Turkey Condemns Russia for Fighting Islam in Syria, Calls on West to Accept ISIS

Communism had expansionist goals too. The West also effectively has expansionist goals, which is why the West has installed dictatorships the world over, including Indonesia, which you happen to mention. We set up a dictatorship in Indonesia which killed over a million of its own people and went about committing a genocide against the East Timorese people (to which we turned a blind eye). That was all done with the goal of preventing the spreading of Communism. So obviously our trying to prevent the spread of Communism, as can be shown by Indonesia, has only resorted in dictatorships and countless deaths.

Say we overthrow ISIS, then what? ISIS will still have many sympathisers and it wont be long till ISIS 2.0 appears. The only means to which prevent that from happening would be to set up another pro-West dictatorship that brutally represses any descent, but we have seen how popular those dictatorships have been. Which is why I believe a different method needs to be taken. Let them set up their own state and let that state fail on its own accord. ISIS will bring about its own downfall and will be left with few sympathisers. Much like how Ceaușescu's Romania collapsed on its own accord.

Never? Never is a mighty long day.

You want to undo secularism then?

Atatürk is spinning in his grave.

Western intervention is how it got like this in the first place. Not only in the instability which was allowed to fester like an untreated wound after the ousting of Saddam, but the funding of 'moderate rebel groups' who openly admitted cooperation with ISIS and al Nusra to the point of joint operations and resource sharing. ISIS is a problem for which the ideological foundation was already present, but which could have only got where it is thanks to western support by way of funding, arming, training. A lot of the membership from so called 'moderate rebel groups' has been absorbed by ISIS. Their ranks didn't mainly swell from the civilian population.

Not ethnic cleansing.

Poor policy making in the past is how it got like this, not 'western intervention'. The broad spectrum notion of western meddling is not inherently wrong. It's worked in the past, off the top of my head, in Greece, Korea, Malaya, Afghanistan, the Balkans and Sierra Leone. Even if you buy into the idea that the West helped create ISIS, that doesn't mean we should suddenly run with out tail in-between our legs. ISIS isn't just some country we don't like- they're a barbaric terror organisation that wholesale massacre civilians.

Instead of arming the Kurdish YPG and YPJ

What I'm saying is that the methods of western intervention need to change.

And afghanistan is hardly a success story in my eyes.

Because America and Russia aren't still in a stalemate? Many who were high up within the Soviet government leadership network are now the leaders of modern Russia. Seeing that an ex-KGB agent is in control of the country would say otherwise about the cold war effective being 'won' or having ended.

The inefficiency of the Communist regimes and the people's dissatisfaction ultimately drove change. The west did not overthrow Ceausescu or bring about the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union collapsed as firstly the economic system was inefficient, their military spending was through the roof (the year before collapse in 1990, the Soviet Union had an estimated 37,000 nuclear weapons whereas America only had an estimated 11,000) and the Soviet Union had been embroiled in a war in Afghanistan for a decade. Therefore some reform needed to take place, which is where Gorbachev stepped in with his reforms which only helped to encourage and bring about the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

You wouldn't happen to be talking about the Syngman Rhee dictatorship the West installed in South Korea would you? It took over a decade for the South Korean people to overthrow the dictatorships the West installed and backed in South Korea (although sadly was replaced by another military dictatorship). The Syngman Rhee dictatorship was guilty of many massacres such as the Bodo League massacre where an estimated 100,000 Koreans were killed. It is also worth mentioning that the North Korean economy (based on GDP per capita) was actually larger than the South Korea's until the mid 1970's. So it is quite clear that the western backed dictatorship in South Korea was neither good for the South Korean economy nor was it a model for human rights or democracy.

Which is exactly my point. ISIS have done more the enough to give themselves negative press. But sadly there are many who seem them standing up to the West and opposing everything that many would perceive as bad and negative about the West. Our continued involvement helps to legitimise ISIS by providing them with innocent civilian deaths as propaganda. This article below is rather interesting in how it argues that the Islamism we are seeing emerging among many in the Middle East is effectively an Islamic liberation theology.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Islam-as-Liberation-Theolo-by-Mike-Rivage-Seul-Faith_God_Islam_Islamaphobia-141012-698.html

Some would argue that supporting Assad in the beginning could have achieved all of that far better and stopped the rise of ISIS and the persecution of such minority groups.

Maybe we need to try something different instead of continued wars and installing dictatorships in the Middle East? Maybe our current tactic just isn't working and maybe it might be worth attempting the redrawing of borders as an alternative way forward? Maybe giving ISIS their own state and redrawing borders so that the minority groups get their own state/s might be an option. ISIS want to set up their own state, but that cannot be achieved if they are constantly fighting. And the more we fight them, the more we help to provide them with propaganda with which to justify their existence.

What I'm saying is that the methods of western intervention need to change. And afghanistan is hardly a success story in my eyes.

Our continued involvement helps to legitimise ISIS

Some would argue that supporting Assad in the beginning could have achieved all of that far better and stopped the rise of ISIS and the persecution of such minority groups

It does no such thing. Nothing can legitimise ISIS, they are amongst the most murderous and evil fascist killers we have seen since the days of the Khmer Rouge.

You may recall (or maybe you don't) that in mid-2014, the Iraqi government was close to collapse and Baghdad a mere 20 miles from the ISIS front lines. ISIS troops had taken control of Kirkuk and were moving on Irbil. It was this emergency that prompted the US to intervene to prevent all of central and northern Iraq being overrun.

I for one do not think it is a matter of indifference whether the Kurds go under and are conquered by ISIS. I do not think it is wrong that we used our airpower to prevent Kobane from becoming yet another notch on ISIS' belt. I do not think it is wrong that we are methodically using our airpower to keep ISIS in check while we simultaneously arm, train and build-up the Kurds and the Iraqi army so that they can take ISIS on.

If you want us to withdraw from the ISIS campaign then that is your prerogative. But do not pretend that it would be without consequence, that the Kurds and Iraqis would get along fine and that we could congratulate ourselves on our moral rectitude. If we pull the airstrikes, the arms shipments and the training, the Kurdish and Iraqi fronts will collapse. Is that moral? Is that wise? Is it preferable that the Islamic State has a vast safe haven from which to plan attacks against us, like Afghanistan pre-9/11 only far more menacing?



It is the Assad regime that created this mess. It was because of their outrageous abuse of human rights, the torture and the killings, that turned the Syrian people against them.

And it was the Assad regime that chose to open the jails and release thousands of Islamist prisoners in late 2011 knowing these criminals would take up arms and that all opposition could then be smeared as terrorists.

The persecution of minority groups is happening today in Syria because the regime was so corrupt and oppressive that Syria became a failed state and collapsed. The Christians of Syria would not be in such mortal danger if the Assad regime had accepted it was time to call it a night and organise elections and a democratic transition.

Lol shut up then mate

Because Putin managed to wrangle country of Russia that somehow invalidates the Soviet Union collapsing, it's satellite states abandoning communism, and the United States being now the sole global superpower?

But why was Soviet economic spending through the roof?
It was because the United States upped the ante in the Cold War, massively increasing their own spending and channelling huge funds to anti-communist forces all over the Soviet sphere of influence. The Afghan Mujahideen were bankrolled by the CIA. All those helicopter gunship destroy surface-to-air missiles weren't a gift from Allah.

No, I'm talking about modern day South Koreans, who I'd imagine overwhelming prefer the path their country did take than a hypothetical scenario of 1950s North Korean takeover.

I think you're overestimating the 'legitimacy' ISIS is gaining. As far as I'm aware, quite literally zero Syrian civilian casualties have reported in relation to Operation Shader. Even if there were any, the positives, of helping to prevent wholesale massacres, far outweigh the negative. Can't quite emphasise the whole 'ISIS have murdered tens of thousands of civilians' part enough.

We should have supported a despot who was inflicting wholesale massacres against civilians to prevent wholesale massacres against civilians happening?

Right, because recognising them as rulers of their own country wouldn't be justifying their existence? That is simply the most 'justifying their existence' thing we could possible ever do, short of declaring our own allegiance to them.
And how then would we prevent them from doing what they do best- attacking their neighbours?
Maybe, just maybe, sometimes conflict is inevitable. People who bend over backwards to appease others find themselves bending over backwards a lot. Sometimes war is the answer.

Many of those high up in modern day Russia were high up in the Soviet Union. As they say, same **** different toilet. Russia still has military bases in all of those satellite states and has a large influence over many of their governments..

To what?
Afghanistan is much better off today than it was before we intervened.

becoming more 'afghan' and less islamist

Could the world be any more screwed up?

There are degrees of Islamism? Quite frankly, any attempt to rule a country by reference to superstitious beliefs is bad in the extreme, and the use of force to do so is beyond the pale.