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.

the days of getting a posse together are indeed still with us.

Karnal wrote on Sep 17^th, 2014 at 5:56pm:



But they is sand niggras.

But where is we gunna find ourselves a tree in the desert?

Karnal,
Quote:



Yep - I've turned into a hellfire & brimstone preacher.

aquascoot wrote on Sep 17^th, 2014 at 4:53pm:


So what you're saying is that we should go into Iraq again because Australians have got themselves into a tizz about stuff they saw in the media.

Oh - and because of the risk that someone might get beheaded in Martin Place.

Is that the argument here?

Enough of the bullsh.t. What is complex about knowing that an organisation called ISIS or ISIL or both is carrying out Genocide on a grand scale in the Middle East.

What is complex about making a decision to go and stop it?

Yes, the strategies are complex but not the decision to go and save innocent people from being butchered by a terrorist organisation.

They can only be classified as a Terrorist Organisation because they are prepared to butcher men women and children who do not adhere to their version of Islam.

Don't try and over complicate it.

The basic reason to be there is simple.

The solution, yes, not so easy but we need to go.