Attack on a market in Douma, Damascus, 12 August: ‘Assad is the cause of Syria’s legitimacy crisis… his barrel bombs and starvation sieges are gifts of incalculable value to Isis.’ Photograph: Bassam Khabieh/Reuters
Posted on 08/13/2015 1:53:03 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
...In Iraq Isis has the advantage of local allies: Sunni Arabs disenfranchised by Maliki and his Iranian backers. In Syria Isis lacks a popular base, and its principal enabler has been the Assad regime. Unless Isis sees something it wants that Assad has – an oil field, a weapons-rich military base, or a town filled with priceless antiquities – it and the regime pursue a live-and-let-live arrangement. Each tries instead to eliminate alternatives to itself and the other. Each, for its own reasons, wishes to be one of the two last political entities standing in Syria. For Assad, facing Isis alone could be his ticket back to polite society: an enemy so loathsome as to be able to appear worse than him. For “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, facing Assad alone – especially if the regime and the west make common cause – would be a recruiting bonanza.
Assad is the cause of Syria’s legitimacy crisis. Isis, aside from the humanitarian catastrophe spawned by Assad, is the principal effect. Assad’s barrel bombs and starvation sieges are gifts of incalculable value to Isis. And Isis’s subjugation of eastern Syria is essential to sustain the group’s military operations in Iraq....
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Attack on a market in Douma, Damascus, 12 August: ‘Assad is the cause of Syria’s legitimacy crisis… his barrel bombs and starvation sieges are gifts of incalculable value to Isis.’ Photograph: Bassam Khabieh/Reuters
Wiki-wacky page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rojava
Rojava or Western Kurdistan... is a de facto autonomous region in northern and northeastern Syria. The region gained its autonomy in November 2013 as part of the Rojava campaign, establishing a society based on principles of direct democracy, gender equity, and sustainability. Rojava consists of the three cantons of (from east to west) Jazira, Kobani and Afrin. Rojava is not officially recognized as autonomous by the government of Syria and is at war with ISIL.
Kurds generally consider Rojava to be one of the four parts of a greater Kurdistan, which also includes parts of southeastern Turkey (Northern Kurdistan), northern Iraq (Southern Kurdistan), and western Iran (Eastern Kurdistan). However, Rojavan government and society is polyethnic.
David Petraeus on Syria, Attacking Iran, and the Threat From ISIS
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/07/david-petraeus-on-attacking-iran-syria-and-the-threat-from-isis/397541/
Documenting Evil: Inside Assad’s Hospitals of Horror
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/06/assad-war-crimes-syria-torture-caesar-hospital
ISII is giving us the purple finger? Who'da thunk it? AFP is FUBAR
Perhaps the ‘Rats & Repubs can personally go to Iraq and make IS take down their flag.
America’s finest died for these pukes?
Defeating Isis in Syria is essential to prevent catastrophe, which is why the democrats are putting all their effort into #BlackLiesMatter and other fake causes.
Not our fight(s).
Sunnis and Shias have been at each other’s throats (literally) for over 1,000 years. Toss in dozens if not hundreds of local factional/tribal/family feuds, some of them ongoing for hundreds of years.
In short, the people of the region have been having various civil and religious wars for as long as anyone can remember. And not a single one would not turn on us in an instant (and have done) if we attempt to intervene in any way, even for humanitarian purposes.
‘Nation building’ my @ss.
Just say no.
/bingo
Last week General Ray Odierno retired after 39 years in the Army and on his way out said President Obama has never spoken directly with him about a plan to defeat ISIS.
Thanks! That's not surprising, sadly.
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