[Sixstrings]

So I would spare yourself all this unnecessary public display of outrage.

And I would say to you again that it ain't all about money. Some things are just wrong and need to be opposed.

Not everything is relative.

These ISIS don't have a right to run around like the mongol horde. And we've done so much to culturally modernize the islamic world, we cannot allow ISIS with their caliphate and their wannabe Saladin to turn that back.

These violent crazy fundies are enemies of the united states, they're dangerous, ISIS is full of psychopaths. That's what normally calm boring journalists say about these guys, they're actual psychopaths. By muslim fundamentalist standards, even. So that's saying something.

Even AQ is opposing them, because they're too brutal. Which is a whole other topic -- AQ is at war with ISIS now so who do we support there. The irony. It's like ancient times -- like we are Rome, and some Germanic tribes are brutal and then some others are even more barbaric, and meanwhile what we've got to do is whack-a-mole the worst of them first and then eventually civilize them all, to ensure our safety and peace.

[americandream]

Who is going to oppose them. You with your sandwich board? Good luck, dude!!

[Sixstrings]

Who is going to oppose them. You with your sandwich board? Good luck, dude!!

If ISIS starts growing, if it gets legs, if that leader of theirs becomes some kind of Saladin and fundies across the Saudi border and across the other borders start liking him, then that's a red alert big problem.

That's the Glenn Beck "the coming future islamist caliphate" nightmare come true.

So if that happens AD, then I'd support war with my vote.

[americandream]

Who is going to oppose them. You with your sandwich board? Good luck, dude!!

If ISIS starts growing, if it gets legs, if that leader of theirs becomes some kind of Saladin and fundies across the Saudi border and across the other borders start liking him, then that's a red alert big problem.

That's the Glenn Beck "the coming future islamist caliphate" nightmare come true.

So if that happens AD, then I'd support war with my vote.

I am typing this SLOWLY for you.

NOTHING can withstand the globalisation of capital other than natural limits to its continuation. No man made civil system based on reason or superstition will withstand it. Those in power know this and are a darned sight more sanguine about ISIS or any other acronym from alphabet soup land.

[Keith_McClary]

Why we stuck with Maliki — and lost Iraq
Longish WAPO article by insider involved in Bush-Cheny Machiavellian meddling in Iraq. It seems that if only Obama had taken ALI KHEDERY's advice to dump Bush's stooge Maliki and replace him with a better stooge, all would be well.

Ali Khedery is chairman and chief executive of the Dubai-based Dragoman Partners. From 2003 to 2009, he was the longest continuously serving American official in Iraq, acting as a special assistant to five U.S. ambassadors and as a senior adviser to three heads of U.S. Central Command. In 2011, as an executive with Exxon Mobil, he negotiated the company’s entry into the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

[Sixstrings]

I am typing this SLOWLY for you.

NOTHING can withstand the globalisation of capital other than natural limits to its continuation. No man made civil system based on reason or superstition will withstand it. Those in power know this and are a darned sight more sanguine about ISIS or any other acronym from alphabet soup land.

You're a trip. You're a capitalist making good money off capitalism, yelling at me to accept that capitalism is dead. Or something like that.

I agree with Picketty -- capitalism isn't evil or dead or wrong, it just needs some regulation so that the rich don't have it all. More income equality. It's that simple. Read his book. It's not even a problem of peak oil or peak anything, or automation, or free trade deals. It's a policy choice and we need policies more like Australia and New Zealand and the problem would be solved.

As for capitalism's evil march across the planet -- I hope you are right, ASSUMING it's spreading civilization and our values and NOT Putin dictatorship.

As long as the good stuff goes with the money, the western civilization part, then that's fine. I'd rather live in a world of banksters than crucifixions.

(and AD I know your overall issue, that the planet's limited resources mean capitalism is dead, I just disagree with you in that we may as well have human rights and civilization for as long as we can)

[americandream]

And I ask you, who is going to regulate it? An electee to office. Yeah..right. So you are going to elect someone to office to regulate a system run by people who can buy and sell you many million times over.

I bet you are one of these guys who are happy to work all their lives flipping widgets 9 to 5, only to receive the gold watch at retirement with breathless gratitude.

Whatever floats your boat, dude.

[Sixstrings]

And I ask you, who is going to regulate it? An electee to office. Yeah..right. So you are going to elect someone to office to regulate a system run by people who can buy and sell you many million times over.

I bet you are one of these guys who are happy to work all their lives flipping widgets 9 to 5, only to receive the gold watch at retirement with breathless gratitude.

I've had a few of those kinds of jobs. Got laid off, in cold-hearted mergers, acquisitions, and downsizing. Three times, three different corporations. You're right, unbridled capitalism is heartless and not in society's overall good -- it needs some regulation.

It needs some workers' rights laws like Australia and New Zealand has.

It needs a little bit of common sense nationalism, the way Germany looks out for Germans. And they never offshored their manufacturing.

You want me to agree with you that problems are unfixable -- and you get angry when I won't agree with you, meanwhile you are from one of the top nations in the world doing things the right way. So why aren't YOU happy? That's what I wonder! NZ is the place where oligarchs have their doomsteads.

I like Pickety's book. These problems can be fixed. Everyone that says they can't is just kicking sand in the air.

EDIT: how did we get off on this in the Iraq thread?

[Sixstrings]

The ISIS caliph addresses a mosque in mosul, from the pulpit as caliph, calling on muslims to follow him as their leader and that he's going to return the islamic world to "dignity, might, rights and leadership."

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi addresses Muslims in Mosul

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, emerged from the shadows to lead Friday prayers at Mosul’s Great Mosque, calling on the world’s Muslims to “obey” him as the head of the caliphate declared by the Sunni jihadist group.

The notoriously secretive jihadi, who has never before been seen in public, chose the first Friday prayer service of Ramadan to make an audacious display of power in the city that the Sunni Islamists have now controlled for three weeks.

Speaking from the balcony in his new incarnation as self-anointed “Caliph Ibrahim”, al-Baghdadi announced himself as “the leader who presides over you”, urging Muslims to join him and "make jihad" for the sake of Allah.

Under his direction, the Islamic world would be returned to “dignity, might, rights and leadership”, he said.
“I am the wali (leader) who presides over you, though I am not the best of you, so if you see that I am right, assist me,” he said, dressed in a black turban and robe reminiscent of the last caliphs to rule from Baghdad.

...

Others decried the Islamic State - formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Isis) - as terrorists.

The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, regarded by many to be the leading authority on Sunni Islamic thought, “believes that all those who are today speaking of an Islamic State are terrorists,” his representative, Sheikh Abbas Shuman, told AFP earlier this week.

“The Islamic caliphate can’t be restored by force. Occupying a country and killing half of its population... this is not an Islamic state, this is terrorism,” he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10948480/Islamic-State-leader-Abu-Bakr-al-Baghdadi-addresses-Muslims-in-Mosul.html

[Plantagenet]

The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, regarded by many to be the leading authority on Sunni Islamic thought, “believes that all those who are today speaking of an Islamic State are terrorists,” his representative, Sheikh Abbas Shuman, told AFP earlier this week.

“The Islamic caliphate can’t be restored by force. Occupying a country and killing half of its population... this is not an Islamic state, this is terrorism,” he said.

The Al-Azhar mosque is in Cairo Egypt, and so is under the control of General Sisi, who is currently imprisoning every member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

All this means is that SISI is opposed to ISIS.

[americandream]

You're too emotional six...understandable as it seems you have had a raw deal in employment. However, nationalism's days are over. Let me put it like this, if you were a business owner, would you keep jobs simply out of a charitable sense for your countrymen or would you ensure profitability so as you can grow and get richer by offshoring.

It's all abour persepctive. That is capitalism. As a working man, you can only expect so much of an employer...the rest is up to you. If you want decency, as in a job for life, then you will have to fight for that privilege or else learn to make money using your own initiative.

[Keith_McClary]

Al Qaeda-Iraq forces advance on Baghdad military air base. US ponders air strike ahead of Iran and Russia
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 4, 2014, 10:03 PM (IDT)

Al Qaeda Iraq (IS) and its Sunni tribal allies are advancing on the al-Muthanna military air base at Baghdad international airport, according to the latest intelligence dated Friday, July 4. Three columns, of 1,000-1,500 fighters each, are descending on their target from the north and the west in US-made armored Humvees and APCs taken booty from the Iraqi army.
The air field is situated 16 km west of central Baghdad. The Islamist State’s military planners, many of whom were officers in Saddam Hussein’s army - the president ousted in 2003 by the US invasion of Iraq – have calculated that there was no need at this stage to conquer the Iraqi capital.
Seizing the military air field will afford them control of Baghdad air space and provide a forward base for bombing forays in different quarters of the city. The Islamists count on support in the Sunni suburbs of West Baghad.
DEBKAfile’s sources also reveal that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made the fatal mistake of withdrawing his army’s 4th Division from the southern Shiite town of Karbala and deploying it in defense of Samarra 125 km north of Baghdad. By this maneuver, he cleared the way for the IS columns to press forward toward the al-Muthanna air base with no obstacles in their path.
This alarming development may well force President Barack Obama to hurry up and issue the order for air or missile operations to stop al Qaeda’s forces in their tracks. Most of this week, intense discussions were taking place in the White House and Pentagon. It appeared that a final decision was impending.
Thursday, July 3, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, left open the possibility of an expanded role for US military advisers in Iraq. Air strikes are one of the options, he said.
More than ever before, speed is of the essence.
IS’s commanders have their eye on the assault planes stored at the Baghdad air base which Iran and Russia delivered in the last 10 days to help Maliki fight the Sunni Islamists. They are all designed for striking ground targets. Iran sent eight fighters - four Su-25UBKMs and four Su-25Kms with crews, and the Russians six Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoots, along with air and ground maintenance crews.
Since al-Muthanna is guarded by Iraqi special forces, IS reckons that the takeover of the base and its valuable prize of warplanes before they become operational will be a walkover, especially after they proved their mettle by commandeering a mountain of advanced US weaponry.
The Obama administration therefore needs to decide in the coming hours on a US air strike that will head off the Iraqi Islamists before they grab the strategic air base and acquire their first fleet of warplanes.
It is just as important for Washington to embark on this action before America is beaten to the draw by Tehran or Moscow.

[Keith_McClary]

Iraq threatens to cut US ties as Russia jumps in

Sources close to Mr Maliki, who is under pressure from Washington to step down, say he could cancel the Strategic Framework Agreement with the US. The SFA, signed in 2008, outlines the terms for political, economic and security co-operation between Washington and Baghdad.

The document was intended to be the basis for a lasting relationship between the two countries, promoting peace, stability and democracy in Iraq. In return it granted the US a monopoly on defence contracts worth billions.

[Plantagenet]

The gomers in the Obama administration ignored countless warnings about ISIS and Iraq. They were so convinced they were right that they put their fingers in their ears and refused to hear anything that contradicted their point of view.

Obama ignored warning after warning on ISIS and Iraq


Sooo-prise Sooo-prise.

[Keith_McClary]

Could Saudi Arabia Be the Next ISIS Conquest?

If Saudi Arabia does become the next ISIS target, it may be even easier than the group’s push into Iraq. A groundswell of ideological support combined with wide-reaching corruption could pave the way for ISIS’ penetration into the country. Saudi Arabia, unlike Iraq, is almost 90 percent Sunni. Iraq’s growing resistance to ISIS comes largely via the swelling ranks of a Shiite militia, the Mahdi army, with Shiite fighters returning from Syria to defend their country against the radical Sunni insurgency that is sweeping the nation.
...
Saudi support for the ISIS traces back to the conflict in Syria. Approximately 1,000 and 2,000 Saudi nationals have been involved in fighting inside Syria, with several hundreds believed to have already returned home. The Saudi government in February issued a royal decree banning Saudis from fighting in foreign conflicts. Both the Syrian and Iranian governments have drawn attention to purported financial links between ISIS and Saudi Arabia in recent weeks. Syrian state media directly accused Saudi Arabia of funding ISIS in an editorial on June 12, while the Iranian leader President Hassan Rouhani made a thinly veiled reference to “Muslim countries that support the terrorists with their petrodollars” in remarks on the website of the Iranian state broadcaster in recent days.

According to some, ISIS already maintains a presence in the country and even has sympathizers in the Saudi military.
...
The Saudi armed forces issued a tacit admission in May that ISIS were already operating and recruiting within the kingdom when it called on the public to report any instances of publication or distribution of ISIS pamphlets.

Photos circulated on Twitter in March that purported to show Saudi military officers holding up signs of support for ISIS.

[Sixstrings]

You're too emotional six...understandable as it seems you have had a raw deal in employment.

That was years ago. And the flipside of that, is that I always got a better job after. I've never drawn unemployment in my life.

It is what it is, working life is more unstable in the US than Europe and some other places. The figures vary, but it's about 7 career / job changes in a working lifetime. I don't have proof that Europe isn't about the same, but I suspect they're more stable overall.

There are pluses and minuses to this modern economy -- different from the previous generations, those stable long term jobs with good company pensions. I know teachers and such, and others, who've had that kind of work their whole life -- and really their life experience is limited. At least it's been an interesting ride for me! It's fun to try different things, as long as you don't wind up in the poorhouse then it's a richer life experience overall. But yes I've been a bit unlucky with these mergers and acquisitions and corporate games, you invest a lot with a corporation and buying into the company line and being a company man and then one day some suit flies in from corporate and just fires everyone. Well, ok then!

Where people get into some trouble is when they get into their 40s and 50s and beyond. THEN a job loss is more devastating. Because suddenly they're out there competing with a bunch of younger guys that all need work too -- who's the company going to hire? The energetic young guy? Or the oldster with a bad back?

I know the world changed a long time ago, but there really was a time when workers made a commitment to a company for the long term, and the company was loyal in return.

I'm doing fine now AD, and I'm not the only one on this forum that's had career changes and been through some sh*t in my life, I'm sure you have as well. You are human after all.

AD I see things through an historical perspective. Situation in the US, this last decade especially, is just a cycle the US has been through before. The last stock market bubble financial economy, with real estate bubbles, and then a big crash after, was in the 1920s-1930s.

You say problems are unsolvable, but this sh*t has already all happened before, and people had to suffer a lot, suffer so much that they forced changed to happen and then reforms were passed. In the Great Depression, it took a veterans march on the capitol with them camping out to get some change. And then the people elected Franklin Roosevelt to do battle with the rich.

And the US made progress, that's how it goes, people are oppressed then they have enough of it and rise up and force change and then they get complacent and lose it all again and the cycle repeats.

That's just history man, it cycles over and over.

And I'm tired of arguing with you, it's toxic, and I don't even know what we argue about because you're a "communist" so how can you be against practical pro working / middle class policies. As far as I know NZ has these policies, so if you don't like them and want to be different then maybe you should be a conservative.

Pendulum can go too far either direction, maybe NZ is too socialist for all I know, but over here we need a "tad" more socialism.

***Regardless of anything else I may ever say on this forum and when I sound like a Republican, I firmly believe we need some more "socialism" over here with some common sense measures like doubling that minimum wage to lift all working class and middle class wages. That would just bring us up to what wages are supposed to be, they didn't keep up with inflation, the oligarchs got it all.

And I vote solid liberal, straight Democratic, down the line to county commission and dog catcher.***

[Sixstrings]

And let me tell you another thing AD,

while you just say problems are unsolvable and I guess you're a nihlist,

others that voted the right way and fought for practical solutions over here have caused some progress to happen. I may not be happy with Obama about everything, and I already had private insurance, but I'm happy that many people on this forum now have health insurance thanks to "liberal socialist" Obamacare.

While we just shoot the breeze on this forum about how unsolvable things are, we had forum members going without routine medical care. And now they have that.

I'm way off topic now, but Obamacare isn't perfect -- sounds like people on this forum have it, only person I know in my "real" life that needed it couldn't get it because there was some crazy upfront payment needed that he couldn't afford. That may be peculiar to my state.

So anyhow keep telling Americans things are hopeless and unsolvable, meanwhile some of us will keep caring and want things like universal healthcare and no more million dollar medical bills because you had a heart attack, then you've got to declare bankruptcy.

[Sixstrings]

Iraq threatens to cut US ties as Russia jumps in

Jesus H. Christ here we go again, outmaneuvered by Putin.

This geopolitical mess and what looks like the US outmaneuvered by Putin all the time is the ONLY thing that could get me ever pulling the lever for "R."

I do not like it, swing voters didn't like it with Carter either, and those Reagan Democrats voted Reagan and the rest is history.

Obama and Democrats need to get it together -- the proletariat wants good wages and healthcare and stuff, but we don't like existential angst about the world either, we do not like it, and no matter what anyone says on this forum it'll get a Republican elected if foreign policy is too much a mess and our president doesn't seem to know what he is doing.

Back to Russia -- their policy has just been to jump in wherever we're wavering or having problems, no matter where it is.

Russia doesn't even do anything for these places. They sell them weapons, but we do that too. But you never see the Russian air force or army actually intervening, directly. So how are we losing allies to Russia left and right? What are they offering that we don't?

This is why Ukraine is important. Russia gets takes a pawn from us, we gotta checkmate them, and Ukrainians like us anyway so we should be in there big. And Americans like Ukrainians more than Iraqis, it's a better match, and Crimea has offshore shale or oil or something / gas deposits. We can't fix an Iraq but we could fix Ukraine and get it aligned to our way of life and make a solid ally of it.

What I don't get is why Putin doesn't start making nice with the US, we've got a common problem with ISIS -- would make more sense to work with us. I guess he's making a move to push us out, and begin to add the middle east to the Russian sphere of influence.

EDIT: correction, Russia will help some places go nuclear, whereas we won't. And they just sell the weapons in exchange for loyalty, Russia doesn't meddle and talk about shia including sunnis in their gov, Russia doesn't give anyone human rights lectures, they just sell the weapons with no strings attached and that's how they've got Egypt now and I guess they'll be adding more in the middle east now.

[Ibon]

Iraq threatens to cut US ties as Russia jumps in

Jesus H. Christ here we go again, outmaneuvered by Putin.

This geopolitical mess and what looks like the US outmaneuvered by Putin all the time is the ONLY thing that could get me ever pulling the lever for "R."

Hmmm. let's consider a moment what a quagmire that region of the world is... a geopolitical mess as you say 6. Let Putin back in the region, he must have forgotten Afghanistan. For the US to pull completely out of the middle east and let China and Russia deal with it, since it is after all in their back yard, would be a great coup. Wash our hands of the whole region.

We could direct our imperialism to Venezuela, oust the leadership there, and back a pro US government there and put billions into developing their vast oil reserves.
Venezuelans, believe me, are alot easier to manage than middle eastern cultures.

WE need a new geopolitical orientation that thinks out of the box.

Let's go for it.

[Sixstrings]

This Russian development with Iraq is an interesting overall question for Westerners.

Would it actually be better to give up on "good guy" foreign policy?

Let Russia keep peace in the world by selling weapons and supporting dictators, with no strings attached arms deals?

And then we don't have to bother with it anymore?

It would have serious geopolitical long term risks though, actually ceding the middle east to Russia. And then dictatorship and the Putin Way spreads, and the middle east stops making progress toward becoming democratic and Western with more human rights, and the middle east just goes backward.

Then one day Russia has an empire again, and more powerful influence over Europe.

This is classic cold war gamesmanship here, there's Uncle Sama (Obama) trying to find a real solution and pushing Malaki out if he won't include Sunni's in the gov, so what's a Maliki going to do? He's got Russia probably offering no strings attached support, no good government lectures, no human rights lectures.

What do you guys think? If we're just tired of it all, we could just say screw it and let Russia lead a world of dictators and let them keep the peace that way. We could finally give up on being the do-gooders.