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Narciss posted:Interesting stuff, thanks for that. What baffles me more than male converts to Islam are female converts; if you're a psychopath there's probably a certain appeal to slaughtering infidels and owning woman like property. Why would a woman convert when all that awaits them is a hijab and being a member of some neckbeard's harem? Women are just as stupid as men.
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Jul 4, 2015 00:25
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Women converts were actually most of the burqa wearers in France before the ban so that gives that law a hilarious "stealing our white women" dimension.
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Jul 4, 2015 00:27
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Spotted this on the front page of imgur: http://imgur.com/gallery/rbabV How much of this is bullshit?
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Jul 4, 2015 01:03
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goose fleet posted:Spotted this on the front page of imgur: http://imgur.com/gallery/rbabV Uhhhhhhhh a whole loving lot of it. Just a brief glance at this horseshit. ISIS was formed in 1999, not 2006. 2006 was when Zarqawi died and they rebranded. They shifted their focus to Syria in 2011 not 2009. The conspiratorial thinking about the connections between the FSA, US and ISIS are completely absurd.
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Jul 4, 2015 01:09
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Not much, really. Which part do you take umbrage with? A lot of the conspiracy stuff is pretty unfounded, but for the most part ISIS wouldn't be much of anything without the US intervention in the middle east.
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Jul 4, 2015 01:10
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ChairMaster posted:Not much, really. Which part do you take umbrage with? A lot of the conspiracy stuff is pretty unfounded, but for the most part ISIS wouldn't be much of anything without the US intervention in the middle east. U.S. action resulted in ISIS but everyone knows that. This takes that basic truth and injects it with bologna
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Jul 4, 2015 01:12
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I just skimmed over most of the middle part and read the beginning and end to be honest, upon further inspection it's pretty ridiculous, yea.
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Jul 4, 2015 01:13
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Jagchosis posted:ISIS was formed in 1999, not 2006. 2006 was when Zarqawi died and they rebranded. Look, I know you're trying to be scholarly about this, but whatever it was in 1999 was a fundamentally different movement and organization. Of course all these organizations have historical precursors, but the ISIS that everyone is worried about is a new thing, and not a 20 year-old group.
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Jul 4, 2015 01:16
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Jagchosis posted:U.S. action resulted in ISIS but everyone knows that. This takes that basic truth and injects it with bologna As in the power vacuum post 2004? The reignition of sectarian conflict post Iraq invasion? Yeah, probably. But recently a lot of people are claiming that the U.S. support of rebel groups circa 2011-2012 is why we have ISIS. It's the basic "both are Muslims with guns" logic that leads to people claiming the U.S. made the Taliban.
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Jul 4, 2015 01:19
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TildeATH posted:Look, I know you're trying to be scholarly about this, but whatever it was in 1999 was a fundamentally different movement and organization. Of course all these organizations have historical precursors, but the ISIS that everyone is worried about is a new thing, and not a 20 year-old group. Most of the core leadership now joined the organization around 2003 or 2004 after the invasion. A lot of their insurgency and territorial holding tactics are pretty similar to what they were doing when they were AQI. You can see a lot of similarities in the Battle of Fallujah to contemporary invasions of ISIS territory. The main difference is they developed better offensive capabilities, got more members, and better video editing sparatuvs posted:As in the power vacuum post 2004? The reignition of sectarian conflict post Iraq invasion? Yeah that's exactly what I mean.
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Jul 4, 2015 01:23
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TildeATH posted:Look, I know you're trying to be scholarly about this, but whatever it was in 1999 was a fundamentally different movement and organization. Of course all these organizations have historical precursors, but the ISIS that everyone is worried about is a new thing, and not a 20 year-old group. In that context, the ISIS we have today can trace its roots entirely to 2011 and later. Goose fleet, if you're interested in learning how ISIS came to be, and the US' role in creating it, there isn't anything better out there than this documentary that I know of. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/rise-of-isis/
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Jul 4, 2015 01:23
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Volkerball posted:In that context, the ISIS we have today can trace its roots entirely to 2011 and later. Best viewed as a two-parter, as I think Frontline intended it to be seen, since Rise of ISIS picks up directly after Losing Iraq. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/losing-iraq/ I think these two documentaries should be required viewing by people whenever they have a question or form an opinion on ISIS or the past two administration's role. Not the most informative, but extremely well made and unbiased.
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Jul 4, 2015 01:36
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How do they even get those buses on top of buildings?
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Jul 4, 2015 01:42
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Asehujiko posted:How do they even get those buses on top of buildings? They have heavy construction equipment all over. You see it all the time when they're scooping up rubble.
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Jul 4, 2015 01:47
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Asehujiko posted:How do they even get those buses on top of buildings?  quote:This photo, taken in the rebel-controlled Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood on March 14, is by Karam Al-Masri, a young Syrian who became a photographer following the uprising in his country that has now spilled into four years of civil war. “I wasn’t a photographer before,” he tells TIME. “But I started to cover the events to show what is going on in my country.” E: Volkerball posted:They have heavy construction equipment all over. You see it all the time when they're scooping up rubble. fade5 fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Jul 4, 2015 |
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Jul 4, 2015 01:48
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Pulleys, ropes, and people? Sounds like the conspiracy behind the Pyramids. This unsophisticated civilization surely had a guiding hand by the extraterrestrial.
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Jul 4, 2015 02:51
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Public transport is always the first to suffer 
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Jul 4, 2015 03:07
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Is there any background on the impetus for this push into Aleppo?
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Jul 4, 2015 04:32
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dr_rat posted:Public transport is always the first to suffer Well at least it's doing some good, for once.
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Jul 4, 2015 15:47
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Smoothrich posted:Best viewed as a two-parter, as I think Frontline intended it to be seen, since Rise of ISIS picks up directly after Losing Iraq. I actually hadn't seen this one, but yeah, it's really good too. Every time I learn something new about Bremer it just blows my mind how much of a trainwreck he was.
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Jul 4, 2015 16:17
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Smoothrich posted:Because they're loving retarded? Men and women. Also people think stupid, ignorant poo poo if they are taught Sharia is the same as Islam. That applies to people criticizing Islamic beliefs, like how you sound right now, and people oppressing or killing for Islam, like ISIS. Oh wow, the people in this video are dumb. Like, I knew ISIS was dumb but theses people are even way dumber than I was picturing. Did you know that in the middle ages in Europe, they thought every woman was a witch? This is almost as dumb as the History Channel. Maybe if you are born as a Muslim you don't have to be dumb to keep believing in it. But if these are typical converts then you definitely have to be really, really stupid to convert.
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Jul 4, 2015 20:04
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OctaviusBeaver posted:But if these are typical converts hmmm, you were saying something about dumb people
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Jul 4, 2015 20:12
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Volkerball posted:hmmm, you were saying something about dumb people I was gonna say it was weird that the guy with the hammer and sickle avatar was arguing for religion, then I noticed it was a hammer with a crescent moon. Interesting.
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Jul 4, 2015 20:20
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Volkerball posted:hmmm, you were saying something about dumb people On the one hand, there's something of an interesting conversation to be had about how converts tend to be exceptionally zealous and in some cases exceptionally hardline. On the other hand, Octavius is not having that conversation.
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Jul 4, 2015 20:58
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GreyjoyBastard posted:On the other hand, Octavius is not having that conversation. Conversations about Islam aren't happening period. World leaders just pretend that everything is totally fine, and it's just a few nutcases who do bad stuff in the name of Islam. Any discussion about how maybe the tenets of Islam could possibly have anything to do with the unending wave of violence we have seen in the last decade is strictly verboten. You would think that the fact that a medium sized country has been formed by people who have a different idea about what Islam is compared to George Bush's or Barack Obama's vision would maybe spark some discussion. But nope, Islam is fine. Islam is the religion of peace. True Islam is defined by white, atheist prime ministers and forums posters. People who fight and die in the name of Islam have no say in the matter. The hundreds of millions of Muslims who favor the death penalty for crimes like adultery or apostasy are also just fringe lunatics who we can safely ignore. Because facing a problem is scary and it's much easier to say that everyone is peaceful and rational at heart and if those darn racists would just stop drawing their Mohammed cartoons then everything would be peaceful. http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/
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Jul 4, 2015 21:16
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So what you're saying is that the Islamic State is more representative of Islam than all of the clerics who have laid out their condemnation of the group through Quranic commentary?
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Jul 4, 2015 21:22
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OctaviusBeaver posted:Conversations about Islam aren't happening period. World leaders just pretend that everything is totally fine, and it's just a few nutcases who do bad stuff in the name of Islam. Any discussion about how maybe the tenets of Islam could possibly have anything to do with the unending wave of violence we have seen in the last decade is strictly verboten. You would think that the fact that a medium sized country has been formed by people who have a different idea about what Islam is compared to George Bush's or Barack Obama's vision would maybe spark some discussion. But nope, Islam is fine. Islam is the religion of peace. You're not wrong, but I don't know if it will contribute much to the thread to have this discussion for the fiftieth time.
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Jul 4, 2015 21:23
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This is the middle east news thread, not the stereotypes about muslims thread, and that has been said multiple times. If you want a thread where you can tell muslims what they believe, go make it.
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Jul 4, 2015 21:24
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Aurubin posted:Is there any background on the impetus for this push into Aleppo? There's a reason for Assad going with this strategy: quote:The Assad regime is not positioned to secure an outright military victory in 2015. The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) continues to grapple with chronic problems of attrition and political unreliability which force Assad to rely upon a small core of trusted elite military units in addition to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps - Quds Force (IRGC-QF), Hezbollah, and other Iranian-aligned forces to conduct offensive operations. Meanwhile, the use of decentralized paramilitary units such as the National Defense Forces (NDF) in increasingly prominent combat roles has fragmented the regime’s authority over its fighting force and caused cleavages in Assad’s popular support base. Now for the recent part: Assad/the SAA have held on in all corners shockingly well for years, but things have reached a tipping point in the last few months, and it's just been one loss after another for the SAA. First it was Idlib, then most of the rest of Idlib province including Jisr al-Shughur, then Palmyra to ISIL, and now there are attacks against the SAA/NDF happening in Daraa, Hasakah, and Aleppo all at the same time. There's also the constant grind/drain of Deir-ez-Zor, which has somehow remained SAA-controlled even after years of constant attack. So the TL;DR is that the push on Aleppo is part of a larger push on Assad, who is finally starting to show serious strain on all fronts. Ironically, part of this is because the US has been bombing ISIL in the Kurdish regions, and so the Kurds are no longer the weakest front against ISIL's attacks. As such, ISIL has decided to go after the new weakest front, the one without massive coalition air support: the SAA. fade5 fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Jul 4, 2015 |
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Jul 4, 2015 21:37
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goose fleet posted:Spotted this on the front page of imgur: http://imgur.com/gallery/rbabV When youre a young hipster and you want to sound like you know a thing or two about international politics the go-to argument is always "The US created the Taliban/Al Quaeda/ISIS etc". Its very edgy. And while we obviously had a hand in creating some of these groups in a very indirect way (like creating power vaccums in various countries) its really not that simple. The "CIA created the Taliban" argument is so silly to me especially because its always bandied about and so oversimplified. Did the CIA create the Mujahedeen? No. They were just Afghan locals who wanted to kick out the soviet invaders. But the CIA saw a great opportunity to kill some Russians and get some revenge for Vietnam by supporting the Mujahedeen with weapons and money. It worked out great too, the soviets departed after 10 years with lots of casualties and wasted money they could ill afford in the 80s which lead to the downfall of the Soviet Union. But did the US "create" the Taliban? No. They came to be on their own (and with lots of help from Pakistan) and took over the majority of the country in the wake of the power vaccum that followed the Afghan war. And thats basically my point. The US doesnt intentionally create these groups. But we have a habit of helping create the environments that they rise up from.
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Jul 4, 2015 21:51
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OctaviusBeaver posted:Conversations about Islam aren't happening period. World leaders just pretend that everything is totally fine, and it's just a few nutcases who do bad stuff in the name of Islam. Any discussion about how maybe the tenets of Islam could possibly have anything to do with the unending wave of violence we have seen in the last decade is strictly verboten. You would think that the fact that a medium sized country has been formed by people who have a different idea about what Islam is compared to George Bush's or Barack Obama's vision would maybe spark some discussion. But nope, Islam is fine. Islam is the religion of peace. Hey Dick Dorkins is a goon!
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Jul 4, 2015 22:15
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The Kurds just cut off Sarrin, and ISIL is getting desperate. quote:SARRIN TACMAP: PHOTOMOSAIC 04JUL 0926EST. Joint Forces entering Sarrin suburbs. Note Satellite Map. #Kobani #Kobane  Next target is almost certainly going to be Tishrin Dam. Tishrin Dam may be a little bit more difficult since the Kurds/FSA are going to have to take it without the help of coalition airstrikes. The reason for this is pretty simple when you think about it: there's the risk of not just hitting the dam itself, but also of airstrikes causing tremors/localized earthquakes which could cause the dam to crack or otherwise destabilize it. Also, the dam hasn't had official maintenance for years (since November 2012) thanks to the Civil War, so who knows what shape it's in already. The good news is that it was completed in 1999, so it's a fairly new structure. Luckily, you can also rest assured that ISIL isn't going to be completely insane and blow up the dam; if nothing else because doing so would flood their de-facto capital of Raqqa. fade5 fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Jul 4, 2015 |
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Jul 4, 2015 22:24
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Volkerball posted:This is the middle east news thread, not the stereotypes about muslims thread, and that has been said multiple times. If you want a thread where you can tell muslims what they believe, go make it. Here I made it for you. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3729518 
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Jul 4, 2015 22:42
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Tunisia declared a state of emergency and will begin cracking down on mosques that it deems to preach radical messages.
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Jul 4, 2015 22:57
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Jagchosis posted:Tunisia declared a state of emergency and will begin cracking down on mosques that it deems to preach radical messages. So sad. The only place even close to resembling a success story from the Arab Spring and now they have to deal with terror attacks and a state of emergency, which is all too much like being in a dictatorship again. Also the president of Tunisia said "Terrorism is spreading," Essebsi said. "I believe, and I say this plainly and clearly. If this were to happen, which happened in Sousse. If this were to happen again, the country would collapse." Im not so sure thats such a smart thing to say? I mean he's basically telling ISIS they are only 1 more attack away from defeating the Tunisian government. Even if he feels this way, at the very least he should show some strength in his speeches for the good of his people.
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Jul 4, 2015 23:51
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So ISIL is now performing executions in the Palmyra Ruins - likely as a response to previous geolocation efforts.
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Jul 5, 2015 00:55
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McDowell posted:So ISIL is now performing executions in the Palmyra Ruins - likely as a response to previous geolocation efforts. Brown Moses saves Palmyra
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Jul 5, 2015 01:05
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McDowell posted:So ISIL is now performing executions in the Palmyra Ruins - likely as a response to previous geolocation efforts. Yup  quote:A new video, reportedly released by ISIS, appears to show 25 soldiers being executed at the amphitheater in Palmyra, Syria. The men’s executioners look to be boys in their teens. The video has not yet been independently verified. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-33397305 Can someone help me understand what the US is doing about ISIS. Anytime I search, all I get are Breitbart and Fox News
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Jul 5, 2015 01:24
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Bombing them?
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Jul 5, 2015 01:50
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Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:Yup Bombing the heck out of them, largely in support of Kurdish offensives but occasionally just for giggles. Probably funneling cash and guns to Iraqi Kurdistan. Definitely flailing around like idiots trying to train and arm Syrian fighters against both Daesh and Assad in a way that won't blow up in our faces. Making a desultory effort to choke off their sources of funding by writing rude letters to purchasers/bundlers of their oil and investigating black market antiquities schemes.
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Jul 5, 2015 01:54
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