"ISIS may be about to lose its last sliver of territory, but it will not disappear with it. The group has transformed, indeed has returned back to what it was before ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi declared his so-called caliphate: a deadly insurgency in Syria and Iraq.
And in far flung corners of the globe – Nigeria, Libya, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, Afghanistan and the Philippines – ISIS’s black banner still flies."
I thought this was ironic, considering the same outlets were trumpeting the intel chiefs’ assessments that ISIS is still a threat, with the intent to undermine the pullout from Syria. Which is it? Of course there’s still an insurgency, even if they don’t physically hold any territory - does that justify endless deployments to every spot with an anti-US insurgency when there are no real military-only goals left to achieve?
Whether ISIS is destroyed or not, some semblance of it will be back. One group of scumbag Islamists will just be replaced by another group of scumbag Islamists.
I am serious. Islamic terrorism will not end until we target the home villages, cities and families of those terrorists and tell them they may go to Paradise and enjoy 72 virgins but their wives and children will also be their watching them.
True. But about 500 years ago the other two religions decided to join the modern world. But one religion is still having actual witch trials in the 21rst century.
I was really hoping the Arab Spring was going to be a real thing and they’d finally have their long overdue Renaissance, but instead we got a caliphate.
Even if Islam succeeded in getting rid of everyone else, they’d just continue with the Sunni / Shia war because even they cannot agree on which is the true Islam.
In the end it’s not a religion so much as a hate based, ideology that is about nothing more than submitting your entire existence to Allah. The live a good life and do unto others stuff is very secondary to jihad being the valid will of god that must be obeyed.
Even the most progressive muslims, who will criticize terrorism as “not true islam”, when pressed on the issue of jihad will concede that it can have validity under the right conditions, in other words “holy war” is still a thing.
Right on. Right after the 9/11 attacks, when al Quefda and the Taliban were fingered, I said nuke Afghanistan, and I was serious. Our biggest mistake was not doing it.
WWII was the last war the US fought to win. Even then the admin pukes held back the most combat effective leader General Patton. Fast Forward to now and for damn near every common sense effective approach or solution the risk averse pansy’s are there with a bunch of stupid excuses for why you can’t do that.
Every single person I know who fought over there ended up saying the same thing. You will never “pacify” Afghanistan until you get rid of the Afghans - that was their take. When people have nothing, they have nothing to lose and jihad seems like an attractive alternative.
I loathe the House of Saud, but the alternative is even less attractive. Not saying we need to coddle them as much as we do, but regime change in Saudi would make Iraq look like the '68 presidential election.
I’m not religious, but I don’t think that’s a valid argument. Christianity and Judaism are integrated into Western society. Are there extremists? Of course (albeit almost statistically insignificant numbers), but terrorism/jihad hasn’t been a core belief of a sizeable portion of either in hundreds of years - coinciding roughly with a rise in living standards, creation of a middle class, etc.
It’s an interesting thing to consider how many lives would’ve been saved had we done that, not to mention trillions of dollars. Would the radical Islamists still be the biggest threat to peace in the region?
I know. But comparative percentages are staggering. Most jews do not agree that there was religious justification for Rabin to have been shot, most Christians don’t agree that there was religious justification for Eric Rudolph to kill people in abortion clinic bombings. But while most muslims say terrorism is wrong, they will concede religious justification for jihad and ultimately, because there really isn’t much of a secular Islam faith, that includes the 9-11 attacks.
I believe we would have needed to violate several treaties with Russia to do that. And that is why it was so important for Bush (43) to start working with Putin regarding a common enemy, instead Bush called him out on human rights violations concerning the Chechnyans. One of the greatest missed opportunities in history.
