Saturday, December 03, 2016

Iraq and the Mosul slog

An hour ago, the US Defense Dept announced:


Strikes in Iraq
Attack and fighter aircraft and rocket artillery conducted two strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government:

-- Near Mosul, a strike engaged an ISIL tactical unit, destroyed an ISIL-held building, damaged eight supply routes, and suppressed a tactical unit.

-- Near Rawah, a strike destroyed a vehicle bomb factory.


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 a 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.



Since August of 2014, the US has been dropping bombs daily on Iraq.

It hasn't ended the war, it hasn't accomplished much at all other than killing civilians and destroying Iraq (most recently, a health clinic was bombed).


The US-led coalition is losing a member.  THE NEW ARAB notes, "Denmark is withdrawing its fighter jets from Syria and Iraq, and will instead contribute training and analysis teams to the anti-Islamic State group coalition."  Nicolas Boeglin (GLOBAL RESEARCH) adds:




Denmark and Belgium, as well as France, The Netherlands and United Kingdom are the only European countries engaged in airstrikes operations in Syria and Iraq of the so called “coalition against ISIS“. It is the first time that a European country decides to suspend its engagement in this kind of military operations. However, it is no the first time that airstrikes in Syria and Irak are suspended by a State: last February 22,2016, Canada officially suspended all operations consisting in bombing targets in Iraq and Syria, ending a controversial action inherited from Prime Minister Harper administration (see pressnote).


Meanwhile it's day 47 of the operation to liberate or 'liberate' Mosul.

No end in sight.

Sorry, foolish Elise Labott -- it is a slog, guess you got that wrong too, you embarrassing fool.


In the real world, far from CNN's Elise Labott, the Iraqi forces are committing War Crimes.






Iraqi army cut off heads! Cruel and barbaric This army or Gangs ???? shocking This army backed by barbaric Iran Gov.




Iraqi army crimes الحشد الشيعي الارهابي يقطع رؤوس السنه العراقيون بذرائع كاذبه وهي اباده علنيه تتم بتواطىء مخزي





Despite these War Crimes, the White House continues to back the forces even though US State Dept spokesperson John Kirby insists the Leahy Amendment would stop them from doing so if War Crimes were being committed.


How to pull that off?

Pretend the War Crimes don't exist.

And the US government is teaching the Iraqi government all about tricks.

On the first day of this month, the UN released the death toll numbers in Iraq for November.  Mohammed Tawfeeq, Salma Abdelaziz and Laura Smith-Spark (CNN) report:


Iraq's military has disputed UN figures indicating that nearly 2,000 Iraqi troops were killed across the country in November, saying the number was "not accurate and much exaggerated."
Iraq's Joint Operation Command did not give CNN any numbers Saturday, saying it was not obliged to publish casualty figures while the battle against ISIS was ongoing.



The figures didn't please the Iraqi government and they want the toll reporting to be discontinued so that they can present whatever lie they want.

As a result, the United Nations is backing down.  RUDAW notes:

The UN mission in Iraq, UNAMI, will stop publicizing military casualty figures after the Joint Operations Command of the Iraqi military complained the UN’s figures for November were “much exaggerated.”



Democratic principles lose out again.

What a great lesson Barack's imparted on Iraq.