Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

Who is moving to a ground attack sooner rather than later? NATO? I've been reading the news often and carefully and haven't seen this. Maybe Kobane can be completely evacuated in advance of ISIS occupation but the logistics (to where?, refugee camps are overflowing) are staggering. ISIS currently controls over half the Syria/Turkey border and if they decide to shell/raid/gas those camps the 14 or so Turkish army tanks lined up overlooking Kobane aren't likely to stop them. Despite the UN calling on the world to save Kobane the 1st priority will probably be saving Iraq because that's where US and British blood paid for the regime that's currently in peril. When choices must be made the ones that can be sold to the voters will win out.
Edit: Nothing awkward about butchery once you know how and get a little practice in.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

Articles like this suggest a softening line on ground troops. Prior to this the tone was very much reassurance that US involvement would be strictly limited to air strikes.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

We should send all Ebola patients to the war zones ;)

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

There's an election on November 4th. Democrats aren't going to let Obama send US troops back to Iraq before then.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

Because driving around the desert with an AK-47 and RPG blowing stuff up is far more exciting than pouring coffee in Starbucks with a huge student loan you can't afford to pay off.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

Depends on the extent of atrocities and how rapidly ISIS continues to spread. Turkey's inaction has been fairly spectacular.

CT: sorry, lost my article in previous post.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

That's surely part of it. Naïveté of youth. Idealism.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

Democrats aren't going to throw the election just to save some Kurds. And the Turks are probably glad to see them being wiped out, since they want to annex part of Turkey.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

Oh if we could only replace all the energy coming from the middle east and tell them "Boys have at it". Too simplistic I know, but one fight just seems to lead to another.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

I know, it's so convoluted it's ridiculous. Even if these guys had never united in their crusade for a Caliphate there would still be fighting going on all over with no end in sight. Makes me so glad to be here....

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

Yes. And to complete your sentence..and hopefully keep them there.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

I over-estimated the number of civilians trapped in Kobane; apparently there are only about 700 elderly in town and another 5 or 6 thousand caught between Kobane and the Turkish border. One of the comments following the Reuters article I read says "Bring out the B-52's". Observers say ISIL now occupy 40% of town but Kurdish spokesman says more like 20%. I'll decide who to believe tomorrow after the next few reports. In Iraq they're within spitting distance of Baghdad Intl Airport at Abu Ghraib. The keyboard warriors agree Turkey is happy as hell to have someone else kill all the Kurdish fighters they can, and that Turkey can sit quietly for now and let it happen because they're our NATO allies and as soon as ISIL starts shelling over the border they can whistle and NATO has to come and help. Their leverage is we don't want them to jump to the Russian sphere of influence. I never really paid much attention to Turkey before but I don't think I like this Erdogan fellow. Here's my plan for the salvation of Kobane; find out where these old people are and make a lightning raid with Kurdish and US special forces (hell send UR and his gang of thugs too) and drag them back past a pre-determined line just like Rambo and bring out the B-52's. Get old Death From Above to bomb everything they think might be ISIL until the desert is a pane of glass, then they can paste any hard targets they have in Iraq the next day. That should slow them down. Then after a show of force like that maybe suggest the Turks stop being so difficult.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

No kidding.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

In Kobane today:




"In the meantime,Turkish army continued to send reinforcement to its border line with Kobane, but it showed no indication of any intention to up the ante"

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

They're certainly taking care not to dawdle in the street in the first clip. Thanks for posting that.

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The presence of the Turkish army doesn't seem to bother IS. You have to wonder if the hidden objective is to flatten Kobane using whatever resources available plus what destruction they can provoke out of the coalition.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

One comment on Reuters was something like "The Enemy of my Enemy of my Enemy of my Friend.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

I'm probably going on the list for sharing this (if I'm not on it already)...

"British Islamist Abu Baraa in Support of ISIS: We Can Start Having Slave Girls Again"

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

They all mention that they is Muslim yet law abiding Muslims deny association with these nutters !! Oh dear !!

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

Wow. Have never actually watched one of those videos before. It does confirm my belief that a little religion is a dangerous thing. Somehow when the nonsense and division is conveyed in English it becomes even more surreal. It's little wonder the teenagers are getting sucked in when they are being fed pious misinformation like this. :unsure:

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

If they are religious at all they are Wahhabis. Protected, promoted and funded by our BFF the Saudi Royal Family. Wahhabis are true fundamentalists who who seek a return to practice and values of the Middle Ages. All Wahhabis are nominally Muslim, but only a tiny, tiny fraction of Muslims are Wahhabi.

It is easier to make sense of it all just to think of them as fascists seeking power and control through violence..

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

.

I always thought that was the hot green stuff they put on Sushi in Vancouver?

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

Idiot.

But to follow up JonboyE's earlier post there's a decent article in the Huff on the historical background. You Can't Understand ISIS If You Don't Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia | Alastair Crooke

Although not part of the article, it's clear that what's going on right now is fairly analogous to the Troubles in Ireland just a few years ago. i.e a sectarian feud, fuelled by perceived historical wrongs, between two branches of the same primitive religion.

The Wahhabis are comparable to the Real IRA, extremists in a word, but the true struggle is between Sunnis (sponsored in the main by Saudi Arabia) and Shiites funded largely by Iran.

The Wahhabi/Sunni extremists have bothered their sponsors by being a bit over the top (even for the Saudis) so they're fearing that they have no friends left.

Thus, by releasing videos of executions of a couple of Americans, which are widely accepted to be about two years old, they have drawn the US (and the coalition of the stupid) into action against them.

This is obviously a (largely successful) attempt to invoke the "Our enemy is the Great Satan and if you're our enemy then you're their friend" thingy.

Bloody nonsense. And basically nothing but politics as usual in the Middle East. The West needs to be less naive and gullible.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

It's OK, the Turks have started bombing.

Oh, hang on, it's the Kurds they're bombing, not ISIS.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

An interesting historical account of the underpinnings of ISIS, but fact remains that they are a threat to the region and the West. Were it not for the inconvenience of events like 9/11, 7/7 and the countless foiled plots, it would be tempting to leave these kooky desert warriors up to their well documented habit of raping, pillaging and murdering their own. Not that even that would be morally conscionable. Every extremist movement needs to be disbanded, and ISIS is certainly no exception. The fact that conquest is in their DNA (to use a trite expression) and the fact that we "understand" their historical journey is no reason for complacency.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

Two soldiers struck in Quebec hit-and-run - The Globe and Mail

Meanwhile somewhere in Quebec, a Known Muslim extremist runs over two service Personel in car then shot dead by police.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

Conquest would appear to be in the 'DNA' of quite a few nations, if indeed it is a 'fact' that such things are genetic.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

Do use that tiny lump of gristle between your ears before posting next time.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

Meanwhile on topic the US airlifts 20 tons of supplies to Kurdish forces in Kobane overnight and Turkey finally says they'll allow Kurds to cross the border to fight in Syria.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

No not really....I lived in a Wahhabis enclave for many years, and a more reasonable bunch you could not encounter....I still know lots of them today....hope I always will...:thumbup:

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

So it goes. So it goes.

Sectarian politics as usual, complicated as ever.

I made an analogy between the NI troubles and these recent events a few posts ago, but I'm increasingly struck by the similarity of the complicated and ludicrous scheming and shifting of alliances in Europe (which included Russia back then) in the year or two before WW2.

Le plus ca change, le plus c'est la meme.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

Young British muslims go to Syria, a violent war zone, to join ISIS in fighting for their set of values, get killed, and the "community is in shock"? Really? What's to be shocked about? Saddened, maybe, shocked, no.

Shock as third Portsmouth jihadi fighter is killed in conflict - Portsmouth News

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

On slightly scrutinising the rest of the headline, it's not only the word "shock" that's a tad glib.

I mean, shouldn't they be reporting accurately by using phrases like "alleged criminal", "member of terrorist organisation" or "genocidal psychopath" (instead of the somewhat glamourous "jihadi-fighter")? Makes you wonder who they trying to please.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

Interesting piece:

My brother wanted to be a jihadi – and society is creating many more like him | Robb Leech | Comment is free | theguardian.com

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

Typical Guardian. 'It's all society's fault!'

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/politics/so...tawa-1.2808710

Soldier shot in Ottawa

I have an uneasy feeling regarding these incidents, let's just hope that this was just an accident, maybe he was caught in a gang crossfire at the memorial and the soldier who was killed by the known Islamic radical car driver who was stopped from leaving canada and had his passport removed was just texting and driving and none of this is anything to do with Canada getting involved with the U.S. in the war on ISIS.

More info:
http://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/canada/...rial-1.2065443

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

Witnesses say the shooter fled towards Parliament Hill and there are reports of shooting inside the parliament buildings and the CTV news feed just showed an armoured car rolling up to the memorial.
Edit: "Tall, thin man wearing black and white head scarf and carrying a long gun." Pandemonium inside.
The paramedics were performing CPR on the soldier before moving him, doesn't look good. Harper was evacuated out as a precaution.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

As this develops and reporters interview eye witnesses we almost need one column for 'reports' and another for 'conflicting reports'. Wish I had the day to waste but I'm sure we'll get the whole story later. Best wishes for the victim - any time they're still trying to start someone's heart as he's driven away it's bad news.
Ooh tweets from some MPs suggest there was a battle inside and the suspect is dead or in custody (CBC News), even if true they may spend hours searching the Hill before releasing info.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

That's a bit dismissive. Since dangerous individuals like this are increasing, one of the questions is why? Are you really suggesting that their are no societal influences.

Re: US step up war on ISIL
 

Cdn Press reporter inside centre block tweets Sgt at Arms Kevin Vickers shot 1 intruder dead and there are 1, possibly 2 more on the property so this could go on for some time.