Terrorist Attack in Nice

[C0ckney]

a man drove a lorry into a crowd of people celebrating bastile day. there was then a shootout and he was killed. some reports of other attacks/attackers but nothing confirmed as far as i can see. 73 dead, according to police.

https://twitter.com/Le_Figaro/status...rc=twsrc%5Etfw

[Giancarlo]

This is getting too depressing. Just wait for that orange clown here to post his usual BS.

[Pekka]

Horrible.

I have to say these things, if terrorist attack, are working. If the goal is to terrorize, this does. I was in the London underground today and it was fairly empty, but I did think one day something will happen here again. In a busy morning during work transit... **** will go down. Or something similar, in some other place. It is horrible and realistically it cannot be stopped. No amount of police work will stop these; how do you stop a bus? You don't. Maybe it was someone who just went totally insane?

[Giancarlo]

Yeah we will have to see what was the motive. Like in Orlando, it was just someone truly insane. If Daesh sponsored, the group will have to be crushed at the source.

[Elok]

It's not really a matter of "sponsorship." They can simply encourage whatever nuts to come out of the woodwork in perpetuity and trust that it will continue to inspire said nutters at a fairly regular clip. There's no need for them to direct sophisticated attacks at great expense and risk when they can create terror with cheap crap like Twitter--effectively for free. I don't see how it can be stopped without outright annihilating IS, but as to how one would accomplish that, well . . .

[Berzerker]

i think its time nato got involved

i think its time the several countries at war with isil start acting like it

we left this mess up to the iraqi shia and they weren't up to it

and then we weakened the syrian govt allowing saddam's army a foothold in both country's hinterlands

iraq should have been carved up in 3 but now that wont work cuz that'd leave isil in charge of sunni iraq

isil must be eliminated before creating 3 countries, we cant have the sunni iraqis faced with defeating isil

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Afghanistan war, Iraq war, Libyan war, Syrian war, Yemeni war is coming to Europe - we are the closest geographically I guess, but what else could our dear leaders have expected?

Go and support conflicts involving almost 100M people, have millions die, get maimed, orphaned and have no local consequences?

Even if this one is not directly related, it will take years, if not decades for the terror unleashed in the middle east to get resolved.

[Elok]

The long-term need is for a stable, healthy Middle East. In the medium term, SA needs to be humbled, as they are the proximate source of the dominant brand of bat****. In the near term, ISIS has to go.

We can start by international agreements to cut off the flood of missionaries for crazy exported by SA; if Saudi-sponsored imams and material are not allowed to encourage Western Muslims to be just one or two shades more moderate than ISIS, that will slow the spread of infection. Really that should have been done some time ago. I also see an advantage in pivoting towards Iran, since Twelver Shia Islam has no significant tradition of terrorism that I am aware of, and Iran is in general substantially less horrid than SA. Iran and Kurdistan, with our support, would give ISIS a rather long front line to deal with. In the near term, we'll probably have to pinch our noses and prop up Assad a wee bit as well. I don't know how Turkey fits into all this. Obviously they're crucial as the doorway to Europe, but it'd be hard to keep them cooperative without throwing the Kurds under the bus. Hrm.

More later; your thoughts, gentlemen?

[C0ckney]

re: the middle east. ultimately, when one has spent, as we in the west have, more than a century digging a gigantic hole, it really is about time to stop. we can't put right the destruction and ruin we've wrought, even if our motives magically become pure overnight. no more bombs, no more nation building, no more weapons to the 'good guys', no more bull**** searching for a two state solution, no more lucrative arms sales.

[Lorizael]

We continue to have a very strong incentive to treat Saudi Arabia as an "ally." Any long-term solution has to involve eliminating that incentive. So, as usual, my answer is more science!

[Giancarlo]

Stable Middle East. That's a contradiction. It has never been stable. Perhaps maybe when the Ottoman empire was around. We need to crush Daesh and deal with it at that. By the way, I refuse to call Daesh by any other name. Daesh is considered offensive to the group.

Iraq needs to conduct it's final operation against Mosul and the talks regarding a Russian and US joint operation in Syria need to materialize. I think the US has realized Assad needs to remain in power, however awful he is.

https://www.rt.com/news/350988-russia-us-syria-cooperation/

I know the above source is fishy, but they do provide corroboration from the Washington Post. I think with these attacks, the US may see the Russians as potential assets in the region.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I blame the Ottoman Empire - some jokes are also true.

Class, who can explain my thinking?

[Kidlicious]

Hard to believe but did someone suggest allowing SA and Israel to fall to the terrorists?

[Giancarlo]

I blame the Ottoman Empire - some jokes are also true.

Class, who can explain my thinking?

Ottomans left the region a disaster, but so did the colonial powers. There was a fleeting chance in the late 40s, but it was wasted.

[Elok]

re: the middle east. ultimately, when one has spent, as we in the west have, more than a century digging a gigantic hole, it really is about time to stop. we can't put right the destruction and ruin we've wrought, even if our motives magically become pure overnight. no more bombs, no more nation building, no more weapons to the 'good guys', no more bull**** searching for a two state solution, no more lucrative arms sales.

What's the alternative? At this rate, it seems highly likely that the situation will degrade into several decades of all-but-direct war between the two big dogs, resulting in tens of millions of deaths and far more refugees. The area will be blanketed in ruined and failed states, and the chaos will spread outwards until the core is simply too exhausted to fight any longer.

We won't have pure motives, assuming there are such things in international politics. But we can be a bit more clever in choosing our friends, and treat them as actual partners instead of tools for the simple reason that treating them as tools has not worked.