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Sinteres posted:Most of DC seems ready to throw them overboard at this point, but I do wonder how many would back down at the last second if push came to shove. It depends on if Erdogan is in power or not, I have a hard time seeing him come back into the fold. At the end of the day, there are limits to the leverage the US has on Turkey.
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Nov 4, 2019 06:58
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Squalid posted:Talking about how hard empathy is, sometimes when I talk to or read things written by American military people and they start on about honor and duty etc, I feel like I'm looking at some kind of amazon tribes person who just stepped out of the jungle and is wearing a penis sheath with a bone in through their nose shaking a rattle and saying "ooga booga." Like its completely foreign to me, they might as well be trying to explain Buddhist scripture. It's something I know they take seriously but I think I'll always have a hard time getting in their head. At the very least we take our penis sheaths very seriously in the US Military 
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Nov 4, 2019 07:51
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Thump! posted:At the very least we take our penis sheaths very seriously in the US Military Buddy, everybody takes penis sheaths very seriously.
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Nov 4, 2019 11:59
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Sinteres posted:No they weren't, they were hit with sanctions for detaining an American pastor, and very briefly for invading Rojava. Trump's obligated by law to sanction them for buying the S-400, but he hasn't done it. They've been kicked out of the JSF program. And yeah, I fully expect jokes about how getting out of the F-35 is not a sanction but a reward.
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Nov 4, 2019 14:47
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Cat Mattress posted:They've been kicked out of the JSF program. That's not nothing, but it's not really the kind of punishment required by law either. Without biting sanctions it's basically just pushed Turkey to consider buying planes from Russia too, which is the opposite of the intended effect.
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Nov 4, 2019 15:55
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enraged_camel posted:The whole saga is very interesting. Here's a good summary: https://www.defenseworld.net/feature/20/Battle_of_the_Air_Defense_Systems__S_400_Vs_Patriot_and_THAAD A correction to that quote, it should be 17 thousand km/hour.  Another reason why Pentagon doesn't like this is that the US had been selling F-35 to Turkey, but Turkey having both S-400 and F-35 would mean that Russians would have an opportunity to study the F-35's capabilities and develop countermeasures to it as 'instructors'. There's now five planes out of 100 ready but they are all in USA where the Turkish pilots and engineers were to be trained. All in all this is going to be a very costly cancellation and Putin must have made Erdogan some really good offers for him to risk a 9 billion dollar investment in Turkish industries. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/07/17/turkey-officially-kicked-out-of-f-35-program/ quote:Turkey, a partner in the F-35 program that helped fund the development of the jet, planned to buy 100 F-35As. Its first jet was rolled out in June 2018 in a festive “delivery ceremony." Though Turkey formally owns its jets, the U.S. has said it has the power to keep the planes from moving to Turkish soil and intends to keep all four existing Turkish jets from leaving the U.S.
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Nov 4, 2019 16:21
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Trump loving loves war crimes. https://twitter.com/NavyTimes/status/1191357653840252930
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Nov 4, 2019 17:52
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The Ceasefire has broken down completely it seems with Turkish units again shelling Abu -Rasin and multiple conflicts growing inside the 32km "safe" zone. The SAA used both artillery and GRADs to shell Turkish-backed forces northwest of Tel Tamir Really a potentially heavy conflict is brewing in Tel Tamir and surrounding areas with more SAA reinforcements arriving bringing more GRADs and arty with them.
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Nov 5, 2019 06:29
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Iran is injecting uranium gas in 1000 centrifuges. Yay more escalation.
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Nov 5, 2019 16:10
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quote:A Dutch F-16 jet serving with the US-led coalition in Iraq killed about 70 people - Islamic State (IS) militants and civilians - in an air strike in 2015, the Dutch defence ministry says. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50286829 Posting this because I've been wondering, was there an alternative?
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Nov 5, 2019 18:02
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Rukeli posted:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50286829 Well, on the ISIS side, they could have easily set up their high explosives factory further away from residential housing. It’s a pretty lovely thing to do, since those facilities can blow up anyway due to fires or bad handling practices, and I doubt ISIS was up on OSHA practices or caring about local civilians. On the NATO side, I guess they could have done a high-risk commando operation, or drop leaflets nearby saying they were going to bomb a nearby weapons facility and tell people to evacuate, Gaza-style, but depending on how mobile the facilities are, that might not have helped either. Hard to say how easily it could have been predicted, the factory might have had way more explosives on hand than their intelligence led them to believe.
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Nov 5, 2019 18:49
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Saladman posted:Well, on the ISIS side, they could have easily set up their high explosives factory further away from residential housing. It’s a pretty lovely thing to do, since those facilities can blow up anyway due to fires or bad handling practices, and I doubt ISIS was up on OSHA practices or caring about local civilians.
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Nov 5, 2019 18:56
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Saladman posted:On the NATO side, I guess they could have done a high-risk commando operation But what could the commandos have done once they arrived at this complex inside enemy territory?
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Nov 5, 2019 19:10
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Rukeli posted:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50286829 The alternative would be somehow convincing outside governments that maybe they shouldn't spend multiple decades and trillions of dollars flooding the region with weapons and funding for insurgent and terrorist groups.
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Nov 5, 2019 19:41
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Rukeli posted:But what could the commandos have done once they arrived at this complex inside enemy territory? Cleared it, secured it, and brought in EOD for a controlled demolition that would’ve limited unwanted collateral damage. This, of course, is contingent on a shitload of external factors and was likely not a feasible solution in the eyes of the Coalition, either due to just how far behind enemy lines it was, the density of Daesh in the area, or just spotty intel in general. It’s the lovely calculus of war.
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Nov 5, 2019 19:49
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edit: double post
Thump! fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Nov 6, 2019 |
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Nov 5, 2019 19:50
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It's pathetic how Assad's troops would have done this more cleanly. Just drop chlorine on the site, killing all the terrorists without explosions and civilian blood, then send troops in to remove the explosives and the civilian bodies. Bing bang bong its simple!
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Nov 5, 2019 19:53
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Gobbeldygook posted:ISIS bomb making factories ran like any other industrial munitions manufacturer and had payroll, paid out workman's comp for injuries, etc. Sure. Not sure if you were just adding fun facts, as I don’t get how that goes against what I said. They definitely weren’t following safety standards as you’d see in Europe or in the Americas, and probably even worse than you’d see in any country with a real central government. I doubt even Myanmar puts its explosives manufacturing facilities next to residential housing, although.. well, now that I think about it, don’t those fertilizer plant explosions in America and China and wherever normally also wreck nearby housing too? I think normally "only" first responders are killed when those explode, but there’s usually a pretty long fire burning before it goes critical. I guess if they were specifically bombed then maybe people nearby wouldn’t have time to evacuate. In order to know how much to blame NATO for those civilian deaths, I guess I’d also want to know how much time it took to go from the initial strike to the main secondary explosion. Is that in the report? If it was like half an hour, then all those deaths are on ISIS. If it was like 30 seconds then I guess i’d share blame and would agree they should investigate to see if they could have done anything differently.
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Nov 5, 2019 20:44
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The head of the Kemalist opposition CHP called out Erdogan for making a mess of Turkey's Syria policy over the last eight years: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/chp-outlines-seven-mistakes-in-akps-syria-policy-148343 According to Kılıçdaroğlu, the AKP’s mistakes since 2011 are listed as follows: - Turkey failed in its assessment on the place of Syria in the international order. One of the most important reasons for that was the exclusion of the foreign ministry and experienced diplomats from the decision-making processes. That brought about an adventurous foreign policy. - Turkey has become the subcontractor of imperialistic powers whose objective was to divide Syria. It became a party of these policies as well as of proxy wars taking place in the Syrian theater. - As a subcontractor, Turkey has paved the way for the free passage of terrorists to and from Syria, sparking criticism from the West for allowing a “jihadist highway” on its soil. - Turkey has failed to give a strong response against the kidnapping of its 49 citizens including its Consul-General in Mosul by ISIL in 2014. Although it had all the rights stemming from the international law, it did not react against the terrorist organization who kept its citizens 101 days. - Turkey also failed to protect the Süleyman Shah tomb in northern Syria, Turkey’s one and only territory outside its borders, in the face of threats by ISIL in early 2015. That strategic mistake has made Turkey a country which cannot protect its own territories. - Turkey failed to struggle against ISIL and protect the territorial integrity of Syria. If Turkey would stage an effective fight against ISIL, it would have a much different and positive place in the eyes of the international community. - Because of wrong policies, Turkey has ended up being wrong although it is right on its fight against terrorism. Instead of carrying out an effective campaign to convince the international community that the Operation Peace Spring against terrorism was held to address Turkey’s legitimate security concerns in line with the international law, the government officials’ use of a narrative based on “conquer” has weakened the legitimacy of the operation.
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Nov 5, 2019 21:44
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Rukeli posted:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50286829 In 2015 USAF was still operating under fairly rigorous 'try to double and triple check that we aren't going to cause to many civilian casualties' guidelines that, while very far from perfect, were somewhat effective about getting proportional and/or minimal force used when there was potential for collateral. Back then the US was still trying to find alternatives to just levelling a block so if the strike went through they probably didn't see a lot of alternative even though they almost definitely knew that IS had housed a bunch of women and children in the immediate area (as they did around most hvts). That said, post-strike analysis of civilian casualties is always ridiculously low with the US To be clear, the pre-scrutiny process was making concrete progress, but that policy was ended in the first days of 2017 and was replaced with, I poo poo you not, trump's 'the gloves are off, do whatever, bigger bombs, kill their families' policy of use of force.
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Nov 5, 2019 22:01
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For context: this is the first time the Dutch government admits that there were civilian casualties in any Dutch air strikes in Iraq and/or Syria. Before, the official line was that in the hundreds of strikes carried out over many years, not a single civilian had died. The Netherlands was the only coalition country so far up its own rear end that it claimed a perfect record. We've also now learned that on at least one occasion when the (then) minister of defense told parliament she had no information of any civilians being harmed by Dutch strikes, she had been personally informed about this case and the US assessment of up to 70 civilian deaths like a week before. This woman is now the UN envoy for Iraq. The (then and still current) prime minister might also have known at the time that his minister was lying to parliament. gently caress all these people.
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Nov 5, 2019 22:26
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Orange Devil posted:
Well, if she is anywhere near the Green Zone with the current Iraqi riots situation going on, I bet she is ready to leave. If not second guessing her life choices for going over to that poo poo show. 
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Nov 6, 2019 22:11
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Prime Minister now maintaining that he can't remember whether or not he was informed about his air force bombing 70 civilians. Plausible story. Then minister of foreign affairs and then minister of development cooperation also can not remember being informed. Currently not looking like anyone will face political consequences.
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Nov 7, 2019 09:52
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Orange Devil posted:Prime Minister now maintaining that he can't remember whether or not he was informed about his air force bombing 70 civilians. Plausible story. if the memory doesn't fit you must acquit!
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Nov 7, 2019 10:43
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Totally normal revelation: https://twitter.com/rafsanchez/status/1192402362905874432 https://twitter.com/DoubleEmMartin/status/1192234093808930816 https://twitter.com/rafsanchez/status/1192371014493188097 Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Nov 7, 2019 |
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Nov 7, 2019 16:36
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So uh is the military just acting on it's own and disregarding the orders from the president?
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Nov 7, 2019 20:48
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Booourns posted:So uh is the military just acting on it's own and disregarding the orders from the president? Nobody has a loving clue what actual orders are being given or if they're even coherent.
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Nov 7, 2019 22:17
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Booourns posted:So uh is the military just acting on it's own and disregarding the orders from the president? Not really. They're just interpreting his conflicting directives as favorably for what they want to do as they can. Doing that after the first couple times Trump said he wanted out is what led to the crisis last month when he said he really meant it, but then he backpedaled after Congress freaked out and the usual suspects are making the most of it. A competent president would stay on top of this poo poo so he wouldn't feel like he needed to engage in an erratic shift of behavior to break out of the bureaucratic status quo, but that's just not who Trump is.
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Nov 7, 2019 23:11
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Tweets aren't orders. This is disturbingly close to reality sometimes with this administration. Anyways, saner minds have won out for the moment after Trump realized how dumb/awful he looked. Should settle down for a bit until he thinks he's found a way to do it without looking like a chump. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Nov 8, 2019 |
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Nov 8, 2019 04:42
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I can't wait until Trump supporters take to the streets to oppose the Democrats' attempted coup and I can truthfully say that the Russians have successfully orchestrated a color revolution in support of the democratically elected government of the United States.
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Nov 8, 2019 05:37
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The former Dutch minister of defense, current UN envoy for Iraq, Hennis, is now being called on to resign by Iraq's protesters. She managed to tweet this two days ago: https://twitter.com/JeanineHennis/status/1192035729687416832 For some reason the protesters don't trust her to put their human rights above oil. I wonder why.
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Nov 8, 2019 14:13
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TFSA preparing for a kobani assault in the coming week. Ceasefire is effectively dead. But Putin and Turk-Reich Universal Minister and God Emperor erdogan will be phoning it in on saturday. 8 hours ago Erdogan announced a resumption of the invasion
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Nov 9, 2019 00:01
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Throatwarbler posted:I can't wait until Trump supporters take to the streets to oppose the Democrats' attempted coup and I can truthfully say that the Russians have successfully orchestrated a color revolution in support of the democratically elected government of the United States. If it was Russian backed you would be thinking it was legitimate lol.
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Nov 9, 2019 00:08
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https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1193716259944304646?s=20 VERY VERY BAD STEP!
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Nov 11, 2019 04:26
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Jagged Jim posted:https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1193716259944304646?s=20 Or we can “rescue him” but really go after this. We have done it before. https://twitter.com/AP/status/1193440203534454784
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Nov 11, 2019 13:13
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Sorry to derail, but I just did an impulse donation to UNICEF because I heard on the radio that they were short on winter funding for families in Syria. Are there other charities assisting people in Syria, Iraq, or Yemen that I should throw some money? Perhaps where my donations will be more impactful?
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Nov 11, 2019 17:22
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Sure seems like someone assassinated this guy: https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1193928142420893697 https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1193928026234466309 Russia's assassinated numerous people in the UK proper, so it wouldn't be surprising if they were behind it. Edit: Or not I guess, given the post below this. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Nov 12, 2019 |
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Nov 11, 2019 18:24
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I know him and his partner, so today has sucked. I suspect it's not foul play, his partner was home asleep at the time it happened, and according to press reports their security system doesn't show anyone else in the house at the time.
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Nov 11, 2019 18:44
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Sinteres posted:Sure seems like someone assassinated this guy: RT has already published a piece that simultaneously denied that he was assassinated and blamed the US/UK for his assassination.
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Nov 12, 2019 01:32
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We are about to see the resumption of full combat operations for the turks. So expect updates on frontlines . SAA is rocketing Turkish aligned forces in the western countryside of aleppo. Probably trying to create a larger buffer zone around Aleppo. Ill get trampled for stating this but Turkeys goal is a new state with aleppo as an integral part of its economy. SAA/SDF also liberated some towns previously under TFSA control with heavy artillery hitting turkish positions near tel tamar. A few days ago Turkey announced a resumption of their campaign, then had a clozed door meeting with putin and then tjurkey and russia went silent. So time will tell
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Nov 13, 2019 07:53
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