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Phlegmish posted:ISIS about to release its own currency (source in Dutch). I'm absolutely certain no other nations will think about counterfeiting it with an eye toward disrupting their economy.
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Nov 13, 2014 22:46
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CommieGIR posted:
same way any other nation-state does it, the threat of loving your poo poo up if you don't use the currency
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Nov 13, 2014 23:02
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Gold and silver. This is one of those weird, weird undercurrents in Islamist thinking that I like to use to draw the line between 'absolutely clueless' and 'might have a chance' when it comes to how a group sees itself running a state's economic and fiscal policy.
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Nov 13, 2014 23:12
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A big flaming stink posted:same way any other nation-state does it, the threat of loving your poo poo up if you don't use the currency Statists don't know about the power of the scammer tag and  .I guess that's one way to hold on to territory though - turn the place into
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Nov 13, 2014 23:23
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Muffiner posted:Gold and silver. This is one of those weird, weird undercurrents in Islamist thinking that I like to use to draw the line between 'absolutely clueless' and 'might have a chance' when it comes to how a group sees itself running a state's economic and fiscal policy. I can just imagine ISIS' myths concerning their hidden gold cache. I sense an opportunity for a decent Indiana Jones sequal. More realistically, I expect ISIS' currency to be supported by a combination of expropriated foreign currency reserves and high-value commodities.
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Nov 13, 2014 23:43
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fade5 posted:Apparently I'm better at foreign policy than the president. The problem is it's pretty much too late now, we can't even turn Syria into Libya 2.0 anymore, since there aren't enough rebels left in Syria to take on Assad's forces/ISIL/al-Nursa (huh, remember when al-Nursa was fighting against ISIS), even with our aerial help/a no-fly zone. So we'd have to send in ground troops into both Syria and Iraq. Join the club. You might have to stand up against the wall, because I think all the seats are taken.
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Nov 13, 2014 23:52
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GreyjoyBastard posted:This, probably. Odds are pretty low that Daesh is a meaningful threat outside of Iraq/Syria, even with the modest resource commitments we're currently going with. And they're bleeding Iran in both places, which is convenient for us as long as we're going to stubbornly insist that Iran is the enemy. And yes, that's a question largely from ignorance, but one I'm genuinely curious about.
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Nov 14, 2014 00:19
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vanbags posted:What exactly is preventing Iran from going all-in on ISIS in Iraq? And why aren't we encouraging them to do so? Wouldn't it be preferable to have their troops on the ground rather than American ones? Iran is already stretched pretty thin. They do have troops on the ground in Iraq and Iran that are one of the biggest forces fighting daesh, but they're trying to do it by establishing Hezbollah's in each of those countries. That way they can pretend that they have nothing to do with it. But it's all really transparent. A lot of the militias leaders wear Iranian uniforms and have taken pictures with Soleimani. quote:Mohandes, who could not be reached for comment for this story, is Iran's most powerful military representative in Iraq, according to senior Iraqi officials. At 60, he has distinctive white hair and a white beard. He studied engineering in Basra and joined Dawa, a political party banned by Saddam, according to a Facebook page set up in his name. Good primer on it. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/12/us-mideast-crisis-militias-specialreport-idUSKCN0IW0ZA20141112
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Nov 14, 2014 00:36
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vanbags posted:What exactly is preventing Iran from going all-in on ISIS in Iraq? And why aren't we encouraging them to do so? Wouldn't it be preferable to have their troops on the ground rather than American ones? Turkish intervention and Kurdistani independence. Iran goes all-in, its a full-out regional war supported by America and allies on one side and Russia, and therefore China, on the other. Iran going all-in is what we want to avoid at all costs, even thousands of American lives. The likely alternatives are far, far worse. E: Just to reiterate, the Syrian crisis isn't about Syria. America doesn't give a poo poo about who rules Syria so long as they rule in a manner that doesn't gently caress with our other interests in the region. Assad's use of chemical weapons fucks with our interests. Iranian mobilization and overt, organized combat against ISIS fucks with our interests in a way that plays extremely poorly to the American public. Turkish invasion of an independent Kurdistan plays extremely poorly, as well, and threatens Erdogan's continued existance within the NATO framework. My Imaginary GF fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Nov 14, 2014 |
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Nov 14, 2014 00:37
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not that the lovely attempts to disguise Iran's efforts matter. If Ukraine proves anything it's that the flimsiest facade on your proxies is more than enough for deniability 
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Nov 14, 2014 00:44
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If in 2008 if someone had told me that in 2014 Obama would be pushing for another war in Iraq I would not have believed them.
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Nov 14, 2014 00:46
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OctaviusBeaver posted:If in 2008 if someone had told me that in 2014 Obama would be pushing for another war in Iraq I would not have believed them. Obama isn't. The military brass is.
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Nov 14, 2014 00:47
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Volkerball posted:Iran is already stretched pretty thin. They do have troops on the ground in Iraq and Iran that are one of the biggest forces fighting daesh, but they're trying to do it by establishing Hezbollah's in each of those countries. That way they can pretend that they have nothing to do with it. But it's all really transparent. A lot of the militias leaders wear Iranian uniforms and have taken pictures with Soleimani. Their militias may be (though I suspect their Iraqi ones are getting plenty of new recruits). But if they went all-in they could send in regular forces or the basij, and they've got a gently caress-ton of those. Deteriorata posted:Obama isn't. The military brass is. Obama is already fighting another war in Iraq.
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Nov 14, 2014 00:51
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Getting rid of Assad may be the next step to fighting ISIS. quote:WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama wants his advisers to review the administration's Syria policy after determining it may not be possible to defeat Islamic State militants without removing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, CNN reported on Wednesday. Who are these people in moderate opposition? American journalist goes to look for them among FSA, gets turned over to Al Nusra repeatedly. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/magazine/theo-padnos-american-journalist-on-being-kidnapped-tortured-and-released-in-syria.html?_r=0 I don't think the president thought this one out. Or if he did, there are definitely ulterior motives at play.
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Nov 14, 2014 00:52
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Deteriorata posted:Obama isn't. The military brass is. The brass is pushing it because Congress will over-fund it. There's a lot of room for promotion potential in an anti-ISIS ground operation when the House and Senate are ribbing you on to do it right this time. If anything, Obama is a lone voice of dissent on the issue--mainly because he knows once his term is over, his political power is over with for a while. He's got a bad nuclear deal to sell, while an intervention would only make the deal worse and could scuttle all the progress made this year. Pycckuu posted:Getting rid of Assad may be the next step to fighting ISIS. The "moderate opposition" that we can live with controlling Syria and don't see ending as an even worse disaster are Alawite elites and SAA officers who understand that no progress can be made while Assad is in power. Potentially, we could live with Kurdish rule over Syria--would depend heavily upon the individual. My Imaginary GF fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Nov 14, 2014 |
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Nov 14, 2014 00:55
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My Imaginary GF posted:The brass is pushing it because Congress will over-fund it. There's a lot of room for promotion potential in an anti-ISIS ground operation when the House and Senate are ribbing you on to do it right this time. If anything, Obama is a lone voice of dissent on the issue--mainly because he knows once his term is over, his political power is over with for a while. He's got a bad nuclear deal to sell, while an intervention would only make the deal worse and could scuttle all the progress made this year.  Everything about this.
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Nov 14, 2014 01:02
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emanresu tnuocca posted:Is I/P chat still forbidden here? Seems like an intifada is erupting any day now and the thread was closed cause people kept responding to MIGF's childish nuke-chat posts, while I agree with the sentiment it seems like there are other ways to deal with those kind of derails rather than straight up closing a thread that has generally been rather civil in comparison to previous I/P threads. I second this. poo poo is really hitting the fan over there, with a lot of humorous Israeli Politician Being an rear end in a top hat of the Week humor potential.
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Nov 14, 2014 04:29
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I second this. poo poo is really hitting the fan over there, with a lot of humorous Israeli Politician Being an rear end in a top hat of the Week humor potential. The previous I/P threat got shut down for the usual. There is a coded I/P thread running around somewhere... http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3677835
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Nov 14, 2014 04:33
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What would happen to the IS' claim to be caliph had al-baghdadi been killed? I assume his successor would be named Amir al-Mu'minin, but is there anyone else in the IS command structure who could claim to be sayyid? Additionally, I'd heard that al-Baghdadi had called for attacks on saudi arabia for their support of yemen's war against the Houthis. What? Why would IS condemn attacking the houthi insurgency?
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Nov 14, 2014 05:44
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Hey guys it turns out there are a lot of loving crazy people in the middle east who aren't going to stop being loving crazy until they are dead or in prison. But we can negotiate with these people right?
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Nov 14, 2014 07:04
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Apthous posted:Hey guys it turns out there are a lot of loving crazy people in the middle east who aren't going to stop being loving crazy until they are dead or in prison. But we can negotiate with these people right? I'll have you know that my Dad is one of those crazy people. 
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Nov 14, 2014 07:06
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I'll have you know that my Dad is one of those crazy people. Your dad is one of the sane moderate forces in ME politics, and therefore has been vetted to receive American arms. Most Sunni Arab groups in Syria, OTOH...
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Nov 14, 2014 07:10
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I'll have you know that my Dad is one of those crazy people. I don't trust the people or the water anywhere where it doesn't snow.
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Nov 14, 2014 07:15
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Apthous posted:I don't trust the people or the water anywhere where it doesn't snow. Good thing you have no control over US foreign policy then. 
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Nov 14, 2014 07:16
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Good thing you have no control over US foreign policy then. Europe and North America are the only places in the world that have proven the ability to project peace and stability across the globe. Everyone else are literally mud people that are basically locked in endless cycles of civil war and unrest.
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Nov 14, 2014 07:22
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Oh, you thought you could erase this:Apthous posted:Both the Persians and Ottomans built empires in the middle east that were stable and somewhat progressive. It snows in both of those countries. Explain that. It snows in Jerusalem too, idiot. Apthous posted:Europe and North America are the only places in the world that have proven the ability to project peace and stability across the globe. Everyone else are literally mud people that are basically locked in endless cycles of civil war and unrest. I'm sorry, I think you might have mistaken this for the "racism is cool" forum.
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Nov 14, 2014 07:25
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I'm sorry, I think you might have mistaken this for the "racism is cool" forum. Don't put words in my mouth.
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Nov 14, 2014 07:32
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Apthous posted:I don't trust the people or the water anywhere where it doesn't snow. It snowed in Cairo, Jerusalem and Homs earlier this year. Lebanon has ski resorts. Edit: three probations in less than two weeks? drat dude, you're putting effort into this!
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Nov 14, 2014 07:34
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Apthous posted:Europe and North America are the only places in the world that have proven the ability to project peace and stability across the globe. Everyone else are literally mud people that are basically locked in endless cycles of civil war and unrest. Oh come on, you have to do better than this with the trolling. At least throw in some Huntington-esque essentialist nonsense about how some cultures are genetically predisposed to violence or whatever, try to make it sound intelligent. 1/5 for effort
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Nov 14, 2014 08:34
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icantfindaname posted:Oh come on, you have to do better than this with the trolling. At least throw in some Huntington-esque essentialist nonsense about how some cultures are genetically predisposed to violence or whatever, try to make it sound intelligent. 1/5 for effort Put white people in an area of the globe where it is 120 degrees average in the summertime and the only water is filled with those parasites that swim up your peehole and see how quickly they start murdering each other and forgoing anything resembling order.
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Nov 14, 2014 09:55
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Apthous posted:Put white people in an area of the globe where it is 120 degrees average in the summertime and the only water is filled with those parasites that swim up your peehole and see how quickly they start murdering each other and forgoing anything resembling order. Oh god. I can't even imagine. They'd probably start the mother of all wars. A world war, if you will.
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Nov 14, 2014 09:57
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Volkerball posted:Oh god. I can't even imagine. They'd probably start the mother of all wars. A world war, if you will. The difference between the third world and the first world is that the people are just as evil in both areas, however because of the prosperity of the first world there are more options available to keep evil in line then there are in other places. Nazism isn't making a comeback in Germany not because people are somehow less evil, but because bread is no longer $5,000 a loaf. Apthous fucked around with this message at 10:28 on Nov 14, 2014 |
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Nov 14, 2014 10:25
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Apthous posted:The difference between the third world and the first world is that the people are just as evil in both areas, however because of the prosperity of the first world there are more options available to keep evil in line then there are in other places. Nazism isn't making a comeback in Germany not because people are somehow less evil, but because bread is no longer $5,000 a loaf. It's not prosperity. Its decades and centuries of living under governments that are held accountable to their people. Bread didn't just become $5,000 a loaf. Germany was being held down by the terms of the treaty of Versailles. Egypt has a ball and chain on their ability to grow and create a sustainable standard of living for its citizens, named the military. With the low standard of living and the oppression that comes along with that, you'll get crime, and you'll get violence. Tyranny right now in the middle east is largely at a level that the western world has been able to avoid for a very long time, and that's largely why stability has been so hard to come by relative to other regions in the world.
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Nov 14, 2014 10:37
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Nazism wasn't fundamentally evil, it still had a (wicked) ethos behind it. What really made nazism worrying is that it took power in Germany and not in the usual third world shithole, meaning that they had the ideology and the means to pursue it. Stalin and Hitler aren't better or worse than Milosevic or Pol Pot, they took power in places that allowed them to put their ideologies in practice. Besides, it's the degree to which a zealot pursues his/her own ideology that causes troubles, not the ideology per se. Come to think about it, socialism isn't bad and nationalism isn't terrible in moderate doses; combine the two and you get national socialism, which shouldn't be the mother of all evil - but look at how that turned out.
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Nov 14, 2014 11:27
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Cippalippus posted:Nazism wasn't fundamentally evil ladies and gentlemen, the ME thread
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Nov 14, 2014 11:33
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It's not a novelty concept- Plato said it a few centuries before Christ- that a society based on evil cannot exist. With that being said, the problem switched to the definition of what is good and what is evil.
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Nov 14, 2014 12:17
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Cippalippus posted:Nazism wasn't fundamentally evil, it still had a (wicked) ethos behind it. Nihilists! gently caress me. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.
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Nov 14, 2014 12:44
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Cippalippus posted:Nazism wasn't fundamentally evil Requesting a "goons.txt" for this gem right here.
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Nov 14, 2014 13:49
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Volkerball posted:It's not prosperity. Its decades and centuries of living under governments that are held accountable to their people. Bread didn't just become $5,000 a loaf. Germany was being held down by the terms of the treaty of Versailles. Egypt has a ball and chain on their ability to grow and create a sustainable standard of living for its citizens, named the military. With the low standard of living and the oppression that comes along with that, you'll get crime, and you'll get violence. Tyranny right now in the middle east is largely at a level that the western world has been able to avoid for a very long time, and that's largely why stability has been so hard to come by relative to other regions in the world. Also, many seem to forget that that prosperity was in many cases built on the developing world's lack of it. They're not separate phenomena. -- Anyway, hoping to get back to less stupid discussion: Iraqi government claims to have completely driven IS from the town of Baiji, which is where the massive oil refinery is. Though BBC reports there is still heavy fighting around the refinery itself. Not sure what the broader implications of this are, if it holds, but hopefully it's a sign the Iraqi army is getting its act together.
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Nov 14, 2014 14:06
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The New Black posted:Not sure what the broader implications of this are, if it holds, but hopefully it's a sign the
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