Answer yes or no to the RAF bombing Syria this coming week.
Civvy perspective, to be overlooked at will, all comment gratefully received.
Good god no.
Politicians seem to want a nice clean nintendo war. It is simply unlikely to work. Force has always been the last resort, but it should not be the inevitable resort, once we've accepted we don't have anything else that works. It is necessary to accept that we may not have anything at all that works, including force.
Tend toward the point of view that this sort of enemy is unlikely to accept it's been beaten until it's been subjected to a level of brutality that current western governments are unwilling and now ill-equipped to display. Talking-up of Brimstone on Tornado (despite its cleverness) is obviously for political ends, but I suspect that this sort of precision restraint is likely to be seen as weakness rather than excellence.
Fixing an entire country might be possible given an imperial-style, multi-decade occupation and gradual construction of a functioning society. It would take a generation and I'm not that convinced it would work even then. Even if it's anyone's place but the UN's to do that.
P
Good god no.
Politicians seem to want a nice clean nintendo war. It is simply unlikely to work. Force has always been the last resort, but it should not be the inevitable resort, once we've accepted we don't have anything else that works. It is necessary to accept that we may not have anything at all that works, including force.
Tend toward the point of view that this sort of enemy is unlikely to accept it's been beaten until it's been subjected to a level of brutality that current western governments are unwilling and now ill-equipped to display. Talking-up of Brimstone on Tornado (despite its cleverness) is obviously for political ends, but I suspect that this sort of precision restraint is likely to be seen as weakness rather than excellence.
Fixing an entire country might be possible given an imperial-style, multi-decade occupation and gradual construction of a functioning society. It would take a generation and I'm not that convinced it would work even then. Even if it's anyone's place but the UN's to do that.
P
Last edited by Phil_R; 30th Nov 2015 at 23:43.
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Debate and vote on Wed 2 Dec. Media say Cameron has a secure majority for it to be approved.
Bombing did not stop the Viet Cong, partly because they dug a lattice of tunnels. This lesson has been learned by everyone and his cousin since, and The Black Daesh are naturally doing the same thing to escape these sore fires from heaven. They choose a nice house in the suburbs, and dig down. See the tunnels on YouTube under their areas of occupation in Sinjar, the suburbs of Damascus etc. As someone pointed out earlier, the bombs continue to smash infrastructure on the surface. Will what we do be more than symbolic?
No.
Won't help Syria, won't stop the refugee problem, won't stop ISIS; won't keep UK secure. Won't improve the situation in the M.East.
Will kill a lot of people, many innocent, will cost a lot of money.
Won't help Syria, won't stop the refugee problem, won't stop ISIS; won't keep UK secure. Won't improve the situation in the M.East.
Will kill a lot of people, many innocent, will cost a lot of money.
Originally Posted by Load Toad
Will kill a lot of people, many innocent,.....
And surely the aim is to kill a lot of people (ISIS)?
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As I posted earlier on another thread,,,
First the tough French Foreign Legion —Now the fearsome Russian Spetsnetz.... (special forces)..!! BIG **** coming —for the ISIS..!
RUSSIAN SPECIAL FORCES: HAS ISIS MET ITS FEAR MERCHANT MATCH?
by JAMES ZUMWALT Oct 2015649
ISIS is a fear merchant. It depends heavily upon using fear to intimidate those opposed to it.
In its high-publicized videos, legions of soulless bodies fill its ranks, regularly demonstrating limitless savagery in executing their enemies. Be-headings, burning prisoners alive, attaching bombs to babies to show new recruits how explosives rip a human body apart, running tanks over prisoners, etc.— no means of execution is beyond the pale as they market fear.
But fear can be a double-edged sword. A force capable of demonstrating this has just entered the fray in Syria. Having used fear previously very effectively against Muslim extremists, this force looks to do so again—only this time its blade will come down on ISIS.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently dispatched a military group in which he has great pride and confidence—his special forces—to Syria. The group has been honed into a uniquely skilled counter-terrorism killing machine, known in Russia for getting the job done.
Russia’s special forces originated out of a terrorist act perpetrated more than four decades ago by another violent Muslim group.
In Munich, Germany, Palestinian terrorists of Black September kidnapped and killed eleven Israeli athletes and a German police officer during the 1972 Summer Olympics. The attack prompted the head of the KGB (the Soviet secret police), Yuri Andropov, to order the creation of a special military force trained in counter-terrorism.
With its establishment two years later, the force initially was used for domestic security. But once deployed outside the homeland, it quickly established a bloody reputation for itself.
Comparable to our own elite fighters of US Delta Force, Russian special forces have an operational edge ours do not. While battlefield actions by U.S. forces will, appropriately, always be defined by the laws of land warfare, Russian special forces historically have tossed their moral compass aside. By doing so, they convey a clear message—in blood—to adversaries.
After Moscow invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, Russian special forces were tasked to implement “regime change.” Wearing Afghan uniforms, they quickly secured strategic government buildings in Kabul. Storming the presidential palace, they followed through on orders to kill every Afghan in the building. Not only was Afghan President Hafizullah Amin killed along with his mistress and young son, but so too were all witnesses.
Russian special forces played a significant role in Afghanistan throughout the ten year war. But their reputation for taking whatever action necessary to complete its mission was cemented in Lebanon.
In October 1985, a radical Muslim Brotherhood splinter group kidnapped four Soviet diplomats in Beirut. By the time Russian special forces reached the city, one of the diplomats had already been executed.
As Moscow’s policy was never to negotiate with terrorists, no effort was made to do so. Using a network of informants, the Russians identified the militant group responsible and the kidnappers involved.
With the kidnappers’ names in hand, the Russians immediately rounded up their family members, taking them hostage. They then cut off hostages’ body parts, delivering them to the militants along with the threat to continue making deliveries.
The militants got the message. The surviving Russian diplomats were immediately released. For two decades thereafter, Russian diplomats operated safely abroad without fear of becoming targets of Muslim terrorists.
But in 2006, Putin had to call upon his special forces again after four Russian officials in Iraq were abducted and murdered. He gave the order those responsible were to be “destroyed.” Each of the militants involved was hunted down and killed.
Russian naval special forces also have not shied away from playing the fear card. In 2010, the forces confronted Somali pirates.
Operating from their mother ship, the Somalis pirated a Russian oil tanker. Russian naval special forces boarded the tanker, easily routing the pirates, taking them captive and putting them back on board their mother ship. There, the pirates were securely tied up and the mother ship fitted with explosives. Once back on their own ship, the Russians detonated the explosives.
No Russian ship since then has been pirated.
Russian special forces have demonstrated they can rise to the same level of violence as ISIS.
As they hit the ground running in Syria, the Russians will set out—aided by their Iranian and Syrian friends—to establish informant networks to identify, locate and kill ISIS leaders. Where possible to do so, they will ensure they die a violent death in a way that conveys the message they seek to send.
If there is an Arabic word for “karma,” ISIS will soon be muttering it.
Lt. Colonel James G. Zumwalt, USMC (Ret.), is a retired Marine infantry officer who served in the Vietnam war, the U.S. invasion of Panama and the first Gulf war. He is the author of “Bare Feet, Iron Will–Stories from the Other Side of Vietnam’s Battlefields,” “Living the Juche Lie: North Korea’s Kim Dynasty” and “Doomsday: Iran–The Clock is Ticking.” He frequently writes on foreign policy and defense issues.
RUSSIAN SPECIAL FORCES: HAS ISIS MET ITS FEAR MERCHANT MATCH?
by JAMES ZUMWALT Oct 2015649
ISIS is a fear merchant. It depends heavily upon using fear to intimidate those opposed to it.
In its high-publicized videos, legions of soulless bodies fill its ranks, regularly demonstrating limitless savagery in executing their enemies. Be-headings, burning prisoners alive, attaching bombs to babies to show new recruits how explosives rip a human body apart, running tanks over prisoners, etc.— no means of execution is beyond the pale as they market fear.
But fear can be a double-edged sword. A force capable of demonstrating this has just entered the fray in Syria. Having used fear previously very effectively against Muslim extremists, this force looks to do so again—only this time its blade will come down on ISIS.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently dispatched a military group in which he has great pride and confidence—his special forces—to Syria. The group has been honed into a uniquely skilled counter-terrorism killing machine, known in Russia for getting the job done.
Russia’s special forces originated out of a terrorist act perpetrated more than four decades ago by another violent Muslim group.
In Munich, Germany, Palestinian terrorists of Black September kidnapped and killed eleven Israeli athletes and a German police officer during the 1972 Summer Olympics. The attack prompted the head of the KGB (the Soviet secret police), Yuri Andropov, to order the creation of a special military force trained in counter-terrorism.
With its establishment two years later, the force initially was used for domestic security. But once deployed outside the homeland, it quickly established a bloody reputation for itself.
Comparable to our own elite fighters of US Delta Force, Russian special forces have an operational edge ours do not. While battlefield actions by U.S. forces will, appropriately, always be defined by the laws of land warfare, Russian special forces historically have tossed their moral compass aside. By doing so, they convey a clear message—in blood—to adversaries.
After Moscow invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, Russian special forces were tasked to implement “regime change.” Wearing Afghan uniforms, they quickly secured strategic government buildings in Kabul. Storming the presidential palace, they followed through on orders to kill every Afghan in the building. Not only was Afghan President Hafizullah Amin killed along with his mistress and young son, but so too were all witnesses.
Russian special forces played a significant role in Afghanistan throughout the ten year war. But their reputation for taking whatever action necessary to complete its mission was cemented in Lebanon.
In October 1985, a radical Muslim Brotherhood splinter group kidnapped four Soviet diplomats in Beirut. By the time Russian special forces reached the city, one of the diplomats had already been executed.
As Moscow’s policy was never to negotiate with terrorists, no effort was made to do so. Using a network of informants, the Russians identified the militant group responsible and the kidnappers involved.
With the kidnappers’ names in hand, the Russians immediately rounded up their family members, taking them hostage. They then cut off hostages’ body parts, delivering them to the militants along with the threat to continue making deliveries.
The militants got the message. The surviving Russian diplomats were immediately released. For two decades thereafter, Russian diplomats operated safely abroad without fear of becoming targets of Muslim terrorists.
But in 2006, Putin had to call upon his special forces again after four Russian officials in Iraq were abducted and murdered. He gave the order those responsible were to be “destroyed.” Each of the militants involved was hunted down and killed.
Russian naval special forces also have not shied away from playing the fear card. In 2010, the forces confronted Somali pirates.
Operating from their mother ship, the Somalis pirated a Russian oil tanker. Russian naval special forces boarded the tanker, easily routing the pirates, taking them captive and putting them back on board their mother ship. There, the pirates were securely tied up and the mother ship fitted with explosives. Once back on their own ship, the Russians detonated the explosives.
No Russian ship since then has been pirated.
Russian special forces have demonstrated they can rise to the same level of violence as ISIS.
As they hit the ground running in Syria, the Russians will set out—aided by their Iranian and Syrian friends—to establish informant networks to identify, locate and kill ISIS leaders. Where possible to do so, they will ensure they die a violent death in a way that conveys the message they seek to send.
If there is an Arabic word for “karma,” ISIS will soon be muttering it.
Lt. Colonel James G. Zumwalt, USMC (Ret.), is a retired Marine infantry officer who served in the Vietnam war, the U.S. invasion of Panama and the first Gulf war. He is the author of “Bare Feet, Iron Will–Stories from the Other Side of Vietnam’s Battlefields,” “Living the Juche Lie: North Korea’s Kim Dynasty” and “Doomsday: Iran–The Clock is Ticking.” He frequently writes on foreign policy and defense issues.
When Germany invaded Europe all the male refugees that made it to England wanted to do was to train to be a force to take their country's back. Given that 80% of Syrian refugees were men of fighting age it's interesting that none of them seem to want to train as a force to get their country back. If they aren't why the hell should any other armed force lay their lives on the line. Leave it to Assad and his Russian friends who are based in the sovereign country, we already have our hands full in other missions in the area.
zac21, whether it was the Spetsnaz or KGB which was actually responsible for snipping the dangly bits off the nephew of a hostage taker, then returning them with a list of other family members, was immaterial. It made the point and no other Russian was kidnapped.
Not very nicely, I agree. No doubt Comrade Corbychev would be horrified to learn that his fellow-travellers behaved in such a decisive manner.
Not very nicely, I agree. No doubt Comrade Corbychev would be horrified to learn that his fellow-travellers behaved in such a decisive manner.
No - it will kill a few ISIS but many innocents, stoke up more fury against the West, increase the risk in the UK and achieve nothing worthwhile.
I'm not against the principle of bombing your enemy but it has to be part of a wider effort involving ground forces.
Leave it to Russia to help Assad and sort it out.
I'm not against the principle of bombing your enemy but it has to be part of a wider effort involving ground forces.
Leave it to Russia to help Assad and sort it out.
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How do you assess that many innocents will be killed? Are you assuming that the RAF will be deploying Lancasters and dumb 1000 pounders? Do you have evidence to suggest that targeting has resulted in civcas from any RAF attacks in recent history? Just curious...
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Like you Badass, I am curious too, but would ask you the question what evidence do you have that target bombing is not having collateral damage on innocent civilians? Just asking....................
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So guilty until proven innocent? It appears that there are some sweeping statements being made about civilian casualties that appear to only be based on opinion. Bombing cities is not a particularly smart (or cheap) way of combating an asymmetric enemy. Or perhaps the RAF are just a bunch of war-mongering nutters just desperate to unleash hell...
NO.
An absolute disaster in the making. Iraq? Libya? Afghanistan? Leave these mad b*stards and their backers to fight/torture/mutilate each other until the last man stands.
Bombing (no matter how terribly clever) won't stop terrorism in this or any other western country because they are already here and have made up their minds. Seek and destroy in our own back yard. No mercy.
Cannot stand Corbyn or his politics but I am with him on this one.
An absolute disaster in the making. Iraq? Libya? Afghanistan? Leave these mad b*stards and their backers to fight/torture/mutilate each other until the last man stands.
Bombing (no matter how terribly clever) won't stop terrorism in this or any other western country because they are already here and have made up their minds. Seek and destroy in our own back yard. No mercy.
Cannot stand Corbyn or his politics but I am with him on this one.
DMS Brimstone is a capable weapon but I doubt our coalition partners believe it is a 'must have' capability. It has been in production for quite a while now and used in 4 conflicts. If it was not for the recent purchase by Saudi the weapon would have failed to achieve a single external customer. I'm not sure the Saudis purchased it with low collateral damage in mind....
Is it wise to suggest to our allies that by not purchasing DMS Brimstone they have a poor attitude to collateral?
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Yes with a caveat
ISIL strong holds, camps, leaders, followers were possible are identified correctly through ground intel and then destroyed.
The barricading and closure of the Turkish Syrian border by Russian Spetsnaz forces to stem the flow of migrant and oil/fuel traffic to Turkey is a good start in isolating IS, once they are identified by Spetsnaz don't hold back.
ISIL strong holds, camps, leaders, followers were possible are identified correctly through ground intel and then destroyed.
The barricading and closure of the Turkish Syrian border by Russian Spetsnaz forces to stem the flow of migrant and oil/fuel traffic to Turkey is a good start in isolating IS, once they are identified by Spetsnaz don't hold back.
Certainly not. Nothing was ever won from the air. We have ample targets in the UK. Funny how Dave is happy to take them out in foreign countries but will not touch them when they check in at immigration.
With regards to the potential for non IS casualties, Micheal Fallon said on the Marr Show (Sunday) that there had been ZERO civilian casualties as a result of RAF actions thus far in the direct campaign.
I can't comment on that, but it is worth noting that we (RAF) have a habit of coming back with the armaments attached, and are clearly (from the loading footage) using small warheads to achieve the required result when dropped.
I can't comment on that, but it is worth noting that we (RAF) have a habit of coming back with the armaments attached, and are clearly (from the loading footage) using small warheads to achieve the required result when dropped.