The Terrorist Contradiction

[Gwadien]

So, we recently had a documentary in the UK which showed a bunch of British dudes going over to fight for the Kurds against ISIS, you may also remember that a University Student Union banned a guy from doing a talk on the matter.

Now this guy has cropped up on the beeb about being a member of our allied 70,000 forces who is clearly fighting a Jihad, personally, I can get behind the Kurds, they've been living under shit for ages, and they're fighting for a much better reason than religion (Although it's flawed since we'll never be able to give them their own country.)

However, I find this absurd, if you watch the documentary, you clearly see some of these characters fighting ISIS, and they use the exact same brutality as ISIS due when dealing with prisoners and such.

Just to be clear, I'm not being naive, I understand that we need to pick the better bad guys, but the fact of the matter is why do we paint these guys as the good guys, when there's clearly people in their ranks fighting for the same reason as their enemy; for God.

 

[Shagrat]

who paints these guys as the good guys?

 

[Gwadien]

who paints these guys as the good guys?

They're called 'moderates' by our own Government.

 

[TdC]

moderate is a very dubious ambiguous term

 

[Gwadien]

moderate is a very dubious ambiguous term

This is precisely my point, were so happy to have UK guys go and fight those bad evil ISIS guys but don't bother to question what they're actually up to whilst over there.

Its about time, we, as the west either stop lying to ourselves and accept that we do bad shit to suit ourselves or we begin to actually stick to some principles and sacrifice things for it.

We'll never be able to sort our global issues whilst were on our flawed but arrogant high horse.

 

[throdgrain]

We'll never be able to sort our global issues - the end. (I can't bring myself to say "period" )

The best you will ever do is get the best outcome for us, and fuck the rest.

 

[Shagrat]

I think the basic premise of your post is incorrect anyway. Your comparing the actions of what is essentially a state built around using terror as a weapon ( hence the beheadong, filmed throat slottings, genocide of yazidis etc) with the actions of individuals acting outside the norm.

It's not like every member of the YPG or PKK or those foreign nationals fighting alongside them are out beheading and torturing those they are fighting against. There will always be a couple of those who go over the top whether it's bevuase they think they can get away with it, stress, retaliation or whatever, but nowhere have I seen this kind of reaction condoned in the western media/press

 

[Gwadien]

I think the basic premise of your post is incorrect anyway. Your comparing the actions of what is essentially a state built around using terror as a weapon ( hence the beheadong, filmed throat slottings, genocide of yazidis etc) with the actions of individuals acting outside the norm.

It's not like every member of the YPG or PKK or those foreign nationals fighting alongside them are out beheading and torturing those they are fighting against. There will always be a couple of those who go over the top whether it's bevuase they think they can get away with it, stress, retaliation or whatever, but nowhere have I seen this kind of reaction condoned in the western media/press

That's kind of exactly my point.

We've set ISIS as enemies and YPG/PKK as our allies. Turkey would disagree with this massively, I'm sure if you go to Turkey on their media outlets they don't have 'Yay, Kurds make huge progress against ISIS.'

In no way am I supporting ISIS, but I'm saying we need to be careful who we get into bed with.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ommitting-war-crimes-against-syrian-civilians

So TL;DR that article, the reason why we don't want to get involved in conflicts these days is due to the backlash, we don't want Western uniforms over there, that's more or less it.

When we allow Kurds to go over there and treating the people that they're supposedly liberating in the fashion which they do (because after all, they're seen as enemies) what's the point? - These Arabs aren't dumb, when they become radicalised, they see the West as their enemies due to the actions of the Kurds.

All I'm saying is that we either need to do what @throdgrain says and accept reality and say we get into bed with bad people, and that's why we get bombed as a response, rather than trying just to say 'They do it because they're simply batshit crazy.' - Aint that simple.

If we accept that, we can attempt to find an alternative, rather than just going down a route which seems the best, and lying to the masses about what these people are up to.

I mean, come on, we're having a go at ISIS for destroying Yazidi homes and stuff (They don't kill all the Yazidis, they tax them a lot, according to what they did over 1000 years ago, but they still treat them like shit) then our supposedly allies are doing the exact same thing to people that are linked to ISIS in a similar respect to which the Yazidis are linked to Western Europe?

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/n...lys-razing-of-villages-amounts-to-war-crimes/

 

[DaGaffer]

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend". Why do you think that phrase came from the Arab world?

Just because you back a particular faction against another faction doesn't mean you want to have their babies; its just expedient, especially in a multi-faction conflict. To take your Turkish example, they regard the PKK as terrorists, but arm and train the Iraqi Kurds (Peshmurga) even though ultimately both groups want a united Kurdish homeland that takes from Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Expedience.

 

[Gwadien]

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend". Why do you think that phrase came from the Arab world?

Just because you back a particular faction against another faction doesn't mean you want to have their babies; its just expedient, especially in a multi-faction conflict. To take your Turkish example, they regard the PKK as terrorists, but arm and train the Iraqi Kurds (Peshmurga) even though ultimately both groups want a united Kurdish homeland that takes from Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Expedience.

Well yeah, but clearly playing these pedantic little games isn't going actually achieve anything in the long-term?

All we're going to do is allow the Kurds to sweep across, the newly invigorated Iraqi Army to do their part, what's the long term solution? - There isn't one, because there's too many factions around for the long haul.

 

[DaGaffer]

Well yeah, but clearly playing these pedantic little games isn't going actually achieve anything in the long-term?

All we're going to do is allow the Kurds to sweep across, the newly invigorated Iraqi Army to do their part, what's the long term solution? - There isn't one, because there's too many factions around for the long haul.

Ultimately the borders need to be redrawn; Sykes-Piquot never had anything to do with real nationalities anyway. All that's happening now is the pieces are being moved around and it will end up with 3-4 new countries.