Friday, January 15, 2016. Chaos and violence continue, the US continues bombing Iraq, Ramadi still not fully 'liberated,' THE NATION tries to have it all ways, and much more.l
Starting with THE NATION magazine which wants credit for "
Is It Time for the US to Pull Out of Iraq and Syria?" -- three different friends with the magazine lobbied for the article to be linked to.
They got their wish -- even if only one of the three realized sometimes that's not a good thing.
The piece is the sort of crap the magazine loves to do because it lets them cherry pick in ten years. "As we said a decade ago . . ."
Because the article presents four views and they can grab whichever one to make themselves look good in ten years.
Taking an actual stand?
That's too much for the rag.
Jeff Faux may offer the strongest take:
The war is already lost. None of the US governing class’ shifting war
aims—stabilizing the region, defending human rights, ending terrorism,
establishing democracy—can be achieved. There is no future “diplomatic”
solution that justifies continuing the waste of life, treasure, and
national honor.
Our ongoing intervention in the Middle East cannot succeed for
the same reason that it could not succeed in Vietnam: We are foreign
invaders, brutal enough to alienate the people of Iraq and Syria but not
brutal enough to subjugate them. By expanding and re-escalating the war
with enough US troops and bombs—and bribes to every warlord in sight—we
might (with or without the Russians) degrade and perhaps even destroy,
the Islamic State organization in Iraq and Syria. But it would leave the
region an even more ungovernable wasteland of death and destruction and
hatred of Americans.
ISIS is but one of many groups using that hatred as a ladder to power.
Muhammad Idrees Ahmad speaks like an idiot -- we have to stay, we have to help, we have to -- Save the crap. The US government isn't helping anyone. As for the Yazidis, they can learn to fight. There his proof that the US is needed. Without the US, they could have been trapped on the mountain so much longer.
Those 'peaceful' Yazidis have since targeted Sunni civilians, killed them, for 'retaliation.'
Clearly, they know how to kill and murder.
And, point of fact, the rescue of the Yazidis was done by the Peshmerga -- the elite Kurdish fighting force.
Then there's Phyllis Bennis embarrassing herself.
Does she have a position?
We have to talk about what we owe the people of Iraq and Syria who
continue to face the consequences of years or decades of horrific wars.
We have an obligation to help support reconstruction, humanitarian
relief, diplomacy, compensation, and much more.
But first, the United States needs to stop the airstrikes. They
kill civilians and undermine the goal of ending popular support for
ISIS. Bombing destroys cities, so ousting ISIS becomes a pyrrhic
victory.
Yes, good to be against bomb strikes.
Sad that our discourse is so degraded and dumbed down that being opposed to dropping bombs is now considered 'radical' and/or 'peaceful.'
But the US has to this and has to that and blah blah blah?
“Pulling out” is what we do with troops, planes, bombs and drones. But
crafting a serious strategy does not end with pulling them out; we also
need to take the money now being spent on a failing war and redirect it
to serve domestic needs and to assist the countries and peoples we’ve
been bombing for so long.
.
I'd love to get behind Phyllis but . . .
December 2, 2004, we published "
SHOULD THIS MARRIAGE BE SAVED?" which was about how this sort of 'we must' thinking just continues war and occupation.
We've also repeatedly noted that if you spill red wine on someone's white carpet, they're not wanting you to dab at it with a towel, they just want you the hell out.
If all that's too confusing for Phyllis, let's try this.
If a man is beating a woman, you get the man out. You don't say, "Let's work out the community property settlement and then we'll work on getting him out."
Phyllis is against bombing civilians.
Good.
I'm glad.
I'm sad that we're so whorish as a nation these days that we have to pat someone on the back for being against bombing civilians. I'm sorry that the 'position' is even seen as risky today.
But applause, Phyllis, applause.
Now lose the laundry list of what you want for Iraq.
Negotiating those wants is only going to continue an ongoing war.
All US troops out of Iraq now.
And, Phyllis, I'm being real easy on you and not slamming you for your silence on the IMF's take over of Iraq -- even though we both know you're silent on it and have been silent for months.
Even though the IMF will be yet another form of occupation.
So, ten years from now, THE NATION will grab one of the four positions their article presents and trumpet the one opinion as proof of the magazine's 'insight' and 'wisdom' and 'bravery.'
Even though the article is nothing but THE NATION trying to have it all ways -- not both ways, all ways.
Let's note some Tweets.
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The persecution of the Sunnis in Iraq continues.
And the world begins to take notice even if the White House does not.
Since August 2014, Barack's 'plan' for Iraq has been implemented.
But the US President's plan has been short on diplomacy and short on addressing the root causes.
Barack Obama has been, however, happy to drop bombs on Iraq.
Repeatedly.
Today, the US Defense Dept announced:
Strikes in Iraq
Attack, bomber, fighter, ground attack and remotely piloted
aircraft conducted 17 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support
of Iraq’s government:
-- Near Hit, two strikes struck two ISIL bomb-making facilities.
-- Near Kisik, one strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed four ISIL fighting positions.
-- Near Mosul, four strikes struck a large ISIL tactical unit
and destroyed an ISIL weapons cache, an ISIL vehicle, seven ISIL
fighting positions, four ISIL assembly areas, an ISIL-used culvert and
disabled an ISIL front end loader and denied ISIL access to terrain.
-- Near Ramadi, three strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical
units and destroyed 14 ISIL fighting positions, destroyed two ISIL
recoilless rifles, 12 ISIL heavy machine guns, two ISIL sniper positions
and an ISIL tactical vehicle.
-- Near Sinjar, one strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL heavy machine gun and an ISIL fighting position.
-- Near Sultan Abdallah, two strikes struck two separate ISIL
tactical units and destroyed two ISIL fighting positions and an ISIL
assembly area.
-- Near Tal Afar, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical
units and destroyed an ISIL fighting position, an ISIL weapons cache
and five ISIL assembly areas.
-- Near Beiji, one strike struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed three ISIL weapons caches.
-- Near Habbaniyah, one strike destroyed three ISIL fuel tankers and an ISIL command-and-control node.
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.
What has been the result of Barack's 'plan'?
Civilian deaths to be sure.
A country ripped apart.
The recent Ramadi bombings have been so bad and so destructive that experts outside of Iraq are beginning to weigh whether the 'success' from bombings is worth the destruction that they inflict.
And Ramadi, despite all those bombings, despite non-stop claims of liberation, remains to be fully liberated from the Islamic State.
Heck of a job, Barry.
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