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fade5 posted:It's definitely a mix in Iraqi/Syrian Kurdistan; some women wear a hijab, some don't: This is downright sad.  I used the term "islamic countries" out of habit, to be honest. But yes, that's a really hollow description isn't it 
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Mar 5, 2015 16:34
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Red Crown posted:Was anyone following #TikritOp this morning? The Shia nationalist guy @SumerRising posted four pictures of Iranian flag draped coffins saying that they were Iranian soldiers who had died in the Tikrit battle, then rapidly retracted them because lol opsec I guess. I wish I'd screenshotted them. I don't know why they'd even bother taking them down, Qassem Solemani is approaching Bill Murray-levels of mythical visibility in Iraq and their Iraqi militias are basically the Iraqi Army at this point.
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Mar 5, 2015 16:49
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Al-Saqr posted:because it's a natural ending to a dictator who with full support from the west destroyed any possibility for democracy and peaceful change in his country through a huge police state, and when the revolution kicked off he killed thousands of people with the army, leading to only the most radical people to end up being strong enough to take control once he hosed off. Looking at the history of the Revolution, it's honestly a bit surprising that the Islamists took over instead of the Reds.
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Mar 5, 2015 16:59
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After reading that Atlantic article, I tried to read the rebuttals but they all either were impenetrable like that CAIR essay or didn't actually address the main argument ("IS is not Islamic because it is filling the power vaccuum in a failed state"). The articles in the last few pages seemed to make more sense. Is the issue sort of like that they're basically reading the Quran/hadiths in a "why can't I own a Canadian?" sort of way?
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Mar 5, 2015 17:02
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Zeroisanumber posted:Looking at the history of the Revolution, it's honestly a bit surprising that the Islamists took over instead of the Reds. I think the war with Iraq was a big factor as well, having a secular opponent (Saddam and Baathism) gave the Islamists a propaganda advantage.
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Mar 5, 2015 17:02
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McDowell posted:I think the war with Iraq was a big factor as well, having a secular opponent (Saddam and Baathism) gave the Islamists a propaganda advantage. The Reds were outmaneuvered in the revolution and had blown their wad in an armed uprising 5 years before. The last bastion of real socialist thought in the ME was probably Lebanon.
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Mar 5, 2015 17:04
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suboptimal posted:I don't know why they'd even bother taking them down, Qassem Solemani is approaching Bill Murray-levels of mythical visibility in Iraq and their Iraqi militias are basically the Iraqi Army at this point. Would the Sunni's have issues with Iran's involvement? or would they prefer Iranian lead iraq troops come through their ISIS held cities, then Iraq troops not lead by Iran. When your talking about optics that would seem to be the main one to worry about. Making sure that the local Sunnis in ISIS controlled areas don't think (and of course far more importantly aren't) slaughtered when Iraqi forces retake those areas, would be extremely important.
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Mar 5, 2015 17:05
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Zeroisanumber posted:Looking at the history of the Revolution, it's honestly a bit surprising that the Islamists took over instead of the Reds. Because the US was secretly working with Iran to expose and purge the Reds.
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Mar 5, 2015 17:23
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The article about al-nursa mentioned they were going to combine with a smaller chechnyan Nikita. Can someone explian to me why chechnyans are involved in organized fighting in Syria?
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Mar 5, 2015 17:38
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Megasabin posted:The article about al-nursa mentioned they were going to combine with a smaller chechnyan Nikita. Can someone explian to me why chechnyans are involved in organized fighting in Syria? If there's a fight between three men over the ownership of a goat in the ME odds are one of them is chechnyan. God knows how such a small population provides so many fighters.
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Mar 5, 2015 17:42
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Schizotek posted:If there's a fight between three men over the ownership of a goat in the ME odds are one of them is chechnyan. God knows how such a small population provides so many fighters. Beats living in Chechnya, I guess.
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Mar 5, 2015 17:48
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Megasabin posted:The article about al-nursa mentioned they were going to combine with a smaller chechnyan Nikita. Can someone explian to me why chechnyans are involved in organized fighting in Syria? Long story short, Chechnya is basically what happens when Islamic extremism goes Russian. Chechnya and Russia have fought two wars with each other within the last two decades and it pretty much wrecked everything the Chechnyan's had. Needless to say they don't get along. Russia's made no secret about it's interest in Syria so maybe this is their way of getting a few potshots in at the big guy.
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Mar 5, 2015 18:04
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So how should the borders of the new middle east countries have been designated after WW1? Just each of the Ottoman provinces become their own country?
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Mar 5, 2015 18:16
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Azran posted:Out of curiosity, are there any Islamic countries where the religious restrictions on women are lighter/aren't actually applied? I remember reading a while ago in a newspaper article that the whole Niqab/Burqa thing is relatively recent (as in, last two hundred years or so), and mostly applied by extremely conservative regimes. As posters have said in this thread before, people aren't robots - there has to be some countries where they are more lax with its use/don't even use it. The niqab is not an uncommon sight in Oman but it's far more common to see women wearing a either a black or colorful hijab with their abaya. I remember seeing the niqab far more frequently in the Emirates and Qatar. It is common to see Bedouin women in the interior of Oman wear a face mask (which take many different forms) that I believe is sometimes called a burqa (but it's different than the burqa you're probably thinking of). It's also common to see women dressed in Khaleeji dresses (in private, though sometimes in public depending on region); these are very colorful and decorated dresses.
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Mar 5, 2015 18:20
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Belome posted:So how should the borders of the new middle east countries have been designated after WW1? Just each of the Ottoman provinces become their own country?  E: I suppose the French possessions turned out mostly better than all of Britains lovely weird monarchies. For awhile anyway. The Cold War came through and hosed those up too. Schizotek fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Mar 5, 2015 |
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Mar 5, 2015 18:37
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Belome posted:So how should the borders of the new middle east countries have been designated after WW1? Just each of the Ottoman provinces become their own country? The Entente should have just collectively given the Arabs under the Ottoman Empire independence and let them sort out the rest amongst themselves - As it had promised to do in return for their wartime support. Instead they got divided up amongst the victorious powers and eventually had an Israel planted in their midst. Yeah, helping the Westerners totally paid off here, guys. It always does!
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Mar 5, 2015 18:41
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Gimmick Account posted:The Entente should have just collectively given the Arabs under the Ottoman Empire independence and let them sort out the rest amongst themselves - As it had promised to do in return for their wartime support. Instead they got divided up amongst the victorious powers and eventually had an Israel planted in their midst. Wouldn't it have devolved into a bunch of civil wars, as independences tend to? I mean, what we got wasn't much better but... Either way, Cold War would've still hosed the region.
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Mar 5, 2015 18:51
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Markovnikov posted:Wouldn't it have devolved into a bunch of civil wars, as independences tend to? I mean, what we got wasn't much better but... Either way, Cold War would've still hosed the region. It could have, who knows. Even so, the odds are quite good that this hypothetical united Arab state would have been less of an Egyptian sockpuppet joke than the one our timeline got.
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Mar 5, 2015 18:56
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Azran posted:Out of curiosity, are there any Islamic countries where the religious restrictions on women are lighter/aren't actually applied? I remember reading a while ago in a newspaper article that the whole Niqab/Burqa thing is relatively recent (as in, last two hundred years or so), and mostly applied by extremely conservative regimes. As posters have said in this thread before, people aren't robots - there has to be some countries where they are more lax with its use/don't even use it. Last two hundred years is quite a long time really. As far as I know you want to look at the 60-80s as that's when popular Islam begins to make headway in much of the Islamic world. And most countries, apart from Arabian countries and Iran, don't really have any legal restrictions on women's clothing, it is more of a societal pressure kind of thing or even a religious or a political statement or even just fashion. I think it was in Egypt, that it was not uncommon for young women to start veiling themselves whereas their mothers wouldn't. Some of what I've read seems to suggest that that its even the increasing urbanization that has seen the more widespread application of hijab, as tradtionally across the Islamic world veiling one self was often more of an urban upper and middle class kind of thing, a fashion adopted by peasants who moved to the cities, replacing their older (though probably still with some kind of hat or headscarf) more practical styles. Also the use of the word 'hijab' denoting an article of clothing, that is a headscarf, rather than just referring to the rules regarding modest clothing (for men and women) is something that developed in the 70s sometime, most notably in Egypt, as university students began to organize and engage themselves in social justice-related issues with a focus on Islam and especially Islamic identity as a way of asserting themselves against the regime and older political movements such as nationalism and socialims. Associated with this movement, which I believe is referred to as the "awakening", was that politically and relgiiously minded students began to adopt a kind of common religious uniform, most visibly what we today refer to as the hijab, which is very similar to nuns' wimples (and maybe was inspired by them). Give it some years and this eventually spread out of the youth realm and into society in general. Zeroisanumber posted:Looking at the history of the Revolution, it's honestly a bit surprising that the Islamists took over instead of the Reds. I don't think so. To be honest it's almost more tempting to look at what happened in Iran as the culmination of a century-long conflict between the monarchy and the religious establishment. It can't really be said enough that religion in Iran is very different, from an organizational point of view, compared to the rest of the Islamci world, that is because Iran has something more resembling a church organization, with a hierarchy of clerics and ownership of institutions, other Islamic countries have their scholars and universities, but it is not organized and hierarchical and all-encompassing like it was in Iran. Now the monarchy and the relgious establishment had been at each others' throats for well over a hundred years, the kings attempting to increase the powers of the state at the expense of the relgious establishment by way of modernistic ideology, and the relgiious establishment fighting them every step of the way. Now come the revolution and it may look like the Reds have things going for them as they have large percentage supporting them in those modern westernized cities, but that's just the thing, that's kind of where it began and ended for the Reds. While those pictures of attractive young women in sunny cities seem to tell us that here is a modern westernized Islamic country, the fact of the matter is that Iran, in the 70s, was still largely a rural and traditional society, a society where the religous establishment already held vast power, not only of conviction but also material in the sense of owning land and controlling institutions. So on the side of the clerics we had much of the countryside, particularly the highly conservative, and surprisingly organized, shop keepers (kind of the rural commercial middle class), but also very significantly we have the students from the religious institutions, who made up the highest proportion of any students in Iran (a huge religious establishment needs to perpetuate itself), these students are probably a large part of the reason for the whole revolutionary rethoric of victorious clerics following the revolution (as well as the effect of the war with Iraq). These things together was why the Islamists (though really Iran's "Islamists" are very different from those appearing in the rest of the Islamic world) won out I'd say, not that they stole or hijacked a left-wing revolution, even though that aspect of it (the leftist part) may have been significant it was bound to end up losing out (unless they themselves had been ruthless enough to try to hijack the revolution themselves as many say the Bolsheviks in Russia did) to the vastly more powerful and socially ingrained forces of the religious establishment who held support across the entire spectrum of traditional Iranian society (the actual majority).
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Mar 5, 2015 19:57
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hey guys, you know what's a great way for the iraqi shiite militias to beat ISIS? why, by being Exactly like them! that's how! (trigger warning:- boy being executed in cold blood).
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Mar 5, 2015 20:08
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Al-Saqr posted:hey guys, you know what's a great way for the iraqi shiite militias to beat ISIS? why, by being Exactly like them! That has been the hitherto successful strategy being deployed in Iraq, yes
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Mar 5, 2015 20:11
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So, how did we basically miss the lesson of the Sunni Awakening and allow things to go straight back to Shiite death squads? Was there no way for the United States to lean on the Iraqi government to throw some patronage towards some Sunni tribes and stop allowing Sunni men to be abducted and killed in the middle of the night? Cause it doesn't seem like we really needed to be back at this point.
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Mar 5, 2015 20:32
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suboptimal posted:I don't know why they'd even bother taking them down, Qassem Solemani is approaching Bill Murray-levels of mythical visibility in Iraq and their Iraqi militias are basically the Iraqi Army at this point. My guess is that this means IRGC types are probably acting as frontline leaders, like, even at the squad leader level. 58 dead is a lot for "advising".
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Mar 5, 2015 20:33
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:So, how did we basically miss the lesson of the Sunni Awakening and allow things to go straight back to Shiite death squads? Was there no way for the United States to lean on the Iraqi government to throw some patronage towards some Sunni tribes and stop allowing Sunni men to be abducted and killed in the middle of the night? Cause it doesn't seem like we really needed to be back at this point.  If we were on better terms with Iran we maybe could possibly suggest to Iran that should put pressure on the militias to reign in the worst of the atrocities, but at present Iran is gonna tell the US to sit and spin. The other problem is that there's still support for ISIL among some Sunnis in Iraq/Syria (partially because they're terrified of Shia death squads, which is unfortunately a legitimate fear), and the US is not very keen on sticking its neck out for guys who might end up being ISIL supporters. It's not right, but that's how things have shaken out so far. Also there's the potential Iran nuclear deal (which is a whole other clusterfuck) that's hanging by a thread, and Bibi who's making everything worse. fade5 fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Mar 5, 2015 |
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Mar 5, 2015 21:02
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Obama doesn't like Iraq, it's leaders, or its problems and the fact he doesn't like the issue limits his ability to put any pressure. Obama had a horrible relationship with Malaki, the new guy? Seems like a nobody, and Obama doesn't likely talk to anybody in Baghdad besides DoD people that work there.
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Mar 5, 2015 21:09
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Randarkman posted:Last two hundred years is quite a long time really. As far as I know you want to look at the 60-80s as that's when popular Islam begins to make headway in much of the Islamic world. And most countries, apart from Arabian countries and Iran, don't really have any legal restrictions on women's clothing, it is more of a societal pressure kind of thing or even a religious or a political statement or even just fashion. I think it was in Egypt, that it was not uncommon for young women to start veiling themselves whereas their mothers wouldn't. Some of what I've read seems to suggest that that its even the increasing urbanization that has seen the more widespread application of hijab, as tradtionally across the Islamic world veiling one self was often more of an urban upper and middle class kind of thing, a fashion adopted by peasants who moved to the cities, replacing their older (though probably still with some kind of hat or headscarf) more practical styles. Even within the past fifteen years the veil has become a lot more common globally. In Pakistan I know that it was driven in large part as a defensive religious movement in response to anti-muslim rhetoric on British television (as a former British possession Pakistan's middle class learns English as practically a first language, and education in well off areas is done in English. So they watch a lot of UK tv and news.) after 9/11. And like you said it's done mostly by younger wealthier muslim women. There's also a bit of Arab fetishism going on due to Arabs being seen as more ?authentic? (not sure that's the perfect word for it) muslims because of their geographic location and role in Islam. Which is why the hijab that became more common there was an Arabic style, and not one of the local traditions.
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Mar 5, 2015 21:12
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Zeroisanumber posted:Looking at the history of the Revolution, it's honestly a bit surprising that the Islamists took over instead of the Reds. McDowell posted:I think the war with Iraq was a big factor as well, having a secular opponent (Saddam and Baathism) gave the Islamists a propaganda advantage. Panzeh posted:The Reds were outmaneuvered in the revolution and had blown their wad in an armed uprising 5 years before. The last bastion of real socialist thought in the ME was probably Lebanon. Khomeini outmaneuvered the anti-imperial left by taking the embassy and calling the siege of Mecca a false flag operation by the USA. He blamed acts of anti-government terrorism on SAVAK (so leftist guerillas wouldn't get credit). Most importantly, he and Shariati contextualized the people’s struggle as having continuity with Shia national and religious myth: the men, women, and children tortured or shot in the streets were martyrs after the followers of Al-Husayn ibn Ali, and the shah a modern Yazid (no relation to the Yazidis), the legendary rassenfeind. This succeeded in creating a a rhetorical continuity between the struggle against foreign domination and the internal struggle against the secular modernists. The Tudeh Party made the mistake of thinking they could survive by using the Islamists against competing leftist groups while conducting their own political retrenchment (until such time when their Soviet masters would have them put Khomeini against the wall). Oops! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1hcWTbeM4M&t=63s دهانمان را بو كردند حرف عشق را زده بودیم به تازیانه مان بستند Zuhzuhzombie!! posted:Because the US was secretly working with Iran to expose and purge the Reds. The Tudeh Party was thoroughly marginalized by the time of Iran-Contra; there was very little "exposing" to be done. Khomeini had the Pasdaran and the Basij and the army. He had made sure from the beginning he controlled the revolutionary narrative. The idea that they could have usurped the revolution from the Council, especially after betraying anti-Khomeini groups, is fantasy. By 1983, the only thing that could have saved them was a Soviet invasion.
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Mar 5, 2015 21:21
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If there are any Arabic speakers, could you give me the gist of this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG9lCkHxeBk The twitter feed I got it from says that this is an Anbar tribal leader saying that the Shiite militias and Hadi al-Ameri "speak for" the Sunnis of Iraq. Confirm/deny?
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Mar 5, 2015 21:37
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Well, the Kurds taking Gire Sipi/Tal Abyad may have just gotten harder/more bloody: ISIL is putting up a loving minefield west of Gire Sipi/Tal Abyad.  Crazy motherfuckers, they really are in this for the long haul.
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Mar 5, 2015 21:56
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Dilkington posted:By 1983, the only thing that could have saved them was a Soviet invasion. And that would've triggered World War 3, and the Soviets knew that. Besides which, by 1983 they were up to their neck in Afghanistan. fade5 posted:Well, the Kurds taking Gire Sipi/Tal Abyad may have just gotten harder/more bloody: Defensive works don't mean poo poo because ISIS doesn't have an airforce to cover them.
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Mar 5, 2015 21:56
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fade5 posted:Well, the Kurds taking Gire Sipi/Tal Abyad may have just gotten harder/more bloody: where did they even get mines
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Mar 5, 2015 21:58
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V. Illych L. posted:where did they even get mines Likely made them themselves I'd say, though it is possible that they took some from captured Iraqi and Syrian arsenals, I have a hard time imagining it's hard to make mines.
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Mar 5, 2015 22:00
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fade5 posted:ISIL is putting up a loving minefield west of Gire Sipi/Tal Abyad. Ah, poo poo... They are really going to salt the earth over this, huh. If Daesh ends up having enough time to lay an extensive minefield in the area, it's going to be absolutely lovely for everyone living there for potentially decades to come. Anyone remember Bosnia? They're STILL stumbling across mines in that country, even today (Apparently even more so after the recent flooding washed out a lot of the known minefields ).On top of that, I don't think a minefield is going to be that much of a combat advantage to the defenders, considering the forces they have arrayed against them. This makes the whole endeavour even more immoral.
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Mar 5, 2015 22:17
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Mines can range from "pretty sophisticated precision made instrument of war" to "home made pile of scrap and fertilizer". I doubt the latter kind has the same kind of longevity as the first.
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Mar 5, 2015 22:21
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Schizotek posted:Mines can range from "pretty sophisticated precision made instrument of war" to "home made pile of scrap and fertilizer". I doubt the latter kind has the same kind of longevity as the first. They've had multiple opportunities to loot the stocks of the Iraqi and the Syrian army. I wouldn't be so sure that those mines are of the 'home-made' variety - Their vehicles and weapons certainly aren't, either! And isn't the current batch of reinforcements that stabilized the front with the Kurds supposed to be directly from Raqqa? They probably have some of the better equipment, too.
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Mar 5, 2015 22:27
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Gimmick Account posted:And isn't the current batch of reinforcements that stabilized the front with the Kurds supposed to be directly from Raqqa? They probably have some of the better equipment, too. Good. That'll give us a shot at their more experienced fighters instead of whatever chaff they keep throwing around.
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Mar 5, 2015 22:33
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I would think the Kobane front won't be moving much because : -Kobane YPG+ are stretched in men and resources (the Euphrates pockets front, the M4 Front, the siege of Lafarge cement, the Border front); -Other Kurds are working elsewhere* and can't send much help; -The coalition no longer concentrates all its attention there; -Daesh will be putting their best effort in keeping Tell Abyad and other feedlines (Manbij, Jarabulus, Tishrin); Speaking of Kurdery, here is a darkly hilarious graph I found: A visual taxonomy of Kurdish peace process  *Big movement in Tell Hamis/Tal Brak, over there in the east between Qamishli and Hasakah, that's the thing to watch.
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Mar 5, 2015 23:05
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:So, how did we basically miss the lesson of the Sunni Awakening and allow things to go straight back to Shiite death squads? Was there no way for the United States to lean on the Iraqi government to throw some patronage towards some Sunni tribes and stop allowing Sunni men to be abducted and killed in the middle of the night? Cause it doesn't seem like we really needed to be back at this point. In December 2011, Maliki came to the White House for a press conference following the withdrawal of US troops. While he was there, he got word that his Sunni Vice President, Tariq al-Hashimi, was orchestrating plots to assassinate government officials. Maliki told Obama this, and Obama essentially told him "Every country has their own problems." Maliki took this as a green light, and when he returned to Iraq, a bunch of Hashimi's bodyguards were arrested, tortured, and coerced to confess to a bunch of allegations against Hashimi. Hashimi fled the country, and was sentenced to 5 separate death penalties in absentia. His defense team said that there was clear political pressure on the trial, and the court responded by threatening to press charges against the defense. INTERPOL doesn't recognize the verdict because the results "lack quality." He was not the last influential Sunni politician who this happened to, and the US never attempted to put pressure on Maliki to get him to stop it. There's no doubt that there's a limit on what the US can accomplish diplomatically or militarily, but they never did anything at all while all of this was developing. The first time they started caring about oppression in Iraq is when Sunni disenfranchisement led to the rise of ISIS. Then, they got Maliki to step down simply by saying they wouldn't bomb ISIS harder until he did. Maliki complied quickly. The truth is they wanted to wash their hands of Iraq, and focus on domestic issues. Their priority was just to get out, and give Iraq to the Iraqi's. It wasn't until poo poo fell apart that they realized that Iraq was going to be a central theme of their administration whether they liked it or not, and that failure in policy played a huge role in where things are today.
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Mar 5, 2015 23:20
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ecureuilmatrix posted:
That's a pretty good chart, but I was expecting a chronological list of pivots and plot twists that happened so far for extra comedy.
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Mar 5, 2015 23:34
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Someone needs to design a robot that can clear minefields. Seems like it should be doable.
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Mar 5, 2015 23:58
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