http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/orig...ni-kurds.html#Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
:-/
Its a stretch but wouldn't it be ironic if Turkey got behind an independent Kurdistan?
Printable View
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/orig...ni-kurds.html#Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
:-/
Its a stretch but wouldn't it be ironic if Turkey got behind an independent Kurdistan?
I'd expect them to take over this attempt at a nascent state before I see them supporting an independent Kurdistan.
If this happened a month ago, I'd agree, but now I'm not so sure. Would Turkey really want to have a large border with ISIS? If ISIS is able to consolidate its gains in the Sunni parts of Iraq, Turkey might realize that a Kurdish state is all that stands between Turkey and the most extreme Islamists in the world.
I don't.Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
Turkey doesn't want a large border with this new Islamic State because it doesn't want yet another contender for the title of leading regional power in the Middle East.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
My guess is that they're going to see the light and choke off the support lines for this budding state.
And Erdogan doesn't want a competitor for the caliphate. :o
They have some strong economic ties with the kurdish regional government in Iraq. Maybe money talks?Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
840. US keeps Iraq a battle field to adjust oilprice (6/25/2014)
Since the recentIraq crisis created by the US is to save dollar, US will maintain the currentsituation unchanged. A US craft carrier has been deployed in Mid-East, no airattack has done so far.
Three hundred USmilitary advisors were sent to Iraq. Their role likely is to instruct Iraqitroops to retreat from cities or oil fields when they want the oil price to goup. Or vice versa.Quote:
Analysis:Obama plan leaves Iraq mostly on its own
By LARA JAKES6/20/2014
http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-obama...040646350.html
The US will turnIraq into another battle field. Let Arabs fight Arabs. Decades ago, it wasSaddam's Iraq vs. Iran. Now it will be Sunni's Iraq, Saudi, Qarda vs. ShiitiIraq, Iran.
That's a strategyit used to play, just like it manipulates Democrats and Republicans in domesticpolitics.
Quote:
How theUS is Arming Both Sides of the Iraqi Conflict
By Tyler Durden
Global Research,June 13, 2014
http://www.globalresearch.ca/how-the...nflict/5386926
*cough* Question remains -- whose money pulls the most strings?Quote:
Originally Posted by Spenni
The kurds.....Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-28148943 Interesting plan. Would have been interesting to see if it could work. Unfortunately, we'll never find out.
How often have our other attempts to equip and train troops or security forces for non-Western nations for a brief period panned out Loki? 'cause I can't think of any off the top of my head. There've been successes with states we support(ed) for long periods of time, decades or more, but not so much for a few months or a couple of years.
The technology has changed significantly since then, both in terms of that we can provide the rebels vs. their opponents, and ours against that opponent. Similarly, we have far better military intelligence than we did in the past. We're also talking about a regime that has a very narrow base and this time a significant portion of the population does hate it (unlike our wishful thinking with commie societies).
I think the bigger issue would be getting 100k vetted Syrians.
To me it seems like a nightmare of apocalyptic proportions. Incredible that we still have people with those Lawrence of Arabia impulses. It's not like it was such a huge success first time that we (the West) did that. All it achieved was the destruction of the only anchor on sanity the region had. In Iraq it didn't work and in Afghanistan we've even found that we're in part training our own enemies. And that was small beer compared to this idiots plan.
When will we ever learn that Sykes-Picot wasn't the solution but the beginning of much bigger problems?
Didn't we spend rather more than a year training security forces in Iraq after ousting Hussein? You're telling me that technology has changed that much in the last five years? Uh-huh. Pull the other one, Loki.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
The problem in Iraq is awful officers and politicians. Those things are less of an issue with a rebel force. Plus I'd imagine Syrian rebels would be more motivated than a bunch of Iraqi Shiites told to protect Sunni Iraq.Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
Seems to me the biggest problem is the west thinking the middle east shares western democratic values/ideals...or wants to. :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
That region of the world has had tribal, religious, and territorial in-fighting since forever -- yet no amount of "western intervention" has resulted in some enlightened paradigm shift over time, but possibly made things worse. They want their leaders (and elite children) to have a "western education", they want the west to buy their oil products, and they like having western goodies....but they don't want to be "westernized". No, that's anti-thetical, even heretical to their pov.
"Down with America!" attitudes still exist, and have grown in pockets of radical extremism. We weren't greeted as liberators....but viewed as occupiers. If they still see democracy as a western concept, and Colonialism continued/expanded, doubling down on diplomacy won't win their hearts or minds. But more "intervention" won't win the day, either.
If there was a way to neutralize fossil fuel wealth and its political power....global power struggles might change for the better. /rant
No they're not. In fact, they're probably more of an issue.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
The security forces we trained have been failing to protect everyone. And they're far, far from the only groups we've trained. They're just the obvious example demonstrating that your earlier rationalization was so much bullshit.Quote:
Plus I'd imagine Syrian rebels would be more motivated than a bunch of Iraqi Shiites told to protect Sunni Iraq.
This better find its way into the next season of Archer...
Quote:
Isis Mobile Wallet to change name
Since the term "Isis" has become synonymous with a terror group, the digital-payment service is now working on rebranding.
Isis Mobile Wallet, the mobile-payment initiative, said Monday that it will change its name, looking to divorce itself of a word used to describe the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIS, which is actively involved in both countries.
"However coincidental, we have no interest in sharing a name with a group whose name has become synonymous with violence and our hearts go out to those who are suffering," Isis Mobile CEO Michael Abbott said in a statement.
He added that the company is "actively working" on a new brand, but didn't unveil a different name yet.
Isis Mobile is one of a handful of digital wallet services, including those from Google Wallet and PayPal, that use a consumer's mobile device -- instead of cash or a credit card -- to make payments. The Isis Mobile initiative is jointly run by Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and T-Mobile.
The name change is an unfortunate setback for Isis Mobile, which spent years lining up partners, building a platform, and working on trials before launching nationwide in November.
While Isis Mobile works on rebranding itself, Abbott said the organization remains committed to growing and developing.
http://www.cnet.com/news/isis-mobile...o-change-name/
Now we just need a MILF (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moro_Is...beration_Front) equivalent for ISIS...
Searches for Philippines MILF were sadly tame :(
The more I read about this the scareder I get :o
Same here. News reports claim ISIS has control over the largest water dam in Iraq, in addition to important oil assets. Not to mention all the weapons caches left behind by the US and allied forces, and Iraq's failed military. :eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
A "cold war" has no precise definition. There's no inherent reason why the conflict between the US and USSR should be known as the first cold war. After all, lots of countries had shitty relations with each other in the past without resorting to violence (which is more or less the definition of a cold war).
Interesting. I've always thought a Cold War meant not using nuclear arsenals, but every other "weapon" was still on the table (like financial/banking or trade boycotts, aka economic sanctions).Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
I thought one main reason US/USSR conflicts were called the "first" Cold War was related to economic influence. Communist China wasn't a global trading giant at that time, but they had nuclear capabilities similar to the USSR. When China decided to enter the international community, it was based on economic influence.
China 'tweaked' some of their policies, and corporate America fell all over themselves in excitement for cheap profits....while ignoring that China was not a democratic nation, but still had full nuclear capabilities. :confused:
Seems to me the same thing is happening now: developed, civil, first world economies being dragged into what are essentially economic conflicts, by forces that are using cultural, religious, and political advantages.
No one anywhere has ever made the serious claim that the Cold War was the first relationship of its type. It just wasn't coined as a term1 until shortly after WWII and then was promptly applied to describe the tensions between two global superpowers which had not yet then degenerated into active conflict in any theater of the world (the time being 1947, before the start of the Korean War). And it was primarily used in the West at the time as a means to politically exhort the American populace that WWII might have ended but US interests/security were not any less challenged than they had been during the war.
1 There is a claim made by Walter Lippmann that it was drawn from the French term la guerre froid used in the 1930s but I'm not familiar with the French usage or its context
Okay.....are you comfortable using old terminology in today's climate, particularly since it's been defined by western powers in previous times?Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
I'm 90% positive I will not be comfortable with whatever you're trying/going to try to propose.