Post: #1

"The seizure of the airfield has attracted more than the usual amount of attention because it was an operational Syrian air force base, and the Islamic State guys were supposedly able to seize SA-16 MANPADS (man-portable surface-to-air defense systems), Mig-21 combat aircraft, and K-13 air-to-air missiles (a Russian knock off of the widely used American Sidewinder missile).

The seizure of this particular equipment has created something of a stir. If nothing else, it means that there's now some pretty concrete evidence to suggest that the Islamic State has actual surface-to-air missiles and can shoot down enemy jets. Estimates haven't yet emerged about how many missiles they might have captured, but even a few of them can have a dramatic impact — imagine the effect of Islamic State militants shooting down a US jet over Iraq, followed by the subsequent capture and beheading of the pilot."

https://news.vice.com/article/islamic-st...force-base

Imagining the U.S. continues bombing ISIS, and they manage to take down a fighter jet.

Odds that we can avoid getting involved in a ground war with them?

Post: #2

A ground war is inevitable at this point. It is more a question of when not if. The powers that be have decided IS is a clear and present danger, so expect the propaganda effort to ramp up in the coming months banging the drums for war.


As for the equipment:

The Migs and air-to-air missiles will be useless to IS.

But the manpads are going to be very useful. The USA needs to be very careful and fly its bombing missions from very high up from now on or it is just a matter of time before IS shoots down a US fighter jet.

Reportedly, the USA has been flying Prowlers (electronic warfare planes) to try and jam any SAM threats.

Post: #3

I guess we could go kill a bunch more Arabs. But didn't we already kill a bunch of Arabs and occupy two of their countries for like 10 years?
Didn't these guys pop up only a very little while after we left?
So what's the plan this time? We go back in, kill these guys, and then... just sit there and take over? Turn Iraq into a US protectorate and establish a huge permanent military force there for all time?

Post: #4

This is our plan to get involved in Syria.. It has been obvious for a while now.

Post: #5

I can't imagine how an airbase is overrun.

Even if all of the soldiers guarding it are killed or flee, surely it doesn't take much as a last ditch salvage operation to call planes from another airbase to turn it into glass this avoiding the enemy gaining anti aircraft missiles and in the same move killing doZens or hundreds of the enemy.

Maybe the Syrian army and government are totally drained of all their resources and can't even operate a fighter jet or two?

Post: #6

One of the last thing the world needs is Islamicists with fighter jets.

Post: #7

Don't you need years of training to even take off a fighter jet, let alone fly it into battle effectively?

Post: #8

A WMD packed into a Mig-21 piloted by a jihadi kamikaze mission.

Think how many newspapers that'd sell

Post: #9

(08-26-2014 02:58 AM)T and A Man Wrote:  A WMD packed into a Mig-21 piloted by a jihadi kamikaze mission.

Think how many newspapers that'd sell

If that happened, there probably wouldn't be any major American newspapers for a while.

Post: #10

Obama reaping his rewards here, ground war is inevitable. Supported the rebels against Syria, supplied them with weapons, most of which are now in the hands of one of those rebel forces - IS.

Post: #11

(08-26-2014 04:53 AM)bojangles Wrote:  Obama reaping his rewards here, ground war is inevitable. Supported the rebels against Syria, supplied them with weapons, most of which are now in the hands of one of those rebel forces - IS.

Liberals will still find a way to blame Bush though.

Post: #12

(08-25-2014 10:53 PM)Jaydublin Wrote:  This is our plan to get involved in Syria.. It has been obvious for a while now.

You think the USA will still try to topple Assad?

Post: #13

(08-26-2014 05:40 AM)Old Fritz Wrote:  

(08-25-2014 10:53 PM)Jaydublin Wrote:  This is our plan to get involved in Syria.. It has been obvious for a while now.

You think the USA will still try to topple Assad?

Probably, but they shouldn't. Assad has been fighting these Islamist types for ages, in fact the West armed them to beat him. I don't know what their interest in Syria is, but I've been on Assad's side since the beginning.

One of the reasons the Muslim brotherhood et al dislike him leading is because they see him as a kaffir/blasphemer for being part of a minority Islamic sect. Bojangles is more clued on this part of the world than me, so I'd be interested to hear his thoughts.

Post: #14

(08-26-2014 06:06 AM)Teedub Wrote:  

(08-26-2014 05:40 AM)Old Fritz Wrote:  

(08-25-2014 10:53 PM)Jaydublin Wrote:  This is our plan to get involved in Syria.. It has been obvious for a while now.

You think the USA will still try to topple Assad?

Probably, but they shouldn't. Assad has been fighting these Islamist types for ages, in fact the West armed them to beat him. I don't know what their interest in Syria is, but I've been on Assad's side since the beginning.

One of the reasons the Muslim brotherhood et al dislike him leading is because they see him as a kaffir/blasphemer for being part of a minority Islamic sect. Bojangles is more clued on this part of the world than me, so I'd be interested to hear his thoughts.

I think the US interest in toppling Assad is two fold...

#1) I believe Syria is a close ally. I want to say Russia gets oil from Syria and is able to help control some of the middle east oil exports in this way.

#2) Syria doesn't have a globalist federal reserve bank running their country's economy into the ground. And this is a big push by the globalist elites.

So it is really bad foreign policy aimed to make the rich richer and the tax payers poorer.

Post: #15

We will see in the coming months just how much training itbreally takes to fly fighter jets. Are there ex military people among The Islamic State who already have this training?

They may not be ableb to have effective dog fights with us but if they want to bombard some defenseless cities...

And do the Peshmerga even have an air force? Why not use these to bomb tikrit or erbil and overtake Kurdistan?

Post: #16

I come from the Ron Paul "let's mind our own business" crowd and I am definitely not part of the pro-intervention neoconservative "lets invade the world crowd" but ISIS is a real threat to Western civilization.

As ISIS grows, it will topple more and more Middle Eastern countries and gain more power. This is truly the formation of the Islamic Caliphate that all those jihadists have been foaming at the mouth for. This is them. It is happening now. They are extremely violent and are growing in numbers and power daily.

I honestly believe a second Crusades are on the way in the next 100 years. With the rapid growth of Islamism in the Middle East and the utter failure of multiculturalism in Europe, Europeans will go to all out war with Islam once again. It can be argued that the foreign policy of the US government is too blame for it and I generally believe they are at fault. However, while it is their fault, we (Americans and Europeans) have to live with the consequences. And I will be damned if I will ever be subjugated to Islam.

I know Americans are pretty war-torn from the debacles of Iraq and Afghanistan and I dont blame them (heck, I'm one of them). However, this is a real threat which we will have to face sooner or later. The Progressive Hivemind will gladly welcome the Islamist threat into our own back yard with open arms. It is believed that these jihadists may have already been using our ever-so-tolerant open borders immigration policy to sneak into the US and start establishing sleeper cells.

They're not going away anytime soon. So are you wiling to fight for Western Civilization like your ancestors did? or are you ready to submit to Allah?

Post: #17

Capturing them is one thing, using is a whole different deal unless they have specialists to teach them. personally I wouldn't put it past the fuck ups that are the CIA to teach them then wonder why a bunch of airliners got shot down later on.

Post: #18

"I am not an interventionist but lets intervene"

Fuck that we will not do any good what do you want us to do? Take out IS' military capacity? Some other force will just replace them. Do you want to just kill everyone in the region? Thats barbarism and makes us infinitely worse than IS. Just let them be. Close the borders, police our countries, defend our actual homeland, but do not define our homeland as Everywhere and Anywhere

Post: #19

(08-26-2014 07:48 AM)Sonsowey Wrote:  "I am not an interventionist but lets intervene"

Fuck that we will not do any good what do you want us to do? Take out IS' military capacity? Some other force will just replace them. Do you want to just kill everyone in the region? Thats barbarism and makes us infinitely worse than IS. Just let them be. Close the borders, police our countries, defend our actual homeland, but do not define our homeland as Everywhere and Anywhere

We don't have to go intervene. The fight will come right to us. The goal of ISIS is the complete subjugation of Western Civilization.

They are a real threat. They arent some rag tag group that simply want to blow up a Starbucks here & there. They want to destroy Europe and the West. They have the power to topple any government in the Middle East (and they are in the process of doing so).

This conflict is not going to be some little hit & run mission with our predator drones. This will be World War III.

Post: #20

^Calm down. IS doesn't have the power to topple any government in the Middle East, only the weak ones. Lebanon and Jordan are particularly at risk if IS is successful at maintaining its Caliphate in Syria & Iraq for the long term.

A successful strategy would need to get the help of all the governments in the Middle East that border Iraq and Syria to help with logistics, troops and airstikes.

Turkey in particular would need to start patrolling its border with Syria since that is where most of the foreign fighters come in from. Also the USA would need to make sure the Gulf States aren't sending money to IS and at some point the USA will need to come to terms with Assad's rule (at least in the short to medium term) so that he can help fight IS in Syria while the USA focuses on IS in Iraq.

Hardly end of world stuff.

Post: #21

I don't think any fighter jet would be in the air for more than 5 minutes before it was blown to pieces. There is an entire airforce of jets specialized for air to air combat that has been parked since air superiority was achieved on day 1 of the gulf war. That thing would be molested more than a white girl at an indian night club.

As for intervention, political strategy drives me crazy. I wish all of the pretenses were dropped and an empire building race of Renaissance proportions was started again, russia could re-take all of its USSR territory and the crusades part 5 could start again in the middle east. This intervention bullshit is like putting in all the work on a girl, taking all of the risk and then just going for a finger bang. If you are going to put in the effort go for the full raw dog already.

Post: #22

I don't know anything about their capabilities or what these jets are capable of, but I'll just throw some conjecture out there anyway. When people say they would get shot down by Western planes, do they mean that Western planes would literally be on them as soon as they took off?

ISIS may or may not be smart enough to pull this move, but if I were them, I wouldn't go for the obvious targets of Israel, U.S. bases, or even anything British, French or Russian. Obviously, those targets would likely be impossible, and also, regardless of anything else, those places still have some degree of martial spirit. Instead, I'd hope to sow maximum discord and have the most shock value by picking a lesser Western nation. Say, (suicide) bomb Vienna or Athens, or maybe somewhere like Naples. Stockholm would be perfect if they could reach it. Peel off the weakest members of the E.U. or N.A.T.O. where the population would immediately cave and put pressure on their governments to do so also, not those with the greatest willingness or capacity to fight.

The West has to think laterally like this, because ISIS would be mad to make a direct attack on anything American in particular. As war weary as Americans are, that would still be like prodding a hornets' nest. Any strike on America/Americans would galvanise America pretty quickly to go ballistic. No, the smart move would be to sow discord by hitting the soft underbelly of the West.

Post: #23

(08-26-2014 09:01 AM)Feisbook Control Wrote:  I don't know anything about their capabilities or what these jets are capable of, but I'll just throw some conjecture out there anyway. When people say they would get shot down by Western planes, do they mean that Western planes would literally be on them as soon as they took off?

ISIS may or may not be smart enough to pull this move, but if I were them, I wouldn't go for the obvious targets of Israel, U.S. bases, or even anything British, French or Russian. Obviously, those targets would likely be impossible, and also, regardless of anything else, those places still have some degree of martial spirit. Instead, I'd hope to sow maximum discord and have the most shock value by picking a lesser Western nation. Say, (suicide) bomb Vienna or Athens, or maybe somewhere like Naples. Stockholm would be perfect if they could reach it. Peel off the weakest members of the E.U. or N.A.T.O. where the population would immediately cave and put pressure on their governments to do so also, not those with the greatest willingness or capacity to fight.

The West has to think laterally like this, because ISIS would be mad to make a direct attack on anything American in particular. As war weary as Americans are, that would still be like prodding a hornets' nest. Any strike on America/Americans would galvanise America pretty quickly to go ballistic. No, the smart move would be to sow discord by hitting the soft underbelly of the West.

You really think IS can just bomb Vienna or Stockholm without it meaning their total destruction? In what world do you live? Bombing Vienna would have a stronger effect than 9/11 in the states since its a fullblown military attack on EU territory. That would mean all the NATO big guns going for full destruction of IS at the blink of an eye. Not to mention that even a small european country has much stronger military technology than IS or any middle eastern country, apart from Israel. I think your overestimating IS here a bit.

Post: #24

(08-26-2014 07:48 AM)Sonsowey Wrote:  "I am not an interventionist but lets intervene"

Fuck that we will not do any good what do you want us to do? Take out IS' military capacity? Some other force will just replace them. Do you want to just kill everyone in the region? Thats barbarism and makes us infinitely worse than IS. Just let them be. Close the borders, police our countries, defend our actual homeland, but do not define our homeland as Everywhere and Anywhere

If there's a positive to the situation (which looks like one of the biggest geopolitical disasters since the Yugoslav Wars), it's that various national and local interests have realigned to the point where broad cooperation might be a possibility. Syria, Iran, Shia Iraq, the Kurds, Turkey, Russia and the US now (for probably the first time in history) have one major objective in common: opposition to IS. Iran is reportedly providing support in Iraq, Syria's signaled a willingness to help a potential US effort, and meanwhile Turkey seems far more open to accepting greater Kurdish autonomy (so long as it happens in Iraq and not Turkey) and apparently already has deals in place with Kurdish authorities in Erbil.

That's the big difference between 2003 and today...back then, there was zero groundwork in place to fill the vacuum left by Saddam and it was pure hubris for the US to think it could so unilaterally impose one, which led to what can charitably be described as an utter fiasco; however, we're now seeing at least some semblance of aligned interests that might congeal and stabilize. If it's done wisely, western intervention could help defeat the more zealous and belligerent parties while additionally buttressing more moderate authorities, some which even possess genuine local support.

By the way, Islamists just took control of Tripoli. The situation could be spinning even more out of control than previously imagined. There's no clear road ahead, and I absolutely agree the US needs to get out of the business of trying to police the world, but this would be a fundamentally different proposition from past US military actions.

Post: #25

ISIS is nothing but AlQaeda under a new name.

And just as AlQuada has ALWAYS been controlled by the CIA and always served the interests of the US ruling elite (which are NOT the same as the interests of the US population), ISIS is also under control of the CIA today.

The goal of the CIA for creating ISIS:

To create a new boogeyman who will create some havoc in the middle east, some gruesome images of atrocities that will terrify the average Joe and make him believe that ISIS is the next Satan that will create hell everywhere on earth, so he will gullibly demand from the US government to destroy this new Satan and save him from this new boogeyman.

But ISIS is very conveniently also active in Syria, not just Iraq. Now the US army will have an excuse to strike into Syria as well (which I guarantee you will not be limited to ISIS targets only), so finally they'll have their wish to attack Syria come true.

Here's an article that corroborates a bit more on it: US mulls airstrikes in Syria, gets intelligence on Islamic State targets – reports

A couple key excerpts from the article:

Quote:... the United States is prepared to use a variety of options, including airstrikes in Syria without Damascus' consent, ...
...
...
Syria's Foreign Minister meanwhile warned the US on Monday that “any strike which isn't coordinated with the government will be considered as aggression.”

So to put a long story short: The CIA needed to create ISIS to circumvent the Congress and Senate unwillingness to authorize direct military strikes on Syria, and this is meant to provide the backdoor for the attack on Syria that they always wanted.