Well even though they are fighting on multiple fronts, they still have time to fight moral degeneracy:
Here is a woman stoned to death for adultery (note none of the locals came forward to throw a stone, so it was entirely Islamic State fighters):
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/women-stoned-death-syria-adultery-24914576
They will destroy “un-Islamic” stuff, but they want to control infrastructure. I doubt they’ll blow up the damn.
Are we the only western nation currently trying to contain ISIS? Surely the other NATO members also have the technological capability to strike them. I haven’t heard of them pitching in. Why is this?
Personally, I think ISIS is eventually going to piss of the rest of the region, and I’d much rather see any major response coming from them. All the US can do by getting to involved at this point is to help recruitment. I’d like to see the UN do what needs to happen to manage the humanitarian situation, and for the actual fight against ISIS to come from closer powers.
Just us. Some have said they will help out with the humanitarian drops, but not fighting. It’s just us because we have lots of Americans in Erbil and we don’t want to evacuate them. We won’t do that is left for the reader to speculate.
Agreed. They’re not barbarians.
They’re something vastly more dangerous.
Civilized, well-educated folks who, like Hamas and the mullahs of Iran, are utterly certain that they’re doing the right thing and for the greater good.
Fascinating report by VICE News as a reporter followed Islamic State fighters to the frontlines.
Who in the region do you think will be pissed off? They’re already hammering Syria and Iraq, they’ve raided Lebanon and they’re mortal enemies of the Shi’ites in Iran. Turkey were supporting them, although they seem to have become more neutral now. Jordan and Saudi are renowned for their incompetent militaries, if they got involved it would just be more equipment for the IS.
Barring a full scale intervention by Israel, Turkey or the US, which won’t happen, or Iran which might if Samarra falls, there’s nothing to be done.
The airstrikes haven’t worked, incidentally, as the IS forces are still advancing on Erbil.
The UK has sent in the SAS (SAS deployed in Iraq: British special forces sent to hunt down Islamist militants), who knows what other nations have special forces on the ground, and I believe Italy has also expressed its willingness to military assistance to the Kurds.
We’re dealing with people who stole military equipment and don’t have a clue how to use it. They have no air support nor the ability to deal with stand-off weapons.
At this point SAS groups don’t have to engage the militants. They only have to target them for stand-off weapons. We’re in a position to send B-52’s and other altitude platforms into the area to release the weapons as directed by the SAS.
Being able to destroy the militants is different than actually doing the work. It’s now governed by the political system in place. We can’t just go in and rain down explosives. If we were given a green light ISIS would lose all of it’s heavy weapons in a very short period of time or be forced to retreat it back into Syria. This would make it much easier for towns to defend themselves long enough for Iraq’s military to pick up the slack.
Where is your info from, blindboyard?
VICE totally fucking rocks. They just keep getting better, too.
Those villages were, indeed, retaken by the peshmerga, and that’s because they’ve finally got some ammunition, not because of airstrikes. That happened after the advance I was talking about. Elsewhere, however, Jalawla was taken by the Islamic State.
Meanwhile Maliki has started a coup against the President of Iraq to keep himself in office.
This is my source, incidentally, a thread elsewhere which sources various articles and seems to have a lot of up to date information. People there following the ISIS twitter feed and so on.
And how long might that be? After many years of training the first time they were asked to ‘pick up the slack’ they effectively threw their arms at ISIS and ran away, leaving ISIS to loot bases and armouries. (Something which will no doubt be repeated in Afghanistan sooner or later).
As far as I can see there is effectively no ‘Iraqi Army’, just a rag tag of sectarian militia’s.
The only half effective force is the Kurdish one and they are interested mainly in holding borders the rest of Iraq don’t concede them in the first place. They are fighting for a ‘greater Kurdistan’, not for an ‘Iraq’ which barely exists. Malaki certainly has no intention of even paying lip-service to a no-factional Iraq, which is part of the problem in the first place. (If I were him I’d start worrying about what happened to Diem mind you).
Th Kurds are fine with air-cover but don’t look so hot without it and the USA cannot write them a blank air-cover cheque when it might be cashed to form a ‘Greater Kurdistan’.
Ironically the people we’re going to end up supporting as clandestinely as we can against The Islamic State is going to be Assad’s regime.
In all my years of studying political science, I have never come across a mess and muddle as large as what is being lived in the Middle East at this moment in history. My enemy’s enemy is my friend is so upside down, backwards and reversed, in spades.
Very little is making sense. Not many folks have got it straight about whom to bomb.
We blew up dams in WW2 and I can see The Islamic State trying. Takes a lot to blow up a dam though.
Very true. It’s at moments like these where ‘we told you so’ seems wholly inadequate.
Once we’ve finished quietly selling out what few rebel groups haven’t already signed up to the Isis band-wagon I’ve no doubt we’ll be quietly backing Assad just like we backed Saddam against Iran.
“Here, have some anthrax and a shit-ton of agricultural credits.”
Edited to add:
At around 07:08, a preacher claims that the group’s leader is a descendent of “Hussein.” Which Hussein would that be?
Not the same Hussein the Shi’ites revere as the third Imam, right? I would have guessed the Sunnis hated that guy.
Grandson of Muhammed would be my guess. He’s one of the cool kids for both strands.
Here’s a very good article that gives an idea what we’re up against.
The jihadists who turned the tables
I’ve read previously that ISIS has billions of dollars from energy sales, saudi backers (well of course) and (inadvertently) the West (because we can’t seem to get it through our thick skulls that ‘not quite so insanely extreme’ does not equal ‘moderate’)
They have very sophistcated equipment (including stingers we and the iraqi army directly or indirectly gave them). We have unwittingly been training them when we fondly imagined we were training ‘moderate’ rebels.
This is more than a terrorist group, it’s an army with a territory and a financial base.
Bombing a few trucks and mortar pits isn’t going to cut it.
This needs an army. Are we going to do it? Not a chance. The Iraqi Army? Stop, my sides, you’re killing me.
The Kurds? If armed and trained maybe, except we seem completely unable to train anyone to do anything other than scream ‘shut up and take my weapons’ at the first sign of trouble.
And that’s not even mentioning the severe downside to a modern Kurdish Army casting it’s eyes in the direction of the Turkish, Iranian and Syrian components of Greater Kurdistan.
Obi-Wan Assad, you’re our only hope.
What a bloody mess. Well done Tony, well done George.