Continued.

I am presently reading 'The Malakand Field Force" by Winston Churchill. You should read it, it might wake you up. To start with, it is beautifully written, and the logic is sound. Did you know that the Taliban existed in 1897? Here is Churchill on that.

"The Talib-ul- ilms are protected against their critics as the skunk is to the hunters. They are safe because they are too filthy to handle, and too loathsome to approach."

"All are held in the grip of a miserable superstition."

Their demand that the outside world simply leave them alone, would carry much more weight, if their love of plunder and brigandage did not compel them between planting and harvest, to engage in raiding and extortion. Had they kept to themselves, they may have lived forever within their fortified and loopholed hillside hovels, in barbarian squalor and ignorance."

The Yanks were quite chummy with Saddam Hussein. They helped him with satellite intelligence which told Saddam just where and when the next Iranian offensive would take place. They never "armed" him. If you say otherwise. What military equipment did the yanks sell him? All of his equipment was Soviet, Chinese,, Brazilian, South African, and East European. The only American stuff he had was equipment captured from the Iranians, or bought off the Israelis. The yanks knew that it took a psychopath like Saddam to keep a multicultural cesspit like Iraq together. And Saddam kept the local jihadis under control. If he had grown a brain and just kept his murderous inclinations to his own people, the yanks could not care less. But the yanks were not going to tolerate him grabbing 70% of the worlds oil supply. And why should they? Once he was defeated, he should have grown a brain and behaved himself. But no, the stupid oaf just had to keep pulling the yanks beard until they got rid of him.

Having just read my way through the above comments, I reckon James O'Neill is playing the rest of you on a break.
I especially like the references to Churchill, who used early airplanes after WWI to drop gas bombs on some of the areas more recalcitrant tribesmen.
Or that we deposed a government in Iran to install "our" Shah because the Iranians entered WWII on the side of the Nazis, and not that we did it a decade after WWII ended to pinch the oil from a nationalizing government with some communist sympathies.
And we can all reference events in history to support our side of this argument.
Can't quite see how it is logical to berate the ISIS for being barbarians while advocating that we butcher them, thereby becoming barbarians ourselves.
The old map is gone. To find our way in the new one I suggest we make an ally out of Iran and give Saudi Arabia a miss - they are not our friends and do not have our interests at heart.
And then give Israel away for the exact same reasons.
And I'll wager that last comment puts the cat among some of you pidgins.

Hi Hal,

Yes ? No ? Should one use extreme measures against such brutal terrorists or not ? How easy it must be to sit back and pretend that it does not, and can never, affect you - and why won't it ? Because you are anti-US, and that will save you. Good luck.

Yes, of course, the US and the Iranians should co-ordinate efforts to exterminate these vile reactionaries (do you remember what that word used to mean, Hal ?) And if the Iranians, why not Israel ?

And since their main Arab ally is also fighting the salafists, why shouldn't the Russians get involved somehow ? Perhaps they could approve some of their arms flows to Syria and Iran to be used against ISIS in iraq.

The Yanks could even put pressure on the Saudis to get off their holy @rses and put some of their money where their mealy-mouths have been for so long, supposedly opposing the salafists.

That would be an interesting alliance - Iraq, Iraqi Kurds, Iran, the US, Israel, Russia and the Saudis.

We'll see. Of course, it won't be all over even when ISIS is defeated - there's still al-Shabab (i.e. as in Kenya today), Boko Haram and the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban. Etc. Etc. That's how it is, Hal, nobody has to manufacture enemies these days. Settle in, it's going to be a bumpy fried.

Joe

Once more the septics shoot themselves in the foot.
After arming the rebels in Syria they are now shocked to find them destabilising Iraq.
Its almost like this was why the whole syria thing happened.

The stupid americans have been played like the fools they are. Manipulated and conned like gullible children. And it looks like the iranians might be the ones to pull the united states of idiots out of the fire and sort the mess.
How humiliating america.

And they want us to follow them. When will we learn?
How many more 911s will it take for america to learn.
Nothing good ever comes from arming extremists to fight your enemies.

FIGHT WAR
NOT WARS!

Hi Haldual. I had never heard of your allegation that Britain used poison gas on the savages on the North West frontier, or anywhere else. So I checked WIKI and their article claims it is BS. Where did you get that? Pravda, or the Green Left Weekly?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_in_Mesopotamia

The fact that we deposed Nazi sympathising governments in Iraq and Iran came from two books I read written by decorated soldiers. Unlike you, soldiers are no BS people. They write what they see with their own eyes, and they are not interested in propagating political fantasies. The fact that the Iraqis were helping the Germans was clear to author John Masters (The Road Past Mandalay) on account of the fact that he was strafed by Me-109's operating from an airfield that the Iraqis had helpfully given to the Germans. Didn't know that, did you?

The coup to topple the Iranian government, that was plotting to allow Hitler the use of their oilfields, was recounted in that wonderful book by that remarkable man (who you never heard of) Fitzroy McLean. As a soldier and a diplomat, his amazing book (Eastern Approaches) recounts the entire political situation in the Soviet Union, the Middle East, and Yugoslavia during the war. If you had read books like these, your brain would now be inoculated to the debilitating effects of communist propaganda.

The British empire at its height was the greatest civilising force that the world had ever known. Since Britain's retreat from the responsibilities of Empire, much of the world has reverted back to barbarism. Those that didn't, usually hold the British in high regard.

But don't worry, the western pax Americana is coming to an end. Too many parasites, many of them imported, are rorting our welfare systems and sending the western world broke. But if you hate the British and the yanks, and dream of their inability to police the world, I don't think you are going to like what is coming next. Like so many resentful savages, you will one day wish that the Brits or the yanks were back.

A quotation attributed to Mr Churchill: "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes."
Charming fellow! But it seems that no gas was ever dropped from the planes, and I stand corrected.
Apparently the Brits relied on aerial bombardment and punitive burning of villages to achieve their quest for the control of Mesopotamia's oil following WWII.
The CIA and M16 engineered 1953 coup in Iran, which overthrew the elected government of Mohammad Mosaddeq, is amply documented and no longer denied by the Yanks at least. Don't know if the Brits have fessed up yet or not.
And today we may be coming full circle if the US and Iran join forces to stabilize the rapidly emerging new alignments in that oil-cursed part of our world.
What's coming? A new map for starters. And a multi-polar world?