ISIS takes Palmyra

[Thanas]

This is basically true, I think. To use airstrikes to full effect, you need troops on the ground directing them, spotting targets, occupying ground that the enemy abandons because they can't survive air attack while trying to hold it, and so on. Otherwise, after each airstrike the enemy just digs out of the rubble and keeps on doing business as usual to the best of their ability. Their ability may be diminished but it's not gone.

Without that use of troops on the ground, you're limited to strategic bombing. While strategic bombing can delay and weaken an enemy, you don't really get to control how much it will delay and weaken them. Not unless you use nuclear weapons, make a desert, and call it peace.

Nope, the US is quite able of targeting moving vehicles without anybody on the ground, see drone strikes. There is nothing that stops them from targeting big, juicy ISIS convoys like the ones that conquered Palmyra (and assembled and moved together for several days). They may not be able to take the fight to the entrenched positions among civilians, but they could restrict any large-scale troop movement - and once that is done, it is only a matter of time before the local superiority of the enemies of ISIS will win out.

Would Syria not be having a civil war if not for the invasion of Iraq? How would that work- would we have sat quietly while Saddam or one of his sons* intervened in the war? Would even that have prevented it?

Here's what you don't get - ISIS got a huge power boost out of Iraq. Before that, the Syrians were holding and winning against them. So at the very least, ISIS would be much, much less of a threat. The reasons why ISIS was able to establish itself are due to the US occupation.

Also, if invading a country was wrong last time, why are normally antiwar people urging us to invade another one, in a situation where the US would logically end up the target of both sides of the civil war because we hate both Assad and the fanatics opposing him.

Because one might believe that supporting the sides that are not fanatic muslims would be better than another even-more-extreme-than-the-Taliban state.

OK, but if you're going to switch into that mode, I assume you also don't have a problem with Palmyra falling to ISIL? Because it sure looks like preventing that would have required sending soldiers into Syria to kill and blow stuff up.

Nope, just bomb the massive convoy ISIS was assembling for days.

I broke your reply here into three separate points, because they merit separate replies:

1) The Middle East was unstable long before most US intervention in the region- the US became involved but did not create that problem, because it's existed pretty much ever since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and has been violent ever since the European colonial empires left in the 1940s and '50s.

Wrong, despite the odd border war both Syria and Iraq were quite stable and had stable government for decades.

2) Did you oppose those steps at the time? In the early phase of the Syrian Civil War, Assad looked like the greater evil. Now he looks like the lesser evil. Were you content to leave Assad alone when he was gassing his own cities to suppress opposition to his rule?

I am on record of arguing against a US invasion against Assad and charging the US for again acting without a plan.
Link, Link
On and obviously (I think I have to spell this out because it is you, after all) this was not because I like gassed civilians but because I feared another Libya. What did we get? Libya 2.0.

3) Could you please expand on the campaign of ethnic cleansing to which you refer, and in which country it took place?

Look at the ethnic cleansing in Iraq done by US allies and puppets, and then ask yourself why the Sunnis might support ISIS.

On a related note- The US spent vast sums training the Iraqi military; their uselessness is in spite of US efforts, not because of it. The US does not have a magic "inspire patriotism and courage in foreigners fighting for a government that is supported by an occupying army" spray. If it did, I assure you that spray would have been used on the Iraqi army during the Bush administration, as it would no doubt be far more cost-effective than the training we actually supply them with.

Here is a simple exercise for you - compare the training regimen of Iraqi and US soldiers, then claim again with a straight face the training was done to any real standard. The US had one objective - put bodies in the field and then cut and run. The quality of those bodies, or the stability of the US puppet state, did not matter. What matter was declaring victory and then exiting quickly.

It is intellectually dishonest to blame the US for trying and failing to do something unless you have a clear idea how it could have been done better.

It is even more intellectually dishonest to claim the US was doing all it could in Iraq. Heck, they didn't even have a real plan in place until several years after the invasion. Are you denying the US did a piss-poor job in Iraq?

The US however is the only country in the area which however does have the means to strike at ISIS at will with little danger in return.

This represents an active choice on the part of every nation in the region which is not the US. Why are they not prepared to do anything? Why is only the US physically prepared to do anything, the US which is already committed to not backing Assad (who has used nerve gas on his own major cities)?[/quote]
Because only the US has the means to strike at ISIS without much danger to their forces in return.

When did you come to the conclusion that the US should intervene to support Assad against those rebelling against his authority?

About the same time the choice was between a secular dictator and people who introduce widespread child sex slavery.

So how was the massive ISIS convoy allowed to assemble and march uncontested - and unmolested by airstrikes which could easily have destroyed the whole convoy - for over two days? Because the US stood idly by and said "not our problems, let the Syrians have it".

The US has the forces and is employing them in other respects, and does not maintain the bulk of its airforce on standby as a rapid reaction force to batter ISIL columns in motion across the desert... precisely because the US is NOT directly intervening in the Syrian Civil War on any major scale. By contrast, the US IS intervening in Iraq on a somewhat larger scale, though still not as large as I'd like.

So you agree that the US stood by because they did not want to support a secular dictator against child-sex-slavers, not even against a common enemy. Well, at least you are honest enough to admit that.

Were you in favor of such increases in German military spending back in 2011 and 2012?

How about back in 2005 or so, which is when the money should have been spent, in order to build up the capability that would be needed for Germany to successfully intervene in 2011-12?

If the answer is 'yes' to both, my compliments on your foresight and good historical judgment; you have avoided the exact mistake that cost democratic Europe so dearly in the 1930s.

I have long argued in favour for more funding for the Bundeswehr since 1998, but I cannot claim to have magically foreseen us needing to intervene in Syria. My argument was for an increase in funding along the board. And an intervention would not be possible due to our constitution anyway without a UN mandate.

On the contrary, the British and the French started it, the Israelis have been methodically making it worse for no real benefit to themselves since 1973, and the Soviets did a good deal to stir the pot in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. The US merely catastrophically mismanaged it so badly as to share a large fraction of the blame.

Again, I fail to see the direct chain of events by which the US caused the Syrian Civil War, as opposed to, say, Assad causing the war. Or the various backers of ISIL

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See above, without having Iraq to fall back on ISIS would have long been crushed by the Syrian army. ISIS expanded into Iraq to escape their string of defeats at the hand of the regime.

Was doing something not possible for Europe? If so, why? If it was possible, why was it not done? The US is not the only country that should be expected to behave like a responsible adult willing to protect innocents from screaming lunatics.

a) Europe does not have the capability right now. Even if we were to pool all fighter, we cannot launch them as we have no bases and no aircraft carriers large enough. Only the US does.
b) Again, legal complications. The constitution cannot be changed.
c) Again, none of that excuses the US for creating the mess in the first place and now refusing to do anything serious to clean it up. You are behaving akin to the idiot who breaks a vase and then asks his neighbour why he is not cleaning the mess up.

So the answer was to sit there and let Assad kill the 2011-12 rebels, so that the vicious rebels of 2014-15 would not come into existence.

I just want to make sure I'm clear on this- the solution to the Syrian Civil War was to NOT arm the people fighting a tyrant and being gassed and missiled in their own major urban centers.

For the good of preventing the sack of Palmyra.

Did I get that right? If not, why not?

Because (as I have explained numerous times and will not further repeat myself again) the choices that promised success were either to fully support the rebels (which means airstrikes and possible ground forces), or do nothing and allow the process to play itself out (as it does all over the world but funny how the US does not intervene in Sudan, or Jemen, or the african countries, or Burma etc.) The US did neither, instead they fucked around and helped create a stalemate by weakening Assad and providing token support to the rebels - not enough to win, but enough to prevent being wiped out, thus lengthening the war and creating more death. This of course made the situation worse.

Had Iraq been a functioning state (fault of the US) then ISIS would never have resurrected itself after getting pushed out of the main of Syria.

And you will note... despite this, I DON'T complain about the existence of the American hegemon. So I'm already following my own advice.

You do however bitch a lot about the US having to fulfil hegemon duties, as evidenced in the thread, where the reaction to "Act like the hegomon, USA" from you is "Why? I don't want to. Why don't you act? Why do I have to act?"

The US should never have been so heavily involved in the Middle East in the first place, so why is it now only the US that is condemned for not taking effective action to protect it?

You broke it, you bought it. The US is involved, it can easily act, they have the means to act, so they can take the criticism if they are not acting.

And of course, no one else is, because they chose to lack the means to do anything consequential other than complain?

]Why does Germany lack the transportation equipment? Is your nation too poor to afford aircraft or ships? Is your government too stupid to foresee the need to do such a thing?

Surely not...

Hey, idiot, stop pretending like you don't know very well the problems we currently have with the Airbus plane. (and before you launch in your follow-up spiel about how the EU should never have had that plane, take note that we were doing the responsible thing of trying to have an independent defence industry that would not require the US to pitch in). Also, I assume you concede that any intervention without UN support is illegal for Germany?

Why, then, has the UN not provided the mandate? ISIL has killed thousands if not millions, pillaged multiple World Heritage sites already, and generally thrown half the region into chaos. Surely there are grounds for seeking a UN mandate to oppose them.

Russia and China will veto, as you well know.

I must note that some things (like producing a fighting and competent Iraqi Army) are things the US sincerely tried to do and failed because they are hard. At the end, not even Saddam Hussein had much luck assembling an Iraqi army that could actually fight; what chance did we, a bunch of foreigners, have?

Bullshit, the Iraqi army of Saddam was perfectly capable of keeping order and fighting a huge war with Iran. They were more than adequate for keeping the borders intact, something the US-"trained"-army is incapable.

[Broomstick]

Germany isn't allowed to do certain things because of something called "World War Two" that happened, from your perspective, in the late stone age. Which event, by the way, thoroughly sucked for the average German even if not as badly as for the average German Jew/Gypsy/homosexual/communist/etc. Germany lost its country, was utterly taken over by the Allies, terms dictated to them, the country sawed in half with a literal wall erected to keep it divided, and told "you will NOT study war no more". With pretty much the whole fucking world standing in a wrecked Berlin willing to back that up with bullets.

It was at the cost of millions of lives and destroyed a great chunk of Europe. We're not anywhere even close to that in the middle east, and for that type of result that's what you really need.

And I hope to god we don't wind up with that sort of situation in the Middle East or arising out of the Middle East were you have millennia of sectarian violence, brutal regimes, rebellions, AND a significant chunk of a resource absolutely vital to modern civilization. Add in that several players are actively pursuing nuclear weapons, and chemical weapons recently HAVE been used.

Do I think the ME is going to generate WWIII tomorrow? No. Not tomorrow. But it is a hot spot and it could erupt in very bad ways. The conflict in the ME has already killed people around the world by generating terrorist attacks. That's one reason everyone is concerned, the shit keeps leaking out of that region. That's also the reason no one is eager to escalate anything these days.

A population so worn down and decimated that they have truly capitulated and you can dictate the kind of terms that were dictated. But you need the resources to devote to that and a willingness to see it through.

Yep. Last time it took, oh, wasn't it around 50 million dead in WWII? Cities burned, millions displaced... it was hell. Let's not do that again. Of course, that means instead of beaten-down, compliant, surrendered people you'll have uppity sorts who won't be quite so cooperative. As the US found out in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yeah, Thanas is kind of asking that we hand out that treatment to someone else - and wants the same level of success. I wish I knew how to go about that, but the brutal fact is that the US does not have the caliber of leadership these days that we had back then. We need a great PotUS and we're not even getting mediocre these days.

That's kind of bullshit for the reasons cited above. And one can hardly blame Obama for not wanting to commit US troops considering he ran on the promise of getting troops out of the middle east.

Yes, yes, everyone wants those campaign promises kept, until they want something that requires violating those same promises.

No, it's not bullshit - it that we have not mounted an effort on part with WWII. I'm not sure that would be a good thing, either. Nobody wants to do that. Which, getting back to the thread title - no one is willing to spend that much blood and treasure to save the ruins of Palmyra.

If Thanas and others feel more direct intervention is needed, I'd like to second the calls others have had that Europe step up and handle this one. The US would certainly help you out, but you guys can own it, occupy it, and manage it and see if you're solutions to fix thousands of years of sectarian violence work out any better than ours did. If nothing else you have our bad examples to learn from right?

^ This.

Germany is only allowed to defend itself, it is not allowed to project force abroad...

Factually inaccurate
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... ea-ops.htm

Ah. Based on a 1994 court case which I was unaware of until now - most of my life I had the same understanding mentioned in that cite. I stand corrected.

Japan's own self imposed restrictions are probably what you were thinking of.

Article 9 of the 1947 Japanese constitution can not possibly be defined as "self-imposed".

[Thanas]

Germany is only allowed to defend itself, it is not allowed to project force abroad...

Factually inaccurate
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... ea-ops.htm

Ah. Based on a 1994 court case which I was unaware of until now - most of my life I had the same understanding mentioned in that cite. I stand corrected.

Germany is allowed to act only if there is an international mandate or the deployment is part of military alliances (Nato common defence case for example). So still no deployment or power projection abroad unless part of a Blue helmet or Nato deployment against a common enemy. In short, even if Merkel were to dress up as a Wagnerian valkyrie and climb aboard a Tiger to rally the German people in a crusade against ISIS, she would be promptly locked up for violating the constitution if she were to act without a UN mandate.
Other topics addressed above.

[Broomstick]

Thank you for that clarification on conditions required for Germany to act abroad in a military fashion.

[Metahive]

If Thanas and others feel more direct intervention is needed, I'd like to second the calls others have had that Europe step up and handle this one. The US would certainly help you out, but you guys can own it, occupy it, and manage it and see if you're solutions to fix thousands of years of sectarian violence work out any better than ours did. If nothing else you have our bad examples to learn from right?

Ah so, first taking giant dumps all over the place and then handling the broom over to people who told you from the beginning about the dangers of explosive diarrhea to sweep it all away. What are you, five years old?

[The Romulan Republic]

Thanas offers only fact-based criticism of the US, for as long as I can remember, and that is quite long.

Personally I think he places too much blame on the US for ISIS. I could probably find more examples, but I don't feel inclined to dig through his whole history in News and Politics so I'll let that point go.

I'm not going to say Thanas is being dishonest. Perhaps it is his sincere opinion. But it is not one that I agree with. I feel that some responsibility must go to the inept, tyrannical local governments (in the case of Iraq, they basically folded as soon as America pulled out), America's allies (even if they played a relatively small role), and of course the pieces of garbage who are fighting for ISIS. And, for that matter, every nation that is not doing all it can to fight ISIS.

That said, I do agree with Thanas that the US should be doing more about ISIS. Even if I know that the moment it does it'll be roundly attacked for evil western imperialism. We all fucking should do more.

I appreciate that Germany is in an unusual position in that respect, as discussed in this thread. But on that note, as Simon_Jester brought up, why the fuck isn't there a UN mandate to fight ISIS? Why doesn't, say, Germany propose such a thing? For that matter, ISIS has been connected to terrorist attacks in NATO countries. How bad does an attack have to be before this becomes a matter of NATO obligations?

[The Romulan Republic]

Actually, I know damn well why we can't get a UN mandate to fight in Syria. Because Putin will protect his buddy Assad and veto it.

However, I do not see why we cannot get a UN mandate to fight in Iraq, provided that the UN mission does not cross over into Syria (that'll have to be left to countries acting outside the authority of the UN, sadly).

[Simon_Jester]

Thanas offers only fact-based criticism of the US, for as long as I can remember, and that is quite long.

I have disagreed with Thanas many times, but the basis of this has generally been the belief that he was misinterpreting facts, not outright making them up- so I'll second that for what it's worth, with the caveat that "fact-based" doesn't always mean "correct" and doesn't always mean "free of bias."

Also, I miss Stas Bush.
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This is basically true, I think. To use airstrikes to full effect, you need troops on the ground directing them, spotting targets, occupying ground that the enemy abandons because they can't survive air attack while trying to hold it, and so on. Otherwise, after each airstrike the enemy just digs out of the rubble and keeps on doing business as usual to the best of their ability. Their ability may be diminished but it's not gone.

Without that use of troops on the ground, you're limited to strategic bombing. While strategic bombing can delay and weaken an enemy, you don't really get to control how much it will delay and weaken them. Not unless you use nuclear weapons, make a desert, and call it peace.

Nope, the US is quite able of targeting moving vehicles without anybody on the ground, see drone strikes. There is nothing that stops them from targeting big, juicy ISIS convoys like the ones that conquered Palmyra (and assembled and moved together for several days). They may not be able to take the fight to the entrenched positions among civilians, but they could restrict any large-scale troop movement - and once that is done, it is only a matter of time before the local superiority of the enemies of ISIS will win out.

This

Now, IF the US committed a large portion of its air force to sustaining combat operations against Da'esh, it could no doubt suppress such troop movements quite effectively. This would represent a major scaling-up of the US commitment. Personally I favor it since it's not like the Air Force has anything better to do, but it would involve a LOT of work, and basing could be difficult to organize since many Middle Eastern countries make... questionably wise places to base an anti-Da'esh offensive out of.

Of course, if I were president we'd have about two or three carrier battlegroups pounding Da'esh formations in Syria. On the other hand, I might well end up having been lambasted for trying to fight Assad back in 2011-12 (when my gut said that was the right thing to do). Or for having gotten drawn into a ground occupation of Syria which would be a nightmare.

Given how disastrously US interventions in the Middle East have ended and the ruinous expense associated with them, the "don't invade without REAL multinational support" strategy is understandable on the part of US leadership.

Would Syria not be having a civil war if not for the invasion of Iraq? How would that work- would we have sat quietly while Saddam or one of his sons* intervened in the war? Would even that have prevented it?

Here's what you don't get - ISIS got a huge power boost out of Iraq. Before that, the Syrians were holding and winning against them. So at the very least, ISIS would be much, much less of a threat. The reasons why ISIS was able to establish itself are due to the US occupation.

This is possible, but the Middle East would look so different in the absence of the Iraq War that I'm skeptical of this counterfactual scenario. I'm not sure we can predict all the things that would have happened.

OK, but if you're going to switch into that mode, I assume you also don't have a problem with Palmyra falling to ISIL? Because it sure looks like preventing that would have required sending soldiers into Syria to kill and blow stuff up.

Nope, just bomb the massive convoy ISIS was assembling for days.

Sustaining the ability to roll back Da'esh would take more than that, honestly. Just selectively bombing troop columns belonging to whichever faction we like least will not end the civil war. And I doubt Assad would be able to defeat Da'esh without extracting a human cost even greater than the death toll they're running up... because his signature tactics include massed indiscriminate bombardment of urban areas with rockets and gas weapons.

To stop that... at some point, yes you need a ground force. Air power alone is not enough unless you're prepared to accept the civil war turning into a low-intensity anarchic gang war that runs literally forever.

I broke your reply here into three separate points, because they merit separate replies:
1) The Middle East was unstable long before most US intervention in the region- the US became involved but did not create that problem, because it's existed pretty much ever since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and has been violent ever since the European colonial empires left in the 1940s and '50s.

Wrong, despite the odd border war both Syria and Iraq were quite stable and had stable government for decades.

Ah, so we're narrowing to Syria and Iraq, not to "the Middle East" or "the region." In that case, you can reasonably accuse the US of destabilizing Iraq, although Hussein's regime was never quite the same after the 1991 war that was clearly his fault.

I don't think accusing the US of destabilizing Syria is so reasonable since that was part of the Arab Spring and was a reaction to the tyranny of several Arab dictators, including some the US at least tacitly supported.

2) Did you oppose those steps at the time? In the early phase of the Syrian Civil War, Assad looked like the greater evil. Now he looks like the lesser evil. Were you content to leave Assad alone when he was gassing his own cities to suppress opposition to his rule?

I am on record of arguing against a US invasion against Assad and charging the US for again acting without a plan.
Link, Link
On and obviously (I think I have to spell this out because it is you, after all) this was not because I like gassed civilians but because I feared another Libya. What did we get? Libya 2.0.

Right. So invading Syria to topple Assad was right out. And presumably bombing Syria to topple Assad was right out. So we left Assad alone, more or less... and look what happened. He failed to defeat the rebels on his own, the country collapsed into civil war.

Starting from the status quo in 2012, we would have had to actively help him defeat the rebels to avert this situation. And that would have been a repugnant action, which I very much doubt you're actually advocating.

3) Could you please expand on the campaign of ethnic cleansing to which you refer, and in which country it took place?

Look at the ethnic cleansing in Iraq done by US allies and puppets, and then ask yourself why the Sunnis might support ISIS.

Ah. Thank you. And yes, that part is of no surprise to me. I am not surprised or confused as to why Iraqi Sunnis support fundamentalists, since they no longer have a dictator championing them against the majority of Shi'ites in Iraq.

I simply wasn't sure what you meant, so thanks for clearing that up.
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On a related note- The US spent vast sums training the Iraqi military; their uselessness is in spite of US efforts, not because of it. The US does not have a magic "inspire patriotism and courage in foreigners fighting for a government that is supported by an occupying army" spray. If it did, I assure you that spray would have been used on the Iraqi army during the Bush administration, as it would no doubt be far more cost-effective than the training we actually supply them with.

Here is a simple exercise for you - compare the training regimen of Iraqi and US soldiers, then claim again with a straight face the training was done to any real standard. The US had one objective - put bodies in the field and then cut and run. The quality of those bodies, or the stability of the US puppet state, did not matter. What matter was declaring victory and then exiting quickly.

Indeed, US troops themselves had many complaints about the quality and reliability of Iraqi army units while fighting alongside them during the guerilla war. We were getting hit over the head with this problem too.

The thing is, quite simply, that when the US first invaded, our moronic leadership grossly underestimated the scale of what would be required

And in later years when it became clear that the occupation would have to run for many years to have any chance of success, neither the American people nor the Iraqi people wanted the US occupation forces to remain. So the US pulled out... leaving behind a totally inadequate army despite spending something like twenty billion dollars to train and equip it.

Better armies have been created on much smaller budgets- so while I can surely say the US should have done a smarter job of organizing the Iraqi Army, I don't think it's fair to say the US didn't try hard enough.

It is intellectually dishonest to blame the US for trying and failing to do something unless you have a clear idea how it could have been done better.

It is even more intellectually dishonest to claim the US was doing all it could in Iraq. Heck, they didn't even have a real plan in place until several years after the invasion. Are you denying the US did a piss-poor job in Iraq?

The US did a terrible job, in some ways due to poor planning and in some ways due to an inherently unfavorable situation. Much of the US's poor planning came about precisely because of how badly the Bush Administration failed to grasp exactly how unfavorable the situation was.

Basically, they unwittingly walked into a minefield, then threw good money after bad trying to find a way out.

This represents an active choice on the part of every nation in the region which is not the US. Why are they not prepared to do anything? Why is only the US physically prepared to do anything, the US which is already committed to not backing Assad (who has used nerve gas on his own major cities)?

Because only the US has the means to strike at ISIS without much danger to their forces in return.

That's recursive. I'm asking why doesn't anyone else have the means? Why does this come down to "either the US with its horrible track record of intervening in Middle Eastern countries does something, or nobody does something?"

What I'm asking you to ask yourself is, why are you in this position of having to demand action from a nation that would normally be the very last people you would ever ask to intervene in a foreign crisis, and whose previous interventions have drawn little but (generally deserved) scorn from you?

When did you come to the conclusion that the US should intervene to support Assad against those rebelling against his authority?

About the same time the choice was between a secular dictator and people who introduce widespread child sex slavery.

Okay, and roughly when was that? I mean, chronologically? When did you make up your mind that backing Assad was the right course here?

So you agree that the US stood by because they did not want to support a secular dictator against child-sex-slavers, not even against a common enemy. Well, at least you are honest enough to admit that.

The US has a habit of backing dictators against 'evil' enemies that has not, on the whole, gone well. If the US happens to have gotten out this habit at precisely the wrong moment, I regret that, but it's hardly a surprise that they learned at least part of a lesson from their experiences sooner or later.

I would be amazed if you yourself haven't repeatedly criticized the US for using its military muscle to back brutal dictators against enemies it deemed "evil." It would take an exhaustive archive trawl to settle the matter one way or the other, though, so I'll take your word for it if you say you have not thus criticized the US. At least for tonight.

Were you in favor of such increases in German military spending back in 2011 and 2012?

How about back in 2005 or so, which is when the money should have been spent, in order to build up the capability that would be needed for Germany to successfully intervene in 2011-12?

If the answer is 'yes' to both, my compliments on your foresight and good historical judgment; you have avoided the exact mistake that cost democratic Europe so dearly in the 1930s.

I have long argued in favour for more funding for the Bundeswehr since 1998, but I cannot claim to have magically foreseen us needing to intervene in Syria. My argument was for an increase in funding along the board. And an intervention would not be possible due to our constitution anyway without a UN mandate.

Very well. Taking your word for this, much as Churchill could claim to be blameless in the poor state of British military preparations in 1938, you are blameless in the poor state of European military preparations today.

My compliments to you for your intelligence and foresight. And no, I was not asking if you'd specifically foreseen the need to intervene in Syria, no one could have predicted that, although you could reasonably have predicted the need to intervene somewhere at some time, since it's not like major instability in Muslim Mediterranean countries wasn't a plausible threat even back in the 1990s.

Was doing something not possible for Europe? If so, why? If it was possible, why was it not done? The US is not the only country that should be expected to behave like a responsible adult willing to protect innocents from screaming lunatics.

a) Europe does not have the capability right now. Even if we were to pool all fighter, we cannot launch them as we have no bases and no aircraft carriers large enough. Only the US does.

This is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about- you're going in circles. Why do the combined militaries of Europe lack the capabilities to do something like this, which the US could do with relative ease? Is it wise for Europe to lack such capabilities?

Because that means that Europe's only recourse in a situation like this is to sit and watch helplessly as the situation spirals out of control, while demanding US assistance... and the US may well say "no" for reasons of its own (like debt, like being tired of foreign adventures).

b) Again, legal complications. The constitution cannot be changed.

Fine- but where is France or Italy which as I recall are under no such restrictions? And has Germany pushed for a UN mandate in this matter? You would think they'd do so, since this is obviously a very big problem.

Or are they just waiting for another unilateral US intervention to fix the status quo after opposing the last unilateral US intervention on (valid) grounds that it was a stupid idea, a decade ago?

c) Again, none of that excuses the US for creating the mess in the first place and now refusing to do anything serious to clean it up. You are behaving akin to the idiot who breaks a vase and then asks his neighbour why he is not cleaning the mess up.

To me, it's more like:

I watch helplessly as my retarded brother sets the hedge between our houses on fire. I call the fire department, try (with limited success) to restrain him, and mostly get the immediate fire beaten out.

A while later, embers from the fire cause a major fire in your house. I rush over to the scene and find you standing there dithering and demanding that I help. I look over your available resources and say:

"What do you MEAN you don't own a fire extinguisher? Are you OUT OF YOUR MIND?"

...

Basically my question is, why the lack of preparation? Why is the only plan here "let the US fix it?" To the extent that if for whatever reason the US is unable or unwilling to do something about it, there is no plan?

Given how critical both of us have been of the US's desire to play world policeman, I think we should both be unhappy when the only plans that exist are "rely on US as world police" or "do nothing."

So the answer was to sit there and let Assad kill the 2011-12 rebels, so that the vicious rebels of 2014-15 would not come into existence.

I just want to make sure I'm clear on this- the solution to the Syrian Civil War was to NOT arm the people fighting a tyrant and being gassed and missiled in their own major urban centers.

For the good of preventing the sack of Palmyra.

Did I get that right? If not, why not?

Because (as I have explained numerous times and will not further repeat myself again) the choices that promised success were either to fully support the rebels (which means airstrikes and possible ground forces), or do nothing and allow the process to play itself out (as it does all over the world but funny how the US does not intervene in Sudan, or Jemen, or the african countries, or Burma etc.) The US did neither, instead they fucked around and helped create a stalemate by weakening Assad and providing token support to the rebels - not enough to win, but enough to prevent being wiped out, thus lengthening the war and creating more death. This of course made the situation worse.

Fair enough. I can certainly agree that Obama horribly mishandled the situation by attempting to be all things to all people and 'compromise' on 'oppose Assad but not too hard.'

He managed to make a farce out of his initial diplomacy by talking about "red lines" or "lines in the sand" or something, a thing he wasn't prepared to enforce, too.

Honestly, I don't think anyone, especially not Obama, really knew what to do in response to the Arab Spring. It wasn't expected or predicted, no one had planned on how to go about participating in and dealing with the overthrow of those Middle Eastern dictatorships that had previously been stable for decades apiece.

And you will note... despite this, I DON'T complain about the existence of the American hegemon. So I'm already following my own advice.

You do however bitch a lot about the US having to fulfil hegemon duties, as evidenced in the thread, where the reaction to "Act like the hegomon, USA" from you is "Why? I don't want to. Why don't you act? Why do I have to act?"

Yes... because I don't want the US to be eternally committed to hegemony, because this will predictably result in the US being implicated in an escalating series of disasters that will get worse and worse until spiraling hopelessly out of the control of a republic that is probably at the peak of its power and very likely to enter at least a shallow decline as the 21st century rolls on.

You're too sensible to really want that, I'd think.

Why does Germany lack the transportation equipment? Is your nation too poor to afford aircraft or ships? Is your government too stupid to foresee the need to do such a thing?

Surely not...

Hey, idiot, stop pretending like you don't know very well the problems we currently have with the Airbus plane. (and before you launch in your follow-up spiel about how the EU should never have had that plane, take note that we were doing the responsible thing of trying to have an independent defence industry that would not require the US to pitch in). Also, I assume you concede that any intervention without UN support is illegal for Germany?

To be quite honest, I am only dimly aware of the problems Germany has had with Airbus military transports. I am fully supportive of the desire of European nations to have an independent defense industry- European nationalism is just as valid and justified as American nationalism in my eyes.

That said, I am certainly critical of the result, which is de facto European military helplessness as a barbarian horde massacres thousands and destroys precious cultural heritage sites across a thousand kilometers or so of the Middle East.

Why, then, has the UN not provided the mandate? ISIL has killed thousands if not millions, pillaged multiple World Heritage sites already, and generally thrown half the region into chaos. Surely there are grounds for seeking a UN mandate to oppose them.

Russia and China will veto, as you well know.

Honestly I didn't know that, or at least wasn't taking it for granted. Why? Does Da'esh make that much better customers for them?

I must note that some things (like producing a fighting and competent Iraqi Army) are things the US sincerely tried to do and failed because they are hard. At the end, not even Saddam Hussein had much luck assembling an Iraqi army that could actually fight; what chance did we, a bunch of foreigners, have?

Bullshit, the Iraqi army of Saddam was perfectly capable of keeping order and fighting a huge war with Iran. They were more than adequate for keeping the borders intact, something the US-"trained"-army is incapable.

When I said "at the end," I was referring to 2003, by which point the Iraqi Army pretty much dissolved without a fight. Granted that this was in itself the result of US actions earlier in the '90s, but I would be surprised to learn that you'd opposed the post-Gulf War restrictions on Iraq because of how they'd weaken the Iraqi military.

[Flagg]

See the shit I have to put up with? I get lied about by this little toilet bug for 2 or 3 pages, get a bit annoyed so give him 12 hours to actually prove what he's said or I report him, but he cannot do what I demanded since lies are untrue, therefore impossible to prove (I honestly expected he would retract them, which he has not), I just decided to let it go but not without paraphrasing the lies he's told repeatedly in this thread (that you can see for yourself)... He responds with yet another "hair on fire" post which he ends by flailing about saying he will not respond to me unless the mods make him. And he acts as if he's the only one having discussions with multiple people so that's his lame excuse for running away rather than just retracting the lies (that's all I want, no apology needed, I think I've been eminently reasonable here, and continue to do so).

So because of the latest post regarding me where he just compounds his dishonesty, I've reported him to the moderators. Now I figure either nothing will happen or I'll get blamed for it all as usual. But I'd rather watch garbage TV right now than deal with this incredibly sad individual with a vendetta against me and apparently Thanas as well. But then, he knows better than to compound the lies he tells about a moderator, doesn't he? So since this is an interesting conversation that I don't wish to be ruined by The Romulan Republic's blatant lies, and my calm, measured responses to them which are just taking up space, I'll retire for a few hours (or if lucky I'll fucking sleep for more than 45 minutes before the dreams about hot gold being poured into my eyes (I don't know what that feels like, but my imagination seems to) wake me up, and see where the chips have fallen. Even though I pretty much already know.

[Alyeska]

Flagg, shut the fuck up.

I am going to review the complaints made in this thread. But you crossed the fucking line throwing a temper tantrum publicly like that.

I want silence from both Flagg and Romulan Republic while I wade through the pages.

[Thanas]

Now, IF the US committed a large portion of its air force to sustaining combat operations against Da'esh, it could no doubt suppress such troop movements quite effectively. This would represent a major scaling-up of the US commitment. Personally I favor it since it's not like the Air Force has anything better to do, but it would involve a LOT of work, and basing could be difficult to organize since many Middle Eastern countries make... questionably wise places to base an anti-Da'esh offensive out of.

Of course, if I were president we'd have about two or three carrier battlegroups pounding Da'esh formations in Syria. On the other hand, I might well end up having been lambasted for trying to fight Assad back in 2011-12 (when my gut said that was the right thing to do). Or for having gotten drawn into a ground occupation of Syria which would be a nightmare.

That's fair.

Given how disastrously US interventions in the Middle East have ended and the ruinous expense associated with them, the "don't invade without REAL multinational support" strategy is understandable on the part of US leadership.

It is. Trouble is, the US did not keep its hands off. It shipped hundreds of anti-tank missiles to the rebels, with the effect that Syrian tank strength seems to be gone now, which again means no counteroffensive or effective fighting power.

This is possible, but the Middle East would look so different in the absence of the Iraq War that I'm skeptical of this counterfactual scenario. I'm not sure we can predict all the things that would have happened.

We can however predict with near 100% certainty that ISIL would not have a support base in Iraq for the foreseeable future, or at least would have had to fight a functioning Iraqi Army for it.

Sustaining the ability to roll back Da'esh would take more than that, honestly. Just selectively bombing troop columns belonging to whichever faction we like least will not end the civil war. And I doubt Assad would be able to defeat Da'esh without extracting a human cost even greater than the death toll they're running up... because his signature tactics include massed indiscriminate bombardment of urban areas with rockets and gas weapons.

You asked about what it would take to stop ISIS from advancing, now you are shifiting the goalposts to taking back occupied cities. On that, I am quite sure that the US, given the track record of Fallujah, would bomb cities as well. But in any case, casualties will be high no matter what, so you might just as well support the side that is not advocating in favor of sex-child-slavery.

I broke your reply here into three separate points, because they merit separate replies:
1) The Middle East was unstable long before most US intervention in the region- the US became involved but did not create that problem, because it's existed pretty much ever since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and has been violent ever since the European colonial empires left in the 1940s and '50s.

Wrong, despite the odd border war both Syria and Iraq were quite stable and had stable government for decades.

Ah, so we're narrowing to Syria and Iraq, not to "the Middle East" or "the region."

This is stupid. It is quite clear what we are talking about here, so you suddenly pretending to having lost the intelligence to read context is beneath you.

In that case, you can reasonably accuse the US of destabilizing Iraq, although Hussein's regime was never quite the same after the 1991 war that was clearly his fault.

I don't think accusing the US of destabilizing Syria is so reasonable since that was part of the Arab Spring and was a reaction to the tyranny of several Arab dictators, including some the US at least tacitly supported.

The initial protests and rebellions? Probably not. But who has sent the rebels all those shiny new TOWs?

Right. So invading Syria to topple Assad was right out. And presumably bombing Syria to topple Assad was right out. So we left Assad alone, more or less... and look what happened. He failed to defeat the rebels on his own, the country collapsed into civil war.

No, we didn't leave him fucking alone. The US fucking shipped massive quantities of arms to the rebels. The US trained rebels. Heck, over 5000 rebel fighters was the number the US alone equipped and trained At the same time, the US enacted an arms embargo against Syria. The US tried to topple Assad anyway, just without getting their hands dirty. That is what you - despite all of that being widely published in US media - are not getting. The situation is not the US letting them fight it out, the situation is one side (rebels) getting massive US support and intelligence, the other side (ISIS) getting bombed somewhat unless they attack the third side (Assad), who the US really hopes will get toppled by the first side (rebels) anytime soon. The US is not a neutral party.

Starting from the status quo in 2012, we would have had to actively help him defeat the rebels to avert this situation. And that would have been a repugnant action, which I very much doubt you're actually advocating.

No, I am not. I am advocating that once the idea of armed invasion was off, the US should have fucking stopped there. Instead, they tried to pull a Libya 2.0, with very much the same results. Rebels that are too weak to win on their own are propped up, thereby prolonging and aggravating the civil war.

Indeed, US troops themselves had many complaints about the quality and reliability of Iraqi army units while fighting alongside them during the guerilla war. We were getting hit over the head with this problem too.

The thing is, quite simply, that when the US first invaded, our moronic leadership grossly underestimated the scale of what would be required

And in later years when it became clear that the occupation would have to run for many years to have any chance of success, neither the American people nor the Iraqi people wanted the US occupation forces to remain. So the US pulled out... leaving behind a totally inadequate army despite spending something like twenty billion dollars to train and equip it.

Better armies have been created on much smaller budgets- so while I can surely say the US should have done a smarter job of organizing the Iraqi Army, I don't think it's fair to say the US didn't try hard enough.

Of course it is fair to say that. If I were to dick around for three years and then remember that I have to do something, I still would get the label of "did not try hard enough". Money spent is no indicator of trying hard enough, not even when you yourself admit the US left the job unfinished without caring over the product they churned out.

That's recursive. I'm asking why doesn't anyone else have the means? Why does this come down to "either the US with its horrible track record of intervening in Middle Eastern countries does something, or nobody does something?"

Do you want me to go through all the countries to find out what their military lacks to even be able to attack in Syria? How about we start with "no place to launch from due to no supercarriers". That should be easy enough to grasp. As for why nobody has supercarriers, because they cost a lot of money, far more money than anybody else can afford. Look at the GDPs of the USA and the defence budget and then you'll have the answer. When the choice for a nation is "will we fund having tanks in case the Russians show up or will we spend all on a nuclear carrier (and then have no money left for planes)" then the choice is easy.

Now I know what you will say next - the naive american assumption that just because the EU has overall a large GDP, it could afford it. That's right - if the EU were actually a federal state. But it isn't and despite how hard some members are pushing for it, some nations (like the UK) will never agree to it. As it is, no state as of right now could afford similar capabilities to the US.

What I'm asking you to ask yourself is, why are you in this position of having to demand action from a nation that would normally be the very last people you would ever ask to intervene in a foreign crisis, and whose previous interventions have drawn little but (generally deserved) scorn from you?

Because they can do the job of bombing ISIS. Are you too dumb to grasp that?

Okay, and roughly when was that? I mean, chronologically? When did you make up your mind that backing Assad was the right course here?

When ISIS started its march across Iraq. Besides, why does any of this matter?

The US has a habit of backing dictators against 'evil' enemies that has not, on the whole, gone well. If the US happens to have gotten out this habit at precisely the wrong moment, I regret that, but it's hardly a surprise that they learned at least part of a lesson from their experiences sooner or later.

I would be amazed if you yourself haven't repeatedly criticized the US for using its military muscle to back brutal dictators against enemies it deemed "evil." It would take an exhaustive archive trawl to settle the matter one way or the other, though, so I'll take your word for it if you say you have not thus criticized the US. At least for tonight.

I don't know what the overall aim of this line of questioning is aiming for, my guess right now would be a pathetic attempt to expose me as some kind of hypocrite or as somebody who did not know more than the US decision makers. you know what? I'll admit right now that I don't, but then again it is kind of pathetic that the combined US strategical thinkers don't know more, especially considering the money spent on spies and other intelligence activities.

BTW, I can still criticise the US for supporting evil dictators and acknowledge that evil slavers are worse than evil dictators. It is not an either-or scenario (unless the US made it one, like in Iraq).

My compliments to you for your intelligence and foresight. And no, I was not asking if you'd specifically foreseen the need to intervene in Syria, no one could have predicted that, although you could reasonably have predicted the need to intervene somewhere at some time, since it's not like major instability in Muslim Mediterranean countries wasn't a plausible threat even back in the 1990s.

Sure, but Germany was already intervening with several thousand troops in countries already, like stabilising Kosovo and Bosnia. We already did far more in that time than the US for example when it came to having troops keeping the peace in other countries (obviously the US was still number one in blowing things up).

]This is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about- you're going in circles. Why do the combined militaries of Europe lack the capabilities to do something like this, which the US could do with relative ease? Is it wise for Europe to lack such capabilities?

Look above.

Fine- but where is France or Italy which as I recall are under no such restrictions? And has Germany pushed for a UN mandate in this matter? You would think they'd do so, since this is obviously a very big problem.

France and Italy do not have the capabilities either, they don't have any carriers large enough or bases either. Nor can they afford to have giant carriers. And even if the QE class was in service, its complement alone would not be enough to provide continuous sorties.

Yes... because I don't want the US to be eternally committed to hegemony, because this will predictably result in the US being implicated in an escalating series of disasters that will get worse and worse until spiraling hopelessly out of the control of a republic that is probably at the peak of its power and very likely to enter at least a shallow decline as the 21st century rolls on.

You're too sensible to really want that, I'd think.

Meh. The US will be eternally committed to hegemony. There is nobody in the US that plans to abandon that. Heck, even now, when the US is the unchallenged world power for at least the next thirty years or so, the US hawks are already salivating over meeting the "chinese challenge". The US defence budget is larger than that of the next 25 nations combined. I do not see that changing for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile the US is trying very hard to consolidate and expand its power by diplomatic means as well (see the whole attempt to turn Nato into the US auxilliary force). So, quite frankly, given how the US is actively trying to be - and wants to stay - the hegomon, they might just as well get asked to act like one. And any attempt to deny the responsibility to act because "well, I don't wanna be the hegeomon really" just comes across as really, really funny. I'd laugh if it weren't so sad.

To be quite honest, I am only dimly aware of the problems Germany has had with Airbus military transports.

Let's just put it this way - it cost the European nations so far at least the sums of building two Nimitz-class carriers. And it still is a defective aircraft.

I am fully supportive of the desire of European nations to have an independent defense industry- European nationalism is just as valid and justified as American nationalism in my eyes.
That said, I am certainly critical of the result

Anybody with half a brain is critical of the result of European procurement so far.

Russia and China will veto, as you well know.

Honestly I didn't know that, or at least wasn't taking it for granted. Why? Does Da'esh make that much better customers for them?

No, but a) Assad does, and b) any mandate to "defeat ISIS and restore stability" may very well be used to just do a driveby on the Syrian regime as well (or so they fear. It doesn't help that the US abused a mandate to investigate nuclear weapons to invade Iraq just little over a decade ago).

When I said "at the end," I was referring to 2003, by which point the Iraqi Army pretty much dissolved without a fight. Granted that this was in itself the result of US actions earlier in the '90s, but I would be surprised to learn that you'd opposed the post-Gulf War restrictions on Iraq because of how they'd weaken the Iraqi military.

No, I opposed the restrictions for doing little but killing babies and because I thought that Iraq had suffered enough after the Highway of death. That being said, the destruction of the Iraqi army in 2003 was the direct result of US aggression. Even if we assume the Republican Guard was the only one which would resist ISIS - that's still 72k armored forces, enjoying local support. ISIS would never have formed under such conditions.

[Thanas]

Update: ISIS has entered the Palmyrene museum, but so far has not smashed a lot. Hopefully they run out of explosives or plan to sell the artifacts at a later date....

Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group have entered the museum in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, placing guards at its doors, the country's antiquities director Mamoun Abdulkarim has said.

Abdulkarim confirmed on Saturday that the group had raised their flag over the ancient citadel that overlooks some of the spectacular Greco-Roman ruins in the city.

Speaking at a press conference in Damascus, the antiquities director said some modern plaster statues in the museum had been destroyed but he did not report any damage to antiquities in the building.

The fighters on Thursday "entered the museum and broke some plaster statues... that were being used to represent life in prehistoric eras".

They returned on Friday, and when they left, "they closed the doors behind them and placed their guards" at the entrance of the museum, Abdulkarim said, citing residents still in the town.

Antiquities moved in advance

Most of the antiquities in the museum were removed and brought to Damascus before ISIL cemented its control of Palmyra on Thursday.

"There's almost nothing left in the museum, we had been progressively transferring the antiquities to Damascus," the Agence France-Presse news agency quoted Abdulkarim as saying.

"But there are still the large items, like the sarcophagi, which weigh three or four tonnes and we could not move. Those are what worry me."The Roman-Byzantine sarcophagi feature high-relief carvings.

Abdulkarim also confirmed that ISIL fighters had raised their black flag over the 13th century Mamluk Fakhr al-Din al-Maani citadel that overlooks the ruins of Palmyra.

Earlier, a photograph purporting to show the ISIL flag over the citadel was circulated on social media, but it was not possible to confirm its authenticity.

Both the citadel and the ruins are on the UNESCO World Heritage list, and before the war some 150,000 tourists a year visited Palmyra.

The arrival of ISIL in Palmyra has caused international concern about the fate of the city's historical treasures, because the group has destroyed heritage sites in areas under its control in neighbouring Iraq.

"I hope that they do not repeat the same destruction they committed in Iraq," Abdulkarim said. "We will consider measures to prevent them from destroying Syrian cultural heritage."

This is:
a) Ironic, because it is well-known that Assad sells monuments too
b) I can't see what measures will prevent destruction except killing them.

Edit: Source

[Sea Skimmer]

After the fall of Palmyra, Isis also took the last remaining border outpost of Syria between Syria and Iraq. Isis territory is now a single block.

No that map is just poorly drawn bullshit. The Syrian government still has most of a division and a fortified airfield and siege positions overlooking Deir ez Zur. Use the damn wikipedia map if your going off stuff that fucking bad. By marking actual settlements held it gives a far more accurate view of what's going on in the first place. No rebel group has gained an inch against the SAA positions around this city since 2012 when large scale fighting broke out; though ISIL wiped out or annexed all the other rebel groups present in mid 2014.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:S ... tailed_map

[wautd]

I'm sad to report that the Orkish barbarians have begun destroying the site

[Thanas]

Got a link? Latest news I read yesterday say the site was unharmed for now.

[Thanas]

Isis has vowed not to destroy the ruins as they are not idolatry.

Let's hope the fuckers don't take a close look at the ruins and discover the many religious tiles and depictions there.

[Pelranius]

Isis has vowed not to destroy the ruins as they are not idolatry.

Let's hope the fuckers don't take a close look at the ruins and discover the many religious tiles and depictions there.

They already took a close look, complete with a propaganda video (can't find the link).

I honestly don't know what's going through their minds.

[Thanas]

Dude, did you read the article? It has a link to that video. But it doesn't have anything close to a close look. Just medium-distance pictures.

[Pelranius]

Dude, did you read the article? It has a link to that video. But it doesn't have anything close to a close look. Just medium-distance pictures.

Yeah, I was thinking of another propaganda video.

[Simon_Jester]

Presumably at least some of their soldiers have physically walked through the ruins even if they have not done a close inspection. It's not like anyone would stop them.

Da'esh may have at some point realized that they might actually end up worse off with foreign powers that are so far not bothering to do much of anything about them. That dynamiting literally every ruin in Mesopotamia will at some point be counterproductive to their cause, so that they now only selectively deface the particular ruins most offensive to their iconoclasm.

Although privately I deem that unlikely.

[ArmorPierce]

Or maybe they take don't care or even take pride in their history if they don't consider it idolatry. Egyptians take pride in their pyramids despite it being pre-muslim. After all, their segregation between other religious worship and disallowed idolatry/blasphemy does not have to be rooted in actual facts and reality, just in their heads.

[wautd]

Got a link? Latest news I read yesterday say the site was unharmed for now.

It was in dutch so not very useful here. Apparently still unconfirmed so hopefully I'm wrong (but I don't have high hopes judging by the track record of these troglodytes)

[Simon_Jester]

Or maybe they take don't care or even take pride in their history if they don't consider it idolatry. Egyptians take pride in their pyramids despite it being pre-muslim. After all, their segregation between other religious worship and disallowed idolatry/blasphemy does not have to be rooted in actual facts and reality, just in their heads.

They've been gratuitously wrecking a LOT of other ruins, tombs, and artifacts. It seems very unlikely that they would suddenly start showing actual respect for the history of the Middle East now.

[ArmorPierce]

Or maybe they take don't care or even take pride in their history if they don't consider it idolatry. Egyptians take pride in their pyramids despite it being pre-muslim. After all, their segregation between other religious worship and disallowed idolatry/blasphemy does not have to be rooted in actual facts and reality, just in their heads.

They've been gratuitously wrecking a LOT of other ruins, tombs, and artifacts. It seems very unlikely that they would suddenly start showing actual respect for the history of the Middle East now.

You find it more likely that they between cutting off heads and destroying other artifacts, that destroying some old ruins is the line that they won't cross because they fear it would instigate foreign intervention?

[Irbis]

They've been gratuitously wrecking a LOT of other ruins, tombs, and artifacts. It seems very unlikely that they would suddenly start showing actual respect for the history of the Middle East now.

Like what ruins? If you mean highly published case of Mosul museum, that's in eastern Iraq. Palmyra is in western Syria, some 550 km away. ISIS is not some sort of chaotic evul Muslim Borg collective, it's quite likely the groups on two opposite ends of Middle East might have some differing ideas.