What to do about ISIS

[blah the Prussian]

I agree with you blah. However, I do think that overall, the US may be on the decline. China has all but surpassed us economically, firepower worldwide is on the rise, especially in the hands of our rivals/enemies (China, Russia, North Korea, etc.) and we are certainly not making any new friends. I expect within fifty years that the US won't be the dominant superpower, and we will be sitting under the thumb practically of Asia.

Your last point raises an interesting question though: If the US leads a coalition into Iraq to fight off ISIS, would WE be blamed for civilian deaths? This war has no clearly drawn lines.

True, but being prosecuted for war crimes usually means the enemy has won a total victory over you; you have surrendered unconditionally. The only nations that will be capable of doing that to the US in the foreseeable future will use nuclear weapons first; then there won't be anyone left to prosecute. I do not think, however, that American cultural dominance will go away any time soon, or that we will be under the thumb of Asia, but that's beyond the scope of this discussion, and cannot be proven either way, as it is all speculation. Now, re your last point, I don't think the US can be blamed for starting anything as long as it enters the war on Iraqs side, as opposed to declaring war as a third party. Similar to WWI, really, though US participation in that travesty wax the worst mistake in American history.

[3Comrades]

Again, in regards to the US's policy on torture, I am in complete agreement. However, the US legally cannot be prosecuted for these war crimes, as it has not signed on to the international Hague court, largely to avoid the fact that a fair amount of the men and women in the FBI and CIA are sadistic shitheads. Essentially, there is no way to get at the US; it is too powerful to be made to sign anything. I do believe, however, (even though I have not fought a war myself) believe that civilian deaths are a FACT of war, and that it is never the defender's fault when civilians die; the blame for ALL civilian deaths go squarely on the shoulders of the aggressor; ISIS in this case.

I disagree when it pertains to American citizens. If America is not accountable to its citizens then the system doesn't work, and it is a failure as a government. You can't torture citizens without Habeas Corpus and get away with it, and if you do then it needs to be understood that the US has failed its contract with its citizens, and as a government.

As far as aggressor, with local insurgents that is a fine line. The aggressor is less than clear. I do believe that ISIS is an evil threat to be stopped, don't misunderstand me, but I also believe that American geography has immuned us to concern for civilians since every war we were practically safe and sound and civilian deaths have only been an issue for the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. Both of those, we express shock and outrage over civilian deaths, so I do believe that our cavalier attitude toward civilians (and a lack of even trying to protect them) has mostly to do with a lack of understanding what it is like to have civilians in danger on a consistant basis because of a war.

On the other hand, it also leads to a somewhat disregard for the military and war, but that is a different issue.

[eclipse]

As far as aggressor, with local insurgents that is a fine line. The aggressor is less than clear. I do believe that ISIS is an evil threat to be stopped, don't misunderstand me, but I also believe that American geography has immuned us to concern for civilians since every war we were practically safe and sound and civilian deaths have only been an issue for the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. Both of those, we express shock and outrage over civilian deaths, so I do believe that our cavalier attitude toward civilians (and a lack of even trying to protect them) has mostly to do with a lack of understanding what it is like to have civilians in danger on a consistant basis because of a war.

This is why I disagree with your stance.

To most of the US, it was simply a story from some other territory. To the older relatives in my family, this is what they had to live through.

[blah the Prussian]

I disagree when it pertains to American citizens. If America is not accountable to its citizens then the system doesn't work, and it is a failure as a government. You can't torture citizens without Habeas Corpus and get away with it, and if you do then it needs to be understood that the US has failed its contract with its citizens, and as a government.

As far as aggressor, with local insurgents that is a fine line. The aggressor is less than clear. I do believe that ISIS is an evil threat to be stopped, don't misunderstand me, but I also believe that American geography has immuned us to concern for civilians since every war we were practically safe and sound and civilian deaths have only been an issue for the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. Both of those, we express shock and outrage over civilian deaths, so I do believe that our cavalier attitude toward civilians (and a lack of even trying to protect them) has mostly to do with a lack of understanding what it is like to have civilians in danger on a consistant basis because of a war.

On the other hand, it also leads to a somewhat disregard for the military and war, but that is a different issue.

ISIS is NOT an insurgent group. When will people realize this? They are fighting a conventional war against a rather large coalition. Al Quaeda was at most an annoyance. ISIS is threatening to conquer Syria and Iraq. No "insurgent group" has ever set up their own nation. RE civilians, of course we would express shock and outrage. We would also express shock and outrage over our soldiers being killed. Does that make killing soldiers wrong? Also FYI in the War of 1812 the Brits and Canadians burned down the White House. So yeah, just adding on to what Eclipse said.

[Blaze The Great]

I disagree when it pertains to American citizens. If America is not accountable to its citizens then the system doesn't work, and it is a failure as a government. You can't torture citizens without Habeas Corpus and get away with it, and if you do then it needs to be understood that the US has failed its contract with its citizens, and as a government.

As far as aggressor, with local insurgents that is a fine line. The aggressor is less than clear. I do believe that ISIS is an evil threat to be stopped, don't misunderstand me, but I also believe that American geography has immuned us to concern for civilians since every war we were practically safe and sound and civilian deaths have only been an issue for the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. Both of those, we express shock and outrage over civilian deaths, so I do believe that our cavalier attitude toward civilians (and a lack of even trying to protect them) has mostly to do with a lack of understanding what it is like to have civilians in danger on a consistant basis because of a war.

On the other hand, it also leads to a somewhat disregard for the military and war, but that is a different issue.

Civilian deaths are, unfortunately, a necessary evil in virtually any war. It's a terrible thing to say, but it is true. In war, civilians almost become a type of cost to be counted, i.e. how many civilian deaths are acceptable when attempting to achieve goal X? I know, it's awful, but you have to take a "cavalier attitude" to some extent when it comes to an issue like this. If the US is going to actually protect people and stand up as the world power that we are supposed to be, then we have to learn to weigh issues properly, including civilian deaths. To paraphrase a famous quote, from those who have much, much is expected in return.

[blah the Prussian]

Civilian deaths are, unfortunately, a necessary evil in virtually any war. It's a terrible thing to say, but it is true. In war, civilians almost become a type of cost to be counted, i.e. how many civilian deaths are acceptable when attempting to achieve goal X? I know, it's awful, but you have to take a "cavalier attitude" to some extent when it comes to an issue like this. If the US is going to actually protect people and stand up as the world power that we are supposed to be, then we have to learn to weigh issues properly, including civilian deaths. To paraphrase a famous quote, from those who have much, much is expected in return.

To add to this, I do not approve of targeting civilians as a terror tactic. However, any amount of civilian casualties are acceptable as collateral damage. For example, Hiroshima was the garrison of the Imperial Japanese fifth army, which was wiped out by the blast. Essentially, if civilians are in the way when targeting a valuable military target, that is not High Command's problem. Arguments advocating for taking ridiculous measures to protect civilians are usually appeals to emotion anyway.

[Blaze The Great]

To add to this, I do not approve of targeting civilians as a terror tactic. However, any amount of civilian casualties are acceptable as collateral damage. For example, Hiroshima was the garrison of the Imperial Japanese fifth army, which was wiped out by the blast. Essentially, if civilians are in the way when targeting a valuable military target, that is not High Command's problem. Arguments advocating for taking ridiculous measures to protect civilians are usually appeals to emotion anyway.

I agree completely with your first point. Your second one...not so much. It does come down to a judgment call, in my opinion, but, just as a hypothetical, if a country killed 100,000 civilians with a nuke to destroy a minor outpost, then that is not acceptable. Civilian casualties, like I said earlier, are a necessary evil, but it is also important to measure their lives against our own goals. If we attack civilians with no urgent goal, then we are basically using terror tactics. That makes whoever is attacking no better than al Qaeda, or even the Japanese in the Nanjing Massacre.

All that being said, your last point is very valid, but again, it really comes down to a judgment call, and weighing lives is a dangerous thing to do.

[blah the Prussian]

I agree completely with your first point. Your second one...not so much. It does come down to a judgment call, in my opinion, but, just as a hypothetical, if a country killed 100,000 civilians with a nuke to destroy a minor outpost, then that is not acceptable. Civilian casualties, like I said earlier, are a necessary evil, but it is also important to measure their lives against our own goals. If we attack civilians with no urgent goal, then we are basically using terror tactics. That makes whoever is attacking no better than al Qaeda, or even the Japanese in the Nanjing Massacre.

All that being said, your last point is very valid, but again, it really comes down to a judgment call, and weighing lives is a dangerous thing to do.

I said valuable military target, so not some outpost. It would be more like killing 100000 civilians with a nuke to blow a hole in the enemy front lines.

[Blaze The Great]

I said valuable military target, so not some outpost. It would be more like killing 100000 civilians with a nuke to blow a hole in the enemy front lines.

Ok I guess I slightly misread your post. Yeah, that would be unfortunate collateral damage, but probably necessary. I think that before this war is over, we are going to see collateral damage on an incredible scale.

[blah the Prussian]

Ok I guess I slightly misread your post. Yeah, that would be unfortunate collateral damage, but probably necessary. I think that before this war is over, we are going to see collateral damage on an incredible scale.

I only hope those in charge of the armed forces of the anti ISIS coalition realize this; ISIS certainly isn't afraid to inflict more than collateral damage on civilians.

[Blaze The Great]

I only hope those in charge of the armed forces of the anti ISIS coalition realize this; ISIS certainly isn't afraid to inflict more than collateral damage on civilians.

Right you are. And until we get a large, prepared coalition on the grounds of Iraq and Syria, we will be making scratches in ISIS's armor at most.

[Skynstein]

I said it before and I'll say it again. Bombs won't stop ISIS. Because bombs (and prejudice) are what makes people join ISIS in the first place.

[Snowy_One]

I agree completely with your first point. Your second one...not so much. It does come down to a judgment call, in my opinion, but, just as a hypothetical, if a country killed 100,000 civilians with a nuke to destroy a minor outpost, then that is not acceptable. Civilian casualties, like I said earlier, are a necessary evil, but it is also important to measure their lives against our own goals. If we attack civilians with no urgent goal, then we are basically using terror tactics. That makes whoever is attacking no better than al Qaeda, or even the Japanese in the Nanjing Massacre.

All that being said, your last point is very valid, but again, it really comes down to a judgment call, and weighing lives is a dangerous thing to do.

It's also important to remember that there are many things which can kill civilians which are simply not foreseen or simply mistakes and/or would have been negligent. When you drop a bomb, for example, while they all SHOULD work, or at least function as a very effective large boulder, a sizable chunk simply don't go off. You can try to clean them up as best you can, and maybe you'll get them all, but it's only a matter of time till some poor farmer clips a hand grenade with his plough and loses a leg. Bullets miss, sometimes people are in places they shouldn't be, sometimes someone jumps out at you from behind a corner and you fire without thinking about it and gun down a woman and her child because you were scared that they might be enemy soldiers, and sometimes shit happens.

This is something I WISH more people understood! When you're out fighting you aren't a cop breaking up bar-brawls armed with tasers who only draws their gun as a last resort or when invading drug/gang hideouts. You're a soldier on a battlefield and every moment there is a risk you won't survive. It isn't a game where civilians simply aren't on the map but WAR!

When WWII was winding down and Japan started to prepare to battle America on their homeland teachers started to teach their students to attack American soldiers with everything. We can put aside if the use of child soldiers is right or wrong for now, but imagine how much that would have shocked people to find out that an American soldier had gunned down a Japanese child because he was afraid the kid might try to attack him with a kitchen knife. It's a legit threat but you KNOW he would probably be on trial and, even if cleared, people at home would still condemn him.

[blah the Prussian]

It's also important to remember that there are many things which can kill civilians which are simply not foreseen or simply mistakes and/or would have been negligent. When you drop a bomb, for example, while they all SHOULD work, or at least function as a very effective large boulder, a sizable chunk simply don't go off. You can try to clean them up as best you can, and maybe you'll get them all, but it's only a matter of time till some poor farmer clips a hand grenade with his plough and loses a leg. Bullets miss, sometimes people are in places they shouldn't be, sometimes someone jumps out at you from behind a corner and you fire without thinking about it and gun down a woman and her child because you were scared that they might be enemy soldiers, and sometimes shit happens.

This is something I WISH more people understood! When you're out fighting you aren't a cop breaking up bar-brawls armed with tasers who only draws their gun as a last resort or when invading drug/gang hideouts. You're a soldier on a battlefield and every moment there is a risk you won't survive. It isn't a game where civilians simply aren't on the map but WAR!

When WWII was winding down and Japan started to prepare to battle America on their homeland teachers started to teach their students to attack American soldiers with everything. We can put aside if the use of child soldiers is right or wrong for now, but imagine how much that would have shocked people to find out that an American soldier had gunned down a Japanese child because he was afraid the kid might try to attack him with a kitchen knife. It's a legit threat but you KNOW he would probably be on trial and, even if cleared, people at home would still condemn him.

The notion of war crimes as a whole is flawed. There is no military on earth that has not committed war crimes. I don't think, however, that said soldier would go on trial. There were some legitimate war crimes committed by Allied soldiers, like the Red Army gang raping German women at the end of the war, and they were never brought to trial. "War criminals" are anyone the victor wanted to get revenge on. It could be for good reasons, it could be because they merely were a good general who won many victories. Whatever the case, war crime trials are never fair; if you have lost a war the mainstream media has probably already made everyone biased against you.

[eclipse]

There's a huge difference between collateral damage and hiding your troops among civilians and putting your rocket launchers on top of schools and hospitals. Thus, I think there are legitimate grievances, but proving intent is a lot harder.

[blah the Prussian]

There's a huge difference between collateral damage and hiding your troops among civilians and putting your rocket launchers on top of schools and hospitals. Thus, I think there are legitimate grievances, but proving intent is a lot harder.

Innocent until proven guilty. If any civilians die under these circumstances, their deaths were the fault of one of the most cowardly and despicable strategies ever conceived.

[Blaze The Great]

It's also important to remember that there are many things which can kill civilians which are simply not foreseen or simply mistakes and/or would have been negligent. When you drop a bomb, for example, while they all SHOULD work, or at least function as a very effective large boulder, a sizable chunk simply don't go off. You can try to clean them up as best you can, and maybe you'll get them all, but it's only a matter of time till some poor farmer clips a hand grenade with his plough and loses a leg. Bullets miss, sometimes people are in places they shouldn't be, sometimes someone jumps out at you from behind a corner and you fire without thinking about it and gun down a woman and her child because you were scared that they might be enemy soldiers, and sometimes shit happens.

This is something I WISH more people understood! When you're out fighting you aren't a cop breaking up bar-brawls armed with tasers who only draws their gun as a last resort or when invading drug/gang hideouts. You're a soldier on a battlefield and every moment there is a risk you won't survive. It isn't a game where civilians simply aren't on the map but WAR!

When WWII was winding down and Japan started to prepare to battle America on their homeland teachers started to teach their students to attack American soldiers with everything. We can put aside if the use of child soldiers is right or wrong for now, but imagine how much that would have shocked people to find out that an American soldier had gunned down a Japanese child because he was afraid the kid might try to attack him with a kitchen knife. It's a legit threat but you KNOW he would probably be on trial and, even if cleared, people at home would still condemn him.

Blah pretty much covered everything. It's important to remember that not just history, but also the rules, are written by the victor. War crimes are going to happen regardless; no military is guiltless. With the direction many wars seem to be taking these days, and the way they have been going since WWII, I think civilian casualties are going to start spiking in wars.

There's a huge difference between collateral damage and hiding your troops among civilians and putting your rocket launchers on top of schools and hospitals. Thus, I think there are legitimate grievances, but proving intent is a lot harder.

Are you talking about like what Hamas is accused of doing in Israel/Palestine/whatever you refer to it as? They are supposedly launching rockets from certain buildings, like schools and UN-run facilities such as hospitals, and then putting civilians there and painting the Israelis as monsters when they blast the crud out of those buildings.

[eclipse]

Are you talking about like what Hamas is accused of doing in Israel/Palestine/whatever you refer to it as? They are supposedly launching rockets from certain buildings, like schools and UN-run facilities such as hospitals, and then putting civilians there and painting the Israelis as monsters when they blast the crud out of those buildings.

It's an example that just so happens to have some rumored basis. Tactics which rely on using civilians as shields are despicable, and should be punished as war crimes. Let those who signed up for the fighting do the fighting.

[blah the Prussian]

It's an example that just so happens to have some rumored basis. Tactics which rely on using civilians as shields are despicable, and should be punished as war crimes. Let those who signed up for the fighting do the fighting.

Actually, thats a really good point. War crimes should be prosecuted primarily against those who hurt their own people. The grey area, though, is in cases like ISIS, where it is arguably a country, but if we admit that it hurt "its own people" we give it legitimacy. Then again, ISIS does claim sovereignty over all of these people, so it should probably be held responsible.

[Blaze The Great]

Actually, thats a really good point. War crimes should be prosecuted primarily against those who hurt their own people. The grey area, though, is in cases like ISIS, where it is arguably a country, but if we admit that it hurt "its own people" we give it legitimacy. Then again, ISIS does claim sovereignty over all of these people, so it should probably be held responsible.

Again, you're right, but what can we do about it? There isn't much we can do to fight ISIS besides doing what we are doing now. ISIS doesn't have enough legitimacy as an internationally recognized state, so really all we can do is keep trying to pound them into the ground.

[blah the Prussian]

Again, you're right, but what can we do about it? There isn't much we can do to fight ISIS besides doing what we are doing now. ISIS doesn't have enough legitimacy as an internationally recognized state, so really all we can do is keep trying to pound them into the ground.

I might be in support of deploying ground troops against them until their conventional forces are defeated, but not staying for the occupation. Being a conventional force makes them easier to fight.

[Blaze The Great]

I might be in support of deploying ground troops against them until their conventional forces are defeated, but not staying for the occupation. Being a conventional force makes them easier to fight.

Well yeah, I'd like to add ground forces as well. I said that previously, but missed it in the last post.

Also, I remember at the beginning of the thread you talking about Israel's involvement in this war. Now ISIS is in Gaza, and Israel and Hamas are both fighting ISIS. Thoughts?

[blah the Prussian]

Well yeah, I'd like to add ground forces as well. I said that previously, but missed it in the last post.

Also, I remember at the beginning of the thread you talking about Israel's involvement in this war. Now ISIS is in Gaza, and Israel and Hamas are both fighting ISIS. Thoughts?

Wait, ISIS is in Gaza? How did they mangae that? If it's true, then the IDF would certainly be a welcome addition to the anti ISIS coalition. Also, my Social Studies teacher said that the solution for peace might be Israel and Hamas fighting a common foe, but we saw how well that went for the USA and USSR.

[Snowy_One]

Not to snark but I suspect that the IDF, while it would protect Gaza and Palestine, would not launch an offensive against ISIS unless it became an outright threat. They've got enough trouble ATM with what they have already.

That said, I really wish they WOULD as they are actually somewhat competent and well-equipped fighters.

[blah the Prussian]

Not to snark but I suspect that the IDF, while it would protect Gaza and Palestine, would not launch an offensive against ISIS unless it became an outright threat. They've got enough trouble ATM with what they have already.

That said, I really wish they WOULD as they are actually somewhat competent and well-equipped fighters.

The IDF has more than enough men to fight ISIS while still maintaining the occupation. Also, "somewhat competent" is the understatement of the year; the IDF are arguably the best trained force in the world.