Isis [Archive] - HungAngels - Guide to TGirls and Transsexuals

Stavros

09-21-2014, 07:52 PM

So what do you guys think?

Can ISIS be negotiated with?
If so, what demands of theirs should the world accede to?
An Islamic State within what borders?
Or if the West should respond, should it only be within the borders of Iraq and stop at Syria because we're afraid that hurting Isis might help Assad?

This is a real challenge for our pacifists on the forum (:smile:). But to respond fairly, tell us the prescription. Abstention? Or War? What is the cost of abstention? What is the cost of war?

Broncofan asks four questions, all of which spring from the immediate occasion, none of which address the fundamental causes of this latest version of the 'Islamic state'.

I do not doubt that the USA and its allies, using drones, bombers, special forces and whatever else is in their arsenal, will give IS a bloody good hiding. It might even smash this organisation, just as it 'smashed' the Taliban in Afghanistan (where are they now, one wonders), al-Qaeda I in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda II in Iraq, but not so far to al-Qaeda III in the Yemen (in spite of all the damage caused there), or al-Qaeda IV in Syria.

This looks rather like the same desperate measures that enabled the USA and Colombia to smash the drug cartels in Cali and Medellin....but not so far their replacements in Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico. Just as the American public -enough of them- demand the product the cartels have for sale, so the 'War on Drugs' (aka the 'War against Black People', or 'them' if you prefer), a war that has been 'raging' for nearly 50 years will drag on and on, filling prisons -and the pockets of the prison corporations; just as there will always be Muslims who yearn for an 'Islamic state' that they believe is as close as possible to the Community of the Faithful that Muhammad (is alleged to have) established in Madina between 622 and his death in 632.
Just as long as it doesn't revive the Constitution of Medina that Muhammad produced, with its express intention of accommodating the Jewish tribes into what these days would be called a 'multi-cultural, multi-religious' polity. Salafist dreamers and their wide-awake butchers have a tendency to re-write the history of Islam to edit out those embarrassing moments when their enlightened Messenger showed more compassion and pragmatic acceptance of Jews and Christians than they are willing to accept; just as the Jihad which in the Quran is mostly an individual's struggle with temptation, has been redefined for angry young men as a licence to kill.

In other words, in the short term the use of extreme violence may well achieve its objectives, but in the long term it will fail if the fundamental causes are not addressed, and these relate to the nature of politics in a region that has developed a political culture characterised by corruption, violence, and bad governance.

This political culture, in which negotiation, debate and and the accountability of politicians is replaced by violence, intimidation and autocracy infects all of the states in the region, including Israel which, though it has a vibrant civil society in which a robust critique of politics exists where it is absent in the Arab states, behaves in the Occupied Territories and the rest of the region with the same degree of violence it criticises in its neighbours. And as long as the military occupies the high ground and military solutions are the only ones being considered, then the alternatives will not have a chance to grow and show, through practical experience, that political, social, and economic issues can not be solved through violence or autocracy.

A Turkish blogger has written of the referendum of Scotland in mournful admiration, wondering why the same process of free and open debate followed by a conclusive vote in Scotland, is unthinkable for Turkey and its relationship to its Kurds.

IS, as currently formed, is a grim reflection of the political system that was created by Britain and France in the aftermath of the First World War and its bastard offspring. In Europe after the First World War, the colonies of the defeated Empires -Russia and Austria-Hungary in particular- were replaced by independent states, even though, in the particular case of the Balkans, the region had been convulsed by nationalist and communal violence for years before the assassination of Franz Ferdinand sparked the War to end all Wars. One state in particular, Yugoslavia, survived for 70 odd years before collapsing in on itself in an eerie repeat of the violence that followed the overthrow of the Obrenic Dynasty in 1903.

No such fortune for the Arab lands of the Ottoman Empire, even though they had not experienced anything like the violence that killed thousands and thousands of people in the Balkans in the years leading up to the war. The reason was candid enough -the Arabs were not good enough to rule themselves, simple as that, the same argument that justified handing over China to anyone except the Chinese, while the poor wretches of the Pacific Islands were described by Jan Smuts as being barbarians incapable of rising to the demands of civilisation which is why they needed grown up -and of course, civilised- countries to run them on their behalf.

President Woodrow Wilson, on the other hand, did think that self-determination of the kind that emerged in Europe was applicable to the Arabs, while the King-Crane Commission sent to Syria endorsed the Wilsonian view, a fact which led an irritated British Foreign Secretary at the Paris Peace Conferences, Lord Balfour, to remark:
"To simplify the argument, let us assume that two of the 'independent nations' for which mandatories have to be provided are Syria and Palestine. Take Syria first. Do we mean, in the case of Syria, to consult principally the wishes of the inhabitants? We mean nothing of the kind. According to the universally accepted view there are only three possible mandatories -England, America and France. Are we going 'chiefly to consider the wishes of the inhabitants' in deciding which of these is to be selected? We are going to do nothing of the kind. England has refused. America will refuse. So that, whatever the inhabitants may wish, it is France they will certainly have."
-Note that Balfour uses the words 'universally accepted' to mean Europe and America, not the Arabs, because their views, like the people, were worth nothing to him.

Unrepresentative monarchies, one-party states, dictatorships -it all sprang from the legacy of Ottoman rule reinforced by the Imperial powers. What followed was rebellion, in Iraq, in Syria, in Palestine, as if the message had got through to London and Paris but was ignored because it signalled an end to imperial rule and to the British and the French that was unconscionable. It also meant that, in the aftermath of the Second World War, nationalist sentiment -which had been developing in Egypt and Syria since the 19th century- expressed itself in the violent overthrow of the monarchies -Egypt in 1952, Iraq in 1958- but produced regimes which looked suspiciously like the ones they had replaced.
An attempt to create a parliamentary democracy in Syria following the collapse of French rule, produced an array of parties giving an incoherent voice to Syria politics and an unstable political system, while in Lebanon a deal was struck which created in 'the national pact' a parliamentary system based on the distribution of jobs allotted by religious confession making any real change impossible. The irony in Syria, if it is irony, is that the military seized power in 1970, not when the politicians failed, but after their own spectacular failure in the war with Israel whose occupation of the 'Golan Heights' remained then, as now, a symbol of their abject failure. Three years into their own rebellion, there are worrying signs that for all their success in maintaining the government of Bashar al-Asad, the Syrian military is exhausted.

The problem is that these trends in Arab politics have given rise to a belief perpetuated by Bernard Lewis and the late Samuel Huntingdon, that this is somehow an indelible part of the Arab character, just as frauds and charlatans who have transformed themselves into Islamic scholars since 9/11 produce videos for YouTube which prove conclusively that Islam has always been a violent ideology fixated on world conquest, as if the same repertoire of spiritual issues such as sin, redemption, and virtue which exist in Christianity do not exist in Islam; just as some Muslims view Christianity in terms of imperialism and the Crusades and only those violent acts in which Muslims are the victims. In these cases the contemporary malaise becomes a perpetual defect which can never be corrected except through excision: the obliteration of the 'Islamic threat' on one side, the 'expulsion of non-Muslims from Muslims lands' on the other side.

There was a time when few people believed that Latin America would ever be free of its military dictators or that African states ever be free of Presidential embezzlers-that was how they did politics 'over there'. Autocracy in Singapore, Taiwan, Korea north and south -don't you see? 'They' are not like 'us', they will never embrace democracy like we do. They are condemned to be inferior, because they are inferior. When someone asks the question 'Why do they hate us?' they betray their assumption that the answer is in the question, but in doing so suggest that they don't want to know what the real answer might be, just as they can't think of a question to ask that is actually relevant to life as it is lived in Cairo, or Damascus, or Baghdad.

Obama, like most American Presidents before him, has approached the Middle East in a state of ignorance, as if he had spent all that time developing a career in politics with no idea that it was a volatile region that might consume so much of his waking life if he ever achieved high office. Whatever else he did when he was planning his political career, visiting the Middle East to sit and eat with the people who live there to find out who they are, and what they want, was not one of them. He finds himself like a fish stuck on the end of a hook called regime change in Iraq. On the one hand he can be criticised for withdrawing US troops from Iraq before they had developed an Iraqi security force capable of dealing with IS (see the link below) -but on the other hand, and on the basis of Nouri al-Maliki's utter contempt for the Sunni population, had Obama pledged to remain in Iraq until the security forces were mature enough to 'stand alone', the US would still be there, another trillion $ later, with no guarantee that the mission would ever be accomplished.

There is a good if slightly outdated background paper on IS in this link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jn8l0g2sk4b365u/ISIS%20Report%20Final%20PDF.pdf

British Muslims have condemned IS here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-albaghdadi-doctrine-leading-british-muslims-offer-their-response-9595893.html

broncofan

09-21-2014, 09:43 PM

I agree with much of what you wrote. I have heard arguments about a half dozen tribes of people claiming they cannot govern themselves or they are unfit for democracy. I wouldn't find any of them convincing. I also assume that most Muslims criticize Isis, and that although the followers of ISIS are Muslims, they are an extreme organization that is repellent to most followers of Islam.

But we both know presidential terms are short and sometimes leaders find themselves in a quandary and they cannot begin at the root of a problem until they deal with the crisis. My sense is that if the United States does not use drones in the short term and help arm the Kurds or even use their own ground troops, that more civilians would die than otherwise.

I don't believe that ISIS intends to share any space with Shiite Muslims or Christians of any sect. And in the meantime they are killing people in the most brutal way; through mass executions that leave no doubt about their feelings toward those who disagree with them theologically.

I don't mean to frame the question so narrowly that we cannot consider root causes even if they extend far beyond the crisis in question. But past failures might not serve as a guide to current action. Obviously if western powers have made mistakes in the past we don't want to compound them, but those past decisions may be what economists call sunk costs. The decisions we've made are irrevocable and ISIS is here now. If they do need to be dispatched and obviously it would be a bloody business to take care of this particular organization, then only afterward is there a diplomatic path. But how can ISIS be part of any diplomatic solution? My view is they cannot...because they will not accept a compromise short of having their own state; not a power-sharing arrangement with the current regime in Iraq, but their own dominion with no guarantee they won't seek to expand this dominion.

broncofan

09-21-2014, 10:12 PM

I didn't ignore the part of your post discussing Balfour's attitude towards the Arab people or even Western arrogance in dealing with the Middle East. That we make decisions that affect their region directly but with our interests in mind is clear. But if the lesson is that we cannot impose our wishes on other people, or that it is our self-serving meddling that has created various schisms in the fabric of their society, I still don't think the adequate response is to allow it to sort itself out.

We imposed an external force on the region that has now let loose a terror on the people. If we do not intervene, we will have created the problem and not contributed to the solution. The problem with meddling in a complex system without knowing all of the consequences of your actions is that you are no longer external to it. You can't just walk away as though you have no responsibility for what ensues.

Odelay

09-22-2014, 01:32 AM

Hard to top Stavros' piece for underlying analysis. And without a deep understanding of the region, Islam, and the culture whereby such extremists emerge, it's pretty hard to render an informed opinion about broncofan's questions. Nevertheless, when does that ever stop us from spouting our opinions anyway.

I guess I start with my overarching opinion that a violent response to violence almost never solves anything in the long term. That said, I just watched 14 hours of documentary on the Roosevelts and it's pretty hard (impossible?) to argue against FDR's response to Germany and Japan's violence inflicted upon their neighbors.

Obviously, the big difference btwn ISIS and the Axis powers is/was worldwide hegemony, or the lack thereof.

I guess what I wonder is... what is the least response required that might actually do more good than harm. Arming the Kurds is a no brainer. Arming whatever other defenseless groups that are in the vicinity makes sense too, although from the reports, it sounds like it's difficult to identify who might be a part of these other groups.

Droning seems here to stay but I'm dubious at to whether it does more good than harm. How do we know that bombing the hell out Al-Qaeda versions 1-4 hasn't actually been the wellspring for the ISIS movement, in the first place? And ISIS seems far bigger and threatening than any of the Al-Qaeda incarnations.

So the question still is, should anything be done and what is it that should be done? The world watched in horror at what happened in Rwanda and even the most ardent peacenik cannot rationally argue that no response was the correct response in that situation.

I guess the answer points in the direction of where we did do something and it prevented something far worse from happening, and the best example I can think of is the worldwide response to the Balkans in the 90's. So applying the same formula to ISIS, it might be as simple as the UK and US simply following France's lead. as Stavros points out. Unfortunately, there are a lot of meatheads in the US for whom following anyone's lead is anathema. So I guess whatever path is defined, we're going to have to doctor it up so that it at least has the appearance that the US is involved in leading it.

Ben

09-22-2014, 02:26 AM

I keep hearing that OIL is the ingredient behind all the confusion, but all I know is that Im still paying over 3.50 a gallon.

Precisely. War is great for the executive branch (Obama's powers are increased), it's great for oil companies [to a degree] and, well, military firms just love war. Why wouldn't they? I mean, it increases their bottom line.
War is a racket....

Ralph Nader on Smedley Butler - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NiQ38DW7gA)

Odelay

09-22-2014, 04:34 AM

Precisely. War is great for the executive branch (Obama's powers are increased), it's great for oil companies [to a degree] and, well, military firms just love war. Why wouldn't they? I mean, it increases their bottom line.
War is a racket....

Ralph Nader on Smedley Butler - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NiQ38DW7gA)

Yeah Ben, we know. We've seen a million clips by Nader and Chomsky. The problem with posting 2 line gems from these guys is that it's ultimately a huge over simplification. If War can be boiled down to being a profitable racket, then why isn't there war everywhere, all the time? Why bother manufacturing widgets at relatively low profit margins, when instead you can just wage war on a neighbor and make much more money?

And in fact, the total amount of war and violence per capita, across the planet, is down, over the last 50 years. If it's so damn profitable, why aren't entrepreneurs increasing ways to wage wars.

buttslinger

09-22-2014, 07:42 PM

If destroying ISIS is so important to the future of Planet Earth, why does no other nation than us want to send in troops? I say drop off all our explosives with an expired date on top of them, those damn thugs have met no resistance at all, except for the crack Iraqi soldiers we spent billions training. While the cat is away, the rats will play.

Stavros

09-23-2014, 01:32 PM

But if the lesson is that we cannot impose our wishes on other people, or that it is our self-serving meddling that has created various schisms in the fabric of their society, I still don't think the adequate response is to allow it to sort itself out.

We imposed an external force on the region that has now let loose a terror on the people. If we do not intervene, we will have created the problem and not contributed to the solution. The problem with meddling in a complex system without knowing all of the consequences of your actions is that you are no longer external to it. You can't just walk away as though you have no responsibility for what ensues.

You have identified the core problem, because the fundamental question must be -Can the Arabs sort themselves out? It seems to me after more than 100 years of meddling, that the one thing that has not worked is precisely the argument you propose to justify external interference in the Middle East.
One of the reasons why the region has been such a permanent 'problem' in international relations has been the resistance that the Arabs have mounted to external meddling, a resistance far more effective than has been seen in Africa, Asia or Latin America -think of where Vietnam is today compared to say, 1964; across the whole of the Caribbean, rebellious states like Haiti and Cuba are in disarray, the rest, including Grenada, compliant satellites of the American economy (which was their fate anyway). Parts of Africa are now owned by the Chinese, other parts in debt to multi-national corporations plundering their mineral resources, few mount a resistance as clearly as the states as you find in the Middle East.

There is a paradox here, because the modern state is in crisis, yet economic and social change has taken place, and it is this rift between the realities of the lives people lead and the way in which their states are run that is at the root of this crisis.
What is being argued, by Olivier Roy and Gilles Kepel, is that political Islam is actually in decline from a period between the 1960s and the 1980s when it was in the ascendant; that it has failed to deliver what people want, that most younger people are now plugged into a connected globalised world with its films and music and opportunities to be expressive, and have no real interest in chopping people's heads off or forcing women to cover themselves up and stay at home. But this generation is powerless because the Middle Eastern state has always been an overbearing, top-down structure in which a small group of elites -royal families, military cousins- run everything, while handing out food subsidies, above all, jobs to bring a percentage of people into a dependent relationship which it would be against their interests to harm and which protects the state from political change.

Syria ran out of the money and the jobs it could hand out to maintain a compliant population, people wanted more than the state could deliver, but instead of embracing change, as many felt Bashar al-Asad would when he succeeded his father, he became another version of Hafez, convinced that what worked for Baba -the violent suppression of dissent- would work again.

Middle Eastern states have to change; and they will change, but not soon, and not as long as the choices its people make are made on their behalf in Washington DC or Moscow, or Riyadh and Tehran. Raining bombs will kill a lot of people, what problems in actual fact, will it solve?

Stavros

09-23-2014, 01:48 PM

So the question still is, should anything be done and what is it that should be done? The world watched in horror at what happened in Rwanda and even the most ardent peacenik cannot rationally argue that no response was the correct response in that situation.

I guess the answer points in the direction of where we did do something and it prevented something far worse from happening, and the best example I can think of is the worldwide response to the Balkans in the 90's. So applying the same formula to ISIS, it might be as simple as the UK and US simply following France's lead...

It seems fatuous to argue that there were always alternatives to Hitler and Milosovic, that those wars happened because at various moments when those men could have been stopped people with the ability to stop them did not. Once this kind of violence has begun, the military solution is irresistible, but it only returns societies to the original problem which must be dealt with. Rwanda has become a one party state whose President assassinates anyone who challenges his rule -and not just in Rwanda (Kagame is behind assassinations of opponents in South Africa, for example), so that for all its economic success, Rwandan politics is as intolerant now as it was before, it just doesnt kill the same volume of people. The Balkans has turned away from Greater Serbian nationalism, but is it true that Milosovic entered into the Ohio talks that brought an end to his pet project because the alternative was annihilation? In the end, force plus diplomacy was said to have worked. For me the problem is that once military force is used as a substitute for politics, it changes the parameters by creating issues generated by military violence in addition to the original political problem, and many of those issues have not gone away in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia or Serbia itself.

If there are examples of change happening, consider Sadat's trip to Jerusalem in 1977 followed by the peace with Israel in 1979 as one example, the other being Gorbachev's withdrawal of USSR troops from Afghanistan, and his agreement with Reagan to reduce the stockpile -and also the deployment- of nuclear weapons. The Communist autocracy did end, the Cold War did end, the Arabs -some of them- did make peace with the Israelis (or the other way round if you prefer).

Time and again, we find turning points in world history that were not achieved through military force. But it does not need people with vision, and a lot of courage. Your comment in another thread some weeks ago does suggest we lack politicians with vision who are capable of change, while those who play the same record again and again are not in short supply. But we must live in the hope that change we have seen in our lifetimes will come again.

broncofan

09-24-2014, 12:07 AM

http://abcnews.go.com/International/airstrikes-successful-isis-targets-syria-us-military/story?id=25686031

This is just a hard news update. The U.S launched its first attacks in Syria. It also launched something like 46 tomahawk missiles at various depots in Syria, and blew up training camps of the Khorasan group, which was allegedly trying to develop weapons that could be taken on civilian aircraft and used against U.S targets.

The U.S gave Syria advance notice but did not coordinate with them...this is the administration line. A lot of articles say basically the same thing.

I think France has said they will not launch airstrikes in Syria...

Odelay

09-26-2014, 01:46 AM

Time and again, we find turning points in world history that were not achieved through military force. But it does not [sic] need people with vision, and a lot of courage. Your comment in another thread some weeks ago does suggest we lack politicians with vision who are capable of change, while those who play the same record again and again are not in short supply. But we must live in the hope that change we have seen in our lifetimes will come again.

Yeah, I don't disagree with that, assuming you didn't mean the negative about the need for vision. And holding the bar at the level of Mandela or Ghandi is more than a little unfair. But even a Rabin-like leader emerging from anywhere would be a welcome relief. Again, I'm just a little pessimistic about collective action. I see corporate power either squashing movements (union, occupy) or co-opting them (tea party). After 100's of years of capitalism, they've finally figured out how to fully rig the game with no consequences.

Have to give Cristina props for this tweet...

Cristina Fernandez, Argentina, asks who buys the oil from ISIS; who sells them weapons? September 24, 2014

Stavros

09-26-2014, 12:13 PM

Odelay, a lot of their weapons are stolen from barracks in Syria and Iraq so not bought, and in Iraq's case this means a lot of the weaponry they seized was provided by the coalition forces, ie the US and the UK when they were rebuilding Iraq's armed forces. Oil is being sold by IS to Iran, and to rogue dealers inside Iraq, Syria and Turkey. As for politicians, be grateful you don't have an idiot like David Cameron running your country.

In the meantime this article from today's Independent by Patrick Cockburn is critical of the air power Cameron proposes to use once he gets his vote through the House of Commons, aided and abetted by the morally and politically bankrupt Labour Party. In his piece he suggests a ceasefire between the Asad government and the disparate rebel groups in Syria as a necessity if IS is to be taken on in Syria; what he doesn't discuss is Iranian forces currently on the ground in Iraq and the role Iran and Russia could play in de-escalating the Syrian conflict. When he refers to Arbil as the Iraqi capital he means of Iraqi Kurdistan. He is also not secure in referring to the links between IS and Saudi Arabia's 'wahabi' infection, as the al-Qaeda franchise from which these zealots have come (IS having broken with al-Qaeda) has its roots in the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood which was the root of bin Laden's obsession but from which he and al-Zawahri deviated during their years in Afghanistan. That doesn't mean the Saudi's are exempt as they have been exporting their weird ideas for years.

On the eve of yet another war in Iraq, is the UK’s strategy any more coherent than in 2003?
Patrick Cockburn, who led the world in warning of the rise of Isis, wonders if David Cameron has really thought through his plans

Britain is set to join the air campaign against Isis in Iraq, but, going by David Cameron’s speech to the UN General Assembly, the Government has no more idea of what it is getting into in this war than Tony Blair did in 2003. Mr Cameron says that there should be “no rushing to join a conflict without a clear plan”, but he should keep in mind the warning of the American boxer Mike Tyson that “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”.
The Prime Minister says that lessons have been learned from British military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan but it is telling that he did not mention intervention in Libya for which he himself was responsible.
In fact, there is a much closer parallel between Britain joining an air war in Libya in 2011 than Mr Blair’s earlier misadventures which Mr Cameron was happy to highlight.
In Libya, what was sold to the public as a humanitarian bid by Nato forces to protect the people of Benghazi from Muammar Gaddafi, rapidly escalated into a successful effort to overthrow the Libyan leader. The result three years on is that Libya is in permanent chaos with predatory militias reducing their country to ruins as they fight each other for power.
Whatever the original intentions of Britain and the US, their armed intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011 has been to produce devastating conflicts that have not ended.
It has become common over the years to describe Iraq as a quagmire for foreign powers and it is no less so today than when President Bush and Mr Blair launched their invasion 11 years ago.
Mr Cameron draws comfort from the fact that the UN Security Council has received “a clear request from the Iraqi government to support it in its military action” against Isis. But this is a government who lost five divisions, a third of its army of 350,000 soldiers, when attacked by 1,300 Isis fighters in Mosul in June. Its three most senior generals jumped into a helicopter and fled to the Iraqi capital Arbil, abandoning their men. It was one of the most disgraceful routs in history.

Mr Cameron blames all this on the mis-government of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose sectarian and kleptocratic rule has just ended. But it is doubtful if much has changed since Mr Maliki was replaced by the more personable Haider al-Abadi, whose government is still dominated by Shia religious parties. Mr Cameron’s stated belief that he is supporting the creation of a government that is inclusive of Sunni, Shia, Kurds and Christians is a pipe dream.
It is important to stress that there is little sign that US air strikes in Iraq, which Britain is planning to supplement, will be able to turn the tide against Isis. There have been 194 US air strikes in Iraq since 8 August but the militants are still advancing six weeks after the first bombs and missiles exploded.
In a little reported battle at Saqlawiya, 40 miles west of Baghdad, last Sunday, Isis fighters besieged and overran an Iraqi army base and then ambushed the retreating soldiers. An officer who escaped was quoted as saying that “of an estimated 1,000 soldiers in Saqlawiya, only about 200 managed to flee”.
Surviving Iraqi soldiers blame their military leaders for failing to supply them with ammunition, food and water while Isis claims to have destroyed or captured five tanks and 41 Humvees. The message here is that if the US, Britain and their allies intend to prop up a weak Iraqi government and army, it is misleading to pretend that this can be done without a much more significant level of intervention.
In 2003, Mr Bush and Mr Blair claimed to be fighting only Saddam Hussein and his regime and were astonished to find themselves fighting the whole Sunni community in Iraq. This could very easily happen again in both Iraq and Syria.
Many Sunni in Mosul and Raqqa, Isis’s Syrian capital, do not like Isis. They are alienated by its violence and primaeval social norms such as treating women as chattels. But they are even more frightened of resurgent Iraqi or Syrian armies accompanied by murderous pro-government militias subduing their areas with the assistance of allied air strikes. The Sunni will have no option but to fight or flee.

The US is hoping that it can split the Sunni community away from Isis in a repeat of what happened in 2007 when many Sunni tribes and neighbourhoods took up arms against al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). But this is less likely to happen this time round because Isis is stronger than its predecessor and takes precautions against a stab in the back. Mr Cameron cited the example of the al-Sheitaat tribe in Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria, who rose up against Isis only for their rebellion to be crushed and 700 of their tribesmen to be executed.
Mr Cameron produced a laundry list of four measures that will make the present intervention in Iraq different from past failures. They are a ragbag of suggestions, high on moral tone but short on specificity and give the impression that Tony Blair may have been looking over the shoulder of Mr Cameron’s speech writer.
For instance, we should defeat “the ideology of extremism that is the root cause of terrorism”, but there is nothing concrete about the origins of this narrow and bigoted ideology which condemns Shia as heretics and apostates, treats women as second-class citizens and maligns Christians and Jews.
In fact, the belief system of Isis is little different from Wahhabism, the variant of Islam prevalent in Saudi Arabia. Supported by Saudi wealth, Wahhabism has gained an ever-increasing influence over mainstream Sunni Islam in the last 50 years. Politicians like Mr Cameron are much happier condemning school governors in Birmingham for religious extremism than they are complaining to the Saudi ambassador in London about the virulent sectarianism of Saudi school books.
The US and British alliance with Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Jordan – all Sunni monarchies – creates other problems. It is hypocritical for Mr Cameron to pretend that US and UK intervention are in support of democratic, accountable and inclusive governments when he is in a coalition with the last theocratic absolute monarchies on earth.
But the most short-sighted and self-defeating part of Mr Cameron’s justification for British intervention is to do with the war in Syria. He still claims he wants to change the government of Syria, a policy in which there is “a political transition and an end to Assad’s brutality”. He adds the shop-worn observation that “our enemies’ enemy is not our friend. It is another enemy.”
Since Mr Assad controls almost all the larger Syrian cities, he is not going to leave power. What Cameron is in practice proposing is a recipe for a continuing war and it is this that will make it impossible to defeat the jihadi militants, for Isis is the child of war.
Its leaders have been fighting for much of their lives and are good at it. They and their followers interact with the rest of the world through violence. And so long as the wars in Syria and Iraq continue, then many in their Sunni Arab communities will fear the enemies of Isis even more than Isis.
What the plans of President Obama and Mr Cameron lack is a diplomatic plan to bring the war between the non-Isis parties in Syria to an end. The two sides fear and hate each other too much for any political solution, but it may be possible for the foreign backers of the two sides to pressure them into agreeing a ceasefire. Neither is in a position to win against each other, but both are threatened by Isis, which inflicted stinging defeats on both Assad and anti-Assad forces in the summer.
Britain should press for such a truce even if it is only engaged militarily in Iraq, because it is the outcome of the war in Syria that will determine what happens in Iraq. It was the Syrian war beginning in 2011 that reignited Iraq’s civil war and not the misdeeds of Mr Maliki.
If Isis is to be combated effectively, then the US, Britain and their allies need to establish a closer relationship with those who are actually fighting Isis, which currently include the Syrian Army, the Syrian Kurds, Hezbollah of Lebanon, Iranian-backed militias and Iran itself. The necessity for this is being made tragically clear in the Syria Kurdish enclave of Kobane on the Syrian-Turkish border, where Isis fighters have already driven 200,000 Kurds into Turkey.
If Mr Obama and Mr Cameron genuinely intend to rely on plans to combat Isis that they have just outlined, then they are, as Mike Tyson would have predicted, setting themselves and their countries up for a punch in the mouth.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/on-the-eve-of-yet-another-war-in-iraq-is-the-uks-strategy-any-more-coherent-than-in-2003-9756567.html

buttslinger

09-26-2014, 10:33 PM

I know nobody takes my posts seriously, and nor should they, HOWEVER, I look at Palestine, Israel, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran.....I hope there is a room in the Pentagon or CIA that understands what's going on. I don't think there is a thing we can do to seriously bring peace to the hearts of ISIS.
All the Peace Talks, wars, politics we've been engaged in the past 50 years, where has it led? .....if they're not killing each other, they're thinking about it. killing each other

There is a thin line between 300 million Americans being hypnotized and ignorant.......or being a united and hard working force to be reckoned with.

We would probably be better off looking the other way and let the CIA do it's thing. And keep it secret.

Odelay

09-27-2014, 02:01 AM

BS, I like your posts, and this made me laugh. :dead:

We would probably be better off looking the other way and let the CIA do it's thing. And keep it secret.

fred41

09-27-2014, 02:08 AM

xxx617

09-27-2014, 03:12 AM

Stavros

09-29-2014, 06:27 PM

It's terrific when a charismatic visionary comes about that can change world politics...but short of that (and dealing with a force that's so brutal it can't be dealt with in a diplomatic way...at least in the immediate future anyway)..what to do?...those of us who still watch actual current events (as opposed to facebook and tweeter)...watch beheadings ...read about mass rapes and forced servitude..etc..
sometimes you are forced to act in the short term...and it becomes the long term...
but who is going to say "no" when your gov't gives you the ability to say "yes" when it comes down to trying to prevent a horror show? Diplomacy may work...but it sometimes takes years...and how many torture tapes are people willing to watch in the mean time?

The diplomatic option does not look promising right now, but it ought not to be dismissed as a waste of time. I cannot know if IS has enough support in either Iraq or Syria to survive politically, whatever the bombing does.
I think the beheading of hostages is a provocation, but there has been a suggestion in the press in recent weeks that even the leadership of IS now realises that its show of bravado is counter-productive.
Robert Fisk in the Independent has suggested that negotiations with IS ought not to be ruled out, on the basis that negotiations are often held between people who regard each other as evil incarnate. In the case of IS, which has based a lot of its appeal on being completely uncompromising, any move to negotiate -possibly by factions within IS if not the leadership itself- would probably lead its young radicals to accuse those willing to talk of selling out. There are in Iraq a fair number of ex-Ba'athists and alienated Sunni Arabs from Anbar province in the IS fold right now, but it isn't clear to me if they are in support of this mythical Caliphate that has been pronounced or if they are just using IS as a powerful wedge against the government in Baghdad. What exactly there is to negotiate about is also not clear. It there was a route back into government for the disaffected Sunni in some kind of federal division of the country, and this would run counter to the IS project in Iraq, while a ceasefire and some sort of proposal for a negotiated settlement in Syria would also undermine its support amongst all but those who think that the Caliphate has a realistic future. People are sick and tired of fighting, refugees want to go home. IS just offers them more of what they are exhausted from.

The options though diplomacy using Iran and Russia are there, but they don't look good because of the stall in the negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme, Iran's deployment of 'forces' (mostly Republican Guard) inside Iraq, and of course the broader problem of dealing with Russia although Putin might actually see something positive for Russia if it were to support a ceasefire in Syria. It would be his way of showing the world that he is capable of co-operating with the west and might be one way in which he diverts attention away from the conflict in the Ukraine.
The bombing campaign is in this context either likely to put more pressure on the parties to bring a halt to the worst excesses, or it could be an obstacle to diplomacy of any kind.
Not a satisfactory analysis but its the best I can I do right now.

Stavros

09-29-2014, 06:32 PM

Watch the video below from VICE News which is an interview with a Canadian ISIS member, it explains my thought process on why eventually the US MUST bring the war to ISIS.

Vice News has produced some compelling material on IS, but it also exposes them to ridicule, one example being the Canadian fool in the video linked above. I am not down-grading the determination some of these lads have to kill people in the US, Canada, the UK, France and so on, and I fear that an incident will happen, but when a wannabe 'martyr' threatens to kill everyone, take over the White House or the whole world and so on, you have to admit that it is a measure of how far from reality these people are.

broncofan

10-03-2014, 03:11 AM

Robert Fisk in the Independent has suggested that negotiations with IS ought not to be ruled out, on the basis that negotiations are often held between people who regard each other as evil incarnate. In the case of IS, which has based a lot of its appeal on being completely uncompromising, any move to negotiate -possibly by factions within IS if not the leadership itself- would probably lead its young radicals to accuse those willing to talk of selling out. There are in Iraq a fair number of ex-Ba'athists and alienated Sunni Arabs from Anbar province in the IS fold right now, but it isn't clear to me if they are in support of this mythical Caliphate that has been pronounced or if they are just using IS as a powerful wedge against the government in Baghdad. What exactly there is to negotiate about is also not clear. It there was a route back into government for the disaffected Sunni in some kind of federal division of the country, and this would run counter to the IS project in Iraq, while a ceasefire and some sort of proposal for a negotiated settlement in Syria would also undermine its support amongst all but those who think that the Caliphate has a realistic future. People are sick and tired of fighting, refugees want to go home. IS just offers them more of what they are exhausted from.

Didn't Robert Fisk get hit in the face with a stone and issue a public apology to the stone?:) I would love there to be a diplomatic solution. That was the reason I asked in the initial question what demands Isis would have? It's a fair question. You're suggesting that maybe there are a fair number of Sunnis and former Ba'athists who could be peeled away from the 30,000 strong in ISIS. A unity government would weaken ISIS, but I don't know why we should believe ISIS is bluffing. It does not make sense to me that an army would murder everyone they encounter (especially on sectarian grounds) if their intent is to share power. I've heard of starting a negotiation with a strong bluff...

I think many are acting as if those who want to intervene have an imperialistic purpose or ulterior motive. "Let them sort it out" to me means that whoever has the guns and is better mobilized wipes out as many villages as possible until they get what they want.

The most self-interested stance would be to say we do not want to be involved in more conflict there...if it's also best for all parties, that would be great. To me, non-intervention seems like the most expedient choice for the U.S and Britain, but not the best for people who are in the path of ISIS. I'm not being facetious at all when I say that. There is not a place on earth where I would look at a group executing entire villages and say there should not be a united and international response. It seems to me that when it is clear-cut and there is an opportunity to act without huge blowback, the world should. Obviously, that opportunity does not exist with North Korea or any other nuclear power...but if you have an armed band going through the countryside killing everyone in their sights, I think attempting to negotiate first is an honorable thing. If it proves futile, then it could be time to act.

Stavros

10-04-2014, 03:24 PM

It could be that an analysis of the past shows that in the early phase of operations when a political group is establishing its reputation, and in this case (but not all others) territory, compromise is simply not on the agenda, so that diplomatic moves would be futile, and if anything suggest that the opponents of IS are weak. The deeply depressing murder of Alan Henning underlines this position and also serves to enable IS to depict those Muslims who called for his release as being soft, disloyal and unwilling to either join their 'Caliphate', or focus their anger on the treatment of Muslims in general or campaign for the release of specific prisoners in jails in various countries.
It would appear from a report in today's New York Times, that Henning was murdered on the 20th of September or thereabouts when residents of Raqqa saw him being taken out of town followed by a film crew.

-I don't know why we should believe ISIS is bluffing. It does not make sense to me that an army would murder everyone they encounter (especially on sectarian grounds) if their intent is to share power
-I think this is the main strategic weakness of IS because it is claiming that it is re-building the Caliphate knowing that both non-Muslims and Muslims of various beliefs existed in all the former attempts to create a pan-Islamic caliphate, even if they can claim that power-sharing between Muslims and non-Muslims did not happen and that non-Muslims paid a religious tax, and so on. At the moment it is demonstrating that it will not tolerate difference as it is defined by them. This suggests that if their credentials are as pure as they claim, they have staked everything on a victory or death scenario, which at this phase as I said above, makes diplomacy rather pointless. Whether or not divisions will emerge within IS which outsiders can exploit is not clear, it happened in bin Laden's group because of 9/11, it could happen in IS with regard to differences of opinion on the merits of the cause in Iraq as opposed to Syria -it is still too early to judge.

Conventional warfare between states has often been used to force one side to retreat/surrender before negotiations can begin to resolve the original political dispute or to gain an advantage, or to end a situation without further negotiation -the First World War led directly to the sequence of negotiations that began in Versailles in 1919, whereas the end of the Second World War produced a different outcome and a different set of negotiations which dragged on for years. By contrast, the defeat of Argentina in 1982 did not lead either the UK or Argentina to seek a new understanding on the status of the Falkland Islands (Malvinas), nor was any form of diplomacy produced after the Iran-Iraq war or Iraq's invasion of Kuwait to deal with whatever it was that provoked those disputes.
It would therefore not be in the interests of the forces opposing IS to open a diplomatic channel right now as this would be seen as 'appeasement' (unless it is tried merely to confirm that it is a useless prospect, as happened with the British government and both the Provisional IRA and Loyalist groups in Northern Ireland); it would not suit IS which stakes its reputation (as did Iran in the early phase of the Islamic Revolution) on a complete rejection of international relations and indeed any political reality that it does not control. It would not be radical, revolutionary group if it opened negotiations with the kuffar, but then for the core leadership what is there to negotiate if not our 'surrender'?

There was an attempt a few years ago to negotiate with a more 'moderate' wing of the Taliban in Afghanistan, when it was felt they were in a weak position precisely because of a division with the group over its long term aims. There must be a belief in Iraq that just as the Awakening movement was created to defeat al-Qaida in Iraq, that there must be ways of bringing back Sunni opponents into the Iraqi political system in order to weaken the base of IS in Iraq, though it is too early to say how the new government will approach this, and another element of the success of the Awakening movement was that it was run in tandem with the 'surge' which meant more US boots on the ground, which appears to have been ruled out here.
Unfortunately we are still in an early phase of the IS phenomenon, and they clearly believe they are setting the agenda, and that spells doom for a lot of people.

buttslinger

10-05-2014, 02:31 AM

Stavros

10-05-2014, 11:08 AM

As much money as the Arabs are making off oil, the American businessmen must be making just as much. I wonder what Obama promised all those countries to "fight" ISIS?
ISIS is nothing more than a bunch of street thugs. There are no police there because there's nobody to pay the police.
Let's set the oil fields on fire and triple the price of gasoline. Maybe then we'll get an electric car that kicks ass.
When is the last time you've heard good news from the middle east?

If you have been watching the news recently you will know that the price of oil is currently falling, and that this has exposed divisions in OPEC on the issue of production -Iran wants to restrict it in order to maintain the price of oil at $100 a barrel, OPEC member states have budgeted for spending on the basis of a minimum $100 a barrel. A lower oil price hits Russia, as it did in the 1980s, but would also undermine the viability of shale oil and gas production in the USA which would in turn return the US to a dependency on exports from which in recent years it has been relieved owing to the success of this industry (in terms of output if not always in environmental terms).
There is a long but interesting discussion of oil prices from yesterday's Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/11140156/World-on-the-brink-of-oil-war-as-Opec-bickers-over-price.html

Setting oil fields on fire is both a waste of resources and environmentally damaging, I don't know why anyone thinks it is anything other than a spiteful gesture, one that Saddam Hussein made in 1991.

buttslinger

10-05-2014, 08:46 PM

.....Setting oil fields on fire is both a waste of resources and environmentally damaging, I don't know why anyone thinks it is anything other than a spiteful gesture, one that Saddam Hussein made in 1991.

Most foreign policies are just gambles based on the odds, that doesn't really work when ISIS is beheading western journalists. ISIS is dictating policy. If or when Iran gets the bomb, fluctuating oil prices may be the least of the world's problems, because they're known to fly off the handle when God vs. Allah ....or whatever ...comes up.

George W. was more of a J R Ewing Oil Tycoon than a president, Obama is right to disdain the Middle East, but doing so might put the election of Hillary in jeopardy. When it comes to money and power, all World Leaders have a bit of tunnel vision.

Mr Spock and Mr Stavros are both welded to Logic, the problem with the Middle East is, there is no logical answer to the dilemma there. Because of the OIL. The United States policy on the Middle East before 2001 was hope it didn't come over here. Technically, the USA can't use it's resources to build a perfect car, we are limited as a government to build the perfect weapon. But in this case, the perfect car is the perfect weapon. Beat the Devil. Here and Abroad. (never happen. I predict eternal bloodshed)

Stavros

10-06-2014, 07:40 PM

Last weekend The Observer newspaper in the UK published a survey and supporting articles on changing attitudes to drugs in the UK, and, in addition posted a fascinating article by Ed Vulliamy on the transition in Mexico from the old-style mafia-type drug cartel to the more recent version, more para-military and even more ruthless than what came before. I was struck by this claim made without a supporting reference, which I will try and find:

"While the old-guard narcos might do business over lunch or in smart hotels, the new guard control the internet. The Zetas post their atrocities on YouTube, by way of recruitment posters; it is a matter of conjecture whether they got the idea from al-Qaida – recently inherited by Islamic State (Isis) – or the other way around. Patrick Cockburn, author of a recent book on Isis, reports that a recent video claiming to show a beheading by the jihadist group was in fact not their handiwork at all: it was shot in Mexico, an execution by the Zetas.
While the mafia old guard might hide a body in the concrete of a flyover, the new organisations make their brutality as public as possible. As the chief forensic examiner for the police in Tijuana, Hiram Muñoz, puts it so eloquently, as he searches for meanings and messages in the mode of mutilations: “The difference is this: in what I would call normal times, I kill you and make you disappear. Now, they are shouting it, turning it into a grotesque carousel around their territory. In normal conditions, the torture and killing is private, now it is a public execution using extreme violence, and this is significant.”

An obvious difference is that the USA does not send in the bombers to lay waste to Mexican villages, distribution depots, or the villas of the drug barons in Mexico City or wherever they live.

This is the link to the article
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/05/mexico-war-on-drugs-hidden-story-joaquin-guzman-war-us

Odelay

10-07-2014, 05:13 AM

I subscribe to two theories on why we're seeing and reading about so much violence.

1. The internet. duh!
2. The world is approaching 7 billion people, which means more degenerates and it's these people who make the news. (see #1, above)

There were a little more than 2 billion people at the time of Hitler and Stalin and look at what they did. A world population, 3 times that size, is going to produce some truly monstrous people.

Just finished a long read on female victims of domestic violence, who are themselves subject to long terms of imprisonment when their partners violently kill their children. Sentences as long as 10, 20, 45 yrs, even life are handed to abused mothers whose children are deemed murdered because the mothers didn't do enough to protect their children.

The laws are written as gender neutral - in other words, a man could be prosecuted as an enabler of abuse, standing idly by while his wife murders his child. But as you might expect, men almost never get charged with this crime even when their wives do commit the murder.

As for the men who kill these children in hideous fashion, they're simply the scum of the earth.

broncofan

10-07-2014, 02:10 PM

I am pretty sure the world is not more violent than before, but it is surprising that there is still so much violence. The things people did to each other in the Middle Ages and antiquity were cruel...impaling one another on pikes, crucifixions, torture etc. It's just amazing that all of our collective outrage, all that's been written about war and it's still as popular as ever.

I was looking up the U.S. military budget yesterday and at 600 billion dollars, we still can't solve these problems. I'm not saying that because we put so much of our resources into our military that we are responsible for whatever happens around the world...but why is our military such a priority for us? Having a Democrat in the white house hasn't changed the fact that the international community is divided in every conflict based on vested interests.

Whenever there's a crisis, Russia and China ask whether our inability to help solve it is good for them or bad for American hegemony. We ask what's good for Assad, what's good for our allies. There is no international consensus, only nations armed to the teeth taking sides or sitting on the sidelines while blood is shed.

Stavros

10-07-2014, 06:48 PM

With reference to the the posts above by Odelay and Broncofan, I would counsel against despair, not least because Steven Pinker has argued that the volume of political violence at the level of total war has decreased in the last 100 years.
On the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916 more than 20,000 troops were killed and thousands more injured; at its peak in 1969 the USA had 549,500 boots on the ground in Vietnam. One of the reasons why the US military opted for the use of the nuclear bomb on Japan in 1945 was the calculation that to defeat Japan on its home turf would require an invasion force of at least one million men.

A major difference that is now evident is the use of air power, including drones, seen as a cheaper and possibly more efficient strike capability. What one loses with boots on the ground is a clearer view of the situation in small places, from towns and villages to, for example, a building in which hostages are being held, or Osama bin Laden is hiding -would that operation have been possible without eyes on the ground?
It has also been argued that US intelligence has suffered because the CIA no longer embeds agents inside countries where it has interests. Whether or not this would have given the US fore-knowledge of the emergence of IS I cannot say.

Before, and certainly after the Cold War ended, strategists were looking at 'low intensity warfare' and insurgencies as a more common form of conflict, but the problem is that it is an asymmetric form of warfare, in which the vast military might of the USA has serious problems dealing with an enemy that often cannot be seen, whose location changes regularly, and whose publicity is ubiquitous. If IS is different from previous guerilla bands, it is because it is attempting to create a state rather than positing a future state as an outcome of the campaign. That makes it a bigger challenge, but must also make IS a bigger target.
Notwithstanding what I said about the decline of political violence at the level of total war, I wonder if, rather than put boots on the ground, the US would consider the use of a tactical nuclear weapon that would, for example, obliterate Raqqa. I once discussed different sorts of nuclear weapon with a military officer who confidently, if chillingly, assured me that a tactical nuclear weapon could 'take out' a target with minimal nuclear fall-out. It was, he insisted, an efficient way of dealing with an enemy.
The use of nuclear weapons has been banned in international law -but then so has war...if ground forces from Turkey in the North, and Saudi Arabia in the South cannot deal with IS, I wonder...

Ben

10-08-2014, 02:59 AM

Panetta predicts 30 more years. Link below -- :)
Just curious about the actual costs. Both human and financial.
Are we going to, say, spend another 5 trillion bucks, or: 6?. 7?, 8? trillion -- in total?
What will the cost be and what will the results bring.
State actors just have a Manichean mindset. Look at the likes of Blair:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/21/world/europe/tony-blair-isis-islam/
And, too, eager to concentrate their power and the power of corporations.

Ex-Pentagon chief predicts 30-year ISIS war:
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/10/06/Ex-Pentagon-chief-predicts-30-year-ISIS-war.html

buttslinger

10-08-2014, 06:02 PM

When the Mob ran Vegas you could walk the streets at night and feel safe because it was worth it to the Mob to keep order in a town where they not only lived, but were making tons of money. My parents were kids during the Great Depression, and engaged when we dropped the bomb on Japan, and just like you fork out cash to build a fence around your home, it is worth it for the US to pay the military to keep the world's problems out of our yard.

I have no idea what ISIS is really about, they've been fighting some kind of war, some kind of violence over there ever since WWII ended. Israel got attacked two days after it was formed, Iran and Iraq had a bloody war. And on and on. I remember talking to a girl in high school, she went to Israel and the first thing she did was buy a golf ball sized chunk of hashish, she never touched it because life over there is so dramatic and exciting you don't need drugs to cop some action. Bombs go off.

If the San Andreas Fault ever does it's thing, the US will go bust. No more policing the World. Count your blessings, live your life. Wear a condom if you have sex with a craigslist tranny. Life is Good. If you don't think too much about it.

Ben

10-10-2014, 03:30 AM

Fox News vs Harvard On ISIS Turns Into Embarrassing Ignorance Fest - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8va9vLap2JI&list=UU1yBKRuGpC1tSM73A0ZjYjQ)

Ben

10-10-2014, 05:12 AM

Rep. Duncan Hunter Claims "10 Isis Fighters" Caught At The Southern Border:

Rep. Duncan Hunter Claims "10 Isis Fighters" Caught At The Southern Border. Greta - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JWRxVtzL9Q)

Peterdavidson

10-11-2014, 03:56 AM

IS can't be defeated through airstrikes reality is boots on the ground is what is really needed ,,

trish

10-11-2014, 06:01 AM

I strongly object to them being my boots, or the boots of anyone I know.

daltx_m

10-13-2014, 03:05 PM

>Can ISIS be negotiated with?
Yes, with guns and bullets

>If so, what demands of theirs should the world accede to?
Only the ones in which they die.

>An Islamic State within what borders?
Hell

>Or if the West should respond, should it only be within the borders of Iraq and stop at Syria because we're afraid that hurting Isis might help Assad?
Just kill them all.

trish

10-13-2014, 09:20 PM

Thomas Friedman recently pressed the metaphor that ISIS was an invasive species infesting Iraq and Syria. The use of herbicides (bombs and boots) is not the exclusive solution.

"Generally speaking, though, over the years in Iraq and Afghanistan we have overspent on herbicides (guns and training) and underinvested in the best bulwark against invasive species (noncorrupt, just governance). We should be pressing the Iraqi government, which is rich with cash, to focus on delivering to every Iraqi still under its control 24 hours of electricity a day, a job, better schools, more personal security and a sense that no matter what sect they’re from the game is not rigged against them and their voice will count. That is how you strengthen an ecosystem against invasive species."

http://nyti.ms/1D3ili8

.

buttslinger

10-14-2014, 03:09 AM

Even psychological warfare isn't enough, those ISIS guys are hopped up on rage, like we can't understand. I don't think they've really mastered that whole prayer thing over there. We need to have one of Sadaam Hussein's Doubles come back to life magically in the shower, and use weapons of mass destruction on them. Religious Gas.
When Obama says we need to CONTAIN Isis, he's exactly right, but Joe Sixpack needs to hear we're gonna annihilate 'em, fight fire with fire.

trish

10-14-2014, 03:53 AM

ISIS recruits from the U.S. and Europe go over there and fight for free. Joe Sixpack can do the same, nothin's stoppin' him but his beer gut and weak knees.

broncofan

10-14-2014, 01:49 PM

The fact is people don't like compromise positions. They either want a president to say he is going to annihilate ISIS or one who says he will not get involved but will spend the money on our own infrastructure.

But what Obama is doing is fighting the war against ISIS in a sustainable way. He has said he will not commit ground troops because he does not want us to be an occupying force for another decade with all the costs and liabilities, but he has also not said it is not our concern when people are being killed the way they are. Reports out of Kobani are that hundreds of people (or tens, it is not clear yet) have been beheaded in the street.

I only wish there were an international force that could be put together...or that there were some way to better equip the Kurds for what is going on in Kobani right now. They seem more than willing to fight to defend their homes and way of life, but it would be nice if they were as well equipped as ISIS appears to be.

broncofan

10-14-2014, 01:52 PM

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/horror-of-kobani-headless-corpses-left-in-the-street-and-victims-with-their-eyes-cut-out-the-savagery-of-isis-laid-bare-9791199.html

This shouldn't be surprising given what we already know about ISIS, but I still think it's relevant to the thread. Wherever they gain the upper hand, this will be the scene for those who tried to repel them.

Prospero

10-14-2014, 02:10 PM

Stavros

10-14-2014, 04:20 PM

And meanwhile as the Turks sit on the border and watch this, instead of taking action against ISIS they are reported to have launched air attacks against their own Kurdish communities. I think they have forgotten they are members of NATO. For those with a knowledge of Turkish history this is rather reminiscent of the genocide of the Armenians - which of course the Turks still deny.

The Turks are in a difficult position, but it is one they created for themselves. From its inception, the whole point of Turkey was that it was a national project, but that by definition to take part citizens had to become Turks, but as with all nationalist projects it begged the qustion -are you one of us? Do you belong here? This was great for those people who had migrated out of the European colonies (from Bulgaria to the Balkans) who had been Ottoman subjects but who now could re-invent themselves as Turks and be equal with the other ethinic identities in Anatolia.
But the idea that Armenians would stop being Armenian, or that Kurds would stop being Kurds was absurd then and remains so today. The solution to the 'Greek problem' was the mass expulsion of the Greek Orthodox community and the immolation of Smyrna in 1922, subsequently renamed Izmir. The fate of the Armenians, well documented by now, was virtual obliteration. Note too that many Armenians in the south-east of Turkey were murdered by Kurds not Turks at various times between 1900 and 1923 (a massacre in the Cilicia region in 1909 was but one of many which took place between the 1890s and the end of the Empire).

Secular Turkey is hostile to religion, or was -this not only meant the ban on Islamic dress begun in Kemal's day, but also present day limitations on Christian and Jewish worship so that Christians are only allowed to worship in designated churches, of which new ones rarely get planning permission and are not permitted to be taller than a mosque. It is a crime to make any criticism of 'Turkishness' or to (allegedly or otherwise) insult Mustapha Kemal the 'Father of Turkey' (=Ataturk) and Turkey per capita has more journalists in prison than any other country in the world.

The attempt to restore Islamic principles to Turkey has been opposed by many inside and outside the military who view themselves as the custodians of Kemal's secular legacy, but the hostility to Christians and Jews is also now extended to Turkey's non-Sunni Muslims such as the Alevi who, along with the Christians and the Jews, and atheists -are not entitled to any benefit derived from the Directorate of Religious Affairs, which promoted a law that now allows religious schools, but again only for the Sunni population.

Crucially, by denying Kurds the right to be Kurds, to use their own language in public affairs, to express various customs and rituals, Turkey created an opposition movement within the state which it has never been able to control. The attacks referred to in Prospero's post in effect break the ceasefire agreed with the PKK in 2012, but send a powerful if dismal message -Kurdish identity and Kurdish separatism is a greater threat to Turkey than IS across the border, even though IS militants in one of Vice News videos have threatened to take their struggle into Turkey itself.

The theory, advanced by Mark Urban on Newsnight last week, is that Turkey might consider using ground forces to create a 'buffer zone' not dissimilar to the one that Israel created in southern Lebanon in the 1970s, and that this zone would include the tomb of Suleyman Shah, the father of Osman I and founder of the Ottoman Empire. He is (assuming it is in fact his remains) buried not far from Kobani and under an agreement with the French Mandate in 1921 which subsequent Syrian governments have retained, the Turkish state maintains a Turkish armed presence at the tomb (which was re-located after a flood in 1973).

That agreement, and logistics aside, this presents the problem of Turkey encroaching on territory from which the Ottomans were expelled in 1918-1919, and could also revive the issue of Hatay province further west which includes the charming port city of Iskenderun -this 'province' used to be the Sanjak of Alexandretta and was one part of the Ottoman Empire the Turks failed to capture in the campaign led by Kemal at the end of the war. The Syrians have always claimed it should have been incorporated into the French Mandated territory in 1920-21. It was a mixed province of Arabs, Turks, Greeks, Armenians and other minorities, but the Turks used various methods, mostly violent to increase the Turkish population, expel the non-Turks, particularly the Armenians and the Greeks, and thus confront the Arabs -until in 1938 they simply annexed the place having made it clear to Britain and France that any attempt to prevent it would lead Turkey to either being neutral in any forthcoming war, or seek an alliance with Germany, as it had done in 1914. Most of the Arabs subsequently left to live in Syria.

For these rather complex reasons, a Turkish move south of the border brings many toxic issues with it, and the potential to create new problems in an area which has more than enough, but it does in its own way relate to this whole argument about the future of the 'Sykes-Picot' states that were created in the Middle East after 1918, or at least where their boundaries might be.

buttslinger

10-14-2014, 09:40 PM

By fighting ISIS, we're aiding Bashir. Probably Iran also.
The only people in the US who swear they know what's going on are guys like John McCain and Lindsey Graham, .......unnyuuhhh

trish

10-14-2014, 10:45 PM

broncofan

10-14-2014, 11:19 PM

It would take much more bravery to fight the fight the Kurdish villagers are fighting, against a force of militants who are better armored and have more sophisticated weaponry than they do than it would be to be part of a U.S ground force. The Kurds who do not flee are facing a cruel and near certain death.

Anyone who wants to fight with the Kurds is just as able as the thousands from western countries who have joined Isis. I think there have been a few American ex-military who have joined the Kurdish forces...but one would be joining a group of very courageous but under-equipped fighters facing long odds in the near term.

broncofan

10-14-2014, 11:31 PM

By fighting ISIS, we're aiding Bashir.
My sense is that we have to put that aside...for if Isis gained ascendancy over all Syria they would not be any more merciful than Assad has been. They also don't even have the appearance of a governing body or established order, so eliminating Isis members does not run the same risk of destabilization that attacking Assad would.

Odelay

10-15-2014, 01:14 AM

Judging from Stravros' last post this is way to complex for Lindsey Graham and well beyond the ken of John McCain to fathom. I say we buy them both a matching pair of pearl handled pistols and send 'em over there. Oh Mercy Me!
I think Lindsey Lohan with a half a bag on would come up with better foreign policy than Lindsey Graham.

buttslinger

10-15-2014, 01:53 AM

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

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?

broncofan

10-15-2014, 03:48 AM

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

10-15-2014, 10:41 AM

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-brings-back-slavery-yazidi-girls-sold-to-isis-fighters-as-concubines-for-1000-9792056.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

10-15-2014, 01:23 PM

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/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11162989/Secret-terror-trial-Erol-Incedal-planned-attack-on-Tony-Blairs-house-or-Mumbai-style-atrocity-jury-hears.html

Stavros

10-15-2014, 04:19 PM

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

10-15-2014, 04:28 PM

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

10-15-2014, 05:34 PM

[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

10-15-2014, 08:10 PM

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

10-16-2014, 05:42 PM

[QUOTE=Stavros;1539025]
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

10-30-2014, 07:02 PM

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/Player.aspx?meetingId=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/Player.aspx?meetingId=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

10-31-2014, 04:55 AM

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.

Stavros

11-01-2014, 06:08 PM

I wonder if the US needs to use its current energy position to increase investment in alternative energy. The shale 'revolution' has been driven by oil prices in excess of $100 a barrel, making an expensive mode of production profitable, but fracking needs staggering amounts of water for wells that don't seem to last for more than 5 years -in the Middle East wells are still pumping oil from fields that were opened up in the 1930s.

In the Middle East there has for years been a vast literature on the 'resource curse' and economic diversification, as oil is seen to have distorted the organic development of the economies there, on the basis that if you can't make it, buy it. When you look at the figures which show Abu Dhabi, for example, raking in millions of $$ a month in the 1960s, which became $$ billions in the 1970s you can begin to understand that.

There is also the well-known quote My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel variously attributed.

To add to the problem the state has been the primary economic actor, and within the state either elites (as in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia) or the military (Egypt, Syria and Iraq) have commandeered so many parts of the economy that all a form of liberalization has done is increase the distance between the majority of people and the profits generated by local business. Even in Israel, which has been able to link its economy to a globalised economy without having to deal with its nearest neighbours, the gulf between the successful beneficiaries and the rest is the difference between being able to afford an apartment in Tel Aviv or having to live with your parents into your 30s and beyond.
The 'Arab Spring' was in part a reaction against the huge numbers of young people growing up without a job in a society where there is no real jobs market as salaried positions are either available only to certain people based on religious sect, family connections, tribal loyalty whatever, or where individuals actually pay a government official to get a job -one of the scandals in the Iraqi Army under Nouri al-Maliki is that officers were being appointed because they could pay Maliki and his cronies to get the job, thereafter using their position to extract their own benefits from the local economy.
The resource deficit that is expected to follow the decline of oil ought not to be a problem, Singapore and Japan are two successful states that are bereft of basic natural resources, particularly in Japan, so natural resource deficits on their own can be surmounted. This is the basis of the long term growth strategies in Abu Dhabi and Dubai though I don't really see either place as a tourist destination even if the weather is great in the middle of winter.
I also have no idea what IS believe in with regard to the economy. At the moment their economy is based on ransom payments, bank robberies, extortion, and illegal sales of oil, none of which look promising in the long term. The sad irony is that many of the young Britons going to Syria and Iraq are not uneducated or unemployed, but young people with bright prospects -one was a medical student- heading off to fight with young men who have no prospects at all, not least because the assumption is that IS cannot win a military victory against its opponents and that its days are numbered.

In the end, the question, where are the new jobs going to come from? Is as applicable to the Middle East as in the UK and the US. Tough times ahead for all, I think.

Some articles on this issue here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-javad-heydarian/time-for-an-arab-economic_b_4926484.html

http://democracyjournal.org/28/the-seven-pillars-of-the-arab-future.php

buttslinger

11-01-2014, 07:48 PM

I wrote here before, I think,....I get mixed up, that in the Cave Man Days, when the future of all Mankind was not assured, that the DNA MIND invented a gland that squirted a hormone that made twenty year old men see the world through rosy colored glasses, even when staring out of his cave in January, so he'd go out in the snow and kill a bear and bring it back to the cave and later that night make some babies. Survival is more than surviving, you have to keep an eye out for those around you.
The Railroad Union kept the coal shovelers employed even after the steam engine, In the USA the US Postal Service is in jeopardy because computers are making snail mail obsolete, UPS and FedEx are taking the rest. Things move faster now.
Most people don't even know what they're working for, except a mortgage and food on the table. Cavemen worked about thirty hours a week hunting, gathering, and sweeping out the cave, the rest of the time was spent goofing around and socializing.
The goal of not having to work your fingers to the bone goes against the Middle Class paradise of everybody working 40 hours a week producing producing producing until the cup runneth over. This takes some nurturing and finagling by our World Leaders to adjust and adapt to the realities on the battlefield, I'm talking about the West. The Middle East is the problem beyond solving. ISIS is no accident, We might as well use it as a training ground to test our drones and weapons, and give our professional soldiers some experience getting shot at. ISIS is doomed because they can't maintain hospitals to care for their sick and wounded the rest of their lives. The Ammo and Arms they stole from the Iraqis will run out eventually. Eventually they'll run out of Desert and guys with green grass and children will find it necessary to get serious and spend the money necessary to annihilate them.

I have to get new valves on my old Motorcycle, the new gas without lead chews up the old ones. Some people said the lead in the atmosphere made people retarded. A hundred years ago the air was clean. People got a job within walking distance from their house. I guess Lawrence of Arabia wasn't even in Arabia yet, I imagine a hundred years from now .........it will be the best of times and the worst of times, a time like any other time. Til then, we move on. Perfecting the forty hour work week.

The finish of Lawrence Of Arabia - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzPr3R3DNoo)

trish

11-01-2014, 11:49 PM

When a Bushman was asked why he hadn't taken to agriculture he replied: "Why should we plant, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?" [Lee, Richard B.. "What Hunters Do for a Living, or, How to Make Out on Scarce Resources" Man the Hunter. Chicago: Aldine; 1968. p. 33.]Unfortunately, today the mongongo nuts of the world are hoarded, held and closely guarded by those in the thrall of ambition and power.

Odelay

11-04-2014, 04:21 AM

In the end, the question, where are the new jobs going to come from? Is as applicable to the Middle East as in the UK and the US. Tough times ahead for all, I think.

And I thought I was dark. 8)

Seriously though, I have to check myself sometimes. I love the topic on the General board about who would you like to share a beer with, dead or alive. Ironically, it's just the type of conversation I might have with a buddy at a local tavern over some very good ales, not quite recognizing that life couldn't really get any better if I was sharing a beer with anyone else. We talk about some pretty grim stuff here, but in the end the little things in life can really clear out the gloom.

Stavros

11-04-2014, 04:09 PM

Having said that, I should also say that humans beings have always been able to find solutions to the problems that confront them/us. As I said in this or another thread, change often happens despite politics rather than because of it.
I have been criticized by friends in the past for approaching issues with a negative frame of mind, and often have to correct myself. Climate change is a challenge that can be met within our abilities, the same is true of armed conflict, disease, and population growth. There are times when nobody seems to have a solution, right now I am not sure that the dismal science, economics, has an answer to the problems that capitalism is experiencing in Europe and North America. A reason for this is that the combination of modern technology and the basic principle of buying cheap and selling dear has undermined mass production industries in Europe and America. Detroit is an example of a city built on mass production that through technology and economic reality has lost that profile. There are solutions to Detroit, but can they replace what it once had? At the moment in 'post-industrial' cities, new jobs are created, but on a smaller scale, and often on lower salaries than before, with less job security.

One could frame the conflict with IS in Iraq and Syria in the context of globalization and modernization and argue that the radical views of groups like IS and al-Qaeda express a fear that modernization is eroding the precise communal bonds of Muslims, and their beliefs and customs which such groups imagine to have existed before they were sundered and corrupted by imperialism and capitalism, and the belief by IS that they -and they alone- can create the conditions in which such threats will no longer exist, which is why it is ultimately a Utopian project.

The more pertinent difficulty is not just the fantasy of a Caliphate, but the very real prospect that an independent Kurdistan would make the re-integration of Iraq impossible and further alienate the Sunni Arabs who currently -perhaps temporarily- support IS as a countervailing force ranged against the Shi'a government and Iran. Localism seems to me to inflate sectarian claims, but unless people become 'stakeholders' in their own state, it does rather beg the question -why should they stay? The US support for the Kurds in this context looks in the long term more rather than less likely to challenge the existence of Iraq as we have known it. I feel Obama and his administration is still responding to events rather than trying to shape them, and I don't see any coherent alternatives coming from the Clinton camp either, which is one reason why I think the Democrats are doomed this week and in 2016.

broncofan

11-04-2014, 05:39 PM

I don't know that the end game is an independent Kurdistan but with each of these sectarian conflicts it does appear that the current international boundaries are resisting much stronger forces. I am not saying the Iraqi people are not ready for a pluralistic society, but how is it implemented so that all parties are stakeholders and there isn't an ultimate power struggle? It seems to me that the forces of religion, culture, and identity are much stronger than any institution that can be built in the short term.

That doesn't mean we should give up on pluralism or the idea that a society can be held together without strict divisions among ethnic and religious groups, but there comes a time when reality conflicts with our ideals. I don't mean this as a patronizing commentary on those far-flung places; even in our own societies, we see nationalist and nativist interests empowered from time to time. In the United States, a country built upon being a refuge for immigrants this impulse persists. At some point, partition avoids bloodshed but it makes international problems that were once domestic. How many ways can the world be parcellated?

Note: I am not coming down in favor of partition, but just priming the debate on this subject. This is the dilemma at work. If people feel divided and see one another as alien, how will they share power? How do you instill unity among the people prior to creating the institutions to enable power sharing?

Ben

11-19-2014, 04:59 AM

Endless War Causes Endless Terror [Depressing Numbers]:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRZbiyvdAas&list=UU1yBKRuGpC1tSM73A0ZjYjQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRZbiyvdAas&list=UU1yBKRuGpC1tSM73A0ZjYjQ)

Yuengling

12-11-2014, 04:57 AM

What we need to do is destreoy all the moslams.

Ben

01-20-2015, 04:31 AM

Gruesome Photos Allegedly Show Islamic State Throwing Gay Men Off a Tall Building:

https://news.vice.com/article/gruesome-photos-allegedly-show-islamic-state-throwing-gay-men-off-a-tall-building

broncofan

01-27-2015, 03:56 AM

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/world/middleeast/kurds-isis-syria-kobani.html?_r=0

Several months ago I posted that Kobani was about to fall and there would be massacres of all the city's inhabitants. It goes to show that you're only as good as the sources you rely on. I read from a bunch of journalists that Kobani was on the verge of falling, but now the Kurds have taken the city.

The fight there also attracted a ton of ISIS fighters who made several pushes to take the city and were sitting ducks for airstrikes. A Pentagon official claimed that airstrikes have killed 6,000 ISIS fighters...depending upon whether they are replenishing themselves, that does seem like a lot of damage.

gslang

01-27-2015, 04:38 AM

Despite all this public hostility, the now disbanded ISIS remain one of my favourite post-metal bands (IMHO reaching their peak with Oceanic) and deserve better credit and recognition.

Recent imitators and copy-cats have moved right over to death-metal and clearly much too extreme being more engrossed in ritualistic and mindless acts than their music (often rushed online rather thru considered artistic process). They even forgot to include the music track in their recent videos. call me a traditionalist (myb that should b a music fundamentalist) but i like a good melody.

While it obviously has its dedicated followers, not at all to my taste and hopefully wont continue to get the widespread coverage they clearly crave. Perhaps artistic differences (& abuse of mind-destroying hallucinogens whether chemical or deluded mind virus) will eventually lead to their fragmentation and demise.

Lets hope so, and the spirit and memory of the original Isis can resume it rightful place in history without the mudded controversy of its namesake.

Ben

02-12-2015, 05:45 AM

Here's How You Dismantle the ISIS Death Cult:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDlR2AEhbX4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDlR2AEhbX4)

dreamon

02-12-2015, 08:52 AM

AshlynCreamher

02-12-2015, 03:24 PM

ISIS reminds me of Khmer Rouge, trying to "clean up" the Muslim world similar to how KR attempted to "clean up" the Cambodian people.

I certainly hope they are not able to create death on the scale that Khmer Rouge was able to.

Or maybe Ali Khamenei is more of the Khmer Rouge "of today" and ISIS is more like the VietCong

Doesn't Iran call them selves the Islamic State too? Is there not Iranian troops in Iraq right now?

Ben

02-24-2015, 03:42 AM

Private donors from Gulf Oil States Helping to Bankroll Salaries of Up to 100,000 ISIS Fighters:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/23/private-donors-from-gulf-oil-states-helping-to-bankroll-salaries-of-up-to-100000-isis-fighters/

Stavros

05-27-2015, 05:43 PM

The last ten days have seen some important developments in the Middle East, starting with the news today that Tony Blair has resigned as the Envoy of the Quartet seeking peace between Israel and the Palestinians. I don't know what he thinks he has achieved in eight years, but it doesn't amount to much from my perspective (for what that's worth).
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/27/tony-blair-resigns-as-middle-east-peace-envoy-report

Meanwhile, IS has extended its reach to include Ramadi, a strategically important town close to Baghdad. As usual, when IS arrived, the armed forces of Iraq turned and ran, even though the IS force does not seem to contain more than a few hundred fighters. The Prime Minister has vowed that Ramadi will return to Iraqi rule soon, but if it is 'liberated' it will most likely be by the Shia militia grouped under the 'Population Mobilisation Committee' -one of the covers used by Iran to organise military attacks -and being the Middle East, wretched atrocities will be inflicted by winners on losers or anyone else who happens to be in the wrong place at the time. Should anyone really want to know who these militias are, a short guide to them is here:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/who-are-shiite-militias-extending-iranian-influence-iraq-1493743

Meanwhile, the Kurds, who have been amongst the most effective armed resistance to IS in both Iraq and in Syria, are losing patience with the incompetent government in Baghdad. An oil and gas newsletter argues that we may be moving towards independence in Iraqi Kurdistan -making it the 10th largest producer of petroleum in the world, and one that would provide it with the revenue to maintain its independence by force. Turkey would then find itself having to choose between funding extremists in Syria devoted to the overthrow of the Ba'ath government in Damascus (the current situation), or taking on the Kurds if their independence movement 'grows' into south-eastern Turkey.
http://www.oilandgasiq.com/strategy-management-and-information/columns/editorial-ramadi-drama-a-kurdish-probletunity/?utm_source=1-5827904214&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=15+05+26+OGIQ+NL&utm_term=OGIQ&utm_content=OGIQ&mac=OGIQ1-3BLFAE5&disc=

What is curious in all this is that both the Iranians and the Saudis are complaining that the Obama presidency is not doing enough to defeat IS, while the architect of the 'surge' in Iraq, David Petraeus is still wedded to the view that the sectarian divide in Iraq can be healed if the Sunni are given a meaningful stake in the future of the country. Emma Sky also takes this view, but has acknowledged that Obama was keen to get the US out of Iraq, and that while the US is still bombing targets in Iraq and Syria this is the limit of the actions the US can take other than the shipments of arms, 'advisers' and other murky arrangements.
Apparently it is not enough, but it does mean that Iran and Saudi Arabia now join Israel in considering Obama a busted flush, yet the alternative would be for the US to go in to both Iraq and Syria, all guns blazing, like the 7th Cavalry, as if this re-run of 2003 would make everything right.

I wonder if in fact the American people believe Obama has a magic wand, or is it that they are now reluctant to send troops to foreign battlefields, and how is this going to be discussed among the candidates for the Presidency as the momentum to 2016 grows throughout the year?
-On the one hand it does now seem to be up to the parties to the conflict to sort it out themselves, but on the other hand, without restraints, who would really want the Saudi kingdom to replace IS as the 'Caliphate', fulfilling the long-term aim of Ibn Saud when he first established his family business in the early 20th century?
-Well it may be that Bernie Sanders, without realising it, is supporting precisely this outcome when it has been eported that:
Sanders said in a statement that the Saudi Arabian government must be responsible for stability in the Middle East and should send its own military to fight the Islamic State rather than demand that the United States undertake such actions.
http://sputniknews.com/us/20150527/1022593197.html

Perhaps someone should tell Mr Sanders that Saudi Arabia -sometimes as a state, sometimes through its wealthy citizens- has been the financial and operational hub of Middle Eastern terrorism for decades, not to mention the Saudi involvement in 9/11. Giving free reign to these followers of Mohammed ibn Abdul Wahab is a recipe for more war, not the end of it. But I doubt that Mrs Clinton would take a balanced view of the conflict, while from what I have read, Jeb Bush is still struggling to decide if regime change in Iraq was a good or a bad thing. The truth may be he wishes he was not asked the question, in which case why is he in politics?

I think IS are overstretched and cannot carry on if their money chain is seriously attacked, though this may mean blowing up oil and gas wells, and refineries. I don't think they have earned much from ransoms recently, and there is only so much they can extort from the population under their control. But the Syrian armed forces are also stretched and weary, so there appears to be no military solution right now, only more misery.

If there was something the US could do to change facts on the ground, I think it would have been done by now, but maybe I am wrong, and something could happen to change the agenda. Whatever the news is, it is unlikely to be good for some time to come...