R.
Peshmerga are amazing and courageous.
I don’t have time to read it now, but I do know they were running low on ammunition and that ISIS is now better armed in most cases. That’s going to change very soon.
A very good read, Rabin. Thanks.
What the writer failed to mention is the CIA and the US military trained many of the current ISIS troops. They may have been in other radical Islamic groups when we trained them in Jordan over the last 3 years, but today they are in ISIS. Which means the reason for their military success is they are CIA/US trained. So how is the US going to defeat an army they trained and armed is going to be very interesting. Imagine, Obama is going to train and supply an army to defeat another army he trained and supplied. i wonder what the Russians think of Obama now. Putin must be scratching his head wondering why Obama is so pissed at Ukraine when Obama is playing both sides of this fence in Iraq and Syria.
The peshmerga were running low on ammo. Hopefully they’ve been replenished. Unlike the craven chickenshits in the Iraqi “army,” the peshmerga don’t run from a fight.
Very good article. I didn’t read in absolute detail. Was anything said about the value of ‘intelligence activities’? When IS first attacked the Kurds said they could get info from a few Arab tribes about IS’s movements. Then it stopped because according to Peshmerga IS started to pay the Arab tribes to keep their mouth shut or threatened them. Anyway, Pesh are pretty tough. Am sure with right support and weapons they’ll prevail.
Pollack is credited with persuading liberals of the case for the Iraq war. New York Times columnist Bill Keller, in supporting the Iraq war in 2003, wrote “Kenneth Pollack, the Clinton National Security Council expert whose argument for invading Iraq is surely the most influential book of this season, has provided intellectual cover for every liberal who finds himself inclining toward war but uneasy about Mr. Bush.”[2] Liberal writer Matthew Yglesias in the LA Times also attested to Pollack’s influence:
“. . .Of course, those of us who read Pollack's celebrated 2002 book, “The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq,” and became convinced as a result that the United States needed to, well, invade Iraq in order to dismantle Saddam Hussein's advanced nuclear weapons program (the one he didn't actually have) might feel a little too bitter to once again defer to our betters. [3]