ISIS Behead Palmyra Archaeologist Khaled al-Assad And Hang His Body From Ruins

[Martinus]

ISIS has gone beyond some kind of moral event horizon here. Once you commit mass murder and establish sex slavery it is hard to really shock anybody anymore.

Maybe my priorities are fucked up, but somehow this murder and subsequent defilement of the body of this 81 year old archeologist seems worse to me.

[Martinus]

This is an actual outrage.
How hard could it be to bomb the ISIS/ISIL/IS or whatever they want to be called out of existence?

I remember us debating the Iraq invasion a LOT, in fact, it's why we ended up here. After some persuasion about how neo-conservatism would work and the Middle East would become a beacon of FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY!!!1111 I succumbed to supporting the war. Which was terribly, terribly wrong.
We made this. It's up to us to clean it up. Kill them all, if need be.

If the problem was created by us launching military action against Iraq I have my doubts more military action is the solution. It just reconfirms my bias that we are too stupid and incompetent to solve the world's problems.

How about a few tactical nukes?

[Martinus]

If the problem was created by us launching military action against Iraq I have my doubts more military action is the solution. It just reconfirms my bias that we are too stupid and incompetent to solve the world's problems.

It's not that, it's just that we lack the ruthlessness to truly solve it.

We need to give control of the Middle East back to the Turks.  They'll take care of the problem.

Well yeah what Norgy says has merit: the last time the West effectively got rid of militant extremist human scum was when they were willing to carpet-bomb and burn tens, or even hundreds of thousands of perfectly innocent people with them.

No real stomach for that now.

Yup. This is what would be needed now. There were crowds lining up to see this poor Syrian guy being executed, so at least they fear ISIL more than they fear the ISIL's enemies. And that's considering the total number of ISIL militants is just few dozen thousands - which is really nothing compared to the local populace.

Go Hiroshima/Nagasaki on them. Drop nukes on two mid-size towns controlled by ISIL. Then say that more will come unless ISIL are gone from the lands they occupy within 30 days.

[Tamas]

I did not know this professor was gay

[Valmy]

How about a few tactical nukes?

I am certain that we will never be using nukes again unless somebody uses them on us first.

[Caliga]

I'm assume you mean some historical version of the Turks that no longer exist.  The current Turks would rather fight Assad and the Kurds than ISIS.

When they are done solving those problems, maybe they'll solve the Islamic extremism problem too.  They might not, but who knows?  We DEFINITELY won't solve the problem.

[Tamas]

I'm assume you mean some historical version of the Turks that no longer exist.  The current Turks would rather fight Assad and the Kurds than ISIS.

When they are done solving those problems, maybe they'll solve the Islamic extremism problem too.  They might not, but who knows?  We DEFINITELY won't solve the problem.

On the other hand, the current Turkish leader was just recently very happy to torpedo the peace talks with the Kurds and have the Kurds restart their violent uprising and terror actions, just so he can have a running chance of winning the repeated elections.

Not exactly middle east solving statesman material

[The Minsky Moment]

I'm assume you mean some historical version of the Turks that no longer exist.  The current Turks would rather fight Assad and the Kurds than ISIS.

Right.
Turkey is a NATO country- they could invoke the collective security clause against Daesh.  75,000 front line Turkish troops plus some NATO auxiliaries, plus NATO air support could wipe Daesh from the map in weeks.

But it ain't gonna happen.

[Warspite]

If the problem was created by us launching military action against Iraq I have my doubts more military action is the solution. It just reconfirms my bias that we are too stupid and incompetent to solve the world's problems.

It's not that, it's just that we lack the ruthlessness to truly solve it.

We need to give control of the Middle East back to the Turks.  They'll take care of the problem.

Well yeah what Norgy says has merit: the last time the West effectively got rid of militant extremist human scum was when they were willing to carpet-bomb and burn tens, or even hundreds of thousands of perfectly innocent people with them.

No real stomach for that now.

Yup. This is what would be needed now. There were crowds lining up to see this poor Syrian guy being executed, so at least they fear ISIL more than they fear the ISIL's enemies. And that's considering the total number of ISIL militants is just few dozen thousands - which is really nothing compared to the local populace.

Go Hiroshima/Nagasaki on them. Drop nukes on two mid-size towns controlled by ISIL. Then say that more will come unless ISIL are gone from the lands they occupy within 30 days.

Maybe we should nuke one of our own cities, and tell them that if we're willing to do this to ourselves, just imagine what we'd be willing to do to them.

[Martinus]

If the problem was created by us launching military action against Iraq I have my doubts more military action is the solution. It just reconfirms my bias that we are too stupid and incompetent to solve the world's problems.

It's not that, it's just that we lack the ruthlessness to truly solve it.

We need to give control of the Middle East back to the Turks.  They'll take care of the problem.

Well yeah what Norgy says has merit: the last time the West effectively got rid of militant extremist human scum was when they were willing to carpet-bomb and burn tens, or even hundreds of thousands of perfectly innocent people with them.

No real stomach for that now.

Yup. This is what would be needed now. There were crowds lining up to see this poor Syrian guy being executed, so at least they fear ISIL more than they fear the ISIL's enemies. And that's considering the total number of ISIL militants is just few dozen thousands - which is really nothing compared to the local populace.

Go Hiroshima/Nagasaki on them. Drop nukes on two mid-size towns controlled by ISIL. Then say that more will come unless ISIL are gone from the lands they occupy within 30 days.

Maybe we should nuke one of our own cities, and tell them that if we're willing to do this to ourselves, just imagine what we'd be willing to do to them.

[HVC]

Detroit would be a good option. They probably wouldn't even notice a difference

[Valmy]

Detroit would be a good option. They probably wouldn't even notice a difference

We could not nuke Detroit, show pictures of it, and claim we nuked it. I like this plan.

[grumbler]

Maybe we should nuke one of our own cities, and tell them that if we're willing to do this to ourselves, just imagine what we'd be willing to do to them.

[DGuller]

Detroit would be a good option. They probably wouldn't even notice a difference

We could not nuke Detroit, show pictures of it, and claim we nuked it. I like this plan.

[Norgy]

Well, whatever the world is doing now, doesn't help. I say we unleash our new "friends" in Iran on them.