Al Quaeda splinter group sweeping through Iraq

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/12/world/meast/iraq-crisis/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

An Iraqi MI-17 helicopter crashed while providing humanitarian aid to people trapped on Iraq's Mount Sinjar, state-run Iraqia TV reported Tuesday, citing Iraq's military.
The military cited "a technical failure" as the cause, Iraqia TV reported.
The office of the Kurdish regional government's prime minister said a helicopter crashed and that the pilot is dead.

Guess ISIS figured out how to use those MANPADs and Stingers so generously donated to their cause by Washington.

Same link:

Also Tuesday, a U.S. official said the Obama administration is considering whether to send more military advisers to Iraq amid efforts to get the Yazidis off Mount Sinjar. The administration also is looking to boost the capabilities of Kurdish forces battling ISIS fighters in northern Iraq, the official said.
Consideration is being given to sending as many as 75 more American military personnel, a second U.S. military official told CNN.

What's that old phrase from Vietnam? Mission creep?

I wonder just how much these adventures in Iraq have cost the US?

Let's see, there's the cost of the invasion to start with.

Then there was the cost of training and equipping the Iraqi army with guns, humvees, Toyotas, tanks, etc., so they could drop them and run away at the first sign of a black flag. Those black flags do provide a good photo-op when fluttering from convoys of those Toyotas, though

Then there was the cost of the US training and arming the 'nice rebels' with the intent of regime-changing Assad. Oh, and extra spends in Jordan, where the CIA had set up not-very-secret training camps to make sure the 'nice rebels' had useful skills, like the best way to kill unarmed, injured prisoners. ISIS aka the 'nice rebels' has certainly put all that humanitarian training to good use!

And now the US is bombing Iraq again - or rather, those convoys of Toyotas being driven by the 'nice rebels' aka ISIS.

It must make US taxpayers proud, to know they've paid for arming every single side in this conflict!

I won't bring the dead and maimed servicemen and women into this; they're the very last people Obama and co care about.

Triple sigh.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/isis-makes-million-day-selling-oil-analysts/story?id=24814359

and

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2689705/Iraqi-government-forces-accused-executing-hundreds-Sunni-prisoners-revenge-ISIS-advance-cities.html

Good luck on working any of that out. Pound to a penny, some of Our Gallant Allies in the region are in business with ISIS.

Pound to a penny, some of Our Gallant Allies in the region are in business with ISIS.

....and they probably didn't need their arms twisted either.  

http://news.sky.com/story/1317734/iraq-airstrikes-uk-has-a-moral-responsibility

Quote:

British commanders with experience in Iraq have urged David Cameron to consider taking military action against Islamic State (IS) fighters.

Colonel Tim Collins has warned the Prime Minister that ancient civilisations in Iraq could be "extinguished" unless action is taken to stop the advance of IS.

He also claimed the Government has "left for lunch" on the issue, and accused politicians of refusing to accept the "moral responsibility" to act.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said: "In the next months ancient civilisations will be extinguished on our watch unless we act.

"Britain helped create Iraq in 1920 and we have a moral responsibility to help.

"We have used the Kurds as a public convenience for too long, now their backs are against the wall and we've got to support them."

What, so the UK and US can rat the Kurds out again, like they did in the first Gulf War?

Iraq's 'ancient civilisation' was wiped out when the frigging coalition of the wlling invaded it in 2003. The last thing warmongering politicians and the military have any right to do is spout about 'morality'.

I know - why not offer to hand over Blair, Bush and co over to ISIS for a Sharia-type trial in return for them not killing any more civilians? Now THAT would be justice.

Let’s count the ways. It goes without saying that Obama is now busily bombing American military equipment. Some of that equipment is pretty high tech gear and especially lethal - not the kind that jihadists ordinarily train with in their desert lairs or mountain redoubts.

But then again, ISIS got provisioned by none other than the Iraqi Army. The latter not only dropped its uniforms for civvies during the battle for Mosul, but also left behind armored Humvees, heavy artillery, night vision systems, state of the art firearms and much else of like and similar nature. Nor was this the first time that the Iraqi Army disarmed itself unilaterally. A while back they also surrendered their uniforms and guns when another American President - George W. Bush - bombed them.

That was called “shock and awe”. Afterwards, the remnants of the Iraqi army must have found it indeed shocking and awesome that Washington immediately pivoted - after hanging the country’s leader - and spent $25 billion re-equipping and training them in brand new uniforms and with far better weapons.

A summary of the clusterfkc Washington has created in the Middle East at:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-12/iraq-policy-washington%E2%80%99s-puzzle-palace-keeps-getting-curiouser

http://news.sky.com/story/1317734/pm-returns-for-emergency-cobra-iraq-meeting

Cameron and co seem hell-bent on getting more British servicemen killed.

Here's an idea - why not cut off the money supply to IS? Arrest every single dirty oilman buying those IS tankers - WHATEVER their nationality, Turkish, Israeli, American, Egyptian, whatever.

Stop the CIA from arming, funding and training any more jihadists in Jordan to use against Assad - in case it's escaped anyone's notice, many of the refugees are fleeing into the areas of Syria still held by Assad, not that held by US/UK allies the 'nice rebels'.

Just like eastern Ukrainians are fleeing into Russia, away from the lunatics in Kiev that have been backed up by the US/EU/NATO.

 

Those two make Blair and Bush look like geniuses. Which is truly terrifying.

Bonny, that really is terrifying.   

Ron Paul:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-13/exactly-what-bin-laden-wanted-ron-paul-concludes

''This is exactly what Osama bin Laden wanted,” Paul said. “He wanted to engage us over there because he said, ‘I’ll bring you down like I brought the Soviets down.’ We are doing the same thing because we flat out can’t afford it. It’s a failed policy. I think after so many years and so many decades we ought to admit the truth.”

Yup.

http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/08/15/isis-baffling-us-intelligence-agencies

It’s been two months since ISIS took over Iraq’s second-largest city. But U.S. analysts are still trying to figure out how big the group is and the real identities of its leaders.

The U.S. intelligence community is still trying to answer basic questions about the jihadists who tried to wipe out Iraq’s remaining Yazidis and who now threaten to overrun the capital of the country’s Kurdish provinces.

Why not just ask the CIA - they trained and armed these madmen in Jordan and elsewhere? Or try John McCain - he was great pals with them when they were 'brave freedom fighters'?

http://news.sky.com/story/1319847/iraq-militants-kill-hundreds-and-take-families

Iraq Militants 'Kill Hundreds And Take Families'
4:33pm UK, Saturday 16 August 2014



Email
More than 400 Yazidi men have been killed and their families abducted by militants in northern Iraq, local officials have said.

More follows...

Why are these maniacs being described as 'militants' as if they are just hard-line trade unionists?

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/08/us-iraq-air-strikes-20148169434969151.html

US jets strike near Iraq's largest dam
Up to 15 Islamic State fighters killed in air strikes near Mosul Dam, amid reports of "massacre" in Sinjar area.

[video]

US aircraft have launched air strikes near Iraq's largest dam, killing up to 15 fighters from the Islamic State group, Al Jazeera's correspondent reported.

Several air strikes hit Iraq’s north on Saturday, including in the besieged Sinjar Mountains, where fresh reports emerged of a "massacre" against residents belonging to the Yazidi religious minority.



There were suggestions that the attack near the Mosul Dam was the beginning of a US military operation to help the Kurdish forces, Peshmerga, retake it from from the self-declared jihadists, who captured it earlier this month and thereby gained control over the water and electricity supply in the north of the country.

"We understand from our Peshmerga sources on the ground that they are also trying to push in. As the US bombs these positions, the Kurdish forces are trying to retake territory lost to the Islamic State," Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Irbil, the capital of Kurdish regional government said.

More at link.

That's good - as long as no-one hits the dam by mistake.

What a catastrophe if they had or do.

A must-read piece by Ron Paul:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-17/ron-paul-what-have-we-accomplished-iraq

Sample:

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!

Acheived? Absolutely nothing, except millions of dead Iraqis and even more hatred of the West. Oh, and more 'terrorists' than ever before.

Acheived? Absolutely nothing, except millions of dead Iraqis and even more hatred of the West. Oh, and more 'terrorists' than ever before.

That is absolutely true and totally unconscionable. On a lesser humanitarian point of view but also important, hosing American people for trillions of dollars they don't have and at some point will be demanded from them.

And don't forget, US taxpayers footed the bill for much of ISIS' training, weapons and transport, Lily. And the US taxpayer is now footing the bill for US weaponry to destroy all those US weapons, Humvees, etc.

It's horrendous, billions and billions of taxpayer dollars thrown down the toilet.

It is horrendous Bonn. It is actually in the trillion(s).   

Never mind, some people have made an absolute fortune out of it, so they are happy.

Karma will get them too.............

http://news.sky.com/story/1320961/iraqi-militants-threaten-revenge-attacks-on-us

Iraqi Militants Threaten Revenge Attacks On US
As Kurdish troops wrestle back control of a crucial dam near Mosul, IS militants warn Americans will "drown in blood".

Iraqi militants have threatened to respond to US airstrikes by attacking American targets, posting a video in which they warn: "We will drown all of you in blood".

The message, which was accompanied by photographs of beheadings, came as Barack Obama announced Kurdish peshmerga troops, supported by US jets, had recaptured the strategically important Mosul Dam.


More at link.

Looks like the mad snackbars are none too pleased that the CIA have stopped paying them in Syria now that the Pentagon is bombing them in Iraq.

I am still waiting for some kind of explanation as to why we are now supposed to be horrified by ISIS' atrocities in Iraq, when they've been doing far worse to Christians and others in Syria, funded and supported by the US and UK, in the guise of 'brave rebels'. We nearly went to war ON THEIR SIDE, FFS!

Wake up, silly people!

It's okay.  They all send the bill to the US taxpayers.   

Maggie Thatcher was right about the socialist mentality though, sooner or later you run out of other peoples' money.