International Jihadis and the West's Response

Totally agree.

“Back in 2012, two employees at the nuclear plant in Doel quit to join jihadists fighting in Syria, and eventually transferred their allegiances to the Islamic State. Both men fought in a brigade that counted dozens of Belgians in its ranks, including Abdelhamid Abaaoud, considered the architect of the Paris attacks”

“One of these men is believed to have died fighting in Syria, but the other was convicted of terror-related offenses in Belgium in 2014, and released from prison last year. It is not known whether they communicated information about their former workplace to their comrades in the Islamic State”

“At the same plant where these jihadists once worked, an individual who has yet to be identified walked into the humming reactor No. 4 in 2014, turned a valve, and drained 65,000 liters of oil used to lubricate the turbines. The ensuing friction nearly overheated the machinery, forcing it to be immediately shut down. The damage was so severe that the reactor was out of commission for five months”

“Convicted of terror related offenses in 2014 and released from prison last year”====God forbid, what total lunacy and you wonder why Belgium citizens are dying.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/belgium-fears-nuclear-plants-are-vulnerable/ar-BBqWpTo?li=BBnb7Kz

So, what happens if they attack a nuke plant? What’s the response? Is it nuclear open season on ISIS, or what? Obviously the bombing campaign isn’t working or working quick enough to stop them. What happens if the unthinkable happens? What will our leaders do?

If they obtain fissile material and deploy a radiological weapon?

^ doesn’t address my post. How would American security and interests be better served had the Assad regime been bombed for the use of chemical weapons at Ghouta?

How many times can I answer the question? It probably wouldn’t have. Just look what happened in Libya. Did that better serve the security of America or the region in general? No. But Obama issuing a threat and not following through made the US look weak…maybe there was a chemical weapons solution in Syria, but Russia then went to fortify their ally so he could remain strong and never be bombed regardless of what he was doing? If he begins to use any type of gas he has relentlessly, could we bomb him now? Then the red-line comment is useless and made us look weak.

What fucking scum, targeting primarily women and children in a city park. What a glorious Islamic warrior, taking on that brutal division of children, giving his life to rid the planet of those sadistic child soldiers.

“The explosion took place near the children’s rides in Gulshan-e-Iqbal park local police chief Haider Ashraf said. He said the explosion appeared to have been a suicide bombing, but investigations were ongoing”

Hey, DoS, be careful with that strong language, “cowardly act” is bold for you, don’t want to disrupt your little tea parties and miss the chance to kiss more Islamic ass.

"The State Department, meanwhile, put out a statement condemning the attack, calling it a “cowardly act.”

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The Visa-less borders are inside the member states of the EU. That was part of the plan of the EU is to make trade and travel between member states seamless and easy. This is not so for those coming in from outside the EU. So the failure happened at the entry point of the EU. The terrorists know that once they get in, it’s easy to move around.
In their defense, when this was conceived, terror was not a problem. It may be time for the member states to kick up border checks again, but the down side is it will hurt the over all economy of the EU, which is why I am betting they are reluctant to do it.

I think it’s pretty clear by now, that the ‘response’ was a ruse. It was a dog and pony show for the west. Assad didn’t stop killing nor, stop using chemical weapons on his people. He changed what they used but didn’t change tactics.
It doesn’t much matter now. Syria is such a quagmire it’s impossible to know who all the players are. And compared to ISIS, Assad looks like the fairy godmother.
To fix Syria would have required what nobody had the stomach for, full scale invasion. It still may take that in the end. It’s not lost on me what a mess it would be. But we also cannot continue to allow ISIS to terrorize the world and leave a giant power vacuum in the middle of the desert.
I was kinda hoping Russia was going to do that for us, but essentially they got Assad back on his feet and bailed.
I am not under any illusions we can take out both ISIS and Assad. One of them is going to stay, at this point, I prefer Assad. He’s at least easier to control with pressure.

I agree, Europeans are not used to ‘diversity’ they don’t really know what that shit means. In Europe you have the natives, the gypsies and tourists. These invasion of foreigners are not something they are used to or know how to deal with. And I guarantee they do not like. They always hated the gypsies because it hurt tourism. Their lax immigration policies have really come to bite them on the ass.
However, the Europeans are in backlash mode. The natives want the immigrants out. And they are lashing out, it’s just not something we hear about a lot over here.

Assad himself? No. Some strategic targets would have been nice though. I am reluctantly pro-assad right now. Only, only because he is a little better than ISIS. And it’s easier to monitor a state, than a nomadic terror group.

As an aside, bombing the ISIS money shacks were sweet. That actually hurt them pretty bad… Still aside from bombing, we have not cut off their revenue streams or limited their public media access. Two things that can hurt them and are bloodless, yet after 2 years we still have not done it. Why?
ISIS is pretty much living and moving under ground. Bombing the top isn’t having much effect anymore. They are operating just fucking fine, bombs and all.

What our fearless leader will do is nothing. Who knows what the next president will do. If it’s Sanders, I would say more nothing. Hillary would probably act more prudently, though how much I am unsure. Trump would level them, their neighbors and any potential vacation spots. Cruz would probably be more aggressive, how much I am unsure.

Obama won’t even admit there is a problem. They could hit his daughter’s school and he would condemn the attack and then give the American people a 30 minute lecture on how islamophobia is wrong.

A “cowardly act” while not admitting that it was a direct attack on Christians because they are Christians even though the bastards said so. I hate obama. I mean I really hate obama. Worst. President. Ever. I wouldn’t piss on him if he were on fire.

Look at this piece of shit.

When one begins to dig deeper, one realizes the connection between the influx of Saudi money and Belgian left wing and extreme left wing politicans who formed an unholy alliance with “local community leaders” in order to get their block votes. Truly a harrowing read.

Doesn’t get more strategic than Assad himself. Couldn’t have targeted the weapons themselves without dispersing their contents, and there would be exponentially more being used by both regime and terrorist organizations had Obama not compelled Russia to persuade Assad to relinquish the vast amounts of blister and nerve agents that he had previously denied had even existed. Was the outcome perfect? No. Foreign policy is often the art of choosing the least bad option. It should be clear to any reasonable observer that the deal brokered by Washington was the least bad outcome. Unless, that is, one believes that metric shit tons of military grade chemical weapons are better off in the hands of apocalyptic jihadists than destroyed.

During a security brief the below subject was discussed. It is far worse than you think, some, of the information concerning nuclear security in European countries is beyond stupid, in fact, I lack the intellectual capacity to comprehend this type of thinking:

Belgium:

“Even after local police forces were drilled on how to respond to a terrorist attack, U.S. experts worried – and privately complained – about the absence of any armed guards at any of the country’s nuclear facilities”

You don’t supply armed guards at a nuclear facility? What? you going to stop a terrorist attack with fingernails and bad language? so, let me get this straight, you don’t care about your country or the citizens who support your political ass?

“While Belgium did not respond quickly to the discovery of the video late last year, it eventually decided – in early March – to order 140 armed soldiers to guard key nuclear sites containing dangerous nuclear materials. The previous month, Sweden similarly decided to order armed guards at its nuclear sites, although they are not required to be in place until early next year”

Sweden? the country of logic and craftsmanship? Who runs your country? Oh, let me guess, your more sensitive to political criticism than safety for your people.

“That’s why Britain, Canada, France, Germany and the United States have long posted armed guards at sensitive nuclear sites. But many other countries still don’t have such guards in place; the Netherlands, next door, which also supplies a large portion of the world’s radioisotopes, is one. Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Slovakia, and Spain similarly lack regulations requiring armed guards at their nuclear sites, according to data compiled by the nonprofit advocacy group, Nuclear Threat Initiative”

Netherlands: Hey, don’t look over your shoulder, you might have to face the reality of Belgium. Your ability to find stolen bikes won’t help you here, and forget about ice skating with a biological suit. For four of five of the countries listed, I guess they are putting their faith in the Pope to save them.

UN-fucking-believable.

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Obama didn’t ‘compel’ Russia. Russia jumped in voluntarily to protect Assad’s sorry ass. Russia likes Assad a lot for some reason. I don’t know what they are getting from him, but they love him.
That should not have stopped a military response. As Panetta pointed out, it was a lost opportunity and hurt our credibility world wide. We didn’t need to nuke the place. Just hit some infrastructure or military, something important to the Assad regime.
And when he used chlorine gas instead, we should have responded then too, but we did nothing.
We enabled Assad to do what he did to his people. You don’t need mustard gas to kill people as they proved.

But we shouldn’t worry about military aged males hiding among refugees. It’ll be fine, we can trust them.

Why are the Russians backing Assad? It enabled them several “quick wins”:

  1. Russia is obsessed with power and prestige. They like to play the bully - usually by terrorizing peoples who have the misfortune of being close to or inside the Russian/Soviet empire. With Assad, their last remaining ME ally from the good old time when the USSR could annoy the West with their advances in Africa and ME, they had the chance to humiliate Obama outside of Russia’s backyard and play the international power again.

  2. You’d be surprised how much Russian domestic propaganda focuses on Obama personally, and his lack of willpower and decisiveness. They usually contrast this with their Glorious Leader and his can-do attitude. So when Obama warned Russia about getting into a “quagmire” Putin seized the opportunity to further hammer the point that his forces can go in, change the course of war and get out without bogged down, in contrast to, well all recent US interventions.

  3. Russian intervention was dirt cheap, a few dozen planes and couple of hundred of ground personnel turned the war in Assad’s favor (see the recent recapture of Palmyra). Bismark tried to counteract this point by citing how Allied airstrikes were a order of magnitude larger than the Russian ones. Real power doesn’t matter, the projection of power matters. That’s why Putin won the propaganda narrative and it seems the war itself, as no one is discussing removing Assad anymore.

  4. Concessions - by playing the “I’ll work with you in Syria”, Putin is able to extract concessions from Kerry on European issues which are much, much important to them. Hence their signalling they would immediately sell out Assad if the US/EU made concessions in Europe.

  5. The only warm water port for the Russian navy. This one is self-explanatory Russian naval facility in Tartus - Wikipedia