2014 in Iraq

http://warontherocks.com/2014/08/dont-bs-the-american-people-about-iraq-syria-and-isil/

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

insha'allah, amon

waterboard obama

defend the indefensible

al-zarqawi: classic or dud

it's nuts hearing the BBC interview these Jihadis describe the beheadings they've done in crisp English accents

the btl commenters on british newspaper websites of all political complexions were enthusiastically voicing the good point well made truism that, to be quite honest with you, what is the difference between westerners joining the idf and joining isis?

one difference is that the IDF doesn't claim to be at war with the west. this guy on the radio was talking about how he encourages all english muslims to kill english soldiers.

Crisp English accents? Don't think so.

i'm telling you what i heard. let me see if i can find the interview

the beheader in the foley video was certainly british. crisp accent, no, but clearly british. declare war on the UK.

here it is:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p024r9pt

he talks about the beheadings he's done at 4:00 minute mark

well, uk ilxors will probably be able to ferret out why his accent isn't UK representative better than me, but he sounded very English to my US ears

Crisp British accent makes him sound like Patrick Stewart

one difference is that the IDF doesn't claim to be at war with the west. this guy on the radio was talking about how he encourages all english muslims to kill english soldiers.

― Mordy, Thursday, 21 August 2014 15:44 (1 minute ago)

that difference, might, just, have become apparent to them in the last fortnight, thanks to this 'black beatle' { (c) the daily mail } executing a journalist

no mention of which member of the chirpy troubadours he takes after, perhaps lennon, with his ample antisemitism and capacity for violence against other lesser beatles and against women, and who, in the manner of a true soldier, lived by the gun and died by it

re: Production values

http://www.bagnewsnotes.com/2014/08/enabling-isis-the-vice-videos-and-the-execution-of-afp-photographer-james-foley/

the btl commenters on british newspaper websites of all political complexions were enthusiastically voicing the good point well made truism that, to be quite honest with you, what is the difference between westerners joining the idf and joining isis?

― Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (nakhchivan), Thursday, 21 August 2014 14:42 (21 minutes ago) Permalink

While I have little respect for westerners who join the IDF, I think this is a really bad and stupid equivalency. The IDF is an occupying army that has done many immoral things, but it is not a totalitarian conquesting force seeking to control the entire middle east. It doesn't kill indiscriminately as policy, it doesn't take sex slaves as policy, it does, contrary to popular believe, take at least some steps to reduce civilian casualties.

then you have your work cut out if you want to be a contrarian in the daily mail comment boxes next time the country they refer to as israhell commits genocide in gaza

lol I think I misread the tone of your post that I was responding to

It really isn't much fun to argue the differences between Israel and ISIS in the midst of Israel bombing the shit out of Gaza and generally being a pretty difficult to defend country though.

Been reading calls for Obama and Cameron and others to create a Gulf War multi-country united entity against IS, but here's a NY Times take--

In another era, the campaign against ISIS might have merited the massed divisions and the soaring rhetoric of 2003. But this campaign is the step-child of that war.

The appetite for the fray has been drained by years of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Has anything worthwhile and reality based been written about the motivations of British guys going to join ISIS?

Just seen summary items like this that don't get into the motivations really

http://www.newsweek.com/twice-many-british-muslims-fighting-isis-armed-forces-265865

it would have to be speculation anyway right? I would assume nobody is over there interviewing these dudes (for pretty clear reasons) at least not from the western press

I'm wondering what kind of propaganda videos the British volunteers were watching - did they all go over before the beheadings and sex slavery started (or when this was covered up, if it was) or are those things what they sign up for? Did they go ever in one group or is there a continuing flow of people? etc

Clanging of the Swords IV was really popular

The claim of 1500 "fighting for ISIS" looks deliberately misleading. There might be 1500 who have gone to fight in Syria, and that looks like a guess on Mahmood's part, but there's no way to tell who they are fighting for. It wasn't that long ago that ITV were running vaguely admiring pieces about second generation Syrians putting medical degrees on hold to join the effort to topple Assad.

Yeah, there was a Kurdish man on my local news last night going over to join the Pesh Merga, again presented fairly admiringly

well, we know for a fact that at least some english citizens are fighting for IS

Obviously, but not how many - which was what the article claimed to present.

uk media has definitely struggled with the war in syria which gives all sides the chance to throw some of the tropes back. is it true, as an assad regime official claimed on c4 news, that james foley was captured by the fsa & sold to isis?

Most reports have just said he was 'captured by a local warlord' who then joined up with ISIS but it doesn't sound like anyone is sure of the details.

it feels horrible to complain about the media in light of foley's sacrifice but i've been pretty disappointed w/ a lot of the mid east coverage lately. i have yet to see anything else like that Vice reporter who embedded w/ FSA and actually went on a sortie w/ them. maybe this foley situation is why -- it's just too dangerous to get close.

Yeah, and the level of money being invested in protecting them seems to have declined in proportion to the amount of money being spent on anything else newspaper-related. There have been a few articles post-Foley complaining about the reliance on freelancers and the failure to adequately support them.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BvkoKt6CAAECD50.jpg

the places i'd expect to be on that list but aren't i have to imagine are bc of almost no media presence (like nigeria? where apparently boko harem took over another city today?). i remember during the most recent M23 conflict in Goma is was almost impossible to find any in-depth coverage anywhere. i kept searching for video and ultimately found like 20 seconds of stock Goma footage in a BBC report.

surprised the US isn't on that list yet.

lol wat

but srsly, another one i'm surprised about - Mexico!

At least one journalist was killed in Russia this year, too.

Was there? I know of two Russian journalists who were killed but both inside Ukraine.

http://complex.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/08/21/hagel_isis_is_more_dangerous_than_al_qaeda

The group "is as sophisticated and well-funded as any group that we have seen. They're beyond just a terrorist group," Hagel said in response to a question about whether the Islamic State posed a similar threat to the United States as al Qaeda did before Sept. 11, 2001.

"They marry ideology, a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess. They're tremendously well-funded. This is beyond anything that we've seen," Hagel said, adding that "the sophistication of terrorism and ideology married with resources now poses a whole new dynamic and a new paradigm of threats to this country."

It wasn't that long ago that ITV were running vaguely admiring pieces about second generation Syrians putting medical degrees on hold to join the effort to topple Assad.

― Wristy Hurlington (ShariVari), Thursday, 21 August 2014 21:48 (Yesterday)

lol quite

we've switched sides since tho

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stopped short of calling for U.S. military action in eastern Syria, an ISIS stronghold.
"Can they be defeated without addressing that part of the organization that resides in Syria? The answer is no," Dempsey said during the briefing at the Pentagon.
Repeatedly pushed by reporters about whether that meant operations against ISIS in Syria, Hagel said, "We're looking at all options."

from CNN http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/21/world/meast/iraq-crisis/

Maybe Assad can help out....or the moderate Syrian rebels or ....

They should ask hillary I hear she knows some people

that looks like a guess on Mahmood's part,

Of course, that guy is a complete fucking dimwit, a stick-a-red-rosette-on-a-donkey Labour troglodyte.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28910674

The UN has called for action to prevent what it says may be a possible massacre in the northern Iraqi town of Amerli.

Special representative Nickolay Mladenov says he is "seriously alarmed" by reports regarding the conditions in which the town's residents live.

The town, under siege by Islamic State for two months, has no electricity or drinking water, and is running out of food and medical supplies.

The majority of its residents are Turkmen Shia, seen as apostates by IS.

The Obama administration is considering seeking congressional authorization for military action against the Islamic State under a revamped counter­terrorism strategy President Obama announced last year.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/range-of-options-to-combat-islamic-state-are-under-discussion-senior-official-says/2014/08/22/f745619a-2a2a-11e4-8593-da634b334390_story.html?tid=pm_world_pop

How many trillions we gonna flush down the toilet on this one...?