Iraq: Out of the desert into Mosul (closed)

[OUTLAW 09]

I've walked the other end... the end where the silk came from. Stop and ask yourself how it got the name "Silk Road". Where does silk come from? Hazard a guess. It's not anywhere in the Middle East.

The Silk Road was a conduit for the trade of goods from east to west. It is irrelevant because there is no more land based transit of goods from east to west, nor is there any reason for such transit or practical potential for such transit. No matter who controls the western end of what was once the "Silk Road" there still won't be any goods moving through. No silk, no spices, no mobile phones or tools or computers or cranes or any other thing. There's just no reason for them to move by land.

That territory may be strategically and economically significant in other ways. The roads are of course tactically and strategically relevant: roads always are - but as a Silk Road - as a conduit for the traffic of goods from east to west - it's meaningless. There aren't any goods to move. They're all on ships. There may indeed be some potential for intra-regional commerce and movement along portions of the old "Silk Road", but that's not a "Silk Road" any more. The whole identity and function of the "Silk Road" was in moving the products of the east to the markets of the west... and that's gone elsewhere, never to return.



You mean this "secret" conversation?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...ops-Syria.html

I know you've seen that article, because on another thread you cut/pasted directly from it in reference to the supposedly "secret" deal, though without citing it. That "secret" was leaked almost immediately, and the deal stopped on the spot.

The KSA doesn't "protect Russian oil prices", they protect their own price. Of course that means the Russians also benefit, but that's not the purpose. The Saudis will do all they can (quite a bit) to keep oil above $100 a barrel, because that's where they want it to be, for their own reasons. That of course keeps the price up for the Russians too, but that's not about "secret deals", that's just the Saudis lookin' out for #1.



Yes, I know that. It's one of the reasons I thought the Iraq war was a bad idea from the start. Of course Saddam would eventually have fallen, if only to old age, and civil war and dissolution would be a strong possibility in any post-Saddam scenario. We just blundered in and jump-started the process, fired by the illusion of "installing democracy".

Dayuhan-- I have physically fought from the end of the Road starting in Lebanon in the 80s to the towns of Khalais, Muqdadiyah, Baqubah and Mandeli in 2005/2006/2007 up to the Iranian border itself.

Never once if you check my comments did I mention trade did I?

So let us get back to the significance of the Road with or without the word Silk and focus on the Sunni/Shia global clash that does in fact concern the "Road".

Comments I made to Firn concerning this misconception of trade follow for you to read and think about.

Then we need to get Khomeini to redefine his statements concerning the "Green Crescent" and the King of Jordon to redefine his statements on the "Shia Crescent" and we then need to get the top Commander of the Quds Force to redefine his statements concerning the Shia global community he made two years ago in a rally in Tehran concerning the "Road".

Never did if I recall my comments state it had relevance for trade but it does have extreme significance for the concept of the "Green Crescent". It is though one heck of a smuggle route these days and always has been since 1600 by the way.

NOTE: Dayuhan check the symbols carried on Shia "battle flags" by the way that were carried into the Bakka Valley when the 3000 Iranian Shia "volunteers" who came to fight in Lebanon somehow never made it to the fighting, but are still there. Those battle flags had the only symbol "Green Crescent" on them---and I am betting you understand the significance. By the way those "volunteers" left Tehran after their were blessed by none other than Khomeini personally---any significance to that? Notice the same type of "Green Crescent" flags carried by Shia into the Spanish Sahara.

That is often the problem--some individuals hear and or read words and then jump with comments having never been there nor actually ever physically walked the Road nor know the names of towns along the Road that have significance say with the fighting now between the ISIS and Baghdad in say the town of Muqdadiyah.

Those towns of the Road that make up the Sunni triangle have relevance to those fighting there ---believe me and history makes up a lot of that significance.

Google the town name Muqdadiyah ---scenes of heavy fighting 2005 through 2009 between Shia, Sunni and on occasions Kurds with the US Army in the middle---check the significance of the town historically between the three groups and historically in Islam and Mohammed.

Google the historical Islamic significance of Mandeli, Muqdadiyah, Baqubah, Balad, Tikrit, and Mosul both from a Shia perspective and then from the Sunni perspective and then on top of it from a Kurdish/Arabic perspective. The Silk Road became the preferred AQI and Sunni insurgency rat run out of Syria and into the Sunni triangle and that has no relevance? When we began to block it they just created rat runs parallel to it.

Example of poor American understanding of that area and "ME history"---there was a historical figure from Muqdadiyah that if one looks at his name appears to be Shia but in fact was historically Arab Sunni tied to Mohammed ---in early 2006 a new insurgent group was setup in Baghdad, using that name as their new logo for recruiting purposes and pushed from there into Baqubah and when we captured their leader in Baqubah I had a hard time convincing the national level IC that in fact the group was Sunni not Shia based on the name and the significance of the name as tied to Muqdadiyah.

Now go back and trace the heavy US/Sunni/AQI/Shia fighting in those towns from 2004 through to 2010 and now with ISIS taking them over and then tie them to the comments of Khomenei and you will understand why I did not talk trade relevance.

Sometimes what we define as irrelevance has in the eyes of those that currently reside there a far deeper relevance.

Again trade in 1600 has nothing to do with the current geopolitics of the Sunni/Shia global clash and the various players in that clash and believe me religiously the Road has significance to those players.