IS crisis in Iraq and Syria

[madd0ct0r]

Can we agree on what to call ISIS, or ISIL? Reminds me of the various spellings of Al Qaeda and Bin Laden I'd always see all over the place. Pick a designation and go with it!

Daash. May as well use the arabic transcribed acronym.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I believe the parallel has been drawn between the Kurds and the Native American tribes in the US. The big exception is that nobody has really been willing to give the Kurds a place to live, and they want an independent country rather than a reservation or protectorate. There's also the complication that their "homeland" is divided up between, IIRC, Iraq, Syria and Turkey-- possibly also Iran-- none of which are really on very good speaking terms at pretty much any time and don't care to come to an agreement to surrender parts of their territory to people who have for a very long time been viewed as anti-government rebels because, well, they are. It's only in the past decade or so that the Kurdish independence movement has been legitimized in any serious way.

True, but lets be honest... neither Iraq or Syria are in any position to say a damn thing with respect to a Kurdish state. The Kurds are likely reasonable enough to not try to take a chunk out of Turkey (not that they could if they tried, even with US weapons), and if the rest of the world says "Hey guys, if you handle ISIS, we will recognize the legitimate statehood of your historical territory within Syria and Iraq", they'll likely play ball. It is a definite win for them.

When no one wants to give them a state, it does not harm them to try everywhere in the hope that someone decides to give up somewhere. They get called terrorists either way. When the offer of statehood is concrete and territorially deliminated, I think that, like the Israeli Jews in 1948, they will be happy with the arrangement. Especially because they are the overwhelming majority in the areas they claim as being theirs which would be given over to their sovereignty. Those Kurds who live elsewhere (like Turkey) would likely immigrate, rather than fight over those bits of southern turkey.

Likely. It is a gamble, but it is certainly better than the status quo in terms of the long term prospects.

[Broomstick]

Also, the attention Foley is getting is partially because ISIS is using these journalists as a bargaining chip with Obama. They're threatening to execute another journalist if Obama orders more airstrikes. But, Obama ordered more airstrikes anyway, and I reluctantly have to agree with Broomstick on the matter regarding the lives of these poor journalists. Essentially, allowing ISIS to kill them is worth it if it stops (or even stalls) ISIS from their genocidal rampage.

Obama apparently ordered not just more airstrikes, but an increase in the amount and frequency.

The US media HAS been reporting on the massacres, genocides, abuses, and so forth of ISIL. It's not that people don't care. What makes the "white guy" different is that his death was made part of a direct missive to the President of the United States. ISIL is trying to talk to/threaten directly the US. That's what's significant, not his ethnic background.

[Channel72]

Obama apparently ordered not just more airstrikes, but an increase in the amount and frequency.

The US media HAS been reporting on the massacres, genocides, abuses, and so forth of ISIL. It's not that people don't care. What makes the "white guy" different is that his death was made part of a direct missive to the President of the United States. ISIL is trying to talk to/threaten directly the US. That's what's significant, not his ethnic background.

Yeah, and I think Obama made the right call. Seriously, fuck ISIS.

(I apologize in advance for this non-contributing ITG post)

What baffles me is that ISIS actually thought threatening to execute a journalist would somehow radically change US policy. Has that ever worked?

[The Vortex Empire]

Obama apparently ordered not just more airstrikes, but an increase in the amount and frequency.

The US media HAS been reporting on the massacres, genocides, abuses, and so forth of ISIL. It's not that people don't care. What makes the "white guy" different is that his death was made part of a direct missive to the President of the United States. ISIL is trying to talk to/threaten directly the US. That's what's significant, not his ethnic background.

Yeah, and I think Obama made the right call. Seriously, fuck ISIS.

(I apologize in advance for this non-contributing ITG post)

What baffles me is that ISIS actually thought threatening to execute a journalist would somehow radically change US policy. Has that ever worked?

That's assuming their actual goal wasn't increased US involvement in Iraq.

[General Brock]

How does it respect the murdered dead to slaughter even more innocent people by war? "Just" have the CIA/Saudi/GCC pull the plug on funding, arming, and otherwise overtly and covertly supporting the Syrian insurgency. Cut off, ISIS would then collapse within a couple of years if not sooner. There may still be violence, but not on this scale and not with Western treasure and blood.

Good grief its like some of you don't realize the alternative media exists and long reported the American military intelligence complex is gaming both sides of the conflict. The U.S. has a ghost army of private contractors already in Iraq; they never completely pulled out. All that is needed to re-pressume 'kingmaker' position is for American boots to officially return to Iraq's throat.

Isn't the acronym ISIS - Isis, an ancient Egyptian fertility goddess, somewhat suspect and taken in vain? Which Western military/Intel outfits have a penchant for classical deity names again?

Lt-Col. Ralph Peters drew a template for a new Middle Eastern Map around 2006, likely earlier. Peter's map crudely reflects ethnic distribution, but is not an expression of newfound respect for the indigs, but rather a new way to set them at one-another's throats in the game of divide-an-conquer.

Kurdistan figures prominantly. Israel has already staked dibs on Kurdistan. Its quite the historical score; Kurds of Saladin's time defeated a Crusade; today they may aid the neo-Crusades.

The neocons are, and/or are using, murderously superstitious psychopaths. A new Caliphate is what they need for the Second Coming fantasies.

A comparably callous and stupid foreign policy could only be had playing Civ III in full cheat mode with uber-geurillas flagged 'privateer'. Which is probably what NATO war sims amount to.

An antiwar stance is surely the materially and morally reasonable position.

[Simon_Jester]

How does it respect the murdered dead to slaughter even more innocent people by war? "Just" have the CIA/Saudi/GCC pull the plug on funding, arming, and otherwise overtly and covertly supporting the Syrian insurgency. Cut off, ISIS would then collapse within a couple of years if not sooner. There may still be violence, but not on this scale and not with Western treasure and blood.

Er... are you asserting that the CIA is funding ISIS?

Because the CIA has spent enough of the last fifteen years sweating about Islamic fundamentalists that I think they'd be unlikely to do that. No, the CIA's problem is that they keep thinking the non-fundie rebel groups in a country like Libya or Syria have the muscle to prevent the fundamentalists' rise to power, and acting accordingly...

Good grief its like some of you don't realize the alternative media exists and long reported the American military intelligence complex is gaming both sides of the conflict. The U.S. has a ghost army of private contractors already in Iraq; they never completely pulled out. All that is needed to re-pressume 'kingmaker' position is for American boots to officially return to Iraq's throat.

The private contractors are a poor substitute for a real army when it comes to, y'know, actually fighting. Nobody can pay Blackwater (or whatever they call themselves today) enough to launch a major offensive into enemy-occupied territory.

Also, what's in it for the US? Seriously, Obama has built his political career around the idea of NOT deploying American troops in Iraq. What possible incentive could convince him to do that, and to deliberately engineer a civil war in Iraq to make it happen?

Isn't the acronym ISIS - Isis, an ancient Egyptian fertility goddess, somewhat suspect and taken in vain? Which Western military/Intel outfits have a penchant for classical deity names again?

Awfully thin reed here. Islamic State In Syria's acronym in English strikes me as more or less a coincidence, although I'm sure some translator played aorund because he wanted an acronym people could pronounce. Note that others call it ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) or just plain IS (Islamic State).

Do you think that a bunch of barking-mad Iraqi fundies deliberately picked the name of their group just so the acronym in English would come out to appeal for whichever "Western military/Intel outfits" are involved here?

Lt-Col. Ralph Peters drew a template for a new Middle Eastern Map around 2006, likely earlier. Peter's map crudely reflects ethnic distribution, but is not an expression of newfound respect for the indigs, but rather a new way to set them at one-another's throats in the game of divide-an-conquer.

One wonders why there is any need for new ways to set them at each other's throats, seeing as how they are already doing quite well at strangling one another as it is...

Seriously, if all that is required is to ensure that the Middle East remains a tangle of bloody wars for the rest of the century, I doubt the West needs to do anything.

Kurdistan figures prominantly. Israel has already staked dibs on Kurdistan. Its quite the historical score; Kurds of Saladin's time defeated a Crusade; today they may aid the neo-Crusades.

Crusade to do what exactly?

The neocons are, and/or are using, murderously superstitious psychopaths. A new Caliphate is what they need for the Second Coming fantasies.

The neocons are also a spent political force in the United States; they lost control of the Republican Party after the end of the Bush administration.

[xerex]

Isn't the acronym ISIS - Isis, an ancient Egyptian fertility goddess, somewhat suspect and taken in vain? Which Western military/Intel outfits have a penchant for classical deity names again?

Awfully thin reed here. Islamic State In Syria's acronym in English strikes me as more or less a coincidence, although I'm sure some translator played aorund because he wanted an acronym people could pronounce. Note that others call it ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) or just plain IS (Islamic State).

Do you think that a bunch of barking-mad Iraqi fundies deliberately picked the name of their group just so the acronym in English would come out to appeal for whichever "Western military/Intel outfits" are involved here?

And for the record the Islamic State's acronym in Arabic is Daash (al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi Iraq wa al-Sham). This is the name which Iraqis and Syrians actually use. Not ISIS.

[K. A. Pital]

But the non-fundamentalist groups in CA and ME were so insignificant that thinking they could somehow 'fend off' the islamists is preposterous. Either the CIA is full of lunatics or they knew the funding and cash would end up at the feet of the Black Banner.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

There were groups that were moderate, Stas. It's just that everybody was looking for that magical middle eastern faction which talks and acts exactly like a Western liberal democratic party, because the West has had centuries of practice in misinterpreting and misunderstanding people of "Orientalist" cultures.

[K. A. Pital]

There were groups - toothless, little in the way of manpower. Seriously counting on them to make a difference?

[Channel72]

Isn't the acronym ISIS - Isis, an ancient Egyptian fertility goddess, somewhat suspect and taken in vain? Which Western military/Intel outfits have a penchant for classical deity names again?

Holy shit. Um... take off the tinfoil hat please. ISIS/ISIL/IS has no relation to the (pagan) fertility goddess, and is merely an English translation of the Arabic "ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyyah" (Islamic State). The English acronym's similarity to the Egyptian goddess is completely coincidental, by adding "In Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) or "In Iraq and the Levant" (giving ISIL).

[Dr. Trainwreck]

There were groups - toothless, little in the way of manpower. Seriously counting on them to make a difference?

Unless I was mistaken, there were at the start of the Syrian Civil War large factions that were quite moderate in comparison to the rest of Assad's opposition.

[Channel72]

Obama apparently ordered not just more airstrikes, but an increase in the amount and frequency.

The US media HAS been reporting on the massacres, genocides, abuses, and so forth of ISIL. It's not that people don't care. What makes the "white guy" different is that his death was made part of a direct missive to the President of the United States. ISIL is trying to talk to/threaten directly the US. That's what's significant, not his ethnic background.

Yeah, and I think Obama made the right call. Seriously, fuck ISIS.

(I apologize in advance for this non-contributing ITG post)

What baffles me is that ISIS actually thought threatening to execute a journalist would somehow radically change US policy. Has that ever worked?

That's assuming their actual goal wasn't increased US involvement in Iraq.

That's obviously not their goal. ISIS is the first large-scale attempt to realize what a network of Sunni fundamentalists and affiliated groups (Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Tawhid wal-Jihad, etc) have been rallying behind since the 90s: the establishment of a fundamentalist Islamic Caliphate in the Middle East (probably centering around Jordan/Syria, because that's where some of the key leaders, like Zarqawi, came from). They saw the US invasion as a great recruiting tool, and now that the US is gone, they've finally made their move. At this point, more US involvement gains them nothing.

I suppose you could argue that their "real plan"™ is to lure the US back into a war, following the Bin Laden doctrine of "economically drain the superpower until it croaks"... but that's a stretch. They've already got Mosul and it seems pretty clear they're intent on taking all of Iraq, which would be pretty hard to do if the US got involved. Plus the US is barely spending any resources on these airstrikes anyway.

[Rogue 9]

There were groups - toothless, little in the way of manpower. Seriously counting on them to make a difference?

Unless I was mistaken, there were at the start of the Syrian Civil War large factions that were quite moderate in comparison to the rest of Assad's opposition.

There still are (the Free Syrian Army is still a fairly major force), but they're hobbled by having to fight the Syrian regime and the Islamic State. Basically, without major outside intervention they're fucked even though at present they're still extant.

[Simon_Jester]

And for the record the Islamic State's acronym in Arabic is Daash (al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi Iraq wa al-Sham). This is the name which Iraqis and Syrians actually use. Not ISIS.

True. On the other hand, English-speakers routinely translate foreign organizations' names into English before making an acronym out of them.

It's like arguing over whether the capital of Russia is Moscow or Moskva. Obviously the Russians pronounce it more like the latter... but that doesn't automatically mean that the English rendition of the name is objectively wrong.

But the non-fundamentalist groups in CA and ME were so insignificant that thinking they could somehow 'fend off' the islamists is preposterous. Either the CIA is full of lunatics or they knew the funding and cash would end up at the feet of the Black Banner.

The CIA is full of lunatics, and is ordered about by people who are utterly ignorant of Middle Eastern affairs. And/or who are so full of ideological crap that they cannot comprehend ideas like "victory is not historically inevitable," "popular revolts do not always make the government more to your liking," and "there is no significant political faction in the Middle East today that look like good old-fashioned democratic capitalist liberals of the West."

[K. A. Pital]

Grey is ISIL. Greenish is the 'other rebels' which include the less batshit insane, but still islamist Islamic Front, and the FSA which has been mentioned here.

That's the bigger ISIL control map. The dark red is de-facto control:

On this map the secular forces (if we exclude the Syrian government, which the US kind of hates) would be a tiny spot.

[General Brock]

Snip.

- I'm asserting that American black ops are ISIS' lifeline; could be CIA; might be some other acronym, and Saudi Arabia and Gulf Cooperation COuncil states are in on it. After Snowden's NSA revelations, its worrisome that the CIA might not the dominant foreign ops player and isn't responsible for or capable of reigning in other putatively American rogue ops. Its unbelievable indigenous jihadist fighters could be this successful on their own, right down to running a Hollywood B movie script of atrocities to outrage America into another Iraq war. Which seems to be coming whether Americans themselves want it or not.

Besides, you just answered your own rebuttal. In supporting the 'good' rebels, Western support for Syrian rebels inevitably supports ISIS. The fall of Iraq's Mosul armouries followed on the same pattern ISIS was already doing for months to their former Syrian rebel allies .. Yet the guns and money pour in.

- A ghost army isn't used for offense. Its the setup to an offensive. Western private contractors are often ex-military. A western trained black ops merc is probably more experienced than any official counterpart. Practice makes perfect.

Obama's just a talking head. What do the ascendent lobby groups in Washington have to gain, is the answer and question. Read the links. Hell, read this Common Dreams about how the American public has just about zero influence on government policy.

Yet, public protest kept O-Blam-Aaaa from launching naval strikes against Syria and entering the Syrian civil war. Or maybe it was Syria's GPS jammers that would blunt a mass cruise missile strike, while the NATO Meditterranean fleet is within reach of Syria's Russian-made shipkilling missiles.

- To be honest, ISIS as Isis was just a half-facetious shot.

However, western military intel outfits had a hand in creating ISIS. ISIS may be a coincidence, or it may be a code word for others to acknowledge. Xerex mentioned the Arabic name for ISIS is Daash. Coincidentally, 'A brief, fast run' in mispelled English. That feels like a coincidence. Maybe its supposed to or maybe it is.

In any case, decentralized fourth generation warfare uses cells operating independent of central command chains. Common terms of reference would allow for some coordination of dispersed operations.

Complex code talking in modern warfare dates back to at least Word War II, with Navajo aboriginals using common terms of reference in their own culture and mythology to shroud American military communications at a tactical level.

- Saddam made Iraq a somewhat functioning modern country. Not without ethnic and religious rivalries, and not without atrocities, but it worked and was progressing. Over time a pan-Iraqi mindset arose with the rise of the secular middle class Iraqi. A way to counter this had to be found to reassert colonialism. Peter's map seems to be the key; overcome modern nationalism by killing off the modern moderates and allowing reassertion of the old divisions, dangling the promise of and promoting the need for ethnically pure statehood.

The West need only look to its own history after WWI to keep the Middle East fighting. The breakup of the European Habsburg Empire resulted in ethic cleansings in favour of ethnically pure sovereign states. The Middle East seems to have remained close to what it always had been, a community of ethnic communities divided by modern state boundaries into the modern age. Until ancient ethnic groups that had long co-existed and prospered together, were set upon by extremists within and without.

- Crusade to do what... Ummm, Greater Israel ring any bells? Preconditions for the Second Coming of Christ, etc., which also happen to be materially profitable for those trading in guns and oil and social capital by any means. Religion and vice have a peculiar symbiotic relationship.

- Even the mainstream media gets the neocon-Democrat connection. They have always had Democratic party connections even during the Shrub era. Neocons aren't a party, they are a special interest group.

Where to even begin? Victoria Nuland is the famous state department neocon baiting Russia to war over the Ukraine. Putin won't be foiling America's entry into Syria again; maybe.

Notice how Malaysia Flight 17 dropped from the news the moment it became possible that a Ukranian fighter shot down that plane, not the rebels? Notice how Victoria Nuland still has her job? 298 innocent people dead, very likely in a Kiev false flag gambit. No, I'm not saying she ordered it, just pointing out that the Ukraine file is a disaster; or is it? Neocon influence may have expanded under Obama.

You've skirted the most important point of my post - stay out of Iraq. Cut funding and arms to the Syrian rebels. They'll never win anything ISIS can't take. The genuine humanitarian response is not R2P, its pull the plug on violent extremists. Not that it will happen, but if one were discussing the most effective way to stop ISIS, that's the best way and doesn't require Western bloodletting.

[General Brock]

...Holy shit. Um... take off the tinfoil hat please. ISIS/ISIL/IS has no relation to the (pagan) fertility goddess, and is merely an English translation of the Arabic "ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyyah" (Islamic State). The English acronym's similarity to the Egyptian goddess is completely coincidental, by adding "In Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) or "In Iraq and the Levant" (giving ISIL).

Sure, its probably time to upgrade to steel M1 headgear anyway. An unusually successful militant Islamic group is coincidentally named after a pagan goddess, at least for Western consumption, yet, this is of no possible significance.

The self-appointed Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is allegedly a well-educated scholarly type. He may know enough English to coordinate ISIS' propaganda campaign in the language. Interesting thing about his history; al-Baghdadi was once imprisoned by the Americans and may have been militized by the experience.

So, again, why reinvade Iraq when cutting off support for Syrian rebels would also cut off ISIS? Re-enter Iraq, and the Neocons will do everything and anything to keep American troops there. There is already talk of U.S. forces entering Syria via Iraq to get at ISIS.

[Metahive]

*snip*

Really man, cut that conspiracy BS. That's Jack Chick levels of incoherent.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

There were groups - toothless, little in the way of manpower. Seriously counting on them to make a difference?

Unless I was mistaken, there were at the start of the Syrian Civil War large factions that were quite moderate in comparison to the rest of Assad's opposition.

There still are (the Free Syrian Army is still a fairly major force), but they're hobbled by having to fight the Syrian regime and the Islamic State. Basically, without major outside intervention they're fucked even though at present they're still extant.

Yes, exactly. But nobody calls them moderates because every man in the East is a savage wifebeater, every woman an exotic sex goddess in need of rescue, and the only yardstick of civilization is the West.

Political discourse is dominated by Orientalist fucks, is what I'm saying.

[cosmicalstorm]

The attention this moron is getting is stupefying. Why is the news of a white man getting his head cut off so big? These muslim warriors have been bulldozing childrens alive into massgraves and so on.
Going to Syria with a white skin is crazy and has been crazy for several years. He got himself to blame for this.

...

Are you fucking serious?

Yeah. Show up with white skin and and a US passport on the countryside anywhere between Deir Ezzor and Mosul and tell me how that goes for you. Westerners better stay in their military compounds and maybe even not there. Nick Berg should have been enough.

[Channel72]

...Holy shit. Um... take off the tinfoil hat please. ISIS/ISIL/IS has no relation to the (pagan) fertility goddess, and is merely an English translation of the Arabic "ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyyah" (Islamic State). The English acronym's similarity to the Egyptian goddess is completely coincidental, by adding "In Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) or "In Iraq and the Levant" (giving ISIL).

Sure, its probably time to upgrade to steel M1 headgear anyway. An unusually successful militant Islamic group is coincidentally named after a pagan goddess, at least for Western consumption, yet, this is of no possible significance.

Sigh... so you're a typical conspiracy nut it seems.

But I guess Obama isn't in on this conspiracy, because he keeps calling them ISIL. And while addressing the press, the other day, the Whitehouse representative kept calling them I-S-I-L (spelling out the acronym letter by letter).

I guess the Whitehouse didn't get the TOP SECRET CIA memo that we need to call them ISIS because it's cool, cause it sounds like an ancient goddess, which is awesome I guess. (Other names considered by the CIA were COBRA, SPECTRE, and V.E.N.O.M. (The Vicious, Evil Network Of Mayhem))

[K. A. Pital]

Yeah. Show up with white skin and and a US passport...

Um... that was not what you originally said.

[Simon_Jester]

[snip map]

That's the bigger ISIL control map. The dark red is de-facto control:

[snip map]

On this map the secular forces (if we exclude the Syrian government, which the US kind of hates) would be a tiny spot.

True.

However, please remember that the whole 'Arab Spring' thing and the Syrian Civil War have been going on for three years. The fact that in 2014 ISIL and other fundamentalist groups are totally dominating over the secular groups does not mean that the US must have been somehow totally insane or secretly pro-ISIL to think the secular groups had a chance in 2011 or 2012.

Sometimes in a proxy war, the side you back loses to the side that has more popular support. Or you were fooling yourself about the strength and competence of your proxies. It happens.

Snip.

- I'm asserting that American black ops are ISIS' lifeline; could be CIA; might be some other acronym...

Then provide evidence for your assertion. Providing a vaguely credible semblance of a motive and asserting that US intelligence agencies are villains is not enough evidence.

Its unbelievable indigenous jihadist fighters could be this successful on their own, right down to running a Hollywood B movie script of atrocities to outrage America into another Iraq war.

Why not?

The atrocities ISIL is committing are of a piece with any number of other atrocities that have occurred throughout time and throughout the world, including actions taken by Sunni extremists specifically over a period of nearly three hundred years. Do you think US intelligence was behind the initial campaigns of al-Wahhib and bin Saud back in the 1750s?

As to their success... they have succeeded in overpowering outlying areas in countries that have just experienced civil wars. Coutnries governed by weak regimes. Countries whose armies and populations have little or no loyalty to the central government. They have done this because they have an ideology that attracts the compliance of much of the population, the active loyalty of a large minority of the population, and the fanatical armed support of a significant fraction of that minority. They are operating at a time when the West is politically weary of military intervention in the Middle East and is thus reluctant to strike at them preemptively, and when no existing regime in the region is stable enough to stop them.

Why do you think that has to be the product of a conspiracy on the part of the West? It seems to me like this is a textbook example of a time when a Third World movement of religious fanatics COULD succeed in expanding to fill out a large area of land without any Western intervention for or against it.

Besides, you just answered your own rebuttal. In supporting the 'good' rebels, Western support for Syrian rebels inevitably supports ISIS. The fall of Iraq's Mosul armouries followed on the same pattern ISIS was already doing for months to their former Syrian rebel allies .. Yet the guns and money pour in.

So your argument is that resources given to one group constitute support for some other group? How does that make sense? That's conspiratorial crazy-talk: an attempt to take evidence that someone tried to do X, and twist it into 'proof' that they 'really' wanted to do Y, because Y is what actually happened.

This is the prototypical problem with all conspiracy theories: they are based on the idea that because Y is what happened, Y must have been planned all along by [insert conspirator list here]. It doesn't make allowances for the idea that ISIL might thrive because of its own clever tactics or loyal supporters. Or for the idea that maybe ISIL thrived by default under conditions of civil war in Syria, and that the only thing the US could have done to prevent this was to preemptively end the civil war by intervening on a large scale in favor of one side or the other.

Which would have bogged the US down in exactly the kind of prolonged occupation and multisided Middle Eastern war you claim to not want.

So arguably, the current power of ISIL is a direct consequence of Obama and the rest of the US government, all pursuing a strategy of NOT getting involved in a significant way, and instead hoping the problem would go away. Well, it didn't, and it turns out that sometimes a major civil war results in unsavory bastards seizing power and becoming a major military threat in the region. Who would have imagined that?

- A ghost army isn't used for offense. Its the setup to an offensive. Western private contractors are often ex-military. A western trained black ops merc is probably more experienced than any official counterpart. Practice makes perfect.

Which "black ops merc" organizations are you thinking of, specifically, that are "more experienced" than their "official counterparts?" Be specific. Also, while you're at it, do you mean their "official counterparts" in the Iraqi military, or their "official counterparts" in the US military.

I'm getting tired of hearing you ramble and throw around conspiracy theorist dog-whistles in hopes that people will agree with you even though you have no concrete evidence and no coherent logic underlying your position. So frankly, I think you should either be specific, or shut the hell up.

Obama's just a talking head. What do the ascendent lobby groups in Washington have to gain, is the answer and question. Read the links. Hell, read this Common Dreams about how the American public has just about zero influence on government policy.

You cannot just make up arbitrary random 'motivations' for a vaguely defined group of Washington lobbyists and assert on that basis that the US must in fact have pursued whatever strategy you claim that they pursued.

Otherwise, you could literally claim that the US government is trying to do ANYTHING, or nothing, because there is always one or another lobby you can assert (without proof) wants to accomplish this or that thing.

Yet, public protest kept O-Blam-Aaaa from launching naval strikes against Syria and entering the Syrian civil war. Or maybe it was Syria's GPS jammers that would blunt a mass cruise missile strike, while the NATO Meditterranean fleet is within reach of Syria's Russian-made shipkilling missiles.

Maybe so. That is, you know, a reason not to just randomly attack everyone you want; some countries are real countries with real weapons, and the US does not have infinity power to influence or control their actions.

Gee, I wonder if maybe we might apply that logic to the idea that the US does NOT have all-controlling conspiratorial powers to decide which of several factions wins a civil war in those countries?

- To be honest, ISIS as Isis was just a half-facetious shot.

Don't say things you know damn well you can't back up. It make you look childish and ignorant.

However, western military intel outfits had a hand in creating ISIS. ISIS may be a coincidence, or it may be a code word for others to acknowledge.

You're a goddamn liar repeating your goddamn lies.

Xerex mentioned the Arabic name for ISIS is Daash. Coincidentally, 'A brief, fast run' in mispelled English. That feels like a coincidence. Maybe its supposed to or maybe it is.

Why the HELL do you think that a bunch of Islamic fundamentalists who hate all the English-speaking nations would name their entire group so that the acronym in an alphabet they don't use would sound similar to a particular English word?

Hint: English is not the language of the whole world.

In any case, decentralized fourth generation warfare uses cells operating independent of central command chains. Common terms of reference would allow for some coordination of dispersed operations.

Complex code talking in modern warfare dates back to at least Word War II, with Navajo aboriginals using common terms of reference in their own culture and mythology to shroud American military communications at a tactical level.

What inane babble is falling out of your mouth now? This doesn't mean anything or make any sense in the context of the actual subject of discussion.

- Saddam made Iraq a somewhat functioning modern country. Not without ethnic and religious rivalries, and not without atrocities, but it worked and was progressing. Over time a pan-Iraqi mindset arose with the rise of the secular middle class Iraqi. A way to counter this had to be found to reassert colonialism. Peter's map seems to be the key; overcome modern nationalism by killing off the modern moderates and allowing reassertion of the old divisions, dangling the promise of and promoting the need for ethnically pure statehood.

The modern moderates are being killed off by the same fundamentalists who already existed without the US's knowledge or consent, and including organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood that predate the rise of Arab nationalism in the first place.

Again, you seem to be assuming that because a thing happens, and because it might somehow be interpreted as a thing that is to the advantage of some strategic goal you allege the US government is pursuing... that there must be a US conspiracy to make that thing happen.

Moreover, regimes like ISIL are hard if not impossible to control via colonialism, as the headline "ISIL Beheads American Journalist" might indicate, if you bothered to read the headlines of the threads you spray conspiracy-theory nonsense into.

So even accepting your own premises, your conclusion does not follow: it makes no sense to weaken regimes that hate and oppose America but supporting factions that hate and oppose America harder.

The West need only look to its own history after WWI to keep the Middle East fighting. The breakup of the European Habsburg Empire resulted in ethic cleansings in favour of ethnically pure sovereign states. The Middle East seems to have remained close to what it always had been, a community of ethnic communities divided by modern state boundaries into the modern age. Until ancient ethnic groups that had long co-existed and prospered together, were set upon by extremists within and without.

Those extremists have existed for many decades and grew steadily more powerful under the rule of the Arab nationalists and the dictatorships. The last nation that was able to enforce peace and order among the diverse ethnic groups of the Middle East was the Ottomans, who were- surprise surprise! the same ones who enforced it among the Balkan states!

So it turns out that breaking up Ottoman territory into ethnic states divided by nationalist resulted in chaos in the Balkans. AND that breaking up Ottoman territory into purely geographic states containing diverse ethnic groups also resulted in chaos in the Middle East. And that the third option, "don't break up the Ottoman Empire" wasn't really on the table because the Ottomans picked the wrong side in World War One and their (already fragile) government had totally collapsed by the time the war ended. Much like the Russian Empire did... And note that at first the Russians too fragmented into states controlled by various factions and ethnic minorities, and only the military success of the Bolsheviks allowed them to reunite Czarist Russia as Soviet Russia.

So yeah, imperial monarchies dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries can sometimes keep a large, ethnically diverse population united under pre-industrial conditions. This does not mean any special conspiracy is required to explain why, when the imperial monarchy inevitably collapses under the pressure of modernity, suddenly you get ethnic chaos and war among the splinter states that fell out of the empire.

- Crusade to do what... Ummm, Greater Israel ring any bells? Preconditions for the Second Coming of Christ, etc., which also happen to be materially profitable for those trading in guns and oil and social capital by any means. Religion and vice have a peculiar symbiotic relationship.

There is no evidence of any significant faction within the US government or politics that is actually attempting a religious crusade as such. There is, occasionally, stuff that conspiracy theorists can ramble about. That is all, as far as I know. Do you know something I don't? Something specific, instead of vague defamatory rambling about how 'someone' wants to do 'something' with 'someone?'

Be specific or shut the hell up.

Where to even begin? Victoria Nuland is the famous state department neocon baiting Russia to war over the Ukraine. Putin won't be foiling America's entry into Syria again; maybe.

You think Russia had to be 'baited' into pursuing its own interests in the Ukraine by an American?



Do you even grasp the idea that foreigners are sentient humans that sometimes do things without an American's permission?

Notice how Malaysia Flight 17 dropped from the news the moment it became possible that a Ukranian fighter shot down that plane, not the rebels?

No, no I do not. I seem to remember ongoing extended argument over it.

This article reads like conspiracist bullshit- it assumes the US military knows what happens without proof, it assumes that a Ukrainian Su-25 was carefully guided in to shoot down an airliner on purpose despite not normally being designed for the purpose, and despite the Ukraine having plenty of more capable fighters that ARE designed for the purpose of shooting down planes. And that this is somehow a co-equal explanation with "because the Ukrainian military operates warplanes over rebel territory, the rebels (sensibly) procured SAMs, but lacked the resources to efficiently control and coordinate their own air defenses, so their undertrained spotters and operators accidentally shot down a civilian aircraft." Then it degenerates into meaningless babble about "the black hypotheses" and video games and whatever.

This... this isn't even stupid. It's beneath stupid. It's like a willful attempt to stop thinking about actual facts, logic, and information, in favor of more entertaining forms of speculative fiction.

Notice how Victoria Nuland still has her job? 298 innocent people dead, very likely in a Kiev false flag gambit. No, I'm not saying she ordered it, just pointing out that the Ukraine file is a disaster; or is it? Neocon influence may have expanded under Obama.

The article's actual sane thesis boils down to "the US is utterly incompetent at diplomacy." Incompetence and conspiracy to control events are not the same thing.

You do remember that, right?

You've skirted the most important point of my post - stay out of Iraq. Cut funding and arms to the Syrian rebels. They'll never win anything ISIS can't take. The genuine humanitarian response is not R2P, its pull the plug on violent extremists. Not that it will happen, but if one were discussing the most effective way to stop ISIS, that's the best way and doesn't require Western bloodletting.

Why do you assume ISIL will suddenly evaporate if we stop supporting their rivals and enemies? Usually, when you stop supporting a man's enemies, that man ends up in a stronger position, not a weaker position.