100+ people killed in French terror attacks.

[The Comrade]

[Dylan]

[The Comrade]

they brought out their tu-160s. this means one of a few things.

1. their air force is so f**k strained they need to bring out nuclear long-range bombers to take the slack for their ground attack force
2. they're not doing as well as they seem to be so they're bringing out their largest planes as more PR.
3. they're carpet bombing areas which is wholly inefficient, which feeds back into either propaganda or their air force is strained.

in other words, they're probably struggling.

[Spider]

The Tu-160's are there as a display piece. Putin is taking the opportunity to wave his dick around. Why else would they bother throwing away expensive naval cruise missiles all the way from the Caspian if not as a demonstration? No reason the job couldn't have been done cheaper (and probably more effectively) from the air. Plus...some of those Kaliber's actually crashed in iran and didn't make it to their targets.

They seem to be doing alright, overall. At least as well as an air campaign can do against an enemy that is trying to instigate exactly that. In the last month and half they've flown like 2,500 sorties. Which is a rather large piece of the total "f**k you" delivered to Daesh over more than a year of Western strikes in a relatively short time.

As for the Tu-160's...they've got probably 10 or so still flying in total. Not really indicative of any sort of desperation considering that they've already been bombing like mad the whole time. And its not as though there is any shortage of Bears. They could always just overfly the place with dumb bombs pretty much around the clock.

Personally, I view this as wear and tear on aircraft they would be hard pressed to replace, and the expenditure of ordnance that they really can't afford to throw away. Win-win, now that they are actually bombing Daesh instead of anti-Assad forces.

I know, I know, we're supposed to pretend Russia is a joke, lololol, I get it. I'm just not seeing any signs that they are straining themselves. They aren't even deploying a large enough portion of their strategic bomber force to indicate anything of the sort. We're talking about fewer than 30 bombers.

[The Comrade]

well considering half their strategic bomber force isn't capable of getting off the ground it's understandable why we aren't seeing it. but dismissing them as being strained is premature. so, porque no los dos? they were beginning to feel stress fractures just over ukraine and that wasn't half as involved as the syrian air campaign. i mean they pretty much couldn't fight in both syria AND ukraine without actually mobilizing which is kind of pathetic.

[Saz]

What a hilarious thread. I remember calling out Saracen YEARS ago about this and everyone was in here saying you can't paint all Muslims the same blah blah. My how times have changed. It seems some of you has finally seen the obvious.

Why is it that of all the people and cultures around the world that have suffered from colonialism or American intervention or poverty or war, why does only one region and culture produce people who feel the need to massacre civilians in Paris or New York. Indians were colonised and are poor, no one is concerned about Hindus shooting up a theatre. Despite all the reasons levied by trolls like saracen, the critical link here is blindly obvious. Islam. Specifically Sunni Islam, and the wahabism exported by Saudi Arabia.

Saracen says it's not Islam, it's politics. This is absurd for the reason above, but it takes a special sort of mental gymnastics to come to such a conclusion when literally every one of these attackers is yelling God is great and other religious nonsense as they carry out the attacks. They aren't yelling this is for Iraq, or this is for the high price of grain. They yell this is for GOD. And while they sit there shooting people and yelling God is great, Saracen sits over her trying to act clever and wondering what the REAL motive is. Why do you attack us? GOD IS GREAT GOD WILL SMITE YOU!! Ok, but what is the real reason? GOD IS GREAT AND WE WAGE WAR FOR HIM. Yes, but what are your real reasons? It's like how many ducking g ties do they have to gun people down screaming God is great before we come to the conclusion that hmm, perhaps their views on God and religion have SOMETHING to do with this.

Saracen seems to think that the only bad guys here are the people who literally shoot others down. As if the people who finance them aren't just as bad. As if the people who shelter them aren't just as bad. As if the people who encourage and motivate them aren't just as bad. Dylan made an interesting point, you would think all these middle class kids from Europe waging jihad would be slapped down by their "moderate" parents. Then you look at attacks like this and what comes out? The whole family was involved. A known terrorist escaped into Belgium and no one can find him, I'm sure he managed that alone. How is it groups like this can operate in a community that they are only "0.003%" of without anyone alerting the authorities? The answer is clear and is shown in every opinion polls from the UK to turkey. The actual terrorists are 0.003%. But some quarter or more tacitly endorse these actions or think there is room for justification because of their religious views. These are the people who hide them, shelter them, don't tell the police when something is up, and allow their kids and neighbor to run off to Syria to fight and then welcome then back. This is a minority but it is a significant significant minority, and completely unique to the Muslim communities in the west. Again 25% of British Indians or French Romanians are saying that suicide bombing could be justified.

Which leads to a blindingly fourth conclusion regarding bringing in millions of largely undocumented refugees from Syria. What is the plan here? Surely we can admit that even if the immigrants who come are great, their kids have a shockingly high chance of thinking it's ok to shoot Jews in the street or bomb cafes. That undoubtedly changes a society for the worst. Europeans now are going to have much stricter surveillance, more border checks and armed policy, more welfare spending to support communities that have historically been unable to immigrate. The obvious question here should be: would this be necessary if Europe didn't admit a large number of Muslim immigrants in the past? The answer is obviously no. No one is saying to throw them all out or not let any in, but it's the height of insanity to pretend admitting an additional million Muslims from a war zone will not have very serious implications in the future. A second obvious question that gets further to the heat of this problem. How many European countries would continue to allow the immigration of large amount of Muslims, if put to a referendum?

This wilful blindness and moral relativism must stop.

[Saracen]

[Saracen]

[Dylan]

[micfranklin]