Argh! Michael Steele just said (on All In) that we could be fighting ISIS for the next 30 years.

[winter is coming]

Chris Hayes, bless him, sort of jumped up and down in his chair and said, "But that's insane!"

Steele went on to regurgitate the "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here" meme.

NONONONONONONONO! We've seen this movie before and it sucked!!

[Nobel_Twaddle_III]

1. Chris Matthews was war mongering most of his show prior....

http://www.msnbc.com/hardball/watch/matthews--the-us-is-being-morally-humiliated-400134723716

[winter is coming]

2. I'm not surprised. It's one reason why I don't watch him. n/t

[Thinkingabout]

3. After the reports of the goal of ISIS, just what do you propose to do?

[winter is coming]

4. I don't propose we rubber-stamp an open-ended formless war with no clear goal.

We've already seen how well that works out.

[Thinkingabout]

7. ISIS has made it very clear the only stop is total annihilation. Before too many

Countries sat back and Bush pushed forward. Now it is many other countries which realize action is needed and ISIS has a goal. Perhaps someone died and left them in charge. Radicals.

[winter is coming]

11. Then let's actually try to use the UN for something.

If ISIS is such an enormous global threat, then several countries should decide together what it best to do. Plastering their latest atrocities all over the media and making big-threat noises about how they're the worst ever and we need a blank check to deal with them accomplishes nothing beyond giving them the platform they want. We should be addressing this as an international cooperative diplomatic and policing problem, not a war. We go into this as a war and all we'll accomplish is wasting a lot of money and a lot of innocent bystanders, while becoming ISIS' best recruiting tool.

[Thinkingabout]

12. Are you suggesting the UN negotiate with ISIS? I dont know how you negotiate

With a radical group. Do you understand what their goal is?

[JonLP24]

17. To overthrow a government in a Muslim majority country

However, a political solution is necessary if anyone is serious in stopping the violence. Negiotiating needs to take place to handle the political problems that exist. Iraq is a little easier but corruption issues are plaguing it & Shia dominated government has brutally oppressed those that live north of Baghdad. Assad is responsible for most of the human rights violations in Syria so there really is no one credible but agreements need to be struck & the oppression of minorities must end or otherwise war will be raging years after ISIS is gone groups split & operate under different names.

[Thinkingabout]

18. We're talking about ISIS, they dont have a government to negotiate.

They are trying to force apocalypse, they want to annihilate the earth. This isn't lets meet up at the ball park and play a game.

[JonLP24]

20. I largely mean the civilians

people that have been massacred by the governments that rule over them. Change, stop the chaos, ISIS loses appeal. Right now you have many different factions over there fighting the Syrian Army and each other.

[Thinkingabout]

23. No, ISIS has not ceased other areas of chaos, still have problems but ISIS needs to be

Annihilated. We will continue to work on other problems.

[JonLP24]

46. Chaos breeds IS & other Wahabbi terror groups

It is their oxygen. Trying to annihilate IS will hypocritically allying with human rights violators won't help. Working on other problems is how to defeat them.

Syrian Women Know How to Defeat ISIS

<snip>

“Oppression is the incubator of terrorism,” one woman told us as the group prepped for meetings with high-level officials in D.C. and New York. Her participation in peaceful protests during the early days of the revolution led to her two-month imprisonment in a four square meter room shared with 30 other women—yet she was adamant: “We cannot fight ISIS except through a political approach.”

<snip>

So what do they recommend? To create stability (which is kryptonite to extremists), Syrian women say three things must happen.

First, humanitarian aid must get to the millions in grave need. Almost three million people are registered as refugees in neighboring countries and over six million are displaced inside Syria. That’s in a country with a pre-war population of just under 18 million. Approximately half of the remaining inhabitants live in extreme poverty.

<snip>

Violent extremism thrives in areas where social services have all but disappeared. A woman who serves on the local council of an opposition-held town told us that she fears more of her neighbors may become radicalized because there’s no work, no education, and no other opportunities.

http://time.com/3513830/syrian-women-defeat-isis/

[Thinkingabout]

48. Do you seriously think the leaders of ISIS ordering the brutal murders of others is interested in

creating stability? If they are so concerned in stability and humanitarian aid getting to the million in grave need they would be doing this right now instead of passing their brutality on to hostages who are in grave need. Let ISIS provide social services, this is not the goal of ISIS. They are killing workers who have been providing the same thing you are suggesting, no, they are not into the stability.

[JonLP24]

62. No

That is one way to defeat them. Why is IS targeting Humanitarian Aid workers? Because it is their cryptonite.

You missed my point badly.

[Aerows]

64. Are you currently enlisted in the US Military

or have a family member currently enlisted in the US Military?

Don't even think about dodging that question if you are advocating the annihilation of ISIS.

Yes or No?

[Thinkingabout]

65. No I am not a member of the military, do have family members there. What path would you suggest in

order to get ISIS to stop killing innocent people which will work?

[Aerows]

66. Do have family members where, exactly?

Are they enlisted in the US military?

[jwirr]

42. It just dawned on me that maybe we should only send our rw christians who are also trying to

force the apocalypse to fight them. Solve two problems at once.

I watched both Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes and Lawrence O'Donnell last night and we have aproblem. One of the women on Last Word (I think) was talking about bombing. She basically said that we can bomb the extremist but we cannot bomb the idea behind the extremism. I agree with her. Years ago Tom Paxton had a song about this in which he told us that we could not put the idea back into the box.

In other words its like thinking that WWII ended the idea of Nazism or that the fall of the USSR ended the idea of communism or that defeating the Rs ended the idea of trickle down. We need to figure out how to fight the idea because that is our problem.

In the case of ISIS we need to ask the question how can their idea of apocalypse be defeated. I think that will have to come from people who are not seen as the enemy - the USA. The war merely adds to their hatred and as others have said is the best recruitment tool they have.

The problem with all of this is that our US government does not understand that for once we have come up against an idea and we do not know how to confront it. It cannot be solved by military action. We do not know what to do and all those MSNBC programs last night (except Chris Matthews) were trying to explore this idea.

[Thinkingabout]

43. Complete annihilation is needed, bombing can be a part of the procedure.

I don't know if the mindset can be changed.

[riderinthestorm]

44. I think containment is the far better solution

according to what I've read, if ISIS fails to spread, as dictated by the Quran and the Prophet, their apocalyptic end times dogma will be proven to be a failure. That will be far more powerful in tamping down the ideas of ISIS than more war Imho.

[Thinkingabout]

49. Put your plan on the table for containment.

[riderinthestorm]

57. Doing what we're doing already

Strategic limited air strikes, training and strategic aid for the locals like the Kurds who must take the lead in taking out ISIS. No US ground troops in combat.

Furthermore I'd ramp up the humanitarian aid. ISIS' failure to take care of the people they ostensibly control will become more evident as time goes on. Providing humanitarian aid into that void would go a long way towards demonstrating ISIS' impotence as a governing body, beyond their psychopathic slaughter.

[Thinkingabout]

58. I do not see ISIS wanting to govern, they want the apocalypse, dont think they care as we do.

The need for some boots on the ground is not so much as combat but to locate strike points and know the locations of ISIS members. They are not hanging out in the mountains, they have embedded in villages among regular citizens.

[riderinthestorm]

59. Agreed. They aren't interested in aiding the conquered people

which is why it's important somebody is dropping aid and supplies to the beleaguered people. It would be great if the medicine, food etc were labelled as coming from the US.

Let me add this as well, I'd like to see Obama putting the screws on the Gulf States to stop funding these fuckers. I mean seriously go after the Saudis for example with something that has teeth like sanctions. Our footsie-game-playing with them is maddening even as the House of Saud provides billions of dollars to ISIS.

[Thinkingabout]

60. I am happy with this project having more nations involved. We lost standing in the world with

The invasion of Iraq, the go I alone attitude, there are going to be more incidences in the future. I am not against dropping aid packages, I just do not see this as a means to halt ISIS.

[Aerows]

68. I asked you a few questions

and let me tell you what I think. You are ardently cheering for a war that will benefit some other country, will protect your family members that are not members of the United States, and you are eager for the rest of us who are US citizens to finance, send OUR loved ones over to die or come back forever changed, while you sit around enjoying the benefit of the blood and treasure lost.

That's exactly why I asked you those questions. Don't you dare ask other people to make sacrifices of the blood of their loved ones to benefit people who aren't even US citizens and don't give a shit about us, don't contribute tax dollars and are eager to watch Americans die instead of stepping up to the plate.

[Thinkingabout]

74. Good, now you have stated your opinion, though incorrectly about my family and you missed on

many issues. As far as I know my family members are citizens of the US, work and pay taxes, have had many to serve in the military. I am not cheering for a war and in the end may have attacks on the US, BTW, there have been US citizens killed by ISIS so yes I am interested in the killings to stop.

[JonLP24]

19. The ISIS that is there in country in Iraq & Syria aren't really a global threat

The potential global threats exist in cyber base, outside of the Israel. US, France, & Britain are ISIS targets. They don't really care about anyone else. Convincing lone wolfs to do something is nothing new, the entire global Al-Qaeda & other similar groups are already doing that and are located in many different countries. They are very low risk as far as planning, organization, then finding a way inside the country and launching an attack here and if it is, the planning isn't being done there.

[Thinkingabout]

22. They have said they want the apocalypse, I havent seen any effort on their part to talk about

Anything. We had bombings in Boston, don't kid yourself they would love to have an attack on the US or any other place. These,are barbarians, killing is okay with them, being very cruel is okay, they don't like other Muslims who do not believe in their goal.

[winter is coming]

25. No, they don't like other Muslims who don't share their goal.

Let's be patient and leverage that. They are trying to provoke us and every time they do something, hoping to make us retaliate, they alienate more people.

[Thinkingabout]

61. They do not appear to like those who are not muslin also. With some of their attacks they are

Uniting different nations. It isn't ISIS against the US its beginning to be ISIS against the world.

[JonLP24]

31. The largest pro-Israel group are doomsday ready evangelists

The second coming doomsday predictions differ with Jewish doomsday predictions. IS is far from alone in preparing for doomsday.

It take long to find but the recent apocalypse propaganda appears to be more ridiculous than a concern, in comparison to their other issues. Like other doomsday predictions, they're outdated.

The meadow outside the small village of Dabiq, Syria is a strange setting for one of the final battles of the Islamic apocalypse. Although close to the Turkish border, “Dabiq is not important militarily” observed a leader in the Syria opposition. And yet the Islamic State fought ferociously to capture the village this summer because its members believe the great battle between infidels and Muslims will take place there as part of the final drama preceding the Day of Judgment.

In a prophecy attributed to Muhammad, the Prophet predicts the Day of Judgment will come after the Muslims defeat Rome at al-`Amaq or Dabiq, two places close to the Syrian border with Turkey. Another prophecy holds that Rome’s allies will number 80. The Muslims will then proceed to conquer Constantinople (Istanbul).

<snip>



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William McCants | October 3, 2014 3:11pm
ISIS Fantasies of an Apocalyptic Showdown in Northern Syria

More Topics
Middle East and North Africa
Islamic World
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Smoke rises from the Syrian town of Kobani, seen from near the Mursitpinar border crossing on the Turkish-Syrian border in the southeastern town of Suruc, Sanliurfa province (REUTERS/Murad Sezer).

The meadow outside the small village of Dabiq, Syria is a strange setting for one of the final battles of the Islamic apocalypse. Although close to the Turkish border, “Dabiq is not important militarily” observed a leader in the Syria opposition. And yet the Islamic State fought ferociously to capture the village this summer because its members believe the great battle between infidels and Muslims will take place there as part of the final drama preceding the Day of Judgment.

In a prophecy attributed to Muhammad, the Prophet predicts the Day of Judgment will come after the Muslims defeat Rome at al-`Amaq or Dabiq, two places close to the Syrian border with Turkey. Another prophecy holds that Rome’s allies will number 80. The Muslims will then proceed to conquer Constantinople (Istanbul).

The Dabiq prophecy has not figured prominently in the Islamic State’s propaganda until recently. Abu Mus`ab al-Zarqawi mentioned it as the ultimate destination of the spark that had “been lit here in Iraq.” The first head of the Islamic State, Abu Umar al-Baghdadi, quoted the prophecy in one of his statements. But it was not until this year that the Islamic State really began to focus on the Dabiq in its propaganda. An Islamic State spokesman mentioned the ill-fated village in a statement in April, and in July the Islamic State released an English-language magazine named “Dabiq.” The editors, calling themselves the “Dabiq team,” explain why they adopted the name for their magazine: “The area will play a historical role in the battles leading up to the conquests of Constantinople, then Rome.” But first the Islamic State had to “purify Dabiq” from the “treachery” of the other Sunni rebels who held it and “raise the flag” of the Caliphate over its land.

A few weeks later, Islamic State fighters took the village from Sunni rebels, killing forty and capturing dozens. Setting up snipers and heavy machine guns on the hill overlooking Dabiq, they repelled an attempt by the Free Syrian Army to retake the area. Islamic State supporters were jubilant, tweeting pictures of the Islamic State’s flag from the hilltop together with quotes from the prophecy.

Jihadi tweets about Dabiq spiked again last month when the United States began to consider military action against the Islamic State in Syria. Islamic State supporters counted the number of nations who had signed up for the “Rome’s” coalition against the Islamic State. “Thirty states remain to complete the number of eighty flags that will gather in Dabiq and begin the battle.” Yesterday, after Turkey’s parliament approved military operations against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, the jihadi twittersphere applauded “Turkey’s entry into the war will permit the foreign invasion of northern Syria, meaning from the plain of Dabiq. The battles (of the End Times) have grown near.” “#Turkey_commitedsuicide,” tweeted another. “In Dabiq the crusade will end.”

The last time the Turks invaded Dabiq, things did not go well for the Arabs. The Turkish Ottoman sultan, Selim I, defeated the slave armies of the Mamluk Sultanate in the meadow of Dabiq in 1516, which gave them the eastern Mediterranean and eventually Egypt and the Hijaz, inaugurating 500 years of Ottoman rule over the Arabs. His grandfather Mehmed II conquered Constantinople from "Rome," the Byzantine Empire and his son Suleiman the Magnificent would go on to conquer large swathes of eastern Europe.

The fact that Turkish Muslims, not infidel Romans, control Constantinople today and are working with the infidel Romans against the Islamic State makes the Dabiq prophecy a poor fit for contemporary events. The inevitable defeat of the Islamic State at Dabiq, should it ever confront “Rome,” would also argue against the prophecy’s applicability. But in the apocalyptic imagination, inconvenient facts rarely impede the glorious march to the end of the world.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2014/10/03-isis-apocalyptic-showdown-syria-mccants

My first impressions appears to be propaganda designed for Muslims. The Wahabbi propaganda machine goes way back....

A particularly interesting text in this regard is a recent Urdu translation of a voluminous book, running into almost 400 pages, penned by a Saudi scholar devoted to extolling the praises of the Saudi regime for what its title refers to as its impressive ‘Islamic missionary and educational services’. The author of the book, Saleh bin Ghanim al-Sadlan, is a professor at the Jami‘a Imam Muhammad bin Saud University, Riyadh, and is associated with a number official Saudi Islamic organisations and institutions. The book is an expanded version of a paper presented by the author at a conference organised by the Department of Religious Affairs and Endowments, Riyadh. The book has been translated into Urdu and published by an Indian Ahl-i Hadith student of his, ‘Abdur Rahman bin ‘Abdul Jabbar Farewai, who runs an Islamic institution in New Delhi.[12]

The book provides details of various Islamic organisations set up and funded by the Saudi regime, both inside as well as outside the Kingdom. These institutions, so its author claims, are engaged in what he calls ‘amazing’ contributions to the cause of Islam, ‘providing peace and satisfaction to the hearts and minds of the followers of Islam’. All these efforts are said to be a reflection of the commitment of the Saudi rulers to the Islamic cause. As al-Sadlan tells his readers, this shows that ‘In this period of the decline of the Muslims the existence of Saudi Arabia is a great blessing for the Islamic world’.[13] Expectedly, the book reads as a crude piece of undisguised propaganda for the Saudi monarchy. The author claims that Saudi Arabia is the ‘only’ state in the world that is governed according to the Qur’an. The rulers and the ‘ulama of Saudi Arabia, he writes, ‘have created a model Islamic government’ which has ‘raised high the flag of Islam’, ‘worked for the spread of true Islam all over the world’, and has made ‘immense contributions in the field of Islamic unity and service of humanity’. The Saudi government, he says, ‘has always supported human and moral values’ and is a ‘model of justice, peace, security, love and unity’.[14] ‘All its revenue, trade and economic institutions’, he claims, ‘are based on the shari‘ah’. He describes it newly established, but toothless, consultative committee (nizam-i shur‘a) as having been set up ‘only in order that the country should firmly and strictly follow the path of the shari‘ah and Muhammad, peace be upon him’.[15] Predictably, there is no mention at all about Saudi Arabia’s key role in the Western-dominated global capitalist economy, and of its close financial and political relations with the United States and other Western imperialist powers.

For his part, the Saudi king is described by al-Sadlan as the ‘Custodian of the Two Holy Cities’ (khadim al-harimayn al-sharifayn), and is portrayed as having been appointed by God Himself to serve the cause of Islam. He is described as performing this onerous responsibility with diligence and fervour. He is said to have ‘full faith in the fact that his government must work for the prosperity of Islam’. He is said to ‘firmly believe in the supremacy of the Qur’an and the sunnah’[16], and is quoted as declaring that ‘The Constitution of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the Qur’an itself, which falsehood cannot touch, from front or from behind’.[17] Concluding his book, the author prays that God should protect the ‘Islamic Sultanate’ of Saudi Arabia ‘in this age of terrorism’ so that it can ‘carry on in the service of Islam’.[18]

Ahl-i Hadith-Deobandi Polemics and the Saudi Nexus

Central to ‘Wahhabism’ is the understanding that it alone represents ‘normative’ Islam, and that other understandings of the faith are, by definition, ‘false’. One might argue that the ‘Wahhabis’ are not unique in this, and that, in fact, all Muslim sectarian groups do share this conviction. While that may well be true, ‘Wahhabi’ attitudes towards other Muslim groups have historically been characterised by a fierce extremism quite unparalleled in the case of other contemporary Muslim sects. This is another feature that Saudi-style ‘Wahhabism’ shares with the Ahl-i Hadith.

https://lubpak.com/archives/327067

I don't take a lot of their claims serious, pretty much everything publicized is a propaganda strategy action. I try to look past most of it, IS and groups like it use propaganda heavily in recruiting. They aren't even the only Wahabbi terror group.

Chechens were the group behind the Boston bombings. They operate around Russia, basically little is known. They appear to be a very shadowy group with connections to Turkey, Saudi Arabia, & were used in proxy wars by the US. I can't find anything regarding their ideleogy, the most that is known is they routinely target Russia with terror attacks. They are more than likely operating around the Turkish border (my guess is they could be the middle man from the Arabian peninsula to the Syrian border for the Wahabbi terror groups). I can only speculate but little is known about their motivations, interests, or what sect they follow. Probably money & corruption.

Anyways, that isn't what I mean.

Resolving these issues & the political problems is key to defeating IS or the many terrorists groups aligned on the side of IS. Syria has it all, proxy wars between foreign powers. Most countries send aid to a group as well as aid a rival to that group. Russia, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea have backed Shia militias, Russia also has backed the Assad regime. US, France, & Arabian Peninsula have aided Sunni rebel forces, US also has aided Kurdish forces (they are routinely used throughout history since they are marginalized by whoever happens to be the convienent enemy)

[KingCharlemagne]

41. "Before too many Countries {sic} sat back and Bush pushed forward." You are defending

Bush??? Really???? Care to elaborate?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

36. And the answer to the question?

"Let them get on with it" is not necessarily an absurd answer, but I find it striking that you're not willing to say it outright, or to propose another alternative.

[winter is coming]

37. Apparently you haven't read all of the posts in this thread yet.

I'm not convinced there is a solution to this problem. ISIS may become an endemic problem that we can't do much to fix. But it's pretty obvious that right now they're trying hard to provoke a strong reaction, which indicates that rushing into a war is not a good first step. The ME countries need to be engaged in this. Hell, they need to take the lead on this. We've tried barging into ME countries before to "fix" things and it's only made things worse.

[CJCRANE]

51. Cut the funding. nt

[Thinkingabout]

55. And this fixes the problem?

[CJCRANE]

56. No salaries, no trucks, no weapons. No problem. nt

[gratuitous]

5. Was Steele gleefully rubbing his hands while he said it?

I mean, he's right. We don't know how to house or feed our own people, but by golly we can blow stuff up reel gud all over the globe. It's very lucrative for the people who pay Michael Steele his sinecure.

[winter is coming]

6. He was using his "I'm a reasonable man" voice. n/t

[NutmegYankee]

8. Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. Or, we could just say no. “Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.” Carl Sandburg.

[Jesus Malverde]

10. What is interesting about the authorization of force agreement

Is that it is set for three years meaning the next president will inherit a year of war, and likely have an easier time of renewing it without much debate.

[winter is coming]

26. Both that, and the next President gets to own it, too. n/t

[JonLP24]

14. It will be far longer than 30 years

the names will change but the marketing will be the same.

[winter is coming]

27. Of course it will be 30 years. If they're admitting to 30, they mean perpetual. n/t

[msongs]

15. I don't see Michael Steele going over their in uniform to do something about "it" nt

[kwassa]

16. Why does anyone take Michael Steele's opinion on anything?

He fakes reason. He has no personal ethics, and no particular insight.

I remember him as the head of the Republican party over in the next county. An overwhelmingly Democratic black county, the most predominately black one in the county.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

21. We'll definitely be fighting them for the next 10 years. Hopefully, Gen-X won't be...

...as war mongering a generation as the Baby Boomers.

[Art_from_Ark]

28. Baby boomers protested against the Vietnam War

and plenty of baby boomers protested against the Iraq War as well. On the other hand, the group that showed the most support for the Iraq invasion was the 18-29 group, that is, those who were born between 1973 and 1984. That was especially the case for young Republicans, who nearly unanimously supported the fiasco.

http://www.people-press.org/2002/10/17/generations-divide-over-military-action-in-iraq/#older-democrats-opposed

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

45. Should call you EPIC_FAIL_ART. No Conflation Zone

There's never been a Gen-Xer in any leadership capacity, dude.

Representative Baby Boomer (check)

Senator Baby Boomer (check check)

Secretary of State Baby Boomer (check check check)

President Baby Boomer (checks across the board)


Your fucking economy. Your fucking wars. Your fucking climate.

[Art_from_Ark]

50. Guess what? Boomers were saying exactly the same thing in the '60s and '70s

And if you are complaining about no "Gen X-ers" being in "any" leadership capacity, chew on this: Of the 15 US Senators who are regarded as being "Gen X-ers", 10 of them are Republicans, including one Ted Cruz and the Senate's youngest member, Tom Cotton, both of whom bring a whole new dimension to the word "wacky".

I close with a dedication of this song to you:

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

70. Give it up, dude. Don't walk away from your disaster

Baby Boomers started blaming future generations for their global disasters decades ago. You guys are famous for that. Look at you now! You're behaving like a fool.

[GP6971]

78. No......you're behaving like a fool. eom

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

79. HA! Your generation was given everything on a silver platter, you fucked it up...

...you continue to fuck it up, and you push blame on to generations that follow you.

And look at you two. To defend your generation makes you a not serious person.

This colossal clusterfuck we live in was brought to us by you spoiled Baby Boomers.

No go away.

[GP6971]

80. You're a pretty bitter person

Many of us boomers protested against the injustices of our times.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

82. You're stepping in the same pile of poo your friend stepped in.

You guys don't like what someone says, so you hijack and conflate.

Get over yourselves.

Your Presidents. Your Secretaries of State. Your Senators and Representatives. You Baby Boomers fucked it up for everyone.

[GP6971]

83. I'd bet that if you were a

U.S. citizen that you would have voted for Nixon

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

84. You guys aren't even good at this, either.

[GP6971]

85. So what do you Utopia do you live in?

Stop deflecting

[pbmus]

24. I have a mute button on my remote ...

[GP6971]

29. Well, in many ways I agree

ISIS is not going to go away. The world is stuck with these murdering bastards for years to come.

I by no means recommend our boots on the ground. For now, it's a regional problem. If the ME countries don't step up to the plate in the very near future and commit their resources to the obvious threat to their existence .......well, I don't know what to say

[elleng]

30. So do I,

and Steele and others who recognize the situation are correct. About time for reasonable people to recognize other reasonable people, I think.

Thanks, GP.

[JonLP24]

32. Its a political situation that developed that enabled ISIS

ME countries? They are the ones brutally oppressing the civilian populations and after years of this ISIS joins one of many militias fighting against the obvious threats to their existence. It is why most of the people have fled, if they haven't already fled years ago. US foreign policy corruption is the driving force behind it all. Oil.

[freshwest]

38. The world has seen generational wars before. Our only choice is whether to get involved.

The fear is that not getting involved from our end, won't stop ISIS from getting involved with us . It is a global movement, not like a regional war one can walk away frok.

I read the article posted today from the Atlantic. I didn't agree with some of it then I went to see the exceptions in the piece and the explanation. Not the first empire on Earth, won't be the last, even though their intent is to kill or enslave all they don't agree with. This is part o human history.

That articles says that all Shia and non-theocratic Muslims are marked for death. It mentioned they intend to kill 200 million Shia alone. This is not new, but the West outgrew its own sectarian wars years ago. We see it as too irrational and can't face that not everyone sees or agrees with such a great thing.

Every thing that ever happened once, repeats. I think, like it or not, get involved or not, that this will extend over 30 years. Our method to deal with it is in question, but there is a lot of evidence that it's going to be a long haul for millions of people.

[Man from Pickens]

33. Seems realistic

and a very compelling reason not to step into the quicksand of Middle East wars in the first place

[winter is coming]

34. When Hayes said, "That's insane!" he didn't mean that the estimate was insane,

he meant committing to something like that so nonchalantly was insane.

[ND-Dem]

35. muslims are the new communists.

[ND-Dem]

72. I doubt "most" agree that muslims need to be wiped out. That must be your particular

obsession.

[madville]

75. I was referring to ISIS, of course I didn't mean all Muslims

That was a big foot in the mouth, gonna edit it.

[rjsquirrel]

39. Really who cares

what professional moron Michael Steele thinks or says? He is as dumb as a post, and says such stupid things that I think of him as a comedian.

[AngryAmish]

40. There is a reason people are saying the Middle East will have war for 30 years

People are saying Islam needs a Reformation. The Reformation sparked the 30 Years War, which led to the Western notion of religious tolerance, exclusive right to use of force of the state, the nation-state and eventually the Enlightenment. It was a shocking, horrible war and a real demographic event in europe.

Some folks see a 30 year war in the ME as bringing about the same changes. This is foolish because of the tribal nature of the ME.

[n2doc]

47. If not them, another bogeyman

...since the United States was founded in 1776, she has been at war during 214 out of her 235 calendar years of existence...

http://www.loonwatch.com/2011/12/we-re-at-war-and-we-have-been-since-1776/

[ND-Dem]

76. +100. The bad guys are jealous of our democracy.

[CJCRANE]

52. I said a while ago that it was a reboot of the GWOT

but few on DU paid any attention.

This time it's HD.

[pansypoo53219]

53. we have been fighting the CRAZY wing of islam since the 15h c. luckily the brits thought they

needed them to squash the ottomans instead of killing it off then. ISIS is just the latest.

[FSogol]

63. Are we pretending that Steele is ever right about anything?

[davidn3600]

67. It may very well be inevitable

What else do you want to do?

ISIS is growing and getting worse and worse. You are right, we've seen this movie before and we all know how it ends....war.

[winter is coming]

73. I don't want to jump into a full-blown war with no goals and no limits.

We went into Iraq and only made things much worse, so why should we believe another war will go any better.

[KamaAina]

71. This Michael Steele?

[Renew Deal]

77. After 9/11 there was talk about fighting Al Queda for 30 years

So far we're 13+ years in. Almost halfway with no end in sight.

[tavernier]

81. Well, why wouldn't he?

Buck a minute for spewing stupid propaganda.

Lucrative.