TOPIC: To bomb or not to bomb, this is the question

So, what do we do? How do we stop Isis?

I'm not sure how bombing will defeat Isis but these people are not really the sort to sit down with and negotiate either. Whatever happens, bombing, ground troops, sitting on our hands, many many more people will die in vain. My only thought is to totally isolate these lunatics. Exert pressure through sanctions on those who fund and support them and then hope they self destruct from within. There will be innocent people who will suffer but there'll be innocent lives lost if we use military methods. We can only hope that there is a revolution within the Muslim world to eradicate Isis for themselves.

I'm sure the yanks will have all the bombing capabilities needed without us joining in.

To bum or not to bum would give the Sussex hairlite Infantry a chance to spread the love the thought of being bummed by an infadel would scatter them

Bombing makes bugger all difference, as mentioned, i'm sure between France, the US and Russia (yeah, right) there's enough bombing going on. After all, it's only costing the US ~$350m a month. I'm sure George has got that sort of loose change in his back pocket.

Only thing that'll make a difference is feet on the ground but nobody is crazy enough to go down that road except Turkey who have their own interests.

But, saying all that, it's a good idea. It's Crazy to bomb Iraq but then to stop at the border. Also, as a sign of a united front with the West and as a gesture of support for France it sends a strong signal of defiance.

What I want to know is, supposedly this ISIS is minted, selling all this oil they nicked, who the [censored] is buying it? That's who we should be going after.

This is nothing more than an ego boost by our Government. Our paltry 10 Brimstone missiles will add nothing of real note to what is happening in Syria at present, there are more than enough warring factions and allied bombings going on with out us throwing our two-penneth in. Cameron obviously feels a little left out knowing that France and the US are throwing vast amounts of money at a situation that will not be solved without a ground force (which incidentally is exactly what IS want). Now Germany have even thrown their hat into the ring in supporting the French, albeit in a non-operational way, we the 'mighty' UK must support and confuse the issue further. Anyone who doesn't think this will increase the chances of us suffering a Paris attack or similar is quite frankly in my opinion bonkers.
I have not got the first clue what the answer is but I do know that us killing even more innocents on the ground in Syria is not going to help matters one jot.

Armo wrote:
That's what I want to know too, I've often worried that in some sick, ironic way, some of their oil is being sold in the west. Its a question that seems to never be answered.

I'm for bombing, however - I agree, it can only have a certain impact. They're an enemy who live within plenty of innocent people too, so we can't just go for it on places like Raqqa; a lot of their strongholds now have an underground network of tunnels to avoid their death toll in a bombing as well. An argument seems to be that we should cut off ties with states who sympathize with Isis instead, I don't understand why we can't do both. Saudi are well rumored to play a major part in funding these d!cks, be nice to get concrete evidence then western countries such as us, USA, France etc can condemn them for it. I know though, these governments will be reluctant to do this with the Saudi's, so its probably unrealistic

Definitely not.

Bombing like we did in Iraq, Afghanistan and other lands not only causes thousands of innocent, unnecessary casualties it totally alienates the local population - with good cause - and escalates hatred towards the west. When will we ever learn.

Not to mention the horrendous monetary cost and our maimed and worse soldiers and airmen.

Let the good ole US carry on if they like with the Russkies and the Frenchies, but not us, not this time.

It's about time a-rabs in Saudi, Iran and the like got involved - all the senseless killing is being done by their fellow Muslims after all. Isn't it?

bejustandfearprokas wrote:
Turkey.

Would the French help us, if we asked? They supplied to Argentina (as did Israel) up to the Falklands (Spain even supplied them during the war). And how useful were they during the Gulf War and the Iraq war? They wanted absolutely nothing to do with it, now because they've had a couple of terror attacks they're screeching for our help (again). Cameron would do well to remind them of their history of surrendering to all and sundry before he commits British forces to rescue them yet again.

Aye, and the Ukraine military shot down that Malaysian Airplane. Oh and Lugovoi is just a politician.

Always makes me smile when people spout off about our military power we have only defeated Argentina and the Zulus on our own in the last 200 years

The nature of war has changed massively since the Peninsular wars though, they were all coalitions as well by the way (in fact the Napoleonic wars could easily be classed as a world war), that really was the start of those massive alliances fighting together on either side, or against a common aggressor.

Mind you, you're forgetting any of the Burmese and Indian wars in the 19th century. As well as the Opium War, where the Chinese got their arses kicked. And of course the Boer War (the second one at any rate). Granted mostly small, as was the Easter Rising and the Anglo Irish war between 1919 and 21.

Straw clutching you've got to remember that the country has been run by shite Hawks for all that time who only have there own interests at heart with no thought of the man in the street

I agree with that, but those wars (and a lot of others I know nothing about) did happen, and we did win them.

Are we more likely or less likely to have a Paris style attack in the UK if we get involved in all this ? More

WIll it cost millions of pounds that we apparently haven't got ? Yes

Will we have a clear exit strategy or leave it in a mess like everything else we do? (

Weren't we going to bomb Assad 2 years ago, and now we're bombing his aggressions ?

Do we care that an Islamic state is created in Syria ? How is this any different to us condoning a Jewish state being created in Israel

It's a NO from me.

GET INTO THEM (F_CK THEM UP)!

Bombs, soldiers on foot, whatever it takes... Get after the b*stards!!

Cameron is on an ego trip. Our measly contribution will make no difference at all in fact it may make it worse and anyway where are we going to bomb the yanks have flattened most of the area and still IS are not destroyed. Successive governments have destroyed our armed forces to the point we are no longer able to make a worthwhile contribution.

Corbyn wants a peacefull solution well my advice to that clown is go swap places with Peter Sutcliffe is cell will be vacant shortly....

Bomb them to smithereens


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So,when they kill 200 or so in London as a random act of revenge within 6 moths of launching attacks you would still feel the same way ?

Don't bomb as the facts are thats its been found to be ineffective, to state it better since bombing has increased in the middle east so has isis as if you bomb someone and they lose everything its pretty easy to radicalise people, but if you don't bomb them then they grow in power and thousands die, This is what we get for meddling in the middle east and anyone who does not think we take a massive share of the blame is a moron.

Not too fussed either way which is quite a nice position to be in as I won't be p*ssed off with whatever action we choose to take. Fully understand all the reasons posted on here for not doing it and it is because of all those reasons that I wouldn't mind at all if we didn't bother.

However these f*cking savages want to kill all 7 billion+ people in the world who don't see the world the way they see it. Because of that every nation on Earth should be helping in some way. The only way to get rid of the current barmpots is to destroy them, we need soldiers on the ground to do that though we can't just do it by bombing them. But as folk have already asked, what are the consequences of that? Killing innocent civilians and possibly driving more people to extremism and replacing the baddies that we do kill?

The Muslim world also has a big part to play to ensure that their fellow believers and any children that they bring into the world see this as utterly unacceptable, not sure how they go about doing that though because all the decent Muslims already see it as utterly unacceptable. How do you legislate for someone being born a total [censored] and using religion to justify their disgusting mindset?

Almost sounds like a bit of a no-win situation.

Useless wrote:
OK, just so I can get this straight in my own head. We've been bombing ISIS in Iraq for over a year but they won't bother us. Howeverif we moving the bombing a mile or two up the road then that all changes?

loser wrote:
The problems not Muslims, the problems Salafists. Don't forget, ISIS are just as happy to kill Shia Muslims as westerners. The problem begins and ends with Saudi Arabia.

Yes, we should bomb Wukkie, it'll cause untold millions worth of improvements.

Do Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland or even Holland/Netherlands get involved in any of this, besides a token effort to show willing?

When was the last time an ISIS/ISIL/Arabic/Iranian/Afghan terrorist bomber/gunman take hostages or blow up anything in any of those westernised, European, NATO, countries?

You reap what you sew.
Paris and the other attacks were awful, but if you don't hold the cats arse to the fire you won't get clawed.
No for me, let the US, France & Russia sort the mess out if they're desperate to.

Armo wrote:
Didn't say the problem was Muslims. That's too broad of a statement to make. I'm not one of these Britain First type mongs.

I've said on another thread that the Saudis are a massive problem, they're just savages that our government tolerates because they sell us oil and buy our weapons. However even if they changed their ways you'd still get nutters like ISIS.

The biggest threat to world peace is the united states of america, not isis, followed by russia ,followed by the memebers of NATO, followed by China, Followed by iran, followed by north korea....... you get a long way before you get to isis

HuntingHorn wrote:
oh, go on then.

Sweden: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Stockholm_bombings , en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Vilks
Denamrk: errrrr, have they reinstated the underground and opened the schools yet?
Norway: edition.cnn.com/2014/07/24/world/europe/norway-terror-threat/
Finland: ok, you've got me
Holland: www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/21/am...-train-gunman-france and the van Goch murder

Isolationism is not an answer.

Armo wrote:
They haven't been bombing Isis, they have been bombing the Syrian army. Look at a map of Syria, the whole of the middle of Syria is a desert How do Isis get supplies, men and weapons across that without 1 single hit when they are the open for 3 days at a time?! The oil truck lines were 12 km long, the RAF never once hit them, why not? The first air attack by the RAF hit a granary that fed the Syrian Army, ISIS were 2 days away!

ISIS or whatever they are called are much more powerful than we believe and more importantly are very, very rich (estimates of over $1.0 Trillion Dollars) Money is power (like it or not) however they are intrinsically liked to Saudi Arabia who buy a lot of Arms, who from ? correct us !!

So, under normal war conditions we would isolate the Enemy by cutting off supply lines, freezing bank accounts, closing revenue streams and so on. So, why aren't we using this tactic with ISIS ???

Bombing them will kill a few, good riddance to the medieval ba....rds, however the Cancer of extreme Islam is already spread Worldwide, including the UK and that is a long-term problem.

The deaths in Raqqa from the bombing will cause deaths on the streets of England, is it a price worth paying ???

the consequences of bombing will be catastrophic. No one will vote for us in Eurovision again !

142/156gimp wrote:
Just like football when we haven't knocked a decent side out in the knockout stages since 1966.

Armo wrote:


So, two that haven't/didn't happen and one is a year old, one that was targeting people bound for France (that's a coincidence?!?) and one genuine attack targeting Swedes.
Not really overwhelming. Any others out of interest or are they the single events?
We on the other hand as US lapdogs are constantly in the crosshairs same as France are now, if the Police/MI5&6 weren't as good at what they do we'd be getting hammered like France.

Bombing ISIS in Syria isn't the answer. Staying out of it all for a change would help.

In military terms ISIS would be pretty easy to destroy using ground forces but what happens afterwards is the tricky issue. Russia are fighting to keep the Syrian government in place whereas the west want them out, but then this will lead to other tribes going on the rampage to seize power unless theres an occupation. The worrying thing is having Russia and the West fighting in the same field wanting different final objectives An even more worry thing is how our governments will use this to take away our civil rights.

Its complete tokenism. We are talking about 4-5 planes, that's all we can muster these days. Right or wrong, it will make almost no difference to the situation. It just means our leaders can strut around with the other 'major players' and feel important. Even the USA's effort is feeble. They average at around 7 strikes per day. Blowing up a few pickups and the odd oil tanker. The Russians are doing up to 125 per day. So we see who really means business and who doesn't.

Ground forces will be needed to beat them. Nobody is going to get involved in that - who would want to? Its going to come down to the Syrian Army, Iran and Hezbollah. Its them or ISIS. These other 'moderate rebels' ceased to exist about three years ago. It would be great if there were 70,000 western loving rebels, and in 2011 that might of been the case. But now there just isn't. 90% of what is left are almost as extreme as ISIS. The idea that after all the problems the West has had with Al-Qaeda, we are now going to start backing, in fact we are backing, the likes of them - Al-Nusra et al. I find incredible. This will come back to haunt us.

ISIS will eventually be beaten militarily but they are just a brand. The ideology will continue with another group moving to the fore. When Syria is sorted out - Sunni Wahhabi extremism will move to another unstable country. It will never stop until the ideology is challenged. That means Saudi Arabia and the gulf states have to stop promoting it. Which i cant see happening until it eventually comes back to bite them. It means that modern, moderate voices in Islam have to become the norm world wide and leave no room for extremism to fester. This nonsense about ISIS not having anything to do with Islam is exactly that, nonsense. Baghdadi is a genuine religious scholar. They are using passages, readings and teachings to back themselves and their ideas up. Until that is challenged and it becomes really unacceptable to support the extreme version then the likes of ISIS will still flourish. The Americans did it in Iraq when they beat ISIS Mk 1 - Al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Sunni tribal awakening. We need something similar on a global scale. Sunnis need to turn against this ideology and turn against it hard. The west and the rest who get involved need to provide these people with a reason to move towards the more moderate interpretation. We did it in Iraq by paying them and getting the government to include Sunnis. Money and power are good motivators. Then Maliki came in and managed to destroy the whole thing very quickly with his rampant sectarianism.

Generally speaking we tend to do the opposite and stoke the fire so that the likes of ISIS can turn around as say I told you so, the West is your enemy, now there's your AK and off you go.

I think the emphasis should be on toughening our stance on the terror threats already in our midst.

Clamp down on the radical and radicalised, don't be scared to infiltrate the mosques that preach hate and the call for Sharia, if that is the world they want, go and live

in a country that shares their beliefs, maybe not be allowed state benefits there, though.

Ban those that look like black pillar boxes, could be anyone under there but we are to frightened to upset them.

I think one thing that would help,would be if the Muslim faith had a national figure head, like the Archbishop of Cantebury, The Chief Rabbi or the Leader of the Catholic church, in this country, who would stand up against ISIS and would help relationships with muslims in this country. They maybe have, but are very quiet.

You shouldn't link ISIS to Muslim - they kill far more Muslims than Westerners.

There are some naive comments on here. We are already bombing ISIS or whatever variant we call them so we are already on their target lists.

It seems absurd that we bomb in one place and not over the theoretical border so in that situation we should bomb in Syria too. It will make not one iota of difference to threat to the UK. it is already there. However, it seems to be a token gesture with few aircraft that shows us side by side with our "ahem" allies. With small ground troop squads identifying genuine targets with lasers it may be semi successful. Ultimately it is a waste of time.

It will have little impact without ground support. By all accounts the majority of air sorties are returning with with load and it'll already be congested over Syria. Put simply it'll be an expensive PR exercise.
Anyone who thinks they want to talk with us have their head in the sand, they want us dead. The only way they'd sit down around a table would be with something nasty strapped to their chest. As an ex army man I thought we should pummel them into the ground. I wouldn't lose a minutes sleep if they were wiped out. It won't happen and the more I think about it the more I think it will be a futile effort to try bombing them.

The government has cut defence spending and raised foreign aid spending, then after doing that they send the navy into the med to carry out foreign aid tasks. Extra foreign aid carried out with the defence budget. This hasn't been spotted by many but is a kick in the teeth for our forces.

'War is simple, effective and ruthless' - On one side we have Russia, USA and the EU - its a non contest! Lets have the balls to declare war on IS and finish them off!

Urban Designer wrote:
They call themselves 'Islamic State'. Their leader is an Islamic cleric and scholar. They use Islamic teachings, readings and passages to justify their actions within the Muslim world and to attract recruits. How can you not link ISIS to Islam? They link themselves! What the world needs to do is shatter that link.

We are so scared in his country of appearing like a Britain First racist that people are scared to take on the issue. Instead of listening to soundbites where Western leaders say IS has nothing to do with Islam - go and research what ISIS are actually saying. Yes most Muslims are peaceful, but what we are seeing is a split within Sunni Islam, supported by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, between modern, moderate Islam that we all are happy with and Wahhabi extremism.

David Cameron standing up and saying ISIS have nothing to do with Islam is not going to convince the tens of thousands of people who have gone to fight for them that they are wrong. The battle between moderate and extremism needs to be won from within the Sunni Muslim world with our help.

www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/brit...-work-20151202104378

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As already mentioned it would probably be more effective to cut off their weapons supply and their finance steam.
Bombing had yet to prove that it is remotely effective in achieving anything.

He's not going to apologise for the comment is he?! (If anybody else is watching)

halpinforpope wrote: Why will it increase the chances? We are already bombing ISIL in Iraq... that already makes us their target... or do you think that they will be extra mad at us for bombing them over a border that they don't even recognise? I'd say that it is you that is bonkers if you really believe that we aren't already a target.... bombing the same group in a slightly different area will have no impact on that.

Its a no to bombing for me

Risk of civilian death
No clear exit strategy or end game[/li][/li]
No Clear successor to Assad other than IS or Al Qaeda / Al Nusra. None of those options are particularly pleasant.
Saudis and Irans need to back any campaign to stabilise the country. Without their buy in it will drag on for over a decade
Cost - when we are cutting public services how can we justify this, we need to accept we no longer have an empire and stop try to play billy big bollocks with the US and Russia on an international scale.

Think Cameron is hoping this will boost his stature as the falklands did for Maggie sadly it will probably go more of the way of blair

For me I think there are very valid arguments for bombing... and also very valid arguments for not bombing. We should choose one or the other instead of the current pointless halfway house. It makes no sense to bomb ISIL up to a geographic line and then just stop.

For those using civilian deaths as an argument not to bomb... there are already many civilians getting killed currently by ISIL... no bombing means more innocents being killed by ISIL. It was the same situation with Saddam... the usual suspects on this messageboard are very happy to attach links to dodgy Wikipedia pages illustrating how many death's western intervention has caused... but they routinely ignore the thousands and thousands of innocent civilians who were dying every year as a result of that regime. You never hear those people mentioning how many thousands died in Yugoslavia in the '90's as a direct result of everybody turning a blind eye, relying on the UN and negotiations do you? If the west do nothing in Syria you condemn thousands of innocent people to death at the hands of ISIL... but I guess they won't be British so it's fine.

Difference with bombing in Syria to Iraq is that in Iraq, there is a large Iraqi army to take advantage and move in and recapture territory.
In Syria the biggest fighting force is the Assad army who are most likely to take advantage especially with the Russians and Iranians on their side.

People seem to have forgotten what happened in Vietnam where the mighty force of America lost against little North Vietnam, which is now a successful, peaceful country. Never mind Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

As said above I fear that the war in Syria could do the same to Cameron as happened to Blair in Iraq.

Urban Designer wrote: What's so hard to understand? All members of ISIS are Muslim. Not all Muslims are members of of ISIS.

Oh, and you shouldn't distinguish between Muslims and westerners.