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Britain votes to join U.S.-led airstrikes against jihadists

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Good luck with your attempts to bomb an idea.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

How come this coalition keeps saying that they are only trying to disrupt IS's lucrative oil refineries, without mentioning that they have equally bombed the Syrian owned oil refineries? The US officially bombed a total of twelve oil refineries, in Syria, six that were taken over by IS and six more, that are in Syrian control.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

The Muslim countries should be sending troops on the ground during the airstrikes. They were eager enough in the past to gang up on Israel, so now they can go after a much bigger threat: Islamic State.

That strategy would work, as it did in Kosovo.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

Good luck with your attempts to bomb an idea.

That in itself is impossible, but if you kill everyone who knows of the idea, it can be forgotten. I get the feeling that this is what the coalition is aiming for: erasing the idea by making sure no-one remembers it. Or at least, leaving only the people who disagree with the idea alive.

Gotta say, I can't think of any occasion in my lifetime when so many countries have banded together to launch military assaults against a single enemy. It's kinda sad that I was able to see a conflict like this, and I'll probably live long enough to see WWIII, but I probably won't see Cancer being cured or man walking on Mars in my lifetime. Seems like all Humans do is kill each other over beliefs and money.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

So stupid. They should deal with their jihadist preachers at home, with their sprouting Shariah courts at home, and with the all the "Jihadi John" type UK passport holders who will return to bring this to Britain, instead blowing up building in Syria.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

So stupid. They should deal with their jihadist preachers at home, with their sprouting Shariah courts at home, and with the all the "Jihadi John" type UK passport holders who will return to bring this to Britain, instead blowing up building in Syria.

The thing is, sooner or later you will have to send in ground troops to eradicate the Jihadists, it's Nonsense to think just because it's an idea, you can't thwart these people, it might take a generation, but the main thing is, with the technology we have and if you engage the enemy as nasty as they are doing with no holds bar, you can NOT only win the offensive, but you would strike fear and terror in them. You will not win ANYTHING if you go in half ass and want to be selective about your targets.

@Jeff

I agree.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

bass4fjunk:

" The thing is, sooner or later you will have to send in ground troops to eradicate the Jihadists, "

And how do you want to "eradicate the jihadists" once they blend in with the population, which, being sunni, mainly supports them? Good luck with that.

What the West can do, realistically, is to help those who live in the area, speak the language, understand the culture, and are willing to take on radical islamists in a serious way, without Western politically correct sensitivitiy --- i.e. Assad.

Alas, Obama et al won´t hear about that.

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

The lessons from the past have not been learn. Afghanistan and Iraq. Two unnecessary and failed wars. Libya and Syria disasters. The lesson is that bombing does not work. It does not discourage whoever survives. It does the opposite. We have known this since WWII. Guess why Hamas's popularity soared in Gaza after the Israeli state bombings.

Bombing Iraq and Syria will not defeat radical Islam. It will likely kill more civilians than militants, as Jimmy Carter warned.

I can see the stupid Tories jumping on the war wagon. The French Socialists, so-called, are a huge disappointment.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

As many of the IS fighters are British citizens Cameron should launch air strikes on Bradford and Birmingham to tackle the problem at its source. Innocent people will be killed but Cameron doesn't care about that, otherwise he wouldn't be so keen to bomb other countries.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

"Cameron should launch air strikes on Bradford and Birmingham"

Mi5 and other agencies have for years been on round the clock surveillance of Muslim neighborhoods, including electronic eavesdropping. In addition, when British Muslim "persons of interest" travel overseas, they are routinely shadowed by SAS agents. It's very expensive and uses plenty of assets, but it's gotta be done.

Ah, multiculturalism. Doncha love it?

0 ( +2 / -2 )

This is messy but if the USA, the UK and our SUNNI ARAB ALLIES do not get on the ball, they will not have to bomb from the air into Syria and Iraq but will have to do it on their own towns and cities! This ISIS are no joke, they want to make a new Islamic State, with out BORDERS that the Europeans etc..made dividing the Arabs. But as for ground troops, it only makes sense that Saudi Arabia, EGYPT etc..SUNNI Muslim countries put their own troops, they know their language, culture etc..and if they need hell from above, the USA etc..can get them Tomahawk missiles to fly through the air and KABOOM!

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Whatever the history and whatever the risks, you just can't leave something as evil as ISIL roaming around raping and committing genocide with impunity. You have to do something, even if you don' t know the outcome and risk making things worse and indeed even if you caused the problem with your own greed or stupidity in the first place. People that say we should sit back, have no comprehension whatsoever of what its like to be a civilian on the ground when these kinds of people come calling.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Whatever the history and whatever the risks, you just can't leave something as evil as ISIL roaming around raping and committing genocide with impunity. You have to do something, even if you don' t know the outcome and risk making things worse and indeed even if you caused the problem with your own greed or stupidity in the first place. People that say we should sit back, have no comprehension whatsoever of what its like to be a civilian on the ground when these kinds of people come calling.

There are all sorts of bad things happening all over the world. The problem is that the method being used to attempt to solve the problem is just throwing gasoline on the fire, and will only make things worse, not better. Especially since we don't even know if today's enemy is tomorrow's friend, or vice-versa. Things are all messed up in that region, and they need to solve it themselves.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Good luck with your attempts to bomb an idea.

That is a rather glib and rather meaningless comment.. If you were to think about it for a half second you would realize that Britain intends to bomb the people who hold that idea as opposed to bombing thoughts themselves. National Socialism was an idea and the allies defeated that idea by defeating the axis powers.

The problem for Britain, and especially for Obama's war strategy, is that there is a line in the sand where the "idea" of Islamic fascism cannot be pursued. Imagine if the Third Reich were allowed refuge within the boundaries of Germany.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Good luck with your attempts to bomb an idea.

That is a rather glib and rather meaningless comment..

Not at all. They are trying to eradicate an idea with bombs. They obviously didn't learn form the War on Terror - it's pretty clear that terror is still there, regardless of how much they tried to bomb it. The problem is that you can bomb the people holding that idea, but in doing so you just create more people who hold that idea. Like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.

National Socialism was an idea and the allies defeated that idea by defeating the axis powers.

Really? Tell North Korea that, it seems they missed the memo.

Imagine if the Third Reich were allowed refuge within the boundaries of Germany.

Imagine if the Kim regime were allowed refuge within the boundaries of North Korea. Oh wait, that's pretty easy to imagine.

One of the things that keeps being spouted by the war mongerers is that 'they are bringing this war to us whether you want it or not'. But they are missing the logic that bombing ISIS isn't going to prevent them from going to other countries and doing terrorist attacks. This isn't like a war between countries where if you tie up the army in one country, they cannot maneuver to another country, they can send small groups of people to do terrorist attacks regardless of how much ISIS is being bombed in the middle east.

This whole situation is a big fallacy with the logic to support it being so full of holes, swiss cheese is jealous.

But in other news, stocks for companies that supply military hardware are all doing great!

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

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