The top officials in Iraq’s Anbar Province are pushing hard for a US ground invasion, warning the situation is worsening, and that ISIS is close to completing the takeover of the province.
The reality is that the province fell in all the ways that matters months ago, with Ramadi and Fallujah falling way back in January, and ISIS making other key gains in April and May. They talk of ISIS sending 10,000 fighters to Anbar, but its not clear that any of those are new fighters who haven’t been there since the summer.
Indeed, the Anbar Province “officials” only remain such because the Iraqi government didn’t bother to hold elections there during this year’s vote, what with the province overwhelmingly held by ISIS.
The officials clearly are all in exile elsewhere in the country, trying to push the Iraqi military, or the Kurds, or anybody else to retake the province to reinstall them as a provincial government. With Iraq’s military losing battle after battle in Anbar, they’re now hoping the US is their ticket to a return to rule.
Yet the massive unpopularity of the US in Anbar after the bloody 2003-2011 occupation makes it a risky strategy, and the civilians killed in eastern Anbar earlier this week in US airstrikes are just adding to the large number of Anbar residents who see virtually anyone as preferable to the US, and by extension, to a US-installed puppet.
The "amerikan' body bag ,casket & bomb factories are RUNNING 24/7 …PROFITS=10000000%…god bless amerika..
Nice to see an idiotic rant on Sunday. Complete with primitive leftist misspellings and nonsensical claims about profits. None of which has any relevance to the essay.
What should be noted and remembered is that hundreds of millions, if not trillions, were spent on invading Iraq and managing puppet regimes, "training" their military (they are very good at the 100 meter dash away from fighting), teaching their civil servants how to govern fairly, etc.
Every dime not only was wasted, but merely set the stage for the ISIS (IS) fanatics to roll over the current Iraqi "government."
So now, after spending billions, killing tens of thousands, including a few thousand Americans, we can watch the unfolding of sectarian slaughter circa about 650 CE.
So this is what our "defense" spending is all about. Creating ancient bloodbaths in remote places, with the added bonus of hostile terrorists targeting US citizens at home and abroad.
Thanks Bush & Obama.