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wilkie against intervention... (updated)
No reference yet in the WWW news outlets, but on ABC radio today Andrew Wilkie was quoted to tell the Australian leaders (a big word for a bunch of winkers), "not to get involved in the latest conflict in Iraq. Enough damage has been done already..." More when copy comes in... Ah here is the link just uploaded on the ABC
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-13/wilkie-says-australian-troops-should-not-be-sent/5522920?section=act
But what is extraordinary is that it seems the US — despite its massive intelligence networks — had no clue as to what was going to happen... Either they knew and let it go under the magic carpet because of their friends the Saudi or they had no idea... In order to mount an offensive the size of this one, the rebels (Al Qaeda Sunni Wahhabist terrorists who would be getting moneys from friendly Wahhabist Arab nations) had to "prepare" and then shift across long distances, knowing that the Iraqi army in some of the city would basically melt into the sand OR JOIN IN.
For example it takes a skilled pilot to fly a military chopper — and in my little head, I am prepared to believe that the yank chopper celebrating victory above one of the fallen cities, was being flown by a trained pilot of the Iraqi army who had defected...
old chewing gum
BAGHDAD — A senior Iraqi official on Friday warned that his country might be forced to turn to Iran for military help if none were forthcoming from the United States, but he insisted he was unaware of any Iranian military units in his country so far.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to make statements to the media, was severely critical of the Obama administration for its handling of the Iraq crisis, and for failing, in his view, to better prepare the country’s military for an emergency.
“If you’re in an antique shop there’s a sign, ‘If you broke it, you bought it,' ” the official, who is an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, said. “I am not saying the Americans are responsible for everything, but they did not leave a well-trained army and they left us without any real air support, and the Obama administration really shares much of the blame.”
read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/14/world/middleeast/iraq-may-turn-to-iran-for-help-maliki-aide-says.html?_r=0
Hey... Don't blame Obama for you having troops that are not worth their sandals. Blame sectarian "religions". See if you have Sunnis in your troops, they are going to be first and foremost Sunnis before being soldiers. Simple. Cannot get this out of their heads, can you? They will give up fighting, not because they are badly trained, but because the "enemy" is Sunni — extreme Sunni but Sunni nonetheless. Calling for help from Iran might become necessary... The Russian might oblige as well... Who knows. The present mess was DEFINITIVELY created by Georgie Bushie and his coalition of the willing (including Blair and Howard who should be in prison for the deed)... The Yanks tried to sell you "democracy" like an out-of-date packet of chewing-gum... no bubbles, just a sticky mess...
back to the "real" business of wars...
The price of Brent crude spiked on Friday over concerns about the ongoing insurgency in Iraq.
Oil prices settled down, but at $4 per barrel higher than at the beginning of the week.
Reassurances about the flow of oil supplies went some way to calming market jitters.
Brent crude futures stabilised at $112.32 per barrel, while US crude levelled to $106.55, after the highest reading for both since September.
Insurgents have taken over two Iraqi cities, prompting the US to say it was considering "all options" to help Iraq.
Iraq is the second-largest oil producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) group.
read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27836376#
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The higher the price, the more the Saudis cash in... Good, hey?
a colossally irresponsible exercise...
From Chris Floyd...
UPDATE: A new article out today by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett underscores the insanity of the policies that have produced the situation in Iraq today. They pay special attention to the role of the Syrian conflict, which I only glanced at above. It is an important angle -- and one of the best illustrations of the madness now raging through the halls of power in the West. Once again, as in Afghanistan, Washington and its European and Saudi partners have poured massive amounts of money and weapons into an insurgency led by violent religious extremists -- and are now shocked to see this extremist insurgency spread throughout the region, particularly in Iraq, where a corrupt, crippled, invader-installed regime has led the country into further division and degradation.
Meanwhile, as I noted above and the Leveretts underscore here, in Washington the only response being offered is more of the same: more intervention to combat the extremists in Iraq, more funding and weapons for the extremists in Syria (and often the groups are the same), more war, more death, more violence. They literally do not know anything else.
Here's an excerpt from the article:
In Iraq, the resurgence of sectarian violence stems not from the 2011 American withdrawal. It is, rather, the fruit of America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, the subsequent U.S. occupation, and the much vaunted “surge” of 2007-2008. The U.S. invasion and occupation destroyed the Iraqi state and ignited tensions among Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic communities. The surge sought to empower certain Sunni militias while paying them (temporarily) not to kill American soldiers; this ended up giving Sunni militants the means to press their grievances through escalating violence once U.S. forces were no longer around.
Unfortunately, Washington seems determined to compound its appalling policy choices in Iraq with equally grievous choices regarding Syria. For over three years, America has provided Syrian oppositionists with “nonlethal” aid, trained opposition fighters, coordinated with others openly providing lethal aid for U.S.-vetted recipients, and extended high-level political backing to the anti-Assad campaign – including serially reiterated public demands from Obama that Assad “must go.” Yet, from the conflict’s start it has been clear that opposition fighters would not dislodge Assad, no matter how much external help they received – because, from the beginning, the constituencies supporting Assad and his government have added up to well over half of Syrian society. …
These realities were readily observable in spring 2011; we have been writing and speaking about them for over three years. Yet the Obama administration decided, within weeks after the outbreak unrest in parts of Syria in March 2011, to support oppositionists seeking to overthrow Assad. It did so – as administration officials told the New York Times in April 2011 – because it calculated that destabilizing Assad’s government would undermine Iran’s regional position.
This was a colossally irresponsible exercise in policymaking-by-wishful-thinking, for two reasons. First, outside support for opposition fighters – a sizable percentage of whom are not even Syrian – has taken what began as small-scale, indigenously generated protests over particular grievances and turned them into a heavily militarized insurgency that could sustain high levels of violence but could not actually win. The Obama administration prides itself on overthrowing Libya’s Muammar al-Qadhafi in 2011 without putting U.S. boots on the ground (though the results are comparable to those in Iraq: the destruction of a functioning state and the arming of militias that kill with impunity – including the U.S. ambassador in 2012). Assad is a vastly tougher target. Stepped up support for anti-Assad fighters will not accomplish anything positive strategically; it will, however, perpetuate conditions in which even more Syrians die.
read more: http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2403-hells-gate-the-iraqi-blitzkrieg-and-the-cult-of-violence.html
Baathist plots have been partly vindicated...
ERBIL, Iraq — Meeting with the American ambassador some years ago in Baghdad, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki detailed what he believed was the latest threat of a coup orchestrated by former officers of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party.
“Don’t waste your time on this coup by the Baathists,” the ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, chided him, dismissing his conspiracy theories as fantasy.
Now, though, with Iraq facing its gravest crisis in years, as Sunni insurgents have swept through northern and central Iraq, Mr. Maliki’s claims about Baathist plots have been at least partly vindicated. While fighters for the extremist Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, once an offshoot of Al Qaeda, have taken on the most prominent role in the new insurgency, they have done so in alliance with a deeply rooted network of former loyalists to Saddam Hussein.
The involvement of the Baathists helps explain why just a few thousand Islamic State in Iraq and Syria fighters, many of them fresh off the battlefields of Syria, have been able to capture so much territory so quickly. It sheds light on the complexity of the forces aligned against Baghdad in the conflict — not just the foreign-influenced group known as ISIS, but many homegrown groups, too. And with the Baathists’ deep social and cultural ties to many areas now under insurgent control, it stands as a warning of how hard it might be for the government to regain territory and restore order.
read more: