The Islamic State Thread

The US was asked by the Saudi's to put their troops in Saudi Arabia and this has been the pretext for AQ attacks against American targets.

I firmly believe the US and the UK should not be putting any troops in any non-NATO country unless they are responding to direct attacks against their country. Any troops in a non-NATO country should be there for 1 reason only. To obliterate the enemy. Otherwise stay away. Even then, troops should be a last resort. NATO has proved that it can destroy much of an enemies capability with an air campaign and drone attacks. There is no need to kill every single enemy. Just keep them in their own territory and in the stone-age. Wherever there is a light bulb, a bridge, a cellphone signal, a tv signal, an airfield, an electrical substation, bomb it.

Only need troops if we need to push the enemy back under the rocks from where they crawled out of :D

Its also time to close our borders to countries like Pakistan, Libya, Egypt etc.. Put a naval blockage in the Med around countries like Libya, Eqypt and Morocco until they are able to secure their coastlines. NATO needs to provide more naval support to Italy and Greece to keep these people from entering Southern Europe.
 
Lightscribe said:
Agreed then, the USA should maintain troops where asked and paid for.
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If their people so wish.

No, but it can turn nasty and expansionist fast. At least you agree with the concept of USA troops, where asked and paid for, around the world.
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It's a more moderate view. But I also don't see anything wrong with US becoming totally isolationist.


There are many experts here, if they have read the Crisis in Ukraine and 3rd Rome threads. :p
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Russia is a complicated country with much mythos. This "3rd Rome" mythos is there for hundreds of years. It's not new. It's not something people talk about because everyone takes this for granted. You're just discovering the world, well done, leave the rest of us alone.


My answer was to indicate that you agreed to USA troops, in other countries...as in "So, no problem there." No need to get into the logistics. ;)
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You do know that an operation like Desert Storm or Desert Shield took many months using the best logistics. If Russia were to attack NATO now, the best logistics in the world would not help you. US is overstretched. Other NATO countries are cutting back on war budgets.

I agreed but again that doesn't mean they necessarily have to keep soldiers there, even if NATO wants them there.

Yes, the opposition to whoever got the US troops into a country, would stir the hate.

Yes, the Russians and Cubans had a hard time here, hey? :p
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Was not fake.
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Someone who talks of war like this, well I find it hard to believe that.

Fake condolences, chip on shoulder, no qualms about killing innocent people, sick... Interesting. Couldn't you think of more insults? Pssst...I'm the one that insists on protecting the innocents...
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You take to war and use of force very lightly when we know it leads to unnecessary and large scale suffering by innocents (even when NATO is doing the bombing), costs soldiers' lives, costs a lot of money and creates more enemies while emboldening foreigners to do similar actions.

So, you agree that some wars are needed. I do think war is terrible. I also think it is needed to protect the innocent and weak, remember? I'm not coy about it. It's called being realistic, as opposed to emotional.
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Some wars are inevitable. Just war, when following Just War doctrine may be permissible, but I don't think we as the West are careful enough in that regard.

War mongering? Nonchalant about use of force? I say USA must not get into a non-interventionism mode, that they must continue to protect the weak and innocent, that there's no problem with their troops on foreign soil, if the people asked for help and pay for it. You agreed.
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Except you can't do good by doing bad things in the process. You are nonchalant about the use of force. You only speak of protecing the weak and innocent except how many of these weak and innocent died because of Western actions in Iraq? In Afghanistan? In Yemen? In Pakistan? Come on.

Yes, The ME is a place that should only be helped with proxies. No Boots on the ground. So, no problem, you agree, except for the insults...
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The ME needs to help itself. Humanitarian and development aid and peaceful pressure on all who are war mongering would be better. Paying for armies is just creating conflict and suffering.
 
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I see Stratfor is running a promo, $129 at 63% off for one year of sub. Ends today.
 
Space_Chief said:
If their people so wish.
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Yep.

It's a more moderate view. But I also don't see anything wrong with US becoming totally isolationist.
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You're welcome to your opinion.

Russia is a complicated country with much mythos. This "3rd Rome" mythos is there for hundreds of years. It's not new. It's not something people talk about because everyone takes this for granted. You're just discovering the world, well done, leave the rest of us alone.
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No, I will keep posting on the Russian fascist 3rd Rome delusion, whether you like it or not. You don't speak for everyone. Again, because you think you know about some things and are "older", doesn't mean others cannot discuss it. Rather STFU, if you don't have anything constructive to say.

You do know that an operation like Desert Storm or Desert Shield took many months using the best logistics. If Russia were to attack NATO now, the best logistics in the world would not help you. US is overstretched. Other NATO countries are cutting back on war budgets.
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Yawn...Yes, I know how logistics work. You're going in circles.

I agreed but again that doesn't mean they necessarily have to keep soldiers there, even if NATO wants them there.
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Yawn...

Someone who talks of war like this, well I find it hard to believe that.
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...zzzzzzz...

You take to war and use of force very lightly when we know it leads to unnecessary and large scale suffering by innocents (even when NATO is doing the bombing), costs soldiers' lives, costs a lot of money and creates more enemies while emboldening foreigners to do similar actions.
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...zzzzzz...*Lifts an eyelid*...You still going in circles..?

Some wars are inevitable. Just war, when following Just War doctrine may be permissible, but I don't think we as the West are careful enough in that regard.
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...Yawn...zzzzzz...

Except you can't do good by doing bad things in the process. You are nonchalant about the use of force. You only speak of protecing the weak and innocent except how many of these weak and innocent died because of Western actions in Iraq? In Afghanistan? In Yemen? In Pakistan? Come on.
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...zzzzz...

The ME needs to help itself. Humanitarian and development aid and peaceful pressure on all who are war mongering would be better. Paying for armies is just creating conflict and suffering.
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...zzzzz...*Lifts an eyelid*...I see you're also dreaming as I sleep here...Haha! Peaceful pressure on all those who are war mongering...Hahaha! Again, thanks for the laughs. ;)

Don't bother replying. You're boring me, with your misguided opinions, going in circles.
 
Space_Chief said:
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You do know that an operation like Desert Storm or Desert Shield took many months using the best logistics. If Russia were to attack NATO now, the best logistics in the world would not help you. US is overstretched. Other NATO countries are cutting back on war budgets.
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The US has been withdrawing from Afghanistan. They aren't overstretched. UK has all but left Afghanistan as well and so have most other NATO countries. NATO is busy reinforcing in Europe. I don't think they are overstretched. And a budget is just that. A budget. When it comes to defence or any natural disaster, the budget goes out of the window. Fast. They get adjusted if the need arises.

The response to Libya was very fast. Only large scale ground invasions need the kind planning time that Desert Storm needed and a few months go by very quickly. They can respond to this very fast and start inflicting significant casualties on ISIS within days. You can bet that satellite and other high altitude surveillance missions have been going for days already and the military planners have been ordered to come up with plans for various scenarios already. Just because you haven't seen it on TV or on the internet doesn't mean the planning for various scenarios isn't already well advanced.
 
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Militants 'seize' city of Tal Afar

Sunni militants have seized the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, officials and residents say.

Militants led by ISIS - the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant - captured key cities including Mosul and Tikrit last week, but some towns were retaken.
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said the "apparently systematic series of executions [of non-combatants] almost certainly amounted to war crimes".

The US earlier announced it might use drone strikes to halt the ISIS advance.
"They're not the whole answer, but they may well be one of the options that are important," said US Secretary of State John Kerry.
The Pentagon said US officials were also open to holding direct talks with Iran over Iraq, but there was "no plan to co-ordinate military activity" between the two countries.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani earlier said he would consider co-operation if the US took action.
The USS George HW Bush aircraft carrier has already been deployed to the Gulf, accompanied by two more warships. But Washington says no US troops will be deployed on the ground.

Britain reiterated on Monday that it had no plans for military intervention in Iraq.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27865759
 
Obama is sending 275 U.S. forces to Iraq for embassy security

President Obama notified Congress on Monday that about 275 U.S. military personnel are deploying to Iraq to provide support and security for U.S. personnel and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

Obama also said the troops are equipped for combat and will remain in Iraq until the security situation becomes such that they are no longer needed. These forces are entering Iraq with the consent of the government there, White House press secretary Jay Carney said.

He said the report to Congress is consistent with the War Powers Resolution.

The move comes after Secretary of State John Kerry earlier in the day said the United States is willing to talk with Iran to stem advancing Sunni extremists in Iraq, and he would not rule out possible military cooperation with the longtime enemy.

But the Pentagon quickly tamped down the prospect of consulting with Iran on any potential military intervention. "We are not planning to engage with Iran on military activities inside Iraq," said Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman.

Kerry, in an interview with Yahoo News, said, "I think we are open to any constructive process here that could minimize the violence, hold Iraq together ... and eliminate the presence of outside terrorist forces that are ripping it apart." He said President Obama was vetting "every option that is available," including drone strikes.

Asked about possible military cooperation with Iran, Kerry said, "We need to go step-by-step and see what in fact might be a reality. But I would not rule out anything that would be constructive in providing real stability," he said. "We are open to any constructive process here that would minimize the violence."

U.S. and Iranian officials did talk briefly Monday on the sidelines of nuclear negotiations going on this week in Vienna.

White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said Monday that no combat troops would be sent to Iraq, but the U.S. is looking at other options.

About 100 Marines and Army soldiers have been sent to Baghdad to help with security at the U.S. Embassy. Some embassy staff were being relocated in the region, but the embassy was remaining fully operational.

As Kerry made his comments Monday, a battle still raged for the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, population 200,000, which fell to the Islamic militants.

"We are still controlling the center of the city, and we will defeat the terrorists — we just received new reinforcements," said Gen. Qassim Atta, an Iraqi military spokesman who confirmed that the insurgents made gains in certain neighborhoods.

Resident Husien Ebrahim said he was leaving the city out of fear. "I am taking my family out of the city — my kids didn't sleep all night," Ebrahim said. "They haven't stop shooting on the city with heavy guns. I am heading to a friend in the Kurdish-controlled town (of) Sinjar to provide safe shelter for my family."

Ebrahim added that he would come back to fight the insurgents known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The Levant is a traditional name for the region including Iraq and greater Syria.

"Fighting is the only choice," Ebrahim said. "They think we are infidels being Shiite, and they have no mercy. They would slaughter us with our kids, so we have to fight until the end."

Many of the town's inhabitants have fled and are in the desert, with some managing to reach Sinjar, a Kurdish town near the Syrian border, said Arshad al-Salihi, president of Iraqi Turkmen Front, a political group, at a news conference in Kirkuk.

The fighting in Tal Afar comes a week after ISIL — also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS — captured Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, and Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. Tal Afar is 93 miles from Syria's border, where ISIL is battling Syrian President Bashar Assad's government and controls territory next to the Iraqi border.

Meanwhile, the commander of Iran's elite Quds Force, Gen. Ghasem Soleimani, is in Iraq to consult with officials on how to rollback ISIL's charge, the Associated Press reported, citing unnamed Iraqi security officials. AP said the U.S. government was notified in advance of Soleimani's visit.

President Obama has urged Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, to accept political changes that would promote greater democracy in Iraq, bring Sunnis back into the government and address grievances that underlie the Sunni offensive.

Despite recent gains, the Sunni insurgents are not likely strong enough to take over Iraq's Shiite south, said Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA operations officer who now works at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

"Iraq's military has more than enough in its home terrain to prevent Sunni militants to make inroads," Gerecht said.

And the Sunni militants, traveling in columns of white pickup trucks, would be easy targets for Iran's air force, should it opt to provide such assistance to Iraq, he said.

Meanwhile, Iraqis living in Baghdad — scared of the widening conflict — are trying to flee the capital to the city of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. Erbil, the fourth-largest city in Iraq, is considered a safe haven and has so far managed to avoid the deadly advance into Iraq by ISIL.

"It is the same in Baghdad; many people want to book a ticket to come to Erbil," said Benjamin Adam in Erbil. "But all tickets have been sold. People cannot travel by car. There are two or three daily flights from Baghdad to Erbil, and all of them are full."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/06/16/iraq-insurgency/10569133/
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Kurds Grab Fourth-Largest Iraq Oilfield Amid ISIL Advance

By Khalid Al-Ansary and Nayla Razzouk Jun 16, 2014 11:00 PM GMT+0200

Kurdish troops were defending Iraq’s fourth-biggest oilfield against Islamist militants after deploying outside their semi-autonomous region in the country’s north to seize the deposit claimed by the central government.

More than 100,000 Kurdish fighters, known as peshmergas, are guarding a “front line” from Iraq’s eastern border with Iran to the northern town of Fishkabur near Turkey, Jabbar Yawar, Peshmerga Ministry secretary-general, said yesterday in an interview in Erbil, the Kurdish region’s capital. They now occupy areas around the contested city of Kirkuk where BP Plc has been in talks with Iraq’s government to help reverse declining output at the oilfield discovered in 1927.

Iraq’s army abandoned Kirkuk last week amid an offensive by militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. Peshmergas now control all energy facilities and oil deposits in the Kirkuk area other than a refinery in Baiji, 50 miles (80 kilometers) to the southwest, which ISIL forces have surrounded, Yawar said. ISIL also seized part of a pipeline for oil exports from Kirkuk to Turkey, he said. Crude flows through the pipeline have been halted for security reasons since March 2, according to Iraq’s oil ministry.

“Currently all disputed areas are inside the Kurdistan region or protected by the region’s forces,” Yawar said. “It is not possible that the Iraqi government return and fill these huge areas that it left.”

OPEC Producer

Media officials at the oil ministry in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, didn’t answer at least five phone calls for comment.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government is seeking to reverse the battlefield gains of ISIL, a breakaway al-Qaeda Sunni Muslim group that captured the northern city of Mosul on June 10 and then advanced south toward Baghdad. Sectarian strife is pushing the second-largest oil producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries closer to civil war, three years after the U.S. withdrew its forces from the country.

Iraq, excluding the Kurdish region, holds 150 billion barrels in proven crude reserves, the world’s fifth-biggest deposits. The Kurdistan Regional Government controls 45 billion barrels and has attracted international oil companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Total SA with financial terms many investors see as more generous than those available in the rest of the country.

Tanker Cargoes

Maliki’s government has for years disputed with the KRG over oil revenue and territory. Tensions increased last month when the Kurds started to export crude to Turkey through a separate pipeline without approval from the central government. A tanker loaded a cargo of Kurdish crude on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast later in May.

The depth in the water of a vessel that loaded Kurdish oil on June 9 became shallower yesterday, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. The United Emblem’s draft decreased to 7.8 meters (26 feet) from 16 meters yesterday. The tanker’s owners didn’t answer two phone calls or an e-mail seeking comment. A ship’s draft lessens when the vessel unloads a cargo.

Kirkuk, which is also a province and the name of the oilfield, has been a flashpoint in the strained relations between Kurds and Iraqi Arabs. The field contains 8.9 billion barrels of crude reserves, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, and the KRG has criticized BP’s planned oilfield work there.

“The Kurds are obviously in a much better position as long as they don’t overreach,” Robin Mills, the head of consulting at Dubai-based Manaar Energy Consulting and Project Management, said in a June 15 phone interview. “I find it extremely hard to see how they would withdraw.”
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Lets face it - Iraq is now a failed state.
 
OrbitalDawn said:
Not based on the Peshmerga's actions. They've fought Islamists and dictators for pretty much their entire existence, and didn't have real issues with the Iraqi government.
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“Currently all disputed areas are inside the Kurdistan region or protected by the region’s forces,” Yawar said. “It is not possible that the Iraqi government return and fill these huge areas that it left.”
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Iraqi Kurdistan Set To Become An Independent World Oil Power

Iraqi Kurdistan is on its way to become totally independent from Iraq. The Iraqi army will never be able to regain Kirkuk now.
ISIL is a flash in the pan - the most unlikely coalition in the world will completely obliterate them.
This is the biggest thing that will happen from this. It will be interesting what effect this will have on that region, especially for the Kurd regions in Turkish, Syrian and Iranian territory.
 
OrbitalDawn said:
Not based on the Peshmerga's actions. They've fought Islamists and dictators for pretty much their entire existence, and didn't have real issues with the Iraqi government.
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I watched a CNN piece on the Peshmerga. Even when Iraq was ''stable'' they were looking after themselves. CNN interviewed a local Kurdish politician and he said they knew early on that the new Iraqi government would not be able to protect them, so they further developed their own forces and handled their own security. After Mosul fell they reacted quickly by moving to Kirkuk and other towns and cities on the main roads, reinforcing and fortifying them.

From the footage I saw and judging by their responses in Kirkuk and other places, they seem to be well-equipped and pretty effective fighters.
 
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Compton_effect said:
Iraqi Kurdistan Set To Become An Independent World Oil Power

Iraqi Kurdistan is on its way to become totally independent from Iraq. The Iraqi army will never be able to regain Kirkuk now.
ISIL is a flash in the pan - the most unlikely coalition in the world will completely obliterate them.
This is the biggest thing that will happen from this. It will be interesting what effect this will have on that region, especially for the Kurd regions in Turkish, Syrian and Iranian territory.
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Great. The Kurds are one of the largest ethnic groups in the world who don't have their own homeland. They've always had to take care of themselves, as no one else did. A strong, independent Kurdistan will hopefully be a stabilising factor.

thestaggy said:
I watched a CNN piece on the Peshmerga. Even when Iraq was ''stable'' they were looking after themselves. CNN interviewed a local Kurdish politician and he said they knew early on that the new Iraqi government would not be able to protect them, so they further developed their own forces and handled their own security. After Mosul fell they reacted quickly by moving to Kirkuk and other towns and cities on the main roads, reinforcing and fortifying them.

From the footage I saw and judging by their responses in Kirkuk and other places, they seem to be well-equipped and pretty effective fighters.
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Yip, a product of necessity. They've been on the receiving end of oppression and genocides everywhere in the ME. The Peshmerga are pretty badass.
 
marine1 said:
Islam is the greatest threat to peace in this world
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I've often said this (or similar) and been crapped on from all sides.
My words were along the lines of Islam being the biggest danger facing our planet.
 
nightjar said:
I've often said this (or similar) and been crapped on from all sides.
My words were along the lines of Islam being the biggest danger facing our planet.
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You are 10000% correct, just go look in the news and see how Islam and its followers are behind just about all the chaos going on in the middle east, Africa, Israel
 
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