The Common Ills: Nouri's not gone yet -- as Falluja civilians can attest

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Nouri's not gone yet -- as Falluja civilians can attest

Nouri may be outgoing soon (or may not) but for now he remains the prime minister of Iraq and, if you ever doubted that, just look to Falluja. Falluja is where Nouri continues his war crimes and no one -- certainly not the US government -- seems in any hurry to stop him.

Collective punishment is not a War Crime because I say so, it's a War Crime because it is legally defined as such and recognized as such by the US government and by international law.

National Iraqi News Agency reports that Saturday Nouri's bombing of Falluja's residential neighborhoods left 4 civilians dead and thirteen more injured.

Day after day since the start of the year, Nouri has bombed Falluja's residential neighborhoods knowing full well that civilians remained in their homes. This is part of the reasons Sunnis in Iraq and outside of Iraq feel so persecuted.

Nouri is committing War Crimes. The whole world knows it and who the hell speaks out?

Sunni lives don't matter?

If that's not the message, start speaking up.

In silence, the message sent is: No one cares and you don't matter.

Nouri started bombing residential neighborhoods in January of this year. Day after day these bombings have continued. Some days the dead and wounded amount to a small number, sometimes it's a larger number. But it continues and it is against the law.

His bombings of hospitals in Falluja have received more media attention than his daily bombing -- for eight months now -- of blocks of houses in Falluja.

Where is the international outcry?

Buried under a lot of something.

Whatever it is, it's the same thing that's covering the objection to the Shi'ite militias being armed by Nouri's government. Adam Ashton (McClatchy Newspapers) explores this topic:

“These militias are ultimately unaccountable and therefore difficult to control,” said John Drake, an Iraq specialist at United Kingdom-based AKE Intelligence. “It doesn’t matter if rogue militiamen or entire militia organizations are engaging in harassment of the Sunni community, their presence alone raises the risk of such activity taking place.”
Militia fighters wear Iraqi military uniforms, but residents can distinguish them from the armed forces by their religious flags, grooming standards and the militia insignias on their trucks.
Their presence sends a chilling message to Sunnis despite assurances that the volunteer fighters are working for the greater good in Iraq.
“I don’t trust the Iraqi security forces these days,” said Ihab Ahmed, 36, an unemployed Sunni in the Abu Ghraib neighborhood west of Baghdad that has housed extremist Sunni militants since the days of the American occupation. It’s now under control of the Iraqi army and foot soldiers from Asa’ib Ahl al Haq.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/08/23/6648986/iraqs-shia-militias-that-once.html#storylink=cpy

In other news, Sinan Salaheddin and Vivian Salama (AP) report that 42 people died from violence today in Baghdad and Kirkuk alone.

The following community sites -- plus Susan's On the Edge, McClatchy Newspapers, Jody Watley and Janis Ian -- updated: