Monday 24 November 2014

Hejira

Hejira

Yesterday, Al Jazeera reported:
TheCommon IllsA total of eight civilians, including at least two women and four children, have been killed in an air strike that hit residential homes in Anbar province during an offensive against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), medical sources say.
Five others were injured in Saturday's raids, which hit a house in the city of Heet, the sources told Al Jazeera.


Maybe it signifies a change?  Possibly other outlets will follow suit in reporting on the near daily murder of civilians in these air bombings in this US-led campaign?

I won't hold my breath.

While the US and other nations bomb from the air, forces on the ground are mainly Iraqi.

David D. Kirkpatrick (New York Times via Hamilton Spectator) reports problems with those forces:
                             
The Iraqi military and police forces had been so thoroughly pillaged by their own corrupt leadership that they all but collapsed this spring in the face of the advancing militants of the Islamic State — despite roughly $25 billion worth of U.S. training and equipment over the past 10 years and far more from the Iraqi treasury.


Of course, some of the troops on the ground are US forces -- special-ops as well as 'advisers.'  Krstina Wong (The Hill) reported earlier that Barack's announced 1,500 additional US troops will not be waiting for the Congressional authorization Barack has stated he wants.  

Along with US special-ops engaging in military actions in Iraq, so are their British equivalents.  RT reports:

British SAS troops have been conducting secret missions that have killed hundreds of Islamic State militants. Using quad bikes and 4x4’s in Iraq, they have been seeking out enemy forces usually at night, killing up to eight terrorists a day.
Sources from the Ministry of Defense had previously stated that the Special Air Service (SAS), which is an elite unit of the British Army, had only been involved in non-combat missions. However, aside from operating in a reconnaissance role in Iraq, they have also been taking part in eliminating IS militants, a special report by the Mail on Sunday found.


The SAS has a huge image problem in Iraq due to their efforts to pose as 'militants' and set off bombs.  They were captured with the bombs in their car and with bad wigs on their heads. They were held in a jail but only after they shot dead 2 Iraqi police officers.

They were held in a jail and the UK government wasn't going to let it get out what they were doing -- though even the New York Times covered this in real time -- so they sent tanks to destroy the jail and free the would-be-bombers.  

The SAS was part of a counter-insurgency program at that time, they were conducting multiple bombings throughout the region to instill fear in the Iraqi people.

The return of the SAS does not bode well for the Iraqi people.

Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts 314 people killed in violence today and another sixty-nine left injured. 

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]  4493.   

The following community sites updated:

  • Gossip
    23 hours ago

  • Isaiah's latest will go up after this.  We're still working on Third and Jim wants to use Isaiah's latest comic in the editorial so I came over here to do this entry, get it up and then post Isaiah's comic.

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