I would like to share this article posted in Toronto Star because it articulates my worries regarding this ongoing cycle of violence.
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
the author's main complaint is assad wasnt dismantled by the west. and in the same breath he complains about western interference.
power vacuums from removing leaders bad, and will be filled by militants blah blah. sure buddy. what about the vacuum that will result from removing assad?
also, why are these power vacuums always filled with ruthlessly violent religious bigots claiming to be doing god's work? that is the real problem.
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
I don't think that was his main point. He didn't ask for any direct interference for dismantling of Assad...he said US should've helped the moderate groups fighting against Assad regime and that should've prevented groups like ISIS gaining power.
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
it is what he starts off with, it is what he concludes with. the rest of the article is gassy rambling. if you feel the main point is something else, please do highlight it - i certainly dont see it.
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
The main point is that bombing the ISIS is not going to eliminate terrorism unless peace is restored in Iraq and Syria.
I can't help you anymore than this.
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
okay then. how would you restore peace in Iraq and Syria without striking on ISIS while it continues to mint money and raise an army of brainwashed psychopaths?
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
okay then. how would you restore peace in Iraq and Syria without striking on ISIS while it continues to mint money and raise an army of brainwashed psychopaths?
By not having invaded Iraq in 2003. That's how.
These policies are always myopic. Libya seemed like a great idea at the time. So did Tahir square. At the time if you would have asked me what would be better option, I could not have thought of one. Now, it's all too apparent.
Back to reality, peace can't happen in the region until the Turks, Saudis and Iranis (and so by extension the Russians and Americans as they have influence) can come to an agreement.
Interestingly enough, the only thing they can agree on is that ISIS must go.
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
US were involved from the start ... From post 9-11 ... They chose to let the region become more unstable letting Asad kill several hundred thousand Syrians ... And they let ISIS kill and massacre many people too ... It only started to affect them when a few individuals of their own got attacked ... Most weapons in the world are made by the so called Global Peacekeepers ... Sold for cash ... Then when called in to help out ... They try to swing deals for resources ... Taking out Asad was not worth the investment ... That is the real reason why US let the genocide there continue ... Had Asad been taken out early then for sure ... ISIS would have had the wind taken out of their sails ... Group like ISIS thrive on instability ... ISIS is being portrayed as a big problem in the media ... They are no different ... Nay ... They are lesser than the evils of groups like blackwater ...but we hear the media and lose our sense of reason and intellectual balance.
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
while we are on it, lets also tell britain to not invade india in the 1600s. thanks much.
the question is, what are the options on the table today? personally i would love it if the west stayed out and let the region decide for itself. but if you are sitting on energy that everyone in the world wants, your ass is grass if you cant get your act together.
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
while we are on it, lets also tell britain to not invade india in the 1600s. thanks much.
America set out a few years ago (NOT hundreds of years ago) to rid the world of 'evil'. They blew up a lot of sh*t, killed a whack load of people (mostly civilians), got rid of a dictator...and apparently all else was supposed to work itself out. The oil would flow freely, the world would be "safe" again, blah blah blah. Things don't just work themselves out, though.
What happened instead is ISIS. And Haroon Siddiqui is absolutely correct when he states that ISIS is a direct result of the 2003 invasion. So we fast forward today, and see the same fantastical rhetoric. Same recourse to bombings. Not so much in terms of..well...anything else. Sounds familiar.
What's being asked for is a bit more thought before the bombings. I'm not saying I have the answers. Just saying that it would have been nice to hear something articulated before the bombs start flying. I don't expect anything ground breaking or morally upright. Just something sensible.
For starters, there is a difference between Assad and ISIS. I get it. ISIS has pan-state ambitions which threatens everyone in the region. Assad's conflict is contained within the borders of Syria, even though it is much more costly in human terms. But lack of containment of the Syrian civil war led to the dominance of ISIS. There may be merit in the argument that supporting rebels and militants with local ambitions who are a bit more tempered in their actions would have stolen the air from ISIS' fire.
Restoring order in Iraq is penultimate. I get the sense that there's too much willy nilly thought on whether Iraq should be one or multiple states. If it is in America's agenda to split Iraq, I think this campaign is a bit of a conflict of interest. So, they need to announce where they stand on this. If a strong Iraq is desired, then support it's army. Provide logistical support. Give it the backbone that was broken in 2003. Otherwise, let ISIS be if they show a willingness to stay within their territories. Confine them and contain them. Concentrate on non-ISIS held territories. Why not, if we can think the same on monsters like Assad?
Getting rid of Assad...secondary. Stopping the massacres by the Syrian army is a must. So if that means supporting rebels, so be it. Create new power centers, not vacuums.
Perhaps not much of a plan. Perhaps dumb. I don't get paid to think about this, so I reserve the right. But nothing even as simplistic as the above has been articulated, with instead the use of language you'd rather read in a Tolkien book. So all we see is the bombs. And have no clue what the desired outcome is. And there I see Haroon's point.
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
The first “War on Terror” was a failure. Do we really need a sequel?
It’s difficult to disagree with the verdict of Barack Obama. The Isis terrorists, the US president declared in a televised address on 10 September, “are unique in their brutality . . . They enslave, rape and force women into marriage. They threatened a religious minority with genocide. In acts of barbarism, they took the lives of two American journalists – Jim Foley and Steven Sotloff.” (On 13 September, they also beheaded the brave British aid worker David Haines.)
Isis, in other words, is evil. Scum. The worst of the worst. Unique, to borrow Obama’s phrase, in its brutality. Nevertheless, it isn’t difficult to disagree with the solution proffered by the president and his new neocon pals. “We are at war [and] we must do what it takes, for as long as it takes, to win,” declaimed Dick Cheney, the former US vice-president. “What’s the harm of bombing them at least for a few weeks and seeing what happens?” asked the pundit William Kristol.
Forget for a moment the legality of bombing Iraq without congressional approval, or bombing Syria without UN approval. Put to one side, also, the morality of dropping bombs from 5,000 feet on towns in northern Iraq that are full of civilians.
The bigger issue is that military action might make us feel better about ourselves and it might even “degrade” Isis but it won’t “destroy” it (to use Obama’s preferred terminology). How will dropping bombs destroy the hate-filled ideology behind the terrorist group? How will air strikes prevent foreign fighters returning home to the west to carry out revenge attacks? How will killing innocent Iraqi Sunnis “in the crossfire” stop Isis from recruiting new and angry fighters from inside Iraq’s Sunni communities? How will cruise missiles produce an inclusive government in Baghdad, one that heals the long-standing rifts between Kurds, Shias and Sunnis and encourages the Sunnis to turn their backs on Isis, as they did on al-Qaeda in 2006 and 2007? How will despatching drones help generate a national civic identity that makes Iraqis feel united as a single people, rather than part of a patchwork of warring tribes and sects?
If bombing “worked”, Iraq would have morphed into a Scandinavia-style utopia long ago. Remember, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Obama is the fourth US president in a row to appear live on television in order to announce air strikes on Iraq.
Remember also that the US and its allies have been dropping ordnance on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Libya, among other countries, since 2001. Yet, today, the Taliban is resurgent in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, while al-Qaeda is opening new branches of its terror franchise in India; Libya is in chaos, with Islamist militias vying for control and the government in exile hiding out on a Greek car ferry; and US air strikes in Yemen, according to a former US embassy official in Sana’a, generate “roughly 40 to 60 new enemies for every [al-Qaeda] operative killed by drones”.
“It’s hard to think of any American project in the Middle East that is not now at or near a dead end,” said Chas Freeman, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, in July. Why? “The United States seldom resorts to diplomacy in resolving major differences . . . Coercive measures like sanctions and bombing are much more immediately satisfying emotionally than the long slog of diplomacy.” Or as the economist and senior UN adviser Jeffrey Sachs recently tweeted, “US has a one-note foreign policy: bomb.”
Once again, we are confronted with the myth of redemptive violence, the belief that the application of superior western air power is ultimately just, noble and necessary. Wanting vengeance for Foley, Sotloff and Haines, not to mention the thousands of unnamed Syrians and Iraqis slaughtered by Isis, is understandable. Vengeance, however, is no substitute for a viable strategy.
As Richard Barrett, the former MI6 head of counterterrorism, warned me in a recent interview, it’s a mistake to see air strikes as a “tool that is going to solve the [Islamic State] problem . . . It’s just reaching for a hammer because it is a hammer and it’s to hand.”
So what’s to be done? First, just because there are no good options in Iraq doesn’t mean we have to pick the worst option: a tried, tested and failed option. Yes, air strikes can keep Isis fighters away from Erbil but they cannot eradicate Isis.
Second, there is a range of political steps that must be taken – from guaranteeing Sunni participation in the new Iraqi government to cracking down on the oil sales worth $100m a month that fund the Isis reign of terror. Then there is the regional cold war that has helped fuel the hot wars in Iraq and Syria. Getting Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran to a negotiating table, Richard Barrett explained, would have “much more impact [on Iraq] than flying out and dropping bombs”.
We can’t talk to Isis but we can talk to Saudi Arabia (and, for that matter, to Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates). And, yes, to Iran, too. The Iranians can put pressure on the dysfunctional Shia-led government in Baghdad; the Saudis can do the same with the disaffected Sunni tribes that have allied with Isis.
Instead, Obama, with David Cameron in support, prepares for a new, US-led, three-year military campaign, across two countries, against the thugs and gangsters of Isis, even though 13 years of the so-called war on terror – stretching from Afghanistan to Pakistan, Iraq to Yemen, Libya to Somalia – have produced only more war and more terror. Do we really want a sequel?
Mehdi Hasan is an NS contributing writer. He works for Al Jazeera English and the Huffington Post UK, where this column is crossposted
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
There really is moral imperative in fighting and defeating IS. They are cruel and tyrannical on a level not seen before. They need to be defeated now, consequences unfortunately will have to be dealt with in the aftermath.
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
The main point is that bombing the ISIS is not going to eliminate terrorism unless peace is restored in Iraq and Syria. I can't help you anymore than this.
Cant defeat ISIS unless we attack them, and there wont be peace as long as they r around
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
There really is moral imperative in fighting and defeating IS. They are cruel and tyrannical on a level not seen before. They need to be defeated now, consequences unfortunately will have to be dealt with in the aftermath.
I call BS on that. Assad is as bad. So are Boko Haram. So are the thugs in the CAR and Burma. And so on.
Level not seen before? Double bs. What time frame are you talking about? I'll give you 30 years. The Serbs and Russians are probably number one (Bosnia and Chechnya respectively).
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
It’s media rhetoric … And we start swinging our heads to the music they play … After listening to it over and over …
"Even al-Qaeda … " This and that … “Unique” bla bla … 
What role does media play? Let’s see … Media made Palestine from Israel look worse than Syria from Asad … Media shows ISIS but hides Blackwater. Media makes some Arab kingdoms look like democracies … , media still gives a legitimacy to the minority of Asad and his people … Media connects Arab strife to Muslims … Muslims to Islam in its rhetoric and then props up characters to say “not a war on Islam” … be clear on this … It is a war against peace and stability … That is a war against Islam.
If I am kind to US I will call them dumb … Dumb for doing the same ineffective things over and over … But if I gave no benefit of doubt … Then I would say US is calculating how best to destabilise the region and always takes that action and one of the biggest weapons they have to enable them to do this without blame … Is that jingle being played by the media … That makes us dance to its tune.
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
1) IS needs to be removed
2) Muslim countries like Saudia and UAE are also part of the coalition attacking IS
I consider IS to be responsible for damaging islams image in the world. Having said this I am a bit skeptical about their relationship with west as well.
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
If we can no longer trust the media, who should we trust ?
Should we simply shut our eyes, plug our ears and assume everything is just fine and its all media hype… Its a rather dangerous position for Muslims to take, because it allows you to be complacent, the assumption that all things evil being done by Muslims around the world is nothing more then a western conspiracy as part of some grand “war on Islam.” War on Islam aside, wouldn’t it be better to er on the side of assuming that ISIS is an evil entity that needs to be dealt with, because assuming otherwise means the risk of allowing atrocities to be committed in the name of the faith you identify with?
if there is even an iota of truth too this report, i say bomb them back to hell…
BBC News - Iraq conflict: IS ‘trafficking Yazidi women for sex’
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
I call BS on that. Assad is as bad. So are Boko Haram. So are the thugs in the CAR and Burma. And so on.
Level not seen before? Double bs. What time frame are you talking about? I'll give you 30 years. The Serbs and Russians are probably number one (Bosnia and Chechnya respectively).
Boko haram doesnt control vast swathes of territory, boko haram isnt making millions in riches, boko haram isnt threatening to destabilize an entire region, boko harams activities pale in comparison to mass displacement and murder of Christians, Shia, Yazidi etc in Iraq.
granted when i say unseen, i mean in recent history. you recall that Nato bombed the Serbians aswell. And the Chechans werent exactly defensless either... and chechnya today is doing far better then Iraq,
There is also a moral imperative to attack Boko Haram, but then there is still a functioning and capable state that can do that... in the case of IS, there is no such force to counter them, other then the West...
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
Cant defeat ISIS unless we attack them, and there wont be peace as long as they r around
I don't agree with this. This is the kind of thinking that got us to this mess. There is more than one way to eliminate a threat like this. The bombing that we are seeing is very short-sighted. I would have liked them use containment followed by elimination. Because, if you bomb and kill these guys, the violent ideology behind it will survive and spread. And it will be very expensive to counter once it spreads to the west. The moral imperative you mentioned earlier is to kill that ideology first and then go after these guys. It is not easy, but then the easy path that was tried in 2003 did not really work. We have used the stick of bombing and it failed. We have used the carrot of democracy, and that failed too. We need a different approach, because we are reading it wrong.
PS: I don't think anyone here will disagree with you that ISIS needs to go. Only the way to deal with it.
Re: Pitfalls of yet another U.S. war on Muslims
Boko haram doesnt control vast swathes of territory, boko haram isnt making millions in riches, boko haram isnt threatening to destabilize an entire region, boko harams activities pale in comparison to mass displacement and murder of Christians, Shia, Yazidi etc in Iraq.
granted when i say unseen, i mean in recent history. you recall that Nato bombed the Serbians aswell. And the Chechans werent exactly defensless either... and chechnya today is doing far better then Iraq,
There is also a moral imperative to attack Boko Haram, but then there is still a functioning and capable state that can do that... in the case of IS, there is no such force to counter them, other then the West...
Your first point is more on the mark. It has nothing to do with morality or human suffering, though that's a great way to sell it.
Nato bombed the Serbs over Kosovo...not Bosnia. Different conflict. Different response. Morality nowhere in site.
As for Chechnya doing better...who knows...maybe the Yazdis will be better off after their brutalization. Are you suggesting we give ISIS a chance?