I hope it is the start of a joint relentless campaign, to target and annihilate this filth.
Whilst I have the same hope I fear that this is unlikely to happen. Our government is hamstrung by those in Parliament who believe that talking is the only way, and that because the only way to defeat IS is boots on the ground. An air war alone is never going to defeat them. The other issues are Russia's involvement wanting to support the incumbent Syrian president and the lack of involvement of the Arab world who want IS defeated but are unwilling to get seriously involved, in my view this needs to be a Muslim/Arab country led operation in order to counter the IS mantra that this is the west (or Christians) against Muslim. I truly fear the latter is never likely to happen.
My other concern in all this is the infiltration of terrorists into (or back into) Europe via the flood of refugees and the ridiculous open border policy of the EU which needs to be scrapped. Having border checks does not stop the free flow of legitimate workers or tourists but does give authorities at least an opportunity to screen out known or possible terrorists and to prevent to a greater extent crossing borders with weapons and explosives. I do believe that the UK policy of taking screened and hopefully genuine refugees from camps is a better way to help and this also reduces the likelihood of economic migrants.
Stuart
Rattle, Rattle ..... that did not last long!!
[This will be the last, I promise]
I have stated that Cameron/Tories needs to be brave enough to ask the question again, do we want to take the fight to Syria and all that means in terms of troops etc.
If you have seen/read the recent news you will see that Cameron is hinting at leading towards this.
He continues to fudge this because he is concerned about how it reflects on the Tories.
In spite of this 'now' would be the best time to ask the question again and this time we need to have a real working plan for what happens after. !!
The possibility of the Arab world 'fronting' any force is almost zero.
They are more than happy to throw money at other countries in return for them fighting this war.
(Note where the money goes [Contracts that are signed] when the west fights their war)
The 'problem' is that it would be politically bad for many of the Arab rulers to be seen to attack other Muslims.
(The rhetoric used against the west by the Terrorists would be applied against them. Unintended consequences yet again.)
Also there is the greater problem of where the funding for some of the various groups is coming from.
The Arab nations are often playing both sides at the same time where the govts makes one set of noises while some individuals/groups are funding the Terrorist.
As the money tends to be in the hands of a select group who by chance are also closely related to the ruling classes there is a conflict of messages (Public vs Private) !!
This is apparent to all the Western Govts, there are many reports and articles highlighting this.
The Arab world will not get fully involved, the best we might get is a token effort supporting the west but the last time the lack of cohesion in the Arab world was obvious.
The Terrorist problem is really a set of tribal wars that have been escalated by the availability of money and arms.
The 'opportunity' has been taken to jump on this bandwagon by others who want to attack the west in retaliation for supporting the other side. (As they see it.)
This has been muddied by the fact that the 'other side' has changed over time in various places via tropes such as 'Terrorists becoming Freedom Fighters' (This is a popular one
).
The situation now is that the west is seen as a target by too many supposedly opposing groups to make sense of it all.
This complication has been side-stepped, by these groups, by creating a 'religious aspect' to cover the cracks in the alliances, hence where we are today.
I fully expect that the UK will jump in again, with the risk of boots on the ground again.
The US of A will be very reluctant but may eventually be pulled in by events.
(Obama is under huge pressure to throw the might of the US of A at IS by his opponents, some in his own party)
This year could be ending in a way that no-one has foreseen.
