Despite official denials, the US war on ISIS has been careening toward another ground war in both Iraq and Syria. The latest reports suggest the ground component of this war could be very soon to beginning.
US officials are now saying that the offensive against the ISIS-held city of Mosul will be supported by the US, with both airstrikes and “if necessary” US ground troops backing the Iraqi military. This offensive could begin as soon as April.
The “if necessary” qualifier means the US involvement is all but certain, as the Pentagon has repeatedly said they don’t believe Iraq’s military is even close to being able to take a major city like Mosul on their own.
In recent weeks the US has been massing a large number of combat troops in Kuwait for just such an eventuality, and within the next couple of months seems to have a ready-made excuse for launching the ground war they’ve repeatedly “ruled out.”
The US war strategy for months has been basically laying out different pitfalls that could “force” them to launch a ground war in response, including putting 320 lightly armed troops on the front line in Anbar Province as “trainers,” waiting for them to get attacked so they’d have to be rescued by more ground troops.
ISIS has gained enormously from the US war, bolstering their recruitment dramatically across the world. The ground war will likely add to this influx of recruits to resist another American invasion.
Washington is determined to fund both sides of this war. U.S. ground troops to fight ISIS in Mosul and funding and raising an army in Turkey that will be allied to ISIS in Syria.
And so the War in Iraq comes back to life. Expect the videos of captured American servicemen being beheaded or burned alive to grace your television screens. And as disturbing as these developments may be to the American public, they are more likely to enable the emergence of powerful anti-war sentiments. Its not that this impending intervention will be pristine in its execution, there will be American deaths for certain. But whereas to date the governments has been able to conceal the more distasteful aspects of war from the public – the body bags that were so visible during the War in Viet Nam, for example – this time ISIS will strip away all of that protection. All the McCains and Lindsey Grahams in the world with their bellicosity and their media enablers with their presstitution will be unable to divert attention from these awful images and the impact they are likely to have on the American people. And, perhaps, they will begin to ask why for the first time meaningfully.
I don't know what America you are living in, but the one I live in has no antiwar movement, and I see little prospect of a new one any time soon. Our Dear Leaders are impervious to mere dissent. Most folks are way too exhausted from just trying to pay the rent. And the ever-more repressive police state casts a black shadow over everything…
"…American people…perhaps, they will begin to ask why for the first time meaningfully."
It is going to take more than a few hundred more body bags coming home to throw off the intentionally manufactured malaise of the American people. Oh, there will be some complaining and maybe even a small, sparsely attended, short-lived demonstration but life will go on – they'll take Dubya's advice and go shopping or some such shallow inanity.
Now, what just might get their attention would be an exposition of exactly how and why the American people have been manipulated to accept what is being done in their names…maybe.
All of this would have been unnecessary if Obama had prosecuted the war crimes when he took office in 2009.
Axioms of socialism — The mechanics and dynamics
(1) As we are all born with a different ability to achieve, as this ability like sex appeal passes from father to son, without socialism — the rich nobility will always hoard over half of the wealth, the families with no ability to achieve will always be impoverished and society will always be in a state of war.
(2) To give the poor the food, clothing and shelter they need to survive, surely only an immoral society would fail to do this. But, nothing destroys the moral fabric of society faster then to use tax dollars in a way that eliminates the ability of everyone to experience the emotions of our emotional being that make us human, namely compassion, pity and charity given in a way that produces a grateful response.
(3) To share the wealth so that all may enjoy a rewarding and healthy lifestyle, to achieve this without making the high achievers anti-social and without making the low achievers pride driven ingrates, this is the hallmark of socialism as it can only be achieved by the moral values inherent in socialism.
(4) FICTION — If life is an “unalienable right” that we deserve, then also the wealth needed to enjoy life must be an unalienable right. Then we have the right to earn all we can earn, take all we can take, own all we can own and to be a dictator over all who are on land that we own. Then capitalism is the only way to go.
(5) FACT — On the other hand, if life is a free gift from nature, each new day of life a free gift that makes us most grateful toward nature, then we own nothing as everything we have is a loan from nature. Then everything we have belongs to those who have less and most guilty must we feel if ever we fail to give all we can give to those in need who come into our life.
Rise and fall of the American Empire
Least we forget, we of the West are less then 5% of world population, being only Western Europe, Canada, Australia and USA. So, as our Empire is ruled by a power combine of the multinational corporate rich, most of which live nowhere near USA, why be suckered into functioning as a mercenary Foreign Legion for the super rich?
For all of our nukes are as dung when a rushing hoard comes crashing in from south of the border, all filled with vengeance from our CIA coups and brutal imperialism that destroyed their democracy
Repeat penetration of Iraq…this is what they get for threatening Israel, launching Scuds in '91, paying Palestinian suicide bombers families, and the post 9/11 ascension of neocon nutjobs enslaved by the idea of Israel and jews in general: A good ol' style repeated Biblical raping which never ends.
Bet those poor people are ever sorry they heard of AmreriKans
Let's see, Mosul has a civilian population of about a million or so, and the city has been fortified and stocked by ISIS for some time… I don't imagine ISIS is going to evacuate the city of civilians, so we're probably looking at a nice sandy Stalingrad moment. And you can bet that once the US bombs and missiles start raining down there will be more than a few civilians killed- and more than a few of the rest of them aren't going to be very friendly towards our troops (no parades and flowers like we had in Iraq a few years back- oh, wait, no that didn't happen) and will likely join in the fight with ISIS, if only for their own survival. City fighting is slow and painful- ask any veteran of Stalingrad or Berlin or Hue City- so both sides better be well-stocked with body bags.