Posted on 03/26/2015 8:14:51 AM PDT by BeauBo
On Wednesday, after entirely sitting out the three-week offensive, U.S. forces began carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Tikrit at the request of the Iraqi government, according to Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren.
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...
Ah, yes, CLARITY out of Chaos.
What more could a man ask for.
The sad thing is.. WE are the Iranians. ie: Our President’s main advisor, Valerie Jarrett is from Iran and she supports the Mullahs.
She is running US Foreign Policy.
It’s NOT that Obama and his team are inept. They are succeeding in destroying the United States and giving Iran more power.
If we had a real international player like Nixon (who was horrible domestically), he’d arrange for the Sunni and Shia to murder one another by the millions, and not bat an eyelash.
Yep. The real solution to the middle east is quit trying for peace...let’s encourage them to fight each other. It will thin the heard so to speak. No Western nation has the balls to clean up that mess so let’s just let them do a little self-cleansing for a while. All we need to do is supply the soap.
“I guess I don’t mind if we bomb ISIS today so long as we bomb Iran tomorrow.”
This is America, we should be able to bomb them both
at the same time...
They’re doing their usual ass-kissing move because they think it will benefit the US in the phony negotiations going on over the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Iran is going to have to be beheaded and turned into a multi-ethnic battlefield, much as Iran has done to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Yemen...
To #3 Uncle Miltie (loved your dress)
Re bombing Iran tomorrow. Remember the old adage, don’t put off tomorrow what you could do today.
Why not hit ISIS and Iran at the same time? Boy, won’t that tie the Mullahs’ knickers in a wad and upset their camels?
Taking out Raqqa in Syria and ISIS held smaller cities/towns in Iraq would help destroy the ISIS infrastructure and reinforcement/supply system. Then we take Tikrit and Mosul.
Oh, I forgot that our Traitor In Chief is Obama, his buttboy at JCS is Dempsey, our Secy of Surrender is Kerry, and the new guy at Defense seems like a second team leader.
This is obama’s war!! I want to leave them to kill each other. Who votede for this? What the hell is the legal justification for spending printed money on this. GET THE HELL OUT!! We ARE NOW ALLIES WITH THE IRANIANS!! Thus is madness.
Or..
“Iraqi Shiite Muslim militias, angry that the government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has asked for American help in ejecting Islamic State fighters from the central Iraqi city of Tikrit, began withdrawing their forces from the battle “
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article16416518.html
Probably the Iraqi army’s desire to go in as “the winners” is indeed the crux.
I know nothing of the situation but am learning from reading this post. This is what FR is meant to be!
I get so tired of the many jokes and little substance on most of the articles nowadays. Thanks for this thread and the knowledgeable comments you stirred here.
The NY Times reporting on the battle in Tikrit today, said
that:
“large explosions rattled the windows of the Salahuddin Operations Command building as bombs dropped by unseen aircraft from the coalition brought satisfied smiles from the assembled military men.”
and also:
“the American-led coalition began bombing on Wednesday, with explosions heard in the city as often as twice a minute at night... “There is a plan, and we are going as planned,” said Lt. Gen. Riyadh Jalal Tawfiq, the commander of Iraqi Army ground forces.””
Apparently, Saddam’s palace complex in Tikrit is not only strong enough to withstand Iranian rockets and common artillery, it is also connected by a series of tunnels, which has allowed ISIS to shift around, protected and undetected. America has bunker busters able to destroy both the palaces and tunnels - and knows them well, after having had troops stationed in them for years.
So I would expect that a command center run by Americans has those Jihadis under constant observation and electornic monitoring. And that they have a deliberate plan to take them apart in steps - denying them mobility, attacking their command and control, destroying their food, water, sewage, ammo, vehicles, electricity - perhaps even their air in some instances - all while inflicting a steady stream of killed and wounded, while not letting them sleep at night.
They have had three fitful nights of bombing, and probably would have trouble doing simple math by now, much less coming up with any good plans. They will be moving slower, firing less accurately, and start making stupider mistakes. The walking dead.
The Shia militias, or popular mobilization units, which have conducted extra-judicial reprisals against Sunni ISIS supporters and former Ba’athists (and many bystanders), which amounted to a kind of ethnic cleansing over the last few months (as well as in years prior); have been pulled from frontline engagement before the American bombing, replaced by regular Army - holding ISIS in place and picking off any heads that poke up.
The Iraqi Government is bringing forward a large force of Federal Police (more like paramilitary Carabinieri than beat cops) to reestablish civilian control in the liberated city, but the militias are standing close by like slavering wolves, ready to rush in for pillage and payback after the bombing does its work.
A lot individuals in the Shia militias are recent recruits, honestly responding to the ISIS threat to the Holy sites of the Shia, and to their families. Such guys are subject to strong emotions and are just not well trained or disciplined. The leadership of these militias however, are professional gangsters and ambitious politicians, eager to murder their opponents and eliminate Sunni influence by any means.
Iranian intelligence and some of their allied militias have long lists of the names and addresses of political opponents (and even veterans of the Iran/Iraq), to hunt, kill and burn out of town. If they do this to Tikrit, as they have been doing to the other villages as they advanced, than the Sunni civilians in Mosul will know that it is do or die for them, and resistance could be fierce this Summer, during the culminating Battle of Mosul.
The Summer of Death.
Very informative, thanks for such detail.
Unfortunately on the ground this is an Iranian led Shia force with some Sunnis but the US role is merely showing up with some air support. At least that is how it is being viewed by the Iraqi.
They had huge press in Iraq when they convoyed up from Baghdad and Samarra with flags flying and everyone twitting and posting. They attacked on 2 March, and got bogged down into a high casualty stalemate. There has been a lot of press about them pulling back for the Americans to show them how its done.
Here is Internet media hog, Abu Azrael, who posts online as frequently as a Kardashian:
He has been a big inspiration to the popular mobilization units (militias), and the Shia public.
The Iraqi Army and paramilitary Federal Police have a few thousand each - but much better armed and trained - supported with very heavy air attacks, including the bunker busters which can defeat the fortress-like old palaces of Saddam, where ISIS has been safe until now. All the regular Army guys need to do is identify ISIS positions and call them in, then report how well they blew up. They can wait until the door is blown open and unguarded before advancing.
Three nights will be pretty good, but a week of this will be very good for them. It is dawn in Tikrit now, after the fourth night. There were reports that the Army was probing more heavily on Saturday. The initial target sets have probably all been hit by now, so they are probably trying to provoke ISIS into firing, so they can see where to drop the next bomb.
ISIS is reported to have from 100 to 800 hundred survivors, but consensus seems to be more like 200-400, or even less. They are probably losing a few dozen per day, with injuries mounting and guys getting punchy from explosions nearby, lack of sleep, and seeing all the gore and death close in on them. No surprise what is coming for them - they are trapped.
nuclear weapon toys are being sent out as we speak. Nice small ones you can put in your pocket. The tech has been around for half a century.....check Davy Crockett weapon.
Mushrooms are gonna be going up all over Allah land....them virgins gonna be busy busy busy.
A sunni Shiite nuke war.....was the only way to bring islum into the 21st century.
Here is a link to a CNN video, showing Shia militias break into celebratory dancing, with the recently severed head of of a prisoner. http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/04/01/exp-arwa-damon-in-tikrit.cnn
One says to the camera that they are coming to Mosul.
That should help ensure a greater and more brutal bloodbath there...
Looks like four nights of American bombing opened large areas of the city for the Iraqi Army and Shia militias to move in. The video shows extensive damage to some of Saddam’s old palaces.
ISIS must have taken significant casualties, but apparently there are still some fighting. They will be herded into smaller areas, and blown up. Seems to be winding down, with lots of booby traps to disarm, bodies to bury, and buildings destroyed. Not as bad as Kobane, but worse than the US invasion in 2003.
I had to do some research. It is hard over there to determine who are the good guys when they are mostly bad guys!
ISIS is comprised of radical Sunni’s. Many (all?) of the leaders in ISIS are former Saddam Hussein’s generals, leaders iirc.
Iran is primarily Shia. Saudi Arabia is mostly Sunni.
Well these muslims fight without restrictions on both sides....they are focused on one thing...winning. So it makes sense the areas they fight in will be more than a mess when they're done.
Personally I would not want to see our troops on the ground at all in this fight.
“Personally I would not want to see our troops on the ground at all in this fight. “
Amen to that.
Back to the old approach of installing a strongman who will do all the necessary headbanging on his own.
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