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The War Against ISIL Begins Now. Obama's Speech + Translation The War Against ISIL Begins Now. Obama's Speech + Translation

03-05-2015 , 12:47 AM
Boko Harem, not so much. Amazing what being in the news every day, promoted by the US media-military-machine, will do.
03-08-2015 , 11:04 PM
Interesting article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...a8d_story.html

Quote:
Foreigners continue to volunteer, streaming across the Turkish border into the Islamic State’s self-styled capital of Raqqa, according to residents there. The city’s population has been swelled by thousands of Europeans, Asians, Arabs and Africans. Upon arrival they are given cars and apartments, and they mill about among the city’s cafes and markets, lending a cosmopolitan air to streets where foreigners once were rare, according to Abu Ibrahim al-Raqqawi, the pseudonym of one of the founders of the Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently group, who now lives in Turkey.

Many of the foreigners show little inclination to travel to the front lines, he said. “They just want to live in the Islamic State,” he said. “They didn’t come to fight.

How useful they would be to the Islamic State’s military efforts is also in question, said the Carnegie Middle East Center’s Khatib.
03-14-2015 , 04:05 PM
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...0MA0OT20150314

WMDeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzz nuts.
03-15-2015 , 09:24 AM
03-15-2015 , 02:36 PM
He's the Teddy Roosevelt of Iran.
03-17-2015 , 05:04 PM
04-05-2015 , 09:47 AM
The radicalization of Norway's youths. Doesn't seem to be a unifying socioeconomic or religious characteristic just interpersonal relationships and charisma.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/wo...?smid=tw-share
04-05-2015 , 12:15 PM
Quote:
“The only thing they had in common is that they did not function in society,” he added. “But they wanted to be able to do something, to be good at something.” Radical Islam, he said, “offers a whole package.”
Yup
04-15-2015 , 01:24 PM
Rhamadi about to fall to ISIS. Not sure what we are doing here but it is not working.
04-15-2015 , 03:14 PM
Lol at the presumptuousness and dismissiveness of that post.

According to USN&WR, IS recently launched a multitude of strikes in Ramadi, forcing the city to evacuate in anticipation of impending US air strike support, which has previously worked well.

But yea, Ramadi falling; strategy failing.
04-15-2015 , 10:09 PM
lmao "according to a 3rd rate news magazine specializing in college rankings that copypastes AP stories and probably doesn't have a correspondent within 3000 miles of Iraq...."

yeah, it does look like Ramadi is falling. maybe check the latest AP story they copypasted?
04-15-2015 , 11:38 PM
You're really dumb.

Airstrikes gonna fry the sandmen imminently.
04-19-2015 , 07:47 AM
Probably the most in depth article I've seen yet.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...www&referrrer=
04-19-2015 , 09:02 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Huehuecoyotl
Probably the most in depth article I've seen yet.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...www&referrrer=
Incredible article.
05-06-2015 , 06:26 PM
5 things about IS supporters

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/05...-recruits.html

Quote:
Besides, once you are convinced of the mission’s moral virtue, then spectacular violence is not a turn off, but empowering as Edmund Burke noted about the French Revolution, which introduced the modern notion of Terror as emergency defense of radical political change.

And make no mistake, few if any of those who join militant jihad, or xenophobic nationalisms for that matter, are nihilists. That is an accusation leveled by those who wishfully refuse to consider the moral appeal, and hence real danger, of such movements. Being willing to die to kill others requires a deep conviction of moral virtue.

Last edited by Huehuecoyotl; 05-06-2015 at 06:41 PM.
05-07-2015 , 01:12 AM
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...MPLATE=DEFAULT

i think the first paragraph of this piece is really important, and speaks to the long-term, unresolved Sunni-Shia issue within Iraq.

Quote:
BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraqi government forces drove the Islamic State group out of Abu Mustafa's hometown of Tikrit over a month ago, but he has yet to return, fearing the Shiite militias that now patrol its bombed and battered streets.
ISIS could disappear tomorrow and Iraq would still be a war-zone. the most likely scenarios are civil war, partition, or both. without a group like ISIS leading the fight on the Sunni side the US will likely stay on the sideline and it will be very, very ugly.
05-07-2015 , 01:15 AM
Who do you got?
05-07-2015 , 02:18 AM
Iran -290
05-07-2015 , 03:47 AM
IMO the sharp play would be semi-correlated parlay Shia -150 with Federal Partition +250. one of the major obstacles to 3 new countries is the Sunnis have no name for their country. Sunnistan doesn't work. i'd take +2300 there'll be 2 different countries, both called Iraq next to each other in the next 5 years.
05-16-2015 , 09:09 PM
For the curious the USA sent a raid into ISIS territory to bag an ISIS finance guy. The guy ended up dead with the special forces ending up fighting hand to hand combat. They did capture the guy's wife and his slave (so odd saying that) and his electronics. No US personal were hurt

http://www.fpri.org/geopoliticus/201...h0rE-V.twitter
05-16-2015 , 09:29 PM
The real haul was the records at the compound.

Now US got a list of leaders and financial backers to work with.
05-17-2015 , 10:54 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Forfeiture
Lol at the presumptuousness and dismissiveness of that post.

According to USN&WR, IS recently launched a multitude of strikes in Ramadi, forcing the city to evacuate in anticipation of impending US air strike support, which has previously worked well.

But yea, Ramadi falling; strategy failing.

Just missed RAIDS!
05-18-2015 , 04:54 PM
at least he's not around to post "somethingsomething results-oriented lolu" that would make the reader throw up in their mouth.

Ramadi falls to ISIS

quite the contrast between this story and the Abu Sayyaf raid. Special Forces kill a mid-level ISIS oil dealer in Syria, who's likely already been replaced, and seize his laptop and cellphone. GAMECHANGER. then two days later in Iraq, the the capitol of Anbar falls to ISIS while the City Coucil meets in Baghdad to beg Shi'ite militias to come to their aid.

the US may want to rethink the strategy of sending tons of weapons to Iraq if the Iraqis can't find a way to stop letting the enemy take it so easily.

i wonder if the architects/supporters of the Iraq war realize just how terrible the decision to invade and post-war administration was. this is so much worse than all the worst case scenario arguments against invading. its sickening how successful al-Qaeda's strategy was.
05-25-2015 , 04:04 AM
its always nice when a top political appointee has the willingness to recognize reality (a little bit, anyway).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...islamic-state/

re: Ramadi

Quote:
"What apparently happened was that the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight," Carter said in a CNN interview that aired Sunday. "They were not outnumbered. In fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force, and yet they failed to fight. They withdrew from the site, and that says to me, and I think to most of us, that we have an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight ISIL and defend themselves."
does the change America's strategy?

Quote:
But Carter said he was not prepared to recommend sending ground troops into Iraq
no. ok, so what's the plan?

Quote:
"We can give them training, we can give them equipment — we obviously can't give them the will to fight," Carter said. "But if we give them training, we give them equipment, and give them support, and give them some time, I hope they will develop the will to fight, because only if they fight can ISIL remain defeated."
they just need more time. $6,000,000 a day for 12 years doesn't buy the army it used to.

Last edited by DrawNone; 05-25-2015 at 04:10 AM.

      
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