Another one that hurts

I honestly don't think the solution lies in the Western Nations. I think this has to be something that the Muslim and Arabic nations rally around. I understand the complexity of Middle East politics and the internal divisions in Islam, but ultimately, someone needs to emerge in that culture that rallies the moderate and more modern people into taking action.My concern is that if this once again turns into a situation whereby the Western powers step in, all that will happen is the bad guys will scatter like roaches the moment the military shows up in significant numbers and simply disappear into the main populace. And we will once again be viewed as the 'invaders'.Like Tangle indicated, you can't solve this problem until you start getting people in those cultures to begin thinking more progressively and not fixate on the more barbaric aspects of what their religion advocates. It happened in Europe during the Renaissance but it took generations to achieve.The scary part is we have a situation now where these crazies have 12th century backward views of how the world should operate but have access to 20th and 21st century weapons. Scary thought.

There is more complexity to that problem. People who become radicalized actually come from all walks of life. A good portion of the young people going to join ISIS/ISIL are actually from decent families. Many of the 9/11 hijackers were well educated.My personal opinion is there needs to be a ground swell within the Muslim community itself. I understand fully this is not easy, but ultimately, any actions taken by the West are just used to fuel the fires of hatred and actually end up giving terrorist groups more propaganda to use in getting new recruits.From the USA's perspective, as a country, there are things we can do. How about not electing idiot halfwit cowboys that take us into senseless wars, destabilize entire regions and then leave a quagmire wrapped in a clusterfuck in their wake?

Not exactly. Keep in mind that Hitler received only received 37% of the vote in 1932. The vast majority of people likely had an inkling of his true motives. But alas, once in power, he used an iron fist to quell any dissidents. And also note that members of his own military tried to eliminate him with Operation Valkyrie. Which almost succeeded.There is a distinction however in that 'Muslims' are not a country. They are a religion that spans numerous countries and regions. As such, there are various differing voices within that large group. The problem is, the loudest voices are the radical ones. What needs to change is much stronger condemnation coming from the moderates as well as more active regional policies in the Middle East to deal with the problem of radicalization.To draw an analogy, the craziest Christians we have in this country are the idiot Phelps family that protests at soldier's funerals. What often happens now is when they try to stage another protest it is actually other Christians that step in and basically 'shield' the proceedings to ensure the grieving family is not disturbed. This is the same sort of thing that needs to occur within the Muslim community.I see something similar needing to happen within the Middle East. If you look at the size of the standing armies in that region, they outnumber ISIS by about 200 to 1. But of course, things get more complex as geopolitics come into play. Even for the USA, crushing ISIS helps Asad AND Putin. Which is why I ultimately think we need to stay out of it, since there is no positive endgame for us. Not to mention we have a habit of causing a mess anytime we try to solve problems in the Middle East.

I would argue it needs to be both.We do need to have reasoned, polite argument on the topic. But that also means political correctness can't be used as a crutch to avoid the discussion. As is often the case. These acts are being committed by young, Muslim men. That is not a bigoted thing to say, it is merely factual. Which means we need to look at the core of the problem. But as I stated earlier, this needs to be a joint exercise. The Western world needs to convey its secular values and the moderate Muslim world needs to become more vocal.From the standpoint of military intervention, I still firmly believe this needs to be handled within the internal politics of the region itself, with the Western world taking a more minor role. Despite all the Boogeyman notions of ISIS, they are a fighting force of approximately 20,000-30,000 fighters driving Toyoto pickup trucks. Turkey's army alone stands at 1 million strong and has advanced military hardware. And lest we not forget, Turkey is no pushover. That was where the Ottoman empire resided for centuries.If a coalition is formed of Muslim countries that focus on ISIS itself, they can easily be defeated. But as stated before, without the paradigm shift in how radical Islam is being allowed to thrive and more efforts within the Muslim committee on curbing it at its source, we won't achieve long standing results. The roaches will merely scatter as they always do only to pop up elsewhere.

You missed one:

Which is why effective intelligence networks and better collaboration between NATO members would be prudent. Maybe we all should spend less time spying on each other's leaders and focus on the actual intelligence gathering that would help prevent these types of attacks.Additionally, some smarter spending in the military is warranted. We have these expensive and quite frankly, antiquated military projects that do little to help our security and are more geared towards maintaining the military industrial complex. Fleets of aircraft carriers, support ships and ballistic missile submarines are too Cold War focused. But as you stated, I don't need a million dollar cruise missile to blow up a camel in the desert. And this is what I have stated before. However, I would argue that we do need to be more vocal about confronting the issue of radicalization and some of the less tolerant views that still permeate within the Islamic community. Often times, we place political correctness on some sacrosanct pedestal and anyone that states something, even a basic fact, is immediately labeled as 'intolerant'. This is actually diametrically opposed to the true notion of free speech and free assembly. You can't have an effective dialog if people are continuously hissing and pointing fingers at you for some perceived 'slight' you have made in deference to either them or some religious group.We all recognize that various cultures are 'different'. But different does not always equate to equal. The USA and Europe are 'different', but share many core values. Europe and Saudi Arabia are completely different from the standpoint of their views on equality and tolerance. But enough with the 'they are just different' mantra. Europe's society is BETTER than that of Saudi Arabia. Secular values are BETTER than religious hegemony. Equality of the sexes is BETTER than oppression of women. Democracy and the rights of the people are BETTER than monarchies and subjugation of the population. There is no debate here and we shouldn't pussy foot around those notions.Edited by Diomedes, : Fixed typo

Sadly, we seem to have the opposite effect. I think the main issue is most of our politicians are oblivious to cultural differences outside of our own. So we attempt to graft our Western cultural sensibilities onto the Middle East without any clear understanding of the internal dynamics of the area. This was exemplified in spades when Bush 2.0 (El Presidente Stupido) was famously quoted as saying "I thought they were all Muslims" when he was being explained the difference between Sunni and Shiite. It's this level of daft ignorance that has us bumbling around like idiots whenever we venture into that region. Agree totally. As I mentioned in earlier posts, this needs to start with a ground swell in the Islamic world itself. Moderates in both Sunni and Shiite branches need to work in unison. Not an easy ask, but wars have been fought in the past with strange bedfellows. i.e. Communists fighting along the Western Allies during WWII. How that can be achieved, hard to say.Of course, the other elephant in the room from the USA's perspective is Putin and his support of the Asad regime in Syria. By assisting in the quelling of the ISIS menace, we will indirectly be helping Russia and Asad. But ultimately, I think it has come to the point of accepting the lesser of two evils.In the end, the ULTIMATE moral of the story for us is simply: do NOT elect idiot halfwit presidents who start wars in the Middle East and destabilize the entire region. Funny how I remember Bush 2.0 apologists saying history will 'vindicate' his decisions. Yah, me thinks that is highly unlikely considering what we are seeing now.