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tsa posted:Not if you've learned literally anything from history you don't. Iraq didn't have an ongoing civil war with 400k death toll. And yeah, it isn't anything new because standing by and doing nothing is still the worst possible solution.
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Jun 17, 2016 18:01
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A Fancy 400 lbs posted:I think it's pretty clear that Trump's "isolationist" thing is just a schtick when so much of his rhetoric is about pumping up the military and directly fighting ISIS and so on and so forth. quote:“I would have stayed out of Syria and wouldn’t have fought so much for Assad, against Assad because I thought that was a whole thing,” Trump said. “You have Iran, which we made into a power. Iran now is a power. Because of us, because of some of the dumbest deals I have ever seen. So now you have Iran and you have Russia in favor of Assad. We’re supposed to fight the two of them. At the same time, we’re supposed to fight ISIS, who is fighting Assad.”
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Jun 17, 2016 18:01
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Friendly Humour posted:Iraq didn't have an ongoing civil war with 400k death toll. And yeah, it isn't anything new because standing by and doing nothing is still the worst possible solution. If we haven't figured out how to prevent a huge civil war in Iraq what makes you think we can stop one in Syria? There are lots of other people's problems I don't choose to solve for them if the cost is too high. This qualifies. tsa posted:Anyone who claims to know what trump would do or what he is thinking is a liar or a fool. Trump included. I can agree with this. But the random element doesn't guarantee he lands on any particular side of Hillary.
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Jun 17, 2016 18:07
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Turdis McWordis posted:If we haven't figured out how to prevent a huge civil war in Iraq what makes you think we can stop one in Syria? What is the cost.
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Jun 17, 2016 18:09
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Volkerball posted:What is the cost. Money. Lives taken by the victorious side that we would then bear some responsibility for. Troops if you really want to impose a peace.
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Jun 17, 2016 18:11
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Turdis McWordis posted:Money. Lives taken by the victorious side that we would then bear some responsibility for. Troops if you really want to impose a peace. So orders of magnitude less than the cost of the last 5 years of civil war and the next 5 years to come.
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Jun 17, 2016 18:19
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Turdis McWordis posted:Money. Lives taken by the victorious side that we would then bear some responsibility for. Troops if you really want to impose a peace. I'd like to see your cost-benefit analysis matrix for statement.
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Jun 17, 2016 18:20
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Friendly Humour posted:It doesn't seem callous, it is callous. If the alternatives are "i dunno know" and letting a genocidal tyrant go on genociding, you need some pretty good reasons to pick the latter one. How exactly is this act the responsibility of the United States and only this one country to resolve this by war, sacrificing what are likely to be thousands of its own countrymen's lives and spending money that it doesn't have because it blew it already as it largely failed to help both Afghanistan and Iraq? We are not good at resolving this kind of conflict yet, and although I think Obama has made some large mistakes on Syria, I am sympathetic with the lack of viable options. Sometimes it's better to wait to see if a better option comes up later that will provide a more lasting effect. Going back to the wishing we had done a NFZ back in the days of a stronger FSA and less prominent IS, it should be remembered that both the Iran nuclear deal and the deal to rid Syria of chemical weapons never would have occurred under such circumstances. It's difficult to say if those deals are completely worth it, and many hawks don't believe they were anything more than the US being deceived, but I do think they add some credit to the idea of being more cautious about running off to war and rather seeing what options arise later that were not able to be anticipated at the time. I think that will eventually lead to borders being redrawn, but the US establishment cringes at this idea for now. However it seems to be the least-bad final result for many of the wars that have been similar to the Syrian civil war.
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Jun 17, 2016 18:21
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Friendly Humour posted:Iraq didn't have an ongoing civil war with 400k death toll. And yeah, it isn't anything new because standing by and doing nothing is still the worst possible solution. Can we please for the love of god drop this "doing nothing" thing? Diplomatic pressure is not nothing. Sanctions are not nothing. Funding/arming/training/creating rebel groups is not nothing. There has been years of not nothing going on. Drop it already.
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Jun 17, 2016 18:28
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Volkerball posted:So orders of magnitude less than the cost of the last 5 years of civil war and the next 5 years to come. The costs to the US past and future of the Syrian civil war are orders of magnitude less than the costs to the US of trying to stop it?  Friendly Humour posted:I'd like to see your cost-benefit analysis matrix for statement. See above. If you're suggesting setting US costs against Syrian and regional benefits then (1) LOL, and (2) we'd need to do a cost benefit analysis of every possible action the USG could take everywhere in the world using every possible resource including eliminating existing programs benefitting US citizens. No, thanks.
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Jun 17, 2016 18:39
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The thing is, and I know I'm contradicting myself here, that Russian aggressiveness is making all of those efforts moot, and if you want diplomatic efforts to have better results then we need to ~do something~. The best hope might be that Russia gets tired of Assad's all-or-nothing attitude and gets him out one way or another and his replacement is more amenable to a partitioning of the country... which implies that the US just keep doing what it's doing until then. Although one would hope we could do more in providing aid regardless of what Assad says, via airdrops or what have you. He'd be angry but I doubt that would risk escalating anything with Russia.
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Jun 17, 2016 18:45
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cyberbully posted:How exactly is this act the responsibility of the United States and only this one country to resolve this by war, sacrificing what are likely to be thousands of its own countrymen's lives and spending money that it doesn't have because it blew it already as it largely failed to help both Afghanistan and Iraq? We are not good at resolving this kind of conflict yet, and although I think Obama has made some large mistakes on Syria, I am sympathetic with the lack of viable options. Sometimes it's better to wait to see if a better option comes up later that will provide a more lasting effect. It isn't the sole responsibility of the United States, but they're the only ones with the capacity to do anything about Assad. The EU isn't going to lift a finger and I find that deplorable, but what can you do. Though it's convenient to ignore it now, when the civil war started there were promises and vocal support for the FSA, which ultimately came to nothing. If you ask the Syrians themselves, and I have asked from those refugees that I've met, they think the West betrayed them. And I agree. The position of "it's not our fight" would be a valid one if the West hadn't made any promises to the Syrian revolutionaries. As for the gains that have been made, 400k dead don't really care about that. You still failed to stop the slaughter, but take what confort you want in Assad not having chemical weapons to do his genociding with. I'm sure the death toll would be a couple thousand higher without it. Count Roland posted:Can we please for the love of god drop this "doing nothing" thing? It is when you know it's not going to work. Also, the West gave loving zilch to the revolutionaries fighting against Assad. Trained nobody and gave no arms. The only ones who've received any support are the Kurds. Good for them, but their fight is with Daesh, not Assad. Continuing with the diplomatic approach when it's clear to everyone it's not going to have any results is exactly the same approach as the West has taken with Israel-Palestine conflict. Ie, close your eyes, keep talking and hope it goes away.
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Jun 17, 2016 19:42
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The FSA was a right-wing death squad who were going to sell it off anyway. They were bourgeois, not revolutionary.
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Jun 17, 2016 19:53
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I loving love death squads.
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Jun 17, 2016 19:58
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Actually, I would love for a more pro-active EU/Other in dealings with things like this and Bosnia...intervention like these should not be done unilaterally and that wasnt the case for Syria but still can you imagine France or Britain moving without US blessing? And what is US blessing, it is when it moves out first I'm sad to say. NATO was never a charity for Europes sake, lets be clear. But still, those other actors growing more in capabilities and will would be good so these emergencies aren't beholden to a fickle US and for the future better yet being able to talk down an overzelous US when there aren't any emergencies(i'e Iraq War part duce) That said America does hold the first mover credentials here, and as to what would be the reward, that depends entirely on wheter your an Isolationist and think US can live in a vacum. If I would go by the number solely it would still be about the refugees, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey/EU(to a degree in which most of the issues are self inflicted) has their issues, Lebanon most of all. Where do you think that situation will continue to head with the war raging or Assad in power with no assurance for their lives under him?
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Jun 17, 2016 20:03
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Friendly Humour posted:It is when you know it's not going to work. Also, the West gave loving zilch to the revolutionaries fighting against Assad. Trained nobody and gave no arms. The only ones who've received any support are the Kurds. Good for them, but their fight is with Daesh, not Assad. Continuing with the diplomatic approach when it's clear to everyone it's not going to have any results is exactly the same approach as the West has taken with Israel-Palestine conflict. Ie, close your eyes, keep talking and hope it goes away. Is this an attempt at irony or something? They may not have backed the rebels as much as you wanted, but the US absolutely backed anti-Assad rebels. You can't be really denying this, right?
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Jun 17, 2016 20:09
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Apparently the Iraqi Army is now in Fallujah center.
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Jun 17, 2016 20:52
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Friend of mine found this photo online somewhere - pretty strange. Supposedly Iraqi militia of some sort in Fallujah. Homeboy up front has a Croatian VHS-2, which I don't think I've ever seen pop up in the ME before. Is Croatia arming any faction at the moment? PKM gunner also has a really highspeed M4 on his back, including a Holosight and IR laser designator, though I guess conceivably that could have been captured from daesh, who would have captured it from the originally Iraqi SF teams when they ran away. 
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Jun 17, 2016 21:03
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Rifles really aren't that difficult to obtain or expensive, in the big scheme of things that destroy other things.
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Jun 17, 2016 21:07
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Throatwarbler posted:Rifles really aren't that difficult to obtain or expensive, in the big scheme of things that destroy other things. No poo poo - but it's a curious gun to have show up in a sea of AK/AR variants, so there's obviously a story attached to it. Really doubt a random Iraqi militiaman decided to waste money on an obscure Croat gun.
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Jun 17, 2016 21:12
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He didn't cut his food budget to pay for it.
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Jun 17, 2016 21:14
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Throatwarbler posted:Rifles really aren't that difficult to obtain or expensive, in the big scheme of things that destroy other things. I did some reading and HS Produkt entered a deal with Iraq to have them test out VHS assault rifles and apparently the VHS-2 was approved for sale to Iraq recently. So it's probably part of the Iraqi shipment. I remember that some Libyan rebels in 2011 got their hands on F2000s that were sold to the Libyan military for elite troops.
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Jun 17, 2016 21:27
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Objurium posted:No poo poo - but it's a curious gun to have show up in a sea of AK/AR variants, so there's obviously a story attached to it. Really doubt a random Iraqi militiaman decided to waste money on an obscure Croat gun. This is old news actually. The Saudis together with the CIA delivered Croatian weapons to the Rebels at least until 2013. You'll find stories about it if you google it, though they tend to focus on the heavier gear, like rocket launchers.
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Jun 17, 2016 21:33
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Objurium posted:No poo poo - but it's a curious gun to have show up in a sea of AK/AR variants, so there's obviously a story attached to it. Really doubt a random Iraqi militiaman decided to waste money on an obscure Croat gun. As Domattee says, the Croatians were selling arms to the Saudis that were going to a variety of groups. Croatia both inherited a lot of the Yugoslav firearm-production infrastructure and has since invested in such post-war. Springfield is now Croatian-owned and they're actually a major producer of 1911s and other longtime staple firearms. Nominally "obscure" Croatian guns are often slight variations or straight copies of more well known designs. Also minor nitpick but nationality is "Croatian" ethnicity is "Croat", at least so I was told while there. Those are Croatian guns because they are made in the nation of Croatia. A Croat gun would be made by ethnic Croats who may or may not live inside a nation called Croatia.
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Jun 17, 2016 21:40
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Objurium posted:Friend of mine found this photo online somewhere - pretty strange. Supposedly Iraqi militia of some sort in Fallujah. Homeboy up front has a Croatian VHS-2, which I don't think I've ever seen pop up in the ME before. Is Croatia arming any faction at the moment? PKM gunner also has a really highspeed M4 on his back, including a Holosight and IR laser designator, though I guess conceivably that could have been captured from daesh, who would have captured it from the originally Iraqi SF teams when they ran away. Didn't our own Brown Moses come into the international spotlight for being the one to figure out the Croatians were the country the west was using to give arms to rebels? I figure a bunch of their stuff is floating around Syria atm.
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Jun 17, 2016 21:50
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Apparently the Iraqi Army is now in Fallujah center. https://twitter.com/miladvisor/status/743879082220347392 quote:#Fallujah MAP 17/6/16.#Iraq's armed forces recaptured ~70% of city & ~80% city centre.  Apparently they now control 70% of Fallujah. Well that's certainly a revelation I wouldn't have called a year ago: the Iraqi Army is better at fighting Fallujah than the US Army was. Apparently you can make the Iraqi Army competent after all!  Oh, Manbij proper may be starting: https://twitter.com/sayed_ridha/status/743835601594572800 quote:#SDF reportedly storm #Manbij city from the west side https://twitter.com/AhmedoKurdi/status/743835836207202304 quote:They've reached Kitab Square according to Kurdish sources
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Jun 17, 2016 21:57
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chairface posted:As Domattee says, the Croatians were selling arms to the Saudis that were going to a variety of groups. Croatia both inherited a lot of the Yugoslav firearm-production infrastructure and has since invested in such post-war. Springfield is now Croatian-owned and they're actually a major producer of 1911s and other longtime staple firearms. Nominally "obscure" Croatian guns are often slight variations or straight copies of more well known designs. Interesting! Thanks for the replies dudes. Actually wasn't familiar with the VHS2 until digging deeper but it definitely looks like a FA-MAS clone. Nationality/ethnicity nitpick is also noted 
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Jun 17, 2016 21:58
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chairface posted:Springfield is now Croatian-owned and they're actually a major producer of 1911s and other longtime staple firearms. Nominally "obscure" Croatian guns are often slight variations or straight copies of more well known designs. How long has Springfield been Croatian-owned? Was it part of their importation arrangement for the  ?
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Jun 17, 2016 22:05
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chairface posted:
Its all "Smurf"
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Jun 17, 2016 22:14
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https://twitter.com/ChuckPfarrer/status/743835321931079681quote:MANBIJ: 17 JUN 2016 1200 EDT. Multiple airstrikes interdict Daesh positions in and around urban area.  Chuck Pfarrer puts the airstrikes into context. https://twitter.com/SaudiEmbassyUSA/status/743842155530190849 quote:Saudi FM @AdelAljubeir: Saudi Arabia supports a stronger, more robust intervention in Syria. Also rumors that the PKK and Ankara have reached some sort of agreement: https://www.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/4oh9cg/pkk_ankara_reached_accord_over_areas_in_syria/ Nothing confirmed so far, and it would be a hard pivot for Erdogan, although stranger things have happened.
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Jun 17, 2016 22:15
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I think it is more likely that whoever Daesh had in Falluja was just simply really poo poo, even compared to the ISF, not that the ISF have suddenly become competent.
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Jun 18, 2016 00:03
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Panzeh posted:The FSA was a right-wing death squad who were going to sell it off anyway. They were bourgeois, not revolutionary. What the gently caress does this even mean?
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Jun 18, 2016 00:11
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Randarkman posted:What the gently caress does this even mean? It means he reads Russia Today or is making fun of those who do.
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Jun 18, 2016 00:23
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Xerxes17 posted:I think it is more likely that whoever Daesh had in Falluja was just simply really poo poo, even compared to the ISF, not that the ISF have suddenly become competent.
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Jun 18, 2016 00:31
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I was writing in reply to this where fade5 compares ISF and the US Army.fade5 posted:Apparently they now control 70% of So a comment about USAF air strikes is a null point.
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Jun 18, 2016 00:45
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Domattee posted:This is old news actually. The Saudis together with the CIA delivered Croatian weapons to the Rebels at least until 2013. You'll find stories about it if you google it, though they tend to focus on the heavier gear, like rocket launchers. For one, that was in Syria, not Iraq, and two, that deal was based around old stockpiles from the war that they were trying to get rid of, not newly produced weapons. Those weapons in the picture came from the ISF. It's not uncommon for the army to give Shia militias equipment to use. That's why all those militiamen are rolling around in humvees.
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Jun 18, 2016 01:01
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Didn't someone post some stuff a month or two ago explaining how the Iraqi army actually got their poo poo together and is a halfway decent force, now?
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Jun 18, 2016 01:15
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Rent-A-Cop posted:It's much easier to fight ISIS when you can just point at things and Americans will make them explode for you. That way you can save your ammo for celebratory gunfire. Not really, or else Azaz wouldn't have needed the Manbij offensive to save their asses.
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Jun 18, 2016 01:24
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Volkerball posted:For one, that was in Syria, not Iraq, and two, that deal was based around old stockpiles from the war that they were trying to get rid of, not newly produced weapons. Those weapons in the picture came from the ISF. It's not uncommon for the army to give Shia militias equipment to use. That's why all those militiamen are rolling around in humvees. I don't think the Iraqi Army has any Croatian weapons, the weapons almost certainly came from Syria into Iraq. e: There's a BM post about this even: http://brown-moses.blogspot.de/2014/03/isis-deploys-croatian-weapons-against.html Domattee fucked around with this message at 01:48 on Jun 18, 2016 |
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Jun 18, 2016 01:43
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Domattee posted:I don't think the Iraqi Army has any Croatian weapons, the weapons almost certainly came from Syria into Iraq. chitoryu12 posted:I did some reading and HS Produkt entered a deal with Iraq to have them test out VHS assault rifles and apparently the VHS-2 was approved for sale to Iraq recently. So it's probably part of the Iraqi shipment. I remember that some Libyan rebels in 2011 got their hands on F2000s that were sold to the Libyan military for elite troops. quote:e: There's a BM post about this even: http://brown-moses.blogspot.de/2014/03/isis-deploys-croatian-weapons-against.html Yes, I remember. There's a BM article in the New York Times that he did with CJ Chivers when this story broke. Like I said, it was all generic old weapons. That deal was based around quantity, not quality. The dude next to him has an M4 that's clearly from Iraqi stock so logic would dictate that's where they got the stuff. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Jun 18, 2016 |
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Jun 18, 2016 01:57
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