Notoriously reluctant to involve himself in security affairs, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the top Shi’ite religious leader in Iraq, has issued a call to arms today, urging everyone who is able to do so to take up arms and fight the advancing al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).
AQI fighters (also called ISIS) have been seizing cities left and right in Iraq these days, including some major ones like Mosul. The losses have so far been in the Sunni-dominated part of the country, but the fighters are rapidly nearing Shi’ite territory.
Sistani’s unprecedented call has seen considerable response already, as volunteers are loaded into trucks and sent northward, toward the AQI front. The Iraqi Army, by contrast, continues to drop its weapons and flee whenever approached.
The first stop is Samarra, a city in the middle of the Sunni Triangle, but one which also is religiously important to Shi’ites, and a common stop for pilgrims. The Shi’ite volunteer forces arrived just as the Iraqi military was fleeing. Early this morning, the first clashes began in Samarra, and AQI seems to be trying to sway the overwhelmingly Sunni locals to their side against the Shi’ites.
One thing is consistently apparent, and it is that any indigenous force trained by the FedGov falls apart when subjected to any sort of pressure. The Iraqi Army might as well be the South Vietnamese Army. The Afghan National Army is likewise brittle and unreliable. The FedGov clearly has no sense for the true sentiments of the people it presumes to "liberate" and to "defend."
True. The trouble with troops recruited mainly by the prospect of starvation, troops whose motives are primarily economic, is that they can't be counted on to risk their lives for the sake of a few dollars worth of currency each day. N.B.: Many of the "volunteers" in the US military joined up for economic reasons…
""A long time ago in an empire not so far, far away" http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=1…
Once Iraq breaks up into 2 or 3 separate states, everything will calm down. Sectarian differences between Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds are to pronounced to be ever reconciled. The area should never have been artificially created into one nation by Westerners who know nothing about tribal allegiances.
During World War One the Arab Revolt was promised that its European allies would support the immediate independence and unity of the entire Arabic-speaking part of the former Ottoman Empire, but the Arabs were betrayed and the region was broken-up into smaller states that would be easily controlled by Britain and France – later the US took-over that imperial "obligation". The root problem of the Middle East is that the Arabs were too divided by the Western powers, not that they were insufficiently partitioned.
why not break britian into 3 parts which the english donto want but scots and wales very much like? why is it that those who recommned otehr antions to bve broken into parts do nto like british break up to leberate scotland?
Maybe all those Iraqi troops who dropped their weapons and fled into the darkness will stop getting a pay check…… LOL…!!! Ya, just like the gov fired all those "responsible'" for allowing 911 to occur….with out any effective defensive action…. Yaa sure… Fatt Chance….. Yer kiddin, right…… Strange how much things change….. Some things remain the same…..
The third gulf war is nearing not because of people in the region wants, but because of Barack Hussein Obama and his special relations to Saudis tyrant regime and UAE. From day one and his Islamization-militarization of the region his policies been based on dividing more of people while his forces been training terrorism all over the area, the double face/moral and standard us democracy-democrats is alway been a manipulative politics, I feel sorry for those democrats who still believe that there is a democracy coming out of the Democratic Party.
During the Iraq invasion the democratic voices such as by Joe Biden was to divide Iraq to three division, Kurdish region in north, sunny region in east and sheei't region in west of Iraq. The past years of militarization-Islamization, supporting terrorism of all kind, a plan that Barack Hussein Obama been presenting since his election where he started by Libya war has been just that. Obama, and people like him, within the Democratic Party are not about America nor the unity of American or other people, they are about those in domestic or international political arena whom would support them to be elected. Barack Hussein Obama have a especial relation with Saudis and UAE and they have demanded for him to do just that, to brake the unity that were created between Iran, Iraq and Syria. All that talks and BS rhetoric about Iranian nuclear and Assad being this or that was just for such day as the Saudis barbarians are advancing toward Baghdad, which for fill yet another deceptive, manipulative domestic and foreign politics accomplished a non existing democracy called us Democratic Party.
Is anyone of you including Jason Ditz, been asking yourself this question: where the hell these Saudis barbarians got all that brand new Toyota truckers carrying them from north to south? They couldn't be dropped by air, they were not part of us military equipment kept behind, couldn't be brought to the north via Iran, they couldn't be driven to Iraq from south via Saudis, could they?
They only way for these vehicle to be in hands of these Saudis barbarians is from turkey, we said it from day one, Turkish Erdogan government rule in all this is logistic part of 8 years plans and operation set forth by NATO and USG, the other is for Erdogan government to support the terrorism in Syria and have giving the weapons and letting them into Syria from all over the world.
"In my imagination, the only way for these vehicle to be in hands of these Saudis barbarians is from turkey"
There, fixed that for ya.
Why don't we just cut to the chase, be honest and end it all. One word neutron bombs. Most of these folks are future corpses anyway, through bombings, executions, starvation, or disease. I don't see why those in power need to even bother with the veneer of human rights anymore since it is so blatant they don't care. End the old order and get on with it!!!!!