World Politics

[Echoes]

The EU is what it is and cannot be changed for you want to change it and make it a "social Europe", a "ecological Europe", a "Europe of nations",etc you'll need to have 28 countries agreeing for one single project. Which means impossible. If the Greens were to make a Green Europe, they'll need to have the 28 member states to be green at the same time. François Asselineau made a calculation: this can happen ~0,000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 001 time in a billion year which means never !

The EU is a self-blocking construction. General De Gaulle understood it perfectly in 1963.

I should like to speak particularly about the objection to integration. People counter this by saying: "Why not merge the six states together into a single supranational entity? That would be very simple and practical". But such an entity is impossible to achieve in the absence in Europe today of a federator who has the necessary power, reputation and ability. Thus one has to fall back on a sort of hybrid arrangement under which the six states agree to submit to the decisions of a qualified majority. At the same time, although there are already six national Parliaments as well as the
European Parliament and, in addition the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe ... it would be necessary to elect over and above this, yet a further Parliament, described as European, which would lay down the law to the six states.

These are ideas that might appeal to certain minds but I entirely fail to see how they could be put into practice, even with six signatures at the foot of a document. Can we imagine France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg being prepared on a matter of importance to them in the national or international sphere, to do something that appeared wrong to them, merely because others had ordered them to do so? Would the peoples of France, of Germany, of Italy, of the Netherlands, of Belgium or of Luxembourg ever dream of submitting to laws passed by foreign parliamentarians if such laws ran counter to their deepest convictions? Clearly not. It is impossible nowadays for a foreign majority to impose their will on reluctant nations. It is true, perhaps, that in this 'integrated' Europe as it is called there might be no policy at all. This would simplify a great many things. Indeed, once there was no France, no Europe; once there was no policy - since one could not be imposed on each of the six states, attempts to formulate a policy would cease. But then, perhaps, these peoples would follow in the wake of some outsider who had a policy. There would, perhaps, be a federator, but he would not be European. And Europe would not be an integrated Europe but something vaster by far and, I repeat, with a federator.

The Greens are the worst party of them all. Yeah you can always insult those who vote FN or UKIP but the Greens have made an alliance with the N-VA of Bart De Wever at the Euro parliament, which isn't any better. The Greens want to decompose all nation states in Europe, first in line Spain, the UK and Belgium, then France and even the Netherlands. Only winner would be Germany who would make another Anschluss in their dream:

http://www.recherches-sur-le-terrorisme.com/Ressources/carte-europe-regions-Verts-ALE-2004.jpg

It's frightening ...

THE EU HAS NAZI ROOTS !! One shouldn't forget that.

In 1938 Nazi jurist Walter Hallstein presented his project "Das Neue Europa" to Mussolini.

In 1942 in Occupied France, the Nazi organized a huge exhibition "La France européenne", presenting the new "European Union" (a Nazi European Union, of cours).

This picture is from 1942, celebrating the 1200 anniversary of Charles the Great's birth. The text in the middle below says : "His empire was neither German, nor French, it was European. After his death this first attempt to a European Union [we are in 1942 !!!!!!] was destroyed and during almost a thousand year, nationalisms clashed [I thought Nazism was a nationalism ???] in a spirit of rivalry."

In 1944, Walter Hallstein was arrested by the allied in Cherbourg, France. The US retrained him, Adenauer appointed him to head the German delegation at the Schuman Plan negotiations in Paris, he negotiated the Rome Treaty in 1957 and most of all became the First President of the Euro Commission but had to resigned after De Gaulle practiced his Empty Chair Policy !

He was the predecessor to Barroso (& Junker).

In France the FN is the key ! At the turn of the eighties, it was a marginal party: 250 members or so. And yet JM Le Pen had a meeting with the newly elected US President Ronald Reagan (favoured by the Moon Sect and the CIA):

Three years later, socialist President François Mitterrand decided to give Le Pen media attention in order to "divide the Right" while in the meantime Mitterrand was getting really impopular with the libertarian reforms called "Tournant de la rigueur". Dividing the right-wing or perhaps more? Disgusting the French from the idea of national sovereignty by associating it with racist ideas... The famous "reversed psychology" by Bernays. If you don't want ideas to be spread, make sure they are represented by disgusting people.

And I insist Marine Le Pen NEVER wanted out of the EU, never out of NATO, she explicitly said it. Even about the €, she remains wishy-washy... Farage is at least consistent and clear on that point. But if he is far right ?? LOL

 

[Buffalo Soldier]

The Greens are the worst party of them all. Yeah you can always insult those who vote FN or UKIP but the Greens have made an alliance with the N-VA of Bart De Wever at the Euro parliament, which isn't any better.

To set some things straight: N-VA is no longer part of the EFA, since the Belgian green party urged them to leave the fraction. EFA is composed of so-called "progressive regionalist".
Second: N-VA is still way better than FN or UKIP. I do dislike almost all they stand for, but they are not far right.

 

[Echoes]

They've been a part of it for 4 years. The EFA President is Eric Defoort, founding father of the N-VA. Of course, now that the people discovered it, that the Greens urged them to leave, lol. That does not change the fact that the Greens want to destroy all our nations that brought prosperity and social welfare to our people. They are VERY dangerous !

Referendums in Catalunya and Scotland are due in Autumn...

 

[python]

those following the events in europe are well aware of russia's attempts to put together its own economic-political union modeled on eu against washingtons overanxious effort to cut it at root.

today, eki's country, vino's country and kirienka's country concluded the very union officially and formally. they called it urasia. they are talking about common currency within 5 years.

it would hardly be worth wasting 5 minutes of my life posting about it, if not for the 3 interesting, relevant facts - 2 of which i was aware and 1 literraly deformed my eye brows...

the 1st fact is well known. it's exactly ukraine's membership in the erasia russia-led union over its looming eu seat, that the present civil war in ukraine started. Supposedly, the score is: russia 0, usa 1.

the 2nd fact: apparently, not everyone is scared of washington's sanctions. more nations, specifically armenia and kirghistan are to join formally by the end of 2014 while india made an official inquiry. the score, supposedly: russia 1, usa 1.

the 3d, and this is a real shocker to me,... israel is interested in joining. of course, you wont find this jem in any western mass media, but i checked, and it's a real hard fact floated by the israelis themselves. granted, 'interested' is a flexible word. but it overflows with significance even if a hypothetical. add to it israel's refusal to formally condemn russia's absorption of crimea in the un vote, and the new geopolitical dynamic becomes VERRRY interesting

needless to repeat that any tight economic cooperation inevitably leads to lasting common political platforms.

is uncle sam f--ed or i am simply lost following the sore

 

[blackcat]

Foxxy in your analogy you don't consider the trade advantages. Society isn't a vacuum, no?

Apart from this, I don't think that a regression into the old national ideologies is at all fortuitous, even if the current economic setup stinks.

Break up the EU, fine, but do we really need to go back to that intensive competition which dragged the West into two catastrophic wars?

My position has always been to foster cooperation rather than competition, however idyllic that might be.

We are only speaking of Europe, though this is a global issue.

I'm fully aware that China couldn't care less about Western "values," but do you think the nationalist parties in Europe would stop doing business with it?

Protectionism? Look the the world is far too fu--ked for that to be a viable solution to the current state of globalization.

i dont buy from the bill krystol neo con and george W bush (not a neo) that War and Boeing and Northrop Grumman has been good for the US,

but competition has been a thrust on humanity's evolution. no competition, much less steep learning curve intuition suggests

 

[blackcat]

those following the events in europe are well aware of russia's attempts to put together its own economic-political union modeled on eu against washingtons overanxious effort to cut it at root.

today, eki's country, vino's country and kirienka's country concluded the very union officially and formally. they called it urasia. they are talking about common currency within 5 years.

it would hardly be worth wasting 5 minutes of my life posting about it, if not for the 3 interesting, relevant facts - 2 of which i was aware and 1 literraly deformed my eye brows...

the 1st fact is well known. it's exactly ukraine's membership in the erasia russia-led union over its looming eu seat, that the present civil war in ukraine started. Supposedly, the score is: russia 0, usa 1.

the 2nd fact: apparently, not everyone is scared of washington's sanctions. more nations, specifically armenia and kirghistan are to join formally by the end of 2014 while india made an official inquiry. the score, supposedly: russia 1, usa 1.

the 3d, and this is a real shocker to me,... israel is interested in joining. of course, you wont find this jem in any western mass media, but i checked, and it's a real hard fact floated by the israelis themselves. granted, 'interested' is a flexible word. but it overflows with significance even if a hypothetical. add to it israel's refusal to formally condemn russia's absorption of crimea in the un vote, and the new geopolitical dynamic becomes VERRRY interesting

needless to repeat that any tight economic cooperation inevitably leads to lasting common political platforms.

is uncle sam f--ed or i am simply lost following the sore

python, you'd be in favour of Gazprom spending their FC Schalke money on reinstituting a Peace Race route thru central europe and the former soviet states

 

[blackcat]

the 3d, and this is a real shocker to me,... israel is interested in joining. of course, you wont find this jem in any western mass media, but i checked, and it's a real hard fact floated by the israelis themselves. granted, 'interested' is a flexible word. but it overflows with significance even if a hypothetical. add to it israel's refusal to formally condemn russia's absorption of crimea in the un vote, and the new geopolitical dynamic becomes VERRRY interesting

one would have to think gas and oil and energy resources. their relationship with their semite brothers is not simpatico to ensure guaranteed flow.

 

[blackcat]

...interesting exchange during Pope Dude's visit to Palestine....

"May 26 2014 "ICH" - "Mondoweiss" - Update: Reuters reports that the Pope and Benjamin Netanyahu differed today over Jesus’s language.

“Jesus was here, in this land. He spoke Hebrew,” Netanyahu told Francis, at a public meeting in Jerusalem in which the Israeli leader cited a strong connection between Judaism and Christianity.

“Aramaic,” the pope interjected.

“He spoke Aramaic, but he knew Hebrew,” Netanyahu shot back"."

Cheers

bibi scares me. the way he put his hand out to touch bill moyers. ahhhh, frisson.


the talented one got it in entebbe

 

[aphronesis]

i dont buy from the bill krystol neo con and george W bush (not a neo) that War and Boeing and Northrop Grumman has been good for the US,

but competition has been a thrust on humanity's evolution. no competition, much less steep learning curve intuition suggests

Yea, but the tendency within most current environments is to monopolize competition when and where it emerges. Doesn't seem to be that much evolving going on within the affluent nations of the world.

 

[blackcat]

Yea, but the tendency within most current environments is to monopolize competition when and where it emerges. Doesn't seem to be that much evolving going on within the affluent nations of the world.

dont have an issue/disagreement here


tangent...

ian morris an oxbridge classics scholar now teaching history at stanford has an interesting thesis on the rise of asia. http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/september/morris-west-rules-091410.html

makes some plausible sense, that folks can get too comfortable in their comfort(neoplasm sic) after a win.

think for a sec, about the proportion of folks who drive humanity forward. it is not the Ivy League or Oxbridge, grand ecoles. It is a few percent, nigh, less than that, a fraction of one percent, off the bell curve, standard deviations agulf, from those graduating classes, that will be the drivers.

Now once you can give those with the same genetics (since humans are no different in their atoms) the same chances at Indian Institue of Technologies akin to the education they get at MIT or CalTech, then just add water. So it is just a tinderbox waiting to erupt when you unless genetics with the enlightenment institutions in sciences and technology the west have been fostering for the last half century (when the sciences and technology have inherited prominent position behind newton and royal academy in london which was a little behind beowulf innit)

so, skorea and china and the indians... (japan? how does their banking crisis and quicksand under their 1980s advancement??? well their aging population is a major anchor on their potential, p'raps israel might take heed about turning in, instead of turning out. tho, most of the advances there, make their own way onto the international arena to benefit of humanity)

 

[python]

today in normandy,on such a magnificent day, it was absolutely lovely to watch the heads of the world's most powerful states displaying their empty pomposity as some sort of western cohesion when finding vald putin presence amongt them...

i mean obama's personal disgust with the blue-eyed, blond putin nemesis of his was obvious...his own somber, skeptical and dark attitude, would have been less significant if not for the total lack of substance in obama's rhetoric supposedly representing the 'white, democratic and free world'.

of course, the today' europe is anything but racially identifiable.

my reference to obama's dark attitude is not a reference to his skin colour. rather, a marvel at the absolute disappointment of those dark-skinned (and the millions of lighter skinned americans) voting for the dark-skinned compatriot in the hope of him staying slightly to the left of the neocons.

all a total fallacy and a disappointment as far as his foreign policy...

obama, to my formerly reserved but now increasingly critical analysis, is a political failure second only to james carter, who, judging from my limited knowledge of american history, isn't exactly a national hero.

an amateur president, appointing a bombastic foreign minister john carry in turn appointing a politically and gender correct, yet unqualified female psaki tell me all i need about the united states of total political inaptitude.

why the wiser leaders of the western world are so diplomatic of the american amateurs 'leading the free world' is beyond me.

 

[blackcat]

sorry, who is this blonde hair blue eyed arian we speak of?

and are we speaking about John Kerry's underlings, suzan rice and sam power?

i been lost here python? need some clarification

the new Ukraine primeminister is wun uglee mutha that i can tell ya.

a gestalt of dave brailsford and golem from LOTR

 

[blackcat]

Arseniy Yatsenyuk

Dave Brailsford

golem LOTR

 

[Amsterhammer]

For all those with an interest in the Middle East, and particularly all of you who believe that 'energy' rules what happens in international affairs, this excellent, eye-opening Al-Jazeera documentary/investigation is an absolute must view! Make some popcorn, it's 45 minutes, but totally worth it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk1WXwPJzwg

 

[Echoes]

today in normandy,on such a magnificent day, it was absolutely lovely to watch the heads of the world's most powerful states displaying their empty pomposity as some sort of western cohesion when finding vald putin presence amongt them...

Very interesting to remember that General de Gaulle refused to attend the June 6 1964 celebrations. Pompidou tried to convince him but to no avail. The General remembered that that was a day when the US tried to colonize France under the AMGOT.

His successors really surrendered...

For all those with an interest in the Middle East, and particularly all of you who believe that 'energy' rules what happens in international affairs, this excellent, eye-opening Al-Jazeera documentary/investigation is an absolute must view! Make some popcorn, it's 45 minutes, but totally worth it!

I stopped at Al-Jazeera ...

 

[rhubroma]

i dont buy from the bill krystol neo con and george W bush (not a neo) that War and Boeing and Northrop Grumman has been good for the US,

but competition has been a thrust on humanity's evolution. no competition, much less steep learning curve intuition suggests

I think that curve may have peaked in the current phase of so called Free Market capitalism and is now on its downward slide. For the reasons you suggest. At any rate I was talking about present globalization and the sanctification of competition, as the only measure of success quantifiable as GNP.

In the long run, though, this praxis seems to become the very means of the system's own inevitable downsizing, not fortuitously, and accompanied by more or less problematical crisis and conflict.

 

[Amsterhammer]

I stopped at Al-Jazeera ...

I don't know what you're intending to say with this snarky comment, but the film I linked to is an excellent piece of investigative journalism. It is your loss if you dismiss it out of hand.

 

[Amsterhammer]

Iraq is facing its gravest test since the US-led invasion more than a decade ago, after its army capitulated to Islamist insurgents who have seized four cities and pillaged military bases and banks, in a lightning campaign which seems poised to fuel a cross-border insurgency endangering the entire region.

The extent of the Iraqi army's defeat at the hands of militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) became clear on Wednesday when officials in Baghdad conceded that insurgents had stripped the main army base in the northern city of Mosul of weapons, released hundreds of prisoners from the city's jails and may have seized up to $480m in banknotes from the city's banks.

Iraqi officials told the Guardian that two divisions of Iraqi soldiers – roughly 30,000 men – simply turned and ran in the face of the assault by an insurgent force of just 800 fighters. Isis extremists roamed freely on Wednesday through the streets of Mosul, openly surprised at the ease with which they took Iraq's second largest city after three days of sporadic fighting.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/11/mosul-isis-gunmen-middle-east-states

 

[blutto]

...speaking of the Sanction War the US of A is waging with Russia these days find below an article that looks at some the resent-day and long term repercussions of that war....and yeah the site doesn't have the greatest gravitas thang but the point it makes is very discussion worthy

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/...g-it-russia-is-actually-abandoning-the-dollar

...just a thought but it might be difficult to equipment an armed force that spans the globe with shiny new weapons if your dollar suddenly drops to its real worth which may well be realistically somewhere south in the Antarctic regions....

Cheers

 

[hiero2]

I don't know what you're intending to say with this snarky comment, but the film I linked to is an excellent piece of investigative journalism. It is your loss if you dismiss it out of hand.

After 15 minutes of this, I'm going:

a) what's the surprise? That Egypt was providing energy to Isreal? Or that there was corruption in the upper echelons of the Egyptian government? No surprise for either, afaic.

b)What, then, is the point? At 15 to 18 minutes they are acting like the "fire sale" price of the gas is a big deal. Why? Its politics.

Is it that people are taking advantage (corruption) of the Camp David peace talks agreement? Whoa. Big surprise.

Now, since this has started to sound snarky, I will say that I totally support you in your censure of Echoes for saying "I stopped at Al-Jazeera". Many people in the world exhibit a profound bigotry against anything Islamic. Tossing something aside because it comes from Al-Jazeera is a symptom of that. While I will not say that Al-Jazeera is unbiased itself, it HAS consistently demonstrated a level-headed and relatively less partial take on the news. The English version Al-Jazeera is remarkable for its pursuit of the level of unbiased investigative journalism previously known by some famous western media outlets.

That byplay was what attracted me to this eddy of the conversation. But I don't think the documentary has presented any big surprises yet (22:15 and counting).

In the past 20 or 30 years we have seen massive examples of corruption across the world. Throughout the days after the collapse of eastern European communist governments, we have witnessed massive profit-taking by a few in the position to do so. In Africa, this is not even a new story - since the fall of colonialism we have seen massive profiteering by individuals. Ffs, in the good old US of A, we saw corruption take advantage of the banking environment signed on by the Bush 2 government to massively take profit whilst pushing a bubble to the point of collapse.

Ok - now we are at 28 minutes and we are FINALLY getting to the point.

Oh. Gee. These guys have taken enormous profits, basically stealing from the Egyptian populace. Uhhhh-huh. I am back to where is the big surprise?

Ok, the forum server is acting up, so I can't do this proper, but you said:

For all those with an interest in the Middle East, and particularly all of you who believe that 'energy' rules what happens in international affairs, this excellent, eye-opening Al-Jazeera documentary/investigation is an absolute must view! Make some popcorn, it's 45 minutes, but totally worth it!

1. This validates that energy DOES rule. It is the biggest commodity. It has the highest demand. And people take profit from that demand. All points validated in the documentary.
2. Eye-opening? Totally worth it? I'm sorry, I do not agree. It might have been worth 5 minutes. Big guys in the government were basically getting richer based on good deals they got as part of the government.

Why am I not surprised?

Now, Yanukovych, he surprised me. Not because he was corrupt - I expected that. But the LEVEL of his corruption - and the blatant openness (in retrospect) of it was surprising.

The whole deal in the middle East, and the former Soviet bloc, has me very concerned. Even worried. Of the "Arab spring", what is left? Nothing, or less than nothing. People are dead, by the thousands, and nothing has changed other than a few faces. Of the collapse of the Soviet, what has changed? Well, there I can point out many changes that STILL benefit the common man, even today. But those changes are moving backwards. Apparently the pendulum has swung, and now swings back. It is worrying.

As for the middle East - Bush 1 (20/20 hindsight) did the right thing by leaving Iraq to Hussein. The changes wrought by the elimination of the Bath power structure are not over. The current government lacks the respect of many of its people. It is a figurehead government, but it does not represent the US, nor its own people. It will collapse, and the probability of this is increased by the recent event of invasion from the Syrian civil war. The government troops response to that makes it clear, to me, that my hopes that Iraq might stabilize are futile.

My prediction is that we will not see stability in the region for another decade, perhaps two. I hope I am wrong.

But, I think the Kurds will attempt a more independent status. Turkey will move against that. Not sure what Iran will do, as they have their own problems, but I don't think they will sit still. Israel sits in the middle - the eye of the storm - perpetually on a war footing. Hardliners are moving up in power in Morrocco. Libya is having a difficult time finding internal stability.

Like Russia, Egypt and others may think to find security from corruption (and other threats) in "strong leaders" - only to discover that "strong leaders" usually have strings attached. Indeed, I think Egypt may have already discovered this.

 

[Amsterhammer]

Well Hiero, you were evidently better informed about Middle East gas matters than I was. All the stuff I heard in that Al-Jazeera report was news to me. Egyptian corruption was certainly no news, but the way a couple of shifty, shady, Israeli businessmen were able to shaft the corrupt Egyptians was an eye opener for me. Granted, they could have done it in less minutes, but that's a minor quibble.

 

[gooner]

I was watching CBS late last night and they had a map of Iraq and Syria with the shaded areas that have now been taken under control. Tikrit and Mosul are gone already. Very worrying. This ISIS crowd look a formidable force.

Maliki has announced a state of emergency but he hasn't come up with one idea to stop it.

What happens if it comes to Baghdad? There's every chance we could see the Iraqi guards desert their posts similarly. Will US troops come back into the fight? So far they are just providing arms.

The whole thing is a mess.

 

[Amsterhammer]

If you are able to, watch Al-Jazeera, which has much the best coverage of this major crisis - that Americans have been avoiding even noticing, because Eric Cantor's primary loss was the most important event in the world.

Americans have a wonderfully descriptive term for what Iraq was, is, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future - clusterfcuk.

Consider Machiavelli's dictum about the enemy of your enemy, and then look at who opposes these ISIS/ISIL lunatic killers - US, Iran, Turkey (NATO,) Assad, the current Iraqi regime, and the Kurds. Unholy alliance, anyone?

I wrote the following piece off the top of my head earlier today in reply to some cretins who were blaming the current situation on a 'failure of Obama's foreign policy'.

Arty, you seem to be slightly more rational than the ignorant mouth-breathers who support your posts, so I will address you. What you people are doing here is displaying the sadly typical dishonesty and diversion so favored by today's (far) right. Everything is Obama's 'fault' in your myopic view of events. Let's talk about where the actual blame for this epic clusterfcuk belongs.

First and foremost, we have been witnessing the genie that escaped from the bottle that was uncorked by Bush and the neo-cons when they decided that regime change in Baghdad would solve 9/11 related terror issues, and 'make the world a better place'. They lied us into war with a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, and by removing Saddam (who was as evil a POS as ever lived) they rekindled ancient Sunni-Shia rivalry and hatred. Just like in Yugoslavia after Tito's death, when the autocratic ruler disappears, people who historically have always killed one another suddenly find that they are again able to start killing one another with relative impunity, due to the new, weak, central authority.

The neo-cons went into Iraq with no exit strategy, once things started to go pear shaped. The Obama administration inherited a disaster, which has merely continued to worsen. Different groups of Iraqis killing one another for historic reasons are not a failure of Obama's foreign policy. Anyone who tries to float that merely displays their ignorance of facts, and their ODS.

Part of what Obama inherited was the Al Maliki, Shia led central government in Baghdad. These people are inefficient, corrupt, and sectarian. The insurgents are Sunnis, the people who lost power with the fall of Saddam. They are being helped by Baathist Sunnis who are still in positions of some authority, on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The insurgency is led by extreme fanatics, people so extreme, that even the Al Qaeda leadership has asked them to tone down their violence. The rebels want to set up a fundamentalist 'Caliphate'. They must be stopped at all costs, unless the west is prepared to give up most Iraqi oil.

The major blame for what has happened in recent days, though, must go to the 'Iraqi Army'. Some 30,000 regular troops, supposedly well trained, and well equipped with US arms, abandoned their heavy equipment, and tuned and ran from around 800 attackers. This kind of gross failure and cowardice is not the fault of Obama, or of recent US policy - unless your hatred is so deep and irrational that you ignore realities.

The Kurds are a major, though still incidental, player in this drama. Their forces are, by all accounts, superior to Iraqi forces in both fighting ability and morale. They may wind up finally getting their own, independent, oil-rich country in the north. The ISIS/ISIL fanatics know that they can't beat the Kurds, so they won't attack them. Instead, they will try to threaten Baghdad. At the moment, it looks inconceivable that they have the manpower to 'take over', but of course, they have suicide bombers, and the will to commit outrages against civilians.

Iran is unlikely to let a Shia government simply be blown away by Sunni insurgents. They will support their brethren, somehow, even though the Iraqi Shias are far more secular.

Turkey is already 'involved' due to the kidnap of their diplomatic staff. Turkey is a NATO member. Are you people beginning to see that things are rather more complex than your simplistic, 'blame Obama'?

Iraq was a sh!thole under Saddam, who was an evil monster. Saddam did not threaten the US. Saddam kept the lid on sectarianism, he oppressed everybody. US involvement, and the subsequent regime change, slowly turned the country into the appalling clusterfcuk we see today. Nothing any US government might have done or said, or any other outside power for that matter, would have made the slightest difference to what we are seeing today.

 

[rhubroma]

I was watching CBS late last night and they had a map of Iraq and Syria with the shaded areas that have now been taken under control. Tikrit and Mosul are gone already. Very worrying. This ISIS crowd look a formidable force.

Maliki has announced a state of emergency but he hasn't come up with one idea to stop it.

What happens if it comes to Baghdad? There's every chance we could see the Iraqi guards desert their posts similarly. Will US troops come back into the fight? So far they are just providing arms.

The whole thing is a mess.

What happened to nation building?

 

[Amsterhammer]

What happened to nation building?

The elected prime minister was unable to declare an official state of emergency today because not enough ministers attended the emergency meeting of parliament!

President Obama has said "I don't rule anything out" for US responses to the crisis in Iraq, Reuters reports. He said he is " looking at all options in helping the Iraqi government face the growing insurgency".