German writer spends time with ISIL

Armed with a written guarantee from the Caliph that he will not have his head chopped off, German writer Jürgen Todenhöfer spent 10 days living among the Islamic fighters IS. Al qaeda? pfft, they have nothing on these guys. After listening to his interview and drawing my own conclusions, it's a wonder why al qaeda was ever even a threat, never mind news worthy. These guys ISIL are bigger, meaner and a serious threat, more so than the Nazis of ww2 imo. IF al qaeda can manage to coordinate 911, the band of misfits they are, then imagine what ISIL can do? This is going to be a 30 year war...

a reply to: FlySolo

Brave man, i would not trust there written word.


More dangrous than the NAZIs? No.
Unlike ISIS they actually had a modern military to back them up.

a reply to: FlySolo

Could be propaganda to sell another war. Obama called AQ and empty shell too. Seems like talking points to me.

Well, they'll continue to be dangerous as long as they keep getting weapons from the USA through proxy powers and allowed to earn money selling oil.

I've also wondered where people from this area of the world got so good at video editing and creating appealing propaganda for recruitment. It's almost as if they hired a Western media and PR team to promote themselves...Hmmmm....

I know many Islamic people, they show no affairs with ISIS, they say the rather have ISIS die in the desert just like people who help them, never to come back.

As a result the hatred towards Islam has gone skywards high. I myself even do not like this religion, but that is the same with Christianity.

Remember, the elite use - problem - reaction - solution -.
Whatever the deal is here, it's working out great for them. Islamism will only get more and more hated and eventually it will be eradicated, even a start of a global war? But this isn't new, it is going on for 40 years now since the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union which was to lead Russia into a Vietnam style war they couldn't win for 10 years or so.

So now the elite will react to this problem because it is the masses who will approve it, and they will invade the middle east once again, hell, the masses are calling for it. First, everyone says ''get the HELL OUT OF IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, ETC. Now, Obama has decided to withdraw troops and only a few weeks later this ISIS pops up out of nowhere, and most people's reactions after the beheading and burnings are ''We want ground troops NOW''. Even I've seen this posted on this forum.

originally posted by: crazyewok
a reply to: FlySolo

Brave man, i would not trust there written word.


More dangrous than the NAZIs? No.
Unlike ISIS they actually had a modern military to back them up.

They're just getting started. Even Nazis had their beginnings as the SA

a reply to: FlySolo

Please don't compare the national socialists, who created the most technological advanced, authoritarian, cultural empire (which many of them fled to America and Argentina and influence(d) our world affairs today, you should do some research to whom funded Hitler and were in favor of his version of society than stalinism, just to name one name, Henry Ford) this world has ever seen to this barbaric scum of ISIS.

a reply to: crazyewok

Yep foolhardy is more like it.

What he's doing isn't trusting their word, but simply that they want the press he can give them alive more than they want the press they can get by beheading him. Given what they've been doing lately, that's a pretty heavy risk.

originally posted by: FlySolo

originally posted by: crazyewok
a reply to: FlySolo

Brave man, i would not trust there written word.


More dangrous than the NAZIs? No.
Unlike ISIS they actually had a modern military to back them up.

They're just getting started. Even Nazis had their beginnings as the SA

Germany had more heavy industry than most of europe.

ISIS have some sand and some rocks.
And US bomb ready to land on anything that would reseamble a industrial base.

There is one thing running through the desert waveing a AK47 and killing civilians in a destabilised warzone.

Its another building a airforce/navy that will give the projection power to build a real empire.

a reply to: crazyewok

You're thinking conventional warfare. Right now it's all guerilla style. And so long as they continue to make everyone look stupid with that, they're winning. And as long as they're winning, they're recruiting. How many recruits do they have behind enemy lines even now? How many lone wolf incidents waiting to happen? That's the problem with this war. There is no "flag" in the traditional sense.

The worst wars in history have been the ones where the tactics outpaced the weapons or the weapons outpaced the tactics - WWI, the Civil War, WWII. Well this is quite possibly another new era in warfare.

They are simply following their religion to the letter. Their faith leaders here are very slow to condemn them.

originally posted by: Irishagalamandahudi

I know many Islamic people, they show no affairs with ISIS, they say the rather have ISIS die in the desert just like people who help them, never to come back.

As a result the hatred towards Islam has gone skywards high. I myself even do not like this religion, but that is the same with Christianity.

Remember, the elite use - problem - reaction - solution -.
Whatever the deal is here, it's working out great for them. Islamism will only get more and more hated and eventually it will be eradicated, even a start of a global war? But this isn't new, it is going on for 40 years now since the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union which was to lead Russia into a Vietnam style war they couldn't win for 10 years or so.

So now the elite will react to this problem because it is the masses who will approve it, and they will invade the middle east once again, hell, the masses are calling for it. First, everyone says ''get the HELL OUT OF IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, ETC. Now, Obama has decided to withdraw troops and only a few weeks later this ISIS pops up out of nowhere, and most people's reactions after the beheading and burnings are ''We want ground troops NOW''. Even I've seen this posted on this forum.

No, I don't know anybody killing because of anything written in the Bible. I know of lots of groups (not just individuals) killing in the name of Islam. There is support including money and logistics for these killers. The Palestinian Authority pays good salaries to terrorists in jail who have killed Israelis. The killing will never end because 1) the "perfect example" Mohammad did it, sometimes for very little provocation 2) Mohammad called for war throughout his career as a prophet, including calls to attack Rome 3) The Quran itself says "fight until all religion is for Islam (8:39) and also "fight Jews and Christians until they submit, pay the jizya, and are utterly humiliated." 9;29 In the Bible, the orders to kill were specific and they are over, in the Quran they are open-ended. Anybody who has read both the Bible and the Quran can testify that the Bible is a superior document. It is more interesting. The Quran is all over the place, it barely makes sense from one paragraph to the next. Yet it calls itself "perfect". When something is really perfect, it doesn't need to brag.

The situation with ISIL is interesting to me from a military history perspective because of its novelty in modern times. I don't think people realize the potential impact this group could have on the future on the US military. To explain what I mean, you must first look at what US military forces have been geared for in the past. During the Cold War US forces were prepared for both nuclear attack and an invasion by Soviet forces into Eastern Europe. Thus the bulk of military forces were centered to counter such moves. The US military is still a highly conventional force, although some important lessons have been learned during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and thus measures have been enacted to make such conventional forces more relevant against guerrilla forces, even though a conventional force will always be at a disadvantage when it comes strictly to fighting. This is because they decide the battlefield, have more mobility and freedom of action, can easily hide, etc. And this is also why a guerrilla force cannot be eradicated if those fighting focus only on the battlefield and not giving thought to protecting civilians, countering enemy doctrine, etc... There is a shift occurring where conventional warfare will become less important than combating guerrilla/terrorist forces.

Think about how easy it would be for terrorists to strike the US mainland with attacks in which civilians are targeted, just like 9/11. If this were happening quite a bit, would not the people start to look at the US military as being essentially useless to combat such forces? What good is a military force, they will think, if it cannot protect the nation's citizens and maintain national security, considering that is its job? All of the technological sophistication, heavy weaponry, etc., is useless in an asymmetric war against guerrilla forces, and the military will eventually realize that maintaining a large conventional force with no purpose, considering the lack of nation-sized or conventional threats, is not feasible while simultaneously equipping a large force to combat groups like ISIL. Thus the military is threatened with either expending ever-larger sums of money to maintain multiple military forces, each equipped and trained for entirely opposite types of warfare, or must change gears and refocus the entire military from conventional to non-conventional threats. No matter what is decided, national security will suffer in my opinion, at least where conventional enemies are concerned.

I believe that one solution the high command will come up with is the reliance on nuclear weapons for defense, but this would be a mistake considering nuclear weapons are no more than a deterrent, not an offensive weapon. The consequences of using nuclear weapons offensively are just too great, even if under threat from conventional forces. The main shift in warfare, from say wars like WWI and WWII, is that these were total wars. A total war involves the mobilization of the entire nation to defeat an enemy, where strategic bombing, which is the targeting by air of not only military targets, but also of civilian/economic targets. The next war, because of the threat of nuclear weapons, will be what is called a limited war. The reason total war is no longer possible between nuclear nations is because the loser has great incentive to launch a nuclear strike when their backs are against the wall and they are on the verge of defeat. Someone like Putin could order the invasion of Ukraine, and take it outright, and other nations have little military recourse. They cannot launch nuclear weapons. Conventional forces would simply mean a protracted war, and even if the allied forces pushed into Russia, Putin could threaten a nuclear strike unless his demands were met. It is likely that the US and allied nations would avoid this by letting Putin have Ukraine. Or at the very least, they would only impose non-military options to oppose such moves, of which sanctions are just a single element.

The solution is for the US to only get involved when national security is at stake. Semi-isolationism. Beating ISIL at this point will be tough, and will take some US changes in strategy.

a reply to: JiggyPotamus

Actually I think the real solution is in the 2nd Amendment - the well-regulated militia. We might have to more or less become Switzerland if internal attacks become more common. If we do, then every responsible citizen is also part of the armed forces at need, and the need arises randomly in this manner of warfare - a rifle behind every blade of grass.

It would also be cheaper than attempting to maintain that massive of an army.

a reply to: FlySolo

Unless this German reporter dwelled into the issue of how US funded Syrian Rebels and made ISIS possible, then he didn't do his job

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: JiggyPotamus

Actually I think the real solution is in the 2nd Amendment - the well-regulated militia. We might have to more or less become Switzerland if internal attacks become more common. If we do, then every responsible citizen is also part of the armed forces at need, and the need arises randomly in this manner of warfare - a rifle behind every blade of grass.

It would also be cheaper than attempting to maintain that massive of an army.

A militia force within the US is not really feasible for combating terrorists on US soil, because it is unlikely the terrorist forces would be like they are in the Middle East. In the US they would blend in within cities, stockpiling weapons and explosives in other areas, and making it impossible to detect them. So just like a conventional force cannot fight an enemy they cannot see, neither can a militia. And there are numerous problems with a militia, one of the most important the lack of discipline and cohesion. Small units operating independently is great for harassing a larger conventional force, but is no good for what we're talking about. Internal attacks like 9/11 could not be combated by a militia is essentially what I'm saying. Guerrilla forces operating in the US would not look identical to guerrilla forces fighting in Iraq and Syria. The point I really wanted to make with my first post is that if the US chooses to get involved in fighting ISIL, this is going to force certain changes. And again, a militia could definitely serve to harass a conventional enemy force that had invaded the US, but it would take many years to win such a conflict with no conventional forces on our side. Guerrilla warfare is about some very simple things, depending on which doctrine one is following. It is about uniting the civilian population, both in fighting and in support roles, and it is also about maintaining a force by not giving battle to the enemy unless in highly favorable conditions. During the Vietnam war the guerrilla doctrine utilized was one of giving conventional battle, but only after certain conditions were met, and such a strategy worked superbly.

a reply to: FlySolo

Hes the new boogie dont trust any of this propaganda ISIS smells of the occult.

The more we pay attention and give them our attention the stronger they get.

Ask yourself, where does all of this equipment get manufactured?

a reply to: Aaamok88

The problem with your opinion on the matter is that you don't hold ISIS responsible for their actions. Yes, the United States may have funded rebels, however, these were people who were already fighting a war they deemed just. They were already fighting against a tyrannical leader. The United States is the world's leader in democracy, and found the rebels to have just cause. We didn't start the conflict, we just picked a side.

Now, you can question the judgement of our government for involving itself in the conflict...but the rebels were begging for help.

The fact that those rebels evolved into a crazed group of marauders is a completely different story. They are acting on their own behalf, upon their own orders. Their ideology is completely at odds with the United States. They used our government, crying for help. Now, they killing anyone that opposes their viewpoint.

Stop blaming America for all of the world's problems. It is that kind of lack of accountability that causes all sorts of problems. It is time for everyone to accept responsibility for their own actions. No one is twisting ISIS fingers, they choose upon their own free will. Had America not helped them early on, they would have gotten their hands on weapons and cash in other ways. Where there is a will, there is a way. Unfortunately, these people have a strong will.

a reply to: lambs to lions

Where do they get the equipment they are using and who buys the oil they use?

this whole ISIS thing seems to have everyone scratching their heads.
what to do??
great thread!