2014 in Iraq

yeah this is just provocation. their thinking is the wider the conflict, the more support for them will grow/solidify as they become the main oppositional player against the west. the cynical calculus of warfare...

xp

Mordy otm!

man the trailer

http://cdn.screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/iron-man-3-poster-ben-kingsley.jpg

i was thinking the same thing---- CONSPIRACY!!!

it's like you wish you at least had the dignity of being embroiled in don delillo-wave geopolitics but it's like fucking ben elton wrote this

you mean isis vids are psy-ops productions to convince u.s. public they need another war? sounds far-fetched

things like this are why a professional standing army are bad

bring back the draft etc.

FWIW I'm not convinced of the "they want us to come back and fight another war" theory. Us leaving Iraq was pretty much the best thing that ever happened to them AFAICT.

Plus the timing of the beheading videos wouldn't make sense -- they held these guys for a couple years and only beheaded them after we started airstrikes.

I could def be convinced otherwise though.

they = ISIS tbc

so Martin Dempsey doesn't rule out ground troops

Obama still does, though, which is kind of a difficult position to take since I don't think anyone believed IS will be stopped with airstrikes alone

ISIS can only operate as long as the rest of the Sunni population isn't actively united against them. The rest of the Sunni population may not be motivated to mobilise to counter them at the moment but I'm pretty sure they don't want to be governed by 22-year-old Turkish remedials with a penchant for lopping off people's noggins in the grand scheme of things. Get the US back, get a united Sunni front going to oppose them and you have more chance of delaying the day they turn on you.

The Sunnis were more united by the Maliki govt than they were by our presence. I don't buy it. Not to mention the obvious downsides for them of bringing us back, i.e. having to fight a superior army instead of waltzing into under-defended towns and plundering them.

the sunnis being allied w/ isis is what allowed the initial isis successes at the turn of the year, but it's always been uneasy. yr post-iraq war "third generation" jihadis are well aware of the benefits of focusing on "the far enemy" & I suspect they may have some concerns given the track record jihadis have fighting against secular middle eastern govts/"the near enemy"

welp

Less than two months to go before it is 2015 in Iraq.

M:A-2

gulf war 3: saddam's revenge

McCain is itchin'

Gulf War 3D: Sharknado

Wednesday 31 May: 150 killed
Mosul: 56 executed; 60 found in mass grave; 16 killed by government airstrikes and shelling; 13 family members by coalition airstrike; 3 by gunfire.
Qandil mountains: 2 by Turkish airstrikes.

MAY TOTAL: 1,871 civilians killed.

https://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/2016/

2016 was a very bad year in Iraq.

may total this year...

The annual total for civilian deaths in Iraq in 2016 was 16,393, which is within a broad range encompassing 2015 (17,578) and 2014 (20,218). These past three years are very much higher than the years 2010-2012, the least violent period since the invasion, when the annual numbers ranged from 4,167 to 4,622, and are also substantially higher than 2013 (9,852) which saw the beginning of the change from the pre-2013 levels to current levels.