Ads Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 @ Snowy; there has been a lot of blundering, but it's not all American blundering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 @ Snowy; there has been a lot of blundering, but it's not all American blundering.I'm not sure of the relevance of your remark unless it's just to say that it's not solely the septics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 Seems like the sequence in Iraq is not too dissimilar from Vietnam. Britain and France getting in there decades earlier, and then the US coming in to accomplish God-knows-what. The West is reaping what has been sown. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ads Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 (edited) The mistakes post 2003 are pretty clear. What we did, or what Paul Bremer did, was disband the Iraqi Army and cut off the Sunni cash flow. Officers couldn't dip their beak and everybody lost their pay and pensions. Unsurprisingly a sectarian Shia government, influenced from Tehran, patronised Shia militias until AQI really kicked off in al Anbar (cheers Saudi Arabia). Enter Sunni tribal forces to expel them and Barry entering the White House. Maliki repeats Bremer's mistakes and doesn't amalgamate awakening forces into the Iraqi Security structure. Meanwhile Barry is back peddling so fast out of Iraq, he doesn't care who owns the problem now. Fast forward to the Syrian problem and you have AQI rebranded, refunded by Qatar and KSA, re-manned too and cutting their teeth against Iranian proxies in Hizbollah and surviving (not without Turkish help) invited into Anbar again by Sunni tribes who see them as a lesser evil. @ Snowy; there has been a lot of blundering, but it's not all American blundering.I'm not sure of the relevance of your remark unless it's just to say that it's not solely the septics. I think that is fairly obvious. Edited October 2, 2014 by Ads Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 (edited) I think that is fairly obvious. Well, thanks for the (dubious) quality of both responses. Edited. Edited October 2, 2014 by snowychap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 Yep, the arrogance and stupidity of Bremer is what essentially created the insurgency in 2003. Of course, the arrogance and stupidity of the Bush administration is what put the woefully unqualified Bremer in that position to begin with. Had he kept the army intact, we would not be where we are now. Mind boggling stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ads Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 I think that is fairly obvious. Well, thanks for the (dubious) quality of both responses. I didn't think the original post was all that cryptic, but you asked for clarification. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 I didn't think the original post was all that cryptic, but you asked for clarification.I thought there may have been more to it than posting apologetically for the various US administrations/corporations.I'd have thought, as the main crux of my post was criticism of one of the (dismissive) inferences you drew from OBE's post, that you might have responded to that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ads Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 (edited) I didn't agree at all with OBE post and I didn't agree with his second one either, hence why I crystallised what I meant by blunders and how they and every decision taken by either external forces or the regional players, is framed by the Sunni/Twelver too and fro. There is a reason The Magic Kingdom is only now fencing off al Anbar. Edited October 2, 2014 by Ads Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 (edited) I didn't agree at all with OBE post and I didn't agree with his second one either...Perhaps your inferences (on which your complete disagreement would have to be at least partly based) weren't correct?Perhaps they were, in which case I'll posit the same as Scott save for comparing US/western policy/actions to Kasparov in Kasparov v Short 1993 game 16. Edited October 2, 2014 by snowychap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ads Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 Illuminate me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 Illuminate me. I apologize if it's not a faithful representation of the original but the avatar doesn't give me much to go on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 AWOL has the measure of it; you won't solve the IS problem by looking at Iraq alone. Slotting Technicals supporting the Pesh is one thing (wouldn't surprise me if it's actually YPG in there too given the recent Kurdish gains) but Syria needs addressing. Worrying that JaN and IS seem to be getting cosy again, potentially as a consequence of the bombing campaign. Slotting Assad and dealing with somebody else in his stead (whoever Iran thinks in other words) to fracture the aims of the rebels (all 1500 odd groups of them) might not be the worse idea. what does slotting mean? from the first use I guessed it was a good thing like 'putting in' technicals (with technicals meaning specialist military) from the second use I guessed it was slang for killing or disposing of sorry, just trying to follow an interesting thread (not being clever or sarcastic) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ads Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 (edited) It means killing; I was referring to the RAF's strike on the IS Technical from the other day. A Technical is a pick up truck with a weapon on it, much used by third world bandits. Edited October 2, 2014 by Ads Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 cheers makes sense now (I'm sure it made perfect sense to everyone else from the start) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted October 2, 2014 Moderator Share Posted October 2, 2014 I didn't get it either thanks for the explanation - and Ads, whilst I fundamentally disagree with you on pretty much everything around the politics of this region, it's good to learn the detail on the results of the other side of the argument from someone who seems to know what they're talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 At the risk of leaping on to (and worryingly overloading) a bandwagon, I'd also say that, whilst I disagree with both Ads's and awol's angle on things, I do appreciate the knowledgeable input on the topic from both of you, too. Even if, sometimes, it's like wandering in to the messy aftermath of a JDW acronym orgy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 interesting bit of context on the TV earlier I didn't see the beginning or the end of the programme but the middle bit was interesting, it was that ancestory programme and this week Billy Connolly was tracing his routes. His family had been soldiers in India at the time of the Lucknow mutiny about 160 years ago. They were exchanging stories about British soldiers, in Indoa putting down the mutiny by tying people to canons and blowing them apart, randomly shooting civilians, execution without trial. They also then went on to describe how 'suspects' were rounded up, made to lick up the human blood from the floor, if they were muslims they were forced to eat pork and then they were hanged. They gave a few similar examples, and also pointed out that his relative then converted a 13 year old local to christianity and married her. Now, it's a long time ago and they did things different back then. But perhaps it might put a slight slant on exactly how animalistic and beyond reason any current groups are. I'm not saying we need to love IS a little bit more. I'm just suggesting that with a little bit of context, perhaps the world isn't about to end next Thursday. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 Which is the greater threat to the western world? IS or Ebola? (Genuine question btw) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted October 2, 2014 Moderator Share Posted October 2, 2014 Which is the greater threat to the western world? IS or Ebola? (Genuine question btw) The US. Out of those two, I'd go with Ebola. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts