speaking of ignoring data…
How's that ME war policy working out?
Iraq’s Sectarian Purges Throw a Wrench in US War StrategyPentagon Repeatedly Warned Iraq About Troops' Atrocities
by Jason Ditz, March 12, 2015
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Taking back ISIS-held towns for the Iraqi military has become a much bigger long-term problem than anyone expected. It’s not just the fighting that’s the problem, it’s the brutality that comes afterward.
 A Shi’ite dominated military, backed by Shi’ite militias, chased ISIS out of a Sunni town, and atrocities are soon to follow. Sunnis are rounded up on flimsy pretexts by the winning troops, tortured and sometimes killed.
Publicly, the US has tried to downplay this, but officials are conceding that privately the Pentagon has repeatedly warned Iraqi leaders about atrocities.
Iraq claims they’re investigating reports of atrocities carried out by the Shi’ite militias, but those investigations never go anywhere. It’s not just the militias, either, with Iraqi troops getting involved oftentimes.
With the US couching their entire Iraq strategy on religious unity, an admittedly unrealistic plan in the first place, regular sectarian massacres are really leaving that plan in tatters. Iraqi Sunnis may not like living under ISIS control, but they may look fondly back on that if living under Shi’ite occupation is too brutal.
The US had, after all, already claimed “victory” in Iraq before, only to see the increasingly violent crackdowns on Sunnis by the Maliki government give ISIS an opening to make huge gains. Any new military gains, then, are likely to similarly be temporary with the purges that follow.
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Rights Group: US Airstrikes Killed More Than 100 Civilians in Syria51 Killed in Single Attack on ISIS Prison
by Jason Ditz, March 12, 2015
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The Syrian Network for Human Rights has issued a new report, in which they determined US warplanes have killed over 100 civilians in airstrikes in Syria since September
 Nearly half of the 103 deaths were the result of a single strike, on December 28, when US planes attacked a makeshift ISIS prison in al-Bab, killing 51 civilians held therein.
The al-Bab incident was initially denied by the Pentagon, and only confirmed two weeks later after an investigation by McClatchy. The Pentagon then conceding leveling the building, but said they didn’t consider the death toll credible.
Many of the civilian deaths in the Syria attacks have been the result of the US targeting refineries in ISIS territory, which are being run by civilians. The strikes are meant to be hurting ISIS’ revenue streams, but are killing civilians and crippling the civilian infrastructure of the region. |
