sadoldgit

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.

What I am trying to get across to you is that the chances of beating them in a battle is zero. There is no battle with terrorist cells. There is just terrorism and counter terrorism. The Amercians failed to beat the VC. We failed to beat the IRA. You end up with an impasse at which you then start a dialogue. There will be no D Day, no Battle of Britain, just more individual drone strikes and suicide bombers and beheadings. Where will that get us?

How exactly do you think a "faction" is going to over run the world (when they have finished their tea with me of course)?

Now you are just being silly.

An extremist faction. They are still people aren't they? I expect that some might have felt the armies that we sent into Iran to be an extremist faction too. And how did we get on with those weapons of mass destruction by the way. Yep, nothing to do with the oil was it? Cause and effect. Weren't the IRA an extremist faction? Should we have introduced Northern Ireland to Shock & Awe? The extremist faction you talk about are all over the place. Carpet bombing will not get rid of them.

I didn't say that. And at that point we didn't know about the death camps.

Yep, The Guardian really excelled themselves with those didn't they

So you think that ISIS will invade Britain? It may be pointless in the sense that you do not agree, so what? We both have different opinions.

Please do. I would take it as a complement. How many millions of people died in the 2nd WW? Wouldn't any humane person do all they could to prevent such slaughter? But you talk about destroying a people which is exactly what the Nazis were all about.

Yes it did take a while. I have a life other than wittering away on a PC. This business about being backed into a corner and flailing sounds quite aggressive to me. This isn't a battle you know, just an exchange of opinions on the Internet. I don't think that in either case their deaths broke resistance. It was months of fighting that broke their armies that led to their deaths. I believe that some of the German High Command were looking to negotiate a peace before Hitler killed himself. It doesn't alter my point that conflicts do not go on forever and that at some point people end up getting around a table. We had a land war in the Middle East not so long ago and look where that left us. If you are proposing another one will it really end the problems between The West and those who oppose the West? This isn't as straightforward as the 2nd WW. I doubt if there were many people in Britain becoming radical Nazis in their bedrooms.

You don't know unless you try.

He did. It doesn't mean that he would have rather have war than peace does it? Flailing?

I don't think that he felt the need to go to war. Wasn't it Chamberlain who gave Hitler the ultimatum? And I expect it was something that Parliament felt was unavoidable rather than one man deciding lets do it. No one in their right mind wants war. The First World War was ended by negotiations and there were negotiations at the end of the second war world. At some point people have to talk is my point. You say that they never will. I don't know how you can be so sure.

I don't advocate waiting around and I don't advocate doing nothing. I simply said that all we are doing at the moment is perpetuating the problem. Muslims are still being radicalised in this country and front pages like that of The Sun yesterday do nothing to help. All this talk of "crushing" is all very well but The West has to take some responsibility for what is happening. This is not just about us being the "Infidel." There are a body of people who clearly see The West as a threat and are taking steps to combat that threat. I hate what is happening just as much as the next person - the beheadings, the suicide bombs, the destroying of ancient monuments. But they didn't just wake up one day and say lets kill all the Infidels. The West has played into the hands of the religious fanatics and does so every time it launches missiles into populated areas. Collateral damage it is called when total innocents are blown apart. Doesn't that make us just as bad as them in terms of the moral high ground?

Churchill is famously quoted as saying "Jaw jaw, not war war."

You have totally missed my point.

It takes a lot more than one or two people to start and wage war. They need support. Those underlings you talk about were no less culpable or dangerous than Hitler, Goebells and Mussolini.

And what if, as quickly as we take out the main players, others take their place? Much of the organisation is an underground movement. How do you crush that? It sounds good in principle but I really cant see it working as long as you have the underground movement. You can crush people, cruising an idea is more difficult. Especially if part of the problem is a West that is just as entrenched in its own dogma and has sold its soul to oil.

There have been many regimes through history that have been strict in their dogma only to soften their stance in time. I am not saying it will happen, but I am saying that nothing is impossible.