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Fortunately in this case they would be destroying themselves. In Mosul, too, they controlled the areas downstream through the period when they occupied the dam.
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Mar 26, 2017 17:53
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Enjoy posted:You wouldn't say starting an illegal war was an institutional war crime? And you wouldn't say that allowing the individual abuses to take place by starting the war should ultimately be blamed on the leadership and institutions? No war is legal in the first place, there's nothing that makes any given war more illegal.
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Mar 26, 2017 18:00
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LeoMarr posted:Why didnt isis detonate more dams? Seems like a pretty great weapon of mass destruction Because 1) they actually want to conquer these places, not completely destroy them and 2) lots of ISIS members probably don't want to drown their families. Blowing a dam wouldn't be a mere terror attack; it'd ruin an entire area for generations
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Mar 26, 2017 18:18
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Interesting. https://twitter.com/SyrianLense/status/846048150934704128
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Mar 26, 2017 18:29
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Emanuel Collective posted:Because 1) they actually want to conquer these places, not completely destroy them and 2) lots of ISIS members probably don't want to drown their families. Blowing a dam wouldn't be a mere terror attack; it'd ruin an entire area for generations Generations? Maybe a decade, maybe, but generations is 70+ years. Let's not get hyperbolic in the MIDDLE EAST THREAD OF JUST WAR DEFENSE OF SUICIDE ATTACKS.
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Mar 26, 2017 19:01
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fishmech posted:No war is legal in the first place, there's nothing that makes any given war more illegal. A war can be legal, for example when a legitimate government invites a foreign government to aid them against terrorism. Eg, the USSR in Afghanistan.
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Mar 26, 2017 20:07
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https://twitter.com/IvanSidorenko1/status/846086724447092736 The regime seems to take it pretty hard when they're on the wrong side of an airstrike. Ikasuhito fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Mar 26, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2017 21:16
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For those of you interested in open source investigation and Syria there's a new VPRO documentary about the work of Bellingcat, AirWars, Forensic Architecture and others. It's mostly in English, and has English, Spanish, and French subs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsnfklNmgs0
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Mar 26, 2017 21:26
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Volkerball posted:I didn't deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan, but that was a matter of circumstance. In the time period when I would have gone, I would've either been fighting what became ISIS, or fighting the Taliban. I didn't have any moral issues with doing either, being the jihadist sympathizer that I am. The war crimes being committed back then were mostly at an individual level rather than at an institutional level. You had soldiers who thought killing anyone, to include unarmed noncombatants, made them a badass. Or that if they didn't kill anyone, they weren't doing the job "they signed up for." So you had situations like Haditha and the kill teams where soldiers took it upon themselves to go and murder civilians. At a lower, more common level, you had guys chuckling about throwing gatorade bottles of piss at Iraqi kids and things like that to dehumanize the civilians. I never bought into all of that poo poo, so I don't consider myself part of that problem, although I did see soldiers with that attitude while I was in. I felt like I could be somewhat of a counterweight to that, and would have support in doing so because the mission was to win hearts and minds and build stable militaries and governments. The jackasses taking shots at old men in wheelchairs were directly undermining that mission, and as a result, were empowering groups like ISIS. But I had to change jobs due to hearing loss, so I never ended up going. In the end, the jackasses were pretty successful. Such a goddamned chickenhawk POG. You have been radicalized by your own inaction, its embarrassing.
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Mar 26, 2017 21:54
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Enjoy posted:A war can be legal, for example when a legitimate government invites a foreign government to aid them against terrorism. Eg, the USSR in Afghanistan. You mean when the Soviet military was invited into Afghanistan, where it proceeded to assassinate President Hafizullah Amin, the man who invited them in, 3 months after they arrived, purged his followers, couped the government, and put their own supporters in power before proceeding to depopulate the countryside and deliberately targeting civilians, killing up to 2 million Afghans?
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Mar 26, 2017 22:15
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Enjoy posted:A war can be legal, for example when a legitimate government invites a foreign government to aid them against terrorism. Eg, the USSR in Afghanistan. I hardly think the people who were attacked would call that legal. If you're sticking to legality, you're not going to war in the first place.
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Mar 26, 2017 22:24
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Sergg posted:You mean when the Soviet military was invited into Afghanistan, where it proceeded to assassinate President Hafizullah Amin, the man who invited them in, 3 months after they arrived, purged his followers, couped the government, and put their own supporters in power before proceeding to depopulate the countryside and deliberately targeting civilians, killing up to 2 million Afghans? Actually those people were killed by the terrorists, directly or indirectly. I'm not going to shed tears for dead Talibans.
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Mar 26, 2017 22:26
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Enjoy posted:Actually those people were killed by the terrorists, directly or indirectly. I'm not going to shed tears for dead Talibans. The Taliban didn't even exist until 1994, when they were formed by Mullah Omar as a local militia around Kandahar and began receiving thousands of Pakistani Madrassah students to serve in its ranks. That's why their name literally means "Students" in Pashto. And no, they weren't "killed by the terrorists", they were mostly killed by the deliberate policy of depopulation of the countryside enacted by the PDPA and USSR military, whereupon villages existing along major supply routes or in opposition areas were bombed, shelled, blanketed in air-dropped tiny little butterfly mines, etc. Sergg fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Mar 26, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2017 22:45
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Enjoy posted:Actually those people were killed by the terrorists, directly or indirectly. I'm not going to shed tears for dead Talibans. Hmm, that sure sounds like grounds to say every war the American government has entered into from the start is "legal".
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Mar 26, 2017 22:48
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Enjoy posted:Actually those people were killed by the terrorists, directly or indirectly. I'm not going to shed tears for dead Talibans. Well, that sure is a new hot take. We are missing a Pol Pot apologist to get the full spectrum of tankie posters.
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Mar 26, 2017 22:48
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Volkerball posted:Ben Norton supported Trump because he was so afraid of Hillary, so he can stfu. This is the world he wanted. Hillary would be doing the exact same thing Trump is doing while also not working with Russia to fight ISIS. Oh and probably also still supporting jihadists with the Saudis.
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Mar 26, 2017 22:54
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"We all have to go one day, but pray God let it not be over Afghanistan. An unspeakable country filled with unspeakable people, sheepshaggers and smugglers, who have furnished in their leisure hours some of the worst arts and crafts ever to penetrate the occidental world. I yield to none in my sympathy to those prostrate beneath the Russian jackboot, but if ever a country deserved rape it's Afghanistan." - Alexander Cockburn, Jan. 21, 1980, Village Voice, on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan Darkman Fanpage posted:Hillary would be doing the exact same thing Trump is doing while also not working with Russia to fight ISIS. Oh and probably also still supporting jihadists with the Saudis. Yeah I'm sure Clinton would have personally intervened to suspend our Rules of Engagement to increase civilian casualties.
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Mar 26, 2017 22:57
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fishmech posted:Hmm, that sure sounds like grounds to say every war the American government has entered into from the start is "legal". You'll have to remind me when Saddam Hussein invited George Bush to invade Iraq?
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Mar 26, 2017 23:09
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Enjoy posted:You'll have to remind me when Saddam Hussein invited George Bush to invade Iraq? I trust you can produce a document where the sitting government of Afghanistan invited the Soviets to lead a violent military coup in Kabul?
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Mar 26, 2017 23:15
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Coldwar timewarp posted:Such a goddamned chickenhawk POG. You have been radicalized by your own inaction, its embarrassing. Lol nothing says chickenhawk like joining the infantry. Please leave mis-using military acronyms to residents of countries that have a military, tia.
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Mar 26, 2017 23:23
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Hama isn't the only place with fighting, here's to the forgotten front: https://twitter.com/arabthomness/status/846075329835909121 A union of the southern desert could change the logistical situation there.
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Mar 26, 2017 23:33
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steinrokkan posted:I trust you can produce a document where the sitting government of Afghanistan invited the Soviets to lead a violent military coup in Kabul? http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ussr-and-afghanistan-sign-friendship-treaty
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Mar 26, 2017 23:44
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Enjoy posted:http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ussr-and-afghanistan-sign-friendship-treaty Where in this treaty does it say the Soviets are invited to murder the head of government and install their puppet?
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Mar 26, 2017 23:54
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Enjoy posted:http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ussr-and-afghanistan-sign-friendship-treaty Yeah I can see at the end there's the addendum in small print which says "PS: please kill the sitting President of Afghanistan when you get here and also kill his 11 year old son, his Presidential Guards, and then execute his supporters in the PDPA. We're totally cool with that." Thanks for this link, really makes you question all the stuff you've been spoonfed about the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.
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Mar 27, 2017 00:02
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I'm just gonna assume that, like most tankies, Enjoy is allergic to reading history books or articles about the subject without first consulting WSWS to see which position is ideologically pure & correct, and thus was totally unaware of the Soviets literally dismantling and executing the government that invited them in the first place. Hafizulah Amin was subsequently replaced by Babrak Karmal, who held the position until he was ALSO deposed by the USSR in 1986 & exiled to Moscow in favor of Najibullah.
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Mar 27, 2017 00:13
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The Soviets were kinder to the Afghani heads of state than the mujaheddin were when they took Kabul.  But please, continue extolling us on the virtues of backing jihadists.
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Mar 27, 2017 00:17
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Darkman Fanpage posted:The Soviets were kinder to the Afghani heads of state than the mujaheddin were when they took Kabul. How did you get from "The USSR overthrew the government of Afghanistan" to "Backing jihadists is good"?
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Mar 27, 2017 00:31
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Bates posted:How did you get from "The USSR overthrew the government of Afghanistan" to "Backing jihadists is good"? The CIA
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Mar 27, 2017 00:36
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Darkman Fanpage posted:The Soviets were kinder to the Afghani heads of state than the mujaheddin were when they took Kabul. After stepping down, Najibullah lived in the UN HQ in Kabul unmolested for 4 years by Dostum & Ahmad Shah Massoud who controlled the city. They and other groups all signed onto the Peshawar Accords to create a transitional government that would eventually hold elections. Pakistan's puppet, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, decided to instead attack the other mujahadeen for years in fruitless battles. It wasn't until the Taliban took Kabul in 1996 that Najibullah was castrated, dragged behind a truck, and hung with piano wire.
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Mar 27, 2017 00:52
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Thanks for proving my point.
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Mar 27, 2017 00:54
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Ramping up the civilian death in Syria and Iraq apparently hasn't been enough, because the Trump administration is thinking about increasing our role in Yemen. If we had someone competent in power I might think there was at least a slight chance this could be good since the stupid and pointless war might at least be waged in a way that doesn't require mass starvation and bombing civilians, but this administration seems not to care much about that sort of thing.
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Mar 27, 2017 01:16
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Enjoy posted:The CIA The CIA randomly changed subject with an ill conceived tu quoque deflection?
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Mar 27, 2017 01:27
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Enjoy posted:You'll have to remind me when Saddam Hussein invited George Bush to invade Iraq? Well the Afghanis never asked to have their entire government wiped out either, broheim. So by the logic given, since the Bush-installed government was ok with American troops for a while, and various exiled Iraqi figures were ok with getting rid of Saddam, then the war was ok.
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Mar 27, 2017 02:29
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As interesting as this discussion of a war that ended before I was born is. Let's focus on wars' that are happening now. Like the United States readying itself to wade deeper into the Yemeni Civil War to back the Saudis and UAE. https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/846149052525957121
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Mar 27, 2017 02:39
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OhFunny posted:As interesting as this discussion of a war that ended before I was born is. Let's focus on wars' that are happening now. Trump hip deep in Yemeni atrocity is just about the only way I could imagine him doing a worse job than I expected. While still being not so surprising.
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Mar 27, 2017 04:16
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Wait, is the "common threat" Mattis cites Iran? Cause that seems kind of dumb.
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Mar 27, 2017 04:28
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OhFunny posted:Like the United States readying itself to wade deeper into the Yemeni Civil War to back the Saudis and UAE. This is the Trump administration, though, so we are getting paid right?
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Mar 27, 2017 04:33
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:Wait, is the "common threat" Mattis cites Iran? Cause that seems kind of dumb. It's what the cool kids call Iran these days, or so I've heard on urbandictionary. Bastaman Vibration fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Mar 27, 2017 |
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Mar 27, 2017 04:46
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Enjoy posted:A war can be legal, for example when a legitimate government invites a foreign government to aid them against terrorism. Eg, the USSR in Afghanistan. haha that was hilarious the afghan commie president basically invited in the ussr to help him unfuck the mess he himself created by brutally purging his opponents inside the communist party (including the previous president). But then the soviet kgb guys decided the guy was an idiot who can't do literally anything right and hosed up the situation even more by couping and killing him. i think w/e legitimacy the soviets had in the intervention went away when they killed the government which invited them in
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Mar 27, 2017 04:51
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:Wait, is the "common threat" Mattis cites Iran? Cause that seems kind of dumb. Correct. Also: Mattis: Iran is the biggest threat to Mideast peace
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Mar 27, 2017 04:54
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