On June 13 2014 03:59 Sermokala wrote: So explain to me whats the deal with them being refered to as ISIS and ISIL? I know that it means the levant (which is syria and south) but how reliable is the translations going on about the name of the organization.
Peace between the different religious groups in syria and iraq seems pretty impossible. We should have created new countries in the kurdish north and the sunni west.
The literal translation would be something like 'Iraq and the North", but in this context that word (North) refers to the countries north of Arabia and south of Anatolia - which is roughly what the Levant covers, hence the translation. ISIS with just Syria, or Greater Syria doesn't really catch the full extent of the area they refer to.
^ Actually, the literal translation is "The Islamic State in Iraq and Sham". The name in English letters is literally al dawlat al islamiya [the Islamic state] fil [in] Iraq wa Sham [Iraq and Sham]. Sham is the region of the eastern Mediterranean mostly comprising Syria or the rest of the Levant as it's called. Where did you get "North" from? :s
On June 13 2014 04:05 TheFish7 wrote: The U.S. is going bananas over one (possible) deserter. Meanwhile in Iraq, 30,000 deserters.
It's simply incredible to me that TWO FUCKING DIVISIONS of Iraqi troops fled before less than one thousand ISIS troops. Time to throw out the French Army jokes. A new champ is in town!
This is actually pretty funny. They stood alone against the greatest jihad in Islamic history not too long ago, but run from a few ragtag baboons. Could be the US training? I kid I kid.
You can say what you want but the ISIS fighters are hardcore extremists, well led (from the former iraq army officers that the new government banned from rejoining the military) and hardened from years of fighting in the syrian civil war.
Its like after the soviet union broke up and all those KGB agents were out of a job, what do you expect them to do for work? The former iraqi officers are getting paid to do what the iraqi government trained them to do. They stopped being terrorists a long time ago.
If anything I'm worried this is the beginning of the middle easts religious wars spinning out from syria and spreading to the whole region. When you have iran reinforcing their regular forces against sunni rebels and the sunni rebels getting their hands on US military heavy equipment. Really scary times.
I'm just worried about the minorities to be honest, my people are from Iraq (Assyrians) and we are being driven out by these retards because of our Christianity, such bullshit
According to some sources, the high ranking officers in charge of the divisions in the area fled before the attack leaving the soldiers not knowing what to do. I don't know how much you can blame the soldiers if they got screwed so hard by their leaders.
The autonomous Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) issued statements announcing that its forces, called the "Peshmerga," had pushed the insurgents out of the oil town of Kirkuk and were prepared to protect the refugees fleeing north to the Kurdish region.
In the areas that fell to ISIS, "the Iraqi security agencies and ministries have been incapable and soldiers and employees were only interested in collecting their salaries," Kurdish Lt. Gen. Jabbar Yawar said in a statement. Yawar named three Iraqi generals who had fled to the Kurdish region along with two Iraqi pilots who abandoned their planes. He said all were put on a Kurdish flight back to Baghdad.
The KRG had repeatedly warned Maliki of the ISIL threat and urged cooperation between Iraqi and Kurdish forces, but "Baghdad did not heed the KRG's warnings and now, unfortunately, our predictions have come to pass," Yawar said.
On June 13 2014 08:10 JudicatorHammurabi wrote: ^ Actually, the literal translation is "The Islamic State in Iraq and Sham". The name in English letters is literally al dawlat al islamiya [the Islamic state] fil [in] Iraq wa Sham [Iraq and Sham]. Sham is the region of the eastern Mediterranean mostly comprising Syria or the rest of the Levant as it's called. Where did you get "North" from? :s
I wanted to know what the deal with ISIL is and found this in a German magazine. Could be wrong of course. Wikipedia says that the literal translation is something like "land of left hand", while Yemen would be "land of right hand" - maybe that is where the confusion with North and South (from Arabia) comes from.
(Reuters) - Shi'te Muslim Iran is so alarmed by Sunni insurgent gains in Iraq that it may be willing to cooperate with Washington in helping Baghdad fight back, a senior Iranian official told Reuters.
The idea is being discussed internally among the Islamic Republic's leadership, the senior Iranian official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official had no word on whether the idea had been raised with any other party.
Flame me for this but I'm absolutely flustered. One of the few times in the last 50 years that the US has the opportunity to do something remotely good in the Mideast and be seen as something not akin to Mongol Khans, and we refuse. The terrorists have spread their operations to Iraq and to half-Christian Lebanon. Of course, fighting terrorists is not in the interest of the West. Fighting to maintain our political, strategic, and economic interests is, even if it sometimes means directly supporting Islamic terrorists or states that back Islamic terrorism. The damned Russians are just as useless, and this is very close to their territory. Before we know it, like Lysol kills 99.9% of germs, Iraq will become 99.9% Muslim at this rate. Already, the Christian population has been reduced by 80% since 2003 (1.5 million to 300,000).
As for the Iranians, obviously they're going to oppose Sunni extremists, so that Shiite extremists can gain more leverage. Iran is the most cunning and worst of the bunch in the Mideast, and that's saying something. Sadly, I'm almost embarrassed to admit that my once unparalleled tolerance of Islam is steadily waning
On June 13 2014 08:10 JudicatorHammurabi wrote: ^ Actually, the literal translation is "The Islamic State in Iraq and Sham". The name in English letters is literally al dawlat al islamiya [the Islamic state] fil [in] Iraq wa Sham [Iraq and Sham]. Sham is the region of the eastern Mediterranean mostly comprising Syria or the rest of the Levant as it's called. Where did you get "North" from? :s
I wanted to know what the deal with ISIL is and found this in a German magazine. Could be wrong of course. Wikipedia says that the literal translation is something like "land of left hand", while Yemen would be "land of right hand" - maybe that is where the confusion with North and South (from Arabia) comes from.
Heh, that is kind of strange. Could be a mistake :s. All I am aware of is what Wikipedia says is the name in transliterated Arabic, and it literally says "Iraq and Sham".
On June 14 2014 07:10 JudicatorHammurabi wrote: Flame me for this but I'm absolutely flustered. One of the few times in the last 50 years that the US has the opportunity to do something remotely good in the Mideast and be seen as something not akin to Mongol Khans, and we refuse. The terrorists have spread their operations to Iraq and to half-Christian Lebanon. Of course, fighting terrorists is not in the interest of the West. Fighting to maintain our political, strategic, and economic interests is, even if it sometimes means directly supporting Islamic terrorists or states that back Islamic terrorism. The damned Russians are just as useless, and this is very close to their territory. Before we know it, like Lysol kills 99.9% of germs, Iraq will become 99.9% Muslim at this rate. Already, the Christian population has been reduced by 80% since 2003 (1.5 million to 300,000).
As for the Iranians, obviously they're going to oppose Sunni extremists, so that Shiite extremists can gain more leverage. Iran is the most cunning and worst of the bunch in the Mideast, and that's saying something. Sadly, I'm almost embarrassed to admit that my once unparalleled tolerance of Islam is steadily waning
On June 13 2014 08:10 JudicatorHammurabi wrote: ^ Actually, the literal translation is "The Islamic State in Iraq and Sham". The name in English letters is literally al dawlat al islamiya [the Islamic state] fil [in] Iraq wa Sham [Iraq and Sham]. Sham is the region of the eastern Mediterranean mostly comprising Syria or the rest of the Levant as it's called. Where did you get "North" from? :s
I wanted to know what the deal with ISIL is and found this in a German magazine. Could be wrong of course. Wikipedia says that the literal translation is something like "land of left hand", while Yemen would be "land of right hand" - maybe that is where the confusion with North and South (from Arabia) comes from.
Heh, that is kind of strange. Could be a mistake :s. All I am aware of is what Wikipedia says is the name in transliterated Arabic, and it literally says "Iraq and Sham".
The Russians are useless? If it wasn't for Assad the whole territory from Israel to Iran would be a black hole now. Assad and the people of Syria have been fighting these 'freedom fighters' for two years now, and if it wasn't for Putin calling Obama out on the insanity of supporting terrorists in Syria there would be no one to protect the people of Syria.
Libya is a black hole now, Egypt is still on the edge of the abyss. Imagine what sub-Saharan Africa paradise Syria would be now if another US foreign policy 'victory' had been achieved.
On December 15 2013 05:32 zeo wrote: So according to NATO, the approval rating of Assad is still around 70% and has been stable for over a year while only around 10% support the rebels. Of course its been like this from the beginning but as we all know someone had an interest in destroying every single stable country in the region. The only safe place in the country is the Alawite coast which is securely in the hands of the Syrian people, Damascus is getting back to normal but I would say it will be as safe as Mogadishu for a long time to come while Aleppo is still a bitter warzone. The Kurds will most likely want to break off from the country if they can, they are used to standing their ground against the jihad rebel hordes so they should be seen as more of an ally to Syria for now.
The original "western backed" rebels are dead, the handful of anti-Assad liberals left are trying to fight off hordes of Islamists imported from the Gulf who want to impose Wahabbi fundamentalist Sharia law in Syria. Most cities where the armed rebellions started (Homs/Hama) are literally uninhabitable wastelands, WWII levels of destruction. Things like electricity and water seem like a pipe dream. Syrian economy and civilian infrastructure is absolutely fucked, it will take 50 years for it to get even near the second-world levels it used to be at again.
Absolutely disgusting how the media circus around the arab spring brought so much pain and suffering to these countries. B-b-but CNN told me evul dick-tator! Fuck off. Blindly funding the global jihad for 'humanitarian reasons' is why those planes hit the twin towers in the first place. Video related + Show Spoiler +
On June 14 2014 19:32 Simberto wrote: Yeah, as opposed to how nice Syria is right now. Really, a wonderful victory of Putin, the great humanitarian.
There is a really small amount of possible results that are worse than "Continuous Civil War".
So Syria ruled by Wahhabi fundamentalists that cut off people's heads on the street and eat the hearts of the people that they kill would have been a victory for America?
The establishment of a Caliphate will bring peace and prosperity to all.. I'm sure. Anyone not involved in arming rebels and plunging the country into chaos in the first place is evul anti-democracy dicktator.
On June 14 2014 19:36 zeo wrote:Anyone not involved in arming rebels and plunging the country into chaos in the first place is evul anti-democracy dicktator.
No, he wanted to build a pipeline and sell its gas at the Saint Petersburg stock exchange, that is so much more evul than eating some hearts-sushi...
On June 14 2014 19:36 zeo wrote:Anyone not involved in arming rebels and plunging the country into chaos in the first place is evul anti-democracy dicktator.
No, he wanted to build a pipeline and sell its gas at the Saint Petersburg stock exchange, that is so much more evul than eating some hearts-sushi...
So one side wants a pipeline, the other side wants to take the country back into the middle ages? Wonder which one the Syrian people want? But we are being silly now, why would the people of Syria know what they want when keyboard tumbler warriors from first world countries know whats best for every single person in societies they know nothing about.
On June 14 2014 19:22 zeo wrote: The Russians are useless? If it wasn't for Assad the whole territory from Israel to Iran would be a black hole now. Assad and the people of Syria have been fighting these 'freedom fighters' for two years now, and if it wasn't for Putin calling Obama out on the insanity of supporting terrorists in Syria there would be no one to protect the people of Syria.
Before Al-Nusra, ISIS and rest of the warlord-ish groups took over, the first moderate groups back in 2011 weren't "terrorists", but average citizens (read: students and public workers) who did want more freedom and less corruption. Even after the crackdown, things were still stable enough for them to drive out the radicals and have a less oppressive government at the same time.
The real terrorists began popping up when the moderates were left to rot, thanks to extensive Russian lobbying of course. After all you wouldn't want one of your main customers to not have a reason to buy more weapons from you, nicht wahr?.
On June 14 2014 19:36 zeo wrote:Anyone not involved in arming rebels and plunging the country into chaos in the first place is evul anti-democracy dicktator.
No, he wanted to build a pipeline and sell its gas at the Saint Petersburg stock exchange, that is so much more evul than eating some hearts-sushi...
So one side wants a pipeline, the other side wants to take the country back into the middle ages? Wonder which one the Syrian people want? But we are being silly now, why would the people of Syria know what they want when keyboard tumbler warriors from first world countries know whats best for every single person in societies they know nothing about.
If Putin had not cast his veto, we would have had blue helmets in Syria since three years ago.
And please stop twisting things, not all rebels in Syria are and were islamists. The islamists came slowly from every fucking region of the world the longer the crisis went. Putin didn't veto because he feared islamists would come into power, he is too shameless to think like that. He wanted to make sure the world remembered that Russia had some geopolitical influence which is in itself completely retarded and shows the inferiority complex Russia seems to have now (also goes with the fascist line of Putin: us (the good guys) versus everybody else (the bad guys)). He also wanted to honor the alliance or support between Russia and Syria which btw deviates from the alliance between the USSR and Syria.
On June 14 2014 19:22 zeo wrote: The Russians are useless? If it wasn't for Assad the whole territory from Israel to Iran would be a black hole now. Assad and the people of Syria have been fighting these 'freedom fighters' for two years now, and if it wasn't for Putin calling Obama out on the insanity of supporting terrorists in Syria there would be no one to protect the people of Syria.
Before Al-Nusra, ISIS and rest of the warlord-ish groups took over, the first moderate groups back in 2011 weren't "terrorists", but average citizens (read: students and public workers) who did want more freedom and less corruption. Even after the crackdown, things were still stable enough for them to drive out the radicals and have a less oppressive government at the same time.
The real terrorists began popping up when the moderates were left to rot, thanks to extensive Russian lobbying of course. After all you wouldn't want one of your main customers to not have a reason to buy more weapons from you, nicht wahr?.
But your 'liberals' with guns were never going to have over 25% approval rating, not even at the beginning of the conflict. So Assad falls what then? You have huge parts of Syria who would never ever submit to NATO funded rebels so the whole country would be easy pickings for ISIS ect.
I find it hard to believe State Department didn't know sparking any kind of armed instability would lead to a collapse of Syria like this. This was always going to be the outcome of the rebellion all along, it was ether stalemate or become a black-hole like Libya. Obama foreign policy has eclipsed even Bush with sheer stupidness.