EPTFormation of a Nineveh provincial militia to fight ISIS in the Nineveh province:
Gov. Atheel al-Nujaifi wants his province back.
Since early June, when jihadist militants swept into Nineveh Province in northern Iraq and seized control of its capital, Mosul, Mr. Nujaifi has been a man without a home.
As Iraqi forces and various militias, backed by American airstrikes, have sought to beat back fighters calling themselves the Islamic State, Mr. Nujaifi has pursued his own military response, narrowly tailored toward reclaiming Mosul. He is trying to assemble a 3,000-person militia of mostly Sunni Muslims from Nineveh Province to deploy against the militant group, also known as ISIS.
“We want to give a new image to the people: that Mosul will fight ISIS with people mainly from Mosul,” he said. “The people will not accept a return of the Iraqi Army.”
Iraqi national government acceptance of a "national guard" plan, for combat units under the command of the individual provinces.
Both Mr. Nujaifi’s hope to gin up a private militia and the government’s plan for a national guard, which Mr. Nujaifi ardently supports, emerge from the same conviction: that the best way to fight insurgencies is with homegrown troops.
The strategy is an acknowledgment of the failure of the Shiite-dominated national security forces to operate effectively and fairly in Sunni regions. Abuses committed by the Iraqi Army and police forces under the last prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki — including the arrests of Sunni leaders, sometimes on unfounded charges, and the unlawful mass detentions of young Sunni men — alienated the Sunni population and promoted antigovernment rebellion.
The national guard plan also seems to point to a greater redistribution of authority to the provinces, an issue that has polarized Iraqi officials, although some have embraced it as a possible way to keep the country from permanently fracturing.
Potential problems with the plan:
Some officials are concerned that the guard program would further complicate Iraq’s security apparatus, perhaps creating private sectarian militias for governors.
“There will be too many decision-making centers, and that will create a status of chaos in the country,” said Hamid al-Mutlaq, a Sunni politician from Anbar Province and a member of the Iraqi Parliament’s security and defense committee.
Mr. Mutlaq argued that instead of creating a new military arm, Baghdad should strengthen the existing armed forces by diversifying their leadership and ranks with more Sunnis and other minorities.
Reconciliation with the former military officers of the old Iraqi Army under Saddam Hussein's administration is in the works. This is the most vital part of the campaign in my honest opinion
Alaa Makki, a former member of Parliament, said he had been meeting in recent months with former military officers who served under Saddam Hussein to discuss their willingness to fight ISIS alongside national Iraqi forces. Many of these officers participated in the Sunni insurgency that bedeviled American troops and their allies in the mid-2000s.
According to Mr. Makki, the officers told him they would participate provided that they be accorded the same rights as ordinary officers in the Iraqi security forces, that their military ranks be restored (some of them were generals), and that their families be entitled to a pension should they die in action.
“They lived from 2003 until now marginalized, and a high percentage of them have been assassinated,” Mr. Makki said. “But still they are ready to be loyal to Iraq and be loyal to their provinces.”
Read the rest here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/19/world/middleeast/iraqs-fight-against-isis-may-fall-to-provinces.html
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Jormundr, this is for you (see spoiler)
+ Show Spoiler +
On September 19 2014 12:41 Jormundr wrote:
It's only terrorism if they start losing m8, you should read up on some history. I'd be willing to call it terrorism if Obama committed 100% that we would crush ISIS if nobody else did.
1. You haven't debunked the fact that the translation you provided informs us that human shields are not being used, as people volunteered of their own accord. Without coercion, the term human shield loses its meaning. If a member of the secret service jumps in front of a bullet headed towards the president, is the president guilty of shooting the man or is the shooter?
2. I am hesitant to believe your claim that there are Muslims in MEMRI. Haven't you also claimed that Jihad against infidels is a crucial part of Islam? As such, wouldn't they be too busy playing jihad to translate videos for the people in America who want to kill all the muslims?
3. Also, an organization started by an Israeli intelligence official with the express purpose of telling people what a threat the muslims are to the world and Israel. Somehow I think there might be a conflict of interest here.
Israel is ez:
1. Give the Palestinians their states. Get a long term UN peacekeeping force to keep order for the first 50 years.
2. Start a civil rights movement. Israel becomes a secular state with equal rights for all citizens, gradually absorbs the Palestinians within its borders. (never going to happen, Israel already votes further right than the tea party, they're not gonna let their pet muslims have a say)
3. Finish the ethnic cleansing they started 70 years ago
4. Keep up the status quo, where Israel keeps gradually strangling the West Bank and appropriating their territory till they have a Gaza sized piece of land left, and then construct a new wall around it. Keep the palestinians in their cages and give the smart ones privileges if they work for Israel. Keep the media machine oiled (lucky for them they're the only country which speaks hebrew, eh?) and bomb the Palestinians every few years to drum up nationalist sentiment and political support. Repeat ad infinitum.
Now let me tell you that as a secular jew 1 and 2 are more appealing to me because #4 is binary - either Israel has military superiority or it gets wiped off the map. Think Nazi Germany, but with Germany telling everyone else in Europe it's perfectly willing to kill them while it gathers all the foreigners into camps for a few decades instead of killing them (such restraint, much honor, very humane, so wow!) Think the muslims are still salty about that last bit. Also the fact that Israel has nukes and is fighting North Korea for the right to be the second nation to drop a nuke.
But hey, as long as you can count on Israel's military dictatorship over its neighbors why worry about it!
Iraq and any other nation can kill the shit out of them. I don't really care that much. When they start killing civilians to get at ISIS I'll get salty. When they kill civilians by bombing them I'll get even more salty. When they blame someone other than the people who dropped the bomb or the people who ordered that bomb be dropped, I'll be ultra-salty.
Bombs are designed to kill a lot of people, and bombs don't discriminate between civilian and military. When you drop a bomb in a city or town you are deliberately declaring your intent to kill civilians. You can mince around this fact with phrases like "acceptable losses" and "unavoidable casualties" but the reality is that you are choosing kill more civilians with an air strike than you would with a ground invasion. Why? Because it's cheaper for us in terms of the lives of our soldiers, the cost of our equipment, and the political feasibility of an assault. We consciously make the choice to kill the civilians of other nations so that our soldiers live and our politicians thrive. I believe Iraq war was something around 40 civilians to every 1 soldier, and the recent gaza bombardment was about 30 to 1.
I believe this is where you and I differ. I would rather see our soldiers die than their civilians. If we are truly the great and glorious authority on humanist conduct that we pretend to be when we export democracy, then our modus operandi should be closer to this ideal where less people die overall. You see the situation and say that we should kill the civilians who are in the way because it's more cost-effective for us even though it will kill more people overall.
TL;DR
When you bomb people you are fully responsible for their deaths unless they are being held there against their will (which is the phenomena known as human shields). In that case you are at least half responsible for their deaths because you decided to kill them.
![[image loading]](http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40879000/jpg/_40879524_shield203ap.jpg)
It's only terrorism if they start losing m8, you should read up on some history. I'd be willing to call it terrorism if Obama committed 100% that we would crush ISIS if nobody else did.
1. You haven't debunked the fact that the translation you provided informs us that human shields are not being used, as people volunteered of their own accord. Without coercion, the term human shield loses its meaning. If a member of the secret service jumps in front of a bullet headed towards the president, is the president guilty of shooting the man or is the shooter?
2. I am hesitant to believe your claim that there are Muslims in MEMRI. Haven't you also claimed that Jihad against infidels is a crucial part of Islam? As such, wouldn't they be too busy playing jihad to translate videos for the people in America who want to kill all the muslims?
3. Also, an organization started by an Israeli intelligence official with the express purpose of telling people what a threat the muslims are to the world and Israel. Somehow I think there might be a conflict of interest here.
Israel is ez:
1. Give the Palestinians their states. Get a long term UN peacekeeping force to keep order for the first 50 years.
2. Start a civil rights movement. Israel becomes a secular state with equal rights for all citizens, gradually absorbs the Palestinians within its borders. (never going to happen, Israel already votes further right than the tea party, they're not gonna let their pet muslims have a say)
3. Finish the ethnic cleansing they started 70 years ago
4. Keep up the status quo, where Israel keeps gradually strangling the West Bank and appropriating their territory till they have a Gaza sized piece of land left, and then construct a new wall around it. Keep the palestinians in their cages and give the smart ones privileges if they work for Israel. Keep the media machine oiled (lucky for them they're the only country which speaks hebrew, eh?) and bomb the Palestinians every few years to drum up nationalist sentiment and political support. Repeat ad infinitum.
Now let me tell you that as a secular jew 1 and 2 are more appealing to me because #4 is binary - either Israel has military superiority or it gets wiped off the map. Think Nazi Germany, but with Germany telling everyone else in Europe it's perfectly willing to kill them while it gathers all the foreigners into camps for a few decades instead of killing them (such restraint, much honor, very humane, so wow!) Think the muslims are still salty about that last bit. Also the fact that Israel has nukes and is fighting North Korea for the right to be the second nation to drop a nuke.
But hey, as long as you can count on Israel's military dictatorship over its neighbors why worry about it!
Iraq and any other nation can kill the shit out of them. I don't really care that much. When they start killing civilians to get at ISIS I'll get salty. When they kill civilians by bombing them I'll get even more salty. When they blame someone other than the people who dropped the bomb or the people who ordered that bomb be dropped, I'll be ultra-salty.
Bombs are designed to kill a lot of people, and bombs don't discriminate between civilian and military. When you drop a bomb in a city or town you are deliberately declaring your intent to kill civilians. You can mince around this fact with phrases like "acceptable losses" and "unavoidable casualties" but the reality is that you are choosing kill more civilians with an air strike than you would with a ground invasion. Why? Because it's cheaper for us in terms of the lives of our soldiers, the cost of our equipment, and the political feasibility of an assault. We consciously make the choice to kill the civilians of other nations so that our soldiers live and our politicians thrive. I believe Iraq war was something around 40 civilians to every 1 soldier, and the recent gaza bombardment was about 30 to 1.
I believe this is where you and I differ. I would rather see our soldiers die than their civilians. If we are truly the great and glorious authority on humanist conduct that we pretend to be when we export democracy, then our modus operandi should be closer to this ideal where less people die overall. You see the situation and say that we should kill the civilians who are in the way because it's more cost-effective for us even though it will kill more people overall.
TL;DR
When you bomb people you are fully responsible for their deaths unless they are being held there against their will (which is the phenomena known as human shields). In that case you are at least half responsible for their deaths because you decided to kill them.
ISIS has already started losing. So, can we call it terrorism now lol?
1) Mate, 5 second google search on Hamas. More admitting from Hamas about human shields
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2753176/Hamas-DID-use-schools-hospitals-Gaza-Strip-human-shields-launch-rocket-attacks-Israel-admits-says-mistake.html
In a veiled confession that comes two weeks after the end of the Gaza war, a senior Hamas official said the group's fighters had no choice but to use residential areas from which to launch missiles into their neighbour's territory.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2753176/Hamas-DID-use-schools-hospitals-Gaza-Strip-human-shields-launch-rocket-attacks-Israel-admits-says-mistake.html#ixzz3Djxzcsvn
Yeah, Hamas had "no choice"!
Google for more!
The secret service chose to take the bullet. Apparently, Palestinian civilians did not. That's why they're all running for their lives unless Hamas propaganda tells them "All is well go back to your homes".
2) Lol m8.
Here's some Muslims/Mideastern admins in MEMRI, right from the Wikipedia page.
> Nimrod Raphaeli – Senior Analyst and editor of MEMRI's Economic Blog. An Iraqi-born U.S. citizen, Raphaeli has a Ph.D. in development planning from the University of Michigan.
Don't you think an Iraqi would be pissed at USA, not Islamic jihadists, about the 20 years of unparalleled destruction (esp. the embargo) since WW2 the US brought to his old country?
> Tufail Ahmad – South Asia Studies Project Director. A British journalist of Indian origin, Ahmad studied Social Systems for an M.A. at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University and received an M.A. in War Studies from King's College London.
Ahmad is Muslim.
> Mansour Al-Hadj – Director of MEMRI's "Reform in The Arab and Muslim World project". A Saudi Arabian journalist.
^ Straight from the most crazy Islamic place in the Mideast.
> Mirza A. B. Baig – Senior Analyst at MEMRI's South Asia Studies Project. He is an Indian researcher who studied at the Jamia Millia Islamia for two Master's degrees and obtained an MPhil in comparative literature and a PhD from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Mirza is an Islamic name. Common among Pakistanis and Indian Muslims.
Some of the top dogs in MEMRI are Muslim or non-Israeli Mideastern lol.
3) Origins were origins, but it's changed considerably. Now it's full of Muslims running things lol. All the bad stuff about crazy jihadists wouldn't be put in if the Muslims in MEMRI weren't okay with it.
Israel:
1) This could be a good option. But what if Palestinians want EVERYTHING restored, like before Zionist terrorists started invading the British mandate of Palestine and forming their state?
2) LOL! They treat their own Muslim citizens badly. 20% of the population. Treating Palestinians well? lol
3) Then all the countries who hate Israel rek it. But the balance of power and the sentiments against Israel are much worse in the 21st century. Erdogan just recently compared it to Nazi Germany. Egypt has been kept on a leash by US money since '73, but Egypt-US relations are probably at their lowest point since then. The rich dress-wearing oil barons of the Gulf states don't like Israel, neither does Iran. :S And that's just in the Mideast :S. Even in the US, AIPAC and the Zionist lobby appear to be losing the degree of influence they used to enjoy.
4) Israel digs its own grave deeper with this approach.
As a secular christian, I find #1 and 2 to be best available options, but #2 is impossible, and #1 is near-impossible.
EDIT: Why are we discussing Israel-Palestine political solutions now lol?
Yes, there is no need to discuss the Empire's way of waging war. We know very well it's with not much regard for human life heh, with infinite bombing and DU munitions and all. I mean, it could be infinitely worse, so there's that to consider. But, our way of fighting is heavily dependent on bombing the shit out of anything that moves, then sending in ground forces to hold position / mop up. It makes things a lot less scary and combative for the guys on the ground if the guys high in the sky already did most/all of the work lol. Frankly, from a military standpoint, I don't know if the US military would be able to fight anywhere near as effectively without the overwhelming air support, especially against asymmetric warfare.
If we are truly the great and glorious authority on humanist conduct that we pretend to be when we export democracy then our modus operandi should be closer to this ideal where less people die overall.
But we aren't "the great and glorious authority", and our intent was never to "export democracy" (makes for nice propaganda though), so I don't think that's necessarily in our interest.
You see the situation and say that we should kill the civilians who are in the way because it's more cost-effective for us even though it will kill more people overall.
On the contrary my friend, I am in support of Al-Abadi's efforts to prevent civilian deaths. I only casually observed that now military operations will be a lot more difficult. I am not by any means endorsing killing the civilians. I was only making a simple observation of the military/strategic situation. So in fact, we do not differ too much, bro
