Back In Iraq
At least people are dropping food and water to the Yazidis who don’t make trouble and stay in their own communities. They have an interesting religion that doesn’t cause any trouble. It seems to be a mixture of Islam, Christianity, Zoroaster, and Hindu beliefs. They don’t have converts – you have to be born a Yazidi. Obviously they must be hated and feared if you are fundamentalist anything. I hope they can be saved from the ethnic cleansing that ISIS intends.
To make the Republican war-mongers happy, Zero is engaged in air strikes against ISIS in Northern Iraq in support of the Kurds. The Kurds are at least willing to put up a fight, but they are going to need the heavy weapons that Maliki refused to provide and then surrendered to ISIS.
The US owes the Kurds for the way George HW Bush left them hanging after the first Gulf War. He encouraged them to revolt and then refused to help them when they were attacked by Saddam.
Meanwhile Maliki is refusing to give up power in Baghdad despite the calls from everyone of importance in Iraq that he leave. Now he is attacking the decision of the President of Iraq not to ask him to form a government, and has sent forces loyal to him into the streets of Baghdad as an implied threat.
We have no problem winning wars, and no success at handling the peace afterward. Given that reality, why do we do it?
August 11, 2014 2 Comments
