Sunday, December 12, 2021

Iraq: Erodgan continues attacks, political impasse continues, US troops remain

AP reports, "Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described social media Saturday as one of the main threats to democracy."  I guess that's only fair, for years media -- social and commercial -- has noted that Erdogan is one of the great threats to democracy.  He's carrying out Kurdish genocide in both Turkey and Iraq.  He's terrorizing northern Iraq with War Planes and ground troops and the UN should have addressed this long ago.  AHVAL reports:


Iraqi's Sinjar province has warned the central government in Baghdad that it is "no longer able to defend Shingal" after drone strikes by Turkey in the area, Syria-based Northern Press Agency (NPA) reported on Sunday.

In a statement, the Autonomous Administration of Shingal criticized the Iraqi government for its inability to defend Shingal after its liberation from the Islamic State in 2015. Because of the instability in the province, the administration decided to close all government entities with the exception of schools and hospitals. 

This decision followed a pair of Turkish airstrikes in the last week that Ankara says were aimed at leaders of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Sinjar, known as Shingal in Kurdish. 

On December 7, an alleged Turkish airstrike killed a local commander of the Yazidi Protection Units (YPS), a faction aligned to the PKK in the province. Four days later, a second Turkish airstrike hit the village of Khanasor. The target was presumably more YBS militants in the village, but no casualties were reported and a local cultural center was left damaged by the strike.

Turkey’s military actions in northern Iraq has been complicated efforts to maintain security in the region after ISIS’ expulsion. Strikes launched by Turkish warplanes and drones has fueled a sense of insecurity for many residents as it pursues the PKK and other affiliates in Iraq. A number of civilians have been counted among the casualties in this campaign, adding to the furor building against Turkey.


RUDAW adds:


The district has been hit by multiple Turkish airstrikes in recent years, which appeared to have given more reasons to the displaced Yezidis not to return from camps in the Kurdistan region to their ancestral homeland. Ankara justifies its strikes by claiming Mount Shingal is host to a number of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) positions and considers YBS to be linked to them.

The Free Yezidi Foundation called out the international community to stop Turkey. “How many Yezidis must die before Turkey is stopped?” The NGO said in a tweet. They added that ISIS “came to eradicate the #Yazidi on land; now Turkish places + drones attack from above.”

Hundreds of thousands of Yazidis fled their homes in the summer of 2014, seeking shelter on Mount Shingal, and then in the Kurdistan Region with a limited number resettled in Europe and North America.  In the first days of the genocide, 1,293 people were killed and over 6,000 people were abducted, according to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Office for Rescuing Kidnapped Yazidis. Over 2,000 remain missing.

The region has stayed unstable due to the presence of a number of armed militias, constant Turkish airstrikes and the dispute between Baghdad and Erbil over who runs the district.

Erdogan is the real threat to both democracy and human life. 


Meanwhile, US forces are not leaving Iraq but many outlets love to pretend.  Ajeet Kumar (REPUBLIC WORLD) types:

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, on Saturday, asserted that the national security forces are capable to maintain security and stability in the country, ANI reported citing Xinhua. The statement from al-Kadhimi came as the United States is scheduled to withdraw their forces from Iraq by the end of this month. Bolstering the ability of national forces, the Iraqi PM said that the decision to withdraw US troops from the country was taken while keeping the national interest on the zenith. "In a few days, we will witness the withdrawal of all combat forces of the international coalition from Iraq according to the strategic agreement with the American side," ANI quoted al-Kadhimi as saying during a televised speech on the occasion of the centenary of the founding of the modern Iraqi state in 1921.


More laughter comes from CGTN:


Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi said on Saturday that the withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition combat forces from Iraq confirms the ability of the Iraqi forces to maintain security and stability in the country.


US forces aren't leaving -- at least 2,500 will remain -- which, by Mustafa's 'logic,' means that this confirms that Iraqi forces are not able to maintain security and stability in the country.  

A kidnapping has taken place in Baghdad.  KURDISTAN 24 reports, "Bakhteyar Ibrahim, a Kurd from Germany, and Hasan Cuma from the al-Nahar newspaper were kidnapped by an unknown group in Iraq in August, the Kurdish Community in Germany (KGD) said in a press statement on Friday."  Some close to Ibrahim are stating that the kidnapping was politically motivated. 


In other news, the October 10th elections have still not produced a new government in Iraq.  ALSUMARIA reports that Ammar al-Hakim, Shi'iete cleric and political leader, is calling for the court system to review all the election appeals before it and provide justice where needed.  The outlet also notes that Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law coalition is saying that the only way through the current political impasse is for a consensus.


 We'll wind down with this from Ray McGovern's latest at ANTIWAR.COM:


Are the CIA and its contractors able to bully not only the U.S. Department of Justice, but also the UK judiciary? This is not hard to conclude after the High Court decision announced early Friday to bow to the US and extradite Julian Assange.

Underneath the pettifoggery, the decision demonstrates that the British will lop the "juris" off jurisprudence and pay heed only to "prudence" in kowtowing to the security state in Washington and its junior partner in London.

The objective, of course, is to warn any journalist or publisher tempted to investigate and and expose U. S. war crimes or political sabotage, US"Justice" is going to get you, no matter who you are or where you live. (Call it a new wrinkle on the concept of "universal jurisdiction", if you will.)

All According to (Updated) Plan

Assange’s lawyers have said they intend to appeal the High Court decision. But, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out, "today’s victory for the US means that Assange’s freedom, if it ever comes, is further away than ever: not months but years even under the best of circumstances." That, of course, has been the plan for a decade or more.

Glenn also noted that post-Obama Democrats and their security state allies have a particularly potent reason to exact vengeance on Assange, who published those DNC emails showing that Bernie Sanders was cheated out of the nomination in 2016. Add the indignity suffered by the CIA, when an insider apparently leaked a treasure trove of unique documents on cyber warfare. WikiLeaks promptly published parts of "Vault 7", the family jewels of offensive cyber tools, in which the CIA and NSA has invested Billions. The security state had a witches’ brew.

In early July, I pointed to some graphic evidence that this was about bloodlust as well as vengeance, noting that the British were following the detailed ‘Washington Playbook” approach that was exposed by WikiLeaks itself in Feb. 2012.

Some readers may recall that WikiLeaks-revealed confidential emails from the US private intelligence firm Stratfor mentioned that the US already had a secret indictment against the WikiLeaks founder. Bad enough.


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