@Basar, I feel a great deal of empathy for you. I can't really imagine what it must feel like for a sane Turkish citizen to watch Erdogan ravage the country's politics/governance/society like this.
There's this Turkish fellow at my workplace who served in the military in the mid-late 2000s, then moved to the US around 2011. We occasionally talk about events in the Middle East, and I recently asked him if he he was concerned about Erdogan's erratic authoritarianism (most of his family remains in Turkey). He said he wasn't terribly concerned, because he was sure that "there will be a stop to it soon" (in reference to a military coup). This isn't a perspective I hear much nowadays, so I wonder if it's a result of him being out of the country for the last five years; maybe he underestimates the degree to which Erdogan has consolidated power.
Or maybe he's right and the Turkish deep state or military/intel community remains independently powerful, despite the Ergenekon trials and recent signs of a friendlier relationship between the military and Erdogan? It's very hard for an uninformed outside observer like myself to tell.
Kaputa, I don't think there's any chance of a military coup. I have a friend who is an airline pilot and was a squadron leader at Turkish Air Force. What he has told me is that during the Ergenekon crap, most of the senior commanding staff at all 3 arms of the the military were purged and it is highly unlikely for them to get back to their pre-Ergenekon organizational structure before 2030s.
In any case, to be completely frank, I don't want a military coup either. I would rather see Erdogan take the country to ruins so that people realize what he has done and revolt against him and the mentality he has brought than see a military coup take him down and him being hailed as a hero by some 40-50% of the people who voted for him (or AKP).
Maybe I am just too optimistic about the sanity of those who have brought him to power? :biggrin: :bigfrown:
No, I see your point. A post-military coup government could easily be as oppressive as Erdogan's, and the possibility of Islamist political factions turning violent as a result of being forcefully removed from power doesn't seem too far-fetched.
This thread actually had a somewhat heated debate on a similar topic back in 2013, when the Egyptian military ousted Mohammed Morsi in a coup and then banned/repressed the Muslim Brotherhood. Some felt that Morsi's government was bad enough/the MB was or is dangerous enough that the coup was a good thing, while others thought ousting Egypt's first democratically elected president was a bad thing regardless. I was firmly in the latter camp, and events in Egypt over the past couple of years mostly reinforced that opinion.
The ideal solution would of course be to vote Erdogan and the AKP out of power. But with their increasingly authoritarian governance, is that still a realistic possibility?
Also Basar is being too optimistic. Conservative Islamic government can never fail, only be failed.
Its just like Republicans in America Basar . You've seen what they did after 2012.
I dunno, if Turkey's economy were to deteriorate enough I don't think this would be guaranteed. I think rebellion as a general phenomenon is at least as closely tied to economics as to politics, although it would take a huge study to say that with any certainty.
Economics but also people getting their hopes up and then having that snatched away or look like it would be snatched away.
I've read a couple interesting stories about Jabhat an-Nusra lately. First is this mid-length article by Charles Lister, which argues that JaN is likely to attempt to declare/establish an emirate in Idlib province by the end of 2016. Lister is a fairly biased pro-rebel commentator (Brookings Institution, previously based in Doha, Qatar), so it's not surprising that his solution to this problem is to arm other rebel groups much more heavily. Despite my general disagreements with his opinions, I do regard him as well informed, but reading his article actually led me to the opposite conclusion than his own. He describes JaN pitching the emirate idea to various salafist and other conservative sheiks throughout Idlib and other areas, and receiving a strongly negative response. Afterward, they supposedly wanted a "military merger" with various other rebel factions in the north, but Ahrar ash-Sham (the other dominant group in the north, with a similar salafi ideology but not part of AQ) refusing due to JaN's refusal to drop its allegiance to Zawahiri. The article claims that various AQ senior leaders from other parts of the world traveled to Syria over the last couple of years to gauge the situation in relation to eventual plans for an emirate.
Lister also argues that ceasefires are bad for JaN, which gains its support by being a potent military force against the government. I definitely agree with him here. Interestingly, this article was written a couple of days before an attempted US/Russia brokered ceasefire in Aleppo broke down when various Islamist rebel factions led by JaN launched a major assault on government positions in South Aleppo - Lister explicitly warns that this is about to happen and claims that the assault is a JaN attempt to spoil any Aleppo truce.
And in today's (related?) news, al-Jazeera reports that AQ leader Ayman az-Zawahiri has given JaN his blessing to formally separate its organization from AQ. This news caught me off guard. If JaN follows through and formally separates, we could not only see closer relations between them and other rebel groups (especially Ahrar al-Sham), but also potentially more arms/support from Turkey and Qatar (and perhaps KSA). It makes sense that JaN would want to do this; their allegiance to AQ brought them some foreign fighters, but has overall been a liability for them in terms of intra-rebel politics and the willingness of foreign powers to back rebel forces. We've State Department spokespeople stumble and stutter as they try to explain why we're on al-Qaeda's side against the Syrian government/Russia; if JaN separates they may no longer have to do this.
So the idea that al-Jolani might want JaN to publicly separate from al-Qaeda doesn't surprise me. The part I don't really understand is also the part I find most interesting what are az-Zawahiri and AQ's core leadership's plans? JaN may be al-Qaeda's most powerful affiliate. Its presence gives al-Qaeda a major foothold in a geopolitically important area and keeps them in the global headlines. Control of the Levant is integral to AQ's long terms plans (those plans aren't terribly realistic all told, but still). Why separate from such an important part of your global project? Perhaps JaN would continue to work toward AQ's goals despite formally withdrawing from the organization? Or maybe AQ cares less about whether al-Jolani takes orders from az-Zawahiri and more about whether Syria is governed by a salafist interpretation of sharia, and is willing to sacrifice the former for the latter. Or perhaps they think JaN's plans for an emirate declaration in the near term could actually succeed if the other salafists didn't regard it as an AQ project.
@Basar, I feel a great deal of empathy for you. I can't really imagine what it must feel like for a sane Turkish citizen to watch Erdogan ravage the country's politics/governance/society like this.
There's this Turkish fellow at my workplace who served in the military in the mid-late 2000s, then moved to the US around 2011. We occasionally talk about events in the Middle East, and I recently asked him if he he was concerned about Erdogan's erratic authoritarianism (most of his family remains in Turkey). He said he wasn't terribly concerned, because he was sure that "there will be a stop to it soon" (in reference to a military coup). This isn't a perspective I hear much nowadays, so I wonder if it's a result of him being out of the country for the last five years; maybe he underestimates the degree to which Erdogan has consolidated power.
Or maybe he's right and the Turkish deep state or military/intel community remains independently powerful, despite the Ergenekon trials and recent signs of a friendlier relationship between the military and Erdogan? It's very hard for an uninformed outside observer like myself to tell.
@Kaputa, I don't think there's any chance of a military coup. I have a friend who is an airline pilot and was a squadron leader at Turkish Air Force. What he has told me is that during the Ergenekon crap, most of the senior commanding staff at all 3 arms of the the military were purged and it is highly unlikely for them to get back to their pre-Ergenekon organizational structure before 2030s.
In any case, to be completely frank, I don't want a military coup either. I would rather see Erdogan take the country to ruins so that people realize what he has done and revolt against him and the mentality he has brought than see a military coup take him down and him being hailed as a hero by some 40-50% of the people who voted for him (or AKP).
Maybe I am just too optimistic about the sanity of those who have brought him to power? :biggrin: :bigfrown:
No, I see your point. A post-military coup government could easily be as oppressive as Erdogan's, and the possibility of Islamist political factions turning violent as a result of being forcefully removed from power doesn't seem too far-fetched.
This thread actually had a somewhat heated debate on a similar topic back in 2013, when the Egyptian military ousted Mohammed Morsi in a coup and then banned/repressed the Muslim Brotherhood. Some felt that Morsi's government was bad enough/the MB was or is dangerous enough that the coup was a good thing, while others thought ousting Egypt's first democratically elected president was a bad thing regardless. I was firmly in the latter camp, and events in Egypt over the past couple of years mostly reinforced that opinion.
The ideal solution would of course be to vote Erdogan and the AKP out of power. But with their increasingly authoritarian governance, is that still a realistic possibility?
Also Basar is being too optimistic. Conservative Islamic government can never fail, only be failed.
Its just like Republicans in America @Basar . You've seen what they did after 2012.
@Rchanen , no, I am not optimistic at all. Unfortunately even though I am too young (32) to have seen the past coups, what I've read and heard from many older people with whom I share the same political view, Islamists always go clandestine after coups and they work their way towards hitting back stronger. I don't want to look as if I discriminate against Muslims but the sad truth is Islam and Western values such as democracy, freedom of speech and generally all commonly accepted human rights don't go along well together. The best thing to describe my feelings is to quote from the Seinfeld episode in which George's mother is considering separating from his father and says "she's out there" so when she discusses it with George, he says "You're not out there! You can't be, because I am out there. And if I see you out there, there's not enough voltage in this world to electroshock me back into coherence!". They just can't coexist so the West should stop trying to make a modern example of how democracy can work in a predominantly Muslim society and leave them to go full barbarians. And of course get me a green card so I am not left behind among them :biggrin:
i live in a country with a batshit crazy president and no, english is not my first language
Maj-Gen Yair Golan said on the eve of Thursday's annual Holocaust Day that he detected trends in Israeli society suggestive of "nauseating processes" that occurred in 1930s Nazi Germany.
Mr Netanyahu said the comments were outrageous, cheapened the Holocaust and caused harm to Israel.
Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said he had "total confidence" in Gen Golan.
"If there's something that frightens me about Holocaust remembrance it's the recognition of the nauseating processes that occurred in Europe in general, and particularly in Germany, back then - 70, 80 and 90 years ago - and finding signs of them here among us today in 2016," the deputy chief of staff said on Wednesday.
"There is, after all, nothing easier and simpler than hating the foreigner... arousing fears and terrifying."
Thomas Joscelyn of The Long War Journal offers a very different analysis of az-Zawahiri's speech than that of the al-Jazeera English article I posted above, and one that makes much more sense to me. His recent series of twitter posts hits the nail on the head, more concisely than the LWJ article:
Zawahiri repeats al Qaeda's longstanding position on Syria. Al Qaeda (Nusra) will cease to exist when a proper Islamic emirate is formed.
Zawahiri says he is reiterating his previous position. If the people of Syria set up a true Islamic government, then AQ will serve it.
Zawahiri: If the people of Syria (meaning jihadists, *not popular democracy*) choose a ruler who oversees a real Islamic gov't then AQ won't stand in the way and will follow that ruler, because AQ doesn't want to rule only serve Islamic gov't.
Zawahiri's message is being misinterpreted because people don't understand AQ's "popular" revolutionary model for waging jihad.
Qatar and others desperately want Nusra to say it isn't AQ anymore, making it easier to support jihad against Assad. So some of the misinterpretation of Zawahiri's message is baked into the "analysis" of Syria, given regional actors' agendas.
If Joscelyn's read is accurate (and I believe it to be), that Charles Lister article I posted about JaN trying to establish an emirate in the near future may be more accurate than I had thought. At the same time, I'm not sure how much JaN formally leaving AQ would reduce the opposition of local religious leaders and other Islamist rebel factions to the salafist emirate project.
Maj-Gen Yair Golan said on the eve of Thursday's annual Holocaust Day that he detected trends in Israeli society suggestive of "nauseating processes" that occurred in 1930s Nazi Germany.
Mr Netanyahu said the comments were outrageous, cheapened the Holocaust and caused harm to Israel.
Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said he had "total confidence" in Gen Golan.
"If there's something that frightens me about Holocaust remembrance it's the recognition of the nauseating processes that occurred in Europe in general, and particularly in Germany, back then - 70, 80 and 90 years ago - and finding signs of them here among us today in 2016," the deputy chief of staff said on Wednesday.
"There is, after all, nothing easier and simpler than hating the foreigner... arousing fears and terrifying."
I've been saying this for a couple years now.
nice to see high level people inside Israel starting to recognize it.
Islamic State and the Assad regime in Syria have been colluding with each other in deals on the battleground, Sky News can reveal. New letters obtained by Sky News, in addition to the massive haul of 22,000 files handed over last month, appear to confirm this:
An agreement with the Syrian regime to withdraw IS weapons from Palmyra.
A deal between IS and Syria to trade oil for fertiliser and;
Arrangements to evacuate some areas by Islamic State forces BEFORE the Syrian army attacked.
All appear to be pre-agreed deals and suggest direct evidence of collusion between the Syrian regime and Islamic State chiefs.
I find this a little hard to swallow? A bit too convenient? I suppose it's possible.
I mean its really just a reflection of how insane and fragmented the whole region is. Assad needs oil, and with sanctions buying is difficult, and so when ISIS takes an oil refinery hes going to try and get oil from them. Its largely a reflection of the silliness of warfare than anything like collusion
I mean its really just a reflection of how insane and fragmented the whole region is. Assad needs oil, and with sanctions buying is difficult, and so when ISIS takes an oil refinery hes going to try and get oil from them. Its largely a reflection of the silliness of warfare than anything like collusion
Yeah, this. I don't really see it as a sinister Assad plot so much as IS extrorting the Syrian state for its own oil.
Maj-Gen Yair Golan said on the eve of Thursday's annual Holocaust Day that he detected trends in Israeli society suggestive of "nauseating processes" that occurred in 1930s Nazi Germany.
Mr Netanyahu said the comments were outrageous, cheapened the Holocaust and caused harm to Israel.
Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said he had "total confidence" in Gen Golan.
"If there's something that frightens me about Holocaust remembrance it's the recognition of the nauseating processes that occurred in Europe in general, and particularly in Germany, back then - 70, 80 and 90 years ago - and finding signs of them here among us today in 2016," the deputy chief of staff said on Wednesday.
"There is, after all, nothing easier and simpler than hating the foreigner... arousing fears and terrifying."
I've been saying this for a couple years now.
nice to see high level people inside Israel starting to recognize it.
Inevitably accusations of antisemitism go around whenever this comes up. Which is why I'm always careful to accuse the Likud party of hatred and fearmongering and not just Israel in general.
"Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
0
Options
CorehealerThe ApothecaryThe softer edge of the universe.Registered Userregular
I'm not really that surprised by Golan's comments. He like many of his peers knows which way the wind is blowing in their society, like the Shin Bet directors who have spoken out in recent years to criticize the way various Knesset coalition governments, left and right, have failed to capitalize on promise of peace that Rabin died for or who have reversed from it more or less wholesale, and the resulting direction their country is headed generally. It's only unusual in how clear and uncoded his language is expressing disgust with their right wing militancy compared to their own, leveled statements in interviews and documentaries.
I think the military and Mossad establishment in Israel in particular has known about the tragic and brutal reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for a very long time, since they've had generations come and go through their apparatus over the years who have had to deal with it's consequences most directly and clean up it's messes. They don't have the privilege of ignorance when facing the reality of the situation when they deal with Palestinians every day, and they endure it out of loyalty to their homeland and inertia. That ignorance is the privilege of the Ultra-Orthodox, the conservative right, the politicians like Netanyahu and Naftali who benefit politically from constant security crisis, and the military industrial establishment that simply profits from the special relationship with the US.
There are definitely stupid mindsets like that in the military and intelligence as well for sure, but on the whole I get the sense, especially from their leadership but also from the conscripts and forces at the checkpoints, that they know what the actual long term solutions to these constant problems are but are always held back by the demands of the conservatives and the politicians that represent them. These elements of their society and government prop up the worst excesses of their continuing conflict and either genuinely don't understand what they do and are causing for the long term or don't care to. And their future and international relations suffer as a result.
I mean its really just a reflection of how insane and fragmented the whole region is. Assad needs oil, and with sanctions buying is difficult, and so when ISIS takes an oil refinery hes going to try and get oil from them. Its largely a reflection of the silliness of warfare than anything like collusion
Yeah, this. I don't really see it as a sinister Assad plot so much as IS extrorting the Syrian state for its own oil.
3 or so years ago, a popular rallying cry of the Syrian opposition was of a "secret nonaggression pact" between the Islamic State and Damascus. And in a sense, such a thing happened--as much as Syrian government forces had to negotiate, for example, passage for their supply lines through area nominally controlled by Salafist-aligned forces. The Syrian opposition was doing it too (the "moderates" with American cheerleaders, not obvious opposition forces like Al-Nusra). The clandestine pact, if there was one, was between certain fronts of the Syrian military and Rojava (of varying degrees of effectiveness).
EDIT: Shit, even the Pentagon of all people admitted their own prize fighters, the NSF, gave truckloads of NATO-supplied guns and ammunition to Al-Nusra for passage. The Pentagon, as in "The rebels used Saarin? Hu-wah?" Pentagon. It's very easy to imagine this sort of thing happens all the time--the obstacle is, among many groups (including the Islamic State specifically) government-aligned forces have such a legendarily bad reputation that it discourages the sort of informal dealmaking you see otherwise. That doesn't necessarily translate to the highest levels of leadership who are negotiating resource deals.
I mean its really just a reflection of how insane and fragmented the whole region is. Assad needs oil, and with sanctions buying is difficult, and so when ISIS takes an oil refinery hes going to try and get oil from them. Its largely a reflection of the silliness of warfare than anything like collusion
Yeah, this. I don't really see it as a sinister Assad plot so much as IS extrorting the Syrian state for its own oil.
3 or so years ago, a popular rallying cry of the Syrian opposition was of a "secret nonaggression pact" between the Islamic State and Damascus. And in a sense, such a thing happened--as much as Syrian government forces had to negotiate, for example, passage for their supply lines through area nominally controlled by Salafist-aligned forces. The Syrian opposition was doing it too (the "moderates" with American cheerleaders, not obvious opposition forces like Al-Nusra). The clandestine pact, if there was one, was between certain fronts of the Syrian military and Rojava (of varying degrees of effectiveness).
EDIT: Shit, even the Pentagon of all people admitted their own prize fighters, the NSF, gave truckloads of NATO-supplied guns and ammunition to Al-Nusra for passage. The Pentagon, as in "The rebels used Saarin? Hu-wah?" Pentagon. It's very easy to imagine this sort of thing happens all the time--the obstacle is, among many groups (including the Islamic State specifically) government-aligned forces have such a legendarily bad reputation that it discourages the sort of informal dealmaking you see otherwise. That doesn't necessarily translate to the highest levels of leadership who are negotiating resource deals.
Yeah, I've heard the "Assad is helping Islamic State" argument many times over the years. Less so nowadays than a couple of years ago, though.
It is true that, during some periods of the civil war, fighting between the government and rebels and between the rebels and IS was much fiercer than fighting between IS and the government, but this is mainly because IS's strategy during those periods was to infiltrate and slaughter their way into control of poorly defended rebel territories, which were easier targets than most government held territory. Meanwhile, even as IS rolled over rebel territory in the east, the rebels as a whole still prioritized their battle against the government, with many groups trying to avoid "fitna." As it turns out, IS makes it pretty much impossible to avoid fitna, and I think all of the rebels have realized this by now. And even if the intensity of fighting has varied, IS has fought the government consistently throughout the war, and has treated captured SAA soldiers brutally.
I do think the government regards the rebels as more of a threat/priority to defeat than IS, which, from a military perspective, is really their only option (just look at the map).
There were occasional reports of the Syrian Air Force bombing rebels while they were in the midst of battles with IS, but I don't know how confirmed those are. If true, the "rebels are more of a threat" calculus is still sufficient to explain their actions, but that's pretty ruthless nonetheless. Not that the Syrian government is lacking in ruthlessness or anything.
Hah, their source is "al-Masdar News," essentially Leith al-Fadel's blog (though I guess he's gotten a few other writers by now) posing as a news site. Leith is an especially annoying pro-Syrian government propagandist who is known for frequently making inaccurate claims.
This could be verified pretty easily, though; I'm curious.
edit - okay, al-Masdar's source is this article, but the page isn't loading for me right now
Maj-Gen Yair Golan said on the eve of Thursday's annual Holocaust Day that he detected trends in Israeli society suggestive of "nauseating processes" that occurred in 1930s Nazi Germany.
Mr Netanyahu said the comments were outrageous, cheapened the Holocaust and caused harm to Israel.
Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said he had "total confidence" in Gen Golan.
"If there's something that frightens me about Holocaust remembrance it's the recognition of the nauseating processes that occurred in Europe in general, and particularly in Germany, back then - 70, 80 and 90 years ago - and finding signs of them here among us today in 2016," the deputy chief of staff said on Wednesday.
"There is, after all, nothing easier and simpler than hating the foreigner... arousing fears and terrifying."
I've been saying this for a couple years now.
nice to see high level people inside Israel starting to recognize it.
Inevitably accusations of antisemitism go around whenever this comes up. Which is why I'm always careful to accuse the Likud party of hatred and fearmongering and not just Israel in general.
The problems with Israel run deeper than just one party. To say such is disingenuous at best and dangerous at worst.
Its problems are from many corners, From religious extremism of the Hasidic population corrupting politics with regressive and dangerous ideas, to a successful campaign of othering that results in people partying when new bombing campaigns are launched against gaza/Palestine with cheers and hollers for every detonation, to an institutional racism at most levels against Palestinians that has basically created a system of law that treats Jews separately, and better, than everyone else, regardless of citizenship.
And these problems have existed for a long time, some of which all the way back to damn near the founding.
The only reason people can even think to blame Likund is because international opinion has shifted to such a degree that its no longer considered antisemetic and racist to voice legitimate, factual criticism of Israel, Which Israel at official levels would often deflect in the past, shamefully, with the shield of the holocaust.
These problems are institutional, and long existing. Likund is just the current expression of an age old formula.
Hah, their source is "al-Masdar News," essentially Leith al-Fadel's blog (though I guess he's gotten a few other writers by now) posing as a news site. Leith is an especially annoying pro-Syrian government propagandist who is known for frequently making inaccurate claims.
This could be verified pretty easily, though; I'm curious.
edit - okay, al-Masdar's source is this article, but the page isn't loading for me right now
Your post link is borked. I think I have it fixed here. It loaded for me, but the only relevant info was just:
Isaac Herzog, member of the Knesset and Chairman of the Israeli Labor party, revealed that Saudi king Salman bin Abdulaziz financed the election campaign of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
“In March 2015, King Salman has deposited eighty million dollars to support Netanyahu’s campaign via a Syrian-Spanish person named Mohamed Eyad Kayali. The money was deposited to a company’s account in British Virgin Islands owned by Teddy Sagi, an Israeli billionaire and businessman, who has allocated the money to fund the campaign Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu”, Herzog cited a leaked Panama Paper. Saudi Arabia
Maj-Gen Yair Golan said on the eve of Thursday's annual Holocaust Day that he detected trends in Israeli society suggestive of "nauseating processes" that occurred in 1930s Nazi Germany.
Mr Netanyahu said the comments were outrageous, cheapened the Holocaust and caused harm to Israel.
Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said he had "total confidence" in Gen Golan.
"If there's something that frightens me about Holocaust remembrance it's the recognition of the nauseating processes that occurred in Europe in general, and particularly in Germany, back then - 70, 80 and 90 years ago - and finding signs of them here among us today in 2016," the deputy chief of staff said on Wednesday.
"There is, after all, nothing easier and simpler than hating the foreigner... arousing fears and terrifying."
I've been saying this for a couple years now.
nice to see high level people inside Israel starting to recognize it.
Inevitably accusations of antisemitism go around whenever this comes up. Which is why I'm always careful to accuse the Likud party of hatred and fearmongering and not just Israel in general.
The problems with Israel run deeper than just one party. To say such is disingenuous at best and dangerous at worst.
Its problems are from many corners, From religious extremism of the Hasidic population corrupting politics with regressive and dangerous ideas, to a successful campaign of othering that results in people partying when new bombing campaigns are launched against gaza/Palestine with cheers and hollers for every detonation, to an institutional racism at most levels against Palestinians that has basically created a system of law that treats Jews separately, and better, than everyone else, regardless of citizenship.
And these problems have existed for a long time, some of which all the way back to damn near the founding.
The only reason people can even think to blame Likund is because international opinion has shifted to such a degree that its no longer considered antisemetic and racist to voice legitimate, factual criticism of Israel, Which Israel at official levels would often deflect in the past, shamefully, with the shield of the holocaust.
These problems are institutional, and long existing. Likund is just the current expression of an age old formula.
They aren't so much institutional as foundational. They are inherent to the idea of an explicitly ethnic/religious state.
+7
Options
Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
Maj-Gen Yair Golan said on the eve of Thursday's annual Holocaust Day that he detected trends in Israeli society suggestive of "nauseating processes" that occurred in 1930s Nazi Germany.
Mr Netanyahu said the comments were outrageous, cheapened the Holocaust and caused harm to Israel.
Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said he had "total confidence" in Gen Golan.
"If there's something that frightens me about Holocaust remembrance it's the recognition of the nauseating processes that occurred in Europe in general, and particularly in Germany, back then - 70, 80 and 90 years ago - and finding signs of them here among us today in 2016," the deputy chief of staff said on Wednesday.
"There is, after all, nothing easier and simpler than hating the foreigner... arousing fears and terrifying."
I've been saying this for a couple years now.
nice to see high level people inside Israel starting to recognize it.
Inevitably accusations of antisemitism go around whenever this comes up. Which is why I'm always careful to accuse the Likud party of hatred and fearmongering and not just Israel in general.
The problems with Israel run deeper than just one party. To say such is disingenuous at best and dangerous at worst.
Its problems are from many corners, From religious extremism of the Hasidic population corrupting politics with regressive and dangerous ideas, to a successful campaign of othering that results in people partying when new bombing campaigns are launched against gaza/Palestine with cheers and hollers for every detonation, to an institutional racism at most levels against Palestinians that has basically created a system of law that treats Jews separately, and better, than everyone else, regardless of citizenship.
And these problems have existed for a long time, some of which all the way back to damn near the founding.
The only reason people can even think to blame Likund is because international opinion has shifted to such a degree that its no longer considered antisemetic and racist to voice legitimate, factual criticism of Israel, Which Israel at official levels would often deflect in the past, shamefully, with the shield of the holocaust.
These problems are institutional, and long existing. Likund is just the current expression of an age old formula.
They aren't so much institutional as foundational. They are inherent to the idea of an explicitly ethnic/religious state.
Well, different words but coming from the same general meaning, Yeah.
I just hope America, somehow, follows Germanys lead in ending blind unconditional support for Israel. Especially considering the number of times Israel has blatantly flipped off America to its face, between settlement building when they said they would pause, to taking our advanced tech, and turning it around and selling it to people we never who we never wanted to have it.
A significant increase in foreign intervention in Libya seems imminent. Prior to this there was an unknown number (probably relatively low) of Italian, French, UK, and US special forces in Libya.
The British contingent [of 800-1300 troops] would form part of an Italian-led Libyan international assistance mission estimated at about 5,000-6,000. The Italian government is awaiting a formal invitation from the newly formed government in Libya.
Their goal will be to shore up the tenuous hold of the new UN-backed government in Tripoli. I honestly don't have a good understanding of the current situation there; it seems like the UN-backed government-in-waiting, after arriving by sea to the protection of a naval base whose defenders were not loyal to the Tripoli militias, has managed to win at least some of Tripoli's factions to its side, but I'm not sure. Meanwhile the Tobruk government is off doing its own thing in the east, denouncing everyone in Tripoli as illegitimate and fighting salafi-jihadists in Benghazi and Derna.
What the hell has happened in Libya that we're suddenly willing to break the "no boots on the ground rule"?
Not to mention this thing is surprisingly low key, yes it's showing up in a few news sites here and there but the fact we're putting troops back in the middle east is receiving nowhere near as much attention as you would expect given massive public apathy toward the idea.
What the hell has happened in Libya that we're suddenly willing to break the "no boots on the ground rule"?
Not to mention this thing is surprisingly low key, yes it's showing up in a few news sites here and there but the fact we're putting troops back in the middle east is receiving nowhere near as much attention as you would expect given massive public apathy toward the idea.
I'm not sure when this became a rule.
Or, if you're talking about "boots on the ground" as a meaningless talking point, then I'm sure this won't break the rule. They'll be sent to train and advise and etc. Just like how the US doesn't have "boots on the ground" in Iraq or Syria or Libya or Yemen or Somalia, despite literally having boots, and more importantly, guns, on the ground in these places, especially in Iraq.
What the hell has happened in Libya that we're suddenly willing to break the "no boots on the ground rule"?
Not to mention this thing is surprisingly low key, yes it's showing up in a few news sites here and there but the fact we're putting troops back in the middle east is receiving nowhere near as much attention as you would expect given massive public apathy toward the idea.
What happened is that the UN was able to manufacture and ship a US/EU-backed government into Tripoli, and win enough support in the city to not be immediately driven out. Prior to this, there was an Islamist-dominated "government" (really a fractious alliance of militias) in Tripoli and the remnants of the previous "internationally recognized" nationalist government in Tobruk (which to me looks like a Haftar-led military junta-in-waiting, but I could be wrong about that). The US and (probably even more so) its European allies have been talking about a possible intervention for months, in part because a branch of IS has taken over the city of Sirte and its surrounding coastline, and is trying hard to expand further while attracting jihadists from throughout Africa (though this is probably not the only reason). But the US/France/UK/Italy appeared reluctant to back Tripoli or Tobruk over the other, presumably out of a desire to avoid escalating Libya's civil war/taking sides in the Egypt/UAE (Tobruk's backers) vs. Turkey/Qatar (Tripoli's backers) proxy struggle.
Now that the US and friends have a new "internationally recognized government" tentatively installed, they at least have the rhetorical and legal justification to enter the war (since the new government is expected to request foreign assistance. However, I'm not sure how much this move actually ameliorated the aforementioned problems, for two reasons:
1. It's unclear to me how much power the UN-backed government in Tripoli actually has. Some of Tripoli's political leaders seem to have endorsed or at least stopped loudly opposing the new government, but others aren't on board - I don't know as much as I'd like about the current political situation in the city, but "various militias" still seems to sum it up. So far it is not clear to me whether or not the US & co.'s attempt to place a more reliable partner on the ground in western Libya has succeeded.
2. The eastern government in Tobruk is even less conciliatory, and its leaders do not sound willing to submit to Tripoli's authority. The two "governments" are fighting over Libya's considerable oil reserves/exports; here's a couple recent headlines:
Production from south-east Libyan oil fields to Marsa el-Hariga port will be shut down in less than four weeks if a "blockade" of the port continues, a spokesman for Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) said on Monday.
I have no idea how/if this dispute will be resolved, but it seems to have brought the Tripoli/Tobruk competition for "legitimacy" to a head, so we might know soon.
That's what I've gleaned from reading news articles over the past few months, but the current situation is extremely complex and inadequately reported on, so to be honest I have no idea wtf is happening in Libya right now.
What the hell has happened in Libya that we're suddenly willing to break the "no boots on the ground rule"?
Not to mention this thing is surprisingly low key, yes it's showing up in a few news sites here and there but the fact we're putting troops back in the middle east is receiving nowhere near as much attention as you would expect given massive public apathy toward the idea.
I'm not sure when this became a rule.
Or, if you're talking about "boots on the ground" as a meaningless talking point, then I'm sure this won't break the rule. They'll be sent to train and advise and etc. Just like how the US doesn't have "boots on the ground" in Iraq or Syria or Libya or Yemen or Somalia, despite literally having boots, and more importantly, guns, on the ground in these places, especially in Iraq.
I dunno if you watched the Jack Kirby (intolerably smug and very punchable State Dept. spokesman) video I linked a few days ago, but apparently now the new talking point is "we never said no boots on the ground." It was a pretty hard sell to the journalists present, though, so I think he'll try a new tack next time.
Also, I don't think Obama ever said "no boots on the ground" as a general rule. He said that about Iraq and Syria (I think?). In those cases it was a lie anyway, so I agree with Tycho's description of the phrase as a meaningless talking point, but it was an Iraq/Syria specific talking point. For example, the administration has been somewhat* more straightforward about US ground troops in Afghanistan.
*I say "somewhat" because the Obama administration does generally like to underplay the US military's level of involvement in its rhetoric
What the hell has happened in Libya that we're suddenly willing to break the "no boots on the ground rule"?
Not to mention this thing is surprisingly low key, yes it's showing up in a few news sites here and there but the fact we're putting troops back in the middle east is receiving nowhere near as much attention as you would expect given massive public apathy toward the idea.
I'm not sure when this became a rule.
Or, if you're talking about "boots on the ground" as a meaningless talking point, then I'm sure this won't break the rule. They'll be sent to train and advise and etc. Just like how the US doesn't have "boots on the ground" in Iraq or Syria or Libya or Yemen or Somalia, despite literally having boots, and more importantly, guns, on the ground in these places, especially in Iraq.
In simplistic terms: When you call them "specialists and advisers", it seems you can send them to do whatever you need them to do, in whatever quantities you need them in.
Moscow, take note--you will not be a superpower until you can somehow reclassify an entire army group, aircraft included, as "specialists and advisers".
What the hell has happened in Libya that we're suddenly willing to break the "no boots on the ground rule"?
Not to mention this thing is surprisingly low key, yes it's showing up in a few news sites here and there but the fact we're putting troops back in the middle east is receiving nowhere near as much attention as you would expect given massive public apathy toward the idea.
I'm not sure when this became a rule.
Or, if you're talking about "boots on the ground" as a meaningless talking point, then I'm sure this won't break the rule. They'll be sent to train and advise and etc. Just like how the US doesn't have "boots on the ground" in Iraq or Syria or Libya or Yemen or Somalia, despite literally having boots, and more importantly, guns, on the ground in these places, especially in Iraq.
In simplistic terms: When you call them "specialists and advisers", it seems you can send them to do whatever you need them to do, in whatever quantities you need them in.
Moscow, take note--you will not be a superpower until you can somehow reclassify an entire army group, aircraft included, as "specialists and advisers".
You know, I used to wholeheartedly agree with this, but now I only halfway agree (or more like 60%). The way the government minimizes the US military presence in conflict zones is disingenuous and frustrating, and terms like "adviser" are indeed vague and easily misused (Vietnam probably being the most famous example). But from casualty rates alone it's clear that Obama's description of our role in Iraq is at least somewhat accurate. One marine died when IS shelled an Iraqi base, one spec-ops guy died in a raid on an IS prison, and one Navy SEAL died more recently when IS launched a surprise assault on Peshmerga positions.
I'd bet that there have been more special operations raids, and more involvement in the front lines, embedded in allied forces (a semi-recent video report actually showed some US troops embedded in the YPG, they launched a JDAM at an IS SVBIED on the front lines in the battle for al-Shadaddih). But I think "advise and assist" is generally closer to what the US is doing in Iraq than, say, "front line combat." We'd see more casualties if that wasn't the case.
edit - for the record, when Obama announced the redeployment to Iraq and started talking about "advisers" I thought it was total bullshit, and said so in this thread at the time. But I now think I was at least partly wrong about that.
I'm mostly talking from a UK perspective where for several years we've had politicians swear blind we're done putting troops in the middle east in the face of massive public war weariness. I can't speak to what the US have said and are doing.
Adviser is definitely a deceptive term, but it's not inaccurate. The problem is that you can't really advise in a training capacity without fighting alongside the allied forces. You can't provide meaningful tactical guidance without a presence on the battlefield either. Plus, in this context where your country is providing close air support, you're going to want your forces there calling it in. Involvement on the front lines is a given.
That doesn't mean that they aren't focusing on organic targeted raids, but it doesn't imply that their focus isn't in the more traditional force multiplier capacity either.
"Advisers" also has a historic connotation--for example, in the Indochina and Vietnam Wars, the United States committed a half-million-plus fighting troops, pilots, and sailors in support of the South. The Soviet Union, records now reveal, had 3,000 troops and officers stationed in North Vietnam, including Soviet antiaircraft missile crews (the numbers vary on the sources--some put it twice as high).
Both sides regularly referred to their military commitment as "advisers" (and it is worth noting that both the USSR and the USA gave their respective sides large quantities of industrial advisement, particularly in the North, which was in the middle of a massive land-reform campaign).
You can apply the title "adviser" even to United States troops in Iraq well back in 2003 and 2004 in the sense that the new government in Iraq had been put into power and was reliant on direct US support as early as 2003. At a certain point, "adviser" is about as specific as "man"--"We have 3,000 men in Syria," etc.
The term in Vietnam referred to Green Berets sent to work with the South Vietnamese army. Their primary focus was/is training foreign militaries. Line units can also fulfill this role, but the term doesn't/didn't apply to troops not in a MiT Team.
At the peak of the war in 1968, 9,430 Army personnel acted as advisors down to the district and battalion level to train, advise and mentor the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), Republic of Vietnam Marine Corps, Republic of Vietnam Navy and the Vietnam Air Force.
What the hell has happened in Libya that we're suddenly willing to break the "no boots on the ground rule"?
Not to mention this thing is surprisingly low key, yes it's showing up in a few news sites here and there but the fact we're putting troops back in the middle east is receiving nowhere near as much attention as you would expect given massive public apathy toward the idea.
I'm not sure when this became a rule.
Or, if you're talking about "boots on the ground" as a meaningless talking point, then I'm sure this won't break the rule. They'll be sent to train and advise and etc. Just like how the US doesn't have "boots on the ground" in Iraq or Syria or Libya or Yemen or Somalia, despite literally having boots, and more importantly, guns, on the ground in these places, especially in Iraq.
In simplistic terms: When you call them "specialists and advisers", it seems you can send them to do whatever you need them to do, in whatever quantities you need them in.
Moscow, take note--you will not be a superpower until you can somehow reclassify an entire army group, aircraft included, as "specialists and advisers".
You know, I used to wholeheartedly agree with this, but now I only halfway agree (or more like 60%). The way the government minimizes the US military presence in conflict zones is disingenuous and frustrating, and terms like "adviser" are indeed vague and easily misused (Vietnam probably being the most famous example). But from casualty rates alone it's clear that Obama's description of our role in Iraq is at least somewhat accurate. One marine died when IS shelled an Iraqi base, one spec-ops guy died in a raid on an IS prison, and one Navy SEAL died more recently when IS launched a surprise assault on Peshmerga positions.
I'd bet that there have been more special operations raids, and more involvement in the front lines, embedded in allied forces (a semi-recent video report actually showed some US troops embedded in the YPG, they launched a JDAM at an IS SVBIED on the front lines in the battle for al-Shadaddih). But I think "advise and assist" is generally closer to what the US is doing in Iraq than, say, "front line combat." We'd see more casualties if that wasn't the case.
edit - for the record, when Obama announced the redeployment to Iraq and started talking about "advisers" I thought it was total bullshit, and said so in this thread at the time. But I now think I was at least partly wrong about that.
Yeah, people here aer suddenly snarking about "no boots on the ground" while ignoring that the meaning of this statement is not "no americans working for the government ever there at all doign anything" and never has been. It's basically "no major troop deployments". Drones, special forces, advisors, air campaign, these things were always understood to be possible under the idea of "no boots on the ground".
As you say, you can see the difference in the casualties coming back home which is a BIG part of what this is all about. "No boots on the ground" is a stance on achieving US foreign policy goals with less commitment and less impact and less resources and less casualties and less blowback domestically and all that.
Like, fundamentally I think one can understand Obama's foreign policy simply via the idea of "Not another Iraq War". That's what he's all about. No more of that shit.
I'm mostly talking from a UK perspective where for several years we've had politicians swear blind we're done putting troops in the middle east in the face of massive public war weariness. I can't speak to what the US have said and are doing.
I was a bit surprised to hear the UK float a number of 1000 too, and at the 5-6k overall number of the prospective Italian-led coalition. I think France said it would contribute, but they reportedly complained of being overstretched, which I found interesting. They have a few thousand troops in northern Mali/the Sahel region, and I think they still have a couple thousand in Central African Republic, though I'm not sure. Other than that I'm not aware of any deployments, so I'm a bit surprised to hear the term "overstretched," but maybe they're just trying to get other NATO countries to pull their weight more.
I also think that, given the context of the overall regional situation, having Libya's former colonial ruler lead a coalition of European countries to fight salafi-jihadists in Libya is questionable in terms of symbolism/how it may be perceived in the country.
A thousand conspiracy theories: Quentin Sommerville, BBC News, Beirut
The crowd at the funeral pointed the finger at the usual suspect. Who carried out the attack, I asked three young women in black abayas: "Israel!" they replied in unison.
But the circumstances around Mustafa Badreddine's death are unclear, and have already sparked a thousand conspiracy theories.
It appears he was the militant group's top commander in Syria. Hezbollah is already stretched thin there, more than 1,600 of its fighters have been killed, and the pictures of its fresh "martyrs" increasingly show very young, or older men, rather than fighters in their prime. The group has promised to retaliate, but that will difficult. It is already preoccupied in Syria.
And despite a pledge to avenge the death of its previous military commander, Imad Mughniyeh, killed in Damascus in 2008, it failed to do so. Mughniyeh was Badreddine's brother-in-law, the two men are now buried side by side in the same cemetery in Beirut's southern suburbs.
Amnesty International accuses the Syrian rebels in Aleppo of war crimes in continued attacks on Sheik Maqsud (Aleppo city's Kurdish, YPG-controlled district). They have been launching chemical weapons at the Kurds as well:
A local doctor told Amnesty International that on 7 and 8 April he treated six civilians and two YPG fighters for symptoms including shortness of breath, numbness, red eyes and severe coughing fits. Several of the victims, he said, reported seeing yellow smoke as missiles impacted. A toxicologist consulted by Amnesty International, who viewed video-clips of the apparent attack and reviewed the doctor’s testimony, said the patients’ symptoms could be the effects of a chlorine attack. A subsequent statement purportedly issued by the leader of the Army of Islam armed group said that a field commander had deployed an “unauthorised weapon” on Sheikh Maqsoud and that he would be held to account.
I've seen videos of the havoc wreaked in Sheik Maqsud by rebel shelling, and this isn't the first time the rebels have been accused of such actions. It's worth noting that this wasn't a Jabhat an-Nusra attack, either.
The armed groups carrying out indiscriminate attacks on the Sheikh Maqsoud area are part of the Fatah Halab military coalition which includes: Islamic Movement of Ahrar ash-Sham, Army of Islam, al-Shamia Front, Brigade of Sultan Murad, Sultan Fatih Battalions, Fa Istaqim Kama Omirt Battalions, Nour al-Deen Zinki Battalions, 13 Brigade, 16 Brigade, 1st Regiment (al-Foj al-Awal) and Abu Omara Battalions.
This is the rebel alliance backed by the US and Turkey, not Ansar ash-Sharia, the (allied) salafi-jihadist alliance in the same region. Though I thought Ahrar ash-Sham was a member of the latter; maybe they managed to insert themselves into both alliances when I wasn't looking. And it's worth noting that government-held neighborhoods and towns have suffered similar fates on a much larger scale, though the Amnesty report is only about Sheik Maqsud.
edit - for context, Army of Islam, or Jaysh al-Islam, the group allegedly responsible for the chemical attack, is a Saudi Arabia-backed rebel group in Syria, especially in Damascus Governorate's Eastern Ghouta region. Their previous leader, Zahran Alloush, generally did a decent job at moderate-sounding rhetoric when giving statements to Western media, but in his domestic speeches he notably vowed to exterminate Syria's Alawite religious minority. Alloush was killed in a Russian airstrike some months ago and his brother took over.
edit2 - I received a response to my question about Ahrar ash-Sham's affiliation:
Ahrar is technically a member of Fatah Halab, buy doesn't really operate through it. In the Azaz pocket, they operate with other Fatah Halab members through the Hawar Kilis Operations Room. In northern Aleppo suburbs like Handarat, they operate through Ansar al Sharia alongside Nusra and other Salafist factions. West and south-west of the city, they operate through Jaysh al Fatah.
Oh and also in a Middle East round-up: Iranians pissed about the 2 Billion seizure Which I saw that coming. Its diplomatically dangerous for the US yes. But part of me goes what were the Iranians thinking? That they would be instant friends with the US? That kind of relationship change takes DECADES. And happens a hell of a lot easier when you don't have your hands up the ass of Hezbollah. You are still our strategic rivals in the area.
Posts
Economics but also people getting their hopes up and then having that snatched away or look like it would be snatched away.
Lister also argues that ceasefires are bad for JaN, which gains its support by being a potent military force against the government. I definitely agree with him here. Interestingly, this article was written a couple of days before an attempted US/Russia brokered ceasefire in Aleppo broke down when various Islamist rebel factions led by JaN launched a major assault on government positions in South Aleppo - Lister explicitly warns that this is about to happen and claims that the assault is a JaN attempt to spoil any Aleppo truce.
And in today's (related?) news, al-Jazeera reports that AQ leader Ayman az-Zawahiri has given JaN his blessing to formally separate its organization from AQ. This news caught me off guard. If JaN follows through and formally separates, we could not only see closer relations between them and other rebel groups (especially Ahrar al-Sham), but also potentially more arms/support from Turkey and Qatar (and perhaps KSA). It makes sense that JaN would want to do this; their allegiance to AQ brought them some foreign fighters, but has overall been a liability for them in terms of intra-rebel politics and the willingness of foreign powers to back rebel forces. We've State Department spokespeople stumble and stutter as they try to explain why we're on al-Qaeda's side against the Syrian government/Russia; if JaN separates they may no longer have to do this.
So the idea that al-Jolani might want JaN to publicly separate from al-Qaeda doesn't surprise me. The part I don't really understand is also the part I find most interesting what are az-Zawahiri and AQ's core leadership's plans? JaN may be al-Qaeda's most powerful affiliate. Its presence gives al-Qaeda a major foothold in a geopolitically important area and keeps them in the global headlines. Control of the Levant is integral to AQ's long terms plans (those plans aren't terribly realistic all told, but still). Why separate from such an important part of your global project? Perhaps JaN would continue to work toward AQ's goals despite formally withdrawing from the organization? Or maybe AQ cares less about whether al-Jolani takes orders from az-Zawahiri and more about whether Syria is governed by a salafist interpretation of sharia, and is willing to sacrifice the former for the latter. Or perhaps they think JaN's plans for an emirate declaration in the near term could actually succeed if the other salafists didn't regard it as an AQ project.
@Rchanen , no, I am not optimistic at all. Unfortunately even though I am too young (32) to have seen the past coups, what I've read and heard from many older people with whom I share the same political view, Islamists always go clandestine after coups and they work their way towards hitting back stronger. I don't want to look as if I discriminate against Muslims but the sad truth is Islam and Western values such as democracy, freedom of speech and generally all commonly accepted human rights don't go along well together. The best thing to describe my feelings is to quote from the Seinfeld episode in which George's mother is considering separating from his father and says "she's out there" so when she discusses it with George, he says "You're not out there! You can't be, because I am out there. And if I see you out there, there's not enough voltage in this world to electroshock me back into coherence!". They just can't coexist so the West should stop trying to make a modern example of how democracy can work in a predominantly Muslim society and leave them to go full barbarians. And of course get me a green card so I am not left behind among them :biggrin:
If Joscelyn's read is accurate (and I believe it to be), that Charles Lister article I posted about JaN trying to establish an emirate in the near future may be more accurate than I had thought. At the same time, I'm not sure how much JaN formally leaving AQ would reduce the opposition of local religious leaders and other Islamist rebel factions to the salafist emirate project.
I've been saying this for a couple years now.
nice to see high level people inside Israel starting to recognize it.
I find this a little hard to swallow? A bit too convenient? I suppose it's possible.
Inevitably accusations of antisemitism go around whenever this comes up. Which is why I'm always careful to accuse the Likud party of hatred and fearmongering and not just Israel in general.
I think the military and Mossad establishment in Israel in particular has known about the tragic and brutal reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for a very long time, since they've had generations come and go through their apparatus over the years who have had to deal with it's consequences most directly and clean up it's messes. They don't have the privilege of ignorance when facing the reality of the situation when they deal with Palestinians every day, and they endure it out of loyalty to their homeland and inertia. That ignorance is the privilege of the Ultra-Orthodox, the conservative right, the politicians like Netanyahu and Naftali who benefit politically from constant security crisis, and the military industrial establishment that simply profits from the special relationship with the US.
There are definitely stupid mindsets like that in the military and intelligence as well for sure, but on the whole I get the sense, especially from their leadership but also from the conscripts and forces at the checkpoints, that they know what the actual long term solutions to these constant problems are but are always held back by the demands of the conservatives and the politicians that represent them. These elements of their society and government prop up the worst excesses of their continuing conflict and either genuinely don't understand what they do and are causing for the long term or don't care to. And their future and international relations suffer as a result.
3 or so years ago, a popular rallying cry of the Syrian opposition was of a "secret nonaggression pact" between the Islamic State and Damascus. And in a sense, such a thing happened--as much as Syrian government forces had to negotiate, for example, passage for their supply lines through area nominally controlled by Salafist-aligned forces. The Syrian opposition was doing it too (the "moderates" with American cheerleaders, not obvious opposition forces like Al-Nusra). The clandestine pact, if there was one, was between certain fronts of the Syrian military and Rojava (of varying degrees of effectiveness).
EDIT: Shit, even the Pentagon of all people admitted their own prize fighters, the NSF, gave truckloads of NATO-supplied guns and ammunition to Al-Nusra for passage. The Pentagon, as in "The rebels used Saarin? Hu-wah?" Pentagon. It's very easy to imagine this sort of thing happens all the time--the obstacle is, among many groups (including the Islamic State specifically) government-aligned forces have such a legendarily bad reputation that it discourages the sort of informal dealmaking you see otherwise. That doesn't necessarily translate to the highest levels of leadership who are negotiating resource deals.
It is true that, during some periods of the civil war, fighting between the government and rebels and between the rebels and IS was much fiercer than fighting between IS and the government, but this is mainly because IS's strategy during those periods was to infiltrate and slaughter their way into control of poorly defended rebel territories, which were easier targets than most government held territory. Meanwhile, even as IS rolled over rebel territory in the east, the rebels as a whole still prioritized their battle against the government, with many groups trying to avoid "fitna." As it turns out, IS makes it pretty much impossible to avoid fitna, and I think all of the rebels have realized this by now. And even if the intensity of fighting has varied, IS has fought the government consistently throughout the war, and has treated captured SAA soldiers brutally.
I do think the government regards the rebels as more of a threat/priority to defeat than IS, which, from a military perspective, is really their only option (just look at the map).
There were occasional reports of the Syrian Air Force bombing rebels while they were in the midst of battles with IS, but I don't know how confirmed those are. If true, the "rebels are more of a threat" calculus is still sufficient to explain their actions, but that's pretty ruthless nonetheless. Not that the Syrian government is lacking in ruthlessness or anything.
This could be verified pretty easily, though; I'm curious.
edit - okay, al-Masdar's source is this article, but the page isn't loading for me right now
The problems with Israel run deeper than just one party. To say such is disingenuous at best and dangerous at worst.
Its problems are from many corners, From religious extremism of the Hasidic population corrupting politics with regressive and dangerous ideas, to a successful campaign of othering that results in people partying when new bombing campaigns are launched against gaza/Palestine with cheers and hollers for every detonation, to an institutional racism at most levels against Palestinians that has basically created a system of law that treats Jews separately, and better, than everyone else, regardless of citizenship.
And these problems have existed for a long time, some of which all the way back to damn near the founding.
The only reason people can even think to blame Likund is because international opinion has shifted to such a degree that its no longer considered antisemetic and racist to voice legitimate, factual criticism of Israel, Which Israel at official levels would often deflect in the past, shamefully, with the shield of the holocaust.
These problems are institutional, and long existing. Likund is just the current expression of an age old formula.
Your post link is borked. I think I have it fixed here. It loaded for me, but the only relevant info was just:
ETA:
They aren't so much institutional as foundational. They are inherent to the idea of an explicitly ethnic/religious state.
Well, different words but coming from the same general meaning, Yeah.
I just hope America, somehow, follows Germanys lead in ending blind unconditional support for Israel. Especially considering the number of times Israel has blatantly flipped off America to its face, between settlement building when they said they would pause, to taking our advanced tech, and turning it around and selling it to people we never who we never wanted to have it.
Their goal will be to shore up the tenuous hold of the new UN-backed government in Tripoli. I honestly don't have a good understanding of the current situation there; it seems like the UN-backed government-in-waiting, after arriving by sea to the protection of a naval base whose defenders were not loyal to the Tripoli militias, has managed to win at least some of Tripoli's factions to its side, but I'm not sure. Meanwhile the Tobruk government is off doing its own thing in the east, denouncing everyone in Tripoli as illegitimate and fighting salafi-jihadists in Benghazi and Derna.
Not to mention this thing is surprisingly low key, yes it's showing up in a few news sites here and there but the fact we're putting troops back in the middle east is receiving nowhere near as much attention as you would expect given massive public apathy toward the idea.
I'm not sure when this became a rule.
Or, if you're talking about "boots on the ground" as a meaningless talking point, then I'm sure this won't break the rule. They'll be sent to train and advise and etc. Just like how the US doesn't have "boots on the ground" in Iraq or Syria or Libya or Yemen or Somalia, despite literally having boots, and more importantly, guns, on the ground in these places, especially in Iraq.
Now that the US and friends have a new "internationally recognized government" tentatively installed, they at least have the rhetorical and legal justification to enter the war (since the new government is expected to request foreign assistance. However, I'm not sure how much this move actually ameliorated the aforementioned problems, for two reasons:
1. It's unclear to me how much power the UN-backed government in Tripoli actually has. Some of Tripoli's political leaders seem to have endorsed or at least stopped loudly opposing the new government, but others aren't on board - I don't know as much as I'd like about the current political situation in the city, but "various militias" still seems to sum it up. So far it is not clear to me whether or not the US & co.'s attempt to place a more reliable partner on the ground in western Libya has succeeded.
2. The eastern government in Tobruk is even less conciliatory, and its leaders do not sound willing to submit to Tripoli's authority. The two "governments" are fighting over Libya's considerable oil reserves/exports; here's a couple recent headlines:
"Libya requests removal of oil tanker from U.N. blacklist". Tobruk tried to ship oil on an Indian tanker without Tripoli's permission, the ship was stopped (unsure by whom), and this event helped lead to:
"SE Libyan oil output to Hariga to shut in a month if blockade continues -NOC".
I have no idea how/if this dispute will be resolved, but it seems to have brought the Tripoli/Tobruk competition for "legitimacy" to a head, so we might know soon.
That's what I've gleaned from reading news articles over the past few months, but the current situation is extremely complex and inadequately reported on, so to be honest I have no idea wtf is happening in Libya right now.
I dunno if you watched the Jack Kirby (intolerably smug and very punchable State Dept. spokesman) video I linked a few days ago, but apparently now the new talking point is "we never said no boots on the ground." It was a pretty hard sell to the journalists present, though, so I think he'll try a new tack next time.
*I say "somewhat" because the Obama administration does generally like to underplay the US military's level of involvement in its rhetoric
In simplistic terms: When you call them "specialists and advisers", it seems you can send them to do whatever you need them to do, in whatever quantities you need them in.
Moscow, take note--you will not be a superpower until you can somehow reclassify an entire army group, aircraft included, as "specialists and advisers".
I'd bet that there have been more special operations raids, and more involvement in the front lines, embedded in allied forces (a semi-recent video report actually showed some US troops embedded in the YPG, they launched a JDAM at an IS SVBIED on the front lines in the battle for al-Shadaddih). But I think "advise and assist" is generally closer to what the US is doing in Iraq than, say, "front line combat." We'd see more casualties if that wasn't the case.
edit - for the record, when Obama announced the redeployment to Iraq and started talking about "advisers" I thought it was total bullshit, and said so in this thread at the time. But I now think I was at least partly wrong about that.
That doesn't mean that they aren't focusing on organic targeted raids, but it doesn't imply that their focus isn't in the more traditional force multiplier capacity either.
Both sides regularly referred to their military commitment as "advisers" (and it is worth noting that both the USSR and the USA gave their respective sides large quantities of industrial advisement, particularly in the North, which was in the middle of a massive land-reform campaign).
You can apply the title "adviser" even to United States troops in Iraq well back in 2003 and 2004 in the sense that the new government in Iraq had been put into power and was reliant on direct US support as early as 2003. At a certain point, "adviser" is about as specific as "man"--"We have 3,000 men in Syria," etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_advisor
That's out of half a million US troops.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Assistance_Command,_Vietnam
So no, it's not interchangeable with "man".
Yeah, people here aer suddenly snarking about "no boots on the ground" while ignoring that the meaning of this statement is not "no americans working for the government ever there at all doign anything" and never has been. It's basically "no major troop deployments". Drones, special forces, advisors, air campaign, these things were always understood to be possible under the idea of "no boots on the ground".
As you say, you can see the difference in the casualties coming back home which is a BIG part of what this is all about. "No boots on the ground" is a stance on achieving US foreign policy goals with less commitment and less impact and less resources and less casualties and less blowback domestically and all that.
Like, fundamentally I think one can understand Obama's foreign policy simply via the idea of "Not another Iraq War". That's what he's all about. No more of that shit.
I also think that, given the context of the overall regional situation, having Libya's former colonial ruler lead a coalition of European countries to fight salafi-jihadists in Libya is questionable in terms of symbolism/how it may be perceived in the country.
Interesting bit from the article.
And then a convoy was blocked from entering a Damascus suburb.
I've seen videos of the havoc wreaked in Sheik Maqsud by rebel shelling, and this isn't the first time the rebels have been accused of such actions. It's worth noting that this wasn't a Jabhat an-Nusra attack, either.
This is the rebel alliance backed by the US and Turkey, not Ansar ash-Sharia, the (allied) salafi-jihadist alliance in the same region. Though I thought Ahrar ash-Sham was a member of the latter; maybe they managed to insert themselves into both alliances when I wasn't looking. And it's worth noting that government-held neighborhoods and towns have suffered similar fates on a much larger scale, though the Amnesty report is only about Sheik Maqsud.
edit - for context, Army of Islam, or Jaysh al-Islam, the group allegedly responsible for the chemical attack, is a Saudi Arabia-backed rebel group in Syria, especially in Damascus Governorate's Eastern Ghouta region. Their previous leader, Zahran Alloush, generally did a decent job at moderate-sounding rhetoric when giving statements to Western media, but in his domestic speeches he notably vowed to exterminate Syria's Alawite religious minority. Alloush was killed in a Russian airstrike some months ago and his brother took over.
edit2 - I received a response to my question about Ahrar ash-Sham's affiliation:
Though according to that one guy in London the way his death was described makes no sense.
Glenn Miller death?
Iranians pissed about the 2 Billion seizure Which I saw that coming. Its diplomatically dangerous for the US yes. But part of me goes what were the Iranians thinking? That they would be instant friends with the US? That kind of relationship change takes DECADES. And happens a hell of a lot easier when you don't have your hands up the ass of Hezbollah. You are still our strategic rivals in the area.
Turkey may be fucked economically speaking. Quelle Suprise.
The Shiites in Iraq do not want to be puppets for the Shiites in Iran. Or more specifically Sadr will be nobody's puppet but his own.
In Egypt, the aid the US sends and the training we give end up who knows where. Apparently this administration is lax on this shit and the Egyptians obstruct like a Mossack Fonseca branch office.
Of course that crappy oversight with money might explain this. This appears to be a dissection of that massacre of Egyptian police officers
IS still putting up a fight in Syria. Can't seem to take and hold ground as well as they used to though.
They can still blow shit up real well. Suicide bombing in Yemen and Iraq.