The Pentagon announced the following airstrikes in Iraq today:
Attack, fighter, bomber
and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 14 airstrikes against ISIL
terrorists in Iraq, approved by the Iraqi Ministry of Defense:
-- Near Bayji, an airstrike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL fighting position.
-- Near Fallujah, an airstrike destroyed an ISIL excavator.
-- Near Mosul, three airstrikes struck two ISIL tactical units and
destroyed two ISIL fighting positions, two ISIL vehicles, two ISIL heavy
machine guns and an ISIL building.
-- Near Tal Afar, three
airstrikes struck an ISIL large tactical unit, an ISIL storage facility,
an ISIL fighting position and destroyed an ISIL building and an ISIL
heavy machine gun; and
-- Near Tikrit, six airstrikes struck six
ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL fighting position and an ISIL
anti-aircraft artillery weapon.
All aircraft returned to base safely.
While the White House is very proud of these bombings, they've not accomplished anything.
We've been noting that for some time.
Other voices are joining the chorus. Maria Fantappie and Peter Harling offer "
If Shi'ite militias beat Islamic State in Tikrit, Iraq will still lose" (Reuters):
The military campaign is thus exacerbating the sense of
powerlessness, disenfranchisement and humiliation among Sunni Arabs that
gave rise to Islamic State.
The growing tendency in Baghdad and the south to equate Shi’ite
militias with the national army, to declare oneself a patriot while
expressing gratitude to Iran for its intervention, and to subsume
national symbols under Shi’ite ones — with black, yellow and green flags
referring to Hussein ibn Ali ibn Abi Taleb, Shiism’s third Imam,
increasingly crowding out the Iraqi flag — is reshaping Iraqis’ national
identity in ways that will vastly complicate well-intentioned efforts
to advance inclusive politics and governance.
Fantappie and Harling are with the
International Crisis Group.
The ICR is among a very few groups or outlets that paid attention to Iraq during Nouri al-Maliki's second term (2010 through 2014). In fact, in terms of significant attention, it really was just the ICR and
Human Rights Watch.
Most groups and outlets preferred to look the other way.
The assault on Tikrit appears to have prompted more coverage from news outlets.
Amir Taheri (New York Post) offers:
That sectarianism is now a key factor in Iraqi politics cannot be
doubted. In Tikrit, a city of over 300,000 people, fewer than 200 joined
the “liberating forces” sent by Baghdad but spearheaded by armed
Shi’ite groups led by Iranian officers. Thanks to massive deployment of
heavy weapons, these forces made advances in the suburbs of Tikrit that
had already been depopulated when the arrival of IS forced the
inhabitants to flee.
On the 30th day of the operation to take Tikrit back from the Islamic State,
Ahmed Rasheed and Ned Parker (Reuters) report, "On Sunday, an attempt to infiltrate Tikrit from
the southern district of Shisheen was thwarted by militants. They used
anti-tank missiles to destroy a bulldozer being used by the military to
clear a path around booby-trapped roads, an official said."
Meanwhile what does The Nation offer?
And the battle for Tirkit continues. On day 30,
Ahmed Rasheed and Ned Parker (Reuters) report, "On Sunday, an attempt to infiltrate Tikrit from
the southern district of Shisheen was thwarted by militants. They used
anti-tank missiles to destroy a bulldozer being used by the military to
clear a path around booby-trapped roads, an official said."
They've Tweeted that nonsense daily for about ten days in a row.
I'm really not understanding the point other than self-stroking?
I'm not spending each day here re-posting what I wrote over a decade ago.
I could.
It would certainly be easier than writing something new about today.
The Nation has nothing to offer but moldy things from the past.
Poor Katrina vanden Heuvel, she's run that magazine into the ground.
And while she likes to claim/charge that I'm running some sort of "jihad" (her term) against the publication and her, the reality is I was just ahead of the curve on the criticism (the just criticism) that is coming her way.
For example, the current issue of
Harper's magazine contains Adolph Reed Jr.'s "
Nothing Left: The long, slow surrender of American liberals." And both she and her magazine get a 'shout-out':
Taking
into account the left's disappearance into Democratic neoliberalism
helps explain how and why so many self-proclaimed leftists or
progressives — individuals, institutions, organizations, and erstwhile
avatars of leftist opinion such as The Nation — came to be swept up in
the extravagant rhetoric and expectations that have surrounded the
campaign, election, and presidency of Barack Obama.
[. . . ]
Indeed,
even ersatz leftists such as Glenn Greenwald, then of Salon.com, and
The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel defended and rationalized Obama's
willingness to disparage black poor people. Greenwald applauded the
candidate for making what he somehow imagined to be the "unorthodox" and
"not politically safe" move of showing himself courageous enough to
beat up on this politically powerless group. For her part, vanden Heuvel
rationalized such moves as his odious "Popeyes chicken" speech as
reflective of a "generational division" among black Americans, with
Obama representing a younger generation that values "personal
responsibility."* Perhaps, but it's noteworthy that Obama didn't give
the Popeyes speech to groups of investment bankers.
What's going to happen when the criticism continues to pile on?
And at what point do I or someone else go public about how Katrina strong-armed certain program hosts to book her?
Because I can.
I can do that right now.
I've been saving that for a rainy day.
She bought her place at the table not for the left, not to help the magazine, but to get herself covered in the media. Maybe her name should be Katrina vanity Heuvel?
She's got to nothing to offer on Iraq. She can't comment on today because she's not done the work required. She offers superficial commentary in a magazine that's going under.
This despite the fact that it was the Iraq War, specifically the opposition to it, that allowed The Nation to thrive and increase readership while support for it came close to burying The New Republic.
I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away
-- "
Hejira," written by
Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album of the same name
The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning]
4494.
The following community sites -- plus Jody Watley and the Guardian -- update:
hart of dixie
23 hours ago
The e-mail address for this site is
common_ills@yahoo.com.
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