Iraq: Out of the desert into Mosul (closed)

[OUTLAW 09]

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Dayuhan and Ulenspiegel are correct that the Silk Road will never regain it's relative importance. It ran mostly on luxury goods which had a long life span and an attractive bulk/value ratio for slow, land-based transport. Think drugs and diamonds today. The current era is dominated by vast global value chains integrated by huge container ships on the physical side.

I will leave it there.

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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 Silk 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.

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?

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.