Saturday, January 02, 2016

I Hate The War


Today, the US Defense Dept announced the continuation of bombing Iraq:



Strikes in Iraq
Attack, bomber, fighter, remotely piloted aircraft and rocket artillery conducted 25 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:
-- Near Al Baghdadi, one strike destroyed three ISIL weapons caches.
-- Near Albu Hayat, one strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL vehicle-borne bomb and an ISIL vehicle.
-- Near Kisik, nine strikes suppressed an ISIL fighting position and denied ISIL access to terrain.
-- Near Mosul, three strikes destroyed 17 ISIL fighting positions and an ISIL vehicle bomb facility.
-- Near Ramadi, five strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed seven ISIL fighting positions, six ISIL heavy machine gun positions, three ISIL buildings, an ISIL vehicle, cratered two ISIL-used roads, and denied ISIL access to terrain.
-- Near Sinjar, two strikes destroyed seven ISIL assembly areas, three ISIL weapons caches, and an ISIL command and control node.
-- Near Tal Afar, four strikes struck destroyed six ISIL bunkers and denied ISIL access to terrain.

Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target.



The bombings that began in 2014 continue as 2016 begins.

No real progress.

Even the lies begin to cave in on themselves.

Take Ramadi.

Since Monday, the whorish press has insisted Ramadi was liberated.

But it's not.

And if you still doubt it, SPUTNIK reports that "at least 11 members of Iraq's countertrrorism forces have been killed in the city of Ramadi party liberated from the Islamic State" -- no, not yet liberated.

Where is the progress?


DEUTSCHE WELLE reports, "The United Nations has said that violence in Iraq had claimed the lives of 980 Iraqis in total in December 2015. The number was up from 888 in November."  They also note the UN counts 7,989 deaths for the year.


Again, where's the progress?


Maybe it's on the reconciliation front?

Woops.  Not there either.

Karen DeYoung (WASHINGTON POST) reports:

The current prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, also a Shiite, has given much lip service to inclusion but has made little headway in changing Iraq’s sectarian equation. “All these things have to move in harmony. . . . You can’t simply focus on the military and ignore political factors,” said the senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal assessments.
“Our diplomats are working day in and day out” on Iraqi political reconciliation, the official said, “but in some ways it is even more difficult. . . . These are existential questions that the Iraqis are asking themselves.”


Meanwhile, AFP reports, "The execution in Saudi Arabia of a prominent Shiite cleric Saturday sparked outrage in neighbouring Iraq, from protesters threatening the royal family to politicians calling for diplomatic action."  Cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr is outraged.  So is Nouri al-Maliki.  So is Haider al-Abadi.

And other Shi'ites.

Other Shi'ites.

Some in the press are trying to portray this as Iraqi outrage.  It's some Shi'ites in Iraq that are outraged.



Which doesn't mean it's not an issue.

It is.

And it will be a big issue.

But note that the likes of Nouri felt no compulsion about killing non-Shi'ites via executions when he was prime minister.


It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)


The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4497.


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