This speculative bit of handwaving of how bad it could have been if we hadn't invaded doesn't make for a very convincing argument, does it? Because we simple don't know, and speculation in that regard seems futile to me.
But just look at the number of civilian casulties in Afghanistan to this day and tell me again we made the world safer ...
Isn't it shallow to convince ourselves that we made our life here in Europe safer from the Taliban, while there were still over 3500 dead & 6000 wounded civilians in Afghanistan in 2014? Most of them because of attacks from said Taliban.

right, some military action is unavoidable at some point. But peace isn't build by bombing/shooting your enemy to pieces. We should have learned that lesson from Iraq/Afghanistan.
- there needs be a stop of countries propping up ISIS (for example by buying their oil), therefore getting Saudi Arabia & Turkey at the table and getting them to cooperate is necessary
- USA & Russia & EU need to get on some common ground on which rebel groups to support and which to fight against
etc, etc
all that talk is imo currently a lot more important than dropping more bombs and sending in the cavalry.

True.
Indeed, but isn't destabilisation the whole tactic behind what the politicians of all three are doing? I often get this feeling. As always the civilians have to pay the price, first the ones there, now here. :(
This does only work because there are idiots that let themselves be used everywhere, at least religion doesn't work as a tool anymore around here because secularisation made people think for themselves at least a tiny bit.
Imho we should send Merkel and her whole corrupt cabinet right into such a warzone and the USA as well as Russia should do the same.
And the Imams should take the bomb belts themselves instead of giving them to others.

Ken Jebsen about Paris; elites; arms manufacturers; oil; institutionalized terror; police states;
hatred, fear and religion as tools for creating useful idiots:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWPnsh1kd7M (German language)

Sure, I did not want to convince you. Speculation is all there ever is because we have no second world and cannot really try and see the consequences of alternatives - for every single decision. But does it mean speculation is futile? No, not at all. In order to make up a decision you have to speculate about the consequences and the consequences of the alternatives. Speculations are even essential to every decision making.

This is the reason why I think that the war in Afghanistan was right and not a mistake as you argue. The Taliban were a terrorist group and they seized the Afghan territory and tortured the local population. Unfortunately for them they also posed a big threat to the Western World by giving refugee to Al-Qaeda which were very successfull in 2001 in killing thousands of US civilians. Without attacking them in their homeland they might have stricken again many more times and much harder than now IS in Paris (just speculation). But even without this freeing the Afghan population from the Taliban is a really good thing. If you want to know how good, just go there and ask the people what they prefer. If they would rather go back to the Taliban rule. (Actually they would actually prefer to live somewhere else (in Europe maybe) but this is another story.) The only mistake we make is going out of Afghanistan much too early - is my opinion. I don't actually want to convince you of anything - I just wanted to present a different opinion and substantiate it with some arguments to show that this can be seen differently.

About Syria and ISIS: Sure, talk is currently very important but also in the end fight will be inevitable. If you ask me I would most like a mission of as many countries as possible to disarm and break resistance everywhere in Syria and Iraq and to provide the basis for free elections, etc. - basically the same we did with Afghanistan - because (speculation again) the alternative of letting IS exist further is just too dreadful (and was already for the past 2-3 years).

Now actually I see the arabian countries there also in the duty. The problem is basically they (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran) play a quite dirty game. They want the US or the West to do the fighting and then in the end they will still complain about them (and they won't like democracies much next to them anyway). This is a rather bad geopolitical situation and which you normally would not want to do anything if it would not for the refugees and the terrorist attacks.

So for tactical reasons actually nothing might happen and Syria and parts of Iraq might remain the most terrible place on earth for the next 20 years (basically inhabitable). It would surely be worse (just speculation) for the people there but that's how the world is.

It's always difficult. If you apply violence you'll kill people and if do nothing people may get killed in even greater numbers but you can only speculate before you do something. The temptation to just stick the head in the sand is always big.

However one should assume that fighting against terrorists (with ground troops) is most often worthwhile because most people on earth aren't terrorists and I would prefer their rule over the rule of terrorists any day.

No, neither the US nor anyone in Europe had business attacking Iraq, Afghanistan or any other country that didn't attack the invaders (9/11 wasn't an act of war by some nation but quite convenient as an excuse for attacking several nations, even for things that really had nothing to do with it, like Iraq), but the control schemes are existent at least since the beginning of the cold war and are still going strong, mostly for cheap oil. We gain nothing by making enemies there, the politicians voted into parliament by the idiotic majority of people in some European countries (including Germany and France) do though.

We wouldn't have had to deal with this bs outside of our own borders if security of Europeans would be the most important thing when it comes to making such decisions like invading every country in the middle east that has oil, like the USA is doing because when the shit hits the fan it's mostly spreading over us. I got to know some refugees from those countries in the last years, including one from Iraq and what happened there was all very dirty. It wasn't any better than what happened between the conflicting parties there beforehand.
Don't get me wrong, I think Islam is a threat, but mostly as a tool used to manipulate people to sacrifice themselves and lots of others for something they don't really have a clue about and personally nothing to gain from.

I'll just give you this old article and something to think about:
http://i.imgur.com/RP7GImt.jpg

The current possible perspective of the muslim terrorists is best described in this Monty Python like sketch someone linked to on this board:
https://www.facebook.com/faisalsalmutar/posts/906729506085781

9/11 was an terrorism by a state-sponsored group. It was perfectly reasonable to view it as an act of war.

The other US military actions are much more questionable, although with Syria at least one of the sides invited outside military involvement afaik.

IS made a mistake this week. They killed a Chinese. Now they are greatly outnumbered.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump, leading candidate in the preselection campaign for the presidential candidate of the GOP, one of the two big parties which is regularly supported by around 50% of the voters, speculates about Muslim Americans carrying a special form of identification noting their faith, as an answer to the attacks of last week in Paris and to increase the security. Unfortunately he probably never read a history book otherwise he would be knowing that such behavior is a surefire sign of any totalitarian system. In short abominable. This man is dangerous, potentially as dangerous as the IS terrorists (difficult to say really).

Sure, I guess he won't become candidate, but already now he is a disgrace for the GOP and also for the whole of the USA.

Regarding the idea: 99.9% of all Muslims are as peaceful as 99.9% of the Christians or 99.9% of the Buhddists or whatsorever. So marking any group of them is probably the dumbest idea anyone can have.

If Trump gets elected I'm defecting.

Ditto for Carson.

But you forget one important thing, among the 99.9% of them there's a part which doesn't directly kill but gives approval to the rest and legitimizes their ideology and another part which stays neutral in this topic taking no sides. Most of their religious leaders don't even condemn these kind of attacks or speak out against it publicly and the rest encourage it.

They did, at least this week. Afaik there was a big support from Muslims and their leaders all over the world with France and the victims of this. It's very clear that the people who did this didn't do it in the name of the Muslime community. They did it just because of themselves, because they hate...

It could be a bit louder though, it could be more often.

But then, if we want to be totally honest, also we could be more honest and speak out against all the evil things more often.

Leaders in India could speak out more loud against Hinduistic motivated violence against others. Western consumers could speak out more loud against destruction of the environment. Leaders of the GOP in the US could speak out louder against the crazy men in their own party who are making so much dumb noise currently.

And they do? No unfortunately they don't. Doesn't mean this makes anything better but we should look critical at ourselves before requiring honesty from everyone else.