Ramadi Falls
 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/0...n_7300746.html



Having been stationed very near Ramadi it is sad to see it fall to ISIS.
I think the US should have pushed for the Shiite militias to take a stronger hand in defending the provincial capital myself. I would rather see it still in the hands of the Iraqi government, however imperfect, than ISIS. Of course the ISIS savages are doing the usual, summarily executing everyone they can, according to a Sunni tribal leader who was fighting them:


"We welcome any group, including Shiite militias, to come and help us in liberating the city from the militants. What happened today is a big loss caused by lack of good planning by the military," a Sunni tribal leader, Naeem al-Gauoud, told the Associated Press.

He said many tribal fighters died trying to defend the city, and bodies, some charred, were strewn in the streets, while others had been thrown in the Euphrates River. Ramadi mayor Dalaf al-Kubaisi said that more than 250 civilians and security forces were killed over the past two days, including dozens of police and other government supporters shot dead in the streets or their homes, along with their wives, children and other family members.

Quoted from the Huffington Post article.

Fifteen centuries of murder and mayhem perped on each other by one Islamic sect or another in Iraq and elsewhere in the region would seem to suggest to me that backing one of them against another to achieve some sort of short term goal is a fool's game.

A fool's game indeed.

Quite true but that's not what's going on and not what's being asked for or recommended. We have a terrorist army, ISIS, invading and occupying the sovereign territory of Iraq and proclaiming itself to be a new "caliphate". In response we have the Iraqi army, such as it is, attempting to ally itself with both Shi'ite and Sunni militias, uniting against a common enemy.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Way...way...way too many of them are murderous Islamist maniacs waiting to happen. And the problem is...nobody knows when and where the next batch of them will show up. Right now its pissed off Sunni's who want back in power and will not be controlled by filthy Shia. Next month it will be pissed off Shia who want back in power and will not be controlled by filthy Sunni. The culture and religion is infested.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Fv6WMzir5Y...hia-Divide.png

And we haven't taken into account any of the sub-sects who's believers believe that anyone who is not a member of their sect is a filthy infidel worthy only of being beheaded with a rusty butter knife. It's cultural insanity.

The more we get involved in the middle east, the worse things get. You would think we would learn after 65 years of policy mistakes but no.


Carl

I still think we should have left the Kurds some heavy weapons.

We have. We armed the Peshmerga in the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region. It's the PKK, mostly in Turkey, that we're relctant to help,

And we should be just as reluctant to help Iraqi PKK, but somehow they're freedom fighting PKK, and not the Kurdish version of the Taliban (which is what they actually are).

We've been here before. I know you have this Kurdish friend and, according you, he says the PKK is the "Taliban" but that's wrong. They're secular and pretty Marxist. Not only that, they have female fighters on the front lines who do the same work as the men. Would an Islamic extremist organization permit that? Comparing them to religious fanatics like the Taliban is silly.

We stuck the PKK on the terrorist list just to keep the Turks happy, all they want is their homeland back from the Turks, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

I have a Kurdish friend and several Pakistani friends. They all say the same thing. You don't want the PKK running things. They'll put a bullet in anybody's head who crosses them. Just like the Taliban will. So you can say what you will John...but I'm gonna be going with these guys.

You may have a good answer for this, Ike, but what the hell do Pakistanis know about the PKK? As far as I know, the PKK isn't active there. The Kurdish population of Pakistan is less than 300 and they're all Iraqi refugees.

My Pakistani friends are mostly mental health professionals. Three of the four of them are psychiatrists. Highly educated and all spent their early years and early professional lives in the region. Not sitting pontificating on some fucked up internet political forum. They have personal experience and know Islamic cultures in ways that you and I guess at from what we read in our last fucking Google search on the Kurdish population in Pakistan.

When they tell me that if PKK thinks you're the opposition they will put a bullet in your head just as fast, if not faster than the Taliban will...I'm going with them John, not you and the results of your refugee search.

I am shocked, shocked to hear that the PKK personnel are in many cases hard men disposed to violence.

And from the patronizing tone of this I will reply...who the fuck cares what you think about it?

Just one more thing John. It's so interesting that you're commenting on the Pakistanis who I'm acquainted with and not the Kurd. So...just for your information. My Kurdish acquaintance is a Turk. As he once told a small group of us some years ago, as a young man, out of anger and frustration at the oppression and treatment of his people by our loyal ally the Turkish government, he joined the PKK. He said it was sold to him as a political activist group fighting for the rights of Kurds all over Turkey. He lasted a while, until the violence against anybody who crossed them finally overwhelmed him.

His refugee status in this country has remained in limbo for over 15 years because he was honest when he made his request for asylum and reported that years before he was a PKK member. He also told us that his request for asylum here was just as much in fear of the PKK that he abandoned, as from the Turkish government, were he to be deported back to Turkey. For over a year immediately after 9/11 he was locked up in some shithole federal detention center in Detroit without charge and without contact with family or an attorney by the Bush administration. He was only released when the outcry and publicity generated by his supporters became something the Bush people did not want to deal with, so they released him. The Bush administration and now the Obama administration both have refused to take action on his request for asylum...so he sits in limbo all this time down the road.

So that's where the information comes from that leads me to my opinion on this. You got Google...I got this.

Back on point:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...y.html?hpid=z1

Interesting and unsurprising but still doesn't address my point that the similarities between a secular Marxist insurgency and a brutal Theocratic movement/government are tenuous at best.

That's the great thing about the political forum isn't it? A member addresses an issue posed, and then some other member decides they didn't address it. And so it goes...

The point my sources are making is that the specifics of one organization's agenda don't matter much when that organization will wantonly put a bullet in the brain of anybody who publicly opposes them, and maybe even drag their corpse through town behind a motorbike to discourage others who mistakenly believe they have the right to a little free expression. Thus...PKK is the Taliban, is Hamas, is Isis, etc., etc.

Next, some meathead hereabouts will say...is Israel, and the stupid fucking argument will start all over again.

Indeed, tenuous.

The words secular and theocratic noted.

Regardless of whether these assholes are secular or religious doesn't change the fact that they are power hungry alphas and behave as such.

Way more pathological than that. For all practical purposes the sociopaths have taken over Islam. There are enough of them, with enough support and power, brazen enough, and sick enough to have hamstrung the entire culture. There is a small percentage of people who speak out against the violence, brutality, murder, and terrorism...and for it they end up with a price on their heads. A quarter the culture worldwide supports jihad, caliphate, and any terrorist activities necessary to accomplish the goals of caliphate. Everybody else shrugs their shoulders and looks the other way.

Distance helps with the intimidation, proximity not so much.

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Every time I see this in the thread list I'm thinking Ramadi Falls? What is that? Is it where Iraqis go on their honeymoon?

Ike a lot of Americans died near Ramadi. Army personnel who had been away from home for nearly a year in Korea and then were sent to Ramadi died there. I think about 200 Americans were killed around Ramadi.

Who are you, my dad? If you don't think it's funny, just say so. Lots of people died in lots of places. I know let's not try to have fun with anyplace since people keep dying everywhere.

Your dad and you must have had fascinating issues. Whenever anyone criticizes you, you accuse them of trying to be him.

In fact, i think you did quote a taste once. He clobbered you flat with tendentious logic, as i recall....

The point as I see it is that a lot of folks thru family and friends as well as their own experience have a very strong emotional investment in the place.

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One thing I don't come here for, for sure, is a lecture. Want to lecture somebody? Go lecture your offspring.

Sometimes this joint can be the center of the humor impairment universe.

But you lecture like nuts. Dish it out? Take it.

Lots of people every year have an emotional investment and their own experience or through family in Chicago. Do I have to get somebody's permission to mock Chicago?

When the right Ike stands up he is beautiful...some great lectures for example on 2008 melt down/TARP and lucid illumination on mental issues.

I was just tryin' to have a little fun for christ's sake. Try to remember to take your Prozac tomorrow morning.

Sorry.

Ike, your wedding comment clearly hit a nerve with Robbin. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you didn't intend to do it but I think you should have realized it once he responded. Given that realization, however, don't you think the kind thing, the empathetic thing to have done would be to apologize or maybe just say nothing else?

I know that your default mode is attack but try to have a little consideration for others once in a while.

Thank you kindly, sir.

Right now, standing up is irreverent schmuck Ike, who does not give a shit in Lenny Bruce's hat for who might or might not approve of him.

Everybody has probably lost somebody to war or some other sort of violence, John. I have lost friend's and family to both. I lost family to the holocaust, and somehow endure the bullshit attacks from pro-Palestinian members over my position on Israel without resorting to lecturing them on their insensitivity. On a warm summer might in 1963 I walked into my best friend's house and found him lying in his own blood and brains on the kitchen floor. A victim of fun violence. And somehow I manage to deal with it when right wingjob opponents on guns call me an idiot and a fool and don't know what nerve they might be hitting.

My intent was not to whack anybody's personal loss button. That said, I will not be lectured. I will not be scolded. We all have a button somewhere.

But, by keeping this going, that's what you're doing.

And losing family to the holocaust (capitalization unnecessary) in no way undermines any pro Palestinian argument or demands support for Zionism.