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Squalid posted:that's good news at least. i'm suprised at how long this took to be honest, the fighting was really going no where. Haftar lost his gambit to take Tripoli more than six months ago. Really hard to predict where Libya goes from here. Haftar is far from being in a bad position eitherway, his faction controls most of the country and practically all the oil and only just last week managed to take Sirte. Erdogan nudged Putin into negotiation mode to play out his Mediterranean game so everyone goes through the motions now, but under all that tensions are increasing, not de-escalating. Egypt and UAE in particular have been heavily stepping up their rhetoric after the "Turkish advisors" thing over the past two weeks.
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Jan 12, 2020 20:50
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Why does that WH attack video look like it was made in the 70s? Is that the current fashion?
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Jan 12, 2020 21:25
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Well now that the plane thing is cleared up. Are there any generally recommended books on the history of the region (but particularly surrounding Israel, Palestine, Jordan etc) in the modernish-times, say Ottoman era and later? I've been traveling there quite a bit this year and got to see and hear a lot of different things but it'd be great to better understand how we got here beyond the broad strokes I got from school or reading random articles here and there.
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Jan 12, 2020 22:29
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mobby_6kl posted:Well now that the plane thing is cleared up. Are there any generally recommended books on the history of the region (but particularly surrounding Israel, Palestine, Jordan etc) in the modernish-times, say Ottoman era and later? "The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement" by George Antonius is a classic and well worth a read.
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Jan 12, 2020 23:02
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https://twitter.com/Nick_L_Miller/status/1216383893533794304?s=20
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Jan 12, 2020 23:12
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Ham posted:Haftar is far from being in a bad position eitherway, his faction controls most of the country and practically all the oil and only just last week managed to take Sirte. Erdogan nudged Putin into negotiation mode to play out his Mediterranean game so everyone goes through the motions now, but under all that tensions are increasing, not de-escalating. Egypt and UAE in particular have been heavily stepping up their rhetoric after the "Turkish advisors" thing over the past two weeks. yeah. I wonder how far Turkey is really willing to go to back Tripoli. Maybe if the GNA was able to pull itself together and put aside petty grievances it could seriously oppose Haftar, but as it is now it struggles just to react to his moves. Every year he gets stronger while his opponents get weaker. Still Haftar remains very weak and reliant on Egyptian and UAE aid, I think against even a modest foreign intervention he would quickly collapse. It feels like it will soon just be Misrata and Tripoli against the rest of Libya, and then Tripoli will probably just collapse in the face of any pressure under the weight of its own intrigue.
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Jan 12, 2020 23:13
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This looks interesting. I wonder if this is just an educated minority. https://twitter.com/Joyce_Karam/status/1216367444572409856
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Jan 12, 2020 23:21
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Count Roland posted:Isn't oil the world over traded in USD? I don't think (but please, someone correct me) this would be Iraq losing access to dollars in a strictly literal sense, but losing access to a key part of the US and hence world financial system. I thought one of the biggest issues the US has with Iran is that they sell their oil for Euros?
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Jan 12, 2020 23:22
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Memento posted:I thought one of the biggest issues the US has with Iran is that they sell their oil for Euros? You might be thinking about this backwards, Iran went to Euros specifically because USA was giving them such a hard time and basically forced them to do so with their sanctions. https://www.ibtimes.com/europe-pay-iran-euros-oil-abandoning-dollar-2681417
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Jan 12, 2020 23:37
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Nenonen posted:You might be thinking about this backwards, Iran went to Euros specifically because USA was giving them such a hard time and basically forced them to do so with their sanctions. they also used to refine a lot of their oil here iirc because Houston? was equipped to handle some flavors of oil they produce and developing that expertise themselves would be way more expensive than just paying the crusader capitalists to do it I don't remember where they shifted to but it was a whole thing at the time
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Jan 12, 2020 23:43
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Unimpressed posted:This looks interesting. I wonder if this is just an educated minority. I'm glad to see it, no matter how much of a minority it is. It heartens me to see any amount of Iranians who want peace and friendship with America rather than the continuation of the utterly pointless Bread and Circuses conflict we've been stuck in because some rear end in a top hat boomers got embarrassed in the 80s.
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Jan 12, 2020 23:46
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TK-42-1 posted:Why does that WH attack video look like it was made in the 70s? Is that the current fashion? It's very obviously footage from an old movie with Trump's head added in After Effects.
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Jan 12, 2020 23:59
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Sanguinia posted:I'm glad to see it, no matter how much of a minority it is. It heartens me to see any amount of Iranians who want peace and friendship with America rather than the continuation of the utterly pointless Bread and Circuses conflict we've been stuck in because some rear end in a top hat boomers got embarrassed in the 80s. There is no such a thing as peace with America, only prostrating oneself before the empire.
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Jan 13, 2020 00:00
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Nenonen posted:You might be thinking about this backwards, Iran went to Euros specifically because USA was giving them such a hard time and basically forced them to do so with their sanctions. Ahh, gotcha. Thanks for the link, I knew it was A Thing but wasn't sure on the details.
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Jan 13, 2020 00:09
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The news that the Iranian military shot down that 737 has sparked fresh protests throughout the country. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E90FkyTwkQ&t English translations in the captions.
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Jan 13, 2020 03:36
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:NEWS I’m curious why this isn’t bigger news.
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Jan 13, 2020 03:56
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Snipee posted:I’m curious why this isn’t bigger news. Its sunday.
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Jan 13, 2020 03:59
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Snipee posted:I’m curious why this isn’t bigger news. 1) pretty much no one wants a war, clearly 2) rockets means anything from fireworks to pissrockets to possibly some grads single fired or whatever, which is basically nothing compared to actual ballistic missiles, which were absolutely news worthy.
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Jan 13, 2020 06:02
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As far as I can tell it also isn't clear it was actually Iran.
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Jan 13, 2020 06:24
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Question for anyone knowledgeable about Iraq: Did the US army suffer more casualties fighting Sunni or Shia groups?
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Jan 13, 2020 07:44
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Snipee posted:I’m curious why this isn’t bigger news. Didn't kill anybody. It could be the smallest military grade rocket on the market, and if it got insanely lucky/unlucky and made a direct hit on a guy going for a walk, it would be all over news.
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Jan 13, 2020 07:47
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Charlz Guybon posted:Didn't kill anybody. It could be the smallest military grade rocket on the market, and if it got insanely lucky/unlucky and made a direct hit on a guy going for a walk, it would be all over news. Some would call it luck, others call it Strava
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Jan 13, 2020 08:15
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The BBC has done a good piece of open source journalism on the killing of Hevrin Khalaf, the Syrian Kurdish activist who was killed in the opening days of the Turkish military operation in Northern Syria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93gFco7froQ
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Jan 13, 2020 10:51
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Herostratus posted:"The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement" by George Antonius is a classic and well worth a read. Awesome, it's even public domain! Although it's going to miss some critical developments since it's from '38 but that's a good start.
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Jan 13, 2020 12:35
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mobby_6kl posted:Well now that the plane thing is cleared up. Are there any generally recommended books on the history of the region (but particularly surrounding Israel, Palestine, Jordan etc) in the modernish-times, say Ottoman era and later? Check out 'the Last Ottoman Generation' for a pretty recent book about the last generation of Ottoman military and administrative officials and the role they played in the post-WWI Middle East.
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Jan 13, 2020 14:50
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Here's a good podcast episode summarizing the assasination of Suleimani and the aftermath. https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/OffTheHookah (episode 123) It won't add much for thread regulars (though I didn't know Suleimani's funeral included ceremonies in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities) but its a great overview for people with a less than perfect understanding of these issues.
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Jan 13, 2020 16:51
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Behind the bastards did a podcast on him recently as well. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/qassem-soleimani-and-the-bastardful-history-55268117/ The Iranian retaliatory strike occurred while they were recording it.
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Jan 14, 2020 01:06
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Apparently the GNA on the Misrata frontline have collapsed and Haftar is making steady progress for Misrata, about 70KM away now.
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Jan 14, 2020 03:24
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Ham posted:Apparently the GNA on the Misrata frontline have collapsed and Haftar is making steady progress for Misrata, about 70KM away now. where are you seeing this? I'm having trouble finding details from the usual sources. Losing Sirte was obviously a huge strategic lose for the GNA already, if Haftar can put troops right on the Misrata suburbs like he has in Tripoli I don't see how the GNA escapes cracking. They were really on the ropes even before this new development.
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Jan 14, 2020 04:30
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Ham posted:Apparently the GNA on the Misrata frontline have collapsed and Haftar is making steady progress for Misrata, about 70KM away now. gently caress my life I wish someone would start dropping bombs on haftar already. I am sick and tired of these fascist animals gaining any ground.
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Jan 14, 2020 16:41
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Squalid posted:where are you seeing this? I'm having trouble finding details from the usual sources. Losing Sirte was obviously a huge strategic lose for the GNA already, if Haftar can put troops right on the Misrata suburbs like he has in Tripoli I don't see how the GNA escapes cracking. They were really on the ropes even before this new development. Details are sparse until the international comunity decides how to relabel maftar. If he wins libya we cant call him a nazi etc or he will be a gaddafi 2 quickly.
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Jan 14, 2020 18:48
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I think the way Gaddafi 1 got removed more or less guarantees there won't be a Gaddafi 2 any time soon.
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Jan 14, 2020 19:06
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Rukeli posted:Question for anyone knowledgeable about Iraq: Did the US army suffer more casualties fighting Sunni or Shia groups? That's too complicated a question, and the answer won't be useful. It's something like asking whether the Iraqis suffered more casualties from christian or jewish soldiers. Relative numbers skew the raw numbers, lots of people fought for reasons other than or incidental to religion, and most of the people who care about the answer have an ax to grind.
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Jan 14, 2020 19:59
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Has anyone found reporting on the push by Haftar? I did some quick googling and just found news about the cease-fire talks collapsing.
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Jan 14, 2020 20:22
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Randarkman posted:Check out 'the Last Ottoman Generation' for a pretty recent book about the last generation of Ottoman military and administrative officials and the role they played in the post-WWI Middle East. Ah yes, I just read this one a few months ago. Definitely recommend it. As for Turkey, Zurcher's Turkey: A Modern History might be a bit dry and textbook-like, but it is an excellent and comprehensive overview of Turkish history from the birth of the republic to the first years of Erdoğan's administration.
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Jan 14, 2020 21:24
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Oh. I didn't notice that you asked about Jordan, in that case I recommend checking out The Shaykh of Shaykhs by Yoav Alon. The framework is a biography of Mithqal al-Fayiz who led the Bani Sahkr bedouin for much of the early and mid 20th century and played a decisive and largely unknown (in the West) role in the creation of Jordan and the shaping of its political system and underpinnings of power, particularly as regards the alliances negotiated between the Hashemite monarchy and the bedouin of what was to become Jordan.
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Jan 14, 2020 22:26
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Ceiling fan posted:That's too complicated a question, and the answer won't be useful. It's something like asking whether the Iraqis suffered more casualties from christian or jewish soldiers. Relative numbers skew the raw numbers, lots of people fought for reasons other than or incidental to religion, and most of the people who care about the answer have an ax to grind. I disagree that it's like "asking whether the Iraqis suffered more casualties from christian or jewish soldiers"; the sunni and shia militias didn't fight side by side against coalition forces but were at constant war with each other. To understand the conflict in Iraq is to understand the history of all ethno-religious groups in the country, and that history includes the insurgencies waged, hence I asked this question. But I think I figured out the answer myself (outside Baghdad, most coalition casualties occured in Sunni Arab territory).
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Jan 14, 2020 22:50
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Squalid posted:where are you seeing this? I'm having trouble finding details from the usual sources. Losing Sirte was obviously a huge strategic lose for the GNA already, if Haftar can put troops right on the Misrata suburbs like he has in Tripoli I don't see how the GNA escapes cracking. They were really on the ropes even before this new development. Dreissi posted:Has anyone found reporting on the push by Haftar? I did some quick googling and just found news about the cease-fire talks collapsing. All reference to this push hasn't been verified by actual journalists yet - the original sourcing was through social media accounts that regularly report on Haftar's movements and the Libyan conflict in general. It's worth noting the ceasefire was only in effect around Tripoli and it's looking increasingly likely fighting in Tripoli will resume from tomorrow since talks collapsed.
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Jan 15, 2020 01:01
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Snipee posted:I’m curious why this isn’t bigger news.
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Jan 15, 2020 02:45
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According to the Guardian, Turkey has already deployed 2000 of its Syrian auxiliaries to Libya in an attempt to turn the tide again. Erdogan really is the final nail in the coffin of the Syrian Revolution. If you were to put a gun against my head and forced me to take anything positive out of this, I'd say 'Well, maybe this will at least take some pressure off the Kurds', but yeah, I'm not particularly feeling that, either.
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Jan 15, 2020 06:26
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