The Common Ills: The violence, the silence and the sad excuses

Friday, February 27, 2015

The violence, the silence and the sad excuses

Alsumaria reports 6 corpses were discovered dumped in Baghdad -- three of the six were brothers, all were shot dead. They also note a woman was hanged in Mosul after being accused of helping government security forces (Mosul is occupied by the Islamic State -- and has been since last June), a roadside bombing outside Baquba left 1 police officer dead and three civilians injured, and a Basra home invasion left 3 sisters and their father dead. Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) notes 8 people dead from Baghdad "bombings and mortar strikes."

The violence continues, the lack of political solutions does as well. All Iraq News notes that Parliament held a session in Baghdad yesterday and 200 MPs attended. There are 325 elected MPs for those keeping track. It's amazing how little this seems to matter to anyone other than the Iraqi people (the protesters who demonstrated from December 2012 through January 2014 noted the failure of the Parliament to take the basic steps needed).

It's amazing that it's not huge news as the US media rushes to war and rushes to drag US troops along with them.

You'd think some adult in the room would say not 1 US service member was setting foot in Iraq until real political movement took place in the country.

Instead of adults, we get Just Security doing a reach around with US House Rep Adam Schiff and that's supposed to count for substance.

Instead of adults, we get British 'reporter' Lindsey Hilsum (Channel 4) offering justifications for stealing property:

Thank goodness for looting. If Henry Rawlinson, the British Resident in Baghdad, hadn’t removed a 16 tonne 7th century alabaster statue of a winged bull from Nimrud, near Mosul, in 1849, Islamic State vandals would be taking a sledgehammer to it right now.
He purchased it from the French archaeologist who ‘discovered’ it (had the locals never noticed the huge edifices in their midst?), sawed it into several pieces for ease of transport, and brought it back to London where it was reassembled.
The magical figure, one of two that once guarded an entrance to the citadel of the Assyrian king Sargon II (721-705 BC), is now one of the treasures of the British Museum. Last year 6.8 million visitors had the chance to see it.

If her ridiculous words result in anything, it should be a return to Iraq of the statue -- you can't buy something from a thief. A thief isn't an owner.

Hislum is like a kidnapper who abducts a child from an orphanage and then points out that, six years later, it burned to the ground so her kidnapping was actually a good thing.

That such arguments even get aired publicly goes to the gross stupidity and the gross criminality in the so-called 'first world' which allows and encourages these actions and far worse -- they are the hallmark of colonization and 'pacification.'

The following community sites -- plus Antiwar.com -- updated: