Rand Paul Exclusive: Arm the Kurds To Battle ISIS and Reward Them With Kurdistan

[cindy25]

Kurdistan, why not an independent country? but arming them-no. let them sell oil, and buy their own.

 

[jmdrake]

Taking out an ISIS controlled refinery in Syria...

Ummm.....did you miss where I said they are taking out the refineries but not taking out the oil wells?

Post #44.

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-is...yrian-oil-flow-despite-us-led-strikes-2014-10
While the raids by U.S. and Arab forces have targeted some small makeshift oil refineries run by locals in eastern areas controlled by Islamic State, they have avoided the wells the group controls.

This has limited the effectiveness of the campaign and means the militants are able to profit from crude sales of up to $2 million a day, according to oil workers in Syria, former oil executives and energy experts.

Washington wants to preserve parts of Syria's oil infrastructure with the hope that they can be used after the war if Islamic State and the forces of President Bashar al-Assad are defeated, a U.S. official said near the start of the bombing campaign.

Really, not to toot my own horn, but I have thought this all the way through in ways most people simply have not. We are purposefully not touching the oil wells. That's stupid if we are serious about destroying an enemy that makes $2 million a day off of crude oil. Keyword crude. You don't need a refinery in order to sell crude oil.

 

[jmdrake]

They have been fighting everyone for 30+ years.

If the US comes in and says 'we will support you' then you are leading them on if you don't mean it. They will fight harder and over-stretch themselves if they believe support will arrive. Then when it doesn't, they will be slaughtered.

Much better for them to do what they can to maintain the status quo and hope ISIS directs their attention in other directions.

LOL. Sorry but you aren't thinking this through. The Kurds will be slaughtered if they don't fight. This isn't like the case of the uprisings against post Gulf War I Saddam Hussein. In that case yes. The false promise that we would help them overthrow Saddam lured the Kurds and the Shiites into an ill advised uprising. Saddam would have left both groups alone if they hadn't rebelled. The same cannot be said regarding ISIS and the Kurds. ISIS is eventually coming. Now I do not have any reason to expect the Kurds to be stupid and attack Turkey just because they have some extra RPGs lying around. I don't think the Kurds are suicidal. That said, their being promised a greater Kurdistan that includes part of Turkey might induce them to fight in that region. As for your claim of "fighting for 30 years" , in the 21st century that has been mostly defensive couple with small scale guerrilla attacks in response to attacks from Turkey. The Kurds have certainly not launched any large scale invasion of Turkey in recent times. I see no benefit to encouraging that through talk of "Maybe Turkey will give you its portion of Kurdistan."

 

[Peace&Freedom]

From an extensive Global Research article (reprinted on LRC today) on the Kurds, ISIS, and US diabolical designs in fostering terror in the Mideast. Note that it backs my take that ISIS never stopped being a controlled asset of the US:

In fact the only consistent group that’s even been able to militarily hold their own and actually challenge ISIS, the Kurds, are watching UK ship heavy arms to the same losing team the Iraqi army that ran away from defending Mosul. The last time the West gave them weapons and supplies, they handed them right over to ISIS.

In a recent Guardian article, a Kurdish captain said that the Kurds offered to even buy the second hand weapons from the British used in Afghanistan. But because the West is afraid the heavy arms might empower Kurdish nationalism into demanding their own sovereign nation for the first time in history, the US wants to ensure that Iraq stays as one nation after implanting its latest Baghdad puppet regime. The fiercely independent Kurds are feared if they were granted autonomy that they might refuse to allow their homeland to be raped and plundered by the US unlike the corrupt current Iraqi government. The Kurdish fighters could sorely use the bigger guns as they plan to launch an offensive in April or May to take back Mosul from ISIS. But when permitting an ancient ethnic group its proper due by granting political autonomy risks interfering with the Empire’s rabid exploitation of another oil-rich nation, all bets are off in doing the right thing.

The mounting evidence is stacking up daily to unequivocally prove beyond any question of a doubt that ISIS is in fact a US mercenary ally and not the treasonous feds’ enemy at all. From mid-August 2014 to mid-January 2015 using the most sophisticated fighter jets known to man, the US Air Force and its 19 coalition allies have flown more than 16,000 air strikes over Iraq and Syria ostensibly to “root out” ISIS once and for all. Yet all this Empire aggression has nothing to show for its wasted phony efforts as far as inflicting any real damage on the so called ISIS enemy. Labeled a “soft counterterrorism operation,” a prominent Council on Foreign Relations member recently characterized Obama’s scheme as too weak and ineffectual, and like a true CFR chicken hawk, he strongly advocates more bombs, more advisers and special operations forces deployed on the ground.

But the records show that all those air strikes are purposely not hitting ISIS forces because they are not the actual target. Many air strike missions from both the US Air Force as well as Israeli jets have been designed to destroy extensive infrastructure inside Syria that hurts the Syrian people, causing many innocent civilian casualties, while not harming ISIS at all. This in turn ensures more ISIS recruits for America’s forever war on terror. Repeatedly oil refineries, pipelines and grain storage silos have also been prime targets damaged and destroyed by the West. Because in 2013 Obama’s false flag claim that Assad’s army was responsible for the chemical weapons attack was thwarted by strong worldwide opposition and Putin’s success brokering the deal that had Assad turning over his chemical weapons, a mere year later ISIS conveniently provided Obama’s deceitful excuse to move forward with his air offensive on Syria after all.

Finally, on numerous occasions the US was caught red-handed flying arms and supply drops to the Islamic jihadists on the ground. According to Iraqi intelligence sources, US planes have engaged regularly in air drops of food and weapons to ISIS. These sighting began to be observed after one load was “accidentally” dropped last October into so called enemy hands supposedly meant to go to the Kurdish fighters. Realizing the US has betrayed them, as of late Iraqi security forces have been shooting down US and British aircraft engaged in providing supplies and arms to their ISIS enemy. This is perhaps the most incriminating evidence yet in exposing the truth that ISIS is being supported, supplied and protected by the US Empire more than even the Iraqi government forces the US claims to be assisting in this phony war against the militant Islamic jihadists.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-isis-us-empire-their-unholy-alliance-fully-exposed/5436019

 

[idiom]

LOL. Sorry but you aren't thinking this through. The Kurds will be slaughtered if they don't fight. This isn't like the case of the uprisings against post Gulf War I Saddam Hussein. In that case yes. The false promise that we would help them overthrow Saddam lured the Kurds and the Shiites into an ill advised uprising. Saddam would have left both groups alone if they hadn't rebelled. The same cannot be said regarding ISIS and the Kurds. ISIS is eventually coming. Now I do not have any reason to expect the Kurds to be stupid and attack Turkey just because they have some extra RPGs lying around. I don't think the Kurds are suicidal. That said, their being promised a greater Kurdistan that includes part of Turkey might induce them to fight in that region. As for your claim of "fighting for 30 years" , in the 21st century that has been mostly defensive couple with small scale guerrilla attacks in response to attacks from Turkey. The Kurds have certainly not launched any large scale invasion of Turkey in recent times. I see no benefit to encouraging that through talk of "Maybe Turkey will give you its portion of Kurdistan."

Neither do I. I favour letting the Middle East do what it does. The last time the west defeat the Muslim empire it was through letting it burn itself out and letting its crooked beliefs bring it down from the inside.

The Jihadis are anti-science and anti-economics. That is not a formula for winning a protracted war of attrition.

Let the Kurds know that help isn't coming, except maybe from Russia, and that they should settle in for a long long fight.

 

[jmdrake]

Neither do I. I favour letting the Middle East do what it does. The last time the west defeat the Muslim empire it was through letting it burn itself out and letting its crooked beliefs bring it down from the inside.

The Jihadis are anti-science and anti-economics. That is not a formula for winning a protracted war of attrition.

Let the Kurds know that help isn't coming, except maybe from Russia, and that they should settle in for a long long fight.

I honestly believe ISIS wouldn't last more than a year without their $2 million a day oil slush fund. And that's without going after the Saudi and Kuwait bake sales. ISIS isn't an empire. They are some thugs who have managed to hold onto some territory largely through early U.S. support. It's the support for the FSA that needs to be cut off. All of the "freedom fighters" in Syria need to be told in no uncertain terms that any sympathy the West might have had went away once their ranks started posting videos of themselves eating the hearts of their victims.

As for the Kurds, if there is anybody in the world that should continue to get defensive arms its them. The arms that we are sending to the Iraqi government would be better served going to the Kurds. The government troops surrendered a lot of their weapons to ISIS.

 

[jllundqu]

Wow.... Rand stepped in a big old pile of shit with this one.

His non-interventionist creds just got flushed down the toilet.

Arm the rebels - Check

Promise to redraw borders and reward US Stooges with a new country - Check

What the hell just happened in Camp Rand??? Redrawing borders? Breaking up Iraq? Does he have any idea how bad this is?

 

[idiom]

Wow.... Rand stepped in a big old pile of shit with this one.

His non-interventionist creds just got flushed down the toilet.

Arm the rebels - Check

Promise to redraw borders and reward US Stooges with a new country - Check

What the hell just happened in Camp Rand??? Redrawing borders? Breaking up Iraq? Does he have any idea how bad this is?

Well its a rational interventionist policy, and its the opposite of CFR/neo-con policy. If one had to be an interventionist, this would be a fun way to do it. Mostly it has to be causing haemorrhaging in the realms of darkness just as much as it is here.

 

[Danke]

Wow.... Rand stepped in a big old pile of shit with this one.

His non-interventionist creds just got flushed down the toilet.

Arm the rebels - Check

Promise to redraw borders and reward US Stooges with a new country - Check

What the hell just happened in Camp Rand??? Redrawing borders? Breaking up Iraq? Does he have any idea how bad this is?

There could be a type of Kurdistan (redrawing the artificial British imposed borders) if it were not for Turkey opposing it.

 

[Danke]

From an extensive Global Research article (reprinted on LRC today) on the Kurds, ISIS, and US diabolical designs in fostering terror in the Mideast. Note that it backs my take that ISIS never stopped being a controlled asset of the US:


http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-isis-us-empire-their-unholy-alliance-fully-exposed/5436019

This.

 

[jllundqu]

So what does RPF think? Seems the general feeling here is to ignore what Ron Paul advocated for his whole life and presdential aspirations and 'follow' Rand down the same slippery slope as other failed foreign policy blunders?

 

[phill4paul]

So what does RPF think? Seems the general feeling here is to ignore what Ron Paul advocated for his whole life and presdential aspirations and 'follow' Rand down the same slippery slope as other failed foreign policy blunders?

I can't speak for others. I came here for Ron Paul. Not his son or his sons foreign policy approach.

 

[Danke]

So what does RPF think? Seems the general feeling here is to ignore what Ron Paul advocated for his whole life and presdential aspirations and 'follow' Rand down the same slippery slope as other failed foreign policy blunders?

The problem, we have been involved in that region for so many years. Can we not try to support the ones we fucked over?

 

[juleswin]

So what does RPF think? Seems the general feeling here is to ignore what Ron Paul advocated for his whole life and presdential aspirations and 'follow' Rand down the same slippery slope as other failed foreign policy blunders?

I expected some selling out to get to the next level but this one policy is just over the top for me. Not even McCain is advocating for this level of destabilization that Rand is advocating for. I am down with attacking ISIS but arming the Kurds to fight for their own homeland out of Iraq and Syria(not Turkey, because?)? I am not down with that

 

[Peace&Freedom]

I expected some selling out to get to the next level but this one policy is just over the top for me. Not even McCain is advocating for this level of destabilization that Rand is advocating for. I am down with attacking ISIS but arming the Kurds to fight for their own homeland out of Iraq and Syria(not Turkey, because?)? I am not down with that

Wow.... Rand stepped in a big old pile of shit with this one.

His non-interventionist creds just got flushed down the toilet.

Arm the rebels - Check

Promise to redraw borders and reward US Stooges with a new country - Check

What the hell just happened in Camp Rand??? Redrawing borders? Breaking up Iraq? Does he have any idea how bad this is?

Will Rand's rhetoric about arming them actually result in arming the rebels? Nope.

Will Rand's rhetoric about redrawing the borders actually result in redrawing the borders? Nope.

Bush ran in 2000 calling for a humbler foreign policy, then governed by delivering an aggressive one. He flat out lied, but the rhetoric served its purpose of calming down those concerned about foreign intervention. In campaign politics, you try to de-energize your opposition, while quietly energizing your supporters. This is why so many politicians lie, or use vague language, or throw in code words, to accomplish the double agenda. Rand is playing the game in reverse, without outright lying, by making empty verbal gestures that placate the neocons, while practically resulting in non-intervention outcomes. Pay less attention to the verbal posturing, and more to the defacto policy results.

Rand's true intentions are revealed by his total voting record, so use that as a reference instead of his weekly verbal dancing. While I would like to HEAR flat out non-interventionist positions spoken, I would like to finally SEE non-interventionist policy in action. The emphasis of Rand's tactics is to get elected employing pro-war gestures, then enact an anti-war open policy in office. As in chess, so in Presidential politics, it's safer to castle first, then proceed to attack the opposing king. Rand consistently begins by shutting the interventionists up first, then advocates for non intervention as the preferred pragmatic outcome. The point is not to win over the neo-con vote, but to neutralize them, by giving them the shell of what they want, without the inner substance.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Ummm.....did you miss where I said they are taking out the refineries but not taking out the oil wells?

Nah, didn't miss it. I just wanted to add some video.

 

[idiom]

The problem, we have been involved in that region for so many years. Can we not try to support the ones we fucked over?

It would mean very nearly abandoning the UN and a lot of international law. It would need a half million troops. It might even break up Nato.

If its not done with that level of commitment, it will be a shitstorm for another 50 years and entirely America's fault.

So default option, go with Ron, stay the hell out, let them redraw their borders or not on their own time and let them live with the consequences.

It takes a certain type of mentality to want to redraw borders in the middle east to build your people a promised land.

 

[fr33]

Helping a new Kurdistan sounds like a terrible idea. I think Rand is making a mistake on this. Your average Republican voter would rather kill all the Kurds.

 

[idiom]

Helping a new Kurdistan sounds like a terrible idea. I think Rand is making a mistake on this. Your average Republican voter would rather kill all the Kurds.

Not if you said you were supporting the Kurds right to secede

I thought Y'all believed in that one.

 

[nikcers]

It would mean very nearly abandoning the UN and a lot of international law. It would need a half million troops. It might even break up Nato. If its not done with that level of commitment,eQUOTE]

For me and my entire generation, we took on this kind of sarcastic, ironic, snarkiness because it seemed the most extreme reaction to the earnestness of hippies. -Chuck Palahniuk