The kurdish elite are more secular at this time, yes. that does not make the population so - it is a mistake americans make all the time, to confuse these things, to confuse the urban elites and this façade with the wider attitudes. Some of the salafiste organisations of Iraq began in the Kurdish territories. but the kurdes are now not very open to takfiri salafisme since it has becomes to strongly associated with arabisme.
Vietnamese insurgents not only took over a Vietnamese city from the French, they did it with conventional superiority.
This is the Middle East. The Kurds are just as capable of acting badly towards another group as any. Especially if they are the enemy or sympathetic towards the enemy. Which the Sunni tribes are. You think once the Kurdish militia starts occupying Sunni towns and Sunni /ISIS start a resistance they will respond like saints you’re mistaken.
It’ll be even worse if the Iraqi, by which we mean Shia, army returns. It was its brutal behaviour before that helped alienate the Sunni in the first place.
And the Sunni and the Shia went at each other’s throats as soon as they were able. It’s at a slow boil in Baghdad now that the shia militias have crawled out of their holes. The Sunni flight is ongoing in the face of attacks on them.
I don’t think the Kurds will want to be involved in an occupation. their only interest is staking a wide claim on territory for an independent state and getting America to arm them to defend it in the oncoming civil war.
The Sunni were first alienated by losing power and started an insurgency aimed at restoring their power, led by former Saddam Hussein regime members.
Yes, I know this, I after all live and work in the region and am arabophone.
Sunni ***arab ***tribes. The Kurds are themselves in the overwhelming majority of the Sunnah. It is arabism versus non-arabism, not the sunni versus the kurds, this is a nonsense statement.
I made no comment about anything about the behaviours of the Kurds or anything about saintes, I am correcting the mistaken usage of saying the Sunni. Before the rise of the arabism and arab supramacism the kurds were a backbone of the sunni supremacism.
You don’t want the Saudis going in. Iraq doesn’t need a lot of well-equipped princes playing at soldier, it would just be more panicky cowards and incompetents shovelling heavy weaponry into the hands of ISIS.
Speaking of which, the Iraqis have lost a helicopter and dozens of men and vehicles in a counterattackon Tikrit. Dozens of Iraqi government troops surrendered, which is puzzling given that the IS are known to execute all prisoners. They were executed.
Do you have a cite for this? The AP has nothing on a surrender or executions in Tikrit.
I’ve been to multiple locations in the Kurdish area of Iraq, and I’ve not run into much salafist behavior of any kind. Granted, I’ve not been everywhere, but where I have been, I’ve noticed tolerance to others (including foreigners like myself) and no overt hostility towards any particular religion. I will say that in my experience Kurds are generally not too fond of either Arabs or Persians, though they are tolerant of them. They do like westerners and Americans (generally, I’m sure you can find some that don’t).
When I was there (In Iraq from 07’ to 12’), at the checkpoints heading into Erbil, if you were from the south, and could not name someone in the city/area you were going to visit, with an address and contact information… you likely were being turned around at gunpoint and being told to fuck off.
Which is probably why the region had way fewer issues with insurgency in general.
Regards,
-Bouncer-
Breaking:
ISIS releases video showing beheading of American journalist James Foley.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/19/us-syria-crisis-beheading-idUSKBN0GJ26S20140819
The video cites this as a response to US air strikes and says they hold a second journalist, Steven Sotloff, who will also be killed if the strikes do not cease.
I’m guessing that’s not going to happen.
On the political side of things, Americans support the President’s order of air strikes 54-31.
http://pollingreport.com/iraq.htm
Republicans support the President by wide margins. Democrats less so, independents the least. Which is kinda annoying. On issues from domestic spying to international warfare, many Democrats are okay with those things as long as a Democrat does them.
It was inevitable, just as another terrorist incident somewhere in the US is inevitable.
Which part annoys you? That Democrats are not supportive, or that they are?
That they are more supportive than independents, which tells me that it’s out of loyalty to the President.
This post says much about you.
If you’re talking about Paul Randian independents, I think they’re on record as non-interfering isolationists.
Independents were more supportive of the war in Iraq than Democrats from 2003-2008. The shift can most easily be explained by who the President is.
Is supporting killing people only when a Democrat is in office a virtue? You would THINK that politics would end when the killing starts.
Well, duh. Most people who self-identify with a political party are going to be more likely to support that party’s leader’s actions and decisions. It’s human nature. Or did you not notice that more Republicans supported military action in the “War on Terror” under Bush than they do now?
True, but cruise missile liberalism never went away. Erm, drones, nowadays. Plus everyone gets to feel good for helping.
B-but the Yazidis.
Independents are conservative Republicans, so yeah I can see them supporting a grotesque war based on lies whereas Dems complain. Bombing IS seems like the least a civilized people could do, so if indies want to balk along political lines, that does make sense.