2014 in Iraq

hi! :-)

http://www.clarionproject.org/sites/default/files/Mosul-Liberated-ISIS-IP.jpg

http://bilad-alsham.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/237.jpg

we begin bombing in five minutes

you go to war with the army you have not the army you want

Alright, these damn anniversary edition reissues are getting the fuck out of hand.

In recent days, Iran has sent about 500 Revolutionary Guard troops to fight alongside Iraqi government security forces in Diyala province, a senior security official in Baghdad told CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/13/world/meast/iraq-violence/

Maybe Iran and the US together at last

good times

being able to say "I told you so" not very satisfying in this case

otm

so now this is basically just going to be proxy war between SA and Iran right

Mosul liberated by LOLcats?

turban black you proxy fules

BREAKING NEWS

MOSUL PASSES $15 MINIMUM WAGE!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/several-kurdish-forces-killed-in-iraq-as-shiites-begin-to-slow-advance-of-isis-fighters/2014/06/15/5b0e015c-f473-11e3-b633-0de077c9f768_story.html

militants on Sunday posted gruesome photos on one of their Twitter accounts that purported to show the jihadists executing dozens of men in a province north of Baghdad.

The photos showed men in civilian clothes lying face down, shoulder to shoulder and with their hands bound, in a ditch surrounded by yellow fields, as masked fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria fired into the ditch in Salahuddin province.

It was impossible to verify the authenticity of the photos. By Sunday afternoon, Twitter appeared to have suspended the account.

A top Iraqi general and a spokesman for the armed forces told reporters in Baghdad on Sunday that the military was steadily bringing Salahuddin under its control.

is that my homeboy george w bush in the center of the second pic posted?

it is difficult to imagine a scenario where resolution of this conflict doesn't end in ethnic cleansing

Is it better or worse in Iraq after the invasion, and how could that be measured

I mean it looks worse to me but I can't say I'm on top of the subject

better for the kurds

Better for the kurds, probably gonna be about the same for the sunnis and marginally worse for tge shiites I would guess but we'll see

is Hitchens still dead

You think he's rolling around insisting he was right

well at least the GOP has their "Obama lost Iraq" narrative, best o' times ahead

I don't see what good that's gonna do 'em tbh

This is easy - Arm the ISIS against Assad, the Iraqis against ISIS and then give Assad weapons to fight the Iraqis because why not, it'll piss off Israel.

This could also fit in on Content 77

http://i.imgur.com/7lbOvY3.jpg

Fun to see the most dangerous army of the week using smileys to scare their victims' families.

ugh

can somebody point me to a blog that is making some sense out of all this shit?

Try this one..

ha ha

Rich Lowry, model tank enthusiast

Sorry, but this is a mess of President Obama’s making.

When Obama took office he inherited a pacified Iraq, where the terrorists had been defeated both militarily and ideologically.

There was a link there to torture enthusiast Marc Thiessen, Bush administration employee, in the Washington Post.

let's remind everyone what Thiessen looks like:

http://attwiw.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/marc-thiessen.jpg

That's him explaining how idealogically defeated people are now doing what they're doing

NY Times:
Iraq’s effort to limit news of successful attacks by the insurgents has expanded in recent days. After initially shutting down Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other social media sites, the authorities have also blocked mobile data connections as well.

Victory!

http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/images/07-minister.jpg

man is that guy still alive

YES HE IS. HE WENT ON TO LONG AND HAPPY LIFE, NO NEED TO WORRY ABOUT HIM.

lol apparently he is. lives in the uae w/ his family.

Gary Brecher is generally reliable.

http://pando.com/2014/06/16/the-war-nerd-heres-everything-you-need-to-know-about-too-extreme-for-al-qaeda-i-s-i-s/

i can do without his sub-taibbi similes but that is exactly the kind of thing i'm looking for. thanks v much ShariVari

shoulda woulda coulda

yeah thanks for that SV

Not a fan of some of Saletan's writing that I've read,but this is of interest:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2014/06/don_t_save_iraq_republicans_have_forgotten_self_reliance_in_foreign_policy.html

Now we have a different problem. It isn’t that Republicans overemphasize self-reliance in the context of welfare. It’s that they’ve forgotten self-reliance in the context of foreign policy. They’ve become grandiose and naive. Case in point: the emerging crisis in Iraq.

"become"

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ohjqJDZkQps/U6GwNs4weyI/AAAAAAAABXY/ZKh7CM4jfls/s1600/cheneyiraqhaha.jpg

Ha, and they've formed a new group "Alliance for a Stronger America"

hahahahahaha

http://www.duffelblog.com/2014/06/isis-humvees-maint/

Dick Cheney Negotiates No-Bid Contract To Maintain Insurgent Humvees

This website is a Onion-like website for DoD news

Even Megyn Kelly etc etc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW6dWbbaylo

I never ever thought these two would ever grow up to look like each other.

http://www.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/20131025/rs_560x415-131125140809-1024.Blacklist-James-Spader.ms.112513_copy.jpg

jeez even Megyn Kelly let Dick have it yesterday.

Gary Brecher is generally reliable.

Read it all. Seemed very informative and sensible compared to anything in the mainstream news. Iraq is obviously pretty fucked up, but not quite in the way the talking point pundits portray it.

I only read the first part of this thread so sorry if its been said, but that whole press conference was basically just "yeah we'll send some dudes over there who know how to carry out drone strikes k."

NPR reporter: ISIS is like Mad Max merged with the Sopranos

Well that sounds like the most awesome thing ever!

Jeffrey Goldberg revisiting a 2007 Atlantic cover-art map:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/the-new-map-of-the-middle-east/373080/

When we were preparing the map that accompanied the article, we erred on the side of whimsy, and exaggeration. However, in looking it over today, it doesn’t seem entirely fanciful. We predicted the break-up of Sudan into two countries (although we called what is today known as South Sudan “New Sudan”). We created a “Hezbollahstan” in part of Lebanon, and this certainly exists, de facto. North of Hezbollahstan is “The Alawite Republic,” along what is now Syria’s Mediterranean coast. This is a semi-plausible near-term consequence of Syria’s Assad-directed destruction. Syria also loses territory, on our map, to a “Druzistan” that touches the northern border of “Greater Jordan.” Iraq is, of course, divided into three states, and the Kurdish state even takes in parts of Turkish-ruled Kurdish territory. One semi-perspicacious addition to the map—the Bedouin Autonomous Zone—is what could have developed in the Sinai Peninsula before the most recent Egyptian military coup, and the Egyptian military’s re-energized plan to seize Sinai back from jihadist tribesmen.

i hope when cheney dies they preserve his brain for current and future study, because wtf

I want to see the heart that's so cold and withered, it's tried to kill itself eight times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/us/before-shooting-in-iraq-warning-on-blackwater.html

Today, as conflict rages again in Iraq, four Blackwater guards involved in the Nisour Square shooting are on trial in Washington on charges stemming from the episode, the government’s second attempt to prosecute the case in an American court after previous charges against five guards were dismissed in 2009.

It won't bring back the civilians killed, but hopefully there will be a bit of justice

wtf @ return of Chalabi

apparently Biden is the Admin's point man for negotiating a 3-region partition, so that'll end well.

"We only have three counties in Delaware, works for us!"

wtf @ return of Chalabi

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, July 1, 2014 3:48 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

CHALABI, THE RETURN OF

I have become somewhat shamefully obsessed with an ISIS propaganda video called Clanging of the Swords pt. 4. Ultra-high production values, bleak and graphic violence (mostly against Iraqi army officers/personnel), and some surprisingly impressive speechmaking. Overall very high-level and effective propaganda and helped me understand better what's going on there, although also very dark and disturbing. It's googleable, not going to post it, view at own risk.

meanwhile, this frontline is very good:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/losing-iraq/

I've seen some of those. They have GOT to get better theme music.

The theme music in pt. 4 is kind of good. One of my friends said it sounded like Islamic Boys II Men.

those videos are intense

Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) took over Iraq's biggest dam unopposed by Kurdish fighters, who also lost three towns and an oilfield on Sunday to the Sunni militant group, witnesses said, according to Reuters news agency.

Control of the dam could give ISIS, which has threatened to march on Baghdad, the ability to flood major cities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9WrvxhPw_k

i was watching a kind of boring one this morning alhamdulillah. i just started clanging of the swords iv. it's true this stuff is very engrossing.

I have watched it several times. The part that I find most impressive is the speech with the passport shredding, the one where the guy says something like "Oh you tyrants, do not think that just because we reject your citizenship that we will not return to your lands. We will return not with *this* but with *this* (kalishnikov)" etc. I was speculating that some of them probably have prop passports for those speeches. The effectiveness of something like this must be an incredible force multiplier -- you just need a handful of successful military operations on film involving what looked like no more than a few dozen fighters, plus some filmed executions, and you give off the impression of an unstoppable, fearless and terrifying fighting force who, nonetheless, will forgive you if only you reject brand x islam and join brand y islam.

One other thing -- I see a subtle appeal to loner video gamer types there -- kill with impunity in the name of allah.

that would explain the slo-mo replay edits of drive-by murders

bush iii (how am i doing morbs) approves airstrikes

u.s. imperialism serves stockhausen islamic jihad

All these airstrikes will do is buy a little time for the US government to gin up a revised Iraq policy. This would be easier if Iraq didn't have so much goddamned oil.

bring the war home ; )

http://media.cagle.com/107/2014/06/13/149717_600.jpg

yeah, we're dumbasses. doesn't help that we're all brainwashing ourselves and pretending we had nothing to do with this crisis.

The fact that we had a lot to do with this crisis only makes me feel more willing to support us trying to do something about it. It's only a matter of what we can do/whether we can do something without fucking things up worse IMO.

yeah, it's a tough situation we're in. but this is a tremendous challenge we made for ourselves that we have to take responsibility for. it's just frustrating seeing this line of thinking almost completely ignored.

check out Obama here quoted in the New York Times:

“The United States cannot and should not intervene every time there is a crisis in the world,” he said. But in this case, he added, “I believe the United States cannot turn a blind eye.”

Obama talks about this like it's some random event that popped up in some random part of the world, and we deserve a pat on our backs for helping out. Seriously, what the hell is that. I understand the politics of the situation are complex and ugly as hell, but this is just getting absurd.

I like how the major justification for not letting Erbil fall to ISIS is that we have omg a consulate in Erbil which we MUST DEFEND! Obama delivered that ridiculous line of reasoning with a perfectly straight face, too.

Yeah I find Obama's rhetoric on this very enervated and unsatisfying. I would imagine people on every part of the political spectrum do. It's like "We're just gonna go help some folks stranded on a mountain" -- no context, no sense of weight or responsibility.

somebody last night was saying "well we broke it, we bought it" and i was like ha remember when colin powell was saying that TWELVE YEARS AGO

Meaning what, because we backed Saddam? The first gulf war? The sanctions? All?

All.

it was meant as "well we ruined iraq by invading so we have to go back to fix it now"

"we need to fix what we broke, we owe it to these ppl" was basically the favorite liberal excuse for supporting the invasion in 2003.

More justifiable when Iraq is facing an actual crisis rather than a fictional one though.

Let's fix what we broke... by bombing the shit out of what's left of it.

barack obama -> iraq obama -> iraq obombya. where's my award.

If we could just turn back time and never have had any foreign involvement anywhere, life would be peachy.

if only we had never become a nation, then this would just be david cameron's problem

yeah, but we do bear responsibility for this particular set of circumstances, and i don't think we should just casually fling that out the window.

The circumstances in Iraq today are not entirely a consequence of US policy. Iraq had a long past before we arrived and tossed in our own poorly thought out contributions, such as backing Saddam, then fighting Saddam (but not overthrowing him), then overthrowing him and replacing him with our total (but predictable) incompetence for the job of occupation, then leaving after we realized we'd botched the job so badly there was no hope of fixing it (plus they threw us out).

We bear much responsibility for our many sins, but we didn't take a perfectly functional country and ruin it. Iraq was always an unstable nation since the day the modern borders were drawn after WWI.

ISIS seems like a regional threat though. They are openly expansionist, not just trying to take cities in Iraq and Syria.

My only feeble reason for supporting a toppling of Saddam in 2003 was to Do Right For the Kurds after Kissinger fucked them over in the Ford years and Poppy Bush, in a horrible moment, encouraged them to rebel against Saddam without either troop or air cover. Surprisingly, the normally clear-eyed Charles Pierce today supported this 'limited' incursion on similar grounds. Me, I'm tired of this shit.

You will be more tired of this shit in a year or two if it's not contained now.

If we could just turn back time and never have had any foreign involvement anywhere, life would be peachy.

― 'arry Goldman (Hurting 2), Friday, August 8, 2014 7:22 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maybe not so great in western europe

in a horrible moment, encouraged them to rebel against Saddam without either troop or air cover

was this the Kurds or the "Marsh Arabs" (ie. the Shiites)?

The rebellions were north and south. Bush said the following:

"There is another way for the bloodshed to stop: and that is, for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside and then comply with the United Nations' resolutions and rejoin the family of peace-loving nations"

yeah, thanks

I thought that encouraging the Kurds would lead to problems with Turkey so the Shiites in the south were just forlorn hope.

::attempts to balance 6 spinning dishes::

You will be more tired of this shit in a year or two if it's not contained now.

What amount of resources do you think would be required for this?

The Cheney-Rumsfeld plan was just pump a bunch of oil and make the Iraqis pay the piper. You recall how well that turned out. What exactly is going on here that would be worth a couple trillion bucks to 'contain'? Not to mention all the deaths and casualties we'd inflict, and also suffer on our side. And how does it ever end?

what if more deaths and more casualties would happen if we did nothing, and the suffering too. inaction won't improve the situation.

Casualties and deaths we inflict are not the same as those that are inflicted without our participation. The suffering does not change, but the responsibility for it does.

"we"

Well, quite a lot of the responsibility is already yours, so...

"our"

oops sorry, i meant
"without our involvement"

participation, whatever. party on, wayne.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Gu4i-k7VF9U/UwEwEmr15BI/AAAAAAAArVM/nXgKY3a_0vU/s1600/1961+Barabbas+4.jpg

You will be more tired of this shit in a year or two if it's not contained now.

What amount of resources do you think would be required for this?

The Cheney-Rumsfeld plan was just pump a bunch of oil and make the Iraqis pay the piper. You recall how well that turned out. What exactly is going on here that would be worth a couple trillion bucks to 'contain'? Not to mention all the deaths and casualties we'd inflict, and also suffer on our side. And how does it ever end?

― dustups delivered to your door (Aimless), Saturday, 9 August 2014 01:28 (1 hour ago) Permalink

I don't think it necessarily requires a new ground invasion, another ten years of trying to build a new Iraq, etc. Iran will probably provide considerable resistance against IS. I think we proved "nation building" to be a pretty impossible task or at least that we were incompetent at it. Iraq may break up, and I actually don't think that's the end of the world. But ISIS wants to establish an empire in the entire middle east and then beyond. I'm still skeptical of their chances of doing that, but they seem to have a better shot than anyone in a long time and considering how totalitarian and awful they are, I'd rather weaken them early.

BTW, the hands-off approach got an endorsement from Walt today. It's an interesting and appealing theory:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/07/let_it_bleed_iraq_isis_syria_airstrikes_israel_palestine_gaza_iran

I don't think it necessarily requires a new ground invasion, another ten years of trying to build a new Iraq, etc.

So, basically you are saying that a sort of cheap half-assed effort is good enough for your purposes. But in my view, the way to wage war is almost the opposite. If there is a national interest at stake big enough to justify making war, then there is a clear goal that can be achieved through military force and ample motivation to use every means available to achieve it. This is the standard that is normal among nations that do not view themselves as world empires.

If you truly believe a Mideast empire assembled under ISIS is a massive threat to our country or our allies and that ISIS has proved its ability to create and run an empire of such power, then you should be arguing for all-out war to extinguish that threat. I get heartily sick of the "splendid little wars" of imperial management of everyone's affairs through superior firepower. They stink to high heaven, imo, no matter what humanitarian justifications are offered up for them.

Manufacturing a casus belli is an art that has been practiced for millennia and I mistrust any cause for war that relies on the idea that a war will be small, moral, and a fountain of goodness for some designated beneficiary who is not ourselves or a formal ally. The USA already has promised to defend a good half of the world through treaty alliances. We have no such alliances at stake here, nor any direct national threat I can see.

I say, let ISIS try to rebuild the caliphate. If they start to show signs of being truly formidable on such a large scale, then we may reconsider our course. At this stage, they are not worth promoting to a national threat. And we shouldn't go killing large numbers of people for anything less.

Seems like we all went over these arguments when Libya was the flavor of the month.

I say, let ISIS try to rebuild the caliphate

women and children be damned!

i like walt often but that theory is insane esp from someone supposed to be a 'realist.'

well there are plenty of times when we don't intervene when women and children are killed. We have strategic interests in the region though.

yeah, that's the thing he glosses over. we have a lot of strategic interests in the region, as do china + russia who i'm sure would be thrilled to step into any vacuum we left

fwiw I haven't supported any of our foreign interventions in the last 12 years except that I thought we should have a limited war in Afghanistan to go after Al Qaeda. So I'm not some general fan of "splendid little wars."

the problem w/ walt is that he too often disguises moral analysis as realism

If our not bombing or sending troops creates a "power vacuum", which Russia or China is bound to fill, then I am willing to bet a substantial amount of money that Russia and China would not fill that vacuum by bombing any part of Iraq or sending troops there, either. This suggests to me they must know how to exert power and influence in some other way than bombing or sending troops. Perhaps we could learn from them how its done.

tbf walt is making a much broader case for withdrawal than just not bombing or sending troops

If you truly believe a Mideast empire assembled under ISIS is a massive threat to our country or our allies and that ISIS has proved its ability to create and run an empire of such power, then you should be arguing for all-out war to extinguish that threat. I get heartily sick of the "splendid little wars" of imperial management of everyone's affairs through superior firepower. They stink to high heaven, imo, no matter what humanitarian justifications are offered up for them.

There is an all-out war currently being fought between ISIS, the Peshmerga and the Iraqi government. The US airstrikes are an attempt to support the Peshmerga ground troops by taking out heavy weaponry currently being used against them. The Iraqi government is also attempting this but doesn't appear to have been particularly successful. The current threat posed to the US's Kurdish and Iraqi allies isn't so much that ISIS is capable of building a mighty empire, it's that they're currently capable of slaughtering tens of thousands of civilians in short order and, if they fancied it, flooding half of Iraq via the Mosul dam.

Given that a fair number (estimated at 400, including the top strategic commander) are Chechens who have been bombed by Russia already, i'm not sure their plan B would be any different. It's important to recognise that unlike Iraq in 2003, Syria, Libya or any of the US' illegal drone sorties, this is a call for support from legitimate state actors allied to the US with defined objectives in aid of people who are getting their towns taken from them. Whether it's A Good Idea is still up for debate - it could potentially cause a few more Sunnis to rally behind ISIS, it doesn't provide a solution to the crisis of government and there is always the danger of less precise targeting if the bombing expanded, but it needs to be looked at on its merits.

I say, let ISIS try to rebuild the caliphate.

stoked for the genocidal madness

Iran will probably provide considerable resistance against IS...

Haven't some Iranians already come and gone? I'm sure I read somewhere that they were returning home "disillusioned"? Not that they couldn't/wouldn't come back of course. Can't find the article now though.

The US airstrikes are an attempt to support the Peshmerga ground troops by taking out heavy weaponry currently being used against them.

I can live with this. In general I have not been troubled by Obama's very narrow and cautious response to the current Iraq situation.

My arguments were not aimed solely, or even largely, at the extremely limited airstrikes authorized by Obama two days ago, but rather aimed at the many ilxors who were pushing the idea that the USA has a direct responsibility for stopping ISIS, based on such arguments I would paraphrase as 'we made Iraq what it is today and therefore are obliged to fix it' or 'ISIS slaughters civilians and does terrible things and therefore we have a moral obligation to stop them'. These arguments, if accepted, would effectively put all of Iraq under our protection and are so open-ended that they could be invoked to justify every possible act of war until Iraq is stable and peaceful.

Such arguments, in my view, are myopic and despite their insistent invocation of morality, justify unlimited violence. It was precisely such pretexts that led to the "we had to destroy the village in order to save it" inversions of logic in Vietnam.

I say, let ISIS try to rebuild the caliphate.

well, they control half of iraq already

i get your point, but i don't think they should be underestimated. a fundamentalist anti-shiite government in the most centrally located country in the middle east would be really bad, to say the least.

Iran and Iraq waged a million casualty war a couple years after the Iranian revolution. Yes, it was bad. The west survived.

Some would even say the west prospered. Weren't both sides using western weapons?

"i say, let the germans have their anschluss. if they start to show signs of being truly formidable on such a large scale, then we may reconsider our course. at this stage, they are not worth promoting to a national threat."

Oh stop it

You know how many wars are analogous to wwii? 0.

it's a bullshit analogy at least 95 percent of the time, but tbh it seems like a fair response when someone says it's fine with them if radical extremists take over the middle east and justifies it by pointing out that one time when a million ppl died there and it didn't affect us.

you know how many wars are analogous to Vietnam?

wake up sheeple, radical islamists are an affront to humanity

You know how many wars are analogous to wwii? 0.

― Οὖτις, Saturday, August 9, 2014 8:57 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

you know how many wars are analogous to Vietnam?

This one sure isn't.

The analogy I drew was entirely different. It had to do with prosecuting a war with the certainty that "we are doing the morally right thing" and how this "morally good" end will inevitably justify the violent means used to achieve it, no matter what those means might be. Those means can range from carpet bombing, to concentration camps, to dropping two nuclear bombs and killing 150,000 civilians. Or destroying a village in order to save it. This is how wars are started and how they are fought.

War should never be entered for the sole purpose of "doing good in the world". Because whatever good it may do is pretty questionable and uncertain, while the evil of it is 100% guaranteed. War is far bloodier and more heinous than mere murder. It is a holocaust visited on all who fall in its way. Casually assuming that we have a moral duty to go to war, and thinking that some high explosives will neatly cauterize whatever evil we see being done is a profound error in thinking about what war is. The public is constantly encouraged to make that error.

NB: I am not an absolute pacifist, but I don't leave a lot of wiggle room between me and them, because I think they have more justification for peace than the hawks do for war almost every damn time.

I agree w aimless

Vietnam was started after fabricating an assault on US ships, ie, an attack on national interests. It was also pretty clearly a war meant to fight for US interests, ie, opposing world communism. That example is pretty much an example against waiting until national interest is at risk. A fabricated threat to national interest was also what happened in Iraq in 2003. And of course, national interests was what lead to supporting Saddam Hussein against islamist Iran, a threat which owes a lot to the Iranian coup of 1953, supported by the west, as the socialist government was considered a threat to western interests.

Because whatever good it may do is pretty questionable and uncertain, while the evil of it is 100% guaranteed.

given the probability zero event that ISIS spontaneously stops cleansing the levant of infidels and heretics, the evil of inaction is also 100% guaranteed.

I agree. But the "evil of inaction" is a tricky thing compared to the more easily identified "evil of action, such as ISIS can lay claim to. For example, the Argentinians are not likely to act against the evils of ISIS, nor the Burmese, nor does Denmark seem to be answering the call to action. The amount of "evil of inaction" going on out there in the world is rather overwhelming. I bet you could even find some of it lurking in your own home if you squint hard.

I would hope that the Iraqis might find a bit of countervailing action to be in their interest, but they rarely seem to agree on what actions are to be taken. This seems to me to be a rather fundamental problem in this situation. I am reluctantly willing to lend them a bit of force for a short time, in case they can take good advantage of it, but that still presents the problem of the boy with his finger in the dyke. How do you remove it and the dyke not break?

Yes, 'evil of inaction' is tricky, and an overwhelming amount is going on. That's why we need to take it much more seriously, and soon.

pro-intervention ppl itt seem to imagine some sweet spot between the limited airstrikes now and a renewed attempt at nation building. what is the amount of participation on the table exactly??

i'm not a strategist but i think maybe a 10,000 soldier peacekeeping operation (NATO would be better than US alone) along the Tigris? ISIS def needs to be pushed back from Mosul (and the dam), so maybe supplement w/ air support?

LOL NATO RIP coalition of the willing

i buy the dam as a narrow and worthwhile target, but any placement of ground troops for an indefinite period of time worries me. surely the dam is always under threat as long as ISIS is in the region, but it doesn't sound like that kind of commitment would work to actively destabilize ISIS. this all feels so sisyphian that i'm not sure how anyone would evaluate what intervention is worthwhile and what's not. for that reason i'm skeptical of the 'blood on your hands!!' accusations being lobbied itt when no end in sight is being offered. surely before establishing that military action is worth the cost you need to establish that military action would be fundamentally effective

a 10,000 soldier peacekeeping operation

This only works once there is a negotiated peace to be kept. I do not envision such an agreement emerging in the near future, if at all.

i'm thinking along the lines of something like MONUSCO which had a mandate essentially to deal w/ M23 and help the government forces (which weren't up to the task of keeping them out of Goma). the UN is terrible tho, but I think a NATO or US operation would be more effective and could work alongside Kurdish fighters - of course this would probably mean giving legitimacy to kurdistan which hasn't happened yet from the US i guess (bc our terrible foreign policy requires that we pretend that maliki in baghdad is the legitimate representative of kurdistan i guess).

btw, MONUSCO sent about 16,000 troops. ISIS is probably better equipped and funded now than M23 tho i imagine.

Iran and Iraq waged a million casualty war a couple years after the Iranian revolution. Yes, it was bad. The west survived.

― dustups delivered to your door (Aimless), Saturday, 9 August 2014 18:49 (Yesterday) Permalink

Some would even say the west prospered. Weren't both sides using western weapons?

― Frederik B, Saturday, 9 August 2014 19:28 (Yesterday) Permalink

Some would even say the US backed one side of that war.

ISIS openly states in their propaganda that their goal is not only to control the entire middle east, but to retake Spain, to attack Rome, etc. They are well-trained fighters and better armed than most jihaddi groups due in part to their seizure of weapons that we gave the iraqi government. They are rapidly growing in power and wealth. They've seized oilfields and sell millions of dollars per day worth on the black market. Their propaganda is incredibly sophisticated and they use social media in an advanced way for worldwide recruiting and support. I can think of lots of reasons why they might ultimately fail without our intervention or might be unable to achieve their goals, but I don't think we can just be like "NBD if they become the new caliphate, whatever."

I don't think we can just be like "NBD if they become the new caliphate, whatever."

No one's saying that. A mere glance upthread shows I said, "If they start to show signs of being truly formidable on such a large scale, then we may reconsider our course."

They will ultimately collapse due to infighting and internal schisms, is my prediction. No way do they have the chops to become a stable ruling force.

looking forward to their invasion of italy tho, I bet that goes well.

Also looking forward to another decade of john mccain complaining about the U.S. military not killing enough people. Never enough w that guy.

obv italy is a pipe dream bc they have no excuse for ignoring jordan/israel, and it's over once they cross into mafraq

Yup

Vietnam was started after fabricating an assault on US ships, ie, an attack on national interests. It was also pretty clearly a war meant to fight for US interests, ie, opposing world communism.

Ike had CIA agents helping the French and American dollars paid for some that aid.

Some would even say the west prospered. Weren't both sides using western weapons?

― Frederik B, Saturday, 9 August 2014 19:28 (Yesterday) Permalink

Some would even say the US backed one side of that war.

― 'arry Goldman (Hurting 2),

We backed one side but sold missiles to "moderate" forces in the Iranian parliament in exchange for hostages. Also, I tend to believe the October Surprise stuff in fall '80.

To quote Joe Pesci, "Fun and games, man! Fun and games!"

lol at making sure to only give weapons to the moderate part of the parliament

it's ok, we're only working w/ the moderate democrats, the majority party run army won't have anything to do w/ these missiles

then of course Ollie North and Admiral Poindexter thought it would be "a neat idea" if we took the excess profits and funneled them to the Contras.

What could possibly go wrong

"While the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham’s (ISIS) conduct gets most of the headlines, what is happening in Iraq has to be understood at least in part as a Sunni popular uprising against Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, who has often been quite ruthless in his own right."

this was in jacobin a few months ago. i appreciate that aimless, unlike the author of that article, made a case for non-intervention without trying to argue that the threat ISIS poses to the region is negated, somehow, or even justified by the actions of the maliki government.

i guess "justified" is a mischaracterization of that argument... but i do think that a lot of people seem unwilling to face what, exactly, ISIS is.

The thing is, ISIS openly tells you exactly what they are if you can stomach watching their brutal propaganda videos. The questions in my mind are only how capable they are, and how far their backers are willing to support them to those ends, not what they intend to do. I can't think of any precedent in recent history for what they've accomplished so far in the region, but maybe I'm missing something.

the taliban seems like a good precedent, even though it's not exactly the same region.

I think they are more dangerous than the Taliban tbh.

The Taliban was extensively trained and financially backed by the Pakistani version of the CIA/KGB during their rise in Afghanistan. I haven't taken time to find out who is bankrolling ISIS, but I am sure it would be informative to know.

The Taliban were at least three times larger in 2001. High estimates for the strength of ISIS are approx 15,000. Low estimates are about 7,000. This contrasts with an Iraqi army of at least 280,000. The Peshmerga could probably get 200,000 together pretty easily.

The lack of willingness of Sunni Iraqis to fight them, with countless reports of soldiers just walking away from their posts when ISIS turn up, can't be separated from the al-Maliki government's unpopularity in those areas. There is plenty of speculation that the Sunni powers will turf them out when they have served their purpose, though, and take control themselves.

None of which is to say that assistance shouldn't be given to the Peshmerga but the political angle also needs to be addressed.

i am having a hard time understanding the scale of ISIS. how do they control so much territory if their numbers are so limited?

As far as bankroll, I have heard Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Also they sell black market oil. As far as territory, idk. I would assume though that the numbers cited are fighters alone, whereas they have other support. I've read isolated reports that they are actually governing in some of the towns they've captured and must have some kind of police capability. Their size is small but their recruitment potential is what I think is new about them.

Their propaganda is also an effective weapon -- it scares people so badly that they just flee, another reason relatively small bands of fighters are so successful.

Nobody is really fighting against them in Sunni areas of Iraq, as far as I can tell. There is also a massive vacuum in Syria they have been able to walk into. They struggle when they come up against solid resistance.

My meager understanding is:

Large areas of uninhabited desert are under their 'control'. They maintain a monopoly of force within the 'controlled' region mostly due to wholesale massacre of potential opponents once an area is captured. Recapturing the 'controlled territory' is not a priority of ISIS opponents, because it is Sunni territory and the ISIS opponents are Kurdish and Shiia. The ISIS main force could be outflanked easily enough I expect, but they don't really care because they are highly mobile and not designed to hold a position.

ShariVari could no doubt shed a better light on this.

@ Hurting 2: Aren't Saudi Arabia and Qatar enemies at the moment? Do you have a link to that. I mean, I can kinda see them supporting ISIS for different reasons, but it would be really ironic after they came to blows over Hamas...

al-Maliki has accused the Saudis and Qatar of funding ISIS. Saudi Arabia has just given $1bn in military aid to Lebanon to fight them, though.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28735641

Maliki to take the President to court for not giving him a third term.

US now directly arming the Peshmerga, which had been avoided for fear of emboldening the independence movement.

it's a good thing we removed saddam and his WMD!

why not let the kurds have their own country? it seems like religious and ethnic minorities would fare better there than in any other part of the region.

The Kurds would like to secede but there are obstacles. good summary here:

http://time.com/3083172/iraq-kurdistan-independence/

The US and Turkey oppose secession but Israel approves:

http://www.tehrantimes.com/world/116763-us-opposed-to-kurdish-secession-from-iraq

This article says money is coming from "wealthy individuals" in the gulf states, not necessarily the states themselves
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/america-s-allies-are-funding-isis.html

This article has State Dept officials denying that the Saudi govt has provided funding and also Brookings people saying there's no evidence that any state funds ISIS. They apparently have a lot of money from black market oil and from looting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iraqs-political-situation-dire-as-maliki-digs-in/2014/08/11/1c70942a-213a-11e4-958c-268a320a60ce_story.html?hpid=z1

Iraq’s president named prominent Shiite politician Haider al-Abadi as the country’s new prime minister Monday, dislodging incumbent Nouri al-Maliki after eight years in office despite a show of force as he clung to power.

President Fouad Massoum called on Abadi, a member of Maliki’s ruling party and currently the deputy speaker of parliament, to form a new government.

Maliki has been standing his ground despite mounting pressure from domestic opponents and the Obama administration for him to step aside. He has been widely blamed for the growth of an insurgency by Sunni Muslim extremists that has ravaged the country.

x-post re $ to ISIS:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/isis-saudi-arabia-iraq-syria-bandar/373181/

The worry at the time, punctuated by a February meeting between U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice and the intelligence chiefs of Turkey, Qatar, Jordan, and others in the region, was that ISIS and al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra had emerged as the preeminent rebel forces in Syria. The governments who took part reportedly committed to cut off ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, and support the FSA instead. But while official support from Qatar and Saudi Arabia appears to have dried up, non-governmental military and financial support may still be flowing from these countries to Islamist groups.

fucking al-nusra

who is more anti-american: ISIS or the GOP?

ugh, i miss the trenchant social commentary thread

are we being greeted as liberators again?

no but Cheney is greeting Obama as a traitor again

obama is a huge traitor! what was he thinking, arming the iraqi insurgents? good thing the GOP is around to straighten this all out

nyt: "The Kurds have begun receiving weapons from outside sources, American officials said on Monday. Although the United States was aware of the weapons deliveries, officials would not comment on the types of arms or on who was providing them."

Turkey is no doubt giving this development some serious side-eye.

no doubt turkey would prefer no kurdistan

That has been the traditional position but Erdogan and Barzani are fairly close these days. There's a strong probability that they still don't want an independent Kurdistan but if it happened and it created a strong ally partially reliant on Turkey, some are saying he might not think it is the worst thing that could happen.

i know that the relationship has made a lot of strides but surely he must be concerned about a kurdish separatist movement in turkey if kurdistan became a reality?

or are you saying that he might be willing to just cede that area?

I am surprised to hear that Erdogan would even entertain the possibility of a kurdish state on their border

No, Turkey would want to keep it. The theory is that Iraqi Kurdistan could be contained within its current borders. I doubt they really want to risk it, but the upside in extending Turkey's informal influence is supposedly a factor the government is considering. Xp

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/hillary-clinton-failure-to-help-syrian-rebels-led-to-the-rise-of-isis/375832/

Clinton v. Obama re whether there were moderate rebels in Syria who could have been helped early on, and whose possible success could have affected ISIS. She seems to be staking out a political position for 2016...

such bullshit monday-morning quarterbacking to position herself as sufficiently hawkish, v pukeworthy

like I get it Hillary you are into wars and shit

ok now I can't figure out if Obama is more evil or stupid

(his three predecessors who bombed Iraq, including Mr Hillary, it's a little more clear)

eh I think the idea that we could have armed/financed a coalition of anti-Assad fighters (that *weren't* explicitly jihadist) is p specious

If only we'd asked all the good rebels to stand over to one side and all the bad ones to stand on the other. "Hands up if you're planning to use our weapons for jihad! OK, no weapons for you."

"Are you affiliated with Al-Qaeda, Al-Moderat, or other?"

remember how far being a uber hawk got hillary in 2008? oh yeah second place.

finally we'll have a Thatcher of our own

god it's horrible this woman is the presumed nominee – again.

and Rob Reiner has made sure "there is no one else" this time

I think Hillary can fuck this up as badly as she did last time and Warren or some other dark horse will swoop in and take it form her.

At least I can hope..

Hope was the last election bro

ERBIL, Iraq — A helicopter carrying aid from Iraq’s Kurdish autonomous government to stranded Yazidi refugees in the Sinjar mountains of northern Iraq crashed on Tuesday, killing the pilot and injuring other passengers, including a Yazidi member of Parliament and a New York Times journalist.

from NY Times

http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/08/11/obamas-drive-war-iraq

Yesterday's take, but what will they think today

the quantum theory of obama: he is either a tyrant or an empty suit, depending on how one stages the experiment

tbf the same dynamic was true of dubya

that's true, he was king george and curious george at the same time. sometimes i miss him, at least he presented streamlined evil that was easy to hate. obama is more of a crushing apathy.

obama will be remembered as a great president. bush is the posterboy for everything wrong in the invisible united states caste system. simplistic and binary perhaps but fuck it it's true

prophetic shakey:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/08/12/us_attempts_to_build_coalition_of_the_willing_for_iraq

the good news and bad news of Malike being out of power

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-maliki-20140814-story.html#page=1

U.S. officials hope Abadi, the prime minister-designate, will be willing to share power with Sunnis, drawing support away from the insurgency. But some officials acknowledge that the U.S. may have to get more deeply involved militarily in coming months to give Abadi time to implement the kind of political measures that Washington has long sought.

Iraq faces a massive challenge regaining the territory it has lost since Islamic State forces swept out of Syria in the spring and raced across the country’s west and north, relying on a patchwork of disgruntled Sunni militias to help hold cities and drive out government troops.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/yazidis-killed-in-kocho-near-sinjar-after-obama-calls-off-rescue-mission/2014/08/15/31478a3c-e46e-4c4c-8406-d0f27073a308_story.html?hpid=z2

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-iraq-islamic-state-fighters-capturing-yazidi-women-to-take-them-as-wives/2014/08/16/3a349cd6-24d2-11e4-958c-268a320a60ce_story.html?hpid=z1

More trouble for the Yazidis while elsewhere the Kurds & the Iraqi armi with US airsupport are trying to take back Iraq's largest dam.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iraqi-ground-forces-us-jets-launch-offensive-to-retake-dam-from-militants/2014/08/17/d904756d-10ab-47b9-889c-d3b00343470f_story.html?hpid=z1

I know some would prefer isolationism from the US and West, but US supported (via planes and drones) Iraqi govt & Kurds have retaken Mosul dam. No further word on Yazidi women seized by IS extremists

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/18/iraqi-kurdish-forces-recapture-mosul-dam-isis

obama will be remembered as a great president. bush is the posterboy for everything wrong in the invisible united states caste system. simplistic and binary perhaps but fuck it it's true

so much for the rumor that this level of delusion was not to be found on ILX

obama probably will be 'remembered as a great president,' tbh. ppl used to speculate that bush will eventually enjoy some kind of truman-style reevaluation but i doubt it.

feel like obama will be like carter in that he will accomplish exponentially more out of office than in it

or he'll cash out something fierce and continue to confirm that he was not who we thought he was in 08

maybe he'll work pro bono for whistleblowers, refreeze those icecaps with his breath, and free Iraq as a commando

the standards for 'great presidents' have been pretty low ever since everyone decided reagan got to join the club.

I say ugh to having to boil down opinions on a president to one sentence. I cannot apply one word ("great") or sentence to the handling of NSA, whistleblowers, Wall Street, the stimulus bill, health care, Libya, Iraq, climate change and more. My opinion on his handling of each of these varies. Plus, this thread is supposed to about Iraq in 2014.

Journalist James Wright Foley beheaded by ISIS. 2011 short piece on his kidnapping by Jon Lee Anderson:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/libya-four-missing-journalists

So what I picked up so far is that ISIS won't stand much of a chance if they try to expand north (wd mean fighting Kurds in Kurdish territory) or south or east (wd mean fighting Shia in Shia territory). Is this accurate? Are they likely to try, regardless?

I'm not sure how much of it is our airstrikes and how much of it is Kurds/Shia. But I would guess they'd have a much harder time fighting and governing in Kurd or Shia territory than they have had so far.

kinda feel like their next best move if they're serious is saudi arabia. if they don't, it'll say a lot about how tight saudi family is w/ IS

if they're serious [about reestablishing the caliphate]. they need to put off jordan + israel as long as possible

pretty much

I understand that choosing sides in Middle Eastern conflicts is difficult, but ISIS is making it pretty fucking easy.

Eh idk if its between them and the saudi royal family...

I still think that's a pretty easy call tbh

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/20/isis-militant-islamic-state-james-foley-guards-british

this is such a load of shit

this shit is so hard for me to understand. reading about this, and the couple of suicide bombers from Australia (Abu Bakar al-Australi the 18 year old for ex). like that the west has produced at least a few hundred of these guys is a fact that is harder to reconcile than it should be.

This piece is so weird

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/08/20/james_foley_killing_the_strangely_modern_production_values_of_isis_propaganda.html

Yep.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/world/middleeast/isis-pressed-for-ransom-before-killing-journalist.html?_r=0

This piece is in part about how mideast extremists have been getting millions kidnapping Europeans

This piece is so weird

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/08/20/james_foley_killing_the_strangely_modern_production_values_of_isis_propaganda.html

― polyphonic, Thursday, 21 August 2014 00:06 (3 hours ago) Permalink

If you've actually watched Clanging of the Swords IV, it's hard not to be struck by this, the production values and editing are extremely impressive for brutal totalitarian propaganda.

yeah clanging of the swords (and uh its titling like a new mixtape release or something) is absolutely the scariest thing i've ever seen, knowing that its not just some MTV-sponsored militarist fantasy but a compilation of real horror slickly packaged induces soul vertigo

http://warontherocks.com/2014/08/dont-bs-the-american-people-about-iraq-syria-and-isil/

islamic extremists so repressed that they need to make snuff porn to get off. the west needs 2 get on their level, put these culture tourist terrorists to a prime-time televised guillotine http://oi43.tinypic.com/dggkra.jpg

insha'allah, amon

waterboard obama

defend the indefensible

al-zarqawi: classic or dud

it's nuts hearing the BBC interview these Jihadis describe the beheadings they've done in crisp English accents

the btl commenters on british newspaper websites of all political complexions were enthusiastically voicing the good point well made truism that, to be quite honest with you, what is the difference between westerners joining the idf and joining isis?

one difference is that the IDF doesn't claim to be at war with the west. this guy on the radio was talking about how he encourages all english muslims to kill english soldiers.

Crisp English accents? Don't think so.

i'm telling you what i heard. let me see if i can find the interview

the beheader in the foley video was certainly british. crisp accent, no, but clearly british. declare war on the UK.

here it is:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p024r9pt

he talks about the beheadings he's done at 4:00 minute mark

well, uk ilxors will probably be able to ferret out why his accent isn't UK representative better than me, but he sounded very English to my US ears

Crisp British accent makes him sound like Patrick Stewart

one difference is that the IDF doesn't claim to be at war with the west. this guy on the radio was talking about how he encourages all english muslims to kill english soldiers.

― Mordy, Thursday, 21 August 2014 15:44 (1 minute ago)

that difference, might, just, have become apparent to them in the last fortnight, thanks to this 'black beatle' { (c) the daily mail } executing a journalist

no mention of which member of the chirpy troubadours he takes after, perhaps lennon, with his ample antisemitism and capacity for violence against other lesser beatles and against women, and who, in the manner of a true soldier, lived by the gun and died by it

re: Production values

http://www.bagnewsnotes.com/2014/08/enabling-isis-the-vice-videos-and-the-execution-of-afp-photographer-james-foley/

the btl commenters on british newspaper websites of all political complexions were enthusiastically voicing the good point well made truism that, to be quite honest with you, what is the difference between westerners joining the idf and joining isis?

― Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (nakhchivan), Thursday, 21 August 2014 14:42 (21 minutes ago) Permalink

While I have little respect for westerners who join the IDF, I think this is a really bad and stupid equivalency. The IDF is an occupying army that has done many immoral things, but it is not a totalitarian conquesting force seeking to control the entire middle east. It doesn't kill indiscriminately as policy, it doesn't take sex slaves as policy, it does, contrary to popular believe, take at least some steps to reduce civilian casualties.

then you have your work cut out if you want to be a contrarian in the daily mail comment boxes next time the country they refer to as israhell commits genocide in gaza

lol I think I misread the tone of your post that I was responding to

It really isn't much fun to argue the differences between Israel and ISIS in the midst of Israel bombing the shit out of Gaza and generally being a pretty difficult to defend country though.

Been reading calls for Obama and Cameron and others to create a Gulf War multi-country united entity against IS, but here's a NY Times take--

In another era, the campaign against ISIS might have merited the massed divisions and the soaring rhetoric of 2003. But this campaign is the step-child of that war.

The appetite for the fray has been drained by years of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Has anything worthwhile and reality based been written about the motivations of British guys going to join ISIS?

Just seen summary items like this that don't get into the motivations really

http://www.newsweek.com/twice-many-british-muslims-fighting-isis-armed-forces-265865

it would have to be speculation anyway right? I would assume nobody is over there interviewing these dudes (for pretty clear reasons) at least not from the western press

I'm wondering what kind of propaganda videos the British volunteers were watching - did they all go over before the beheadings and sex slavery started (or when this was covered up, if it was) or are those things what they sign up for? Did they go ever in one group or is there a continuing flow of people? etc

Clanging of the Swords IV was really popular

The claim of 1500 "fighting for ISIS" looks deliberately misleading. There might be 1500 who have gone to fight in Syria, and that looks like a guess on Mahmood's part, but there's no way to tell who they are fighting for. It wasn't that long ago that ITV were running vaguely admiring pieces about second generation Syrians putting medical degrees on hold to join the effort to topple Assad.

Yeah, there was a Kurdish man on my local news last night going over to join the Pesh Merga, again presented fairly admiringly

well, we know for a fact that at least some english citizens are fighting for IS

Obviously, but not how many - which was what the article claimed to present.

uk media has definitely struggled with the war in syria which gives all sides the chance to throw some of the tropes back. is it true, as an assad regime official claimed on c4 news, that james foley was captured by the fsa & sold to isis?

Most reports have just said he was 'captured by a local warlord' who then joined up with ISIS but it doesn't sound like anyone is sure of the details.

it feels horrible to complain about the media in light of foley's sacrifice but i've been pretty disappointed w/ a lot of the mid east coverage lately. i have yet to see anything else like that Vice reporter who embedded w/ FSA and actually went on a sortie w/ them. maybe this foley situation is why -- it's just too dangerous to get close.

Yeah, and the level of money being invested in protecting them seems to have declined in proportion to the amount of money being spent on anything else newspaper-related. There have been a few articles post-Foley complaining about the reliance on freelancers and the failure to adequately support them.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BvkoKt6CAAECD50.jpg

the places i'd expect to be on that list but aren't i have to imagine are bc of almost no media presence (like nigeria? where apparently boko harem took over another city today?). i remember during the most recent M23 conflict in Goma is was almost impossible to find any in-depth coverage anywhere. i kept searching for video and ultimately found like 20 seconds of stock Goma footage in a BBC report.

surprised the US isn't on that list yet.

lol wat

but srsly, another one i'm surprised about - Mexico!

At least one journalist was killed in Russia this year, too.

Was there? I know of two Russian journalists who were killed but both inside Ukraine.

http://complex.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/08/21/hagel_isis_is_more_dangerous_than_al_qaeda

The group "is as sophisticated and well-funded as any group that we have seen. They're beyond just a terrorist group," Hagel said in response to a question about whether the Islamic State posed a similar threat to the United States as al Qaeda did before Sept. 11, 2001.

"They marry ideology, a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess. They're tremendously well-funded. This is beyond anything that we've seen," Hagel said, adding that "the sophistication of terrorism and ideology married with resources now poses a whole new dynamic and a new paradigm of threats to this country."

It wasn't that long ago that ITV were running vaguely admiring pieces about second generation Syrians putting medical degrees on hold to join the effort to topple Assad.

― Wristy Hurlington (ShariVari), Thursday, 21 August 2014 21:48 (Yesterday)

lol quite

we've switched sides since tho

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stopped short of calling for U.S. military action in eastern Syria, an ISIS stronghold.
"Can they be defeated without addressing that part of the organization that resides in Syria? The answer is no," Dempsey said during the briefing at the Pentagon.
Repeatedly pushed by reporters about whether that meant operations against ISIS in Syria, Hagel said, "We're looking at all options."

from CNN http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/21/world/meast/iraq-crisis/

Maybe Assad can help out....or the moderate Syrian rebels or ....

They should ask hillary I hear she knows some people

that looks like a guess on Mahmood's part,

Of course, that guy is a complete fucking dimwit, a stick-a-red-rosette-on-a-donkey Labour troglodyte.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28910674

The UN has called for action to prevent what it says may be a possible massacre in the northern Iraqi town of Amerli.

Special representative Nickolay Mladenov says he is "seriously alarmed" by reports regarding the conditions in which the town's residents live.

The town, under siege by Islamic State for two months, has no electricity or drinking water, and is running out of food and medical supplies.

The majority of its residents are Turkmen Shia, seen as apostates by IS.

The Obama administration is considering seeking congressional authorization for military action against the Islamic State under a revamped counter­terrorism strategy President Obama announced last year.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/range-of-options-to-combat-islamic-state-are-under-discussion-senior-official-says/2014/08/22/f745619a-2a2a-11e4-8593-da634b334390_story.html?tid=pm_world_pop

How many trillions we gonna flush down the toilet on this one...?

I'm torn between that view and well, wanting to help folks facing slaughter (which seems different to me than "Sadaam has nuclear weapons"), but I recognize what a complicated mess it is and that we can't help everyone and we have problems at home and just because Bush got us into a mess maybe we shouldn't feel a need to clean up his mission accomplished, and who are we to resolve Suni/Shia/Kurd issues that are also complicated by meddling of Iran, Saudia Arabia, Quatar and others....

have no idea what to do here. glad I'm not in charge. IS is an obvious horrible threat to everyone. not sure how bombing is going to stop them. not sure how to stop them.

I'm torn between that view and well, wanting to help folks facing slaughter (which seems different to me than "Sadaam has nuclear weapons")

Is it just me, or wasn't it once quite common to see convoys of white military vehicles from the UN going into situations like this and acting as a peacekeeping force? It seems like that doesn't happen anymore. Is that an accurate impression? And would a UN peacekeeping force be effective in western Iraq today?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bvgr7uGIEAAaTZv.jpg

The guy who beheaded James Foley is grime rapper L.Jinny (Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT1YDIV4lGE

in related news:
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/canadian-idol-contestant-acquitted-terrorism-25039115

It seems like Russia or China on the Security Council would prevent the UN from getting involved.

Meanwhile Iran prefers to influence things indirectly:

"The information about the presence of Iranian soldiers in Iraq is not correct. We don’t have a single Iranian soldier on Iraqi soil because Iraq does not need those soldiers." from Newsweek

Not sure Russia or China would block it. Peacekeepers are still active all over the place but tend to go in when the fighting has died down.

Any “plans to combat Islamic State on the territory of Syria and other countries” must be carried out “in cooperation with legitimate authorities,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a news conference in Moscow. He made it clear that Russia feels vindicated in backing Assad’s brutal rule

From Washington Post

The legitimate authorities in Iraq would be a different matter to Syria though. But yes, it's likely that any activity in Syria would need to be done with the consent of Assad - which still looks a long way from being something anyone's going to ask for,

this situation in syria is so fucked.. hard to blame obama for assad deciding its cool to kill 200,000+ of his own people and destabilize the entire region while doing so.

idk, i think obama deserves some of the blame for supporting the rebels against assad until realizing that - oops, maybe the rebels are actually the destabilizing force - and SWITCHING sides??

"Supporting the rebels" too much? Many folks (at least center and on the right) blame O for not helping any Syrian "moderate" rebels enough. There is lotsa pro and con opinions out there re whether O should have helped the alleged moderate rebels in Syria more earlier on.

Back to UN involvement possibility, once upon a time UN got involved earlier in the process (not just after desttruction), but it depended on the country. I am thinking the Russian Foreign Minister's use of the phrase "and other countries” includes Iraq (because Russia also doesn't want UN anywhere near Ukraine)

iirc, most of Obama's support for the Syrian rebellion has consisted of repeatedly urging Assad to step down, together with a brief, abortive effort to send small arms to Assad's "moderate opponents", which failed because these moderate forces were largely imaginary.

Obama did assemble some worldwide leverage to convince Assad to give up his chemical weapons, which seems like a plus.

Read somewhere that the deal that got Assad to give up his chemical weapons was really Russia pushing Assad to do this, because Russia was convinced that Obama and others might want to take more direct action against Assad at that time, and Putin figured this would be a way to prevent that. Of course others would suggest that Obama even then did not really desire to go after Assad more deliberately

I don't think there's any military solution to this clusterfuck aside from a massive multinational un/nato invasion which basically will never happen

I don't think that would work out so well either. Region is still basically reeling from the last time the west re-drew everybody's borders.

So now we get IS and Assad redrawing borders instead

Assad and IS can draw them, but it is another thing to make them stick, especially since they have altogether different ideas about the matter.

better people who live there draw their own boarders than a conference on a another continent by people who have never even seen the place.

but we know what's best!

actually - redrawing the mideast does sound like a good bit of fun.

*gets a map and some crayons*

anybody got any good ideas for some new country names? How about Muslimania

Sounds like the people living there lose either way if you folks consider Assad, Isis and a non-elected Shia prime minister (all with questionable funding taken from within their borders via force and or from elsewhere--Saudia Arabia, Quatar, Iran) as better than the West

yes people lose there either way. you can't impose good government on another country by force.

Didn't the US arguably do so in Japan

and Germany, but yes there were not the same ethnic divisions as in the mideast and north Africa

anybody got any good ideas for some new country names? How about Muslimania

― Οὖτις

Miserablemania

actually - redrawing the mideast does sound like a good bit of fun.

― Porto for Pyros (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall)

http://www.mcdonnas.com/mbzc/risk-all.jpg

but yes there were not the same ethnic divisions as in the mideast and north Africa

bingo. a lot to be said for ethnic/religious homogeneity

there might have been less of a sense of betrayal&outrage if sykes, picot et al had never visited, held meetings, made promises etc.

I guess it's still okay to judge a guy based on his rap lyrics in some instances:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/08/foley-killer-jihadi-john-abdel-majed-abdel-bary.html

The guy who beheaded James Foley is grime rapper L.Jinny (Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary):

Or maybe not?

http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/08/25/lead-pkg-paton-walsh-who-killed-james-foley-isis.cnn.html

Ugh, Sotloff now reported to be beheaded.

Ugh. And now they're threatening to kill a Brit they're holding next.

― Wristy Hurlington (ShariVari), Sunday, August 10, 2014 2:53 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Islamic State 'has 50,000 fighters in Syria'
Last updated: 19 August 2014
Monitoring group says the Islamic State group recruited 6,000 members in last month alone, including 1,000 foreigners.

The Islamic State group has an army of more than 50,000 fighters in Syria, and recruited 6,000 people in the last month, a monitoring group has said.

Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said on Tuesday that the group's recruitment push was gathering pace every month.

"July saw the largest recruitment since the group appeared in Syria in 2013, with more than 6,000 new fighters," he said. (Via Al Jazeera)

Shit. First quote was Shari Vari estimated IS's numbers at 15,000 or so. Which is the believable statistic? Could they actually gain permanent control of that region?

Here we go:

High estimates for the strength of ISIS are approx 15,000. Low estimates are about 7,000. This contrasts with an Iraqi army of at least 280,000. The Peshmerga could probably get 200,000 together pretty easily. -sharivari, 3 wks ago

It's possible ISIS is starting to benefit from a bandwagon effect, aided on one hand by their military success and on the other by the ferocity with which they massacre all known opponents.

The 15,000 high estimate was being quoted in an number of different places last month. Whether it was correct at the time or remains correct now is a mystery, though. Idk how anyone would know for sure. The fear would be that they could combine with other rebel groups to boost numbers rapidly.

Lots of the Iraqi army fled and abandoned military vehicles earlier when faced with IS

Such a fucked up situation for the people of Iraq and Syria. Part of me still can't believe that this is what's come of Bush's war.

Literally the worst possible outcome.

At the Nato summit, Barack Obama will ask the UK and other members to join its campaign of air strikes against Isis in Iraq.

British planes have already been involved in helping during the Yazidi humanitarian effort. Security experts are divided about how effective air strikes can be, particularly in the absence of ground forces positioned to capitalise on an adversary's displacement. The US has taken encouragement by the ability of Kurdish and Iraqi forces, aided by US airstrikes, to take the critical Mosul Dam away from Isis, which is said to continue to aim at retaking it.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/03/nato-summit-britain-military-options-islamic-state

Part of me still can't believe that this is what's come of Bush's war.

dude people predicted this from the outset

not ISIS specifically but the massive sectarian conflict

They did not predict half the country would be controlled by an al qaeda-esque Salafist "caliphate"

They did!

As a "worst case scenario." I don't think it was Obama's expectation this would happen when he planned to withdraw.

They did not predict half the country would be controlled by an al qaeda-esque Salafist "caliphate"

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld stupidly believed that the US was so militarily and economically powerful that whatever they imagined or desired would be realized, thus you may recall their gobsmacking derision of the "reality-based community" that leaked out of the White House in 2004. They were idiots. It was enraging.

One of al-Q's major strategic aims has always been to undermine and destabilize the regimes of the region, especially the pro-Western ones, but they aren't all that picky. You can't revive the caliphate without sweeping aside all of these regimes. I for one was well aware during the buildup to the Iraq War that Bush was playing patsy to al-Q's strategy by removing Saddam Hussein and I said so. I could probably dig up some relevant quotes from ilx if I rummaged around a bit.

Lots of the Iraqi army fled and abandoned military vehicles earlier when faced with IS

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, September 3, 2014 5:32 PM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've read speculation that if IS gets to Baghdad and overthrows Maliki, half their new recruits will turn around and start fragging their IS 'officers' as thanks for the assist in overthrowing the government people throughout the country seemed to loathe.

I've also read this speculation mocked.

true to form, zizek comes through with one of the pointless and stupid comments on ISIS:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/isis-is-a-disgrace-to-true-fundamentalism/

i'm so excited to read that. i have it saved in a browser tab ready for later.

eh, don't give him the clicks

i think his argument is right -- ISIS is a reactionary movement through and through, it defines itself in opposition to the West and its ideology has no real susbtance on its own that would appeal to people. the only issue one could have with it is that zizek is very provocative with his terms. but that's the point of him in 2014:dialectical inversions of the guiding assumptions in liberal discourse + jokes. my god

i still like him though

Jay Michaelson on vengeance, Torah, humanitarian aid, and cold, calculating rage

http://blogs.forward.com/forward-thinking/205072/how-do-we-avenge-steven-sotloffs-death/

Isn't a fundamentalist group reactionary by definition?

Also, it seems a bit odd to pretend that when people talk about Christian Fundamentalism they mean the Amish. I mean, sure, they were fundamentalist 300 years ago, now they're just living fossils.

i guess what he is saying is that real fundamentalists wouldn't try to advance their views through politics. which actually doesn't make sense.

also it contradicts his idea that the left should tap into the "radical emancipatory core" of the christian tradition, which he locates in the "fundamental" texts, the gospels. cf

At the very core of Christianity, there is a vastly different project: that of a destructive negativity, which does not end in a chaotic void but reverts (and organises itself) into a new order, imposing it on to reality.

why would amish "indifference" be fundamental christianity then?

also tibetan buddhism does not involve a "the deep indifference towards the nonbelievers’ way of life." there are strands of buddhism that are like that, but most tibetans adhere to the mahayanan school where the point is to help others find enlightenment. maybe zizek just doesn't know what he's talking about

The problem fundamentalists face is that while trying to return to the pure, true faith they can only do so in the context of an ideological opposition. Fundamentalists are more trapped by the modern than reformers.

And that fundamentalism is not expressed by indifference to the unbeliever but obsession with them.

yeah. z is saying that "real" fundamentalism wouldn't be obsessed with the unbeliever but what he really means is that this is all fundamentalism is, which is why it is bankrupt. it's weird he references this idea of "true fundamentalism" when he could just say that ISIS' ideology is self-contradictory and this suggests it will implode

you guys are treating zizek like he has any idea what he's talking about!

also you could argue that being self-contradictory is a means for an ideology to sustain itself, not implode

but we're talking at such a level of abstraction--floating far above the realities of politics and war--that we may as well be counting angels dancing on the heads of pins

rumor is that al-Baghdadi is dead? all i'm seeing in the news is an article that one of his aides (Abu Hajar Al-Sufi) was killed in a US airstrike?

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/aide-isis-leader-al-baghdadi-among-3-killed-u-s-n195601

The strike on the ISIS stronghold of Mosul killed Abu Hajar Al-Sufi, an aide to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as well as an explosives operative and the military leader of the nearby town of Tel Afar, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Just aides and others

what no wedding parties/children? US is slippin

rumor is that al-Baghdadi is dead?

gamesmanship. such rumors can be useful for prodding a leader to come into the open briefly to prove it is wrong, thereby giving his enemies another shot at him, or conversely disheartening his followers if he is too cautious to uncontestably reassert his survival.

still no word of deif weeks later - so i'm assuming that guy bit it

Upon a closer look, the apparent heroic readiness of ISIS to risk everything also appears more ambiguous. Long ago Friedrich Nietzsche perceived how Western civilization was moving in the direction of the Last Man, an apathetic creature with no great passion or commitment. Unable to dream, tired of life, he takes no risks, seeking only comfort and security: “A little poison now and then: that makes for pleasant dreams. And much poison at the end, for a pleasant death. They have their little pleasures for the day, and their little pleasures for the night, but they have a regard for health. ‘We have discovered happiness,’ say the Last Men, and they blink.”

It may appear that the split between the permissive First World and the fundamentalist reaction to it runs more and more along the lines of the opposition between leading a long satisfying life full of material and cultural wealth and dedicating one’s life to some transcendent cause. Is this antagonism not the one between what Nietzsche called “passive” and “active” nihilism? We in the West are the Nietzschean Last Men, immersed in stupid daily pleasures, while the Muslim radicals are ready to risk everything, engaged in the struggle up to their self-destruction. William Butler Yeats’ “Second Coming” seems perfectly to render our present predicament: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” This is an excellent description of the current split between anemic liberals and impassioned fundamentalists. “The best” are no longer able fully to engage, while “the worst” engage in racist, religious, sexist fanaticism.

thought this was the best bit in the piece ^

idk that's kind of facile, that split is eternal in human society afaict - the split between those who benefit/are fine w the status quo and those who hate it and have found an alternative to rally around. you can point to this split in pretty much any culture at any point in time.

militant fundamentalists categorized with "active nihilists" doesn't ring true either

what varies is how far the fundamentalists are willing to go (most are usually cool w a little genocide) and how successful they are

xp

the reductionism is strong in this one (=zizek)

also fuck the whole "it may appear..." coyness

seriously it's disappointing that any of you take to this garbage

I don't really get the cult of zizek (seriously a philosopher who gets a documentary made about him? wtf) he mostly just seems like a troll

OK so should I read Zizek on ISIS

no but you should see Zizek On Ice

that's what his Mao essay is

it's not great. nor was the recent rotherham piece. i hate to disparage an iconic hero such as zizek but he'd probably be the first person to admit he is mailing it in. (i remember he said a few years ago that all his work now was mailed in except some hegel thing he was working on, but still sometimes he's legit funny + transgressive - not this piece tho)

hopefully his mailbox is right outside his brownstone

IIRC there are several philosophers with films about them! derrida has two! and there's that movie "the ister," which has a lot about heidegger.

though zizek isn't really doing anything i would recognize as philosophy these days.

also does "being there" count? :)

Zizek doc pretty funny and plays around with his image and his "beliefs". Also features a great moment where he gets the director to buy him some Criterion DVDs, which are on the pricey side.

lol @ these fools

http://metro.co.uk/2014/09/05/british-jihadists-want-to-come-home-say-they-made-mistake-4857940/

No take backs!

That same page features a story about Muslim fundamentalists attempting to ban Peppa Pig for being a pig.

Again, doesn't mean they were fighting for ISIS.

4 lions was right; these english jihadists are clowns

hmm am i the only one that thinks they should obviously allow them back?

They can't stop people from coming back but they could arrest them for any crimes they might have committed. Again it's a bit tough if you went out to fight for rebels we were supposed to be supporting. For reference:

March 2013: Cameron and Hollande fail to convince EU to arm rebels

March 2013: Syria: David Cameron backs down from saying he wants to arm rebels

June 2013: David Cameron Says UK Will Work With Syria Rebels, Despite 'Deeply Unsavoury' Elements, But Parliament Will Get Vote On Arming Them

July 2013: UK PM Cameron pledges not to arm 'bad guys' in Syria

Assad changing his strategy?

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Raids by Syrian warplanes killed at least 25 people, most of them civilians crowding into a bakery, in the northeastern Syrian province of Raqqa on Saturday as government forces continued air attacks on territory controlled by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the extremist Sunni militant group.

The Syrian government has increased airstrikes on the group in recent months after it took over government military outposts in Raqqa in a series of newly assertive attacks.

Government critics, and increasingly some supporters, complain that President Bashar al-Assad’s forces allowed the foreign-led ISIS to gain strength and establish its proto-state over the past year, focusing the army’s attacks more on Syrian-led militant groups whose main aim is to oust the president. ISIS has a broader goal, to remake the Middle East and establish an Islamic caliphate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/world/middleeast/syria.html?_r=0

Heard some analyst on BBC this morning saying that Lebanese Hezbollah is now trying to spin their troops involvement in Syria on behalf of one of their patrons, Assad, as actually being intended to keep Isis from going to Beirut. Lebanese are not happy that Isis beheaded both Suni and Shia Lebanese soldiers and are holding 19 more. Lebanon PM says he is trying to get Qatar to help free them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marc-thiessen-george-w-bush-was-right-about-iraq-pullout/2014/09/08/6ddd91b2-374e-11e4-bdfb-de4104544a37_story.html

torture supporter and former Bush administration employee who wrote speeches for Rumsfeld knows that if Obama had simply forced Maliki and Iraqi government to keep 24,000 or so US troops there, Iraq would be perfect now

can we just airdrop about 24,000 pro-bush chicken hawks in raqqa?

remarkably durable, that joke

on the still top secret pages from the 9-11 report:

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/twenty-eight-pages

new mixtape dropping soon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td9SyiIRHWs

http://www.thenation.com/article/181601/whos-paying-pro-war-pundits

But what you won’t learn from media coverage of ISIS is that many of these former Pentagon officials have skin in the game as paid directors and advisers to some of the largest military contractors in the world. Ramping up America’s military presence in Iraq and directly entering the war in Syria, along with greater military spending more broadly, is a debatable solution to a complex political and sectarian conflict. But those goals do unquestionably benefit one player in this saga: America’s defense industry.

still don't know what i think the US's role should be here, but this kind of thing is always worth keeping in mind.

Trailer needs a final jump-out-and-go-boo moment.

i don't really understand why they are marketing themselves as evil. shouldn't they be the good guys in their minds, avenging injustices and serving allah?

☮

dexter filkins gave a possible explanation to my question in the new yorker:

It’s hard to watch the video of Steven Sotloff’s last moments and not conclude something similar: the ostensible objective of securing an Islamic state is nowhere near as important as killing people. For the guys who signed up for ISIS—including, especially, the masked man with the English accent who wielded the knife—killing is the real point of being there. Last month, when ISIS forces overran a Syrian Army base in the city of Raqqa, they beheaded dozens of soldiers and displayed their trophies on bloody spikes. “Here are heads that have ripened, that were ready for the plucking,” an ISIS fighter said in narration. Two soldiers were crucified. This sounds less like a battle than like some kind of macabre party.

i don't know if or to what extent this matters. i guess i am just questioning the extent to which radical Islam is at the root of this or if they are just thugs/assholes and no amount of de-radicalization could read them.

*reach them.

violence + mayhem only code as evil to yr western liberal colonized mind, treesh

But those goals do unquestionably benefit one player in this saga: America’s defense industry.
still don't know what i think the US's role should be here, but this kind of thing is always worth keeping in mind.

― Treeship, Wednesday, September 17, 2014 1:17 PM

similar to u.s. prison industry. why decriminalize drugs when there so many jobs and so much money tied to locking people up

The more outlandishly barbaric ISIS is, the stronger the call in the west for action. Would have to assume that they think US intervention will consolidate their support base with Sunni ppl. They're not mugs - they know that the videos of beheadings are going to have the opposite effect to the professed desire to warn the US / UK off. They may rethink that when the bombs start falling in earnest.

in some ways they're very sophisticated but like all geopolitical actors they probably mischaracterize/misunderstand the US/UK based on their own personal views of how humans react/behave -- just like the US is constantly surprised when Middle East actors don't act in accordance w/ our own view of rationality.

yeah this is just provocation. their thinking is the wider the conflict, the more support for them will grow/solidify as they become the main oppositional player against the west. the cynical calculus of warfare...

xp

Mordy otm!

man the trailer

http://cdn.screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/iron-man-3-poster-ben-kingsley.jpg

i was thinking the same thing---- CONSPIRACY!!!

it's like you wish you at least had the dignity of being embroiled in don delillo-wave geopolitics but it's like fucking ben elton wrote this

you mean isis vids are psy-ops productions to convince u.s. public they need another war? sounds far-fetched

things like this are why a professional standing army are bad

bring back the draft etc.

FWIW I'm not convinced of the "they want us to come back and fight another war" theory. Us leaving Iraq was pretty much the best thing that ever happened to them AFAICT.

Plus the timing of the beheading videos wouldn't make sense -- they held these guys for a couple years and only beheaded them after we started airstrikes.

I could def be convinced otherwise though.

they = ISIS tbc

so Martin Dempsey doesn't rule out ground troops

Obama still does, though, which is kind of a difficult position to take since I don't think anyone believed IS will be stopped with airstrikes alone

ISIS can only operate as long as the rest of the Sunni population isn't actively united against them. The rest of the Sunni population may not be motivated to mobilise to counter them at the moment but I'm pretty sure they don't want to be governed by 22-year-old Turkish remedials with a penchant for lopping off people's noggins in the grand scheme of things. Get the US back, get a united Sunni front going to oppose them and you have more chance of delaying the day they turn on you.

The Sunnis were more united by the Maliki govt than they were by our presence. I don't buy it. Not to mention the obvious downsides for them of bringing us back, i.e. having to fight a superior army instead of waltzing into under-defended towns and plundering them.

the sunnis being allied w/ isis is what allowed the initial isis successes at the turn of the year, but it's always been uneasy. yr post-iraq war "third generation" jihadis are well aware of the benefits of focusing on "the far enemy" & I suspect they may have some concerns given the track record jihadis have fighting against secular middle eastern govts/"the near enemy"

welp

Less than two months to go before it is 2015 in Iraq.

M:A-2

gulf war 3: saddam's revenge

McCain is itchin'

Gulf War 3D: Sharknado

Wednesday 31 May: 150 killed
Mosul: 56 executed; 60 found in mass grave; 16 killed by government airstrikes and shelling; 13 family members by coalition airstrike; 3 by gunfire.
Qandil mountains: 2 by Turkish airstrikes.

MAY TOTAL: 1,871 civilians killed.

https://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/2016/

2016 was a very bad year in Iraq.

may total this year...

The annual total for civilian deaths in Iraq in 2016 was 16,393, which is within a broad range encompassing 2015 (17,578) and 2014 (20,218). These past three years are very much higher than the years 2010-2012, the least violent period since the invasion, when the annual numbers ranged from 4,167 to 4,622, and are also substantially higher than 2013 (9,852) which saw the beginning of the change from the pre-2013 levels to current levels.