- The Steam: U.S. Edition Military Photo of the Day: A Fire Mission at Qayyarah West, Iraq
Timothy Brown On the topic of US forces in Iraq, RT speaks with A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition's Brian Becker:
RT: The Pentagon said earlier it had no plans to send troops into Mosul but reports in the Arabic media suggest American boots are already on the ground. What do you think is going on?
Brian Becker: Undoubtedly there are American boots on the ground. But the point the Pentagon is making is that there won’t be decisive numbers of boots on the ground because they have to tell the American people and public: “We are not going to reengage in Iraq the way we did before.” And in fact, the US cannot reengage in Iraq the way it did before because American public opinion is so deeply and profoundly developed against another major US war in the Middle East, no politician, whether they are the Democrats today or the Republicans tomorrow – doesn’t matter. There is a restraint on limiting US power. But yes, there are 5,000 US boots on the ground in Iraq and there are thousands more private contractors. It is just they won’t be decisive.
RT: The US admits it has 'advisers' assisting Iraqi forces. Is there really a clear distinction between adviser and a combat soldier?
BB: Indeed. At the beginning of the Vietnam War, the Kennedy administration always told the American people: “Don’t worry, we only have advisers.” But of course, if the policy fails, the advisers have to be supplemented by other advisers and other advisers. And sooner or later, the politicians, the generals, the admirals – they have to admit: of course these advisers are not simply advisers - they are in fact boots on the ground. It is really quantifiable when you have large tens of thousands of American troops in combat and dying, then it is undeniable. But right now we have this kind of incremental step to assuage public opinion, to tell public opinion: “Don’t worry, all the bleeding will be done by Iraqis, it won’t be done by the Americans and don’t focus too much on Iraq.” Because of course, the American people were decisive in forcing the US to actually leave Iraq in large numbers. And the politicians don’t want that to happen again. So, yes, that’s the reason they call them ‘advisers’.
Teresa MASIA PERALES
82nd Airborne Sending 1,700 Troops To Iraq via @TaskandPurpose
This morning, the US Defense Dept announced:
Strikes in Iraq
Attack, bomber, fighter, remotely piloted aircraft and rocket artillery conducted 12 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:
-- Near Mosul, seven strikes engaged four ISIL tactical units and three staging areas; destroyed 16 vehicles, seven mortar systems, three weapons caches, two ISIL-held buildings, an ISIL headquarters building and a training facility; damaged two ISIL supply routes; degraded three ISIL tunnels; and suppressed two ISIL tactical units.
-- Near Rawah, three strikes engaged an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed 11 storage containers, a vehicle and a weapons cache.
-- Near Sinjar, a strike engaged an ISIL headquarters building.
-- Near Tal Afar, a strike destroyed nine ISIL vehicles.
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. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike.
In June of 2014, the Islamic State took the city of Mosul.
Over two years later, the Iraqi government -- and 'coalition' forces -- are engaged in the liberation or 'liberation' of Mosul.
Day 21 of the operation does not find any great success. AFP notes, "Iraqi forces have already entered Mosul from the east and were moving close to the city limits from the north on Monday but have some distance to cover on the southern front."
One thing the operation has created is even more refugees.
Pagina Nuova TV
AFP France Press - Thousand of famillies flee outskirts of Iraq's Mosul http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNLCGRD2cMY … #PaginaNuova #Press
And new War Crimes are also taking place.
- Iraqi Sunni civilians Arrested & brutally tortured by Shia militias backed by Iraqi Gov. In villages of #Mosul Where media #warcrimes
- Shia militias crimes Iraq حسام الجبوري سني عراقي لديه 4 اطفال الحشد الشيعي عذبه بوحشيه وهو بريء في حمام العليل ب #الموصل وحالته خطره جدا
- Hussam al-Jubouri innocent Iraqi Sunni civilians Brutally tortured by Shia militias backed by Iraqi Gov. in villages of #Mosul #warcrimes
#IRAQ شمرية العراق 
But War Crimes are not limited to Mosul. Amnesty International notes:
Kurdish authorities have carried out a wave of attacks, demolishing the homes and driving out hundreds of Arabs from Kirkuk, as apparent revenge for an attack carried out by the armed group calling itself the Islamic State (IS) on 21 October, said Amnesty International in a new briefing published today.
The briefing, ‘Where are we supposed to go?’: Destruction and forced displacement in Kirkuk, highlights how hundreds of Sunni Arab residents, including many who fled fighting and insecurity in nearby governorates, have been expelled from Kirkuk. Many have been ordered to return to their places of origin or have been confined to camps after being suspected of assisting IS to co-ordinate the attack.
“The authorities in Kirkuk are undeniably facing a serious security threat, but that cannot justify bulldozing people’s homes and forcibly displacing hundreds of Arab residents. Many of those affected are people who have already been forced to leave their homes because of the violence engulfing the country. Now they are being forcibly displaced or made homeless yet again,” said Lynn Maalouf, Deputy Director for Research at Amnesty International’s Beirut regional office.
In the aftermath of the surprise IS attack on eight different locations across Kirkuk on 21 October, many said they were ordered to leave the area and had their identity cards confiscated. Among those affected are an estimated 250 families who had previously been displaced from other governorates of Iraq and had sought safety and shelter in Kirkuk.
At least 190 families were also forcibly displaced by Kurdish Peshmerga and Asayish forces from the Qotan and Qoshkaya villages in the Dibis district of Kirkuk governorate. Most were moved to camps for internally displaced people or sought shelter with relatives in nearby villages. IS forces had attacked a power station in Dibis on 21 October killing 12 guards and employees.
“Forcibly evicting and displacing Sunni Arab residents of Kirkuk is unlawful and cruel. Kurdish authorities must immediately put an end to unlawful destruction of civilian property and forced displacement,” said Lynn Maalouf.
“Deliberate destruction carried out without military necessity is a war crime. Ordering the displacement of civilians – unless necessary for their own security or for reasons of imperative military necessity – also is a war crime.”
The briefing, based on interviews with community leaders, internally displaced people, residents, activists, and local politicians, is supported by photographic evidence of destruction and statements from officials.
“Muhayman”, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, a 40-year-old father of 10 from a village south-west of Kirkuk, has been forcibly displaced twice by Kurdish forces, first in 2015 and most recently on 25 October 2016. He described to Amnesty International how men in military uniform came to the Manshiya area of the Wahed Huzairan neighbourhood of Kirkuk city and ordered residents to leave by morning. Early the next day they were forcibly evicted and bulldozers demolished homes late into the night.
“I was ordered by Peshmerga out of my own village, so I built a home here… Now we are homeless again, and we are all sheltering with my brother. Where are we supposed to go?”
The neighbourhood, which had consisted of hundreds of houses, was razed to the ground leaving only around 10 homes standing, he said.
“Ahmed” a resident of Kirkuk city, whose home was demolished on 25 October described chaotic scenes as residents rushed to save their possessions while tractors and bulldozers rolled into the neighbourhood. He said one of his neighbours was so distressed he shot himself after his home was demolished. Other residents interviewed by Amnesty International corroborated this account.
One man who fled from Diyala to Kirkuk in August 2014 with his family said security forces openly blamed him for the IS attack.
“We give martyrs to fight Daesh [Arabic acronym for IS] and you bring them here and harbour them in these houses,” they told him.
He was forced to go back to Diyala together with his relatives despite the well-documented pattern of unlawful killings and abductions of Sunni Arabs at the hands of militias there.
Publicly, the Governor of Kirkuk has committed not to return internally displaced people to areas still under IS control or where clashes are ongoing such as Mosul and the surrounding areas. International law and standards dictate that the return of displaced people to their homes must be voluntary.
Amnesty International has documented the repeated forced displacement and destruction
of Arab homes and villages by Peshmerga forces, which continue to
prevent residents of Arab villages and Arab residents of mixed Arab and
Kurdish towns from returning to their homes.
“Instead of flouting international law by arbitrarily uprooting civilians from their homes, the Kurdish and Iraqi authorities should be offering protection to those who have already been displaced or are seeking shelter from the fighting. And they should facilitate the voluntary and safe return of those who wish to return to their homes,” said Lynn Maalouf.
Attempts to forcibly return Sunni Arab internally displaced people and residents pre-date the IS attack on 21 October but have intensified since then.
“Instead of flouting international law by arbitrarily uprooting civilians from their homes, the Kurdish and Iraqi authorities should be offering protection to those who have already been displaced or are seeking shelter from the fighting. And they should facilitate the voluntary and safe return of those who wish to return to their homes,” said Lynn Maalouf.
Background
Kirkuk has been under the de facto control of the Kurdistan Regional Government since Iraqi government forces retreated from northern Iraq in June 2014 when IS captured large swathes of the country.Attempts to forcibly return Sunni Arab internally displaced people and residents pre-date the IS attack on 21 October but have intensified since then.
On the topic of War Crimes, War Hawk Hillary Clinton supported the Iraq War and much more. Teresa Gutierrez (WORKERS WORLD) offers:
Clinton is a well-documented warmonger, a hawk who has the blood of the Honduran, Libyan and Syrian people on her hands. She has historically backed the economic and political forces implicated in the mass incarceration of millions, primarily Black and Brown people. She is aligned with dismantling the federal welfare system, which ramped up extreme poverty for poor women and women of color.
Belen Fernandez (TELESUR TV) notes in "Dear Hillary: You Can't Be A Pro-War Feminist:"
And while Trump is an undeniable affront to humanity, at least he doesn’t pretend to have morally sound principles or compose tweets like: “Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported.”
The issue with this particular Clinton tweet is not the sentiment; the issue is that Clinton herself doesn’t believe it — because if she did, she’d be in for a whole lot of listening to the victims of America’s violations abroad. Fortunately for the overseers of empire, however, imperial victims are easily disappeared from the global discourse — unless, of course, they can be portrayed as begging us to bomb them into liberation.
In her own False Choices chapter, feminist scholar Zillah Eisenstein notes that “U.S. bombs were wrapped in women’s rights rhetoric in the Afghan and Iraq wars” and that “similar problems appear in Hillary’s newest drive toward yet another war” in Syria.
Asserting that “most feminisms in the United States and abroad have over the last three decades become … more intersectional, actively anti-racist and anti-militarist,” Eisenstein predicts that “Clinton as president will be used to stop this radical evolution and disguise militarism with a friendly white female face to read as a feminist achievement.”
Clinton can accuse Trump all she wants of going after women’s “dignity”— and she’ll be right. But she’s also doing a hell of a job of it herself.
And Deepa Kumar and Patrick Barrett point out in "The Art of Spin: How Hillary Clinton backers deployed faux feminism and privilege politics to divert attention from her destructive politics" (JACOBIN):
In fact, as it turns out, there are very sound reasons to oppose Clinton, including -- if not especially -- from a feminist perspective.
Many feminists have offered extensive critiques of Hillary Clinton’s record, notably Zillah Eisentein and the authors in False Choices, the anthology on the faux feminism of Hillary Clinton edited by Liza Featherstone. The arguments are too numerous to repeat here, but consider one example: Walmart.
When Clinton was brought onto the board of Walmart, the company was facing serious problems of gender discrimination. At every level, women were paid less than men, leading to the largest sex discrimination class-action lawsuit in history. As Featherstone wrote, while “Clinton’s presence on the board helped to make the company look like a better place for women, there is no evidence that she took any measures as a board member to address Walmart’s systemic sexism.”
This example captures the essence of neoliberal feminism — the placement of women in leadership positions of institutions dedicated to maintaining unequal, sexist, and discriminatory practices. While it is sold as a “trickle-down theory,” in reality, women in these positions -- Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Carly Fiorina -- only serve to reproduce the unjust and unequal institutions they head.
Building on the buzz of corporate feminism spurred by women like Sheryl Sandberg, author of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, the Clinton campaign has masterfully deployed feminist tropes and identity politics to promote Clinton as a feminist icon. However, Sandberg’s claim that conditions for all women will improve as women enter high-level positions is simply not borne out by reality.
Feminist Jill Stein is running for president on the Green Party ticket:
- Pinned TweetYour #StrategicVote for the Green Party can unleash $10 million in federal matching funds. Build a party for the 99 percent. #VoteGreen2016
- HA Goodman: If you want to protect WikiLeaks sources, the Greens @DrJillStein has been their strongest defender
- We are seeing a war being waged against African American communities in the US via mass incarceration & violent policing. #BlackLivesMatter
- While I spent the day going Green, Comey was busy falling inline! Stay vigilant people. We will never quit! @GreenPartyUS @DrJillStein
- Meet more Green Party candidates like @DorseyForSherif, who's running for Sheriff of Bexar County, Texas: http://jill2016.com/downticket
- We stopped them from invading Syria, privatizing the Internet & building Keystone XL. When we the people mobilize together, we get it done.
- Since Clinton/Trump got picked, we've welcomed so many people of intelligence, integrity & grit to @GreenPartyUS. Our future looks bright.
- The @TXGreens are in danger of losing ballot access. Help give #Texas voters an independent option every year. http://jill2016.com/san_antonio_tx
- How media props up Republicrats: Trump has gotten 35K times the media coverage we have; Clinton got 20K. Most of our coverage is hostile.
- No politician is entitled to your vote. Ask who has earned your vote by standing for you. Otherwise, you're truly wasting your vote.
Dr. Jill Stein 
WikiLeaks 
Ajamu Baraka 
Tim Black ™ 
Kat's "Kat's Korner: Pretenders roll on" went up yesterday. New content at THIRD:
- Truest statement of the week
- Truest statement of the week II
- A note to our readers
- Editorial: The war's supposed to help who again?
- TV: FOX struggles with Sundays
- Film Classics of the 20th Century
- Giant terrorizes London
- Tweet of the Week
- Whiny ass Gloria Steinem
- THE YOUNG TURKS: The REAL reason for war in Syria
- This edition's playlist
- No politician is entitled to your vote. Ask who h...
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