Islamic State vs. The World (except Canada)

[Simfan34]

I hope this backfires. I really do. We need to learn a lesson. I guarentee that when the bombs begin to fall we are going to nail a hospital or a school, and ISIS's ranks will only continue to swell.

What is wrong with you? You need help.

I mean it's clear that ChairmanSanchez lacks any sort of conscience or sense of moral awareness so I doubt pointing out Saddam's brutality would make any kind of effect.

[Simfan34]

About time those scum got this treatment.

Ah, yes, Iraqi civilians living under ISIS occupation...what scum! I guess they're just all the same to people like you.

Please show me where I implied that.

They're the ones being killed by these bombings, so...

Isn't most of Northern Iraq (where most ISIS territory is) sparsely populated?

If so, they're sure squeezing a lot of killings per square kilometer.

[Simfan34]

Sanchez, you really think that we can't claim moral high ground from ISIS? This is a group too extreme even for Al Qaeda- a group that cuts heads off for fun...

Do I personally feel that? No. But from a policy stand point, who is the arbitrator of who is and who isn't right and wrong these days? Radical Islam are more complex than “they kill those who disagree” and “they hate freedom.” We are never going to stomp out radical Islam, and we might just fan it’s flames like we did when we first invaded in ’03.

I hope this backfires. I really do. We need to learn a lesson. I guarentee that when the bombs begin to fall we are going to nail a hospital or a school, and ISIS's ranks will only continue to swell.

Ok Snowstalker.

The great irony is that he is likely the one person who is going to be making sense in this thread.

If I stab you in the neck for no reason, you could claim I was wrong for doing so.

[Simfan34]

For Christ's sake Starwatcher, fix that image.

[Simfan34]

Some of us don't have 42'' monitors, thank you very much. It's one thing to do it but another to be an asshole about it.

[Simfan34]

About time those scum got this treatment.

Ah, yes, Iraqi civilians living under ISIS occupation...what scum! I guess they're just all the same to people like you.

Please show me where I implied that.

They're the ones being killed by these bombings, so...

And a lot of them are clamouring for intervention, so...

A lot of them are clamouring for ISIS as well. ISIS couldn't mount the campaign they have mounted without some civilian support. And I doubt Gallup is going to poll Iraqi's in occupied territory on who they like and don't like...

No one is clamouring for ISIS. No-one. Sunnis want to be free of Maliki's discrimination but no one wants to be shot for shirk or whatever nonsense they promote.

[Simfan34]

[img width=640]... close tag.

How is that picture so big, anyways? I thought the forum had a limit of 800 or so that automatically kicked in if it was any larger.

Also, Turkey is now supporting the Peshmerga. Let me repeat that for you. Turkey is supporting the Peshmerga. Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, the Kurds, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and the US all are united in opposition to ISIS. Surely this is probably indicative of who the objectively bad people are. I mean, you don't see this sort of unity outside of alien invasion movies. Although I suppose if we were invaded by aliens Sanchez would be saying "we don't know who's morally superior here!" or something like that.

[Simfan34]

[img width=640]... close tag.
Also, Turkey is now supporting the Peshmerga. Let me repeat that for you. Turkey is supporting the Peshmerga. Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, the Kurds, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and the US all are united in opposition to ISIS. Surely this is probably indicative of who the objectively bad people are. I mean, you don't see this sort of unity outside of alien invasion movies. Although I suppose if we were invaded by aliens Sanchez would be saying "we don't know who's morally superior here!" or something like that.

Do you care about our southern border as much as you do the Kurds? Because if you feel threatened by ISIS, you ought to be rather worried about some of the Cartels down south who have done things that can give ISIS a run for their money.....

I was not aware that the drug cartels were marching on Mexico City.

Nor was I aware that busloads of children were shooting entire towns' male populations dead.

[Simfan34]

...

[Simfan34]

Given the signals from the Security Council lately even a UN-sponsored mission isn't inconcievable

After all, Russia and China are not fans of Chechen or Uyghur attacks, either.

[Simfan34]

Wonder if the reduced activity near Mosul has anything to do with the dam.

[Simfan34]

I like this.

[Simfan34]

Wonderful news! The Kurds are good, honest and forthright people. One of the few groups in that region who seem to have their sht together.

I have never really heard anything to contradict this, but I am (perhaps as a result) skeptical of the "goodness" of the Kurds. Rarely have things ever turned out so clear-cut.

[Simfan34]

Yes?

Wonderful news! The Kurds are good, honest and forthright people. One of the few groups in that region who seem to have their sht together.

I have never really heard anything to contradict this, but I am (perhaps as a result) skeptical of the "goodness" of the Kurds. Rarely have things ever turned out so clear-cut.

Of course the Kurds are not as nice, in fact if they lived in the west we would all despice them for being a bunch of illiberal fundamentalist hill billies, but because they live in the Middle East they stand head and shoulder above their neighbours.

All the Kurds in Turkey voted for a presidential candidate who was pro-gay marriage.

[Simfan34]

How did the the Iraqi army just melt away in the face of ISIS attacks ? Their performance was frankly an embarrassment. The Iraqi army is armed to the teeth with US military toys like the M-1 Abrams, the Apache Helicopter etc.

Weak readiness, deployment of their forces and will. Many of the leaders simply went home and some Sunnis commanders bowed out or switched sides.  They essentially ceded what was hostile ground and regrouped down to the Shia areas.

The Iraqi army now has some fight back in them again but the dangerous thing is that their will is being hardened by the use of Shia militias.

Most of what I've read blames the officer corps, which Maliki's administration treated as patronage for (unqualified) Shia cronies until almost no one else was left in command.

I'm afraid that's basically par for the course in Arab states. Lest we forget that Saddam basically just picked his favorite cousins, childhood friends and neighbors to be generals in the Iraqi Army despite them having little to no military training.

As I said before:

Seriously though, Bremer's dissolution of the Iraqi Army was a major mistake, and it remains a major mistake. It was an essentially unilateral decision taken without consulting neither State nor Defense nor the White House nor even the commanders on the ground.

It is why there were so many angry Sunnis with guns running around Iraq in the following years and good part of why why these particular angry Sunnis are running around now. If there was a single decision that could be pointed to as the largest factor in the present situation in Iraq, this would be it.

Of course, that went hand-in-hand with the excesses of de-Baathification; purging every single member of the party, irrespective of rank, from the civil service, which ended up amounting to up to 100,000 people. Besides the serious diminution of state capacity this effected, it alienated, and deprived of their livelihoods, much of what was the Iraqi middle class. I mean, the state collapse in Iraq can rather plainly be traced to the gutting of the state by the provisional authority. This is particularly bizarre, as we had learnt the perils of such an approach in Germany and didn't even try it in Japan. 

The failure of the US to achieve its goals in Iraq had less to do with the goals themselves as opposed to the people who were entrusted to carry them out. The Bush administration gave the provisional authority an alarming degree of latitude in hastily determining policy, who in turn gave much credence to people like al-Jafari or Chalabi (who arguably got us into this whole mess). It goes back to the disinterest that administration officials had in planning for the post-war reconstruction process. Which, I suppose, stemmed in turn from the naive neo-conservative belief that the Iraqi people would embrace "democracy" eagerly and quickly resolve their problems on their own.

In this vein, I share something of Indy Texas' "realism", but I wouldn't go as far as to say this justifies supporting Assad.

[Simfan34]

Look at it this way. When moral issues are taken into account, there obviously is no case for supporting Assad.

But when we take out moral issues, there really isn't any benefit the US would have by supporting Assad, is there? What would we gain from it? Assad presumably would crush the rebels and eliminate ISIS, and let's even assume he manages to clean up ISIS in Iraq as well.  At best we'd end up simply hoping that Assad would feel some sort of gratitude towards us for our help (which came after arming his opponents and only after some Americans were killed) and do... what exactly? What could Assad do for us? You'd end up with an almost certainly Teheran-aligned government in Baghdad neighbored by Iran and Assad's Syria. How does this further American interests?

[Simfan34]

The Lebanese Justice Minister declared it was necessary to "bring to justice those individuals who burned the ISIS flag in Sassine Square."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/09/04/the-lebanese-ice-bucket-challenge-has-morphed-into-burning-islamic-state-flags/?Post+generic=?tid=sm_twitter_washingtonpost

[Simfan34]

Turkey refuses to host U.S. anti-ISIS forces

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Also, a recent survey conducted by Metropoll found that only 62.5% of AKP supporters consider Isis a terrorist organization.

Damn them. Everyone knows good and well this isn't really about about the hostages. I mean c'mon what do they take us for? And they won't even let us use our base in Airbase in Incirlik to conduct operations. Ingrates.

We should get with Britain/France/et al and threaten to expel Turkey from NATO unless they cooperate with us on this.

They can either be a Western country or they can be a neo-Ottoman Islamist-appeasing pseudo-empire. They need to choose one or the other.

Expelling them isn't likely to make the former more probable. If we want Turkey to bend to the will of the West as opposed to doing its own thing, we'd need to re-inspire some "postmodernism" in the remainder of the Turkish General Staff that has not yet been purged.

[Simfan34]

Suppose the title is no longer appropriate.