Germany to join French mission against ISIS

[Thanas]

Haaretz

Germany Sending Tornado Jets to Syria to Help France Fight ISIS

In the aftermath of the attacks in Paris, German Chancellor Angela Merkel changes policy; German army previously operated these jets in Afghanistan.

In the aftermath of the attacks in Paris, Germany has changed policy and decided to join the fighting against Islamic State in Syria.

A senior lawmaker for Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives confirmed on Thursday that Germany will deploy Tornado jets for reconnaissance and intelligence gathering missions, as well as a warship, to support France.

"Germany will be a more active contributor than it has been until now," Henning Otte, defence expert for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) said in a statement on Thursday.

"Not only will we bolster our training mission in northern Iraq but we will, among other things, make a contribution to the fight against IS terror with Tornado reconnaissance jets." The German army previously operated these jets in Afghanistan.

Germany is also considering sending refueling planes and the use of satellite surveillance as part of the mission, coalition sources have said.

Only recon planes for now apparently but I hope we expand that soon. Major first step considering how reluctant Germany is about sending jets anywhere (and our chronic lack of spare parts).

[salm]

Apparently they´re also sending a fregate.

[Thanas]

Yeah, that's the warship mentioned in the article.

[salm]

Is this of significance? I mean 6 planes and one ship...

[Thanas]

Not a lot of significance, but it is the third time Germany has sent fighter jets into a warzone. I guess in context of our rather timid deployments elsewhere it is a step forward, but it might not matter much in the long run.

That said, the frigate is supposedly able to coordinate bombing runs (or so they claim) so that might end up being the greater contribution.

[Patroklos]

If it has an AAW suite it can do anything a normal ground station can. Or in other words pretty much any combat ship can do this so that's fluff.

Hopefully its a trial balloon to see if this sits well and if so ramp things up a bit. Even if they are just going to do to ISR missions for now if that is in conjunction with French operations that will let the French dedicate more of their air frames to bomb trucking.

[Adam Reynolds]

Will they actually increase funding as a result of this? Bill Clinton had the habit of using the US military and then paying for it out of the normal spending budget. Who knows if this will make any real difference in Germany's defense budget problems. Though the attacks in Paris might lead to increased public support for defense spending.

If it has an AAW suite it can do anything a normal ground station can. Or in other words pretty much any combat ship can do this so that's fluff.

It depends on which frigate. One of the German designs has a rather crap AAW suite with nothing heavier than RAM. Though at least it is still better than the US Hellen Keller class(OHP).

[Patroklos]

For air controller purposes your AAW armament is irrelevant, just your comms and radars. Which for western ships covers pretty much any ocean going combatant. Well maybe not the German corvettes which though technically ocean capable are have minimal radar. I can't think of a frigate level ship class in NATO that can't exercise air control. Hell, most of them have their own air assets on-board.

[Thanas]

The ship in question will be a Sachsen-class.

[Adam Reynolds]

The ship in question will be a Sachsen-class.

That makes the most sense, it has a far better radar as well as plenty of decent missiles to play with if anything becomes a problem.

[aerius]

Just gotta get the British and Dutch involved and we can totally mangle the Middle East again just like in the good old days of colonialism.

Sarcasm aside, I'm not entirely convinced that getting involved is a good thing. I've honestly lost track of how many countries are now involved in the ISIS clusterfuck, I think it's like a 6-way conflict and with the latest incident between Turkey & Russia it's getting even more messy & confusing. Adding yet more parties to the conflict doesn't seem like a good idea.

[Dartzap]

Cameron is pretty eager to get in there. Not sure a couple of rusting Tornados would be of much use, heh.

[Crazedwraith]

Cameron is pretty eager to get in there. Not sure a couple of rusting Tornados would be of much use, heh.

Apparent we have 'specialist capabilities our allies need'. No idea what they might be.

[salm]

Cameron is pretty eager to get in there. Not sure a couple of rusting Tornados would be of much use, heh.

Apparent we have 'specialist capabilities our allies need'. No idea what they might be.

Yeah, we too. If you bring in the Bundeswehr you´ll be guarateed to find a parking space in your war zone. Also, we have brooms. And perhaps even a gun. But probably not.

[Vendetta]

Cameron is pretty eager to get in there. Not sure a couple of rusting Tornados would be of much use, heh.

Apparent we have 'specialist capabilities our allies need'. No idea what they might be.

A gullible populace willing to go to war with brown people for spurious reasons?

That's been pretty handy for our allies in the past.

[Channel72]

Yeah, reasons for attacking ISIS are totally "spurious". Those guys are really just misunderstood, I think. The problem is that the US and France just don't see the good side of ISIS. Like their amazing Photoshop skills and hilarious Twitter posts. Plus, I hear they restored electricity in Ramadi, which is a big win for everyone.

[Vendetta]

Yeah, reasons for attacking ISIS are totally "spurious". Those guys are really just misunderstood, I think. The problem is that the US and France just don't see the good side of ISIS. Like their amazing Photoshop skills and hilarious Twitter posts. Plus, I hear they restored electricity in Ramadi, which is a big win for everyone.

Which means that airstrikes are going to be a totally effective way of attacking them and we should totally be involved in doing that.

Oh wait, airstrikes are almost certainly not going to be effective at all.


ISIS is not an enemy which can be readily defeated by dropping bombs on it. Even if, like Al Qaeda, we manage to drop lots of bombs on important people in ISIS, even if we invaded again and shot everyone currently involved personally, all we would do is create more terrorists.

Even this form of the problem won't go away until its sources of funding, both internal and international, and weapons and supply are cut off, these will not be achieved with a few poxy airstrikes, military policy should not be decided on the basis of what makes a fucking Daily Mail reader feel better.

I mean it's almost like people learned precisely fuck all from the last 15 years. (let alone the startling ineffectiveness of bombing, eg. Hamas which has been around a lot longer and periodically been the target of airstrikes which do not appear to have stopped it being a thing at all).

[Broomstick]

Sarcasm aside, I'm not entirely convinced that getting involved is a good thing. I've honestly lost track of how many countries are now involved in the ISIS clusterfuck, I think it's like a 6-way conflict and with the latest incident between Turkey & Russia it's getting even more messy & confusing. Adding yet more parties to the conflict doesn't seem like a good idea.

I'm thinking there are no “good ideas” at this point. NOT getting involved won't make the problem go away, either, and ISIS seems determined to spread their venom far and wide.

A gullible populace willing to go to war with brown people for spurious reasons?

I don't think framing this as a “war against brown people” is helpful, either. The Jihadist crowd (ISIS/ISIL/Daaesh/whatever, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, etc.) don't seem much to care about race as far as I can see. In Europe they're fighting mostly white people. In the Middle East mostly brown people. In Africa mostly black people. It really is about religion.

And your complaint about the ineffectiveness of airstrikes brings me back to “there are no good ideas” at this point. More and more parties are getting pulled into a clusterfuck.

So - do you have any suggestions, since you don't like airstrikes?

[Gandalf]

A gullible populace willing to go to war with brown people for spurious reasons?

I don't think framing this as a “war against brown people” is helpful, either. The Jihadist crowd (ISIS/ISIL/Daaesh/whatever, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, etc.) don't seem much to care about race as far as I can see. In Europe they're fighting mostly white people. In the Middle East mostly brown people. In Africa mostly black people. It really is about religion.

Da'esh's reasons are religious, certainly. But why is everyone responding as they are? Do you honestly think that westerners would be so keen for punitive military action if white people were on the receiving end?

[Kingmaker]

I don't know. Just as a hypothetical scenario, suppose the Serbs started being really shitty to everyone around them. Would that draw Western military intervention?

[Vendetta]

A gullible populace willing to go to war with brown people for spurious reasons?

I don't think framing this as a “war against brown people” is helpful, either. The Jihadist crowd (ISIS/ISIL/Daaesh/whatever, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, etc.) don't seem much to care about race as far as I can see. In Europe they're fighting mostly white people. In the Middle East mostly brown people. In Africa mostly black people. It really is about religion.

Da'esh's reasons are religious, certainly. But why is everyone responding as they are? Do you honestly think that westerners would be so keen for punitive military action if white people were on the receiving end?

Psst. Number of airstrikes against Northern Ireland very low despite 30 years of terrorism.

[SpottedKitty]

Not sure a couple of rusting Tornados would be of much use, heh.

I dunno, the Tornado's proven it still has big sharp nasty teeth when needed. Just as well, since the F-35 is still a few years away from deployment, and I'm not sure if the Typhoon could really be called a Tornado replacement.

[Broomstick]

A gullible populace willing to go to war with brown people for spurious reasons?

I don't think framing this as a “war against brown people” is helpful, either. The Jihadist crowd (ISIS/ISIL/Daaesh/whatever, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, etc.) don't seem much to care about race as far as I can see. In Europe they're fighting mostly white people. In the Middle East mostly brown people. In Africa mostly black people. It really is about religion.

Da'esh's reasons are religious, certainly. But why is everyone responding as they are? Do you honestly think that westerners would be so keen for punitive military action if white people were on the receiving end?

First of all, "westerners" do not universally perceive the people of the Middle East to be "brown". A LOT of them that come over here are viewed as white unless they make a point of describing themselves as "Arab". Steve Jobs is not normally described as brown, nor is Teri Hatcher, nor former governor of Indiana Mitch Daniels (granted, only a quarter Syrian in his case) nor was Danny Thomas, nor were/are a lot of other Arab-Americans. There are people attempting to make a point by framing this as "white vs. brown", or operating out of an agenda that existed before this conflict came to the fore. For those white people who perceive Arabs as fellow Caucasians this is white on white and the framing of it as white on brown or vice versa is puzzling.

The history of the 20th Century should answer the question "can white people be brutal to white people" with a "yes".

Second, I think the violence of the response has a lot more to do with 1) perceived ability to respond in kind (MENA nations do not have the capability to conduct airstrikes on the US, Russia, UK, France, etc.) and 2) the fact that this terrorism isn't localized but rather reaching across continents and oceans. The terrorism in Northern Ireland was, for all the bloodshed, a local problem and it was entirely up to the UK how they wished to responded. Likewise, ETA in Basque country was local and it was up to neighboring governments to deal with it. The US really didn't care about either, the UK (so far as I know) didn't care about ETA, Spain didn't care about the IRA because the threats were localized.

The current globalized terrorism is NOT local - ISIS isn't just limiting itself to MENA anymore, it's attacking on another continent. An enemy that is determined and resourceful enough to reach across that distance is going to be perceived as more threatening and that has a lot to do with the current response. This means more and more nations are getting attacked, pissed off, and motivated to attempt some ass-kicking.

Is some of it motivated by bigotry? Possibly - but you could argue just as much for "antisemitism" or "islamophobia" as "race-based bias". I think insisting on "white vs. brown" is just injecting US race hang-ups into a situation where they don't apply.

[Channel72]

You guys are getting your whole racism argument entirely backwards... the argument is that the West usually doesn't bother interfering when "brown people" are genocide victims - i.e. Darfur, Rwanda, etc.

Now, we're actually interfering when brown people are genocide victims.

Of course, it's probably a major motivating factor here that our initial Iraq invasion enabled this whole situation to begin with.

Oh wait, airstrikes are almost certainly not going to be effective at all.

Air strikes are effective to a certain extent. They prohibit ISIS from further expanding, and frustrate ISIS' ability to generate revenue via transporting oil. At this point, ISIS is mostly holed up in a few cities, and most inter-city travel has to be done via civilian vehicles. So, the airstrikes aren't useless - they're just not nearly enough to actually extract ISIS from these cities.

[Col. Crackpot]

I don't think framing this as a “war against brown people” is helpful, either. The Jihadist crowd (ISIS/ISIL/Daaesh/whatever, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, etc.) don't seem much to care about race as far as I can see. In Europe they're fighting mostly white people. In the Middle East mostly brown people. In Africa mostly black people. It really is about religion.

Da'esh's reasons are religious, certainly. But why is everyone responding as they are? Do you honestly think that westerners would be so keen for punitive military action if white people were on the receiving end?

Psst. Number of airstrikes against Northern Ireland very low despite 30 years of terrorism.

That would have been political suicide in the US. Too many Kennedys and O'Neils in Congress.