the middle east Thread

[spireite]

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL‎), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)

(apparently)

 

[HertsWolf]

They have failed in every other attempt, or just haven't had attempts.

So far.

On 10th September 2001, would you have advocated revolutionising (at a cost of tens of billions of pounds) air security in case terrorists flew aircraft into buildings? After all, it had never been done before.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

r.e. all the talk of intervention, there's been a lot more talk in turkey about establishing a safe zone. like 10 or so miles inside the syrian border. since erdogan lost all his kurdish support my guess is he's gonna be more hardline in order to attract the nationalist vote (the MHP position). jordan have been talking about a safe zone too, there are pockets of government troops within this proposed zone though, this would be the most openly anti-assad move committed by any state actor since the conflict began if they do do this, so something to keep an eye on

 

[Womble98]

So far.

On 10th September 2001, would you have advocated revolutionising (at a cost of tens of billions of pounds) air security in case terrorists flew aircraft into buildings? After all, it had never been done before.

The current threat is a "marauding gun attack" as they call it. Our gun measures are already very strict. I don't think we can do much more than we currently do. IS in Iraq and Syria do not pose any real threat to us. It is the few mentally insane nutters who sit on their computers getting radicalised who are the only real threat, and that is not a major one.

 

[HertsWolf]

The current threat is a "marauding gun attack" as they call it. Our gun measures are already very strict. I don't think we can do much more than we currently do. IS in Iraq and Syria do not pose any real threat to us. It is the few mentally insane nutters who sit on their computers getting radicalised who are the only real threat, and that is not a major one.

I believe that is is precisely because it is lone wolves that the threat is so significant and so widespread.
A large part of Tunisia's economy - tourism - will now probably collapse and this will create increased unemployment, which in turn creates pockets of youth despair and urban decay. This in turn pushes disaffected youths into religion and some will move towards terrorism. It is perhaps ironic that the chronic underdevelopment of the economies of much of the Middle East has led to subsequent social and cultural dislocation. Religion - and for many, religious extremism, provides a 'community' (however odious that may be to most of us).

IS poses an ongoing threat because, IMHO, Islam is a very individual religion, involving mainly one person and their holy book. If individuals become radicalised, there is no real 'opposite' to that radicalisation to pull them either in a different direction or back again. Calling them 'mentally insane nutters' is also dangerous because it instantly stops you in your tracks from even trying to understand what drives people to commit such awful acts of terrorism. For many younger, poorer people in the Middle East and North Africa, they see this as sticking one in the eye to the West. They see themselves and their martyrs as the Davids against the economically powerful Goliaths. They (and I stress "they"..I certainly don't see it that way) consider the deaths of innocent civilians rather like we see the deaths of civilians in Dresden, Caen or Coventry during WWII as sad but inevitable victims of war.

We - and especially the Western right-of-centre media - have tended to demonise not only the terrorists but an entire religion, mainly because it provides a convenient label for channelling our anger and frustration. When we demonise people because they are Muslim, Arab or whatever.....the terrorists win. That's what they want.

One of the most uplifting events in the last few years was that while the world was busy demanding the worst for the guy who killed the churchgoers in South Carolina, many of the families and relatives of those murdered were, in their grief, already forgiving him.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

good post. only way the conflict ends is with demographic collapse and even then it'll just simmer for a few years then start up again. the u.s. could end isis in a week or so if they wanted to. the u.s. is amazing at destroying conventional armed forces, just shockingly bad at fighting unconventional forces. it's the paradox at the heart of isis. they've done so well because they've abandoned (or synthesised) the tactics of the terrorists and adopted the tactics of an army. which means the u.s. can pound them into smithereens or just slowly chip away at them. their days are numbered but they can easily slip into the guerilla role it's one they excelled at in iraq during the occupation

 

[Benito]

Look up Simon Elliot.

 

[silkyman]

Why? Is he about to walk into a lamppost or something?

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

bunch of kurds killed in bombing over the border from kobane the other day, probz isis. pkk just assassinated two cops in response, claim security services collusion in the suruc bombing. means turkey can get back to their fave past-time of killing kurds at least. pkk fucked up big time, as much as turkey hates its kurds, an attack on its sovereignty is a far more of an overt threat. they'd have to have responded, my guess would be this much discussed safe zone, or far more likely a show of force bombardment of isis positions in syria. turkey have a weird relationship with isis though, they hate assad far more and would much rather take him out than isis. sooooo, if they can get away with just killing kurds their side of the border they'll just do that is my guess

 

[DarkSithLord]

BBC Breaking News ‏@BBCBreaking 3m3 minutes ago
Turkey calls Nato meeting to discuss military operations against Islamic State group and Kurdish separatists PKK

Good, Its about time Turkey got involved against IS.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Not if it means we have to help them smash the PKK.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

gonna end up with a ludicrous position where a yank plane flies from a turkish airbase and does a bombing run in support of some kurds followed by a turkish plane bombing said planes. the middle east is a fucking ouroboros

i'd be interested in whether there was a turkish hand behind the original bombing that started this though, as the pkk claim. in the 80s the state played islamist kurds and the more marxian kurdish groups against one another, and turkish support for isis is pretty much common knowledge right now

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

called it. turkey bombed the YPG. this is a serious escalation, YPG replied by stating if turkey bombs them again they'll retaliate. i have no fucking idea behind the why here, turkey just loves bombing kurds i guess, doesn't matter what flag they're flying saleh muslim, head honcho of the PYD and one of the most powerful dudes in syrian kurdistan came out and said they COULD negotiate with assad. that's a possible reason behind errything i guess. assad is turkey's real problem ISIS are a distant second. which makes sense really ISIS grab the headlines but assad is a million times worse he just doesn't have this shine to him ISIS do

erdogan is really going for the nationalist vote i guess. i think he lost a bunch of MHP (nationalist) voters by cozying up to the kurds, so now he thinks he's lost them he's going all 'hoo rah' and getting all aggressive n shit to win them back. imminent fucking crackdown on that nice, liberal kurdish party HDP too now i reckon. gonna see a bunch of them arrested, their media silenced and shit too probz

PKK are a pretty small part of a big coalition in iraq so u can bomb them and it wouldn't hurt the resistance too much. the YPG areeee the resistance in syria though. if turkey keep bombing them ISIS will take advantage and advance into kurdish territory. as part of this euphrates volcano force there are FSA forces integrated with the syrian kurds too, so what we basically have is a foreign country arming al qaeda (al-nusra) and bombing our allies in support of the scourge that is islamic state? it's all manner of fucked up

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Reports of the PKK taking out a Turkish APC killing several Turkish troops. Turkish tanks now firing on the PKK's Syrian flank.

This is gonna turn into one monumental cluster f**k.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

that's interesting, the PKK don't have too big a presence in syria. i gotta wonder whether the PKK will get thrown to the wolves by the other kurdish factions though, turkey are in NATO; the kurds aren't gonna win our support, unfortunately we're stuck supporting turkey in this clusterfuck. a few months back the kurdish democratic party in iraq had a go at the syrian YPG and PKK for overstepping in establishing a yazidi militia, it got pretty heated for a while. the KDP also lost a helluva lot of face by fleeing and abandoning loads of yazidi to ISIS when they took sinjar. was the PKK who stepped in and set up an evacuation corridor and saved the day. didn't make the KDP look too good. the syrian border has been more porous for a while so the way i see it either the coalition are serious about strengthening the border and the PKK move from iraq to syria to help the YPG/kill turks. or it's a bluff or the west sees sense and doesn't back turkish military action against our only competent allies in the region. i still see more pkk heading to syria though. the PYD is the syrian arm of the KCK (de facto the pkk's political wing). the PYD exert power over the most competent fighters in the whoooole of kurdistan (YPG) and the PKK have fuck all influence in iraq as is so i see them attempting to redirect the fight. i wonder what ocalan thinks of all this tho

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

erdogan is really going for the nationalist vote i guess. i think he lost a bunch of MHP (nationalist) voters by cozying up to the kurds, so now he thinks he's lost them he's going all 'hoo rah' and getting all aggressive n shit to win them back. imminent fucking crackdown on that nice, liberal kurdish party HDP too now i reckon. gonna see a bunch of them arrested, their media silenced and shit too probz

well that escalated quickly. full scale kurdish insurgency resumes in 3, 2, 1

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

ahahaha the turkish gvt shot down a motion aimed at investigating the terror attack wonder why hmmmmm

 

[chairboyexile]

The terrorists calling themselves israel is a bigger threat to the middle east than ISIS will EVER be

 

[SUTSS]

The terrorists calling themselves israel is a bigger threat to the middle east than ISIS will EVER be

Are they though? Israel are only really concerned with keeping themselves in what they perceive to be their land. ISIS want to take over the entire Middle East.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

biggest threat to the middle east is itself imo. u can blame everything on the west and israel, but ultimately the people of the region have been let down by their leaders. what've they created? a bunch of petty despotisms and an even worse number of cruel-beyond-imagining qasi-theocracies. the region as a whole is corrupt and backwards, with a mean streak of self-righteous indignation. aside from the arab spring, every issue the region has dealt with has consistently been blamed on israel or the west (well, israel is the west). it's spread into discourse on the subject too, just read comments by muslims on any issue it's always 'ahhh mossad/cia/father fucking christmas is behind it'. it's a depressing lack of self awareness.

a great egyptian general, saad al shazly, made stunning gains during the yom kippur war and was credited with the capture of the bar-lev line of israeli fortifications in under two hours. great general. dismissed one week into the conflict like the majority of competent bureaucrats, generals and civil servants are. the system actively rewards incompetence. the same war egypt relied on intercepted israeli communication to discern where it's own fucking troops were, as they couldn't rely on relayed information from their own. competence is a challenge. transparency is a challenge. empathy is a challenge. it's a system built for self-aggrandizement and it dominates rhetoric on discussion in the macro level of things. every nation is for itself, every state is for itself and everyone blames everything and everyone but themselves. the friendliest, warmest people i've ever met are the people of the near east but i'm tired of this blame being put on us and sykes-picot. therse' more out there than fucking sykes-picot

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

loooool in other news obama's great big white elephant, that program to start vetting and training moderate, trust worthy syrian opposition. the program that only trained 60 rebels at like 10 million each. well 8 of them were just captured by nusra. WHAT A GOOD USE OF RESOURCES AMERICA

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

loooool in other news obama's great big white elephant, that program to start vetting and training moderate, trust worthy syrian opposition. the program that only trained 60 rebels at like 10 million each. well 8 of them were just captured by nusra. WHAT A GOOD USE OF RESOURCES AMERICA

turns out that nusra captured those rebels thanks to a tip-off from turkish intelligence. we're engaged in a proxy conflict with our own fucking allies, shit just gets better and better

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

apparently a 3 star russian general just walked into the american embassy in bagdhad and just told america to get their planes out of the air cause they was gonna bomb some shit in homs. kill to be a fly on the wall when that went down damn

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Russia apparently bombing American CIA trained Syrian rebels in Syria, and not IS. There is no IS presence in the areas the Russian jets currently operate in. So think US officals. Russia of course protest innocence and insist they are targeting the same 'terrorists' (to quote) as the US.

Gets messier and messier.

 

[SALTIRE]

Wouldn't trust anything either says tbh. The Yanks can never determine friend from foe, and the Russkies always look to protect their own interests first.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

look like it probably wasn't any of the remaining (what, 2? 3?) cia backed rebels. probably wasn't any of the islamist opposition either mind. def not anyone on nusra/isis' level

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

an update on rebel positions

 

[Alty]

That's interesting. And confirms the incredible complexity of the situation.

"Arm the rebels". Yeah nice one, Dave. That'll solve it.

 

[silkyman]

Erm...

 

[AFCB_Mark]

I'm gonna go out and fight for the National Fried Egg division. At least breakfast would be decent.