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Raqqa and Mosul

late said:
Kids, when Cheney destroyed Iraq as a country, he kicked a bottom card out of a house of cards.

The ME has collapsed into chaos and war, and it is still spreading.

To add a soupcon of context, the West has had it's boot on the neck of Muslims in the region for over a century, so it's not all on Cheney.
That also has a lot to do with why they're pissed.

Our instinct is to go kill somebody. We have a hammer, so we want to pound nails...

Actually, that's bass ackwards. We want peace, and that is a political process unless you want to go old school and pound them all into mud.

You don't get peace, you build it, and that requires a thought process that's alien to the war machine we have turned into.
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Well, actually, the current chaos was created when Obama cut and run.
 
apdst said:
Well, actually, the current chaos was created when Obama cut and run.
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Perhaps the Chaos was created by the insensitive activities of US Troops, and contractor black ops, that made US troops unwelcome by the Iraqi parliament members.


"Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, for instance, is a hugely pro-American politician who believes Iraq's security forces will be incapable of protecting the country without sustained foreign assistance. But in a recent interview, he refused to endorse a U.S. troop extension and instead indicated that they should leave.

"We have serious security problems in this country and serious political problems," he said in an interview late last month at his heavily guarded compound in Baghdad. "Keeping Americans in Iraq longer isn't the answer to the problems of Iraq. It may be an answer to the problems of the U.S., but it's definitely not the solution to the problems of my country."


Shiite leaders -- including many from Maliki's own Dawaa Party -- were even more strongly opposed, with followers of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatening renewed violence if any American troops stayed past the end of the year. The Sadr threat was deeply alarming to Iraqis just beginning to rebuild their lives and their country after the bloody sectarian strife which ravaged Iraq for the past eight and a half years.

The only major Iraqi political bloc that was willing to speak publicly about a troop extension was the Kurdish alliance which governs the country's north and has long had a testy relationship with Maliki and the country's Sunni and Shia populations. But even Kurdish support was far from monolithic: Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish lawmaker considered one of the most pro-American members of parliament, said in a recent interview that he wanted the U.S. troops out.

"Personally, I no longer want them to stay," Othman said. "It's been eight years. I don't think having Americans stay in Iraq will improve the situation at all. Leaving would be better for them and for us. It's time for us to go our separate ways."





U.S. Troops Are Leaving Because Iraq Doesn't Want Them There - The Atlantic


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Gladiator said:
Perhaps the Chaos was created by the insensitive activities of US Troops, and contractor black ops, that made US troops unwelcome by the Iraqi parliament members.


"Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, for instance, is a hugely pro-American politician who believes Iraq's security forces will be incapable of protecting the country without sustained foreign assistance. But in a recent interview, he refused to endorse a U.S. troop extension and instead indicated that they should leave.

"We have serious security problems in this country and serious political problems," he said in an interview late last month at his heavily guarded compound in Baghdad. "Keeping Americans in Iraq longer isn't the answer to the problems of Iraq. It may be an answer to the problems of the U.S., but it's definitely not the solution to the problems of my country."


Shiite leaders -- including many from Maliki's own Dawaa Party -- were even more strongly opposed, with followers of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatening renewed violence if any American troops stayed past the end of the year. The Sadr threat was deeply alarming to Iraqis just beginning to rebuild their lives and their country after the bloody sectarian strife which ravaged Iraq for the past eight and a half years.

The only major Iraqi political bloc that was willing to speak publicly about a troop extension was the Kurdish alliance which governs the country's north and has long had a testy relationship with Maliki and the country's Sunni and Shia populations. But even Kurdish support was far from monolithic: Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish lawmaker considered one of the most pro-American members of parliament, said in a recent interview that he wanted the U.S. troops out.

"Personally, I no longer want them to stay," Othman said. "It's been eight years. I don't think having Americans stay in Iraq will improve the situation at all. Leaving would be better for them and for us. It's time for us to go our separate ways."





U.S. Troops Are Leaving Because Iraq Doesn't Want Them There - The Atlantic


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ISIS didn't control a third of Iraq before we left. I bet the Iraqi politicians are less attracted to ISIS than they were to U.S. troops.
 
Gladiator said:
4 Million Muslims have died, so far, for the Global War on Terror

“To this, the PSR study adds at least 220,000 in Afghanistan and 80,000 in Pakistan, killed as the direct or indirect consequence of US-led war: a ‘conservative’ total of 1.3 million. The real figure could easily be ‘in excess of 2 million’.”

These figures may still be underestimating the real death toll, according to Ahmed. These studies only account for the victims of violent conflict, but not the many more who will die as a result of the damage war brings to crucial infrastructure, from roads to farms to hospitals — not to mention devastating sanctions like those placed on Iraq after the first Gulf War in 1991. He continues:

“Undisputed UN figures show that 1.7 million Iraqi civilians died due to the West’s brutal sanctions regime, half of whom were children.

The mass death was seemingly intended. Among items banned by the UN sanctions were chemicals and equipment essential for Iraq’s national water treatment system. A secret US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) document discovered by Professor Thomas Nagy of the School of Business at George Washington University amounted, he said, to ‘an early blueprint for genocide against the people of Iraq.’”

Similar figures for Afghanistan, he reports, could bring totals to four million or more."

Do The Math: Global War On Terror Has Killed 4 Million Muslims Or More





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You do realize that the vast majority of those dead Muslims were killed by fellow Muslims right?
 
apdst said:
ISIS didn't control a third of Iraq before we left. I bet the Iraqi politicians are less attracted to ISIS than they were to U.S. troops.
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"Unlike in the surrounding neighborhoods, Iraqi officers said they believe the university grounds are largely empty of civilians and so they've been able to use air cover more liberally.

Iraqi soldiers said their initial advance faced less resistance than they faced during the first weeks of the Mosul operation.

"We were targeted with only four car bombs where before (IS) would send 20 in one day," special forces Lt. Zain al-Abadeen said. "And they aren't armored like before, they're just using civilian cars."

Iraqi Forces Push Onto Mosul University Grounds - ABC News





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Gladiator said:
"Unlike in the surrounding neighborhoods, Iraqi officers said they believe the university grounds are largely empty of civilians and so they've been able to use air cover more liberally.

Iraqi soldiers said their initial advance faced less resistance than they faced during the first weeks of the Mosul operation.

"We were targeted with only four car bombs where before (IS) would send 20 in one day," special forces Lt. Zain al-Abadeen said. "And they aren't armored like before, they're just using civilian cars."

Iraqi Forces Push Onto Mosul University Grounds - ABC News





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What's your point?
 
apdst said:
What's your point?
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One point is that Mosul is halfway under Iraqi/US control.

Another point is that the US is till being welcomed by the Iraqi, military, police and parliament.

A Question difficult to answer is whether the US withdrawal in 2011 has resulted in better cooperation with the Iraqi military, sufficiently improved to justify the separation time, that allowed ISIS time to dig in.


Is it an ideology that we are fighting in ISIS, and is the best way to fight ISIS, to engender, and grow, tech and air support for legitimate forces of responsible Middle East governments?


This is Trump's starting point. Where does Trump go from here, and where will we be 4 years from now?


How many miss-steps can Trump make without alienating the Iraqi people, like Abu Ghraib type torture?

I think Abu Ghraib, and other miss steps under W, actually were responsible for Obama leaving in 2011. But Obama is criticized for leaving Iraq.

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"It revealed a global proliferation American newspaper on Saturday, all managed by Iraqi forces of a surprise (Daesh) Mosul attacks night using night Alnoazir, while showed that the international coalition revealed raids air against organized sites, quoted Iraqi military leaders reaffirmed the killing of at least 2,500 terrorists in Mosul.

The Washington Post The Washington Post the US, in a report today, I followed (the long-Presse), said that the Iraqi “anti-terrorism forces carried out, was able to penetrate in the Muthanna neighborhood in the east of Mosul, using Balnoazir night for the first time,” noting that “the forces Iraqi special, I managed to midnight crossing a small river separates it from the positions Daesh, which reveal his gunmen Bnoazirha night with a green beam, where she began to fight from house to house with the help of engineering teams that open the way for them, as armored Humvees stormed the streets of the neighborhood. ”

According to the Washington Post, that “night surprise attack in Al Muthanna, is part of the amendments and new strategies carried out by Iraqi forces to achieve surprise in the attack to liberate the north side of the city,” indicating that “attack is the first of its kind carried out at night within Iraqi forces fighting against Daesh in Mosul. ”


https://search4dinar.wordpress.com/...ks-in-mosul-the-night-and-kill-2500-elements/


"MOSUL, Iraq — After three days of intense clashes between ISIS and the Iraqi army in Mosul’s northern district of Arabi, the army has taken full control of the area late Sunday afternoon.

After Arabi fell to the Iraqi army’s 16th Division, the army is now preparing to march into the last major district of Rashidiyah, also in the north and have reached the neighbourhood’s limits, Rudaw’s correspondent at the scene, Farhad Dolamari, reported. Coalition warplanes are bombing ISIS positions in the neighborhood.

Iraqi forces were engaged in heavy clashes since Sunday morning with ISIS militants in Arabi, at least three days after the advancing forces entered the district, one of the last major areas where the extremist group is still present in the eastern half of the city."

Iraqi forces liberate north Mosul district after three days of h








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"Fighting in and around al-Bab is some of the most complex in Syria's multi-sided war. To the north, west and east, a Turkish military and allied rebel pincer movement has been slowed by heavy IS resistance, including street battles, snipers and suicide bombings.

Further to the east around Manbij, Turkish-backed forces have also clashed with US-backed Syrian rebels dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia. Ankara considers the YPG a terrorist organization tied to Kurdish rebels in Turkey and has vowed to root out it out of Manbij once al-Bab is captured.

But such a Turkish move against Manbij would be viewed as unwanted by the United States as the Kurdish-Arab rebel force is leading a US-backed offensive against IS in the militants' de facto capital of Raqqa."


"The Syrian government opposes Turkey's intervention and has vowed to retake all of the war-torn country's sovereign territory. But Turkey's intervention has been carried out with the tacit approval of Russia, the Assad regime's main backer.

A potential flashpoint appears to be along the main Aleppo-Al-Bab Highway. As Syrian government-aligned forces advance along the highway, Turkish-backed forces on Wednesday pushed closer to the strategic road to the southwest of al-Bab, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitor said."





Syrian army, Turkey risk clashes around IS-held al-Bab | Middle East | DW.COM | 02.02.2017


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Syrian force a 'few weeks' from Raqqa, U.S. Marines deploy | Reuters

U.S.-backed Syrian forces said on Thursday they were closing in on Islamic State-held Raqqa and expected to reach the city outskirts in a few weeks, as a U.S. Marines artillery unit deployed to help the campaign.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a militia alliance including the Kurdish YPG, is the main U.S. partner in the war against Islamic State in Syria. Since November it has been working with the U.S.-led coalition to encircle Raqqa.
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Sad to see ISIS using civilians as human shields in the Battle of Mosul. Is there any way to evacuate people from Raqqa before they do this to Syrians?

What happens when ISIS is in decline and the SDF, the YPG, al-Nusra, and the Syrian Army are left to duke it out?
 
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Winston said:
Syrian force a 'few weeks' from Raqqa, U.S. Marines deploy | Reuters



Sad to see ISIS using civilians as human shields in the Battle of Mosul. Is there any way to evacuate people from Raqqa before they do this to Syrians?

What happens when ISIS is in decline and the SDF, the YPG, al-Nusra, and the Syrian Army are left to duke it out?
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That is a problem. The US CIA has given support to Syrian rebels, But with Russian Help around Aleppo. the rebels are getting crushed by Russia/Syria.

As long as ISIS stays in Raqqa, the Russians don't see ISIS as a threat, so the status quo is fine with Russia.

The idea of a quick defeat of ISIS may create more problems than the US CIA can handle.




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