There's no harm sending advisors (as opposed to arming), but you're just nitpicking anyway because I specificaly said I don't know (and neither do you) whether the FSA is sufficiently viable to justify sending advisors. There are people much closer to the ground with much better knowledge of the situation than you or I can glean from the internet.
But that's the point,
you don't know what the fuck you're talking about because you have almost no information about what is going on. For what it's worth, that's understandable because you're not an Arab, you have no Arab friends or family, you have no connection to the region, and thus you aren't involved in the situation. You're surely not reading Arab press, Arab social media, and obviously don't understand Arab worldviews in the region.
What is also obvious is that you're merely parroting Western media outlets, and even then, only those you choose to listen to. Your connection to the MIddle East, as evidenced by your source of information, is weak at best.
With respect to the FSA, the FSA is insane. You're saying "I don't know" but then saying "well gour, you must not know either." Wrong. I do know, and many others have said this before, that the FSA is run by genocidal fanatics very much like the Islamic State.
But "there's no harm sending in advisors." Sure there is. For one, we're putting American soldiers in harms way; for two, we're doing so with an unknown outcome and an unknown or hidden enemy (IS can easily go underground, and have many elements and sympathizers among the Syrian and Iraqi forces); for and third, sending in advisors is often not far removed from actually having American forces in combat and can, slippery slope I realize, lead to just that if the mission appears to be failing.
But most importantly, the FSA has a truce with the Islamic State, they are not opposed to one another at this point. While the FSA would likely engage the Islamic State if it meant finally getting Western support, by way of arms, it simply means we'd be buying them off. Ideologically, they are not inclined to fight one another while Bashar Assad remains in power.
I question the sanity of anyone who would suggest we help the Syrian rebels at this point.
Heh. Well, we all have our opinions.
I'll just leave this alone.
That has nothing to do with what we were discussing. The point we were discussing was whether or not there were people claiming that Islamic extremism could be defeated via purely military means. I said that was a strawman of your own creation, you claimed it wasn't. What you just typed has nothing to do with that, but rather goes to the completely different issue of whether ISIS is a threat at all.
Because again, you've lied and ignored what was posted. Numerous Congressmen have stated that by engaging the Islamic State, militarily, we can defeat radical Islam and reduce the potential for a terrorist attack at home.
That is the point.
Such a statement would mean military action against the Islamic State would result in a lower probability of a terrorist attack which is almost assuredly to be ideologically driven. Thus, they are stating we can defeat the idea of jihad. Because if the terrorist who would potentially attack America believes he is on a holy mission, he is engaging in jihad against America, he is singularly driven by his own personal ideological beliefs.
Attacking the Islamic State does not likely reduce the potential for such an attack; and there are many reasons to believe it would have the reverse effect.
This is the second or third time I've had to explain this to you... it's getting ridiculous.
Again, you're deliberately speaking in general "jihadi" terms to avoid discussion of the specific group at issue in this thread, which is ISIS. There is no logical connection between the actions ISIS is taking against Muslims, Yazidis, and Christians in Iraq, and Palestine.That is a different agenda, and you've even admitted that those factors you identified are NOT the primary motivation of ISIS. As for Choudary, he's been mouthing off in the U.K. for years. He's not an ISIS jihadi in Syria or Iraq -- he's the jihadi equivalent of a limousine liberal.
This is what I am talking about.. This. To everyone reading this page. You have absolutely no clue.
Let's break it down one-by-one, and then I'm done.
You don't understand what jihad is. To say I'm speaking in generalities when discussing the jihadi, demonstrates you don't get what is causing hundreds and potentially thousands of Muslims from Western nations to join the Islamic State.
So, I'll explain it to you.
What drives a European Muslim to travel to the Middle East and fight with the FSA or ISIS?
a) Not being able to successfully assimilate at home.
b) Viewing Western governments complicity in what many Arabs perceive as American/Israeli dominance in the region.
c) Unfair treatment of advancing nations, like Iran, toward nuclear energy - all the while, Israel has a stockpile of nuclear weapons.
d) Seeing Arab (Palestinian) children dead in the streets.
e) Watching the Arab Spring in Egypt morph into yet-another U.S. puppet in al-Sisi. Yet-another Mubarak, who was hated.
f) Seeing how Iran devolved due to American interventionism by installing the Shah.
g) Seeing how America propped up Saddam, Mubarak, the House of Saud, and numerous other petty dictatorships.
h) Seeing how Palestinians are treated like dogs, have their land stolen from under them, and are butchered en masse; humilated, and defeated as a matter of routine.
i) Seeing American presence in the Holy Land of Mecca and Medina. Knowing this is haram.
j) Seeing al-Saud and the Wahhabi Saudis demolish mosque after mosque, even turning the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad into a public toilet.
k) Feeling helpless and hopeless; having no control over the nation of your birth, none of the nation to which you reside, no acceptance, nothing.
l) Understanding that historically Islamic Civilization was chief among all in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. This is a great sense of pride, but also something that leads people to want a new Islamic State.
m) Continued, repeated, and constant American military aggression against Arab, Persian, and African peoples - all of Islamic faith.
n) The perceived exploitation of Arab lands and resources to benefit the small plutocracy that exists within the allied oil producing nations (understand these nations do not treat Muslims and Arabs as citizens; and emigrating to these nations, becoming naturalized, can be next to impossible for the vast majority of Arabs).
The list goes on and on and on and on... It boils down to this: "either help us, or leave us alone." And most Muslims would just like to see America simply withdraw, militarily and economically, and that would solve 90% of their issues with the United States.
Let Muslims solve Muslim problems in the region. If there will be civil wars, then so be it. If there is to be an Islamic State, then what else is new? If you hadn't been paying attention, Afghanistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, just to name a few, were/are under strict Islamic codes.
So since none of that is happening, there are millions of disillusioned Muslims in the world, and not just in the Middle East. This disillusionment, and feeling of oppression, leads to radicalization. Radicalization of thought, in all areas of life; including their interpretation of Islam - to become more fundamentalist, and yes, if Sunni, this can lead many who are from Wahhabi backgrounds to start to see the world through the lens that IS portrays.
So.. now that we have that out of the way.. Let me try to explain the concept of jihad. Jihad is the struggle of
all Muslims to fight towards the path of Allah, as did the Prophet Muhammad. It is the third greatest of all good deeds. It is not a
choice but an obligation to oneself to fight the enemies of Islam in
physical resistance. Jihadists are those who are essentially performing a holy act, similar to a pilgrimage. They are giving themselves to a higher purpose, the struggle of their people in service to God.
The reason I feel it import to explain this is because it seems you don't really get it. You keep referencing "ISIS," as if this is a contained phenomena. The problem isn't ISIS. ISIS is a single manifestation of radical Islamic Jihad. There are countless others, including al-Qaeda, al-Nursa (who represents a very very large portion of the FSA coalition forces), the Islamic Front, Hamas, etc. Groups you would call "terrorist organizations" and rightfully so in most cases!
So when you say "I'm only referring to ISIS" for one, that's asinine. ISIS is/was al-Qaeda. al-Nursa
is al-Qaeda. We bombed both this past week. Now the FSA is telling us to stop bombing al-Qaeda and only focus on ISIS. We are ignoring the difference the FSA is making because, frankly, there is no difference. Our armed forces know that al-Nursa
is ISIS. Both are essentially offshoots of al-Qaeda which is really only a term that is useful when describing Osama bin Laden's Saudi/Afghan mujahideen. But we're still dealing with al-Qaeda in Iraq and al-Qaeda in Syria just on two sides of a border. In fact, even that distinction isn't accurate. It is believed that the vast majority of al-Nursa's command structure is Al-Qaeda in Iraq forces who served under al-Zarqawi.
Btw, the different terms of "in-this place" and "in-that place" are just distinctions without much of a difference. They are poor translations to make the decentralization of the totality of the worldwide Sunni Muslim mujahideen easier to understand.
Now that we have the framework out of the way I'll address the individual points you made above.
1) "you're deliberately speaking in general "jihadi" terms to avoid discussion of the specific group at issue in this thread, which is ISIS."
A: Hopefully now you can see this is silly, right?
2) There is no logical connection between the actions ISIS is taking against Muslims,
A: Wahabbism is entirely about dividing Muslims between good and bad. Those who practice Islam and those who are apostates. ISIS takes actions against Muslims
first, not last, because they should know the "law."
3) Yazidis,
A: The Yazidis are Kurds, they generally reside south of the majority of the population of Kurdistan. The Islamic State has pressed in all directions, and has engaged the Kurdish Peshmerga. Once the peshmerga withdrew, the Yazidis were defenseless. They have been kidnapped and murdered due to their religion and being perceived as worshiping Satan. From an Islamic perspective, their views would be considered highly offensive. Does that mean they deserve death, obviously not, but if you're asking for an explanation - there it is.
4) and Christians in Iraq,
A: Christians have been treated differently than the Yazidis. It's not fair to categorize them together,
at all. Christians are not being wiped out like the Yazidis. Yes, they have been killed, sometimes en masse, but this isn't the case.
First off, the point of "in Iraq" is indicative of ignorance, the majority of Christians under ISIS live in Syria, but anyway Christians under ISIS are treated very much like the Jews in early-30's Nazi Germany. They are placed under specific rules that stem from Islamic law called dhimmitude, and are told they must pay Jizyah, or a tax, defined in the Koran which gives Christians a "protected" status. Their homes and businesses are marked with the letter N to note they are followers of the Nazarene. And they are treated generally as second-class citizens or worse.
5) and Palestine.That is a different agenda, and you've even
admitted that those factors you identified are NOT the primary motivation of ISIS.
Because the primary motivation of ISIS is to claim the lands of Iraq and the Levant and establish the Khalifa. But the primary driving force that lead so many to join ISIS, that drove so many to join al-Nursa, al-Qaeda, al-Aqsa, the Islamic Front, and the Army of Islam, just to name a few most assuredly includes Palestine. Palestine is
chief among all regional issues for all Muslim nations. You fail to understand this, for whatever reason.
For every single coalition put together by the United States, all of the Arab "allies" demanded action on the issue of Palestine in order to lend their support. It is widely believed that the exact same thing has happened just recently and this is why Abbas believes the United States will not issue a veto if he can get a resolution in the Security Council prior to 2016.
In bin Laden's own words:
"America will not be able to dream of security until we live in security in Palestine. It is unfair that you live in peace while our brothers in Gaza live in insecurity... Accordingly, and with the will of God, our attacks will continue against you as long as your support for Israel continues,"
You are a fool if you still refuse to understand this simple fact.
Palestine is the central issue in all of the Arab world. To see Palestinians treated worse than animals infuriates all of us in the Arab world, including me. It drives people to speak out, and some to take what they perceive as warranted action.