|
Kilometers Davis posted:This is absolutely hilarious and the people against it are ridiculous. If you, as someone who can't really do something about a terrible situation, can't laugh about the absurdity of the chaos in the world then you're setting yourself up for failure. The idea that you can't joke about something while also having complete understanding of the reality of it is bizarre. I think it's because who she is and plays in movies or whatever.
|
# ? Mar 3, 2015 02:11 |
|
|
# ? Jun 2, 2024 09:38 |
|
Nintendo Kid posted:They still offer it but they've transitioned into more doing plain old private security. They also sell their own brand of APC and train other people. I don't think the Grizzly ever went anywhere. Supposedly, only two were built and submitted to the MRAP competition, where it was disqualified because of insufficient frontal armor.
|
# ? Mar 3, 2015 02:35 |
|
I haven't seen a lot of reporting on this in English language media, but there have been reports of Kurdish forced burning Arab villages in Hasakeh. Syrian outlets are reporting a lot of villages burning in and around Tal Hamis as well. Harakat Hazm, one of the few groups in Syria receiving TOWs from the US just announced that they are [/url=http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/Mar-01/289183-fsa-group-hazm-dissolves-itself.ashx]disbanding[/url]. After US airstrikes killed numerous Nusra commanders in and around Aleppo and Idleb the group declared an all out war against Hazm, taking over their first HQ in Idleb then their second HQ in Aleppo. Members of Hazm have been directed to join AlShamiya front, an Islamist rebel grouping in Aleppo. In Damascus, Ahrar AlSham assassinated General Ali Darwish, a high ranking member of the regime's Chiefs of Staff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHzXqJHcwck
|
# ? Mar 3, 2015 12:29 |
|
Zeroisanumber posted:A father is dropping his daughter off at the airport. They have a typical emotional talk that leads you to believe that the daughter is going off on a long trip. The daughter's ride shows up and it's a bunch of ISIS fighters on a technical, the girl cheerfully jumps on the truck. The father tells the fighters, "Take care of her" to which they respond, "Death to America" and drive off while firing rifles madly into the air. They also show up in a Toyota pickup truck; I guess someone at SNL made that observation that IS used Toyota pickups which gave rise to the spoof.
|
# ? Mar 3, 2015 16:25 |
|
I thought it was a spoof on feel good patriotic superbowl ads.
|
# ? Mar 3, 2015 16:56 |
|
Zuhzuhzombie!! posted:I thought it was a spoof on feel good patriotic superbowl ads. It is. That's what people who are offended don't seem to realize. Had it been made 30-50 years ago, they would have used Russians.
|
# ? Mar 3, 2015 18:46 |
|
Ciprian Maricon posted:So I asked before in this thread why the Iraqi Army was in such shambles and got some informative posts, I hope you guys wouldn't mind explaining something to me again. Imagine that the Chinese invaded America, dismantled the gov and the armed forces, then set up a new military under a puppet government. Would you join up? It's no wonder that no Iraqi wants to join up, and those that do are only there for a paycheck. They have no loyalty to the state of Iraq because A. Their family/tribe never wanted to be part of Iraq in the first place (the country was cobbled together by the British). B. Iraq was destroyed a decade ago. The thing that's left and being called Iraq is only held together be the will of America.
|
# ? Mar 3, 2015 19:18 |
|
Muffiner posted:Harakat Hazm, one of the few groups in Syria receiving TOWs from the US just announced that they are [/url=http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/Mar-01/289183-fsa-group-hazm-dissolves-itself.ashx]disbanding[/url]. After US airstrikes killed numerous Nusra commanders in and around Aleppo and Idleb the group declared an all out war against Hazm, taking over their first HQ in Idleb then their second HQ in Aleppo. Members of Hazm have been directed to join AlShamiya front, an Islamist rebel grouping in Aleppo. WorldsStrongestNerd posted:It's no wonder that no Iraqi wants to join up, and those that do are only there for a paycheck. They have no loyalty to the state of Iraq because This isn't true at all. Iraqi nationalism has been a thing for over 70 years. Even today, balkanization is an unpopular opinion that very few leaders in Iraq have come out in favor of, but that opinion does exist. Those people tend to want to make Iraq work, but they don't see any way forward due to Iranian/Shia influence in the government, and ISIS influence on the ground.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 00:04 |
|
WorldsStrongestNerd posted:It's no wonder that no Iraqi wants to join up, and those that do are only there for a paycheck. They have no loyalty to the state of Iraq because Out of curiosity, since I know next to nothing about Middle Eastern history, did the ME countries suffer like the African ones when it came to drawing up borders? I suppose at least some of them must have already existed by then, but like I said, my knowledge of the middle east is limited. Also, how did Iran end up with such an influence on the Iraqi government? My geopolitical class had mentioned (granted, in passing) that it was still an American puppet country. Azran fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Mar 4, 2015 |
# ? Mar 4, 2015 00:17 |
|
Azran posted:
Shortest answer is that the majority of Iraq's population is Shiite muslim, same as Iran. Under Saddam Hussein, the Shiite population was oppressed. When the U.S. blew Iraq to hell, the Shiite population was freed to assume their natural majority status in the new government. Iran then became a natural ally of the Iraq Shiite majority. radical meme fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Mar 4, 2015 |
# ? Mar 4, 2015 01:23 |
|
Azran posted:Also, how did Iran end up with such an influence on the Iraqi government? My geopolitical class had mentioned (granted, in passing) that it was still an American puppet country. On this point, this documentary is absolutely fantastic. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/rise-of-isis/
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 01:32 |
|
How (and I mean the method) were Shiite Iraqis being oppressed in a country where they formed their own majority? Like, who was carrying out the oppression?
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 01:37 |
|
karl fungus posted:How (and I mean the method) were Shiite Iraqis being oppressed in a country where they formed their own majority? Like, who was carrying out the oppression? Brutal violence, terror, and economic disempowerment.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 01:39 |
|
^^^And all this. karl fungus posted:How (and I mean the method) were Shiite Iraqis being oppressed in a country where they formed their own majority? Like, who was carrying out the oppression? The military. 100,000+ Shia's were killed in the '91 revolution.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 01:40 |
|
How about in Iran, do Sunnis get oppressed there?
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 01:46 |
|
karl fungus posted:How about in Iran, do Sunnis get oppressed there? Most Sunnis in Iran tend to be ethnic minorities like Kurds and Turkmoans, so Sunni/Shia issues tend to be minority issues.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 01:51 |
|
Well that was quick. Wondering how long it would take for American weaponry sent to Syrian rebel forces would end up in their hands.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 01:54 |
|
Shageletic posted:Well that was quick. Wondering how long it would take for American weaponry sent to Syrian rebel forces would end up in their hands. It took almost 2 years, and it lasted a year before even one TOW was spotted with JaN. Compared to the Iraqi Army, who lost tanks and humvees the day ISIS attacked northern Iraq.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 01:57 |
|
The upshot to ISIS stealing all that stuff is that we found out that our bombs work really well on the export versions of our weapon systems.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 02:02 |
|
Azran posted:Out of curiosity, since I know next to nothing about Middle Eastern history, did the ME countries suffer like the African ones when it came to drawing up borders? Yes
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 02:41 |
|
radical meme posted:Shortest answer is that the majority of Iraq's population is Shiite muslim, same as Iran. Under Saddam Hussein, the Shiite population was oppressed. When the U.S. blew Iraq to hell, the Shiite population was freed to assume their natural majority status in the new government. Iran then became a natural ally of the Iraq Shiite majority. Oh yes, that makes sense. I just realized I've been reading Shiite as "Suní" and not "Chiita", as it is in Spanish. Man, I feel dumb - thanks for the clarification. Welp. Thanks for this link. Volkerball posted:On this point, this documentary is absolutely fantastic. Oh dear, I love PBS Frontline. Their North Korean docummentaries
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 03:13 |
|
radical meme posted:Shortest answer is that the majority of Iraq's population is Shiite muslim, same as Iran. Under Saddam Hussein, the Shiite population was oppressed. When the U.S. blew Iraq to hell, the Shiite population was freed to assume their natural majority status in the new government. Iran then became a natural ally of the Iraq Shiite majority. It's hard to overstate how how much Iran and Iraq hated each other's guts back in the 70's and 80's. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to take photos, but at a border crossing near Soran, there were still big billboards of Ayatollah Khomeini that just stared perpetually into Iraq, and though they'd been defaced, there were billboards of Sadaam Hussein that stared right back into Iran. It was one of the most uncomfortable places I visited.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 05:05 |
|
Weltlich posted:It's hard to overstate how how much Iran and Iraq hated each other's guts back in the 70's and 80's. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to take photos, but at a border crossing near Soran, there were still big billboards of Ayatollah Khomeini that just stared perpetually into Iraq, and though they'd been defaced, there were billboards of Sadaam Hussein that stared right back into Iran. It was one of the most uncomfortable places I visited. And now today, there's billboards of Maliki right next to billboards of Khameinei in the middle of Baghdad.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 05:07 |
|
Azran posted:Oh yes, that makes sense. I just realized I've been reading Shiite as "Suní" and not "Chiita", as it is in Spanish. Man, I feel dumb - thanks for the clarification No need to feel bad. There are people in the U.S. government that don't understand or even care about the distinction you have recognized.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 05:45 |
|
Volkerball posted:And now today, there's billboards of Maliki right next to billboards of Khameinei in the middle of Baghdad. Progress!
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 05:55 |
|
Weltlich posted:It's hard to overstate how how much Iran and Iraq hated each other's guts back in the 70's and 80's. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to take photos, but at a border crossing near Soran, there were still big billboards of Ayatollah Khomeini that just stared perpetually into Iraq, and though they'd been defaced, there were billboards of Sadaam Hussein that stared right back into Iran. It was one of the most uncomfortable places I visited. The Iran-Iraq war is so amazingly under covered and under taught. It pretty much directly led to 1990/1991 and has chemical weapons and human wave charges into loving minefields. It's also a good lesson on why you shouldn't really bankroll a balls to the wall war on credit.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 06:07 |
|
If every box there got a TOW in it that's like 50 of the things Guess we are in for an upswing of TOW-videos.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 07:02 |
|
I wonder if Yesh Atid's ascendency is now assured after Bibi's disastrous speech at the US congress yesterday...
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 09:08 |
|
And now, for a much-needed moment of levity ITT, Foreign Policy is proposing paying Anonymous in bitcoins to fight ISIS.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 10:23 |
|
Grouchio posted:I wonder if Yesh Atid's ascendency is now assured after Bibi's disastrous speech at the US congress yesterday... It's all in the optics. The speech itself was idiotic, but it produced lots of footage of congressmen applauding his soundbites. Any skilled propagandist could edit clips together to make it seem like a triumph, and Likud has some very skilled propagandists. We'll see how it all plays out within Israel. Maybe the electorate will see it for the bad political theater it is, but try not to get your hopes too high. Pimpmust posted:If every box there got a TOW in it that's like 50 of the things Or they have one TOW and 49 boxes. It's quite possible that they're all full, but you should always think twice about taking this kind of picture at face value. There's propaganda everywhere.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 10:50 |
|
Volkerball posted:And now today, there's billboards of Maliki right next to billboards of Khameinei in the middle of Baghdad. If think its worth nothing that Khameinei's authority is not universally accepted by all Iraqi Shi'ites, many still look towards Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani in Najaf for religious guidance rather than Khameinei and Qom (they are both technically equal in seniority). Al-Sistani has historically favoured the quietist school of shia thought that disdains clerical involvement in political affairs as a debasement of religious office, his distaste for intervening in political matters has arguable left an open door for more radical figures like Khameinei and Sadr who reject the quietist school but when Sistani does intervene he is usually obeyed. Sistani has taken an interesting stance in recent months and has come out both in favour of national unity and the united militias, his call for Shi'ites to take up arms to repel ISIS has been credited with the mass mobilization seen in recent months. His recent statements have argued for moderation and reconciliation with the Sunni minority which are very promising. Unfortunately al-Sistani is getting on in years and when he dies it's unclear who can fill his position in Iraq, no one from Najaf apart from him has the credentials to challenge Khameinei.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 15:40 |
|
Jabhat al-Nusra's newest plan: 1. Kill all the moderates and seize their territory 2. Leave Al-Qaeda 3. Become moderate 4. ??? 5. Profit! quote:(Reuters) - Leaders of Syria's Nusra Front are considering cutting their links with al Qaeda to form a new entity backed by some Gulf states trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad, sources said.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 15:45 |
|
suboptimal posted:Jabhat al-Nusra's newest plan: Uhhhhh cue radical splinter group that will be worse than ISIS in a few years I guess?
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 15:49 |
|
kustomkarkommando posted:Unfortunately al-Sistani is getting on in years and when he dies it's unclear who can fill his position in Iraq, no one from Najaf apart from him has the credentials to challenge Khameinei. Khameinei's no spring chicken either, though he is almost a decade younger than al-Sistani.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 17:17 |
|
Insurgents just blew up the AF Intelligence building in Aleppo using a tunnel bomb. And it looks like the blast was powerful enough to register on seismographic sensors. http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=430342 Edit: now with video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-686wNh4Sk pantslesswithwolves fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Mar 4, 2015 |
# ? Mar 4, 2015 19:00 |
|
Explosive overkill is what usually happens with these high priority targets. I remember seeing a graph for the amount of explosives used in different assassinations and such in Lebanon. The ones that had the most usually had 3 to 4 times more than the others.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2015 19:09 |
|
any news about whats been going on in tikrit? Aljazeera just reported that 'tens' of Iraqi shia militiamen and regular soldiers were taken prisoner by ISIS. so I cant imagine that its going well.
|
# ? Mar 5, 2015 01:46 |
|
Al-Saqr posted:any news about whats been going on in tikrit? Aljazeera just reported that 'tens' of Iraqi shia militiamen and regular soldiers were taken prisoner by ISIS. so I cant imagine that its going well. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3703854 There's a GBS thread following it (trigger warning: gbs), it seems they've made inroads towards the city center but their advanced has been slowed by roadside bombs. edit: Also the U.S. air support isn't involved in the battle at all, which is odd. I think Iran is providing it, and Qasem Soleimani is likely commanding the attack Homura and Sickle fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Mar 5, 2015 |
# ? Mar 5, 2015 02:03 |
|
Jagchosis posted:http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3703854 Not really odd since while the US and Iran both want to crush ISIS it's not like they would do anything jointly apart from intelligence sharing. I mean even against ISIS did anyone actually think the US would provide air support for an Iranian lead operation?
|
# ? Mar 5, 2015 02:29 |
|
|
# ? Jun 2, 2024 09:38 |
|
Azran posted:Out of curiosity, since I know next to nothing about Middle Eastern history, did the ME countries suffer like the African ones when it came to drawing up borders? I suppose at least some of them must have already existed by then, but like I said, my knowledge of the middle east is limited. The borders weren't really drawn up arbitrariliy as much as people often assume. Also the Middle Eastern countries were never really colonized and were only really under direct Western control for 20-40 years, and even then many of them were in the form of Leage of Nations or UN Mandates, and they had their own nominally independent native governments. The countries of the Middle East were basically created out of combining several pre-existing Ottoman provinces, vilayets, often expanding or reducing them somewhat, usually in the desert regions. Syria was created out of the Aleppo, Damascus (Syria) and Deir as-Zor vilayets, Iraq out of the Mosul, Baghdad and Basra vilayets. Palestine was made out of the the Jerusalem vilayet but also expanded somewhat into the Beirut vilayet. Lebanon was a reduced Beirut vilayet, but also expanded somewhat into Syria, absorbing a significant Shiite population, possibly because the French wanted to enlarge the only part of Syria that they ruled directly. Transjordan got the northern parts of Hejaz and the southern parts of Damascus, being the only one pretty much entirely made up, but was an area under substantial influence of Bedouin Arabs, the Howeitat for instance, who had taken a significant part in the Arab Uprising. One other change that occured was that Turkey annexed parts of Syria in the 20s. e: It should be noted that Aleppo and Mosul had more economic ties to Anatolia than they did to what was to become Syria and Iraq, so they suffered some economic problems as traditional trade routes and the basis of economies were disrupted. This was particularly true for Aleppo as much of its northern half was annexed by Turkey, while the city of Aleppo remained within Syria. e2: Also the northern parts of Mosul vilayet were largely Kurdish and favored Turkey or direct British rule over being part of Iraq, though most of all they wanted Kurdish independence. King Feisal though wanted the mostly Sunni Kurds to counterbalance the Shiite majority in his kingdom. e3: Map of Ottoman vilayets c.1900. Note the size of Beirut, which was a new one from 1888, created out of the Syria vilayet. It was created as a recognition of the recent importance of the city Beirut, which had grown dramatically, both ecnomically and in population, due to trade with Europe, particularly France. This also affected culture in Beirut, which was significantly more cosmopolitan and Western than the rest of the Empire, particularly among Christians. Even at that time it was not ucnommon for upper class families to have their children receive French education in Europe, and the French language was pretty influential. Though the same (regarding French language) can be said for Anatolia as well, as Turkish has quite a number of French loanwords dating from the 18th century onwards, and these French loanwords were largely not purged from the new Turkish language like the prevalent Persian and Arabic words and grammar in official Ottoman Turkish (modern Turkish was based mostly on the language of Anatolian peasants). Randarkman fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Mar 5, 2015 |
# ? Mar 5, 2015 03:25 |