Islamic State - another unwinnable war?

[MrGongGong]

As indeed was said in part by the rather wonderful Yasmine Alibhai-Brown on yesterday's Any Questions; though she did not refer to Israel she reiterated at Hague her question, when was the government going to take up the funding of Islamic jihadist groups by "its best friend" Saudi Arabia? - and got no answer.

Indeed
Do they not realise that their double standards make a mockery of any claim to be acting in a humanitarian capacity?

Also the very good point I read in a newspaper article (maybe the Independent ? found it on a train)
that, in spite of all the politicians saying that this is to make us safer
ALL the terrorist attacks in the UK have been done by folks claiming to be avenging the deaths of their "brothers" at the hands of the west.
None of them have been trying to establish a Caliphate in the UK.

There are some very nasty people in the world indeed, "my enemies enemy is my friend" is going to bite us on the bum big time IMV

[amateur51]

'Reign' is the correct spelling according to my trusty OED, amateur51, and makes perfect sense in the sentence concerned.

Furthermore ...

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/free...or-free-reign/

A common fallacy. Where are ff, jean & the other denizens of Pedants' Corner when you need them?

The expression in this context comes from the equestrian past and refers to the habit of using a loose rein to give the horse its head.

I'm not at all impressed by the direction in which your new friend Mr Rothbards (presumably) has sent you scotty.

[amateur51]

I think that Mr Tippster is actually correct here, to the extent that me appears to mean not "free rein" to do what they want but to be able to seize control and "reign" over suchever territory as they may choose; that said, I accept that he could have expresed it more clearly and less ambiguously.

The word 'reign' implies a sovereign rule, and as such the addition of the word 'free' would appear to be tautologous, surely.

[teamsaint]

I was at Waterloo station at about 7.00 pm on Weds night, outside which there were police armed with automatic weapons.
This is presumably in response to a "threat".

Quite what threat, or what use this show of force was is anybody's guess, but it doesn't feel to me like it is making London safer.
It feels like part of the problem, not of the solution.

Politicians saying there is a threat is not necessarily the same as there being a threat.

[ahinton]

The word 'reign' implies a sovereign rule, and as such the addition of the word 'free' would appear to be tautologous, surely.

You may be right; the context in which I assumed Sir Tippster to have used it and the meaning that I presumed him to have had in mind when doing so was that of being in charge of a people or an area - "reigning" over it; I'm not sure that this notion necessarily embraces the consent of those "reigned" over (viz. Mussolini, Franco, Pinochet Mugabe et al) or excludes dictatorships. As to the use of "free" before it, I again assumed that PGT meant that those who "reign" were "free" to do so - i.e. unimpeded in doing so - rather than that those "reigned" over were themselves "free" under such a régime.

I'm not saying that I'm right, but...

[ahinton]

I was at Waterloo station at about 7.00 pm on Weds night, outside which there were police armed with automatic weapons.
This is presumably in response to a "threat".

Quite what threat, or what use this show of force was is anybody's guess, but it doesn't feel to me like it is making London safer.
It feels like part of the problem, not of the solution.

Politicians saying there is a threat is not necessarily the same as there being a threat.

Oh, yes it is; it's just that what they're not telling you (and the rest of us) is that they are themselves that threat.

[MrGongGong]

I was at Waterloo station at about 7.00 pm on Weds night, outside which there were police armed with automatic weapons.
This is presumably in response to a "threat".

Quite what threat, or what use this show of force was is anybody's guess, but it doesn't feel to me like it is making London safer.
It feels like part of the problem, not of the solution.

Politicians saying there is a threat is not necessarily the same as there being a threat.

Don't you just love community theatre ?

[johnb]

It's easy to blame our politicians ... but generally they do not cut off innocent peoples' heads, crucify opponents and rape and murder women and children.

The problem is basically this:

a) The West intervenes in an effort to stop ISIS(L) and many thousands of innocent human beings die or are horribly injured in the process.

The question is whether the West's current strategy will be effective in stopping ISIS (though that depends on what you mean by 'stopping'). ISIS is thought to number between 10,000 and 20,000 and they control an area the size of the UK. They are not an army in the conventional sense but a more like a kind of Taliban which has acquired heavy military hardware. There are major groupings when they are attacking specific targets - but still 15,000 (say) over an area of 94,000 square miles isn't exactly easy to bomb out of existance, especially when they can melt into the civilian population who are even more afraid of Assad's and Iraqi troups than they are of ISIS (and that is saying something).

It might be possible to degrade their capabilities with air strikes but will that be enough? Even though the US has been attacking ISIS for weeks ISIS have still been able to capture an Iraqi base 30 miles from Bagdad.

Who will be the 'boots on the ground'? The Iraqi army seems more or less useless. In Syria there is the FSA but there are question marks about that force. Then there is Hezbollah (classed as terrorists), the group allied to the PKK (classed as terrorists at the behest of the Turkish government), the Iranians (who the US doesn't talk to), the Shia militias, Assad's forces (the chap the West wanted to topple) and the Kurds. Does anyone seriously think that this is recipe for "success".

The US will continue to bomb "ISIS" (we can ignore the UK's trivial involvement) causing many thousands of innocent deaths and that is likely to increase the sympathy towards ISIS and similar organisations while at the same time increasing the hatred of the US and the UK.

In the meantime ISIS will no doubt continue unabated with their barbarism and mass murders - so the population will suffer doubly.

We never seem to learn. All our interventions in the Middle East have been disastrous - short sighted, ill thought through, brought about by ignorant politicians - truly disastrous. This one has all the hallmarks of being the same.

What the West should be doing is tacking the root causes of the problem - the hate-filled Wahabbi creed propagated world-wide from Saudi Arabia, the venal sectarian Shia government in Iraq (and that includes the new government), the Palestinian issue, stopping the Saudi and other Middle East Sunni dictatorships from promoting terrorism, etc - and leave the fighting to the regional powers. Our Saudi "allies" have air force of 700 planes but they will be staying firmly on the ground. The Turkish government, another "ally", (which has been suspected of supporting ISIS in the past) has military forces but they stay within Turkey, of course.

[teamsaint]

Oh, yes it is; it's just that what they're not telling you (and the rest of us) is that they are themselves that threat.

Not in any doubt, AH.
But worth reiterating.

[P. G. Tipps]

The word 'reign' implies a sovereign rule, and as such the addition of the word 'free' would appear to be tautologous, surely.

Ahinton is absolutely correct, scotty, though he did rather spoil it by his somewhat strange last sentence ...

To allow 'free reign' makes perfect sense when one is referring to allowing a group or army to take control of land and assume power over others without resistance. It has absolutely nothing to do with reins and horses! Of course, one can use the expression 'free rein' if one wishes but that was not my intention and therefore your deflective challenge was wholly invalid.

One did note that, in stark contrast, you completely failed to discuss the morality or not of a coalition of over 60 countries intervening in Iraq (and elsewhere) in an effort to foil the murderous self-styled 'Islamic' barbarians from carrying out their cruel, evil and despicable acts against innocent civilians.

I take it that's a question you simply prefer to avoid answering?

[visualnickmos]

In a recent Radio 4 programme about this, I heard an expert (who said the most sense I've heard on the media so far on the subject) with over 50 years experience of studying and advising on the Middle East, refer to the whole region as now being "a complete basket case" and he wasn't being flippant. He was, I suspect, completely exasperated at the fact that Western politicians who really are totally out of their depth, trying to formulate some sort of solution. Laughable. Especially as virtually all the other countries in the region are quite frankly, doing b*gg*r all about it.

Also astounding, is the fact that the government says this is perhaps the biggest recent threat to UK security, but are doing nothing more than pin-pricks (ie air strikes) and yet we are constantly being told we have one of the most well-equipped, strong and highly trained military forces in the world, etc, etc. Well - then bloody well use them. What use is it if under huge threat they aren't utilised. What's the point of such a well-honed military if they aren't used to do what they are supposedly there for - to guarantee the security of the nation? Why not just cut defence spending, reduce the armed services, and forget the whole thing.... a mad, mad world.

[P. G. Tipps]

Oh, yes it is; it's just that what they're not telling you (and the rest of us) is that they are themselves that threat.

Which politicians do you have in mind that you think may be planning to plant bombs on, say, London Tube trains and buses, like they apparently did on 7th July 2005, then ... ?

[ahinton]

Which politicians do you have in mind that you think may be planning to plant bombs on, say, London Tube trains and buses, like they apparently did on 7th July 2005, then ... ?

None. But in a necessarily far wider context remember Edmund Burke (on whom my own MP has written a book recently)...

[P. G. Tipps]

None. But in a necessarily far wider context remember Edmund Burke (on whom my own MP has written a book recently)...

All very interesting, but you now seem to be agreeing that the terrorists are the threat and not the politicians as you seemed to 'suggest' in your previous post?

[amateur51]

Ahinton is absolutely correct, scotty, though he did rather spoil it by his somewhat strange last sentence ...

To allow 'free reign' makes perfect sense when one is referring to allowing a group or army to take control of land and assume power over others without resistance. It has absolutely nothing to do with reins and horses! Of course, one can use the expression 'free rein' if one wishes but that was not my intention and therefore your deflective challenge was wholly invalid.

One did note that, in stark contrast, you completely failed to discuss the morality or not of a coalition of over 60 countries intervening in Iraq (and elsewhere) in an effort to foil the murderous self-styled 'Islamic' barbarians from carrying out their cruel, evil and despicable acts against innocent civilians.

I take it that's a question you simply prefer to avoid answering?

But free reign is a scotty-ism whereas free rein is a concept both in equestrianism and management-speak.

Rest assured that if and when I have something to say in response to the issues that you raise that has not yet been covered I shall write it.