Last week’s decisive ISIS victory over the Albu Nimr tribe was followed by several days of bloody purges, with hundreds of tribesmen killed. That continued today, with another 36 reported executed.
It’s more than just the defeat of Albu Nimr, a pro-government Sunni tribe, however. Rather, it is yet another dramatic blow to the various Pentagon notions of how their new, expanding war might conceivably be won.
Joint Chiefs chairman General Martin Dempsey had been pushing Iraq to start throwing large amounts of weaponry at Sunni tribal factions in Anbar in an attempt to recreate the Awakening Forces that the US used to some effect against ISIS back during the American occupation.
Albu Nimr was a big backer of the Awakening movement, and also one of the few tribes in it that hadn’t split openly with the Iraqi government in the interim. Yet sectarian distrust meant no weapons were provided to them by the Iraqi government, and they were soundly defeated. The massacres that followed were an example to those who oppose ISIS going forward.
But more than a warning against opposing ISIS openly, the massacres may punctuate the mistrust that already dominates the Sunni tribes’ view toward the central government, and will make other tribal factions, to the extent they still exist, even harder to court to the US side.
So far, everyone has been paying the price for chaos and "allied" bombing. Kurds, Sunnis, Shiia, Syrians, Iraqis — everyone but ISIS. Nothing adds up. It is as if somebody cannot read a map. ISIS — look at Iraq, not Syria. Let Syra fight it — they have done it without our help all these years. So, how about making sure that ISIS cannot spread in Iraq, and insuring that their shiny Toyotas do not travel unmollested all over Iraqu countryside. Where exactly are the bombs falling? On deserts and desert rocks. Or occasionally hitting Syrian grain sylos, and Syrian oil infrastructure.
But somehow, the mightly coalition cannot find its way out of a paper bag — as they fail to notice that the problem is in IRAQ. How about it? Either find them already, or just stay home.
I am in complete agreement. Despite the AmeriKans and their pinpoint accurate bombing, ISIS is always reported as "continues to make territorial gains"….and the bombs fall where ISIS had already left…on Syrian civilian infrastructure.
If you look at the overall arch from 9/11, you had the Bush neocon White House killing off Al-Qaeda but also planting the seeds of destruction we see today with the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Now Obongo seems to be continuing the fight by getting rid of one ruler (Qaddafi) which opened up his extensive ammo dumps and gathering and arming disaffected Iraqis, Syrians, Jihadists from all over to overthrow Assad. I can't help but believe this too smart for his own good moron and his coterie of neocon lowlives, using proxies to do his corporate dirty work, do not know what they are doing and lost the script somewhere.
What — No motivation?
To expect that an oppressed people would lay down their life in battle, so that our generals can glory in battle, just so that our Empire may expand by battle, how horribly stupid can our rulers be?