http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/hillary-clinton-failure-to-help-syrian-rebels-led-to-the-rise-of-isis/375832/
Clinton v. Obama re whether there were moderate rebels in Syria who could have been helped early on, and whose possible success could have affected ISIS. She seems to be staking out a political position for 2016...
― curmudgeon, Monday, 11 August 2014 20:46 (ten years ago) link
such bullshit monday-morning quarterbacking to position herself as sufficiently hawkish, v pukeworthy
― Οὖτις, Monday, 11 August 2014 20:56 (ten years ago) link
like I get it Hillary you are into wars and shit
― Οὖτις, Monday, 11 August 2014 20:57 (ten years ago) link
ok now I can't figure out if Obama is more evil or stupid
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 11 August 2014 21:01 (ten years ago) link
(his three predecessors who bombed Iraq, including Mr Hillary, it's a little more clear)
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 11 August 2014 21:02 (ten years ago) link
eh I think the idea that we could have armed/financed a coalition of anti-Assad fighters (that *weren't* explicitly jihadist) is p specious
― Οὖτις, Monday, 11 August 2014 21:07 (ten years ago) link
If only we'd asked all the good rebels to stand over to one side and all the bad ones to stand on the other. "Hands up if you're planning to use our weapons for jihad! OK, no weapons for you."
― Re-Make/Re-Model, Tuesday, 12 August 2014 15:54 (ten years ago) link
"Are you affiliated with Al-Qaeda, Al-Moderat, or other?"
― 'arry Goldman (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 12 August 2014 15:57 (ten years ago) link
remember how far being a uber hawk got hillary in 2008? oh yeah second place.
― panettone for the painfully alone (mayor jingleberries), Tuesday, 12 August 2014 16:08 (ten years ago) link
finally we'll have a Thatcher of our own
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 12 August 2014 16:09 (ten years ago) link
god it's horrible this woman is the presumed nominee – again.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 12 August 2014 16:12 (ten years ago) link
and Rob Reiner has made sure "there is no one else" this time
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 12 August 2014 16:27 (ten years ago) link
I think Hillary can fuck this up as badly as she did last time and Warren or some other dark horse will swoop in and take it form her.
At least I can hope..
― panettone for the painfully alone (mayor jingleberries), Tuesday, 12 August 2014 16:57 (ten years ago) link
Hope was the last election bro
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 12 August 2014 17:09 (ten years ago) link
ERBIL, Iraq — A helicopter carrying aid from Iraq’s Kurdish autonomous government to stranded Yazidi refugees in the Sinjar mountains of northern Iraq crashed on Tuesday, killing the pilot and injuring other passengers, including a Yazidi member of Parliament and a New York Times journalist.
from NY Times
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 12 August 2014 17:32 (ten years ago) link
http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/08/11/obamas-drive-war-iraq
Yesterday's take, but what will they think today
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 12 August 2014 17:37 (ten years ago) link
the quantum theory of obama: he is either a tyrant or an empty suit, depending on how one stages the experiment
― reggie (qualmsley), Wednesday, 13 August 2014 00:20 (ten years ago) link
tbf the same dynamic was true of dubya
― Mordy, Wednesday, 13 August 2014 00:28 (ten years ago) link
that's true, he was king george and curious george at the same time. sometimes i miss him, at least he presented streamlined evil that was easy to hate. obama is more of a crushing apathy.
― Spectrum, Wednesday, 13 August 2014 00:31 (ten years ago) link
obama will be remembered as a great president. bush is the posterboy for everything wrong in the invisible united states caste system. simplistic and binary perhaps but fuck it it's true
― reggie (qualmsley), Wednesday, 13 August 2014 01:09 (ten years ago) link
prophetic shakey:http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/08/12/us_attempts_to_build_coalition_of_the_willing_for_iraq
― Mordy, Wednesday, 13 August 2014 01:34 (ten years ago) link
the good news and bad news of Malike being out of power
http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-maliki-20140814-story.html#page=1
U.S. officials hope Abadi, the prime minister-designate, will be willing to share power with Sunnis, drawing support away from the insurgency. But some officials acknowledge that the U.S. may have to get more deeply involved militarily in coming months to give Abadi time to implement the kind of political measures that Washington has long sought.
Iraq faces a massive challenge regaining the territory it has lost since Islamic State forces swept out of Syria in the spring and raced across the country’s west and north, relying on a patchwork of disgruntled Sunni militias to help hold cities and drive out government troops.
― curmudgeon, Friday, 15 August 2014 18:42 (ten years ago) link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/yazidis-killed-in-kocho-near-sinjar-after-obama-calls-off-rescue-mission/2014/08/15/31478a3c-e46e-4c4c-8406-d0f27073a308_story.html?hpid=z2
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 16 August 2014 21:31 (ten years ago) link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-iraq-islamic-state-fighters-capturing-yazidi-women-to-take-them-as-wives/2014/08/16/3a349cd6-24d2-11e4-958c-268a320a60ce_story.html?hpid=z1
More trouble for the Yazidis while elsewhere the Kurds & the Iraqi armi with US airsupport are trying to take back Iraq's largest dam.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iraqi-ground-forces-us-jets-launch-offensive-to-retake-dam-from-militants/2014/08/17/d904756d-10ab-47b9-889c-d3b00343470f_story.html?hpid=z1
― curmudgeon, Sunday, 17 August 2014 17:07 (ten years ago) link
I know some would prefer isolationism from the US and West, but US supported (via planes and drones) Iraqi govt & Kurds have retaken Mosul dam. No further word on Yazidi women seized by IS extremists
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/18/iraqi-kurdish-forces-recapture-mosul-dam-isis
― curmudgeon, Monday, 18 August 2014 17:23 (ten years ago) link
so much for the rumor that this level of delusion was not to be found on ILX
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 18 August 2014 17:29 (ten years ago) link
obama probably will be 'remembered as a great president,' tbh. ppl used to speculate that bush will eventually enjoy some kind of truman-style reevaluation but i doubt it.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 18 August 2014 17:45 (ten years ago) link
feel like obama will be like carter in that he will accomplish exponentially more out of office than in it
or he'll cash out something fierce and continue to confirm that he was not who we thought he was in 08
― panettone for the painfully alone (mayor jingleberries), Monday, 18 August 2014 17:47 (ten years ago) link
maybe he'll work pro bono for whistleblowers, refreeze those icecaps with his breath, and free Iraq as a commando
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 18 August 2014 17:59 (ten years ago) link
the standards for 'great presidents' have been pretty low ever since everyone decided reagan got to join the club.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 18 August 2014 18:00 (ten years ago) link
I say ugh to having to boil down opinions on a president to one sentence. I cannot apply one word ("great") or sentence to the handling of NSA, whistleblowers, Wall Street, the stimulus bill, health care, Libya, Iraq, climate change and more. My opinion on his handling of each of these varies. Plus, this thread is supposed to about Iraq in 2014.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 18 August 2014 18:02 (ten years ago) link
Journalist James Wright Foley beheaded by ISIS. 2011 short piece on his kidnapping by Jon Lee Anderson:http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/libya-four-missing-journalists
― the one where, as balls alludes (Eazy), Tuesday, 19 August 2014 21:01 (ten years ago) link
So what I picked up so far is that ISIS won't stand much of a chance if they try to expand north (wd mean fighting Kurds in Kurdish territory) or south or east (wd mean fighting Shia in Shia territory). Is this accurate? Are they likely to try, regardless?
― cardamon, Tuesday, 19 August 2014 21:10 (ten years ago) link
I'm not sure how much of it is our airstrikes and how much of it is Kurds/Shia. But I would guess they'd have a much harder time fighting and governing in Kurd or Shia territory than they have had so far.
― 'arry Goldman (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 19 August 2014 21:31 (ten years ago) link
kinda feel like their next best move if they're serious is saudi arabia. if they don't, it'll say a lot about how tight saudi family is w/ IS
― Mordy, Tuesday, 19 August 2014 21:43 (ten years ago) link
if they're serious [about reestablishing the caliphate]. they need to put off jordan + israel as long as possible
― Mordy, Tuesday, 19 August 2014 21:44 (ten years ago) link
pretty much
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 19 August 2014 23:11 (ten years ago) link
I understand that choosing sides in Middle Eastern conflicts is difficult, but ISIS is making it pretty fucking easy.
― Matt Armstrong, Wednesday, 20 August 2014 01:18 (ten years ago) link
Eh idk if its between them and the saudi royal family...
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 20 August 2014 02:20 (ten years ago) link
I still think that's a pretty easy call tbh
― 'arry Goldman (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 20 August 2014 15:53 (ten years ago) link
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/20/isis-militant-islamic-state-james-foley-guards-british
― Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 20 August 2014 23:30 (ten years ago) link
this is such a load of shit
― Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 20 August 2014 23:33 (ten years ago) link
this shit is so hard for me to understand. reading about this, and the couple of suicide bombers from Australia (Abu Bakar al-Australi the 18 year old for ex). like that the west has produced at least a few hundred of these guys is a fact that is harder to reconcile than it should be.
― busted (art), Thursday, 21 August 2014 00:05 (ten years ago) link
This piece is so weird
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/08/20/james_foley_killing_the_strangely_modern_production_values_of_isis_propaganda.html
― polyphonic, Thursday, 21 August 2014 00:06 (ten years ago) link
Yep.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/world/middleeast/isis-pressed-for-ransom-before-killing-journalist.html?_r=0
This piece is in part about how mideast extremists have been getting millions kidnapping Europeans
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 21 August 2014 03:20 (ten years ago) link
― polyphonic, Thursday, 21 August 2014 00:06 (3 hours ago) Permalink
If you've actually watched Clanging of the Swords IV, it's hard not to be struck by this, the production values and editing are extremely impressive for brutal totalitarian propaganda.
― 'arry Goldman (Hurting 2), Thursday, 21 August 2014 03:49 (ten years ago) link
yeah clanging of the swords (and uh its titling like a new mixtape release or something) is absolutely the scariest thing i've ever seen, knowing that its not just some MTV-sponsored militarist fantasy but a compilation of real horror slickly packaged induces soul vertigo
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 21 August 2014 04:02 (ten years ago) link
http://warontherocks.com/2014/08/dont-bs-the-american-people-about-iraq-syria-and-isil/
― Mordy, Thursday, 21 August 2014 04:20 (ten years ago) link
islamic extremists so repressed that they need to make snuff porn to get off. the west needs 2 get on their level, put these culture tourist terrorists to a prime-time televised guillotine http://oi43.tinypic.com/dggkra.jpg
― ͡ᵒಠಠ ͜ʖ ͡ಠಠᵒ (am0n), Thursday, 21 August 2014 05:37 (ten years ago) link
insha'allah, amon
― 'arry Goldman (Hurting 2), Thursday, 21 August 2014 05:39 (ten years ago) link