IS(IS) wants 'boots on the ground'. After the election, odds are they'll get them

[cali]

particularly if republicans win the Senate.

IS(IS) is ramping up its brutality in the face of air strikes and air strikes have not been met with much success. IS(IS) is still advancing in Iraq and Syria. It's now within shelling range of Baghdad. Kobani is threatened. If, in another month or 6 weeks, airstrikes and training of the Iraq military and Syrian opposition groups fails to halt the advance of IS(IS), the odds of boots on the ground (beyond what we currently see), increases substantially. The pressure on the President will be enormous.


slamic State is trying to goad western governments into a "boots on the ground" conflict to create a "good versus evil" war, a terrorism expert has said.

IS published a video on Friday apparently showing the murder of British aid volunteer Alan Henning - their fourth such video.

However, on Saturday it emerged that Libyan militants had released a British hostage, David Bolam.

Dr Evan Lawrence, a visiting lecturer in security and counter-terrorism at Staffordshire University, explains why IS differs from other militant groups.

<snip>

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29495426

Tales of torture, mutilation and rape as Isis targets key town of Kobani

As Islamic State militants closed in on the besieged Syrian city of Kobani on Saturday, Turkey lined up its soldiers near the border but continued to refuse to intervene to repel the extremist advance.

<snip>

Mostafa Kader was one of the restive crowd, grieving for an uncle who had been beheaded by militants, and a young mother and her daughter both brutally raped and murdered.

<snip>

"He was 85 – he could not even lift a weapon," said the young father, baffled by the brutality. Even more haunting were stories from his wife's village, where the fleeing family found the bodies of her sister and an eight-year-old niece lying in pools of blood.

"They had been raped, and their hearts were cut out of their chests and left on top of the bodies," he said, struggling to hold back tears. "I buried them with my own hands."

<snip>

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/04/turkey-troops-isis-siege-kobani-refugees-rape-and-murder


I've been against military intervention in Syria and Baghdad, not only because I feared it wouldn't work but because I feared it would actually make things worse. So far, I don't think I've been wrong- and it sure as shit gives me no pleasure to say that. I deplore what IS(IS) is doing, and I don't think it's necessary, every time I post about this, to put in the disclaimer about how much fault this country bears for IS(IS) and the situation in the region, but had I believed that military intervention could have successfully put an end to IS(IS), I wouldn't have opposed the action.

It has not. It will not.

[CJCRANE]

1. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Let's shine a light on this group, where it came from, who supports and funds it, and who is complicit in helping it to recruit and spread its propaganda.

[cali]

2. that would be a good thing, but

we already know quite a bit where it came from and how it's funded. Yes, we need to know more, but I'm afraid knowing more won't halt IS(IS). A few things I am pretty sure of: They have competent military leadership. They have a clear plan to draw the U.S. and allies further in, and military intervention seems very unlikely to be effective for a host of reasons.

[CJCRANE]

3. I think the general public are still confused

about what exactly this group is and where it came from.

We had the same thing after 9/11 where the neocons exploited people's ignorance.

[HereSince1628]

8. I am not sure what the point of drawing western nations into a fight really is

Moving to exploit the weaknesses of chaos and corruption brought on by years of war is an old theme in history.

Biting western nations on the ass, taking a few drops of bloods from massive herds when they aren't looking is called as(s)ymmetrical war, but its pesky rather than threatening and the provocateur looks much more like a blue-tailed fly than Tariq ibn-Ziyad.

Expansion of the 'state' into an empirial caliphate is going to get expensive, exponentially. ISIS will face greater and greater costs, and greater not lessor resistance as their fundamentalist pogrom pushes into more stable nations.

ISIS advances are rather like a fox hunting a fence row in a plowed field...it looks like the dominant predator of vast 2 dimensional acreage but all it is doing is terrorizing single dimensions along lines of previously developed transit.

Getting out of the wadis to acquire a hemispheric empire will require domination in 3 dimensions. The costs will be enormous and there is no evidence that ISIS can cover them, as it will require commercial exchange with the very nations it seeks to subdue in its fanciful dreams.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

6. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey

and elements of the Free Syrian Army.

[joshdawg]

4. After ISIS is subdued, there will be another terrorist group to pop up.

After that one is done in, there will be another, then another.
This is a Middle East problem and has always been a Middle East problem. The U.S. got involved when the idiot son decided to make war in the M.E.
The best thing for us to do is get out and let the Middle East countries take over. If they are successful, great; if not,............
We cannot continue to fight other people's wars for them.
Bring all our troops home now. ASAP!

[cali]

5. I agree that the U.S. can't solve it, but we sure the hell helped create it

and way before bushco's disastrous invasion- and of course, so did European western powers even before us..

and yes, one terror group will morph into another IF we subdue IS(IS)

[joshdawg]

7. bush just exacerbated the problem by invading Iraq.

His brain-dead-stupid ego got in the way of common sense.

[CaptainTruth]

9. I believe that the only military intervention that will produce long-term ...

... results (less terrorism) is intervention by the countries in the region. If the countries in the region work together to combat extremism (not just militarily, socially too) there's a much better chance that groups like ISIS won't gain strength & support.

One thing I've been wondering ... why do Replicans so strongly support military welfare? That's exactly what their calls for more involvement are, US government-provided welfare for other countries. They believe that giving welfare in the form of food/money aid to Americans who can't make it on their own is bad, but giving billions of dollars of welfare in military form to other countries who can't fight their own battles (or choose not to - they're TAKERS!) is okay.