There was never any doubt, after the Bush Reich toppled the dictator that held Iraq together, that the nation was destined for long term, pent-up sectarian strife. The Maliki regime concentrated all power in the hands of the Shia faction, and it was only a matter of time before the Kurds and Sunnis rebelled. The Republican Party is doing what Republicans always do in a case like this. They are blaming Obama for what Bush did, and trying to get us back into the war. Don’t do it! Hands off Iraq!
This is what Maliki did with all the money and manpower we invested in training his army.
Observers around the world are stunned by the speed and scope of this week’s assaults on every major city in the upper Tigris River Valley — including Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city — by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. But they shouldn’t be. The collapse of the Iraqi government’s troops in Mosul and other northern cities in the face of Sunni militant resistance has been the predictable culmination of a long deterioration, brought on by the government’s politicization of its security forces.
The politicization of the Iraqi military
For more than five years, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his ministers have presided over the packing of the Iraqi military and police with Shiite loyalists — in both the general officer ranks and the rank and file — while sidelining many effective commanders who led Iraqi troops in the battlefield gains of 2007-2010, a period during which al Qaeda in Iraq (the forerunner of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) was brought to the brink of extinction.
Al-Maliki’s "Shiafication" of the Iraqi security forces has been less about the security of Iraq than the security of Baghdad and his regime. Even before the end of the U.S.-led "surge" in 2008, al-Maliki began a concerted effort to replace effective Sunni and Kurdish commanders and intelligence officers in the key mixed-sect areas of Baghdad, Diyala and Salaheddin provinces to ensure that Iraqi units focused on fighting Sunni insurgents while leaving loyal Shiite militias alone — and to alleviate al-Maliki’s irrational fears of a military coup against his government.
In 2008, al-Maliki began replacing effective Kurdish commanders and soldiers in Mosul and Tal Afar with Shiite loyalists from Baghdad and the Prime Minister’s Dawa Party, and even Shiite militia members from the south. A number of nonloyalist commanders were forced to resign in the face of trumped up charges or reassigned to desk jobs and replaced with al-Maliki loyalists. The moves were made to marginalize Sunnis and Kurds in the north and entrench al-Maliki’s regime and the Dawa Party ahead of provincial and national elections in 2009, 2010 and 2013…
Inserted from <CNN>
30,000 Iraqi soldiers turned tail and ran from 800 fighters.
Those of you who remember Vietnam should be getting a sense of déjà vu from current events in Iraq.
Rachel Maddow covered this story in two parts. Apologies in advance for the intros. In the first she puts the current situation in Iraq in the historical contest of the War in Vietnam.
In the second, she covers the Republican lies used to get us into the that GOP war for oil and conquest, and how Republicans are lying now want to get us back into that war, just as they tried to get is back into Vietnam.
Long before Barack Obama became President, I said that no so-called coalition government could stand in Iraq. I suggested that the country would be better off as three separate entities, with a federal structure solely to share oil revenues among them. The Maliki regime has proven to be just as corrupt as the Chalabi regime that the Bush Reich tried to impose on that nation. It will fall. The only question is when.
The best thing the US can do is stay away and let them deal with it themselves. Otherwise, we will only make a bigger mess of that nation than we already have. When they return to some semblance of order in their own way, we should recognize our national culpability and provide humanitarian (NOT military) aid.
Moreover, we need to stop the cycle economic imperialism. We need to allow nations to manage their own resources for the benefit of their own people, not install dictators to manage them for the benefit of American vulture capitalists.
18 Responses to “Hands Off Iraq!”
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CREDO Petition:
Tell President Obama: Don't Bomb Iraq
http://act.credoaction.com/sign/no_bombs_iraq?akid=10953.2965095.9qeY4Z&rd=1&t=3
MoveOn.org Petition:
Tell President Obama and Congress: Keep America Out Of Iraq!
http://pac.petitions.moveon.org/sign/tell-president-obama-32?source=mo&id=97135-23189148-OstyE8x
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Signed these 2 and others.
Thanks, JIim, I signed both petitions.
Thanks Jim. I posted the first petition to Care2 today and signed the second.
One more petition:
http://diy.rootsaction.org/petitions/do-not-bomb-arm-or-send-troops-to-iraq
I signed this one and the MoveOn one last night, and the Credo one from Jim and the one JL posted on Care2 this morning:
http://action.winwithoutwar.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=11171
~~Petition that came in after I posted:
http://codepink.salsalabs.com/o/424/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=7213
Just came in, also on MoveOn but for a different group.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/no-new-US-war-in-Iraq
Signed these 2 also.
Thanks, Joanne, I signed all four.
As I used to write on my own blog 10 years (wow that long ago) whenever we leave Iraq it will dissolve into anarchy and terroristic war. Funny how Republicans blame Obama for this mess, just as they blame Obama for the economic mess. Hey Americans, pull your head out of your asses and stop hurting America by voting for these criminals.
It really ticks me off that now the Iraqi leadership is asking the USA for help. They don't want help. We trained their soldiers and left our equipment for them to use. They want us to fight their battles for them. Bull$hit!
Read this and weep, then get angry:
http://aattp.org/absolutely-nothing-a-veterans-savage-indictment-of-the-iraq-war/#comment-206514
The article, aattp.org, in this link is worth reading.
The tears left me years ago. The anger left, nowadays, is to get the warmongers, chicken hawks meaning those gop/tp out of office. If those people, gop/tea party, want a war, they should do the fighting themselves without involving the US military and without US citizens.
All petitions mentioned in this article and in C2 have been signed. Out of Iraq, period. Not one more dime for war in Iraq and in other middle eastern countries.
Let Iraq sort out their own problems and its own future.
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We had no business going to war in Iraq to begin with, our intervention there made those people's lives worse, not better. Does anyone else remember Dubya telling us "the war won't cost the American people a dime, the oil we get will pay for it"? And that is the reason we were there. The Iraqis have to determine their own destiney. As TC has said those in power wanted a dictatorship, not a democracy. We need to let them decide for themselves what government they want. The Republicans are hot for us to go back, but I think bottom line is they want the money making machine for their contributors to get going again. Aside from the Iraqi's deplorable situation from our making war, this country has almost been destroyed by the debt it caused us, we have thousands in critical condition from their experiences and wounds while there. I vote NO, do not enter Iraq again.
Thanks to all. Kudos to John for that heart wrenching story and to all who subbmitted links to petitions.
Iraq is clearly a case of outsiders dcrawing lines on a map and creating a country that should never have existed.
What did American forces teach the Iraqi Army . . . independence or dependence on the US? A US president, Baby Bush, commits the country to war over oil . . . profit and greed . . . economic imperialism. But what did the Iraqi people gain? How many dead? How much of their future is now lost in the sands of the Iraqi desert? And all for what? . . . because Baby Bush and his henchmen launched the US into a war of economic conquest. That Bush legacy must die now. No troops, no bombs, no military equipment for Iraq. When Iraq has sorted their struggle, then maybe other countries can help with humanitarian aid.
I will send them a quarter, to call some one who give's a rat's A$$.