http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-17/ron-paul-what-have-we-accomplished-iraq
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/17/2014 22:01 -0400
From Business Insider.....
Anti War ......
That’s increasingly angering the Iraqi central government,which was on board for the US intervention in their ongoing war with ISIS, but now sees most of the strikes centered at supporting the Kurds, not the military.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-16/mission-creep-rescuing-iraq-refuges-us-now-assisting-kurds-fighting-isis-drones-f-18
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/16/2014 18:32 -0400
Ron Paul: "What Have We Accomplished In Iraq?"
By Ron Paul
What Have We Accomplished in Iraq?
We have been at war with Iraq for 24 years, starting with Operations Desert Shield and Storm in 1990. Shortly after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait that year, the propaganda machine began agitating for a US attack on Iraq. We all remember the appearance before Congress of a young Kuwaiti woman claiming that the Iraqis were ripping Kuwaiti babies from incubators. The woman turned out to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US and the story was false, but it was enough to turn US opposition in favor of an attack.
This month, yet another US president – the fifth in a row – began bombing Iraq. He is also placing in US troops on the ground despite promising not to do so.
The second Iraq war in 2003 cost the US some two trillion dollars. According to estimates, more than one million deaths have occurred as a result of that war. Millions of tons of US bombs have fallen in Iraq almost steadily since 1991.
What have we accomplished? Where are we now, 24 years later? We are back where we started, at war in Iraq!
The US overthrew Saddam Hussein in the second Iraq war and put into place a puppet, Nouri al-Maliki. But after eight years, last week the US engineered a coup against Maliki to put in place yet another puppet. The US accused Maliki of misrule and divisiveness, but what really irritated the US government was his 2011 refusal to grant immunity to the thousands of US troops that Obama wanted to keep in the country.
Early this year, a radical Islamist group, ISIS, began taking over territory in Iraq, starting with Fallujah. The organization had been operating in Syria, strengthened by US support for the overthrow of the Syrian government. ISIS obtained a broad array of sophisticated US weapons in Syria, very often capturing them from other US-approved opposition groups. Some claim that lax screening criteria allowed some ISIS fighters to even participate in secret CIA training camps in Jordan and Turkey.
This month, ISIS became the target of a new US bombing campaign in Iraq. The pretext for the latest US attack was the plight of a religious minority in the Kurdish region currently under ISIS attack. The US government and media warned that up to 100,000 from this group were stranded on a mountain and could be slaughtered if the US did not intervene at once. Americans unfortunately once again fell for this propaganda and US bombs began to fall. Last week, however, it was determined that this 100,000 was actually only about 2,000 and many of them had been living on the mountain for years! They didn’t want to be rescued!
This is not to say that the plight of many of these people is not tragic, but why is it that the US government did not say a word when three out of four Christians were forced out of Iraq during the ten year US occupation? Why has the US said nothing about the Christians slaughtered by its allies in Syria? What about all the Palestinians killed in Gaza or the ethnic Russians killed in east Ukraine?
The humanitarian situation was cynically manipulated by the Obama administration -- and echoed by the US media -- to provide a reason for the president to attack Iraq again. This time it was about yet another regime change, breaking Kurdistan away from Iraq and protection of the rich oil reserves there, and acceptance of a new US military presence on the ground in the country.
President Obama has started another war in Iraq and Congress is completely silent. No declaration, no authorization, not even a debate. After 24 years we are back where we started. Isn’t it about time to re-think this failed interventionist policy? Isn’t it time to stop trusting the government and its war propaganda? Isn’t it time to leave Iraq alone?
This month, yet another US president – the fifth in a row – began bombing Iraq. He is also placing in US troops on the ground despite promising not to do so.
The second Iraq war in 2003 cost the US some two trillion dollars. According to estimates, more than one million deaths have occurred as a result of that war. Millions of tons of US bombs have fallen in Iraq almost steadily since 1991.
What have we accomplished? Where are we now, 24 years later? We are back where we started, at war in Iraq!
The US overthrew Saddam Hussein in the second Iraq war and put into place a puppet, Nouri al-Maliki. But after eight years, last week the US engineered a coup against Maliki to put in place yet another puppet. The US accused Maliki of misrule and divisiveness, but what really irritated the US government was his 2011 refusal to grant immunity to the thousands of US troops that Obama wanted to keep in the country.
Early this year, a radical Islamist group, ISIS, began taking over territory in Iraq, starting with Fallujah. The organization had been operating in Syria, strengthened by US support for the overthrow of the Syrian government. ISIS obtained a broad array of sophisticated US weapons in Syria, very often capturing them from other US-approved opposition groups. Some claim that lax screening criteria allowed some ISIS fighters to even participate in secret CIA training camps in Jordan and Turkey.
This month, ISIS became the target of a new US bombing campaign in Iraq. The pretext for the latest US attack was the plight of a religious minority in the Kurdish region currently under ISIS attack. The US government and media warned that up to 100,000 from this group were stranded on a mountain and could be slaughtered if the US did not intervene at once. Americans unfortunately once again fell for this propaganda and US bombs began to fall. Last week, however, it was determined that this 100,000 was actually only about 2,000 and many of them had been living on the mountain for years! They didn’t want to be rescued!
This is not to say that the plight of many of these people is not tragic, but why is it that the US government did not say a word when three out of four Christians were forced out of Iraq during the ten year US occupation? Why has the US said nothing about the Christians slaughtered by its allies in Syria? What about all the Palestinians killed in Gaza or the ethnic Russians killed in east Ukraine?
The humanitarian situation was cynically manipulated by the Obama administration -- and echoed by the US media -- to provide a reason for the president to attack Iraq again. This time it was about yet another regime change, breaking Kurdistan away from Iraq and protection of the rich oil reserves there, and acceptance of a new US military presence on the ground in the country.
President Obama has started another war in Iraq and Congress is completely silent. No declaration, no authorization, not even a debate. After 24 years we are back where we started. Isn’t it about time to re-think this failed interventionist policy? Isn’t it time to stop trusting the government and its war propaganda? Isn’t it time to leave Iraq alone?
From Business Insider.....
Anti War ......
As US Escalates in Northern Iraq, Baghdad Feels Left Out
US Plans Operations Across Southwest Anbar Province
by Jason Ditz, August 16, 2014
US warplanes began pounding the area around Mosul overnight in the heaviest airstrikes yet of the current air war in Iraq. The targets were mostly ISIS forces that have been fighting with the Peshmerga over the past weeks.
That’s increasingly angering the Iraqi central government,which was on board for the US intervention in their ongoing war with ISIS, but now sees most of the strikes centered at supporting the Kurds, not the military.
Iraqi officials are pressing for the US to escalate southward and start hitting ISIS targets closer to Baghdad, hoping that will benefit the central government more directly than the Mosul strikes, far outside their sphere of influence.
That’s already in the works, as Anbar Province Governor Dulaimi confirmed on Thursday that he made a deal with the US to both launch airstrikes and establish a military presence on the ground in that province, the southwestern quarter of the country. Anbar covers a region from the Syrian border all the way to the outskirts of Baghdad.
The US has yet to announce the timing of the escalation into Anbar, but has laid out several comments indicating plans to keep growing the war into the foreseeable future, with Anbar just the next stop in a move toward a full-scale war.
Yazidis: Many Attacks Carried Out by Neighbors, Not ISIS
Jason Ditz, August 16, 2014
Somewhat lost in the first-hand account of last week’s helicopter crash by NY Times reporter Alissa Rubin, who was injured in the incident, was a potentially important revelation about the attacks on the Iraqi Yazidi minority.
The pilot really made a big impression. You know, the Yazidis feel so betrayed by the Arab neighbors they had lived among for so many years; they all turned on the Yazidis when ISIS came. Many of the atrocities were carried out not by the militants but by their own neighbors.
The focus in the story is on the pilot, himself a Sunni Arab from the region, trying to save his neighbor Yazidis even as others had turned on them. That’s important, without a doubt, but ignores the more important point, that ISIS didn’t actually carry out many of the attacks on the Yazidis.
So to sum up, President Obama started a war to save 40,000 trapped Yazidis from ISIS, and there weren’t 40,000 of them, and they weren’t trapped, and now it turns out ISIS also wasn’t nearly so involved as previously indicated. America was lied into the first Iraq War in 2003 on some mightly flimsy pretexts, but it seems the administration didn’t learn any of the lessons, even bad lessons like keeping your lies less transparent, and the whole pretext collapsed in just over a week. The war, however, will go on much, much longer.
U.S. Airstrikes Target Mosul Dam region; 114 Killed in Iraq
by Margaret Griffis, August 16, 2014
At least 129 people, mostly militants, were killed today, while another 25 were wounded. U.S. airstrikes focused on the Mosul Dam region.
Politics:
Politicians in Baghdad are apparently getting annoyed that U.S. airstrikes and other military help are being reserved for northern Iraq.
A New York Times reporter, who was injured, in a deadly helicopter crash onSinjar Mountain last Tuesday, describes the accident and some of the circumstances on the mountain
Fighting:
Airstrikes killed 11 militants near the Mosul Dam. U.S. jets are supporting Peshmerga troops attempting to recover control of the dam. Another eight militants were wounded.
In the city of Mosul, militants killed two civilians.
Mortar strikes killed six Peshmerga members in Jalawla. They also killed three civilians and wounded seven others. An airstrike killed two militants and wounded six more.
In Abu Ghraib, a bomb wounded four people.
Air strikes in Arab Jasam killed 25 militants.
Bombings in Fadhiliya killed 22 militants.
In al-Khasfa, 18 militants were struck down.
The air force killed 17 militants, including a prominent leader, in Tal Afar.
Fifteen militants were killed during airstrikes in Garma.
Eight militants leaders were killed in Qaim.
Tweets.....
LOOL! Should I laugh or cry?! White House says failure of #Mosul dam would threaten civilians and the #USA embassy in #Baghdad. #Iraq #ISIS
Reports suggest USAF now flying land-based B-1B Lancer bombers over northern Iraq:
Retweeted by (س) Abu Aminah
Daniele Raineri
The day U.S. makes explicit its strong military commitment against the Islamic State (see Mosul Dam) – Assad bombs Raqqa like never before
Retweeted by (س) Abu Aminah
Zaid Benjamin
Syrian air forces have executed 122 airstrikes in #Syria Sunday 84 of them against #ISIS targets in ar-Raqqa & Deir ez-Zor - The Observatory
Rudaw English
BREAKING: Rudaw correspondent: Peshmerga forces have not controlled Mosul dam yet. #Kurdish forces are 2km away... http://fb.me/3ubIsbNXb
Rami
Just got a confirmation from a source on the ground: Reports of #Peshmerga is in full control of #Mosul dam are FALSE #Iraq #ISIS #Kurdistan
Retweeted by Memlik Pasha
W.G. Dunlop
Iraq Kurds backed by American air strikes retake country's largest dam from jihadists: officials http://bit.ly/1p2HJ2S @AFP
US F/A-18s and drones plinked 10 technicals, 4 Humvees, 2 APCs and one ISIS checkpoint near Mosul dam:
Reports of US airstrikes in Raqqah city are inaccurate:
.@MemlikPasha Progress of Pesh and ISOF troops reportedly slowed by numerous IEDs ISIS emplaced around the complex.
Peshmerga and ISOF supported US F/A-18 and drone CAS reportedly control 75-80% of the Mosul dam complex after 24h of fighting.
#Peshmerga Forces Free Number of Towns Near #Mosul Dam - #BasNews - http://www.basnews.com/en/News/Details/Peshmerga-Forces-Free-Number-of-Towns-Near-Mosul-Dam/30702 …
Sources at #Mosul Dam frontline say #Isis has retreated from parts of dam. "They left the bodies of their dead fighters on the road
Mission Creep: From Rescuing Iraq Refuges, The US Is Now Assisting Kurds In Fighting ISIS With Drones, F-18s
Just over a week ago, Obama announced that the US military intervention in Iraq would be solely under the pretext of "humanitarian intervention" while US troops would be deployed exclusively as "advisers", and nothing else. 7 days later, the siege on Mount Sinjar is virtually over with the US announcing that "far fewer Iraqi refugees were found on mount Sinjar", and yet the US finds it difficult to leave: something which the current president crusaded against his predecessor over. And today it was finally confirmed that the latest US airborne assault of Iraq (so far without a land invasion force) has just suffered terminal mission creep, when US airstrikes, by both F-18s and drones, were used not to protect and safeguard the besieged refuges but to aid Kuridsh forces in retaking the critical Mosul dam from ISIS militants who took control of the critical piece of infrastructure in early August.
BBC reports that the operation to recapture the country's largest dam began early on Saturday with raids by F-18 fighters and drones, US officials said.
Kurdish Peshmerga fighters have shelled militants' positions, and there is an unconfirmed report of a ground attack. Supposedly no US troops are involved in the ground attack, although with the level of lies lobbed around by everyone, it is almost assured that US marined are currently engaged in combat with ISIS.
US military officials told NBC News the decision to try to retake the dam came after intelligence showed IS militants "were not yet at a point where they could blow up the installation".A Kurdish commander, Major General Abdelrahman Korini, told AFP that the Peshmerga had captured the eastern side of the dam and were "still advancing".Rudaw, a Kurdish news website, said the air strikes appeared to be the "heaviest US bombing of militant positions since the start of air strikes" against IS last week. At least 11 IS fighters were killed by the air strikes, sources in Mosul told BBC News.The dam, captured by IS on 7 August, is of huge strategic significance in terms of water and power resources. Located on the River Tigris about 50km (30 miles) upstream from the city of Mosul, it controls the water and power supply to a large surrounding area in northern Iraq.The BBC's Jim Muir in Irbil says there are fears the dam is structurally dubious and many have warned that it could unleash a catastrophic flood if it was breached.
One wonders if it is extensive military planning that has green-lighted an operation as having "no risk" of dam breach as F-18s are launching missiles at militants located at or near the dam wall.
An image said to show Islamic State gunmen on the Mosul dam on 9 August
An FA-18 takes off from the US Navy aircraft carrier USS George HW Bush in the Gulf on Friday
For the latest update on the combat theater we go to the usual source: the Institute for the Study of War with its most updated Iraq situation plan:
So now that Obama is the latest president to suddenly find it next to impossible to extricate himself from a "land war in Asia" and mission creep for the indefinite future virtually assured, one wonders just what humanitarian excuses will be used when the first US pilot (let alone marine) is brought back home in a bodybag, and less relevantly, if the Nobel peace prize-awarding committee will suddenly have an epiphany and finally demand its trophy back.
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