Quote Originally Posted by CrowBat View Post
Despite the usual bunching of insurgents with extremists and insistence that 'moderates' are not fighting, that whatever one sends to insurgents is reinforcing extremists, that one cannot trust them etc., etc., etc. (like in the video below)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DveDwEk122Y

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Paul is well out on the fringe on any subject and well beyond the fringe on foreign policy; his views would hardly be thought "usual". A more mainstream view, a better illustration of the arguments for non-intervention that actually carry some weight in DC, would be those of Mark Lynch, for example:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...islamic-state/

Quote Originally Posted by CrowBat View Post
But, with this 'demand' we're back at the start of the 'off topic' part of discussion here: that's not going to happen as long as the US (and the West) continues insisting on upholding reactionary police states that are its 'allies' there.
Are the US and "the West" really "upholding these regimes? Are they really that dependent on either, and is there really as much influence there as you think? I suspect not: the mantra of "dependent on the west" has simply been repeated until it's accepted without question or thought.