The Common Ills: Yes, it was a combat death

Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Yes, it was a combat death

"This was certainly a combat death" -- anti-ISIS coalition in Iraq spokesman on U.S. Navy SEAL killed in Iraq 

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Yesterday, Charlie Keating IV was killed in Iraq.

And, yes, it was a combat death.

It was a point that US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter made immediately when he announced the death.

It was a point the White House tried to blur via flack Josh Earnest.

It was a combat death.

USA TODAY notes Facebook comments -- including this from Bob Zimmerman:

This is outrageous. Blame both parties for this. We have no clear end goal, no plan. We fight with our hands tied. This is a mess. We should pull everyone out. Not one more soldier injured or killed starting now.

On Iraq, the editorial board of THE WASHINGTON POST offers:

Whether Mr. Abadi survives the present crisis will likely depend on whether Shiite parties, with help from Iran, can patch up their differences. But already he has proved incapable of addressing Iraq’s fundamental political problem, which is the schism among the Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities. That brings us to the Obama administration’s second error: an unwillingness to accept that Iraq cannot survive under its present system of governance, which centralizes power in Baghdad.

Since the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq’s Sunni-majority areas, the administration has stubbornly stuck to the slogan of a “unified Iraq,” even though that has effectively meant depriving Kurdistan’s autonomous government and armed forces of the resources they need to fight the war, and critically delayed the development of a Sunni leadership that could effectively govern areas liberated from the terrorists.

Haider al-Abadi was installed as Iraq's latest prime minister by Barack in August of 2014.

As we noted in Monday's snapshot, Barack's most serious error about the Iraqi government was in 2010 when he decided to nullify votes because he believed Nouri al-Maliki could deliver what the US wanted.

Barack then spent nearly four years looking the other way as Nouri's abuses ran wild -- all because the US 'needed' him.

Regardless of whether Iraq remains unified or split into three regions, the notion that the US government can look the other way and offer blind support is one that should have been long ago dispelled.

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