Jihadists Seize Iraq's Nineveh Province!

[gilliam]

This is an interesting article

‘Don’t Blame Iraq on Obama Alone’: Some Republicans are indulging in revisionist history. natl.re/1siqw8h

… it was not Obama who agreed to the withdrawal schedule. It was President Bush. And it was not Obama who turned Iraq into an Islamic-supremacist state seething with anti-American and anti-Semitic hatred. Long before Obama came to power, Iraq was an Islamist country, rife with Sunni and Shiite militants who agreed on little else besides their devotion to sharia and their abhorrence of the West…

In late 2008, several weeks before Obama entered the Oval Office, I wrote here about the status of forces agreement (SOFA) the Bush administration was then entering into with the ingrate Shiite government of Nouri al-Maliki. Even then, Iraq was pulling ever closer to the terrorist regime in Iran while American troops continued fighting to protect Maliki’s fledgling government from al-Qaeda jihadists — jihadists that the insidious mullahs were also supplying with money, training, and IEDs.

In the SOFA, the Bush administration agreed to strict withdrawal deadlines that invited al-Qaeda to catch its breath, wait out the United States, then resume the jihad as Americans were leaving — the better to make it look to the world like they were chasing us out. All American combat operations were to cease in mid 2009; and, at the end of 2011, all American forces would pull out of Iraq. The 2008 SOFA is the basis for the American withdrawal that Obama so anxiously consummated. It is what promised a resumption of Islam’s eternal, internecine bloodletting between Sunnis and Shiites that now has Iraq on the verge of collapse…

In reality, Iraq remains an incorrigible sharia society in which the persecution of religious minorities and homosexuals is routine. Far from democratizing the country in any cultural sense, Bush officials fortified these tendencies by encouraging Iraq’s adoption of a constitution that enshrined Islam as the state religion and sharia as a primary source of law. Under American occupation, Iraq continued to shun diplomatic relations with Israel and to cheer the “resistance” waged by Hamas and Hezbollah. It sought closer ties with Tehran, a desire the Bush administration indulged on the fantasy rationale that Iran had a strong interest in a stable Iraq — even as everyone knew Iran was fueling anti-American terrorism in Iraq by both Shiite and Sunni jihadist cells…

 

[seekerz]

ISIS is what Assad had to deal with. Assad opposed ISIS, while the USA was supporting the terrorists in Syria and opposing Assad. Now ISIS has amassed a huge amount of weapons sent by the USA. Things would have been a lot better if the USA had joined with Russia in supporting Assad and the Christians in Syria and then moving to make the reforms that Syria needed.

ISIS is NOT all the opposition to Assad. For all I know, Assad’s atrocities fed the beast that ISIS has become. You don’t exactly spread peace and harmony by separating children from their body parts…

There are virtually NO hands clean in the Middle East fiasco. So the old ‘tried and true’ policy of lying down with dogs to rid ourselves of fleas remains as tragically misguided as ever.

 

[Ridgerunner]

This is an interesting article and should be read through to the end. This all reminds me of some of the early conflicts inside Islam.

Under an ISIS Flag, the Sons of Mosul Are Rallying
Though ISIS is known for its brutal rule in Syria, many residents of the Iraqi city it just captured are so hostile to the Shia-led government in Baghdad, they have welcomed the group.

As life returns to an uneasy version of normal in Mosul, the response from local residents to the city’s capture by ISIS, a radical Islamist group, has been surprisingly positive. Multiple Sunni residents inside Mosul who spoke with The Daily Beast by phone reported being glad to be rid of the predominantly Shia government security forces, and so far pleased with life under the ISIS occupation. That may change soon if ISIS begins to rule with the brutality they have displayed in Syria, but by keeping the residents of Mosul happy for now ISIS is buying time to increase its power and local support, which will make things even harder for the Baghdad government if it tries to take the city back.

In response to the recent news from Mosul, an Iraqi citizen recalled the story of a friend from Diyala Province. “He told me, ‘It was the same for us in 2007. We were very happy when ISIS took over the area and drove the Iraq Army out and at first they behaved very well. It was only after a month that they started killing us.’”

One sign of local support for ISIS in Mosul is that many Sunni families who fled the initial fighting are streaming back into the city and, according to sources there, are happy to see the Iraqi Army gone.

The city is quiet for now and no fighting is heard anywhere, sources inside Mosul tell The Daily Beast. ISIS fighters have dismantled the checkpoints and dividing walls that had become symbols of Baghdad’s oppression to the residents, while ISIS fighters were conspicuously avoiding the abuse of civilians that has become their hallmark inside Syria. This may be due to the fact that most of the rank and file of the ISIS forces inside Mosul, by the reports of numerous sources, are natives—young Sunni Arab residents of the city. Sources inside Mosul believe the ISIS forces are native based on their accents and the fact that the fighters cover their faces to conceal their identities. The local character of so many ISIS units may help account for both their current popularity with residents and the ease with which they navigated Mosul’s neighborhoods to rout Iraqi security forces.

While the past week has been a nightmare for the rest of Iraq, many Mosul residents, who have felt oppressed by the government in Baghdad, felt it was a long awaited reprieve. Constant fighting and harsh security measures under a mostly Shia security presence since the American withdrawal made Mosul feel like an occupied city for many Sunni Arabs residents. Many Moslawis, as Mosul residents are known, compared the current relaxed atmosphere in the city to what life was like before the U.S. invasion in 2003, when Saddam’s government ruled and Sunnis still held political power in Iraq.

thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/16/under-an-isis-flag-the-sons-of-mosul-are-rallying.html

In no way is this surprising. It may, of course, turn out badly for the Sunni Arabs all the same. Probably will, and they probably know this is the “honeymoon” with ISIS. Islamic rule is Islamic rule, after all, and secular Sunni Iraqis won’t find their rule too congenial. But ISIS has a lot to gain by being decent to those who support them in the Sunni areas, multiplying not only their supporting population but their potential wealth as well.

The Sunni will, in any event, prefer it to rule by Iran, just as they have preferred their own dictators to “Persian rule” for three thousand years.

I don’t doubt the Sunnis will want Baghdad. After all, it was the capital of “The Caliphate”. One very much doubts they will get the job done because Iran is no pushover and greatly outnumbers the Sunni in Iraq and Syria combined. Iran will be in Baghdad in force, and probably already is.

 

[Tomdstone]

First of all Mossadegh was elected by a minority,…

"The CIA and the British helped to undermine Mossadegh’s government through bribery, libel, and orchestrated riots. Agents posing as communists threatened religious leaders, while the US ambassador lied to the prime minister about alleged attacks on American nationals.

Some 300 people died in firefights in the streets of Tehran.

Mossadegh was overthrown, sentenced to three years in prison followed by house arrest for life.

The crushing of Iran’s first democratic government ushered in more than two decades of dictatorship under the Shah, who relied heavily on US aid and arms. The anti-American backlash that toppled the Shah in 1979 shook the whole region and helped spread Islamic militancy."

democracynow.org/2003/8/25/50_years_after_the_cias_first

 

[Tomdstone]

The Mossadegh situation is a lot more complicated than that, whether the U.S. and Britain made any misjudgments in it or not.

“NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, what’s the crucial fact about Iran, which we should begin with, is that for the past 60 years, not a day has passed in which the U.S. has not been torturing Iranians. That’s 60 years, right now. Began with a military coup, which overthrew the parliamentary regime in 1953, installed the Shah, a brutal dictator. Amnesty International described him as one of the worst, most extreme torturers in the world, year after year. When he was overthrown in 1979, the U.S. almost immediately turned to supporting Saddam Hussein in an assault against Iran, which killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians, used extensive use of chemical weapons. Of course, at the same time, Saddam attacked his Kurdish population with horrible chemical weapons attacks. The U.S. supported all of that. The Reagan administration even tried to—succeeded in preventing a censure of Iraq. The United States essentially won the war against Iran by its support for Iraq. It immediately—Saddam Hussein was a favorite of the Reagan and first Bush administration, to such an extent that George H.W. Bush, the first Bush, right after the war, 1989, invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the United States for advanced training in nuclear weapons production. That’s the country that had devastated Iran, horrifying attack and war. Right after that, Iran was subjected to harsh sanctions. And it continues right until the moment. So we now have a 60-year record of torturing Iranians.”
democracynow.org/blog/2013/9/11/noam_chomsky_us_has_been_torturing_iran_for_60_years_since_1953_coup

 

[Ridgerunner]

This is an interesting article

‘Don’t Blame Iraq on Obama Alone’: Some Republicans are indulging in revisionist history. natl.re/1siqw8h

… it was not Obama who agreed to the withdrawal schedule. It was President Bush. And it was not Obama who turned Iraq into an Islamic-supremacist state seething with anti-American and anti-Semitic hatred. Long before Obama came to power, Iraq was an Islamist country, rife with Sunni and Shiite militants who agreed on little else besides their devotion to sharia and their abhorrence of the West…

In late 2008, several weeks before Obama entered the Oval Office, I wrote here about the status of forces agreement (SOFA) the Bush administration was then entering into with the ingrate Shiite government of Nouri al-Maliki. Even then, Iraq was pulling ever closer to the terrorist regime in Iran while American troops continued fighting to protect Maliki’s fledgling government from al-Qaeda jihadists — jihadists that the insidious mullahs were also supplying with money, training, and IEDs.

In the SOFA, the Bush administration agreed to strict withdrawal deadlines that invited al-Qaeda to catch its breath, wait out the United States, then resume the jihad as Americans were leaving — the better to make it look to the world like they were chasing us out. All American combat operations were to cease in mid 2009; and, at the end of 2011, all American forces would pull out of Iraq. The 2008 SOFA is the basis for the American withdrawal that Obama so anxiously consummated. It is what promised a resumption of Islam’s eternal, internecine bloodletting between Sunnis and Shiites that now has Iraq on the verge of collapse…

In reality, Iraq remains an incorrigible sharia society in which the persecution of religious minorities and homosexuals is routine. Far from democratizing the country in any cultural sense, Bush officials fortified these tendencies by encouraging Iraq’s adoption of a constitution that enshrined Islam as the state religion and sharia as a primary source of law. Under American occupation, Iraq continued to shun diplomatic relations with Israel and to cheer the “resistance” waged by Hamas and Hezbollah. It sought closer ties with Tehran, a desire the Bush administration indulged on the fantasy rationale that Iran had a strong interest in a stable Iraq — even as everyone knew Iran was fueling anti-American terrorism in Iraq by both Shiite and Sunni jihadist cells…

So he believes Bush made misjudgments in Iraq. Who could truly deny that? He made worse ones in Afghanistan, as has Obama. But no matter what McCarthy says, the SOFA Bush had was due to expire, and was a president-to-president agreement only. Maliki offered to renew it on the same basis, but Obama insisted that the Iraqi parliament approve it, not just Maliki, knowing the parliament never would do that. Obama wanted U.S. forces out, notwithstanding that he had to know we were what kept the peace there.

So, it wasn’t as if Obama could not have reached a Status of Forces agreement with Maliki. He sure could have, and the U.S. still had plenty of ability to influence events. Iraq was essentially peaceful when Obama started pulling out. The Sunni leaders begged us to stay. Sistani approved of our presence. The Kurds wanted us there.

But we left.

None of this matters now, and it will be debated for a long time. We’re gone, and nothing we can do now will alter the course of the Sunni/Iran confrontation. Iran might well be supplying the Sunni Islamists with resources, but it is also killing them in Syria and will be engaged in killing them if they look like they might take Baghdad. I’m guessing ISIS won’t try doing that, at least not for now. But neither will they forget about it.

I don’t know what Repubs McCarthy is talking to, but it sure did not appear to me any of them supported Obama’s attack on Libya or his support of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. McCain, I believe, wanted to arm SOME of the Syrian rebels, but I don’t think he had most Repubs behind him with that. That’s why obama never brought intervention in Syria before Congress. He knew there wasn’t the support for it.

 

[seekerz]

"The CIA and the British helped to undermine Mossadegh’s government through bribery, libel, and orchestrated riots. Agents posing as communists threatened religious leaders, while the US ambassador lied to the prime minister about alleged attacks on American nationals.

Some 300 people died in firefights in the streets of Tehran.

Mossadegh was overthrown, sentenced to three years in prison followed by house arrest for life.

The crushing of Iran’s first democratic government ushered in more than two decades of dictatorship under the Shah, who relied heavily on US aid and arms. The anti-American backlash that toppled the Shah in 1979 shook the whole region and helped spread Islamic militancy."

democracynow.org/2003/8/25/50_years_after_the_cias_first

I remember that last part. The deposed Shah’s opulent materialism was displayed to the world (around the same time as Imelda Marcos’ umpteen shoes became front page news, if memory serves me well) juxtaposed with the austere ‘discipline’ of the Ayatollah. I can see how that might have attracted even those not particularly given to strict religious observation.

And yes, the Ayatollah seems to have been the main figure who spearheaded radical Islam; he was the one always in the news with fatwas and such…and at least since his ascent to power, America came to embody ‘the enemy’ to the radicals.

 

[Ridgerunner]

"The CIA and the British helped to undermine Mossadegh’s government through bribery, libel, and orchestrated riots. Agents posing as communists threatened religious leaders, while the US ambassador lied to the prime minister about alleged attacks on American nationals.

Some 300 people died in firefights in the streets of Tehran.

Mossadegh was overthrown, sentenced to three years in prison followed by house arrest for life.

The crushing of Iran’s first democratic government ushered in more than two decades of dictatorship under the Shah, who relied heavily on US aid and arms. The anti-American backlash that toppled the Shah in 1979 shook the whole region and helped spread Islamic militancy."

democracynow.org/2003/8/25/50_years_after_the_cias_first

So, you’re saying the Iranian mullahs only opposed Mossadegh because the U.S. lied to them about him. They opposed him from the very first because he was a secularist and quite possibly a communist.

Interesting that those who condemn the U.S. for toppling Saddam Hussein condemn the U.S. for supporting the Shah.

As if people in that part of the world have no motivations all their own. It’s all due to the U.S., despite the fact that Arabs and Persians have fought each other for millenia.

But it doesn’t matter. Now, the anti-U.S. folks will have their way, given that the U.S. is gone forever from the battleground. Let’s see what the Caliphatists and the Iranian imperialists have in store for each other without us.

 

[Tomdstone]

So, you’re saying the Iranian mullahs only opposed Mossadegh because the U.S. lied to them about him. They opposed him from the very first because he was a secularist and quite possibly a communist.

Interesting that those who condemn the U.S. for toppling Saddam Hussein condemn the U.S. for supporting the Shah.

As if people in that part of the world have no motivations all their own. It’s all due to the U.S., despite the fact that Arabs and Persians have fought each other for millenia.

But it doesn’t matter. Now, the anti-U.S. folks will have their way, given that the U.S. is gone forever from the battleground. Let’s see what the Caliphatists and the Iranian imperialists have in store for each other without us.

I didn’t say so. Don’t put words in my mouth.
I said that the USA and Britain worked to overthrow Mossadeg and install the Shah primarily because of the oil question.

 

[gilliam]

Here it comes…

“The White House is considering sending a small number of American special forces soldiers to Iraq” bigstory.ap.org/article/obama-considers-special-forces-help-iraq …

 

[seekerz]

Here it comes…

“The White House is considering sending a small number of American special forces soldiers to Iraq” bigstory.ap.org/article/obama-considers-special-forces-help-iraq …

Only to evacudate Americans I hope.

If the military had to get involved otherwise, the time and place to stop ISIS’ growth was by weakening Assad (who rule is providing a training ground for radicalism) with some targeted airstrikes in Syria (after the pattern of Libya), but Congress balked.

Now instead to go back into a country where we already know it will take an unending commitment to achieve whatever little can be achieved militarily? What would be funny if it were not so tragic, is that the justification for sending troops against ISIS are supposedly ‘atrocities’ perpetrated by them - so I wonder what Assad has been sponsoring in Syria? Block parties?

I still say international interest in these conflicts is mainly about oil and only secondarily about people. Don’t fall for it people; fool me once…Recognize the sound of the war machine when you hear it rev up.

 

[Tomdstone]

I still say international interest in these conflicts is mainly about oil and only secondarily about people. Don’t fall for it people; fool me once…Recognize the sound of the war machine when you hear it rev up.

Yes. You are absolutely right. Oil is the reason. Americans need oil.

 

[Ridgerunner]

“NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, what’s the crucial fact about Iran, which we should begin with, is that for the past 60 years, not a day has passed in which the U.S. has not been torturing Iranians. That’s 60 years, right now. Began with a military coup, which overthrew the parliamentary regime in 1953, installed the Shah, a brutal dictator. Amnesty International described him as one of the worst, most extreme torturers in the world, year after year. When he was overthrown in 1979, the U.S. almost immediately turned to supporting Saddam Hussein in an assault against Iran, which killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians, used extensive use of chemical weapons. Of course, at the same time, Saddam attacked his Kurdish population with horrible chemical weapons attacks. The U.S. supported all of that. The Reagan administration even tried to—succeeded in preventing a censure of Iraq. The United States essentially won the war against Iran by its support for Iraq. It immediately—Saddam Hussein was a favorite of the Reagan and first Bush administration, to such an extent that George H.W. Bush, the first Bush, right after the war, 1989, invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the United States for advanced training in nuclear weapons production. That’s the country that had devastated Iran, horrifying attack and war. Right after that, Iran was subjected to harsh sanctions. And it continues right until the moment. So we now have a 60-year record of torturing Iranians.”
democracynow.org/blog/2013/9/11/noam_chomsky_us_has_been_torturing_iran_for_60_years_since_1953_coup

Noam Chomsky? I expect he blames the United States for the extinction of the dinosaurs. He does everything else.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yes. You are absolutely right. Oil is the reason. Americans need oil.

That’s old stuff. The U.S. hasn’t needed middle east oil for a long time. We wouldn’t even use everything the Canadians are willing to send south through the Keystone Pipeline.

But there are plenty of nations in the world that do need M.E. oil. We’re just not one of them.

 

[Mickey_Finn]

Right and in order to kill all the Jihadists, we’ll have to kill the innocent who they dwell among.

Jim

Sadly yes.

 

[Mickey_Finn]

ISIS is an offshoot of Al Quada which, as one may remember, killed some 3,000 people in New York City well before "Bush’s War (actually Phase II of the Gulf War). There were plenty of foreign jihadis who poured into Iraq during Phase II of that war, and Bin Ladin issued a call to foreign fighters to do just that. We didn’t create them. Bin Ladin was a Saudi. Zawahiri is an Egyptian. When we went into Iraq, our troops encountered Islamists from all over. Libyans, as I recall, were the largest single contingent, though i could be mistaken about that. When we displaced Saddam we opened the door for the terrorists. They would not have dared enter Iraq before that.

And the Sunni “Awakening Council” provided some 90,000 men to work with U.S troops. Not too resentful.

And the Muslim Brotherhood, which birthed Al Quaeda as well as other related groups, far predated the Gulf War, actually starting during the reign of Nasser in Egypt.

It’s just silly to say “we” caused any of those groups. This is an amusing argument, though. It assumes people in the Islamic world are incapable of coming up with their own objectives and movements, and based on their own ideologies. I’m not saying that’s “racist”, but it reminds one of it.

And “well enough” wasn’t all that “well enough”. Saddam Hussein had invaded two countries previously and tried to assassinate Bush I. Now ISIS is invading Iraq. People there are entirely capable of having their own wars and their own reasons for them.

The problem is not that all people in the Middle East hate the U.S. The U.S., for a time, frustrated the would-be empire builders there; the “Caliphatists” and Iran. Now we’re gone, and the Middle East is one continuous battleground from the Mediterranean to the Iranian border.

I entered a point at the end of your first paragraph highlighted with red. The rest of your post was not worth commenting on. I guess you’ll say anything to shift blame.

ATB

 

[seekerz]

Yes. You are absolutely right. Oil is the reason. Americans need oil.

It is oil, but IMO, it’s oil prices specifically. The way I understand it, global supply/demand is what determines oil prices regardless of where one lives or which country supplies your oil. So, North American oil might be sufficient for North America, but that localized supply is not what determines oil prices in North America.

 

[seekerz]

Sadly yes.

We can never kill all the Jihadists unless we kill men, women and children en masse and even then we could never find them all in the same country or even in the same continent. What we can morally do is defend ourselves against those who attack us.

 

[Mickey_Finn]

We can never kill all the Jihadists unless we kill men, women and children en masse and even then we could never find them all in the same country or even in the same continent. What we can morally do is defend ourselves against those who attack us.

You think there is a moral justification for not killing them?

 

[seekerz]

You think there is a moral justification for not killing them?

Maybe I’m not getting your point, so let’s start again: please give your definition of Jihadist, then I can more accurately understand and address your question. Is it just somebody committed to the concept holy war, or someone actively involved in waging it? And please also address the part of my post that deals with the deliberate en masse killing of men, women and children. To my knowledge THAT is never justified - ever - not even in self-defense.