Saturday, March 24, 2018

At least 21 killed in violence across Iraq today

Violence never ends in Iraq.  XINHUA reports:

The Iraqi forces found the bodies of five Hashd Shaabi fighters from the Turkoman minority, who were kidnapped three hours earlier in the day by gunmen outside their base in the town of Hawijah, some 45 km southwest of Kirkuk," Captain Ahmed al-Obeidi from Hawijah police told Xinhua.
The five bodies were found handcuffed and blindfolded with bullet holes in the back of their heads, Obeidi said.
In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, Islamic State (IS) militants opened fire on a civilian car on a road in Himreen area in east of the town of Sa'diyah, some 120 km northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, the mayor of the town Ahmed al-Zarkoushi told Xinhua.
The attack left four people killed inside the car, including a woman and a child, and wounded two others, Zarkoushi added.


So much for Hayder al-Abadi's claim to have vanquished ISIS.  He better find something to run on with Iraqi elections just around the corner (May 12th). ALSUMARIA reports that Shi'ite cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr is calling for the United Nations to provide monitors to supervise Iraq's election.


AA notes the Diyala attack above but also notes the province's police captain stating 1 person died and three more were injured in bombing of "a patrol car" in Al Mansouryah and:


In addition Saladin Police Department Officer Numan al-Cuburi told Anadolu Agency that one person was killed in an attack against a military vehicle carrying Hashd al-Shaabi forces in the Iraqi city of Tikrit. Separately Baghdad Police Lieutenant Hatim al-Cabiri said that one civilian was killed after being shot by an unknown attacker in the Bub Al-Sham region located in north Baghdad. 


And SPUTNIK reports, "At least eight police officers were killed in an attack carried out by the Islamic State (IS, outlawed in Russia) terrorist group on a highway in Iraq, media reported. The incident took place on the road between Baghdad and Kirkuk, the Turkish Anadolu news agency reported Saturday citing a local police officer."  ALSUMARIA reports 1 person shot dead outside their home north of Baghdad.  That's 21 reported dead and that's just some of Saturday's violence.


This is 'liberated' Iraq according to many accounts that appeared in the US media this week.  This is a 'rebounding' Iraq.  This is what 'success' looks like.  As long as you don't look too closely or follow daily events in Iraq, you can puff your chest with pride and pretend you scored one for the Gipper.


THE DAYTONA BEACH NEWS JOURNAL remains one of the few US outlets who continues to weekly track US deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.  We'll note this week's Iraq count:

In operations related to Iraq, a total of 4,542 members of the U.S. military have died. Another 32,310 U.S. service personnel have been wounded in action. There were seven identifications releases by the military. All died March 15 when an HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter crashed in western Iraq. The cause of the crash is under investigation.



RT explored the ongoing war this week on CROSSTALKING:





And Patrick Martin (WSWS) observed:

The impact of the war on American society has been devastating. To cite, again, the figures published by the Cost of War Project in November 2017, by the end of the current fiscal year, in September 2018, the US federal government will have spent or obligated $5.6 trillion on post-9/11 wars, the bulk of that in Iraq, including medical and disability payments to veterans for the remainder of their lives.
Moreover, since the Bush and Obama administrations financed war spending by borrowing, rather than taxing the wealthy, the federal government has incurred interest costs that will amount eventually to $8 trillion, more than the actual cost of the war. In other words, Wall Street will rake in that much in additional income from the wars it has imposed on the American people and the world.
While 4,800 US soldiers died in Iraq, the human toll goes far beyond that. An estimated one million out of the two million soldiers who had tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan have filed claims and begun receiving disability benefits, including hundreds of thousands suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries.
There are other equally pernicious consequences for American society as a whole. Democratic rights have been shredded by the build-up of a national-security state that engages in mass surveillance of the entire US population, including telecommunications, the Internet and social media. The entire society has been saturated in violence, stemming not only from Iraq but from a quarter century of virtually uninterrupted military aggression, in the Middle East, Central Asia, the former Yugoslavia, Africa and—perhaps sooner rather than later—the Far East.
The effort to sustain a position of worldwide dominance out of all proportion to the actual weight of the United States in the world economy—the US spends more on the military than the next dozen countries combined—has been the driving force for drastic cutbacks in social spending, undermining education, infrastructure, healthcare and other social necessities.




The following community sites -- plus Jody Watley -- updated:








  • Calm down everybody. Trump can't get along with anyone (Margaret Kimberley)

    Some Tweets from Margaret Kimberley:





  •  Pinned Tweet
    I’m paraphrasing but this is what Obama said to . “I’m sorry for your loss but f**k you.” In 8 years Obama DOJ only prosecuted 2 cops. The one who killed was not one of them. He is still on the force and got overtime pay for appearing in court.

  •   Retweeted
    Interview with of on the new Report. "As citizens of empire, we have a responsibility to put the brakes on imperialism."
  • Every day is for black people. We can be killed by police or snatched up by the mass incarceration system at any moment.
  • is just the latest evil bastard in U.S. foreign policy leadership. Stop acting as though he is the first.
  • Remember this the next time anyone tells you about human rights abuses in another country. Draconian sentences, lying police, prosecutorial misconduct. U.S. is prison capital of the world.

  • George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton were instrumental in facilitating the looting of Russia. Clinton openly interfered in the 1996 election to keep Yeltsin in office.

  •   Retweeted
    Today is the 19th anniversary of when NATO commenced with its illegal and murderous bombing campaign against Serbia, lasting 78 days. Day and night, the accursed NATO struck at civilian targets. Never forgive and never forget what NATO and the EU did to Serbia.
  • never retreated from supporting Iraq war. Did Hillary Clinton ever express regret? John Kerry? Does Obama regret turning Libya into a slavery market?
  • I see reports of civilians killed by Syrian army using napalm or phosphorus in in . There are photos of burned bodies but terrorists routinely fake footage. Is there independent corroboration that this attack took place?
  • I believe that Skripal poisoning is part of a larger effort, a chemical weapons false flag to be used as war pretext in Syria.
  • All planned for use in false flag attacks as pretext for war.

  •   Retweeted
    They told her women could never be war criminals. She dared to prove them wrong. in torturing people.

  •   Retweeted
    Remembering Indian freedom fighter Bhagat Singh who was executed for resisting the British Empire in India on this day in 1931.
  •   Retweeted
    The Beatles waiting to cross Abbey Road, 1969. By Iain Macmillan
  • Calm down everybody. Trump can’t get along with anyone. won’t last long either.
  •   Retweeted
    I know it's inconvenient in the land of imperial delusion to admit this, but the only reason we're a free country is because Russia lost 27 million people fighting the Nazis. So shut up Boris
  •   Retweeted
    To make corporate media care, please replace 'Saudi Arabia' in your mind with 'Russia'
  • A question for Americans who say Trump is an embarrassment. Are you embarrassed that this country incarcerates more of its people than any other country does? Are you embarrassed that police are judge, jury and executioner 3 times every day?
  • Every white terrorist is a lonely, quiet nerd.
  • Terrorist described, white privilege style. “It is the outcry of a very challenged young man talking about challenges in his personal life that led him to this point,” the Austin police chief, Brian Manley, said.”
  • But Joe Biden is crazy. And stupid. Is it wrong of me to laugh at Trump’s tweet?
  • Why did dispatch reporters to Ust-Djeguta in Russia? I’m curious about ballot stuffing story. Why did they focus on this place at all? It just seems odd tbut I think all anti-Russia stories these days are war propaganda. .
  • I think the false flag is in the UK.

  • Suppose the Russian government had no involvement in poisoning. There is no way for them to prove innocence. They are being asked to do the impossible.
  •   Retweeted
    Replying to 
    How very convenient so how are we supposed to trust anything the OPCW says when everything it certifies is proven wrong?
  • The plot thickens. French president visits offices. Why now? I’m sure NATO is on the verge of attack on Syria. Chemical weapons use will be the pretext.
  • Well this is inconvenient. In 2017 UK said Russia had destroyed chemical weapons. Now says they didn’t declare them all.
  •   Retweeted
    Replying to  
    This kind of news story is the most American kind of news story imaginable. It reminds me of how during the (continuing) spate of cops shooting Black people, we were getting "there's racism in Cuba!" stories coming out because of the thaw.
  • ⚡️ “The 'identical twins' of Russia's election?” by U.S. elections: take eligible voters off the ballot (Crosscheck), electronic vote theft, etc. And the loser can be the winner (Bush, Trump). Media silent about U.S. but do story on Russia.
  •   Retweeted
    How Cambridge Analytica is old news and a diversion, by
  • So world leaders are like mean kids in a high school clique. “Don’t talk to Vladimir. He has cooties.” But the Saudi prince inflicting genocide on Yemen gets the red carpet treatment in London and Washington.
  • Better questions. Why did Clinton campaign not know she was in trouble? Why did she nickel and dime her get out the vote effort? Why didn’t she campaign in those states? I could go on.

  • There are many reasons to oppose Trump. A phone call to Putin isn’t one of them.
  • How often do I write about war propaganda against Russia? A lot. But it doesn’t end so I can’t stop either.