddam but we have to understand that we are just replacing one bit of backwards filth with another……who cares if we rinse Saddam, he was a bit of shit and who cares if we rinse the next bloke because he will be a bit of shit too…..

This is part of the issue. 
 

I really do understand your opinion. I do.

But you can’t say we have ‘nothing’ in common with them. We may have a lot of things in which we are radically opposed but for the majority of people you will probably find that there are huge numbers of similarities and parallels. That’s not me being some kind of crazy lefty, it’s a simple fact of humanity and anthropology. So many of our basic needs, desires, fears etc are alll pretty universal. They may come out in very different ways, but we share a lot of stuff, we all do. 
 

No one wants to talk about reality in general!  

But your last bit I can’t get on board with. You may take the stance that we are very different from all of those who are a different colour etc, but you can’t say that they are all exactly the same. Sadam hussein was a very different fish to isis. He may have been a ‘bit of shit’ in many ways, especially if you opposed him in his own country, but he was never a threat to us in the west and he kept a firm hand on top of the pot which kept all of those other nasty fuckers in check. By seeing him as ‘exactly the same as the them’ we made a huge mistake (this is agreed by most analysts now including the yanks), we opened the door for something far worse, far more wide reaching and far far harder to attack, fight and control. 
 

So understanding the differences between them is quite important. Removing sadam hussein from lower cost western lives and western money and led to a situation which has cost more western money and more lives and looks to be set to get worse. Maybe a bit of fore thought and intelligence would have save this money and those lives, surely that would be a good thing ? 

[WILF 44,325]

2 minutes ago, SheepChaser said:

This is part of the issue. 
 

I really do understand your opinion. I do.

But you can’t say we have ‘nothing’ in common with them. We may have a lot of things in which we are radically opposed but for the majority of people you will probably find that there are huge numbers of similarities and parallels. That’s not me being some kind of crazy lefty, it’s a simple fact of humanity and anthropology. So many of our basic needs, desires, fears etc are alll pretty universal. They may come out in very different ways, but we share a lot of stuff, we all do. 
 

No one wants to talk about reality in general!  

But your last bit I can’t get on board with. You may take the stance that we are very different from all of those who are a different colour etc, but you can’t say that they are all exactly the same. Sadam hussein was a very different fish to isis. He may have been a ‘bit of shit’ in many ways, especially if you opposed him in his own country, but he was never a threat to us in the west and he kept a firm hand on top of the pot which kept all of those other nasty fuckers in check. By seeing him as ‘exactly the same as the them’ we made a huge mistake (this is agreed by most analysts now including the yanks), we opened the door for something far worse, far more wide reaching and far far harder to attack, fight and control. 
 

So understanding the differences between them is quite important. Removing sadam hussein from lower cost western lives and western money and led to a situation which has cost more western money and more lives and looks to be set to get worse. Maybe a bit of fore thought and intelligence would have save this money and those lives, surely that would be a good thing ? 

We did exactly the same in Syria didnt we……

Im a massive fan of “just let them get on with it” ……..but we create a shitstorm and then invite thousands back here…….I don’t know for sure what the reason for that is.

As I said, our government don’t seem to know which side it’s own but it looks like it’s just their own and f**k us.

[SheepChaser 8,082]

For anyone who can be arsed this is an interesting article which discusses the background and history of both groups, aims, tactics and perceived threat level and also talks about how they oppose each other. 
 

Comparing Al Qaeda and ISIS: Different goals, different targets

WWW.BROOKINGS.EDU

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Daniel Byman's prepared testimony before the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence...

 

 

 

[SheepChaser 8,082]

And this exert shows the different mindsets. 

[chartpolski 20,416]

When Saddam occupied Kuwait and invaded Saudi Arabia and advanced to within sight of the Dhahran/Dammam oilfields, we, rightly, drove him back to Iraq. 

But the mistake was made in not pursuing him and finishing him off then.

He was never going to give up his expansionist aims and dreams, so Bush and Blair, with the help of the "dodgy dossier" went back to finish the job that should have been done during the first Gulf War.

An illegal war ? Yes, but it was allways going to happen.

Cheers.

[SheepChaser 8,082]

1 minute ago, chartpolski said:

When Saddam occupied Kuwait and invaded Saudi Arabia and advanced to within sight of the Dhahran/Dammam oilfields, we, rightly, drove him back to Iraq. 

But the mistake was made in not pursuing him and finishing him off then.

He was never going to give up his expansionist aims and dreams, so Bush and Blair, with the help of the "dodgy dossier" went back to finish the job that should have been done during the first Gulf War.

An illegal war ? Yes, but it was allways going to happen.

Cheers.

The yanks made a few very very silly decisions when they went into Iraq the last time. Stuff which caused them a world of shit. The first two were removing any Baathist party member from any position of power or professional role and the second was disbanding the Iraqi army. The third was executing sadam 

[SheepChaser 8,082]

And here’s another watch. If you think all of the brown people are the same and a bunch of wrong uns. It’s some of them who are basically all that stands between what we hve now and a massive extremist united muslim Home land that hates us. If you really feel passionate about it all, then go and sign up and fight with them  

[Born Hunter 17,638]

[Francie 6,362]

5 minutes ago, Born Hunter said:

I see what your saying,but do you think it will happen born?

[Born Hunter 17,638]

8 minutes ago, Francie said:

I see what your saying,but do you think it will happen born?

No. I think we may see air strikes taking out the kit but no I think how the ANA folded means trying again is a non starter. Long term I think it’ll just be another region with low tempo SF ops ongoing but nothing big. But who knows…

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claims are been made that planes are been forced to leave empty.