ISIL War in Iraq and Syria

[TheBlackTower]

Ocalan talks big for a man sitting in prison. Why the Turkish Government even bothers talking to him when he can't even reign in his fighters, I have no clue.

Simply because hi is important, and how he can't reign, one word from him and they stop fighting the Turk, and one word now and the will fight again .

[Papay]

According to this

https://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/se...101114321.html

Hit, a city in western Iraq with a population of 100.000 people has fallen to the hands of sunni insurgents

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Simply because hi is important, and how he can't reign, one word from him and they stop fighting the Turk, and one word now and the will fight again .

So he told his group to burn a few schools, ambush and kill 3 Turkish Soldiers, etc? Well White Wolf now feels vindicated even more that YPG/PKK can have Kobane as their graveyard and rejoice that more Turkish babies will live this year.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.1956646

Poor Vicar, he might as well hire private security.

http://www.independent.ie/world-news...-30628443.html

If a secretary thinks ISA can obtain nuclear ordinance and use it, she needs to be fired. Biological weaponry is more doable along with chemical weaponry. But use of biological weaponry in the past was never effective or a game changer.

[Principe Alessandro]

I don't know why somebody even if Turk would rejoice at an ethnic cleansing, this only makes PKK right because they are the only one protecting Kurds from ISIS if we have to trust that YPG=PKK which frankly I doubt since every male Kurd at military age in Syria is enlisted in this militia.

Meanwhile details on how the Turkish hostages were freed begin to surface:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/syr...&NewsCatID=510

I wonder what they have promised to Liwa al-Tawhid in exchange.

[TheBlackTower]

So he told his group to burn a few schools, ambush and kill 3 Turkish Soldiers, etc? Well White Wolf now feels vindicated even more that YPG/PKK can have Kobane as their graveyard and rejoice that more Turkish babies will live this year.

Why you think that we kill children, ................ and soldiers for real last time i check the definition of war is to kill enemy soldiers .

and you sir and all the other you believe that the Y.P.G and the P.K.K are simple hundred to all get finish in Kobane, there is 2 million Kurd in Syria, most of them support the P.K.K, and before you ask where are they in the fight for Kobane, there have their own Town and Cities to defend, .......... all that Kurd are asking is to prove that Turkey want the Kurd to be friend, and i guarantee to you if the Turkish Tanks that are now on the border help the P.K.K, there will be no more fight in Turkey, because the Kurd Remember, always .

every male Kurd at military age in Syria is enlisted in this militia.

and Female, don't forget .

[Principe Alessandro]

http://www.rferl.org/media/video/ira.../26615739.html

Well you silly Peshmerga, why you carry PKK flag?

Anyway all this charade about PKK is just an excuse of Erdogan to let ISIS carry a genocide against Kurds next to the Turkish border, recently a photo has surfaced of ISIS fighters entering Kobane from the Kurdish border, this more than enough a proof that Erdogan is secretly helping them.

[Request a new user name]

I don't know why somebody even if Turk would rejoice at an ethnic cleansing, this only makes PKK right because they are the only one protecting Kurds from ISIS if we have to trust that YPG=PKK which frankly I doubt since every male Kurd at military age in Syria is enlisted in this militia.

No one said they supported ethnic cleansing, but Turkey is not going to save the skin of a militant group that continues to kill its citizens and commit sabotage against Turkish Infrastructure.

In any event the ISA force is being spearheaded by Kurdish Fighters and IS is not doing ethnic cleansing so much as people are smartly getting out of the way of the fighting. IS has made it clear to Kurdish Civilians their fight is with YPG/PKK not them and has distributed food aid and assistance to civilians who stayed put and did not resist the takeover. Kobane's defenders have given several chances to "repent," by ISA and end the fighting but chose to fight in the villages and Kobane forcing ISA to bring in heavy weaponry to root them out.

IS wants Kobane largely intact as much as possible as its prime agricultural land and more citizens returning after the fighting equals more workers and tax revenue. For all its brutality, those who become IS citizens may not like its strict interpretation of Islam, but IS will provide social services to them and law and order which Assad and FSA are unable to do.

[Principe Alessandro]

Kurds only want to live on their own independent state, they don't care about ethnic freaks like Syria and Iraq, why they should repent and be occupied by another even worse "ethnic" freak like the Islamic State now that they are free? The end result regardless of anything is that they won't return there, there are other two Kurdish cantons or even KRG where they can go.

Maybe only few Kurds that don't feel anything about their ethnic identity and are more attached to their Sunni identity will remain.

[conon394]

Again the point flies right past your head.

We weren't at war with the Islamic State till Obama got involved in it without Congressional Authorization and against a group that posed no existential threat to the US except to Oil Companies Profits. Had we stayed out, Iran and Saudi Arabia would be footing all the bills and dealing with the Islamic State. Now we are footing the bill for a war that was not necessary and is taking money from programs that could improve American lives right here in the US rather than going into the sinkhole that is the Middle East.

We have no dog in this fight and we just turned the very audience we are trying to convince to ditch IS against us and its growing stronger as a result and we are still throwing money away ona cause we don't even have a plan to win.

Meanwhile actual existential threats to America such as crumbling public infrastructure, failing schools, overburdened prison system, unsustainable debt levels, economy on life support and creative accounting practices, non-existent healthcare system that provides few benefits to the public while being grossly overpriced, unsustainable influx of illegal immigrants, and a college system that produces too many graduates for the economy to absorb and with debts they can't repay go unaddressed. This is far more important to American security than a far off group of fanatics who will be contained to the Middle East simply due to the vast distances it has to operate and a lack of a heavy industrial base and navy to go further and will take at least 20 years to build.

No rather you are...

First you are sort of correct in that ISIS/IS or whatever were ignore as long as they mostly just a faction in the collap[se of Syria no friend to the USA and helpful in that they were forcing those we view as foes and rivals to fight each other. Whabbi type extremists and Iran and Hezbollah etc.

Second once IS firmly moved into Iraq it became a US problem since we value stability an exiting great power. Saying let Iran and Saudi Arabia foot the bill is silly they have diametrically opposed intrests and cannot nor will not work together. And their interests and prestige gained and or lost in such an affair is of interest to the US.

against a group that posed no existential threat to the US

Very few things are such but that does not mean they are no threats, in any case whatever ISIS is it is now a magnate for international Jihad mercenaries, causing the Taliban to for example to face a shortage.

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the...s-792093911e5e

Its not an unreasonable policy to kill the foreign fighter crop were it is...

on a cause we don't even have a plan to win

You can have plans to win battles and such but they tend to go sour what kind of plan would you like? Wave a wand and make Syria and happy sectarian democracy? So far the US has implemented a resonalbe plan - containment. Push hard on the Baghdad government to ditch the toxic Malike, arm the Kurds, aid them directly with air power, and try to carefully push into Syria w/o stepping on Turkeys toes to much and trying to keep Baghdad from becoming an Iranian puppet. All while bringing a wide range of local and regional and European states to avoid the kind bat world PR of Second Iraq (war).

You talking about money wasted but unless you can prove the US was about masivle reduce the size of the US army and USN and USAF you simply erecting a straw-man. The US CV and Amphipous group was there on station is cost are sunk (perhaps not the best term fo the Navy). SO is the cost of crew and flight hours to maintain a credible level of performance. Outside of munitions used there is no great cost to the US we would not other wise be spending. We are not handing the Kurds new M1A1 tanks for free but seemingly mostly just excess gear from ex soviet block countries or stuff we have left over from Iraq.

Thus sure the US has its own needs (Infrastructure, etc) but unless you think the US was otherwise going to reduce its fleet of CVs or something you are talking about money at the thin margins

unsustainable influx of illegal immigrants

Xenphobia much. Um unless you want to be Japan or Russia with a shrinking population and no one to take care of you (or pick you vegetables) they are quite sustainable.

While I do agree with view of issues at home in the US - I would simply borrow more at the current low rates - but I'm a Keynesian. You do realize that

This is far more important to American security than a far off group of fanatics who will be contained to the Middle East simply due to the vast distances it has to operate and a lack of a heavy industrial base and navy to go further and will take at least 20 years to build.

Could well have been said of the Taliban and Al Queida and yet they manage to blow up a lot of stuff...

[TheBlackTower]

No one said they supported ethnic cleansing, but Turkey is not going to save the skin of a militant group that continues to kill its citizens and commit sabotage against Turkish Infrastructure.

In any event the ISA force is being spearheaded by Kurdish Fighters and IS is not doing ethnic cleansing so much as people are smartly getting out of the way of the fighting. IS has made it clear to Kurdish Civilians their fight is with YPG/PKK not them and has distributed food aid and assistance to civilians who stayed put and did not resist the takeover. Kobane's defenders have given several chances to "repent," by ISA and end the fighting but chose to fight in the villages and Kobane forcing ISA to bring in heavy weaponry to root them out.

IS wants Kobane largely intact as much as possible as its prime agricultural land and more citizens returning after the fighting equals more workers and tax revenue. For all its brutality, those who become IS citizens may not like its strict interpretation of Islam, but IS will provide social services to them and law and order which Assad and FSA are unable to do.

So If I.S.I.S came to you you will welcome them !!!!!!!!!, give them your home give them your family and give them your life .

[Principe Alessandro]

https://twitter.com/EjmAlrai/status/517709128643649537

#IS took control of an entire armoured brigade with all its tanks and more military equipment belonging to #ISF, said #Baghdad.

Seems that in Anbar we are witnessing a total collapse of the Iraqi army.

[athanaric]

No one said they supported ethnic cleansing, but Turkey is not going to save the skin of a militant group that continues to kill its citizens and commit sabotage against Turkish Infrastructure.

In any event the ISA force is being spearheaded by Kurdish Fighters and IS is not doing ethnic cleansing so much as people are smartly getting out of the way of the fighting. IS has made it clear to Kurdish Civilians their fight is with YPG/PKK not them and has distributed food aid and assistance to civilians who stayed put and did not resist the takeover. Kobane's defenders have given several chances to "repent," by ISA and end the fighting but chose to fight in the villages and Kobane forcing ISA to bring in heavy weaponry to root them out.

IS wants Kobane largely intact as much as possible as its prime agricultural land and more citizens returning after the fighting equals more workers and tax revenue. For all its brutality, those who become IS citizens may not like its strict interpretation of Islam, but IS will provide social services to them and law and order which Assad and FSA are unable to do.

Sounds great, except IS forces everyone under their sway to abandon any semblance of culture, reason, and human rights, in favour of believing their own 7th century fairytale. You do know that Syrians, Kurds, Arameans and other natives of the region have their own distinctive cultures that wouldn't be tolerated by IS.
That, and they behead a few random people just to show how tough they are.
It's like saying the Nazis weren't so bad, after all they had a very sophisticated infrastructure. And they wouldn't bother you if you were a civilian, unless you were the wrong ethnicity of course.

[Principe Alessandro]

Not only this but Kurds don't have the same sectarian mindset of the Arabs, they don't discriminate people for their religion, they cannot tolerate atrocities against Christian Kurds.

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http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.618982

Turkey has approved "possible military action."

In other words, Erdogan is saying, IS, expand into our territory and we'll you. Otherwise keep killing PKK/YPG and Assad, we won't care.

No not perfectly good rum



Well its pretty much over except the mop up for Kobane.

[Dick Cheney.]

You talking about money wasted but unless you can prove the US was about masivle reduce the size of the US army and USN and USAF you simply erecting a straw-man. The US CV and Amphipous group was there on station is cost are sunk (perhaps not the best term fo the Navy). SO is the cost of crew and flight hours to maintain a credible level of performance. Outside of munitions used there is no great cost to the US we would not other wise be spending. We are not handing the Kurds new M1A1 tanks for free but seemingly mostly just excess gear from ex soviet block countries or stuff we have left over from Iraq.

Thus sure the US has its own needs (Infrastructure, etc) but unless you think the US was otherwise going to reduce its fleet of CVs or something you are talking about money at the thin margins

You're completely off the mark on this, conon.

Here's what General Dempsey had to say about Iraq and Syria.

“If you’re asking me, are we going to have budget problems, the answer is yes,” - Gen. Martin Dempsey, CJCS.

Syrian Ops Mean DoD ‘Budget Problems:’ CJCS Dempsey

http://breakingdefense.com/2014/09/s...-cjcs-dempsey/
PENTAGON: The services’ draft budgets delivered to the Office of Secretary of Defense early this month are probably being shredded in light of the campaign in Iraq and Syria against the the terrorist group known as ISIL.

“If you’re asking me, are we going to have budget problems, the answer is yes,” the president’s top military advisor told reporters this afternoon. Gen. Martin Dempsey said the 2015 Pentagon budget assumed that US military commitments would “level off or come down” and that Congress would allow the military to change pay, close bases, retire weapons and make other changes.

That hasn’t happened. “Commitments have gone up and the things that we were looking for in terms of flexibility have only very minimally been delivered.”
Those budget problems will doubtless become more expensive when the ground forces needed to destroy ISIL are built and then deployed over the next year or so

So there goes your whole theory that a large scale deployment of US military assets and hardware to the gulf regions would simply be covered through regular training costs - and most members of the defense intelligence agency and Pentagon planning and budgetary spheres are saying to get ready for a major long term commitment, which could very likely be measured in years.

I'm really surprised you weren't able to figure this one out. Due to sequestion and Obama's idiotic handling of the DoD, the Pentagon was preparing for over $500 billion dollars worth of cuts for the next ten years, not another operational commitment; and just to reiterate how bad things are going on the budgetary front, the JCS have all but scraped the be ready for two wars concept -dating back to WWII- as now "fiscally impossible."

Beyond that, we both know the DoD did not need to deploy the F-22 - an irresponsible waste of time, money, and overkill for Syrian/Iraqi theatre. We both know the launching of 47 tomahawk cruise missiles at about $1 million a pop on the first night costs a little more than firing a few practice rounds at the shooting range, especially when procurement of that program is expected to be cut drastically by 2016. And we both know the biggest monetary expense to the Pentagon and State departments will be the foreign aid, arms, training, food, and supplies that are going to be needed to retrain the Iraqi Army and given in support to the Iraqi people; which has already begun through the announcement of the creation of a new divisional HQ for the US Army in Iraq. Though if I really wanted to, I could also argue the biggest waste of cash against ISIS is this whole idea of "mission creep" and light foot print that Obama has come up with when he has a fresh army brigade of 10,000 US combat troops (that we're currently paying for btw) just sitting there picking their noses in the Kuwaiti desert when they could be deployed to end this whole ing thing right ing now.

[Request a new user name]

No rather you are...

First you are sort of correct in that ISIS/IS or whatever were ignore as long as they mostly just a faction in the collap[se of Syria no friend to the USA and helpful in that they were forcing those we view as foes and rivals to fight each other. Whabbi type extremists and Iran and Hezbollah etc.

Second once IS firmly moved into Iraq it became a US problem since we value stability an exiting great power. Saying let Iran and Saudi Arabia foot the bill is silly they have diametrically opposed intrests and cannot nor will not work together. And their interests and prestige gained and or lost in such an affair is of interest to the US.

American interests stop at another nation's border. IS is not our concern, its the Middle East's concern, and if they can't handle it, its not worth American lives to get involved. In IS's best case scenario they still would be contained to the Middle East fighting Iran.

Very few things are such but that does not mean they are no threats, in any case whatever ISIS is it is now a magnate for international Jihad mercenaries, causing the Taliban to for example to face a shortage.

Unless they attack us directly on American home soil, they are no concern to us and someone else's problem.

You can have plans to win battles and such but they tend to go sour what kind of plan would you like? Wave a wand and make Syria and happy sectarian democracy? So far the US has implemented a resonalbe plan - containment. Push hard on the Baghdad government to ditch the toxic Malike, arm the Kurds, aid them directly with air power, and try to carefully push into Syria w/o stepping on Turkeys toes to much and trying to keep Baghdad from becoming an Iranian puppet. All while bringing a wide range of local and regional and European states to avoid the kind bat world PR of Second Iraq (war).

Staying out of the mess is a perfectly valid strategy as well. Switzerland has enjoyed peace by doing exactly that.

Xenphobia much. Um unless you want to be Japan or Russia with a shrinking population and no one to take care of you (or pick you vegetables) they are quite sustainable.

Its not xenophobia to point out people illegally entering this nation are breaking the law, burdening our public services which they do not pay taxes into, and depress legal citizens and residents wages.

While I do agree with view of issues at home in the US - I would simply borrow more at the current low rates - but I'm a Keynesian. You do realize that

You do realize it was that nonesense that cost the Pound its role as world reserve currency and that bank system is cracking again as its unable to absorb the influx while real wages decline meaning consumers spend more while making less.

How about you drop the theory nonesense and study real economics which is based upon psychology of the consumers and producers.

Could well have been said of the Taliban and Al Queida and yet they manage to blow up a lot of stuff...

The Taliban were not involved in 9/11 and that attack did not require an illegal war to respond. The Taliban were willing to hand Osama over provided proof was presented. Bush chose war and the US lost.

[Derpy Hooves]

You really have no clue do you? Our interests do not stop at another nations' border. This is not the world of centuries past. What happens in another country can affect the US. It is also our role as the sole superpower to help out when we are power is needed. And just because ISIS has not attacked the US on its home soil, doesn't mean we should not destroy them, which we are now doing by getting the world to help out destroying them. And if we don't do anything, they will do something. Doing nothing cant result in another 9/11

Also, we didn't lose the war. Osama is dead.

[Request a new user name]

You really have no clue do you? Our interests do not stop at another nations' border. This is not the world of centuries past. What happens in another country can affect the US. It is also our role as the sole superpower to help out when we are power is needed. And just because ISIS has not attacked the US on its home soil, doesn't mean we should not destroy them, which we are now doing by getting the world to help out destroying them. And if we don't do anything, they will do something. Doing nothing cant result in another 9/11

Might makes right? That is your argument? Rome thought the same way, it ended up destroyed. 9/11 while bad was a criminal matter and should have been handled as such, going to war with the Taliban who did not attack us was illegal and we lost to them. As we speak they are seizing more territory and prepping for a knockout blow next year.

Al-Qaeda is stronger than ever, and trying to whack them all over the world has destabilized numerous countries and turned them into anarchic hellholes that are blazing out of control and giving rise to IS.

The best thing we can do is to step aside and not meddle and let the blaze burn out. Stepping in just throws more kerosene to the fire.



Oh and for no particular reason, an animated Iranian Propaganda Film, enjoy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yabq...19B3C4&index=7

[Derpy Hooves]

There are very few sources that back up your outlandish claims. Also, where did I say might makes right?

[Request a new user name]

There are very few sources that back up your outlandish claims. Also, where did I say might makes right?

We have video evidence and the 9/11 commission's own report to show the Taliban did offer to turn Osama over. It has been posted several times in this thread and its previous threads. Also international law is clear that no nation is obligated to turn over an alleged criminal and it can't be used as a basis for war.

Al-Qaeda most certainly is not defeated, it has grown and destabilized multiple countries as has been posted quite a bit, what rock have you been under. Yemen has ceased to exist for all practical purposes with the Houthis and AQAP having destroyed the Yemeni Army and the Houthis basically walking around and beating Yemeni Soldiers in broad daylight and hunting the Yemeni Generals. That is just Yemen.

All our interventions have been for naught.

As for where you said might makes right, when you say America as the sole hyperpower has an interest to keep the status quo in the Middle East, that is essentially what you are saying and it is wrong and leads to unnecessary wars that serve no purpose other than to spread chaos and carnage.

American interests end at another nation's borders.