The Common Ills: Nouri and company want US military to help with the War Crimes

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Nouri and company want US military to help with the War Crimes

At Forbes, Doug Bandow argues the armed battles in Iraq are not the concern of the United States because the Islamic State (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) is not a threat to the United States:

So far ISIL’s fighters act more like an irregular military than a terrorist group. In fact, the organization offers social services and religious education, more characteristic of a traditional government. ISIL’s break with al-Qaeda reflected not only its brutality, but also the latter’s focus on the “far enemy,” that is, the U.S. In contrast, ISIL wanted to become something akin to a “real country,” which means it has less incentive to strike the U.S., since doing so would risk its geopolitical gains.

In contrast, the Iraqi Ambassador to the US is calling for the US to do Nouri al-Maliki's fighting for him. Paul McLeary (Defense News) reports:

H.E. Lukman Faily told an audience at an Atlantic Council event in Washington that for the US and Iraq “to conduct counterterrorism operations in urban areas occupied by ISIL, we need precision US air attacks,” and that “the US should offer air support targeting terrorist camps and supply convoys in remote areas.”
American air strikes would also “protect Iraq’s borders against further terrorist influx” the ambassador said, since key elements of ISIL have flowed across the porous Iraq/Syria border in the past several months, giving the group freedom of movement across the Sunni-dominated western Iraq and eastern Syria.

Faily is rarely identified by the press as such but he is a member of Nouri's political party (Dawa). Also true, he's been whining for the US to carry out airstrikes for some time now.

Why?

National Iraqi News Agency reports Nouri bombed Mosul today resulting in 7 deaths -- suspects, Nouri's government insists -- and Nouri bombed Falluja resulting in the deaths of 14 suspects.

Nouri and his buddy Faily want the US to bomb.

There's no reconciliation efforts on Nouri's part. He's not interested in the country of Iraq coming together, he's only interested in punishing those who don't belong to his sect -- and he's not too crazy about most Shi'ites either.

He lacks a military that can fight (other Iraqis) on the ground. He faces less resistance when they bomb from up in the air and don't have to take the killing face to face.

The Iraqi military also has a slur against it that it's 'cowardly.' Not that it's unwilling to kill other Iraqis (which is what we've long argued here -- and which would be completely understandable), but that it's scared to fight -- too scared to fight.

Nouri's used the air strikes, it can be argued, for the perception value. With few exceptions, air strikes have not led to the deaths of Nouri's forces (a helicopter has been shot down and, of course, there was the time Nouri's military bombed another segment of Nouri's forces by mistake), whereas on the ground confrontations tend to result in Nouri's forces being wounded and/or injured.

The same fate would meet US forces (or any other foreign forces) on the ground in Iraq doing combat. And that would most likely result in the immediate suspension of US support (the people would demand Barack pull the US troops out of Iraq).

Nouri realizes that and grasps that the western press doesn't give a damn who he kills from the air.

Yesterday's snapshot included:

National Iraqi News Agency reports Nouri's bombing of Falluja's residential neighborhoods left 3 people dead and thirteen more injured, his bombing of a home in Rawa left 2 women dead and thirteen more people (women and children) injured, and his aerial bombing of Hawija left 2 children and 5 women dead with ten more civilians left injured. These are War Crimes. Notice how little that appears to matter to the West.

The world press, as Nouri listened in, has decreed these sort of deaths unimportant.

Nouri's shaping his request towards as many crimes against humanity as he can get away with.

The following community sites updated: