Watch: Kurds take out a "suicide bomb truck" as it hurtles toward them

[wolfman_al2]

What are you trying to imply here? I never said that they are not good at it. I said there is “A” reason for that. Among others.

[bizmail_public]

The American Alliance with Turkey still makes sense – Strategically.

1. The Turks make Putin’s life much, much more difficult. For example, remember how Putin Conquered Crimea? yeah – great PR, but strategically pointless… The Turks can sink the Russian Navy while it is still port. As long as the Turks are part of NATO, Russia is incapable of projecting power across or from the Black Sea.

2. The Turks are willing to play the “Great Game” in central Asia in a way the US not only doesn’t want to, but can’t. The Turks do it for their own reasons, and sometime undermine US goals (the Kurds being the best example, but the Armenians also being a complicated situation), but far better to be engaged with the Turks as “allies” than as adversaries. Just ask Putin or the Ayatollah.

3. The Turks have an odd relationship with the Israelis, but in the end the Turks play nice with the Israelis. This does wonders to keep things from getting even worse in the Levant.

4. If we kicked the Turks out of NATO, the regional “powers” sympathetic to the West would be Israel, Egypt, and … Greece. A very weak hand to work with.

With choices like that, suddenly Turkey with it’s million-man army, ninety years of political stability (by the standards of the region – yes I know about the coups and “Deep State”), and (somewhat) democratic society looks like a preferred dance partner.

Turkey is not a great ally, and Edrogan is a egotistical ass who has screwed up a lot. But it’s tough neighborhood, and what are the alternatives? Facing a hostile Turkey, particularly one aligned with Russian or Iran, would be much, much worse.

Geopolitics ain’t pretty. But basing strategic relations on Moral Imperatives creates its own problems. Just ask Woodrow Wilson or George W Bush.

[bizmail_public]

@anon15383236

Let’s applaud stuff (and a human being) blowing up real good instead

I applaud your understandably sarcastic statement: a human being is killed in that video, why the celebration?

But what was the alternative?

That particular human being was almost certainly going to be dead within minutes.

Can’t we applaud that a group that includes women as (near) equal participants avoiding even more death?

[anon15383236]

@bizmail_public

I applaud your understandably sarcastic statement: a human being is killed in that video, why the celebration?. . . Can’t we applaud that a group that includes women as (near) equal participants avoiding even more death?

Yes, to the second question. But that’s not what the OP emphasizes. It’s more about how well the explosion matches some fucking movie, and thus how well the makers of the movie did their fake explosions. That’s an example of how easily actual horrors get decontextualized and turned into mere spectacle and entertainment, encouraging too many of us to let our adolescent-boy minds take over.

(And no, I’m not disappointed in bb. I know “cool” explosions are a big deal here. Though not usually when people actually die in them.)

[RogerStrong]

It was still rolling after the explosion.

I hope it’s a Hilux. The Kurds will be able to get it running again.

[cntrfldr]

@kupfernigk

Von Thoma, the most moral of the German commanders, deserted and surrendered to the British as soon as he realised that Germany was going to lose the war, because it was not worth a single person getting killed once one side had definite superiority. He had actually read, and understood, Clausewitz. (He also disapproved of attacks on civilians.)

Perhaps apocryphal but…:
After the Battle of El Alamein, a member of the House of Commons protested that the victorious British General Montgomery had hosted a captured German general, Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma, for dinner. Churchill replied 'Poor von Thoma, I too have dined with Montgomery."

[Gyrofrog]

@kupfernigk

it’ll be a sad day for North London when all the Kurds start going back.

And Nashville (of all places).

[anotherone]

Did they really launch a missile with a lighter and a some loose combustible material (fuel soaked rag)?

[GilbertWham]

They are filthy socialists though, so that’s unlikely

[Mangochin]

So are the Israelis. They even managed to implement collective farming.

Kibbutz

[Mangochin]

"The Toyota Pickup Truck Is the War Chariot of the Third World"
https://warisboring.com/the-toyota-pickup-truck-is-the-war-chariot-of-the-third-world-ea4a121e948b#.df6icn662

“At the Battle of Fada, 4,000 to 5,000 Chadian troops in Toyota pickup trucks defeated a Libyan armored brigade, killing 784 Libyans and their allies. Nearly 100 Libyan tanks and more than 30 armored personnel carriers were destroyed in the fighting. Chadian losses were a mere 18 troops and three Toyotas.”

[Mangochin]

@kupfernigk

It’s worth remembering that socialism has a very, very strong Jewish tradition

Which I do not consider a bad thing. Organized labor, social welfare, consumer protection, environmental protection, these are ways governments have effectively improved the lives of its citizenry.

But alas, nowadays its mostly just Bernie Sanders and Western Europe.

[Abaronofsky]

source?

[Snowlark]

I was about to ask the same thing, but first Googled it. Assuming the locals over there aren’t just taking the piss out of the Western press—and why not, all war and no play makes Jan a dull (and possibly dead) boy—then yes, Daesh really does believe this.

[kmoser]

@IronEdithKidd

The weirdest about saying it’s not appropriate is the armoured pick-up looked like it was stolen right off the set of a Mad Max movie.

It would be more accurate to say the makers of Mad Max copied suicide bombers’ vehicles. After all, suicide vehicles came first.

[Israel_B]

@beschizza whats with the quotes in the title? Do you have some reason to think that IS does not use this very tactic despite ongoing evidence?

@kupfernigk

He had actually read, and understood, Clausewitz.

Currently reading von Clausewitz. Not actually plain and obvious material despite being extraordinarily clear. Kind of wish I could read it in the original rather than in translation.

@Mister44

I also know that it seems the Kurds have their act together in general.

Sorta. Theres actually lots of infighting amongst different groups and no overall group wide goal as to whether or not or when there should be a peoples nation state of Kurdistan, but your statement is generally true in comparison to most of the region.

@Mister44

I know from friends and acquaintances who served there that the Kurds commanded their respect the most and the Kurdish regions felt the safest and treated better and felt more at home than in other areas.

Heard the same from my step brother who was USMC in Iraq wars 1 & 2.

@Mangochin

They were the only group which weren’t trying to kill us out of some kind of tribal agenda.

In large part due to the US enforcing a no fly zone over their region in Iraq during the Sadam days.

@kupfernigk

I’m afraid that I have no sympathy whatsoever for any adult who is prepared to kill for an idea.

But isnt a pluralistic society “just an idea”? What about the very idea of a society based upon a peoplehood which is separate from other peoples in a region?

@kupfernigk

It’s worth remembering that socialism has a very, very strong Jewish tradition

We arent immune to the appeal of unworkable ideas

[beschizza]

@Israel_B

@beschizza whats with the quotes in the title? Do you have some reason to think that IS does not use this very tactic despite ongoing evidence?

The lack of narrative ‘contact’ between the shots behind the berm and the shot of the truck being blown up made me think it may be, for lack of a better word, cooked footage. (I’m wrong, obviously.)

[anon26940528]

@wolfman_al2

There is a reason for that, in the ideology of ISIL, you die as a matyr when you are killed in combat by a man, but when you are killed by a woman, you go straight to hell. Thats why ISIL fighters are actually scared sh*tless by female fighters.

I hate to say it, but it’s one of those great stories that is pretty likely apocryphal. ISIS has gone well beyond conventional understandings of Islamic principles and ideology surrounding warfare, so I was very briefly tempted to believe you. The reality is that they don’t care. It falls into the same bin with idea that ISIS fighters believe they’ll go to hell if the bullets are dipped in pig blood: Sounds about right, but it doesn’t make any remote amount of sense if you know the ideology. ISIS doesn’t believe rules about mercy apply to them for various reasons I’m not going to go into, but they definitely still believe that you go to heaven if you die for the cause- no matter who killed you.

@Israel_B

Currently reading von Clausewitz. Not actually plain and obvious material despite being extraordinarily clear. Kind of wish I could read it in the original rather than in translation.

Dense is a great word to describe it. At first I thought I was losing something in the translation, but generally German to English translations can preserve most of the original meaning. It’s just a lot to unpack, Clausewitz’s style was brief but high context.

[TacoChucks]

I just came back from a refugee camp that was 90% Kurdish. They Love Americans with a capital L. They think George HW Bush was their freedom giver with the no fly zone in 1992 and see George W Bush as a great man who followed in his father’s footsteps.

None of them could get asylum in the US although they all applied.

I as an American could barley get what I had traveled there to accomplish done because I was too busy drinking sweet tea in their tents, because as soon as anyone learned I was an American, they insisted I come have tea with them.

They even had an American flag flying in the camp (along with UK and Kurdistan flags).

America should make sure we do not let them down.

[smut_clyde]

@kupfernigk

it’ll be a sad day for North London when all the Kurds start going back.

There will always be Cypriot cuisine.