Meanwhile, the followers of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr marched through Iraqi cities as a show of force. As the Sunni-Shi’ite jihad escalates, it should be obvious to everyone (but isn’t) that to intervene on either side would be to aid a group that hates the U.S. and wants to destroy it.
“Sunni jihadists capture 3 pivotal Iraq locales in Saturday shootout,” by Larry Mcshane, New York Daily News, June 21, 2014:
Iraqi soldiers and local police fled from a Saturday shootout with Sunni forces, who unleashed a new offensive and seized control of three pivotal locales.
The Sunni jihadists’ capture of Rawah, on the Euphrates River, the nearby town of Anah, and the town of Qaim, on the Syrian border, marked their first seizures of territory in Anbar province, west of Baghdad.
Their gains came as thousands of weapon-toting Shiite fighters marched through Iraqi cities in a show of force. In the capital of Baghdad, roughly 20,000 heavily-armed followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr paraded with their machine guns, rocket launchers and assault rifles. His followers took to the streets in the cities of Amarah and Basra, raising the increasingly possible specter of religious war between the two Muslim sects.
Iraqi army and police personnel bailed out of Rawah as invaders linked with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an Al Qaeda splinter group, ransacked government offices Saturday, said Mayor Hussein Ali al-Moussawi.
The Sunni jihadists’ capture of Rawah, on the Euphrates River, the nearby town of Anah, and the town of Qaim, on the Syrian border, marked their first seizures of territory in Anbar province, west of Baghdad.
The town is located near an important dam in the town of Haditha, and Iraqi officials quickly dispatched about 2,000 soldiers to protect the site, according to The Associated Press.
The terrorists’ capture of Qaim, on the border of Syria and about 200 miles west of Baghdad, allowed the jihad forces to move weapons and heavy equipment freely in and out of Iraq as they ramp up their attacks.
The jihad fighters already controlled the Syrian side of the border at Qaim. The ISIS attackers, who earlier this month seized a large swath of territory along the Iraq-Syria border, were focusing on expanding their claim over Anbar province, which stretches from the capital all the way to Syria….
MikeR says
Sunni vs. Shiite. Religion of Peace vs. Religion of Peace. Sit back and enjoy.
Jay Boo says
MikeR:
“Sunni vs. Shiite. Religion of Peace vs. Religion of Peace. Sit back and enjoy.”
———–
I would much rather see Sunni vs. Shiite battle each other than to impose their violent ideology on us.
However, the comment “Sit back and enjoy” overlooks the reality of human cost.
Islam is merely a ‘tool’ used to exploit human weaknesses.
Islam has no power unless people give it power.
If Islam did not exist than human weaknesses would find a substitute.
By exposing Islam we also reveal how such weaknesses take hold.
Jay Boo says
then
rage against injustice says
True. Greed and the fact that humans will never understand and therefore respect each other, are the reason why in this world as long as there are humans there will be conflicts and therefore wars.
rage against injustice says
@ Jay Boo
Great point.
John C. Barile says
Yes; you know I think so.
Even if–or because–I don’t pass voeg’s litmus tests for doctrinal orthodoxy, ideological purity, intellectual rigor, and firmness of purpose.
Greyhound Fancier says
Islam is a tool of Satan to murder, rape, promote mayhem, make it all but impossible to evangelize a large part of the world, and generally make humans miserable. Other than those women and children caught in the crossfire, it would be a bad idea to do too much to stop this – I would worry that any US intervention would unite the two warring sides against us! This is not a time for enjoyment, but to watch and wait.
Richie says
Pull out our troops, let these Muslim animals destroy one another. As long as there is Islam, the killing will never stop. The best way to handle the middle eastern Islamic animals is containment and isolation
John C. Barile says
Again, I emphasize that supporting the Kurdish Regional Government furthers American interests in the region, while sidestepping a phony choice between Iran and Sunni jihadism.
John C. Barile says
What about the Kurds? They are on the front lines now. Are they our enemies? No.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
Ah yes, what’s going on takes me back to the 80s, the daze of the Me Generation, and me, personally, watching that war on my Sony were my salad days.
If you apprehend treachery from any group on the part of a people with whom you have a treaty, retaliate by breaking off relations with them. The infidels should not think they can bypass Islamic law or the punishment of Allah. Surely they cannot escape.
– the holy god Allah in Holy Ko-Ran 8:58
The Sunnis and Shia are able to do this cuz each considers the other Infidels, in violation of the treaty between them: Islamic law. They’ll get to the real Infidels later, to mop up on the work done in cleansing out the Copts. The cleaning party of the future will include the Kurds, people separated from the regular Moslems of their tribal group. The Kurds are presented as the victim Moslems, innocent Moslems, the good ones, the Unicorns, but they are no such thing.
They’ll be rat there with the Bedouin Sunnis and the guys from the Shia side, hacking shooting and exploding. Persia has Kurds of its own, plus other non-Arab Moslems in the form of Turkics, Baluchs and a whole lot more.
I’d say Let the fighting begin! but it’s already started. There is a caliphate starting, to fill the void left when the Ottoman shut down after WW1. God help us if they brush their differences aside and team up to focus on their real enemy, their common enemy: us.
John C. Barile says
O, I never said that the Kurds are lovable–I just point out that they’re pliable, because their interests and ours do, ultimately, coincide.
John C. Barile says
Ultimately–and I mean within the span of a human lifetime, not by an apocalyptic timeline. It’s enough for me that the Kurdish nationalists are mortal enemies of Ansar al-Islam–Kurds who are Al-Qaida’s allies–and of ISIS and the lot (ditto Saddamists, Arab nationalists, neo-Ottoman Turkey, and the mullah’s Iran).
dumbledoresarmy says
There is a nascent Kurdish-speaking, ethnic Kurdish *church* beginning to take root, both within Turkey and elsewhere, as recent translations of Scripture into several of the Kurdish languages (or dialects of Kurdish) take root. Indeed, within Turkey, when a “secularised” Kurd took on the task of helping with the New Testament translation (in part because his language and culture had been suppressed and persecuted by Turks), the intimate engagement with that text jolted him right out of Islam altogether.
It would be a good move for non-Muslim governments to quietly sponsor such Christian radio stations as are broadcasting into what one might call Kurdistan. Ideally, one would broadcast, 24/7, the following: Kurdish-language Bible recitations and discussion of same; testimonies of Kurdish apostates from Islam (whether Christian or atheist); discussions of pre-islamic Kurdish history and culture; newly-composed Kurdish Christian music (using traditional musical forms; Jews from this particular area might well be able to assist); and Kurdish-language versions of some of Fr Zakaria Botros’ hard-hitting programs critiquing Islam.
Gospel radio (and music) broadcasts into North Africa in the *Berber* language have helped to nurture a growing Berber-speaking Christian church that has sprung into existence like the Phoenix. Perhaps the same thing could happen in Kurdistan.
Let them shake off the malign influence of the Arab Imperial Cult and recover a distinctive non-Islamic identity, through the medium of a faith that speaks not in the foreign language of conquerors and oppressors (Arabic) but in the language of the heart.
ApolloSpeaks says
IF ISLAMIC SUPREMACISTS
succeed in their long term plans to conquer England
what will its national anthem sound like?
Click my name for the answer.
Mahendra Singh says
“20,000 heavily-armed followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr paraded with their machine guns, rocket launchers and assault rifles”
That is for parading only. They would like American boys to fight (and die in) the real war, while they watch.
Perfidy is another name for Islam.
Salah says
Robert wrote:
“it should be obvious to everyone (but isn’t) that to intervene on either side would be to aid a group that hates the U.S.”
The American administration should intervene (but it won’t) on the side of the true victims of this conflict: the Christian and other helpless minorities.
Jay Boo says
To intervene on either side would make that side (like us more) and we could then call them (our good friends) and (freedom fighters) so John McCain could visit them often and pose for ‘smiley face selfies’
and then:
1 Our (good friends) would ask for more
2 Our (good friends) would insist for more
3 Our (good friends) would demand for more
When we had no more to give
Our (good friends) would hate us
again
dumbledoresarmy says
For the benefit of any government spooks or staffers – whether US, Australian, UK, you-name-it, in NATO or out of it – who may be reading this over my shoulder.
My two cents.
I am an Aussie.
And I would support military intervention in Iraq and/or Syria for one purpose and one purpose *only* – to get OUT of both Iraq, and Syria, every last one of the remaining indigenous Christians, who are now being subjected to genocide. Take as our cue what Israel did to rescue the Jews of Ethiopia, of Yemen, of Iraq.
Once we get ’em out, then we can figure out where to put ’em. Spread them around “the West” and in any other non-western majority-Christian country. I’d be happy to take as many as a few hundred thousand in Australia, myself; I’d *much* rather have Syriac, Armenian and Chaldean Christians, than *Muslims*, and that is the blunt truth. Because they won’t plot to kill us; they won’t bludge off us; and they will cheerfully intermarry with us. What’s a few more Orthodox churches or a monastery or nunnery more in the suburbs? A whole lot friendlier and nicer to have as neighbours, than sinister mosques full of snake-eyed men in scraggly beards, I can tell you that!
In short: go in; gather up and protect the Christians, process them with the aid of groups like Barnabas Fund and Voice of the Martyrs; get them *all* out; then **leave**. *That* mission I could approve of, and our soldiers would enjoy, because they’d be helping people who wanted to be helped and who would be pathetically and sincerely grateful.
Also, for the record: I *do not want* even *one* Mohammedan, from either Syria or Iraq, to be let into Australia as a “refugee”. No matter WHAT their sob story. Too dangerous. We already have too many Muslims. They’re already waging jihad. More muslims just means more jihad.
And finally: any Muslim holding a western-country passport (e.g. an Aussie passport) who is known to be wallowing in the bloodbath in Syria or in Iraq, should NOT be permitted back into this country or any other western country, and should ideally be stripped of that passport which means *nothing* to them except as a temporary and tactical convenience.
Got all that? Well, dear spooks, kindly pass this information back to your political masters. I speak for many folks within my country and beyond it.
And tell them that if *nothing* is done, and the Christians in Iraq are subjected to a genocide equalling in intensity that to which Muslims subjected the Armenians, I will hold my own and other western governments at least partly responsible: because they *could* have acted to get them out, but did not.
And if *Muslim* “refugees” from Iraq and Syria, are allowed in en masse, and if western-passport-holding jihadis from Iraq and Syria are not prevented from returning, and if people from *either* group carry out a mass-murder in a church, or synagogue, or shopping centre, or sports stadium, within a western country, Australia or any other, then I will say – I told you so, and I will hold my government, and others, at least partly responsible, for gross dereliction of duty.
You. have. been. warned.
Champ says
His followers took to the streets in the cities of Amarah and Basra, raising the increasingly possible specter of religious war between the two Muslim sects.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These factions are allah approved …since evil allah is the god of the underworld; and the god of death, bloodshed, murder and mayhem. Yeah islam brings nothing but hell on earth.
mortimer says
So GLAD to know Islam is ‘the religion of peace’…
…because whenever Muslims have weapons (of any kind) in their hands, they commit heinous atrocities.
So peaceful…all those headless bodies…so peaceful.
John C. Barile says
You’re right.
RCCA says
Almost on cue: “Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said he was opposed to any U.S. intervention in the Iraqi crisis, accusing Washington of fomenting the unrest.” “The main dispute in Iraq is between those who want Iraq to join the US camp and those who seek an independent Iraq,” said Khamenei. “The US aims to bring its own blind followers to power since the US is not happy about the current government in Iraq. “http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/22/iran-opposes-us-intervention-iraq-khamenei
Mirren10 says
” His followers took to the streets in the cities of Amarah and Basra, raising the increasingly possible specter of religious war between the two Muslim sects”
It already **is** a ‘religious war’, and has been ever since evil old mohammed popped his clogs.