Isis

[broncofan]

Remind me, ......who are the good guys then? The Iraqi troops who ran away leaving their tanks and weapons? Israel?

Huh? Surely you don't think that because some Iraqi troops deserted that they are now worse than a group of people who are bent on killing everyone who crosses their path?

[martin48]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...0-9792056.html


Spoke with a guy from Saudi yesterday, who thought that the West had not taken on board yet how ruthless and evil IS really is. With all the problems of the spread of the ebola virus, then in the Middle East there are plenty of rare infections (eg Rift Valley Fever) - these are usually self-contained and spread by, for example, infected camel meat. But as a IS guy, I eat this meat and fly to London or New York - simple infra-red scan of me is going to find nothing. Travel on the Metro or Tube for a few days - job done!

[Stavros]

Spoke with a guy from Saudi yesterday, who thought that the West had not taken on board yet how ruthless and evil IS really is. With all the problems of the spread of the ebola virus, then in the Middle East there are plenty of rare infections (eg Rift Valley Fever) - these are usually self-contained and spread by, for example, infected camel meat. But as a IS guy, I eat this meat and fly to London or New York - simple infra-red scan of me is going to find nothing. Travel on the Metro or Tube for a few days - job done!

In the case of Rift Valley Fever, the primary vector of the disease in humans is infected mosquitoes so the chances of it being used as a weapon are less than slight in the UK. Without downplaying the risks of Ebola in the UK, it does have an incubation period with symptoms but we have the medical infrastructure and (experimental) drugs to deal with it so while numerous cases are possible, an epidemic is less so.

A more likely scenario is the one being heard in secret at the Old Bailey in London at the moment. One of the defendants, Mounir Rarmoul-Bouhadjar has pleaded guilty to possessing a 'terrorist document' -he was also in possession of a forged British passport when arrested - his name sounds Algerian/North African to me but who knows? The other defendant, Erol Incerdal is a British citizen of Turkish origin and the claim is he and 'others' planned a Mumbai-style attack which may also have included Tony Blair and his wife Cherie as targets -they have a large house in an exclusive square not far from Edgware Road in central London, in fact within a falafel's distance of all those Arab restaurants and cafes that stretch from Marble Arch to Sussex Gardens; it is also claimed a notorious gallows in operation from the 12th to the 18th century was in the middle of the square, religious martyrs being one sample of those executed....

The original proposal was for the whole of this trial to be conducted in secret, an unprecedented act in modern times -a revised arrangement means some facts will be made public but that most of the evidence will be heard in secret and we will probably never find out who was backing these two men with money and materiel, I think if it was an al-Qaeda franchise or even IS we would know, so the backers of this event must be an established state. We also will probably never know how the police got onto these two men in the first place. Most curious, but on past form XX XX-XX looks like a potential source, given the efforts they have made to obstruct trials in the UK in the past, but that of course is speculation and I could easily be wrong.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...ury-hears.html

[Stavros]

Stavros really does shine on this thread, but I miss the background story because of the hit and miss nature of the internet.
Stavros, did you say you visited the Middle East, or have relatives or friends there? Do you have a personal stake in this or are you really really up on world events?

I am not the only person who visits these boards with direct knowledge of the region, Prospero has extensive experience there, for example. The problem is that in spite of what I know, or think I know, I still get it wrong. I got it wrong about Syria as I did not think Bashar al-Asad and the military would survive protest movement against them, and while we read reports that the Syrian military is exhausted, it is still not possible to know what the situation there will be like six months or a year from now. That is the nature of the place, just when you think a situation A prevails, B comes along to replace it. It is also what makes the Middle East such an enduring place of fascination, frustration and much else besides.

[buttslinger]

Well, Bronco, there doesn't seem to be any lack of BAD GUYS in the middle east, but if we come in there and get serious about killing all of them, what then? Happily ever after?

It's like sending over billions of dollars worth of AIDs medicine to Africa, the bandits steal it and sell it to Europe on the black market.

It takes real troops, and real conviction, and this "coalition" is bullshit ....nobody else is going to do anything because, unfortunately, it is outside their sphere of influence. There's no percentage.
The only solution is for the USA to be the bad guys, and take over all the oil fields. Duh.......this is the way armies have done it for thousands of years. You don't kill guys as an act of charity.

As far as terrorism, I take it from McArthur "There is no security, only opportunity"........If I had a dozen high school nerds with cars and bic lighters, I could set every forest in the United States on fire in 6 days. In the late summer when everything is dry as kindling. My cousin uses drones to film real estate ads!!! I can only guess the terrorists don't get real with their threats on US turf is because they know we'll kill another 100,000 civilians again, like after 9-11.

I agree from what I heard that ISIS seems to be Evil on steroids, they must have missiles to shoot down Apache helicopters or we could have ripped them up from the air, I can only hope our Intelligence guys are one step ahead, I don't see that guys this crazy have an endgame.

I see Stavros dodged my question, luckily this is the WAR thread.......

[martin48]

[QUOTE=Stavros;1539025]In the case of Rift Valley Fever, the primary vector of the disease in humans is infected mosquitoes so the chances of it being used as a weapon are less than slight in the UK. Without downplaying the risks of Ebola in the UK, it does have an incubation period with symptoms but we have the medical infrastructure and (experimental) drugs to deal with it so while numerous cases are possible, an epidemic is less so.

OK - River Valley Fever not the best example as the usual vector is mosquitos

....

The original proposal was for the whole of this trial to be conducted in secret, an unprecedented act in modern times -a revised arrangement means some facts will be made public but that most of the evidence will be heard in secret and we will probably never find out who was backing these two men with money and materiel, I think if it was an al-Qaeda franchise or even IS we would know, so the backers of this event must be an established state. We also will probably never know how the police got onto these two men in the first place. Most curious, but on past form XX XX-XX looks like a potential source, given the efforts they have made to obstruct trials in the UK in the past, but that of course is speculation and I could easily be wrong.


Isn't this assuming too much. More likely the paranoid security forces do not like their methods exposed.

[buttslinger]

I am not the only person who visits these boards with direct knowledge of the region, Prospero has extensive experience there, for example. The problem is that in spite of what I know, or think I know, I still get it wrong. I got it wrong about Syria as I did not think Bashar al-Asad and the military would survive protest movement against them, and while we read reports that the Syrian military is exhausted, it is still not possible to know what the situation there will be like six months or a year from now. That is the nature of the place, just when you think a situation A prevails, B comes along to replace it. It is also what makes the Middle East such an enduring place of fascination, frustration and much else besides.

Thanks Stavros, all I know about the Middle East is what I see on TV and the newspaper, and they usually don't write from the Middle Eastern perspective. I saw lots of Arabs in London and Switzerland, but they seem to keep a low profile here because of the redneck stares. My brother is in London right now on vacation, maybe he can shake his wife and hit the town with Prospero.

[Stavros]

[quote=martin48;1539082]

The original proposal was for the whole of this trial to be conducted in secret, an unprecedented act in modern times -a revised arrangement means some facts will be made public but that most of the evidence will be heard in secret and we will probably never find out who was backing these two men with money and materiel, I think if it was an al-Qaeda franchise or even IS we would know, so the backers of this event must be an established state. We also will probably never know how the police got onto these two men in the first place. Most curious, but on past form XX XX-XX looks like a potential source, given the efforts they have made to obstruct trials in the UK in the past, but that of course is speculation and I could easily be wrong.
Isn't this assuming too much. More likely the paranoid security forces do not like their methods exposed.

Speculation on my part, yes. And probably thinking dark thoughts, but if MI5 or MI6 (or the CIA?) want to protect their sources there have been cases before when this was done without wrapping up the whole trial. The mere fact that they have gone to such lengths increases the stake and the speculation. It is a gift for conspiracy theorists too.

[Stavros]

Earlier this month the House of Commons Defence Committee began a series of hearings with evidence being given by experts political and experts military.
Emma Sky's (not seen in the video) contribution argues that Iraq to survive as an integrated state must rely on both the fair representation of the people, perhaps with stronger local representation, and that the key to defeating IS is to 'flip' the Sunni Arabs so that they withdraw support for and oppose IS, whose advance can be stopped by bombing but where the danger of a solely military attack on IS would be to encourage the growth of militias and lead to one version of IS being replaced at a later date by another. She seems to believe change in Iraq is possible but will take time to evolve.
She also makes the point that while Iran is directly involved in both Iraq and Syria in the long term it will not benefit from a continuation of the wars, and that the near to short term solution in Syria is to end the fighting through a truce between the fighters.
She also argues that Kurds in Iraq want independence, whereas in Turkey Kurds want more equal rights within Turkey, but in Syria Kurds have no clear position on independence, autonomy or loyalty to Syria -Iran's fear is that its Kurds will secede.
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Pl...eetingId=16265

The point is interesting because of a remark Toby Dodge makes to the effect that the US by supporting the Kurdish Peshmerga to attack IS, runs the risk of encouraging Kurdish independence in Iraq at the same time as it is trying to re-furbish the state in Iraq. The biggest danger is that an over-emphasis of military 'solutions' will in fact not be a solution at all, but generate more military groups and also widen the mistrust and bitterness military actions create between people.
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Pl...eetingId=16046

Are the solutions in Iraq and Syria internal to those states, or is there a regional solution, for example by dealing with the proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran?

Does take some time to go through it, but links should work.

[Odelay]

I have a close relative who is deeply involved in the carbon based energy industry and I have some interesting conversations with him about energy markets around the world. He is still pretty gung ho about it but I can tell he has some concerns about the sustainabiliity of some of these markets long term. Specifically, for now, he still sees Europe as a plus for import of oil and natural gas but clearly the market is declining with the advances in wind and solar across much of central Europe.

This got me thinking of the carbon economies across the middle east and how things will go with some of these countries and kingdoms as energy markets continue to change rapidly. The US is now a net exporter, and it would appear that this is having some profound affects on worldwide energy markets including a massive depression in the worldwide prices currently. Will political volatility go up or down as the market for oil exports continues to go down? Maybe it will have no effect. It doesn't seem like these countries have done much to diversify their economies to soften the blow. How will radicalism change as scarcity grows? I am assuming one of the entire rationales for ISIS is control of the oil rich region of Northern Iraq. As the oil pie shrinks will violence increase or will people simply abandon the region?

Just tripping here and it's probably decades before it entirely plays out, though I'm thinking micro effects will surface before too long.