The Common Ills: Hejira

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Hejira

Barack Obama likes to pretend he doesn't do stupid s**t when, in fact, he does very little but that.

Take the bombings which have gone on for over a year and a half now. The US Defense Dept announced today:

Strikes in Iraq
Rocket artillery, ground attack, bomber and fighter aircraft conducted 25 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:

-- Near Al Baghdadi, four strikes struck two ISIL bed-down locations and two ISIL staging areas.

-- Near Al Huwayja, a strike destroyed an ISIL anti-air artillery piece.

-- Near Fallujah, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units.

-- Near Hit, seven strikes struck an ISIL training camp, two ISIL car bomb factories, an ISIL bomb factory, two ISIL tactical units, destroyed an ISIL tunnel, an ISIL vehicle, an ISIL supply cache, and an ISIL car bomb.

-- Near Kisik, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL bunker and two ISIL
assembly areas.

-- Near Mosul, six strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL assembly area, an ISIL supply cache, and three ISIL vehicles, and damaged an ISIL-used bridge section and suppressed an ISIL fighting position.

-- Near Qayyarah, a strike destroyed an ISIL mortar position and an ISIL vehicle.

-- Near Sinjar, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL vehicle and suppressed an ISIL fighting position.

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.

He has no plan for Iraq.

He inherited the war, yes. But he also continued it.

Now he wants to play kick the can and leave it for whomever occupies the White House next.

He reacts with knee jerk responses, not with contemplation, not with analysis, not with precision.

So, for example, the death of a Marine yesterday leads to what? WITN reports, "More Marines will be going to Iraq after a Camp Lejeune Marine was killed by enemy fire in northern Iraq Saturday, according to NBC News."

On yesterday's fallen, Jessica Perez and Kim Baldonado (NBC Los Angeles) report:

Staff Sgt. Louis F. Cardin died Saturday in northern Iraq from wounds suffered when his unit was attacked with rocket fire, according to a news release by the Department of Defense.
[. . .]

Cardin was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

Cardin enlisted in 2006, just two days after his high school graduation, his mother told NBC4. He comes from a military family; both of his grandfathers served and one of his brothers was in the Army.

He was awarded several medals and citations during his 10 years of service. This was his fourth deployment.

Thirteen years after the start of the Iraq War, you'd hope a president would have something to offer, some form of leadership.

Barack doesn't have anything to offer.

All he does is continue the Iraq War.

I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away
-- "Hejira," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album of the same name

The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4498 (plus 10 in Operation Inherent Resolve which includes at least 1 Iraq War fatality).

The following community sites updated: