Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people

WTF does that have to do with ISIS? That was in Ukraine.

Russia didn't mean to shoot down a commercial airliner. They thought it was a Ukrainian military cargo plane. Of course, when they found out it wasn't, they tried to cover it up because they were claiming the Russian army wasn't in Ukraine to begin with and that those were Ukrainian "rebels". But it's not like they actually meant to shoot down a passenger plane.

As for ISIS, yes they do care about ISIS. Russia backs the Assad regime, because they want access to Syria's port on the Mediterranian Sea. ISIS threatens the Assad regime, so ISIS is their natural enemy, along with anyone else who threatens the Assad regime.

And honestly, we should be backing the Assad regime too (or at least now working against it). It's the best hope that country has for stability. All the rebel groups are Islamists, so they're worse for stability and worse for human rights and worse for minority group rights. This happens every time we topple some "evil dictator" over there: it turns out the dictator was actually very tolerant of religious or ethnic minorities, as long as they didn't try to overthrow him (case in point: the Yazidis in Iraq). But then we topple the dictator, some "democratic" government gets installed that's mostly Islamists, and the minorities get stomped on. Nations in that region need dictators, not democracy.

>"Stay" implies that we're out and not going in. Cutting and running would be closer to the truth in this case...

Any why is that wrong? We're not willing to improve the situation there, we're only willing to make it worse. Proof: that's all we've done.

>It'd do a lot of good if we simply stopped backing the wrong side.

Yeah, and it'd do a lot of good if humans stopped having wars, and stopped being selfish. I don't see that happening any time soon.

>We give Turkey a fair bit of assistance in keeping the kurdish areas under control, not the least of which is calling Kurdish independence movements terrorists.

Exactly. So how do we change that? Simple: we don't, because we're not willing to change that. The politics are too complicated (Turkey is a NATO member after all), so we're not willing to directly oppose Turkey and ally ourselves with the Kurds and promote independence there.

As I see it, we have options: 1) stop backing the wrong side as you say, and start working to improve things there, or 2) get out. Well, we're obviously not willing to do #1, we've been doing the opposite of #1 for decades now, no matter who gets elected President, so that only leaves one choice, #2.

>Well actually, yes. You know the Kurds

They've been trying to redraw borders, yes; what I meant was, has there been any effort by Western powers to redraw those borders (since the complaint here is how we screwed up in how we (after WWI) drew those borders to begin with. And the answer there is no. The western powers have done absolutely nothing to try to redraw the borders. Some groups there would like new borders, but other groups don't (the ones who want new borders usually sit on valuable resources that the other ones want to maintain control of), and we back the wrong sides consistently, so we don't.

You were trying to claim that Russia intentionally shot down a passenger plane, when it's obvious that they didn't.

>As I said. Russia doesn't care about ISIS, Russia cares about a handy puppet state. If ISIS turned back-around into Iraq Russia would stop fighting them. If Russia kills more people than ISIS in freeing the country they won't care at all.

So, yes, Russia DOES care about ISIS. If ISIS magically teleported to the Moon and turned into pink unicorns, then Russia would stop caring about them, but that's about as likely as ISIS turning around and staying in Iraq, so it's pointless to discuss such possibilities.

>Hmmm, yeah. No. Shooting ISIS is awesome, helping a dictator is not. If we actually collaborate to help Assad hold the Syrians hostage, we're as bad as ISIS.

And you're as clueless as George W Bush. How do you propose to deal with the power vacuum when you get rid of ISIS and Assad? Just let the other Islamist groups like Al Nusra take over? Great plan! Or no, I know, let's have elections and set up a democracy!! Yeah, that worked so great in Egypt, where they elected the Muslim Brotherhood!

And how are the Syrians being "held hostage" anyway? A large chunk of the Syrian population wants the Assad regime, just like a large chunk of the Iraqi population was happy with the Saddam regime.

You have three choices: back a dictator, help Islamists overthrow the dictator, or stay out of it. I don't see how #2, your choice, is at all morally defensible.

>Commit to fixing it, or expect to paying for more over time as you continually half-fix it.

You haven't actually come up with any kind of viable plan to "fix" the problem, other than putting more people like ISIS and Al Qaeda in charge.

I know what I'm trying. And you're wrong. I'm not claiming Putin wanted an airliner shot down. I'm saying that when Putin's forces shot down an airliner he kept supporting them.

In other words, Russia doesn't care.

> So, yes, Russia DOES care about ISIS.

No. Because if ISIS wandered off into Iraq, they'd be done.

>> If we actually collaborate > How do you propose to deal with the power vacuum

You want to plug it with a dictator? Brilliant.

> how are the Syrians being "held hostage" anyway?

Their dictator has ordered his security forces to fire on civilians.

> A large chunk of the Syrian population wants the Assad regime

Got a fair vote that shows that? And see below.

> just like a large chunk of the Iraqi population was happy with the Saddam regime.

Yeah, those in his good books, whose power came from him.

But it's irrelevant anyways because even popular support for an illegal government (ie, not recognizing human rights) doesn't legitimize it.

> You haven't actually come up with any kind of viable plan to "fix" the problem

Move the goalposts much? It's not the job of the guy who says "Stop throwing gas on the fire" to have the entire roadmap planned out.

You're the one who proposes we take an active stance - to shift our alliances and protect a dictator we'd previously told to leave power. You want to commit military resources. The burden of proof is on you.