IS

[r16]

it seems ISIL is in dire straits as it should have been , now that Iraqis are reporting possibly Western helicopters have been troop carrying Jihadists , could be Saudis and the like as well . Also news of weapon drops , too .

 

[Kyriakos]

it seems ISIL is in dire straits as it should have been , now that Iraqis are reporting possibly Western helicopters have been troop carrying Jihadists , could be Saudis and the like as well . Also news of weapon drops , too .

Wait, i thought that Isil was just awesome tribal warriors and doesn't afraid of anything?
Are you supporting the conspiracy theory that they are backed by actual standing foreign armies in the area?

 

[r16]

the Afghans seriously report British Chinooks once carried Taliban "fighters" up North to Kunduz , a Turkic area where their local support was almost nil .

 

[Bugfatty300]

Good tactic. From the hype I've heard, a ride in a Chinook is more dangerous than a bombing strike. The Brits are very clever at war.

 

[r16]

well , ı presume it would take something like 50 years for any ISIL or Taliban member to die after they have their ride .

 

[Kyriakos]

well , ı presume it would take something like 50 years for any ISIL or Taliban member to die after they have their ride .

Chinook ride PTSD?

 

[r16]

well , when you draw out your AH-65 and go Chinook hunting , them Americans get hurt and accuse you of "shooting down" RAH-66 .

 

[r16]

and just to add to the soup America now apparently claims the Jordanian F-16 was shot down in error by the F-16 wingman . No idea why he would be going Air to Air , but surely explains why Americans have left the Arabs on their own with regards to Combat Search and Rescue , who do not deserve to be saved , being "idiots" ... Even if they did move in a bit when the UAE had to transfer an F-16 unit to Jordan to keep tabs on the Jordanians . Now, an F-16E or F pilot would have a lot to tell about all the gimmicks USAF sells to its trusted partners , right ?

 

[Borachio]

You've actually flipped his point, which is why you find it so evil.

He's saying "If burning a pilot in custody is so wrong, isn't 'accidentally' burning people alive also really wrong?"

True.

You can't flip it, though "If 'accidentally' burning people alive is okay, shouldn't be burning a captive alive be okay, too?"

I think you can flip it, though. Accidentally burning people is categorically different from burning them deliberately.

Nowadays, we generally think that doing something accidentally is not as bad as doing something deliberately.

The Anglo-Saxons though thought that the reverse was true, and punished accordingly. If you accidentally killed someone you were a flipping liability to everyone else. No one could be sure when you were going to do it again.

His point is "we shouldn't be okay with burning people from the sky!"

But, yes, of course, this is right. And is what I meant.

Now, this [bombing] might be the necessary thing to do, sometimes.

This is where you (and nearly everyone else) and I part company.

I think it's never the necessary thing to do. And I think it shows a remarkable lack of imagination that this is what's so often resorted to.

Not that I think nothing should be done. Just that it's better to do nothing than it is to do something which will only make matters worse.

And for those who demand I come up with something which doesn't involve bombing: how about casting a large net over the entire country, marching in with tranquilizer guns and disarming everyone?

Now, I don't say that that is particularly practical, but even I've managed to come up with something. How much more creative could the powers that be... be, if they only gave non-lethal force a bit of a chance?

How about flooding the country with 100 million tourists? Or bombing the jihadists with glue - so they're stuck to the ground (seriously, I heard the other day this was considered as a tactic during WW2!)

As for the Geneva Convention, isn't that a total charade? I mean, isn't the real war crime going to war in the first place. And how many of the winners of a war are ever prosecuted for war crimes?

/rant

 

[Commodore]

Good tactic. From the hype I've heard, a ride in a Chinook is more dangerous than a bombing strike. The Brits are very clever at war.

I don't know, I felt pretty safe on the few Chinook rides I took in Iraq. Except on the rare occasion we took fire of course, since the Chinook isn't exactly the most nimble beast in the sky.

 

[Commodore]

But the Kurds' offensive operations will keep enough pressure on ISIS to prevent them from having any meaningful success on other fronts. Especially since ISIS will feel compelled to defend the territory they have taken from the Kurds if they wish to maintain any semblance of legitimacy they may still have among their supporters.

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but looks like I was right:

Islamic State has withdrawn some of its insurgents and equipment from areas northeast of the Syrian city of Aleppo, rebels and residents say, adding to signs of strain in the Syrian provinces of its self-declared caliphate. The group, which has recently lost ground to Kurdish and Syrian government forces elsewhere in Syria, has pulled fighters and hardware from several villages in areas northeast of Aleppo, they said. But it has not fully withdrawn from area. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the war using a network of sources on the ground, said Islamic State had redeployed forces from Aleppo province to join battles further east with Kurdish forces and mainstream rebel groups.

"There are tactical withdrawals. It's not a complete withdrawal," said the leader of a mainstream rebel group, citing contacts in Islamic State-held areas near Aleppo. Other groups had not moved to take the evacuated areas because Islamic State had not fully pulled out, he added. But he said IS appeared to be preparing for a fuller pullback, saying they had even dismantled a bakery in the town of al-Bab, some 40 km (25 miles) northeast of Aleppo. "They are still there, but they have pulled out the foreign fighters, the heavy equipment, changed their positions," the rebel commander said in a phone interview, declining to be identified because it would endanger his contacts in the area.

Link

 

[Kyriakos]

One thing is for certain: the US indeed nation-built Iraq and endless miles around it ^^
New nations are spontaneously built there even as we speak.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Hopefully they planned what to do with Greece.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hopefully they planned what to do with Greece.

You still are not going to avoid being returned to father Byzantine ^^

Uncle Russia is calling.

 

[Borachio]

Let me get this right. IS are calling for recognition of their statehood (in effect, if not through official channels). And the Kurds are doing the same.

Can we deny IS a state, but grant the Kurds a homeland? Or vice versa.

(And surely we must grant them statehood eventually - in some distant future - unless IS or the Kurds are obliterated by bombs.)

And at what stage are the Kurds going to turn out to be "evil barbarians", just the same as IS?

 

[MacAttack]

what frontiers would you give to Kurdistan then?

 

[Gucumatz]

@Borachio

If the Kurds start persecuting and murdering civilians? At what stage do we just call the English "evil barbarians (well I might already, but lets say others too)", just the same as ISIS? At what stage do we call theoretical situations that aren't happening or most likely won't happen anytime important enough to merit discussion?

 

[Borachio]

what frontiers would you give to Kurdistan then?

Well, that's a big issue.

I'd guess the answer is as large a territory as the Kurds can lay claim to. They've already had a large degree of autonomy in NW Iraq for some time, so they could start with that, I'd guess.

I think maybe the Kurds aren't being more forceful in their claim right now, simply because they'd like quite a large chunk of Syria and possibly Turkey, too. And don't want to have to be content with something smaller. I'd guess they'd like access to the sea in the long run.

If the Kurds start persecuting and murdering civilians? At what stage do we just call the English "evil barbarians (well I might already, but lets say others too)", just the same as ISIS? At what stage do we call theoretical situations that aren't happening or most likely won't happen anytime important enough to merit discussion?

Good questions. I don't know the answer. I was just wondering when it's likely to happen that's all. The history of the world seems to be mainly about some people cheering on others and then all of a sudden realizing they weren't any better than anyone else. That's the only point I was trying to make, really.

I'm not saying the Kurds aren't, or don't appear, to be more civilized than IS.

 

[MacAttack]

I think they are taking on as much of the work as they can, so that they international community will reward them with their own country. Trick will be for neighboring states to agree. This may also be a catalyst for the three country plan some folks have proposed for Iraq.

If the Kurds start persecuting and murdering civilians?

That's a HUGE if. Is there evidence that they would do such crimes against humanity?

 

[NovaKart]

I don't believe Kurdistan would seek to gain territory from turkey or Syria at this time but there's the issue of Kirkuk which Kurdistan definitely wants and the Iraqi government would not want to give up and Kurdistan would probably lay claim to Sinjar as well in the Ninewe governorate and maybe other parts of Ninewe.

I don't think Kurds are fighting ISIS for international recognition but because ISIS is really a threat to Kurdistan regardless and is threatening areas near Kirkuk and Erbil and Mosul is not far from Duhok.