2014 in Iraq

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...?

I'm torn between that view and well, wanting to help folks facing slaughter (which seems different to me than "Sadaam has nuclear weapons"), but I recognize what a complicated mess it is and that we can't help everyone and we have problems at home and just because Bush got us into a mess maybe we shouldn't feel a need to clean up his mission accomplished, and who are we to resolve Suni/Shia/Kurd issues that are also complicated by meddling of Iran, Saudia Arabia, Quatar and others....

have no idea what to do here. glad I'm not in charge. IS is an obvious horrible threat to everyone. not sure how bombing is going to stop them. not sure how to stop them.

I'm torn between that view and well, wanting to help folks facing slaughter (which seems different to me than "Sadaam has nuclear weapons")

Is it just me, or wasn't it once quite common to see convoys of white military vehicles from the UN going into situations like this and acting as a peacekeeping force? It seems like that doesn't happen anymore. Is that an accurate impression? And would a UN peacekeeping force be effective in western Iraq today?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bvgr7uGIEAAaTZv.jpg

The guy who beheaded James Foley is grime rapper L.Jinny (Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT1YDIV4lGE

in related news:
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/canadian-idol-contestant-acquitted-terrorism-25039115

It seems like Russia or China on the Security Council would prevent the UN from getting involved.

Meanwhile Iran prefers to influence things indirectly:

"The information about the presence of Iranian soldiers in Iraq is not correct. We don’t have a single Iranian soldier on Iraqi soil because Iraq does not need those soldiers." from Newsweek

Not sure Russia or China would block it. Peacekeepers are still active all over the place but tend to go in when the fighting has died down.

Any “plans to combat Islamic State on the territory of Syria and other countries” must be carried out “in cooperation with legitimate authorities,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a news conference in Moscow. He made it clear that Russia feels vindicated in backing Assad’s brutal rule

From Washington Post

The legitimate authorities in Iraq would be a different matter to Syria though. But yes, it's likely that any activity in Syria would need to be done with the consent of Assad - which still looks a long way from being something anyone's going to ask for,

this situation in syria is so fucked.. hard to blame obama for assad deciding its cool to kill 200,000+ of his own people and destabilize the entire region while doing so.

idk, i think obama deserves some of the blame for supporting the rebels against assad until realizing that - oops, maybe the rebels are actually the destabilizing force - and SWITCHING sides??

"Supporting the rebels" too much? Many folks (at least center and on the right) blame O for not helping any Syrian "moderate" rebels enough. There is lotsa pro and con opinions out there re whether O should have helped the alleged moderate rebels in Syria more earlier on.

Back to UN involvement possibility, once upon a time UN got involved earlier in the process (not just after desttruction), but it depended on the country. I am thinking the Russian Foreign Minister's use of the phrase "and other countries” includes Iraq (because Russia also doesn't want UN anywhere near Ukraine)

iirc, most of Obama's support for the Syrian rebellion has consisted of repeatedly urging Assad to step down, together with a brief, abortive effort to send small arms to Assad's "moderate opponents", which failed because these moderate forces were largely imaginary.

Obama did assemble some worldwide leverage to convince Assad to give up his chemical weapons, which seems like a plus.

Read somewhere that the deal that got Assad to give up his chemical weapons was really Russia pushing Assad to do this, because Russia was convinced that Obama and others might want to take more direct action against Assad at that time, and Putin figured this would be a way to prevent that. Of course others would suggest that Obama even then did not really desire to go after Assad more deliberately

I don't think there's any military solution to this clusterfuck aside from a massive multinational un/nato invasion which basically will never happen

I don't think that would work out so well either. Region is still basically reeling from the last time the west re-drew everybody's borders.

So now we get IS and Assad redrawing borders instead

Assad and IS can draw them, but it is another thing to make them stick, especially since they have altogether different ideas about the matter.

better people who live there draw their own boarders than a conference on a another continent by people who have never even seen the place.

but we know what's best!

actually - redrawing the mideast does sound like a good bit of fun.

*gets a map and some crayons*

anybody got any good ideas for some new country names? How about Muslimania

Sounds like the people living there lose either way if you folks consider Assad, Isis and a non-elected Shia prime minister (all with questionable funding taken from within their borders via force and or from elsewhere--Saudia Arabia, Quatar, Iran) as better than the West

yes people lose there either way. you can't impose good government on another country by force.

Didn't the US arguably do so in Japan

and Germany, but yes there were not the same ethnic divisions as in the mideast and north Africa

anybody got any good ideas for some new country names? How about Muslimania

― Οὖτις

Miserablemania

actually - redrawing the mideast does sound like a good bit of fun.

― Porto for Pyros (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall)

http://www.mcdonnas.com/mbzc/risk-all.jpg

but yes there were not the same ethnic divisions as in the mideast and north Africa

bingo. a lot to be said for ethnic/religious homogeneity

there might have been less of a sense of betrayal&outrage if sykes, picot et al had never visited, held meetings, made promises etc.

I guess it's still okay to judge a guy based on his rap lyrics in some instances:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/08/foley-killer-jihadi-john-abdel-majed-abdel-bary.html

The guy who beheaded James Foley is grime rapper L.Jinny (Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary):

Or maybe not?

http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/08/25/lead-pkg-paton-walsh-who-killed-james-foley-isis.cnn.html

Ugh, Sotloff now reported to be beheaded.

Ugh. And now they're threatening to kill a Brit they're holding next.

― Wristy Hurlington (ShariVari), Sunday, August 10, 2014 2:53 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Islamic State 'has 50,000 fighters in Syria'
Last updated: 19 August 2014
Monitoring group says the Islamic State group recruited 6,000 members in last month alone, including 1,000 foreigners.

The Islamic State group has an army of more than 50,000 fighters in Syria, and recruited 6,000 people in the last month, a monitoring group has said.

Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said on Tuesday that the group's recruitment push was gathering pace every month.

"July saw the largest recruitment since the group appeared in Syria in 2013, with more than 6,000 new fighters," he said. (Via Al Jazeera)

Shit. First quote was Shari Vari estimated IS's numbers at 15,000 or so. Which is the believable statistic? Could they actually gain permanent control of that region?

Here we go:

High estimates for the strength of ISIS are approx 15,000. Low estimates are about 7,000. This contrasts with an Iraqi army of at least 280,000. The Peshmerga could probably get 200,000 together pretty easily. -sharivari, 3 wks ago

It's possible ISIS is starting to benefit from a bandwagon effect, aided on one hand by their military success and on the other by the ferocity with which they massacre all known opponents.

The 15,000 high estimate was being quoted in an number of different places last month. Whether it was correct at the time or remains correct now is a mystery, though. Idk how anyone would know for sure. The fear would be that they could combine with other rebel groups to boost numbers rapidly.

Lots of the Iraqi army fled and abandoned military vehicles earlier when faced with IS

Such a fucked up situation for the people of Iraq and Syria. Part of me still can't believe that this is what's come of Bush's war.

Literally the worst possible outcome.

At the Nato summit, Barack Obama will ask the UK and other members to join its campaign of air strikes against Isis in Iraq.

British planes have already been involved in helping during the Yazidi humanitarian effort. Security experts are divided about how effective air strikes can be, particularly in the absence of ground forces positioned to capitalise on an adversary's displacement. The US has taken encouragement by the ability of Kurdish and Iraqi forces, aided by US airstrikes, to take the critical Mosul Dam away from Isis, which is said to continue to aim at retaking it.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/03/nato-summit-britain-military-options-islamic-state