But before I get to that, new content at Third:
- Truest statement of the week
- Truest statement of the week II
- A note to our readers
- Editorial: Where are the news outlets?
- TV: The Age of New Media?
- The press tries to flog Rand Paul
- It sort of says it all
- Susan Rice lied or Hillary Clinton hid -- figure i...
- Martin O'Malley announces
- This edition's playlist
- Stop military intervention in Iraq under any prete...
- Peter Kennard interview - How can we use political...
- Highlights
And Dallas and the following worked on it:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.
Now for the Idiot of the Week: AJ Delgado who pens a series of lies in a column entitled "Time to sober up about the Iraq War."
You first, you dirty ass drunk.
Third, no, we didn’t “win” the war at any point and, no, President Obama isn’t to blame. Lately, in an attempt to strike a two-fer coupon deal (defending the war while simultaneously striking one against Obama), the argument goes: “We were winning the war until “Obummer” decided to pull the troops out!” This is about as intellectually dishonest as it gets, since it was Dubya — not Obama — who decided on the troops’ withdrawal timetable. Again, facts are facts, and they are nothing if not inconvenient.
To type that, you either have to be a world class liar or a dumb ass.
You have to be a real dirty whore who'll swallow anything or a dumb ass.
I'll assume Delgado is just a dumb ass.
I love it when stupid idiots want to tell you "facts are facts."
Especially when the dumb asses don't have the facts.
What a stupid fool AJ Delgado is.
Bully Boy Bush -- a War Criminal -- is not why US troops aren't in Iraq.
All he did, in November of 2008, was put through a three year contract.
And Barack tried to extend it.
That's a fact, you dumb ass AJ Delgado.
What a deeply stupid person she is.
Again, we're assuming she's just dumb beyond belief and not a lying, two-faced whore.
She's so stupid.
And Barack's on record saying he tried to extend the SOFA, that's a fact.
AJ Delgado is so stupid she doesn't even know what a fact is.
May 23rd, C.I. was addressing this topic:
The lies about Iraq never end. USA Today's dim-witted editorial board fashioned a series of hogwash statements that they hope idiots will applaud -- idiots on my side (the left) because it's little more than self-stroking. And that the editorial board of any supposed objective paper thinks they can get away with lying demonstrates that the crisis in journalism which helped sell the Iraq War continues to this day. Case in point:
Obama's policies have indeed made things worse. But in arguing that he should have kept troops in Iraq longer, his critics skip over the inconvenient fact that he pulled out on a schedule negotiated by Bush.
No, that's not a fact.
Here's a fact for the lying whores of USA Today's editorial board: The SOFA was a three year contract. That's all it was. It was not the end of the US occupation of Iraq.
I'm sorry that you're too damn stupid or too dishonest to tell that truth.
However, we told it in real time the day the White House released the SOFA -- Thanksgiving Day, 2008 -- look it up in the archives -- we published the SOFA in full and I wasted my Thanksgiving night reading and analyzing it.
I went on to repeatedly explain that this was the replacement for the yearly United Nations mandate. That wasn't a controversial call and it had been made in the April 10, 2008 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing by then-Chair Joe Biden and by then-US Senator Russ Feingold among others.
It did not mean that the US left at the end of 2011. It only gave coverage for 2009, 2010 and 2011. A new contract could replace it.
For noting that reality, I endured three years of e-mails telling me I was wrong, I didn't know what I was talking about, the SOFA meant it was the end, blah blah blah.
At one point, I got very irritated and pointed out here that everyone who's broken a contract with a multi-national but managed to keep the seven-figure salary, keep standing. Oh, what, only me?
Yeah, so just stop talking, stop pretending you know a thing about contract law unless, like me, you've walked out on a contract and did so with no legal consequences because you were smart enough to read and comprehend the contract and see where the wiggle room was.
Who was right? The thousands e-mailing with their 'expertise' or me?
In 2011, Barack Obama began serious discussions about a new SOFA with the Iraqi government. In 2010, he backed Nouri al-Maliki -- who had lost the 2010 elections -- because Nouri had promised he would allow US troops to stay on the ground in Iraq beyond 2011. Vice President Joe Biden declared it was a "sure thing" with Nouri as prime minister.
And it could have been. But Barack wanted a smaller number than Nouri did.
Nouri feared a military coup.
Only a military coup.
He terrorized the Iraqi people -- with the Iraqi military and other forces -- and didn't fear them.
The politicians?
The US government had a way of keeping them in line -- a method former Iraq Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi described to Iran's Press TV in 2008 "as a matter of blackmailing" and "political blackmail."
That just left the Iraqi military whom Nouri encouraged to break the laws and disobey the Constitution. And if they'd so quickly do that, why wouldn't they also launch a coup against him?
Nouri wanted thousands of US troops to protect him from a coup.
US Senator John McCain has repeatedly accused Barack of tanking the SOFA talks. The reason he makes that charge is because McCain was repeatedly in Iraq including in 2011 when he spoke to various leaders about what was needed to get a new SOFA through Parliament?
Like Nouri, they wanted more US troops. (Nouri also conveyed that to McCain but McCain was not relying solely on Nouri's stated needs.)
To put this before the Parliament (the 2008 one went before the Parliament and 'passed' -- it didn't pass, there weren't enough votes for it or members present), they needed to have a sizable force or it just wasn't worth the political risk they'd be taking (the risk being the backlash from the people as well as from Moqtada al-Sadr and his movement which represented the largest and most sustained element in Iraq calling for all US troops and officials to leave the country).
Barack wouldn't budge on the number and it wasn't worth it politically to Nouri who was also getting promises from Tehran that if he didn't extend the US occupation of Iraq, he could count on Iranian forces to suppress any attempted coup which might take place.
USA Today insists, "But in arguing that he should have kept troops in Iraq longer, his critics skip over the inconvenient fact that he pulled out on a schedule negotiated by Bush."
USA Today is the one skipping over inconvenient facts such as the one where Barack Obama attempted to get a new SOFA. Here's Tim Arango and Michael S. Schmidt (New York Times) reporting in October of 2011:
President Obama’s announcement on Friday that all American troops would leave Iraq by the end of the year was an occasion for celebration for many, but some top American military officials were dismayed by the announcement, seeing it as the president’s putting the best face on a breakdown in tortured negotiations with the Iraqis.
And
for the negotiators who labored all year to avoid that outcome, it
represented the triumph of politics over the reality of Iraq’s fragile
security’s requiring some troops to stay, a fact everyone had assumed
would prevail. But officials also held out hope that after the
withdrawal, the two countries could restart negotiations more
productively, as two sovereign nations.
The tens of thousands is what Nouri stated he would back. When McCain accuses Barack of tanking the talks, he's making that accusation based on the fact that it was known 5,000 was unacceptable to Nouri.
That doesn't make McCain's accusation true but that's the basis for his charge.
That's too confusing for the editorial board of USA Today.
So let's really underscore that Barack Obama sought to extend the SOFA. This is from one of Barack's rare press briefings (this one is June 19, 2014) and he's speaking with CNN's Acosta.
Q Just very quickly, do you wish you had left a residual force in Iraq? Any regrets about that decision in 2011?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, keep in mind that wasn’t a decision made by me; that was a decision made by the Iraqi government. We offered a modest residual force to help continue to train and advise Iraqi security forces. We had a core requirement which we require in any situation where we have U.S. troops overseas, and that is, is that they're provided immunity since they're being invited by the sovereign government there, so that if, for example, they end up acting in self-defense if they are attacked and find themselves in a tough situation, that they're not somehow hauled before a foreign court. That's a core requirement that we have for U.S. troop presence anywhere.
The Iraqi government and Prime Minister Maliki declined to provide us that immunity. And so I think it is important though to recognize that, despite that decision, that we have continued to provide them with very intensive advice and support and have continued throughout this process over the last five years to not only offer them our assistance militarily, but we’ve also continued to urge the kinds of political compromises that we think are ultimately necessary in order for them to have a functioning, multi-sectarian democracy inside the country.
Did you read what Barack said? That's a fact.
It's confusing to dumb asses like AJ Delgado, but it's a fact.
And her inability to know facts is what makes her the biggest Idiot of the Week just started.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Monday, June 1, 2015. Chaos and violence continue, the refugee crises continues, Haider al-Abadi scapegoats others for his failures, US Secretary of State John Kerry breaks a leg (which may be good news for the conference on how to neutralize the Islamic State), and much more.
In the biggest news out of Iraq today, Alsumaria reports that Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi went on state TV today to criticize the international coalition for its failure -- its failure -- to keep foreign fighters out of Iraq.
Don't you hate when that happens?
When other countries won't protect your country?
Shouldn't you be able to just sit on your lazy all day and let other countries fight your battles for you? Well shouldn't you?
Ingratitude.
Haider was installed by US President Barack Obama. He's the latest US puppet.
And what a whiny little puppet he is.
He's been put in charge of one of the richest countries in the region and all he can do is Bitch, Moan and Whine.
He can't fix anything because he won't try -- and maybe Barack really doesn't want anything fixed -- remember planned chaos was always the US strategy for Iraq.
But he really needs to grow the hell up.
If only not to be such a joke on the international stage.
But maybe he can't help that? Maybe he was put in place to play the bumbling fool?
RT notes, "Iraq has admitted that ISIS jihadists captured huge caches of US-made weapons, including thousands of Humvees seized from Iraqi forces retreating from Mosul last year."
Yeah and how much did the Islamic State pick up in Ramadi last month when it fell to the Islamic State as Haider's forces fled?
How's Haider dealt with that?
Oh, right!
Insisting it didn't happen.
Insulting those who told the truth (including US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter).
Saying they must have their facts wrong.
Iraqis Spring MC notes that Baghdad Provincial Council declared bankruptcy and will be cutting the salaries of over 3,000 employees.
Iraqi Spring MC notes the devastation and hardship that Ramadi refugees are living under.
Alsumaria reports UNICEF is stating Iraq is close to catastrophe and that $500 million is needed just to meet relief needs and over 8 million Iraqi need urgent humanitarian aid.
But instead of focusing on that, the UN has other concerns. The United Nations 'mission' in Iraq noted Sunday, "The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Iraq (SRSG), Mr. Ján Kubiš welcomed the UN General Assembly Resolution on ‘Saving the Cultural Heritage of Iraq’, which was adopted unanimously on Thursday in New York." A little more focus on the things that actually matter -- human life -- would be appreciated.
Yesterday, Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) noted that "at least 4,007 [people] were killed and 897 were wounded" in Iraq in the month of May.
In today's violence, AFP reports, "A huge suicide attack on an Iraqi police base killed at least 37 people on Monday as an operation against the self-styled Islamic State group continued but looked far from retaking Ramadi." Iraqi Spring MC notes 1 woman was shot dead in Jabour area of Baghdad by government forces who were passing by. Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts 165 violent deaths across Iraq today. Dropping back to Sunday, government shelling left 3 children and 8 adult civilians dead in Falluja with twenty-one more people injured.
Government shelling?
It started under Nouri al-Maliki in January 2014. It's a War Crime. It's collective punishment -- targeting a civilian population. It's legally defined as a War Crime and seen as such by law and treaty by the US government -- when the US government chooses to acknowledge it.
In August of 2014, Nouri was out as prime minister and Haider al-Abadi was in.
September 13, 2014, he declared these crimes against humanity were over, that there would be no more bombing of the civilian population in Falluja. September 14, 2014, the Iraqi military continued its bombings. And they've continued every day since.
You're not pulling the nation together when you're lying. You're not bringing Sunnis into the process when they see you continue the crimes against the Sunnis in Falluja that began under Nouri.
You're not building trust at all when you can't keep your public promise -- especially when you can't even keep it for 24 hours.
June 19th, Barack declared the only answer to Iraq's crises was a political solution.
That's what the State Dept and envoys are supposed to be working towards.
What they were supposed to be working towards.
It's a year later this month.
Let's listen to Barack's special envoy (retired general) John Allen play toy soldier yet again in an interview with Sky News.
QUESTION: (In progress) the Coalition’s campaign (inaudible) recent loss, say, of Ramadi, and indeed, of Palmyra.
GEN ALLEN: Let me – let me put it in the context of where we’ve come from, I think, to give you a sense of where hopefully we will go. We’re about nine months into the organization of the Coalition. It didn’t exist even this time last year, and we’re coming up on the one-year acknowledgement or the anniversary of the events in northwest Iraq. And in a relatively short period of time, 62 countries and organizations came together ultimately to deal with this threat of Daesh – the Arabic acronym.
In that time, we have seen a significant element within the Coalition contribute military capacity both in terms of air power, trainers, the trainers in the context of building the capabilities of the Iraqi Security Forces overall, providing camps and trainers for the train and equip program with respect to Syria. We’ve had elements within the Coalition volunteer and organize to provide for assistance to the liberated populations as the campaign unfolds. That stabilization effort is going to be vital. Other members of the Coalition are going to support the recovery and the employment of the Sunni Iraqi police in the Sunni provinces as they are liberated. That’s a lot of work in the space of nine months.
Allow me to provide some context for Allen. (A) He now works for the State Dept and all he's described is what DoD should be doing. (B) Political solutions need coaxing and they need working. Allen and his roll dog Brett McGurk (also with the State Dept) have failed at everything.
But the only way that Brett knows to counter the Islamic State is non-diplomatically.
John Kerry won't be participating because the 70-plus-year-old foolishly decided he'd bicycle in France and broke his leg.
At the US State Dept press briefing today, spokesperson Marie Harf insisted:
The Secretary is in good spirits and he is en route back to Boston as we speak for treatment for his broken leg. His doctor, Dr. Dennis Burke, is accompanying the Secretary to Boston to monitor his condition and ensure he remains comfortable and will be treating him once he’s back in Boston at Massachusetts General Hospital.
The Secretary’s made a number of calls to his counterparts today, including to the French foreign minister and the Spanish foreign minister to personally, with the Spanish, convey his deep regret in not being able to travel to Madrid for our bilateral meetings that we had scheduled and also to Foreign Minister Fabius, of course, expressing his regret that we won’t be at – he won’t be at the anti-ISIL meeting tomorrow. He will, though, be calling – or be remotely participating in the anti-ISIL meeting. When we have more information about that we will get it to folks. He also has made a number of calls to White House and State Department officials, including speaking with the President.
Well at least the broken leg gives John (yet) another excuse for not working on diplomacy or towards a political solution for Iraq.
John's broken leg might be the best thing for the anti-ISIL meeting. AP reports that Lauren Fabius, the Foreign Minister of France, has stated there must be a sense that the Iraqi "government is inclusive" to combat the Islamic State effectively.
Maybe the inability to do anything to work towards that political solution is responsible -- even in part -- for the public's distaste for Barack's plan or 'plan'?
While those allegedly tasked with working towards a political solution ignore said solution, others aren't shy about pointing out what's needed. Jonathan Marcus (BBC) interviews David Petraeus, retired US General and former CIA Director:
The keynote of the Petraeus approach today is as it always was - the need for the political and military aspects of strategy to march closely in step.
"You cannot deal with an industrial-strength extremist problem just with force of arms," he said. "You have to have that political component as well."
Political change has to start at the top. Above all, Gen Petraeus says, "the Sunni Arabs have to be given incentives to support the new Iraq rather than to oppose it".
That's what Barack was supposed to have been pursuing -- by his own words -- for a year now. But it hasn't happened.
So is John Allen just blowing him off? Is John Kerry blowing him off? Is the entire State Dept in open rebellion against the White House?
Or have they all spent too long playing soldiers (from a very safe distance) and too little time doing their actual jobs?
Today, the New York Times editorial board offers:
The best chance of quickly responding to the Islamic State would be to get weapons and training directly into the hands of Sunni tribal fighters in Anbar. But the Shiite-led central government, which wants to control the weapons, has resisted that, just as it has resisted integrating those Sunni units into a provincial-based, government-paid national guard. It has instead relied increasingly on Shiite-based militia, some backed by Iran, to fight against ISIS, thus worsening the country’s sectarian divisions and expanding Iran’s influence. Given the urgent threat, the Americans should consider working more directly with the Sunni tribes if Baghdad continues to refuse.
It's a shame that the editorial board was silent when Congress was considering this in April. Remember that?
Various Shi'ite leaders (not all) were threatening harm to the United States because the Congress was considering directly arming the Kurds and the Sunnis?
And this was under reported or it was ignored.
The press did have time to lie and call it a Republican proposal despite it passing out of Committee on a huge bi-partisan vote.
Various outlets acted as if the Congress was proposing something extreme and illegal. They rushed to distort what the bill said, what the bill would mean and who supported it.
Now events have made it even more obvious how much the bill is needed.
iraq
antiwar.com
margaret griffis
In the biggest news out of Iraq today, Alsumaria reports that Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi went on state TV today to criticize the international coalition for its failure -- its failure -- to keep foreign fighters out of Iraq.
Don't you hate when that happens?
When other countries won't protect your country?
Shouldn't you be able to just sit on your lazy all day and let other countries fight your battles for you? Well shouldn't you?
Ingratitude.
Haider was installed by US President Barack Obama. He's the latest US puppet.
And what a whiny little puppet he is.
He's been put in charge of one of the richest countries in the region and all he can do is Bitch, Moan and Whine.
He can't fix anything because he won't try -- and maybe Barack really doesn't want anything fixed -- remember planned chaos was always the US strategy for Iraq.
But he really needs to grow the hell up.
If only not to be such a joke on the international stage.
But maybe he can't help that? Maybe he was put in place to play the bumbling fool?
RT notes, "Iraq has admitted that ISIS jihadists captured huge caches of US-made weapons, including thousands of Humvees seized from Iraqi forces retreating from Mosul last year."
Yeah and how much did the Islamic State pick up in Ramadi last month when it fell to the Islamic State as Haider's forces fled?
How's Haider dealt with that?
Oh, right!
Insisting it didn't happen.
Insulting those who told the truth (including US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter).
Saying they must have their facts wrong.
Iraqis Spring MC notes that Baghdad Provincial Council declared bankruptcy and will be cutting the salaries of over 3,000 employees.
Iraqi Spring MC notes the devastation and hardship that Ramadi refugees are living under.
- معاناة نازحي الرمادي الى ناحية العامرية جنوب مدينة الفلوجة في ظل الإهمال الحكومي المتعمد.
اعلام الربيع العراقي 
Alsumaria reports UNICEF is stating Iraq is close to catastrophe and that $500 million is needed just to meet relief needs and over 8 million Iraqi need urgent humanitarian aid.
But instead of focusing on that, the UN has other concerns. The United Nations 'mission' in Iraq noted Sunday, "The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Iraq (SRSG), Mr. Ján Kubiš welcomed the UN General Assembly Resolution on ‘Saving the Cultural Heritage of Iraq’, which was adopted unanimously on Thursday in New York." A little more focus on the things that actually matter -- human life -- would be appreciated.
Yesterday, Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) noted that "at least 4,007 [people] were killed and 897 were wounded" in Iraq in the month of May.
In today's violence, AFP reports, "A huge suicide attack on an Iraqi police base killed at least 37 people on Monday as an operation against the self-styled Islamic State group continued but looked far from retaking Ramadi." Iraqi Spring MC notes 1 woman was shot dead in Jabour area of Baghdad by government forces who were passing by. Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts 165 violent deaths across Iraq today. Dropping back to Sunday, government shelling left 3 children and 8 adult civilians dead in Falluja with twenty-one more people injured.
Government shelling?
It started under Nouri al-Maliki in January 2014. It's a War Crime. It's collective punishment -- targeting a civilian population. It's legally defined as a War Crime and seen as such by law and treaty by the US government -- when the US government chooses to acknowledge it.
In August of 2014, Nouri was out as prime minister and Haider al-Abadi was in.
September 13, 2014, he declared these crimes against humanity were over, that there would be no more bombing of the civilian population in Falluja. September 14, 2014, the Iraqi military continued its bombings. And they've continued every day since.
You're not pulling the nation together when you're lying. You're not bringing Sunnis into the process when they see you continue the crimes against the Sunnis in Falluja that began under Nouri.
You're not building trust at all when you can't keep your public promise -- especially when you can't even keep it for 24 hours.
June 19th, Barack declared the only answer to Iraq's crises was a political solution.
That's what the State Dept and envoys are supposed to be working towards.
What they were supposed to be working towards.
It's a year later this month.
Let's listen to Barack's special envoy (retired general) John Allen play toy soldier yet again in an interview with Sky News.
QUESTION: (In progress) the Coalition’s campaign (inaudible) recent loss, say, of Ramadi, and indeed, of Palmyra.
GEN ALLEN: Let me – let me put it in the context of where we’ve come from, I think, to give you a sense of where hopefully we will go. We’re about nine months into the organization of the Coalition. It didn’t exist even this time last year, and we’re coming up on the one-year acknowledgement or the anniversary of the events in northwest Iraq. And in a relatively short period of time, 62 countries and organizations came together ultimately to deal with this threat of Daesh – the Arabic acronym.
In that time, we have seen a significant element within the Coalition contribute military capacity both in terms of air power, trainers, the trainers in the context of building the capabilities of the Iraqi Security Forces overall, providing camps and trainers for the train and equip program with respect to Syria. We’ve had elements within the Coalition volunteer and organize to provide for assistance to the liberated populations as the campaign unfolds. That stabilization effort is going to be vital. Other members of the Coalition are going to support the recovery and the employment of the Sunni Iraqi police in the Sunni provinces as they are liberated. That’s a lot of work in the space of nine months.
Allow me to provide some context for Allen. (A) He now works for the State Dept and all he's described is what DoD should be doing. (B) Political solutions need coaxing and they need working. Allen and his roll dog Brett McGurk (also with the State Dept) have failed at everything.
- Gen. Allen & I spoke with
@JohnKerry to prepare for coalition ministerial tomorrow. S was in great spirits and focused on countering#ISIL.
Brett McGurk 
But the only way that Brett knows to counter the Islamic State is non-diplomatically.
John Kerry won't be participating because the 70-plus-year-old foolishly decided he'd bicycle in France and broke his leg.
At the US State Dept press briefing today, spokesperson Marie Harf insisted:
The Secretary is in good spirits and he is en route back to Boston as we speak for treatment for his broken leg. His doctor, Dr. Dennis Burke, is accompanying the Secretary to Boston to monitor his condition and ensure he remains comfortable and will be treating him once he’s back in Boston at Massachusetts General Hospital.
The Secretary’s made a number of calls to his counterparts today, including to the French foreign minister and the Spanish foreign minister to personally, with the Spanish, convey his deep regret in not being able to travel to Madrid for our bilateral meetings that we had scheduled and also to Foreign Minister Fabius, of course, expressing his regret that we won’t be at – he won’t be at the anti-ISIL meeting tomorrow. He will, though, be calling – or be remotely participating in the anti-ISIL meeting. When we have more information about that we will get it to folks. He also has made a number of calls to White House and State Department officials, including speaking with the President.
Well at least the broken leg gives John (yet) another excuse for not working on diplomacy or towards a political solution for Iraq.
John's broken leg might be the best thing for the anti-ISIL meeting. AP reports that Lauren Fabius, the Foreign Minister of France, has stated there must be a sense that the Iraqi "government is inclusive" to combat the Islamic State effectively.
Maybe the inability to do anything to work towards that political solution is responsible -- even in part -- for the public's distaste for Barack's plan or 'plan'?
The #ISIS campaign is as unpopular as the Iraq offensive before the 2007 surge http://cnn.it/1FQj0FR
- New poll: About 61% of Americans say the nation's fight against
#ISIS is going badly: http://cnn.it/1K5j5IJ
The Situation Room 
While those allegedly tasked with working towards a political solution ignore said solution, others aren't shy about pointing out what's needed. Jonathan Marcus (BBC) interviews David Petraeus, retired US General and former CIA Director:
The keynote of the Petraeus approach today is as it always was - the need for the political and military aspects of strategy to march closely in step.
"You cannot deal with an industrial-strength extremist problem just with force of arms," he said. "You have to have that political component as well."
Political change has to start at the top. Above all, Gen Petraeus says, "the Sunni Arabs have to be given incentives to support the new Iraq rather than to oppose it".
That's what Barack was supposed to have been pursuing -- by his own words -- for a year now. But it hasn't happened.
So is John Allen just blowing him off? Is John Kerry blowing him off? Is the entire State Dept in open rebellion against the White House?
Or have they all spent too long playing soldiers (from a very safe distance) and too little time doing their actual jobs?
Today, the New York Times editorial board offers:
The best chance of quickly responding to the Islamic State would be to get weapons and training directly into the hands of Sunni tribal fighters in Anbar. But the Shiite-led central government, which wants to control the weapons, has resisted that, just as it has resisted integrating those Sunni units into a provincial-based, government-paid national guard. It has instead relied increasingly on Shiite-based militia, some backed by Iran, to fight against ISIS, thus worsening the country’s sectarian divisions and expanding Iran’s influence. Given the urgent threat, the Americans should consider working more directly with the Sunni tribes if Baghdad continues to refuse.
It's a shame that the editorial board was silent when Congress was considering this in April. Remember that?
Various Shi'ite leaders (not all) were threatening harm to the United States because the Congress was considering directly arming the Kurds and the Sunnis?
And this was under reported or it was ignored.
The press did have time to lie and call it a Republican proposal despite it passing out of Committee on a huge bi-partisan vote.
Various outlets acted as if the Congress was proposing something extreme and illegal. They rushed to distort what the bill said, what the bill would mean and who supported it.
Now events have made it even more obvious how much the bill is needed.
iraq
antiwar.com
margaret griffis
