If some of Russia, China, the US, Australia, Europe and various others put in ground troops and increased air strikes plus rounded up all suspected operators in their countries they'd steamroller them.

But killing 90% of the worm is no good if it can regenerate and I wonder how much the West is learning currently, this is the closest to having a state nation they can monitor and entirely pin this sort of ideology to.

Then of course there are the usual power vacuum issues and the whole thing goes around again for another cycle.

I can't see them lasting much longer after this.

The cat doesn't instantly kill every mouse it has cornered, it pokes and prods and learns what it's capable of. I see the West doing this but now it's probably gone to a level that's intolerable and they'll just wipe out most of the visible ISIS entity and a hell of a lot of the stuff below that too

"If some of Russia, China, the US, Australia, Europe and various others put in ground troops and increased air strikes plus rounded up all suspected operators in their countries they'd steamroller them."
A) Incredibly unrealistic as these forces would never work together in that constellation.
B) "rounding up all SUSPECTED operators" won't do jackshit except maybe create more human rights violations of innocent people.
C) Don't forget strategy, invading middle Eastern countries usually brings a whole host of tactical disadvantages with it.
D) Geopolitical implications and generally political implications, war is incredibly unopopular and not an easy sell. It's also expensive as hell.

"But killing 90% of the worm is no good if it can regenerate and I wonder how much the West is learning currently, this is the closest to having a state nation they can monitor and entirely pin this sort of ideology to."
That we can agree on although I'd say if you dismantle them pretty heavily I doubt they'll recover that easily, partially due to their structure. This is not Al Qaeda we're dealing with.

"Then of course there are the usual power vacuum issues and the whole thing goes around again for another cycle."
That is true.

A) Wolf I'd usually agree it'd be hard to get countries to agree but with civilians being literally gunned down on home soil or blown out of the skies at will, and in such high numbers, plus the fact these attacks are getting more frequent, I see this changing in this instance. For practicalities sake the US and Russia have come to a sort of unsaid agreement for now and this could be scaled up. Gloves will come off big time, they've hit too many pressure points.

B) Wasn't saying I like this, wasn't saying its fair, am saying they'll give less of a sh*t now, people vote governments in power. No perceived weakness will be tolerated.

C) Huge show of strength will negate home advantage. I just hope there aren't too many civilian casualties because this could get nastier and nastier.

@Ed, most of what I would say has been covered by my man Wolf. I just wanna stress tho, people being labeled racist or w/e is ultimately inconsequential and a drop in the water compared to the ramifications of anti-Islamic rhetoric that usually rears its head during times like these

also you mention there being no backlash to Hitchens and Dawkins criticizing certain tenets of Christianity. that's probably because their criticisms aren't politically charged and used to create an us vs them mentality. Christians aren't attacked and told to go back to Rome or w/e because of their beliefs. it's simply for the purpose of rejecting the religion on a personal level; reverse proselytizing if you will. very different situations

it doesn't help that those two are (were) also incidentally huge islamophobes lol, Dawkins especially who can't separate their hatred of a religion from their judgements of its adherents, radical or otherwise

"A) Wolf I'd usually agree it'd be hard to get countries to agree but with civilians being literally gunned down on home soil or blown out of the skies at will, and in such high numbers, plus the fact these attacks are getting more frequent, I see this changing in this instance. For practicalities sake the US and Russia have come to a sort of unsaid agreement for now and this could be scaled up. Gloves will come off big time, they've hit too many pressure points."

I doubt that with the current tensions, with all the shit Russia is pulling right now (Ukraine, Syria etc). Also, I'm unaware of these incidents happening in Russia. Plus some of the attacks are not confirmed to be specifically linked to ISIS even if they may claim them.


"B) Wasn't saying I like this, wasn't saying its fair, am saying they'll give less of a sh*t now,"
But you're saying you don't care as far as it's for the "greater cause" or something like that? Who will give less of a shit show? How do you even know who is linked to them or who isn't? And these aren't just moral issues, they're also procedural issues. It does exactly zip to stop terrorism if you're prosecuting innocent people.

"people vote governments in power. No perceived weakness will be tolerated."
I don't see your point here.

"C) Huge show of strength will negate home advantage. I just hope there aren't too many civilian casualties because this could get nastier and nastier."
Yeah, but when? After how long? How many civilian casualties is it gonna take? How many resources? How many countries' armed forces? How much is it going to cost? What are going to be the geopolitical and foreign policy implications?

"It's also a bit far fetched to assume that everyone there is uneducated. Again, the issue is much more complex than that."

I said under-educated, that's not to say they're not educated, but the General population is incomparable with that of a 1st world nations. That's not a dig that's just a societal factor that contributes. The education is also of a very different kind and not as wide spread as in the west, all of matters when looking at the reasons why. But yes you're right it can't be reduced to something as simple as what I was saying, it was just an example to show how extremist views are pushed and why they work.

Alright. Might have skimmed a bit too quickly - in this case we agree.

It's just that you often also get the whole "uenducated tribals" rhetoric and shit like that or stuff like "HEY WHY ARE REFUGEES NOT WEARING RAGS AND IF THEY'RE SO RICH TO HAVE SMARTPHONES WHY ARE THEY HERE HURR DURR".

As for the Hitchens/DAwkins thing, I'm also pretty sure one of them was a pretty big sexist.

"can't wait for this argument to pop up again in another 10 years once ISIL has eaten itself and given way to whatever radical misinterpretation of Islam is all the rage for the disenchanted low-lifes of the west."
That sounds awfully fatalistic and I'm not sure all of these phenomena are that similar. There is e.g. quite a bit of difference between AQ and ISIS.

A) It was a Russian aircraft that was blown up recently. I'll admit hurting Russians on home soil will probably be tougher for ISIS as security is very tight there.

B) Wolf I was stating this from an impersonal viewpoint. After Sept 11th we got Guantanamo Bay so there is a precedent.

C) I think they've ramped it up already and they'll continue on that trajectory, probably faster than previously planned

Again, I highly doubt that. What I think is likely going to happen is a bunch of misdirected security measures "at home" (I'm actually glad the German constitution specifically restricts use of the army and using the army for security measures within the country is prohibited), some big but ultimately completely meaningless speeches and gestures and reinforcing "indirect fire" - i.e. drone strikes, supplying arms and the likes. I highly doubt there will be European/US JFT that will actually have boots on the ground and all that - i.e. a full scale invasion.

That is very simplistic, it is probably true that the media exacerbates fear and all that jazz which makes sense within the framework of the news and being about selling copies and these topics attracting attention like light attracts moths. I'm personally not entirely certain whether these incidents and their intensity are amassing but it would appear so and it definitely is a huge problem in the Middle East.

"It's just that you often also get the whole "uenducated tribals" rhetoric and shit like that or stuff like "HEY WHY ARE REFUGEES NOT WEARING RAGS AND IF THEY'RE SO RICH TO HAVE SMARTPHONES WHY ARE THEY HERE HURR DURR"."

Yeah no worries, understandable you'd assume that's what I meant as it seems to be the go to ignorant argument. The way I see it, they're just humans subject to a different social environment, you can't be surpised by someone reflecting the ideals they were brought up with, it's the same for everybody. it's even more relevant when you're somewhere that doesn't have the same unlimited access to information for everyone the West is privelidged with, and a society that embraces the 'Western' idea of equality - there's a fundamental difference between the definition and parameters or fairness and proper treatment across the globe. Different kind of education leads to different results, doesn't make them bad people or anyone else good people - there's enough evidence uneducated ignorance and inequality in the West to prove that.

"Yeah no worries, understandable you'd assume that's what I meant as it seems to be the go to ignorant argument. The way I see it, they're just humans subject to a different social environment, you can't be surpised by someone reflecting the ideals they were brought up with, it's the same for everybody. it's even more relevant when you're somewhere that doesn't have the same unlimited access to information for everyone the West is privelidged with, and a society that embraces the 'Western' idea of equality - there's a fundamental difference between the definition and parameters or fairness and proper treatment across the globe. Different kind of education leads to different results, doesn't make them bad people or anyone else good people - there's enough evidence uneducated ignorance and inequality in the West to prove that. "
I wouldn't just say the ideals that they were brought up but generally very homogenous societies in that regard. If you are brought up with certain ideals in mind but within a pluralistic society where you can see and experience different ones I think that becomes less of an issue. But if these standards become universal in large demographics there is some pressure to conform even if you don't want to. I guess that's a similar point to the whole freedom of information thing.

"i honestly find the ISIL situation to be an overstated (although very real) situation that seams to occur in cycles, being,

1 - western intervention causing disenchament in the middle east, and for

2 - disenchament with the available radical alternatives to cause a more radical alternative to emerge."

100%

"I wouldn't just say the ideals that they were brought up but generally very homogenous societies in that regard. If you are brought up with certain ideals in mind but within a pluralistic society where you can see and experience different ones I think that becomes less of an issue. But if these standards become universal in large demographics there is some pressure to conform even if you don't want to. I guess that's a similar point to the whole freedom of information thing."

Yeah well freedom of information and also freedom of experience. It's just the way the West holds eastern people to standards they're not even aware they're supposed to follow, there's such a gap between understanding the other's culture, on both sides. But for the most part I would generalise that it would be much harder to break away from the majority in an environment that is not conducive to freedom (of speech and thought) in the same capacity that is enjoyed in the West.

Only if you reduce it to a very simple mechanism. These situations are mostly a gigantic clusterfuck from Saudi Arabia investing in the spread of Wahabism to ISIS picking up the pieces of the U.S. adminstered prisons over there and recruiting the former Baathist security officer of the Hussein regime. I'd also like to note that ISIS is not a new phenomenon, in some shape or form they have at least existed for the past 7-10 years.

"Yeah well freedom of information and also freedom of experience. It's just the way the West holds eastern people to standards they're not even aware they're supposed to follow, there's such a gap between understanding the other's culture, on both sides. But for the most part I would generalise that it would be much harder to break away from the majority in an environment that is not conducive to freedom (of speech and thought) in the same capacity that is enjoyed in the West."
Particularly that last sentence was essentially my point. You'll likely still get shit for breaking with certain norms in the west or falling out of line but the degree is just of a completely different magnitude.

Absolutely, that conglomerate you described is part of the reason this is such a complex issue that extends waaaay beyond the mere 'following' of the Islamic faith and that's something so many people don't get. Even Wahabism, which seems so ingrained in religion, is still largely a social and political movement at its core.

Particularly if you look at it within the recent context of extending Saudi spheres of influence and power for example.

Sometimes I wonder whether having some REALLY good PoliSci/SoSci/History education would help people better assess these situations (because I sure did and I thought it was invaluable for recognizing complex issues and assessing them adequately).