Supplying the Syrian rebels with arms won't work

LOL now am I supposed to think that you're dishonest, or that you just don't read?

Here's the phrase that occurs right in the post you just quoted:

In other words, in congruence with what I wrote above, and falsifying your claims of revisionism.

I'm sure by "When I get some time I'll look them up for you" means "Having been caught out on yet another unfounded assertion, I will now creep quietly away from the thread". So you do that. It would certainly save you the trouble of being honourable, joe.

 

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Kobane is still holding out, last I heard. ISIS controls about half the town, including its center. Unless something changes dramatically, and there's no indication it will, Kobane will probably fall in the next few days.

While that's captured the world's attention, more important events are transpiring in Iraq.

It appears that ISIS is moving fighters into Anbar province, west of Baghdad. Anti-ISIS Sunni fighters, many of whom were allied with the US the first time that Al-Quaida in Iraq was defeated, are under tremendous pressure in the areas they still hold. (These include about half of the city of Ramadi, plus a number of other towns and villages.) Their leaders were pleading yesterday for US ground troops to return to Iraq. (That idea is anathema to most of the Shi'ites.)

ISIS fighters have reportedly taken over the town of Abu-Ghraib, which is only eight miles west of the boundary of Baghdad International Airport. The airport (an American bastion during the occupation) is something that Washington believes must to be protected at all costs, since if the thousands of Americans in Baghdad need to be evacuated, that's where they would probably fly out. Reports are that the US Army has moved Apache attack helicopters to the airport.

Commentators are opining that there's little liklihood that Baghdad will fall, since there are only about 10,000 ISIS fighters in Anbar, while there are something like 60,000 Iraqi defenders in Baghdad. (Plus an unknown number of Shi'ite militia and Iranian Revolutionary Guards.)

But I saw something in the news yesterday that worried me. An Iraqi soldier was interviewed who had just returned from the base of the Iraqi 10th Division, outside Abu-Ghraib. He said that soldiers from the base couldn't enter the town, because ISIS fighters contolled the streets.

Wait a minute... there's a whole f'ing Iraqi army DIVISION at Abu-Ghraib, but they can't enter the town because ISIS fighters are there?? If that report is even remotely accurate, the Iraqi army might have even bigger problems than we thought. (It's also possible that the 10'th is a training or supply unit, and not a combat element.) Nevertheless, I can see why the Sunnis in Anbar want US troops, not the Iraqi army.

Subsequent edit: Wikipedia thinks that the 10th is an armored division that's trained with the Americans and has combat experience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10th_Division_(Iraq)

I don't know... maybe it was a bad news report. Maybe the 10th is nowhere near there. But if it's true that an entire Iraqi armored division is just sitting there and not engaging the Islamic State forces that have taken over the adjacent town, a town only eight miles from the country's main airport, then that's reason for big-time worry.

And regardless of where the 10th is, something needs to be done to shore up Baghdad's western defenses around the airport and to relieve embattled anti-ISIS fighters further out in Anbar. I can just imagine what the American advisors are telling the Iraqi generals right now.

 

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Kobane is still holding out despite ISIS bringing in reinforcements and what's said to have been five airstrikes against that resupply in the last few hours, flown by US and Saudi aircraft. There doesn't seem to have been a whole lot of change in positions in town since yesterday, fighting is still described as heavy. I'm guessing that there are forward air-controllers directing the strikes. They needn't necessarily be Americans, they might very well be the Kurds, who might be coordinating better with the Coalition.

A huge piece of news (if it's true, multiple news sources are reporting it) is that the Turks have finally allowed the US to fly airstrikes from bases in Turkey. The US has a large NATO air base at Incirlik, relatively near the Syrian border. One of the major difficulties in the current campaign is that it's had to be conducted at long range, which requires refueling and means aircraft can spend less time over their targets.

But... there's a worrying development too. The Turkish demand for a no-fly-zone over Syria seems to be back on the table, after the US earlier rejected it. (I'm worrying that might have been the bargain for using the air base in Turkey.) If it's just a no-fly-zone over ISIS controlled parts of Syria (ISIS has no airforce to speak of) or a narrow strip along the border, no problem.

But if this ends up extending over Latakia, Homs, Hama and Damascus, over Assad's heartland in other words, it will mean engaging and destroying Syria's remaining airforce and air defenses. If what's being contemplated is the US going to war against the Syrian government like that, it would turn us in effect into ISIS' and the other Islamists' airforce. Turkey clearly wants it, but the US really needs to be careful about what it agrees to.

Subsequent edit: al-Arabiya is reporting that Turkey is now denying that it's allowed the US to fly Syria air-strikes from Incirlik.

I don't know... Maybe it's just bad news reports. Or maybe the Americans and Turks have belatedly discovered that they are defining 'no fly zone' very differently.

The situation is fluid and bears watching.

 

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The town of Hit, west of Ramadi in Iraq's Anbar province, has fallen to ISIS. And in another of the seeming never-ending humanitarian disasters all around the periphery of the so-called 'Islamic State', the BBC is reporting that something like 180,000 people are fleeing from Hit and its surrounding district.

Several hundred thousand from Mosul flooding into Kurdistan, the Yezedhis from Sinjar, a couple of hundred thousand more Kurds from the Kobani enclave, now a new flood fleeing from Anbar... it must be getting close to a million people driven from their homes in the just last few months.

If you don't want to live in some crazy religious fanatics' re-creation of the 7th century... and have your head cut off if you dare to complain or disagree... people figure that it's best to get out while escape is still possible.

 

Australia has reportedly advised Australian civilians in Iraq to leave that country immediately, while Baghdad airport remains open to commercial traffic. Canberra obviously thinks that there is a significant possibility that the airport might be closed in the future. That needn't require a ground assault that takes over the airport. All ISIS needs to do is get close enough to the airport to fire on planes landing or departing. Down a single airliner with a MANPADS or something, and airlines everywhere would cease service immediately.

 

I agree. I'm inclined to think that the closure of the airport to civilian air traffic is a very real possibility at some point. That would be a great little media victory for ISIS and it wouldn't be very hard to accomplish.

Yeah, I saw that in the news this morning and I'm very glad to see it.

The Americans and other coalition partners seem to be flying more airstrikes in the Kobani area and these are a lot more effective than they originally were. The big difference seems to be forward air controllers on the ground that can direct pilots to specific targets. The Kurds follow up the bombs with rapid ground assaults while ISIS fighters are still pulling themselves together and have had some modest success pushing ISIS back in some neighborhoods. ISIS is reportedly taking lots of casulties.

But none of that will count for anything if the Kurdish defenders run out of food and ammunition. If the Turks won't allow resupply across the border, air-drops are about the only alternative.

All of this suggests that the United States has dramatically increased its coordination with the Syrian Kurds, despite knowing that doing so isn't likely to please the Turks.

 

More American Weapons for ISIS

Last month, with the rise of ISIS in mind, Congress approved the president's plan to to train and arm the Syrian rebels. There was some familiar dissent at the time. "How will we ensure that the United States weapons we are providing to Syrian rebels will not get into the wrong hands, as they did with the rebels we supported in Libya?" Representative Barbara Lee asked.

On the same day as that vote, Islamic State fighters first encircled Kobani, a Syrian town near the Turkish border, attacking the largely Kurdish town and inspiringvigorous American airstrikes. On Monday, hoping to decisively turn the tide in the battle, the United States airdropped weapons to the Syrian Kurds of Kobani. By way of explanation, especially to a skeptical Turkish audience, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry offered that not aiding the Kurds in their fight against ISIS is both "irresponsible" and "morally very difficult."

Unfortunately, with that one airdrop, the weight of the American dread about where its weapons might go also landed. According to the Associated Press, some of the weapons meant to reach the Kurds ended up in Islamic State hands instead.

http://news.yahoo.com/american-weapons-way-isis-again-180139139--politics.html


Just like I predicted at the beginning of this post.

 

Now the government says only one pallet of weapons was dropped where it shouldn't have been dropped but whenever they unload those pallets from a cargo plane they all are dropped at the exact same time and place. So now we know that a cargo planeload of weapons was given errr accidently dropped into ISIS hands.

 

Perhaps, rather than levelling accusations against the USA for one misguided drop, you should direct your attention to where ISIS gathered the weapons necessary to mount an offensive to begin with.

Reckon you can stretch your mind that far?

 

Sounds like Kobane has turned into something of a death trap for ISIS, and they don't have millions of soldiers to keep pumping in like the Soviets did whenever their existence was on the line. Such sweet irony, out-ambushing the ambushers and giving them a taste of Stalingrad. All the same, Obama needs to get his act together regarding Assad, as do his allies, or groups like ISIS will keep springing up and gaining supporters while Assad and his allies do their own bit to terrorize the world. It's come out now that Assad hid at least 3 of his chemical weapons facilities when he declared that he was completely getting rid of his stash.

For Pete's sake, it's time at least for a no-fly zone. Assad is dropping twice as many barrel bombs as he was before the American intervention, virtually all on civilians and moderate rebels and killing thousands while he tips his hat to the US for taking ISIS off his hands, smugly pretending that Sunni extremists are the only alternatives to his iron fist. Don't be a bunch of stupid short-sighted fools taking sides and handing the whole country back to Assad, Iran and Russia once ISIS is gone- their vastly superior weapons and enthusiastic willingness to use them are just as dangerous as any terror organization, if not more so.

 

I only said that what happened was what I predicted would happen, that ISIS would get weapons that America supplies. I realize that ISIS did confiscate billions of dollars of American weapons before this bungled drop. But why add insult to injury by trying to do something America would risk this happening.

 

Meh, if the Kurds get 10 guns for every one that falls into ISIS hands, the balance of power still swings rapidly in their favour. I still don't see anyone asking the far more relevant questions about why ISIS was able to make a resurgence in Syria in the first place, before they swooped back into Iraq.

 

The problem is that America dropped allot of weapons and none , that I heard of, made it to the Kurds. So just how can the Kurds fight ISIS that gets free weapons and tons of them?

ISIS seems to be sprawled out , fanning an area very large but when needed to bolster their ranks they are called in to strategic spots which ISIS holds.

 

The US at the moment is still claiming that 26 out of 28 airdropped bundles made it to the Kurds, even 20/28 would be worthwhile and help even the score considering the advantages ISIS already has in weapons and ammo. Now, 'bout that no-fly zone that should have already been established three years ago and no one else seems to be interested in...

 

I really can't understand that number. I'll say it again that when a cargo plane is going to drop supplies to anyone they drop all of them at the same time. So how did one pallet get over to ISIS and all the rest made it to the Kurds if they all went out at the same time?

Please watch...

 

Well the US is claiming that wind blew some of the packages off course and scattered them, plus I'm not aware of all those supplies being delivered in a single airdrop from a single plane. Let's just cross our fingers and hope indeed the Kurds got the bulk of the goods, but so far that's what seems to have happened and they're still holding out in Kobane.

 

I have my doubts that many of the pallets got through to the Kurds or we would have heard from them about recieving those weapons by now don't you think? That way at least we would be able to quell the thought of those weapons getting all taken by ISIS.

 

Regarding the airdrops, I believe that two C-130's were involved.

When airdrops occur, they usually consist of a whole bunch of pallets that go out the back end of the airplane. Even if the plane is flying low and slow, it's still moving at a considerable rate of speed. So the crew tries to get all the pallets out as quickly as possible, so as to minimize the distance the plane flies while they are coming out. To facilitate that, the pallets are often on rollers. So one source of error might have been taking too long to get all the pallets out, so that the last ones were dropped after the plane had already passed over an ISIS-controlled part of town.

I was talking to my brother about this and he suggested what I think is an even more likely source of error. There's a trade-off. On one hand, an airdrop gets the tightest pattern on the ground if the aircraft is flying low and slow. But on the other hand, that increases the plane's exposure to ground fire. So he was speculating that the planes were probably making their drops from higher altitude so as to minimize their exposure. And that in turn would increase the likelihood of drift as the cargo parachutes descend. What CptBork wrote about the US claiming that wind blew some of the packages off course is consistent with this theory.

I still expect that most of the cargo got through to the Kurds.

 

Did you see post 115?

All pallets are connected together so that they stay in one place and don't drift away. Watch that video.