So, we're all guardians(edit: FIIIIINNE we're all gamers.) , we all have something and common, and I've enjoyed getting to know a lot of you on forums and in the game. With that being said, there are a lot of people with the right idea in their hearts but maybe don't understand the full weight of what they say. I.E. "Let's kill all of ISIS now!" "Let's put boots on the ground!" "What does he know?" you might ask, and that's a question that should be asked. I majored in Middle-Eastern studies with an Emphasis in Arabic, and am a government certified Arabic translator. I currently work as an Arabic analyst for the U.S. Govt. So I propose that if you have a question about what's going on over there, the situation, why the government has done what it's done, and not done other things, please ask. I'll do my best to answer. I'm definitely not an expert, there is still a lot more for me to learn about the area and culture, but I think I'm going in the right direction. I feel the best thing you can do is to have an increased situational awareness about what's going on over there. So I'll do my best to answer some of the more common questions I see/hear from people. But feel free to ask your own questions, I'll do my best to answer quickly. [b]1.) Who the junk is ISIL/ISIS/Daesh?[/b] Ok ISIL stands for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. (Levant was originally a french term meaning, the place where the sun rises, but this is typically regarded as an area including parts of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and what is now known as Israel. ) ISIS stands for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria- (which is where this group has roughly been limited to, rather than the entire Levant. and Daesh is the Arabic acronym written in Latin Characters, but if you're interested it stands for الدولة الاسلامية بالعراق والشام (Al-Dawleh Al-Islamieh fi al-Iraq wah al-Sham) which is just translated into English as ISIL. [b]2.) Are these guys Muslims?[/b] Well they claim to be. But they're more of a "Theography" A group with a common belief because of their location in the same geographical area. Basically, they're like your one friend who claims to be religious but only follows the parts of his/her religion that he/she agrees with or benefits him/her. ISIS takes it to the extreme. ( So, a little religious background; I'm sure you all know that Muhammed was/is their prophet. Well before he died, he said that a bunch of branches of his teachings would sprout up and they would all be different. So people then asked him how they would know which branch is the right one, and he told them whichever branch teaches the things that he and his selected leaders have taught. ) So now ISIS is taking advantage of all the mistakes previous religious leaders have made, for example killing and persecuting christians by decapitation and other disgusting means. So when other Muslims question ISIS about their tactics, ISIS just says, "Well this leader did it in year 642, so this is the correct thing to do." And if you still dissent, they'll kill you. [b]Tl;DR- they follow their own crazy, twisted, demented form of Islam that's sooo far from it's original purpose, most Muslims don't consider ISIS Muslims. [/b] [b]3.) Why don't we just carpet bomb the area?[/b] Really? Is this actually an option for some people? There are still good people over there, people who refuse to join ISIS even among threats and danger, these people are fleeing their homelands to get away. They're just normal, every day people. Also, there are these things called Rules of Engagement (ROE) that kinda prohibit the US from killing innocent people. Not saying wartime casualties and accidents don't happen, but intentional targeting of any innocent person is totally illegal, and members of the military who do, get put away in military prison for a LOOOONG time. [b]4.) Why don't we just send in troops?[/b] This, is actually a good question. We've done this multiple times before in recent history. Most recently, Iraq and Afghanistan fighting Al-qaida and the Taliban, respectively. American troops go in, fight the good fight, make the green grass grow, and they do it better than any other country in the world. But the baddies go down swinging, they do as much damage to the country's infrastructure as possible. Once our job is done, we pull troops out, but there is still a huge vacuum left behind in those countries, and power available for the taking. Well, some motivated crazy nut decides he's gonna take that power, and then ISIS starts where al-qaida used to be. The Iraqi government still wasn't established or rebuilt enough to combat ISIS. Same thing is currently happening in Afghanistan, we pulled out of there after making the green grass grow and putting warheads on foreheads. Now there's another vacuum where people in power used to be, and crazy douchenuts are taking advantage of the situation. This doesn't mean we haven't been pretty successful against ISIS. Retired USMC General John R. Allen, appointed by President Obama to lead a coalition to fight ISIS( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Allen) said in a conference I went to that ISIS has roughly 38% less land under their control than they did at February 2014. but he also said, and I quote, "Daesh, (ISIL) is not defeated until the idea of daesh(ISIL) is defeated." He also said that Muslims must start the debate against ISIL. Someone with a Muslim voice and an Arab face. We need to start an introspective dialogue about how can our own population assimilate together without giving up their faith. [u][b]TL;DR: Most military leaders and analysts all agree that we should support true Muslims in the area to assimilate, grow some balls, and combat ISIL themselves, with help from American leadership.[/b][/u] [b]5.) Why aren't we tapping phones and monitoring communication to stop attacks like the one that happened in Paris?[/b] Well, in short, we are. The US does what it can, but we're bound by civil rights protection acts, and specifically the 4th amendment of the Constitution, which protects the citizens of this great nation (edit: and also provides some protections to citizens of 2nd party countries, like France.) from unlawful search and seizure from the government. Data, and phone calls have been deemed as items that are covered by the 4th amendment. So, essentially, if the government doesn't already KNOW you're plotting a terrorist attack, they can't justify this search and seizure. The flipside to that though, is the thinking that "The friend of a terrorist is a dumb-ass, the friend of 2 terrorists is also a terrorist." So it doesn't completely prohibit collection. Keep in mind though, that those 4th amendment rights are only granted to citizens of the US (and a few other cases) so abu-badguy in the middle-east doesn't have those 4th amendment rights as far as the US government is concerned, so he's free game. 6.) The question was brought up,[b] "Why don't we just nuke the middle-east?"[/b] Well, we'd have to determine which areas to nuke, a city that comes to mind is Raqqah, Syria. ISIS stronghold. Well, we bomb them and there goes our membership in the UN. We've broken all sorts of ROE's (Rules of Engagement.) Environmentalists would freak. We would have all sorts of innocent people killed. Bashar al assad (President of Syria) would freak, therefore Putin would freak. Possibly launch nukes against us. Any US president would never go for this. Honestly, I think this scenario is just so totally and completely unlikely that it's not really worth much of a discussion. So there's answers to a few questions I hear a lot, like I said please feel free to ask questions, and let's have an open-minded dialogue. Don't take offense too easily, but also try not to be offensive. Hopefully we can all learn something here. Also, please give some bumps so we can get this thread trending so more people can see it. Thanks guardians. (Edit: thanks everyone for the positive feedback and keeping it *mostly* clean and open-minded in the replies. Also, if anyone's interested in studying this field, feel free to send a PM and I might be able to give you some good job info and good schools.)