"So who's winning in.." Topic

Ukraine,Syria and Iraq?

The only news from Ukraine is about MH17, and haven't heard much about Syria and Iraq lately. Is ISIS in Baghdad yet?

Pretty sure I know who's winning in Gaza, so I didn't ask

Nobody. Nobody wins at this .

Hard to tell due to intense information warfare waged by both sides but allowing for that the Russian irregulars and their supporters inside Ukraine are under heavy preasure by the Ukrainian ATO and have lost a significant amount of ground. The advances do not come cheap for the Ukrainians whose losses are increasing as the Russians pour more "Volunteers", armour and heavy weapons across the border supported by artillery strikes by regular Russian artillery units.

The Interpreter has extensive coverage of the war interpretermag.com particularly on it's blog, pro-ukrainian but reasonably reliable.
More of the "official" Ukrainian view can be found at noww3.info which is more openly engaged in information warfare.

Official ATO summary of the situatation as of yesterday
link

Sorry Dom, at first I agreed with your statement but then I realized the leaders of all sides are the ones winning. Taking large sums of money to the bank. Follow the money, and you will always know who is 'winning'.

Regular news updates – I leave you to decide how reliable- can be found on Al Jazeera and Russia Today.

John FoA

The Russian arms industry

Syria/Hezbollah appeared to be pushing both sets of the rebels out for a while, but that seems to have stopped.

Very surprised as the Islamist forces in Syria seem to have picked things up in Iraq (should have been a void in Syria, right). I can't see the Sunnis supporting them much longer as they are now in the process of destroying their shrines (and Christian and some Shia as well). The Iraqi Sunnis always seemed more secular/less jihad-seeking pre-invasion. Most of the Al Qaeda Sunnis seemed to be foreigners (with local support who were more against Westerners) – imho.

The big news here in Houston, TX was that a Kurdish oil barge tried to dock and deliver oil. The Iraqi gov't did not like that and said it was theirs. A US judge agreed with Iraq and the US was going to confiscate it for them the last I heard.

IMO, the only "positive" outcome of the hostilities in those areas might be that the Kurds might have their own state that could possibly be successful. Iraq is too divided imo for Sunni and Shia to live together peacefully. Even under Saddam there was violence between the two groups.

Other than the TX event, most news I hear comes from looking at the BBC. We get more news on the issues with trying to deal with a huge influx of ppl without any means of legally supporting themselves. The numbers reported are those who have been intercepted, not the ones that make it through. Service groups and local charities are stretched pretty thin trying to help.

Al Jezeera's the best news coverage I've ever watched.

I agree .. NO 'n any one wins … really … The Upside … as long fanatical islamists are killing each other off in large numbers and not killing non-moslems, Westerners, etc., that is the only thing close to a real win … As far as the Ukraine … it shows that Putin/former Cold War KGB types are still in charge. They traded the Communist banner for a Nationalist one …

Who is winning? The Bad Guys. As usual.

Death

Al Jaz is pretty good coverage as long as it doesn't involve the US or Israel.

Big Oil,Big Business,Big Press,Big Government. Not you or I, I'm afraid, let's get back to gaming that at least blocks reality for a bit, sorry but its a sad and wasteful time in history folks.
So Chin Chin and throw a 6 ;)