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How many could the Mongols have possibly killed? I would have thought it'd top out in the low millions.
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Mar 16, 2018 16:44
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Yeah, which is why the british empire doesn’t take it’s rightful place in most people’s minds. Slowly starving a population to death is a lot more gentile than just putting them all to the sword, much more media friendly to say it’s the lazy indians who would rather starve than work for a living. Which is literally what the British said when they were starving India. And Ireland. And a hundred other places they conquered. It’s still genocide though.
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Mar 16, 2018 16:44
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:How many could the Mongols have possibly killed? I would have thought it'd top out in the low millions. It's unclear, but the general range seems to be somewhere between 20 and 50 million during their conquests. lollontee posted:Yeah, which is why the british empire doesn’t take it’s rightful place in most people’s minds. Slowly starving a population to death is a lot more gentile than just putting them all to the sword, much more media friendly to say it’s the lazy indians who would rather starve than work for a living. Which is literally what the British said when they were starving India. And Ireland. And a hundred other places they conquered. It’s still genocide though. Obviously the same issues arise when trying to figure out if Hitler, Stalin or Mao killed more people, but most still end up assigning more blame to Hitler for his willful destruction of entire populations. Some famine deaths are deliberate, but counting every life lost due to famine as murder isn't very realistic. Plus the Mongols did their fair share to more or less permanently gently caress up agriculture in the Middle East. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Mar 16, 2018 |
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Mar 16, 2018 16:47
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Ok fiar enough, after thoroughly consider the matter I’m willing to concede that the Mongols and British are both contenders for the worst empire in the history of humanity, although it’s unclear just which of them killed and destroyed more. My hard-on is confused now.
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Mar 16, 2018 16:56
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The past is the past, and trying to find who was the bigger monster in the past is kind of futile. It's better to look at today's world; and I think we can agree that today's Mongols are cool while today's Brits are still douchebags.
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Mar 16, 2018 17:42
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Sinteres posted:Some famine deaths are deliberate, but counting every life lost due to famine as murder isn't very realistic.
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Mar 16, 2018 17:59
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I’m drawing a blank on a famine that the Empire didn’t cause or exacerbate. Nevermind ameliorate.
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Mar 16, 2018 18:44
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As a German, WW2 has been haunting us for 70 years and it's just so amazing to me that the Brits and Americans got off scot free without any repercussions despite the genocides they committed. I mean, Churchill is on the drat £5 note...
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Mar 17, 2018 00:33
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Laurenz posted:As a German, WW2 has been haunting us for 70 years and it's just so amazing to me that the Brits and Americans got off scot free without any repercussions despite the genocides they committed. I mean, Churchill is on the drat £5 note... well to be honest Nazi Germany was pretty uniquely bad. You know, the whole 'everyone who isnt 100% aryan is going to be gassed and killed' type thing. Churchill was the right guy, right time, and with the perfect enemy to make him look infinitesimally tame by comparison so he did get lucky.
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Mar 17, 2018 01:07
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Al-Saqr posted:well to be honest Nazi Germany was pretty uniquely bad. You know, the whole 'everyone who isnt 100% aryan is going to be gassed and killed' type thing. Churchill was the right guy, right time, and with the perfect enemy to make him look infinitesimally tame by comparison so he did get lucky. I'm not sure it was so unique. Lebensraum was just the logic of settler colonialism applied to Eastern Europe. The intensity and meticulousness of Germany's genocide was certainly novel (especially the death camps), but not so much the underlying logic of it all. If anything, the central disagreement was over whether or not Slavs were white and thus 'above' being on the receiving end of colonialism - Britain and France ultimately decide on yes by declaring war over Poland's sovereignty.
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Mar 17, 2018 02:46
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lollontee posted:I’m drawing a blank on a famine that the Empire didn’t cause or exacerbate. Nevermind ameliorate. One of my favorite British imperial officials is Warren Hastings, the dude who bitched up a storm about British policy during the Bengal famine being inhumane and, worse, counterproductive.
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Mar 17, 2018 02:55
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So what is the possible route for Kurds to not be totally screwed forever?
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Mar 17, 2018 03:16
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CherryCola posted:So what is the possible route for Kurds to not be totally screwed forever? Bend the knee to Assad and hope the Russians persuade him to leave them some nominal autonomy.
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Mar 17, 2018 03:36
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Laurenz posted:As a German, WW2 has been haunting us for 70 years and it's just so amazing to me that the Brits and Americans got off scot free without any repercussions despite the genocides they committed. I mean, Churchill is on the drat £5 note... Try winning a war once in awhile and you'll notice the difference
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Mar 17, 2018 03:59
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Throatwarbler posted:Bend the knee to Assad and hope the Russians persuade him to leave them some nominal autonomy. In the event of a future uprising wouldn't this label them collaborators?
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Mar 17, 2018 04:14
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CherryCola posted:In the event of a future uprising wouldn't this label them collaborators? They are currently being wiped out by Turkish backed Al Qaeda so what's the alternative here? http://www.euronews.com/2018/03/16/germany-storm-in-a-coffee-cup quote:A far-right German politician who went to Syria to try to prove the war-ravaged country is safe has been slammed by refugees.
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Mar 17, 2018 04:17
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Somewhat related: https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...b9ef_story.htmlquote:The fight has been successful. But despite the rollback of Islamic State territory, the increasing likelihood of an Assad victory in the civil war has left many U.S. policymakers and lawmakers aghast and the U.S. mission in Syria jumbled and confused.
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Mar 17, 2018 12:02
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A Bag of Milk posted:I'm not sure it was so unique. Lebensraum was just the logic of settler colonialism applied to Eastern Europe. The intensity and meticulousness of Germany's genocide was certainly novel (especially the death camps), but not so much the underlying logic of it all. If anything, the central disagreement was over whether or not Slavs were white and thus 'above' being on the receiving end of colonialism - Britain and France ultimately decide on yes by declaring war over Poland's sovereignty. 500 years of justifying ruling inferior peoples and 75 years of being appalled that anyone would kill people like cattle. Nazi symbolism is unacceptable but definitely leave up the statues of Leopold and Pizarro it's fine nothing to see here.
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Mar 17, 2018 15:05
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https://twitter.com/SuperToucano/status/974691185284534273
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Mar 17, 2018 16:13
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The YPG did basically everything wrong in Afrin, and if their fighters actually are throwing down their weapons and fleeing with civilians now, it's the first smart thing they've done since Olive Branch started.
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Mar 17, 2018 16:40
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What did YPG do wrong in Afrin? As far as I know their only failure was in getting the weapons needed to kill tanks and planes. They put up a good fight regardless. And Afrin proper yet to be seized, and I reckon it’ll go a bit different from other sieges of the war. I don’t think Turkey can afford to deploy air power on the same level of indiscrimination as america. Politically or operationally, the purge hit the air forces particularly hard iirc? Regardless, a massacre in Afrin would be a catastrophic disaster for Turkey, and would likely catalyse another Kurdish uprising in Turkey proper.
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Mar 17, 2018 17:01
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lollontee posted:What did YPG do wrong in Afrin? As far as I know their only failure was in getting the weapons needed to kill tanks and planes. They put up a good fight regardless. And Afrin proper yet to be seized, and I reckon it’ll go a bit different from other sieges of the war. I don’t think Turkey can afford to deploy air power on the same level of indiscrimination as america. Politically or operationally, the purge hit the air forces particularly hard iirc? Regardless, a massacre in Afrin would be a catastrophic disaster for Turkey, and would likely catalyse another Kurdish uprising in Turkey proper. They should have surrendered the province to Assad, or failing that, just withdrawn/blended into the countryside. Putting up a good fight in this context means they got a bunch of their fighters killed for no reason, and barely even delayed Turkey in taking nearly the entire province. Many thousands of Kurds are leaving, perhaps never to return, because the YPG decided to stay and fight, and now it looks like the YPG might be deciding to withdraw at the 11th hour anyway, having accomplished less than nothing. Beyond the decision to resist, the way they chose to resist was stupid too. They tried to fight at every incursion point at first, thinking they were a real military that could go toe to toe with a force backed by the Turkish military. Then they tried withdrawing to chokepoints, so Turkey bombed those. Then they decided they were going to fight in Afrin city, and tried forcing civilians to stay, but since they aren't literally ISIS and willing to massacre fleeing civilians, the people fled anyway and contributed to a situation in which staying to fight just wasn't feasible. They forgot their roots as a guerilla milita and thought they could stand up and fight, or thought they were buying time for ??? to come save them. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Mar 17, 2018 |
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Mar 17, 2018 17:07
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Haven’t heard about YPG trying to force civilians to stay?? And if the civilians are leaving anyway, um... yeah. Anyway, not running from a fight isn’t really imho the same as ”doing everything wrong in Afrin”, but that’s just me. Waging a fighting retreat in the face of a vastly superior force is how you’re supposed to do it though?
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Mar 17, 2018 17:27
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svenkatesh posted:Somewhat related: https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...b9ef_story.html 
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Mar 17, 2018 17:33
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lollontee posted:Haven’t heard about YPG trying to force civilians to stay?? And if the civilians are leaving anyway, um... yeah. There's been a few posts like this in march, but mostly people seem to have been steadily evacuating so who knows https://twitter.com/Acemal71/status/973178444057112576
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Mar 17, 2018 17:33
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lollontee posted:
To what end though? A thousand dead, many more likely wounded, and Turkey was inconvenienced for all of two months. Afrin will fall and the kurds will have lost everything. At the end of the day this was just a huge waste of time and lives with nothing to show for it.
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Mar 17, 2018 17:37
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I think I could see why the SDF might feel it necessary to fight this battle even if it was obvious they couldn't win. If they are going to hold their remaining territory they need to demonstrate that they aren't pushovers. Not being a military man I'm not going to second guess their tactics but in hindsight it does seem like evacuating Shiekh Massoud to bolster Afrin was a mistake. Though maybe holding that district was never going to be viable with Assad ascendent.
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Mar 17, 2018 17:42
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lollontee posted:Haven’t heard about YPG trying to force civilians to stay?? And if the civilians are leaving anyway, um... yeah. Right now they aren't really waging a fighting retreat so much as they are just retreating.
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Mar 17, 2018 17:44
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Ikasuhito posted:To what end though? A thousand dead, many more likely wounded, and Turkey was inconvenienced for all of two months. Afrin will fall and the kurds will have lost everything. At the end of the day this was just a huge waste of time and lives with nothing to show for it. Yeah and a thousand is what they're reporting. Turkey says it's over 3000. Obviously both sides have reasons to lie, but those figures provide a realistic range at least.
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Mar 17, 2018 17:52
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Another key to Afrin is that the YPG assumed this fight would be a repeat of Al Bab, where the makeup of the Olive Branch forces would be mostly TFSA with a small bit of Turkish backup. Instead, Olive Branch was TFSA alongside a serious Turkish commitment, including real air support. The TFSA alone is not as good as the YPG, but as the fight against ISIS has shown air support is a significant force multiplier. That Turkish air support has made all the difference, and the YPG can't really fight back against it.lollontee posted:What did YPG do wrong in Afrin? As far as I know their only failure was in getting the weapons needed to kill tanks and planes. They put up a good fight regardless. And Afrin proper yet to be seized, and I reckon it’ll go a bit different from other sieges of the war. I don’t think Turkey can afford to deploy air power on the same level of indiscrimination as america. Politically or operationally, the purge hit the air forces particularly hard iirc? Regardless, a massacre in Afrin would be a catastrophic disaster for Turkey, and would likely catalyse another Kurdish uprising in Turkey proper. Finally, even if a bunch of poo poo kicks off once the TFSA takes Afrin, from Turkey's perspective it's "oh well, we took Afrin, that means we won".
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Mar 17, 2018 20:25
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Holding Afrin seems like an infinitely more dangerous proposition for the Turkish army than taking Afrin. E: If you are trying to be a state, you have to be willing to stand and fight as a state, which seems to be what the Kurds tried. It's always bloodier to fight as a uniformed standing force than as a bunch of guerillas for a dozen different reasons. It will be telling to see what the next stages of this conflict look like. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Mar 17, 2018 |
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Mar 17, 2018 21:27
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Saladin Rising, why do you believe "The TFSA alone is not as good as the YPG?" I could argue that on a large scale organizational level, but I'm not sure what support there is for that statement in terms of their fighting capability.
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Mar 17, 2018 21:42
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I suspect the YPG was facing some pretty serious problems with morale as the hopelessness of their situation became clear. The guys in charge were still sending fighters over from Rojava pretty recently (to the point of openly saying they weren't fighting ISIS anymore since they were directing their efforts toward Afrin), but it's not like those forces ended up making any heroic stands. Turkey's progress was, after the first week or two of bad weather passed, consistently faster than even a lot of pro-Turkish people expected. Even after they stopped trying to resist every advance, you'd see pro-YPG people saying okay but wait until they get to Jinderes, and then the city fell in less than a day. Now it looks like Afrin city might fall much, much more easily than anyone expected too. Maybe I'm reading too much into things, but I feel like the YPG leadership just dramatically overestimated their abilities/bought into their own hype and had no idea what they were doing at any point in this process.Squalid posted:Saladin Rising, why do you believe "The TFSA alone is not as good as the YPG?" I could argue that on a large scale organizational level, but I'm not sure what support there is for that statement in terms of their fighting capability. The Afrin Kurds beat up the FSA and took a lot of territory from them before the battle for Aleppo, and would have taken more if Turkey hadn't started shelling them to stop their advances. That said, my impression is that the TFSA picked up elements from Idlib and Aleppo since then, and probably at least some of them received some training and solid equipment that they didn't have back then too, so they're probably more capable than they were back then. They didn't necessarily do a tremendous job against ISIS during Euphrates Shield, but to be fair ISIS is probably the most effective pound for pound militia group in the country, with the possible exception of Hezbollah.
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Mar 17, 2018 21:51
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Herstory Begins Now posted:Holding Afrin seems like an infinitely more dangerous proposition for the Turkish army than taking Afrin. If you turn the area into a warzone so that the local Kurds leave, then settle a few hundred thousand Arabs, Turkmen and pro-Turkey Kurds, then holding Afrin becomes extremely easy.
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Mar 17, 2018 21:59
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Yeah, Erdie said that the Afrin Kurds were usurpers who stole the land and that he'd give it back to their rightful Arab and Turkish owners, so it's pretty clear that Turkey intends to keep that territory simply by expelling all the people they don't like. Since we live in 2018, our great western nations are okay with this blatant ethnic cleansing because it's always okay when allies do it -- even if calling Turkey an ally is making the term meaningless.
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Mar 17, 2018 22:18
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The goal of the Ottomans is Kurdish genocide, my man.
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Mar 17, 2018 22:55
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Panzeh posted:The goal of the Ottomans is Kurdish genocide, my man. They're doing a pretty lovely job of it. Ethnic cleansing is a lot easier, especially when a big chunk of the population seems ready to "self deport." Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Mar 17, 2018 |
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Mar 17, 2018 22:57
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Cat Mattress posted:Since we live in 2018, our great western nations are okay with this blatant ethnic cleansing We're getting OT here, but allies or not, when have we (i.e. the Western nations) ever actually cared about ethnic cleansing?
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Mar 17, 2018 23:38
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Squalid posted:Saladin Rising, why do you believe "The TFSA alone is not as good as the YPG?" I could argue that on a large scale organizational level, but I'm not sure what support there is for that statement in terms of their fighting capability. Sinteres posted:The Afrin Kurds beat up the FSA and took a lot of territory from them before the battle for Aleppo, and would have taken more if Turkey hadn't started shelling them to stop their advances. That said, my impression is that the TFSA picked up elements from Idlib and Aleppo since then, and probably at least some of them received some training and solid equipment that they didn't have back then too, so they're probably more capable than they were back then. They didn't necessarily do a tremendous job against ISIS during Euphrates Shield, but to be fair ISIS is probably the most effective pound for pound militia group in the country, with the possible exception of Hezbollah. That also raises the point I hadn't considered: combat experience. The Afrin YPG is not as strong as the YPG as a whole; they don't have the same combat experience as the YPG units in the eastern part of the country. We use "YPG" as a shorthand, but most of these guys haven't fought in Tal Abyad, Shaddadi, Raqqa and the like; at best they've fought in Sheikh Maqsood or in Marea/Tal Rifaat. And getting a few new fighters who do have experience isn't the same as having experienced unit commanders directing the fights. On the other side, the TFSA has been able to poach rebels (likely including rebel commanders) who have years of experience fighting in Aleppo or the Idlib area. And unlike the US's train and equip program, Turkey is much less picky about who joins up, including hardline Islamists or foreign fighters like those Uyghurs a couple pages back. A demoralized Afrin YPG vs a TFSA infused with newly equipped, experienced fighters and Turkish air support? That definitely gives the edge to the TFSA, unlike the fighting we saw two years ago. Now if only Erdogan had bothered to do any of this when the rebels still had a chance of winning against Assad. Saladin Rising fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Mar 17, 2018 |
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Mar 17, 2018 23:46
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Ikasuhito posted:To what end though? A thousand dead, many more likely wounded, and Turkey was inconvenienced for all of two months. Afrin will fall and the kurds will have lost everything. At the end of the day this was just a huge waste of time and lives with nothing to show for it. To the same end as my own country fought the Soviet Union a century ago for. At the end of the day, that too was a huge waste of lives with absolutely nothing to show for it at the end of the war. It’s banal and it’s pointless, but I fully get why YPG still fights on in Afrin. When the Empire comes, you stand and fight, even if it is hopeless. That’s just how it works.
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Mar 17, 2018 23:51
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