Pulaski

Curious. Something is going on.

scrubbedexpat091

Apparent bomb threats. I know things take time, but man if there is a bomb threat you'd think they would get passengers off quickly, the article seems to imply it took 1hr 15 mins in Halifax to get everyone off.

amideislas

Interesting, but its entire premise draws on a lot of presumptions. Some rather far-fetched, requiring an unlikely, maleficent secret conspiracy of a rather large contingent of world leaders (past and present) along with a large contingent of their parliamentary and congressional politicians of multiple parties, who frankly, have no shortage of policy disagreements amongst themselves.

RoadWarriorFromLP

That is quite naive.

RoadWarriorFromLP

No.

Here's US policy in a nutshell: The primary goal is to protect the government in Baghdad while not propping up Assad, encouraging Kurdish independence or putting US troops back into another Middle East quagmire.

The real essence of the problem is that George W. Bush's de-Baathification program gutted the Iraqi military, a program that inadvertently led to the creation of Al Qaeda in Iraq and, later, ISIS. As a result, today's Iraqi military is incapable of defending Iraq from threats such as those posed by ISIS.

Contrary to the claims in the video and on this thread, one cannot just bomb ISIS into oblivion; it cannot be destroyed completely from the air, only contained. The US hope is that air power and stalling long enough to rebuild Iraq's military will at least protect Iraq.

In Syria, there are no genuine "moderates" to support. So there are no clear good guys or bad guys there, and no one in Syria with whom the US (or, for that matter, France) can ally. In contrast, Russia is happy to support Assad, hence the differences between Putin and Obama.

Supporting the Kurds poses two problems. For one, Turkey, a NATO ally, does not want a Kurdish independence movement. But more importantly from a US perspective, Kurdish independence will mean that Iraq will collapse, which means a new Iraq civil war and a massive power vacuum for Iran to exploit. In any case, the Kurds want their independence, not to sacrifice themselves in order to destroy ISIS once the ISIS threat to their territory has been ended, so they can't be expected to fight an extended war in Syria in order to fix that problem.

So this all goes back to keeping Iraq together and trying to avoid handing a prize to Iran. None of that would have been necessary had George W Bush not failed completely in Iraq, but Obama cannot turn back the clock and fix what the Republicans have broken. The best that Obama can hope to do is to keep the government in Baghdad in power, and hope that Assad will eventually hand off power to a credible government that isn't dominated by extremists.

scrubbedexpat099

Amusing fact

Obama has been in power longer than WW2 lasted.

When does his pass end?

RoadWarriorFromLP

If you followed the points that I made, then it should be easy to understand why no president can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

And even if Obama wanted the extended ground war that is the wet dream of the US hard right, the American public has no stomach for such a thing, so it will fail. A protracted ground conflict is not an option.

robin1234

Looking at options in addition to the purely military, I assume (hope) that the U.S. is trying to get a handle on the financial side of things. Getting Turkey and Iraq to cooperate would be key. Apparently, IS has (or had) an income of $3 million per day from selling oil, gas and electricity, directly to, or via, Iraq, Syrian government, and Turkey. Air strikes take out some of the oil wells & trucks etc., but the neighboring governments, supposedly in conflict with IS, need to be encouraged to put a stop to the trade.

Then I read that Iraq still pays the salaries of thousands of public employees in IS controlled areas. This implies that the banks and banking networks are still fully operational between Iraq and IS controlled areas. IS then gets a second "tax" cut from these public employees ... ( whether the IS issue paperwork so the employees can claim a tax refund when they file their taxes, I wonder.) So, that's another major source of income for IS.

Selling looted antiquities, again, via Turkey or Syria.

IS may have looted banks in Mosul of up to $500 million, in U.S. dollars and gold bullion.

While I'm fine with complying with US IRS and treasury regulations in terms of my income, savings, etc., I'd just like to know that the U.S. is holding the IS (and Turkey, Syria and Iraq) to the same high standards.

Pulaski

So ISIS has drawn the ire, and indeed the fire, of four permanent members of the UN Security Council, so it can't be surprising that ISIS has now provoked China.

amideislas

Considering how many they continue to piss off, and what a small contingent of loosely held fighters they are by comparison, seems to me that together, it shouldn't take long...

Problem is, all our "defences" are set up to fight each other. Don't have a clue how to fight a non-state with an unidentifiable army, who behave like velociraptors.

Sometimes it seems more like "Jurassic Park run amok" than "WWIII".

sir_eccles

The phrase go pound sand seems particularly apt.

It isn't like there is a big barracks of daesh fighters all wearing nice uniforms waiting to be bombed. Or a column of tanks or flotilla of aircraft carriers and destroyers. It's a guy over there in a house making ieds a group over there sniping maybe a small encampment in the dunes...

I heard that when France asked the US for targets they instantly got a list. Why hadn't these been bombed already was asked. Low value, one guy here one there empty house used last week...

RoadWarriorFromLP

And that guy and his buddies are going to occupy positions in schools and hospitals and orphanages when the conventional military marches in, posting videos of Allied atrocities on Youtube and gaining support via social media. The rules of engagement do not favor conventional forces; they can't fight to win because of the collateral damage.

Terrorists use asymmetrical tactics precisely because they cannot successfully wage a symmetric conventional war. They don't need to win, they just to need hang in and survive a war of attrition. If US forces can't win in a few months, then the US will lose by default, and everybody outside of the GOP knows it.

scrubbedexpat099

I did not attend Sandhurst, I went to a few lectures.

But this is hardly anything new, been there seen that, done that, just read the books.

Pulaski

The one thing that ISIS has messed up on is that in taking hostage and killing western journalists and aid workers, there is now a lack of credible on-the-ground reporting of "misdirected" bombing.

scrubbedexpat099

Bombing not not need according to Corbyn, just arrest and try them.