The war on ISIS.

  • Thread starter mister dog
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You will cease posting videos without context or explaination.
As far as i can tell this sentence isn't part of the AUP, so if you'd want to set this as a rule for members you'd better ad it so it's clear for everybody.

Anyhow, you'll get your explanation then even without it being a rule if that makes you feel better. Feel free to resort to all sorts of drama over that then :).
 
As far as i can tell this sentence isn't part of the AUP, so if you'd want to set this as a rule for members you'd better ad it so it's clear for everybody.

Anyhow, you'll get your explanation then even without it being a rule if that makes you feel better. Feel free to resort to all sorts of drama over that then :).

Honestly, they're linked on every single page.

AUP
You will, if asked by a representative of the forums, cease posting any content.
 
As far as i can tell this sentence isn't part of the AUP, so if you'd want to set this as a rule for members you'd better ad it so it's clear for everybody.

Anyhow, you'll get your explanation then even without it being a rule if that makes you feel better. Feel free to resort to all sorts of drama over that then :).

Is it clear enough for you now?

2017-03-30_00-14-56.jpg
 
Ummm... That's not the line? I'm sure you saw that I was talking about the other line you posted pretending it was part of the AUP? You didn't ask me to cease posting 'offensive' content, you're asking I put an explanation with it. But whatever... :rolleyes:
 
@mister dog

This falls within the purview of "Staff asking a user to cease posting any content" as listed in the AUP:
If you continue to post videos with no context or description in multiple threads they will be removed and a formal warning issued.

AUP repeated in the first sentence below. Second sentence is the offense, third is the consequence.
AUP: You will, if asked by a representative of the forums, cease posting any content.

Request: You will cease posting videos without context or explaination.

Consequence: Fail to do so and they will be removed and you will be issued a formal warning.

I'd challenge your intelligence and literacy skills, but it appears that both vanished the moment you got called out by the Staff.

Let me just paint this in the most blunt way possible:
  1. You keep posting videos without context/explanation.
  2. The Staff has asked you to cease doing this as (my guess) it does not contribute to GTP as a whole. This is valid under the AUP.
All you have to do is just say "Okay, sorry" and just move on. Why does no one ever get this?
 
The below refers to the huge loss of civilian life as a result of a coalition air strike in Mosul. Now this might seem like a normal expectation if you're dropping bombs onto buildings, but the current generation of weapons used by coalition aircraft (SDB, Brimstone, Maverick) are designed to limit collateral damage, often able to take out several rooms (on a specific floor even) in a building but leave the structure still standing.

Which raises all sorts of questions. Was this a deliberate plot from Daesh planting additional explosives? Or something simpler like a gas explosion? Or was it a simply the coalition got it wrong with disastrous results and gifted Daesh a disaster to exploit?


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...neral-stephen-townsend-probably-a7655701.html
 
The below refers to the huge loss of civilian life as a result of a coalition air strike in Mosul. Now this might seem like a normal expectation if you're dropping bombs onto buildings, but the current generation of weapons used by coalition aircraft (SDB, Brimstone, Maverick) are designed to limit collateral damage, often able to take out several rooms (on a specific floor even) in a building but leave the structure still standing.

Which raises all sorts of questions. Was this a deliberate plot from Daesh planting additional explosives? Or something simpler like a gas explosion? Or was it a simply the coalition got it wrong with disastrous results and gifted Daesh a disaster to exploit?


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...neral-stephen-townsend-probably-a7655701.html
Or could it be a policy of extermination, wipe out the entire family so no one is left to seek revenge or procreate? Trump did say he wanted to wipe off ISIS totally from the planet.
 
Or could it be a policy of extermination, wipe out the entire family so no one is left to seek revenge or procreate? Trump did say he wanted to wipe off ISIS totally from the planet.
Civilian =/= ISIS
 
Ummm... That's not the line? I'm sure you saw that I was talking about the other line you posted pretending it was part of the AUP? You didn't ask me to cease posting 'offensive' content, you're asking I put an explanation with it. But whatever... :rolleyes:
As @Obelisk has already pointed out that is simply not the case.

I do note however that you are now directly accusing me of lying!

Is this really a line of discussion you want to continue, given that even the most basic of reading quite clearly shows that was not the case. I cited the line of the AUP "You will, if asked by a representative of the forums, cease posting any content" immediately followed by the nature of the content you (and all members) are to stop posting "You will cease posting videos without context or explanation."

Its quite clear, and clear enough that you had to selectively quote my post to infer that I was making up a new part of the AUP. Which brings another part of the AUP into the conversation:

"You will not knowingly post any material that is false, misleading, or inaccurate."

All this from a simple and polite request to add context to videos you post, a request that has been made of countless members in the past (in regard to videos, links and direct quotes), the vast majority of whom have simply accepted it and moved on. You don't get to be different in that regard and right now you have two option, accept this and move on, or attempt to continue as you are (either by posting context free content and/or continuing this absurd attempt to argue a personal exemption) and see moderation action taken.

The choice is yours, but should you take the second option don't act surprised or cry foul when action is taken.
 
Nope, just because you are related to someone does mean you share ideology or extremist views. Nor would it stop them being civilians, the deliberate targeting of which would be a war crime.
Not to gainsay what you have just said, but please correct if I'm wrong: I feel fairly certain you are a true first-person veteran of the Middle East and close to expert in Muslim and Islamic matters. I have the impression that most Middle Easterners have a (for us Westerners) old-fashioned orientation towards family and tribal honor and duty, and a code which calls for revenge when one of the family is murdered.
 
Not to gainsay what you have just said, but please correct if I'm wrong: I feel fairly certain you are a true first-person veteran of the Middle East and close to expert in Muslim and Islamic matters. I have the impression that most Middle Easterners have a (for us Westerners) old-fashioned orientation towards family and tribal honor and duty, and a code which calls for revenge when one of the family is murdered.
Not the ones I've come across, not any more than any other person I have encountered. Not that the idea of 'honour killings' is limited to the region or even the faith.

Not that it would make a blind bit of difference, target civilians and you are committing a war crime.
 
target civilians and you are committing a war crime.

Are we assuming the civilians were targeted? Even if not, sure, war crimes are possible.

But the policy underlying these actions has two "benefits", or effects. It helps fulfill the promise of exterminating ISIS, including family and friends, from the face of the Earth. And it perpetuates conflict, strife, orphanage, refugees, failed states, poverty and famine throughout the Middle East and North Africa, which justifies continued western intervention and exploitation.
 
Are we assuming the civilians were targeted? Even if not, sure, war crimes are possible.

But the policy underlying these actions has two "benefits", or effects. It helps fulfill the promise of exterminating ISIS, including family and friends, from the face of the Earth. And it perpetuates conflict, strife, orphanage, refugees, failed states, poverty and famine throughout the Middle East and North Africa, which justifies continued western intervention and exploitation.
I'm not assuming anything, simply stating a fact.
 
It should also be pointed out that a good proportion of civilians who are dying as a result of strikes targeted as ISIS are very likely not 'family and friends'. A recent report on BBC News in Mosul included an interview with a local man whose neighbour was threatened with execution if he tried to flee his home - ISIS threatened to hang the man from his own doorway. Sadly, the people of Mosul are in a horrible situation - flee ISIS and risk being murdered and/or risk reprisals upon their neighbours, friends and family - or stay under the heel of ISIS and risk being killed by air strikes targeting ISIS. I think there is a qualitative difference between these two scenarios, however - ISIS are murdering innocent people for whatever reason they choose - anti-ISIS forces are basically left with little choice but to try to stop ISIS by using massive military force, which invariably ends up killing innocent people. Of course, ISIS deliberately use human shields because a) it slows down/frustrates attacks against them and b) if it doesn't i.e. the opposition bomb them anyway, then they stand to gain in the long term by causing the deaths of innocent people by the hand of their enemy. The poor civilians, on the other hand, cannot win either way.
 
The fact that the Middle East, North African and Muslim populations are being repressed, held down, killed, orphaned, impoverished and exploited is very likely not entirely their own fault nor an accident.
 
Or could it be a policy of extermination, wipe out the entire family so no one is left to seek revenge or procreate? Trump did say he wanted to wipe off ISIS totally from the planet.
We've invested millions of pounds/dollars in weapons that are designed to hit very precise targets with minimal collateral damage (it's actually part of the brief on Brimstone).

We no longer use dumb, unguided weapons in these conflicts, nor are we generally using larger munitions like 1000lb and 2000lb bombs despite there being plenty available, they're cheaper to use and more readily integrated with the aircraft in use.

The UK does not operate a heavy bomber, the US does not utilise it's heavy bomber to carpet bomb the region with dumb, inexpensive munitions. We follow the UN ban on cluster munitions and we aren't using chemical or nuclear weapons to create huge uninhabitable cities.

All, largely on contrast to what the Syrian regime and Russian forces have been openly doing (except nuclear). The former is Arab, the latter an Arab ally.

Regarding your other points. I think you're doing a huge disservice to these cultures making such inane statements. Syria was a developed nation before the civil war, as was Iraq to some extent. It was not a collection of tribes fighting over honour and insults.
 
Regarding your other points. I think you're doing a huge disservice to these cultures making such inane statements. Syria was a developed nation before the civil war, as was Iraq to some extent.

Would you mind going into some detail on my inanity, please? I thought I was trying to be sympathetic to the plight of Middle Easterners and Muslims, and to imply that the policies of the US have brought this down upon us all.
 
Would you mind going into some detail on my inanity, please? I thought I was trying to be sympathetic to the plight of Middle Easterners and Muslims, and to imply that the policies of the US have brought this down upon us all.
Well you seem to be presenting a picture of the Middle East as a collection of tribal groups obsessed with archaic tribal laws revolving around killing anyone that slights your family.
 
Well you seem to be presenting a picture of the Middle East as a collection of tribal groups obsessed with archaic tribal laws revolving around killing anyone that slights your family.
Surely that isn't the entirety of what I have said in these several posts?! I tried to qualify that one remark about family revenge with deference to your superior knowledge. You denied it was important, so I let it go. Since you and @ExigeEvan bring it up again and again, all I can add is that I don't have your experience, but the motif of a code of revenge in the Middle East us something I have picked up as a news junkie since Iraq War 1. And that it is my intent to drop it and move on.
 
Surely that isn't the entirety of what I have said in these several posts?! I tried to qualify that one remark about family revenge with deference to your superior knowledge. You denied it was important, so I let it go. Since you and @ExigeEvan bring it up again and again, all I can add is that I don't have your experience, but the motif of a code of revenge in the Middle East us something I have picked up as a news junkie since Iraq War 1. And that it is my intent to drop it and move on.
No problem, its just a common miss-representation I've seen used too many times.
 
Surely that isn't the entirety of what I have said in these several posts?! I tried to qualify that one remark about family revenge with deference to your superior knowledge. You denied it was important, so I let it go. Since you and @ExigeEvan bring it up again and again, all I can add is that I don't have your experience, but the motif of a code of revenge in the Middle East us something I have picked up as a news junkie since Iraq War 1. And that it is my intent to drop it and move on.
Revenge exists in nearly all cultures to a degree, many Western armed forces personnel certainly cited 9/11 as a reason to get revenge but it wasn't society on the whole. Just like it isn't in the middle East now, but of course some groups will look to exploit the anger in those that have lost friends/relatives.
 
Bad news. The past, present and future are like three drops of water.

Pentagon Has Video Proving Mosul Buildings Were Full of Civilians

Accuses ISIS of Using Civilians to 'Provoke' Attacks
by Jason Ditz, March 30, 2017

Facing growing criticism over an attack earlier this month that killed hundreds of civilians in Mosul, the Pentagon today confirmed that it has video footage of ISIS forcing hundreds of civilians into the destroyed buildings, which they presented as “provoking the attack.

iraq1.jpg
While this is designed to shift some of the blame away from the Pentagon for bombing buildings full of civilians, it appears to actually do the exact opposite: it confirms that the Pentagon knew before the attacks that those buildings were full of civilians, and attacked them anyhow.


http://news.antiwar.com/2017/03/30/...oving-mosul-buildings-were-full-of-civilians/
 
@Dotini - It will.be interesting to see what the source of the video is.

You've made an assumption that the information was available to the Pentagon prior to the strike, but this isn't always the case.
 
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