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[Helgoland]

Great, I'm an anti-semite now.

- Not what he said.
- Looking at your stance on Israel and on Ukraine, you do have some weird inconsistencies. Not that that's out of the ordinary for a leftist or indeed any normal person, myself included - though my contrarian streak pushes me in the other direction

[Vilanat]

Your definition of success is totally different. you see the lose of human lives as a deterrent or as a measure to success, this is not how they see it. you see a temporary situation like a ruined country as a measure to success, that is not how they see it. things could have personally turned for the better for Osama bin Laden, but his end goal is still very much on track. i just linked to an article listing their long term goals. are they closer to those goals or further away from them because of 9/11? that is the only metric for success they see. 

Again, this is a simple matter of definition. for you a foreigner is a jordanian fighting in iraq, or a libyan fighting in syria, but they don't recognize those states like you do and whether they speak a different language or use a different radio call sign its irrelevant since for them foreign is whether you are a sunni or a shia, whether you are an infidel or jihadist and whether you follow their code of conduct or not. the majority of the local population is not likely to pose a long standing threat to them precisely because at their core values they are not that foreign to each other.

I am not sure why you are so confident in jordan and what "cracking up on its muslims" means. jordan is a muslim country. so far more jordanians have probably fought along side IS than against it (Estimation). their biggest export partner was Iraq and Ramadi was a vital city in said trade. they have gotten almost unprecedented internal criticism when they joined the coalition and that criticism can only get worse. their economy, even without the reduction of their biggest export partner is in danger because it was a poor country to begin with and it now has to deal with more than a million refugees. they got a majority of an ethnicity which has a different political stance than their monarchy. their "flattening" is evidently not doing enough and if even experienced, battle hardened fighters like the hezbollah backed by the syrian air force and armored brigades is having difficulties standing up to IS in a guerilla warfare, then jordan will not be able to easily swipe them like you suggest.

[Loud Whispers]

Your definition of success is totally different. you see the lose of human lives as a deterrent or as a measure to success, this is not how they see it. you see a temporary situation like a ruined country as a measure to success, that is not how they see it. things could have personally turned for the better for Osama bin Laden, but his end goal is still very much on track. i just linked to an article listing their long term goals. are they closer to those goals or further away from them because of 9/11? that is the only metric for success they see.

I see them failing their strategic objectives as failure. I see their capabilities as a fighting force crumbling a failure. You know you're a fool when you play into George Bush's hands. He's not exactly a tactical genius.

Again, this is a simple matter of definition. for you a foreigner is a jordanian fighting in iraq, or a libyan fighting in syria, but they don't recognize those states like you do and whether they speak a different language or use a different radio call sign its irrelevant since for them foreign is whether you are a sunni or a shia, whether you are an infidel or jihadist and whether you follow their code of conduct or not. the majority of the local population is not likely to pose a long standing threat to them precisely because at their core values they are not that foreign to each other.

Abu-Muhammed of France and Mustapha Muhammad of Indonesia is pretty foreign when fighting a world away in Iraq and Syria m8. I'd agree with you when it comes to religious identity and racial identity being synonymous, I even argued the exact same thing in regards to the Buddhist militant movement happening far east of all this. Except in this case, I'm not arguing that. They are literally foreigners. That's what foreign literally means. They are not from there. They're the most foreign you can get. Their family is not there. They do not know the locals. They do not know the area. They do not even know their comrades. After ISIS lost Kobani the different foreign factions began accusing each other of cowardice and treachery. The foreign fighters are treated differently from local ISIS fighters, they are payed in dollars, treated better and the local fighters believe they do the brunt work while the foreigners believe they're on a happy adventure for Allah. Which would also explain why they executed hundreds of them. Egyptian jihadi police found murdered by their own "comrades," warlords building up their own foreign legion refusing to cede power to their Caliph, British ISIS fighters have even gained a reputation for being far more brutal than their peers, conducting the most beheadings and crucifixions of prisoners.
Foreign is foreign. You underestimate just how divided ISIS is.

I am not sure why you are so confident in jordan and what "cracking up on its muslims" means.

I am not sure why you believe ISIS can threaten Jordan. Also, I said the opposite - Jordan didn't crack down on its muslims. It didn't attempt to crack down on extremist supporters violently, thereby turning them from supporters to fighters.

jordan is a muslim country. so far more jordanians have probably fought along side IS than against it (Estimation).

As is the same of Germany, France, Russia, UK and Turkey. Yet you'd be a fool for saying that proved any one of those countries' people supported ISIS over killing ISIS.

their biggest export partner was Iraq and Ramadi was a vital city in said trade. they have gotten almost unprecedented internal criticism when they joined the coalition and that criticism can only get worse. their economy, even without the reduction of their biggest export partner is in danger because it was a poor country to begin with and it now has to deal with more than a million refugees.

They've always had to deal with the refugees. Obama is bankrolling them. Their criticism was silenced when ISIS set the Jordanian pilot on fire, and ended up pissing off all of Jordan.

they got a majority of an ethnicity which has a different political stance than their monarchy. their "flattening" is evidently not doing enough and if even experienced, battle hardened fighters like the hezbollah backed by the syrian air force and armored brigades is having difficulties standing up to IS in a guerilla warfare, then jordan will not be able to easily swipe them like you suggest.

You suggested Jordan was in danger from ISIS. I asserted otherwise. A Jordanian ground invasion of Syria would require more American materiel. That is not my assertion. In regards to Hezbollah, first thing I found on them was that they had ambushed 200 ISIS fighters, took no prisoners and awaited the snow to thaw before they began their offensive in Bekaa. Also that they even had support from local Christians because they said they were defending them from ISIS, who would murder them all.

A November 2013 campaign in the same area saw Hezbollah spearhead an assault that regained control towns and villages whose capture by rebel forces had threatened to cut off the M5 highway linking Damascus to the Mediterranean coast. Hezbollah, backed by Syrian troops, airpower and artillery, surrounded, besieged and bombed each town in succession but usually left open an escape route along which the Sunni fighters could withdraw, allowing both sides to avoid street-to-street fighting which could have incurred heavy casualties. By mid-April of 2014, Qalamoun was back in the hands of the Syrian regime, but many of the Sunni fighters had simply retreated and are now dug into the mountains straddling the Lebanon-Syria border.

...And you really shouldn't be using the Syrian government as a measure of strength. Firstly because they're at the weakest they've ever been, secondly because ISIS are still mired in an unwinnable war against a weak government. Best part - ISIS isn't even the primary enemy of Assad, Al-Nusra or any other rebel factions. They see ISIS as so universally loathed that all they need to do is secure their power against their primary rival and the rest will follow. Likewise in Iraq, the Kurds and the Iraqi security forces are cutting off ISIS's supply lines between their Syrian HQ and their captured Iraqi bases. Between capturing Sinjar and Kiske, ISIS's operations are being mortally threatened. And they can't take on the Kurds because the last time they tried they got torn to pieces by endless air strikes. At this point ISIS in Iraq is functioning more as an insurgency than a state, or even an organized military.

The only way you'd believe ISIS is a unified fighting force making gains with unstoppable new tactics poised to take over Arabia is if you listened to their twitter feed.

[Sheb]

Great, I'm an anti-semite now.

- Not what he said.
- Looking at your stance on Israel and on Ukraine, you do have some weird inconsistencies. Not that that's out of the ordinary for a leftist or indeed any normal person, myself included - though my contrarian streak pushes me in the other direction

Ok, I could be the gullible one. I was just annoyed at the old "BDS and criticism of Israel is just covered antisemitism!".

As for Ukraine and Israel, I'm interested: what do you think my inconsistencies are? Is it because of the whole "using artillery in urban warfare and causing civilians casualties" thing? Because then I think you might have misunderstood my position. I don't really blame Israel for the strikes per se. When you're fighting an enemy such as Hamas in an urban environment, of course they'll be collateral damages. However, I blame Israel for creating the fight in the first place. Protective Edge started when Israel shat on the previous ceasefire agreement by arresting hundreds of Hamas members for no real reasons. Israel's continued opposition to creating a Palestinian state is the major block to peace.

In Ukraine on the other hand, it's Russia, not Ukraine which is the major cause of the conflict.

So is this consistent? I'm really asking by the way, as we say in science: "You should throw your ideas at a wall at great speed and then look at the pieces. If your idea is good, those will be pieces of wall", and I value your opinion.

[Zangi]

Bin Laden is winning.  Murricah is trading massive amounts of freedom for a tiny bit of security.  The UK is just as crazy.

[Loud Whispers]

Bin Laden is winning.  Murricah is trading massive amounts of freedom for a tiny bit of security.  The UK is just as crazy.

Oh please, the American government was becoming increasingly authoritarian before 9/11 happened, and the UK was already a disarmed surveillance state. The NSA expressed its desire to "improve" its data collection techniques long before Bin Laden began his own plans. Between Bush and Obama, Blair and Brown (and Cameron), the security bureaus have been winning all thanks to their turbanned enemy.

[misko27]

Bin Laden is winning.  Murricah is trading massive amounts of freedom for a tiny bit of security.  The UK is just as crazy.

Well, Bin Laden wasn't really tremendously interested in merely destroying America's freedom, he had real goals about actually doing things, and many if not most of those goals involved removing the Western power from the picture. His movement has not actually been doing all that well, losing ground to organizations like ISIS.

There is too strong a tendency to have things we don't like and to then ascribe them to the bad people we know. I doubt Osama Bin Laden was attempting to turn the United States into a conservative nightmare, and I can't help but think some people are projecting their own fears onto him. Everyone sees the villain they fear: Foreign theocrat out to destroy the country and it's culture or an all-too-willing boogeyman aiming to bring down the country from within by destroying their values, depending on your POV.

Besides, ISIS is not Al Qaeda (anymore at least). They both hate each other tremendously, and have different goals, methods, and resources. If this thread is about ISIS, you are a little off-topic, unless you are discussing the period before the broke apart.

Bin Laden is winning.  Murricah is trading massive amounts of freedom for a tiny bit of security.  The UK is just as crazy.

Oh please, the American government was becoming increasingly authoritarian before 9/11 happened, and the UK was already a disarmed surveillance state. The NSA expressed its desire to "improve" its data collection techniques long before Bin Laden began his own plans. Between Bush and Obama, Blair and Brown (and Cameron), the security bureaus have been winning all thanks to their turbanned enemy.

I've never met someone who downplayed the importance of 9/11 in US thought.

Loud Whispers - I am not sure how you see that as not winning. they are losing just like the vietcong lost the vietnam war. sure, IS might eventually be repelled from Ramadi, which isn't exactly a small town, but a strategically and morally important city, they might kill less than their casualties and they might not succeed taking bases with american forces inside, but they are not fighting a traditional war. they are not going to go heads on against Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey or any of the Western powers, but they don't need to. a vastly inferior organization, both in funding and in personnel managed to take down the WTC.

IS also border Jordan and Lebanon, which are in a real danger by IS as well and they also succeed in Libya.

MonkeyHead - The west will do nothing if IS stop confining itself to the occasional rocket launch from Egypt and Gaza and really attacks israel. the U.N is a joke in everything related to Israel and Israel would be lucky if the UN won't pass a resolution that justifies IS attacks somehow, Israel is not a part of NATO and the U.S will do nothing since they won't be needed. besides, IS will operate in israel using the same tactics Hamas and Fatah do and any reaction from israel will result in the same outcry it has now when they operate against Hamas.

From what I've read, ISIS really doesn't have any interest in Israel for specifically the reason that Israel would wipe them from the face of the earth. As non-traditional as they are, they are *still* an army, and they have focused on winning their wars. They are not planning massive terrorist attacks in the US beyond the actions of lone wolves.

In fact in Syria both ISIS and Assad have been using the same strategy: Assad benefits politically if the world is forced to choose between ISIS and him, because there is no situation where the world will pick ISIS. ISIS, for their part, get to be the only opposition to Assad. Eventually this will be true with regards to Israel, but it's not anywhere close to an immediate threat. Politically, their goal is to be the Muslim nation, after all. They want to be the one and only, the only options Muslims have if they don't support the west or the local dictator. This means they actively attack other organizations such as the Insurgents in Syria, and Hamas, because it's in their interest to give Muslims no choice.

As for winning, I don't know. I'm not on the ground and can't speculate. I don't see them having the ability to win in the long-term, because if things went totally down the drain, I'm sure someone (either the US, Iran, the Saudis, the UN someone) would intervene.    If Iraq looked like it would fall, Iran at least would move in, and I doubt Assad's allies would let him lose after all this time.

[Zangi]

Eh, it doesn't matter if Bin Laden was trying to destroy freedom or not.  What he has done is empower the surveillance shenanigans that Western gov'ts have been fostering.  Gave it legitimacy, a clear and obvious boogeyman to justify its existence, despite the underhanded and technically-not-illegal shit that it does.

In short, Bin Laden unintentionally and unknowingly achieved a cultural victory.  9/11 will never be forgotten.  It's effects on his enemies will reverberate for decades if not centuries down the line.

[Wolfhunter107]

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/03/the-usaf-found-and-flattened-an-isil-base-because-of-selfies/
Don't post pictures of your secret base on the internet.

[Akura]

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/03/the-usaf-found-and-flattened-an-isil-base-because-of-selfies/

Don't post pictures of your secret base on the internet.

Well, they are, as far as I can tell, movie/Saturday-Morning-Cartoon supervillians. Of course they're going to do something ridiculously stupid.

[Loud Whispers]

Power of selfie too stronk

[Sheb]

ISIS is now a haven for Russian gays facing persecutions.

Also, we found this year's Darwin awards winners.

[Loud Whispers]

ISIS is now a haven for Russian gays facing persecutions.

Also, we found this year's Darwin awards winners.

This cannot be real

[RedKing]

They're citing the Daily Mail. Here's the original article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3137307/Transsexual-gay-friend-set-Syria-join-ISIS-say-persecuted-family-Russian-village.html

[Loud Whispers]

Let's hope ISIS doesn't read the Daily Mail