sadoldgit

You said my economic sanctions wouldn't work and maybe they wouldn't directly but perhaps there is a way of putting pressure on indirectly. You didn't respond to my point about arms. Here are some questions for you - 1. How much, if at all do you think that Desert Storm has influenced the growth of Islamic Fundamentalism and fuelled hatred toward the West? 2. How would you feel if as a direct reprisal of the recent drone strikes, terrorists set off a bomb that killed all of your loved ones? Is that a price you are prepared to pay? 3. Assuming your land war against ISIS is successful and you destroy the lot of them, do you think that is more likely or less likely to fuel further hatred towards the West by militant Islamists? 4. Do you know of any non violent methods that have been used already in trying to deal with any or all of these groups? 5. If there was no oil in the Middle East, do you think that the West would be remotely bothered by what happens there?

We aren't going to win any trophies any time soon so you cant blame the media for finding something to crow about. If it was David Beckham everybody would be wetting their pants with joy.

I have done already but I will do again before I put the oven on. Cutting off their weapons and munitions supplies. Cutting out their funding. There are two for you.

I have to go and cook dinner for Mrs SOG now but didn't want you to think I am bailing out. It has been an interesting discussion but if senior diplomats cant sort it out we have no chance.

I have already made my point but you have chosen to dismiss it which is fair enough.

I think a part of the problem right now is that we don't have too many players who are streets ahead of the competition and pick themselves. A lot of the players you mention are very similar in ability. Rooney clearly gets the nod every time but as much as he is disliked here, the England set up and the pundits rate him. I agree with finding a team. Ramsey had the balls to leave out the likes of Greaves and Paine and played a side that worked together as a unit in a system that they understood. He didn't have the best players but he had a strong spine to the team and they were a team and all did their job.

I am not an expert in Middle East affairs (clearly) but have we really exhausted all possibility of a non violent intervention? Have we even really started?

I am not ignoring it, I am just saying it is unlikely to make our streets any safer.

You say that like it is a bad thing!

My point is simply that we believe we have the higher ground and they are the ones who are ignoring their religious doctrine. They could argue that we are too. That is what Christianity (and Jesus) has to do with it. I am sorry if I didn't make that clear.

I would sanction anything that worked towards a peaceful solution for all. If money is being made by some of these factions from oil then we need to apply whatever economic sanctions we can to stop that flow of money. If it means higher oil prices for the West would we do that though? And isn't this this crux of the problem, if there was no oil in the Middle East do you think that the US or us would have anything to do with them or there internal problems?

How long have ISIS been in operation? How much longer before they are destroyed? And you are right, they are large and there any a number of them living and operating in the West who will carry on doing so when the bit we can all see gets destroyed.

Doesn't the Christian doctrine say thou shall not kill and talk about loving they neighbour and turning the other cheek? Wasn't Jesus the ultimate pacifist? If you were sitting on the other side of the divide between us and what we call "extremist factions" might you not think that perhaps we have some extremist factions in our religion who ignore what it says in our Bible? And why, again, does it have to be David Cameron? Why cant the body set up to sort out these difficult international issues, the United Nations, handle it?

You ask what to do? If it was that easy and straightforward then why haven't these organisations already been destroyed already?

I didn't say do nothing. Killing people is one option and as we have already discussed, there are others. Tell me why it comes down to the RAF? We have the United Nations who are supposed to deal with these issues.

While we are at it, how do you guys feel about British people who rape, murder and pillage. Should we take them out with drones or are you safe if you do the same things but don't sign up to IS?

I would rather that the killing stopped. On both sides. And how do you know that diplomacy is not an option? Maybe not today. Maybe not next week. But that is no reason to stop trying.

Does it have to be military action? Are there ways to cut off ISIS access to arms and munitions? Are there ways to cut off funding? Can the Arab/Muslim Nations put pressure on them? etc. As for these two individuals, this is it, we don't know. We don't know how reliable the intel about them was, we don't know if innocents nearby were killed. Weren't we told that one of them had been taken out before? If it wasn't him, who did we kill before? If it was him before, who did we kill this time? Are you comfortable with missiles being fired at targets that might be surrounded by people who are not terrorists? I know The Sun sees things in black and white - wham bam result. Lets not worry too much about the other possible implications so long as we have a catchy front page.

Blimey Hypo you are like a dog with a bone! Did I really whine about the thread? You love to put words into my mouth don't you. I get the impression that you are more keen on point scoring than the actual debate. Still, as we are here.....I don't think our (by our I mean The West) policy towards the Middle East in general is helping. We created a monster with Desert Storm and we are still dealing with the fall out. It is one thing to demonise a "faction" and to say wipe it out and everything will be fine. There are two problems there though. 1. Wiping it out and 2. Sorting out the problem that other extremist in the Middle East have with us. Surely the fact that British people are turning on their own shows that there are some deep rooted problems that bombing and "aggression" will not solve - in fact they only serve to make things worse. I am not a diplomat I am just a bloke with too much time to kill sitting behind a PC. I don't pretend to know the answers but I do know that you can kill people all day long but that doesn't solve the problem of why there is so much trouble between extremist groups in the Middle East and beyond and The West. Until the issues are dealt with it will just go on and on. If you don't agree with me fine, but I really don't think we are going to sort this out by killing people with toy aeroplanes. I also don't think that ISIS are going to invade Europe.

Anyone who saw Jimmy Greaves play will know that he was a far better finisher - but at the end of the day Wayne Rooney is now England's leading goalscorer and wouldn't it be kind of odd if the media ignored it? As for Crouch, he has played for how many teams? No one seems to keep him for long and his England career didn't last that long because he is not as good as Rooney.

Never, in the field of human millinery, have so many hats been worn by so few.

So why not do that rather than send in drones to kill odd targets which will just drag on forever?

There are people raping, murdering and pillaging all over the West as well. Are you saying that they will be raping, murdering and pillaging all over Europe soon? And why does it have to be us that steps in? Why not Russia? Why not the other more moderate Middle Eastern States? Who gave us the sheriff's badge? Wasn't the United Nations set up to deal with these situations? Why isn't a UN peace keeping force being deployed?

Okay, as I said before that is all well and good but look at what happened the last time we launched armies into the Middle East. I am assuming you are talking about a land war?

I didn't say that we had no alternative did I? But at least we exhausted our efforts in trying to keep the peace. Why do I have to have solutions? I started this thread because I thought the front page of The Sun yesterday was out of order. In fact I would go further than that and say it was childish and embarrassing. I also said that it would do nothing to help the situation and will just add fuel to those who think The West is sh*t. My solution to that? Sort out the imbalance in the ownership of the press so that Murdoch has less power. Sadly with freedom of the press you cant make an enforcement order for national newspapers to behave with an element of humility and responsibility and you would hope that people would vote with their wallets. sadly it seems according to Jackanory everyone buys The Sun for its sports content so it will continue to peddle its childish headlines until hell freezes over.