ISIL's nuclear weapons

Read the forum code of contact

Member for

17 years 6 months

Posts: 9,739

It makes me wonder why these sites haven't been reduced to rubble.

Sorry, I missed this.....it is an excellent question; why haven't 'surgical strikes' been made against oil targets?

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 9,780

You can't do that with regular forces opposing irregular forces as the Americans discovered in Vietnam

You can if you have disciplined forces and a clear political will to achieve it -the prime example being Operation Firedog.

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

I don't know Operation Firedog.

The only way that I imagine you might be able to do it is by adopting the methods of your enemy. Eg. Malaya, Cyprus, Borneo. These theatres were relatively small scale, even so, we used air assets at at least two of them to assist. Our enemy didn't have that luxury.

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

One or two commentators either inferred that I was being a bit tough on ISIL and they weren't quite the threat that I made them out to be.

Well, here are some more thoughts from no less than renowned author - tho' not to everyone's taste - V.S. Naipaul. He says (report, D. Tel. 23rd) that ISIL can be likened to a latter day Fourth Reich. He goes on to write that they believe in their own racial superiority and have wiped out whole civil populations of certain regions.

Naipaul continues that ISIL offer the most serious and potent threat to the world since the Third Reich. ISIL are dedicated to a contemporary Holocaust. It has pledged itself to the murder of Shias, Jews, Christians, Copts and Yazidis.

The Nobel prize winner, said that ISIL is a totalitarian State, absolute in its authority.

Useful info for the Doubting Thomas'

Member for

11 years 5 months

Posts: 11,141

A fine novelist but that does not make his views on ISIL any more relevant than anyone else's. And there will be much debate around the assertion he makes in the third paragraph.

Member for

17 years 6 months

Posts: 9,739

One or two commentators either inferred that I was being a bit tough on ISIL and they weren't quite the threat that I made them out to be.

The point I was trying to make was that we should not overestimate the capability of ISIL as a threat to the United Kingdom.

I do not doubt the inclination of ISIL to exterminate anybody that doesn't bow to their ideology but there is a big difference in the threat of ISIL depending on whether you live in the United Kingdom of whether you are a virtually defenceless Yazidi!

What concerns me is that United Kingdom defence policy seems to be increasingly skewed towards the 'threat' of ISIL at the expense of our more traditional (and much more capable) enemies. Plus our (however well intentioned) interference in the region has been turned against us and led to accusations of imperialism or even religious crusade; now that ISIL are terrorising the whole region there have been, of course, calls for the west to 'do more'. We're damned either way!

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

Nothing there with which I'd argue CD. What does concern me and others who give some thought to these matters, is the apparent level of covert support in this country for these rascals.

The fact tht we can't control illegal immigration means that many who are our enemies find our borders completely porous. We now read that illegals are being exported out so that they can return at a time of their choosing co-incident with whatever beneficial welfare changes are in the offing !

The threat of ISIL is necessarily a covert threat. They cannot move large armies across the Channel but, they could, given our lack of control over our coastline, infiltrate piecemeal and merge successfully into a receptive and visually identical section of the population.

There, to assemble over time, very dangerous toxins of a bacterial or viral nature and capable of causing huge casualties and perhaps more importantly widespread panic among a population that to my understanding, does not have the resilience or mental and physical toughness of the wartime generation.

Yes, let us overestimate the capabilities of ISIL and be prepared.

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

Charlie,

He's nobody's fool. He's written extensively on the subject of Islam. He's informed and I respect his opinion.

Member for

11 years 5 months

Posts: 11,141

John

Of course he is not and my intention was not to suggest he was. Merely that across the Islamic world there is a breadth of opinion and he falls into the more extreme camp by making the comparison he does. It is one which is not shared by other equally respected figures.

Member for

17 years 6 months

Posts: 9,739

I think we need to remember what ISIL actually is. It is an organisation that is dedicated to forming a government; admittedly a dictatorship, based on a particularly narrow and utterly intolerant religious ideology, but a government all the same. The method that ISIL has chosen to gain power is one of pure terror directed by religious extremism...

...but it is a particular religious extremism.....and there is the key right there.

There is suspicion that ISIL is (privately) funded by very wealthy individuals and groups in Saudi Arabia and that this is because ISIL follow a particular strain of Islam (Sunni over Shia, I think, but I'm damned if I'm going to look it up) and that Saudi Arabia is waging a war by proxy after spending decades and billions of dollars promoting the same particular strain of Islam; Saudi Arabia being a respectable country, with a friendly disposition towards the west, and all. In that respect the hostility towards the west is something of a smokescreen, but one which could provoke (and has provoked) a response from the west (which plays right into the hands of ISIL making it a 'holy-war' and adding to the smokescreen)!

Unfortunately those funding ISIL seem to have got more than they bargained for, and have created a monster! The rulers of Saudi Arabia are now on the target-list (with just about everybody else).

However ISIL have to be a bit careful, having alienated just about everybody, including those that helped spawn them, they mustn't confuse 'noise and smoke' for real power; a serious ISIL terrorist attack on the west would probably spur the west into destroying ISIL! Martyrdom probably isn't what the leadership of ISIL have in mind even if they promote martyrdom for the more gullible of their followers.

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

There is no intention to 'form a government' such an idea would be abhorrent to ISIL There is a very plain intention to impose a 'way of life' - their way of life. It is called a Caliphate. It means that life wherever ISIL rules will be lived according to their perverted notions of Islam.

ISIL are the spawn of Al Quaeda and the attack on the West was accomplished in 2001, with the smaller stuff following on (London, Paris, Madrid etc.)

We are being rather slow to realise that we cannot, in the light of current thinking, defeat ISIL with the weapons and methods currently in use. ISIL have no structure to attack. They appear to be a corporate body without a body. They come together to make a strike, they then disperse into their background. They do not have tanks, artillery, air power. All of these assets are useless to them at this stage and useless to us.

Think of the IRA. Their tactics and the way they fought their covert war made our military assets redundant from the off. We had to deal with them using secret, covert means with excellent intelligence, establishing a network of paid informers and inflicting much pain and damage as ruthlessly as possible. And collecting a lot of 'flak' when we caught them and disposed of them out of hand.

Using broadly the same methods would have worked against ISIL but, now I think we've missed the boat. It is reported that they have virtually unlimited funds. They have more than enough committed, fanatical followers who can now merge and blend into most countries in Europe and Britain.

They are slowly gathering speed. We'll have a hell of a job stopping them.

Member for

17 years 6 months

Posts: 9,739

Perhaps 'form a government' wasn't the right phrase to use, as I said it would be a religious dictatorship, but the point I was trying to make was that it would be a way of imposing a governing control over people; ISIL are not advocating anarchy despite seemingly random and ruthless behaviour.

If ISIL is attempting to form a 'government' then surely ISIL wouldn't deliberately carry-out the sort of major terrorist attack (like 9/11) that would inevitably provoke the West into destroying ISIL?

I don't know how you defend against terrorism; the reason terrorism has evolved the way it has is because it is so 'effective' and difficult to combat, irrespective of how powerful the defending conventional forces are.

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

Hence your last paragraph effectively contradicts the last part of your second.

Member for

17 years 6 months

Posts: 9,739

In my last post? Or the one before that? (Sorry, really tired right now.)