Slashdot Mirror
New US Airstrikes In Iraq Intended to Protect Important Dam
U.S. military involvement in Iraq is heating up again; the sudden rise of the organization known as the Islamic State has put a kink in the gradual, ongoing winding down of U.S. military presence in that country, and today that kink has gotten a little sharper. From The New York Times: The United States launched a fresh series of airstrikes against Sunni fighters in Iraq late Saturday in what Defense Department officials described as a mission to stop militants from seizing an important dam on the Euphrates River and prevent the possibility of floodwaters being unleashed toward the capital, Baghdad. The attacks were aimed at militant fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as they were moving toward the Haditha Dam, officials said. The operation represented another expansion of the limited goals that President Obama set out when he announced last month that he had authorized airstrikes in Iraq.
That is nonsense. The US government provided arms to the Iraqi government. The Iraqi government lost control
The US began arming Syrian rebels with small arms and other supplies almost a year ago.
Back then your MSM still had you cheering for the "Arab Spring" and Assad was the bad guy. Remember that? The narrative then was the noble and oppressed peoples of the Middle East rising up to topple puppet dictators and NPR et. al. were thrilled. So we gave these noble fighters weapons.
Yay!
Predictably, however, the Islamists started filling trenches with the bodies of infidels. The "Arab Spring" meme had to be quietly abandoned and now you're taught to fear the terrors of ISIS.
ISIS, IS, or whatever, are the exact same violent atavists we were arming twelve months ago; they move freely across the Iraq – Syria border, pursuing their Caliphate using both weapons we've supplied directly to them and weapons they've managed to capture.
It's also going pear shaped in Libya, the place we "liberated" from the Qaddafi regime with airstrikes. Soon those Islamists will start filling trenches with infidels and photos of Hillary posing with them will vanish when we start dropping bombs.
Watch for it.
Many of us understood all of this back when the "Arab Spring" started. The elites took a little longer to figure it out.
There are no recent examples of extended power-sharing or peaceful transitions to democracy in the Arab world. When dictatorships crack, budding democracies are more than likely to be greeted by violence and paralysis. Sectarian divisions — the bane of many Middle Eastern societies — will then emerge
These are cultures that can not govern themselves peacefully. They indulge Islamic extremism and they're not slaughtering infidels only when a dictatorial strongman wields enough power to keep the imams and muftis under control.
The rulers that prevailed during the Cold War understood this and worked to keep a lid on this mess. Those policies are now believed to be "imperialist" and so we've become schizophrenic; we indulge Islamists as the nobel oppressed right up until their nature is exposed by their atrocities and then we start dropping bombs.
Personally, I hope for change. Real change. Like ISIS, IS whatever overrunning Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, etc. etc. until they reach the sea in all directions. Then, at least, there will be no more nasty little low-intensity squabbles as we try to referee this crap and all doubt about the threat Islam poses to the species will be gone.
One can dream.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
They annexed slightly under 100 acred or 4 sq km. Nothing remotely like 400. Seems your not one-sided news is not so good after all.