Civil war began in Saudi Arabia.

[Minimalist]

I wonder how long it would take some poor staffer to explain to the WLB why the Sunnis and Shi'as hate each other.

Could you do it with pictures?  Could you get his name all over it so it retains some semblance of his interest?

[WinterHold]

Bill Maher once put up a chart of the size of the armies allegedly fighting ISIS.  They totaled 5 million men,  ISIS had about 40,000 and Bill was wondering why they couldn't handle ISIS by themselves without dragging us into it.

Bill is a comic he is not an expert in realpolitik.  Those armies are primarily designed to keep the regimes which pay them in power.  How far any of them could project power across their own borders is an open question.

Exactly. If defeating ISIS was the goal of such a huge alliance; then they gave Islamic extremism the biggest boost it can ever dream for: ISIS looks invincible in the eyes of its supporters; the logic is that if all these armies united can't take down a single gang; then that gang is has God on their side.

You want Syria off the map? then let ISIS fuck the place up !
You want Iraq to become Sunni/Shiite states, fighting? then let ISIS spark the war with savage shiite locals!
You want Libya to get cut like a cake? send ISIS !


Personally; I see that ISIS is the central point in reshaping the region; it doesn't get defeated because big names in the alliance are behind ISIS. CIA? Mossad? Saudi Arabia? all of them combined ? IDK.

But one thing I'm sure about: somebody is behind them; CIA is my first suspect.

---

It's seems almost perverse, and maybe Hari Seldon could explain it, but I'm almost convinced the US could be flipping a coin and deciding on that basis which side to back in the various clusterfucks around the world, and I'd bet we would still be on the WRONG side EVERY time.

Back one side openly and the other clandestinely. They're both gonna buy war tech. 

How cynical is that?

Iraq/Iran war?

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60 Minutes did a piece tonite on how Saudi Arabia is fucking Yemen and indiscriminately killing children.

I'm thinking any fault lines develop in Saudi Arabia they'll just say "hey, we have a Shia mess in Yemen, gotta tackle that lest the fucking Iranians do to us what we'd love to do to them"

The news from Yemen is so bad; Saudies are bombing blindly in most cases. 
They caused a Cholera outbreak that is considered the worst in modern history:

https://www.theguardian.com/global-devel...nd-of-year

The cholera epidemic in Yemen has become the largest and fastest-spreading outbreak of the disease in modern history

Kirolos said: “There’s no doubt this is a man-made crisis. Cholera only rears its head when there’s a complete and total breakdown in sanitation. All parties to the conflict must take responsibility for the health emergency we find ourselves in.”

More than two years of fighting between the Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels has crippled the country, causing widespread internal displacement, the collapse of the public health system, and leaving millions on the brink of famine.

[The Grand Nudger]

.................................?

It's difficult to fight an asymmetric war regardless.  Notice, however, that as soon as ISIS began using conventional equipment and tactics they got squashed.  That's because they turned themselves into exactly the kind of enemy conventional forces are designed to fight.  Other conventional forces. 

The whole "ISIS is a CIA front" thing is an issue of swallowing too much RT flavored koolaid, comrade.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Warning: This won't be a popular post.

To be honesty, I think the whole region needs to have a single, large, all encompassing war to sort out the racial, ethnic, religious, tribal divides.  And it should happen without the interference of outside agencies, apart from providing humanitarian assistance.

It sounds cruel, I know, but the region has basically been at war for several thousand years. both dues to internal differences and external intervention/invasion.  If it weren't for the oil, most of us wouldn't give a fuck what was happening in the region.

You made some good points but I don't agree with the idea of providing humanitarian assistance because it just prolongs the conflict.  The fastest way to end a war is a total blockade to the entire war zone for everyone in it.

[LuisDantas]

According to you Atlass, is he supporting the side that wants to stay a theocracy? I won't shed a tear if Saudi Arabia falls and becomes a western democracy, but not sure that would happen either way.

Democracies do not arise because theocrats fall.  It takes a lot of political maturity to establish one.  And it takes time and effort to develop that.

---

Warning: This won't be a popular post.

To be honesty, I think the whole region needs to have a single, large, all encompassing war to sort out the racial, ethnic, religious, tribal divides.  And it should happen without the interference of outside agencies, apart from providing humanitarian assistance.

It sounds cruel, I know, but the region has basically been at war for several thousand years. both dues to internal differences and external intervention/invasion.  If it weren't for the oil, most of us wouldn't give a fuck what was happening in the region.

You realize that we are talking about actual people?

[WinterHold]

.................................?

It's difficult to fight an asymmetric war regardless.  Notice, however, that as soon as ISIS began using conventional equipment and tactics they got squashed.  That's because they turned themselves into exactly the kind of enemy conventional forces are designed to fight.  Other conventional forces. 

The whole "ISIS is a CIA front" thing is an issue of swallowing too much RT flavored koolaid, comrade.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone

Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program to arm and finance the mujahideen, in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, prior to and during the military intervention by the USSR in support of its client, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

The CIA manufactured terrorism to defeat the USSR. Because of the CIA and U.S army, the grandfathers of ISIS got training and support.
The U.S "owns" Islamic insurgunts. This is history, not "conspiracy theory"

[Brian37]

According to you Atlass, is he supporting the side that wants to stay a theocracy? I won't shed a tear if Saudi Arabia falls and becomes a western democracy, but not sure that would happen either way.

Democracies do not arise because theocrats fall.  It takes a lot of political maturity to establish one.  And it takes time and effort to develop that.

---

Warning: This won't be a popular post.

To be honesty, I think the whole region needs to have a single, large, all encompassing war to sort out the racial, ethnic, religious, tribal divides.  And it should happen without the interference of outside agencies, apart from providing humanitarian assistance.

It sounds cruel, I know, but the region has basically been at war for several thousand years. both dues to internal differences and external intervention/invasion.  If it weren't for the oil, most of us wouldn't give a fuck what was happening in the region.

You realize that we are talking about actual people?

No kidding? 

Yea no kidding. i know that. I am well aware of this.  Even America was far more theocratic at the founding, not the founders, but the citizens. It was because of their maturity as leaders that they wrote the types of laws that allowed us to progress, but that didn't happen overnight either. 


Oh yea outside that, it is about the oil sure. But no, I do give a fuck about people like Atlass and Mystic, not because I agree that their god exists, but because they are human beings like me. It be great if we could give them moral support even if it is from afar. If Europe and America can crawl out of the dark ages, why would you assume because we don't like the current state over there, that that cant happen there? 

Now yes, I do give ALL religious claims a hard time here. But when it comes to defending a peaceful person i don't have to like that person's logic or claims to do that. No, I don't like theocracies one bit. But it took Christianity a  long time to crawl out of that mentality too, but they did. Even with that, even today, we STILL have religiously justified bigotry and xenophobia coming from our right. We still have attempts to mix government and religion here too. 

The only difference between the east and west is we've had a longer leash on religion.