Monday, July 09, 2018

Iraq snapshot

Monday, July 9, 2018.  Seems like it's taken forever but, look, slowly the western press can't begin to point out that ISIS has not been defeated.  First, though . . .

Earlier today, the US Defense Dept announced:

Strikes in Iraq
Yesterday in Iraq, coalition military forces conducted two strikes consisting of two engagements against ISIS targets:
-- Near Makhmur, a strike destroyed an ISIS-held building.
-- Near Kisik, a strike destroyed an ISIS tunnel.
On July 7, coalition military forces conducted two strikes consisting of two engagements against ISIS targets:
-- Near Tal Afar, a strike destroyed an ISIS-held building.
-- Near Qaim, a strike destroyed an ISIS supply route.
On July 6, coalition military forces conducted two strikes consisting of two engagements against ISIS targets:
-- Near Hawijah, a strike destroyed two ISIS fighting positions.
-- Near Qaim, a strike destroyed an ISIS supply route.
On July 5, coalition military forces conducted one strike consisting of one engagement against ISIS targets near Basheer. The strike destroyed five ISIS caves.
There were no reported strikes conducted in Iraq on July 4.
On July 3, coalition military forces conducted a strike consisting of three engagements against ISIS targets near Habbaniyah. The strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed an ISIS vehicle.
On July 2, coalition military forces conducted a strike consisting of one engagement against ISIS targets near Tal Afar. The strike destroyed an ISIS vehicle.


Yes, the war in Iraq drags on.

Australia's NEWS.COM notes:

SHORTLY after the fall of the Syrian city of Raqqa in October 2017 — the centre of the Islamic State (IS) caliphate — US President Donald Trump announced that IS had been defeated and the war was won.
Nine months later it is far from clear that IS is finished and extreme paramilitary Islamist movements are increasingly active in several regions, he [Paul Rogers] writes for The Conversation.
IS had taken over much of northern Syria and Iraq, including Mosul, by mid-2014 leading President Barack Obama to order intensive air strikes to limit its spread and aid the Iraqis and others to push it on to the defensive. For close to four years an extraordinarily intensive air war was fought, principally by the US but aided by France, the UK and some other European and Middle Eastern powers.
According to the latest data from the Airwars monitoring group, over 1,424 days of air strikes, 107,814 bombs and missiles have been used against 29,741 targets in Iraq and Syria by the US-led forces. Pentagon sources speak of at least 60,000 IS paramilitaries killed but Airwars also reported 6,321 civilians killed.


We're back to where we were not all that long ago, explaining that we weren't denying credit to US President Donald Trump for defeating ISIS because, in fact, we didn't believe ISIS had been defeated

While Paul Rogers is right to note that Donald Trump didn't defeat ISIS (and shouldn't be claiming he has), it's equally true that the western press shouldn't have been running with the nonsense that ISIS had been defeated.

It had not been.  But, golly, when Hayder al-Abadi was campaigning on the 'defeat' to argue he should be prime minister for a second term, seems like the western press couldn't tell the truth, could they?  They kept -- I'm sure by pure accident -- repeating the lie that ISIS had been defeated.

In other violence, PRESS TV notes:

Iraqi police have opened fire to break up crowds of demonstrators who had gathered near the southern oil hub of Basra to protest against a shortage of jobs, electricity, water and a number of other basic services, killing and wounding several demonstrators, local officials say.
The incident occurred at Talha district in the northern parts of Iraq's southern city of Basra on Sunday, when security forces guarding the district’s oilfields shot with live ammunition at a group of protesters who gathered on a highway, the Iraqi News website reported.


Moving on to another topic we've repeatedly cov -- Iraq's legal system is a dirty joke and we noted that fact most recently on June 29th.  This week, AP is doing a series of reports on the topic.  In one article, AP explains, "Over three days in late May, the presiding judge of the counterterrorism court in Baghdad heard an average of 12-13 cases a day and sentenced to death at least 10 defendants accused of being Islamic State group members."  June 29th, we noted:

Iraq's legal system remains a joke.  Trials take mere minutes.  There are few who receive even adequate defense.  Evidence is not required for a conviction.  Women whose 'crime' consists of being married to a member of ISIS or someone suspected of being a member of ISIS can be imprisoned and sentenced to death.

Charges -- related to ISIS or otherwise -- are often based on personal grudges and not actual events.  The whole system is a mess.


Doubt it? 

 Any allegation of having taken up arms for the militant group can bring the ultimate penalty, even while the evidence is thin and cursory. The heavy reliance on informants is particularly glaring, given the potential that some are motivated by personal grudges. Informants never appear in court; their claims are passed to the judges in dry, written reports from intelligence officials with no hint of their possible motivation.
Thousands of defendants are rushed through the courts, with trials as short as 10 or 15 minutes and a third of the cases ending in the death penalty. Witnesses are rarely called and no forensic evidence presented, raising the likelihood of innocent people going to the gallows.

Read more here: https://www.kansas.com/news/article214547244.html#storylink=cpy


The ones who should go to the gallows, never do.  Take for example Mad Maddie Albright.

She's pimping a new book and a new look.  She looks like she's about to die any moment.  Of, if only.



The Guardian's interview with Madeleine plumbs new depths of hypocrisy. She's given free reign to plug her book and pontificate about the "rise of fascism". The word is not mentioned once, neither are 500,000 children she played a part in murdering.



Mad Maddie, mass murderer of millions of Iraqi children, thinks her past has vanished.  No, Maddie, your criminal rap sheet remains.

And most on Twitter are aware of it.

  1. Madeleine Albright: 'Iraq Is the Biggest Disaster in American History'
  2. Absolutely fantastic that the Rawnsley/Albright interview neither mentions, nor even touches upon, sanctions or Iraq. So nobody's going to be owning that one, are they Andy?
  3. Amir Retweeted Rzb-Tom
    Ask the people of Iraq a/b what happened in the 90s to 500 000 Iraqi children due to US imposed sanctions. Or ask Madeleine Albright a/b it since she thinks it was worth it because Saddam attacked Kuweit’s oil fields instead of gassing Kurds and Iranians as he was supposed to do.
    Amir added,
  4. raf ee Retweeted Paul Karp
    Madeleine Albright said 500,000 dead Iraqi children was worth sanctions on Iraq
    raf ee added,
  5. Missing chapter of the book - The deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children was worth it for Iraq's non existent WMD's
  6. Jim Mitchell Retweeted OffGuardian
    Madeleine Albright(All Bleak) a Globalist Sociopath and a willing cheerleader for Mass murder of civilians in Iraq!
    Jim Mitchell added,
  7. Madeleine Albright: ‘The things that are happening are genuinely, seriously bad’ Everthing I have learned in the last 10 years proves to me this woman is dilutions , this woman said killing half a million kids in Iraq was worth it because they have nukes.
  8. That moment I see Madeleine Albright trending on & think 2 myself .............. Wait.....what? Madeleine Albright - 500,000 Dead Children Were "Worth It"
  9. Things that happened in Iraq because of decisions taken from on high by Madeleine Albright and her cronies were genuinely, seriously bad.
  10. Replying to  
    Madeleine Albright’s on record as saying that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children under sanctions was worth it: In her interview printed in The Observer today, there was not one mention of Iraq. Do you know why?
  11. Shailja Patel Retweeted Guardian US
    60 Minutes, 12 May 1996 Lesley Stahl on US sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died...more children than died in Hiroshima... Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.
    Shailja Patel added,
  12. She should know what Facism looks like: ’ new book, ‘Fascism: A Warning’, discusses and . What is doesn’t mention is Albright’s deadly role in , , , . Albright and her polices destroyed many.




From the crypt to the toilet, it's THE YOUNG TURDS' Emma Vigeland trying to reason and failing horribly.




Emma Vigeland Retweeted Donald J. Trump
The United States pulled much of Europe into two wars (Afghanistan and Iraq) with NATO. It blows my mind that he has either no memory of that or just doesn't care... or both.
Emma Vigeland added,




How stupid is she?  The US didn't pull England into Afghanistan and Iraq, they didn't pull Spain in.  Both countries -- and other European countries -- made their own decision to go to war.  France didn't join in the Iraq War.  What happened there?  The US didn't pull hard enough, Emma?

What an idiot.  She gives a pass to War Hawks.  That passes for 'informed analysis' on THE YOUNG TURDS.  Emma needs to go back to playing Mommy on air, that's really all she's ever done for the show, as we've pointed out before.





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