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Technician

Iraq, Round Three

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Well, if you have been watching the news, ISIS has conquered a HUGE chunk of Iraq and Syria. They have acquired huge amounts of military resources and man power in a matter of a couple of days. I predict Baghdad will topple is a matter of days and Assad will most likely, too, topple unifying both Iraq and Syria under a caliphate. Lebanon will be next.

Expect oil to skyrocket once again. And it already has.

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What is confirmed is that they have conquered specific cities in the Northern region, not exactly huge swaths of territory. The government will most likely be able to put down such an insurrection over time (just examine Syria's civil war case). I don't mean to say any side is justified, in fact, the US never should have declared any Gulf War or Iraq Invasion II, period. Somehow these factions need to cobble together a workable republic that can stand up straight and meet the needs of its citizens by supplying water, electricity, and a stable social-business climate without forgetting the least of its people.

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Tylerisepic1 said:

Wait did people stop caring about the kidnapped girls or whatever? Did they find them?

Unfortunately, they're yesterdays news. The Nigerian military claim to know where the girls are (most likely in a neighboring country) but appears to be unwilling or unable to act.

TheCupboard said:

The government will most likely be able to put down such an insurrection over time

Probably not without outside assistance, what the insurgents may lack in equipment they seem to more than compensate for with combat experience. Whatever happens, I'd say it's highly unlikely Washington will allow an Al-Qaeda affiliate to control the oil it fought so hard to secure.

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As I've stated previously, we should either leave the Middle East well alone (like, actively isolate it) and let them sort themselves out, or just carpet bomb the entire place into a wasteland and set up a lot of solar panels on the newly claimed space to get some use out of it. As is getting noted more and more in the UK, it's always Muslims causing trouble these days and a lot of the problem is that the "moderates" are always conspicuously absent and silent when the extremism is being opposed or condemned.

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GreyGhost said:

Probably not without outside assistance, what the insurgents may lack in equipment they seem to more than compensate for with combat experience. Whatever happens, I'd say it's highly unlikely Washington will allow an Al-Qaeda affiliate to control the oil it fought so hard to secure.


This threat actually composes Iraq and Syria. In an ideal global governance system, security forces would be deployed alongside the Kurdish de facto state militia which controls northwestern Iraq to oppose this uprising.

I agree with you that the US will do all it can to prevent radicalized al-Qaeda affiliates from possessing key resources. The thing is, sometimes, armies are just nationalist uprisings seeking to overthrow the local government, not necessarily seeking the destruction of western capitalism, meaning these hotspot uprisings are not necessarily al-Qaeda affiliates.

I am so upset at western agitators who talked of al-Qaeda activity in the Syrian Civl War and now seek to compare the Iraq uprising with it; Nothing ever came to a direct threat to the Europe or the Americas by the Syrian Civil War, which is still ongoing.

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But... but... but....

AMERICA!
COALITION OF THE WILLING!
DEMOCRACY!
ENDURING FREEDOM!
LIBERTY!
SADDAM WAS USING CHEMICAL WEAPONS AGAINST HIS PEOPLE!
AL QAEDA AFFILIATIONS!
COLLATERAL DAMAGE!

You mean it was all in vain? Dammit....immagine dying just as "collateral damage" in such a conflict. Not even as an actual first-line participant....

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I love the irony, I'm gorging on it like Mr. Creosote. Not a long time ago, the US/EU leaders actually considered supporting ISIL* when it seemed like the force able to topple the evil pro-Russian dictator in Syria. It took grim warnings from their own analysts and strategists, an actual public outcry against supporting obvious terrorists and Russia threatening to use such approach as a carte blanche for any future conflicts to sway them from what everyone knew was a bad idea. And they still let the Saudis and the Qataris pay and arm the radicals silently.

Fast forward two years: Oh no! ISIL is bored by the standstill with Asad and now they're threatening our puppet government, and thus the oil mining operation, in Iraq! Quickly, scramble the bombers, prepare the invasion! And the irony just starts from there. Didn't Obama just deliver a speech where he called the past interventions foolish? Changing the global policies set in motion by Buhs seems harder than it looked during the election campaign, eh? Good thing he couldn't even get Gitmo shut down, it may come quite handy yet!

It's also a hilarious eye-opener for anyone who thought the Allies installed a democracy backed by a functional army in Iraq. The democratically elected leaders are shitting their robes in Baghdad and the army literally ran at the first sign of trouble, leaving heavy tech behind for the rebels to grab. I'm sure the ISIL leaders must be scratching their heads right now, because they have reportedly just about 6000 fighters in Iraq, which already makes them spread pretty thin in that big area they "conquered". Which they didn't, really. They were there the entire time, they use the region as their power base for the Syria campaign and it is where Qatar restocks them. We know this and we did nothing against it. Evil Asad, right? ISIL just showed up in large numbers and took over the government buildings to make it official.

Another fun part: I don't think ISIL really wants to attack Baghdad, that was just typical Arabian mouthing off. They don't have the numbers and they'd fight the Shia this time, so religious fault lines would provide motivation to actually use the tanks they're sitting in. ISIL wants to dig deep and have the army come at them. They probably wanted to see everyone squirm, because a successful campaign by Iraq itself would require the help of the Kurds. And Turkey would probably flip their lid over that, giving Obama even more headache. Can't give Kurds any ideas about being a force.

Anyone wanna bet how Afghanistan will end up after the Allies truly leave? Or should the question be just "how fast"? And meanwhile, Libya is the new Somalia, a completely broken husk of a state ruled by tribal gangs. Good job, everyone, our meddling with the Muslim world is going just swell. Don't forget to vote someone promising a more hardline approach!

*Quick edit: The rebels call the Syrian region Levant, so that's how they call themselves as well. ISIS sounds like something preferred by Western pop news, because Anglosphere loves when abbreviations form cool words. Maybe the strike against them can be called Operation OSIRIS!

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From the start of all procedures, really, the British and League of Nations really fucked up drawing the country borders. The existing country lines are a complete farce, no logic at all to how the ethnic groups comprise the mid-east. It is a complete insult to the local people.

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Belial said:

Strange bedfellows.

Wow, this is cool and it actually makes sense. I wonder how long before McCain or some other Republican hawk goes batshit crazy over it to disrupt any possibility of warming up the relationship with Iran.

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In a lot of ways this is pretty damn cool, from a US perspective. Cooperating with Iran? Could it lead to future talks on nuclear agreements?

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Belial said:

Actually, in my opinion it's the Iranians we should have been friendly with the whole time. We're just stuck with the Arabs because they have the power to turn the USD into chump change if they so choose.

In a just world Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the U.R.E would have had their asses treated to a little of what Iraq and Libya got.

dew said:

They probably wanted to see everyone squirm, because a successful campaign by Iraq itself would require the help of the Kurds. And Turkey would probably flip their lid over that, giving Obama even more headache. Can't give Kurds any ideas about being a force.

They kind of already are though. The Kurds are so desperate for their Kurdistan they'll gladly work with the devil to try and obtain it. They're helping to take down Assad even though it's highly unlikely they'll get any land with it and probably more persecution from the next Islamist government.

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Technician said:

Actually, in my opinion it's the Iranians we should have been friendly with the whole time.


The US already backed the Iranians, way back in the 1970s' via the CIA. That's the funny thing about the Mid-East. The US has backed the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the Iraqi Army both. It's just a matter of what decade you choose to examine for your "current events".

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Wait wait wait... You're saying radical extremists are threatening to take over Iraq because there's no strong central government to oppose them? No, that can't be it, that's totally crazy. After all, I said such a thing would happen if we invaded Iraq waaaaaaaaay back in 2003, and obviously I was wrong then because anyone who opposed the war was either a Nazi sympathizer or a terrorist. The government made it very clear - you either support the war or you're a freedom-hating, soldier-spitting-on fascist. There's no way THAT group's predictions could possibly be coming true. And no, I'm not bitter about how war protesters were treated in the slightest[/sarcasm].

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Every middle eastern country was better off with a dictator than a Islamic-centric guerrilla government. Sadly, we in the west hold western styled philosophy to point where we think all societies will embrace and benefit from it, even if imposed forcefully.

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Isn't that the sad truth? It was never self-determination, but at least it omitted a giant excursion into a foreign land with a basically alien landscape and different ethnic heritage from ours. In truth, in recent history, the Middle-East has never had a true shot at self-determination; it has all been determined by oil interests, ties to al-Qaeda and autocrats who pledge allegiance to the US or Russia.

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Technician said:

Every middle eastern country was better off with a dictator than a Islamic-centric guerrilla government.

Well, because America killed Iran's short-lived democracy and installed the shah, Iran may actually be better off with the Revolutionary Guard. It may be just a lesser of two evils and it led them into international ostracism maintained by angry USA who couldn't keep their puppet in place, but at least they remained a sovereign nation.

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The western world is creating its own enemies and failed experiments.

Converting every nation on the planet to a western styled cultural and political mash-up because western politicians are to close minded to accept other cultures, civilizations,
and ways of life is the reason behind all of this. People like sadam might have been gruesome dictators, but at the same time it is what they needed to frighten the
extremists and make them shit their pants before they manifest.

You do not 'liberate' a country, a country changes itself when its people feel it is needed to gain a cultural and political change. It would mean a civil war, as no government or
party just dusts off into the distance. But these people have nothing left then a broken country as wrecked by western armies, a bunch of extremists, and a scared military force...
Nobody there has the will, power, or courage to force a change next to the extremists. If there is no clear threat for them to invade Europe or the U.S.let them have their damn civil war...

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TheCupboard said:

Isn't that the sad truth? It was never self-determination, but at least it omitted a giant excursion into a foreign land with a basically alien landscape and different ethnic heritage from ours. In truth, in recent history, the Middle-East has never had a true shot at self-determination; it has all been determined by oil interests, ties to al-Qaeda and autocrats who pledge allegiance to the US or Russia.

Take what you said and apply it to the entire world. No group of people has self-determination any longer. Everything that is happening on the global scale is being directed by financial and corporate interests which run directly counter to the very concept. You don't need to look further than the complete death of democracy in the US.

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Ron Perlman: War. War never changes. They should just let arabs solve their own problems and leave them be. I couldn't care less if they decimate each other with their pointless religious conflicts between shias and sunnis. Oilfields are soon set on fire again.

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It's all fine. I'm sure the Iraqis are enjoying their Western-enabled stability.

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We need to stay the fuck out of this yet again, only reason we're interested is those bloody oil fields. If the militants were smart, they would blow them up so nobody can exploit use them.

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This country is going to basically kill the entire world, including itself. We've been around for just over 400 years and have caused more damage to this planet that most countries had in 4,000.

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The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 is a gift that keeps on giving.



There's a number of US politicians who are pushing for the USA to wash their hands of this situation. For example:

FP posted:
However, other top Republicans, such as Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said the United States has already provided enough assistance to the Iraqis -- and it's time for Baghdad to deal with its own security problems.

"I'm not interested myself personally right now in doing anything," McKeon told Foreign Policy in an interview. "We went there. We lost a lot of blood, a lot of treasure, did a lot for them. They weren't interested in us staying. They made a choice. We've got a lot of other problems to deal with."

No, you ass. You didn't do it for them, you did it for Halliburton and BP. And it's your intervention that is directly responsible for the chaos. The reason you shouldn't keep intervening is because you'd only mess it even more.

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You know, I've read that just 800 ISIL troops attacked (and conquered) Mosul where 30000 soldiers were stationed. And they gave up and went home. This is obviously a fuck you to the central Shia, Murcan-backed government by Saddam loyalists in the army.

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What a friggin' prick. We went there 'cause wars are fun and oil is profitable. Then to get all indignant because the Iraqis aren't on their hands and knees praising us daily for what a good job we did? I just... ugh... Surely he has to know what an asshole he sounds like, right? You can't say something that stupid and not be self-aware enough to realize it's dumb, right? I just... it hurts my head. You know, no one really even knew why we were going in the first place, but that didn't matter, it's unpatriotic to not support a war. The hell is wrong with people?

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