On May 21 2015 17:53 Korakys wrote: How to fix problem:
1. Change borders. 2. Squeeze IS while supporting alternative. 3. Wait 4. When new countries stabilise don't proceed to fuck them over with unequal trade treaties (think NAFTA and Mexico).
Seems to be rewarding sunni terrorism by giving them a vast state.
That's the point. Everyone, everywhere always hates violence in their own home, but the Sunni majority still supports IS because the alternative (Shia and Alawite government) is worse. Remove that possibility and IS will very quickly lose it's support among the population.
IS is leveraging a legitimate grievance to fuel their otherwise very unpopular goals.
There is an old American proverb, it goes: "The squeaky wheel gets the grease". But that does not mean you should not grease a squeaky wheel! And maybe it prompts you to check if other wheels perhaps need greasing too.
I mean didn't this occur after the Sunni's and Saddam Hussein were ruling Iraq as a minority population? There wasn't a lot of Sunni rebellion at the fairness of that government until the shoe went to the other foot.
There was a Southern/Shia rebellion against Saddam during the Gulf War if I remember correctly. However it was unsupported and the rebels were crushed in the end.
As a comment lots of people still just don't seem to get that new countries are made all the time and borders change. Just look at a 100 year old map, or even a 30 year old one to see significant changes to match borders to ethno-liguistic or cultural-religious realities on the ground.
Almost all wars today are about borders not matching these groups distributions, with the exception of wars started by the US because the President feels like it. There are a couple of rare communist rebellions that still haven't been cleared up too, like FARC and the Naxalites.
On May 21 2015 17:53 Korakys wrote: How to fix problem:
1. Change borders. 2. Squeeze IS while supporting alternative. 3. Wait 4. When new countries stabilise don't proceed to fuck them over with unequal trade treaties (think NAFTA and Mexico).
Seems to be rewarding sunni terrorism by giving them a vast state.
That's the point. Everyone, everywhere always hates violence in their own home, but the Sunni majority still supports IS because the alternative (Shia and Alawite government) is worse. Remove that possibility and IS will very quickly lose it's support among the population.
IS is leveraging a legitimate grievance to fuel their otherwise very unpopular goals.
There is an old American proverb, it goes: "The squeaky wheel gets the grease". But that does not mean you should not grease a squeaky wheel! And maybe it prompts you to check if other wheels perhaps need greasing too.
I mean didn't this occur after the Sunni's and Saddam Hussein were ruling Iraq as a minority population? There wasn't a lot of Sunni rebellion at the fairness of that government until the shoe went to the other foot.
There was a Southern/Shia rebellion against Saddam during the Gulf War if I remember correctly. However it was unsupported and the rebels were crushed in the end.
As a comment lots of people still just don't seem to get that new countries are made all the time and borders change. Just look at a 100 year old map, or even a 30 year old one to see significant changes to match borders to ethno-liguistic or cultural-religious realities on the ground.
Almost all wars today are about borders not matching these groups distributions, with the exception of wars started by the US because the President feels like it. There are a couple of rare communist rebellions that still haven't been cleared up too, like FARC and the Naxalites.
Yes after the western coalition defeated Saddam some of the population asked the western powers for weapons and support.. but they refused.
On May 25 2015 12:28 koreasilver wrote: Tell me exactly what were the non-sequiturs, either within the limits of the little post itself or in context with this thread of the past 5 pages; it would be almost banal to note the irony of you complaining about a discouragement of "dialogue" in a more-or-less 1-sentence-post that doesn't engage with anything.
There's so many fucking people posting in this thread that aren't just ignorant of socio-political and historical complexities of the Middle East but comment on it with blatantly racist, orientalist notions. It's honestly comical how idiotic some of these posts read.
It is simply noting that your post was completely inappropriate, inflammatory, and lacked the social maturity to be part of a conversation on discussion forums.
You don't walk into a a highly partisan and for some emotional topic where people are dying, being killed, tortured, and the like and tell the people who are following it they are "ignorant", "comical", and "idiotic". Amongst other things it makes it seem like you are emotionally unstable and not educated enough on the topic to be confident of your own positions. Engaging with such a person is neither intelligent nor wise.
So you will neither state what it is that I said that was a non-sequitur, will not actually challenge or argue about any of the things I said, and to justify your completely insubstantial responses to me you will hide behind purely personal attacks with your happy little assertion that it's not worth your time. All this seemingly without any irony - who is it here again, that is discouraging dialogue? Right.
On May 26 2015 07:25 koreasilver wrote: So you will neither state what it is that I said that was a non-sequitur, will not actually challenge or argue about any of the things I said, and to justify your completely insubstantial responses to me you will hide behind purely personal attacks with your happy little assertion that it's not worth your time. All this seemingly without any irony - who is it here again, that is discouraging dialogue? Right.
I cannot speak for the previous poster, but I can assure you he is not the only one that feels like this:
It is simply noting that your post was completely inappropriate, inflammatory, and lacked the social maturity to be part of a conversation on discussion forums.
As far as the content of your statements is concerned, throwing a term like ummah as an argument feels quite off considering the significant and deadly tensions between different muslim affiliations. The rest of your post(s) simply cannot be addressed since it is not clear what exactly you are arguing for. And trying to figure out what you meant is probably not worth it considering your condescending and blatantly offensive tone.
any attempt to defend Assad for "protecting minorities" is seriously asinine given how much the Assad regime manipulated sectarian identities for political purposes. This would be akin to defending IS and other Muslim fundamentalists for "protecting minorities" since ethnic differences hold little weight in their friend-enemy distinction - they do, after all, believe in the ummah as a universal community that transcends ethnic and cultural boundaries.
and understand that my reference to ummah was to highlight how ridiculous it would be to lay a blanket claim that an organization like IS cares about minorities because of the Islamic concept, then I don't know what to say. It was an analogue of how stupid the blanket claim that Assad's secular regime is and would be better than any religious alternative which has been a common claim made throughout this thread again and again, which was what I was addressing and arguing against. There have been posts in this thread that tried to say that Assad's regime is better for caring about minorities which is a seriously questionable claim to make without heavy qualification of what "minority" means here, and even so it would continue to be questionable given that the Assad regime, like every other Arab nationalist secular regime of the 20th and 21st century, has engaged in explicitly racist policies such as barring Kurdish residents from citizenship for a very extended period of time.
Now Al-Nusra anbd the Kurds are fighting each other:
The Islamic State (Isis) has allegedly blown up the Unesco world heritage site and former Assyrian capital of Ashur in Iraq's Salahuddin province, according to multiple sources.
Radio Free Iraq quoted local witnesses as saying that the extremist group destroyed the ancient site, which is located 280km north of Baghdad on the Tigris River in northern Mesopotamia.
The spokesman of the Salahuddin Provincial Council, Marwan al-Jabara told al-Arabiya that IS "boobytrapped the historical citadel, which is also called 'Zakourat Ashur', dating back 3,000 years BC, and they blew it up".
Funny how IS doesn't say anything about Israel, especially considering how many Muslim Palestinian people are being killed every year in Palestine by Israel, and you know, they're supposed to be the ultimate Islamic dudes in their thinking. They seem to be totally focused on purging Syria and Iraq of Shiites/Alawis population, along with historical monuments and artifacts.
To me this is another indication that they are funded by the West and Israel in order to isolate and neutralize Iran in the region politically.
On May 29 2015 11:35 Bleak wrote: To me this is another indication that they are funded by the West and Israel in order to isolate and neutralize Iran in the region politically.
Is there anything the muslim world wouldn't blame on Israel?
On May 29 2015 11:35 Bleak wrote: Funny how IS doesn't say anything about Israel, especially considering how many Muslim Palestinian people are being killed every year in Palestine by Israel, and you know, they're supposed to be the ultimate Islamic dudes in their thinking. They seem to be totally focused on purging Syria and Iraq of Shiites/Alawis population, along with historical monuments and artifacts.
To me this is another indication that they are funded by the West and Israel in order to isolate and neutralize Iran in the region politically.
Yes and that is why they have been airstriked 15 000 times by western forces after they invaded iraq, you know the nation under american control.
The problem here is that you dont know their motives. IS stands for islamic state you know? They just want to enforce their rule but naturally they first want to do it in muslim nations first. In places they can get support.
On May 29 2015 11:35 Bleak wrote: Funny how IS doesn't say anything about Israel, especially considering how many Muslim Palestinian people are being killed every year in Palestine by Israel, and you know, they're supposed to be the ultimate Islamic dudes in their thinking. They seem to be totally focused on purging Syria and Iraq of Shiites/Alawis population, along with historical monuments and artifacts.
To me this is another indication that they are funded by the West and Israel in order to isolate and neutralize Iran in the region politically.
They did not kill any turkish soldiers neither, are you aware of that, pal?
On May 29 2015 11:35 Bleak wrote: To me this is another indication that they are funded by the West and Israel in order to isolate and neutralize Iran in the region politically.
Is there anything the muslim world wouldn't blame on Israel?
That FIFA guy from Trinidad and Tobago apparently blamed the case against him on global Zionism as well. Not just the muslim world, but pretty much anyone non-western will either hate israel/jews or doesnt know they exist.
While he is probably right in that they are targeting Shia and Alawites and have as a goal to reduce the influence of Iran, assumin that its Israel and not Saudi Arabia, which are known funders of Wahhabism is a very strange conclusion indeed, and symptomatic of the antisemitism/antizionism prevalent in alot of countries.
A US official from the Pentagon has said over 10,000 ISIS fighters have been killed but unfortunately almost all of them have been replaced showing the terror group's recruiting power.
Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken's comments to France's Inter radio came a day after he and officials from other coalition partners met in Paris with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to discuss their strategy to fight the Islamic State group.
Vice news has done long documentaries of the syrian war from they point of view of kurds, IS and Syrian Opposition now. Interesting how different goals each faction has. Still waiting for a story from anyone of the war from point of view from assads forces. I know its pretty unlikely since thats an actual military and they have strict rules on everything including openess. But even some stories from a retired officer about motivation and such would be nice.
And speaking of waiting holy shit the war has been going on for over four years now and its still pretty much anyones game. Major wars usually dont take this long.
EPT![[image loading]](http://oi59.tinypic.com/i599ic.jpg)
