suboptimal posted:

Ouch, confusing Zarqawi and Zawahiri is sloppy for Fred Kaplan. I've met that guy before, and he's pretty sharp.

quote:

While stomping through Mosul, some of their militiamen stormed the Turkish consulate and kidnapped Turkish diplomats. Under international law, that amounts to an attack on Turkey, and it’s unlikely that the Turks will simply shrug.

Best Friends posted:

The Iraqi army is basically a collection of homeless people given uniforms and, occasionally, firearms.

SedanChair posted:

I think at this point if ISIS invaded Turkey with combined arms and beheaded Erdogan on live TV, US support for intervention would top out at about 14%.

Libluini posted:

Luckily at that point US support would be irrelevant, thanks to German tanks rolling through Turkey crushing ISIS under them. (This isn't hyperbole, for some strange reason even though we Germans are really, really pacifistic, a recent poll showed something like 60% support for defending our NATO-partners.)

Libluini posted:

Also around 60% support for our allies is actually really bad, it's another sign of our pacifism -barely half of us would support a war even when we would just defend our partners.

FAUXTON posted:

It relates to how conservatives in the US believe it would be exciting to invade Mexico seeking to quell the cartels, for it would provide opportunities to "accidentally" massacre civilians as punishment for the crime of being Mexican. Or Catholic. Or dark-skinned.

quote:

The next reason which my resolutions assign, is, that it is without example or precedent, wither to hold Mexico as a province, or to incorporate her into our Union. No example of such a line of policy can be found. We have conquered many of the neighboring tribes of Indians, but we have never thought of holding them in subjection—never of incorporating them into our Union. They have either been left as an independent people amongst us, or been driven into the forests.

I know further, sir, that we have never dreamt of incorporating into our Union any but the Caucasian race—the free white race. To incorporate Mexico, would be the very first instance of the kind of incorporating an Indian race; for more than half of the Mexicans are Indians, and the other is composed chiefly of mixed tribes. I protest against such a union as that! Ours, sir, is the Government of a white race. The greatest misfortunes of Spanish America are to be traced to the fatal error of placing these colored races on an equality with the white race. That error destroyed the social arrangement which formed the basis of society. The Portuguese and ourselves have escaped—the Portuguese at least to some extent—and we are the only people on this continent which have made revolutions without being followed by anarchy. And yet it is professed and talked about to erect these Mexicans into a Territorial Government, and place them on an equality with the people of the United States. I protest utterly against such a project.

Sir, it is a remarkable fact, that in the whole history of man, as far as my knowledge extends, there is no instance whatever of any civilized colored races being found equal to the establishment of free popular government, although by far the largest portion of the human family is composed of these races. And even in the savage state we scarcely find them anywhere with such government, except it be our noble savages—for noble I will call them. They, for the most part, had free institutions, but they are easily sustained among a savage people. Are we to overlook this fact? Are we to associate with ourselves as equals, companions, and fellow-citizens, the Indians and mixed race of Mexico? Sir, I should consider such a thing as fatal to our institutions.

Deteriorata posted:

I guess we got even by lying to the Brits about Iraq and getting them sucked into that mess.

Secret memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq posted:

Whereas BP was insisting in public that it had "no strategic interest" in Iraq, in private it told the Foreign Office that Iraq was "more important than anything we've seen for a long time".

BP was concerned that if Washington allowed TotalFinaElf's existing contact with Saddam Hussein to stand after the invasion it would make the French conglomerate the world's leading oil company. BP told the Government it was willing to take "big risks" to get a share of the Iraqi reserves, the second largest in the world.

the boston bomber posted:

So that's why the French didn't support the invasion after all. I did think it was weird that they were so anti-Iraq intervention but shilled so hard for Libya and Mali.

the boston bomber posted:

Well since removing Saddam was an explicit point of the invasion, it doesn't seem like they would have kept their oil contracts even if they did join in. Why would the French want to knock off a guy who was providing them with massive oil contracts, just to replace him with an administration that would definitely award those contracts to the Americans?

pengun101 posted:

wow, destroying graves and shrines and history. Thats hosed up. then again saudia arabia is already doing that.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_early_Islamic_heritage_sites_in_Saudi_Arabia

Mightypeon posted:

I still wonder if the French Elite troops that once liberated the Kaaba from some Islamist extremists back in the 1979 actually pretended to convert to Islam first.

Professor Funk posted:

Yep, Paul Bremer is definitely the guy who I want to tell me what we should do in Iraq.

pengun101 posted:

speaking of that. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/27838978 this rear end in a top hat joined ISIS leaving his kids behind so that who could play COD IRL edtion. I honestly hope he dies.

quote:

"For us to be here it's freedom. Total freedom. I can walk around with a Kalashnikov if I want to."

"This idea of us wanting to go back and plot terror attacks in our countries is absolute rubbish. We are having a good life here."

Al-Britani has said he has no plans to go back to the UK.

"I felt like I was in prison in that country, you need road tax, you need this, you need that, blah blah, it's just money making schemes."

Misandrist Duck posted:

Motherfucking Dick Cheney writes an op-ed


Guess which president he's talking about

quote:

Only a fool would believe American policy in Iraq should be ceded to Iran, the world's largest state sponsor of terror.

Sergg posted:

No, we had great success in achieving the following things with the Iraq War:

TheBalor posted:

No, it had objectives, it's just that they were absolutely insane. Despite what's said, the Bush administration didn't actually want to settle down and focus on looting Iraq. They honestly believed they would be in and out in months at the most, then they could move on to the next place. From a base in liberated Iraq, they could knock over Iran and Syria. Free market democracies would bloom, the US would have infinite access to cheap oil from grateful populaces, the heavens would open up and angels would sing hosannas.

Volkerball posted:

It's also complete hindsight to say that we went to war in Iraq because of a handful of people with ulterior motives. Within days of 9/11, all the way up to the invasion, there was tremendous public and congressional support for the war from both sides of the aisle.

Baloogan posted:

Randandal posted:

Why is the Palestinan government responsible in any way for what just amounts to a terrible crime committed within its' borders, beyond trying to solve the case? Is there some evidence of the Palestinans stonewalling the investigation or is Israel just being weird?

TheBalor posted:

They're not going to take Baghdad. They barely have enough members to hold what they have right now, let alone absorb millions upon millions of shiites.

Tatum Girlparts posted:

Is there anything to this: http://en.apa.az/news/213369 other than some random ISIS dude being nuts?

Like, correct me if I'm wrong but regardless of Sunni or Shiite, Mecca and poo poo is a key part of the faith isn't it? That'd be nuts even for them to say 'yea we'll fuckin break that rock yo' wouldn't it?

Volkerball posted:

Bit of a side note, but ex French president Nicolas Sarkozy is sitting in jail awaiting questioning over an investigation into whether or not he received 50 million euros from Gaddafi as campaign contribution. You may remember Sarkozy from his joint effort with Bernard Henry Levy to be one of the loudest voices calling for intervention in Libya. Cold mother fucker.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

defending a client state on their own territory would make it a pretty different scenario from the occupations people are real tired off, right?

FAUXTON posted:

What kind of airstrike capacity do the Iraqi military have?

Section 31 posted:

I'm looking forward a football team full of bearded players thicker than Tim Howard's. Perhaps bearded referee as well...

Shaocaholica posted:

Wait, soccer/'football' is haram?

Best Friends posted:

Yes in American occupation free Syria we don't see anything like this.

Volkerball posted:

Are you trying to connect the US occupation of Iraq with the uprising in Syria? There's not much there hth.

Toplowtech posted:

Now that's a prospect less likely to happen than a (french-sponsored or not) coup d'état in the Comoros.

Miltank posted:

I used to be friends with a bunch of Kurds who believed the Middle East will never run out of oil because of a passage in the Koran haha

Just The Facts posted:

Who would actually send troops in? The French?

Xoidanor posted:

Rest of the world is asleep, the fallout will start tomorrow.

US and EU leaders unanimously posted:

We fully support Israel's valiant effort to defend its hapless citizens from the threat of inexcusable terrorism, and we wish to express our complete solidarity with the Israeli people. We also admire the length the IDF goes in order to avoid needless loss of life. Also Palestinians aren't human beings.

Frosted Flake posted:

What happened to Turkish democracy? Or secularism? Couldn't (shouldn't?) the US back a coup to restore Ataturk's legacy?

Martin Random posted:

Somehow my protest-oriented friends on facebook have forgotten their dedication to fighting genocide and ethnic cleansing, failed to create vigil events, protests, infographics, or long, passionate posts gnashing their teeth about the horrors of civilian casualties. How unfortunate that this particular ethnic group is so out of vogue that their slaughter is below popular notice.

Shaocaholica posted:

Given the recent news of all these atrocities, are people still being recruited from western countries to join IS?

Gregor Samsa posted:

Peshmerga are competent; if you mean well-equipped, then I guess things like an Air force would definitely change things. The closest thing we'll see to that is probably when Assad turns on them for real.