RedMaistre posted:On a tangential note, its interesting that there are people out there who both bemoan the defeat of Reconstruction and Sherman's March to the Sea.
on a side note it's kind of sad Sherman tainted his anti-slavery rep by taking part in genocide against Native Americans in the Western US.
RedMaistre posted:"Nice" how that article fails to distinguish between a siege conducted by government fighting a civil war within its own territory and one conducted by an illegal occupying power, as is the case in Gaza.
national sovereignty justifies things from an international legal perspective but not necessarily from a moral perspective. i worry that relying too much on such an argument could be used to justify atrocities by US allies within their own territory.
it needs to be noted that Syria is beating back a sectarian proxy force, heavily armed by the US and its allies, that wants to punish it for insufficient subservience to US interests, which are usually against the interests of most of humanity. Israel, OTOH, is a sectarian settler state that treats its Arab inhabitants as subhuman as a matter of official policy and is blockading and bombing Gaza for not peacefully accepting its status as an isolated Bantustan.
HenryKrinkle posted:the interests of most of humanity
humanity has interests?
HenryKrinkle posted:simply meant that a US dominated order is worse for a majority of the population in most third world countries.
Fwah you are brilliant, aren't you?
swirlsofhistory posted:Fwah you are brilliant, aren't you?
HenryKrinkle posted:simply meant that a US dominated order is worse for a majority of the population in most third world countries.
are socialists utilitarians?
That is why it is important (1) to establish what is the status under international law of any given conflict; (2) to ascertain the objective social character of the forces in question, which can sometimes (but not always) trump legality; and, finally (3) to be be forthright about what values we wish to see victorious in this world. The 3rd is particularly important, because precise, irreplaceable human life will be snuffed out whatever happens, making it all the more important that we be clear about what direction we want to take.
Edited by RedMaistre ()
As of the writing of this piece, the two sides are still in an intense stand-off. Ashur is worried, but firm in his resolve. "I know that death can come for me or other Christians at any moment," he said. In December of 2015, Ashur was supposed to be at one of the bombed restaurants, the Miami, playing cards with his friends. His life was spared, because at the last minute something came up that kept him at work. Ten people were killed at the Miami restaurant that night, his card-playing friends among them."
http://www.aina.org/news/20160122201612.htm
It seems that the units' image began shifting even before Abadi’s decision. Karim al-Nuri, the group's spokesman, told Al-Monitor, “Thousands of Sunni fighters joined the ranks of the Popular Mobilization Units months ago.” He described their presence as positive and necessary and said, 'We believe that areas must be liberated by their residents, who know the geography and details relating to the people who joined the ranks of IS, and know information about the organization’s locations and weapons caches.'
Nuri added, 'Sunni volunteers are nothing like some Sunni politicians who are trying to discourage the morale of the fighters in the war against terrorism and offend some of them. believe in the importance of defending their homeland.' "
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/01/iraq-sunnis-join-shiite-popular-mobilization-forces.html#ixzz3xRY2m3si
Interested in what’s happening in the Assyrian and Chaldean communities around the world? One valuable source is the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA), co-founded in 1995 by Peter BetBasoo. AINA is a non-profit organization that informs non-Assyrians about the Assyrian voice.
BetBasoo was born in Baghdad and immigrated to the United States in 1974. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Geology, Music and Computer Science, and was the co-founder of the Ashurbanipal Library in 1986. Editorial intern Linda Jaboro conducted the following interview.
Chaldean News (CN): How do you feel about the war in Iraq?
Peter BetBasoo (PB): AINA has no opinion on the Iraq war.
CN: How do you think the mainstream media is covering the war?
PB: Personally speaking, there appears to be a liberal, anti-war bias in the mainstream media.
not that the YPG is above criticism, but this seems like an odd source.
RedMaistre posted:
A large number of national surveys have been conducted in Iraq over the decade since the U.S. invasion, between 2003 and 2013, and some of the results are as follows, in averaged estimates:
1. Support for the idea that Iraq would be a better place if religion and politics were to be separated has grown among Sunnis from 60 per cent in 2004 to 81 per cent in 2013. They have obviously drawn some lessons from the rule of the sectarian militias and the consequent mass killings. The ISIS, with its freshly minted caliphate, is supposed to represent these people, “the Sunni community” as mediatic discourse calls them. Among the Shias, such percentages are lower but still hover around 50 per cent.
2. Recognition of Iraqi identity as primary—and religious, sectarian or even Arab identity as secondary—was 22 per cent among Sunnis in 2004 but rose to 80 per cent in 2008. Among the Shias the corresponding figures are 28 per cent in 2004 and 72 per cent in 2007. On both sides of the supposed sectarian divide, the sense of a secular national identity of Iraqiness has grown dramatically precisely during the years when a sectarian Constitution, with mandatory sectarian affiliation of political parties, was being imposed by the Americans and large-scale sectarian violence was getting organised. Only among the Kurds was a sense of Iraqi national identity quite weak, but then, interestingly, their militia, the Peshmargas, visualise themselves as a “national” Kurdish militia, not a religious-sectarian one.
3. In a national survey conducted in 2011, 86 per cent among the Sunni Arabs, 75 per cent among the Shias, and 91 per cent among the Kurds preferred a government that obeyed people’s wishes over one that enforced the Sharia. The same applied when it came to the choice of leaders, with secular nationalist leaders preferred over religious ones by that same overwhelming margin.
4. Around 90 per cent of both Shias and Sunnis do not want to have Americans as their neighbours. After the sanctions, the invasion, the occupation, and the destruction of their country, this shared sentiment makes sense.
5. Interestingly, a much lower percentage but still a majority of both Shias and Sunnis do not want Iran as a neighbour either. This sentiment is harder to interpret. I am persuaded to believe, however, that the sentiment has to do with bitter memories of the Iran-Iraq war in which, as predictable patriots, they blame Iran (justly or not). It is also conceivable that as an overwhelmingly secular population, they do not particularly like Irani clerical regime and its religion-ridden world view.
These figures are an extraordinary tribute to a people who have been subjected to such extremes of sectarian violence and manipulation and have yet persisted in their modern, secular, nationalist beliefs. They are also a tribute to the persistence of deeply ingrained civilisational values that were greatly strengthened during the republican period and which survived even so brutal an invasion and the fraternal genocides that were deliberately unleashed soon thereafter.
http://www.frontline.in/cover-story/mother-of-all-battles/article6185067.ece
HenryKrinkle posted:Interested in what’s happening in the Assyrian and Chaldean communities around the world? One valuable source is the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA), co-founded in 1995 by Peter BetBasoo. AINA is a non-profit organization that informs non-Assyrians about the Assyrian voice.
BetBasoo was born in Baghdad and immigrated to the United States in 1974. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Geology, Music and Computer Science, and was the co-founder of the Ashurbanipal Library in 1986. Editorial intern Linda Jaboro conducted the following interview.
Chaldean News (CN): How do you feel about the war in Iraq?
Peter BetBasoo (PB): AINA has no opinion on the Iraq war.
CN: How do you think the mainstream media is covering the war?
PB: Personally speaking, there appears to be a liberal, anti-war bias in the mainstream media.not that the YPG is above criticism, but this seems like an odd source.
Concern understood, though aren't too many news org out there that focus specifically on Assyrian issues.
And, in my eyes, the claims in question wouldn't be particularly damning accusations against the YPG, considering the the context of the Syrian Civil War or the geopolitical odds faced by the Kurdish cause in general. It only disappoints if one buys into the wide-eyed hype by liberals and ultra-left that put the Kurds in Syria on a (not entirely unearned) pedestal relative to all the other groups trying to survive in that region.
orchestra_hit posted:RedMaistre posted:
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/01/iraq-sunnis-join-shiite-popular-mobilization-forces.html#ixzz3xRY2m3si
A large number of national surveys have been conducted in Iraq over the decade since the U.S. invasion, between 2003 and 2013, and some of the results are as follows, in averaged estimates:
1. Support for the idea that Iraq would be a better place if religion and politics were to be separated has grown among Sunnis from 60 per cent in 2004 to 81 per cent in 2013. They have obviously drawn some lessons from the rule of the sectarian militias and the consequent mass killings. The ISIS, with its freshly minted caliphate, is supposed to represent these people, “the Sunni community” as mediatic discourse calls them. Among the Shias, such percentages are lower but still hover around 50 per cent.
2. Recognition of Iraqi identity as primary—and religious, sectarian or even Arab identity as secondary—was 22 per cent among Sunnis in 2004 but rose to 80 per cent in 2008. Among the Shias the corresponding figures are 28 per cent in 2004 and 72 per cent in 2007. On both sides of the supposed sectarian divide, the sense of a secular national identity of Iraqiness has grown dramatically precisely during the years when a sectarian Constitution, with mandatory sectarian affiliation of political parties, was being imposed by the Americans and large-scale sectarian violence was getting organised. Only among the Kurds was a sense of Iraqi national identity quite weak, but then, interestingly, their militia, the Peshmargas, visualise themselves as a “national” Kurdish militia, not a religious-sectarian one.
3. In a national survey conducted in 2011, 86 per cent among the Sunni Arabs, 75 per cent among the Shias, and 91 per cent among the Kurds preferred a government that obeyed people’s wishes over one that enforced the Sharia. The same applied when it came to the choice of leaders, with secular nationalist leaders preferred over religious ones by that same overwhelming margin.
4. Around 90 per cent of both Shias and Sunnis do not want to have Americans as their neighbours. After the sanctions, the invasion, the occupation, and the destruction of their country, this shared sentiment makes sense.
5. Interestingly, a much lower percentage but still a majority of both Shias and Sunnis do not want Iran as a neighbour either. This sentiment is harder to interpret. I am persuaded to believe, however, that the sentiment has to do with bitter memories of the Iran-Iraq war in which, as predictable patriots, they blame Iran (justly or not). It is also conceivable that as an overwhelmingly secular population, they do not particularly like Irani clerical regime and its religion-ridden world view.
These figures are an extraordinary tribute to a people who have been subjected to such extremes of sectarian violence and manipulation and have yet persisted in their modern, secular, nationalist beliefs. They are also a tribute to the persistence of deeply ingrained civilisational values that were greatly strengthened during the republican period and which survived even so brutal an invasion and the fraternal genocides that were deliberately unleashed soon thereafter.
http://www.frontline.in/cover-story/mother-of-all-battles/article6185067.ece
Sounds like they're beginning to appreciate liberal secular democracy.
Mission accomplished.
Infantry Weapons
US arms shipment to Syrian rebels detailed
Jeremy Binnie, London and Neil Gibson, London - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly
08 April 2016
Documents released by the US government's Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) website have provided an indication of the types and numbers of Eastern European weapons and ammunition the United States is providing to Syrian rebel groups as part of a programme that continues despite the widely respected ceasefire in that country.
The FBO has released two solicitations in recent months looking for shipping companies to transport explosive material from Eastern Europe to the Jordanian port of Aqaba on behalf of the US Navy's Military Sealift Command.
Released on 3 November 2015, the first solicitation sought a contractor to ship 81 containers of cargo that included explosive material from Constanta in Romania to Aqaba.
The solicitation was subsequently updated with a detailed packing list that showed the cargo had a total weight of 994 tonnes, a little under half of which was to be unloaded at Agalar, a military pier near the Turkish town of Tasucu, the other half at Aqaba.
The cargo listed in the document included AK-47 rifles, PKM general-purpose machine guns, DShK heavy machine guns, RPG-7 rocket launchers, and 9K111M Faktoria anti-tank guided weapon (ATGW) systems. The Faktoria is an improved version of the 9K111 Fagot ATGW, the primary difference being that its missile has a tandem warhead for defeating explosive reactive armour (ERA) fitted to some tanks.
scan of full article here:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/images4/janes-syria.jpg
FBO solicitation:
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=75a019c141a8a522dd4214a65706ea71&tab=core&_cview=1
http://archive.is/6XJBw
PDF of "Packing List":
https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=9fa5bce521ed010067a091cae0fe83bc
https://ceinquiry.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/n32205-16-r-3352_packing_list.pdf
Edited by HenryKrinkle ()