[Cid_Yama]

None of that is true. Those forces entered Iraq from Turkey. There is the anonymous source saying came to REPLACE trainers of Kurds. But... If you were Kurdish, and Turkey was killing Kurds in Syria, how likely would Kurds embrace them in Iraq.

Also we know where they went. To a Bathist camp led by a Turk ally. Sunnis. If there were trainers there they were training IS. Most likely they are a support group, since they brought armor with them, not something trainers do, to assist IS in Mosul.

Certainly not something Western powers would want known, and would work to cover up. Definitely something the Western media wouldn't report.

And something the US would distance itself from. The US would not distance themselves from a NATO ally carrying out a training mission the US had announced it planned to do.

Just so happens, Iraqis, backed by Shia militias, Iranians, and US 'advisors' have been massing for an attack on Mosul. Coincidence? I don't think so.

[dissident]

Washington lets Turkey invade Syria and Iraq on a regular basis. Hopefully Erdo-turd loses a good amount of tanks and men when he stages his next invasion of Syria. This maggot needs to be put down.

[Cog]

None of that is true. Those forces entered Iraq from Turkey. There is the anonymous source saying came to REPLACE trainers of Kurds. But... If you were Kurdish, and Turkey was killing Kurds in Syria, how likely would Kurds embrace them in Iraq.

Also we know where they went. To a Bathist camp led by a Turk ally. Sunnis. If there were trainers there they were training IS. Most likely they are a support group, since they brought armor with them, not something trainers do, to assist IS in Mosul.

Certainly not something Western powers would want known, and would work to cover up. Definitely something the Western media wouldn't report.

And something the US would distance itself from. The US would not distance themselves from a NATO ally carrying out a training mission the US had announced it planned to do.

Just so happens, Iraqis, backed by Shia militias, Iranians, and US 'advisors' have been massing for an attack on Mosul. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Obviously the State Department should have done better background checks in your case.

[Subjectivist]

How long until the government of Iraq formally asks Russia for aid? How will Putin react if that happens? How will America react? Russia was the arms supplier of Iraq and Syria before the First Gulf War when Saddam invaded Kuwait. I don't think Putin would mind getting that whole sphere of influence back.

[AgentR11]

I think that is still a ways off. Mosul's not going anywhere.

[Synapsid]

Cid Yama,

You're correct that the force entered from Turkey not Iraqi Kurdistan; that was my slip. As to Turkey training Peshmerga in Iraqi Kurdistan, that statement raised my eyebrows for the very reason you give, but I passed along what the sources said.

Turkey does discriminate between the Iraqi and the Syrian Kurds, Erdogan having said that the latter are a greater threat than ISIS is. Turkey has been fighting the Iraqi Kurds in Turkey, with incursions into Iraq to bomb them, so I'd expect they'd be thought as objectionable as the Syrian Kurds are, but it looks like that isn't the case. I don't understand the reasoning. But I mentioned on another thread that for the past couple of years Erdogan has seemed to me to display a sense of entitlement that gets in the way of reason when he gets his dander up.

[Cid_Yama]

How long until the government of Iraq formally asks Russia for aid?

Russia has been providing aid to Iraq since June 2014, when Russia sent aircraft to Iraq.

Russian Jets and Experts Sent to Iraq to Aid Army

Iraqi government officials said Sunday that Russian experts had arrived in Iraq to help the army get 12 new Russian warplanes into the fight against Sunni extremists.

The Russian move was at least an implicit rebuke to the United States, which the Iraqis believe has been too slow to supply American F-16s and attack helicopters — although the United States is now in the process of providing both.

“In the coming three or four days the aircraft will be in service to support our forces in the fight” against the insurgents of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, said Gen. Anwar Hama Ameen, the commander of the Iraqi Air Force, referring to five SU-25 aircraft that were flown into Iraq aboard Russian cargo planes Saturday night, and two more expected later Sunday.

link


from this October:

Iraq invites Russian military aid to fight ISIS

Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Thursday that he would welcome a deployment of Russian troops to Iraq to fight ISIS forces. In an American television interview, he added that such an intervention would not only help his country but also give Moscow the chance to deal with the approximately 2,500 Chechen Muslims who he said are fighting with ISIS in Iraq.

link


Iraq leans toward Russia in war on Islamic State

Iraq may request Russian air strikes against Islamic State on its soil soon and wants Moscow to have a bigger role than the United States in the war against the militant group, the head of parliament's defense and security committee said on Wednesday.

“In the upcoming few days or weeks, I think Iraq will be forced to ask Russia to launch air strikes, and that depends on their success in Syria," Hakim al-Zamili, a leading Shi'ite politician, told Reuters in an interview.

The comments were the clearest signal yet that Baghdad intends to lean on Russia in the war on Islamic State after U.S.-led coalition airstrikes produced limited results.

Russian military action in Iraq would deepen U.S. fears that it is losing more strategic ground in the region as Russia weighs in behind President Bashar al-Assad with airstrikes in Syria and Iran holds deep sway in Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said he would welcome Russian airstrikes on Islamic State militants in Iraq and powerful Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias hope for a partnership with Russia to counter U.S. influence.

"We are seeking to see Russia have a bigger role in Iraq. ... Yes, definitely a bigger role than the Americans," Zamili said.

Shi'ite militias, long mistrustful of the United States, see Russia's intervention as an opportunity to turn the tables.

Russia's drive for more clout in the Middle East includes a new security and intelligence-sharing agreement with Iran, Iraq and Syria with a command center in Baghdad.

"We believe that this center will develop in the near future to be a joint operation command to lead the war against Daesh in Iraq," said Zamili, using a derogatory Arabic acronym for Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS or ISIL.

Washington has been pressuring Abadi to rein in Shi'ite militias, angering fighters seen as a bulwark against the ultra-hardline Sunni Islamic State, the biggest security threat to oil producer Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein since 2003.

"‬The Russian intervention came at the right time and right place and we think it will change all rules of the game not only in Syria but in Iraq also," said Muen al-Kadhimi, an aide to Hadi al-Amiri, the most powerful Shi'ite militia leader.

"The government has been relying heavily on an untrustworthy ally, which is the United States, and this fault should be fixed."

"There’s a need to create a new coalition and force that is actually effective on the ground and performs the actual goal of fighting Daesh," said Mohammed Naji, another aide to Amiri.

“There is a serious discussion and inquiry into requesting the Russian air forces to conduct air strikes against Daesh positions in Iraq."

link

[Cid_Yama]

From 2014:

Ankara may deny helping ISIS, but the evidence for this is overwhelming. "As we have the longest border with Syria," writes Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a Turkish newspaper columnist, "Turkey's support was vital for the jihadists in getting in and out of the country." Indeed, the ISIS strongholds not coincidentally cluster close to Turkey's frontiers.

Kurds, academic experts and the Syrian opposition agree that Syrians, Turks (estimated to number 3,000), and foreign fighters (especially Saudis but also a fair number of Westerners) have crossed the Turkish-Syrian border at will, often to join ISIS. What Turkish journalist Kadri Gursel calls a "two-way jihadist highway," has no bothersome border checks and sometimes involves the active assistance of Turkish intelligence services. CNN even broadcast a video on "The secret jihadi smuggling route through Turkey."

Actually, the Turks offered far more than an easy border crossing: they provided the bulk of ISIS' funds, logistics, training and arms. Turkish residents near the Syrian border tell of Turkish ambulances going to Kurdish-ISIS battle zones and then evacuating ISIS casualties to Turkish hospitals. Indeed, a sensational photograph has surfaced showing ISIS commander Abu Muhammad in a hospital bed receiving treatment for battle wounds in Hatay State Hospital in April 2014.

One Turkish opposition politician estimates that Turkey has paid $800 million to ISIS for oil shipments. Another politician released information about active duty Turkish soldiers training ISIS members. Critics note that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has met three times with someone, Yasin al-Qadi, who has close ties to ISIS and has funded it.

Why the Turkish support for wild-eyed extremists? Because Ankara wants to eliminate two Syrian polities, the Assad regime in Damascus and Rojava (the emerging Kurdish state) in the northeast.

Regarding the Assad regime: "Thinking that jihadists would ensure a quick fall for the Assad regime in Syria, Turkey, no matter how vehemently officials deny it, supported the jihadists," writes Cengiz, "at first along with Western and some Arab countries and later in spite of their warnings."

Regarding Rojava: Rojava's leadership being aligned with the PKK, the (formerly) terrorist Kurdish group based in Turkey, the authoritative Turkish journalist Amberin Zaman has little doubt "that until recently, Turkey was allowing jihadist fighters to move unhindered across its borders" to fight the Kurds.

More broadly, as the Turkish analyst Mustafa Akyol notes, Ankara thought "anybody who fought al-Assad was a good guy and also harbored an "ideological uneasiness with accepting that Islamists can do terrible things." This has led, he acknowledges, to "some blindness" toward violent jihadists. Indeed, ISIS is so popular in Turkey that others publicly copy its logo.

In the face of this support, the online newspaper Al-Monitor calls on Turkey to close its border to ISIS while Rojava threatened Ankara with "dire consequences" unless Turkish aid ceases.

In conclusion, Turkish leaders are finding Syria a double quagmire, what with Assad still in power and the Kurdish entity growing stronger. In reaction, they have cooperated with even the most extreme, retrograde and vicious elements, such as ISIS. But this support opened a second front in Iraq which, in turn, brings the clash of the Middle East's two titans, Turkey and Iran, closer to realization.

link

[Tanada]

For a long time Turkey was seen as a 'moderate' Islamic country because since the end of WW I they have worked more often than not to do business with the European and North American NATO countries even before NATO was formed. Because of their location controlling both ends of the passage into and out of the Black Sea they have been engaged in trade for going on two thousand years, if not longer. To engage in trade requires a lot of tolerance, or at least a lack of intolerance.

However over the last 25 years they have felt very safe and secure with the threat of their historical enemy, the USSR/Russia from actually having direct border contact with them. Since the Ottoman branch of the Islam took over Turkey and its subject states. From 1300 until 1918 the Ottoman Turks fought a LOT of wars with Russia and the Balkan states, not to mention other European powers. From 1918-1973 they tried pretty hard to maintain peace because they did not want to lose any more territories, but in 1974 they invaded Cyprus and that situation remains unresolved even 41 years later. I recently saw photos from an underground parking garage in Northern Cyprus, the area occupied by Turkey, where there are still cars parked in 1974 and abandoned for all this time. Cyprus was kind of like Lebanon, the Mediterranean vacation spot for the moderately wealthy. Since the invasion it has had no tourist trade and billions of dollars worth of fancy hotels became basically worthless overnight. To say this causes a lot of unpleasant feelings would be a gross understatement, but with both Greece and Turkey being NATO members a lot of pride was swallowed to maintain the alliance against the USSR and since December 1991 against Russia.

However with the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 it looks to me as if Turkey started moving towards a much more fundamentalist and less secular country. Elements that had been carefully suppressed for generations were allowed to surface and grow much stronger.

There is certainly Anti-Americanism in Turkey and it has increased substantially after 9/11. Many polls conducted on Anti-Americanism show this fact clearly. For example, a poll conducted in 2006 in Turkey showed that 69% of Turkish people have a negative view of American influence in the world, 20% higher than the year before. [vi]

It is certain that favorability of US has been decreasing in Turkey.[vii] Although American favorability increased in 2004 by about 10 percent, it then continued to decrease. One poll conducted in 2007 emphasized that the most Anti-American nation is Turkey with only 9% of the surveyed population favoring the USA.[viii] Another study shows that in Turkey, where favorable views of the USA have declined markedly over the past seven years; opinions of Americans have fallen sharply as well. In 2002, this research indicates, positive opinions of Americans declined 19 points in Turkey.[ix] A final study highlights that Turkey is the nation which most dislikes the American ideas of democracy and liberal capitalism.

http://www.e-ir.info/2009/08/30/anti-am ... since-911/

It looks to me as if Turkey has completed its 'transformation' in that while it needed USA/NATO help when the USSR was directly on its border it no longer feels that it need us to be any part of their defense plans. This was strongly demonstrated in 2003 when despite repeated requests and not insubstantial offers of the diplomatic nature Turkey refused to allow the US Army to invade Iraq through its territory. Turkey also refused to join the 'coalition of the willing'. While I do not think the war against Iraq turned out well at the time I and the majority of Americans supported the invasion. Unlike John McCain I learned from our mistakes invading Iraq, but unfortunately TPTB in my government made similar mistakes interfering within Libya, Egypt and Syria.

This has further driven a wedge between the USA and Islamic countries that see us as an outside aggressor willing to destroy any government we disagree with in the Muslim world if it suits TPTB purposes. Add to this the fact that our leaders can not have been uninformed about how ISIS has been selling its captured oil while simultaneously proclaiming we are fighting to destroy ISIS and the Assad regime.

This makes the USA look either foolish, or weak, or possibly both. Nature abhors a vacuum and so does world leadership. Whether citizens think the USA should be more isolationist or more internationally aggressive they are likely unhappy with the USA looking weak and vulnerable.

[Cid_Yama]

More like arrogant, greedy, deceptive, liars. Exploitative. Caring about no one but themselves, and what THEY want.

That doesn't come across as weak and vulnerable. More like the Norse god Loki as depicted in the Thor and Avenger movies. Especially when we always present ourselves as wanting to help. Only for them to discover, that what we really wanted was to help ourselves to whatever they had.

Now I know people like Cog tend to see those as positive traits, and it's a pretty good description of how the Western Elite have been operating of late, but generally, people don't like people like that.

The problem for people like that, is that eventually their victims see past the deceptions.

And now that the whole world has gotten smaller, it's easier to see the pattern of behavior, and the con doesn't work anymore.

What the Western Elite haven't learned is, There is no such thing as the never-ending Con.

It all comes down to if you are good people or not. For those who see no value in being good, eventually, everyone stops seeing value in you.

[onlooker]

Good reply Cid. Yes for too long the US empire has acted every bit as ruthless as any past empire. Only they have done it in furtively, disguising their true intentions with empty slogans borne of the founding ideals of the US. Yes "US wants to make the world safe for democracy" when in fact it is the opposite. They have been the champions of corporations, banks and the wealthy in their pursuit of power and money. All at the expense of the masses of working people of the world and of the Earth. So yes, Cid is absolutely right, the world has all awoken to the true nature of the beast. Now I will preface all this by saying their are also despicable people and governments in other countries obviously. However what I think we wish to emphasize here, is how the elites especially the top 1% have hijacked the US, to use its military and its other assets including economic to pervert any fairness or egalitarian makeup, to help create a world totally ruled by money, exploitation, vested interest, greed and pure rule of might. One can notice this in the vast market in military hardware, in the special organizations created to oversee this system such as the IMF, World Bank, World Trade Council. Also, in secretive groups such as the Bildenberg group, the Council of Foreign Relations and even the Free Masons and Skull and Bones. Also, the economic system created that entertains Banks accumulating vast wealth via fiat money, compound interest and Fractional Reserve banking. Finally, the Stock markets of the US and other rich countries serving as a tool to manipulate the economy and enrich the already rich and the Central banks installed pretty much in every country which are private banks owned by extremely wealthy families such as the Rothchilds. So in summary, the hijacking of the US has facilitated the deeply dysfunctional world we live in.

[AgentR11]

I like our bankers. I think they're performing their job well. So I will defend them when attacked.

From a policy PoV; what I care about, fundamentally, and never, ever take for granted, is the process by which a calorie farmer borrows some money, plants a crop of grain across many fields, measured in square miles, harvests it, delivers it, and is paid sufficiently to cover the loan, interest, operational costs, as well as some profit for himself. And that the distributor / processor is able to receive that grain, make it into "stuff" whether twinkies or specialty 'whole" wheat flour, and get it on the shelf such that each person involved in the chain got paid their wages, costs were paid, and the items on the shelf can be purchased by someone quite poor in quantities sufficient to provide 3,000 kcal/person/day.

No one in America starves through simple lack of finance. There are still problems many face with regard to food, but those problems need to be addressed directly with personal assistance, counselling, education.

That that is true is not the result of some magical property of "being American"; it is the property of a functioning, responsive financial system.

*not to suggesting regulation/taxation and lots and lots of auditing of financial systems is bad, just rather, that these guys are not the enemy of industrial civilization. They are the guys that allow it to function smoothly and profitably.

[Synapsid]

Cid Yama,

Article in Bloomberg/oil and gas today, on Turkey in Iraq. If all is accurate then Turkish troops really have been training Peshmerga fighters in Iraq, and Arab fighters too.

A key statement is that Ankara gets along just fine with Barzani's regional Kurdistan government--it's just the PKK and the Syrian Kurds' movements that are targets.

The things we can learn from unidentified senior Turkish officials!

[Tanada]

Based on the picture in this piece Turkey has deployed 20 of its 860 M-60 Patton tanks to Mosul in support of the 'Kurdish' forces it is training there. Just one little problem, the national Iraq government does not recognize the rights of the Kurds to control Mosul and the oil fields around it.

Turkey will have a permanent military base in the Bashiqa region of Mosul as the Turkish forces in the region training the Peshmerga forces have been reinforced, Hürriyet reported.

The deal regarding the base was signed between Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani and Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioğlu, during the latter’s visit to northern Iraq on Nov. 4.

At least 150 Turkish soldiers, accompanied by 20-25 tanks, were deployed to the area by land late on Dec. 4, Anadolu Agency reported.

Turkish army sources told Anadolu Agency on Dec. 5 that they had been training fighters across four provinces in northern Iraq to fight ISIL.

According to the military, the Peshmerga forces have been trained for fighting with homemade explosives, heavy machine guns, mortars, artillery and also received first-aid training.

More than 2,500 Peshmerga, including high-ranking officers, have attended the Turkish training, the military added.

The KRG’s deputy Peshmerga minister, Major General Karaman Kemal Omar, said that the training given by Turkish soldiers made a huge contribution to an operation by Iraqi Kurdish forces to retake Sinjar district from ISIL on Nov. 12.

Sinjar is a town located 120 kilometers west of Mosul with an Ezidi majority. It fell to ISIL in August 2014.

For more than two years, Turkey has had a group of soldiers in Bashiqa, located 32 kilometers north of Mosul, which is under Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) control. The soldiers have been training the Peshmerga forces and other anti-ISIL groups.

Some 150 Turkish soldiers and 20 tanks were deployed to the base to take over the mission from the 90 soldiers who have been in the region for two years.

A statement from the Iraqi prime minister's media office confirmed that Turkish troops numbering "around one armed battalion with a number of tanks and cannons" had entered its territory near Mosul without request or permission from Baghdad authorities. It called on the forces to leave immediately.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkis ... sCatID=352

[careinke]

I like our bankers. I think they're performing their job well. So I will defend them when attacked.

From a policy PoV; what I care about, fundamentally, and never, ever take for granted, is the process by which a calorie farmer borrows some money, plants a crop of grain across many fields, measured in square miles, harvests it, delivers it, and is paid sufficiently to cover the loan, interest, operational costs, as well as some profit for himself. And that the distributor / processor is able to receive that grain, make it into "stuff" whether twinkies or specialty 'whole" wheat flour, and get it on the shelf such that each person involved in the chain got paid their wages, costs were paid, and the items on the shelf can be purchased by someone quite poor in quantities sufficient to provide 3,000 kcal/person/day.

Why do you assume farmers have to take out loans?? Trust me smart farmers don't.

[ROCKMAN]

It’s interesting that for more than 14 months the US and other NATO countries had little to say about who was buying the oil that they knew was being stolen by ISIS. But now that the news of the Turks facilitating the process has become rather public the US et al want to talk about Assad and the Kurds buying the stolen oil. And: “Oh yeah, the Turks bought some too.” LOL. But once again the US govt can’t stop digging the hole it’s in: so all this time they knew Assad, who we are actively try to dispose, has been buying stolen Iraq oil and we did nothing to stop it until recently???

In one of the most detailed public explanations of Islamic State's oil trade, U.S. Treasury Department official Adam Szubin said militants were selling as much as $40 million a month of oil at the installations which was then spirited on trucks across the battlelines of the Syrian civil war and sometimes further. "ISIL is selling a great deal of oil to the Assad regime," Szubin, acting under secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence with the Treasury, told an audience at Chatham House in London. "The two are trying to slaughter each other and they are still engaged in millions and millions of dollars of trade," Szubin said of Assad's government and Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. The "far greater amount" of Islamic State oil ends up under Assad's control while some is consumed internally in Islamic State-controlled areas. Some ends up in Kurdish regions and some in Turkey, he said. "Some is coming across the border into Turkey," Szubin said when asked for details on the money trail.”

{“Some”…that’s really nailing down the details. LOL. Too bad they didn’t bother to ask about the flow of weapons and fighters across the Turk border into Syria given it’s the only access point.}

"Our sense is that ISIL is taking its profits basically at the wellhead and so while you do have ISIL oil ending up in a variety of different places that's not really the pressure we want when it comes to stemming the flow of funding - it really comes down to taking down their infrastructure," he said.

{IOW we don’t really want to focus on who’s buying the oil but go after the producing infrastructure.}

After Turkey downed a Russian fighter jet last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had intelligence that large amounts of oil and petroleum products were moving across the border from Islamic State territories to Turkey. The son of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has denied Russian allegations that he and his family were profiting from the illegal smuggling of oil from Islamic State-held territory. "There is no question that better security, closing the Turkish border to flows is a key component right now and we are looking to the Turks to do more in that respect," Szubin said.

{So the Turks, with the second largest army compared to all the NATO nations, couldn’t control their border but now they might be able to help US efforts to do so. The US which currently has no plans to put it troops on the Turk border.}

"It's not just a financial issue - it is about foreign terrorist flows, it's about weapons and it's about financing. I think securing that border would pay major dividends in terms of intensifying the pressure and also reducing the threat."

{So after more than a year of ISIS support coming across the Turk border the US govt thinks a bit more border security might be beneficial to fighting ISIS. Absolutely brilliant…if a tad late. LOL. }

[AgentR11]

Why do you assume farmers have to take out loans?? Trust me smart farmers don't.

Small farmers are irrelevant to the calorie production system used by the West.
Sorry.

My message was quite specific, even pointed out the minimum scale.. fields measured in square miles.

[ROCKMAN]

"My head is spinning - Turkey is willing to bomb some Kurds, but in other areas will help train their forces." As they say: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. What better way to stay up on Kurd intelligence then to bed with them...if the Turks are actually embedded with the Kurds or are just in the same area.

[Synapsid]

ROCKMAN,

Now we can start speculating about the German soldiers training Peshmerga fighters in Kurdistan.

It seems to be the thing to do.