1700 Iraqi Soldiers executed.
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boomslang
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KingMamba
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Haha my point was they call themselves custodian but Pakistani troops have to deploy to Hejaz whenever shit hits the fan.
forcetrip
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At what cost? Human and financial. Has any of the latest experiments of the western nations worked in these countries? All indications are pointing towards a deeply prolonged sectarian conflict that will continue for generations to come, at least. Our lifetimes will not see any peace, maybe some uneasy truces. Forget that all, whats stopping the west from "removing obstacles" from the ultimate monarchy in the world? The epicenter of these troubles. Do you think its a coincidence that the country most far off from your democratic ideals is your best friend because of its constant supply of oil which is regulated according to your needs?
forcetrip
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Gertrude of Arabia, the Woman Who Invented Iraq
Gertrude of Arabia, the Woman Who Invented Iraq - The Daily Beast
Gertrude of Arabia, the Woman Who Invented Iraq - The Daily Beast
A.P. Richelieu
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KSA is not the best friend of anyone I know.
Then again, it is no enemy either. It is a trading partner, with some restrictions.
Ultimately, the Saudi people needs to decide how they want to run their country.
If a democracy movement starts in KSA, and is brutally repressed,
then things may be different.
Sweden used to have a king which had "unlimited" power (after a coup).
He was shot, and while there were kings after him, we eventually ended up
in a constitutional monarchy without much friction.
This may be a way for the Saudis.
Personally, I am all for a republic, although I heard two arguments for keeping the monarchy that makes sense.
1. It is cheaper to keep the royal household, than running elections every four years.
2. People are more impressed by "the KING of Sweden", than the "PRESIDENT of Finland"
for unexplicable reasons.
forcetrip
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From what I can gather from your post is that you have to be an enemy or unfriendly towards an up and running democracy. People have to be unhappy to make the change. What you fail to point out is what if a population is not ready or can not manage a western democracy? Do you believe that a child will learn to handle matches if he gets burned a lot? All you have to answer is if "removing obstacles" to bring democracy costs a country to disintegrate would it have been worth it?
Not that I am against democracy but I also know that I will not see in my life time things go back to normal for any country that has been touched by its "removing obstacles" doctrine. I also believe you read enough news to know the destruction all around us.
A.P. Richelieu
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We have a saying, "Burnt child avoids fire". Yes I believe that people want a better life than that
in the middle of sectarian conflicts and eventually they are going to do something about it.
It make take years, decades or even generations.
All it takes, is that the leaders on both sides realize that sectarism is not the way forward.
Religious zealots like ISIS will have difficulty to reach this conclusion.
Northern Ireland and South Africa are good examples on life-long conflicts solved this way.
forcetrip
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Burnt children have taken the whole house along with others with them. Try having a child and watch him play with matches. I could be a sociopath to actually watch my child burn for any amount of learning. 1400 years and counting. Lets see where it gets us. Like I said, we will not be seeing anything in our lifetimes and the ones before us haven't done anything to hope for things to change. So all in all according to you it is okay for millions to die today as long as some future generation reaps the benefit. I dont think you would say any of that if you could switch places with someone who is going through this beautiful sponsored democracy.
A.P. Richelieu
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I think the saying refers to kids playing with hands on a stove, which could
be extremely painful, but not deadly.
In Syria, no real action has been taken due to the Russian veto,
and the death toll seems to quickly surpass that of Iraq
and as you say, it is expected to continue for a long time.
Letting dictators keep on killing is not a solution to the worlds problem as well.
As for millions dying, I think the Russians preferred to beat Hitler, at the cost of many million
Russians, over being exterminated, so yes, in some cases, people feel it is worth it.
The Muslim leaders obviously think that losing millions is OK, or they
would have stopped the sectarian violence long time ago.
It is they, that must find that the lives lost are unacceptable.
In Iraq, the number is not millions, it is 100-200,000 with Iraqies killing
each other a significant portion of that.
In the Kosovo NATO air strikes, we are talking about 100s of civilian deaths.
Who would want to switch places with an Iraqi living under Saddam?
Noone prefers beeing sick and poor, over healthy and rich.
The question is if you prefer to live as a slave, or die as a free man.
That is a question you only can answer when you are in the situation where you have to make a choice.
Iraqi Shia today have the choice. If they do not resist ISIS, then they
are more or less in the same situation as before, but they resist.
Secret Service
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it is not the choice of US citizens i believe
boomslang
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Indus Falcon
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Pentagon Leaders Blast Maliki Government
Jun. 18, 2014
By PAUL McLEARY
US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, right, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said the policies of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki have contributed to the uprising across the country. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
WASHINGTON— The Pentagon’s two top officials had harsh words for the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki Wednesday morning, saying Maliki has alienated and repressed his country’s Sunni population, resulting in the chaos spreading in the northern and western parts of the nation.
Testifying before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed that two Iraqi divisions and one national police organization “did in fact throw down their arms and in some cases collude with [radical Islamic fighters] because they had simply lost faith that the central government in Iraq was dealing with the entire population in a fair and equitable way.”
Pressed by senators as to why the United States failed to do enough to stop the flow of fighters from Syria into Iraq, Dempsey said that “very little could have been done to overcome the degree to which the government of Iraq has failed its people, that’s what has caused this problem.”
On a day where reports have emerged that Iraq’s largest oil facility at Baiji, 130 miles north of Baghdad, fell to the fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Dempsey confirmed that Iraq has requested American airstrikes to try and blunt the advance of the group and its local Sunni allies.
When pressed by Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham, S.C., as to whether ISIL is a threat to the mainland United States, Dempsey said, “it is in our national security interests to counter ISIL wherever we find them,” and that while the current US assessment is that the group is a regional threat, “they have aspirations” to hit American interests outside of Iraq.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel echoed Dempsey’s assessment of the Maliki government, saying, “this current government in Iraq has never fulfilled the commitments it made to form a unity government with the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shia. We have worked hard with them within the confines of our ability to do that but we can’t dictate to them.”
Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Calif., told the officials that in a recent meeting with Lukman Faily, Iraqi ambassador to the US, he estimated that the Baghdad government is facing off against about 20,000 fighters, with 10,000 coming from ISIL and 10,000 from local Iraqi Sunni tribes, plus other smaller groups of foreign fighters.
Dempsey replied that the Pentagon thinks the Iraqi ambassador’s estimates are high, and the “ISIL is almost undistinguishable right now from the other groups you mentioned. In this cauldron of northern Iraq you have former Baathists, groups that have been disenfranchised and angry with the government in Baghdad for some time, and as ISIL has come they’ve partnered [with them.]”
US intelligence assessments believe these partnerships are “a partnership of convenience and there’s probably an opportunity to separate them, but that’s why the numbers are a little heard to pin down.”
In non-Iraq related news at what was supposed to be a budget hearing, Hagel said the White House’s overseas contingency operations (OCO) budget request for 2015 would be “substantially smaller” than the $79.4 billion allocated for 2014.
The request has been delayed as the Obama administration debated how many troops to keep in Afghanistan after the end of this year.
Now that the White House has committed to 9,800 troops for 2015, the administration is finishing up its numbers.
Hagel also told the committee that the 2015 OCO request will include the $5 billion Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund that the president announced at his West Point speech in May, along with an additional $1 billion in military assistance to reassure allies in Europe
Pentagon Leaders Blast Maliki Government | Defense News | defensenews.com
Jun. 18, 2014
By PAUL McLEARY
US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, right, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said the policies of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki have contributed to the uprising across the country. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
WASHINGTON— The Pentagon’s two top officials had harsh words for the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki Wednesday morning, saying Maliki has alienated and repressed his country’s Sunni population, resulting in the chaos spreading in the northern and western parts of the nation.
Testifying before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed that two Iraqi divisions and one national police organization “did in fact throw down their arms and in some cases collude with [radical Islamic fighters] because they had simply lost faith that the central government in Iraq was dealing with the entire population in a fair and equitable way.”
Pressed by senators as to why the United States failed to do enough to stop the flow of fighters from Syria into Iraq, Dempsey said that “very little could have been done to overcome the degree to which the government of Iraq has failed its people, that’s what has caused this problem.”
On a day where reports have emerged that Iraq’s largest oil facility at Baiji, 130 miles north of Baghdad, fell to the fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Dempsey confirmed that Iraq has requested American airstrikes to try and blunt the advance of the group and its local Sunni allies.
When pressed by Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham, S.C., as to whether ISIL is a threat to the mainland United States, Dempsey said, “it is in our national security interests to counter ISIL wherever we find them,” and that while the current US assessment is that the group is a regional threat, “they have aspirations” to hit American interests outside of Iraq.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel echoed Dempsey’s assessment of the Maliki government, saying, “this current government in Iraq has never fulfilled the commitments it made to form a unity government with the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shia. We have worked hard with them within the confines of our ability to do that but we can’t dictate to them.”
Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Calif., told the officials that in a recent meeting with Lukman Faily, Iraqi ambassador to the US, he estimated that the Baghdad government is facing off against about 20,000 fighters, with 10,000 coming from ISIL and 10,000 from local Iraqi Sunni tribes, plus other smaller groups of foreign fighters.
Dempsey replied that the Pentagon thinks the Iraqi ambassador’s estimates are high, and the “ISIL is almost undistinguishable right now from the other groups you mentioned. In this cauldron of northern Iraq you have former Baathists, groups that have been disenfranchised and angry with the government in Baghdad for some time, and as ISIL has come they’ve partnered [with them.]”
US intelligence assessments believe these partnerships are “a partnership of convenience and there’s probably an opportunity to separate them, but that’s why the numbers are a little heard to pin down.”
In non-Iraq related news at what was supposed to be a budget hearing, Hagel said the White House’s overseas contingency operations (OCO) budget request for 2015 would be “substantially smaller” than the $79.4 billion allocated for 2014.
The request has been delayed as the Obama administration debated how many troops to keep in Afghanistan after the end of this year.
Now that the White House has committed to 9,800 troops for 2015, the administration is finishing up its numbers.
Hagel also told the committee that the 2015 OCO request will include the $5 billion Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund that the president announced at his West Point speech in May, along with an additional $1 billion in military assistance to reassure allies in Europe
Pentagon Leaders Blast Maliki Government | Defense News | defensenews.com
Indus Falcon
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Iraq Official Says Iran's Military Mastermind Is In Charge
A former CIA operative described Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, as the “most powerful operative in the Middle East today.”
Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Qods Force, the foreign arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, is leading the Iraqi reaction to a radical Islamist group's takeover of much of the country, according to a senior Iraqi official quoted by The Guardian.
"Who do you think is running the war? Those three senior generals who ran away?" the unnamed official asked The Guardian's Martin Chulov. "Qassem Suleimani is in charge. And reporting directly to him are the militias, led by Asa'ib ahl al-Haq."
Asaib ahl al-Haq (AAH) organization is one of several Iraqi groups that serve as instruments of Iranian policy through the region, as University of Maryland researcher Philip Smyth explained in a policy brief for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy earlier this week.
Specifically, it is a Shiite militia and Iranian proxy in Iraq that deployed fighters to the Syrian theater to support the regime of Bashar Assad. But Smyth writes that AAH fighters have now been recalled to Iraq to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), the al-Qaeda castoff that took over vast stretches of the country's oil-producing north last week.
"Many of the Shiite Islamist forces fighting in Iraq operate as part of Iranian proxy groups that have been attached to [Iraqi Security Forces] and Iraqi army units," Smyth wrote. "Some even operate as a direct part of these official Iraqi military forces."
So it would make sense if Suleimani were calling the shots inside of Iraq itself. He's responsible for arming and organizing sectarian militias that are semi-integrated into the official security apparatus in parts of the country. And he was in Baghdad meeting with Shiite parliamentarians not long before things escalated.
It's a place he knows well. In his profile of Suleimani for The New Yorker last year, Dexter Filkins recounted how the Qods Force chief used his connections in Iraq to play the Americans, Sunni terrorists, and Shiite proxy militias off of one other during the U.S.'s military presence in the country. He even visited Baghdad's Green Zone:
Throughout the war, [Suleimani] summoned Iraqi leaders to Tehran to broker deals, usually intended to maximize Shiite power. At least once, he even traveled into the heart of American power in Baghdad. “Suleimani came into the Green Zone to meet the Iraqis,” the Iraqi politician told me. “I think the Americans wanted to arrest him, but they figured they couldn’t.”
The pro-Iranian Iraqi government that ensured the U.S. military would leave the country in 2011 is essentially Suleimani's creation as well.
Suleimani is deeply invested in keeping together the network of influence and control that he spent much of the past decade building in Iraq. Still a major open question: whether he'll have the U.S. on his side in his efforts.
Qassem Suleimani Running Iraq - Business Insider
- ARMIN ROSEN
- JUN. 18, 2014,
A former CIA operative described Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, as the “most powerful operative in the Middle East today.”
Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Qods Force, the foreign arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, is leading the Iraqi reaction to a radical Islamist group's takeover of much of the country, according to a senior Iraqi official quoted by The Guardian.
"Who do you think is running the war? Those three senior generals who ran away?" the unnamed official asked The Guardian's Martin Chulov. "Qassem Suleimani is in charge. And reporting directly to him are the militias, led by Asa'ib ahl al-Haq."
Asaib ahl al-Haq (AAH) organization is one of several Iraqi groups that serve as instruments of Iranian policy through the region, as University of Maryland researcher Philip Smyth explained in a policy brief for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy earlier this week.
Specifically, it is a Shiite militia and Iranian proxy in Iraq that deployed fighters to the Syrian theater to support the regime of Bashar Assad. But Smyth writes that AAH fighters have now been recalled to Iraq to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), the al-Qaeda castoff that took over vast stretches of the country's oil-producing north last week.
"Many of the Shiite Islamist forces fighting in Iraq operate as part of Iranian proxy groups that have been attached to [Iraqi Security Forces] and Iraqi army units," Smyth wrote. "Some even operate as a direct part of these official Iraqi military forces."
So it would make sense if Suleimani were calling the shots inside of Iraq itself. He's responsible for arming and organizing sectarian militias that are semi-integrated into the official security apparatus in parts of the country. And he was in Baghdad meeting with Shiite parliamentarians not long before things escalated.
It's a place he knows well. In his profile of Suleimani for The New Yorker last year, Dexter Filkins recounted how the Qods Force chief used his connections in Iraq to play the Americans, Sunni terrorists, and Shiite proxy militias off of one other during the U.S.'s military presence in the country. He even visited Baghdad's Green Zone:
Throughout the war, [Suleimani] summoned Iraqi leaders to Tehran to broker deals, usually intended to maximize Shiite power. At least once, he even traveled into the heart of American power in Baghdad. “Suleimani came into the Green Zone to meet the Iraqis,” the Iraqi politician told me. “I think the Americans wanted to arrest him, but they figured they couldn’t.”
The pro-Iranian Iraqi government that ensured the U.S. military would leave the country in 2011 is essentially Suleimani's creation as well.
Suleimani is deeply invested in keeping together the network of influence and control that he spent much of the past decade building in Iraq. Still a major open question: whether he'll have the U.S. on his side in his efforts.
Qassem Suleimani Running Iraq - Business Insider
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