Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Jun 20, 2014 14:49:23 GMT
If you're not familiar with the subject, you can check this video for a summary of the situation in Iraq and Syria. ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) is basically a terrorist group that aims to create a new caliphate (an Islamic State ruled by a Caliph, like in the old times) by conquering Syria, Iraq, and other countries in the region. They don't hesitate to put to death anyone who opposes or does not submit to them, including other Sunni terrorist groups (let alone Shia Muslims, or people from other faiths), and their methods are so extreme that even Al-Qaeda considered them as "extremists", to which ISIS responded with a threat and a call to submission.. you can check videos on youtube where they line up people and execute them in cold blood, or behead them and play football with their heads (no kidding!). As of now, they've taken over more than 30% of Syria and a good chunk of Iraq, including Mosul which is the second largest city in Iraq after Baghdad (and seized more than 400 million dollars from local banks, becoming the richest terrorist group in the world). They're expected to march on Baghdad soon. More information here: www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24179084
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Post by juju on Jun 20, 2014 15:59:31 GMT
And we thought Al Qaeda was bad enough... But how much support do these types of groups get from the ordinary Muslim in the street? How would ordinary people in say, Morocco or Egypt for example, view this sort of group? Do they dread them?
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Post by jayme on Jun 20, 2014 20:31:45 GMT
I've been hearing a lot about it on the news. That Baghdadi guy is a monster.
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Post by tangent on Jun 20, 2014 20:41:52 GMT
The situation in Iraq is pretty grim and won't get better any time soon. But it's also a real threat to the UK.
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Post by Moose on Jun 20, 2014 23:25:35 GMT
Well we did a fucking wonderful job stabilising Iraq didn't we?
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Post by jayme on Jun 21, 2014 0:25:00 GMT
I keep hearing things about black flags, a caliphate, and a Mahdi, none of which mean anything to me.
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Post by Moose on Jun 21, 2014 0:46:56 GMT
The first two now do to me, though they did not previously
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Jun 21, 2014 8:30:32 GMT
And we thought Al Qaeda was bad enough... But how much support do these types of groups get from the ordinary Muslim in the street? How would ordinary people in say, Morocco or Egypt for example, view this sort of group? Do they dread them? Well, in Iraq, a lot. It's actually the main reason why they managed to conquer so much land. Ever since the days of the civil war that erupted right after the Americans toppled Saddam, Sunni tribal chiefs offered shelter and support to Sunni terrorist groups, once they realized that the Sunni Arab minority would be marginalized in the Iraqi central government (Iraqi society consists of 3 main groups: Shia Arabs, who are the majority, Sunni Arabs, and the Kurds in the North-East, who have their own regional government and would rather achieve full independence.. there are also small minority groups like Christians and Zoroastrians, not to mention non-believers of course, but like everywhere else on the globe they're scattered across the country and don't form a group of their own). Basically, after Saddam was toppled, the Shia majority took this as an opportunity for retribution and marginalized the other factions. The Kurds couldn't care less, and simply isolated themselves behind their borders, waiting for an opportunity to declare independence. The Sunni saw chaos as the only solution to get what they want, especially after the Americans made their biggest blunder in Iraq by dismantling the former Iraqi army, depriving many Iraqi Sunni officials with a lot of battle experience, from any chance to get a pension or a decent job (were they expecting them to stay at home and sulk for the rest of their lives?). A lot of them have joined Sunni terrorist groups, including ISIS. Shia are also preparing to re-establish Al-Mahdi army to defend against ISIS attacks. So on the ground, there's a lot of support for ISIS by the Sunni population. Certainly not all, but the majority it seems, because they see here a great opportunity to gain the privileges they lost after the fall of Saddam (under his dictatorship you could only access high official positions in the military or the administration if you were Sunni). When it comes to the fighting force, much of it comes from other countries. As the BCC article said, there are fighters even from European countries (if this is not clear proof of the failure of integration policies in Europe, I don't know what is), and of course from the Middle East and North Africa (there was a video where an ISIS terrorist from Morocco was displaying heads he had just cut from their corpses). It's easy to radicalize young people with little education and almost no prospect of a good future, using religion (the Koran and Tradition are fraught with commandments and encouragements to violence and killing) and the promise of a better place in the hereafter with eternal bliss and non-interrupted sexual release. As for sympathizers, there's certainly no shortage of those. As various polls among Muslim populations have shown, there's always a significant fraction that approves of terrorist attacks on non-Muslims, and I'm afraid that many of those who say otherwise are just being politically correct or indifferent to the matter altogether (which should be a cause of concern in itself). This page gathers links to articles and polls concerning the sentiments of Muslims regarding terrorism, Al-Qaeda, and related subjects: www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/opinion-polls.htm
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Jun 21, 2014 8:46:48 GMT
I've been hearing a lot about it on the news. That Baghdadi guy is a monster. A cunning monster, which is much worse. Well we did a fucking wonderful job stabilising Iraq didn't we? Thinking back on the American intervention in Iraq and the Arab Spring, I think those dictators, like Saddam, Mubarak, and Ben Ali, should have been left where they were. They were monsters, but they knew how to keep an even greater monster under control. Those regimes should have remained until the popular culture in those societies has been impregnated enough with modern ideas of democracy and rationalism, and old sectarian values have mostly died out. The lid could have then been safely opened without any risk of toxic fumes spewing out.
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Post by tangent on Jun 21, 2014 9:59:08 GMT
Well we did a fucking wonderful job stabilising Iraq didn't we? Thinking back on the American intervention in Iraq and the Arab Spring, I think those dictators, like Saddam, Mubarak, and Ben Ali, should have been left where they were. They were monsters, but they knew how to keep an even greater monster under control. Those regimes should have remained until the popular culture in those societies has been impregnated enough with modern ideas of democracy and rationalism, and old sectarian values have mostly died out. The lid could have then been safely opened without any risk of toxic fumes spewing out. I completely agree. Intervention was necessary in Iraq because Saddam Hussein was aiming to produce nuclear weapons, with which he would have been untouchable, but everything that happened afterwards was handled so badly, it was a tragedy of immense proportions. Does this mean Russia's policy to contain the rebels in Syria and strengthen Assad's regime is the approach?
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Jun 21, 2014 10:31:18 GMT
I would say so. I'm not a fan of Assad's regime, but if it's either Assad or Islamists, I choose Assad. Once the country reaches stability, I would then recommend him to introduce gradual reforms of education and the political system, spanning 1 or 2 decades.
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Post by spaceflower on Jul 4, 2014 0:25:29 GMT
Thinking back on the American intervention in Iraq and the Arab Spring, I think those dictators, like Saddam, Mubarak, and Ben Ali, should have been left where they were. They were monsters, but they knew how to keep an even greater monster under control. Those regimes should have remained until the popular culture in those societies has been impregnated enough with modern ideas of democracy and rationalism, and old sectarian values have mostly died out. The lid could have then been safely opened without any risk of toxic fumes spewing out. I completely agree. Intervention was necessary in Iraq because Saddam Hussein was aiming to produce nuclear weapons, with which he would have been untouchable, but everything that happened afterwards was handled so badly, it was a tragedy of immense proportions. Does this mean Russia's policy to contain the rebels in Syria and strengthen Assad's regime is the approach? No, there were no mass destruction weapons in Iraq and there was no Al-Quaida there then. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq#2003-Present en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_BlixSo much killings, so much turmoil and most of the Iraq refugees ended up here in Sweden. You can't implement democracy in another country and culture, not without very high costs. Has it ever worked? In Japan after WW2 maybe, but US troops stayed on for many years then, and the Japanese emperor cooperated.
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Post by Moose on Jul 4, 2014 21:18:43 GMT
There was an al-quaida then. But I agree that there was no evidence of WMD in Iraq.
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Post by Moose on Jul 4, 2014 21:19:27 GMT
oh wait you said no al-quaida in IRAQ .. okay then yes you are right
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Post by tangent on Jul 4, 2014 23:18:55 GMT
Does this mean Russia's policy to contain the rebels in Syria and strengthen Assad's regime is the approach? No, there were no mass destruction weapons in Iraq and there was no Al-Quaida there then. I think you're answering a different question. My question was about Syria, not about Iraq. Can you explain why you said that please because I'm confused?
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Post by tangent on Jul 4, 2014 23:43:06 GMT
Addendum: the (unspoken) reason Bush and Blair invaded Iraq was because Iraq was on the brink of producing nuclear weapons, not because Saddam Hussein had chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction. The flimsy report that WMDs existed was an excuse to go to war not the real reason. Without the invasion, two years down the line, all hell would have broken loose when Saddam Hussein exploded his first nuclear device. Just ask yourself, what would Saddam Hussein have done with his atomic device? He would have shipped it off to London and exploded it. Iraq actual performed a dry run of this. Saddam Hussein sent a ship to Southampton loaded with a dummy nuclear device. Intelligence reports intercepted by GCHQ were so convincing that MI5 seized the ship in the English Channel, flooded it with agents and searched it from top to bottom, and inside out* Now ask yourself, if America and Britain had not invaded Iraq in 2003 and Saddam Hussein had actually exploded a nuclear device in London (or Southampton), what effect would that have had on the rest of the world?
* Putin was involved too, "you've got to do it," he told Blair, meaning seize the ship and search it.
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Post by spaceflower on Jul 5, 2014 17:30:58 GMT
Do you have any proof of this? How come I've never read about this, if it common knowledge? I've read about the reasons of the invasion of Iraq and it seemed to be a lot of lies, misunderstandings and CIA was deceived by the spy "Curveball". USA chose to ignore UN and "old Europe" who were not willing to invade Iraq. Bush wanted to show decisiveness and Cheney's friends wanted oil, that's the the real reasons, people speculated.
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Post by tangent on Jul 6, 2014 0:30:28 GMT
Do you have any proof of this? I read a few articles in national newspapers before the Internet was commonplace and before this sort of thing was readily quotable, in particular: - A report that made nuclear weapons inspector's hairs stand on the back of their heads a couple of years after the original Iraq war in 1991 [not 2003 as I said earlier].
- A newspaper article about a supposed attack on the south of England that turned out to be a false alarm (which I interpreted to be a dry run).
You'll just have to take my word for it that I've related [not quoted as I said earlier] the articles I read as accurately as I can. As for my conclusions, they are realistic even if you don't agree with them, but what if I'm right? Edited to make a couple of corrections.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Jul 7, 2014 14:22:39 GMT
You can't implement democracy in another country and culture, not without very high costs. Has it ever worked? In Japan after WW2 maybe, but US troops stayed on for many years then, and the Japanese emperor cooperated. It would require a good understanding of the target culture, which the Americans clearly lacked. And the change will still have to come from within, otherwise it would be fake and temporary. So all you should do as an outsider is to ensure that secularists and those in favor of the establishment of democracy will get enough support (after determining which factions and leaders among them you can trust), and that those against it won't get too much power. Although I'm not a fan of military regimes, I feel relieved that Egypt has avoided the gloomy fate of becoming either a new Iran/Saudi Arabia or a new Sudan/Somalia. What Islamists and their followers don't understand is that an Islamic state in the modern age can only take one of two forms: either a theocratic dictatorship or a failed state with endless civil war and famine. There's nothing in mainstream Islam that ensures any protection against either of these two fates. Either one of the factions, representing a particular interpretation of Islam, will foist itself upon everyone else and persecute everyone, or none of them will and it will be and endless whirlpool of terror and war. In Egypt now there have already been several TV programs discussing secularism and atheism. And none of the people who have been advocating freedom of religion, and declared their atheism publicly, have been harmed so far, whether by the State or by ordinary people. I think change will come to the region with or without the help of the West. It would just be easier and faster if the West could provide the right kind of help where it's needed.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Aug 7, 2014 13:38:19 GMT
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Post by jayme on Aug 7, 2014 23:00:16 GMT
What an awful horror. I heard on NPR today that we might send air drops and/or air strikes. I hope it's not too late on the air drops.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Aug 8, 2014 7:30:42 GMT
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Aug 8, 2014 8:25:21 GMT
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Post by Mari on Aug 8, 2014 11:44:20 GMT
Yes, doesn't anyone think it ironic that Russia can't do this in the Ukraine, but America apparently can? Though to be honest, I'm all for it since what ISIS is doing to everyone they don't like is horrible. (But at least they aren't outright slaughtering them)
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Post by tangent on Aug 8, 2014 18:16:15 GMT
Serious ethnic cleansing occurred in Bosnia and Georgia and we can only expect the same in Iraq. World leaders don't seem to be able to stop it and sometimes I don't think they care.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Aug 10, 2014 12:28:05 GMT
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Aug 10, 2014 19:44:50 GMT
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Aug 10, 2014 19:52:07 GMT
Approximate territory currently occupied by ISIS:
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Aug 13, 2014 11:28:24 GMT
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Aug 18, 2014 18:42:44 GMT
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