I'm afraid this might be a huge mistake. If the West obliterates al Raqqa, this will be just what ISIS needs to cement Arab opposition to the West. Nothing could possibly unite them more. I can't imagine that the purpose of the Paris attacks was anything but to tempt the West into attacking with more force.

I was hoping Obama is also working on that while in Turkey. Turkey needs to step up for a while until the flow of oil money and soldiers is cut off.

Sure some bag guys might be pissed but they have to defend themselves.

and get to watch their parents and friends murdered. I cannot imagine. That city has to be cleared somehow. No easy answers.

I'd hate to make these difficult decisions. I'm glad I'm behind a computer. Much easier and safer.

they took over the city. This has to end, the genocide, the rapes and conscriptions of child soldiers.

or kill them before they can hurt more innocent people.

Are all people in al Raqqa "bad"? WTF? Bombing will just result in more ISIS recruits.

al Raqqa is over 700 square miles. According to reports, the French airstrikes involved 20 missiles targeting specific facilities. Does this mean there were no civilian casualties? Of course not. But you make it sound like the French are indiscriminately carpet bombing the city.

Attrition aside, all religious zealots seem to want martyred glory, but there's no glory in getting blown up while sitting on a commode or surfing YouTube. Knowing such an unexpected demise could await recruits may indeed make it harder to find new blood.

Case in point, after 9/11 it became clear that AlQada expended their A Team in fiery crashes. Shoe bombers and idiots who locked their keys in a car bomb were the second string.

It's easy to talk big about dying for a cause until they're strapping the suicide belt on.

Have you ever met an Arab?

here:
https://twitter.com/Raqqa_Sl
(English and Arabic)

When strangers tweet, I mean.

That is a good thing.

Sometimes you gotta fight.

Unlike some other places that got attacked by, let's say, Saudi Arabia, and started a war with a totally different country, say, Iraq, in response.

Just hypothetical, you understand. Nobody would ever really be that clueless.

News reports in France said the airstrikes were focused on Raqqa, the city in northern Syria that is the self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State.

The attackers in Friday’s terrorist assault in Paris communicated at some point beforehand with known members of the Islamic State in Syria, officials on both sides of the Atlantic say, adding evidence to the assertions that the radical group coordinated or helped carry out the attacks rather than simply inspired them.

My guess as to the timeline:

1. The bombers in Paris check in to make sure
2. The guys in Raqqa answer their satellite phone. and tell them to go ahead.
3. The bombers in Paris start their attack
4. NSA & French check phone records of calls around that time for calls from/to Paris to/from Syria.
5. A guy dollars "Hey dudes I have their GPS!!!"
6. A guy in Raqqa yells "What is all that noise outside"

This is what happens when you piss someone off with violent religious intolerance.

I'm traditionally antiwar, but the blood of ISIS isn't worth one percent that of their innocent victims. I don't mind seeing a settling of the score.

resulting in more ISIS recruits. Not that we have not seen this before.

...but convincing recruits there's going to be no retribution for their actions from the cowardly West may be a bigger tool for enlistment.

Dying an inglorious and anonymous death isn't a big draw to joining a religious club.

because of this past failed strategy...

Using elite forces from a coalition. Not carpet bombings.

I think the event in Paris Friday was a tipping point for many.

Level it.

for the most unelightened post ever.

Bomb em and let allah sort em out?

They'd be absolute imbeciles if the leadership all stayed around in their proclaimed headquarters after this attack.
The important people are probably scattered around in hidden bunkers, safe and sound.

This is something that had to be done but I'd be surprised if it actually did much damage to Isis.
Bombing destroys stuff and innocent people but can be defended against if you are prepared.

For one year and they have rich targets just sitting around.

Even funnier is that American and Russian air planes were flying and bombing ISIS held territory (including Raqaa) just yesterday, yet somehow overnight they found an extra 20 rich targets that they didn't know about to bomb in retaliation today.

This is the problem I have with so many gullable people (many of them are on this site), they think that just because France hits some more targets today out of revenge that it will somehow make more of a difference than the last year or more where countries like U.S, Russia, Britain, Iraq, Iran, Hezbollah, Israel France, Australia have been bombing ISIS.

Feeling outrage and wanting ISIS to pay for its crimes is one thing, being dumb enough to delude yourself into feeling better by thinking that today France did more damage to ISIS than a years worth of strikes is another thing.

This was nothing more than murder by France today the same way that ISIS murdered French people the other day. I would bet my house on the fact that not one ISIS member would have died in these airstrikes today as they would all have bunkered down and gotten out of the way of the airstrikes that they knew were coming.
It was most likely the innocent people of Raqaa that died today from these strikes and France knew that going in, so they deliberately chose to kill innocent people as revenge because they knew no ISIS members would pop their heads up to get blown off by an air strike.

Interesting theory.

I think that there is not much of a distinction between working blind and going after innocent that you know will get blown up with your bombs.

France knows that ISIS fighters would have taken cover anticipating these strikes, and that the only people to suffer from these strikes will be innocents living in Raqaa, yet France goes ahead with these strikes because it wants to be seen as striking back and getting revenge.

In my mind, dropping bombs on a city for revenge when you know that your bombs wont affect the people you claim to be targeting, is deliberately deciding that any civilian deaths in Raqaa is worth the optics of these air strikes.

We are applying western, democratic logic and values to people who don't even have a country, let alone a western democratic one. WE would be deterred from wreaking havoc ISIS-style if we knew that our targets would strike back by unleashing a hell storm, but is this something that ISIS will react to the way we would? These people blow themselves up for the cause. They are geographically diverse and it remains to be seen if they have any allegiance to anything but their religion. Some Belgium Islamic dudes (or the next perpetrators of terror) are going to be deterred because some town and innocent populace in Syria was in the past and might be in the future blown to bits because of their next terror action? I'm not so sure.

I get the optics, but are these particular optics going to have the desired effect on the people we are trying to affect? If not, they are useless at best, counterproductive at worst.

That's exactly right.

These people welcome death, they friggin blow themselves up because they think that they will get to heaven that way. If they don't care about their own lives, what makes anyone think that they will suddenly stop their terror actions because we may kill a whole shit load of people in Syria or Iraq etc.

In fact, that's exactly what they want. They want us to bomb and they want our bombs to cause more 'collateral damage' so that they can recruit those who have lost family and friends to our bombs.

To compare this to what DAESH has done is sickening.

We call ISIS terrorists because they deliberately kill innocent people to further their own goals.

Today France knew that these strikes would result in innocent people dying in Raqaa whilst the terrorists took cover and bunkered down, yet France went ahead with them because they wanted the optics of them striking back.

You may find a distinction between the 2, I find it disturbing that a western country who is better than ISIS can go ahead with air strikes knowing full well that the only people vulnerable to these strikes today would be innocents, as all the fighters would have taken cover anticipating these strikes.

Not saying there won't be any collatoral damage. They hide behind the women they have raped daily, and the children they have trained to kill us too. They will be the first "collateral damage". I wish we could save them.

So you think that there were all these rich targets such as headquarters and such in Raqaa that they didn't know about in the last year of bombings and suddenly found out about overnight?

You think that ISIS left any of their fighters in places such as head quarters to wait for the bombs to drop on them after they knew the bombs were coming?

The only people left in the open were civilians in Raqaa, and going ahead with the strikes purely for revenge is the same as deciding that any civilian deaths under those bombs was worth the optics of striking back.

around a great deal, and we try to follow their movements.

Yes I agree we do try to follow their movements, but there is no way that I would believe for a second that France suddenly got intel overnight that alerted them to 20 or more rich targets that were never discovered in the last year of bombing.

And again, my issue is not with killing ISIS, if we have credible intel that we can target them with then fine we have no choice but to accept some collateral damage, but these strikes by france overnight were nothing more than optics of striking back, even if they only people left in the way of the bombs would be civilians in Raqaa.

Thus knowing this, France still went ahead with them, showing that civilian lives in Raqaa were expendable just to have the optics of getting revenge.

that?

Because American, British, French, Australian planes have been bombing ISIS for a year now. Not too mention Russian planes joined in a month ago.

So if you have a years worth of bombings from all the major powers in the world, yet overnight you come up with 20+ new targets then why the hell didn't they get bombed in the preceding year?

You seriously believe that all these countries knew these targets existed before last night, but none of them felt the need to drop bombs on them for a whole year? Yet suddenly after the Paris attacks that France discovered this rich targets in ISIS capital that had been overlooked for an entire year were actually critical to ISIS and now were worth bombing because they would hurt ISIS?

Yes, they've been bombing and will continue to do so. This time it was well coordinated between a couple countries, to make sure the correct buildings were targeted.

I don't understand what you mean though. On the one hand you say these targets were found overnight. On the other hand there targets were known for a full year. Again, these assumptions are very odd and now very differing.

I'm saying that after a year of bombing ISIS with war planes from multiple countries, to believe that they had 20+ rich targets on hand that were not touched in the preceding year is laughable.

Either these sites were important to ISIS in which case they would have been bombed way earlier, or they were meaningless and were only chosen as targets overnight for the optics of france striking back.

Think of it, if you were in a war with someone, and you wanted to destroy them, as soon as you found out about an important site that was critical to the enemy, you would bomb it especially if you had complete control of the skies.

Yet suddenly straight after the Paris attack, France decides that these targets are rich enough to attack now when they weren't rich enough to attack for the whole preceding year?

It could endanger someone you get your info from.
Another. It might be worth watching to see who shows up, who meets whom. Continue surveillance.
Another. There are too many people there who you doing want to bomb. Wait for them to leave or be moved.
Another. Better to know where something is happening so you can keep an eye on it for changes than have it be hidden away. Continue surveillance.


I've a friend who grew up in Lebanon in the 60's, said it was amazing later to see who all was spying on whom. This is a very different situation, but I can come up with reasons to not immediately bomb somewhere pretty easily.

I've no fast or easy answers but have to say DAESH scares me. Both them as their own hateful, harmful, murderous asses and what will happen between super powers because of them.

And with this post, I am done with you here. I have personal and family connections with these last attacks in Paris and have strong opinions about it. Bye

it was being done. They could have gotten surveillance this AM for all we know.
What's your point? They should no try? Or they are just pretending? Don't buy the pretending part. Not at all. Sorry.

My point is that France needed to show that they were striking back, but targets that are important to ISIS are hard to find (because if they were easy then they would have been bombed way earlier), so overnight they just picked any buildings in Raqaa and bombed them for the optics of getting revenge/striking back under the pretence that these were important targets that would hurt ISIS.

Again, if France could so easily identify 20+ targets rich targets over night to hurt ISIS, then surely a years worth of identifying and bombing should have completely destroyed ISIS by now.

and beaten repeatedly and pretty continuously, and knowing your death was the thing standing in the way of killing those monsters.

Their lives have become horror ridden, it is too much.

The bombing will sate some people's appetite for revenge, and make politicians look like they're actually doing something, but I doubt that any of the destroyed targets will seriously cripple (or cripple at all) ISIS's ability to wage terror, especially when the same area has already been the target of an intensive air campaign (reminds me of the early days in Afghanistan: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/1359060/Air-strike-pilots-running-out-of-targets.html). I have no qualms about bombing ISIS "back to the stone age", but just be aware that any civilian casualties will be used as ISIS propaganda to recruit more willing followers, over there, and over here.

So I'm not sure if we can still justify the "Fight them there, so we don't have to fight them here" strategy given what has happened since this view was espoused by the Bush admin over a decade(!) ago.

We're not going to win this war by bombs and bombs alone (or drones for that matter), and it depresses me that we're still not asking the right questions or having the right discussions (* Who is supporting ISIS, and why do they support them? * Does the West and our ME allies have a role in making ISIS as strong as it is? * Is raining missiles and bombs and destruction in an already volatile region the best way to prevent terrorism, especially homegrown terrorism? * How do we win the hearts and minds of people that might be susceptible to ISIS's influence, again over there and over here, or should we simply not care about winning hearts and minds at all?).

Bombing is so much easier than trying to find the right answers!