I know it's a 'massive failure of intelligence' because two British aid workers have been beheaded, apparently by other British (hopefully ex) citizens, who can in no way be classified as a 'sophisticated' enemy. That's enough for me. All we have to go on is the Foreign Secretary saying 'we don't know where we are'. I am talking about a failure of intelligence, not a failure of the SAS or special forces, who can only act on the intelligence they are given.
I'm not sure we should be debating this on here given the sensitive issues involved and the (natural) desire by all human beings whatever creed faith or nationality to exact revenge for this appalling act of savagery by a bunch of cowards who don't even dare show their faces. Comments such as 'bomb them all back to the dark ages' are the perfect example of an understandable but unacceptable response which should not be aired on here. Still as it has been raised here's my tuppence. I'm all for crushing this particular group, hunting them down and simply eliminating them because they peddle a wholly perverted version of Islam. However let's not forget three things: 1 It's Muslims who are the victims of their brutality and Muslims who will be standing up to them in the battlefield. 2 Western leaders have historically adopted the moral high ground and interfered in the internal affairs of these nations hoping to set up governments sympathetic to the interest of the West - the urge to spread democracy to countries that have never had it is just a moral smokescreen to justify our intervention time and again to support those who support the West as opposed to Russia. 3 Having said that, there is a natural limit to the guilty brow-beating that the West has to deliver. IS is not the fault of the West. They are sponsored by Muslim states espousing one branch of Islam over another. Sunnis oppressed Shia muslims and Kurds for many years under Saddam and were aided in that task by the arms industries and sponsorship of Western governments. We backed him when we perceived our interests to be under threat from the Iranian revolutionaries. Having realised that we were naïve in that we took at face value the promises made by the Shia government we installed that they would be fair and tolerant to their former oppressors. However what goes around comes around. Whatever injustices the Sunnis felt under Al Malaky, it did not justify the barbarous response of the IS. For years we were told that Muslims were persecuted by the West because we wanted to protect Israel and our oil pipelines. There is undoubtedly a grain of truth at least in that. However the Jihads of the last few months if not years have between followers of different branches of Islam. They have slaughtered each other in the name of God and waged 'holy war'. How is the West culpable for that? As they choose to blame us and target us, I fear we will have no option but to go in eventually. War has been declared on us. If/when that time comes, I agree with Queens that this time we need to finish it once and for good. At the moment, we know precisely who the enemy is - I just hope we don't muddy the situation again by deciding who to back on the basis of who is likely to deliver the greatest number of Starbucks, Macdonalds and Disney stores.
Indeed. COL, its very unfortunate you've used Iraq of all places to assure us how good the intelligence services are. Most of us remember the disaster that created such a monster in the first place with the fabled word "WMD's" still ringing in our minds like a nightmare reliving itself. There's no doubt they do good work but blindly believing that they're good at what they do, particularly how catastrophically wrong they got it last time, is madness.
Firstly I never mentioned Iraq. It is widely believed that the hostages are in Syria. Secondly, I'll think you'll find that it was politicians who spun the wmd report after putting huge pressure on the intelligence service to say what they wanted.
Very measured response. This is a multi layered complex situation. People need to understand why ISIS has arisen and what the western role is/was. A barbaric murder of an innocent man but please look at the bigger picture here.
It seems to me that it is not so much Western actions, deplorable as they have been, that are the problem here. It is religion. The abomination that is ISIS has arisen from a perverted version of a religion. These are people who think that their barbaric actions are somehow justified by their religion, and that if they die in 'jihad', they become martyrs and reap all kinds of rewards in some depraved heaven. How can you fight against such ignorance? Religion? I s**t it.
You won't find me disputing the wholly malign impact of religion. But the US, UK etc have created a vacuum in Iraq and Syria (just like they did in Iran years ago) which allows these cretins to thrive.
Another poor bugger seems to have met the same fate. An American called Peter Kassig. They say they've wounded Jihadi John. Pity they didn't kill him http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...Office-confirms-MOS-aware-reports-injury.html
True, the thing is I'm agnostic but starting to lean towards being atheist. I will always respect other peoples views but religion is something that's scares me a bit. These people want to go back to the dark ages with there fundamental beliefs.
They appear determined to take the world back to the dark ages, they cannot be reasoned with, therefore, the only solution will be to exterminate them. There will come a time when they will threaten to take over in either Syria or Iraq and the only answer will be all-out war. Another marvellous legacy of the B-liar era. Amazingly, quite intelligent young British-born recruits appear to flocking to them in their hundreds...
As I posted on this thread a while back, you know they are a bunch of nutters if al-Qaeda have sent in an official to negotiate the release of hostages!
I know how to defeat this. These suicide bombers are promised 100 virgins if they do something like blow themselves up. Well there lies the problem, some of these recruits are just not getting much action in the bed department. Don't send an army in, just send an army of prostitutes and problem solved. I would probably want to blow myself up if I was not getting a bit from time to time!
They'd be hard-pressed to find 100 virgins that didn't look like the back end of a horse these days...
