Wednesday, February 24, 2016

News versus 'news'

First up:






    • And Iraq's torn apart from on the ground combat, yes.

    It's also being torn apart by the bombing that the US and it's 'coalition' has been taking part in since August of 2014.

    Iraq's torn apart.

    That's reality.

    Dropping bombs from the air is not going to vanish the Islamic State in Iraq.

    The US taking part in combat will not do that.

    You defeat the Islamic State by removing the only justification it ever had for being in Iraq.

    Nouri al-Maliki was persecuting the Sunnis.  This meant he was using the army to circle the homes of Sunni politicians, he was doing kangaroo courts to sentence Sunni politicians to the death penalty, he was using his forces to invade their homes at three in the morning and kill their family members in the process.

    And this was the Sunni politicians.

    The average Sunni had it even worse.

    There were arrests with no arrest warrants.

    They came looking for Laif al-Naffari and Laif wasn't there but his wife was?

    They arrested his wife.

    And these people arrested were tossed into prisons and jails and disappeared.

    Sunni girls and women in prison were beaten and raped.

    We could go on and on.

    But with the world -- including Barack Obama -- looking the other way, that's when the Islamic State -- a terrorist organization -- took hold in Iraq as a defender of the Sunnis under attack.

    Now they would go on to launch their own attacks against Sunnis.

    But that's not the point.

    The point is that it was the persecution of the Sunnis -- and the world' non-response to it -- that created the climate where some saw the Islamic State as needed in Iraq.

    Let's remember that they only went visibly public when Nouri was threatening and attacking Sunni protesters.

    Oh, you can't remember that?

    Maybe because the western press didn't care to cover that reality.

    But that is what happened.

    So until the persecution of the Sunnis stops, drop all the bombs you want but don't pretend that's going to end or defeat the Islamic State in Iraq.


    Then there's the issue of what we choose to ignore or not focus on.

    The cat!

    Yes, many of you have e-mailed to say the cat who made it to Europe from Iraq is big news.  It's cute news.  It's not really changing anything for Iraq.

    It's not news that we need to put other things on hold in order to include or cover.


    The Swiss girl rescued by the Kurds?

    There are some outlets reporting her rescue is her second rescue.  I don't know if that's true or not which is one reason we ignored yesterday's 'big news.'



    Here's another reason we ignored it:


  • 4 hours ago
    Kurds rescue Swedish girl from ISIS, then get her to make this very awkward video
    11 retweets 7 likes







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