On March 29, 2006, President George W. Bush pointed proudly to Tal Afar, which he described as “once a key base of operations for al Qaeda” but described as “now a free city that gives us reason to hope for a free Iraq.” He said that “the story of Tal Afar gives me confidence in our strategy, because in that city we see the outlines of the Iraq we’ve been fighting for, a free and secure people who are getting back on their feet, who are participating in government and civic life, and are becoming allies in the fight against the terrorists.”
His confidence was misplaced and his enterprise in Iraq was foredoomed. As I wrote in March 2003: “Insisting that the nations of the Middle East choose between Western-style democracy or the terror state will do more harm than good.” And here we are.
“ISIS Militants Seize Iraq’s Strategic Town of Tal Afar,” NBC News, June 16, 2014:
BAGHDAD — Sunni militants captured a key northern Iraqi town along the highway to Syria early on Monday, compounding the woes of Iraq’s Shiite-led government a week after it lost a vast swath of territory to the insurgents in the country’s north.
The town of Tal Afar, with a population of some 200,000 people, was taken just before dawn, Mayor Abdulal Abdoul told The Associated Press.
The town’s ethnic mix of mostly ethnic Shiite and Sunni Turkomen raises the grim specter of large-scale atrocities by Sunni militants from the al Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), who already claim to have killed hundreds of Shiites in areas they captured last week.
Tal Afar’s capture comes a week after Sunni militants took Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, and Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit in a lightning offensive that has plunged Iraq into its worst crisis since the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. troops.
A resident in Tal Afar, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad, confirmed the town’s fall and said over the telephone that militants in pickup trucks mounted with machineguns and flying black jihadi banners were roaming the streets as gunfire rang out.
The local security force left the town before dawn, said Hadeer al-Abadi, who spoke to the AP as he prepared to head out of town with his family. Local tribesmen who continued to fight later surrendered to the militants, he said.
“Residents are gripped by fear and most of them have already left the town for areas held by Kurdish security forces,” al-Abadi said….
John C. Barile says
Maliki’s Iraq claims to have retaken parts of the town since this report. Who knows which way the tide will turn. For as long as ISIS operates out in the open, it’s a victory for them.
gravenimage says
ISIS jihadis seize Tal Afar, which President Bush in 2006 called “a free city that gives us reason to hope for a free Iraq”
……………………………..
Like so much hope well-meaning Infidels have had for Muslims, this turned out to be a false hope.
Amerisrael says
Just saw a report that Condi Rice is urging “patience” for those nations “fighting”for , [struggling to have] democracy:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/condoleezza-rice-urges-patience-for-nations-fighting-for-democracy/
What she and Bush are in denial of is that Islam and democracy are incompatible. There is still no country on earth with a moslem majority population that has a real democracy. None.
dumbledoresarmy says
Wisdom from “Hugh Fitzgerald” who used to post here rather a lot, some years ago.
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/54514
Tuesday, 17 June 2014
What Arab Leaders Said, What Bush and Condi Heard
And something more about Iraq, the kind of place it is.
A description of what the Muslims of Iraq – and it matters not whether they are Shiite or Sunni, for either or both could be responsible – have done and are doing to the surviving physical reminders of the millennia of Jewish presence in parts of Iraq; which is what Muslims have done and are doing and will do to the physical evidence of the indigenous Christian presence in Iraq (a presence that *also* predated by centuries the arrival of Islam) and which is what Muslims have done and do to *all* the sacred places and homes and graves and physical handiwork of non-Muslims in every place where Muslims are strong enough; and what Muslims intend to do to every non-Muslim grave, sacred place and indeed any and all physical evidence of the beliefs and the lives of non-Muslims, throughout the whole wide world.
That is, to be blunt: smash it, pillage it, desecrate it, defile it, p*ss on it, sh*t on it, and, finally, erase it utterly and pretend it never existed.
http://jhvonline.com/insights-from-the-us-mission-in-iraq-p1567-98.htm
Insights from the U.S. mission in Iraq
By RABBI CARLOS HUERTA Chaplain, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airmobile Div. Thu, Jan 11, 2007
“Climbing over the rotting garbage, I realized I was the first Jew to enter this holy place [an Iraqi Jewish synagogue, now abandoned] in more than 50 years.
“One day, while searching the streets of the ancient city, I came across a building missing half of its roof.
“The site was a garbage dump, and the building’s interior was three-quarters full of rotting garbage, feces and sewage. I had to crouch down low to get inside, as the doorway was almost completely buried.
“As I entered, light came through the half-open roof, and I could just make out writing engraved on the walls. It was Hebrew. It was then that I knew I had stumbled into the ancient synagogue of the city of Mosul-Nineveh…”.
Read it all. It is horrifying. Remember, as you do, that it is – though the author himself is unaware of that – a description of normative and universal Islamic practice, as evidenced by the systematic defilement and destruction not only of Jewish or Christian sites within the area one might now call The Desolation of Mohammed, but *also* of Zoroastrian and Buddhist and Hindu and Sikh holy places, ditto.
What the Muslims of Iraq have done to the synagogues of Iraq, they will do to Notre Dame and Westminster Abbey. As and when and if they can, they will.
If one wants a diagram of Islam’s attitude toward the most holy things created by non-Muslims, one might draw a cartoon of a leering, empty-eyed creature squatting over a grave or an altar, defecating upon it.
When John Roy Carlson visited Gaza in 1948, in company with a lot of jihad-minded mohammedans who were off to wage genocidal jihad against the Jews of nascent Israel, he visited an originally-Jewish sacred place called the Tomb of Samson. It was full of human excrement. The mohammedans were using it as a *toilet*.
Charli Main says
I know this type of thing for a fact. While working at a place called Arzew in Algeria on a chemical complex, some construction folk came across a large French cemetery, on a day out. All the graves had been dug up and bodies and coffins thrown about. On asking about it, we were told that the local Arabs had dug the graves up looking for gold and jewellery.
The construction boss sent a crew out a few days later to re bury the bodies as best they could.
PRACTICAL ISLAM 101.
gravenimage says
This is very true, DDA.
Here are a whole slew of stories about pious Muslims desecrating, vandalizing, and *urinating* in other people’s holy places:
“Muslims Urinated Next to Torah Scrolls at Cave of Patriarchs”
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/127508#.U6N2kEZ4QUg
and
“Interfaith outreach in Kosovo: Orthodox church turned into public toilet and garbage dump”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/12/interfaith-outreach-in-kosovo-orthodox-church-turned-into-public-toilet-and-garbage-dump
I would not be surprised if as we speak Muslim barbarians are doing just this to the churches of Mosul.
And you are dead right about how Muslims will do this in the West. They have, in fact, already started:
“Interfaith outreach in Italy: Muslims loot church, urinate and defecate on altar”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/07/interfaith-outreach-in-italy-muslims-loot-church-urinate-and-defecate-on-altar
jewdog says
I guess this means that when you fill up at the pump now you could be patronizing ISIS, an organization even Al Qaeda considers extreme. I wonder how long it will be before people wake up and realize that oil and jihad don’t mix.
Smart Guy says
Islam is a religion and not a race. However, what determines a person’s choice?
Is DNA involved in making that choice? Does intelligence play a factor in choosing one’s religion? Do civilized people chose a barbaric religion?
Is civilization only for white people? What does evolution have to say as to the choice of religion? Biology is a science. The accusation that someone is a racist
is an attempt to abolish science. If indeed biology trumps religion then science is racist. No one wth an IQ over 160 “Mensa” is in jail watching cartoons, people in jail have a low IQ so they watch cartoons. Do the righteous have a higher IQ than the unrighteous? What is Madoff’s IQ?
What is Obama’s IQ? Friends with the Moslem Brotherhood?
Does science support racism?
As far a biology is concerned the Chinese have the most brain cells.
According the the UN South Korea has the highest IQ, at 110.
and the lowest has an IQ of 59. And which country is that? Ah! to tell you that would be racist would it not. Years ago it was crazy to suggest that the earth was a sphere and the we orbited the sun!
And so it is the same today anyone who believes in science is crazy.
Islam represents the abolition of science and education and the abolition of civilization. Communist countries such as Angola have outlawed Islam and smashed the Mosques and Communist Russia invaded Afghanistan, so the accusation that to oppose Islam does not come from the evolutionists. It comes from the controled leftists or western leftists, controled by the super rich.
Years ago Protestants were burnt at the stake for teaching others about what was in the Bible. Today scientists are being burned at the stake as well as intellectuals. What is the IQ of someone who believes that Islam is a religion of peace? In the end us evolutionists have the final trump card we can accuse such stupid people of having a low IQ, retarded. The counter accusation that those that oppose Islam are racists is to accuse such people of being retards and having room temp. IQ.
gravenimage says
Smart Guy, there is a lot in your post, but this jumped out at me:
“Communist countries such as Angola have outlawed Islam and smashed the Mosques”
I’ve heard people cite this before, but it is not the case. It was widely reported—first in South Africa, I believe—but it is not accurate.
“Angola denies it has banned Islam”
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2013/11/angola-denies-reports-banning-islam-2013112782236279392.html
You also cite other Communist countries that have outlawed Islam, but I don’t believe that any nation has actually *specifically* outlawed Islam at all.
tpellow says
“David Cameron: ‘ISIS and Syria jihadists are planning terror attacks on Britain'”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/david-cameron-isis-syria-jihadists-3720849#ixzz3545SpiPG
duh_swami says
It isn’t about them being ARAB, It’s about being MUSLIM. If you can’t tell the difference between a race and religion then you seriously have problems
It would seem that Allah also had that problem. He/it, is an Arab god, from Arabia who wrote the Quran in Arabic, and gave it to an Arab, to share it with other Arabs.
They are the ‘best of peoples’ the best looking with the best hair, according to Mahound. So while Islam may be an equal opportunity religion for all races, it is clear that some pious are a little more equal than others…
JIMJFOX says
Well said! What percentage of Arabs are NOT muslims? Likely about the same as are atheists.
Kasey says
It’s time to get real on Iraq.
The dominant Sunni majority with its supremicist attitudes within Islam itself, in applying its logic in Iraq, means that they will never accept domination by any Shi’a majority there or in any other nation where that occurs. What is happening now was destined to happen because of the Sunni mind-set and logic.. Blame no-one but the Sunnis themselves and the results of the Shi’a attempts to be the dominant force in Iraq instead of what was the status quo under Saddam.
Until Islam itself resolves this general divide or it implodes into total lethal violence, the radical elements in both camps will continue to dominate, while the West cops the fall-out in the form of refugee migrants very many of whom still won’t accept a new way of life in any of the host Western secular democratic tolerant but nominally Christian nations.
squeezethejuice says
Yo infidels, I have a question for you. Why do you think the Juicies are staying silent about the recent happenings in Iraq and Syria? When they talk about the Palestinians, you always hear on TV Nutnyahoo slams this treaty, Nutnyahoo blasts this peace agreement, etc. But not a word on the invasion of Iraq by the takfiri terrorists. Add to that, the fact that they expressed support in the past for the Syrian rebels and they spoke out against Bashar al Assad ,the rightful ruler of Syria.
BTW I as Muslim dont support killing the Juicies. It is better to allow them to live & make money in order to then squeeze lots of taxes from them. BUT the takfiris have no such view, as I write this are killing the Ppl of the Book in areas they control. And yet the Juicies are supporting them or at least are not condemning them. Maybe they think that there are few if any of the Juicies left in Iraq and so all of the takfiri rage will fall on the Christians, and the Juicies are OK with that as its not them getting slaughtered?
thomas_h says
“Yo infidels, I have a question for you.”
Fine, now is my turn to ask:
You muhammedan, I have a question for you.
Why did your god allah chose, out of so many million people, a pig to be his prophet?
Champ says
You’re a first-rate representative of the religion of hate: islam
gravenimage says
The repulsive “squeezethejuice” (squeeze the Jews) wrote:
Yo infidels, I have a question for you. Why do you think the Juicies (sic) are staying silent about the recent happenings in Iraq and Syria? When they talk about the Palestinians, you always hear on TV Nutnyahoo (sic) slams this treaty, Nutnyahoo (sic) blasts this peace agreement, etc. But not a word on the invasion of Iraq by the takfiri terrorists. Add to that, the fact that they expressed support in the past for the Syrian rebels and they spoke out against Bashar al Assad ,the rightful ruler of Syria
…………………………………
“Takfiri terroris”—that means that this vile antisemite is probably Shi’ite. Declaring someone Takfiri means that they are not to be considered Muslim, and thus can be slaughtered just as an Infidel can.
Would he have any actual problem with these fine Mujahideen if they weren’t targeting Shi’ites? I doubt it…
More:
BTW I as Muslim (sic) dont (sic) support killing the Juicies (sic). It is better to allow them to live & make money in order to then squeeze lots of taxes from them.
…………………………………
In other words, he wants them to serve as virtual slaves to supremacist Mohammedans, ponying up crushing amounts of Jizya for their nasty slavemasters to live off.
And notice how he says they will “allow then to live”—this is *always* the threat Muslims make to Infidels—that if they don’t toe the dhimmi line with sufficient humility, that they might *change their minds*. *Ugh*.
More:
BUT the takfiris have no such view, as I write this are killing the Ppl of the Book in areas they control.
…………………………………
Just like the appalling Rezali Mehil, he seems to be urging us to slaughter Sunnis for them so that Shi’ite Islam prevails, assuring the Kuffar that they “just” want to enslave us, and not mass murder us outright.
More:
And yet the Juicies (sic) are supporting them or at least are not condemning them…
…………………………………
He’s just enraged that the perfidious Jews are not properly grateful over the prospect of serving as milchcows. How dare they?
More:
Maybe they think that there are few if any of the Juicies (sic) left in Iraq and so all of the takfiri rage will fall on the Christians, and the Juicies (sic) are OK with that as its not them getting slaughtered?
…………………………………
Another ham-fisted attempt to stir up Jew hatred.
Notice that he himself never actually condemns Muslim savagery against Christians himself, even when he’s (supposedly) on the topic…
thomas_h says
“Yo infidels, I have a question for you.”
Fine, now is my turn to ask:
You muhammedan, I have a question for you.
Why did your god allah chose, out of so many million people, a pig to be his prophet?
thomas_h says
OK, let me try :
Because he created him in his own image…?
Elisheva14 says
There definitely are small exceptions to the rule that Arabs=Muslims. We know about the Coptics in Egypt and other Christians in Muslim countries. We know how hard their lives are. We know that at one time Turkey seemed to be operating as a Democracy, but that has changed. Islam has spread their crazy ideology beyond Arab Countries mostly through the sword. I don’t see the need to argue here as we are all students trying to learn to survive in these tough times. An ignorant and savage Islamist who comes to the site and writes insulting remarks is not our real problem.