Islamic State vs. The World (except Canada)

[Indy Texas]

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.

[Indy Texas]

I'll just chime in and point out that the number of Western hostages the Syrian government has beheaded is still zero.

Those of you who still want another "regime change" are welcome to give one good reason why we should enable the Islamists to seize the other half of Syria.

[Indy Texas]

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

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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.

[Indy Texas]

Someone somewhere ought to be thinking a few steps ahead and looking at how we can resolve the long-term Syrian refugee situation. It has big ramifications for Turkey and Jordan.

In Turkey, you've got the fiercely nationalistic Turks seeing Arabic-speaking foreigners streaming over their southern border. Discrimination and linguistic or cultural differences could limit opportunities for Syrians in Turkey.

In Jordan, you have a country whose only real national fabric is the Hashemite dynasty and a general appeal to an idealized, pastoral, tribal/Bedouin-flavored version of Jordanian national identity. Now you've just added to the mix a bunch of Syrians with no allegiance to either of those things.

Both countries will want to keep their refugees as transient as possible in hopes that they'll leave as soon as possible. This is what was done to the Palestinians for decades out of some naive belief that Israel would vanish into thin air sooner or later. And the result is inevitably economically, socially marginalized people with no stake in the larger society. So when Hamas/Hezbollah/[Extremist Group X] comes around and says, "Send your sons to fight for us and we'll pay them cash money and make sure you all have food on your table and a roof over your head," it's a very compelling offer, whether you agree with their ideals or not.

[Indy Texas]

First day of US-bombings in Syria: ca. 50-120 Islamofascists dead (and 11+ civilians, 3+ children)

http://orf.at/stories/2246804/2246798

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29333348

I hate that term. It's blatantly inaccurate and just indicates the person who uses it has no clue what the hell fascism is beyond an epithet for subjectively bad stuff.

[Indy Texas]

First day of US-bombings in Syria: ca. 50-120 Islamofascists dead (and 11+ civilians, 3+ children)

http://orf.at/stories/2246804/2246798

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29333348

I hate that term. It's blatantly inaccurate and just indicates the person who uses it has no clue what the hell fascism is beyond an epithet for subjectively bad stuff.

Islamofascists. It is what they are and always will be.

I'm fairly certain that the people of ISIS would be in jail if they lived in Francoist Spain, Nazi Germany or Mussolini's Italy, even if they never committed a single act of violence. By advocating for a multiethnic theocracy, they would be going against that most basic tenet of fascism that is the People and the State above all else.

[Indy Texas]

I'm fairly certain that the people of ISIS would be in jail if they lived in Francoist Spain, Nazi Germany or Mussolini's Italy, even if they never committed a single act of violence. By advocating for a multiethnic theocracy, they would be going against that most basic tenet of fascism that is the People and the State above all else.

Do you really think so? I'd say that the Nazi, Fascist or National-Catholic "ideological principles" would have mattered very little, in the unlikely case that something similar to ISIS was existing then. A group like that could have been better used as a combative mercenary troop, or as allies of convenience in the North of Africa and the Middle East. Racial scruples might have prevented Hitler much more than other considerations; never Mussolini or Franco. Do you know which was the religious affiliation of Franco's shock troops in the Civil War and the mounted soldiers of his personal guard? I'll give you a clue; they came from the north of Morocco. Note that Franco's regime was branded as National-Catholic.  

The misuse of the words "fascist", "genocide" and "anti-semite", together with comparisons with the Holocaust, should be banned by the international law.


How much time will pass until Assad is proclaimed the new ally of convenience by the international coalition?

I didn't mean literally taking ISIS and putting them in early 20th century Europe. But if, say, a militant Catholic group whose leader viewed himself as the legitimate leader of Christendom and demanded the submission of fellow Christians and the Holy See and of secular governments to their authority came into existence, I don't think Franco et al would be okay with it.

Remember that Bashar Assad himself is something of a Middle Eastern version of Hitler. Ba'athism is basically European-style fascism tweaked to fit an Arab context. Assad doesn't emphasize religion too much for the same reason Hitler didn't - his country isn't religiously homogenous so religion is something that prevents the binding of the nation together. He's not an atheist or a Marxist - he's not shutting down mosques and banning the Koran. But he clearly believes religious identity should be a component of and below national identity and that religious institutions ideally should serve the interests of the state.

[Indy Texas]

Remember that Bashar Assad himself is something of a Middle Eastern version of Hitler (...)

It doesn't matter who is Assad, ideologically speaking. Many people suspect that sooner or later, the international coalition will resort to him, since no Western country is ready to send troops on the ground and Kurd fighters won't be enough to contain ISIS, even with airstrikes. Paradoxically enough, some of the ISIS financial resources may come from member countries of the coalition built to fight ISIS. We live in a strange world.

He's Hitler ideologically, not strategically. Apart from trying to make Lebanon into a client state, he's not an irredentist and has not demonstrated any inclination toward expanding his country's territory. He hasn't even attempted to seize the Golan Heights back from Israel.