off topic The politics of terrorism

[Hoss]

Speaking of refugees, it's being reported that at least one of the suicide bombers was a Syrian refugee.

What's being reported is that a passport of a Syrian refugee was found at the site of one of the bombings. It is unclear if it was an attacker.

 

From the beginning the French officials said they believed some members of ISIS slipped into the groups of refugees coming into the country. So they may be labeled a Syrian refugee, but they're as much so as I would be a schoolgirl if I jumped in line with a bunch of third graders.

[Sabres Fan in NS]

Speaking of refugees,  it's being reported that at least one of the suicide bombers was a Syrian refugee. 

 

Not surprising.

 

The real refugees are still in camps in Turkey.  They could not buy their way out.

 

We need to get trained people on the ground in the camps so that we can help the real refugees.

[Huckleberry]

Also I have said it before, most of the Muslims who went to fight for IS are criminals.   They had cases in court for rape, theft, violence and facing sentences of 5 years + .

They fled to IS controlled terrain so they could keep doing what they love and add murder to the list without being held accountable.

Almost every week I can read in the newspaper : this person has been sentenced for 5 + years, but is believed to have joined IS. 

[Sabres Fan in NS]

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Also being reported that one of the attackers was a young French citizen that was flagged by police for crazy stuff.

 

I wonder how much was known about this attack pre-attack?

[nfreeman]

I'm assuming that when you say "casualties of war" you mean "Western casualties of war." I'll say it again. Our last military engagement killed over 100,000 innocent casualties of war, they just happened to not be western so we don't count them. That's an awful lot of blood on our hands. You keep pretending that this thing is only one sided,… well, actually it is. We kill a whole lot more innocent people than they do.

I am very much including innocent Muslims in the casualties I'd like to reduce. Most of those 100,000 were killed by "fellow" Muslims, not by the US, just as most Muslims worldwide are killed by Muslims -- and the number of post-Iraq Muslim casualties at the hands of other Muslims dwarfs 100K.

[Huckleberry]

Grasswire: Update: Belgian justice minister confirms “number of arrests” made in connection to Paris attacks - http://bit.ly/1kwcPRy

 

Well yeah that is one of the neighbourhoods a guy like me isn't allowed in any more, "no go" zone.

[SwampD]

I am very much including innocent Muslims in the casualties I'd like to reduce. Most of those 100,000 were killed by "fellow" Muslims, not by the US, just as most Muslims worldwide are killed by Muslims -- and the number of post-Iraq Muslim casualties at the hands of other Muslims dwarfs 100K.

Not true. Most were killed during the Shock and Awe bombings.

[DirtDart]

Mentioned this in the Presidential Politics thread - police have confirmed at least 30 dead in a shooting and 60 hostages held in a concert hall right now.

Explosion near the soccer stadium where France and Germany were playing prompted an evacuation. French president was in the stadium but has been evacuated to safety.

Terrible, maybe now the French will join us, and our Allies in the fight on terror.

[JJFIVEOH]

Not surprising.

 

The real refugees are still in camps in Turkey.  They could not buy their way out.

 

We need to get trained people on the ground in the camps so that we can help the real refugees.

 

A round of refugees was already relocated there, no? 

[Huckleberry]

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Also being reported that one of the attackers was a young French citizen that was flagged by police for crazy stuff.

 

I wonder how much was known about this attack pre-attack?

 

Belgian intelligence has been pretty lucky so far, and coordinating well with the french intelligence, but this was bound to happen and can't stop them all.

[JJFIVEOH]

What's being reported is that a passport of a Syrian refugee was found at the site of one of the bombings. It is unclear if it was an attacker.

 

From the beginning the French officials said they believed some members of ISIS slipped into the groups of refugees coming into the country. So they may be labeled a Syrian refugee, but they're as much so as I would be a schoolgirl if I jumped in line with a bunch of third graders.

 

The passport was found ON the attacker. He had possession of it. Whether he was a refugee or not, your point is invalid because if there were no refugees he wouldn't have been there in the first place. 

[Huckleberry]

Terrible, maybe now the French will join us, and our Allies in the fight on terror.

 

As in they haven't ? only thing that can stop this is a well coordinated boots on the ground offensive coordinated with russia and china.  

But this is where it stings, USA doesn't want to work with those two.

[Sabres Fan in NS]

A round of refugees was already relocated there, no? 

 

Yes, but the French, like the Germans, had no choice.

 

These *refugees* were forced through other countries until they reached the French and German borders, with no other place to go.

 

I'm sorry, but these people had the means to pay smugglers to get them out.

[X. Benedict]

And this is where our pulling out of Iraq in 2011 is so ####ing frustrating. The fighting was essentially over and rebuilding had begun. We had essentially won, but then pulled out before order (and not oppression providing order like under Saddam) could be established and entrenched as the normal state of things. The vast majority of the people in Iraq (& elsewhere in the ME) simply want to live their lives in peace & safety. Our presence there was giving the Iraqis the opportunity to provide that on their own. Once we pulled out, the small minority of sick bastards that behead people for fun managed to come back out of the shadows. They weren't ready to handle that threat on their own w/ out our support, but they could handle it with our support.

I have a little bit of experience with this as I was designing a water plant to go in a major city there a couple of years ago. The security situation deteriorating was a large part of scuttling that. That was just one example of the myriad of projects that were restoring and reenforcing the normalcy that was starting to take root.

Our walking out caused the restoration of that country to come out stillbirth. There were many over there that trusted us, and we just abandoned them. And before somebody says the Iraqi government pushed us out; that is bull squat. There was a status of forces agreement to be reached. Our politicians wanted out and took a convenient way out - LT consequences be d*mned.

And now conditions are a lot worse than they were and we will likely have to put "boots on the ground" again - and lose 1,000's more of our kids. The big difference between then & now is there is no reason for the people that want normalcy & peace over there to trust we won't cut & run again. The 1st President Bush abandoned the Iraqi's after the war and President Obama abandoned them.

We threw away the gains we earned in Iraq and sat on the sidelines during the Arab Spring. Our world could & should be so much better today. And now there are 1,000's dead in the ME that didn't have to die at the hands of barbarians and over 100 in Paris. :cry:

Probably should've deleted this one before posting just like the 3 versions of it that were written last night. Oh well.

I think this idea that we were really successful in Iraq, and then lost or squandered our advantage is flawed. It assumes we had a workable political partnership inside Iraq. No. We never did. Our military can kick the tar out of any combatant. But anyone that thinks there was a workable state to be had in Iraq or Afghanistan is ignoring sectarian And tribal divides that predate our own national history.

[LastPommerFan]

I had to take a break last night, because I had some people I needed to worry about. I'm thrilled to report that all of my friends, former coworkers, and acquaintances are accounted for. 

 

A few of my thoughts reading through this thread. 

 

- I agree that our withdrawal allowed for the creation of ISIS in the vacuum we created when we first invaded. Both events had to occur to allow the creation of this terrible force. I think we should put significant boots on the ground to create a security environment where we can spend hundreds of billions of dollars rebuilding water plants, schools, and theaters. The soldiers won't solve the problem, they never have, but they are necessary to implement the parts that will.

 

- A friend pushed back on me last night because I was so outward with my solidarity with Paris, while remaining essentially silent on other casualties in terrorist attacks around the world. At first I was angry. At the time I was overcome with emotions of grief for my favorite city, and fear for my friends. Reflecting on it this morning, I understand that it is wrong of me to silence the part of my humanity that grieves today when I hear about the deaths of people who are poor and foreign to me. I hope to do better in this arena.

 

- The refugees being pointed at as a cause of this worries me. If we do not offer hospitality to these people, we will send them back into the arms of our enemies. There will always be a risk in welcoming masses fleeing violence, whether it's Syria or El Salvador, but it appears to me the risk of not providing comfort and a future is far greater.

 

- I'm becoming less concerned with the past transgressions (WWI, Colonialism, Oil, etc.) that may have contributed to the creation of this problem. I'm more concerned, I think, about what we can do to confront the immediate threat and prevent the future recruitment of what would otherwise be farmers and soccer players and entrepreneurs and doctors. I think this links back to  my first bullet where an international military intervention with the express mission of creating a security environment where we can build schools and infrastructure and art. We can't kill this problem with bullets, we may be able to kill it with books and farms and factories and music. We'll need a lot of soldiers to protect those things.

[woods-racer]

Military leadership is only as effective as the civilian powers entrusted to direct it.

 

In the case of Iraq, Rummy, Wolfy, and the rest of the boys screwed the pooch with their arrogance in thinking Iraq could be changed on the cheap. When Powell warned of the "Pottery Barn" rule of "you break it, you bought it", a flag was raised. When they fired Shinseki for having the temerity to say they needed far more troops before they invaded, it was obvious we never intended to commit to affecting any meaningful change.

 

Bottom line is this: in post war Japan and in our sector of Germany, we stuck to a ratio of one soldier per every 10 in population. In Iraq it was 1 in 25. We also allowed local politicians a say in reestablishing order as well as arming local police to help maintain it. We did none of that in Iraq even though military leaders advised it before going in.

 

We actually agree on the major issues. But and it's a big BUT, no one was going to agree on the money.

We would have to increase military spending buy 12% ( give or take) to support what is post war occupation in the ME. Sadly the loudest wheels squeaking at the time where for post war exit strategy, not post war occupation strategy. The whole of government would have rally around the post war success and it's cost of WWII and Korea.

 

As far as local order being established. It would have come. We didn't even give it a chance.

[JJFIVEOH]

I'd like to know where all this money would come from. Military, schools, water plants, theaters..... We can't even get our own infrastructure worked on. 

[LastPommerFan]

I'd like to know where all this money would come from. Military, schools, water plants, theaters..... We can't even get our own infrastructure worked on. 

 

If we want to solve this problem, it's going to be really, really expensive, I think. I don't think there is a low-cost solution.

[...]

I'd like to know where all this money would come from. Military, schools, water plants, theaters..... We can't even get our own infrastructure worked on.

For Iraq, at the time, the idea was to leverage its greatest export: oil. You seed the economy there, help them manage it, and add funds where necessary.

[LastPommerFan]

For Iraq, at the time, the idea was to leverage its greatest export: oil. You seed the economy there, help them manage it, and add funds where necessary.

 

This becomes less lucrative at $40/bbl. The added funds needed now would be great, but I think the payoff may be greater.

[Taro T]

I think this idea that we were really successful in Iraq, and then lost or squandered our advantage is flawed. It assumes we had a workable political partnership inside Iraq. No. We never did. Our military can kick the tar out of any combatant. But anyone that thinks there was a workable state to be had in Iraq or Afghanistan is ignoring sectarian And tribal divides that predate our own national history.

I would agree that Afghanistan will not ever be a "workable" state. Not in our lifetimes at minimum, perhaps not ever.

 

I will disagree on Iraq. And that is not ignoring the tribality of Iraqi society nor the distictions between the Shia Iraqis, the Sunni Iraqis, and the Kurds. A workable state was not fully sucessfully established (as events of the past 2 years amply demonstrate) but it was to a point that infrastructure was being rebuilt. Life was getting to what we'd consider normal - security was substantially restored. It would've taken a presence of the US there for probably another decade to fully establish the new Iraq but it could've gotten there. Not saying out soldiers would need to be going on patrols for the next decade but they should've still been there as normal life got reestablished.

 

But we've had a presence in Japan and Germany for 70 years, we've been in Korea for over 60. We haven't fired too many shots in Japan nor Germany in the past 60. How would any of those have turned out without our support & presence. We continued to support Iraq, but without our presence the support was doomed to failure.

[...]

This becomes less lucrative at $40/bbl. The added funds needed now would be great, but I think the payoff may be greater.

I did say at the time. Today, yes, the price is down, but if just the US government alone would alter its stance on energy and fossil fuels to support that industry, especially while the $pb remains low, stock would fly off the shelves.

 

As I said earlier, the return on investment would be world-history changing in magnitude.

[X. Benedict]

For Iraq, at the time, the idea was to leverage its greatest export: oil. You seed the economy there, help them manage it, and add funds where necessary.

And it was to use Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell's economics to create the Chicago School of economic model in Iraq. 

(Forget Naomi Klein's book, and the Shock Doctrine which tends to the polemical) but at it's heart. It was a free capital model of development that pooped out. 

[Taro T]

If we want to solve this problem, it's going to be really, really expensive, I think. I don't think there is a low-cost solution.

It always was going to be expensive. Our walking away raised that cost by at least 1 order of magnitude in $'s and exponentially in lives.

 

The only positive I see coming from the Paris tragedy is that people seem to be understanding that this problem needs to be solved and that perhaps the will to solve if is now there.

[JJFIVEOH]

If we want to solve this problem, it's going to be really, really expensive, I think. I don't think there is a low-cost solution.

 

 

For Iraq, at the time, the idea was to leverage its greatest export: oil. You seed the economy there, help them manage it, and add funds where necessary.

 

I don't have the confidence in our government to order me lunch. :angel: