Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/world/africa/us-undertakes-military-operation-against-shabab-in-somalia.html?

That was interesting and seemingly out of the blue. Saw a W. Post piece today on US setting up a new drone launching site in Agadez, Niger.

I thought the US only had Agadez and Djibouti as permanent drone basing. Was wrong.

http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/218/330/mritems/Images/2013/1/30/201313011580164734_20.jpg

Sotloff ostensibly beheaded today.

Oy

omg biden

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/03/politics/joe-biden-isis-gates-of-hell/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

idk enough about UK newspapers to evaluate if this is for real or just some insane tabloid nonsense:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/terror-threat-911-anniversary-after-4155703

Most of the reporting is taken from the Washington Free Beacon, which doesn't seem particularly reliable as a source. Dawn Of Libya have taken Tripoli Airport and the empty US embassy but I'm not aware of whether they have ever claimed to pose a direct threat to the west.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/06/world/africa/somalia-shabab.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

The American airstrikes on Monday against the Shabab, the Qaeda-linked militant network in Somalia, succeeded in killing the group’s leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane, the Pentagon announced Friday.

for fans of clash of swords:

http://www.youtube.com/v/-wmdEFvsY0E&fs=1&hl=en

you know, maybe i should have posted that as a link. it's pretty graphic FYI.

so what do we think about this Sinai offer? is it legit? should abbas take it?

If the only consideration were a rational assessment of the future, this would be a pretty good offer to accept, imo. But as any jew should understand, attachments to the past and to specific lands, town sites, cemeteries, mosques are extremely strong and psychologically more powerful than any attachment to an unseen, unknown future. This will almost certainly fail, just as any offer to relocate the jewish state to Uruguay would fail.

http://blogs.forward.com/the-arty-semite/205222/art-spiegelman-breaks-his-silence-on-israel/#ixzz3CjDusNJx

u kno, the jews in 1948 accepted a much smaller area than they had initially wanted under the assumption that it's better to take what you can get now and not hold out for an uncertain future. might be smart for abbas to do the same. owning the sinai certainly couldn't hurt.

Needless to say, the situation for jews in 1948 was very, very different. Accepting this offer would require renunciations on a scale much larger than accepting "a much smaller area than they had initially wanted". Even then, it would be an enormous breakthrough if the deal went forward and, speaking as someone far removed from the sacrifices required, it would be a relief to see the current stalemate broken.

this just sounds like Israeli PR jockeying to make the Palestinians look unreasonable imo

^ With justification. The proper diplomatic approach would be to make the offer during private talks and only reveal it publically at the discretion of Abbas. Publicizing it in this context is transparently a PR move, not a diplomatic move.

Abbas obviously won't take it now, even if he wanted to

huh

twitter shuts down al nusra accounts

al nusra tweets call to assassinate twitter employees

https://www.vocativ.com/world/syria-world/isis-threatens-twitter-employees/?page=all

seems super unlikely to me. if al nusra can pull off a twitter exec assassination i'll really have to reevaluate my opinion of their operational capabilities

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/syrias-assad-thinks-he-is-winning-he-could-be-wrong/2014/09/08/09c5044e-a6ca-45d0-91a8-c9eacd4c92f8_story.html?hpid=z1

However, Alawites have also paid a heavy price in blood for their loyalty and now see no end in sight to the war that Assad insisted he was winning. At least 110,000 members of the security forces and the local militias created to support them have been killed since the rebellion began, a disproportionate number of them Alawite, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The minority sect, loosely affiliated to the Shiite branch of Islam and concentrated in the mountains along Syria’s northwestern coast, comprise 10-12 percent of the country’s pre-war population of 24 million. If the casualty figures are true, it is the equivalent of America losing 9 million of its men.

that's insane

Tom Harkin, liberal dinosaur, otm

"We overreacted to 9/11. Most of the people that did 9/11 were Saudis. Why the hell didn't we invade Saudi Arabia? There wasn't one Iraqi involved in 9/11," Harkin said. "We just keep jumping from one mistake to another. I have a feeling we're going to do the same thing with [the Islamic State]."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/10/congress-war-isis_n_5798780.html?1410380344

this is perhaps overly cynical of me but I kind of dgaf about ISIS...? I mean yes obviously they are a horrible organization doing horrible things and that's bad but let's be real they aren't threatening anything beyond two failed states that have totally invited/facilitated this crisis and y'know get back to me when they attack a credible state with an actual army that's an ally of ours because we all know that if they make a move towards Turkey or Iran or Saudi Arabia or Jordan or Israel they will be summarily obliterated pretty fucking quickly.

i'm w/ you re IS and i think it serves US interests to let saudi arabia + iran + assad worry about them for the time being

I dunno, it's kind of a tough call. Not the US staying out of it part - there is no reason we should be fucking around over there anymore, we should learn our fucking lesson for once - but dismissing or ignoring what IS is up to just because "they aren't threatening anything beyond two failed states." I mean, that's fair, as far as it goes. But people ignored the Taliban for years, too, despite all the stories of them murdering women and children, crazy proclamations of caliphates, beheadings in stadiums, blowing up ancient statues, etc. In the end the problem turned out to be not the Taliban, per se, but them harboring a greater, better organized threat. So yeah, US is stupid to get further involved in this, we should let the regional powers, as such, deal with it. But at the same time, probably smart to keep a close eye on what's going on.

Well yeah. There is a wide range of (better) options between ignoring them and full military engagement.

too bad rolling mena 2014 doesn't set policy :(

on the anniversary of 9/11 too - auspicious

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/9/10/nato-karzai-afghanistan.html

There is a wide range of (better) options between ignoring them and full military engagement.

― Οὖτις, Thursday, September 11, 2014

The softy human-rights never again a holocaust part of me cares for people oppressed by Isis and the Taliban and worries a bit about American isolationism, but the realist side of me recognizes how difficult and messy it is to get involved and to decide where to get involved. Thus I'm for the in-between role Obama is currently pushing.

Honest question, from the perspective of someone living in a perpetual police-the-world country: what does the rest of the world make of this stuff? Do they give it lip service but do nothing? Is Europe involved in the IS discussion? Anyone else? Or is this another case of letting America dangle/isolate itself? I've not read a lot of editorial/public opinion on this stuff from other countries.

Europe involved in the IS discussion?

The fact that the jihadist in the two beheading videos apparently has an English accent has meant that England is deeply involved in the IS discussion

Lots of discussion about this topic in Germany, with the urge to intervene but naturally compliant to the non-combative-action agenda, and some surprising results (Peshmerga will be fitted with weaponry supposedly worth 70mio €, an unprecedented action in German post-war history). Talks about strategic support of US campaign running as well.

also lots of discussion in France. Le Monde notes that France has already agreed to support the USA in an aerial campaign against the IS. Naturally Le Figaro goes further: "One cannot say, under the pretext of the errors of the Americans in 2033, that it is forbidden to us to use force against the Islamic troops. Against this menace, it will of course be necessary to use it. Violence is legitimate. Even Pope Francis has judged it "licit"."

wow - even the head of the catholic church is in favor of attacking the muslim state? shocking!

lol

looking forward to the American mistakes of 2033 btw

Le Figaro is a right-leaning paper, in case that wasn't obvious. But yeah.

Meanwhile in Syria, a writer for Greenwald's the Intercept reports and opines, via Al Jazeera:

Obama’s non-Iranian options look particularly bleak after yesterday’s shocking assassination of one of Syria’s top anti-ISIS rebel commanders and dozens of his lieutenants. The commander, Hassan Abboud, was killed in an explosion during an underground meeting. So many members of his group, Ahrar al-Sham, were killed in the explosion that it’s now unclear whether it will continue to exist and provide a key counterweight to ISIS. Ahrar al-Sham was one of the best organized Syrian opposition factions aside from ISIS

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/10/americas-incomprehensible-isis-policy/

quick find some other "moderates" to sell weapons to

The cynic in me feels like this is just another opportunity for the US to export billions worth of military hardware. The Iraqi army flushing 25b worth of hardware down the toilet is probably seen as a business opportunity to these fools

the french have a warship to sell too!

I wonder if an endless war against militant Islamic insurgents is tax deductible?

Read the letter from 34 reserve soldiers who have served in Unit 8200 explaining why they refuse to serve in Palestinian territories

I wonder if an endless war against militant Islamic insurgents is tax deductible?

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, September 11, 2014

Alas, only for the industries working with the Pentagon.

Charles Krauthammer's unhappy. Surprise surprise. He insists that Bush had a bigger coalition in Iraq and he's mad at Obama of course for not being macho enough:

And beyond the strategy’s halfhearted substance is its author’s halfhearted tone. Obama’s reluctance and ambivalence are obvious.

According to Agence France-Presse, ISIS and a number of moderate and hard-line rebel groups have agreed not to fight each other so that they can focus on taking down the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Other sources say the signatories include a major U.S. ally linked to the Free Syrian Army. Moreover, the leader of the Free Syrian Army said Saturday that the group would not take part in U.S. plans for destroying the Islamic State until it got assurances on toppling Assad.

That's from Huff Post