IS crisis in Iraq and Syria

[Channel72]

Although, I'd qualify the above post by saying that most sources for this seem to be more "sensationalist" publications for some reason, which makes me skeptical. Although, the UK daily telegraph reported it, which is less sensational than the other sources.

[General Brock]

If "ISIS" was really the smoking gun you seem to believe it is, and they knew it was a smoking gun they had to keep out of the media, why wouldn't they just not make it the publicly known name of the organisation? Better yet, why are you so fucking stupid that you think an Arab organisation using the name of an Egyptian goddess indicates American involvement? It's like if an Italian organisation was called ZEUS, and you took that as proof that the Russians were pulling the strings.

Except they're not even called fucking ISIS, the iraqis I work with just looked at me blankly the first time I used it. The name is Daash, meaning “Dulat al-Islam fi al-Iraq wal-Sham”. Claiming ISIS is the secret codeword that means it's a CIA plant is about as sensible as assuming SCAT means "Sheeples Can't Argue This" instead of meaning what scat actually means, which is shit.

By accident or design, ISIS is just the most elegantly satirical thing to call a mysogynistic western proxy army of useful Jihadist idiots arising in the shadow of plans to break up the middle eastern states into manageable regions. The Arabs would probably get it too, had ISIS been presented to them. So, ISIS is for Western consumption only.

Why didn't “Dulat al-Islam fi al-Iraq wal-Sham” just call itself DAFAW in the Western media? Daash in mispelt english means a short, brief run; it also means to smash something to pieces, and Iraq is no longer a unitary state, but de-facto partitioned between Kurd, Sunni, and Shia, as was planned late in the first Iraq Occupation.

Russians don't appear to see themselves as the heirs to the Greco-Roman world the way the Anglosphere led by the United States does. An Italian organization called ZEUS would be curious, since the Roman version was Jupiter. Again, the same Anglo links exists but the scope of the group would reflect its resources. Only the United States has the resources to build something like ISIS, but a far smaller less powerful group might suggest Britain. You would also need a history of whatever it is ZEUS is supposed to do connected with its sponsor. The United States has had a long history of using mujahadeen fighters, for example.

There are too many links between ISIS and America/NATO's history of manipulating mujahadeen. Coming up with ISIS is a crowning artistic touch, were it ever proven part of the field planning.

Besides, how is it nuttier to ponder the meaning of acronyms, than not even question re-entering Iraq?

[General Brock]

My use of the word 'crusade' is used in secular terms as a deliberately inflammatory description of PNAC and its agents.

Oh please, the Project for the New American Century dissolved in 2006. It doesn't have agents; hell, by the end in '06 it was down to a single employee running the website.

They completed 'phase one' PNAC and initiated 'phase 2' PNAC, or the "Foreign Policy Initiative" (FPI). PNAC was the popularizing phase and hence it is remembered.

That doesn't mean they stopped acting as a lobby group. Its like in elections, the campaign HQs close, elected politicians of the ruling party move into government office, their staffers to more prominent positions. The ruling party still exists, and the ruling party's policies are government policies.

PNAC is still PNAC when its FPI. The people remain in power. Victoria Nulandis married to PNAC/FPI cofounder Robert Kagan. Both have had a long careers in government circles and people like them didn't suddenly appear then disappear. There's not a huge difference between PNAC or FPI in the sense that they promote aggressive covert and overt action against America's perceived rivals as normal.

Gary Schmitt, former executive director of the PNAC, said as much, that PNACs views had been adopted and the next phase was to see to their implementation. He returned to the American Enterprise Institute, "the Godfather of Washington neo-conservative lobby groups - America's richest, largest and most influential think tank." PNAC is over only in the sense of mission accomplished, but its policy of forever war is far from done.

[General Brock]

Besides, ISIS is kind of a dead giveaway. Wouldn't want conspiracy theorists getting curious and finding out useful stuff by accident. It should be interesting to see how soon ISIS drops entirely from MSM references in favour of ISIL as it did here.

Wow, another classic move from the conspiracy-nut playbook. Evidence that contradicts your conspiracy is now interpreted as actually being part of the conspiracy.

Please provide evidence that ISIS is a creation of the CIA (and by evidence I mean actual evidence, not your inane paranoid ramblings or haphazard connection-making) or just shut up already.

You're a stupid conspiracy nut and what you're doing is basically what we in computer science would call "overfitting" - your brain is mistaking noise for meaningful patterns.

Far better minds have made the ISIS-CIA connection. My fascination with ISIS/Isis is my own and akin to fascination with a ribbon on a package.

Using that ribbon as a means to dismiss real content would be a rhetorical deception. The only meaningful pattern to be seen here is antiwar denial.

The facts on hand suggest returning to Iraq is a bad idea. Looking for background machinations and motivations for why armed intervention is the only idea with currency, is only natural.

[General Brock]

...
I think nobody really questions that ISIS doesn't give a shit about human life, but I guess they do have a sense of drama....

Although, I'd qualify the above post by saying that most sources for this seem to be more "sensationalist" publications for some reason, which makes me skeptical. Although, the UK daily telegraph reported it, which is less sensational than the other sources.

'Task Force Black' to hunt 'elite' jihadist units isn't hamming it up a bit?

ISIS may not care about human life, but neither is a lynch mob mentality in response, any more humane.

[General Brock]

Isnt the point of a secret conspiracy to be SECRET ? Why would anyone leave clues like English language codewords to be discovered ?

Psychopaths have a compulsive need to brag and demonstrate powers of superiority and untouchability, like serial killers leaving behind calling cards. Sometimes, the clues are irrelevant. Sometimes they lead to a conviction.

Take this little excerpt from a psych forum, from a poster named 'Smokey', claiming to have experienced an everyday, non-serial killing psychopath: Link

I think they do it as it amuses them, shows them how clever they are, to taunt us and as part of their game.

If you figure it out, they win by that knowledge hurting you, if you fail to figure it out they win by "proving" to themselves how much smarter they are than you.

In my experience part of the power play of Psychopaths is that they like to feel they have power, and information is power, especially if the other person doesn't also have that knowledge, so they will hoard information like gold, but occasionally reveal a taunting glimpse of it to you, while they gloat over their ownership of it.

Speaking of hoarding information like gold, ever hear of that NSA info-palace at Bluffdale, Utah?

You have to appreciate the art in the art of war. Or simply appreciate a good pun. It doesn't have to be anything fancy like classical mythology. The English language is a wonderful, witty thing. Sometimes meaning just seems to happen; we are not conscious of our subconscious.

Take for example, the word cog. It usually means a gear tooth, or sometimes the whole cogwheel. It may also mean "a person who plays a minor part in a large organization, activity." Bureaucrats and bureaucracies are sometimes described as 'cogs in the machine".

COG is also the acronym for Continuity of Government, America's contingencies literally for the continuation of government in the event conventional governance institutions are lost or disrupted by manmade or natural cataclysm. Designed to operate in the absence of the public government, such contingency planning could also serve those desiring an unelected and unaccountable shadow government overseeing public governance.

50 U.S.C. 1622, 2002, is the State of Emergency declaration believed to have activated some COG prerogatives. This appears to have allowed elite level officials to stage a hybrid coup against the United States and suspend the Constitution.

Of course, the Constitution can't be suspended. The suspension Clause of Article 1, Section 9. only covers habeus corpus; a very big deal, but things like Article V, the Bill of Rights, would remain in effect even during existential crisis.

In the COG, the military-industrial-intel-financial complex may have found its apothesis. Their ship has come in, big time.

Even though the conventional government remains intact, the COG is becoming/has become the master cogwheel about which the other branches of government - the Executive cog, Legislative cog, and Judiciary cog, must revolve. Yet Congress won't address the issue and end the state of emergency. 'All' that need be done is cancel the state of emergency and audit the legislative changes that came of it for unconstitutional provisions.

Obama has continued Shrub's war on journalism. For whatever reason, "Its the COG stupid", never became a household mantra.

James Foley gave his life trying to get the real story from dangerous parts of the world. Using his death to front for another war of choice, seems disrespectful of the memory of James Foley. To not acknowlege the whole story behind the push for war, is not repectful of his calling as a journalist and the good work his compatriots in Fourth Estate, and sometimes the Fifth Estate, have been able to do to keep democracy informed.

[Channel72]

Besides, ISIS is kind of a dead giveaway. Wouldn't want conspiracy theorists getting curious and finding out useful stuff by accident. It should be interesting to see how soon ISIS drops entirely from MSM references in favour of ISIL as it did here.

Wow, another classic move from the conspiracy-nut playbook. Evidence that contradicts your conspiracy is now interpreted as actually being part of the conspiracy.

Please provide evidence that ISIS is a creation of the CIA (and by evidence I mean actual evidence, not your inane paranoid ramblings or haphazard connection-making) or just shut up already.

You're a stupid conspiracy nut and what you're doing is basically what we in computer science would call "overfitting" - your brain is mistaking noise for meaningful patterns.

Far better minds have made the ISIS-CIA connection. My fascination with ISIS/Isis is my own and akin to fascination with a ribbon on a package.

Holy shit, you're stilling shitting your conspiracy bullshit all over this thread. Your "evidence" is some crackpot blog? I'm sorry... "alternative" media. Please. This idiot Patrick Cockburn is a conspiracy nut just like you, although he apparently tries to appear somewhat reasonable by dismissing the more ridiculous conspiracies, like 9/11 truther shit, but then wonders if ISIS killed the Israeli teenagers in order to start a war.

Hint: ISIS is just another home-grown, generic Sunni Jihadist movement, along with Islamic Front, Al Nusra, and many others. The only reason we find ISIS remotely interesting is because of their wild success and off-the-charts brutality.

The facts on hand suggest returning to Iraq is a bad idea. Looking for background machinations and motivations for why armed intervention is the only idea with currency, is only natural.

You are fucking barely coherent. We're not "returning to Iraq". We're assisting the Iraqi and Kurdish ground forces with airstrikes. But whatever, we've been using airpower to regulate Iraq since way before 2003 - remember the no fly zones?

[Channel72]

Anyway, now for some good news:

Iraqi forces, with US airstrike assistance, have taken control of Amerli, an ISIS controlled town north of Baghdad where thousands of residents were trapped, while ISIS laid seige to the town.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/a ... q-advances

US airstrikes near a Shia Turkoman town north of Baghdad have cleared the way for militiamen and Iraqi troops to rescue 12,000 residents from jihadis who had besieged them for more than two months.

The jihadis from the extremist group Islamic State (Isis) had partially withdrawn from the outskirts of Amerli, around 110 miles north of Baghdad, when paramilitaries and Iraqi forces attacked around dawn on Sunday. The attack came hours after US jets had pushed further south into Iraq than at any time in the last three weeks when they have been attacking insurgent positions in support of the Kurds. Aid was also air dropped to Amerli by British, French and Australian aircraft.

RAF Hercules aircraft dropped 14 tonnes of food and water on Amerli on Saturday night, the defence secretary, Michael Fallon, said as he confirmed that Britain is keeping open the option of joining US air strikes against Isis forces.

The Iraqi forces were heavily backed by Kurdish peshmerga troops and Shia militiamen, who have been at the vanguard of most clashes in central Iraq ever since Isis overran more than one third of the country in mid-June.

The militias have been particularly active in areas of high Shia populations, or where Shia religious sites have come under threat. The residents of Amerli were all Shia Turkomans. They had been unable to escape from the town, which had been cut off from water and electricity supplies. The extremists had vowed to kill them if they did not convert to their puritanical version of Sunni Islam.

The successful rescue of Amerli marks perhaps the only time that Iraqi forces, even with strong support, have won a significant clash against Isis, since it took over Mosul, Tikrit, and most of western Iraq. Peshmerga forces, long considered a more competent fighting force, even without a unified command, also withered under an Isis onslaught when the group swept through the Nineveh plains toward Irbil from 8 August.

The extremists' momentum was stopped by US jets, which have now bombed more than 115 targets in northern Iraq. The air strikes allowed peshmerga and Iraq forces to win back the Mosul Dam, which had been seized by Isis, and led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of members of the Yazidi sect, who were helped off a mountain range by Kurdish militias that crossed into Iraq from Syria.

Nevertheless, Washington has continued to insist that its air support will not be open-ended. Barack Obama has previously said US strikes are only to support US officials in Irbil. The attacks on Isis near Amerli were the first time he had authorised hits outside northern Iraq.

Baghdad has been demanding similar US support to protect the capital from Isis's attempt to encroach from the western and southern city limits. However, Obama has refused to authorise air missions without an inclusive central government being formed. The new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, has only days before a constitutional deadline expires to announce an administration, which he has spent the past three weeks trying to cobble together from competing sects and interests.

The drawn-out negotiations continue to raise questions about the viability of Iraq within its current borders. Of particular concern to Iraqi and regional leaders will be whether the country's Sunnis, who were marginalised when Saddam Hussein was ousted in 2003, and have remained estranged from the power base for most of the time since, will be re-empowered by a political process.

The Kurds of the semi-autonomous northern region also remain unsure that a new central government will represent their interests. Relations between the Sunnis and Kurds and the former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki had been toxic by the time that Isis advanced. The dramatic period since has exposed the feebleness of Iraqi institutions, including the military, and the strength that sect-based militias maintain within the country's fractured body politic.

Finally, the Iraqi forces have achieved a significant victory against ISIS.

[Borgholio]

Finally, the Iraqi forces have achieved a significant victory against ISIS.

I would only call it significant if they can maintain this momentum. If they lose this town later or fail to make any further progress, it might embolden ISIS and make things even worse later.

[jwl]

Holy shit, you're stilling shitting your conspiracy bullshit all over this thread. Your "evidence" is some crackpot blog? I'm sorry... "alternative" media. Please. This idiot Patrick Cockburn is a conspiracy nut just like you, although he apparently tries to appear somewhat reasonable by dismissing the more ridiculous conspiracies, like 9/11 truther shit, but then wonders if ISIS killed the Israeli teenagers in order to start a war.

This "crackpot blog" is a repost of an opinion column in the independant. Sure, it's an opinion column, not news, but this is mainstream media, not alternative stuff.

[Channel72]

Holy shit, you're stilling shitting your conspiracy bullshit all over this thread. Your "evidence" is some crackpot blog? I'm sorry... "alternative" media. Please. This idiot Patrick Cockburn is a conspiracy nut just like you, although he apparently tries to appear somewhat reasonable by dismissing the more ridiculous conspiracies, like 9/11 truther shit, but then wonders if ISIS killed the Israeli teenagers in order to start a war.

This "crackpot blog" is a repost of an opinion column in the independant. Sure, it's an opinion column, not news, but this is mainstream media, not alternative stuff.

No, UNZ is self-describedly "alternative media", whatever the fuck that means.

Anyway, I have a better conspiracy theory for the existence of ISIS. It's so fucking obvious I can't believe General Brock didn't notice.

ISIS was clearly created by Thanas, in order to increase traffic to the N&P forum - and indeed his evil plan has worked well. As a historian, naming this so-called terrorist group after an ancient Egyptian goddess (with Greco-Roman connections) was simply irresistible. Indeed, other people on the Internet have reached the same conclusion.

[Thanas]

Goddamnit Channel, You weren't supposed to tell.

[xerex]

Isnt the point of a secret conspiracy to be SECRET ? Why would anyone leave clues like English language codewords to be discovered ?

Psychopaths have a compulsive need to brag and demonstrate powers of superiority and untouchability, like serial killers leaving behind calling cards. Sometimes, the clues are irrelevant. Sometimes they lead to a conviction.

You do realize that an intelligence operative who leaves clues as to his actions would not survive past his second operation? And thus would never rise high enough to carry this Project ISIS conspiracy.

[Simon_Jester]

Clearly, in Brockland evil plots mainly exist for self-gratification. To give themselves an exaggerated sense of how their painfully obvious yet stupidly obscure and misinterpretable "clues" are too subtle for the sheeple to figure out.

Sort of like the Riddler from Batman I guess.

Oh, wait, the Riddler is a fictional character who really exists so that the readers can get a vicarious sense of being smarter than this allegedly smart person because they figured out the clue!

[eyl]

Why didn't “Dulat al-Islam fi al-Iraq wal-Sham” just call itself DAFAW in the Western media? Daash in mispelt english means a short, brief run; it also means to smash something to pieces, and Iraq is no longer a unitary state, but de-facto partitioned between Kurd, Sunni, and Shia, as was planned late in the first Iraq Occupation.

Why do you think they care how the Western media transliterates their name? Also connecting words are usually omitted when making acronyms. "al" means "the", "fi" means "in", "wal" means "and the" - thus they shouldn't be in the acronym. I suppose you could argue it should be DIIS, but DAASH is closer to the Arabic pronunciation ("Islam" and "Iraq" start with a letter more or less equivalent to "A" in English).

[Channel72]

The Arabic language doesn't lend itself very well to acronyms in general, which is why English acronyms are often transliterated directly based on pronunciation, e.g. CNN = "سي إن إن", i.e. sin yeh, alef nun, alef nun, (See En En)

[Block]

Why didn't “Dulat al-Islam fi al-Iraq wal-Sham” just call itself DAFAW in the Western media? Daash in mispelt english means a short, brief run; it also means to smash something to pieces, and Iraq is no longer a unitary state, but de-facto partitioned between Kurd, Sunni, and Shia, as was planned late in the first Iraq Occupation.

Why do you think they care how the Western media transliterates their name? Also connecting words are usually omitted when making acronyms. "al" means "the", "fi" means "in", "wal" means "and the" - thus they shouldn't be in the acronym. I suppose you could argue it should be DIIS, but DAASH is closer to the Arabic pronunciation ("Islam" and "Iraq" start with a letter more or less equivalent to "A" in English).

The last part isn't correct. It's an I/E sound, the aleph is given diacritic marks that make it such. Iraq is pronounced Ih ruh ck in Arabic.

[Channel72]

Block, that's dependent on dialect. But you're correct that's how it would be pronounced in Iraq/Syria (Ih-ruch) with a hard "ch"

[Block]

Well, yeah, but these assholes use MSA and Egyptian in their press releases to be understood by the broadest audience.

[Channel72]

Why didn't “Dulat al-Islam fi al-Iraq wal-Sham” just call itself DAFAW in the Western media? Daash in mispelt english means a short, brief run; it also means to smash something to pieces, and Iraq is no longer a unitary state, but de-facto partitioned between Kurd, Sunni, and Shia, as was planned late in the first Iraq Occupation.

Yeah, I mean this is fucking stupid. The reason they didn't call it "DAFAW" ( ) is because that doesn't even work. News flash: "Sh" is a single letter in Arabic (shin, ش), and as eyl said, "wal" is a connecting prefix. At best, the acronym should be Romanized as "DIISH".

[eyl]

Why didn't “Dulat al-Islam fi al-Iraq wal-Sham” just call itself DAFAW in the Western media? Daash in mispelt english means a short, brief run; it also means to smash something to pieces, and Iraq is no longer a unitary state, but de-facto partitioned between Kurd, Sunni, and Shia, as was planned late in the first Iraq Occupation.

Why do you think they care how the Western media transliterates their name? Also connecting words are usually omitted when making acronyms. "al" means "the", "fi" means "in", "wal" means "and the" - thus they shouldn't be in the acronym. I suppose you could argue it should be DIIS, but DAASH is closer to the Arabic pronunciation ("Islam" and "Iraq" start with a letter more or less equivalent to "A" in English).

The last part isn't correct. It's an I/E sound, the aleph is given diacritic marks that make it such. Iraq is pronounced Ih ruh ck in Arabic.

Sorry, I was imprecise. In Arabic (and Hebrew, for that matter), sounds like I or ee at the beginning of a word usually means the word begins with an alif; whether its an "a", "i" etc. sound depends on either diacritic marks and/or the following letter. However, the acronym would still be dal-alif-alif-shin, and as part of the acronym you can prnounce the alifs with whatever diacritics would make an easier overall sound (in the Palestinian dialect, I think it's actually pronounced Da'ish)

[xerex]

Grist for the conspiracy mill.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29079052
Iran's Supreme Leader has approved co-operation with the US as part of the fight against Islamic State (IS) in Iraq, sources have told BBC Persian.

Sources say Ayatollah Khamenei has sanctioned Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force - an elite overseas unit of the Revolutionary Guards - to work with forces fighting IS, including the US.

[Channel72]

All it took to bring the US and Iran to work together was a genocidal, rampaging hoard.

[General Brock]

All it took to bring the US and Iran to work together was a genocidal, rampaging hoard.

Where's the part where Iran sanctions are lifted and Iranians are allowed to pursue peaceful nuclear research and development as is their right under the non-proliferation treaty?

[General Brock]

You are fucking barely coherent. We're not "returning to Iraq". We're assisting the Iraqi and Kurdish ground forces with airstrikes. But whatever, we've been using airpower to regulate Iraq since way before 2003 - remember the no fly zones?

So... yeah, you just said we're not returning to Iraq even though we once again dominate Iraqi skies and bomb the place. Its like you live and breath doublespeak to the point where you don't recognize normalspeak.

At some point were you going to include an argument to accompany your personal attacks? Why armed intervention against ISIS when cutting them off via the Syrian rebels would be far easier?