Iraq

[wa3zrm]

This thread is to post news and comments about the possible war the US may be entering.

[wa3zrm]

Iraq crisis: If America can't see the threat posed by ISIS, we need to worry

Imagine you are standing on a train track with a friend, and a train is hurtling towards you both. As it draws nearer, your friend – who is, inexplicably, remaining completely motionless – says in an oddly calm voice: “That driver is clearly going very fast, which is of course regrettable, as it heightens the risk of accident, but I do not feel that this poses exactly the same threat to my interests as, say, the omnibus I encountered the other day.”
That is, in effect, how I felt when reading of the White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, sagely recommending the addressing of “unresolved issues” in Iraq earlier this week, as a response to the political and military disaster that is rapidly unfurling there. As the world knows by now, ISIS – a bloodthirsty Islamist militia so extreme that it has been disowned even by al-Qaeda – has captured Mosul, the second biggest city in Iraq, and Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein. It has done this in the face of almost no opposition from Iraqi government forces, which fled en masse, leaving tanks and weaponry behind which have been enthusiastically appropriated by their ISIS conquerors. According to one report, ISIS members went roaring back to Syria in US Humvees.
The group clearly has considerable ambitions. The first is formally to unite the territory it holds in Syria with its new gains in Iraq, in order to establish an Islamic “caliphate” where the people would be ruled according to strict Islamic law.
But if the White House is really prepared to convince itself that ISIS isn’t a clear and significant threat to the US and the wider Western world, on numerous different levels, then it really is having a failure of imagination so profound that it should concern us all.

(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...

[wa3zrm]

Americans being evacuated from Iraqi air base as militants advance

Published June 12, 2014FoxNews.com


Americans were being evacuated Thursday from a major Iraqi air base as Al Qaeda-aligned militants toppled cities in the country's north and threatened to advance toward Baghdad.
A senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that Americans were being evacuated from a base in Balad, which had been one of the largest training missions in Iraq.
The three planeloads of Americans are mostly contractors and civilians. The State Department said Thursday that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is operating as usual.
But the evacuation means that the vital training mission at Balad, about an hour northwest of Baghdad, has been suspended indefinitely -- despite repeated administration statements that it would continue to support Iraq's military.
Regarding those assurances, one U.S. official clarified to Fox News: "At the same time, we are not going to do anything stupid."
The development signals the worsening security environment in the northern part of the country. One senior official told Fox News that the focus for evacuation at this point is on people outside of Baghdad.
Two senior intelligence sources, though, told Fox News there is serious concern about how to evacuate other Americans out of Iraq if the situation further deteriorates.
"We need places to land, we need safe and secure airfields," one source said, noting that the militants are "seizing airfields and they have surface-to-air missiles, which very clearly threatens our pilots and planes if we do go into evacuation mode."
Sources said "all western diplomats in Iraq are in trouble," and American allies are scrambling to put together an evacuation plan. Military officials said there are "not a lot of good options."
The Obama administration is still trying to determine how to assist the Nouri al-Maliki government, while making clear it does not want U.S. troops in the middle of the fight.
"We are not contemplating ground troops," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Thursday.
According to the White House, Vice President Biden spoke Thursday with Maliki and expressed "solidarity" with the Iraqi government in its fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Obama promised Thursday to send more military aid, without saying what kind of new assistance would be given to Baghdad. Two U.S. officials who are familiar with ongoing negotiations told The Associated Press the White House is considering air strikes and increased surveillance, requested this week by the Iraqi defense minister, as the insurgency nears Baghdad.
The Iraqi government has been asking for more than a year for surveillance and armed drones to combat a Sunni insurgency that has gained strength from battlefield successes in neighboring Syria.
Republican lawmakers were harshly critical Thursday of the administration's response. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called for Obama to replace his national security team.
House Speaker John Boehner snapped: "What's the president doing? Taking a nap."
Obama commented on the violence shortly afterward.
"What we've seen over the last couple of days indicates the degree to which Iraq is going to need more help," Obama said. "It's going to need more help from us, and it's going to need more help from the international community."
Several thousand Americans remain in Iraq, mostly contractors who work at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on programs to train Iraqi forces on American military equipment like fighter jets and tanks. Those being evacuated from Balad on Thursday included 12 U.S. government officials and military personnel who have been training Iraqi forces to use fighter jets and surveillance drones.
Other U.S. contractors are at a tank training ground in the city of Taji, just north of the capital, that is still in operation for now.
In addition to the possible military assistance, State Department spokeswoman Psaki said the U.S. is sending about $12 million in humanitarian aid to help nearly a million Iraqis who have been forced from their homes by recent fighting in the nation's north and west.

[wa3zrm]

Biden pledges accelerated U.S. support for Iraq

Source: Reuters - Thu, 12 Jun 2014 19:54 GMT Author: Reuters



WASHINGTON, June 12 (Reuters) - Vice President Joe Biden told Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Thursday that the United States is prepared to intensify and accelerate security support and cooperation with Iraq, the White House said.

Biden, in a phone call to Maliki, expressed U.S. solidarity with Iraq in its fight against insurgents who have made gains against Iraqi forces in northern Iraq.

[wa3zrm]

GOP on Iraq: We told you so

Sen. John McCain said Thursday that President Barack Obama’s entire national security team should resign over the resurgence of Islamic militants in Iraq. “Everybody in his national security team, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ought to be replaced,” the Arizona Republican told reporters ahead of a classified Senate Armed Services Committee briefing on the deteriorating situation in Iraq. “It’s a colossal failure of American security policy.”

(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...

[wa3zrm]

McCain Calls for Obama's National Security Team to Resign Over Iraq

Roaring onto the Senate floor as swaths of Iraq fall to insurgent control, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the entire Obama administration national security team, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, should resign for failing to keep Iraq secure.
"Could all this have been avoided? …The answer is absolutely yes," McCain said. "If I sound angry it's because I am angry."

(Excerpt) Read more at nationaljournal.com ...

[wa3zrm]

How The US Is Arming Both Sides Of The Iraqi Conflict
Zero Hedge ^

Recall a week ago we wrote "US Begins Delivering F-16s To Iraq This Week, A Decade After It Wiped Out Iraq's Air Force" in which we said:
... the US will deliver the first of 36 F-16 fighter jets to Iraq in what Baghdad's envoy to the United States called a "new chapter" in his country's ability to defend its vast borders with Iran and other neighbors.
....the US earlier in March provided Iraq with some 100 Hellfire missiles as well as assault rifles and other ammunition. Then in April the US sent more arms, providing Iraq with 11 million rounds of ammunition and other supplies.
It is unknown how many of these have fallen into Al Qaeda/ISIS hands (we do know that at least one Iraqi Black Hawk chopper was captured during the rush for Mosul). What is known is that as PBS Frontline reported two weeks ago, while the administration has denied arming Syrian "rebels", i.e. the same ISIS militants that have crossed the border and are now fighting in Iraq...the reality is that it has. From: "Obama Says Not Arming Syrian Rebels, Syrian Rebels Say He Is"
... the Syrian rebels themselves say they are already armed and trained by US in the use of sophisticated weapons and fighting techniques, including, one rebel said, "how to finish off soldiers still alive after an ambush." The interviews are the latest evidence that after more than three years of warfare, the United States has stepped up the provision of lethal aid to the rebels, as PBS notes "it appears the Obama administration is allowing select groups of rebels to receive US-made anti-tank missiles."
The commander of the unit also told Ali that their American contacts had asked him to bring 80 to 90 members of his unit to Ankara for training.
One of the fighters said they received three weeks of training in how to conduct ambushes, conduct raids and use their weapons. They also said they received new uniforms and boots.
“They trained us to ambush regime or enemy vehicles and cut off the road,” said the fighter, who is identified only as “Hussein.” “They also trained us on how to attack a vehicle, raid it, retrieve information or weapons and munitions, and how to finish off soldiers still alive after an ambush.”
To summarize: the US was arming and training the same Al Qaeda/ISIS groups of Jihadists, that it concurrently gave Iraq weapons to fight. And since the Iraq army has so far proven utterly incapable of any resistance, it is now up to US drones to "fight" the same "rebels" that the US itself was collaborating with until a month or so ago.
The clear winner here? The US military-industrial complex, of course, as well as the banks who lend money to the governments to fight wars provoked by various "developed nation" spy agencies.
Collateral damage? Millions of innocent people on the ground in Syria and Iraq, and everywhere else too.

[squeezyjohn]

Show me a country with ridiculous straight line borders drawn up by other countries in the last 100 years or so, and I will show you a country that is either a dictatorship or one that is always on the brink of civil war. It is ridiculous to think anything else would happen ... the borders of established countries are complicated and formed by different peoples taking hundreds of years to work out how to divide up the land and establish peaceful(ish) relationships with each other. If the west keeps on stepping in to the middle east every time they try and begin to sort it out for themselves ... it will never be over.

Europe would be a much bigger nightmare than it has been if it had just had grid lines drawn over it and some other super-power (let's say China) had enforced them every time the lines had been challenged by someone. I could imagine that people would get quite cross with the super-power if had happened here ... even to the extent of driving some Europeans to attempt to attack China by any means possible.

But then Europe has hardly any oil underneath it ... so ...

[wa3zrm]

[wa3zrm]

ABC’s Jon Karl grills White House over ‘signature achievements’ of Iraq and Al Qaeda(VIDEO)
The Right Scoop ^ |

Given what’s happening in Iraq right now, Jon Karl takes the White House to task for suggesting that ending the war in Iraq and defeating ‘core Al Qaeda’ is their signature achievements.
That last statement by Carney is so ignorant. It doesn’t matter what country these jihadis have, whether it’s under the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan or under the ISIS-controlled Iraq, they still have the same plans as always, which is to create a global Caliphate. And that means the Christian West is always going to be under threat from these terrorists, no matter where they are.

(Excerpt) Read more at therightscoop.com ...

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Breaking: New VIDEO of Thousands of Iraqi soldiers being captured by al Qaeda group ISIS in Tikrit

[alopezg1]

yes... America should stay and clean up the mess they made

[alopezg1]

i'll keep quiet from now on

[lxskllr]

yes... America should stay and clean up the mess they made

I'm conflicted on it. That clusterfsck is 100% our fault. They had the kind of leadership they need, and we unseated him. OTOH, I don't think we should involve ourselves in the affairs of others. We're already the dickheads of the world, so I'd lean towards leaving Iraq alone, and minding our own business everywhere else. After awhile, we won't be dickheads anymore. Just another country...

[trebli]

It's a religious war. It's part of the age old battle of Sunni Muslims against the Shia Muslims. They hate each other with a fanaticism that we can't understand. The hatred goes back to the 8th century AD. I've forgotten the details but it was something to do with Mohammed's grandson Ali.

[squeezyjohn]

I think I can understand it ... thanks trebli - the catholic vs protestant argument has shaped Britain today and has manifested itself in so many ways throughout our history and it still occupies certain areas of our culture today ... but in our fortunately stable situation it no longer presents a danger of civil war. But to suggest that it no longer is a problem for some is ridiculous.

Iraq is basically not an American problem - it's a British one as we drew those ridiculous borders after WW1. I think that has a lot to do with why Britain got involved so readily in the recent conflicts. My view is still that the people that live there needs to be able to sort their own cultural borders out though.

Of course the religion that people believe in is a ridiculous reason to fight over because it is all fairy tales - each and every religion is absolute rubbish in terms of a doctrine by which to live your life ... because it needs a God. Every reasonable person knows that the only real God that exists is facts provable by science - but it will take a long time for everyone on the planet to accept that given the huge power structure built up around religions over the past 2000 years - so we should simply accept that the middle east will be complicated for a long time and we should let them sort themselves out in that region.