#2761
Post rating: ~
I would reckon Mike's job is being in charge of these guys whose responsibility is "getting the royal family's ass out of dodge."

#2762
Post rating: ~
the UAE princes seem to be busy abducting the wives of each other
#2763
Post rating: ~
https://ejmagnier.com/2019/07/14/the-uk-must-release-the-iranian-tanker-the-uaes-mission-to-tehran/

Iran promised to talk to the Yemeni officials to avoid hitting targets in Dubai and Abu Dhabi as long as the UAE pulls out its forces from the Yemen and stops this useless war. Saudi Crown Prime Mohammad Bin Salman is finding himself without his main Emirates ally, caught in a war that is unwinnable for the Saudi regime. The Yemeni Houthis have taken the initiative, hitting several Saudi strategic targets. Saudi Arabia has no realistic objectives and seems to have lost the appetite to continue the war in Yemen.




#2764
Post rating: +
it won't be covered this way, but fucking hell just think about what is potentially happening here. some of the worst colonialist psychopaths in the world are being forced into retreat by a half-starved volunteer army of yemeni guerillas. despite the best tech and advisors the US and UK could provide. so since 2001 that's, what, four wars lost? unreal.
#2765
Post rating: +
It's like the Napoleonic wars or something when the feudal armies broke. You can't squeeze this kind of mentality out of mercenaries who work for pay:

#2766
Post rating: +
*in breathy war nerd voice*

and in that sense Mike is right about Houthis being Yemeni Viet Cong because of this mentality and popular participation -- what are the other guys fighting for? Paychecks so rich princes can turn Yemen into a sex resort filled with trafficked Southeast Asian teenagers? No sense in dying for that. The music / war montage videos put out by the ISCY are also scary to watch because of the look on the guerrillas' faces. I can't describe it and you will have to look them up but if you saw their faces you would know what I'm talking about, and why they can't be beaten in any way the Saudis or Emiratis would know how to do.

Also they don't wear too much gear and they are nimble, and they know how to fight in the terrain. The Saudis meanwhile have been using these expensive, heavy vehicles first designed for Apartheid, with a new generation produced by the U.S. for Iraq after their lightly-armored recon vehicles started being blown up all over Baghdad. These are machines for armies afraid of dying, but they can't maneuver and they make for enormous targets. The American press presents these vehicles as technological marvels and will run articles worried about them "falling into the hands of Iranian-backed rebels" but everyone figured out how to deal with these turtles years ago. For instance the Yemenis blind the viewports with accurate, long-range rifle fire and then hit them with anti-tank missiles.

#2767
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
I’m sort of the Viet Cong of posting.
#2768
Post rating: ~

trakfactri posted:

*in breathy war nerd voice*

and in that sense Mike is right about Houthis being Yemeni Viet Cong because of this mentality and popular participation -- what are the other guys fighting for? Paychecks so rich princes can turn Yemen into a sex resort filled with trafficked Southeast Asian teenagers? No sense in dying for that. The music / war montage videos put out by the ISCY are also scary to watch because of the look on the guerrillas' faces. I can't describe it and you will have to look them up but if you saw their faces you would know what I'm talking about, and why they can't be beaten in any way the Saudis or Emiratis would know how to do.

Also they don't wear too much gear and they are nimble, and they know how to fight in the terrain. The Saudis meanwhile have been using these expensive, heavy vehicles first designed for Apartheid, with a new generation produced by the U.S. for Iraq after their lightly-armored recon vehicles started being blown up all over Baghdad. These are machines for armies afraid of dying, but they can't maneuver and they make for enormous targets. The American press presents these vehicles as technological marvels and will run articles worried about them "falling into the hands of Iranian-backed rebels" but everyone figured out how to deal with these turtles years ago. For instance the Yemenis blind the viewports with accurate, long-range rifle fire and then hit them with anti-tank missiles.



somebody described the saudi army and airforce as being staffed by the oil dynasty equivalents of aj soprano, which while true and lolsome also detracts from the remarkable efforts of the yemenis imo.

#2769
Post rating: +

trakfactri posted:

*in breathy war nerd voice*

and in that sense Mike is right about Houthis being Yemeni Viet Cong because of this mentality and popular participation -- what are the other guys fighting for? Paychecks so rich princes can turn Yemen into a sex resort filled with trafficked Southeast Asian teenagers? No sense in dying for that. The music / war montage videos put out by the ISCY are also scary to watch because of the look on the guerrillas' faces. I can't describe it and you will have to look them up but if you saw their faces you would know what I'm talking about, and why they can't be beaten in any way the Saudis or Emiratis would know how to do.

Also they don't wear too much gear and they are nimble, and they know how to fight in the terrain. The Saudis meanwhile have been using these expensive, heavy vehicles first designed for Apartheid, with a new generation produced by the U.S. for Iraq after their lightly-armored recon vehicles started being blown up all over Baghdad. These are machines for armies afraid of dying, but they can't maneuver and they make for enormous targets. The American press presents these vehicles as technological marvels and will run articles worried about them "falling into the hands of Iranian-backed rebels" but everyone figured out how to deal with these turtles years ago. For instance the Yemenis blind the viewports with accurate, long-range rifle fire and then hit them with anti-tank missiles.


I dont think it needs to be much more complicated than what you get by a basic understanding of the political economy of weapons production in the US, read thru insights from vol 3 of capital, where Marx describes weapons sales as being unique in the sense that they exist only to be depleted or destroyed. They cannot be used to build new means of production so they can't affect the balance of payments between nations. Here they function as a means for saudi to pay off their liege lord while simultaneously asserting their authority in a grand murderous spectacle. Its primarily a transfer of capital captured by the KSA to the US imo.

#2770
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
*launches last perfectly aimed Hellfire missile into mountain as it crumbles to reveal my new pencil factory* The theories of the pervert Marx have been proven wrong once again.
#2771
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: ~

cars posted:

Nikki Haley has no conscience. She's going to run for president of United States some day and win.







#2772
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
Maybe the biggest impact people will come to realize Trump's election had is, it greatly enabled even worse CIA/FBI interference in U.S. federal elections than before, in an unprecedented way, because Trump never held political office before becoming president. So the alphabet boys don't have to try to strong-arm a candidate who has their own national profile and established fund-raising clout, or play the game they failed to win with Trump where they wait until a potential rival's about to enter office and roll by beforehand to tell them to support all their ongoing shit or else.

Instead, in 2024 they can just run some podunk spook mayor against a former Trump official or whatever, and the press will say, Hey, at least everyone running is vastly over-qualified for the job, at least we finally have a choice between professionals who both know which browns, blacks and yellows to bomb, people who won't undermine our proud brave champions of democracy the CIA.
#2773
Post rating: ~
turkey is really desperate to do a genocide huh
#2774
Post rating: +
saudi proxies and emirati proxies started to fight each other in yemen lol
#2775
Post rating: ~
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/turkish-kurdish-war-syria-190812081414833.html

US and Turkey reached some sort of deal but not over a "safe zone"
#2776
Post rating: +
Turkey tried to send a military convoy through Idlib to support and re-arm the Al Qaeda orphan hospitals with antitank guided missiles, and to try to block the Syrians from cutting off and capturing several cities. Instead Syrian Air Force delivered the kebab and the army seized the highway to block their advance. A turkish army encampment will soon be under siege.

Updated map of the region from local sources:


#2777
Post rating: +
US is pulling out of Eastern Syria, looks like Turkey is going to invade. I bet the CIA is so pissed off right now
#2778
Post rating: +
i did nazi that coming
#2779
bb bourgeoisie
Post rating: +
I see a lot of people blaming Trump for this instead of acknowledging it as the inevitable result of maintaining an alliance with Turkey.
#2780
Post rating: +++++


I’m really committed to the theory that Trump is 100% lucid for a variety of reasons but also for the advantage that when he tweets gold like this, you can be sure of the fact that he’s intentionally enraging so many important higher up people in DC who are in reality way more stupid than he is.
#2781
Post rating: +++++
"To be honest with you, it would be better for the United States to support a Kurdish nation across Turkey, Syria and Iraq," said the National Security Council official. "It would be another Israel in the region."
#2782
bb bourgeoisie
Post rating: ~

MarxUltor posted:

"To be honest with you, it would be better for the United States to support a Kurdish nation across Turkey, Syria and Iraq," said the National Security Council official. "It would be another Israel in the region."



Well, they're not wrong.

#2783
bb bourgeoisie
Post rating: ~
Now I don't normally endorse ethnic cleansing, but the idea of making the 5'2" guy who made it twenty pages into Öcalan's Democratic Confederalism happy is making it really difficult to view this objectively.
#2784
Post rating: ~
Eugenics turns your brain into mush.
#2785
Post rating: +

dimashq posted:

I’m really committed to the theory that Trump is 100% lucid for a variety of reasons but also for the advantage that when he tweets gold like this, you can be sure of the fact that he’s intentionally enraging so many important higher up people in DC who are in reality way more stupid than he is.



that motherfucker is high as shit

#2786
lies half the time
Post rating: ~
in my great and unmatched wisdom. this dude has been working hard to make sure that no one takes him seriously but it hasn't paid off. he's just trying to see how far he has to push the envelope before he gets a bullet in the brain or loses popular support, whichevers worse
#2787
Post rating: ~
he ll soon tweet dickpics @ politicians he wants to fight
#2788
Post rating: ~
Turkey is invading now
#2789
Post rating: ~
I honestly didn't think Turkey was actually gonna do it tbh, I figured it was all just spectacle. How many Turkish soldiers are actually going be involved?
#2790
Online
Post rating: +

dimashq posted:

US is pulling out of Eastern Syria, looks like Turkey is going to invade. I bet the CIA is so pissed off right now


The US isn't actually leaving Syria, just pulling back to enable some genocide, err, demographic corrections, at the hands of Turkey. The US is still enforcing a partitioned Syria. We'll see if the Kurds and the Syrian state are able/allowed to make any progress toward a reunion.

#2791
Post rating: ~

ilmdge posted:

We'll see if the Kurds and the Syrian state are able/allowed to make any progress toward a reunion.



i dont see that happening tbh

#2792
e^πi + 1 = 0
Post rating: ~
what's turkey's goal here, other than to kill some kurds?
#2793
Post rating: ~

sparklefeather posted:

what's turkey's goal here, other than to kill some kurds?


You answered your own question.

#2794
Post rating: ~
Livestream from Turkish side of the border focused on Tel Abyad http://www.reuters.tv/l/PfIg/2019/10/09/turkey-gears-up-for-military-operation-in-syria
#2795
Post rating: +

sparklefeather posted:

what's turkey's goal here, other than to kill some kurds?


the plan is for turkey to release and rearm all those isis prisoners since the US has to keep up appearances

#2796
Black Belt
Post rating: +
Ive seen a lot of handwringing this last week about Turkeys latest invasion of Syria, and writing off the Syrian government entirely, some going so far as to say Syria wants Turkey to invade and take care of its 'Kurdish problem', ie the Syrian government wants Turkey to invade and commit genocide. This totally misses previous instances of Syrian Kurds working with the government to repel Turkey and its FSA puppets over the past few years and replaces analysis of social forces with a rather cartoonish and racist lens. Marcyites have lots of problems (I broke with them for a reason) but they tend to understand social dynamics of particular countries far better than Maoists or Anarchists do. Hopefully this will lead people to reassess their assumptions about the Syrian conflict, though the fact that this hasn't happened the last few times Syria allied with local Kurdish forces doesn't leave me hopeful.

english.almanar.com.lb/843295#

Damascus voiced readiness on Tuesday to welcome Syria’s Kurds back into the fold after Washington left them to face Turkish military threats alone.

Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad stressed that Damascus “will defend all Syrian territory, and will not accept any occupation of its land,” he told Al-Watan newspaper.

The official said Kurdish groups have been “tossed aside” by Washington, after US President Donald Trump on Monday gave Turkey a green light to press ahead with its planned military operation.

“The nation welcomes all its children and Damascus will solve all problems in Syria in a positive manner, away from violence,” Mekdad said, vowing to take back all Syrian territory.

“We advise those who have gone astray to return to the nation, because the nation is their final destiny,” he added, encouraging Syria’s Kurds to reconcile with the government.

Ankara has threatened an offensive in Syria against Kurdish militias and US forces on Monday pulled back from Turkish border areas, opening the way for an invasion President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said could come at any moment.

Mekdad said that Kurdish militias in Syria were being “played” by Washington.

#2797
Post rating: ~
i don't know how accurate this is but there are rumours that the syrian government has refused to send any help. it wouldn't make sense to allow turkey to sweep in, freeing all those IS goons to add to their already considerable jihadi proxy invasion forces, but it seems like so far damascus doesn't want any part of it.
#2798
Post rating: ~
the syrian foreign ministry just denounced ypg as pawns of yanks and that there will be no dialogue or anything
#2799
Post rating: +
very skeptical that this is an example of the US "walking away" and not, you know, the yanks deploying a fellow NATO army to carry out an invasion and balkanization plan they themselves currently lack the political will and capital to do, but have been desperate to implement, and have tried to in a variety of ways including via the SDF, for more than 10 years. cars talk of how the CIA smuggled a coup attempt in broad daylight got me thinking about this.

wait for talk to go to "well we don't like what turkey did but we'll need to work with the cards we're dealt"

Edited by ghostpinballer ()

#2800
Post rating: +
they walked 30km away