Saturday, November 21, 2015

Iraq snapshot

Saturday, November 21, 2015.  Chaos and violence continue, 'liberation' doesn't bring peace in Iraqi cities, the US government finally fesses up to civilians killed in one airstrike, and much more.




Today, the US Defense Dept announced:



Strikes in Iraq

Bomber, attack, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 20 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government: 

-- Near Albu Hayat, one strike struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed three ISIL buildings.

-- Near Bayji, one strike destroyed an ISIL tactical vehicle.

-- Near Kisik, three strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL fighting position, an ISIL vehicle, and suppressed an ISIL mortar position.

-- Near Mosul, four strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed five ISIL fighting positions, three ISIL heavy machine guns, an ISIL bunker, and an ISIL vehicle.

-- Near Qayyarah, one strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL weapons cache and three ISIL fighting positions. 

-- Near Ramadi, six strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL command and control facility, 15 ISIL fighting positions, two ISIL buildings, five ISIL heavy machine guns, an ISIL recoilless rifle, an ISIL mortar system, an ISIL IED facility, an ISIL resupply warehouse, and denied ISIL access to terrain.

-- Near Sinjar, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL heavy machine gun, an ISIL fighting position, and an ISIL checkpoint.

-- Near Sultan Abdallah, two strikes struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two ISIL assembly areas.


Of course, these are precision strikes.

Not like the Russian air strikes, as a DoD official pompously declared earlier this month.

There are no precision strikes.


BBC News reports:


A US air strike aimed at an IS checkpoint is likely to have killed four civilians, possibly including a child, the US military has said.
On Friday the military released the findings of an investigation into the incident, which took place in March.
Investigators concluded the checkpoint was a valid target and the attack did not violate international laws.
The US has rarely acknowledged civilian deaths in the fight against IS and the announcement brings the total to six.


AFP adds, "It marks only the second such concession since the start of a coalition air campaign in Iraq and Syria - the U.S. military in November 2014 admitted accidentally killing two children during a strike in Syria."


Only the second concession and the first for Iraq.


Lest anyone mistakenly thinks that means civilians have not been dying in Iraq and Syria as a result of the US-led airstrikes,  AirWars estimates that the air strikes have killed between 653 to 2001 civilians.

That's probably a conservative estimate.

But the media always wants to play along with the myth that all these bombs being dropped never land on civilians.


For example, Telesur TV reports, "Turkish warplanes launched airstrikes in Northern Iraq on Friday night, destroying shelters and supply points of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)."  AFP adds, "The military did not give further details but the state-run Anatolia news agency said the operation involved 22 fighter jets and that 23 targets were hit."

 
But funny thing is, when you leave the press releases from the Turkish government and talk to the actual people where the bombs are being dropped, they talk of farms destroyed, people terrorized and, yes, people (civilians) killed.




Destruction follows 'liberation' as well.  Take Baiji.







    1. Shia militias crimes destroyed hundreds Sunni families houses in Beiji it become a Ghost city
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  •  Baiji was 'liberated' last month.


    Well maybe it's too soon?

    Maybe it needs a few more months?

    There's Jalawla which was 'liberated' a year ago -- November 2014.

    Look how well it's doing . . .

    Oh, wait.



    Amnesty International's Donatella Rovera Tweeted the following this week:








  • The cycle of violence in Iraq appears to continue with 'liberation.'



    That was obvious this week in newly 'liberated' Sinjar.


    We'll drop back to Thursday's snapshot:


    Let's move over to liberated Sinjar and the peaceful Yazidis, so grateful to return to Sinjar that they hugged everyone and prayed.

    Or something.


    On All Things Considered (NPR), Alice Fordham reported on the reaction of some Yazidis.




    FORDHAM: And he directs his anger at the Arab Muslims from his area who he says collaborated with the extremists. Not one of the Yazidis I speak to distinguishes between Arab Muslim families who stayed in ISIS-held areas and ISIS fighters. Some Arab leaders fear widespread revenge killing and looting. South of Sinjar, there's a string of ISIS-held villages mainly populated by Arab Muslims. I ask a Yazidi commander named Badr al-Hajji if there are civilians there.




    And how 'bout this money quote?
















  •  Monday, AFP reported that the Yazidis 'celebrated' their return to Sinjar by looting Sunni homes and setting them on fire.

    AFP also reminds, "Rights group Amnesty International documented attacks by Yazidi militiamen against two Sunni Arab villages north of Sinjar in January, in which 21 people were killed and numerous houses burned."



    Today, Isabel Coles (Reuters) visits the area and hears from Yazidis such as one man who she sees loading (stolen) sofas onto his truck and explains, "This is our neighbor's house.  I've come to take his belongings, and now I'm going to blow up his house."


    The circle of violence never ends while so many feel the government does not represent them.


    Thursday morning we noted the use of the Paris attacks to sell war and how that accounted for a great deal of the media attention:


    The horrors inflicted on France -- true ones, a genuine tragedy -- take place every day in Iraq, take place in Libya and in Egypt and in . . .

    And no one gives a damn.

    Our Lady of Salvation Church, to give but one example, is attacked in Baghdad October 31, 2010 and at least 58 worshipers were killed with at least 78 more left injured.


    And it was a headline.

    A minor blip.

    CNN did not go wall-to-wall for even one day -- let alone days.

    When the Islamic State declared war on Christians in Iraq (in a recorded message two days after the attack), this did not result in massive news coverage.

    Nor did President Barack Obama begin to use the term "genocide" to describe how Iraq's Christian population was being persecuted.

    Over 125,000 have been forced to flee.

    The number killed is probably at least that.

    (And killed by more than just the Islamic State.  Shi'ites have targeted the Christian population as well.)



    On the attack, we'll note this from Dirk Adriaensens' 2012 report "Were Iraqi Security Forces Involved in Baghdad Church Massacre" (Truth-Out):


    On 31 October 2010, Our Lady of Salvation Church, in Baghdad's central Karrada neighborhood, was attacked by "Al Qaeda." In the deadly attack, gunmen stormed the building and gunned down the priest and worshippers, before exploding their suicide vests. Despite an outcry against attacks on Christians, the targeting of churches in Iraq has been a regular feature since the US invasion of the country in 2003. In all, 68 worshippers died while attending church that day and another 98 were wounded.
    On 2 August 2011, an Iraqi court convicted three people and awarded them the death penalty for their role last year in this siege and underscored the uphill task faced by rulers in protecting religious minorities(65) - which are on the verge of extinction.
    But the Assyrian Christian Community, Iraqi bloggers and even some politicians have openly accused the Iraqi government of mishandling the October 31 attack:
    a) They point out that the terrorists brought explosives and weapons to the church in cars with dark-tinted windows and no license plates that are only available to officials with high-level security clearance. This allowed them to get waved through checkpoints without being stopped.
    b) They also point to the slow reaction of the security forces and the botched handling of the rescue attempt itself. It still remains unclear how many of the victims were killed or wounded by the members of the Iraqi rescue team, who opened fire wildly once they burst into the church.
    c) A senior officer in the Iraqi police, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject, said that for the ten days prior to the attack, the Interior Ministry security forces gradually moved barriers closer to the church, until the terrorists could drive right up in front.
    d) Dr. Duraid Tobiya, who heads the Mosul section of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, the largest Christian political party in Iraq, told Newsmax, "I can't accuse the government directly because I haven't seen the evidence. But this is what we have heard from survivors and from eyewitnesses who talked to people who were inside."
    Duraid and other secular Christian leaders interviewed in northern Iraq believe that the Shiite Dawa Party of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which controls the Interior Ministry forces, was complicit in the attack and that the Iraqi police has become the instrument of the ruling party, not the state. He pointed out that right after the church massacre, the Baghdad City Council, which is also controlled by the Dawa Party, passed new laws banning liquor stores, nightclubs and educational associations run by Christians. "Even the universities in Baghdad imposed new dress codes on students and separated classes by sex, like the Taliban."


    Violence and more violence -- and the one who wants violence?  Yes, her.  Thursday, Hillary Clinton gave a major foreign policy speech calling for more destruction.  We addressed some sections of the speech in that day's snapshot.

    Bill Van Auken (WSWS) takes the speech on at length but we'll instead zoom in on his coverage of the questions Clinton was asked following her speech:



    In a question and answer period following her speech, Clinton described her policy as “an intensification and acceleration” of the policies currently pursued by the Obama administration.
    “We should be sending more special operators, we should be empowering our trainers in Iraq, we should be…leading an air coalition, using both fighter planes and drones” against a “broader target set.”
    She added that the 3,500 troops that Obama has deployed to Iraq should be given “greater freedom of movement and flexibility,” i.e., they should be sent into combat with Iraqi government units.
    Clinton also advocated stepped-up arming of Sunni and Kurdish forces in Iraq to fight ISIS, with or without the consent of the Shiite-dominated central government, warning, “if Baghdad won’t do that, the coalition should do so directly.”
    She also proposed a policy to “retool and ramp up our efforts to equip viable Syrian opposition efforts,” while virtually in the same breath declaring, “There is not going to be a successful military effort at this point to overturn Assad,” and that regime change now could only be effected through a “political process.”
    In the question and answer period, Clinton said that she disagreed with Obama on Syria, believing that the administration could have done “more earlier to try and identify indigenous Syrian fighters, and adding, “We could have done more to help them in their fight against Assad.”
    In reality, Clinton at the time was warning Congress that US arms sent into Syria could end up in the hands of Al Qaeda. Massive amounts of arms were funneled into these forces by Washington’s principal regional allies—Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar—under the supervision of the CIA.
    In a brief moment of discomfort for the Democratic candidate, she was asked to respond to a statement by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that US regime change operations in Iraq and Libya had only created disasters. Her response: “It’s too soon to tell.”
    More than 13 years after then-Senator Hillary Clinton voted for a US war of aggression against Iraq based upon lies about weapons of mass destruction, presidential candidate Clinton insists that the jury is still out on this criminal war, which slaughtered hundreds of thousands and turned millions into refugees.


     
    Mike Whitney (Global Research) notes:

    Seriously, while regretful Democrats can claim that they never thought Obama would turn out to be the disappointment he has been, the same can’t be said about Clinton.  Madame Secretary has a long pedigree and the bold print on the warning label is easy to read.  There’s simply no excuse for anyone to vote for a proven commodity like Hillary and then complain at some later date, that they didn’t know what a scheming and hard-boiled harridan she really was. Clinton’s hawkishness is part of the public record. It’s right there for everyone to see. She voted for Iraq, she supported the Libya fiasco, and now she’s gearing up for Syria. Her bloodthirsty foreign policy is just slightly to the left of John McCain and his looneybin sidekick, Lindsey Graham. Simply put: A vote for Clinton is a vote more-of-the-same death and destruction spread willy-nilly across the planet in the endless pursuit of imperial domination. It’s that simple. 


















    Moazzam Begg says, resist ‘the state of fear’

    This is from Great Britain's Socialist Worker:



    Moazzam Begg says, resist ‘the state of fear’



    Moazzam Begg
    Moazzam Begg (Pic: Guy Smallman)

    “Once again Muslims are being blamed for the actions of people we reject. It’s as if we have to continually condemn something we don’t agree with, committed by people we have never known.

    The self-censorship we have to put on ourselves says we shouldn’t comment on what caused Isis to become so deadly.

    It means we feel we can’t talk about the reality—if you are bombing a country you can expect something to happen. This is what the security services have said all along. The likelihood of terrorist reprisals goes up because you are in a bombing campaign.


    If you say these things, people think you are making a justification. You’re not because you know people who have been butchered by Isis. But because they are from the Muslim world, nobody really cares.


    What would happen if the three million Muslims in Britain sat down together and had a big condemning session?


    It wouldn’t prevent Isis attacks. Isis doesn’t care what Muslims in Europe think, it is responding to what it sees as an assault on itself. I think it’s important that everyone expresses sympathy with the victims in Paris. We should stand with them and their families, but not with the governments because they are exploiting the situation.


    The prime minister’s “full spectrum response” has an impact on the ordinary person, so you see Islamophobic attacks.


    The attacks are fuelled by politicians and many sections of the media.


    They allow the creation of the state of fear in which Muslims are living.


    There has been a response from a significant section of society who recognise that the backlash will be targeted against Muslims.


    That’s something we should embrace. We also need to be prepared for the rise of the far right.


    When a group of people feels frightened and isolated we need to form a cordon
    around them and stand shoulder to shoulder with them.


    Fourteen years ago George Bush and Tony Blair launched a war against terrorism to eradicate Al Qaida.


    Al Qaida now has more franchises than a lot of fast food chains.


    If the response to the atrocities in Paris is more invasions it may create the conditions for more terrorism.”




    Moazzam Begg is director of Cage and was a detainee in Guantanamo Bay




    A Culture of Peace Is the Best Alternative to Terrorism (David Adams)

    David Swanson notes the following by David Adams:



    By David Adams, World Beyond War


    http://worldbeyondwar.org/a-culture-of-peace-is-the-best-alternative-to-terrorism/



    As the culture of war, which has dominated human civilization for 5,000 years, begins to crumble, its contradictions become more evident. This is especially so in the matter of terrorism.


    What is terrorism? Let us begin with some of the comments issued by Osama Bin Laden after the destruction of the World Trade Center:


    “God Almighty hit the United States at its most vulnerable spot. He destroyed its greatest buildings. Praise be to God. Here is the United States. It was filled with terror from its north to its south and from its east to its west. Praise be to God. What the United States tastes today is a very small thing compared to what we have tasted for tens of years. Our nation has been tasting this humiliation and contempt for more than 80 years ….
    “One million Iraqi children have thus far died in Iraq although they did not do anything wrong. Despite this, we heard no denunciation by anyone in the world or a fatwa by the rulers’ ulema [body of Muslim scholars]. Israeli tanks and tracked vehicles also enter to wreak havoc in Palestine, in Jenin, Ramallah, Rafah, Beit Jala, and other Islamic areas and we hear no voices raised or moves made …
    “As for the United States, I tell it and its people these few words: I swear by Almighty God who raised the heavens without pillars that neither the United States nor he who lives in the United States will enjoy security before we can see it as a reality in Palestine and before all the infidel armies leave the land of Mohammed, may God’s peace and blessing be upon him.”


    That is the kind of terrorism that we see in the news. But there are other kinds of terrorism as well. Consider the UN definition of terrorism on the website of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime:


    Terrorism is violence carried out by individual, group or state actors designed to frighten a non-combatant population for political reasons. The victims are usually chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a population in order to pass a message which may be intimidation, coercion and/or propaganda. It differs from assassination where the victim is the main target.”


    According to this definition, nuclear weapons are a form of terrorism. Throughout the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union held the war in a balance of terror, each aiming enough nuclear weapons at the other to potentially destroy the planet with a “nuclear winter.” This balance of terror went beyond the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by putting all people on the planet under a cloud of fear. Although there was some decrease in the deployment of nuclear weapons at the end of the Cold War, hopes for nuclear disarmament were thwarted by the Great Powers who continue to deploy enough weapons to destroy the planet.


    When asked to rule on nuclear weapons, while the World Court as a whole did not take a clear position, some of its members were eloquent. Judge Weeremantry condemned nuclear weapons in the following terms:


    “The threat of use of a weapon which contravenes the humanitarian laws of war does not cease to contravene those laws of war merely because the overwhelming terror it inspires has the psychological effect of deterring opponents. This Court cannot endorse a pattern of security that rests upon terror …”


    The issue is put clearly by the eminent peace researchers Johan Galling and Dietrich Fischer:


    “If someone holds a classroom full of children hostage with a machine gun, threatening to kill them unless his demands are met, we consider him a dangerous, crazy terrorist. But if a head of state holds millions of civilians hostage with nuclear weapons, many consider this as perfectly normal. We must end that double standard and recognize nuclear weapons for what they are: instruments of terror.”


    Nuclear terrorism is an extension of the 20th Century military practice of aerial bombardment. 

    The aerial bombardments of Guernica, London, Milan, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki set a precedent in World War II of mass violence against noncombatant populations as a means of intimidation, coercion and propaganda.


    In the years since World War II we have seen continued use of aerial bombardment which can be considered, in at least some cases, as a form of state terrorism. This includes the bombing with agent orange, napalm and fragmentation bombs against civilian as well as military targets by the Americans in Vietnam, the bombing of civilian areas in Panama by the United States, the bombing of Kosovo by NATO, the bombing of Iraq. And now the use of drones.


    All sides claims to be right and that it is the other side who are the true terrorists. But in reality, they all employ terrorism, holding the civil populations of the other side in fear and producing, from time to time sufficient destruction to give substance to the fear. This is the contemporary manifestation of a culture of war that has dominated human societies since the beginning of history, a culture that is deep and dominant, but not inevitable.


    The culture of peace and nonviolence, as it has been described and adopted in UN resolutions, provides us with a viable alternative to the culture of war and violence which underlies the terrorist struggles of our times. And the Global Movement for a Culture of Peace provides an historical vehicle for the profound transformation that is needed.


    To achieve a culture of peace, it will be necessary to transform the principles and the organization of revolutionary struggle. Fortunately, there is a successful model, the Gandhian principles of nonviolence. Systematically, the principles of nonviolence reverse those of the culture of war employed by previous revolutionaries:
    • Instead of a gun, the “weapon” is truth
    • Instead of an enemy, one has only opponents whom you have not yet convinced of the truth, and for whom the same universal human rights must be recognized
    • Instead of secrecy, information is shared as widely as possible
    • Instead of authoritarian power, there is democratic participation (“people’s power”)
    • Instead of male domination, there is equality of women in all decision-making and actions
    • Instead of exploitation, both the goal and the means is justice and human rights for all
    • Instead of education for power through force, education for power through active nonviolence
    The culture of peace and nonviolence is proposed as the appropriate response to terrorism. Other responses tend to perpetuate the culture of war which provides the framework for terrorism; hence they cannot abolish terrorism.


    Note: This an abbreviation of a much longer article written in 2006 and available on the internet at
    http://culture-of-peace.info/terrorism/summary.html

    --

    David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.
    Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook.
    War Is A Lie: Second Edition, published by Just World Books on April 5, 2016. Please buy it online that day. I'll come anywhere in the world to speak about it. Invite me!

















    Our job is to defeat imperialism, not Isis (Alex Callinicos)

    This is a repost from Great Britain's Socialist Worker:



    Our job is to defeat imperialism, not Isis

    by Alex Callinicos



    Positively the stupidest thing said about the Paris attacks came from the French president, Francois Hollande, when he denounced them as an “act of war”. Of course they were, but this war didn’t start on Friday of last week.

    At the very latest it began with the Gulf War of 1990-91, the first in the present cycle of imperialist interventions in the Middle East.

    This doesn’t make the shootings and bombings in Paris part of a legitimate anti-imperialist struggle.
    Indiscriminate killing of civilians is wrong whether it is carried out by Isis and its sympathisers or by the US and its allies.

    But it’s a mistake to see the conflict as a symmetrical one between two equal evils, as many on the left do.

    Isis is a reactionary and counter-revolutionary movement. But it is a product of the destruction wreaked in Iraq by the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation and of the defeat of the Arab Spring.

    The ultimate responsibility for its rise therefore lies with the Western imperialist powers and their local clients.

    Labour shadow justice secretary Lord Falconer—as a cabinet minister of Tony Blair’s a supporter of the 2003 invasion—talked a lot about “defeating Isis” on last Sunday’s Andrew Marr show.

    This phrase has been taken up even by the Stop the War Coalition, which mobilised so strongly against that invasion.

    But “defeating Isis” is empty chatter given the present situation in Syria and Iraq, where it has its strongholds.

    Patrick Cockburn wrote recently in the London Review of Books, “A couple of years ago in Baghdad an Iraqi politician told me that ‘the problem in Iraq is that all parties are both too strong and too weak: too strong to be defeated, but too weak to win.’

    “The same applies today in Syria. Even if one combatant suffers a temporary defeat, its foreign supporters will prop it up: the ailing non-IS part of the Syrian opposition was rescued by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey in 2014 and this year Assad is being saved by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.”

    Defeats

    The same is true even of the imperialist powers—the US and Russia—now dabbling in Syria. After their defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan respectively, neither wants to commit ground troops on a significant scale. So they just lob bombs and missiles into Syria. The futility of these measures was summed up the day of the Paris attacks.

    David Cameron held a special press briefing outside

    10 Downing Street to preen over Britain’s role in the claimed drone killing of Mohammed Emwazi.
    Within hours we had concrete proof that such “acts of self defence” offer citizens in the West absolutely no protection.

    Isis has built up a formidable fighting machine based on a mixture of organised plunder and ideological zeal. It channels in a distorted way the anger and hatred provoked by Western intervention.

    Lydia Wilson writing in The Nation magazine interviewed captured Isis fighters in Kirkuk, in Iraq. She describes them as “children of the occupation”.

    “They are not fueled by the idea of an Islamic caliphate without borders; rather, Isis is the first group since the crushed Al Qaeda to offer these humiliated and enraged young men a way to defend their dignity, family, and tribe.”

    Only a revival of the Arab revolutions can generate the social force strong enough to take Isis on—above all by offering a better way of resisting imperialist domination and overthrowing the local ruling classes.

    Cameron made the connections crystal clear when he stood outside Downing Street a week or so before the Paris killings to greet president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the butcher of the Egyptian

    Revolution.

    Vowing to respond to the Paris attacks with “pitiless war”—as Hollande did—simply means that the vicious cycle of intervention and atrocity will continue, with escalating deaths and suffering in both the Middle East and the imperialist centres.

    Here in the West, we can’t “defeat Isis”. But we can help break the cycle by building mass movements that put an end to our rulers’ imperialist bullying.



    Friday, November 20, 2015

    Hillary's got war if you want it

    Yesterday, Hillary Clinton gave a major foreign policy speech calling for more destruction.  We addressed some sections of the speech in yesterday's snapshot.

    Bill Van Auken (WSWS) takes the speech on at length but we'll instead zoom in on his coverage of the questions Clinton was asked following her speech:



    In a question and answer period following her speech, Clinton described her policy as “an intensification and acceleration” of the policies currently pursued by the Obama administration.
    “We should be sending more special operators, we should be empowering our trainers in Iraq, we should be…leading an air coalition, using both fighter planes and drones” against a “broader target set.”
    She added that the 3,500 troops that Obama has deployed to Iraq should be given “greater freedom of movement and flexibility,” i.e., they should be sent into combat with Iraqi government units.
    Clinton also advocated stepped-up arming of Sunni and Kurdish forces in Iraq to fight ISIS, with or without the consent of the Shiite-dominated central government, warning, “if Baghdad won’t do that, the coalition should do so directly.”
    She also proposed a policy to “retool and ramp up our efforts to equip viable Syrian opposition efforts,” while virtually in the same breath declaring, “There is not going to be a successful military effort at this point to overturn Assad,” and that regime change now could only be effected through a “political process.”
    In the question and answer period, Clinton said that she disagreed with Obama on Syria, believing that the administration could have done “more earlier to try and identify indigenous Syrian fighters, and adding, “We could have done more to help them in their fight against Assad.”
    In reality, Clinton at the time was warning Congress that US arms sent into Syria could end up in the hands of Al Qaeda. Massive amounts of arms were funneled into these forces by Washington’s principal regional allies—Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar—under the supervision of the CIA.
    In a brief moment of discomfort for the Democratic candidate, she was asked to respond to a statement by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that US regime change operations in Iraq and Libya had only created disasters. Her response: “It’s too soon to tell.”

    More than 13 years after then-Senator Hillary Clinton voted for a US war of aggression against Iraq based upon lies about weapons of mass destruction, presidential candidate Clinton insists that the jury is still out on this criminal war, which slaughtered hundreds of thousands and turned millions into refugees.



    AP reports an attack in southern Baghdad began with a roadside bombing followed by a suicide bomber resulting in 10 deaths (plus the suicide bomber) and twenty-eight more people being injured.


    But the jury's still out, insists Cranky Clinton.

    Too soon to tell.

    Sounds a lot like Bully Boy Bush, doesn't it?

    History will ultimately judge, BBB insisted.

    Remember?

    Now, 13 years after her vote for war on Iraq, Cranky insists it's "too soon to tell."

    It's interesting how these two are so similar.

    It's also interesting that Bully Boy Bush says history will judge -- history and not some god.

    Didn't BBB campaign on his Christianity, wasn't that supposed to be at the root of his 'compassionate conservatism'?

    Hillary's not above grandstanding on the Bible herself.


    But for both, judgment comes years from now.

    No doubt, they hope it's long after they've passed away.

    Which calls into question their statements about religion but that's a whole other discussion.


    Wally and Cedric updated yesterday:






  • The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

     





  • Thursday, November 19, 2015

    Iraq snapshot

    Thursday, November 19, 2015.  Chaos and violence continue, Yazidis fondle their inner revenge demons, Hillary War Hawk Clinton talks more destruction, and much more.



    Today, the US Defense Dept announced the following:




    Strikes in Iraq

    Bomber, attack, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 19 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:

    -- Near Kirkuk, one strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL heavy machine gun and an ISIL fighting position.

    -- Near Kisik, six strikes struck five separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL weapons caches, 12 ISIL fighting positions, three ISIL vehicles, and an ISIL heavy machine gun.

    -- Near Mosul, four strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL weapons cache and two ISIL fighting positions.

    -- Near Ramadi, four strikes struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two ISIL tactical vehicles, an ISIL tunnel, seven ISIL fighting positions, an ISIL- controlled bridge, an ISIL vehicle-borne bomb, an ISIL bed down location, an ISIL staging area, and cratered two ISIL roads.


    -- Near Sinjar, four strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL fighting position, an ISIL tactical vehicle, and suppressed an ISIL mortar position.




    They do a lot of bragging at the Defense Dept.  For example.


    Targets Damaged/Destroyed as of November 13, 2015






    That's a whole lot of bombings.


    Of course, former US House Rep Mike Rogers points out, at CNN, "And we have bombed ISIS in Syria for over a year, yet three of their deadliest attacks have happened in the last three weeks."


    Rogers is making the point as he argues for more war.

    His little pitch for more carnage, however, is likely to go unnoticed since Hillary let her War Hawk wings flutter in a major speech today.



    Hillary Clinton:  This is not a time for scoring political points. When New York was attacked on 9/11, we had a Republican president, a Republican governor and a Republican mayor, and I worked with all of them. We pulled together and put partisanship aside to rebuild our city and protect our country. 


    And, so modest, apparently it was this 'bi-partisan' drive that forced her to vote for the illegal war -- which she did in 2002.

    She pulled together with other War Hawks.

    "This is not a time for scoring political points," she said.  Or, apparently, for common sense.





    Hillary Clinton:  Our strategy should have three main elements. One, defeat ISIS in Syria, Iraq and across the Middle East; two, disrupt and dismantle the growing terrorist infrastructure that facilitates the flow of fighters, financing arms and propaganda around the world; three, harden our defenses and those of our allies against external and homegrown threats.


    I'm sorry when Hillary ran the Pentagon, does anyone remember --

    What's that?

    She was never Secretary of Defense?

    She was Secretary of State?


    Hmm.

    I'm confused then.

    Where in the world is her advocating for diplomacy?


    Three main elements and they're all military.

    She didn't learn a thing from all those photo ops.


    She didn't learn much at all.

    Sahwa.

    Sons Of Iraq (and Daughters Of Iraq).

    Awakenings.

    Three terms for the same thing.

    Hillary wanted to reference them -- largely Sunni fighters that the US government paid.


    Hillary Clinton:  Ultimately, however, a ground campaign in Iraq will only succeed if more Iraqi Sunnis join the fight. But that won’t happen so long as they do not feel they have a stake in their country or confidence in their own security and capacity to confront ISIS.   Now, we’ve been in a similar place before in Iraq. In the first Sunni awakening in 2007, we were able to provide sufficient support and assurances to the Sunni tribes to persuade them to join us in rooting out Al Qaida. Unfortunately, under Prime Minister Maliki’s rule, those tribes were betrayed and forgotten. So the task of bringing Sunnis off the sidelines into this new fight will be considerably more difficult. But nonetheless, we need to lay the foundation for a second Sunni awakening.


    During Nouri al-Maliki's rule?

    This happened during Nouri al-Maliki's rule?

    Damn that Bully Boy Bush!

    He installed Nouri in 2006.

    This happened because of Nouri.

    If only Iraq could have gotten rid of Nouri.

    The Iraqis even tried.

    He lost the 2010 election to Ayad Allawi.


    But that damn Bully Boy Bush insisted Nouri get a second term and --

    Huh?

    Bully Boy Bush wasn't in the White House in 2010?

    Oh, that's right.

    It was Barack -- and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- who disregarded the voice of the Iraqi people, spat on their votes, pissed on the Iraqi Constitution and crafted The Erbil Agreement to give Nouri the second term the Iraqi people wouldn't.


    Hillary's correct that today's divisions were fostered by Nouri.

    He persecuted the Sunnis.

    But his actions were already known.

    Secret jails and prisons he used for torture were already exposed.

    But Barack gave him a second term and Hillary didn't object.


    Now she wants to insist that the same US government must lead -- the one that disregarded the Iraqi voters while hectoring them about 'democracy' -- and they must lead this battle -- the battle the US government started.


    Hillary Clinton:  This is a time for American leadership. No other country can rally the world to defeat ISIS and win the generational struggle against radical jihadism.  Only the United States can mobilize common action on a global scale, and that’s exactly what we need. The entire world must be part of this fight, but we must lead it. 



    The only leadership Hillary's ever offered is leading American's children into wars.



    Let's move over to liberated Sinjar and the peaceful Yazidis, so grateful to return to Sinjar that they hugged everyone and prayed.

    Or something.


    On All Things Considered (NPR), Alice Fordham reported on the reaction of some Yazidis.




    FORDHAM: And he directs his anger at the Arab Muslims from his area who he says collaborated with the extremists. Not one of the Yazidis I speak to distinguishes between Arab Muslim families who stayed in ISIS-held areas and ISIS fighters. Some Arab leaders fear widespread revenge killing and looting. South of Sinjar, there's a string of ISIS-held villages mainly populated by Arab Muslims. I ask a Yazidi commander named Badr al-Hajji if there are civilians there.




    And how 'bout this money quote?












  •  Monday, AFP reported that the Yazidis 'celebrated' their return to Sinjar by looting Sunni homes and setting them on fire.

    AFP also reminds, "Rights group Amnesty International documented attacks by Yazidi militiamen against two Sunni Arab villages north of Sinjar in January, in which 21 people were killed and numerous houses burned."


    Today, Isabel Coles (Reuters) visits the area and hears from Yazidis such as one man who she sees loading (stolen) sofas onto his truck and explains, "This is our neighbor's house.  I've come to take his belongings, and now I'm going to blow up his house."

    Hillary's nonsense today did not address that.


    In other news, Stars and Stripes reports, "A servicemember working with the Combined Joint Task Force directing coalition operations against Islamic State militants died of a non-combat-related injury in Iraq on Thursday, the coalition said."  Reuters adds, "The service member was not identified, and the U.S. military statement offered no other details."



    Lastly, the US State Dept issued the following today:





    Iraq: U.S. Conventional Weapons Destruction Efforts Save Lives and Build Capacity



    Fact Sheet
    Office of the Spokesperson
    Washington, DC
    November 19, 2015 



    The United States has invested more than $280 million in Iraq since 2003 toward the clearance and safe disposal of landmines, unexploded ordnance, and excess conventional weapons and munitions. This assistance, directed through several Iraqi and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), has made significant progress toward protecting communities from potential risks, restoring access to land and infrastructure, and developing Iraqi capacity to manage weapons abatement programs independently over the long term.
    The Landmine /Unexploded Ordnance Challenge
    Communities across Iraq face danger from an estimated 10-to-15 million landmines and pieces of unexploded ordnance (UXO) from conflicts dating back to the 1940s. Numerous large barrier minefields and UXO remain along the Iran/Iraq border as a result of the 1980s conflict between the two nations. The war in 1990-1991 and the conflict that began in 2003 scattered significant numbers of additional UXO, particularly in the south of the country.
    The recent activities of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq have dramatically altered the Conventional Weapons Destruction (CWD) landscape. As civilians flee large population centers like Mosul, they have become internally displaced persons in areas where they are not familiar with mine and UXO hazards. As families begin to return to their homes, they are confronted with both hazards from the recent conflict, as well as deliberate mining and booby-trapping of homes by ISIL.
    Recent Accomplishments
    During the past year, the Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs’ Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement (PM/WRA) provided over $23 million to support CWD efforts in Iraq which led to the following results:
    • Safely released and cleared landmines and UXO from more than 65 million square meters (from a total of 752 million square meters) of land across Iraq, which has revitalized economic and agricultural development throughout the nation.
    • Destroyed more than 61,979 pieces of UXO and abandoned or otherwise at-risk munitions.
    • Provided risk education to more than 38,000 Iraqi men, women and children, saving lives and preventing injuries with outreach programs to warn about the potential dangers from landmines and UXO in their communities.
    U.S.-Funded Partner Initiatives:
    • MAG (Mines Advisory Group): State Department funding has enabled MAG Iraq to clear over 34 square kilometers of contaminated land, freeing 300 contaminated sites for productive use and responding to more than 20,000 spot tasks to safely remove and destroy 840,730 landmines and pieces of UXO in northern and central Iraq. In the upcoming fiscal years, MAG plans to begin clearing newly liberated areas for the safe and timely return of IDPs such as the Yazidi population in Sinuni, Zammar, and Rabeea. Additionally, MAG plans to deploy community liaison teams to deliver risk education to an estimated 71,700 civilians affected by ISIL-related violence.
    • Norwegian Peoples Aid (NPA): NPA provided technical advisors to the Iraqi Regional Mine Action Center - South in Basrah (RMAC-S) to assist it in fulfilling its role as a regulatory body that is able to coordinate and monitor mine action activities. This project has enabled the RMAC-S to conduct a survey designed to provide a more accurate picture of the mine/UXO situation in southern Iraq. Additionally, NPA’s WRA-funded teams cleared 164,868 square meters in 2014 and found 74 cluster sub-munitions, and 20 other pieces of UXO. In 2015, the same teams have so far cleared 1,732,105 square meters finding 1,086 cluster sub munitions, 157 other pieces of UXO, 22 anti-tank mines, and 7 anti-personnel mines.
    • Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD): FSD’s proposed area of intervention was captured by ISIL and then liberated by Peshmerga forces between July 2014 and February 2015. Subsequently, FSD plans to deploy survey and clearance teams to those areas in late 2015 to increase civilian security for returning IDPs.
    • Danish Demining Group (DDG): DDG will begin conducting survey and clearance operations in southern Iraq as well as assist in developing the program capacity of the RMAC-S in coordination with the Iraq Directorate of Mine Action (DMA). Additionally, DDG hopes to conduct risk education with the goal of reaching 120,000 beneficiaries in northern Iraq.
    • Information Management and Mine Action Programs (iMMAP): iMMAP advisors continue to provide operational management, strategic planning, victims’ assistance support, and technical expertise. In September 2015, the DMA, Iraqi Kurdistan Mine Action Agency (IKMAA), and iMMAP signed a Memorandum of Understanding allowing iMMAP to establish a joint DMA and IKMAA Information Management Database to track humanitarian mine action (HMA) information in areas liberated from ISIL, and facilitate the flow of HMA data among various mine action NGOs assisting in reconstruction efforts.
    • Spirit of Soccer (SoS): Spirit of Soccer continues to implement innovative projects using soccer as a means to promote education and outreach to children about the risks from landmines and UXO. Expanding on these techniques, SoS incorporated trauma training for youth affected by ISIL-related violence, and pursued local league and tournament sponsorships in order to target young Iraqi males at risk of joining extremist groups.
    • Marshall Legacy Institute (MLI): MLI enhanced and refined the 12 Mine Detection Dog teams working with a local Iraqi demining organization. Furthermore, MLI continued the Children Against Mines Program in southern Iraq; linking three American schools to three Iraqi schools to promote mine risk education in schools and provide medical assistance to young survivors.
    • Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD): The 2014 Country Planning Workshop for Iraq, which was facilitated by GICHD in August 2014 in Istanbul, provided an opportunity for key mine action stakeholders to exchange ideas and to explore, consider and assess future options and opportunities for advancing the assessment and management of CWD activities in Iraq. DMA based in Baghdad, IKMAA based in Kurdistan, PM/WRA, and all relevant international non-governmental organizations participated in this workshop.
    The United States is the world’s single largest financial supporter of efforts to clear unexploded ordnance and landmines. Since 1993, the United States has contributed more than $2.5 billion to more than 90 countries around the world to reduce the harmful worldwide effects of at-risk, illicitly proliferated, and indiscriminately used conventional weapons of war. For more information on U.S. humanitarian demining and Conventional Weapons Destruction programs, check out the latest edition of our annual report, To Walk the Earth in Safety.
    For further information, please contact David McKeeby in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Office of Congressional and Public Affairs at PM-CPA@state.gov.