IS must be destroyed!

[Harvey Mushman]

 

Yeah, it's a long way. 30 hours, ish, depending on layovers. Less if you're within an hour or so from Dubai.

 

So, in other words. It's about as far from there to "here" as it takes to drive from Middle TN to eastern WA.

 

 

Their war, our war... It's a war which, if the "wrong" side wins, enables people who are every bit as nasty and even more nasty than the networks we've spent the last 10 years dismantling.

 

If my wife gets a black eye in the name of me minding my own business, who's fault is that? You think that won't happen?

 

Well you're not the sole owner of that unfortunate opinion...

 

Clinton's isolationist policies prevented us from stopping this thing before it got momentum. The disconnected military and state intelligence community that was created in the 90's has allowed it to get plenty of momentum now. That isolationism didn't work out in the 90's the first time they tried to blow up the WTC. It didn't work in 2001. And it's not gonna work in a couple years, after we "bring everybody home."

 

Which is a nice way of saying we quit.

 

Plain and simple.

 

We've spent the last 10 years burning down the house to get rid of the rats. If we don't stick around and kill the rest of the rats while we/they build a new house, then we'll... we'll... well.. we get what's happening in Iraq right now.

 

And when they get done killing whoever they want to kill there, you really think they'll just put their guns down and set about building a better nation?

 

Sure they will... Same way a fox fixes the hole in the fence when he's done killing all your chickens.

+1 Isolationism has NEVER worked. We have abdicated our global responsibility and it is coming back HOME to us as it always does when a leader abdicates and evil fills the vacuum, in spades. The world is a VERY small place today.

 

Harvey

[Utah Bob #35998]

It ain't easy bein #1.

[Utah Bob #35998]

 

I think saddam would have handled isis a bit different than our pos potus.

Don't ya think.

Saddam was Sunni. His ministers and Generals were Sunni.

Isis is Sunni.

[Elk Creek LeMieux]

What did the world powers do at the end of WWI?

 

We left Germany to rebuild itself. That worked out, didn't it? Anybody remember an unlikely little Corporal? Adolf?

 

We isolated ourselves, and the unthinkable happened. Americans died on American soil. Pearl Harbor...

 

So, we're not gonna make that mistake again, by golly... We'll stay and make sure we get as many as we can, and we'll rebuild the house we burn down in the course of the war, and make sure the rats can't get in there and tear the place up again. Because we don't want those rats digging under our fence and gettin into our place... again...

 

Oh, but we didn't. At least not in Iraq.

 

We ought to take a look at Israel, and thank our lucky stars that we have the military power to prevent the rats from getting to our borders. They don't go on the offensive there, they don't try to kill all their enemies, or to take the fight to their enemy's back yard to keep it out of theirs. Instead, every group of school children over a certain size has an Infantryman assigned to it, complete with rifle and kit. Their military patrols their streets in full kit, weapons at the ready. Their jets fly over their airspace fully armed and ready to go.

 

Sounds pretty awesome to me... That's exactly how I want my son to grow up.

 

Tell you what, you go tell the kids of some men I knew that they died for nothing. And that now, all their field trips will have a big scary man on the bus with them, with his M-4. That tank that woke you up last night rolling down the street? Yeah, your Daddy did what he did to keep that from happening, but his friends failed after they lost him. Because they just couldn't stand to lose another one like him.

 

You go tell those kids.

 

Their Daddy's were: John S, Will T, Matt W, Jamie W. They died IN Iraq. They left families with children. Those are just the names I know that left children...

 

And I will not believe that the country that produced men of the quality it takes to VOLUNTEER to walk away from their families and put themselves in harms way so that their children will grow up without fear, free from a militarized world, will go spineless and crawl into a hole.

 

Wake up...

[Harvey Mushman]

Agreed Bob, but ISIS slaughtered (mass ritual executions and graves in Tikrit, for starters) the Sunni who came to our side during the "surge". We left them to blow in the wind as their reward for trusting us.

 

Saddam slaughtered anyone who challenged his rule including many Sunnis. There are videos of him taking a perceived opponent out of a cabinet meeting and killing him on the spot. He used to send these videos to other leaders in the region to reinforce his "rule".

 

I think Saddam was loyal to himself and his own power, not Sunni religious fervor or purity.

[Elk Creek LeMieux]

Y'all remember Kosovo?

 

Some Muslims, mostly Sunni, didn't like the Serbian Catholics they were being governed by. The Kosovar Albanian's started pushing the Serbs around, as Kosovo is 90+ % Albanian, it wasn't hard.

 

The pushing went on and on from 91-96, then the Albanians got a little ugly in 96, and killed a bunch of Serbs. Serbs decided it was time to hit back, and did so. They pushed each other around for a while, then in 98 it got really ugly. Serbs started killing whole towns, dumping the bodies in mass graves, and leveling the town. Houses, shops, mosques, everything.

 

Pretty horrible right?

 

But the U.S. was there to stop it, with NATO right behind us.

 

Because some pissed off Catholics killed a few thousand Sunni's.

 

So, how many people has ISIS killed in Iraq so far? Anybody know?

 

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. Guess who's STILL in Kosovo? Rhymes with, Americans.

[Subdeacon Joe]

Not the war against us..... Not since the SHTF with 9/11.

 

GG

 

 

They have been a problem for the US since the Barbary Pirate days and really ramped after America's second worst president crapped the bed with his deal in Iran with the Shah, it has escalated ever since and WILL get a LOT worse if nothing is done.

 

 

The Islamic invasion of Spain, the Siege of Vienna, Battle of Kosovo (14th century), attacks on European vessels in the Med - including the Barbary Pirates, attacks on pilgrims to the Holy Land towards the end of the first millennium, the attacks on the US in 2001 - all part of the same war.

[Gunner Gatlin, SASS 10274L]

 

 

 

 

 

The Islamic invasion of Spain, the Siege of Vienna, Battle of Kosovo (14th century), attacks on European vessels in the Med - including the Barbary Pirates, attacks on pilgrims to the Holy Land towards the end of the first millennium, the attacks on the US in 2001 - all part of the same war.

We proclaimed officially in 2001 the War on Terror. That is what I am talking about. If anything they brought their war to us.... Regardless if it has been going since the beginning of time... Geez

 

GG

[Big Sarge]

Farmer Tom - I was in Kosovo and I believe it belongs to Serbia. However, it ended up being a separate country supported by the United Nations. From everything I saw and dealt with, the Albanians committed more war crimes than the Serbs. The Albanians were smart enough to use embedded reporters from the US and the president needed a diversion to take the heat off of a possible impeachment for lying under oath. So, public opinion was swayed in their favor by the media

[Subdeacon Joe]

We proclaimed officially in 2001 the War on Terror. That is what I am talking about. If anything they brought their war to us.... Regardless if it has been going since the beginning of time... Geez

 

GG

 

Just another front in the same war, Gunner, the war to bring the entire world under the Caliphate.

[Elk Creek LeMieux]

Farmer Tom - I was in Kosovo and I believe it belongs to Serbia. However, it ended up being a separate country supported by the United Nations. From everything I saw and dealt with, the Albanians committed more war crimes than the Serbs. The Albanians were smart enough to use embedded reporters from the US and the president needed a diversion to take the heat off of a possible impeachment for lying under oath. So, public opinion was swayed in their favor by the media

 

Yep, we renamed them the Kosovo Protection Group or something like that, and put 'em in charge.

 

It was all Yugoslavia, now it's Serbia or something... And Kosovo is a "supervised" independent state of it.

 

I thought it was a whole lot to do about nothing until I saw the size of some of the gravesites and the leveled towns, myself.

 

Edit, they changed the name from Kosovo Liberation Army to Kosovo Protection Corp. And it was Socialist Yugoslavia, then Serbia and Montenegro (one nation), then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Then the hostilities whipped all that out. It became the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro with NATO intervention. As of 2006 they're independent nations, but the Kosovo part of it is still "Serbia."

[Elk Creek LeMieux]

Big Sarge, did a little more reading, and you're right.

 

In 2008 some of the EU and the US welcomed Kosovo as it's own nation.

 

I missed that somewhere. Bondsteel is still active, though the pictures of the place look much improved since I saw it.

[Gunner Gatlin, SASS 10274L]

 

Just another front in the same war, Gunner, the war to bring the entire world under the Caliphate.

Right, but this is the time we 'officially' entered into it... And said it would last decades ( at least for us. That's my point.

 

GG

[Big Sarge]

Pards, please excuse my rants yesterday. It was a bad day for me and I allowed it to cross over into my postings. Sorry

[Gunner Gatlin, SASS 10274L]

Pards, please excuse my rants yesterday. It was a bad day for me and I allowed it to cross over into my postings. Sorry

 

Hey Sarge, I respect you opinion - AND your service! - no apology needed.

 

GG ~

[Utah Bob #35998]

Pards, please excuse my rants yesterday. It was a bad day for me and I allowed it to cross over into my postings. Sorry

Some of us had a real crappy day yesterday. Must be global warming.

[Elk Creek LeMieux]

Pards, please excuse my rants yesterday. It was a bad day for me and I allowed it to cross over into my postings. Sorry

Lot of that goin around.

 

Some of the things I said I shouldn't have either.

 

My apologies.

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

 

I think saddam would have handled isis a bit different than our pos potus.

Don't ya think.

 

True.

 

I like the one post of the pard who said we should freeze the assets of all "Muslim countries"! This to include NATO member Turkey, I reckon. And why not steal hundreds of billions of dollars from countries we are not at war with?

[Gunner Gatlin, SASS 10274L]

Agreed Bob, but ISIS slaughtered (mass ritual executions and graves in Tikrit, for starters) the Sunni who came to our side during the "surge". We left them to blow in the wind as their reward for trusting us.

 

Saddam slaughtered anyone who challenged his rule including many Sunnis. There are videos of him taking a perceived opponent out of a cabinet meeting and killing him on the spot. He used to send these videos to other leaders in the region to reinforce his "rule".

 

I think Saddam was loyal to himself and his own power, not Sunni religious fervor or purity.

 

Yup - and he was eventually going to do or fund something that would have hurt us real bad - he needed removal...

 

That's in the past so we need to think of the future - of course, the 'blame Bush' mentality is alive and well....

 

GG ~

[DocWard]

I've thought on this subject and the posts here for quite some time. What seems clear to me is there are no easy answers. Any potential path is fraught with potential dangers and downfalls. To me, though, there are certain truths that are fundamental.

 

Evil exists in the world. It has existed throughout history, and does today. In modern times, we know of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, the Khmer Rouge. IS/ISIS/ISIL is evil. There can be no question, no doubt, in the minds of those looking at their actions as to that fact. They have no respect for life. In truth, it appears they glorify the murder of the innocent and the helpless. I am repulsed by those who call what they have done "executions." It is murder, at its most horrific and sadistic.

 

This type of evil requires us to set aside The Golden Rule. While a variation on the rule exists in virtually every culture and religion you can think of, it can only apply to those others who might see fit to abide by it. In the case of these brutish cowards, it would only allow them to further their agenda, and murder more.

 

We can talk about what has been done, right and wrong, in the past. What we must do, though, is use those conversations not as indictments on past actors, nor as excuses for not acting in the present and future, but as lessons. History tells us that evil, unchecked, will never lead to "peace in our time." Only by action can evil be stopped, and yes, often at great cost.

 

I write this from the comfort of my home, with my family close by. Behind me are the days of my own service, although there is that negligible possibility that I could be recalled, if conditions warranted it. But I will say this, evil of this nature is such that if it were to again become my fight, I would step forward and take it on to the best of my ability. I believe my nation and humanity as a whole needs to step forward. If we do not, I fear for my children, and our children.

[Gunner Gatlin, SASS 10274L]

I've thought on this subject and the posts here for quite some time. What seems clear to me is there are no easy answers. Any potential path is fraught with potential dangers and downfalls. To me, though, there are certain truths that are fundamental.

 

Evil exists in the world. It has existed throughout history, and does today. In modern times, we know of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, the Khmer Rouge. IS/ISIS/ISIL is evil. There can be no question, no doubt, in the minds of those looking at their actions as to that fact. They have no respect for life. In truth, it appears they glorify the murder of the innocent and the helpless. I am repulsed by those who call what they have done "executions." It is murder, at its most horrific and sadistic.

 

This type of evil requires us to set aside The Golden Rule. While a variation on the rule exists in virtually every culture and religion you can think of, it can only apply to those others who might see fit to abide by it. In the case of these brutish cowards, it would only allow them to further their agenda, and murder more.

 

We can talk about what has been done, right and wrong, in the past. What we must do, though, is use those conversations not as indictments on past actors, nor as excuses for not acting in the present and future, but as lessons. History tells us that evil, unchecked, will never lead to "peace in our time." Only by action can evil be stopped, and yes, often at great cost.

 

I write this from the comfort of my home, with my family close by. Behind me are the days of my own service, although there is that negligible possibility that I could be recalled, if conditions warranted it. But I will say this, evil of this nature is such that if it were to again become my fight, I would step forward and take it on to the best of my ability. I believe my nation and humanity as a whole needs to step forward. If we do not, I fear for my children, and our children.

It's our obligation.... A special burden.

 

GG