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The Arab Spring and "the War on Terror"


legov

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I wonder if he's one of the clearings in the woods that drove tanks and vehicles up and down olive groves that took generations to establish?

Sat at home now posting on the net that the 'rabs should concentrate on building their businesses and tourism.

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I have read in various places that Turkey was funding ISIS up until pretty recently.

There are now British "advisors" in Northern Iraq helping to piont out where the F-18s need to be dropping their bombs and likely showing the Peshmerga how to fight an effective counter insurgency.

I have read lots of lies on the internet too about many topics. But Turkey funding an Al Qaeda affiliated group is one of the more ridiculous ones.

Haven't read past this post yet but I'm afraid it's not lies. The Turks were not only assisting IS(IL) forces with cross border logistics and transit of fighters/recruits, I've heard from good sources (not the internet) that Turkish SF were supporting their ops in western Syria for a period. That may have stopped now but the Turks do not have clean hands when it comes to IS(IL).

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Here are some more nice photos of Isis

article-2721230-20437EC200000578-971_634

And his son ofcourse must have a head to play with aswell

article-2721230-206D17E500000578-975_634

Wouldnt it be possible to just nuke them ?

Don't google ISIS beheadings if you have a weak stomach. What is going on over there is horrific.

They need to be stopped at any cost

Have a 'like'. It is a simple fact that neither the west nor the Middle East region can afford or accept the establishment of a permanent Jihadistan in the heart of the Levant and commiting genocide like it's cool.

That means at some point the west will have to do something to stop it. The least costly route to that objective is giving massive backing to the Kurds immediately, saving us the greater expenditure of (our) blood and treasure down the road.

Sadly the west is so utterly bereft of political leadership and clear thinking resolve that they will do as little as possible for as long as possible, ultimately increasing the long term costs to us and the leaving millions of innocent locals in deep do do.

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So the Mosul dam has been retaken. I personally suspect that US and UK special forces are fighting IS on a regular basis, and helping the Kurds even more than is being reported.

Arming the Kurds to the teeth is also a bad idea in my opinion. It could upset the balance of power and create further conflict in the future.

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So the Mosul dam has been retaken. I personally suspect that US and UK special forces are fighting IS on a regular basis, and helping the Kurds even more than is being reported.

Arming the Kurds to the teeth is also a bad idea in my opinion. It could upset the balance of power and create further conflict in the future.

The problem of IS has come about precisely because the balance of power was destroyed in the region, first when we toppled Saddam and secondly when we tooled up the opposition to Assad. Arming the Kurds will at least provide an island of stability in a sea of sh*t, although that alone isn't enough to push IS out if Iraq - which requires a huge change in the sectarian attitude of the Baghdad government to motivate the Sunni tribes to turn on IS. Can't see that happening anytime soon, unfortunately.

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Okay, I have limited knowledge on the subject but wouldn't empowering the Kurds allow them to claim independence and potentially take territory off Iraq they have claim to?

I agree though the balance of power in the middle east is a sea of shit. It's such a diverse and divided area that I feel the fighting will continue until one side is considerably more powerful than another. Compromise seems unlikely though it would be interesting to know what percentage of Sunni Muslims are in opposition of IS or whether those opposed are frightened into silence.

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Okay, I have limited knowledge on the subject but wouldn't empowering the Kurds allow them to claim independence and potentially take territory off Iraq they have claim to?

I agree though the balance of power in the middle east is a sea of shit. It's such a diverse and divided area that I feel the fighting will continue until one side is considerably more powerful than another. Compromise seems unlikely though it would be interesting to know what percentage of Sunni Muslims are in opposition of IS or whether those opposed are frightened into silence.

 

If you can be confident the 20 or so varieties of Kurd spread across Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Armenia will only use heavy weapons against our chosen enemies, then I see no problem with empowering them. What could possibly go wrong.

 

It's a logistical nightmare and I get the impression from 5 minutes of reading wiki pages that perhaps 'the west' hasn't properly swatted up on this, but simply gone at it all a bit white hats and black hats. Trouble is, turns out the buggers have got loads of hats.

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Okay, I have limited knowledge on the subject but wouldn't empowering the Kurds allow them to claim independence and potentially take territory off Iraq they have claim to?

I agree though the balance of power in the middle east is a sea of shit. It's such a diverse and divided area that I feel the fighting will continue until one side is considerably more powerful than another. Compromise seems unlikely though it would be interesting to know what percentage of Sunni Muslims are in opposition of IS or whether those opposed are frightened into silence.

 

If you can be confident the 20 or so varieties of Kurd spread across Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Armenia will only use heavy weapons against our chosen enemies, then I see no problem with empowering them. What could possibly go wrong.

 

It's a logistical nightmare and I get the impression from 5 minutes of reading wiki pages that perhaps 'the west' hasn't properly swatted up on this, but simply gone at it all a bit white hats and black hats. Trouble is, turns out the buggers have got loads of hats.

 

 

If there is one big lesson from recent events, it is be beware of historically persecuted peoples, who have been supplied with modern weapons.

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Okay, I have limited knowledge on the subject but wouldn't empowering the Kurds allow them to claim independence and potentially take territory off Iraq they have claim to?

I agree though the balance of power in the middle east is a sea of shit. It's such a diverse and divided area that I feel the fighting will continue until one side is considerably more powerful than another. Compromise seems unlikely though it would be interesting to know what percentage of Sunni Muslims are in opposition of IS or whether those opposed are frightened into silence.

If you can be confident the 20 or so varieties of Kurd spread across Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Armenia will only use heavy weapons against our chosen enemies, then I see no problem with empowering them. What could possibly go wrong.

It's a logistical nightmare and I get the impression from 5 minutes of reading wiki pages that perhaps 'the west' hasn't properly swatted up on this, but simply gone at it all a bit white hats and black hats. Trouble is, turns out the buggers have got loads of hats.

You're right about the Kurds not being homogenous entity from the political point of view, ranging from raving Marxists in the PKK to more conservative religious types. However it's one of those scenarios where given the choice you wouldn't start from here.... but we don't have that luxury.

The Kurdish region operated as an autonomous entity from the end of GW1 until 2003 (under the protection of a western imposed no fly zone to keep Saddam out. Even after that they retained a high degree of independence and despite having the usual high degree of corruption and nepotism that goes along with oil reserves, they have made democracy of a sort work in their region since'91.

Once ISIS came into N Iraq in numbers they posed an existential threat to the Kurdish region which also sits above some of Iraq's largest oil fields. If ISIS got control of those it would be a real problem, plus the physical bridgehead of territory in the north from which to launch a counter offensive at some point would have disappeared. Not to mention the human cost of an ISIS occupation to the people themselves.

The Kurds can hold ISIS off if given the tools to do so, and remember their kit is circa 1991 and knackered. They are facing an organisation equipped with all the brand new kit the US left to the Iraqi army which they abandoned as ISIS advanced - and they know how to us it.

If we don't arm them and continue to support the Peshmerga with air strikes the Kurds could lose, making an already bad situation far worse. Tooling them up ASAP is the least bad of several crappy options.

Edited by Awol
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What i cant understand is how can ISIS get so many people to join them, to join in the madness of killing unarmed civilians and selling women and little children on slave markets cause they have the wrong religion..

 

It's not just a few nutcases it's thousands of them and it's quite worrying...where is thier morale ? their empathy ?

 

And what is their aim with all this madness ? Is it to please allah ?.

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Surely at some point, we'll realise that the only sensible approach is the less profitable one of removing arms from the region rather than arming each group in turn during the period in which they are our friends/have money?

Aside from the difficulties of telling nation states that WE won't allow them to have weapons, we'd have to use an awful lot of force to disarm the Middle East, and kill an awful lot of people. I'm not really sure that's the outcome you're looking for?

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What i cant understand is how can ISIS get so many people to join them, to join in the madness of killing unarmed civilians and selling women and little children on slave markets cause they have the wrong religion..

 

It's not just a few nutcases it's thousands of them and it's quite worrying...where is thier morale ? their empathy ?

 

And what is their aim with all this madness ? Is it to please allah ?.

i can see why they have so many people joining them from all over the world, as ive said before they are not like past terrorist groups they present a very cool image to people of that particular religion who are completely brainwashed by bullshit. this problem is much more deep rooted and wider spread than people think. i fully agree most muslims are peaceful people but there are a dangerous number which are not and want to create mass murder everywhere and want parts of the world where they occupy to live under a law from the stone age.

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My opinion is that extremism is a vehicle for a political or social means as much as religious in this instance. Without the poverty and inequality perhaps extremism is less likely to take grip. There are always going to be a minority of nutters out there and that's what these foreign fighters are really. They've probably been marginalised and feel alienated in western society so seek affiliation with a group that can give them a sense of purpose. I do think the issues are deep rooted but in the context of things, extremism in the UK is not widespread, but it is enough of an issue to take seriously.

Extremism isn't a Muslim thing, it's a human thing. Unfortunately IS stain the good name of Islam to commit atrocities.

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