VitalSigns posted:

How are you still buying Republicans' false war rationale now in 2014 AD?

Overthrowing dictators and spreading freedom had nothing whatsoever to do with why we invaded, except insofar as it was a useful narrative to sell the public on an incompetent attempt to turn Iraq back into a US puppet state. The humanitarians in charge of the war loved Saddam when he was mustard-gassing Iranians and Kurds in the 80s.

quote:

(Reuters) - The United States informed Iran in advance of its intention to strike Islamic State militants in Syria and told Tehran that it would not target the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a senior Iranian official told Reuters.

"Iran was concerned about Assad's position and his government being weakened in case of any action against IS (Islamic State) in Syria and brought this issue up in meetings with Americans," a senior Iranian official said on condition of anonymity.

Misandrist Duck posted:

The US told Iran it would not be targeting Assad's forces according to a senior Iranian official

PostNouveau posted:

This seems like a completely reasonable thing to do that the GOP might pitch an enormous fit over. Should be fun.

quote:

American airpower will be the centerpiece of U.S. direct action against the so-called Islamic State. That much, at least, the U.S. government made clear Monday night with the launch of U.S. airstrikes on Syria. American bombers, sea-launched Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, F-15s, F-16s, F/A-18s, unmanned aircraft, and Arab allies from bases throughout the Persian Gulf region attacked an initial set of roughly 20 primarily fixed targets—logistical hubs, headquarters, training camps, and other ISIS infrastructure—in Raqqa and other areas in Syria.

Meanwhile, the United States has flown hundreds of sorties against ISIS forces in Iraq, but Iraqi security forces have yet to retake major cities. What effect will airstrikes have on ISIS? Will they “degrade” or “defeat” the group? To understand the implications we first must understand ISIS as an organization: How it fights, how it is organized, and ultimately how it might be vulnerable to a long-term bombing campaign.

ISIS’s battlefield success and political resiliency depend on a sophisticated but partially decentralized structure that recommends a different form of targeting than in past U.S. decapitation efforts against al Qaeda and its affiliates. ISIS’s offensive success, especially in Iraq, is attributed to a mix of subversion, guerrilla warfare, and light infantry tactics yielding a surprisingly effective irregular warfare strategy. Its defensive strength derives from its robust local and international recruiting efforts and its success at retaining guerrilla resilience even as it undertakes a state-building project.

quote:

ISIS’s military effectiveness is due not simply to equipment or tactics available. To coordinate complex military operations across multiple theaters, the group relies heavily on its midlevel leadership. Although much international focus remains on the policymaking leadership and ideologists, ISIS’s midlevel leadership consists of one-time Baathist army officers who were recruited by ISIS’s former leader, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, in late 2009 and experienced insurgents from the jihadist movement in Iraq and abroad. Although ISIS’s political leadership and a variety of financial and logistical mechanisms appear centralized, battlefield leadership and initiative is delegated in large part to these midlevel commanders, with significant autonomy to interpret the intent and dispose of the resources of high command.

Faced with this opponent, the United States has a variety of military options for using its aerial and standoff firepower. In Iraq, it appears to pursue the immediate option of an expansion of the types of attacks used around Erbil, the Mosul and Haditha Dams, Sinjar, and Amerli. Hours before the strikes in Syria, U.S. forces attacked ISIS Humvees, armored vehicles and technicals, which are modified civilian vehicles, southwest of Kirkuk. These attacks primarily target vehicles, heavy weapons, and emplacements in relatively open territory, which are easily visible to aerial surveillance as well as ground forces. When used outside of major urban areas, they minimize the risk of civilian casualties and requirements for granular intelligence. Expanding these attacks to more areas in Iraq and Syria would allow for the U.S. to severely hamper ISIS’s large-scale offensive operations.

ISIS does not depend on heavy weapons in Iraq, but it relies heavily on technicals to mass forces before capturing new territory. Denying ISIS’s ability to traverse open ground en masse would severely degrade its ability to expand its territory or to hold areas outside population centers from ground assault, as was the case in the Mosul Dam.

Although the experience of the United States’ extensive history of counterterrorism operations lends itself to a campaign oriented around decapitation of high-level leadership, strikes focusing on on ISIS’s command and control infrastructure could prove more effective by degrading the ability of the group’s midlevel commanders to coordinate battlefield activity. Early strikes in Raqqa appear so far to focus on fixed infrastructure and other static targets, but given ISIS’s insurgent experience at operating underground, seeking out these fixed targets will yield diminishing returns. Although leadership strikes modeled on U.S. counterterrorism operations against al Qaeda and its affiliates could have high political and psychological value, these types of decapitation campaigns are often lengthy, intensive efforts with uncertain results. The significant autonomy enjoyed by ISIS’s ground commanders makes them critically important to their military operations but also potentially resilient to U.S. decapitation efforts. To effectively “degrade” ISIS, these midlevel commanders will likely need to be removed from the battlefield—either through defection or attrition.

quote:

The air strikes over Syria, participated in directly by the Saudis, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain, represent “the beginnings of a real Arab defense force,” the Saudi source said optimistically. Other Arab states, including Qatar and Kuwait, reportedly provided or facilitated logistical support.

One U.S. intelligence official told The Daily Beast the Saudis and Jordanians have personnel on the ground in Syria. “They have people and they have contacts,” this official said, adding that U.S. intelligence agencies have been able to use this information. (This was confirmed by two other American officials.) But the source said the arrangement was not ideal. “It’s hard to trust that intelligence. It’s not part of a structure. There is not a check and double-check system in place.”

quote:

Conspicuously absent from the front-line airstrikes are the two largest armies and air forces in the region, Egypt and Turkey, whose governments are bitterly at odds with each other. Pulling them together is not about establishing a team of rivals, but a team of enemies.

Turkey—which has the second largest army in NATO; which borders ISIS-controlled territory; and which is seeing a massive influx of refugees—continues to refrain from direct action against ISIS. Until Tuesday it had refused to allow its air bases to be used by the Americans for their attacks. And while it’s motives may be complicated, one explanation bruited privately in Ankara is that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was waiting for Washington to give him an idea how the U.S. plans to deal with the Syrian dictatorship of Bashar Assad if ISIS is crushed. Thus far, no convincing answers from Washington have been forthcoming in public. But on Tuesday in New York, where he is attending the U.N. General Assembly, Erdogan seemed to have a change of heart. Turkey would give "necessary support to the operation," he told reporters. "The support could be military or logistics," he said, without elaborating.


Perhaps most striking of all is the absence, in this rump coalition, of the grand pronouncements we heard from earlier U.S. administrations—or from this one five years ago when President Barack Obama sought to turn a new page in Washington’s relations with the Arab and Muslim world.

In the current crisis, Obama has articulated no overarching cause, no doctrine about defending freedom and democracy. This offensive is purely defensive. It is not about the future: it is about a desperate effort to hang on to the present status quo as the region, having shed the enthusiasms of the Arab Spring like a soiled party outfit, is now trying to slip back into the drab, predictable uniforms of dictatorship and monarchy.

PostNouveau posted:

This seems like a completely reasonable thing to do that the GOP might pitch an enormous fit over. Should be fun.

Torpor posted:

Not an entirely bad hedge at this point. Assad is at least a known quantity and IS is running around going crazy. If Assad regains control he will murder a bunch of people if IS gets in power they may murder way more people. As the old saying goes an atrocity in hand is better than two in the bush.


Also someone said that the US doesn't provide bread, the US does provide bread but groups apparently steal it and claim they provided it.

Volkerball posted:

It's not a "hedge." Iran has been involved in the conflict since the beginning, sending soldiers and weapons to keep the regime afloat. They were spending billions on it before ISIS were even thought of. They don't care anywhere near as much about ISIS as they do keeping Assad in power. Nevermind how many innocent people have to die to make that happen. It's very clearly imperialism that everyone likes to get all riled up about. Here's an article from before the ISIS invasion of Mosul, describing how Iran has made Syria its cross to die on. It's only gotten more pronounced since then.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/03/28/295815927/iranians-begin-to-feel-the-heavy-burden-of-syrias-war

PostNouveau posted:

This seems like a completely reasonable thing to do that the GOP might pitch an enormous fit over. Should be fun.

Tezzor posted:

Yeah that mean ol GOP , why can't they just accept the Political Reality that we are in de facto support of a guy one year ago all the liberals were screaming was a genocidal monster who needed to be toppled drat the consequences

Torpor posted:

So are you thinking that the US is attempting to bleed Iran dry? (or would not mind if that results)

Dolash posted:

I think it was the "providing assurances to Iran" part.

Also in the way you're using liberal I'm pretty sure both the Republicans and Conservatives would qualify, since they're all part of the post-enlightenment liberal tradition. Using it in the more colloquial American sense of liberal-vs-conservative Democrats vs. Republicans doesn't seem to fit here since both of those sides would've had pro-intervention sentiment at the time while also having a lot of dissent.

Actually that's probably the most confusing part of your continued use of liberal, because there are liberals who are for intervening to topple Assad and liberals who are against it, and pretty clearly not a strong majority are in favor since it didn't happen.

Zedsdeadbaby posted:

Saddam was nowhere near as bad as ISIS, you crazy fucks

Miltank posted:

Everybody is just taking it for granted that ISIS is actually the worst thing ever instead of just being congress' new Worst Thing Ever (TM)

sharknado slashfic posted:

We should probably just ignore this since someone might have done something worse sometime in the historical record. Why the gently caress do we care about ISIS, look at Pol Pot psssht.

Sergg posted:

Scott Ritter testified about a children's prison he visited under Saddam and that he saw such horrible things he wouldn't even say what they were because they'd be used to justify an invasion.

Tatum Girlparts posted:

ranking monsters isn't really a useful conversation, what's the point of deciding who is worse Saddam or ISIS, they're both objectively evil people and both would improve the regions they control if they got blown up.

Tatum Girlparts posted:

I don't think anyone is saying Saddam wasn't a total loving mass murderer though? Like, the question was 'how is ISIS worse' and most of us are saying 'they're way more indiscriminate and horrific in their methods' but that doesn't make Saddam's more focused brutalities not also terrible? Like, ranking monsters isn't really a useful conversation, what's the point of deciding who is worse Saddam or ISIS, they're both objectively evil people and both would improve the regions they control if they got blown up.

Brother Friendship posted:

ISIS are barbarian mass murderers who exploited a chaotic political and security situation to over power their enemies and create their own governmental structure to expand their influence, like the Sea Peoples or the dozens of tribes who tore apart the Roman Empire.

The Iron Rose posted:

Honestly I just get most of my news from the thread and mostly stay out of the arguments.

the JJ posted:

I object to this characterization of the 'barbarian' tribes.

Golbez posted:

What's the best way of doing this, since the arguments now make up roughly 100% of the thread?

Brother Friendship posted:

Saddam could have rewritten the map of the Middle East centered around an Iraqi state if Kuwait and the West hadn't ruined him

Volkerball posted:

Thread title should be something about all the new UXO there is to discover.

icantfindaname posted:

Thank god the USA prevented the map of the Middle East from being catastrophically redrawn then

lol

quote:

comes this alliance in the context of the arguments for the war on terrorism, ignoring the sufferings of our people in front of system criminality Asadi and his supporters."

quote:

In response to the position of the opposition coalition of the American attacks and the statements of its (SNC) President Hadi Al Bahra, who welcomed the strikes, calling for pressure on Assad today in New York, (President of the SCLSR) Najjar said, "We feel that the coalition His comments were free of charge, without any demand or real pressure on the international community to provide something for the victory of the revolution" , noting that "the coalition forces did not consult the Syrian opposition in such a strike, without any coordination between them to avoid strikes

Berke Negri posted:

I prefer the term "techno-barbarians" for ISIS.

I mean that is what really separates them from the pack. They are spectacularly brutal even in a brutal world but their media savvy is very remarkable. The only other thing that comes to mind are the various narco-groups, though the difference there is narcos produce for internal consumption while ISIS is external.

Volkerball posted:

Thread title should be something about all the new UXO there is to discover.

Slanderer posted:

I didn't realize those had a turbofan engine. That could explain the turbine-looking debris in the blog post that Brown Moses linked.

Charliegrs posted:

So its interesting that countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Qatar, etc are working together militarily to attack ISIS.

Is this the beginning of the MEC?

Charliegrs posted:

So its interesting that countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Qatar, etc are working together militarily to attack ISIS.

Is this the beginning of the MEC?

Slashrat posted:

Is there any merit at all to firing anti-ship cruise missiles against land target, or did some deckhand forget to swap out the warhead before they launched?

Volkerball posted:

euphronius posted:

The US should have more thoroughly destroyed and rebuilt Iraq as a Western colony, yes.