It's pretty much psyops, or as it's otherwise known, marketing.

If Murdoch can distort things sufficiently to get Abbott elected, then the message "don't be a psychotic, murdering, arsehole" ought to be well within their capabilities.

I agree with this - most Syrian refugees don't want to be refugees at all. Most just want to live in peace, earn some money and have a nice life. However Syria is pretty much smashed - it will take a generation to rebuild it, and that's assuming that IS could be eradicated overnight.


S

Sigh. So in a roundabout way you just said Europe needs walls. ...... and right now you need walls more than ever.

There is nothing wrong with walls in the right place and the right time. The time is right. The best thing about walls is they can go up and come down pretty quickly.

Yep. Its human nature to support something. A football team, a country, a religion.

When the 1.6 billion muslims inner self says who are we going to support in this war, it aint gonna be the west.

Good luck. IS is one side. Government the other and as we know democracy doesn't work in the middle east. So it ends up as a dictator for a dictator replacement.

I feel sorry for Admiral Akbar - he's going to cop a lot of flak going forward I would think...


S

The take away from the ME disaster is that unpleasant though they were, the regional dictatorships did seem to keep the tribal and religious factional rivalry at bay. It will be interesting to see what happens in Egypt going forward. Mubarak - despite being a huge f**ker - did a reasonably good job of strong arming the small factions. The last thing the West expected was for the Islamic Brotherhood to be elected in pseudo democratic elections.

And the West trying to topple Assad has been a disaster, and has lead to the position we see here today. Trying to get local rebels and other parties to do our dirty work has backfired spectacularly. It's generated a huge power vacuum within regional Syria that has been filled by IS and lots of hardware from defecting elements of the Iraqi army.

And let's not forget that the Saudis are also supplying IS with money, arms and support, yet the US are still supplying Saudi. I saw that Putin made an announcement yesterday about 40 identified backers of IS. He didn't go as far as to mention the Saudis, but we all know that's who he was getting at.

Jordan seems to be the last remnant of sanity in the ME, and even they are starting to look less and less stable as time moves on.

As you said above, it's clear that Western style democracy doesn't work in countries where a predominantly middle aged religion prevails. I don't yet feel able to blame Islam as a culture - there are many strands of Islam, and some of the atrocities visited on Shia muslims by their Sunni brethren are no better than they are visiting on the infidel westerners.

The big question is where exactly do we go from here?


S

Good question.

Step 1. Build walls.

Step 2. Extinguish your enemy within.

Step 3. Ground forces into Syria.

Step 4. ............. ? That's where it gets really tricky. But its a long term game, that's for sure, but at least you have built your own defences. Right now Europe has none, they don't even have the tech nor the legal means of intercepting comms.

No. I explicitly said, with reasoning, why walls aren't a player in this. I might also have mentioned the 2.1million muslims already in france, etc.

I think most people would accept and hope its not a war against an entire religion. ...... though it could become one if you don't put up the walls.

Forgive me if I'm reading this wrong, but that looks suspiciously like you're apologising on behalf of western civilization for causing the rise in public support for IS. I had a couple of beers last night and my head's still a little fuzzy, so there's every chance I read it wrong.

If/when that happens it'll be MOAB time

That's cool

Putting up walls would make that more likely to happen. It'd be solidifying the "us vs them" narrative that the extremists are craving.

Turkey is meant to be Western Civilization.... well most of it.

I can tell the Turkish and to a lesser extent the Iranian scarf wearing Muslim women apart from most of the others..... They're the ones that greet me in the local shops with a "Hi Luv" in a fairly strong Aussie accent, tinged with a bit of middle eastern. IE: The same greeting as everyone else around here.

So I'm a bit concerned that a sizeable element has seen fit to make it's displeasure known at the football.

I've found out since in having a chat with some locals, that there is a little bit of consternation amongst the Turks, inasmuch as when the Bombs went of in Ankara at the peace rally re their government bombing the Kurds, there wasn't anywhere near the outpouring of grief for this front line country from the rest of Europe. Even though there was a similar number of casualties. That lack of empathy didn't go unnoticed amongst the Turks.

It's a bit like we don't care if this front line predominantly muslim country is on our side or not.

No, it's more about not drawing lines whilst there are plenty who'd end up on the other side.

At this point you want to do everything to avoid drawing lines/building walls - and this shows why that's key.