Islamic State Watch

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Islamic State Watch

So we have four, possibly five entrenched factions (Assad, the Turks, ISIL, the Kurds, and western-looking Syrians) all supported to a greater or lesser degree by more powerful allies, and a solution that appeases them all appears mutually exclusive.

It must be time to send in Paddy Ashdown.

[Kevin S]

Islamic State Watch

Vicarious Thrillseeker wrote:

It's funny how we're always fed lines about how evil (Shia) Iran is, but not (Sunni/Wahhab) Saudi Arabia.

I was lucky enough to be present at Ashoura in Karachi in 1997 and was looked after by a Shia family. They translated the imam's speech for me, and he said that it was time to move out of the dark ages and prepare for the 21st century. All the messages were about personal responsibility, community support and tolerance. I'm not sure why we're fed this constant one-eyed media bullshit about one branch of Islam being better than the other. See also the messaging coming out of the troubles in Yemen.

It's doublethink, isn't it? We have always been at war with Isis.

[Geoffrey de Ste. Croix]

Islamic State Watch

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote: So we have four, possibly five entrenched factions (Assad, the Turks, ISIL, the Kurds, and western-looking Syrians) all supported to a greater or lesser degree by more powerful allies, and a solution that appeases them all appears mutually exclusive.

It must be time to send in Paddy Ashdown.

I tell you what will help. More air strikes, violence and chaos from belligerents hitherto uninvolved.

[GCostanza]

Islamic State Watch

Geoffrey de Ste. Croix wrote:

So we have four, possibly five entrenched factions (Assad, the Turks, ISIL, the Kurds, and western-looking Syrians) all supported to a greater or lesser degree by more powerful allies, and a solution that appeases them all appears mutually exclusive.

It must be time to send in Paddy Ashdown.

I tell you what will help. More air strikes, violence and chaos from belligerents hitherto uninvolved.

Preferably with the presence of A.C.Blair, whilst in the region.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Islamic State Watch

ad hoc wrote: Tonton: Are you saying that the US / Saudi Arabia / Qatar / Turkey etc have not directly armed daesh (ie by giving them weapons)? Or are you saying that they have not been responsible in any way for them getting weapons (such as by selling weapons to them)?

Obviously the former is true, though a bit unnecessary. By that reckoning the IS doesn't even arm Israel or Egypt - it just gives them money and then sells them weapons. If the latter is what you;re saying, then I'm significantly less convinced of your workings.

I'm even less convinced that Turkey in particular is not aiding Daesh, tacitly. It's allowing them to bring weapons in over the border with oil going in the opposite direction. And Turkey is bombing and attacking Kurdish fighters who are directly involved in resistance to daesh.

To be clear, I'm saying both.

I hate the House of Saud, they are vermin, I hope they all die horrible deaths as soon as possible. They aren't supporting Daesh.

Turkey has not shut its border (I'm not sure it realistically could, but it hasn't attempted to) to the flow of arms and people to Syria. You can argue for ever about its intentions in so doing, and I don't think there's one simple answer, but to explain this as Turkey actively helping Daesh strikes me as simplistic and unsupported.

I support the flow of arms to Syrian revolutionaries and wish it were a bigger flow with more and more serious weapons. Those who equate Syrian revolutionaries with Daesh do Daesh's job for them.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Islamic State Watch

"Syrian Revolutionary?" "Yes." "Jolly, good, here's an AK47".

"Syrian Revolutionary?" "Yes." "Jolly good, here's an AK47".

"Syrian Revolutionary?" "No, Daesh." "Oh, really?" "No, only pulling your leg. Syrian Revolutionary".

As Monty Python might have scripted THAT transaction.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Islamic State Watch

Rogin, if you really wanted to, you could get an AK47. That's not really the point.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Islamic State Watch

Sorry, just trying to make light of such a mad situation. It's about the only way I can deal with it.

[dalliance]

Islamic State Watch

While the House of Saud might not implicitly support IS, it played a big part in causing it to exist in the first place through its billions of dollars of funding around the world in advancing the teaching of its Wahaabist strain of Islam.

[Geoffrey de Ste. Croix]

Islamic State Watch

Research Paper: ISIS-Turkey List

[ad hoc]

Islamic State Watch

Isn't that just a list of media reports though, some of which are highly suspect?

[ursus arctos]

Islamic State Watch

I have a degree from the institution that produced that and have to admit that it is one bizarre "paper".

What's next? Slideshow dissertations?

[anton pulisov]

Islamic State Watch

The piece of Turkey those Russian planes flew over is so tiny, and the planes travelling so fast, that the Turks would probably have had to fire their missiles before the planes entered the airspace. It's also a question if the missiles actually hit the plane over Turkish airspace.

edit: just looked on Google maps and the piece of Turkish border that juts out is approximately 3 km wide. These planes were probably moving at 1500 km/hr or so, so would have been over Turkish airspace for less than 10 seconds.

[ursus arctos]

Islamic State Watch

The Turks have declared an exclusion / no fly zone that extends outside their borders into Syria, and acknowledged that they began warning the Russians when that line (rather than the border) was breached.

[anton pulisov]

Islamic State Watch

ursus arctos wrote: The Turks have declared an exclusion / no fly zone that extends outside their borders into Syria, and acknowledged that they began warning the Russians when that line (rather than the border) was breached.

Didn't know that. What right do they have to to declare a no fly zone outside their own borders?

[GCostanza]

Islamic State Watch

Antonio Pulisao wrote: The piece of Turkey those Russian planes flew over is so tiny, and the planes travelling so fast, that the Turks would probably have had to fire their missiles before the planes entered the airspace. It's also a question if the missiles actually hit the plane over Turkish airspace.

edit: just looked on Google maps and the piece of Turkish border that juts out is approximately 3 km wide. These planes were probably moving at 1500 km/hr or so, so would have been over Turkish airspace for less than 10 seconds.

Acc.to the BBC, about 17 seconds and around 1.5 miles into Turkish airspace, but flying through, rather than into.

[anton pulisov]

Islamic State Watch

but flying through, rather than into.

What does that mean?

[Geoffrey de Ste. Croix]

Islamic State Watch

At the very least, the 'research paper' is a comprehensive list of stories and reports from different agencies shedding light on Turkey's possible links with ISIS. There's so much claim, counterclaim, propaganda and argument about which major power is funding whom and supporting whom and against whom that it is impossible to really know what is going on. It's an absolute 24 carat clusterfuck in which only one thing is clear- us hurling our missiles and bombs at it is only going to make it worse.

[ad hoc]

Islamic State Watch

And that I absolutely agree with.

[garcia]

Islamic State Watch

i'm not sure i do. syria now isn't like iraq under saddam hussein, which, for all its obvious injustice, was at least stable. with iraq the risks involved in invading and destroying the state far outweighed the risks of leaving it in place.

syria is chaos. you've got a four-way war underway in which no side appears to be able to gain a decisive advantage. a quarter of the population has already fled. at least one of the warring parties is urging people around the world to carry out terrorist attacks in cities that think they're at peace. you've got chemical attacks, slavery, genocide - practically a full deck of war crimes.

so i'm not convinced that intervention at this point is going to make things worse. and i think that if things are left to play themselves out they could get a lot worse before they get better.

for western countries looking on, the latter option might nevertheless be preferable - at least we didn't get involved. but they have already helped to create the problem and they're already being forced to deal with the consequences. they already are involved.

the first thing everyone needs there is for the fighting to stop. but i don't see how that is going to happen until one side can command overwhelming force.

[anton pulisov]

Islamic State Watch

Erdogan lashing out a Russia for bombing Turkmen areas under the false pretenses of bombing ISIS. This from the man who has been pummelling the PKK.

Agree with garcia, the area formerly known as Syria has turned into Bosnia circa 1995. It's a classic case of UN intervention being needed, but the UN is toothless as long as major powers are supporting different factions.

[E10 Rifle]

Islamic State Watch

Which is also why the decisive victory for one side, that Garcia wants, doesn't seem remotely possible at the moment.

[Janik]

Islamic State Watch

Antonio Pulisao wrote: Agree with garcia, the area formerly known as Syria has turned into Bosnia circa 1995. It's a classic case of UN intervention being needed, but the UN is toothless as long as major powers are supporting different factions.

As they also did in Bosnia, for that matter. But Russia was undergoing massive internal turmoil at the time, so less able to protect it's proxy. And there were only three sides involved.

[ursus arctos]

Islamic State Watch

AP, it's become reasonably common for outside powers intervening in civil conflicts to attempt to establish exclusion/no fly zones.

Their status in international law is disputed, and this one (unlike the one in Libya, for instance) certainly has not been endorsed by the UN or any other international body, but the Turks weren't the first ones to come up with the idea (it's now a bog standard "policy option" for the US).

The "through but not into" distinction is intended to distinguish the situation of a flight briefly passing through a piece of territory on the way to somewhere else from one in which the border is breached with the intent of penetrating deeply into the other country.

The map the Turks put out may be of some use here.

Though many would say that the above is a distinction without a difference.

[Jesus]

Islamic State Watch

Antonio Pulisao wrote:

Agree with garcia, the area formerly known as Syria has turned into Bosnia circa 1995. It's a classic case of UN intervention being needed, but the UN is toothless as long as major powers are supporting different factions.

Can you help this lazy thicko out, when did UN intervetion actually make any significant change?