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It's not that I disagree with the points brought up by this article (how could I! We've known these things to be true for years!), but I'm worried about the lea

It's not that I disagree with the points brought up by this article (how could I! We've known these things to be true for years!), but I'm worried about the leap that people make, namely that military action isn't necessary. It's hard to imagine any effective strategy that doesn't involve killing people in Syria. It's disgusting, necessary, and -- I willingly admit -- not sufficient.

acjohnson55 11y ago
It's also hard to imagine how such killing doesn't simply fertilize the soil of radicalization.
- omginternets 11y ago
  It's also hard to imagine how not killing doesn't facilitate the vile activities of daesh. I swear this is the late 1930's all over again. "Surely Herr Hitler will get tired of invading countries before he gets to France. Surely military action will only anger him more..."
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    ISIS and the NSDAP are not even close to being similar geopolitical entities.
    - csallen 11y ago
      The purpose of analogy is not to say that two things are similar in every way.
      - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
        Except the two groups are starkly different in every way but irredentist and domineering ideology that the analogy is useless.
        csallen 11y ago
        You're still missing the point. An analogy is not meant to show that two things are similar. Therefore responding by saying that they are, in fact, different doesn't refute anything.
        omginternets 11y ago
        Csallen is right: the point of the metaphor is that we're currently engaged in a knee-jerk pacifist reduction, and that it's not the first time we (the French) have done that in recent history. You can tell me we learned our lesson during WWII, but that's just a proclamation of faith.
    - themetrician 11y ago
      Cry me a river about the 6 trillion Jews but please don't mention the 10 million Ukrainians that Jewish Commissar Genrikh Yagoda killed, because that would not be PC and it makes the Jews uncomfortable.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
asgard1024 11y ago
> It's hard to imagine any effective strategy that doesn't involve killing people I disagree, one is actually described in the article: "[For] the youth of the nation are closer to the innate nature [of humans] on account of the rebelliousness within them." Do you think capitalism/democracy/whatever mix we have in the West does a good job of preventing these people fighting for "Jihad"? We don't really give young people (say ages 15-25, before males are fully emotionally developed) a chance to "rebel safely". We don't even have a definition of what it could be! I'll just leave it here, there are many options where to go from there, I think. It actually reminds of "drug education" we had in high school. The guy was a social worker who worked with people on drugs, gave them clean syringes, put them on methadone, etc. His idea basically was, it's perfectly cool if you want to try it, but it's better to understand the risks and wait a little bit, until you grow older. I think it was very sane approach (and very counter-intuitive to people who support war on drugs and "say no" and similar things). Maybe the same should be done with weapons and war, and if someone still wants to try the war, send him as a journalist to war zone. Recently I had another related weird idea: Someone should write a sci-fi story about a society which puts its youths through a very strict, military like institution. It would then be revealed that the whole purpose of the institution is to make young people rebel against authority, in a safe environment. That would be akin to a successful graduation exam, because the society would believe that those people who do that are going to be the best citizens. (You can also read my earlier comment on the topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10572797 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10572797)
- pythonlion 11y ago
  what you said its all true but there are out there already some fanatics who wants to kill you, they can. and they did, and i don't know how many more life should be letting to "statistic danger", in the various places of the world. its really hard to calculate, really.. i don't know.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    Just for perspective, more people die on the roads of France every two weeks than have died in this attack. (By the way, if you think I'm diminishing the tragedy of these deaths, aren't you diminishing the tragedy that are road fatalities?)
pythonlion 11y ago
couple of thousands pinpointed (and larger) airstrikes, comprehensive wipeout of terror cells in Europe. maybe it sound extreme, but its a clear action to-face the situation. ofcurse the first witch should come to mind is to save as many lifes and dignity etc. . and i think solving it without killing will only make it a dragging problem.
- swiley 11y ago
  Preemptive killing like that is murder.
  - pythonlion 11y ago
    it is happen already, i commented about duration.
- knowaveragejoe 11y ago
  "Comprehensive wipeout of terror cells in europe" is difficult because the whole point of a terror cell is that they blend perfectly with the general population.
seren 11y ago
This might be hard to understand for us, but I am sure there are Sunni civilians who would rather be under ISIS rule that Assad or Iraki rules. Isis found a fertile ground because Sunnis area were oppressed or neglected by their central government. At any sign of serious ground military actions, all that ISIS fighter have to do is to hide in their civilian population. And that will be Fallujah all over again. This is the reason why currently no one consider seriously to send ground troops.

acjohnson55 11y ago

It's also hard to imagine how such killing doesn't simply fertilize the soil of radicalization.

omginternets 11y ago
It's also hard to imagine how not killing doesn't facilitate the vile activities of daesh. I swear this is the late 1930's all over again. "Surely Herr Hitler will get tired of invading countries before he gets to France. Surely military action will only anger him more..."
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  ISIS and the NSDAP are not even close to being similar geopolitical entities.
  - csallen 11y ago
    The purpose of analogy is not to say that two things are similar in every way.
    - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
      Except the two groups are starkly different in every way but irredentist and domineering ideology that the analogy is useless.
      - csallen 11y ago
        You're still missing the point. An analogy is not meant to show that two things are similar. Therefore responding by saying that they are, in fact, different doesn't refute anything.
      - omginternets 11y ago
        Csallen is right: the point of the metaphor is that we're currently engaged in a knee-jerk pacifist reduction, and that it's not the first time we (the French) have done that in recent history. You can tell me we learned our lesson during WWII, but that's just a proclamation of faith.
  - themetrician 11y ago
    Cry me a river about the 6 trillion Jews but please don't mention the 10 million Ukrainians that Jewish Commissar Genrikh Yagoda killed, because that would not be PC and it makes the Jews uncomfortable.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

asgard1024 11y ago

> It's hard to imagine any effective strategy that doesn't involve killing people I disagree, one is actually described in the article: "[For] the youth of the nation are closer to the innate nature [of humans] on account of the rebelliousness within them." Do you think capitalism/democracy/whatever mix we have in the West does a good job of preventing these people fighting for "Jihad"? We don't really give young people (say ages 15-25, before males are fully emotionally developed) a chance to "rebel safely". We don't even have a definition of what it could be! I'll just leave it here, there are many options where to go from there, I think. It actually reminds of "drug education" we had in high school. The guy was a social worker who worked with people on drugs, gave them clean syringes, put them on methadone, etc. His idea basically was, it's perfectly cool if you want to try it, but it's better to understand the risks and wait a little bit, until you grow older. I think it was very sane approach (and very counter-intuitive to people who support war on drugs and "say no" and similar things). Maybe the same should be done with weapons and war, and if someone still wants to try the war, send him as a journalist to war zone. Recently I had another related weird idea: Someone should write a sci-fi story about a society which puts its youths through a very strict, military like institution. It would then be revealed that the whole purpose of the institution is to make young people rebel against authority, in a safe environment. That would be akin to a successful graduation exam, because the society would believe that those people who do that are going to be the best citizens. (You can also read my earlier comment on the topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10572797 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10572797)

pythonlion 11y ago
what you said its all true but there are out there already some fanatics who wants to kill you, they can. and they did, and i don't know how many more life should be letting to "statistic danger", in the various places of the world. its really hard to calculate, really.. i don't know.
- icebraining 11y ago
  Just for perspective, more people die on the roads of France every two weeks than have died in this attack. (By the way, if you think I'm diminishing the tragedy of these deaths, aren't you diminishing the tragedy that are road fatalities?)

pythonlion 11y ago

couple of thousands pinpointed (and larger) airstrikes, comprehensive wipeout of terror cells in Europe. maybe it sound extreme, but its a clear action to-face the situation. ofcurse the first witch should come to mind is to save as many lifes and dignity etc. . and i think solving it without killing will only make it a dragging problem.

swiley 11y ago
Preemptive killing like that is murder.
- pythonlion 11y ago
  it is happen already, i commented about duration.
knowaveragejoe 11y ago
"Comprehensive wipeout of terror cells in europe" is difficult because the whole point of a terror cell is that they blend perfectly with the general population.

seren 11y ago

This might be hard to understand for us, but I am sure there are Sunni civilians who would rather be under ISIS rule that Assad or Iraki rules. Isis found a fertile ground because Sunnis area were oppressed or neglected by their central government. At any sign of serious ground military actions, all that ISIS fighter have to do is to hide in their civilian population. And that will be Fallujah all over again. This is the reason why currently no one consider seriously to send ground troops.