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Op IMPACT: CAF in the Iraq & Syria crisis

Remius said:
Here's an interesting take on ISIS and why they attacked France from The Atlantic titled ISIS Is Not Waging a War Against Western Civilization.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/11/isis-paris-attacks-rubio-republicans/416085/?utm_source=SFFB

It does seem to put some things into perspective.


I agree with the thesis that IS or Daesh is not a "civilization" as Sam Huntington used that term in his famous essay, but it does represent one part of one of the factions that is contending, right now, to "lead" the Muslim civilization. And the real war isn't against the West ... yet. The Muslims have to sort themselves out first and that is something I suspect they will never, can never do ... tell me what constitutes Christendom please, and how we define it in political, social, legal or military terms. Is essentially protestant and moderately religious America somehow allied with very religious, Roman Catholic Peru or quite religious, Orthodox Ukraine? Islam is similar and despite what I believe is a religiously inspired set of civil wars and revolutions I doubt one, overarching caliphate will be able to impose its socio-cultural/theological will on 1.5 Billion people, much less 6 Billion.

 
Remius said:
Here's an interesting take on ISIS and why they attacked France from The Atlantic titled ISIS Is Not Waging a War Against Western Civilization.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/11/isis-paris-attacks-rubio-republicans/416085/?utm_source=SFFB

It does seem to put some things into perspective.

I completely agree with the author. I am not sure if this is appropriate to say on this military forum, but as a person who was born and bred in the Indian subcontinent region, I internalized Gandhi’s non-violent way of living which saved my life during the darkest period of my lifetime that I lived before start over from scratch in a beautiful country, such as Canada.  As such, I am against any military solution to this conundrum and always think like a peace-keeper. Therein, another plan to deal with ISIS, as follows:

I don’t think the US led west should engage neither ground troops nor air strikes,  I’ll tell you why:

(Attn: cross-post)

1. Because, regardless of the complexities of sectarian divide, the six-state GCC countries in ME are playing their cards deviously, for them it is a political issue but in fact it is a global security issue.
2. They successfully draw the US led west, who is desperately looking for someone to sell their weapons, into this chaos while GCC nations are being very diplomatic with ISIS.
3. There is no single attack in these wealthy GCC countries to date, whereas the west got caught into the ISIS world view of Crusade vs. Jihad narrative. In the eyes of ISIS, NATO is an enemy intruder but the GCC is a sacred land and common ground.
4. Thus, in my opinion, we should turn the tables around diplomatically and make the Muslims fight the Muslims contrary to Christians fight the Muslims.
5. It is against this backdrop, I believe, that the NATO should withdraw from its bombing mission and train and arm GCC plus the indigenous/local military to combat ISIS effectively and strategically.

In conclusion:  when you turn the majority of global Muslim population against these minute sections of the extremists there shall be peace at the end!
 
No single attack in any wealthy GCC to date?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Kuwait_mosque_bombing

 
Dolphin_Hunter said:
No single attack in any wealthy GCC to date?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Kuwait_mosque_bombing

Okay, you found one attack on a country that was previously funding the ISIS, according to Newsweek.

How Does ISIS Fund Its Reign of Terror?
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/11/14/how-does-isis-fund-its-reign-terror-282607.html

Royal Donors in the Gulf

Grossing as much as $40 million or more over the past two years, ISIS has accepted funding from government or private sources in the oil-rich nations of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait—and a large network of private donors, including Persian Gulf royalty, businessmen and wealthy families.

Until recently, all three countries had openly given hefty sums to rebels fighting Bashar Assad’s Syrian regime, among them ISIS. Only after widespread criticism from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the international community did Saudi Arabia pass legislation in 2013 criminalizing financial support of terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra and ISIS.........

Lori Plotkin Boghardt, a fellow in Gulf politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington, D.C., tells Newsweek that private donors across the Persian Gulf are continuing to funnel money to ISIS. “Qatar and Kuwait continue to stick out as two trouble spots when it comes to counterterrorist financing enforcement,” she said. Continued financial sanctions imposed on Kuwait and Qatar terrorist financiers by the U.S. Treasury “suggest the U.S. government continues to be concerned about spotty, to say the least, Kuwaiti and Qatari enforcement of their counterterrorist financing laws.”


A couple of factors are frustrating attempts to dam these rivers of cash. First, the relatively open banking systems of Qatar and Kuwait are being skillfully exploited by ISIS, since, unlike Saudi banks, they do not automatically raise red flags when money is siphoned to Islamist causes.

Second, Qatar and Kuwait are loath to limit the activities of highly influential ISIS donors due to the political fallout such intervention may cause. In Kuwait, a family of parliamentarians—including Kuwaiti member of parliament Mohammed Hayef al-Mutairi—has raised funds for jihadist groups with direct ties to ISIS. “Cracking down on some ISIS financiers is politically complicated for these countries’ leaderships,” Boghardt says.

Funds tend to reach ISIS militants by a circuitous route, frequently flowing from Qatar to Kuwait, which operates as a clearinghouse for funds headed to Syria and Iraq, according to the Washington think tank the Brookings Institution.

So Kuwait part of MESF now?
 
E.R. Campbell said:
I saw the highlighted bit, with my own eyes, in Singapore where Muslim men, some from Malaysia but mostly, I was told, from nearby Indonesia, come to Singapore on Sundays and 'terrorize' the (mostly Indonesian) housemaids on their day off. The difference between e.g. Europe, on the one hand, and Singapore, on the other, is respect for the rule of law. In Singapore the police are johnny-on-the-spot and the Muslim men are carted away, quickly, and hustled across the border with their passports stamped so that they cannot return for some months. Such verbal assaults (I'm told these "assaults," which are almost never more than verbal ... out of fear of the proportionate police reaction) are, apparently, a breach of Singapore's laws regarding personal privacy and public conduct ~ remember this is the place where gum chewing, in public, is against the law ... or, at least, dropping your 'used' gum anywhere is.)

And I agree, OGBD, it is a form of terrorism. I was also told, by a Malay acquaintance, that this attitude, including the dress codes, is relatively new. It is, my acquaintance told me, an "import"  from the Middle East, brought by Arabian sheiks and imans who have been invited to Malaysia and Indonesia by a handful of fundamentalist people in high (high enough) places. Some Malays (I don't know about others in e.g. Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines) want to fight back and, in at least one mosque in one city the "imported" iman was ousted and the congrgation agreed that they would engage only a native born Malay who was educated in Malaysia.

That, ousting an iman and insisting upon a local fellow, instead, is one example of real "soft power," at work. That one Malay congregation was (I hope still is) sufficiently comfortable in its own "skin," sufficiently confident in the strength of its own "culture" to face down the foreign fundamentalists who claim that they have the 'Holy Writ" on their side. This sort of "soft power" ~ the very best kind ~ is never the result of any government programme, and never a "gift" from foreigners. It is "bottom up" or "grassroots" power that reflects the strengths and determination of the people, themselves. It was easier, I suspect, in that particular Malay congregation because I think it was in an upper middle class district filled with well educated people. Poorly educated people often (usually?) are less "comfortable" and "confidant" and, therefore, less willing to stand up against outside influence.

I think there is a big difference between the "comfortable," and "confident" local community power I saw in one small place in one small country and the fanaticism that, I suspect, animates many IS** members. IS** is, I believe, using its own brand of "soft power" but it is imposed rather than being self generated and self sustained and I think (hope) it's influence is easier to counter, discredit and destroy (see e.g. Italian fascism, German national socialism and Japanese Shinto based militarism). It is my thesis that imposed or imported can be valuable and long lasting, but only as a catalyst for the creation of local, indigenous power: the great legacy of the British empire, for example, was the "rule of law," respect for which is still a defining characteristic of some democracies (America, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India and Singapore just to name a few) and which, I assert, delayed the decline of democracy in others.

At the risk of repeating myself: the best "soft power" is home grown, but, just for example, a couple of poor, Easter European Jewish immigrants named Samuel Goldwyn and Louis B Meyer had more to do with giving America "comfort" and "confidence" than did Franklin D Roosevelt or even Thomas Jefferson. General Electric and General Motors were as important to the expansion of America's soft power as was General Marshall and his amazingly generous "plan" to rebuild Europe. Louis Armstrong, Josephine Baker, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald did more to shape "our" anti-communist "narrative" than did everyone in the CIA, Voice of America, the US State Department and Radio Free Europe, combined. Governments and old, tired, armchair strategists, like me, need to remember that.

Yes the Arabs and it would appear from UAE's 2.6billion RM "donation" to the PM to be mainly the gulf States are pushing a singular brand of Whabbi/Safi Islam that is sanitizing the more relaxed Malay version. The various states across Malaysia vary greatly, Johor and it's Sultan are fighting back, whereupon Kedah is going full Islamic retard. More and more Islamic standards of "decency" are being pushed on the non-muslim population and there is a lot of them vs us propaganda targeting going on. The current government used up most of it's political capital to get elected and using the Islamic hammer is about the only tool left. Malays love their Palestinians brothers greatly, but not their Indonesians ones. Distance does make the heart grow fonder.
 
Colin P said:
Yes the Arabs and it would appear from UAE's 2.6billion RM "donation" to the PM to be mainly the gulf States are pushing a singular brand of Whabbi/Safi Islam that is sanitizing the more relaxed Malay version. The various states across Malaysia vary greatly, Johor and it's Sultan are fighting back, whereupon Kedah is going full Islamic retard. More and more Islamic standards of "decency" are being pushed on the non-muslim population and there is a lot of them vs us propaganda targeting going on. The current government used up most of it's political capital to get elected and using the Islamic hammer is about the only tool left. Malays love their Palestinians brothers greatly, but not their Indonesians ones. Distance does make the heart grow fonder.

I love the bit in yellow, Colin. You should trademark it and then influence world leaders to use it instead of  "Islamic Extremists" or Islamic Extremism". Could you imagine the public relations effect against these people of constantly being referred to on the world stage and in the world press as "full retards"?
 
Here is an alternative for dealing with Daesh that hasn't really been discussed.

Why doesn't the Iraqi government hire this man:

c054316998ca2596d158f3931d9663bc_400x400.jpeg


His company, STTEP International (http://www.sttepi.com/default.aspx) did quite a number on Boko Haram and they've got plenty of success stories dealing with pesky Rebel Forces that annoy legitimate governments.  He doesn't really like the British or Americans either so he also has that going for him.

He is also releasing a new book which I have pre-ordered:

51WBQY%252BgxHL__SX323_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg


If his Blog and first book is anything to go by, I'm expecting it to be a very good read.
 
jollyjacktar said:
Interesting man.  I love South Africans, they're top notch.

The Nigerian government was supposedly offered a team from JSOC to help them deal with Boko Haram.  They chose to go with Barlow's crew instead, probably because they wanted someone that could deliver results.
 
Naturally.  I'd want to go with the local SME who have the TI on the continent.  Twenty five years ago, Rhodesian veterans would also have been an excellent source of  fairly recent SME in my opinion too. 
 
Bombing ISIS in the past three years or so degraded them? Think again!

Bombing terrorists feeds their ideology

If we think it's irrational, immoral or plainly reckless for ordinary Arab citizens to respond to violence with violence, then we should stop doing so ourselves.

I'm not saying the scope and severity of the violence from the two sides are the same. And I'm not drawing a moral equivalency between the actions of one side versus the other. Instead, I think it's futile to respond to terrorist violence with more violence in a way that creates more terrorists.

You don't have to be a peacenik to realize this is a vicious cycle. Retired Army Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn says the drone war is creating more terrorists than it's killing (and that the United States invasion of Iraq created ISIS in the first place). Previously, the National Intelligence Estimate confirmed the Iraq War created more terrorists than it killed. Just as we are provoked by their violence, they are provoked by ours.

Moreover, it's a dynamic that inherently favors ISIS. For starters, ISIS wants to be seen and treated as "a state" and France or the United States or any major nations declaring war against ISIS reinforces its claim to power and position. Second, by increasing the likelihood the West will turn away Syrian refugees (as for instance, half the United States governors have now vowed to do), these refugees may become increasingly resentful of the West for not helping them.
 
Tuan said:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/18/opinions/kohn-paris-attacks/

You say "keep watching CNN" as disparagement, then you post a CNN link to make some point.  Awesome.  :facepalm:



You can Google "disparagement" if need be.

Some people say I can be condescending.  (That means I talk down to people  ;) )
 
Journeyman said:
You say "keep watching CNN" as disparagement, then you post a CNN link to make some point.  Awesome.  :facepalm:



You can Google "disparagement" if need be.

Some people say I can be condescending.  (That means I talk down to people  ;) )

Regarding CNN; I guess people like me moulding it into an unbiased media. In fact, I am surprised to see such an article on CNN website.

Secondly, in my opinion, no one here try to talk down on people, rather everyone reserve our fundamental rights of free speech, as long as we are impartial and doesn't have a bias to begin with.  :camo:

P/s: I do look up words because English is my third language; as my mother tongue is Tamil and then learned the official language of my native country, which is Sinhala.

 
Humphrey Bogart said:
That's because their contract was only for three months and their presence in the country became an election issue.  The new government chose not to renew their contract.
Seen.
 
Tuan said:
Bombing ISIS in the past three years or so degraded them? Think again!

Bombing terrorists feeds their ideology

Or, it has degraded them, but not completely defeated them as a fighting force, or defeated their morale, but it has shaped the way they have to fight in the battlespace; which was the actual goal of the air task force.  :nod:  No one tasked the ATF to 'win 'er all on your own folks!' and no one expected them to because that would be foolish.

It has degraded them.  I don't care what CNN puts into type.
 
Eye In The Sky said:
Or, it has degraded them, but not completely defeated them as a fighting force, or defeated their morale, but it has shaped the way they have to fight in the battlespace; which was the actual goal of the air task force.  :nod:  No one tasked the ATF to 'win 'er all on your own folks!' and no one expected them to because that would be foolish.

It has degraded them.  I don't care what CNN puts into type.

I am not saying it did nothing, but just keep bombing and bombing and bombing isn't necessary.  Of course, when you have a real-time intelligence about a high value target you can act on it but just keep bombing like what Russia and France are doing right now, will not work.

Instead, (IF you really want to obliterate them) you have to study, collect, analyze and identify on which the terrorist's survival depends on: the lifeline of ISIS and its infrastructure; such as weapons and munitions supply, local and foreign recruitment base, communication, propaganda, and publicity avenues, food and water supply, oil and power resources, financial, trade, transport and banking resources., etc.. and simply eliminate them.

What western intelligence needs to do is, collect, analyze, assess and disseminate real-time tactical intelligence. I feel that the international intelligence agencies have a bigger role to play, than just being the eyes and ears of any nation, with feet of clay, when faced with an enemy of many different faces. Recommendations for an appropriate "tradecraft" to achieve such a role are the need of the day!

It is easier said than done, because terrorists will blend in to the mass and shift into non-operational defensive mode and later would reorganize again!
 
And what better way to destroy that infrastructure they need than by turning their desert into a desert by bombing the crap out of it and them.
 
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