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fade5
May 31, 2012

by exmarx

Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:

Can someone help me understand what the US is doing about ISIS. Anytime I search, all I get are Breitbart and Fox News
Click the little ? mark under my posts for multiple pages worth of text and pictures about what the US is doing against ISIL. If you want the quick version, it basically boils down to:

sparatuvs posted:

Bombing them?

GreyjoyBastard posted:

Bombing the heck out of them, largely in support of Kurdish offensives but occasionally just for giggles.
Bombing the absolute hell out of them.

If you'd like to know what kind of on-the-ground difference all this bombing has made, you remember Kobani right?


That long yellow corridor in northern Syria stretching from the Euphrates to Kobani to Tal Abyad to Ras al Ayn to the Syrian/Iraqi border is under the joint control of the YPG/YPJ/FSA, (under the awesome as hell name "Euphrates Volcano") and the Euphrates Volcano forces are able to maintain control of this area thanks in large part to coalition airstrikes allowing them to continually beat back ISIL.

More recently, here's how airstrikes helped to take Tal Abyad:

quote:

The Kurdish-led force, backed by U.S. airstrikes, closed in from the south, east and west on Saturday on the Syrian-Turkish border town of Tel Abyad, a key Islamic State stronghold on which the militants rely for trade with the outside world and also the flow of foreign fighters who sustain their strength on the battlefield.

The progress demonstrates that success is possible when a well-motivated and coordinated force is backed by U.S. airstrikes, said Abu Shujaa, a spokesman for [Liwa] Thuwar al-Raqqa, or Raqqa Revolutionaries, one of the Syrian rebel battalions fighting in the coalition force.

“Daesh is not as strong as it thinks, but its enemies are weak. We are successful because we have the will to fight,” Abu Shujaa said, referring to the Islamic State by its Arabic acronym. “And of course, we are getting help from the coalition in the form of airstrikes,” he added.
--
The Kurds who dominated the battle in Kobane have been joined by several Free Syrian Army units. They are fighting as a coalition called Burkan al-Furat, or Euphrates Volcano. Forces with the coalition also have advanced from Kurdish-held territory to the east of Tel Abyad. On Saturday, they encircled the town of Suluk, to the south of Tel Abyad, further pressuring the Islamic State.

The participation of Arab rebels from the Free Syrian Army is important because most of the population of Raqqa province, including Tel Abyad, is Arab, said Aras Xani, a fighter with the Kurdish YPG on the eastern front of the battle. “More and more Free Syrian Army fighters are taking part because the population of this area is mostly Arab. Arabs and the FSA must play a big role in this operation since it is their homeland,” he said.

Abu Mohanned, a commander with the Free Syrian Army units advancing from the west toward Tel Abyad, said Islamic State fighters had retreated without a fight from many of the villages his forces have taken in their advance on Tel Abyad. “When we meet resistance, we send the coordinates to the coalition, and they carry out airstrikes,” he said.

“Resistance is growing the closer we get to Tel Abyad,” said Xani, who predicted another month of fighting before the town falls.
As it turns out, ISIL decided to cut and run in Tal Abyad rather than fight it out and face hundreds of US airstrikes, and as a result the town was liberated from ISIL control in the space of one day.

fade5 fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Jul 5, 2015

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THE BOMBINATRIX
Jul 26, 2002

by Lowtax

Your cheerleading is so creepy.

fade5
May 31, 2012

by exmarx

THE BOMBINATRIX posted:

Your cheerleading is so creepy.
:mad: I was answering a question, since not everyone has easy to access in-depth knowledge in of the Middle East. To be honest I mostly just copied info from some of my previous posts, since the answer to the question "what is the US is doing about ISIS" hasn't really changed in the last few months.

I did fix my post to be more straight-forward informative, and a bit less bomb-happy. I may be slightly mad at ISIL doing yet another loving round of publicly executing multiple innocent (or mostly innocent) people, in addition to blowing up even more irreplaceable historic artifacts at Palmyra:


quote:

“IS members on Saturday destroyed the Lion of al-Lat, which is a unique piece that is three meters (10 feet) tall and weight 15 tons,” Abdelkarim told AFP. “It’s the most serious crime they have committed against Palmyra’s heritage,” he said.

The limestone statue was discovered in 1977 by a Polish archaeological mission at the temple of al-Lat, a pre-Islamic Arabian goddess, and dated back to the 1st century BC. Abdelkarim said the statue had been covered with a metal plate and sandbags to protect it from fighting “but we never imagined that IS would come to the town to destroy it.”
It's ~2000 years old so it's literally from biblical times; it survived so much and now it's gone just like that. Oh, and here's the evil kicker:

quote:

The lion's left paw had a partially damaged Palmyrene inscription which read: tbrk ʾ[it] (Al-lāt will bless) mn dy lʾyšd (whoever will not shed) dm ʿl ḥgbʾ (blood in the sanctuary).
ISIL blew up the statue, and just conducted a round of executions in the sanctuary.
:suicide:

fade5 fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Jul 5, 2015

Radio Prune
Feb 19, 2010

THE BOMBINATRIX posted:

Your cheerleading is so creepy.

Your posts are poo poo.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Mans
Sep 14, 2011

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Charliegrs posted:

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.

The United States didn't create the Taliban, they merely participated in the process of giving literally billions of dollars worth of equipment to the most religious fundamentalist groups in the region in an attempt to stop the country from leaving it's feudalist rural condition and did all they could to destroy the attempted secular state and drive its allies off the country. It is by mere coincidence and tragedy that this billion dollar fundamentalist group then reached power by force.

There were disgruntled military officers and criminals in Chile and Nicaragua, the fact that we supplied them with the equipment and funds to overthrow (or attempt to) the government with extreme brutality doesn't mean we created them. As such, since we didn't plant the first seed of discontent in said country, we are not responsible for what happened next, even if in pratical terms we did everything we could to make them the biggest power in the nation.

Count Roland
Oct 6, 2013

Charliegrs posted:

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.

Helps that some in the US saw this coming, and encouraged the Soviets to stick their dick in a bad situation that the US would then be making way worse.

goose willis
Jun 14, 2015

Get ready for teh wacky laughz0r!
Besides Russia's support of Assad, what other Cold War after-effects linger in the region?

THE BOMBINATRIX
Jul 26, 2002

by Lowtax

Radio Prune posted:

Your posts are poo poo.

:qq:

Thanks forums poster RadioPrune for your opinion, great post you got there.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Volkerball
Oct 15, 2009

by FactsAreUseless

fade5 posted:

I may be slightly mad at ISIL doing yet another loving round of publicly executing multiple innocent (or mostly innocent) people, in addition to blowing up even more irreplaceable historic artifacts at Palmyra:

Since when are regime soldiers "mostly innocent people?" The video was interspersed with footage of people being tortured by the regime and shabiha, and they also showed themselves blowing up Tadmor Prison in the same clip. This video is generic sectarian warfare footage with a bigger budget for lighting.

fade5
May 31, 2012

by exmarx

Volkerball posted:

Since when are regime soldiers "mostly innocent people?" The video was interspersed with footage of people being tortured by the regime and shabiha, and they also showed themselves blowing up Tadmor Prison in the same clip. This video is generic sectarian warfare footage with a bigger budget for lighting.
Some of them may have been regime soldiers who did horrible poo poo, but I can't say that for certain. Some of them could have just as easily been some poor conscripted dudes who didn't have a choice in joining the SAA; hell, we're taking ISIL's word that all of them were regime soldiers in the first place. Forgive me if I don't trust ISIL to always tell the truth.

Also, it's not just the people who were killed that saddens me:

quote:

Stills from the video showed the killers to be young males, possibly even as young as 13 or 14.
Some of these kids were probably forced to participate in the killings under threat of death/family reprisals if they didnt, and now some (if not all) of them are probably scarred from doing it.:smith:

Cocoa Ninja
Mar 3, 2007

THE BOMBINATRIX posted:

:qq:

Thanks forums poster RadioPrune for your opinion, great post you got there.

Ah, for a second I thought his posts were some of the most informative in the thread! Anticipating your convincing counter-argument. What is your take on the future of Kurdish territorial integrity?

goose willis
Jun 14, 2015

Get ready for teh wacky laughz0r!
Why does ISIS constantly insist on using children to do horrible things?

Dr.Caligari
May 5, 2005

"Here's a big, beautiful avatar for someone"
So you know that at least the next generation is going to find this incomprehensible violence and religious extremism to be 'normal'

Volkerball
Oct 15, 2009

by FactsAreUseless

fade5 posted:

Some of them may have been regime soldiers who did horrible poo poo, but I can't say that for certain. Some of them could have just as easily been some poor conscripted dudes who didn't have a choice in joining the SAA

That's still not comparable to something like the mass execution of civilians, which "innocent or mostly innocent people" is a hell of a lot more descriptive of then "active military prisoners of war."

quote:

hell, we're taking ISIL's word that all of them were regime soldiers in the first place. Forgive me if I don't trust ISIL to always tell the truth.

The vast majority of ISIS' executions have been of military men, and I haven't seen anything that has ever countered that when they claimed it was the case.

My Imaginary GF
Jul 17, 2005

by R. Guyovich

GreyjoyBastard posted:

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.

You know, it'd be far easier to bomb everything which moves into and out of Palmyra and to starve them out. Starving terrorists don't have the gas to desecrate antiquities.

Panzeh
Nov 27, 2006

"..The high ground"

Volkerball posted:

Since when are regime soldiers "mostly innocent people?" The video was interspersed with footage of people being tortured by the regime and shabiha, and they also showed themselves blowing up Tadmor Prison in the same clip. This video is generic sectarian warfare footage with a bigger budget for lighting.

Regime soldiers are the only legitimate fighters, militiamen are totally illegitimate, a la Iraq.

tie-dye my titties
Jun 14, 2014

by WE B Boo-ourgeois

Panzeh posted:

Regime soldiers are the only legitimate fighters, militiamen are totally illegitimate, a la Iraq.

This is a civil war that has gone on for four years. The lines are wayyy more blurry than that. By your logic, the SAA-aligned militias that have fought alongside and supplemented Assad's forces for quite some time now aren't legitimate fighters because they're technically not regime soldiers.

Mans
Sep 14, 2011

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

icantfindaname
Jul 1, 2008


goose fleet posted:

Besides Russia's support of Assad, what other Cold War after-effects linger in the region?

literally everything




obama can just go get the namekian dragon balls. easy

Liberal_L33t
Apr 9, 2005

by WE B Boo-ourgeois

Volkerball posted:


The vast majority of ISIS' executions have been of military men, and I haven't seen anything that has ever countered that when they claimed it was the case.

What the gently caress point are you trying to make with this point of reasoning? Are you trying to imply that ISIS is some kind of quasi-legitimate resistance to the regime? And if not, then whant?

Charliegrs
Aug 10, 2009

Mans posted:

The United States didn't create the Taliban, they merely participated in the process of giving literally billions of dollars worth of equipment to the most religious fundamentalist groups in the region in an attempt to stop the country from leaving it's feudalist rural condition and did all they could to destroy the attempted secular state and drive its allies off the country. It is by mere coincidence and tragedy that this billion dollar fundamentalist group then reached power by force.

There were disgruntled military officers and criminals in Chile and Nicaragua, the fact that we supplied them with the equipment and funds to overthrow (or attempt to) the government with extreme brutality doesn't mean we created them. As such, since we didn't plant the first seed of discontent in said country, we are not responsible for what happened next, even if in pratical terms we did everything we could to make them the biggest power in the nation.

Yeah thats basically what I'm saying. But theres a LOT of people who think the CIA literally got together in a room and decided to create all the various terror groups we are now fighting from thin air. Its pretty much tinfoil hat conspiracy type stuff. Usually with the justification that as long as we have a boogeyman to scare the public then the CIA and NSA etc can continue to spy on the American people. Thats the silly myth that I was railing against.

Pimpmust
Oct 1, 2008

Apparently the coalition blew up the southern "Samra" bridge (only bridge?) out of Raqqa:
https://twitter.com/Raqqa_sl1/status/617485006903083008

Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

fade5 posted:

Some of these kids were probably forced to participate in the killings under threat of death/family reprisals if they didnt, and now some (if not all) of them are probably scarred from doing it.:smith:

If only, ISIS has been running training camps for children for a long time. For example, this kid first appeared in a training camp video, then a video where he's executing two Russian soldiers.




In this one another ISIS student shoots a guy in the face


Al-Saqr
Nov 11, 2007

gently caress.

Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

I'm kinda glad I'm more focused on Ukraine and MH17 now, it's light relief compared to Syria and Iraq. I'm off to Istanbul in a couple of week to train Arabic and Kurdish bloggers, activists, and journalists in open source and social media investigation techniques, so hopefully that'll mean more reporting based on that stuff in the future.

Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

fade5 posted:

Click the little ? mark under my posts for multiple pages worth of text and pictures about what the US is doing against ISIL. If you want the quick version, it basically boils down to:


Bombing the absolute hell out of them.

If you'd like to know what kind of on-the-ground difference all this bombing has made, you remember Kobani right?


That long yellow corridor in northern Syria stretching from the Euphrates to Kobani to Tal Abyad to Ras al Ayn to the Syrian/Iraqi border is under the joint control of the YPG/YPJ/FSA, (under the awesome as hell name "Euphrates Volcano") and the Euphrates Volcano forces are able to maintain control of this area thanks in large part to coalition airstrikes allowing them to continually beat back ISIL.

More recently, here's how airstrikes helped to take Tal Abyad:

As it turns out, ISIL decided to cut and run in Tal Abyad rather than fight it out and face hundreds of US airstrikes, and as a result the town was liberated from ISIL control in the space of one day.

Some details of the air-strikes around Raqqa

quote:

Coalition Forces successfully engaged multiple targets throughout the ISIL stronghold of ar-Raqqah which have severely constricted terrorist freedom of movement. Sixteen airstrikes were conducted on July 4, destroying vital ISIL-controlled structures and transit routes in Syria.

The operation focused on mobility corridors used by ISIL to project their fighters and military equipment, and to destabilize the region.

These airstrikes, combined with ground force activity throughout northern Syria, are increasing the pressure on ISIL. This pressure comes on the heels of ISIL ceding over 5,000 square kilometers of territory to anti-ISIL forces over the past two months.

Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve spokesperson Lt. Col. Thomas Gilleran said the disruption of these transport and communication routes in ISIL’s self-proclaimed Syrian capital were conducted with precision and with the intent to maximize the impacts on ISIL.

“The significant airstrikes tonight were executed to deny Daesh the ability to move military capabilities throughout Syria and into Iraq,” said Gilleran. “This was one of the largest deliberate engagements we have conducted to date in Syria, and it will have debilitating effects on Daesh’s ability to move from ar-Raqqah.”

CeeJee
Dec 4, 2001
Oven Wrangler

quote:

The operation focused on mobility corridors used by ISIL to project their fighters and military equipment, and to destabilize the region.

That's an unfortunate use of a comma.

Captain Bravo
Feb 16, 2011

An Emergency Shitpost
has been deployed...

...but experts warn it is
just a drop in the ocean.

My Imaginary GF posted:

You know, it'd be far easier to bomb everything which moves into and out of Palmyra and to starve them out. Starving terrorists don't have the gas to desecrate antiquities.

It wouldn't take two days for ISIS to start loading buses full of widows and orphans and driving them back and forth. Then they release the video, and gain another 10,000 followers.

Mans
Sep 14, 2011

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

man skrillex had it rough

Banano
Jan 10, 2005
Soiled Meat

Brown Moses posted:

If only, ISIS has been running training camps for children for a long time. For example, this kid first appeared in a training camp video, then a video where he's executing two Russian soldiers.


Wait, actual Russian soldiers? As in military advisors to the Assad regime or mercenaries/war tourists?

Volkerball
Oct 15, 2009

by FactsAreUseless

Liberal_L33t posted:

What the gently caress point are you trying to make with this point of reasoning? Are you trying to imply that ISIS is some kind of quasi-legitimate resistance to the regime? And if not, then whant?

I'd say they're more legitimate as an opposition group than the regime is legitimate as a government for the Syrian people, which is really saying something. People don't follow ISIS proportionately to the crimes they commit, although they like to pretend they do. ISIS gets followed because they're sexy. They are a compelling horror story that is ten times more disturbing than Hollywood because their story is real. It's an inaccurate portrayal of Syria, and it's extremely dangerous when people make ISIS bigger than it really is to justify how much attention they give them. 30 military men executed in a stage production got more coverage than the al-Houla massacre, when 100 civilians, to include 40 children, all the way down to toddlers, were stabbed to death or had their heads beaten in with clubs. And that's just one of hundreds of massacres of civilians by the regime and regime-backed militias. But look! :nms: ISIS maybe scarred some kids :nms:. My point is that ISIS doesn't have a monopoly on horrible poo poo going on in Syria. In fact, their market share of horror is quite small, and it's important to understand that, or you're just going to get sucked into their propaganda cycle that western media is happy to share for them.

If you're going to respond to this with some stupid rant about Islam, go quote this post in the other thread.

Volkerball fucked around with this message at 13:16 on Jul 5, 2015

AllDogsGoodDogs
Dec 30, 2008

Banano posted:

Wait, actual Russian soldiers? As in military advisors to the Assad regime or mercenaries/war tourists?

If I remember, I believe ISIS claimed they were Russian fighters who 'admitted' to being sent to infiltrate.

GyverMac
Aug 3, 2006
My posting is like I Love Lucy without the funny bits. Basically, WAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Has there been any reactions from Russia regarding those executions? Or is it just being kept secret?

GyverMac fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Jul 5, 2015

Panzeh
Nov 27, 2006

"..The high ground"
Keep in mind Volkerball is against democracy if it gives non-Sunnis power. See his comments on Iraq.

Xerxes17
Feb 17, 2011

GyverMac posted:

Has there been any reactions from Russia regarding those executions? Or is it just being kept secret?

Russia: "These soldiers were on vacation. End of story. BTW your 2 month travel visa expired yesterday, so you're being deported."

Godlessdonut
Sep 13, 2005

Mans posted:

The United States didn't create the Taliban, they merely participated in the process of giving literally billions of dollars worth of equipment to the most religious fundamentalist groups in the region in an attempt to stop the country from leaving it's feudalist rural condition and did all they could to destroy the attempted secular state and drive its allies off the country. It is by mere coincidence and tragedy that this billion dollar fundamentalist group then reached power by force.

That's not really how it happened either. I'd say that the US did far more to create the Taliban by totally ignoring Afghanistan after the Soviets pulled out, than by funding the mujahadeen (who were not the same thing as the Taliban). Most of the blame should rest on Pakistan, a nation that has managed to make worse foreign policy decisions than the US.

Dr.Radical
Apr 3, 2011

El Disco posted:

That's not really how it happened either. I'd say that the US did far more to create the Taliban by totally ignoring Afghanistan after the Soviets pulled out, than by funding the mujahadeen (who were not the same thing as the Taliban). Most of the blame should rest on Pakistan, a nation that has managed to make worse foreign policy decisions than the US.

Yup. That brand of very strict Islam came from Saudis and other foreign jihadists coming to Afghanistan to fight, often at odds with Afghan mujahadeen.

My Imaginary GF
Jul 17, 2005

by R. Guyovich

Captain Bravo posted:

It wouldn't take two days for ISIS to start loading buses full of widows and orphans and driving them back and forth. Then they release the video, and gain another 10,000 followers.

You can't alter an appropriate policy implementation just because ISIL terrorists, like those of hamas, have a PR operation; folks on the ground need a motivation much more than America should give a poo poo about terrorist optics. If you're suggesting that we need to fund NASA to bring down the satellites which ISIL uses to broadcast its rhetoric of hate, then yes, I'd agree.

What motivation? Motivated to realize that when their neighbor engages in terrorism, their only appropriate response is to kill their neighbor so that America doesn't have to kill the neighbor for them.

El Disco posted:

That's not really how it happened either. I'd say that the US did far more to create the Taliban by totally ignoring Afghanistan after the Soviets pulled out, than by funding the mujahadeen (who were not the same thing as the Taliban). Most of the blame should rest on Pakistan, a nation that has managed to make worse foreign policy decisions than the US.

I'd say Afghans did far more to create the Taliban than America ever did. When you blame America, you remove agency from Afghans to engage in appropriate recourse to groups such as the taliban emerging, namely, to kill them.

TheImmigrant
Jan 18, 2011

quote:


I'd say Afghans did far more to create the Taliban than America ever did. When you blame America, you remove agency from Afghans to engage in appropriate recourse to groups such as the taliban emerging, namely, to kill them.

It's racist to attribute agency to any of Our Little Fetish Peoples.

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FarmerHank
Jan 6, 2011

farming techniques vary
Is there any good articles on how the West is reporting on ISIS and acts associated with ISIS? It seems that anytime there is a "terrorist" attack around the globe, the media is able to throw out "an attack orchestrated by ISIS" and run with it because some random twitter account with an Arabic bio can say "Yep, that was ISIS I know I am in it". But what really worries me is the stories about the children converts coming from Britain or the US and the clear smell of Islamophobia that these articles smell of.

ISIS seems just like a gift for western media because of the massive amounts of HQ footage and grainy CCTV screen caps they provide.

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