on โ31-08-2014 11:08 AM
Australian war planes will deliver arms and munitions to Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State militants in Iraq.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has agreed to a United States government request for Australia to transport military equipment on the Royal Australian Air Force C-130J Hercules and C-17A Globemaster aircraft.
Oh no, is all I can say.
on โ02-09-2014 09:51 AM
I couldn't look at myself if I was a party to doing nothing.
i felt the same way about the slaughter in Gaza too
on โ02-09-2014 10:20 AM
Jimmy, we don't have to agree - I still luvs ya
on โ02-09-2014 10:24 AM
Why do you think the powermongers and pollies are bombarding us with images of injured and they have even taken to showing images of dead as well fgs ......working on our humanity and emotions to gain support for their actions....intending not to offer blankets and cups of sugared tea mind you....NO! want our support in Iraq to drop weapons and ammunition.
So humane....not.
on โ02-09-2014 10:28 AM
@debra9275 wrote:I couldn't look at myself if I was a party to doing nothing.
i felt the same way about the slaughter in Gaza too
How do you put your lippy on then? The number of Iraqi deaths since the last invasion 630,000 - and that's after we "did something".
Hugh White is no dove either and has expertise in defence and intelligence as does Wilkie, we should be listening.
Intelligence is the key: only fools will rush into Iraq
US President Barack Obama, on the other hand, is showing real leadership in resisting the pressure from all sides to plunge the US, and its willing allies, into wider military operations without clear purpose or prospects of success. He alone seems to have really understood the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan, and to have the discipline to apply them consistently to successive international crises. Nothing in Obama's flawed presidency is more impressive than this.
In particular, he has been very aware of how easy it is for laudable humanitarian motives to lay an easy path into an ill-considered full-blown political and strategic commitment. Over the past few weeks, Obama has consistently tried to avoid his modest humanitarian mission around Kurdistan growing into a full-scale assault against Islamic State.
He would be wise to keep doing so. Most importantly, he needs to keep the threat posed by Islamic State in sensible perspective. Not many people have been doing that recently. Like Al Qaeda before it, Islamic State has been inflated, within just weeks, from complete obscurity to the point that it now seemingly ranks with Russia and China as a factor in global order. This is exaggerated.
on โ02-09-2014 11:01 AM
ISIS went in very short time from something causing headache to al-Assad to an army that pretty much overpowered Iraqi army, which we spent a decade training and arming. And the danger to the Kurds and others over there is great and imminent. These people need immediate support, both humanitarian and weapons. Not much point giving them just food if they have no way of protecting themselves.
But, as far as full military help = soldiers on the ground, that should be provided by the Arab states that are also worried about IS.
US can easily chase IS back to Syria, but they will not want to get involved in the fighting over there; US does not want to be helping al-Assad, and there are too many players, some are not much better than IS.
And for the comment above about reading history; well, I do not need to read about it, I lived it. I remember Blair's speech about the yellow cake, and various WMDs, and then listening to experts (retired generals & spies & scientists) who pointed out why the info is fake or wrong. Yes it was in the "leftist" media, which some people here would not watch if their lives depended on it. BUT all that was proven to be right. The documents about the yellow cake from Niger were so obviously fake, and were known to be fake many months before Blair's speech.
on โ02-09-2014 12:37 PM
This has not happened in a very short time, its only being portrayed in the msm that way.
http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=857
2012
Even the co-founder of Mรฉdecins Sans Frontiรจres, normally a pin-up organisation for imperialist โhumanitarian interventionโ, was forced to concede this recently:
โIn Paris, a French doctor who just returned from a two-week medical mission to a rebel-controlled hospital in the battleground of Aleppo said he was surprised by the number of militants from outside Syria who had joined the fight in the goal of establishing an Islamist government ...
โThe doctor, Jacques Bรฉrรจs, 71, a surgeon who is known for missions to war zones and who is a co-founder of the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, said in an interview with Reuters that he had treated about 40 patients a day, and that 60 percent were rebel fighters, half of whom were from outside Syria.
โโItโs really something strange to see,โ he said, according to Reuters. โThey are directly saying that they arenโt interested in Bashar al-Assadโs fall, but are thinking about how to take power afterward and set up an Islamic state with shariah law to become part of the world emirateโ.โ (โSyria criticises Franceโs support of rebelsโ by David D Kirkpatrick, New York Times, 10 September 2012)
Such โuseful idiotsโ are but the frontline stooges for imperialismโs war against the Syrian people.
http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=1010
Feb. 2014
Thieves fall out
In early February, al-Qaeda expelled from its ranks the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), after it had tried to subordinate the rival al-Nusra gangsters to its authority and to secure a monopoly franchise on terror operations in Syria. Despite earlier efforts by al-Qaeda to reconcile the warring parties, ISIS continued to expand its operations, bringing in more foreign fighters and conducting itself with a degree of nihilistic and fascistic violence that gave pause to even some of the most hardened criminals in the terrorist camp.
ISIS members are said to have slaughtered at least 22 people, amongst whom at least 12 were themselves armed terrorists, after seizing the town of Jarablus in Aleppo province. Early in January, several gangs launched a joint offensive against ISIS, accusing it of atrocities against fellow anti-Assad forces. Under the hammer blows of the Syrian army, these debilitating internecine splits can only get worse as the rats turn on each other.
Yarmouk: rebels pressgang civilians as human shields
Painfully aware that what little public support these terror gangs ever enjoyed is leaking away rapidly, they are with sickening regularity now resorting to the tactic of seizing a town, preventing its population from escaping, then using the residents as human shields in an attempt to stop the restoration of order by the security forces.
For example, Adra, a town just outside Damascus, was seized in mid-December. Many fled, but the 5,000 who did not have ever since been under effective house arrest. The Syrian army, meanwhile, is camped outside the town, unwilling to storm it for fear of harming the innocents who will be caught in the crossfire.
The same cruel game is being played out on a much larger scale in Yarmouk, Syriaโs largest Palestinian refugee camp (although, unlike in other Arab countries where Palestinians live, Yarmouk was actually a flourishing town), where 18,000 have been held captive by the terrorists now for over a year.
on โ02-09-2014 12:44 PM
on โ02-09-2014 12:49 PM
i dont believe she would actually say that
on โ02-09-2014 05:09 PM
Yes, that is still very short time in the scheme of things; IS went from not really getting anywhere fast in Syria, to practically conquering Iraq over few weeks. If it was not for US bombing them they may have taken over the whole country.
Maybe we could drop some weapons to the Palestinians in Yarmouk ๐