red baron wrote on Sep 16^th, 2014 at 2:08pm:


This is just a mindless headline in the style the Tele have been parroting of late. Last Friday's was SEND THEM ALL TO HELL.

It's not a plan.

Fighting ISIS on home ground will also send many of our own to Kingdom Come. That's what wars tend to do.

We all have the objective of sending ISIS to Kingdom Come - even ISIS. The question is how to do that.

The issue of genocide is an entirely different issue. It's possible for us to protect local civilians or arm them to protect themselves, but this is not sustainable long-term. Ultimately, this is a job best done by local forces who are able to get in quick. The Kurds and Turks have already acted to do this. The Iraqis - a government and army we suported, trained and set up - have proven to be incapable of doing this.

Sending ISIS to Kingdom Come is a nice-sounding objective, but it's not actually possible to do, and it's not what we're in there to do.

What we are in there to do, beyond assisting Iraq to defend its own borders better, is questionable.

This, of course, is just how we got into Vietnam - as everybody knows.

Last time I checked we were sending Fighter Jets with logistical support for them,. I also believe elements of S.A.S. are involved.

No, it's not what the Government is saying but it's what most Australians know. That's what justifies it to me, I'm not too concerned about any other reason. Genocide is reason alone, enough to commit.

We didn't go into Vietnam to stop a genocide, bit different there.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst   
Are full of passionate intensity.



The IS monsters are full of passionate conviction while many in the west lack any conviction other than to remain always passive, to always cede the field, always concede defeat as an opening gambit.

Karnal wrote on Sep 16^th, 2014 at 10:54pm:

Unleashed by IS in its latest iteration.

To sit by whilst the Terrorist  movement ISIS commits wholesale Genocide is unthinkable.

ISIS must be smashed. It does not represent ISLAM in any way.

Just as Hitler hypnotised many to fall in alongside  him, so ISIS is trying to represent itself as the voice of Islam. It isn't and it must be stopped.

There is growing unity amongst world nations to band together and get rid of this vermin ISIS.

This has nothing at all too do with Vietnam, it could not be any more different.

For too long in modern times, strong Countries have remained silent whilst terrible Genocides have been carried out on defenceless people.

The United Nations has proved itself a eunuch in these matters.

We along with 30 other Nations have pledged themselves to this cause. They are doing what is right.

aquascoot wrote on Sep 17^th, 2014 at 7:20am:


My thoughts are that whenever you try to simplify things with your horse behaviour or your ubermensch schtick, we're all in for a really long ride.

Correcting your simplifications takes a lot of work. I do my best, but I have the sneaky suspicion that most of it falls on deaf ears.

The situation in Iraq is so complex that even Barack Obama has come out to say that he doesn't know what to make of it all. He suffered for that one too. Fox News must have been showing him no mercy for it for the past 2 weeks. I believe Obama's polls dropped a few notches.

Being angry at a group or country or enemy is easy. Finding a way to deal with them is much harder. It's easy to write headlines like SEND THEM ALL TO HELL. It's much harder to come up with a plan to stop ISIL carrying out their atrocities, threatening the stability of the Middle East, and having a gen-u-wine rogue state in the heart of oil country. 

This is not simple at all, and it will take a long, carefully coordinated plan of military and diplomatic moves to stop ISIL and prevent their spread.

Do this right, and we'll hear nothing (apart from the usual News Ltd beat-ups and chest-thumping). Do it wrong, and we'll be involved in another endless military occupation of Iraq, probably Syria, and big issues with Iran as well.

A very cautious US military talking head was on 7.30 last night. When asked how ISIS is a threat to US and Australian domestic security, he didn't have a lot to say. Basically, they're not much of a threat to us at all. When asked why ISIS has presented such a problem to the White House, he put much of it down to the cable news coverage.

In other words, the media is in large part driving the security agenda - the tail wagging the dog.

The issue that is ISIS is not simple. It's a complex array of forces, and most, I woulod say, are domestic - media coverage, poll numbers of world leaders, and the endless demands of citizens to do something - anything - before they even know what the problem is.

I don't like rules, but I do have a general principle when it comes to military involvement: defence forces are for defence. You deploy them when you're attacked, or when you're threatened with attack. You don't just send them off to wherever the current whim takes you because your polls aren't looking good or the Tele runs a front page calling to SEND THEM ALL TO HELL.

I know I'm going against the grain of Australia's entire military history (excluding the Pacific War), and arguably against the entire history of Europe - but it's just a principle. I'm also pragmatic. Australia has a role in global policing, and the best example of that, I think, was East Timor - when we wore blue berets, not US stripes, and we stayed within our own region.

Where we can help, I think, we should. Iraq clearly needs help right now. The objective, however, is not to SEND anyone TO HELL. It's to restore the peace. These two objectives are so far apart as to give you a hint of what fruits they'll bear. Asking how you improve security in Iraq gives you completely different answers to the question of how to send a shapeless ideology to hell.

Knee-jerk responses will not send them to hell. As history has shown, they'll end up taking us to hell with them.

And who wants that?

aquascoot wrote on Sep 17^th, 2014 at 12:37pm:


I hate to break it to you, dear, but that's the whole point of having a modern, well-planned and well-trained defence force. It's why armies have what they call discipline within the ranks, with NCOs and MPs to carry it out.

The days of two tribes heading off with clubs and spears to have it out are long gone. The days of getting a posse together to hunt down the outlaws or the injuns or the niggras are long gone too.

The opponent is not using emotion at all - they're using Facebook and Youtube. The emotion is all on the front pages of the Tele, and the editors aren't very emotional either.

You are.

ISIL certainly did bring this upon themselves, but they're itching for martyrdom. If you think the best way to deal with ISIL is an eye for an eye or a head for a head, you're simply playing their game.

This is a game we can never win, and it's a game we should never want to win.