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Volkerball posted:Awful lot of pictures of things burning in Turkey. Kurds are not happy. This is really bad because the general Turkish public seems to be in the opinion of "pox on both your houses" right now; the protesters will receive no sympathy at all. This event has the potential to set back all progress made on reconciliation during the last several years. Good going there, Erdogan.
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Oct 7, 2014 01:17
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I don't see us ever filling a vacuum properly, even if ISIS is gone for good. There isn't actual training for this stuff - no amount of training prepares you for people who act like this. ISIL is like this huge, weird idea we're trying to fight and you can't kill ideas, so...what? What do we do? Someone in GIP said it: "The United States currently has no effective weaponry against the guy who kisses his family goodbye and car bombs an embassy." I'm so sorry, Turkey. gently caress, I hate not being able to do something beside through money into a nebula.
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Oct 7, 2014 01:22
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fspades posted:This is really bad because the general Turkish public seems to be in the opinion of "pox on both your houses" right now; the protesters will receive no sympathy at all. This event has the potential to set back all progress made on reconciliation during the last several years. Good going there, Erdogan. I agree with their reasoning behind not putting their lot in with the coalition without the coalition being willing to target Assad, but with how Kurds have been talking lately, they really needed to put the Turkey/ISIS collusion talk to bed. They've really empowered this anger towards Turkey. It's definitely not a good thing. As a side note, the focal point of the protests seems to be in Batman, Turkey.  How I had never heard of this city, I'll never know.
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Oct 7, 2014 01:24
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I'm not really sure the general Turkish public has ever been too enthused by intervening in Syria. That was more Erdogan and Davutoglu's thing. With that said, if they want to whip up anti-Kurdish sentiment then these riots will certainly serve as an opportunity. I think the current mess in Kobane is motivated by Erdogan and Davutoglu's anger at the PYD and PKK for standing apart from the rest of the opposition and trying to secure autonomy within Syria. This is punishment for not assisting Turkey's policy desires in Syria. Well, and the usual Turkish desire to skullfuck the PKK New Division fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Oct 7, 2014 |
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Oct 7, 2014 01:32
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Armani posted:I don't see us ever filling a vacuum properly, even if ISIS is gone for good. Easy, reinstate the last legitimate caliphal house: the House of Osman. God bless the Ottoman Empire.
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Oct 7, 2014 01:33
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Volkerball posted:I agree with their reasoning behind not putting their lot in with the coalition without the coalition being willing to target Assad, but with how Kurds have been talking lately, they really needed to put the Turkey/ISIS collusion talk to bed. They've really empowered this anger towards Turkey. It's definitely not a good thing. There are very good reasons to suspect Turkey/ISIS collusion, at least on a limited level, and this is something secular Turks are wary of as well. That's not the real issue here. The real issue here is everyone knows the Kurds who are fighting in Kobane are PKK or PKK-aligned groups and PKK isn't and will never be an agreeable organization to general Turkish public. The logic goes like this: PKK killed tens of thousands of Turkish citizens while ISIS killed none; this is their just deserts and ISIS is doing what we couldn't do in years. Essentially this crisis resurfaces the simmering resentment on both sides.
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Oct 7, 2014 01:40
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fspades posted:There are very good reasons to suspect Turkey/ISIS collusion, at least on a limited level, and this is something secular Turks are wary of as well. That's not the real issue here. The real issue here is everyone knows the Kurds who are fighting in Kobane are PKK or PKK-aligned groups and PKK isn't and will never be an agreeable organization to general Turkish public. The logic goes like this: PKK killed tens of thousands of Turkish citizens while ISIS killed none; this is their just deserts and ISIS is doing what we couldn't do in years. Essentially this crisis resurfaces the simmering resentment on both sides. I would really hope the government wouldn't be so petty, but with loving Erdogan, you can never rule it out.
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Oct 7, 2014 01:52
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Erdogan has more in common with Assad that he realizes! Both are willing to tolerate ISIS's existence and movements when it suits their purposes. And Erdogan really might be the most petty man in the entire region. That fucker holds a grudge like no one else.
New Division fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Oct 7, 2014 |
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Oct 7, 2014 01:55
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zeal posted:Easy, reinstate the last legitimate caliphal house: the House of Osman. God bless the Ottoman Empire.  Lets bring this full circle!
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Oct 7, 2014 02:03
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zeal posted:Easy, reinstate the last legitimate caliphal house: the House of Osman. God bless the Ottoman Empire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jEFt--uGq0
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Oct 7, 2014 02:09
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Volkerball posted:I would really hope the government wouldn't be so petty, but with loving Erdogan, you can never rule it out. I was talking more about the public's view of events. Who the hell knows what Erdogan was thinking, but he is petty... Regardless, I think it is fair to say that it is in Turkish state's interests to not have a PKK-aligned quasi-state in northern Syria and this basically takes care of that. I do not think this would have turned out much differently if somebody else was in charge. Turkey/ISIS collusion is not a far-fetched conspiracy theory from this point. From the Turkish state's view PKK is an organization known for its tenacity while ISIS might turn out to be a flash in the pan and in any case they are not a threat Turkey the same way PKK is. Salafism and Salafist organizations have very limited appeal in Turkey and even ISIS made it clear that expansion to Turkey was not in their foreseeable goals. However the exact relationship between the Turkish deep-state and ISIS is far more murky and nobody can speak authoritatively about that. fspades fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Oct 7, 2014 |
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Oct 7, 2014 02:21
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What are the sources for the Kurdish unrest inside Turkey? I don't normally do twitter, and I don't see it on regular media yet.
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Oct 7, 2014 03:06
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#twitterkurds usually brings up activists keeping up to date on things. Eid in Aleppo. no one dies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA7PC0NR7p4
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Oct 7, 2014 03:16
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zeal posted:Easy, reinstate the last legitimate caliphal house: the House of Osman. God bless the Ottoman Empire. It looks like the One True Caliphate has already conquered NYC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkCbgcGtLhQ
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Oct 7, 2014 03:19
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ok so this is just a guess, but is the actual war we are getting in about what happens to all this land after ISIS is gone?
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Oct 7, 2014 04:45
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Rhesus Pieces posted:It looks like the One True Caliphate has already conquered NYC: They already did for the past 69 years but nobody noticed. Hmmn.. he died in 2009 I'm sure Obama did it to remove any competition, wake up sheeple.  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/nyregion/24osman.html?_r=0
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Oct 7, 2014 04:48
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Miltank posted:ok so this is just a guess, but is the actual war we are getting in about what happens to all this land after ISIS is gone? I think that will be the plot of Iraq War 4
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Oct 7, 2014 06:56
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fspades posted:Turkey/ISIS collusion is not a far-fetched conspiracy theory from this point. From the Turkish state's view PKK is an organization known for its tenacity while ISIS might turn out to be a flash in the pan and in any case they are not a threat Turkey the same way PKK is. Salafism and Salafist organizations have very limited appeal in Turkey and even ISIS made it clear that expansion to Turkey was not in their foreseeable goals. However the exact relationship between the Turkish deep-state and ISIS is far more murky and nobody can speak authoritatively about that. I'm skeptical Turkey and ISIS are actively colluding beyond maybe some unspoken understandings, like ISIS knows better than to try an armed incursion across the Turkish border. It's not hard to imagine ISIS and Turkey have some common interests, or that Turkey can't see the advantage of standing by and letting ISIS do its thing - it's just that it doesn't take ISIS emissaries and Turkish officials conspiring in a smokey backroom for that to happen. Turkey can allow ISIS to hound the Kurds right out of Syria and stand on the other side with a net ready to catch anyone they don't like purely on their own initiative. I guess they could be cooperating on some levels, of course, just that it isn't necessarily the case just based on what's going on right now.
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Oct 7, 2014 07:32
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Miltank posted:ok so this is just a guess, but is the actual war we are getting in about what happens to all this land after ISIS is gone? There's no "we" or "war" "getting in" really. The US, Brits, and French are taking a few swats at Them There Musselmen with air power like an obese cat pawing a toy feather just out of reach, the Turks are making noise in almost every direction but are mostly oppressing the poo poo out of the Kurds like they do, yadda yadda. The reason there's such noninvolvement is because nobody knows what the gently caress happens to the land or its constituent people, its a massive headache and beyond Erdogan wanting a vaguely desired buffer area between Turkey's borders proper and the mess that Syria is becoming, the only group that has really communicated any kind of endgame is ISIS. Which is probably why ISIS is "winning" by default more than anything else right now. The endgame is killing a lot of people where they can and torturing the joy out of whoever's left in order to fracture the gently caress out of postcolonial power.
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Oct 7, 2014 07:58
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Volkerball posted:I wonder how much of this is just jumping on the Hillary train. There's guys like Robert Ford who did it before Hillary threw Obama under the bus, but since then, it seems a lot more people are lining up. I recall prior to the Ghouta attack, Obama was basically the lone obstacle to all the people in his administration calling for intervention against Assad, so it's not like there's a shortage of people who would have an axe to grind about it, but still. The timing is funny. People looking to get sweet appointments when Hillary gets into office. I'm interested to hear what Kerry says when he and Obama are finished. He seemed more in favor of an increased diplomatic role in the middle east than she ever did. Volkerball, I disagree with you completely on Biden's remarks, right here I have ti say bing-loving-O. Obama was following Hillary's advice on Syria at the start of this, and didn't listen to the proposals Biden put forth. Biden is spot on about this being a Sunni/Shia proxy war. His retraction wasn't for inaccuracy, it was for telling the frank truth of the situation on the ground. If Sunnis want to ethnically cleanse Shia, whatever, America's not taking the fall for this one. E: Armani posted:I don't see us ever filling a vacuum properly, even if ISIS is gone for good. You kill everyone suceptible to having the idea. Simple enough an answer for you? We have the weaponry to do so. We haven't gotten to that point yet. We're trying alternatives first, like centralizing legitimate religious authority in Arab Sunni nations. Shia, we can deal with since religious authority is separate from state authority. Kurds, too, have separated authority. Turkey is moving rapidly towards intertwining religious authority with state authority, and it'll be detrimental to our long term goals in the region. Its almost time for a total policy shift, but this white house can't recognize Kurdistan and make a deal with Iran without suffeting too much domestic damage. My Imaginary GF fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Oct 7, 2014 |
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Oct 7, 2014 07:58
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My Imaginary GF posted:You kill everyone suceptible to having the idea. Simple enough an answer for you? Agreed. You go first.
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Oct 7, 2014 08:26
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I can see it now... Hillary 2016: Kill them all, God will know His own.
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Oct 7, 2014 08:28
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Willie Tomg posted:I can see it now... Hillary 2016: I'll go first.
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Oct 7, 2014 08:29
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No, seriously, you've been posting a lot of belligerence in this thread. You're looking awfully sectarian and politicized which will further destabilize the region hard as that may be to conceive of now. Physician, kill thyself. (realtalk: i actually love you because whether as part of a conscious effort or not, you embody a lot of the absurdity and insanity of modern foreign policy wonk discourse, please stick around you serve a legitimately important function ITT)
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Oct 7, 2014 08:34
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So, I'm wondering. Are there any actual numbers out there? How many people have the strikes killed, what has been the cost, what has been the incurred damage, increased/decreased traffic to the ISIS Internet... whatever other metrics people came up with? It's rather hard to grasp the actual scale and effect of things when it's just people on all sides talking.
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Oct 7, 2014 09:00
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Willie Tomg posted:No, seriously, you've been posting a lot of belligerence in this thread. You're looking awfully sectarian and politicized which will further destabilize the region hard as that may be to conceive of now. he's totally doing the beltway insider posting style deliberately. His posts in the ebola thread sound like a normal, rather informed person. and yes, he is what makes this thread worth reading.
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Oct 7, 2014 09:03
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Why is it smart of Edorgan to want Assad toppled in return for Turkish support against Daesh? Surely further destabilising the region is a bad thing?
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Oct 7, 2014 09:28
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ReV VAdAUL posted:Why is it smart of Edorgan to want Assad toppled in return for Turkish support against Daesh? Surely further destabilising the region is a bad thing? Even if there's no direct benefit for Turkey in seeing Assad toppled it gives them an excuse to sit by and let ISIS slaughter the Kurds after building up for an intervention. Gearing up for an intervention that they do not plan on actually carrying out seems like a great way for them to build up forces on the Anatolian southeast (ie Turkish Kurdistan) without being conspicuous actually. It lets them do what they're doing with Kobane and I wouldn't be surprised if it is also meant to dissuade the PKK from actually escalating to the point of armed conflict in response.
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Oct 7, 2014 09:35
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Miltank posted:ok so this is just a guess, but is the actual war we are getting in about what happens to all this land after ISIS is gone? There's no chance of ISIS being 'gone' in the foreseeable future, certainly not while the only effective thing the West is doing is lobbing bombs in their general direction. Remember the projected timeline for 'degrade and destroy' is 20-30 years, according to the people organising it.
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Oct 7, 2014 09:48
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My Imaginary GF posted:You kill everyone susceptible to having the idea. Simple enough an answer for you? We have the weaponry to do so. We haven't gotten to that point yet. We're trying alternatives first, like centralizing legitimate religious authority in Arab Sunni nations. Shia, we can deal with since religious authority is separate from state authority. Kurds, too, have separated authority. Turkey is moving rapidly towards intertwining religious authority with state authority, and it'll be detrimental to our long term goals in the region. This might be the best (non-news) post I've read in this thread in a long time. Am I right in interpreting that Turkey, despite having authorized the use of its military against ISIS in Syria, has done absolutely nothing but sit on their side of the border and laugh at dying Kurds? Did anything ever come of the threats that were exchanged when they were advancing on/encircling the tomb of Suleyman Shah?
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Oct 7, 2014 10:05
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T-Bone posted:http://harpers.org/blog/2014/09/flying-blind/ Holy poo poo that is am impressive amount of wrong packed in one space. And I actually agree with the overall premise.
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Oct 7, 2014 13:00
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Lots more air strikes in Kobane reported this morning. First during daylight, apparently. Last night there was talk that ISIS had sent reinforcements - wonder if the strategy was to get commitment by leaving them be then hitting them once they are engaged with the Kurds. Still seems better to just take out the tanks sitting out in the open but hopefully ISIS is caught overextending.
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Oct 7, 2014 13:02
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Which begs the question, why weren't all the tanks and heavy weaponry taken out? That's the very definition of Sitting Ducks.
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Oct 7, 2014 13:17
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Exioce posted:Which begs the question, why weren't all the tanks and heavy weaponry taken out? That's the very definition of Sitting Ducks. Possibly prioritization, maybe? - if the enemy is moving forward but the tanks aren't immediately contributing to the enemy advance, you probably won't be focusing on them until you take care of more pressing matters. Either that or the tanks are seen as having limited effectiveness since they don't have the kinds of supply lines tanks need and will eventually run dry or break down, the tradeoff being that the upside of focusing your efforts elsewhere outweigh the downsides of not blowing them up first. That's my guess, at least. I don't truly know why they didn't take out the armor in the open, unless the helicopters being reported as in use by US forces are in fact elsewhere and not backing the defense of Kobane. E:  I had earlier mused about Turkey holding off until the fighting was well inside Kobane so that they could bomb it out under cover of attacking Daesh. Given it's a relatively sound strategic decision ("hey assholes come die on this hill") but god drat if it isn't sad.
FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Oct 7, 2014 |
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Oct 7, 2014 14:04
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It may also be a case of the US seeing what Daesh can do after the initial round of airstrikes. What equipment is left, what are their supply lines like, what is their operation capability. Given the mobile warfare Daesh are best at, waiting until they've committed themselves to battle before opening up on them certainly seems a strong possibility.
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Oct 7, 2014 14:11
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The Good Professor posted:This might be the best (non-news) post I've read in this thread in a long time. We opened the gates to refugees, allowing the citizens to evacuate. PKK established those cantons through their understanding with Assad, and were perfectly content watching Aleppo and other cities reduced to slag. Why is it our duty to pull their asses out of fire again? Considering there are many cities taken by Daesh or annihilated by the regime, what makes PKK's single-party (they did drive away every other faction) rule in Kobane extra special? You either play ball with regional powers or go independent. If you go independent, that also implies you have the force to defend yourself from external threats. PKK does neither. The resolution process is the process of un-loving Kurdish status in Turkey, giving them a degree of self-determination and self-rule and allowing the extraordinary circumstances every majorly Kurdish city lives under to normalize. It is an eminently good thing for everyone, but especially for the Kurds who are burdened most by the low intensity war and they know it. Support for the process is much higher among Kurds (%80-90) then Turks (%55-60 or so). We will see how that will work out for PKK tying this to their adventure in Syria. PKK supporters burned a public bus in Beyoglu, Istanbul yesterday. That must have sent Daesh reeling. Keep that up and you will have the chance to negotiate the process with grey wolves next election.
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Oct 7, 2014 14:12
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I love this group. Raggle taggle!
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Oct 7, 2014 14:57
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My Imaginary GF posted:Volkerball, I disagree with you completely on Biden's remarks, right here I have ti say bing-loving-O. Obama was following Hillary's advice on Syria at the start of this, and didn't listen to the proposals Biden put forth. First, no. http://www.theatlantic.com/internat...ingle_page=true Secondly, in Iraq, you have Sunni women being imprisoned and raped. People being picked out, executed and slaughtered based on being Sunni. A government that has gone out of their way to disenfranchise them completely and kill them if they try to do anything about it. In Syria, you have Sunni's dealing with indiscriminate barrel bombings on residential neighborhoods killing tens of thousands. Sunni's being swept up by the regime and shuffled to the front lines. 10,000 tortured to death in the most horrific ways possible. 1,000 killed in the second worst chemical attack on civilians in human history, with missile systems provided by Hezbollah, dipping Lebanese Shia's hands in the blood. But yes, lets put the onus of sectarian cleansing on the Sunni's. This is just the same "realpolitik not even based in reality" that people were so wrong about in the early going. "The FSA are no better than Assad. They've committed the same atrocities, and they'll massacre Alawites as soon as they get the chance." In the face of this, the FSA, SMC, and SNC were screaming that these allegations weren't true. They worked towards international legitimacy, established emergency response teams like the Civil Defence, met repeatedly with the US and western nations, condemned revenge killings and promised to fight against them (from the top of the ladder, all the way down to tons of field commanders). To emphasize the lack of sectarianism, they created alliances with the Syriac Military Council (Christians, who were just as all in with the regime as Alawites were in the beginning) and the YPG (Kurds, who allowed the regime to keep a presence in their territory, and never joined the fight elsewhere in Syria when it wasn't on their borders). Of course, FSA support hit the shitter after the chemical weapons attack, when people didn't want to hear a word about appealing to the world for help. They were done with the world. In this environment, people started to support ISIS. Then the same people who were crying that there's no way the FSA could be supported were like "See! ISIS are no better than Assad. They've committed the same atrocities, and they'll massacre Alawites as soon as they get the chance." And ISIS response was yeah, yep, that's exactly what we're going to do. And we're going to videotape it and brag about it on the internet too. Real well done not having any hand whatsoever in ethnic cleansing, US. 
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Oct 7, 2014 16:01
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YF-23 posted:Even if there's no direct benefit for Turkey in seeing Assad toppled it gives them an excuse to sit by and let ISIS slaughter the Kurds after building up for an intervention. I don't think this is accurate. Remember, before ISIS was even a thing, Turkey just about invaded Syria because of mortar attacks landing in Turkey killing Turks, and because a Turkish jet got shot down. They passed legislation preparing for it, but they backed off in exchange for Germany providing Patriot missiles so they could protect their border. They've had the most venomous things to say about Assad since day 1, and nothing they're saying now is really inconsistent with how they've treated the conflict in the past. They aren't just making up tensions with Assad to justify this standoff and let the PKK fight and die. They may be playing it up a bit to that aim, but they clearly truly want to see Assad's head on a pike.
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Oct 7, 2014 16:07
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So, everyone in my facebook feed who are remotely left-leaning post shittons of pictures of female YPG fighters, like it's the second coming of Marx or something. Isn't the kurdish areas pretty lovely w/r/t human rights as well?
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Oct 7, 2014 16:25
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