The Beginning of the End of ISIS?

[HoonDing]

Wouldn't be a geopolitics thread without some sanctimony from the Euros.

Nah, just nuke 'em.

[Blarghagh]

Hah, Putin's disappointed face is so fitting to that awkward placement of his photo.

[Malcador]

 

Wouldn't be a geopolitics thread without some sanctimony from the Euros.

Nah, just nuke 'em.

 

In theory if someone were to just kill everyone in that region, things would be calmer. Peace-making, we could call it.

[JadedWolf]

 

 

Wouldn't be a geopolitics thread without some sanctimony from the Euros.

Nah, just nuke 'em.

 

In theory if someone were to just kill everyone in that region, things would be calmer. Peace-making, we could call it.

 

 

True, but the same can be said for nuking the earth entirely. Things would be rather calm, after a while.

[nipsen]

Well, we haven't tried, so maybe it'll work. I'll have none of that sanctimonious euro nay-saying here.

[JadedWolf]

Right. So since I am not hearing any objections, let's start arming those missiles. We can have this rock turned into a lifeless shell of a planet by suppertime.

 

One downside about this peace proposal though, chaps. No Nobel peace prize for anyone after carrying it out. But eh, it's for the greater good, after all.

[Rostere]

I used to be somewhat resentful of the tendency among 19th century Western adventurers to take priceless artifacts from the Middle East and back to Europe for display. Now I'm not so sure anymore. Maybe Austen Henry Layard, Robert Koldewey and Paul-Émile Botta should have taken everything of value in the entire Middle East back to Europe and their respective countries written into Basic Law that nothing should be shipped back to the ME for the next 300 years.

[licketysplit]

Jihadi John is a Londoner. Well, waddya know! Islam can foster delusion wherever it spawns.

[Namutree]

I used to be somewhat resentful of the tendency among 19th century Western adventurers to take priceless artifacts from the Middle East and back to Europe for display. Now I'm not so sure anymore. Maybe Austen Henry Layard, Robert Koldewey and Paul-Émile Botta should have taken everything of value in the entire Middle East back to Europe and their respective countries written into Basic Law that nothing should be shipped back to the ME for the next 300 years.

Meh, It's just some art. We've already documented the art's existence so whatever historical value those artifacts have has been preserved. I care 1,000,000,000 times more when ISIS hurts people rather than some works of art.

[Darkpriest]

 

 

Lol.

 

Said it before and I'll say it again, so long as the west lives in a fantasy of wishful thinking and ignorance and uses the psychotropic melange of (uncritically accepted) Saudi 'intelligence' to decide their ME policy they're doomed to asterisk things up over and over because they aren't even slightly grounded in reality, they're grounded in what they want to be true (basically, that everyone wants to be just like us if only they were given the chance; usually via flattening all their infrastructure and institutions without helping to rebuild them meaningfully then going "now, be like us!" and washing their hands of the whole mess and pooh poohing them/ absolving ourselves of blame when they inevitably fail having had to rebuild their institutions from scratch and create a 'democratic tradition' out of thin air) and what a country with a vested interest in turning every arab country into a loony toons salafi thugocracy want to be true.

Thats such a 2001-2003 perspective of Western foreign policy in the Middle East. The West has learnt and evolved since those days. You know this yet you still refuse to recognise it, I find this odd

 

Both Iran and Syria are examples that the days of Western unilateralism as far as intervention is concerned are over, no its all about coalitions and UNSC endorsement. And I support this.

 

Just for record what would you personally do about the rise of ISIS ? Lets say you controlled the military of Western countries....what would your strategy be ? Maybe you would have left the Yazidis to die on that mountain in Iraq because that was the catalyst that started the campaign against ISIS?

 

For all I care I would remove myself completely from the ME and let them kill each other for the next 100-200 years as they have been doing for the last couple of thousands years with exception of the British Imperium era where they were goverened with a hard boot.

 

Ban immigration from those countries and secure borders if the need would arise.

 

The only reason west does not want to do that is because we want control over their oil and gas. Even if indirect but still control. Do you see any intervention in North Korea or sub saharan Africa?

 

You cant uplift to your standards something that does not see any value in the qualities you hold dear. You can just isolate yourself and ocassionally check if they got better when maintaining some trade agreements.

[nipsen]

 

For all I care I would remove myself completely from the ME and let them kill each other for the next 100-200 years as they have been doing for the last couple of thousands years with exception of the British Imperium era where they were goverened with a hard boot.

 

Ban immigration from those countries and secure borders if the need would arise.

 

The only reason west does not want to do that is because we want control over their oil and gas. Even if indirect but still control. Do you see any intervention in North Korea or sub saharan Africa?

 

You cant uplift to your standards something that does not see any value in the qualities you hold dear. You can just isolate yourself and ocassionally check if they got better when maintaining some trade agreements.

 

..sorry, for a while there I thought you were talking about the history of the United States.

 

But that brand of "isolationism" is how the US has conducted foreign policy since Roosevelt, and arguably since before that. By proxy. The problem with suddenly finding that you're irrelevant arising from a situation where no willing or natural proxies can be found. Where even rebels in the mountains in Afghanistan can see no benefit from simply being given weapons or resources. When no trade-partners can be found for, say, founding a steel factory in Egypt, since it's political suicide to endorse union policies that arise out of such a deal. When there are no actors in the South-China sea area interested in involving a nation with neither will to demonstrate military clout, or that can create political legitimacy for the goals the various partners might set themselves, for example if that simply was maintaining a power-balance.

 

I mean, you should probably understand that for a lot of "our people", there has been a need to involve the US for simply the reason that we do not want to imagine east-Asian relations where India, Pakistan and China can set the agendas from the positions they very obviously should have. Because the dynamic afterwards would be completely different. In the sense that when people in EU-countries officially talk about looking to China as trade-partners, what we're really saying is that the US is not afforded the proxies they need to conduct foreign policy in the way it has been done up till now.

 

See, a good number of people are talking about the 1990s now as if they happened in a different age. That there have been so many changes since then that it's impossible to use the same baseline as before. It's not a coincidence for example when Australia and East-Timor becomes a model for involvement in problem-areas over going to the security council. With a version of the UN Charter that's disconnected from the actual forum, and the former super-powers, becomes a baseline for establishing how countries operate a security cooperation. Just some food for thought.

[obyknven]

Iraqi Army Downs Two British Planes Carrying Weapons for ISIS

 

http://wearechange.org/iraqi-army-downs-two-british-planes-carrying-weapons-isis/

 

 Westlings can't into  proxy war.

[obyknven]

Registered ISIS supporters in Twitter

[Hurlshort]

404 people out of 300 million! *Le gasp*

[Valsuelm]

404 people out of 300 million! *Le gasp*

 

One has a better chance of being struck by lightning, killed by a cop, or winning a million dollars than meeting one of the people behind the 444 twitter accounts that said something that could be construed as supporting ISIS.

 

Lion and Tigers and ISIS oh my!

 

More importantly:

 

 

 

Who cares?

 

Twitter is for idiots.

 

 

[nipsen]

Iraqi Army Downs Two British Planes Carrying Weapons for ISIS

 

http://wearechange.org/iraqi-army-downs-two-british-planes-carrying-weapons-isis/

 

 Westlings can't into  proxy war.

Oh, I know. This is near the moment when a US journalist asks a US politician to explain what ISIS actually is, and to suggest the difference between them and the groupings in Iraq with unpronounceable names that fit under labels like: "they support us, probably", "they support us a bit", "they might support us if we pay them", "they don't like us, or foreigners in general, but say things we like to hear". And perhaps get a list of which of these groups that have at some point received funding and supplies via war-appropriations not specifically approved by Congress. You know, just for fun, to see how many groups are defined as both ISIS, terror-groups black-listed for trade, as well as "allies".

 

...anyway. Pretty sure "coalition" forces have been airdropping supplies to every possible kurdish faction for a few years now. Including the ones that support and take part in violent overthrows of any recognisable police-authority in Kurdistan. Not that it's not better than random drone-strikes on populated areas near the Iranian border. Mighty show of restraint to stop running those, really. Such incredible situational awareness the US State Department offered here..

 

Honestly, world war 3 won't be fought over oil or resources, or land or anything like that. WW3 will happen because of bone-headed, obnoxious stupidity, for no good reason at all.

[BruceVC]

 

Iraqi Army Downs Two British Planes Carrying Weapons for ISIS

 

http://wearechange.org/iraqi-army-downs-two-british-planes-carrying-weapons-isis/

 

 Westlings can't into  proxy war.

Oh, I know. This is near the moment when a US journalist asks a US politician to explain what ISIS actually is, and to suggest the difference between them and the groupings in Iraq with unpronounceable names that fit under labels like: "they support us, probably", "they support us a bit", "they might support us if we pay them", "they don't like us, or foreigners in general, but say things we like to hear". And perhaps get a list of which of these groups that have at some point received funding and supplies via war-appropriations not specifically approved by Congress. You know, just for fun, to see how many groups are defined as both ISIS, terror-groups black-listed for trade, as well as "allies".

 

...anyway. Pretty sure "coalition" forces have been airdropping supplies to every possible kurdish faction for a few years now. Including the ones that support and take part in violent overthrows of any recognisable police-authority in Kurdistan. Not that it's not better than random drone-strikes on populated areas near the Iranian border. Mighty show of restraint to stop running those, really. Such incredible situational awareness the US State Department offered here..

 

Honestly, world war 3 won't be fought over oil or resources, or land or anything like that. WW3 will happen because of bone-headed, obnoxious stupidity, for no good reason at all.

 

 

Sorry but all these prognostications of WW3 because of political instability in the Middle East I don't buy, it doesn't make sense

 

Firstly in order for there to be  a real "WW3" you would effectively need the worlds superpowers to go to war with each other. So China vs USA, or Russia vs USA. Now in the 50 years of the Cold War there was no WW3 only proxy wars and this wasn't because there weren't groups of people who didn't want to destroy Capitalism or Communism it was because of the threat of mutually assured destruction from nuclear weapons. This has not changed.

 

So who would be involved in this WW3? What countries or blocks of countries ?

 

Finally its highly unlikely that conflicts  like the Ukraine or Syria are suddenly going to lead to the absence of conventional wisdom and the reality of mutually assured destruction of countries like Russia or the  USA if they  did go to war?

[nipsen]

Oh, sure. There's always the ever apparent assurance that people will respect that escalation of conflicts will lead to mutually assured destruction. And therefore are wise and calm, or at least will have enough Hobbsian rational self-interest, that they will show restraint when engaging in any conflict, armed or otherwise. In the same way, we obviously assume that by the same reasoning, people will always wish to resolve conflicts peacefully rather than engage in activities that inevitably lead to war.

 

The problem is that this is dependent on the political existence of some half-mutable meaning of terms such as "peace", "war", "conflict" and, say, "peace resolution".

 

And I would argue that this reasoning has been thoroughly falsified lately, simply because for example the US government, along with several others (including my own at various times), have successfully created and benefited from populistic argumentation that to some degree or other insist that we need to commit to war and armed conflict in order to have peace. The argument isn't that security comes from peace, and that any other state of affairs is a massively risky undertaking - no, the idea is that if we go to armed conflict, then we are /safer/ than before.

 

In other words, now that we are engaged in what the US government itself calls a global, endless war on donuts, or even the very idea of donuts - we are increasingly safer as long as the war moves on, and so forth. One has in the same turn accepted, 400 million people in silence, the idea that law and civilian law is only applicable and appropriate when the world is safe and calm. Presumably then when there are no criminals or to quote various presidents, "evil", out there. In the meantime, while there are "wrongdoers" out there, Wild West style rule makes everyone safe in their homes, I suppose.

 

Whatever the reasoning, whatever the justifications, the net result is that we have accepted the reasoning that military campaigns have to be fought in farawayistan in order to keep the world safer. To stop the world order from collapsing. Which we then happily grant our governments the power to, without any restrictions whatsoever. And it's worth noting that until recently, these wars were kept secret or at least out of the campaigns, and explained away as unfortunate mishaps due to commitments in the region of conflict for various benevolent political reasons and diplomacy, and jazz.

 

Now there's a shift, for the fact that openly arguing for wars against donuts is in fact a politically sound way to get reelected. It's not just in the US either. We keep dismissing it as simply xenophobia and political populism arising from local prolems. But the fact remains that several political parties, notably for example in France, is looking towards a government led by a far-right candidate who among other things argues for global commitment in the grave and serious fight against twisted foreign pastries.

 

Meanwhile, we really have nothing to say when Russia annexes Crimea. Because their reasoning and justification is as good as anyone else's. Simply because there is no real window for insisting that if you do not restrain yourself, there will be consequences. There are none.

 

So as you can see, now there is already no inhibition against the idea of going to war in terms of political power, and no democratic force as a counterweight to it. Which, as I postulated, falsifies the mutually assured destruction doctrine in at least contemporary politics instantly.

 

In other words, yes, I tend to believe that if a large scale conflict eventually arises from whatever reaction comes from our interference in the Middle-East, where the emerging major powers other than Russia and the US will be involved, then the point where things really go south will be when some arse of a populist from some sort of religious university where they teach Augustin as gospel while they saint Karl Rove as the second coming of Warrior Jesus riding on a dinosaur manage to convince other arseholes that "hey, what about going to peace, folks! Let's peace these f***ers out of their corporeal existence, so that the remaining spirits on earth may be soothed to calm, so we may yet achieve another 8-year period of survival against the evil out there!". And in the meantime, we regret to inform you that certain double-plus liberties may be taken away, and - as the privileged few in Westernia - one may simply enjoy liberty on a baseline. Which of course still is more libertarious than what those animal drones out there on the front in Farawayistan wishes to enforce upon us all! Pray to God and wish our troops his favor, which we of course know they will always have anyway.

 

A bit too much, perhaps. But remember that it's no more than 70 years since rational real-political minds managed to ravage the entirety of Europe over a 5-year period. Where allied countries, where people went to schools and universities across the borders, worked in different countries, where there had always been an exchange of ideas - ended up in a situation where said arses managed to create a situation where war was inevitable. And, more to the point, that it was in many instances from a political view that was sound from a pure populistic viewpoint.

 

In some cases I kind of think the fact that people lack engagement, while those who have are ignored, is a blessing, though. Because that at least affords state departments to temper idiots once in a while without anyone noticing. But trust me on this one - we get the governments we deserve, there's no way around that. And frankly I don't see an end to the kind of conflicts that we've seen sprouting up lately.

 

It used to be that academics would simply note with concern that the number of peace-processes that were started very rarely would actually lead to a successful "peace", as in a stable democratically shaped cake with evenly sprinkled frosting in all colours (..I'm really hungry, if that wasn't obvious). But ultimately - what does "peace" look like? What we're talking about in 99% of the cases is to bring armed groups to the table, so they'll duke things out politically instead of with weapons. These are not trivial fights, for example in East-Timor, Indonesia, Northern Ireland, etc. And here "peace" is simply setting a focus on ugly contradictions that have been boiling under a lid while the conflict was brewing. So this is usually not a problem with "peace" as an idea.

 

And yet, now we're seeing that significant political actors end up insisting that war is a good way to get ultimate peace. All Cake All Day for Total Slimness! Makes about as much sense. Nevertheless, that's what gets you elected nowadays. Right-wing arguments that would be beyond McCarthy during the cold war. It's the kind of reasoning that would make Nixon blush in perhaps both shame and anger at the same time. It's so radical that it doesn't even treat excess as an unusual contextual exception never to be followed again, it treats exceptions that dismiss and go far beyond any vague resemblance of a Hobbsian social contract - simply as a rule.

 

In other words, we've democratized a movement that previously - as in historically - needed military abuse and real threat of incarceration to exist.

 

Good bakery still exists, though, so f' it.