Latest French Attacks: updates (in English)

[SciFiAuthor]

You also need to take the land, not just bomb the shit out of it. No land = no caliphate. The problems with that are, boots on the ground, and ISIS wants an invasion. I don't think we have the stomach for another prolonged ground war and occupation though. So what the solution is, I really don't know. An embedded German journalist said it's something the Arabs have to take care of.

I think the coalition was hoping the rebel groups and Kurds could take back the land but so far their success has been pretty underwhelming. In our case, the only thing that would lend support to boots on the ground would be another major attack on us and even then, I doubt Obama would do it.

[bateman]

I think the coalition was hoping the rebel groups and Kurds could take back the land but so far their success has been pretty underwhelming. In our case, the only thing that would lend support to boots on the ground would be another major attack on us and even then, I doubt Obama would do it.

For reasons not entirely clear to me, Erbil is safe in Kurdish territory for the time being. Kurds also assisted in this raid on an IS prison nearby:

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/helmet-cam-video-shows-raid-on-isis-prison-where-u-s-d-1738558922

[albrecht]

I think the coalition was hoping the rebel groups and Kurds could take back the land but so far their success has been pretty underwhelming. In our case, the only thing that would lend support to boots on the ground would be another major attack on us and even then, I doubt Obama would do it.

Nobody likes the Kurds except those not in the area. Maybe if the NATO Art.5 invoked it could be used to leverage Turkey to allow the Kurds more ability to fight ISIS? Or at least allow us to arm them better? But Turkey still more concerned with Kurds than ISIS. And Obama, until very recently, more concerned with Assad than ISIS. Just the other days he said ISIS was contained and still wants to 'streamline' unvetted 'refugees' into our country? It is a bizarre situation. Literally several years ago Assad's wife and him were on magazine covers, tv shows, etc as 'modern' educated Arabs etc etc. And then, almost suddenly, he becomes the most evil and we have to support ISIS and various other Obama rebels and 'springers' against him?

[SciFiAuthor]

For reasons not entirely clear to me, Erbil is safe in Kurdish territory for the time being. Kurds also assisted in this raid on an IS prison nearby:

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/helmet-cam-video-shows-raid-on-isis-prison-where-u-s-d-1738558922

We've been arming the Kurds for a while now and backing them with air support but they seemed stalled for a long period of time. They did have some recent victories in Northern Iraq, most notably taking the city of Sinjar and this just today:

http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/151120155

But that's a long way from taking Mosul.

[Eddie Coyle]

   I doubt there's any Islamic penetration into France's police and military. Those Islamic outpost banlieues throughout Southern France are on the level. Nothing to be concerned with.

[bateman]

   I doubt there's any Islamic penetration into France's police and military. Those Islamic outpost banlieues throughout Southern France are on the level. Nothing to be concerned with.

You are probably right. Right now what's necessary is some police brutality/no-knock raids in the Molenbeek section of Brussels.

Police found automatic weapons, police uniforms and chemicals to make TATP, the powerful explosive that the Paris attackers also used Friday.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/15/europe/paris-attacks-belgium-molenbeek/

[SciFiAuthor]

Nobody likes the Kurds except those not in the area. Maybe if the NATO Art.5 invoked it could be used to leverage Turkey to allow the Kurds more ability to fight ISIS? Or at least allow us to arm them better? But Turkey still more concerned with Kurds than ISIS. And Obama, until very recently, more concerned with Assad than ISIS. Just the other days he said ISIS was contained and still wants to 'streamline' unvetted 'refugees' into our country? It is a bizarre situation. Literally several years ago Assad's wife and him were on magazine covers, tv shows, etc as 'modern' educated Arabs etc etc. And then, almost suddenly, he becomes the most evil and we have to support ISIS and various other Obama rebels and 'springers' against him?

The Kurds are one of the least Islamic groups in the region, many of them actually being atheists, communists and socialists. As such they are loathed almost as badly as the Yazidis who aren't Muslims at all. But as far as Turkey aiding the Kurds, I don't think there's much chance of anything but token aid. Under normal circumstances the Turks and Kurds would be fighting each other.

I have no clue why we involved ourselves in the Syrian civil war. Should have just sat back and let it play out.

[albrecht]

You are probably right. Right now what's necessary is some police brutality/no-knock raids in the Molenbeek section of Brussels.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/15/europe/paris-attacks-belgium-molenbeek/

I could give you a list of neighborhoods that deserve more than 'no knock' raids throughout France, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Germany. There are whole parts that are chock full of various and sundry Islamists and often radical and young. They trash out the area, ride their damn illegal scooters/mini-bikes without mufflers, sell bad hash, harass women or homos or Jews, hang laundry everywhere, commit petty crime, force their women to wear garb (even in a hot summer when they run around in shorts), live so many people to a house that no way in meets zoning, riot (especially in France and Sweden,) and never seem to work- at age from teens to old men- but just hang out on the dole smoking or drinking coffee and, I guess, worse. And this was BEFORE the latest 'refugees' started coming into Europe!
No-knock? They should kick in the doors, then kick them in the head, and then kick them out of those countries. In my humble opinion.

[Uncle Duke]

You also need to take the land, not just bomb the shit out of it. No land = no caliphate. The problems with that are, boots on the ground, and ISIS wants an invasion. I don't think we have the stomach for another prolonged ground war and occupation though. So what the solution is, I really don't know. An embedded German journalist said it's something the Arabs have to take care of.

Yeah, and so did Saddam.  But just as with the Iraqis in 90, ISIS has never fought a modern military with combined arms capability, mobiliity, total control of the skies, and most importantly, a logistics system that can supply them with everything they need to fight and win, for as long as it takes.  Those ISIS cowards wouldn't be killing defenseless civilians or fighting local militias, they'd be facing a first rate, professional force in a ground war they could never win.  But you are right, it's a question of political will, not military capability. 

[pyewacket]

Sickening!

Resentful black activists and their comrades started a backlash against the huge public sympathy for the Parisian victims of the Islamist terror war. On Sunday, they used Twitter’s hashtag #FuckParis to reveal their emotional reaction to their loss of attention.

Breitbart News’ Milo Yiannopoulos reported, the social media backlash began almost immediately by Black Lives Matters activists upset about how the historic terror attack by ISIS that left over 120 dead had stolen the media spotlight overnight on Friday.

A small sampling of the tweets show no sympathy towards the killed and wounded in Paris. Instead, the left-wing activists described the slaughter in France as retribution for the Western colionialist, imperialist, racist, and white culture. The tweets cited included France’s long history with Haiti and Africa, as well as France’s popular ban on Muslim’s Afghan-style face-covering ‘niqab’ cloaks.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/15/black-activist-double-white-hate-fparis-hashtag/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

[bateman]

Yeah, and so did Saddam.  But just as with the Iraqis in 91, ISIS has never fought a modern military with combined arms capability, mobiliity, total control of the skies, and most importantly, a logistics system that can supply them with everything they need to fight and win, for as long as it takes.  Those ISIS cowards wouldn't be killing defenseless civilians or fighting local militias, they'd be facing a first rate, professional force in a ground war they could never win.  But you are right, it's a question of political will, not military capability. 

Which is why supply route(s) between Raqqa and Mosul have been hit in recent weeks. How effective that'll be remains to be seen.

[GravitySucks]

I could give you a list of neighborhoods that deserve more than 'no knock' raids throughout France, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Germany. There are whole parts that are chock full of various and sundry Islamists and often radical and young. They trash out the area, ride their damn illegal scooters/mini-bikes without mufflers, sell bad hash, harass women or homos or Jews, hang laundry everywhere, commit petty crime, force their women to wear garb (even in a hot summer when they run around in shorts), live so many people to a house that no way in meets zoning, riot (especially in France and Sweden,) and never seem to work- at age from teens to old men- but just hang out on the dole smoking or drinking coffee and, I guess, worse. And this was BEFORE the latest 'refugees' started coming into Europe!
No-knock? They should kick in the doors, then kick them in the head, and then kick them out of those countries. In my humble opinion.

Yeah because Obama is running out of people to let in here.

[Uncle Duke]

I don't know about you but it really bothers me how hospitals have become acceptable targets now. Did they just scrap the Geneva Convention altogether? This is the kind of shit that creates terrorists in the first place.

Hosptials (and mosques/churches/temples, private homes, schools, shelters etc) became acceptable targets when the other side uses them for military purposes, including passively for human/propaganda shield value.  In such cases, they no longer are protected by the Convention.

A colleague of mine got shot down by a ZSU-23 sitting in a court yard of a mosque during Desert Storm.  A day later it was taken out, and sure enough, the Iraqis told the world Coalition forces bombed a mosque. 

[Dr. MD MD]

I could give you a list of neighborhoods that deserve more than 'no knock' raids throughout France, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Germany. There are whole parts that are chock full of various and sundry Islamists and often radical and young. They trash out the area, ride their damn illegal scooters/mini-bikes without mufflers, sell bad hash, harass women or homos or Jews, hang laundry everywhere, commit petty crime, force their women to wear garb (even in a hot summer when they run around in shorts), live so many people to a house that no way in meets zoning, riot (especially in France and Sweden,) and never seem to work- at age from teens to old men- but just hang out on the dole smoking or drinking coffee and, I guess, worse. And this was BEFORE the latest 'refugees' started coming into Europe!
No-knock? They should kick in the doors, then kick them in the head, and then kick them out of those countries. In my humble opinion.

I understand your criticism. I even posted a video showing some of the scenes you describe. However, what you're talking about sounds more like joining than beating. I don't think we can defeat terrorists by being just like them. I understand how upset everyone is. Me too but ends justifying means schemes really never work because you never really achieve the desired ends and are just left to deal with traumatic aftermath of the means, which just become seeds for more dissension in the future. I wish the solution were as easy as just kicking some Muslim ass but I don't think so.

[bateman]

I understand your criticism. I even posted a video showing some of the scenes you describe. However, what you're talking about sounds more like joining than beating. I don't think we can defeat terrorists by being just like them. I understand how upset everyone is. Me too but ends justifying means schemes really never work because you never really achieve the desired ends and are just left to deal with traumatic aftermath of the means, which just become seeds for more dissension in the future. I wish the solution were as easy as just kicking some Muslim ass but I don't think so.

What do you think the solution is? It isn't diplomacy, IS cannot be reasoned with. Any opposition to thousand year-old texts is invalid. The solution is extermination.

[Eddie Coyle]

Sickening!

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/15/black-activist-double-white-hate-fparis-hashtag/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

       BLM supports ISIS. ISIS is definitively "anti-white", therefore a spiritual ally to BLM.

       The coming ISIS attacks in America will have African Americans in major roles. They already have. The Pamela Geller attack being an example.

[Dr. MD MD]

What do you think the solution is? It isn't diplomacy, IS cannot be reasoned with. Any opposition to thousand year-old texts is invalid. The solution is extermination.

I don't know but I think it might help to think historically about what it's been like in the past when the US has faced an enemy committed to death before defeat. The last time was Vietnam and that didn't turn out so well. Before that it was the Japanese and it took a nuclear bomb before they said uncle. Do we really want to go there? Perhaps it can't be solved with diplomacy alone but let's not become the monster we're trying to defeat in the process.

[SciFiAuthor]

I don't know but I think it might help to think historically about what it's been like in the past when the US has faced an enemy committed to death before defeat. The last time was Vietnam and that didn't turn out so well. Before that it was the Japanese and it took a nuclear bomb before they said uncle. Do we really want to go there? Perhaps it can't be solved with diplomacy alone but let's not become the monster we're trying to defeat in the process.

The problem is that groups like Japan and ISIS have the habit of striking you to the point that you end up with no choice but to annihilate them.

[Dr. MD MD]

       BLM supports ISIS. ISIS is definitively "anti-white", therefore a spiritual ally to BLM.

       The coming ISIS attacks in America will have African Americans in major roles. They already have. The Pamela Geller attack being an example.

Historically, I think they make some valid points from their perspective but the calling for more violence is a line-crosser.

[Uncle Duke]

I don't know but I think it might help to think historically about what it's been like in the past when the US has faced an enemy committed to death before defeat. The last time was Vietnam and that didn't turn out so well. Before that it was the Japanese and it took a nuclear bomb before they said uncle. Do we really want to go there? Perhaps it can't be solved with diplomacy alone but let's not become the monster we're trying to defeat in the process.

"Good" and "evil" have historically used the same methods, the difference between the two was, and remains, intent.  And of course the winners write the history, so......

[albrecht]

I understand your criticism. I even posted a video showing some of the scenes you describe. However, what you're talking about sounds more like joining than beating. I don't think we can defeat terrorists by being just like them. I understand how upset everyone is. Me too but ends justifying means schemes really never work because you never really achieve the desired ends and are just left to deal with traumatic aftermath of the means, which just become seeds for more dissension in the future. I wish the solution were as easy as just kicking some Muslim ass but I don't think so.

It works, just can be ugly, but the history of people is just this (aside from a few short, and not as true-as-we-think eras of "gentlemanly" wars in primarily European theaters between principalities of related royalty and rich folks.) Tribal conflict, ethnic cleansing, burnt towns, and salted fields; total war. With, overtime, the conquests taken and absorbed into the conquering group (if not done well, as you mention, can sow dissensions (from taxed native populace or those enemies left alive) and future trouble- don't over extend one's reach.) But in the modern era? With our potential capability for technology? Could be easily solved, if there is a WILL. Genetic weapons? 'Smart' mines? Mines (land and harbor based) are cheap as hell and proven very effective (Princess Di, sorry, but true.) And with modern tech I could imagine even mines that we can monitor or even 'move' at bit so when they send their goats or girls to try to find them...they wouldn't. Crop/livestock diseases, bacteria, virus (especially for fowl? Since Muslims don't eat swine? Even simply stuff like hoof and mouth and anthrax for their goats and sheep?) GMOs modified crop infestation of native crops to allow no more yield or reseeding? Even some weather modification, maybe? ERW ("neutron bombs"?) There are OPTIONS. Ugly, ugly options but options to solve the problem once and for all. Don't give them what they WANT (troops on ground, grand army toward armageddon/Mahdi, etc but use SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY- the very stuff they criticize.) And, believe me, with modern science one could reap a worse whirlwind than any conventional or even old-school devastation or "crusade!" But, go quickly, because some of the tech is cheap enough that they also might be going to try some of it....

[Dr. MD MD]

The problem is that groups like Japan and ISIS have the habit of striking you to the point that you end up with no choice but to annihilate them.

Well, I'm certainly not defending either of them; and believe me, I could so easily join in with these war cries. I just know that in a few weeks or months from now when all the dust settles and all the facts are in that I'd feel like duped idiot if I did. The last time I gave the US the benefit of doubt about a military mission was the gulf war and pretty soon regretted it.

[Eddie Coyle]

Historically, I think they make some valid points from their perspective but the calling for more violence is a line-crosser.

   I think(hope) BLM's truly remarkable indiscipline will render them useless in a domestic ISIS campaign. They telegraph practically every move, love hearing/reading about themselves.

   The Nation of Islam(pris-lam) is where the real threats will come from.

[bateman]

Well, I'm certainly not defending either of them; and believe me, I could so easily join in with these war cries. I just know that in a few weeks or months from now when all the dust settles and all the facts are in that I'd feel like duped idiot if I did. The last time I gave the US the benefit of doubt about a military mission was the gulf war and pretty soon regretted it.

Fair point. 2003 is fresh in everyone's mind as well. But Iraq's links to 9/11 were tenuous even then. ISIS is undoubtedly responsible for the attacks in Paris, downing a passenger jet, another bombing in Beirut and terrorizing their neighbors. This isn't exactly faked intel this time around.

[albrecht]

Fair point. 2003 is fresh in everyone's mind as well. But Iraq's links to 9/11 were tenuous even then. ISIS is undoubtedly responsible for the attacks in Paris, downing a passenger jet, another bombing in Beirut and terrorizing their neighbors. This isn't exactly faked intel this time around.

And, although I understand that sometimes "it aint our business," ISIS/ISIL/SI promotes and distributes videos of various atrocities they commit. They aren't trying to hide it. They WANT people to know who they beheaded, raped, burnt, drowned, sold into slavery, etc. But, as that article you mentioned, and their own propaganda say they WANT the final confrontation and battle. Which is why, I say, deny it to them. Seal off the area (with mines, drones, etc) and let them starve and eat each other alive. (Or introduce 'things' to speed up the option using modern science and technology.) I think it would be interesting to watch their twitter account when it doesn't come down to- not a final battle but a group of bearded people with the hair falling-out, festering sores, emaciated bodies, miscarrying women; sipping fetid water in their glorious caliphate and going down without a fight, except amongst themselves for who eats the last of some anthrax-plagued stillborn goat fetus.

[bateman]

   I think(hope) BLM's truly remarkable indiscipline will render them useless in a domestic ISIS campaign. They telegraph practically every move, love hearing/reading about themselves.

   The Nation of Islam(pris-lam) is where the real threats will come from.

"The culture of victimhood"

“The contagion has broken out of its confinement,” he said. “Someone has planned all this for a long time. There is a lot of organisation â€" but it doesn’t take much of a commitment to kill people. What happened doesn’t surprise me. What surprised me was that what happened in Beirut [24 hours earlier] spun to Paris. It’s as if the culture of victimhood which is rife in the Middle East … has risen to new levels, legitimising the worst horrors.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/robert-fisk-we-remain-blindfolded-about-isis-says-the-man-who-should-know-a6735426.html

[Dr. MD MD]

Fair point. 2003 is fresh in everyone's mind as well. But Iraq's links to 9/11 were tenuous even then. ISIS is undoubtedly responsible for the attacks in Paris, downing a passenger jet, another bombing in Beirut and terrorizing their neighbors. This isn't exactly faked intel this time around.

Still, you'd want to get the people ultimately responsible for it and if the terrorist turn out to be some sort of agent provocateur front for something more complex then what?

[SciFiAuthor]

Well, I'm certainly not defending either of them; and believe me, I could so easily join in with these war cries. I just know that in a few weeks or months from now when all the dust settles and all the facts are in that I'd feel like duped idiot if I did. The last time I gave the US the benefit of doubt about a military mission was the gulf war and pretty soon regretted it.

It just depends on how this goes. If they keep committing these kinds of terrorist attacks, then we run out of options and must be proactive for defensive reasons. In the Iraq war, it was a bit different, that was cooked intelligence and we were led to believe that it was defensive when in fact it was nothing of the sort. With ISIS I think we're past that stage.

[albrecht]

Still, you'd want to get the people ultimately responsible for it and if the terrorist turn out to be some sort of agent provocateur front for something more complex then what?

There can be more than one 'bad guy' in the neighborhood. Simply because some might use the radical Muslims, or Muslims in general, for their own ends doesn't mean they are good. It could be that both need to be dealt with. And, sometimes, one might need to ally themselves with a bad guy that, maybe is less bad or, for the time, not as much a threat, to take another down? Who knows? But that pragmatic approach can cause problems (as we've seen) but still is sometimes necessary. Clearly I'm suspect of various governments' (and others) motives, even our own often, but this doesn't mean that the crazy Muslims are the answer or shouldn't be dealt with, for the sake of its own.

[Dr. MD MD]

It just depends on how this goes. If they keep committing these kinds of terrorist attacks, then we run out of options and must be proactive for defensive reasons. In the Iraq war, it was a bit different, that was cooked intelligence and we were led to believe that it was defensive when in fact it was nothing of the sort. With ISIS I think we're past that stage.

So, they were lying the last few times but now it's all real? I hope you understand my skepticism.