Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

Was it Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi that predicted he'd be running the whole Islamic world within three months?

they remind me a little of ungern-sturnberg, then in his early 30s, and his 'asiatic division' of white russian soldiers, various central asian irregulars, criminals etc who briefly ruled mongolia after the first world war and spent most of that time slaughtering people and devising edicts borne of his strange mix of tsarist absolutism and lamaism

the leadership contain a few ex-baathist officers but most of the people throwing homosexuals from tall buildings seem to be college age or thereabouts, one of their senior field commanders is a 28 yr old chechen

There was a great discussion of the ramifications of the Jordanian hostage and domestic Jordanian politics in the Feb 1 Ian Masters Background Briefing. Moaz al-Kasasbeh was a scion of an important tribe in southern Jordan, which protested encouraging a hostage trade. Meanwhile Jordan's king is viewed as aloof from domestic affairs, Jordan's cities are packed with poorly documented Iraqi Sunni and Syrian refugees, and the Israeli right has announced intentions to invade if the Jordanian regime were to fall. Nightmare scenario material.

and the Israeli right has announced intentions to invade if the Jordanian regime were to fall.

uh, no.

i have heard for a number of years that the IDF has a 24-48 hour plan to occupy all of jordan but more as like a rumor than anything specific

Militaries have hypothetical plans for a lot of things that they never intend to do.

Israel has openly said it would defend the Jordanian regime against attack, however.

I would think that the Israeli right tends to announce all kinds of batshit things

I haven't found Master's or Nicholas Heras source for that (discussed in the last few minutes), but its not difficult to find Israeli opinion pieces that assert Israel is the "ultimate guarantor" of the Hashemite regime.

Defending the regime and "invade" kind of have different connotations.

there are few more unlikely evidential appeals than 'its not difficult to find Israeli opinion pieces that assert '

tactical victory

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/04/uae-united-arab-emirates-isis-air-attacks-pilot

the daily mail is pleased today to find a prominent muslim ready to condemn the barbaric killers of kassabah, some enlightened cleric from egypt who demands that they be crucified because only god may punish by burning

the more i read about ISIS the more i think this is, to a great extent, a matter of disaffected people--including a lot of psychopaths--converging on one part of the world and given nearly free rein. ISIS is like a magnet for these folks, and the results aren't surprising in that light.

i kind of wonder if this is what the crusades were like.

w/o mass media, of course

this is not that uncommon a pattern throughout history, the crusades were a license for freelance thuggery and theft and there must be some amount of habitual criminals in isis for whom the opportunity to brutalize, thieve, siphon, extort and disappear is considerably more appealing than the prospect of being martyred

also having dismissed ogmor's claim that isis twitter' game was particularly distinctive or notable or uncannily imitative of the_west, and suggested that the killing of daniel pearl was the last great breakthrough in jihad public relations, this intricately constructed new video and the suggestion that wacky new execution methods were being crowdsourced on twitter prior to its release does represent some degree of innovation

psychopaths and sadists can be enormously useful to those aiming to achieve political ends by force, cf Chris Kyle

and war is also enormously useful to violent psycopaths, so it's a win-win really

psychopaths and sadists can be enormously useful to those aiming to achieve political ends by force, cf Chris Kyle

― walid foster dulles (man alive), Wednesday, February 4, 2015 9:48 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is probably the movie clint eastwood should have made, but would never make-- of course.

FWIW I heard the screenwriter say something to that effect, though in milder terms (he never called Kyle a psycopath or sadist, he just said he was used by his government)

psychopaths and sadists can be enormously useful to those aiming to achieve political ends by force, cf Chris Kyle

― walid foster dulles (man alive), Wednesday, 4 February 2015 15:48 (26 minutes ago)

topical social commentary ;)

even as I wrote that post I thought "this might be a little...trenchant"

A former operative for Al Qaeda testified that members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family were major donors in the late 1990s and claimed that he discussed a plan to shoot down Air Force One with a staff member at the Saudi Embassy.

This is a surprise to who now...?

this is so sad and awful:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/world/middleeast/shaimaa-el-sabbagh-tahrir-square-killing-angers-egyptians.html

seems pertinent:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/31/terrorism-spectacle-how-states-respond-yuval-noah-harari-sapiens?utm_content=buffer38676&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

it's interesting bc this terrorism calculus only really makes sense in the modern world where things like "mistakes are made, atrocities are committed, public opinion wavers, questions are asked, neutrals change their stance and the balance of power shifts," are attenuated in their impact. in a time where overwhelming military response or atrocities are the status quo, or where you don't have the nature of war weariness / resistance found in democracies, etc, many of these things are defused. i think in one sense this is how terrorism exploits western ideals - it tries to force us to be untrue to our own ideals and expose our hypocrisies (that all predate that particular attack). i think this is also behind a lot of my skepticism about the value of terrorism. obv if you can pull a country like the US into a long protracted and expensive war (like Iraq) you can deal actual damage to their system (though still probably far less than conventional destruction of military assets). but for the most part terrorism victories, like that piece says, are theatrical, or ideological victories. but i'm not sure that theater or ideology translate substantially into actual victories. like you can get the US public to demand we pull out of Iraq, but you can't get the president to stop drone bombing yemen. you can increase US debt, but you can't destroy natural resources, trade affiliations, production, etc.

AMMAN, Jordan — There was one feeling that many of the Middle East’s fractious clerics, competing ethnic groups and warring sects could agree on Wednesday: a shared sense of revulsion at the Islamic State’s latest excess, its video showing a Jordanian pilot being burned alive inside a cage.

In Syria, the government denounced the group that has been fighting it for months, but so did Qaeda fighters who oppose both the government and the Islamic State. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian government for once agreed on something, the barbarity of the militant group for the way it murdered the Jordanian, First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh. Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the head of Cairo’s thousand-year-old Al Azhar institute and a leading Sunni scholar, was so angered that he called for the Islamic State’s extremists to be “killed, or crucified, or their hands and legs cut off.”

Never known as a charismatic leader, King Abdullah got rave reviews at home for his tough talk in Washington, where in a meeting with congressional leaders he said his retribution would remind people of the Clint Eastwood movie “Unforgiven.”

He is considered to be one of the most moderate Sunni clerics in Egypt.[1]

El-Tayeb spoke at the rally, saying "the al-Aqsa Mosque is currently under an offensive by the Jews" and "we shall not allow the Zionists to Judaize al-Quds [Jerusalem]". He also alleged that Jews around the world were trying to prevent Islamic and Egyptian unity.[6][7] The rally was criticized by the New York Daily News as antisemitic.[8]

where in a meeting with congressional leaders he said his retribution would remind people of the Clint Eastwood movie “Unforgiven.”

i feel like we've closed a circle here

the uk needed some more calls do more in the middle east, and thankfully it has now got calls to do more to combat isis

principally from the lord stewart of khartoum, the uk's senior adviser on mohammedan affairs

not clear that there are any identifiable targets in otherwise uninhabited locations that haven't already been bombed, or that can't promptly be bombed by the world's premier air force, but it would be good to see some british ordnance casings on the ground for old time's sake

remember the falklands

thing that makes me IA, but not innocuous: friends on facebook citing RT (Russian state media) or even worse Press TV (Iranian state media) as a source for anything middle-east related.

suggest for new phrase 'burning the pilot' to describe when a movement oversteps and alienates even its own supporters cf the old cartoon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropping_the_Pilot

shit, totally burned the pilot here and they're going to sister souljah us

Psyched for some RAF/Saudi 30th anniversary Al-Yamamah tandem raids, tbh.

Jordan wants to do more too.

One of Mordy's fave writers (said sarcastically) Juan Cole is comparing this to the George Bush Shock and Awe campaign

http://www.juancole.com/2015/02/shock-because-victim.html

While others are analysing Islamic writing for an explanation

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/02/04/the-chilling-reason-the-islamic-state-burned-a-jordanian-pilot-alive/

One point that has bothered me in the Lawrence Wright book so far is the portrayal of Begin as though he almost single-handedly invented modern terrorism. Seems dangerously close to an anti-semitic canard.

Koplow asks if Turkey is on the precipice of a presidential takeover

He's referencing Stephen A. Cook on that who has been critical of Turkey since 2010. Some folks online don't seem to trust Cook. I dunno.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/05/jordan-airstrikes-isis_n_6620844.html

Jordan air strikes...

that'll learn 'em

who knew jordan had fighter jets

is that a ref to this shakey classic

I agree, Shakey. Though I don't think Israel should do it. I think if they're so hot to invade {Syria}, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and France should do it.

― Mordy , Tuesday, 27 August 2013 18:11 (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol Saudi Arabia do they even have an army

― what's up ugly girls? (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 27 August 2013 18:12 (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

heh heh

but seriously has saudi arabia ever deployed their American-gifted military might against anybody? I guess they did some shit in Gulf War I iirc. SA's all about proxy warfare afaict.