Operation: Hornet's Nest.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

JuliaL

It doesn't matter. The source might be garbage,but we don't need this to realize what ISIS is.
Julia..do you truly believe from deep inside, the funny show happening in Syria and Iraq?

The US gets blamed for backing despots, or for trying to remove them.
I don't think the violence of the middle east requires America as the chief inciting cause.  We're just convenient to blame.
There seems to be enough collective hatred to keep things going without our help.
The Shia vs the Sunni.
The Arabs vs the Persians.
The modernists vs the traditionalists.
The oil-rich vs the impoverished within or between nation states.
Everybody vs the Israelis.

I'm in favor of establishing US energy independence through increasing efficiency & fast breeders and for growing oil producing crops to provide carbon backbones & polymers.  Then go about our business of living well by satisfying our customers.  I don't want the Saudi or Iranian oil and certainly don't want to deal with their medieval minds.
Cut off the oil money and with some luck, the region will realize that joining modern society is more pleasant than living in tents in the desert no matter what great granddad bedouin did.

The Saudis are socking away $trillions to buy up the large American companies before the Chinese get all of them.  The world is changing.

[WinterHold]

The US gets blamed for backing despots, or for trying to remove them.
I don't think the violence of the middle east requires America as the chief inciting cause.  We're just convenient to blame.
There seems to be enough collective hatred to keep things going without our help.
The Shia vs the Sunni.
The Arabs vs the Persians.
The modernists vs the traditionalists.
The oil-rich vs the impoverished within or between nation states.
Everybody vs the Israelis.

I'm in favor of establishing US energy independence through increasing efficiency & fast breeders and for growing oil producing crops to provide carbon backbones & polymers.  Then go about our business of living well by satisfying our customers.  I don't want the Saudi or Iranian oil and certainly don't want to deal with their medieval minds.
Cut off the oil money and with some luck, the region will realize that joining modern society is more pleasant than living in tents in the desert no matter what great granddad bedouin did.

The U.S is not alone in this. Britain, France, Russia, all these are involved and there are more. 3 of these name have been involved in destabilizing the region since the fall of the Ottoman empire.

Sykes-Picot, Julia. That treaty was an act of destablization; one that would affect the region for a whole century yet to come. Blame wise, the Middle East does have the essence of hate between many parties, but when did Europe become safe again? world war 2 ended 70 years ago only. Before Sykes-Picot, the Ottomans had a relativly safe empire -compared to today's middle east-.

I'm not defending Sunna or Shia regimes, the Middle East fell like this because many in it chose to trust wrong people -like T.E Lawrence-.

[The Grand Nudger]

Nah, you're mistaken, they didn't come from caves: they came from cities; used to wear jeans, some listened to hip hop and rap, some held bachelor degrees, some were engineers, some studied at the hands of western teachers.

By the time I had to deal with them, they were living in caves.  What they used to be (or where they used to live) is as irrelevant as what I used to be (or where I used to live) before we ever met each other.  If you're going to moan about this endlessly at least try to understand what you're moaning about.  

You didn't understand me; a fleet this large has no excuse against a militia; bottom line.

I didn't misunderstand you, you don;t know what you're talking about.  Asymmetric warfare leverages the size of the enemy as a strength for the opposition.  The bigger they are, the more spread out they are, -the more advanced their gear is-...the less brutal the tactics allowed for the enemy....the better it works.  If you don't actually want to understand why their strategy works, if it gets in the way of your rants, just say so...and I'll stop trying to explain the dynamics.

Tell me about Islam's problem, 

Might have something to do with suicide vests and roadside bombs.  Might have to do with institutional ignorance and religious oppression.  Might have to do with claiming that a fairy tale compels one to do all of that, and that we should all be similarly compelled by the same. Might have to do with blaming everyone but themselves for their own problems.

"A relatively safe empire compared to today's middle east"...lol, yeah...so, nothing to write home about. Eh? Get back to me when you have a "relatively safe empire" compared to your hated Israel. Until then, maybe yall should be taking notes rather than flinging stones?