ThePest179

http://www.iraqinews.com/baghdad-politics/urgent-malikis-state-law-coalition-threatens-bypass-constitution-use-federal-court-secure-3-term-prime-minister/

Just what we need! A motherfucking Yanukovich! In the middle of a civil war! Is there anything Maliki won't do to screw Iraq as much as he can?

http://thepunditpress.com/2014/08/10/breaking-military-coup-rocks-iraq/

Apparently not!

So you consider a lack of reports to equate to a lack of militants?

When nobody even tries to say "it was just collateral damage!" except Israel, then it can be inferred there weren't militants.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11024037/Iraq-crisis-It-is-death-valley.-Up-to-70-per-cent-of-them-are-dead.html

Oh my God...FUCK!

So much for the Yazidis...

How do you know there were no militants?

Because there were no independent reports to suggest so.

2116 -The 197th Intifada starts in Palestine.

You don't understand what the term "human shields" covers obviously.

 

A human shield is when anyone uses the threat of non-combatant casualties as a deterrent for conflict... Firing rockets from densely populated civilian areas easily qualifies.

Does the use of human shields by Hamas excuse the Israelis for shelling a beach and killing four children, or shelling a hospital and UN school (all of which involved no militants or rockets)?

How is it impossible?

Because the amount of human shields needed to get the casualty figures shown would need to be at least a hundred for each rocket, possibly more, and that's not even factoring in the possibility that rockets can be moved. And add that to the fact that the article Doom showed only showed Hamas firing from civilian areas (still a war crime but not human shields).

Actually yes, that can account for ALL of those deaths if you aren't biasing your opinion.

That is impossible. Some, certainly, but to say all is simply denying Israel has committed war crimes.

This is how Hamas intentionally sets Palestinian civilians up to be killed in retaliatory strikes in Gaza.

True, Hamas is using Palastinian civillians, but there is no possible way that this accounts for a large amount (at least 50%) of other civilians that died, like the kids playing at the beach, and the hospital, and the UN school.

Also I love how you two are defending what amounts to forcing people onto resrrvations, as if they were cattle. And Doom, we all know how Yugoslavia and Gaza are so simillar to each other, right?

Oh joy.

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/isis-attacks-in-syria-and-iraq-may-be-emerging-genocide/

Fuck. That's all I have to say. Fuck.

EDIT: http://news.yahoo.com/iraqi-militants-seize-countrys-largest-dam-112119380.html

EDIT2: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/08/world/middleeast/obama-weighs-military-strikes-to-aid-trapped-iraqis-officials-say.html?emc=edit_na_20140807&nlid=59334722&_r=1

Please let this aid through.

EDIT3: http://abcnews.go.com/International/obama-authorizes-air-strikes-iraq/story?id=24884633

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/07/world/iraq-options/

http://rt.com/usa/179108-us-military-new-airstrikes-iraq/

Thank God.

Pineapple!

Apple or orange?

The slaughter refers to the hellish air campaign. And the mass evictions are not much better, it's ethnic cleansing.

Ok, how many casualties have occurred?

Out of 1,800 people dead, over 1,100 (and possibly more) are Palestinian civilians.

Also, doesn't everyone know that there are very few locations on the planet (and even in the USA) where two different (or even extremely similar) religions can get along 'en masse' without violence? How is separating two groups (ethnic cleansing) that will pretty much inevitably turn to trying to wipe each other out be that horrible?

You're trying to defend it! Can't you see that this will only cause more Palestinians to join extremist groups? They've been marched out of their homes at gun point, any body that had that happen to them would want revenge.

They tried that.

Bullshit. I don't believe you for a second.

As far a the 'slaughtering', I thought you said they were simply moving them, not killing them.

The slaughter refers to the hellish air campaign. And the mass evictions are not much better, it's ethnic cleansing.

That's too easy. Taxes. On you.

Cheese or geese?

So, what is the best solution given the current circumstances?

Since removing the blockade against Gaza isn't an option, I would have to say the status quo, unfortunately. Except instead of Israel slaughtering civilians with reckless abandon, they could use Mossad and Special Forces to take out rockets.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person talking in this thread.

http://news.yahoo.com/two-dead-gunmen-storm-lebanon-police-post-151048116.html

News about the spillover in Lebanon.

EDIT:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/04/world/middleeast/fighters-from-syria-kill-lebanese-soldiers-in-battle-over-border-town.html?_r=1

EDIT2: http://news.yahoo.com/jihadists-capture-key-syrian-army-082942692.html

And Assad only has Western Syria left.

Even the Kurds, the best equipped and led force in the region, is faltering against ISIS. FUCK!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/03/us-iraq-security-idUSKBN0G20FU20140803

EDIT: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/Jul-31/265570-hezbollah-commander-killed-in-iraq.ashx#axzz38psNrkDa

Hezbollah too. Good God.

EDIT2: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/03/us-iraq-security-idUSKBN0G20FU20140803

More news from the Kurds.

EDIT3; http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/04/us-iraq-security-idUSKBN0G40ZY20140804

Kurds gearing up for a counteroffensive.

So what you're saying is that a currently infeasible solution is the only one that can fix the problem, and the one they're trying now can't possibly work?

Yes. Neither side would agree to a deal that would leave them better off, no matter how much you try to convince them. They just won't agree. Ever.

And therein lies the problem, so as far as I can see, Israel is doing what they can to stop terrorist attacks on civilian targets.

I must say to you that unless freedom of movement and an end to the blockade comes, they will join those terrorrists in droves, and have been for quite a while. I also must say that Israel wouldn't accept what I propoeed, either out of fear or hate, but they wouldn't accept it.

At this point in the game the two state solution is dead.

I have noticed a change of tone in the recent coverage of ISIS in the media. I think that we are being prepared to accept that "ISIS will be there to stay" and "they are a bit extreme but not that bad, actually" and "maybe we'll just have to talk to them".

 

With Putin being the official Scarecrow No.1 and Israel causing continuing embarrassment for the West we don't want our attention drawn to an obvious failure of a 10-year long military adventure in a far away country, do we?

 

Regards

A certain amount of political pundits would declare that the Iraq War was almost won were it not for Obama. Hell, I thought that way for a while, until the very obvious faults of the war were pointed out to me on a different forum.

As to whether ISIS is here to stay or "not that bad", ISIS probably will be around for a while; the immense dissatisfaction with the Gulf monarchies, the extremism bred by the Arab Spring, and the reputation ISIS has gained, means Western intervention would do little to them in the long run.

Not bad for a group which has been compared to the Khmer Rouge and Boko Haram.

http://www.rferl.org/content/iraq-deadly-clashes/25478952.html

Reports are coming in that Shia militias are almost as inefficient as their Iraqi Army counterparts*, and of course there's still the ethnic cleansing attitude that they're taking. Not good by any stretch of the imagination.

*This incompetence is not mentioned in the article.

EDIT: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/iraq/article4164627.ece

Definitely worrying when the Saudis can't trust their own troops.

And what do you propose would fix the problem? I'm not arguing, I'm just asking if you know of any way that will actually work to both side's advantage, and won't compromise either to the terrorists.

Well we're going to need to end the blockade, open some borders, etc., but we're also going to need Hamas to negotiate or simply stand down. In any case, there probably isn't a solution to the problem, there's too much hatred between both sides and the two state solution has died with the Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

People make mistakes... A country is just a bunch of people... Israel makes mistakes, and this may be one of them, but maybe it isn't... We can't know for sure until time has passed.

Mistake or no, it's criminal.

You never know, but they were also buried with munitions, so what about that aspect? A few hundred 1000lb bombs would be fairly devastating if modified to be carried by a rocket.

Screw the rocket, they could divide that into suicide and car bombs (both of which still haunt Bagdad).

I think they just want those people out far enough that it's easier to make a DMZ and add an AMS to their border to reduce the rocket damage.

But this removes everyone in that area from their homes, creating a large mass of unemployed refugees, and the extra people added to the rest of Gaza increases its population density, causing more casualties and "collateral damage", intentional or not.

This is a war crime.