With news that the US will be going to war in Iraq, again, I am reminded of this clip from the Godfather III
Whilst the Twittersphere has gone into meltdown about Gaza it remains largely silent on the horrific crimes against humanity and medieval barbarism perpetrated by followers of the religion of peace in Iraq.
President Obama has announced the US armed forces may be carrying out limited air strikes and will be delivering emergency aid to threatened minority communities in Iraq, especially those in Northern Iraq in the Sinjar area.
This is in response to the growing evidence of systematic genocide against Christian and other communities in ISIS held territory.
The Pentagon then went on to release footage of the air drops
Downing Street was quick to welcome the decision but stressed the UK would be sitting this one out with a note from Mum
The Middle East and large parts of Africa are in turmoil, Russian reserves have been called up and Ebola is on the march.
Someone has even designed a 3D printed self folding robot and Skynet has taken a step closer to reality.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4q0_0dKiKg
The forthcoming NATO summit in Wales will be interesting to watch
Time to stock up on beans I think
Think Defence 
Yes, the BBC posted this story about what else is happening while attention is focused on Gaza:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-28691901
It’s strange really the different levels of coverage or protest. Maybe Galloway is going apeshit about the barbarity of ISIS and it’s just not being reported? Hmm.
Maybe there’s a perception that we can’t influence the death tolls in Iraq/Syria but we can in Israel? Without going into whether we *should*, I don’t think we *can* change Israeli government policy. We just don’t have that influence. And I’m not a fan of gesture politics.
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‘Time to stock up on beans I think’
Excellent choice, you’ll produce enough biomass to power a small community.
On a more serious note, has good old Tony royally screwed our morality. Prior to Iraq the British public would not have flinched at another operation like ‘safe haven’ after GW1. I’m all for picking your involvements but are we just going to start sitting everything out from now on? strange how we can champion Libya and then sit back for this one.
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Our political lords & masters never get the balance right. I suspect that if it was just a few airstrikes against the worst of the bloodthirsty jihadists, the public would not mind, as long as there were no British boots on the ground. So we need a long range bomber or carrier strike, errr, oops! What people do not want is mission creep & body bags.
Why are we not making the UK more energy & food self sufficient?
Why not a new small state owned energy company? Royal Navy Energy perhaps with many shore based PW3. Would provide the economies of scale/engineering base to make the PWR3 on future submarines easier to keep going.
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The reason for the focus on Gaza is simple, large parts of the left leaning British media (notably the Guardian and the BBC) are anti-Semitic and they don’t want Israel to be allowed to defend itself because they want it to be destroyed. This is now being compounded by a political establishment desperate for the Muslim vote and thus willing to sacrifice Israel to get it. In the meantime, the black flag of the Islamic State flies in London: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/07/flag-isis-jihadi-islamic-state-flown-poplar-east-london
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DomS
The big difference between IS and Israel is that the one is monotheistic entity born of war and conquest intent on rebuilding a state that lived in a mythical past. To that aim it is intent on suppressing/exterminating/expelling those who do not share it’s faith. Whilst claiming the authority of some sky fairy to justify for all the slaughter.
The other one is a bunch of Muslim nut jobs.
On a more serous note Israel is supposedly an Ally. (To quote Johnny Hart “with friends like these who needs enemas:). We are therefore lined up in the world’s eyes as a supporter if its “clearance operations of the Gaza ghetto’. So to a degree we can do something about that particular slaughter by saying “nope we do not agree and will not support your own little final solution to your nasty little race war.
We are not allies of the Islamic State. We can tell them to foxtrot Oscar.
It all comes down to “We are bloody Belgium you know”.
We simply do not have the:-
Men
Cash
Equipment
Will
To do this stuff any more.
We didn’t stop the slaughter in Syria because we could not.
We are not going back into Iraq because WE CAN’T.
The WASAWPYK crowd might want to think on that next time someone suggests we punch above our weight or whatever.
As for Russia like I said it’s a shadow of its former self in terms of numbers and skill.
Looking at is air power for example it’s almost non existent in terms of real deployable front rank weapons.
It would not take long to sink it’s navy.
And the days of 60, 000 T class tanks rolling westward with all the logistical support necessary long gone. This is an army that recently struggled to field 5 divisions…
TD
Stop trying to frighten the children into going to bed.
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Anti-Semitism is a strong term. Large parts of the media are antipathetic to Israel. But that isn’t necessarily an unreasoning or prejudiced viewpoint.
The Israelis don’t do themselves any favours by defining their own state in religious rather than secular terms. If they gave more democratic and civil rights to the peaceful Arab Israelis (of whom there are plenty) then the world in general might be prepared to cut them more slack in terms of how vigerously they defend themselves against armed attacks.
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Ixion
How many effective divisions, with logisitical support and effective corps command and control, do you think European NATO could get into the field right now? I bet its a lot less then 5.
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‘We didn’t stop the slaughter in Syria because we could not.’
I thought it was because we did not want to. We would have just fired a few token TLAM’s anyway it’s the Americans who would have done the heavy lifting.
‘We simply do not have the:-
Men
Cash
Equipment
Will’
We have 3 out of the 4 for a mission like ‘Safe Haven’, and isn’t humanitarianism what we do, from Safe haven, Bosnia, Rwanda, Angola, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Libya where they not all humanitarian missions?
What are the all singing and dancing light forces (much loved by commentators on this blog) for if we cannot secure an area and evacuate some people and f*ck off again?
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IXION and PE,
Thank you for proving my point. Anyone who compares Israel’s operations in Gaza with ghetto clearing or the final solution is so far detached from reality as to either be completely bias or wholly ignorant. Talking of ignorance, Arab-Israeli citizens have the same rights as Jewish-Israeli citizens Nonetheless, the committed efforts of BBC to paint Israel as an aggressor, irrespective of evidence, have clearly been effective.
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@DN – Got my vote; but if we lack the will for this task, I wonder if we are now bloody Belgium…an outcome that quite frankly horrifies me, although it may have the welcome side effect of cheering up @IXION.
Although not as much as redirecting the Defence Budget into Legal Aid, obviously… 🙂
GNB
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Another point the British media seems to completely miss, is that from an Israeli POV their controversial strategy over the last few years from the walls and blockades to these big ops and Iron Dome has been highly effective. Israeli civilian causalities have dropped to near nothing. Which was their intent from the start.
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@IXION: have to agree with @Hohum there. The only difference between Arab and Jewish Israelis is that the former are not conscripted into the IDF but can volunteer instead. They have the same legal and political rights in every way. And if the thought of a state defining itself partly via religion is anathema, then most Muslim majority states do exactly the same, with many explicitly assigning members of other religions fewer rights.
Remember, despite appearances, the yuman rites crowd are not usually anti-Jewish per se, they are anti- Western. Anyone with the same hatreds is an ally, which is why the likes of Tony Benn had no issues siding with a fascist dictatorship in Argentina over his supposed desire for self-determination, and why they studiously ignore Hamas’s racism and de-fenestrations of anyone that disagrees with them.
It’s a tad disappointing to find someone who bought this crap here 😦
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Surely Northern Iraq is a job for SF, send 10 or so blokes in to work with the friendlies on the ground (peshmerga and other minority militias), give them some airstrikes now and again, and it should stem the growth of IS.
This is an optimistic idea but isn’t this what the SAS and co train for, this is what happened in Afghanistan in 2001, ISAF etc came 5 years later.
We seem to be afraid of even doing the covert stuff these days, 15 years ago would the government blinked at the thought of sending SF into Iraq to secure the north by working with the Peshmerga.
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Wf stated “most Muslim majority states do exactly the same, with many explicitly assigning members of other religions fewer rights.” Very true they also remove many rights from half of their own population , the female half .
The US was criticised for giving $225m to Isreal for weapons , it happens to be marked for Iron Dome ,a purely defensive weapon but some areas of the media choose to ignore that aspect. The layered defences that Isreal has built up on its borders to knock down incoming missiles and mortar rounds needs strengthening further , some form of directed energy weapon/rail gun which could detonate the incoming warhead over Gaza itself . Any damage would then self inflicted .
Isreal wants the citizens of Gaza to act in their own defence that if they see a Hama’s mortar/missile team setting up in their back yard or nearby roof they reach into their cupboard ,pullout their AK-47 and let fly. It isn’t going to happen though as Hama’s would just slaughter the family responsible.
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@GNB
For me this is more a moral issue than chemical weapons in Syria. I could not give two sh*ts if one side in a bitter sectarian war decides to gas another, but if we do not help these people they are going to die, full stop. Either from lack of water and starvation to being brutally murdered in their hundreds by religious fanatics, for no other reason than their religion.
Where are all the we must do something brigade now?
@Engineer Tom
We do not need to fight ISIS we just need to secure an area to allow us to evacuate the people, the ABTF (or whatever they call it now) and CAS would do. Don’t stay to slug it out just get in and f*ck off.
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@wf – Quite right; furthermore, some leaders of the Christian Arab Communities are now actively campaigning to get more of their people to sign up to the IDF – presumably having observed the fate of Arab Christians elsewhere in the neighbourhood; they can see the extent to which what started as a classic 60’s “liberation movement” with a strong underpinning of secular Marxism has morphed into a sectarian Islamist one, even if many on the left here can’t. Can people remember PLO Poster Girl Leila Khaled? I can’t see her doing all that well in a Hamas-controlled Gaza myself. In fact, she is currently safely resident in Amman when not making hay on the Right-on Middle-Class Marxist Lecture Circuit in various Western Capitals, which pretty much sums up what happened to the old, secular Palestinian set-up.
A truly imaginative Israeli Government would offer safe haven to persecuted Arab Christians…ideally in concert with Kurdistan (whom they are inclined to recognise as an independent state)…and if we had any sense we would back them to the hilt in that endeavour…
But we won’t… 😦
Thus Gloomy as always.
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http://www.janes.com/article/41665/russia-to-double-size-of-airborne-forces
How much of Russia’s stance is bluster and how much is a real parting of ways… I think a bit of both, but if it gets the UK and Europe thinking seriously about defence before things get really out of hand it’s not a bad thing.
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I wonder if Britain could play a part in getting peace for Gaza? One of the main Hamas demands is the lifting of the blockade. What if a British built/run ferry ran a shuttle between the Crown Sovereign base & Gaza? Israel could have a few security bods on our base to keep an eye on whats going in/out. It would allow Gaza to export its fruit to Europe & allow civilian building materials in to Gaza.
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GNB, I’m sure Israel once did a deal with the Christians (Phalangists?) in Southern Lebanon to provide a buffer for Israel’s Northern Border.
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@Repulse – History shows that Czar Putin’s predecessors expanded Holy Mother Russia by tacitly supporting Cossack adventures beyond their existing boundaries, and then dishing out rewards or punishments after the event, once the conquered areas were more or less secured. This wasn’t terribly dangerous when the majority of those affected were Siberian Tribesmen, various Caucasian Mountaineers, ramshackle post-Golden Horde Khanates along the Silk Road or at worst far-flung and semi-detached Ottoman or Manchu provinces on the fringes of their own gradually disintegrating States…not so good if the next group of extra-territorial Russians taken under Cossack “Protection” are the half-million or so living in Latvia either along the Russian Border or in the Coastal Cities…
Does anybody seriously think the Russians planned or indeed authorised the mass-murder of the passengers on Flight MH 317? I certainly don’t…but the problem is that Cossacks are a hell of a lot more dangerous and harder to manage when provided with AFVs and ground to air missiles than with Moisin-Nagant and Shaska…and when their misconduct is witnessed live rather than reported months or years afterwards.
GNB
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@John Hartley…another good idea for the political class to completely ignore…
GNB
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@JH: That would require doing a deal with Hamas. Seeing as they’re still on the Terrorist list, never going to happen. If it was Fatah in charge it might be different.
Related: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28699741 Ceasefire over. More rockets being fired from Gaza. Sure the Israeli response will be forthcoming.
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We in this country are subjected to bombings and murders for the decisions of our elected governments, so can some one explain to me why I should feel sorry for the Palestinians voting for the government they have, which then went on to continuously fire rockets into Israel?
(I’m just playing devils advocate and am pretty neutral about the whole affair)
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@JH & GNB
A good idea indeed , at present Gaza does not have a port as such just small fishing harbours but as TD would probably shout a harbour could be built relatively quickly ☺ regarding its use an international peace keeping force would man the port on an idefinate basis so checks can be made at both ends of the ferry journey between Cyprus an Gaza. Both ends of the journey to verify the cargo is clean of all weapons or material that could be used to make weapons. The Egyptians are keen for this too as they don’t want have to reopen the Rafah crossing as the onus will be on them to stop weapons shipments. At present Egyptian relations with Isreal are still peaceful but if weapons slip over the border that could change. The International airport could be reopened operating under the same conditions. This would reduce the need for Gazan citizens to have to travel through Isreal to travel by air .
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HOHUM
I am not pro Arab or Muslim. I dont believe in sky fairys and those that practice descrimination or prosecute war in their name are dangerous deluded fools. I have been threatened with arrest and prososecution for my views on sexual descrimination practiced by some sects of that particular bunch of God botherers.
Neither do I believe the end justifies the means. be aware Israeli commemtatrs connected to the parties in govt have speculated that Gazza should be ‘cleared’ if necessary.
The current Israeli leadership have stated that they want Israel to be a JEWISH state with with the Jewish relegion enshrined in the constitution. I believe it was the defence secretary who has made speeches about ‘more land and less Arabs’ in Israel.
There is much wrong on both sides and frankly little right.
I was just making the point that unlike the Arabs; Israels latest attempts to ‘keep up with the Jonestowns’ are carried on to the accompianing chorus of how they are an ally of the west and it is somehow in our interrests to back this particular bunch of murderous wack jobs vs the other bunch.
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One problem with ‘civilian building materials’ is that thousands of tons of the stuff has allegedly been diverted to make these tunnels all along the gaza strip. This when supplies such as concrete are in very short supply for civilian buildings.
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On that point; Anything and everything can be used to military effect. Anyone who thinks certain items are purely ‘civilian’ in nature simply lacks imagination IMO.
Everything is ‘dual use’. Even down to food and water.
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As for Iraq
I remember Iraq..
Was that was the war that we fought to liberate the Iraqi people from tyrany and turned them into a united democratic people with a ‘large well equiped well trained Well lead Iraqi Army’ to keep them safe for democracy?
Or was that the war where we trashed a functioning state unleashing murderous sectarianism and leaving in charge corrupt sectarians leading an army that f*cked of so fast when shot at there was a series of small supersonic pops as they legged it. Leaving behind all that kit. We trained them so well to use.
Good luck selling that to the general public.
“Vote for me I want to send our boys back to Iraq to fight and die for a people who wont fight for themselves, in an open ended commitment”.
Yea right.
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IXION,
Complete rubbish. Israel is a democracy that gives equal rights to all its minority citizens, Hamas is a terrorist organisation dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the genocide of its Jewish citizens. Israel is right and Hamas is wrong.
DomS,
There is no allegedly about it, Hamas gets first call on smuggled building materials for its tunnel building operation, an exercise it has undertaken to allow its personnel to move into Israel so they can murder Israeli civilians.
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IXION
What does the invasion of Iraq have to do with helping people who face death without outside intervention? It’s not as if we have a precedent to follow with OP Haven.
And that is the point I was making in my first post on the subject, due to the involvement with Iraq we are no longer willing to do such things any more.
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@IXION
Re Iraq
With you all they way there , same shit happened when after liberating the region from the Ottoman Empire ( not know for its gentle handling of local populations ,think Christian Armenian )with the British and the British Indian Army forces losing 92,000 soldiers in the Mesopotamian campaign the local population rebelled against us. Empire soilders had to take to going about armed in a minimum of squad level even in ‘freindly’ townships or risk a knife in the back. We informed the local leadership that if we left immediately the Turks would just re-occupy the region and exact their revenge on the population. We offered to handover to a local administration as soon as possible but this was not quick enough as they basicly wanted us gone as they realised we would do the same as the Ottomans and stop them slaughtering each other.
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@Hohum re: ‘Hamas is a terrorist organisation ‘
Whether you like it or not, Hamas was democratically elected. In Northern Ireland the once convicted terrorists are now representatives in a democratically elected assembly. If I remember rightly the first leaders of Israel (Stern Gang and Haganah ring any bells?) were once denounced as members of terrorist organisations. Or is it a case a Arab and Palestinian terrorists and Israeli freedom fighters?
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HOHUM
I must have missed the granting all those rights to those in the west bank that live under the benificent rule of Israel.
We have a differnt view of what is ‘right’ given that less than 1 in ten people killed by the Israelis latest little escepade were Hamas fighters. And that Hospitals schools and refuge centres have all been targeted., does not make something ‘Right’ in my eyes.
Got a question for you….
How many Gazzans would have to die before you considered the Israelis had gone to far?
Screaming your a terrorsist is the right wing equivilent of screaming your a racist that the left endulge in. Its meant to shut down all possibility of dialoge puting the other guy in the wrong so your right.
Bullshit
The IRA were a terrorist organisation
The ANC were a terrorist organisation.
Ghandi was banged up as a subversive.
The US founding fathers would have rightly dwngled at the end of a rope if they had lost..
There are terrorists in the world of course some more ameanable than others……..
Hamas will not recognise Israel untill a deal is done and the Is dotted and Ts crossed. It is the only card it has to lay in any negotition so it will lay it last. Israel knows this fine well which is why it refuses to engage with Hamas until it gives up its only card, knowing that they can’t do it.
Remember on the democracy front that Hamas one the election and then we (the democratic west) told the palastinians to get stuffed if they thought we in the west would put up with that
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Various re British Cyprus-Gaza ferry. Civilian building materials. If concrete risks ending up in a bunker/tunnel, just send in glass. Probably a lot of broken windows in Gaza.
As for talking to terrorists, I remember walking around the museum in Tel Aviv dedicated to the terrorists who attacked the British Army & civilians. My teeth were clamped together that day.
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DN
And then what?
How do we keepnthem safe?
how long do we keep them safe?
What if IS is here to stay?
What if Iraqi Army stays as crap as they have been so far?
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Leaving aside the rights and wrong of intervention or non intervention in Gaze, Syria, Iraq or wherever, my real concern is that despite the much-vaunted talk of putting diplomacy back at the heart of UK foreign policy, and the establishment of a national security council and apparatus, we have precisely no grand strategy.
The next 20 years are going to be far more difficult fore the global economy than the last 20. That will of itself create tensions – look at what 5 years of low / no growt in the West has done. Is hiding away on our island a viable option? And if not then what is the right defence posture and what does it cost? And how do we fund it, given that we also need to build 900 more schools in the next 5 years, and pay for the NHS and pensions.
Instead we get a combination of hand-wringing morality, and a pretence that we can be pro-cake, and pro-eating it when it comes to foreign affairs and defence. Farce.
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Hama’s have declared their tunnel network is damaged but still fuctioning ,with only 1 in 10 Hama’s soilders as yet been ordered to attack but the remainder are on high ‘alert’ just waiting the order to unleash a huge bombardment on Isreal with the large stocks of weapons they have available.
This isn’t going to stop anytime soon if there is any truth in their words.
The tunnels are something they have plenty of practice at using them extensively to smuggle goods and people under the Egyptian / Gazan border.
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IXION
IS are here to stay for a long while, we just need to aid in the evacuation of those civilians (Kurdistan, southern Iraq). We would not be there to fight IS for the Iraqi’s. The least we could do is drop some food and water, it’s not as if we have not in some way got a hand in the making of the situation.
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IXION,
All Israeli citizens in the West Bank have the same rights irrelevant of their religion. The Palestinians are the responsibility of Fatah.
The casualty figures for Operation Protective Shield are highly dubious and deliberately manipulated by Hamas who has a habit of using civilians as human shields. Schools and hospitals get hit for the same reason, Hamas’ use of them for military operations is well documented. Not to mention that sometimes munitions go astray and targeting fails.
Israel only attacked Gaza because Hamas attacked Israel.
It is obvious that you hate Israel but I will not let you spread lies here.
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@IXION: Iraq *was* a murderous sectarian state, where Kurds and Shiites were murdered in their hundreds of thousands before even GW1, let alone GW2. Don’t you remember?
We left a functioning democracy, but a weak one. The US unilaterally withdrawing ensured it would be dependent on Iran, from which the sectarian bent of the current government flows. The current situation shows that US Democrat politicians are so murderously sectarian that they would prefer to see the US have it’s foreign policy trashed just so they can claim the previous president was wrong. It’s not as if it hasn’t happened before 😦
@Ace Rimmer: when was the last election in Gaza?
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I do see this in a large part as Hamas’s fault for the intrusions into Gaza. If you left the situation alone, it is almost always them who start lobbing explosives into Israel first, which escalates the situation quickly into “very bad” territory. I may not be connected to any Middle Eastern government, but unfortunately for IXION’s stance that only government mouthpieces see a “final solution” method of stopping the problem in the Middle East, I’m also starting to be of the opinion that the only time Israel can be free of these harassment attacks is if the Palastinians are totally wiped out. Nasty of me I know, but some cases, only a total extermination can solve the problem. Unfortunately it is now not PC to recommend such methods. If someone builds his entire life around killing you and isn’t inclined to live and let live, the only ways to stop him are to neuter him, which isn’t working, or kill him.
IXION, I believe that a country whose national anthem is “The Sky Fairy saves the *insert gender based job description of choice*” isn’t in a really good position to be tossing stones about other countries basing their government structure on shades of religion. 🙂 I think it be your atheism shading your view of other country’s religious based system. Nothing really wrong with that but you really need to see how much does religiousity work into the government structure of the country on an individual basis, and for Israel, it really isn’t much. The Arabs are a lot more involved in religion based governments.
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IXION,
Complete rubbish, again. Israel attacked Gaza because Hamas attacked Israel. Hamas attacks Israel because it’s own charter demands the destruction of Israel and genocide against Jews. As has been pointed out to you, but which you choose to ignore, all Israeli citizens have equal rights.
That a relatively small number of people dies in Gaza as a result of a war started by Hamas is not surprising or Israel’s fault. As you said, they elected Hamas and by that logic carry responsibility for the war that Hamas started.
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And what about all the people who have lived in Israel all their lives who are not Israeli Citizens and have no means of achieving that citizenship?
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PE,
Who are those people? There multiple ways of becoming an Israeli citizen and all children of Israeli citizens are also considered Israeli citizens. The Arabs within Israel were offered, and granted if they wanted, Israeli citizenship after the 1948 war.
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PE, I don’t see any major differences in Israeli citizenship laws with respect to most other nations save the bar on some other specific countries nationals which is a security issue, not a racial one. Once the security level ramps down over time, I suspect that the bar is going to be lifted. There really isn’t much difference in their laws vs other countries.
Those that live there are entitled to citizenship after 3 years out of 5 unless you are from some specific other countries. But if you lived there all your life, that shouldn’t be a problem. In theory.
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RAF planes to drop food aid in Iraq
“Michael Fallon said the UK’s main focus was supporting the US in its planned air strikes on militants with surveillance and refuelling.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28701642
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I read an article in the spectator that said in effect our media and leaders were anti Semitic because of the tone of reporting around actions in gaza. Now I know I’m not anti Semitic as my general overriding moral imperative is that of an egalitarian. I may not agree with something (religion) or like somthing ( the right and left wings) but if it does not hurt innocent people I’m not much fussed. So why does the Israel’s action in Gaza feel wrong…… Because they are killing lots of innocent people and the threat to Israel is not so large as to justify that.
Let’s be honest at the hight of the troubles the IRA were almost as drestructive against UK civilians and military personal as Hamas and were actively supported by a good percent of the population in the north. The UK did not use air strikes and heavy weapons on the towns of ulster or send in military strikes to the south. I don’t have an issue with the IDF going toe to toe with Hamas as the UK did with the IRA. But unless you are in some sort of total war for survival or the loss of inocent will be greater if you don’t, using heavy weapons in urban areas packed full of innocents is just wrong.
As for ISIS, genocide is one of those areas I do think we have an moral imperative to prevent, its damaging to who we are as a nation not to help prevent this from occurring. Supporting aid drops and safe areas is the minimum we should be involved in. Arguing that ISIS are not going away is no justification for stepping back….. Genocide never goes away, does not mean we should should stop try to prevent it.
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Before we all jump on the “Evil Red sea Pedestrians slaughtering masses of helpless Gazan civpop” bandwagon, peddled relentlessly over the last few weeks, have a gander at this :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28688179
Seems even Auntie may have realised that Orla Guerlin and Jeremy Bowen may not be entirely objective in their reporting…..
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Jonathan, if I was cynical, I’d say that it is a war of survival for their government. If they did not take action, what do you think will happen if an opposition party promising more “affirmative action”, “more sympathy to those who lost friends and family to terrorists” and a more “pro-active solution to the daily bleeding of our people” comes into being? You’ll end up with the same situation in the end, just one election down the road. The problem is that Hamas, knowingly or unknowingly (I suspect knowingly), created a road where there is only one course to follow in what I suspect are PR ploys using their own people as sacrificial pawns.
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Jonathon,
So what do you propose the Israeli’s do? Spend the rest of their lives constantly running to bomb shelters? What they have been subjected to, despite the BBC’s desire to hide it from you, is a sustained artillery bombardment aimed at civilian population centres. Israeli civilian casualties have only been so low because of the widespread and frequent use of bomb shelters and iron dome.
No A Boffin,
Exactly, the Palestinian civilian casualty figures peddled by some are a complete fiction that rely on some absurd assumptions.
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@NAB
It seems based on the link you provided that a considerable number of the noncombatants have been miss-identified ,both men and women (Hama’s have declared they have many female volunteer fighters) . The UN’s inability to ascertain the status of the casualties as they mostly don’t wear a recognised uniform so they if dressed in civilian clothes attribute them on the none combatant list.
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Engineer Tom said: “We seem to be afraid of even doing the covert stuff these days, 15 years ago would the government blinked at the thought of sending SF into Iraq to secure the north by working with the Peshmerga.”
For all we know they could already be lending a hand.
A bit of idle thought – would the Sinjar mountain ridge make a good place for a special forces base? It’s a ridge of about 50km long and upwards of 1km in altitude, with flat land on most sides. There is a small settlement on the ridge and a few roads that cross it. Would the difficulties in getting to it make it a good place to set up shop or a dangerous place (in terms of being surrounded and attacked from the land below)?
Jonathon said: “So why does the Israel’s action in Gaza feel wrong…… Because they are killing lots of innocent people and the threat to Israel is not so large as to justify that.
Let’s be honest at the hight of the troubles the IRA were almost as drestructive against UK civilians and military personal as Hamas and were actively supported by a good percent of the population in the north. ”
The IRA pale into comparison with Hamas in terms of weaponry fired at their enemy, in their grip on the population in Gaza versus the IRA in Northern Ireland and in Hamas’s disinterest in put its weapons beyond use and find a political solution. Despite that disparity the British armed forces and police and security services expended a lot of blood and energy trying to degrade the effectiveness of the IRA.
I find it odd that it is really only since the Iron Dome system became effective that the media have been happy to report on the rocket attacks. Beforehand there were warning sirens and the emergency shelters but it received little attention. A brief remark in a report. Little detail. Even now it is rare to see footage of Israelis legging it to shelters but now that the prospect of reporting Israeli deaths is minimal the rockets can be waved away as not much of a threat. Thousands of rockets have been launched and due to the diligence of the state and the public I wouldn’t be surprised if there has been more deaths in Gaza due to rocket malfunctions than the numbers of deaths in Israel. The threat is being actively countered, it has not been eliminated.
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HOHUM
At least observer has the balls to say if necessary avpalastinian genocide is justified….. (if not a bit war criminally for saying so). Presumably by his logic the Arabs are equally therefore justified in killing all the Israelis so they can have peace?
I will ask you again seing as how you dodged the question how many dead gazzans before you say Israel has gone to far 10, 20, 30%?
As for the statistics on deaths; I do not claim that Israel is deliberatly slaughtering women and children.
However what is in effect a large densly populated city is being shelled and hospitals destroyed with tank shells and guided weapons which mean most probably that the people doing the shelling can see exactly what they are aiming at.
Jonathan is right about the IRA.
if the Israelis had been running Belfast theu would have shelled the catholic areas!
HOHUM I have an idea for the Israelis Make Peace. Its something one does. Usualy you find it being done with between people who were once bitter enemies…. Thats the point.
C
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I thought BBC had to be balanced – if appeal for cash for Gaza why no appeal for cash for Israel to buy more Iron Dome missiles – if they run out then they will take civvy casualties.
Did any of you see the clip by Indian news team of HAMAS firing rockets from built up area – quite an eye opener?
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IXION, I work on first strike principle. The person starting the fight is the one in the wrong. If Israel decided to invade Gaza after a decade of peace for no reason, I would be calling for their armies to be pounded into scrap metal. In this case, popping off a few rounds of hi-ex into someone’s backyard isn’t normal diplomatic correspondence in my eyes.
If Hamas wants that strip of land Israel is sitting on back, there are many other ways to do it, pity they only see their solution as one that is solved by number of barrels on guns.
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BTW, hospital being shelled, not really. A few years back, a friend of mine in Indonesia got his place bombed. It so happened that it was being used as a field hospital/refuge too, but chances are the people that did it didn’t know, they just attacked it as the property of “someone against them”, so these things do happen, especially unmarked/low visibility marked ad hoc field hospitals.
What can I say, shit happens. I am rather forgiving of accidents, so if the rounds fired into Israel was by a misfire or a short circuit, I would say life’s a bitch, even if it cost lives. But deliberately, now that is a different story, it shows intent.
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IXION,
Stop talking nonsense. About 0.1% of Gaza’s population died in the last operation, its not remotely near genocide in way shape or form so stop trying to distract from reality with your outright lies. As you well know, in combat, munitions sometimes go where they shouldn’t, especially when the enemy uses schools and hospitals as shields.
The IRA never fired rockets by the hundred into civilian areas so that’s another pointless diversion from you.
The Israeli’s would like to make peace, it’s a bit difficult though when the concession Hamas wants is the destruction of Israel and the genocide of its Jewish population (something which would no doubt make you happy).
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@IXION: if, as you say, the Israelis believe in shelling indiscriminately anyone firing at them, they seem to have been rather remiss in failing to shell the West Bank. Could the lack of thousands of rockets being fired against Israeli cities from the West Bank be something to do with this? Stranger things have happened!
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@Hudum
I would suggest that you underestimate the impact of the IRA and the level of support for them both in Southern and Northern Ireland. At the hight of the troubles in one year they set of around 1300 bombs killed 100 bristish servicemen and wound 500 others. Over the course of the 30 years of the troubles 3500 people were killed and over 50,000 injured. There have been more before and since.
In the 13 years since Hamas started rocket attacks on Israel they have killed 28 people and injured 1300.
It would be a stretch to call Hamas an existential risk to the survival of Israel. The other major state actors around Israel are or could be a risk. How Israel handles gaza give those potential state actors fuel against Israel.
I’m not saying Israel should stand by and let Hamas fire rockets at it. But it could be a bit softly softly ( bullets not heavy weapons in urban areas) in its aproach and use other methods. It worked for the UK in the end. Israel does need at some point to find a way out, fueling the hatred of those around it is it’s biggest existential risk.
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Jonathon,
Really? Hamas’ lack of success has been down to Israel’s use of bomb shelters and iron dome, not down to lack of effort. When it comes to effort Hamas far exceeds anything the IRA could ever have mustered. I also note you have not answered the question, what do you want Israeli’s to do? Spend the rest of their lives constantly running to bomb shelters as rockets rain down on their livelihoods?
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Jonathan I do get a bit of what you are saying. Unfortunately, the “small arms only” approach would cost a lot more Israeli lives. Being stuck with only 5.56mm in FIBUA is a terrible, terrible situation. I will not be surprised if casualties climbed to 5-10 times previous, and that is a conservative estimate.
If you have to do FIBUA without heavy weapons support, I would recommend “Don’t”. So unfortunately with regards to heavy weapons, it is actually all or nothing. Use them and enter the area, or leave them behind and cancel the op.
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Observer,
Not to mention that approach would actually hand fire-power over-match to Hamas which makes frequent use of everything from recoilless rifles to RPG’s, high end ATGM’s and large IED’s.
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@Thread:
> Kurdistan is a functioning quasi-state with a decent record for tolerance at home, a readiness to protect refugees from minority groups, an army that will fight, and improving relations with the NATO member next door…absolutely no reason why an effort based on providing them with arms and ammunition. logistics, air cover and major help to manage the refugee problem should require boots on the ground beyond Military Advisers and possibly a hard-hitting in and out operation to help stabilise a defensible frontier…exactly as was done twenty-some years ago…there is no reason to anticipate an unmanageable quagmire, and no reason not to act beyond moral cowardice.
> The IRA comparison is wholly unfair…that was an armed policing action with small-arms. I have absolutely no idea what we would have done if the Irish Government had allowed the IRA to line up thousands of rocket launchers along the border and starting firing hundreds every night at random…but my money would be on an Armoured Brigade parked outside Dublin Castle the following morning. Likewise if every Irish Pub or Saint Patrick’s Club in England had put a mortar in the car-park and started dropping bombs into the council estate next door I don’t think we would have negotiated a cease-fire until after the untimely deaths of the perpetrators, and anybody foolish enough to be standing around and cheering them on.
> Finally, how hard would it be to fit western equipment going to places where it might fall into the wrong hands with a passive tracking/surveillance device and an appropriate self-destruct mechanism, to be activated remotely as required. I am entertaining a cheering vision of all those hummers, guns and tanks providing a live information feed to a bunch of geeks in a shed at the edge of Erbil Airport, until such time as it seems appropriate for shells to explode in the breach and the dashboard to terminate the occupants of the vehicle… 🙂
GNB
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Also guys when we are talking about Hamas they do not have a unified command structure, it is made up of a number of competing factions.
The most recent set of blood-letting started when members of the Qawasameh clan allegedly decided to kidnap and then kill three Israeli teenager via the tunnel network.
The Qawasameh faction are entirely against any move by Hamas towards rapprochement with Israel and regularly break cease fires. There are actually factions within Hamas who are prepared to reach some kind of compromise with Israel but there isn’t enough unity within the competing groups to actually follow through.
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HOHUM
We aint gonna agree on this. To say the least.
You see Gallant free democratic Israel surrounded by the forces of darkness.
I see two murderous fantasy based regimes slaughterng or attempting to slaughter one another.
I just dont think its in our interrests to support one side or the other.
Only .1percent killed eh? Oh well thats all right then.
Still like you to answer my question ‘ what percentage of the Gazzan population are the Israelis allowed to kill in self defence’?
Observer
The Pont is some of the stuff used by the Israelis, Cleary will cause casualties and some of the targets are clearly deliberatly chosen non Hamas buildings.
Wf
This Israelis are shelling Gazza because Gazza is shelling them. It is the disproportionate use of force by the dominant power that makes it a war crime.
Like I said we should stop supporting isreal and sell as many weapons as possible to the Arabs. They have the cash we could make some money….
The real cynic tells me that untill the Arabs find a way kill Israelis in high enough numbers to make the israrlis scream then there will be no peace. After all it was only when the south african economy tanked that de clerke would do a deal, and it was only when Catholics starred dying in significant numbers that the IRA decided to talk………..
Depressing thought that….
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IXION,
Hamas, determined to destroy Israel and committed to genocide against it’s Jewish population, bombarded Israel with hundreds of rockets for months and dug tunnels to allow its murder to squads to infiltrate Israel- Israel responded entirely proportionately to that threat as the small number of Palestinian civilian casualties attests too.
Your desire to abandon the Israeli’s to be slaughtered belies your real motivation, you are an anti-Semite.
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IXION,
Sorry for the second reply but some of your comments are just too idiotic to ignore:
Perhaps you could explain what a “non-Hamas” building is? Is, in your opinion, Israel only allowed to bomb buildings that Hamas owns the deeds to?
Israel should make peace? How it is to do that when Hamas is demanding that Israel be destroyed and its Jewish inhabitants slaughtered?
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RE: Kurdistan, nothing against them. Would be happy to see them gain a homeland. Exactly the kind of people we should be befriending in the area, rather than just those with the most oil. Which depending on how this shakes out might include them, actually. Interesting thought.
I notice the first US air-strikes were in defence of Irbil. Could be an interesting realpolitic gambit. In those terms, If we’re going to pick a winner. I’d pick them. Least effort, most to gain and most practicable. Let ISIS vs. Iran/Iraq/Syria play itself out while using the air strikes and selling them weapons to save face with Baghdad. It seems the west has acknowledged it’s not going to war with them in totality on any moral grounds. Protect our interest and make new friends.
RE: Trackers and self destruct; great til someone hacks it. Of course the make it more secure than the top secret stealth drone or the F-35 designs or the diplomatic cables or the Afghan War Files or the NSA’s darkest secrets and well, pretty much everything else the NSA had. 😛
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Hohum, less name calling please. It doesn’t help especially on how to change someone’s opinion.
IXION, I doubt it. If the Arabs got enough firepower to kill Israelis in job lots, the 2 factions won’t have peace. Too much bad blood. They’ll simply go for a mutual “final solution”. You may underestimate the Israeli mindset. Remember the Yom Kippur war? Pincered from 2 sides, outnumbered initially and losing by the numbers, they simply hit back.
Israel has long since been willing to talk peace, ever since the PLO and Camp David. Unfortunately, the Palestinians also have a habit of thinking that a compromise is never enough and lob rockets into Israel to keep the pot boiling. Want to take a bet who will break the next ceasefire? And the ceasefire after that and one more to boot? Hamas has a pattern of behaviour that negates any attempt at co-existence or compromise.
As for the weapons being used, Hamas made their bed and now they have to lie in it. I have nothing against 155mm on “civilian” buildings if the building is sheltering people firing at you. He doesn’t care if you live or die and is actively trying to promote the latter, why should you care about him? They call it “civilian” buildings, but buildings do not have sides, their occupants do. If someone is firing machine gun fire at you from a hospital, do you let him continue? You can easily say “Oh we let him fire at us until he runs out of ammo.” but if you were the one shot at, would you be so generous? Easy to recommend other people get maimed and die for Politically Correct. Harder to do so with your own hide on the line. Hospital or no hospital, someone shoots at me from a window, it’s going to eat a LAW round. Him or me? I’ll rather it be him.
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Bloody hell, just got in, see I missed a fun filled afternoon
Be nice chaps, ranting is OK for elsewhere, but not here
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@IXION: there’s no limit in international law as to the “numbers killed in self defence”, as I’m sure you well know. If attacked you are allowed to do just about anything except directly targeting non-combatants.
I thought 3000+ missiles fired was fairly proportionate to what followed from the other side. It’s not relevant that the Israelis can stop most of the dangerous ones, and frankly asinine to declare that their foresight should ban them from firing back. Not something that would fly in a democracy like Israel: unlike Gaza or the West Bank, there’s no “one man, one vote, once” rule…
BTW, as a matter of fact, PIRA cannot have started negotiating because “Catholics starred dying in significant numbers that the IRA decided to talk” since the body count was 100-ish or less since 1977 p.a. They talked because they realised they were failing. Personally, I suspect the PA and Hamas or their sucessors will only talk when they disband UNRWA and the former suddenly have to do the stuff people who run states normally do: eg, worry about food, housing and suchlike. Right now, they are free to concentrate on other things, and it’s not helping.
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RE: Israel and Gaza
The UN is overwhelmed and lacks strong support imo. If they are unable to prevent Hamas from using their schools, warehouses and shelters to store and launch weapons (which they admit) then perhaps they should either withdraw or demand a peacekeeping force in order to prevent Hamas from having free reign to turn all and sundry into human shields.
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HOHUM
Like I said at the start of this I don’t much give a stuff about God botherers, of any persuassion. Only when they start telling me that there particular sky fairy speaks to them and gives them authority to kill maim and opress in his name. Then (rather like the hearse driver in ‘The magnificent 7’). I get dowright bigoted….
As it happens at the moment I have more gay friends than Jewish ones but that was not always the case.
Rather like the ‘Terrorist’ or ‘Racist’ weapon it is designed to shut up the other guy. For the record I am not an Anti Semite. I will however happily wear the badge of anti Israeli. But then I was also Anti Gadafi, Anti Soviet (when we had such beasts), and have been anti lots of things. Even Elephants of the sea going variety.
As we are getting all biblical you have thrice refused to answer the questuon about how many dead gazzans. I wont bother asking it again.
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IXION,
What you claim not to be and the arguments you make are not consistent.
This is not a an issue of religion, the fact that you are desperate to make it one further demonstrates where your views come from. It is a security issue, Israel was bombarded with hundreds of rockets for months on end and faced infiltration through tunnels by murder squads despatched by an organisation whose own charter demands the destruction of Israel and the genocide of it’s Jewish population. Israel responded entirely proportionally to that ongoing threat.
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IXION, trice is biblical? Thought that was Wiccan.
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@HOHUM
As to the question, what should Israel do about Hamas ? It’s a hard one because the who Arab Israel conflict is difficult. With stressors going back to the holocaust, british rule and promises to Palestine, international mismanagement of the birth of the new Israeli state and five wars with it Arab States.
Israel is a nation in a state of hyper acute fight or fly syndrome with no option of flight. But the more it reacts with a fight response the more violence and hatred it draws down on itself from the Arab world.
In my view the only way for Israel to secure its future is to try and reduce the cycle of violent response on both sides.
1) work to make gaza and the West Bank a fully functional Palestinian state.
2) this would include looking at the key issues, port, airport, West Bank occupation settlers etc.
3) look to the economic welling of an independent Palestinian state
This would defang Hamas who could be sidelined with more moderate groups being supported. This would also remove a key problem to the more moderate Arab States and Israel forming a strategic partnership ( Jordan etc),the gulf states now have bigger problems than Israel and need strategic partners.
And if they feel it is important to send a message around attacks, locate and kill leaders organising the attacks using special forces.
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Re Kurdistan / ISIS etc, what we really need are two honking great flat tops filled with F-35Bs (no boots on the ground, see? Clever thinking from the MoD). After all, it is only 460 nm from the northern Gulf, overflying the peaceful territory of our good friends the Iranians to Irbil, and the combat radius carrying internal weapons only is by chance 450 nm.
Bugger. We should have bought planes with a longer range.
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Ho hum
Israel claims it occupies land given to It by god. Temple mount and all.
The Arabs say it their’s given to them by god.
The fact you won’t answer the question says it all really.
I do not deny Israel it’s right to defend itself just it’s chosen methods.
Many years ago I read a spoof advert for the deadly Welsh martial Art of ‘yacki dah’. It guaranteed total domination of your personal space. Total protection against anyone creeping up on you…… It involved beating the shit out of anyone who came within 4 feet of you with a pick axe handle. Whether they threatened you or not. Seems the Israeli ‘s have read the advert.
Hohum
Stop trying to play the man. If you can’t handle the idea that many are deeply sceptical of Israel’s claim to right in this war then tough.
Still not answering the question.
Observer
How many times did Peter deny Christ before cock crow. I thought it was 3 times.
Now where did I put my much thumbed copy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Oh there It is. Next to my signed copy of Mien kampf
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These two articles are worth reading, the first is from the Middle East Media Research Institue from 2008, which really has a go at Hamas for previous altercations with Israel:
http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3020.htm
This one is from Australia’s Business Insider, which see’s this crisis as part of a wider bun fight:
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/proxy-conflicts-in-gaza-2014-8
@ Thread
Just on Gaza internal politics, didn’t Hamas seize power in the Gaza Strip from Fatah. I do seem to remember reports of Fatah militiamen being summarily executed by Hamas?
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@Observer – Luke 22:59-62 is the reference you are looking for, old boy… 🙂
GNB
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Re Kurdistan / ISIS etc, what we really need to do is put boots on the ground for years again because it worked out so well last time.
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It’s clearly an emotive one… A couple of things from me. First I think I read somewhere that NI was ‘resolved’ by ruthlessly targeting some Republican elements while protecting and cultivating those who we could eventually work with. That, if true, must have required some serious nose holding by politicians and security services alike. Which brings me to my next point, what is our national interest here? It’s clear that we can’t solve all the world’s problems. Seems to me that we generally are seeking stability, while balancing a desire to hold the US close while placating left wing public opinion at home. As per usual.
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@Jonathan: it’s interesting to note on the lack of major demonstrations in say Egypt, let alone other Arab states, about the Gaza operation. The average Arab government is even quieter. Interesting, isn’t it?
UNRWA does a lot of the stuff you want Israel to do already. They even look after internal refugees so that Hamas doesn’t have to, which is half the problem. In reality, nothing can change until Hamas is soundly defeated, which is handy, because from my score card, they have been, and even their on/off BFF’s the Iranian’s will have difficulty replenishing their missile stocks now. Lets hope their failure causes some good consequences: having utterly failed to both hit anything with missiles, had most of their tunnels in construction wiped out, large casualties in their foot soldiers, and from the border point of view, back to status quo ante or worse, we might see a significant change.
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@IXION – Israel occupies land under UN Resolution 181(ii), and might have done so as a part of a two state solution had the neighbouring Arab states accepted it. It has nothing whatsoever with God’s position on the matter, and everything to do with international law. I take it you are generally in favour of all parties to an international dispute abiding by the law are you? 🙂
GNB
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@Simon257: Hamas had several hundred Fatah members hurled from the top of Gaza’s larger buildings when they took over in 2007. We let Blair live in 2010 🙂
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Thought that was a one shot incident not repeated Gloomy. Hardly prescriptive.
IXION, don’t feed Hohum any more ammo please, if he knew you were a proponent of Mien Kampfy Chair, he’ll plotz.
On the by and by, I am not skeptical about Israel’s claim to that piece of land. Nor am I skeptical of claims of the Palestinians, the British, the Ethiopians and the other assorted claimants to the area. They have all held power there at one time or another and all are more or less equally valid. Pity they can’t get to play nice and share.
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@Wise-ape – The RM Boots on the Ground as a part of Operation Safe Haven were there from April to July 1991, had the support of the local population and laid the foundations for the one part of Iraq that looks like a reasonably tolerant functioning state willing to protect embattled minorities, accept refugees and so far as possible take the fight to Caliph Ibrahim…
Just saying 🙂
GNB
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Gnb
Very much in favour like withdrawing to 67 borders.
Allowing a right of return.
You know stuff like that…….
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RT. Well if a Voyager is stationed in Bahrain, then that can give the F-35B the range needed. Or copy the USMC & have a few V-22 with the tanker kit. Plus of course, stand off weapons like SDBII, Spear 3 or even Paveway with a wing kit. Plus those stealth Israeli drop tanks.
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“Re Kurdistan / ISIS etc, what we really need are two honking great flat tops filled with F-35Bs (no boots on the ground, see? Clever thinking from the MoD). After all, it is only 460 nm from the northern Gulf, overflying the peaceful territory of our good friends the Iranians to Irbil, and the combat radius carrying internal weapons only is by chance 450 nm”
Or you do the sensible thing and operate from the Med , with overflight of Turkey – yes that has it’s own issues, but less likely to throw a hissy than if we asked to operate out of Incirlik. Or have I missed something?
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IXION,
As has been explained to you many times before, Israel was attacked repeatedly and indiscriminately by a an organisation whose own charter demands the destruction of Israel and the extermination of its Jewish population. Israel’s response to this was an entirely proportionate and legal military operation. Your desperation to make this a topic of religion makes it clear what your real motives are.
As for the right of return- who is supposed to be returning where? There are very few Palestinians who left areas now in Israel in 1947 even left alive, and where they inhabit now is not some tented refugee camp but a major permanent urban settlement. The right of return issue is canard used by those seeking the destruction of Israel, it has not been practical for 50 years and it won’t suddenly become so. Israel already acted in good favour by demolishing the settler presence in Gaza- for its trouble it has been repeatedly attacked from that place.
Your question is an irrelevant distraction you have conjured up in a desperate attempt to play unsustainable genocide card. As has been pointed out to you Israel does not target civilians and in the latest conflict only 0.1% of the Gaza population were killed.
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@IXION – Is Hamas now offering a deal on that basis? Have they deleted the “kill all the Jews” clause in their constitution?
GNB
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So… National interest anyone?
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@Gloomy Northern Boy
You mentioned the Kurds having improved relations with their northern NATO neighbours Turkey , I saw a report from a local blog claiming Turkish F16’s were straying into northern Iraq and bombing ISIS troops. The comments was full of people screaming that they should stay out of Iraqi airspace , I wonder whose side the commentators favoured.
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Look
Queen Elizabeth is still claiming to be queen of France (now there is a war I would go too).
I do not give a stuff about Hamas’ charter.
One of Ireland parties is still called ‘the rusty guns’ because it refused to give them up in the 19th.
You make peace with you enemies. I suggest you look that up in a dictionary. Potted version: – that means guys who want to kill you.
Israel knows that giving up the claim to Israel is Hamas’ s only card. It’s a bit like saying that Israel should disarm and return to 67 borders before talks can start.
No one gives up their cards until he negotiations are done. That’s how adults do it.
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@ WF
Thanks for clarifying that. There was me thinking they came to power peacefully!
@ Thread
For months, Hamas has been launching missiles and the UN has said and done nothing. It has allowed Hamas to turn every so-called UN schools into Ammon Dumps, HQ’s, Etc Etc.
Even a UN offial has admitted it:
http://www.truthrevolt.org/israel-revolt/senior-un-official-admits-hamas-using-their-gaza-facilites-launch-rockets
So why the righteous indignation!
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Dom, personal self preservation would be to carpet bomb the whole region and exile everyone living in it and declare it a no man’s land, if only to save my ears and mind about another Gaza Strip mortar attack. Hell, we could just copy and past the newspaper reports from all the previous times.
This song is really getting old.
monkey, I wonder if the Iraqis know that if Turkey had let ISIS convoys through their areas, Iraq would be in a heap lot more of trouble? 🙂
IXION, I don’t think the people involved in the conflict use the same logic trees that you do, which means that conclusions can be drastically different.
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IXION,
Your deceit knows no bounds. Hamas is utterly committed to its desire to destroy Israel and exterminate the Jews, its senior leadership is very clear about that and its foot soldiers are trying to execute it.
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Observer.
Using any kind of logic would be an improvement.
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Observer
As for use of logic I refer you to huhum’s comment.
I disagree with him: – therefore I am an anti semitic swine who’s deceite knows no bounds.
Not someone with a different view, not someone who us mistaken. I am an evil man with ulterior motive. Blood will flow and death reign until people like hohum chill out and take a longer view.
May I recommend Terry Pratchett on massacre and counter massacre in his work Thud.
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You know Hohum I agree it is wrong that Hamas has in its own charter the destruction of Israel as a goal but to also say that the response is proportional or the fact that “only” 0.1% of Gaza’s population has been killed is cruelly asinine.
That 0.1% which you so glibly dismiss includes 671 civilians of which 414 are children does not move you at all? It is a bit harder to dismiss as minor or small when you put a figure and a face on the suffering of Children Hohum. Are you so cruel that you can dismiss that so easily?
Total civilian casualties in Israel during the same period…
3
Does that sound proportional? Or should I just glibly dismiss that as a tiny proportion of Israels population as you so easily to with Gaza’s. I mean those three Israeli civilian deaths only account for 0.000037% of Israels. Going on your thinking we shouldn’t care at all considering that is such a tiny sliver of their population. Seem fair or reasonable Hohum?
Yes Hamas is a rather unpleasant organisation, but it is also a fractured and disorganised. There are moderates within Hamas but bombing them back to the stone age does little to allow them the chance to push reason amongst their ranks.
In the end what has Israel actually achieved for all the blood let? A temporary cut in the number of rocket attacks, the destruction of some tunnels that will almost certainly be rebuilt. Finally yet another generation of Palestianians who only want to see Israel burn because of the suffering met upon them.
It is easy to grandstand Hohum but do you have a constructive solution to the circle of pain the Palestianians and Israelis have got themselves into?
To quote Joseph Michael Straczynski from his seminal TV series Babylon 5:
“It doesn’t matter who started it, it only matters that people (sic) are suffering”
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IXION,
You are terribly mistaken, I think that of you because of your obsessive and irrational attacks on Israel and desperate desire to make this an issue of religion. I cam to that conclusion because of the evidence you presented me. I hold no grudge with anyone who disagrees with me from a rational and informed position.
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JH and NAB,
My point being that there are far better ways of achieving effect than by buying two honking great flat tops. Both of your options are sensible, but if we need a runway for the Voyager, we might as well put the FJs on the ground as well, and that then means we don’t then spend 6 billion plus on the boats, and have a far wider choice of jets (all of which can fly further and probably faster than Fat 35 Boy, carry more weapons, and are cheaper).
I will confidently state that there is only ONE scenario in which having the boats is necessary – those famous islands – and that threat is both unlikely to become real, and far more easily defeated by increased intelligence and the relatively cheap option of flying a rapid reaction light brigade down there to meet up with pre-dumped stores and whatever local mobility solution works best (quad bikes and Unimogs, probably).
I am now officially making a heroic attempt to combine a an epicly unstable near and Central Asia with my very favourite hobby horse 😉
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Interesting quote reported by bbc on their Iraq coverage-“It goes w/o saying, these airstrikes need to be totally pinpoint. Civilian casualties will rapidly erode any hope of this isolating IS”
This captures quite nicely the hipocrisy of public opinion I think where isis can behead and execute thousands of civilians or surrendered soldiers quite deliberately and proudly, on camera, but a handful of accidental casualties caused by us is an existential crisis. The unrealistic expectations around precision targeting really hamstring our ability to intervene anywhere these days. Proportionality is subjective I think. Hamas has tried to kill more israelis. Should the response be based on what they’ve aimed for or what they achieved? In reality both sides have their strategic goals, the bodycount proportionality element I think is only relevant to an external observer.
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OK RT, but what if we can’t get local basing for those Voyagers and Fast Jets.
No carriers, no expeditionary warfare capability.
Which leads me to saying no need for an army really…what regiment to you want cut first.
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HOHUM
You still haven’t answered the question.
Your attempts to ‘play the man and not the ball’ are pathetic.
You refuse to deal with the issue from any point other than the Israel good and justified to do anything in self defence. Hamas bad and anything that happens to Gaza is just tough shit. Point of view.
When challanged you resort to abuse.
I cam play this game all day
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Fedaykin,
We seem to have managed well enough without marinised fast jets recently….while fighting a war.
TD, this is ridiculous. Midweek I was being asked things like Nine times ??? = 54, which actually required a couple of synapses to get themselves firing. Friday night, One times ??? = 5. It’s brilliant that you have configured the tool to get easier as the week goes by and tiredness increases, but I expect that on Monday morning when nominally at my sharpest, there will be a Quadratic to solve before I can make some suggestive and off-colour comment about a BBC lady journalist who makes GNB go weak at the knees. 🙂
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IXION,
I have made it perfectly clear that your question is ridiculous, and of no relevance to anything given that Israel tries to avoid civilian casualties and that only 0.1% of Gaza’s population (including a large number of combatants) have dies in the current operation.
What you need to explain is why you side with an organisation dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the extermination of Jews.
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@ Thread
I have just seen
http://m.cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/barbara-boland/leader-isis-systematically-beheading-children-christian-genocide#.U-UDAegHTd4.twitter
Which led me to this:
WARNING VERY GRAPHIC!
http://www.catholic.org/news/international/middle_east/story.php?id=56481
I’m dreadfully sorry, to have say this, but I think it is time to put the boys from Poole and Hereford in there with a NO Prisoners order! And F#*k Galloway and Co!
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@RT
Indeed we have but that isn’t a universal constant and you still haven’t answered the questions:
a) What if we can’t get local basing rights
b) What regiment do you want disbanding first…I can help maybe the the cavalry?
The FACT is we have now spent billions buying two carriers allowing us an independent expeditionary warfare capability. Whining after the event is rather pointless in my eyes. Would you rather we wasted that money now scrapping the capability or should we just get on with things and use what we as tax payers have paid for.
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IXION, I do feel your pain, I’ve been on the receiving end of his diatribes before especially on the tank design thread. Found it best to just ignore him, frothing loony that he is. (Actually don’t think he’s loony, just easily influenced by popularist media).
As for Israel and Palestine, that is a much more serious thorny problem. Another factor brought up previously by Fedaykin is that there are factions within factions. Hamas may want peace, but they can’t control the radical factions among themselves to even have a chance at it succeeding, and treaty can be scorched simply by having a disgruntled guy lug out a mortar onto his roof and slapping one round away into Israel, and unless Hamas can control itself, the chances of even a ceasefire lasting is low.
Israel isn’t a saint by any means, like all people, there are saints and devils hidden in all of us. Hamas seems to be hell bent on provoking the Israelis to let the devil in them lose. Mine is already out long ago when I hit the point of “Screw this, if the Israelis nuked them in revenge, I’m going to applaud.” At least it has the virtue of solving the problem once and for all. Right about now, I can put the whole conflict on record and play it back every one or two years without any real change in the situation and about the same effect.
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RT I have droned on that had it been my choice the RN would have got 3x 35000 ton super Invincibles or 2X 58000 ton CTOL enlarged CdG. However, we are where we are, so as Fed says, we have to make the best of it. We have 2 large austere ferries. Its not them, its what we put on them that counts. Hence my desire to get at least 24 F-35B quickly (& let the RAF nowhere near them), plus 10 heavylift CH-53K, 10 V-22 with the tanker kit & 5 Firescout UAV. Then the camels will be truly useful tools in our national armoury. Gunboat diplomacy, even.
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@Observer
I you to my earliercomment
“Isreal wants the citizens of Gaza to act in their own defence that if they see a Hama’s mortar/missile team setting up in their back yard or nearby roof they reach into their cupboard ,pullout their AK-47 and let fly.”
Hamas needs to clean its own house out of its radicals , they don’t listen to words just bullets so give them bullets.
If we are going to start quoting the old testament Bible which all three Abrahamic religions share,
“he who lives by the sword dies by the sword”
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monkey, that isn’t OT. 😛
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@RT – the only thing that makes me go weak at the knees is trying to keep up with Junior on those narrow, wooded trails on the way down to the gondola; and the arthritis, obviously… 🙂 As I recall, you are the man with a penchant for newsreaders; weather-girls mind you, there’s a very different story…
Creaking Gloomy
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@Observer – Matthew 26:52. Happy to help… 🙂
GNB
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i can only point out that in democracies people are responsible for their governments actions, for after all they have assented that another may act in their name, and thus that they will be bound by the result.
so, understanding that israel does everything it feels is reasonable to target militants and avoid civilians, if civilians die in the the legitimate act of defending against militant attacks conducted from within the populace, then it is a tragedy.
i think it is a tragedy, and i believe israel is foolish in being so callous of wider public opinion, but i support its right to proportionately defend it citizens; the first duty of the sovereign nation-state.
now, are the palestinian electorate adults of legally sound mind? the popular vision of them as reduced to the point where rational thought is impossible, depriving them of agency, is one i consider disrespectful.
there is a logical conclusion that flows from this; next time a hamas rocket team (or tolerated proxy), sets the toy store up next to your family home, why haven’t you run out with a bread knife with the intention of burying it in the face of the first fruitcake you can reach.
first time. tragic. second time, tragic. twelfth time… maybe setting off rockets from downtown gaza is appealing when a lynch mob gathers. is it easy for me to say sat in my nice part of rural britain, channeling the spirit of guy forkes? yes.
but, it is their society…
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Fedaykin,
Let me answer your questions directly.
1. What if we can’t get local basing rights? To which I would say “please point out ANYWHERE in the Atlantic or Indian Ocean littorals where that is remotely a possibility”, and if we cannot get basing rights from our long established and actively worked upon Allies, then we are probably not fighting for a cause worth fighting for. The sole exception, as I noted in my earlier post, being the FI, and even that only comes around once in a blue moon, and it is cheaper to have the intelligence to fly in a Brigade at the right time. Deterrence. So your question about basing rights is real, but vanishingly unlikely.
2. Which Regiment would I disband? None, not out of cap badge or service loyalty, but because boots on the ground or aircraft overhead or delivering logistics are actually what delivers HMG’s foreign policy when it is time to deliver effect. Not the Above Water Andrew, who are just about useful enough to find some drugs in the Carribean. Even the Marines don’t need the Andrew, they get flown into theatre by the Kevins and work quite happily alongside the Army.
To me, a better trade off that would keep the Andrew’s numbers up and contribute to, as opposed to cost, overall Defence capabilities would be to drop several boats and spend the money on an extra Brigade of Marines.
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GNB,
Do not google carol kirkwood innuendo bingo. Actually, her voice is her best asset to me, but I’ll put up with the visuals if need be. 😉
Always liked a girl with a sense of humour and a natural smile.
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Interesting that here is an example of where the UK should be getting involved and we are sitting on the fence and only providing recc, tankers, supplies, intelligence etc.
If ISIS are massacring minority groups, Christians included, then they should be stopped, with extreme prejudice.
HMG just never get it right. Especially as we are a P5 nation and should be involved in this.
Also, I found it rather ironic watching Obama on the Ten o clock news talking of acting to stop innocent civilians being killed, then BBC showed a Palestinian man burying his 10 year old son in the next item.
The usual scenario. ISIS makes all the news while as usual Palestinians die by the thousands, with every UN move to reign Israel in vetoed by the USA.
I agree Israel has the right to exist. I disagree with the extreme measures it uses and the vast body count, while the world looks the other way.
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I think Israel will be able to run Hamas out of rockets.
The result of that is interesting, as Hamas has made a big deal about refusing to end the rocket attacks until [concessions], and if they run out of rockets, then the rocket attacks end, with Hamas getting * status quo ante * plus massive losses * plus massive expenses *, i.e. a very visible loss.
(Yes they can keep firing mortars, but Israel has not demanded an end to mortar attacks, just an end to the rocket attacks.)
I predict Hamas to be massively unpopular after the conflict – we are starting to see signs of that already – and with a bit of luck, it might finish them off as an organisation able to control Gaza.
The hostility from the Egyptian, Jordanian, and Saudi media, towards Hamas, certainly helps this.
Cynically, given the lack of Jewish proto-militants in Europe, I guess it is on our national interest to appear to be “sympathetic to the Gazan cause in a non-specific way that doesn’t require us to actually do anything” in the mean time. (Especially if we can be secretly helping Israel and anti-Hamas Arabs behind the scenes.)
Maybe that is the subconscious motive for the peace campaigners? (It seems to fit the evidence.)
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@RT – For a Gentleman of ancient lineage and impeccable magenta trousering, you do sometimes have remarkably low tastes in popular entertainment…although I must agree the lady herself is perfectly charming…quite cheered me up 🙂
Un-Gloomy
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MW
There are a dozen different ways Israel could play this and get better results.
Hamas is unpopular with other Arab nations because it won’t play proxy arm of their state. Like good little boys.
Isis is getting millions like AQ from Saudis. Who really need to look at their plans coz they are in for a real surpise when both turn on them.
Saudis are so scared if Iran that when Iran gets the bomb the Saudis will get it to and tell anyone who argues to do one. In the meantime they will tear appart Syria and Iraq to keep the Shites down
Hamas refuse to play Saudi and Egyptian rules so in the time honoured tradition of Muslim brotherhood they are trying to get the Israelis to do them in.
Israel has made the classic mistake of leaving a people with nothing to loose. if you got nothing to loose and everything to gain you fight because you have no other choice. There is no Gazzan economy. So there are no businesses. There are no business links with Israel to loose. So who Cares if Hamas runs the dump? When you live in a smashed up ghetto the guys throwing something, anything, back at the people imprisoning you are likly to be seen as heros.
Just as the war has pushed Israel to the right, the fact that it would have the same effect on gazzans seem to surprise people.
Best tactic Hamas has is to keep the war going try to get the Israelis to invade fully and re occupy. Snipe the odd soldier make Israel keep its reservists called up. Make sure they contune to go wild and kill the odd civilian so the worlds press can carry on hating them. And wait.
Wait for the Israeli economy to crumble, wait for the Americans to get fed up with supplying cash and arms. Wait for Israel’s to get fed up with body bags comming back. Should take 10 years or so. it worked the first time
The beauty of it is, that the tougher the Israelis get, the more of Gazza they flatten, the more women and children they kill, the quicker it happens…. It will only take a sharpville, or Amritar massacre or two. Well worth it from Hamas perspective.
The Israelis are playing the game to Hamas rules.
Here’s another way. Open the crossings encorage economic ties. Aceept the fact that for a few years terrorists will kill Israeli citizens.
But.
When Gazzans have jobs in Israel busineses dependant on Good relations with Israel then see how popular Hamas is………….
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GNB,
I am just a simple country lad with simple tastes. And when on the tank park (a couple of decades ago, in my case) we didn’t discuss opera, but rather voted upon totty of the month after that month’s Page 3s had been used to wallpaper the inside of the Troop Cage. Or worse than Page 3s, that being the 80s and dodgy German porn freely available.
That said, I was once ordered by a British one star to go to the ballet to watch a performance by a touring English ballet company to Zagreb in the mid 90s, during the Yugoslavian civil war. All well and good, a bit dull, but I took with me the glamorous Fumie, a Japanese-Brazilian UN employee who was the Force Commander’s secretary who I quite fancied, so we had a fun evening out.
Next day the Serbs managed to rocket Zagreb from Sector South, about 70 kms away. We heard the few explosions, then news of casualties. Must have been a total fluke, the rockets managed to very nearly hit the ballet company’s tour bus, causing smashed windows and about a dozen casualties. Next thing, the phone on my desk lights up and goes into meltdown with both the Embassy and the FCO demanding I get out there to give a report (the Embassy was in lockdown, but they thought that I who had a pistol and a UN beret was worth risking).
So I went to see the ballet dancers in hospital, sort of reassured them that HMG were on the case, got a Sitrep from a doctor, and bought them a big bunch of fruit.
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IXION,
Quit with the fiction, it is most unbecoming to be seen demonstrating your ignorance through such absurd remarks as the diatribe you just produced which unsurprisingly includes Hamas being allowed to kill Jews- you are completely transparent.
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Hohum, quit trying to pick a fight, he’s entitled to an opinion, same as you.
IXION, you’re too optimistic. There are Palestinians working in Israel, there are economic ties, but when someone prefers to kill you rather than talk to you, it’s hard to even start a business. It’s something like trying to open a Japanese restaurant in China post WWII. The hatred is even bigger than the profit margin and is begging to be firebombed. You don’t get it because your personality leans towards calculation, logic and profit while theirs rely almost on pure emotion. An example would be, is there anyone you hate enough to blow yourself and him + family up at the same time and damn the law? Or want so badly that you would kill whoever gets in your way to obtain? That is the mindset they have, which is almost the total polar opposite of yours. That is why any solution you may propose will be totally unacceptable to them. You don’t empathise or feel the way they do, so how do you know what to retain or cut to make a compromise acceptable to them?
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IXION,
I swear the French throne has not been claimed by the British monarchs since George III dropped his claim and removed the fleurs de lis from the Royal coat of arms and proceeded to recognise the French Republic under the Treaty of Amiens in 1802?
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Perhaps your right Observer. I say perhaps.
If fuckwits like Hohum in charge. Best idea for Gaza is to go for a victory rather than a deal. And for Hamas to keep doing what it is doing and drag the Israeli in like I suggested. Not that I approve you understand.
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Which airbase are the Americans using this time? Ogh they are not, they are using 100,000 tonnes of floating US real estate. No need for basing rights or host country support.
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APATS,
And could QEC plus F35B do the same? No. Not enough legs. Which makes it an expensive waste of time.
I really wish that brains had been issued at Dartmouth when they were cadets in the 1970s to the dark blue two stars of the Noughties. They didn’t understand the coefficient between Britain’s budget and effective international power projection, their horizons too limited. They have seriously cocked up.
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@RT
Checked the combat radius of a Super Hornet lately? Or the mission profiles or even the launch position?
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Can c17 and c130s operate from US aircraft carriers? Oh you must mean the two f18s did they need a tanker?
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The current state of the world makes me really want to kick our politicians up the ass! They have got to decide if we are to have a role in the world or retreat back to ols blighty. In the former case they have GOT to realise that to have a say we need to be able to back it up and that means they are going to have to spend more on defence and the money is there if they choose to do so. If they choose the latter then we only need a few fighter squadrons, the TA and corvettes partly manned by the Fisheries Agency.
As for Gaza, well why don’t the UN ask Egypt to go in as a peace keeping force to disarm Hammas etc. That would really take the wing out of the left wing loonies who think wars can be fought without civilian casualties and that it is alright for “Freedom Fighters” to hide behind there own population.
Turning to ISIS, well we are often told that the extremists are a minority in the Muslim world, well let the majority sort them out. After all why have they bought all the military hardware they have? The west is told it is not welcome in the middle east and blamed for all its woes. The only reason we should ever get involved there is to protect our oil needs and if a country tries to use the oil weapon against the west as they did in 1973, then we take action. But the first thing we need to do is stop selling most of these countries our latest military tech. WE haven’t learnt form Iran and it will come back to haunt us, like ISIS using captured M1A2s against their previous owners after the crews abandoned them. Contrary to Extremeist propoganda the main killer of muslims over the past few decades has been other muslims by a factor of over 10:1 vs those cause by western action. The Middle East needs to sort its own problems out so we should let them just get on with it.
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Ali
Very sad to hear that. Of course income tax was introduced to pay for the French wars. We are still paying it so there is still hope!
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Lord Jim
Right on. I agree completely
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Someone saw the utility of one-shop, one-stop carrier-borne air:
http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=82656
The F-35B would be unlikely to require its stealth attributes for such a mission, certainly while over Turkey or most of Iraq, so I imagine drop tanks would boost its range considerably. These would allow it to reach Erbil easily with a large weapon load from a carrier in either the Eastern Med or the NPG (Northern Persian Gulf). Conformal tanks would even enable it to retain its full LO (Low Observable) characteristics although these are unlikely to be required against the ISIL targets concerned. If it gains an AAR (Air to Air Refuelling) capability over the next few years (e.g. from a carrier-borne buddy or V-22 Osprey), not even extra tanks will be necessary.
It should also be borne in mind that stand-off weapons like Storm Shadow can be launched around 300 miles from the target but these negate the benefits of ‘eyes-on’ over the target area.
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Red Trousers said: “Bugger. We should have bought planes with a longer range.”
Nimrod. Fully new, lots of them and used as bombers.
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An airfield that moves about – imagine that!
Christ I got the sum wrong. Any chance of some general knowledge questions?
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@Lord Jim/IXION – Outstanding plan – so when the last man standing does prove to be a new Caliph with a battle hardened army of tens of millions of bloodthirsty Arab and African teenagers keen to behead or crucify the Kufr at every opportunity and provided with immense quantities of old but serviceable military equipment and limitless oil (with some new kit from China to equip the Caliph’s Black Guard, they needing the oil and not giving a stuff where it comes from) we take them on at the Channel with a couple of squadrons of fast jets, HM Coastguard and the Crown Militia?
In it’s favour, all very Good Queen Bess at Tilbury Fort, but perhaps a bit high risk…or do we assume that having packed up, gone home, disarmed and left them to it we will then pick precisely the right point to re-arm from a zero base in order to take them on successfully when they come for Turkey? or do we wait for Greece, Italy or Spain to be in the firing line?
Or are we assuming that the last man standing will be a western-leaning social democrat keen to introduce secular democracy? Or having pretty much disarmed, we will keep the nukes and turn the whole of the Islamic World into a crunchy glass desert if they turn our way to deliver stage two of the plan…bearing in mind that the plan as defined by the living and unalterable word of God is 1.Unite the Ummah 2.Bring into the Haram all that was ever Haram 3. Make the Halal Haram.
Irony aside, I am genuinely curious as to how people think the “leaving them to it and minding our own business” strategy would pan out in the medium and long term…leaving aside the destruction of Israel and genocide of whatever Jewish people can be caught, which is pretty much a given in any version I can imagine. It’s physically a much smaller place with much better roads than Rwanda so if the line breaks once a lot of people can be killed very quickly if that is the only objective of the boys in technicals that get through…
GNB
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Gloomy, it’s not that bad. Ammo, ammo, ammo. A person or technical can only carry so much, and drive by shootings take a lot of it. Executions are cheap in terms of ammo, real fights and moving targets burn through your stocks a lot faster.
IXION, your talks with Hohum does illustrate the difficulties of trying to reason with someone out to be unreasonable. This is similar to the situation between Israel and the Palestinians, or to be precise, a small radical faction of them. And like you and Hohum, the chances of a rapport is extremely low.
I suspect the massive collateral damage is in a sense a spur to the Palestinians to get them to do something themselves or “We’ll come back and make a bigger mess the next time!”. Which is one of the very few cards the Israelis do have to play. They don’t really have much wriggle room.
One of the really sad things is that I suspect a fair chunk of the “terrorists” that are caught up in these Israeli sweeps are there only in “self”-defence and probably don’t or have never supported lobbing shells into Israel, but stepped up to defend their homes. Basically, they are the cannon fodder that the radical factions manipulate to their deaths to make bad PR for Israel.
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APATS, what is your argument? Mine is essentially that there are enough airbases in friendly hands wherever we are likely to need them that we don’t need Nellies, and indeed that not having to fit into the constraints of Nellies that we can have a sensible choice of planes, and not the sole choice of an asthmatic ginger jet from the back of the class. Yours is that with even bigger Nellies the septics can just about launch a four ship mission from the briny, even though that mission had to be supported by a plethora of land-based aircraft. Not much of an argument in favour of Nellies, if you ask me, and especially not the size of Nellies that some gin-soaked feeble minded “Admirables” dreamt up in the early Noughties.
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Have to agree with ADG, that if we had Nimrod MRA4 in service, its range would allow us to fly over central/Northern Iraq, with its Star Safire EO turret sending back useful intel & able to drop Storm Shadow & JDAMs on the ISIS militants.
If only the MRA4 had been all new build, they would have probably been in service a decade ago.
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RT It is easier politically, to get somewhere locally to base something non-fighty like a tanker, than it is to get permission to base fighter jets that are going to bomb the neighbours.
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& another thing. I wish the RAF had a couple of those extended range Reapers that have extra fuel tanks rather than weapons. They would be great for finding targets for Tornado GR4 armed with Brimstone. &&& we really should extend the service life of GR4 a few more years beyond 2019(until F-35E becomes a reality, hopefully)
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@Observer – who needs ammo when you have swords, knives and cleavers, or scrap wood and a hammer and nails? Yes, some Israelis will fire back if they have an Uzi or Tavor close to hand, and perhaps many do…but how much ammo…how many armed toddlers? The Caliph’s crew are now beheading Christian Children…
Mind you, and at an emotional level, I’m just about ready for somebody to preach the tenth Crusade…I’m for the Knights of Saint John myself, it all seems to be getting a bit medieval…I’m afraid I followed up one of @Simon 257’s links and wish I hadn’t, frankly.
GNB,
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JH – I’m reasonably sure BAE knew enough about Comet IV to know reworking old Nimrod airframes was not going to be a cheap cheerful experience; both in terms of the degree of wear, damage & fatigue, and in that they were built in the 50’s by hand to near-as-dammit dimensions. Alvis for example did not have assembly staff, they had fitters – when I asked the difference I was told quite forcefully that assembly workers would only assemble what went together without difficulty, where fitters made the obstinate stuff fit together. Comet was put together by fitters.
So if BAE knew there were going to be dimensional and refurb issues, I would have expected them to offer new-build as a faster, not much more expensive option? Who then decided reworking 50 year old airliners was a good idea?
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Observer
I am not trying to reason with Israel or Hamas I am trying a little self interest. My idea is that it would work long term in spite of themselves.
You point about Hamas fighters is well made.
It is noticeable that in all the footage I have seen from Gaza the locals refer to it as “the resistance” and (although one has to be really careful here) it seems support for it is going up because of the war.
I am deeply sceptical about the benefits of bombing to turn a population v it’s leaders. It never works. And i do not see it working in Gaza.
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GNB – I looked at Simon’s warning statement and decided I would not force myself to watch barbarity or the aftermath of it. Somewhere in the heavens there will be a big banner outside the boss’s place proclaiming “Not In My Name”
As for the 10th Crusade, I presume it would feature Christian Soldiers armed with Holy Hand-grenades. ‘Three shall be that number, and that number shall be three. Thou shalt count thrice and thrice only. Four is right out.’
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GNB
THIs is the problem. We went into Iraq to save it’s population from its evil dictator. We left a total fucking mess that held together just long enough for us to bug out and slam the door behind us. Still we are where we are and Cumbrian hedge lawyers like me may get a certain satisfaction from pointing out to highly paid ‘experts’. I SAW THIS COMING A MILE OFF why didn’t you : you bunch of twats?
But we have to deal with where we are.
If we go back in we go back with with guns blazing heavy gulf war 1 style and kill em all. Including the ones in Syria which means backing Assad. And then we go.
Anything else will just repeat the same mistakes and within 2 years Isis will be back.
You will not shift these guys with a few bombs or a few air strikes you need to go and take back these towns.
That means CQB. Lots of boots on the ground and lots of casualties. And they will be western casualties coz the Iraqi Army has made it very clear it ain’t about to fight anyone.
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GNB
And my above post is the point. If you want to intervene are you ready for that?
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JH,
It might be, but that is thinking in a vacuum. Tell me, before we spent £6billion unnecessarily on Nellies, just exactly how many times the political constraint you point to was actually realised? I would be surprised if the answer was anything other than “never”. So it’s not much of a real world risk.
GNB,
Way way back, my mother’s side were from Lorraine, and were Templars for a while. Should such a 10th Crusade scenario present itself, I’m minded to raise a regiment of Templar Cavalry, equipped of course with Chenowths, Accuracy Internationals, Steyr scout rifles in 7.62 (or FN SCAR-H) and good boots. There might be a vacancy for you.
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@ GNB
If you meant that second link, I don’t think their are any words that can adequately describe the images shown!
These people have simply resigned from the Human Race. They are Monsters, not even a Horror Writer could come up with what that they are doing. They deserve no quarter or mercy!
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What happened to the morale of the average Iraqi soilder?
I say morale , in the Persian war they fought like demons against the Iranian’s , fighting to gain just yards with large casualties on both sides. Come GW1 and 2 they were a spent force . Now ISIL are running rings round them .When the new Iraqi army was rebuilt what did we teach them? It was western military advisors who taught both their officer cadre and the other ranks . It seems we taught them to fight something other than a counter insurgency campaign which is strange as every war we have fought since GW 2 has been COIN. Did we get to that part of the text book and then skip a few chapters dismissing them as “you won’t need that ” .
The way the Iraqi army is dealing with this to some extent lies with those that taught them and that would be us.
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IXION’s point of the inability of the Iraqi army to fight is a rather sharp point. They are really not motivated. I say we get the relatives of all the people killed in the above articles (provided that it is not a propaganda op) and provide them with technicals, food, fuel and ammo. The ISIS set itself up as a “structured government” which implies that it has now tied itself down, let us see how they like the boot on the other foot as western supplied “rebels” do raids against them.
Gloomy, let them behead all the children they want. I am a firm believer in final reckoning. Which like I already mention before, tends to bring my responses into genocidal territory. Kill em all, save yourselves the cost of a trial.
Edit: monkey, the problem is that they trained for COIN, ISIS tactics this time are anything but COIN and more of a military push than hit and runs and car bombs/IEDs. This time, they stayed and hold territory and are using brutality to demoralize the enemy.
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@Observer
In terms of the Iraqi army , why can’t they retake and hold these captured towns ,villages etc? ISIL have reportedly limited numbers , 10,000? Suitably garrisoning captured towns with a beligerant ,if brutalised, population must be reducing the numbers available for further campaigns. Are ISIL recruiting/attracting new members or are they using the tactics of forcing recruits by the brutalisation you mentioned that has been so effective elsewhere in world (Africa predominantly) . The Iraqi army has materially more and better kit as well as an air force , all be it a bit limited as yet. They have numbers on their side too as well as the Kurdish forces assisting from their territories. Something about this whole campaign does not seem to ring true to me.
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@RT
“APATS, what is your argument? Mine is essentially that there are enough airbases in friendly hands wherever we are likely to need them that we don’t need Nellies”
Well my answer to that is, what a dangerous assumption.
No carriers
No independent expeditionary warfare capability
No point have such a large army
Now I am sure you disagree with those three above statements, I do it to juxtaposition your argument which appears to be “RT is right all the time”.
Can you say with such 100% certainty that we can always guarantee friendly local basing.
The UK has purchased two carriers, I would rather those (usually Green leaning) whining would wake up to that fact and get on with things.
In the end you have an opinion RT, I respect that. Can you respect that mine is different.
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@Fedaykin
Don’t say it to loud but some point in the near future (within 10 years ) we will be replacing Ocean,Albion and Bulwark with probably a new shiny pair of LPD to sail along side the Nellie’s as part of the CBG( another several billion) . He will probably be OK though as they can carry lots of wheeled/tracked things painted green that can’t fly
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@IXION – My proposal is to swallow hard and back Israel; the more so if they will recognise the essentially sectarian nature of the conflict and make terms with Christian Arabs (there are moves in that direction in Israel already, they would accelerate if they offered a place of refuge to others from elsewhere); do what is required to keep Turkey on side – and tacitly recognise a near-independent Kurdistan with logistics, arms and equipment, high-end air cover…as well as substantial civil investment, and serious money to support their role as a safe haven of first resort for displaced minorities. Boots on the ground? Not so much, and for hard-hitting punitive work not COIN. Try to stabilise Iraq? No – a lost cause. Votes for women and schools for girls? Only in our new Crusader states, which are moving in that direction anyhow.
They want a Crusade – lets give them one – with new equivalents for Outremer, Armenia and the Byzantine Empire.
@RT – Unit historian?
Still waiting to know how people who want to leave them to it expect that plan to pan out in the medium and long term… 🙂
GNB
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You know, the funny thing about the ISIS/L incident is that it really is deja vu again. We went through this once before. Funnily enough, in Afghanistan. When left alone, guess what happened? They paid a visit to the US/UK, eventually. Radicals are not the type to be content with what they have, sooner or later, they will attack others for their “support of Israel”. Martyr complex, even if we are not really supporting Israel.
@monkey
It’s primarily a morale problem, they simply don’t want to get stuck in, with whole units deserting even before a shot is fired. Guess their recruitment really scraped the bottom of the barrel. Face it, with open recruitment, those that can get better jobs would have left, only leaving the dregs unless you have a sense of nationalism and duty to the country, but after being pounded by the Coalition and having their government torn down and a “western puppet” installed, how much nationalism or pride can they have left? On the bright side, current recruitment knowing that they would be thrown straight into a no holds barred war should sieve out a better breed of volunteers. The new units should have a better showing of it. Especially if they recruited families of the victims of ISIS/L brutality. These people will know what is really at stake, or at least will be so pissed off at the enemy that they will get stuck in.
And the Coalition does seem to miss out a few pages in the army building manual. Like esprit de corp. It’s a blind spot for western countries as they already start off with a fair bit of nationalism and loyalty to the country, not so in these other countries.
Could be wrong, but the reports of mass defections seem to bear out the viewpoint that recruiting the dregs is a very short term gain situation.
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Observer
So what to we do restart the British empire? Permanent occupation?
Please no more of the large well equipped etc IRAQI army. Please no one try to tell me it will be different this time because… Please my reaction could be the first recorded death by laughing since the Goodies.
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IXION, I did recommend saturation carpet bombing, leave the Iraqi army to clean up the remains. I’m sure even they can handle body bag duty at least.
Pity about the ban on certain weapons.
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Fedaykin,
£6+ billion is a hell of an insurance policy. Look at history. When ever, apart from one occasion, have we ever used aircraft carriers in their proper sense?
Actually, it is more than £6 billion if you look at it systemically. It is more like £20 billion for the rather ambitious “carrier strike” concept, including asthmatic fat jets and an AEW capability. Now, given that it is my contention that the vast, vast, vast amount of time we deploy a strike capability we can do it rather more effectively and cheaply without the boats, how else could you use £20 billion? There are lots of ways.
Ultimately, the Above Water Andrew is just a rather expensive way of national showing off. Fur coat and no knickers.
Nice of you to consider that I’m always right, but I think you over-estimate me. 😉
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RT Slightly reluctant to quote former Yugoslavia, as you were there, but I understood that in the early days, Italy was very reluctant to allow, bombing missions by its allies, to take off from its bases.
In 1982, which South American nation would have allowed RAF planes to be based on their soil?
In 2001/2, Pakistan was happy to turn a blind eye to US combat jet overflight, but there was no way they would allow them to be based in Pakistan.
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IXION,
I despair of the ME. I veer from thinking “fence off the whole region and let them have at each other undisturbed, last nation standing wins” to “that is just SO not right, we need to step in”.
The latter of course is more mature. I think back to my young self aged 26 going with hundreds of thousands of others to kick Saddam out of Kuwait in ’90/91. I had no doubt at all in my mind that it was morally correct to do so, I had no difficulty in talking with my soldiers about it, and more importantly they had no doubts in their minds.
Fast forward to today, and I think the same about protecting the Yazidis (a sect of whom I had not even heard of until 4 days ago, but that does not matter). There is a right thing to do, and wrong in doing nothing.
But that is me. I had left the Army before GW2 kicked off, and glad of it as I never felt that was right. I thought Afghanistan was right, and I am ashamed that as a nation we were so embarrassed by those experiences that we avoided bombing Assad in Syria.
But, Christ knows, it is getting hellish complex out there, with some rebels in Syria being worthwhile, and the IS in Syria being merely the IS in Iraq.
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JH,
Italy was easy. For a start, the protestations were mostly directed to an internal audience. Secondly, the UN ( in the form of Yasushi Akashi) and the US (in the form of Admiral Smith USN, CINC 6th Fleet) nobbled first Ciampi in 1994 and then later Berlusconi in 1995 and quite directly told them that unless Italy rolled over and made this a non-political issue that would be solved with American and UN money, there would be problems for Italy. I was at the latter “negotiations” myself, although in a bag carrying role. Quite eye opening as to how direct it was.
Always quite happy to admit the FI were a one off. Indeed, it is a cornerstone of my argument.
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Next door neighbour has an awesome boat. Fin keel, kevlar fore and main sales, solid diesel main and outboard reserve, radar with a reasonable reflector, AIS two way with VHS splitter and drawing to a combined radar/map plotter.
Gets laughed at because he hasn’t got a trailer to shift it from the wooden cradle in his drive.
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Just a thought. Asking why we haven’t really used carriers in the last thirty-odd years is rather easily countered by “we didn’t really have any and had we done so, we might not have had to have sustained land presence in theatre”.
Another thought. Significant amounts of previous NATO/US ops in the ME have been from Incirlik. Which is about as close to Irbil as you can get. I wonder why the US isn’t undertaking an op that might help the Kurdish forces from there? What objections could there possibly be? Oh. Hang on. that’s why they’re using a carrier…..
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NAB,
You are looking at it arse-ended. The US don’t currently have any fast jets at Incirlik, so they make do with carriers. Which we cannot, as we so don’t currently have fast jets there, nor carriers, nor even if we did have a Nellie hauled up onto the beach somewhere in the northern Gulf, enough legs on the spastic ginger jets.
Pound to a penny, if this goes on, they’ll get fast jets to Incirlik.
I think your logic just went down the plug hole.
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So the US currently do not have any useful land basing permission in the region and so are using carriers to take action from now? Is that correct?
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Must have access to bases somewhere as there is media reports or uav strikes in the north of Iraq
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“We didn’t know it was happening…” might have been a legitimate excuse during the Holocaust. Now, we have another Holocaust in the making under ISIS/ISIL/IS, and the whole world knows about it because ISIS/ISIL/IS is bragging about it all over social media. NO ONE can say, “We didn’t know it was happening.” The question that our leaders will be asked when they are gone to glory is, “What did you do about it?”
I believe that a coalition is needed to end the reign of terror imposed by this “caliphate.” A few bombs dropped from F/A-18s are NOT going to do it. It’s time to tell the Saudis, the Jordanians, the Emirates, the Turks, and even the Iranians, “If you will stand against ISIS/ISIL/IS, we will stand with you. This is not a ‘Crusade’ against Islam; it must be a ‘crusade’ against monstrous evil.” If they refuse. ensure that the world knows that they are just as guilty as the monsters of ISIS/ISIL/IS. No more Holocausts.
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The americans will be using Al Udied, the place is massive. Big air log hub last time I was there. A silly amount of C17 and Hercs on the various pans. Plus there is a CAOC to run this op quite comfortably.
As to the question of tankers, I’d be surprised if they weren’t using any. They may have rigged something up, however in the 10+ years between GW1 and GW2 the USN were one of the best customers of the queen of the skies out of Bahrain.
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Saw this online earlier;
The US Air Force has a variety of assets in the region, Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis, a spokesman for US Air Forces Central Command (AFCENT), said in a statement provided by the Air Force Press Desk. AFCENT has a wide area of responsibility, and can draw on any of its fighters (A-10, F-15E, F-16, F-22), bombers (B-1), surveillance craft (E-3, E-8, RC-135), support vehicles (C-17, C-130, KC-10, KC-135) and unmanned systems (MQ-1, MQ-9, RQ-4.)
“That steady-state force includes approximately 90 US Air Force fighters, bombers or other strike aircraft based in the AOR, including MQ-9 Reaper UAVs that can be more heavily armed,” Sholtis said in a statement. “There are approximately 190 other aircraft in that steady-state force supporting ISR (including MQ-1 Predator UAVs), command-and-control, tanker or airlift missions throughout the AOR.”
It is entirely possible that a sustained campaign would be launched from outside Iraq, relying on long-distance capabilities, Gunzinger noted.
“Since we don’t have a large footprint in country and we don’t have a lot of combat aircraft in country I think anything more than small strikes and raids, if it’s a more concerted effort, will rely heavily on longer-range capabilities,” he said. “This could be a very different kind of an air campaign than we’ve done in the past, depending on the size and duration.
The mission in Iraq is now threefold. The first is gathering intelligence on the situation, which the US has been doing for some weeks now.
Speaking July 29, Gen. Mike Hostage, the head of Air Combat Command, said he has been using a mix of manned and unmanned systems for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions in Iraq.
“It’s what we call nontraditional ISR,” Gen. Mike Hostage, the head of US Air Force Air Combat Command, said. “We’re using fighter aircraft that have ISR capacities, like targeting pods, and things that give us a lot of awareness on what’s going on, on the ground.”
Hostage did not elaborate on what fighters were doing what, but the F_15, F-16, F-22 and A-10 all have ISR capabilities in one form or another.
The second part of the mission is delivering supplies to Iraqi and Kurdish forces trying to fight back against the Islamic States.
A senior defense official told reporters that the first humanitarian drop came Thursday evening over Kurdish territory in northern Iraq. That included two C-130 and one C-17 cargo planes, which were escorted by two F/A-18 Super Hornets, the official said.
The third arm of the operation, and the one most likely to gather the headlines, is the air strike component.
The F-15E, F-16, F-22 and F/A-18 all have precision weaponry that can be targeted to take out enemy equipment, while still traveling at high altitude and fast speeds to stay clear of enemy fire. Another option is the B-1 bomber, which has also been used for precision strike over the last 13 years in Iraq.
Although considered less pinpoint than its fast-jet cousins, the A-10 could also play a role in what may be its last military campaign before the Air Force retires the plane. Proponents of the plane say its ability to get low to the ground could help prevent civilian casualties in a situation where the insurgent population may be mixing with non-combatants.
The unmanned MQ-9 Reaper is also a likely contributor. Its cousin, the MQ-1 Predator, is another system that may see its last combat operations, as it is slowly being phased out of the service.
Unmanned systems have the added benefit of keeping US airmen out of danger.
“Should we lose one or two of those unmanned systems, you don’t have a need of [combat search and rescue] forces to go in and extract pilots,” Gunzinger noted.
During the Libyan campaign in March 2011, both B-1Bs and B-2 Spirit stealth bombers were sent on long-distance sorties to attack targets instead of being forward deployed.
Three B-2s from the 509th Bomb Wing, Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., flew 25 hours nonstop from their home base to drop 45 2,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions to destroy military aircraft and facilities at Ghardabiya, Libya.
Also, two B-1B Lancers from Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., left their home base to assist in enforcing the no-fly zone over Libya, returning three days later after hitting almost 100 targets in North Africa
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I just thought I would post this link to a thread which has a pretty good summary of the current situation in Iraq and Syria, and the chain of events that led up to it.
You will have to scroll down to “Kodiak’s” post entitled
“Middle East Sectarian Bloodbath Part 1”.
http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/malikis-malarkey-wahabis-gone-wild-safavid-sadness-iraq-civil-war-part-ii.305921/page-33
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Thanks TD
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RT
That nice Mr Erdogan might have one or two things to say about bombing some of his more dubious friends. And if he doesn’t, his military may be less than enthusiastic about supporting Kurdish forces from Turkish territory.
Topman is absolutely right, they will be using Al Udeid – at least for AAR and airdrop. People tend to be a little more sensitive about dropping iron from their bases though. Remind me which emirate “allegedly” funds some of the more unpleasant islamonutters again?
Just interesting that the first missions were flown by F18s, from a carrier, despite the high-level of land-basing rights apparently enjoyed. As ever, point is not that you don’t need land-based air, just that sea-based air (ginger or not) is often subject to less interference and therefore sometimes more useful. Heresy to some I know, but there you are, particularly when ironically enough we’re bombing folk who like to burn the heretics.
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@NAB – Some signs of peace breaking out between Turkey and the Kurds, and although Erdogan is at the religious/conservative end of the Turkish political spectrum that is a whole different place even to the Muslim Brotherhood, much less Caliph Ibrahim…and that leaves aside an antagonism between them and the Arabs that goes back to the Ottomans. Furthermore, although they might have lost faith in the EU, I think they still value the NATO connexion…and their plan for a pan-Turkic trade block will not readily flourish alongside the utter bloodstained chaos that might otherwise prevail.
I suspect a way might be found to facilitate a western effort based in Kurdistan, even if they need to swallow hard to do it.
(Not that I don’t like the Nellies, but keep quiet about it as I am hoping to to go on the Tenth Crusade as private chronicler to the Grand Master of the Red Trouser Templars.) 🙂
GNB
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I thought there were some reports of Turkey shelling ISIS convoys that strayed into their territory? A common enemy does seem to be the thing for bringing people together.
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UK has an excellent aircraft carrier in the mid-east, it’s called Akrotiri. Straight line distance to Mosul about 900km.
Israel is a state founded on terrorism, many victims being British soldiers, and for absolutely no good reason. As war criminals they have form.
Heavy bombing aircraft do not have a notably good track record. Ask the Canadians. As I understand it the RAF no longer has any dumb bombs, a wise move on their part. Of course precision munitions require precision targeting, so much easier to send Biggles off in to the way blue yonder with orders to drop the load within 15 km of a point and zero military benefit.
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@Obsvr: ah, Akrotiri. Straight line, if you fly over Syria or that terrorist state Israel! Not to excuse the likes of the Stern Gang, but the latter was effectively founded on the Holocaust.
Given the situation in northern Iraq, with minimal air defenses and lots of technicals, logically we should be looking at something like Afghanistan circa 2001, where SF teams on the ground direct and liase with Peshrmerga, while B52’s and B1’s flying from Al Udeid and Diego Garcia drop lots of JDAM. Carrier air may be nice, but given the distances from everything other than Turkish bases, heavy bombers look real good.
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@Obsvr
“UK has an excellent aircraft carrier in the mid-east, it’s called Akrotiri…”
How to win friends and influence people, eh? Remember the last time in Libya?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8400487/RAF-Tornados-refuel-over-Mediterranean.html
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/22/c_13792876.htm
Similar opposition to being used as a base for air strikes was voiced by neutral Malta and, initially, Italy.
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Should finished the sentence Dunservin from your own link in the telegraph
“President Demetris Christofias said that his government opposed any use of the British bases on the island to enforce the no-fly zone, but conceded it had no power to stop their involvement.
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Kent
Sorry but Isis is funded and supported by Saudi and other gulf Sunnis. It is like AQ their creation and to a lesser extent the Taliban (more a creation of the Pakistani army intelligence but funded by guess who)…
This is all about keepinng the shites down. In their own countries and stopping the Iranians from gaing more influence. They realy have not thought it through and ate goingbto be horrified when (like the Taliban in Pakistan) IS turns on them. Do not look to the Gulf leaders for anything other that 2 faced bullshit on this issue.
My problem is this… I have never believed in half assed warfare.
Sherman was right about war.
The middle east, its tribal, racial, and above all religious politics are a knotted mass of contradictory double dealing and falsehood. ANYONE posting on this site who say they understand it all, and can work out all the implications of a ‘targeted intervention’ is a deluded fool. UNLESS they are posting from the position of a snr Arab desk foregn . office official, or, more likely a chair of middle eastern studies at a good university. ‘”I worked in Saudi for 10 years”. Or “I was in intelligence during the Gulf” won’t cut it. It may give you better insight than most but the situation we are in here is radically altered in terms of actors, although at its base it seems to rely on old rivalries.
If we are to stop this slaughter then we need to go in quick hard and heavy gulf war 3 style. Over ride all the ‘keeny meeny” with shear brute force.
So for the record I am in favour of intervention. BUT massive intervention and massive intervention ONLY: –
Not dicking about with remote controlled giant toy airoplanes.
Not dropping few bombs from. Floaty little boats.
Not letting special forces play Lawrence of Arabia.
And definately not creating a Large, Well equiped, Well lead, Well trained, Well motivated Iraqi Army, (pause for ironic laughter*) To be our boots on the ground.
Anything else is doomed to failure; and is merely grandstanding as per that suit full of bugger all Obama,s latest pronouncement. He says he will do whatever it takes to defeat IS except fight. I will do whatever it takes to defeat thecrain coming into my bottom barn except fix the roof.
We are better of staying out if we are not going to do this the hard way. Sorry but there it is….
RT
I would love to drive one of you chenworths no millitary traing but not scared of guns and not a bad offroad driver/navigator.
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I did post some edits to the above post but they do not seem to have made it.
Just to say since there will be no appetite for ther necessary action in the west expect a shit lot of condemnation and obllocks about international action but kiss hundreds of thousands of innocent people goodbye…..
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Gloomy Northern Boy said: “My proposal is to swallow hard and back Israel”
I think that would just perpetuate the issue. Many world leaders talk of wanting peace in the middle east. The UN does too. Time for them all to put up or shut up and adopt a direct approach. Shift some of the support that is provided to Israel into the hands of a UN force and have them be the ones blowing Hamas up. Occupy the area with a well armed and aggressive peacekeeping force that is prepared to hit terrorists hard and have the UN man the Iron Dome system too.
Israel would be no less protected and Hamas would have no excuses for launching attacks.
It would be very unlikely to happen though, not least because it would set a modern precedent for the UN getting really stuck into a situation with an honest desire to solve it. If they did that for Gaza then they would be expected to do it in many other places too.
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Where is a squadron of A10’s or AH-64’s when you want them.
http://azelin.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/untitled8.png?w=300&h=170
http://azelin.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/untitled17.png?w=300&h=199
http://azelin.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/untitled22.png?w=300&h=169
Can the Iraqi Air force not deal with this bunch?
RT if you saw a group moving like this from your observation post ,what would your feelings be?
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@RT
“£6+ billion is a hell of an insurance policy. Look at history. When ever, apart from one occasion, have we ever used aircraft carriers in their proper sense?”
WW2, Suez and Yugoslavia come to mind. There are others beyond the Falklands.
Yes it is an insurance policy and an expensive one at that but the money has been paid and I would rather we get on with things.
I just see your argument as whining after the event with a certain hint of the nastier aspects of inter-service rivalry.
You can pretty much look at any piece of equipment within the three services and say:
“We haven’t used that in ages…so we don’t need them” Actually that has been argued more then once in recent years when it comes to our Challenger II fleet usually followed by howls of protest from Green leaning types.
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Come on Fedayakin, give some examples.
WW2, a couple of US battles in 42/43 in the Pacific, which is irrelevant to the UK. Suez, no, you are barking mad if you think that is relevant, given the proximity of British airbases nearby. Yugoslavia, no bog off it was surrounded with airfields, we actually positively got rid of the RN aircraft on Lusty as they were useless and irrelevant, taking 3 satellite hops to speak with them, in comparison to every land based aircraft that could be spoken to directly, and that carried GPS guided munitions (the Dutch F16s did not, but nor did the Harriers).
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This is something of a test. We are faced with potential genocide happening right under our noses. But we (by we I mean everyone else in the world) don’t seem to have a grand strategy to stop it. The Americans are engaging with a bare minimum level of force which one imagines is more about deterrence and buying time than seeking to act decisively.
So, do we intervene militarily without a big plan and with a Government convinced we’d rather see thousands of civilians dead rather than a few British soldiers; or do we watch a genocide and convince ourselves it is not in our national interest to do anything much?
I’m convinced that if this gets as bad as it could, then there will be a massive public appetite even amongst Guardian readers to deploy British forces on the ground in a security / combat role. If Cameron misjudges this one again then he’s a mug.
The cost of such an intervention would likely be another medium-term muddle because there’s at the moment seemingly no strategy to knock this nonsense with ISIS on the head: but in the short-term a prevented massacre might mean a price worth paying. Suppose it depends if you give a shit.
Time for folk to get their heads together and use the time being bought by aid drops and US strikes to come up with a medium term plan and actually fucking implement it. This should probably involve a short-term deployment on the ground but perhaps to generate that level of domestic will and public appetite for ground intervention you have to let the place burn for a while.
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Just to but in, carrier and non carrier aviation operations since WWII
http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2012/05/the-post-they-tried-to-kill/
Fed, I think you are stretching with Yugoslavia, apart from that Suez and FI are two good examples
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Phil, on Twitter last night there was a lot of talk, links and images (sadly) about ISIS beheading the children (as young as 4) of parents who would not convert to Islam.
My gut reaction is these fuckers need to be exterminated, but it is an emotional reaction.
As you say, the problem is a simple one, do we care enough to intervene because as IXION quite rightly points out, we would have to be all in
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@RT
Ahhh a classic example of “if you don’t like what you hear” dismiss it.
I was hoping for a more constructive answer then “bog off”, you were really an officer?
RN carriers were heavily used in WW2 to say otherwise is just denying history. I forgot to mention the Korean war as well, or are you saying that we mustn’t count any history prior to 1982?
Hey we only properly used Challenger tanks during GW1 and even then it was a side show to the Americans and frankly they didn’t need our help in 2003. I think that makes a good argument to disband the tank and cavalry regiments.
The reason I come back to this RT is I am a little tired or you treating all opinions other then yourselves as wrong.
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Beheadings and now reports of Yazidi women and children being buried alive.
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Did anyone else notice that the self-folding robot shat itself when it ran off?
A great advert for “stocking up on beans” 🙂
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Fedaykin,
If you are a little tired, best you get your head down. It cannot be easy being wrong all of the time. Tiring.
You need to get your head around carriers being heavily used, and being heavily used in a role that no other ship could be used in. That might take your brain some time.
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Is intervention now just fuel for the genocidal fire of (some of) Islam turning back the clocks and undoing the Crusades?
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Phil
We (you and I), had a war last Christmas about the total fucking up of Iraq and Afghan by US and UK . I claim I told you so rights………..
However we are where we are.
For once I am with the intervene crowd. But only if we go in loaded for bear. Anything else is just hollow bullshit and we will be better off staying out. Not morally but practically.
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RT Play fair, Former Yugoslavia showed that most European airforces had been underequipped in terms of guided weapons, sensors & comms, not just the RN FAA.
As Fed says, we have the QE/PoW, so we might as well make the best of them. So stealth drop tanks & V-22 tankers to get the F-35B up to something credible.
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How useful are the Andrew to the current situation? About Zero %, I think.
How useful were the Andrew to the last situations, since 2001? Also about Zero %. They have a Brigade of Marines, who are useful light infantry.
How useful will the Queen Elizabeth be to operations in northern Iraq? Not very.
How expensive is Queen Elizabeth? Jolly. Is she useful? Ummm..,,,
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One of the difficulties is that the normal end-game for organised conflict is a negotiated settlement in favour of the victor. In this case, as Gloomy pointed out, those we would oppose want nothing less than extermination of all who do not agree with them. And their own termination is of no consequence. It follows that there cannot be peaceful (if resentful) co-existence after a shock & awe campaign. No co-existence at all. It could be analogous to an unstoppable virus; a cancer in the population – if cells remain the disease erupts again. And again.
UN resolutions will not influence the miscreants. Sanctions are powerless. Containment very unlikely to hold. This is no ordinary territorial claim.
Looking around the world however, there seems a remarkable degree of looking the other way. By all means criticize US and UK for not doing very much, but that not very much seems an awful lot more than other states are moved to do. Surely this isn’t another case where the world expects America and Britain to fix it all?
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@RT
Am I talking to an adult here or a petulant teenager?
Why don’t you grow up RT, have I EVER personally insulted you? I have poked some mild fun certainly, I have also tried to explain my position as politely as possible.
In the last few weeks you have told me to “F” off. “Bog off” and generally treated my contributions with thinly veiled contempt (and others as well). You have also said some fairly vile things about the RAF and those who serve in that service and when called out just threw even more insults around.
Every time I have asked you to respect that my opinions differ you throw it back with another insult.
Why don’t you wind your neck in. Stop acting like a bully, the world does revolve around you RT. Your opinions are just that OPINIONS! I have said I respect yours differ, that was olive branch.
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RT,
How useful are the Andrew to the current situation?
They could launch a handful of TLAM?
How useful were the Andrew to the last situations, since 2001? Also about Zero %. They have a Brigade of Marines, who are useful light infantry.
Ha ha 😉
How useful will the Queen Elizabeth be to operations in northern Iraq?
Really, really useful. What are you on? Are you not aware of the recent re-switch back to CATOBAR with RANGE and SEAD being the all new drivers for a formidable strike capability? I can only assume you’re still on the old news, STOVL design with limited range, puffer jets. 😦
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Defensenews has an item saying the USN F/A-18 bombed US supplied 155mm artillery that had fallen into ISIS hands when the Iraqi army fled.
How does the UK respond if it wants to? We have no carrier strike for 5 years or so. We have no long range bomber or MPA that could become a poor mans bomber.
That leaves the Tornado GR4 with Brimstone & Paveway, assuming we can find a nearby friendly airbase + tanker support.
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John Hartley,
I’m sure RT has a non-carrier solution…
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Fedaykin,
Grow a pair. You are mostly wrong, accept it. I have all of the respect for your opinions that they deserve.
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@ TD
@ Thread
I posted this 48 hours ago.
http://www.catholic.org/news/international/middle_east/story.php?id=56481
Not only are they Beheading Children, these scum are literally carrying out the most barbaric murders and all I’ve read on here since then are, are FUCKING CARRIERS any use! People are being Butchered for heavens sake! Let’s get a grip on reality, before this turns into a fucking complete catastrophe!
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I claim I told you so rights………..
I don’t recall disagreeing with you that Iraq was a mistake. So you’ll have to give that slice of humble pie to a poor person.
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@Simon257
Carriers and inter-service dick waving competitions.
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Simon I think the West needs to have a hard talk with Saudi Arabia & Qatar & tell them they created this ISIS/ISIL monster, so now its down to them to put a stop to it. The Saudi airforce is well enough equipped to bomb ISIS out of existence. If Saudi & Qatar do not want to face the sanctions Russia has now got, they need to end the genocide they helped bankroll.
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Its Rwanda all over again but this time no Blue hats present turning a blind eye ,you still have a local government doing nothing and some non-affiliated locals trying to help in the form of the Kurds. There will be much hand wringing afterwards and talk of what could we have done better , “its unprecedented” etc . The gloves are off ,we can argue legalities later, just get the f**k in there and slaughter ISIS to a man. Ask everybody to join in who wants to , Christ the Japanese have been wanting to shoot some f**ker for nearly 70 years . Put on Facebook , party in the lands of ISIL ,bring what you can and come loaded for bear.
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What would people suggest? The US have kit for an armored Brigade in Kuwait we would either take weeks or fly light. I would bet my mortgage on a RM commando and a para Regiment vs ISIS but even if the US ponys up 101 or 82 it still smacks of Arnhem or Vietnam.
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Have we not been here before in northern Iraq, would similar be effective this time?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Provide_Comfort
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@RT
Thanks for proving my point.
What a fine example of a boorish childish blowhard
Covering yourself with glory here RT
At least I have some dignity and believe me what respect I have for you has sunk to new depths.
As for mostly wrong, only in the eye of the beholder
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Would Cameron get a yes vote in Parliament this time?
Edit: @Simon – You forgot the third carrier.
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JH, don’t think for a moment that those expensive jets have any utility at all beyond their own borders. The purpose in buying them was merely to keep cousins happy.
There is absolutely no chance that Saudi will bomb ISIS. Bit embarrassing to do that.
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Phil
Be that as it may. We do at least agree with what should be done next…
Howver I doubt it will be.
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I am a “boorish childish blowhard” 🙂
Golly(wog – I might as well cut my own throat), this seems pleasing. I don’t know Fedaykin, but he seems to be mostly OPFOR, so should be shoved aside in the race of life.
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Before we get stuck in more carrier tantrums, may I repeat what I wrote upthread because it seems pivotal to me:
One of the difficulties is that the normal end-game for organised conflict is a negotiated settlement in favour of the victor. In this case, as Gloomy pointed out, those we would oppose want nothing less than extermination of all who do not agree with them. And their own termination is of no consequence. It follows that there cannot be peaceful (if resentful) co-existence after a shock & awe campaign. No co-existence at all. It could be analogous to an unstoppable virus; a cancer in the population – if cells remain the disease erupts again. And again.
UN resolutions will not influence the miscreants. Sanctions are powerless. Containment very unlikely to hold. This is no ordinary territorial claim.
In other words, dealing a few bloody noses is not likely to restore peace in this case. IXION was the first to note that we either acquiesce and hope for the best or we (the civilised world in concert) engage without quarter. This has the possibility of being very very nasty and I don’t think hoping for the best is a success oriented strategy.
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@WiseApe
You know I have been pondering that today between the childish distractions, considering the situation I am not sure parliament would vote no.
My mind is turned back to Allied Force, parliament and the public were very keen for action over Kosovo.
Ironic really , I am going to Serbia next month to negotiate the import of some rifles.
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@RT
Pfft
Considering you are a raging Walt who cares
Cavalry officer, more like Tescos
Insulting enough?
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I think it would be a hard sell for Cameron. He could be portrayed as calling for airstrikes against the very people he had called for airstrikes in support of against Assad.
What’s the Arab League up to these days – have they much on?
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@Wiseape
I don’t think it would be a sell at all. It’s a no-brainer and I think there’s an appetite amongst even Haloumi eaters to get in there and stand between the innocent and these uber-cunts.
Cameron risks getting it wrong and misjudging the mood. Again. I am hoping he is just keeping his head down to get a good feel for which way the wind is blowing because he was far too rash last time.
But there won’t be any solid intervention without a clear and active UN resolution. If there isn’t one in such a clear cut case of being on the cusp of genocide then the UN needs to be buried. Deep.
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As i asked earlier Phil what could we actually send?
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Apas
The air assault battlegroup with helicopters, joined with a French battlegroup?
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We could provide 2x Bde HQs, 1x Divisional HQ and 1x Corps HQ and initially the ABTF and LCG and theatre entry capabilities.
That’s also one reason why I noted the need for a firm and clear UN resolution so that everybody piles in with a contribution. Those HQs we provide can be filled with NATO units. If every NATO nation sent a battlegroup we’d have a good start.
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Someone should ask the churches where they stand on this “extermination”.
Chris,
What you wrote upthread was fairly chilling (“…an unstoppable virus; a cancer in the population – if cells remain the disease erupts again. And again.”).
There are only two things that scare me more: 1) the notion that the to-be-infected cells are so incapable of their own decisions that it’s a foregone conclusion, and 2) the to-be-infected cells are already drifting towards the same decision and/or don’t really care.
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I would add sentinel and watchkeeper to the list.
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we would need 2 Brigades? NATO has no interest if we go it us us and the US.
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Fedaykin,
Ever looked one of your soldiers in his eyes, and agreed to go for it?
Until then, mag to grid.
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Can we stop and rewind a bit please chaps, constructive, civil and polite discussion please
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This can’t be seen as another uk/us only intervention in Iraq it would need to include more nations. So like Syria it needs to be UN and ideally Arab league agreed. So if no one else is going as apas suggests there ain’t much more we can do than what we are doing it maybe more akin to a Libya style action support Kurdish ground forces.
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Opportunism? Don’t imagine the Turks would be happy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28730618
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@RT
No but neither have you Walt
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@APATS
That remains to be seen and also, as I said, why a clear UN resolution would be required.
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I know it’s the Mail but this is unbelievable:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2721230/Thats-boy-Australian-jihadists-seven-year-old-son-poses-decapitated-head-Syrian-solider.html
I know this is a mad idea, but is it time to talk to Assad. Even if he was to remain in power. Would it be a better outcome than if Isis was to form its Caliphate?
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I think given the distances, issues with Shia militias and Iranians, and the Iraqi government’s likely desire to hijack us into their own requirements, I can’t think an intervention is doable unless Turkey is in. Is it? Given it’s support for the Brotherhood and some of the nutters in Syria, I think that is very debatable.
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I would see if we could get to Yazidis through Turkey and the Kurds. It would take at least what we sent to the Balkans. And it would be a, get in create a corridor and get out operation.
We could not do it alone and to be honest I don’t know who would help. We could drive through Europe to get there in a few days at the minimum and hopefully use Turkish air bases.
Once the op is done throw our support behind the Kurds, the Iraqi government will have to fend for itself from our perspective, although the Iranians will back the Shia. Saudi and Qatar can lie in the bed they made once the IS turn their attention to them.
Turkey and the Kurds should be our worry.
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Mark,
“This can’t be seen as another uk/us only intervention in Iraq it would need to include more nations. So like Syria it needs to be UN and ideally Arab league agreed.”
Completely agree.
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I probably won’t persuade you Fedaykin, but I have looked into my soldiers eyes before combat. In Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Iraq and Kuwait.
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@Phil
Based on Simon257’s link of an Australian 7 year old boy holding the decapited head of someone who his dad killed who brought him to the lands of ISIL for what ,an ‘educational experience to see how the another part of the world lives’ or DIES in this case. Do you still think we need a UN resoloution?
I say go in now ,every bodies SF first ,the rest to follow on whatever airliners available ,use the local Iraqi armies kit ( they aren’t using it ) and off we go, let’s call it the Glorious Twelfth ,RT can bring his Purdies and I’ll bring my Holland.
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@Thread – I am surprised to find myself broadly in agreement with @IXION, Phil, Chris and a number of others…an event so astonishing that the only possible solution is to get somebody to phone Cameron and tell him to get his arse in gear and get effing organised. As to what we send, and to put it in the vernacular every bastard thing we can lay our hands on, by civilian airliner to Erbil if necessary…I cannot imagine any set of circumstances in which the Kurds will refuse help or our NATO ally Turkey refuse overflight rights for an air-bridge through Cyprus, the President having said he can’t stop us.
These f*cking f*ckers need f*cking f*cking…and if we open the batting, I believe others will follow…and I’m not sure if I care much if they don’t actually.
I am now going to pack for the Red Trouser Templars, where I will write a short but hopefully glorious history whenever not arguing with @IXION and the CO about Nellies, and the former about legal aid…
GNB
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How much of the kit being flown back or shipped via Suez from Afghanistan could be rerouted to this? All the forces who are now winding down from Herrick etc must have kit on the way home ,turn it around and get it in theatre asap.
From the leader of the Kurdish people
“We are not fighting a terrorist organisation, we are fighting a terrorist state,” said Mr Barzani, the president of the Kurdish regional government.
“The weapons they possess are more advanced than what the Peshmerga have,” he added.
Put what we have to good use ,put in willing hands , they are quick learners , nothing focuses the mind like immanent death.
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@ Thread
It’s surprising that Turkey hasn’t asked for a NATO Article 4 or even a Article 5 meeting. Seeing that this is on their doorstep? No one in the rest of NATO would deny them that?
How important now, is next months NATO meeting in Newport?
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Do you still think we need a UN resoloution?
If you wanted a chance in hell of doing a proper job then yes. You really, really, really do need one. You need to have one to give any operation legitimacy. Otherwise before you know it we’d be holding the baby and be back to square one. Now you might think it was worth a crack at it anyway even with that risk. Depends how desperate it all gets. In a world where the strong do as they will and the weak suffer what they must, and in a world where that region is perceived a poisoned chalice with any action struggling for legitimacy then it might simply be the case that a lots of people need to be allowed to die to save the majority of them.
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GNB,
You missed out at least one fucking there. Not good to miss out on fuckings.
I think you might make a brilliant Adjutant. I was an Adjutant twice, it did not suit me and the Colonel and I argued, but I was tremendously conceited at the time.
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@RT
Not sensitive are we…
Now who needs to grow a pair
So a Walting we shall go is it RT
Were you at Waterloo as well?
We could go at this all night RT, fun it ain’t
Or we could act like men shake hands, agree to disagree and respect each other’s opinions however opposed they are
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The pins have been pulled! We need a UN resolution for TD.
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@Simon257
Wouldn’t be surprised if that’s already happened/happening.
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@ Monkey
The Kurds have been appealing for Aid for months. For their own self serving reasons, Washington and Baghdad have turned a deaf ear to them. How much pressure has Ankara put on either country not to assist the Kurds?
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‘Do you still think we need a UN resoloution?’
If it was purely get in and get these people out I don’t think we do. I would not back fighting IS in Iraq any way, we just need to contain them and do that by aiding the Kurds with maybe some basing and over fly from Turkey.
Putting Western troops on the ground to fight IS is just going to be a rallying call for the nutters globally and the Shia will get backing from Iran.
One thing is certain and that is we cannot feed these people indefinately from the air, the Kurds can’t help them at this time and IS will slaughter them.
I also have no doubt that if we did launch an op to save them Baroness Warsi would proclaim it’s because they are Christian.
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@Phil
“Otherwise before you know it we’d be holding the baby”
If it was a baby about to be beheaded or buried alive because its parents refused to change their beliefs at sword point and someone’s SF arrived and slotted the twat then that’s a good thing ,right?
Who will be prosecuted in the Haugue do you think and what panel judges will convinct our soldiers for trying to stop the morally reprehensible inhuman acts by these throwbacks to the seventh Century. So an ex IS member swears on whatever that his brethern were murdered by members of the SF , you would here the laughter in around the globe on that one.
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ITV News reports that thanks to US airstrikes the Kurds have taken back 2 towns from ISIS. ITN also says that Downing Street has turned down Kurdish requests for weapons. That seems crazy to me. I doubt the public wants UK troops in Iraq, so arming the Kurds to do the groundfighting while the US & perhaps the RAF do the air support, seems the best solution to me.
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@Monkey
Just jumping into that region with both boots landing firmly on the ground is simply not a realistic option at the moment. We can’t do it on our own and if we were going to do that the only way to (a) generate the force and (b) generate the will to see it through would be via an unequivocal UN resolution then every civilised nation on Earth getting stuck in.
Anything other than that is asking for trouble and won’t save anyone down there.
The domestic political arguments get a lot easier to make if you have a UN resolution and the politicians get a lot less frightened.
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@RT – Your confidence is greatly appreciated, not least because I have a pretty shrewd idea as to who you are, and how well qualified to judge…where I obviously have the advantage of @Fedaykin.
I’ll start getting organised…I assume 3 Sabre Squadrons and an HQ?
A rather touched GNB (in more ways than one!) 🙂
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Fedaykin,
I don’t know who you are, and I’ve certainly got better things to be doing overnight. You may not.
But I wonder, have you ever faced the Queen’s enemy on the field of battle? If you have, then I accept your opinion. If you have not, fuck off.
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I’ll guarantee every “yuman rites” puke and left wing pressure group will be against us, followed closely by the Islamic groups who have been turning a Nelsonian blind eye to Muslims offing hundreds of thousands of their co-religionists for decades. I’m sure the “lawfare” brigade will be directly behind them too. Frankly, we need to repeal our membership of ECHR, but this is what we will always get whatever we do. Screw them all.
Practical side is still is that for significant ground forces we need access to Turkish bases. We need the ground supply lines via Turkey, and we need secure airbases. I don’t see the Turks offering us that, which means we are restricted to SF plus airpower flying over Iraq via Kuwait, and the distances and basing says they must be B52’s/B1’s. Good enough?
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@Phil
“and won’t save anyone down there.”
Do you not think we cannot save lives ? Fighting along side the Kurds , how inept due think, just for one, do you think the UK ‘ s special forces are? Let alone the rest of the worlds SF . Is saving one life not enough just to save on a few complicated legal matters later. This is not “has Saddam got Weapons of Mass Destruction” this is children being beheaded for being born to the wrong religion.
Never mind , its not in your backyard or your family ,just some sand shifters born the other side of the world ,eh. How detached are you from the horror of what is going on there to stand behind UN resolutions . Why shouldn’t we commit one human life defend another? Get on google and start searching for those images of what those , I honestly cannot think of a word(s) to describe them, I am beyond disgust at their actions and their justifications for it. They pollute the name of a proud people to serve their own ends.
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@Phil
We did not get UN approval fro our intervention in Kosovo, and that is a similar situation to this.
If we do want to sway public opinion, it would help if the news at ten was not sanitised as much as it is.
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@Phil – normally I’d agree with you on the UN, but this set of circumstances does seem to me to be a potential step change as to the underlying relevance of that organisation. It never was more than the sum of those members welling to act, with a hefty top-dressing of wishful thinking about the reality of “the International Community” and “International Law”…could it survive a public and unconscionable failure on this scale and not go down into the dark like the League of Nations before it?
GNB
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I believe I know who RT is and I can categorically state that a Walt he ain’t. Not that he needs that testimonial from me.
He has however, chosen to make one of his personal hobby horses part of a debate, which ought to have nothing to do with kit, but rather to be about how to deal with a regional powerplay that has been brewing for a while and which needs us (that’ll be the West then) to make some fairly fundamental decisions about who we are, what we stand for, what our interests are and most importantly, how far we are prepared to go to support them. It ain’t about kit, it ain’t about which service takes the lead. It’s all about how far we are willing to go and to be honest, our appetite for testing hard questions in public debate (as opposed to half-witted soundbites).
If we are all honest, the following are true :
1. The current situation can loosely be linked to the end of the Cold War and probably GW2.
2. Saddam and Gadaffiduck were both evil b@stards who no-one in their right minds will mourn.
3. What has actually caused most of the horrific casualties in the last ten years has been a power vacuum, That vacuum has exposed a fundamental problem with countries in the ME arc, namely that the significant numbers of the sects of their “religion of peace” backed on one side by Saudi and Qatari money and on the other by Iran, seem incapable of living peacefully with anyone, be it the West, the Red Sea Pedestrians or whichever side of the Shia/Sunni divide they sit on.
4. The adherents of this schism appear to be utterly immune to the most barbaric excesses – in fact literally glorying in some elements of it. In general they are non-state actors and the ability to catch them and hold them (legally) to account is therefore limited.
5. A significant element of leftist western populations hold the RSP to be the root cause of all this, when in fact the most heinous excesses are being perpetrated in a conflict that has little if anything to do with them. This (and increasing levels of immigrant populations) limit what “we” can do.
6. The Red Sea Pedestrians don’t always help themselves, to say the least.
Frankly, there are limited options, however many carriers or armoured divisions you have. In order to do anything, we’re going to have to have a debate with ourselves that goes beyond multi-culti happy clappy nonsense and sets out what we believe to be acceptable behaviours (irrespective of sky-fairies) and what we in this country are prepared to tolerate. We also need to temper that debate with realpolitik as to our fundamental dependencies and what we are prepared to do to reduce them.
While there is a visceral reaction that suggests walling the whole bunch of them up and letting them fight it out and if there’s any nonsense, glass car-park the lot of them, that doesn’t stand up when confronted with the individual examples of “them” we all know.
Bottom line, we need to make a stand based on morals, tempered with interest, have the public debate and then stick to it. Which has been unfortunately too long coming for those stuck on the wrong side of our vacillation.
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@RT
Temper Temper
Act like a child and ye shall be treated as such.
I have offered more then one olive branch
You chose to spit them in my face
So now I call you a Walt
So no I won’t Fuck off
Just laugh at someone who should know better
@NAB
Maybe he isn’t a Walt, maybe he has a distinguished career in our services but that doesn’t excuse his highly childish behaviour, as that is all he seems understand then insults is what it shall be
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No Dave this is very different. The region is too politically sensitive. It is nothing like Kosovo. There’s too much water under the bridge. Or oil under the bridge.
@Gloomy
To fix the problem properly you need international legitimacy. That really can only come from the UN. Anything short of a clear UN resolution leaves us open to setting an ‘exit strategy’ the moment the news gets bored of the story.
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Also nothing good will come of anything unless, as has been asked, the Iraqis form a broader government. From a realist perspective one might be tempted to let them hang in the wind and make support conditional on them doing that but (a) that doesn’t seem to be working and (b) I doubt they give a fuck about what is happening up North and probably secretly hope ISIS will complete their goal and we’ll rock up late and hand them back a nicely depopulated and cleansed bloc of land that can be parcelled out to cronies.
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‘No Dave this is very different’
You do not need a resolution to stop genocide, and I doubt you would get one given our relationship with Russia at the moment. The Arab leaugue and Iran will say nothing and the rest of the world will not say much if the Arabs don’t. the Africans are facing their own problems with Jihadi’s so will say nothing as well.
And if we wait too long they will probably be dead, unless we back the Kurds to take back ground and rescue them if we do not send our own.
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@Phil
“To fix the problem properly”
There is no fixing this in the near term or even long term by any means but there is a need to save lives , they may lose thier homelands ,become a displaced people but they will still live and dream about their still living children’s futures.
Or we could talk about it in the UN for the next several weeks and allow IS forces to finish want they started and the anthropologist could piece together from the few survivors of what is left of a thousand year old culture once again.
There is as time for ‘Jaw, jaw , jaw’ but there is also a time for action lest the day (or people) be lost when others see our lack of commitment and take advantage to complete their evil.
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Dave I’m arguing for a resolution not for any moral or legalistic purpose but to provide a foundation for the exercising of the appropriate level of will to see through a solution that at least stands a chance of lasting longer than the news bulletins. Intervention in that area requires legitimacy which is only possible through solid international consensus.
Monkey
I am quite sure you could catch a flight into Kurdistan if you’re so bullish about it all.
Everything ISIS does is done in the belief nobody in the west has the will to endure and stop them in a country we’ve so recently left after an occupation. Jump in and kick off and most will simply go to ground until we leave. If they believe we won’t go they’ll have no choice but to fight us and we could brass them up on the ramparts.
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I read this article recently “Sea Harriers over the Balkans” in an old copy of Combat Aircraft magazine, so seeing as there are several comments on RN carrier ops, I thought I would post a few extracts from it.
“In August 1994, the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible once again returned to the Adriatic and operation “Hamden”, entering theatre were six Sea Harrier FRS1s from 800 NAS embarked. A few weeks later the air group was augmented by the arrival of four Sea Harrier FA2s from 899 NAS (OEC) flight. Flown out in order to work up in an operational environment prior to the types full introduction into service in early 1995. This would be the last front line deployment of the FRS1. Back in the UK, after a protracted and sometimes difficult development, the transition to the long-awaited FA2 was getting under way, with 801 NAS receiving it’s first two aircraft in October 1994.
However the time may have been running out for the FRS1, 800 NAS still had plenty of work to do on the “Deny Flight” tasking. And that meant potentially going into harms way, as the pilots of two FRS1s found on November 22, 1994. Flying a combat air patrol just above 23,000 ft east of Bihac, well within Bosnian Serb SAM envelopes, the pair was illuminated by a “Fan Song” fire-control radar. Just after the pilots began the obligatory evasive break manoeuvre their aircraft were bisected by two SA-2 missiles, which continued skyward to detonate some 5,000 ft above. It was an uncomfortably close shave.
This blatant escalation by the Serbs prompted NATO’s 5th Allied Tactical Air Force to issue new policy guidelines stipulating that only aircraft with self-protecting jammers would now be considered for operations over Bosnia. The Sea Harrier devoid of such a capability, found it’s contribution to “Deny Flight” abruptly halted.
The sudden marginalisation of the Sea Harrier caused much consternation in the British MoD – particularly the Naval Staff – as the UK’s carrier contribution became ide-lined over night. A concession was subsequently granted that allowed the Sea Harriers to operate in a small arc around the Mostar area, but the reduction in operational radius inevitably meant a lower level of tasking. This restriction was eventually lifted after the Sea Harrier force convinced the Combined Air Operations Centre that a combination of tactics, radar warning receiver and AN/ALE-40 chaff countermeasures was sufficiently robust from a survivability view. Meanwhile a UOR was raised in order to give the Sea Harrier an active self-protection capability. There was more drama for 800 NAS in mid-December when aircraft XZ493 ditched in the hover alongside HMS Invincible. The pilot Lt David Kistruck ejected safely. 800 NAS completed it’s deployment on February 18th, with aircraft ZE698 flying the last ever FRS1 combat mission. In total, the squadron aircraft had completed more than 360 sorties in support of operation “Deny Flight” since the previous September.”
Long passage on the Blue Vixen radar and AMRAAM, I will just copy this paragraph:
“The new Blue Vixen radar in particular was a revelation….apart from a few software glitches Ferranti had got that right pretty much first time. We had gone from a fairly rudimentary short-range intercept radar with Blue Fox to a true user-centric, multi-mode system that made you king of the skies.”
One the front line
The first full Sea Harrier FA2 front-line deployment in the Adriatic commenced in March 1995 with six aircraft from 801 NAS operating from HMS Illustrious, recently returned to service after a major refit. Prior to arriving in theatre, 801 had completed an extensive work-up encompassing electronic warfare training at Spadeadam, air combat training, a joint Maritime course off northern Scotland and dissimilar training at Decimomannu. This busy work up period was the ideal run-in to “Deny Flight”. And while the FA2 was initially released to service with the ‘legacy’ AIM-9M Sidewinder missile, the new Blue Vixen quickly demonstrated it’s vastly improved capabilities on CAP sorties, achieving several autonomous radar pick-ups of helicopters defying UN resolutions in the no-fly zone. Continuing the Adriatic tour of duty, 800 NAS returned to the fray in August 1995 embarked onboard HMS Invincible. By now, the FA2s deployed in theatre were equipped with the Texas Instruments Generic Expendable active expendable radar decoy.
After an initial 16 days on “Deny Flight” tasking, Invincible took a break from operations for a short crew break in Corfu followed by a weapons training period in the Ionian Sea. The ship then sailed to Palma, Majorca, for a planned 10 day rest. It was during this down-time that Bosnian Serb forces mortared the market place in Sarajevo, the resultant slaughter sparking outrage from the international community and pushing NATO into action. The decision was taken to force Bosnian Serb Army heavy weaponry out of the 12 mile exclusion zone around Sarajevo, and open the city’s airport to humanitarian aid. Invincible sailed at sort notice to resume station in the Adriatic as NATO commenced airstrikes on August 29 under the mantle of operation “Deliberate Force”. 801’s participation began on September 5th with the launch of a wave of four FA2s, each equipped with two MK13 1000lb HE bombs, to hit a military storage depot at Visegrad. 800 NAS continued medium-level air strikes against ammunition dumps and storage areas on a daily basis through to the cessation of “Deliberate Force” on September 14. In addition, FA2s flew specific battle damage assessment missions tophotograph target areas within minutes of each bombing sortie. Over the 10 day period, the squadron flew just over 100 hours during 21 operational missions. Tactics developed on paper were validated in practice, with four aircraft able to put eight bombs on target inside a two-minute time-on-target window. Bombing results also confirmed the air-to-surface capability of the FA2 integrated Weapons System. Illustrious relieved Invincible once again in December 1995. That same month saw the signing of the Dayton Accord, a peace deal negotiated the previous month in Dayton, Ohio.
More on Dayton………….
With diplomatic efforts bearing fruit, and hard-edged ‘peacemaking’ transitioning
to peacekeeping, the UK government in late January 1996 took the decision to end the carrier deployment in the Adriatic. Illustrious and 801 NAS were finally stood-down in mid-February. The two generations of Sea Harrier had flown 1,748 sorties from HM Ships Invincible, Illustrious and Ark Royal in the three year period.
Reflecting on that time, Ade Orchard believes that the Sea Harrier force more than proved it’s worth in the FRY theatre of operations. “The Falklands had set the path to a pulse-Doppler radar and a BVR missile. What the Balkans did was give the Sea Harrier an opportunity to demonstrate it’s swing-role capability and relevance to the post-Cold War epoch.
We proved ‘swing’ across air-to-air, air-to-ground and reconnaissance on numerous occasions in theatre as a full mission set. It made the Sea Harrier operationally relevant again, put us back on the map. From that perspective the Balkans was a game-changer”.
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Phil, if your arguing for a resolution for longer term involvement then I myself would not back it, unless it is just material and training assistance. Putting Western forces on the ground regardless of UN resolutions is something we should not do IMO.
Quick in and out does not need a resolution, and I doubt the people who matter would care.
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@NaB – Nicely put, wholly agree, I’m on the “intervene with extreme prejudice” end of the debate but don’t really expect that side to triumph in the context of our current political class and the public discourse that they purport to lead, and that situation fills me with abject horror in these circumstances…any suggestions as to what to do about it as a chap harbouring a whole clutch of unfashionable and unpopular opinions warmly welcomed!
@Phil – I struggle to imagine that the UN can stand yet another abject failure on this scale, or to see how one is to be avoided…but they probably will, and it will get worse; I fear for Junior, now 11…
Is there anything we collectively can do about it? Answers on a postcard please…
Profoundly Gloomy, perhaps even a little despairing.
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Actually Fed, think you were the one who first called him a Walt.
Now both of you go stand in your corners. 😛
Why don’t we just call it a draw? Or at least a conflict with no good reason or rhyme to carry on?
@Phil
Woo… Machivellian. I do agree on the broader based government, but I doubt this is in any way a planned result, they stand to lose too much prestige and credibility from this disaster to the point where their next election standing is seriously in doubt, and their “new defensive army” is seen as a joke and the voting bloc of minorities are going to go off on their own to join anyone else that can promise them security.
No, in this case, I suspect it is simply a massive balls up that wasn’t forseen, part of which is the side effect of ISIS being expelled from AQ and barred from operating in Syria, so all the militants came home to roost in droves.
The problem now is how to solve it.
If we drove an army right through their lines, how do we sort the sheep from the goats then? If they simply faded back into the civpop or worse break down someone’s door to use their house as a firing point with the family still inside and restrained from leaving? You’ll get hundreds of hostage situations all over the place.
I am in favour of intervention, but knowing intervention, the kind where you go in knowing what to expect, not drive up in a tank, get into the above mentioned hostage situation, then have to dick around passing the buck up the chain of command until someone finally bites the bullet to take responsibility and pass sensible orders.
monkey, think you have too high an idea of “special forces”. Most of them are just normal blokes that are fitter and had more training than the rest of us. They can still screw up by the numbers sometimes (though slightly less than the rest due to better training) and can’t walk on water, so it’s not advisable to throw them into Alamo situations.
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@DN
So you’re arguing for a short term intervention that solves nothing with no hope of a strategy to try and put a lid on this level of violence? More sticking plaster interventions where we desperately want to run away before the first bomb has been dropped? And an intervention where troops are magicked out of thin air in the numbers needed with no attempt at international consensus?
It’s all short term ism. It’s all token. It’s these buggers today, in a few months it will be someone else. All the while we burn more and more of our currency there for no real achievement.
The yanks will take the pressure off these people so if what you argue for is all we’ve got we should just stick to dropping some aid and maybe have a coffee morning to knit some socks.
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@Observer
“Actually Fed, think you were the one who first called him a Walt.”
Indeed I did and I derived much childish enjoyment from it. He took it to the gutter first. I asked him to play nice. He didn’t so now he is a Walt…
Not really constructive but that is all he deserves until he grows up and winds his neck in
Every “Fuck off” I get from the jerk will get a reply of “Walt”
Fun aye
Right I’m off to stand in my corner
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@Phil,
My strategy is backing the Kurds, which I have stated a number of times. the short term action is purely for humanitarian reasons and northing more.
If you want a UN resolution you should be prepared to drop the sanctions against Russia in exchange for it, and putting Western troops on the ground will attract all the IS and AQ from Syria. The Iraqi government will stand by and watch us do the fighting while bickering amongst each other ( Maliki is still refusing to withdraw running for a third term ). Baghdad is not our problem and to a certain extent neither are IS, the Shia will get backing from Iran and Suadi and Qatar will need to face up to what they have created, in much the same way we did with Bin laden.
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@Phil
“If they believe we won’t go they’ll have no choice but to fight us and we could brass them up on the ramparts”
So we turn up with our nice new UN resolution and bury the dead,set up FOB’s , patrol , try to arrest those responsible but as all the witness’s are gone there is no one to point the finger . So we shall wait. For what ? Everybody’s dead ,they have patience , we will leave eventually and the dead will remain. If IS forms I really don’t care , a new Caliphate so what but those who fell in it forming , ah well?
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monkey, I don’t think it’ll be that bad initially, the current ISIS is acting more like an army than an insurgent force, which is a very narrow window of opportunity to do as much damage as you can before it scatters. After that, the problems start. I already iterated some of them above.
I do see some of Phil’s point, right now, we are in a bit of a Goldilocks situation, we don’t hit hard enough, or we don’t hold on hard enough to solve anything. Either direction is ok as long as it gets us off the utterly useless center.
Then comes the moral questions. What the F are we going to do with 5,000+ prisoners? Build new prisons just for them? Kill them all in the mirror image of their mass murders? (I got nothing against kill em all, but others might balk). Put them on trial which would finish by about year 2200?
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Interesting discussion guys. I have to say Obama is right – there is no imposed solution to this, Malaki isn’t willing to give up personal power so it looks like the only effective solution on the ground is to accept (at least for the moment) a partitioned solution and accept a 3 state Iraq. The Shia based south will be fine (the army and militias are capable and well equipped enough) and will be supported by Iran (although I doubt they will ever be consumed by Iran).
We will have to arm the Kurds with much more modern and heavier equipment (it seems IS has picked up a lot of heavier equipment). Whilst this may upset the Turkish government, it seems the only way to stabilize the North and prevent the current situation worsening. This means more airstrikes to support them on the ground.
This leaves the Sunni dominated middle. I guess there are enough moderate Sunni’s we could get behind. I have no idea whether they are currently strong enough to stop IS and kick them out of Iraq (or how we could support them at a practical level). Again whether this is possible to do before IS consolidate their hold is a big problem. If IS become the “permanent” government to the middle of Iraq (plus part Syria) then effectively, we end up with the creation of another failed start analogous to the Taliban controlled Afghanistan. We know what happened there and the consequences. Surely, the one real lesson from Afghanistan is that the cost of allowing an extreme form of Islam control any large area is likely to be one we don’t want to pay.
Its better to accept federal Iraq solution in place up to today has failed and leave them to find their own 3 state Federal solution and stop IS today than allow them to create another Afghanistan. I guess Obama et al must know this, but recent history probably makes US ground troops a virtual impossibility. Even if the UK and France had the political will [and we don’t], I doubt we could practically put a large enough force on the ground. That suggests that you have to consider a Saudi/Jordanian/Egyptian force as the only workable solution.
The problem here is having stood behind the Shia dominated 1 nation government would they be happy to allow the partition of Iraq or would they want to take over the rest of the country a couple of years down the line
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If we want to effect any change, whatever is done needs to be performed for at least one generation.
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The majority opinion for Iraq war vets ?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/08/bombing-isis-islamic-state-iraq-war-veterans
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nick, I’ll wait for the rest of them to chime in before calling it a majority. 🙂
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Long term we need to accept that Iraq as a country is dead.
We need to back the Kurds and pall up with Iran (been saying that about Iran for 30 years).
We need to a certain extent to leave the Sunnis to their fate it is after all self imposed…
We also need to look at getting the Saudis and the Gulf Arabs to stop funding mass murderers and in effect wake up to the fact these are very bad people.
Phils point about UN Well mafe if they won’t play ball then this is the Un’s Abysinian crisis and it becomes an irrelevence.
However someone has to ask the for a resolution. No one seems to be doing that. I think jaw jaw is about to win……
Not arming the Kurds. Is a VERY bad sign..
So what the world has so far is me GNB And RT. Thats enough for one cvrt….
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Shit TD x 6 = 54 is a bit harsh for a Monday morning!
@DN
So what’s the point? As you rightly point out the reasons this is happening are far deeper than just one group being bastards. There’s huge problems there. The Americans are already effectively showing they wont allow these people to be run down, we’re dropping aid. I see no point in taking this further unless we have a proper plan. At best we displace the problem. Wonderful for our conscious until the next X Factor series is on. But achieves very little else.
It’s a fucking mess and sticking plasters won’t cut it. So best to not bother if that’s all we can offer. Let the US effectively displace the problem and turn ISIS back south and we can keep most of them alive with aid.
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Ixion, think you’re a bit too pessimistic. A country isn’t land or a governmental structure, it is the people, and as long as there are people calling themselves Iraqis, there will still be an Iraq same as how there still is a Palestine even after they were expelled from the land and had nuts all organizational structure in the early days.
If you do want to do a drop into Iraq, I’ll have to ask you if you have all your ducks in order, primarily funding and equipment and supplies. Do you have a funding source? Equipment supplier? A supply of food, water and ammunition? Or are you hoping to work on the principle of pranic feeding and reenact Rambo by going after an army with a pocket knife?
And God help you with weapon licences. I don’t think there is one available commercially for things like a GPMG or RPG which you are going to need.
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@Phil
It’s not a sticking plaster it’s a humanitarian op. Even the US cannot keep dropping food indefinitely, and the only true way of defending these people is to either put boots on the ground or evacuate them. We cannot rely on the Americans being able to hold them off with air power either.
If we can use the peshmerga to reach them and get them to safety then that’s fine, but they have not got the heavy kit so a massive increase in air support will be required. We saved this region from Saddam at the end of GW1, are we going to sit by and do nothing a generation later when they face a worse enemy. A bit of training from the likes of yourself in trauma care and a few weeks training from our infantry can greatly enhance the peshmerga’s ability to keep their territory, coupled with a trip down the Pakistani bazar to buy RPG’s, AK’s and PKM’s.
If IS push them back they will flood into Turkey, who will not be happy that a large number of people that until recently they were fighting in a guerrilla style war are entering their country.
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Ok, we have one less to worry about. What do we do with the other 500?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2721125/British-jihadi-went-fight-ISIS-sacked-Primark-killed-Syria.html
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IXION
Does the US really need a UN resolution (French appear to be managing this anyway). Surely, the Government of Iraq has requested US support. The relief operation and any air strikes are purely a bi-lateral matter under international law.
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I suggest, as we are going to be to late (again) to intervene effectively in this barbarity, we set up a special force on a high state of preparedness to be able to deploy by air to the nearest secure airfield and then overland by locally sourced transport to the areas of need. Initially a HQ company will deploy to liase with local authorities within 24 hours of the order to go. Prepreparation being in the runup as the situations developing around the world with briefings by the Security Services and the FO to several HQ teams who are tasked with adapting contingency plans on the basis of “if we get the go ahead whats the plan on the current intel” .The main body to arrive within 24 of the HQ team. The main body a mix of SF and a Battalion of light infantry.Preprepared kit to accompany in prepacked civilian air cargo pallets tuned to the local climate.I suggest calling it Spearhead Land Element.
Spearhead Land Element will be oriented towards low and medium-intensity operations such as regional security, disaster-relief or non-combatant evacuation.
Does any of this sound familiar? In the end though it is all a waste of time if we do not have leadership capable of making the hard choices. They will wait for someone else to take the lead or the UN to talk it to death.
Perhaps Putin could win some friends , he already supports Assad whos enemy is ISIL . If Assad calls in his buddies Airborne forces ,who are all ready very experienced at fighting this kind of nutters, 35,000 paras might be able to swing the pendulum the other way.
http://www.janes.com/article/41665/russia-to-double-size-of-airborne-forces
Similar to when everybody stood back and talked and let the Khemer Rouge slaughter its own people by the million the ARV took the responsibity and invaded Cambodia to end the killing fields.
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@ Monkey – It’s the will, not the means…had the worthless and cowardly charlatans who purport to govern us overcome their craven cowardice first thing Friday, I suspect we could have boots on the ground and jets in the sky now…remember if you will that the FI task force was ready to sail in two or three days, and that was before we allegedly organised ourselves around “Rapid Reaction”.
In this case, I think the method would be to get things moving as far as Cyprus immediately, sort out the Diplomacy with the planes in the air, and re-organise the loads on the tarmac to any extent needed…the President of Cyprus agreed that he couldn’t stop us doing that even if he wanted to, so I’m guessing he thought we might and wanted to get his excuses to the neighbours in first…
GNB
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@GNB
With you on our leadership , forward deploying to Cyprus , even if under the pretence of an exercise with prelacies kit for the Iraqi summer climate ( tell me please we do that kind of preparation at least ?) Once we get the get go just a few ours flight from boots on the ground in Kurdistan. With a 4,800 m runway at Erbil that shouldn’t be much problem.
Perhaps President Xi will see an opportunity to make friends and offer the PLAAF 15th Airborne Corps ? The could deploy by civilian airliners/transports to southern Iraqi airfields and push north through those ‘corridors’ ISIL seem to occupying , with Kurds pushing from the north , the Syrians from the west and the Iraqi army ,er , sitting it out.
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monkey, ARV? The ARV put Pol Pot in power in the first place and only turned against him when he invaded them. Before that, they were the best of pals… The reason why the rest of the world let Pol Pot carry on was because the Vietnamese were seen as a bigger threat and they kept the Khmer on the UN seat because they rather them than the Vietnamese.
As for high readiness battalions, units cannot be maintained on such a state for too long. After a while, your alert amber becomes meaningless because people get bored when nothing happens. When this happens, your readiness status becomes a useless system because “everyone knows nothing happens”.
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@Observer
Indeed the communist Khmer Rouge was supported by the North Vietnamese and workrd with them along side the Pathet Lao against the capitalist forces in the region. Eventually they turned on each other after the North had conquered South Vietnam and the Khmer became the established government in Cambodia. I think even the Vietnamese government were sickened by the activities of the Khmer Rouge and committed wholesale forces to ending their regime. After installing a government based on there own model they withdrew not occupying the conquered territory.
On your comment on readiness of a battalion I would suggest , a cycle of working up , on stand by and training , on wind down over say a 4 month period , with three battalions at a time 1 winding up, 1 ready , 1 winding down and a total of 9 battalions giving a 2 year break in between cycles .
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I doubt the Vietnamese were that..philanthropic. You do know that they both work from almost the same playbook with death squads and mass executions? They won’t be disgusted by the killing fields, they had their own.
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It’s not a sticking plaster it’s a humanitarian op.
So it’s a sticking plaster then! What else is it if it doesn’t prevent this from likely happening again? If you stop them massacring these people they’re going to go and do it to someone else and have been merrily beheading and murdering people for some time now.
It is quite clear that the only chance Iraqi’s have is if Maliki goes and a broader more inclusive government is formed. Then I imagine the US at least will be more willing to do more in terms of military and economic aid to screw ISIS up. As it is we are all doing the bare minimum.
There needs to be a grand plan for boots on the ground. You simply cannot turn up and go home when you feel like it in that place. History tells us all that.
You go in, you go all in. To go all in you need a UN resolution as a starting point or you leave the will vulnerable to attacks of self-interest and unilateral action that kills civilians.
I believe that the US policy aim is for a moderate and inclusive Government to be formed. They’re strategy is to starve Maliki out hoping that ISIS pressure will force Iraq to eject him. In the meantime a lot of people are up shit creek and we will do the bare minimum to keep them largely alive – anything more and that removes pressure from Maliki and undermines the aim. Tightrope.
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‘So it’s a sticking plaster then!’
No, it’s a humanitarian op in conjunction with bolstering the Kurds. These people are trapped by geography the rest of Iraq will flee towards Baghdad as the IS advance, and then will rightfully be the Iraqi governments concern.
‘There needs to be a grand plan for boots on the ground’
So putting Western boots on the ground will not inflame anyone? and probably won’t succeed in such a way we would call victory.
‘To go all in you need a UN resolution’
Which I’m doubtful you will get, with the way things are with Russia. And even with a resolution who will come? we need a lot more than the usual suspects.
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So how does a humanitarian operation begin to prevent this happening again when global attention moves on?
I have little confidence of a UN resolution – I don’t think I’ve even seen those words together in the news. I am simply saying we can’t charge in there – we need a plan. And a plan without a UN resolution is more than likely a plan with no legitimacy.
Personally as I say I think we’ll do just enough to keep most of them alive (despite the RAF squashing some people) in an attempt to keep the pressure on Maliki. With him there or someone like him Iraq doesn’t stand a chance. If I was him I’d be bugging out I can’t understand why anyone remotely sane would want to keep that job considering what will happen to him eventually.
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Humanitarian missions are not there to prevent anything they are there to alleviate suffering and save some lives, if we wanted to prevent it we would have started bombing IS weeks ago.
If we did go all in where do we stop, do we follow IS into Syria and then by default back Assad, or do we sit on the border with Syria/Iraq for another decade in the middle east slowly feeding personnel into body bags at the rate of 1 a week fighting off skirmishes and incursions from IS. All the while slowly training up an army of a fractured state who have their allegiances based on religion and will start to see us an army of occupation again.
My preferred method would be set up a MOB in the Kurdish region and help the peshmerga hold the line with airpower and expertise and some heavier weapons. Do not support them if they push further outside of their area of autonomy unless in coordination with the legitimate Iraqi government.
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Then what are you arguing for exactly? We’re already conducting a humanitarian mission without any indication we want to do anything immediate about the causes of that humanitarian disaster. Seems we’ll do the bare minimum about this at least until Maliki makes us blink.
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‘Then what are you arguing for exactly?’
Those people need evacuating not food dropped on them. When this thread started we were not even doing that, I’ve never argued to openly go to war with IS in Iraq I’ve always stated in and out, to get the yadizi out the area and into Kurdish territory.
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While the situation in Iraq is serious & needs US/UK/Allied attention, we need to remember that the Ukraine crisis has not gone away. On defense news, a US senator is predicting that either Ukraine forces will mop up the pro Russian rebels this week or Putin will invade to stop that happening. How then do we respond? Looks like there could be 2 crisis at once to deal with. Will Cameron come back from hols to attend to it, or just open another bottle of wine?
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The Telegraph reports that Russia is sending 280 trucks full of aid to the pro Russian rebels in Ukraine. Western officials fear they could be carrying weapons or soldiers.
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@JH
These trucks should be intercepted and searched , if weapons are on board and not just food and medical aid then Putin is caught ‘Red’ handed aiding a civil war. The intercept I know would be very problematic with the risk of an escalation which maybe Putin is planning on . A Russian national killed by Ukrainian troops would be a gift for him to send his troops over the border.
The evidence of supplying weapons should bring condemnation from the international community. If some independent observers are present ,say from Holland ,it would reduce the risk of a confrontation especial if some UAV’s are circulating overhead obvuiously videoing everything.
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