The World has been castrated

Yeah, that's a bunch of nonsense. I don't believe for a second that anyone in the Middle East is committing themselves to violent jihad because of the offensive words of Donald Trump.

What does propel otherwise normal third-world Muslims (who haven't already joined ISIS because of economic reasons) to jihad, however, is when their family members are killed as collateral damage in air strikes carried out by the West.

PostGameOrangeSlices said:

GreenRiverGatorz said:

Yeah, that's a bunch of nonsense. I don't believe for a second that anyone in the Middle East is committing themselves to violent jihad because of the offensive words of Donald Trump.

What does propel otherwise normal third-world Muslims (who haven't already joined ISIS because of economic reasons) to jihad, however, is when their family members are killed as collateral damage in air strikes carried out by the West.

there will always been collateral involved. the difference is that the US doesn't intend to kill non-combatants, it's an unfortunate reality of warfare. especially when terrorists often hide behind innocents...

on the other hand, collateral damage is entire purpose of carrying out terror attacks.

you can't just do nothing in return when a violent group attacks your civilian population. and you certainly can't give these groups a free pass into your country

I don't disagree, but the asymmetry of the situation highlights just how difficult of a crisis this is. We have to have a heavy hand as we're fighting insurgents, but we also have to be cognizant of the fact that if not carried out tactically enough, our attacks could create more terrorists than they eliminate. And then there's the issue of many young Syrians, Iraqis, Libyans, etc. turning to ISIS because they have no other economic prospects. Obviously those countries need to be rebuilt to the point where jihad isn't the only feasible career path, but how do we accomplish that? Especially when our last couple "rebuilding efforts" have been such resounding failures.

GreenRiverGatorz said:

PostGameOrangeSlices said:

GreenRiverGatorz said:

Yeah, that's a bunch of nonsense. I don't believe for a second that anyone in the Middle East is committing themselves to violent jihad because of the offensive words of Donald Trump.

What does propel otherwise normal third-world Muslims (who haven't already joined ISIS because of economic reasons) to jihad, however, is when their family members are killed as collateral damage in air strikes carried out by the West.

there will always been collateral involved. the difference is that the US doesn't intend to kill non-combatants, it's an unfortunate reality of warfare. especially when terrorists often hide behind innocents...

on the other hand, collateral damage is entire purpose of carrying out terror attacks.

you can't just do nothing in return when a violent group attacks your civilian population. and you certainly can't give these groups a free pass into your country

I don't disagree, but the asymmetry of the situation highlights just how difficult of a crisis this is. We have to have a heavy hand as we're fighting insurgents, but we also have to be cognizant of the fact that if not carried out tactically enough, our attacks could create more terrorists than they eliminate. And then there's the issue of many young Syrians, Iraqis, Libyans, etc. turning to ISIS because they have no other economic prospects. Obviously those countries need to be rebuilt to the point where jihad isn't the only feasible career path, but how do we accomplish that? Especially when our last couple "rebuilding efforts" have been such resounding failures.

And unfortunately I don't think the American people are willing to send in tens of thousands of troops for 15-25 years, which might be what is required.

GreenRiverGatorz said:

PostGameOrangeSlices said:

GreenRiverGatorz said:

Yeah, that's a bunch of nonsense. I don't believe for a second that anyone in the Middle East is committing themselves to violent jihad because of the offensive words of Donald Trump.

What does propel otherwise normal third-world Muslims (who haven't already joined ISIS because of economic reasons) to jihad, however, is when their family members are killed as collateral damage in air strikes carried out by the West.

there will always been collateral involved. the difference is that the US doesn't intend to kill non-combatants, it's an unfortunate reality of warfare. especially when terrorists often hide behind innocents...

on the other hand, collateral damage is entire purpose of carrying out terror attacks.

you can't just do nothing in return when a violent group attacks your civilian population. and you certainly can't give these groups a free pass into your country

I don't disagree, but the asymmetry of the situation highlights just how difficult of a crisis this is. We have to have a heavy hand as we're fighting insurgents, but we also have to be cognizant of the fact that if not carried out tactically enough, our attacks could create more terrorists than they eliminate. And then there's the issue of many young Syrians, Iraqis, Libyans, etc. turning to ISIS because they have no other economic prospects. Obviously those countries need to be rebuilt to the point where jihad isn't the only feasible career path, but how do we accomplish that? Especially when our last couple "rebuilding efforts" have been such resounding failures.

I hate to say it, but you let them sort their own mess out. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire after WW1, along with European meddling in the Middle East, is the root cause of many of these issues. Why the fuck should people in the Middle East care about their country when their borders were created by the English and the French? They are more loyal to their local tribe than they are to their state, by a huge margin.

So what should we do? We should not topple evil, yet stable, dictatorships. When you do, you get even worse shit like ISIS and the Libyan civil war. We should support the most rational parties in the region, like the Kurds.

And either way, the Wahhabists will still fucking hate us.