Sunni

Are US-backed Iraqi militias committing ethnic cleansing under the cover of fighting Daesh?

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From Sputnik

25.05.2016) Get short URL
Iraqi forces and affiliated Shiite militias are accused of ethnic cleansing and mass atrocities in Iraq, under the cover of fighting to liberate territory from Daesh.

On Monday, the Iraqi Army announced plans to begin an offensive to retake the city of Fallujah from Daesh forces. The heavily-populated Iraqi city was the first to fall to the extremist group in 2014, but in recent months Iraqi forces have been able to sharply reduce the militants’ stronghold over the city.

The city also played site for one of the bloodiest battles following the US-led invasion of Iraq, leading to mass casualties of US service members and leaving a once-prominent city in ruins.

Following the ouster of Saddam Hussein, Fallujah, like many other multicultural cities in the country, descended into sectarian strife leading then-Senator Joe Biden to call for the partitioning of Iraq in 2006.

The Sunni-dominated city faced the worst of the systematic effort to expunge loyalists of Saddam Hussein’s secular Ba’ath Party, in a process now known as de-baathification, from positions within the Iraqi government, including ordinary social sector positions in education, medicine, and engineering.

The once prominent Sunni middle class found themselves the subject of persecution at the hands of the Shia-led government, and violent Shiite militias, notably Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.

The widespread alienation of Sunnis and the repeated violent tides of ethnic cleansing by Shiite militias forced many secular Sunnis into league with the violent Daesh extremist group, whose Iraqi branch is now dominated by a cadre of former Saddam Hussein loyalists.

With the government unravelling in Iraq, and the violent Mahdi army once again threatening to seize control of the country, the situation has been described as waves of ethnic cleansing by competing and increasingly extremist sectarian militias – the Mahdi Army, supported by Iraqi forces on the Shia side, and Daesh, along with al-Qaeda, on the Sunni side.

In this descent into social cataclysm, the Iraqi army, along with loosely-affiliated Shia militias, looks to ‘liberate’ Fallujah, using American weapons and support, but with many residents of the Daesh-occupied city fearing another violent round of ethnic cleansing. On Tuesday, Loud & Clear’s Brian Becker sat down with Iraqi-American and foreign policy analyst Raed Jarrar to discuss the latest offensive.

https://www.spreaker.com/embed/player/standard?episode_id=8590888&autoplay=false

Has the offensive on Daesh-controlled Fallujah begun?

“The news coming from Iraq indicates that there are no signs that the offensive has begun yet, but the Iraqi government has announced its intentions to start an offensive,” explained Jarrar. “US sources have been denying that any operations have started taking place so there is some confusion about that.”

The foreign policy analyst observed that people remaining in Fallujah are frightened by the Iraqi forces and affiliated militias, who they believe will use the presence of Daesh as a cover for ethnic cleansing.

“Militias affiliated with the Iraqi forces have made shocking announcements of late, calling Fallujah a cancer that has to be cut out, and these proclamations are concerning because the militias have committed war crimes when they attacked towns controlled by ISIS in the past,” said Jarrar. “There is a real concern that the anticipated attacks on Fallujah will follow the pattern of abuses committed by Iraqi forces and affiliated militias in the past.”

What do they mean by ‘liberating’ Fallujah? Ramadi was ‘liberated’ but there was nothing left.

“There was a report by Human Rights Watch that came out last year that was titled ‘After Liberation Came Destruction.’ The word liberation is a very problematic word in this context,” said Jarrar. “Human Rights Watch reported the premeditated and systematic way that Iraqi forces and militias took towns back from ISIS and destroyed towns, committing ethnic cleansing. They targeted some ethnicities against other ethnicities, demolished homes of some sects and kept homes of other sects.”

“I expect that this is just another campaign of ethnic cleansing and they are using ISIS as a pretext to enter these towns and bombard them,” said Jarrar. “This is a premeditated policy of destruction and ethnic cleansing that the Iraqi government has been following since 2003.”

Where should forces attack to get a handle on the unravelling situation in Iraq?

“From my point of view, that is not the discussion that we should be having. It is not about which city to bombard first or what city to allow the US and its allies to bomb first,” said Jarrar. “That is why I wanted to comment on the word ‘liberate,’ because it implies that there is a legitimate force that will come in to kick out an illegitimate group. That is not the situation in Iraq. Iraq has many extremist and violent groups, including the government forces.”

“If the United States wants to give good advice to Iraq, then we need to start by stopping support to groups and the Iraqi government, that have been committing mass violations of human rights, funding these groups is illegal under US and international law,” said Jarrar. “We continue to give funds and weapons to groups committing atrocities in Iraq.”

Jaraa claimed that a more meaningful solution to the ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq and throughout the region, would be to focus on policies of division and persecution that pit groups against each other, likening the violence committed by Shia militias to that committed by Daesh, which he referred to as a similar force on the Sunni side.

“The idea of getting rid of all these things will not include dropping more bombs on Iraq, it will not make the country more peaceful and it will not make these groups more moderate. It will actually make more death and destruction and that is what the US has been doing in Iraq since 1991,” stated Jarrar.

Daesh is blocking Fallujah residents from leaving while the Iraqis demand that they leave – what will happen to the civilians?

“They are the ones that pay the hefty price and many of them have been paying a heavy price, not as a consequence of violence, but because that is the actual goal of violence – displacement,” explained Jarrar. “The Iraqi militias, especially those affiliated with the Iraqi government, have been implementing a plan of systematic displacement to gain more territory for their own group.”

“This is a different analysis than you receive in the mainstream media that the violence is part of the medicine, part of the solution, and the US has to support attacks on Fallujah and Mosul because this is the way to get rid of the bad guys and liberate these towns,” explained Farrar.

“That is not what is going on in the real world. In the real world this is more violence that has illegitimate agendas to displace more Iraqi and create more sectarian enclaves,” he said.

http://sputniknews.com/news/20160525/1040198115/iraq-shia-sunni-daesh-fallujah.html

Leading the anti-ISIL war: Iraq finds Iran a preferable ally

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From Farsi News Agency, March 6, 2015

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iraq’s regular army is liberating Tikrit without Pentagon involvement and without any consultation with the US administration.

It is one of the biggest offensives yet against the terrorist group of ISIL, and Iraq isn’t going it alone. Iran is taking a key role in the offensive, backed by allied Sunni-Shia forces, artillery and air power. With the liberation of Tikrit going well, the US is still on the outside looking in, leaving the Pentagon complaining that Iran is taking their role as leader of the anti-ISIL war.

This has further irritated US officials, admitting that the Iraqis did not inform them in advance of the operation and have yet to request assistance. To do some damage control, they are now claiming that the battle could have a sectarian tenor – despite the fact that “allied Sunni-Shia irregular troops” have taken the lead!

Credible reports indicate Iranian military advisers are coordinating the attacks and helping them to operate artillery, rocket-launcher systems and surveillance drones. It’s all the reason why US Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says Iran’s involvement is a positive thing…

Still, those who destabilised the region for nefarious reasons and ignited the powder keg of sectarianism should take note:

1. Sunni and Shia irregular troops are fighting together to liberate Tikrit, which is a Sunni-dominated town. Repeat, Sunni and Shia volunteer forces are sacrificing their lives to help liberate a Sunni-dominated area. This is not a sectarian battle or proxy warfare to assert hegemony over neighbors. It’s a battle against ISIL and its evil ideology. Else, Iran would have never bothered to take the lead.

2. Under a special political arrangement, good governance is the ensuing strategy. Once the allied forces evict the death cult, a local government will be formed to involve all the inhabitants of the city, regardless of their ethnic, religious and ideological differences. They will control and manage their areas while the army and allied forces continue their next push: Liberation of Mosul. The large-scale progress will not result in sectarianism.

3. For those who claim it is not the military but the political consequences of the fighting that worry them, it suffices to remind that the Iraqi government and parliament comprise of Sunni, Shia and Kurdish politicians and representatives. Subsequently, liberation is not dead on arrival as the central government has begun promoting good governance. The liberated cities and towns will accept rule by a central government. This is not a long shot.

Indeed, the Iraqis have what it takes to liberate their country and enhance democratic governance and human rights, particularly when it comes to promoting Sunni-Shia participation in security, encouraging transparency and accountability, and addressing reform and leadership.

As for those who cannot stand the idea that Iran is now the leader of the anti-ISIL war, the message is this: Iran is now the leader of the anti-ISIL war and there is little Washington can do to influence the course of events.

Iran has become the preeminent strategic player in the region to the increasing disadvantage of the US and its allies. And it is not just Iraq that finds Iran a preferable ally. Syria also finds Iran a preferable ally, which means the liberation of Iraq will be followed by the liberation of Syria.

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13931215000915

What’s behind Ukraine’s secret weapons deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE)?

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From Global Research, February 25, 2015
By Eric Zuesse

U.S. President Barack Obama apparently is going ahead with his plan for NATO missiles to be placed in Ukraine aimed against Moscow, but found a way to do it that won’t violate the warnings by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin against Washington’s directly supplying those arms to Ukraine (such as is demanded of Obama by congressional Republicans, and even by a few hawkish Democrats — all passionate supporters of Hillary Clinton). Obama’s subordinate (or dependent local leader), the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, is now arranging to receive those weapons via a less direct channel; and this arrangement couldn’t happen if the U.S. White House were opposed to it. The idea might even have originated inside the White House.

On Tuesday, 24 February 2015, in Abu Dhabi, the capital of United Arab Emirates, Poroshenko placed the finishing touches on the purchase of Western, mainly U.S., weapons, via the UAE, from Western firms such as, perhaps, Lockheed, GE, Krupp, Euromissile, etc., which will be paid for by Western taxpayers, via IMF ‘loans’ to Ukraine, which money comes from taxpayer contributions to the IMF, but which ‘loans’ can never be paid back to the IMF — they’ll inevitably default, because these ‘loans’ are at the very end of the long line of creditors of Ukraine, which is a bankrupt country, having been looted for decades (and especially during the past year) by its aristocrats (called “oligarchs”), who have already spirited tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars off to Western tax-haven countries, so that only Ukraine’s public (who received little if any benefit from those debts of the Ukrainian Government) will pay even the pennies-on-the-dollars that Ukraine’s bondholders will be receiving (and the recipients will be only the holders of the oldest of Ukraine’s bonds, which won’t be the IMF, EU, or U.S., Ukraine’s post-coup ‘lenders’).

This is called the IMF’s “austerity” program, for looted nations such as Greece and Ukraine, and it holds sacred the thefts by aristocrats, while it transfers all of aristocrats’ losses off onto their respective publics, who (as Ukrainians now will) pay it via their stripped governmental services and hiked taxes; and these poor people then serve aristocrats as virtual slaves (low-wage labor), many of whom thus migrate to wealthier countries, which, in turn, reject the burden of caring for them, thus producing yet more resentments and hatreds against these poor people, regardless of how they behave.

Here is the way this Ukrainian arms deal works:

The deal itself was publicly, but only vaguely, announced on Tuesday, the 24th, along with “what Poroshenko described as a ‘very important negotiation about the facilitation of the United Arab Emirates investment in the Ukraine.’ He declined to provide specifics of the deal.” The reason why Arabic royals (in this case the Al Nahyan family that controls Abu Dhabi) are naturals for this — the logical persons to serve as the middle-men to sell Western-made weapons to Russia’s new (since the time of Obama’s February 2014 Ukrainian coup) enemy, Ukraine — is that the U.S. aristocracy has, for at least 70 years, been allied with Sunni aristocracies, against, originally, the Soviet Union, and then Russia. Russia had been the chief supplier of oil and gas to the other Soviet republics; it was and is the local oil-and-gas giant. Whereas Russia’s aristocrats bonded instead with Shia Iran (which alliance was interrupted during 1953-79 by the CIA’s coup there and then the Shah’s ultimate overthrow and then the restoration of Iran’s alliance with Russia), the American aristocrats had bonded with Sunni Saudi Arabia, and with other Arab royals, in UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, etc. So, with the exception of Armand Hammer’s Occidental Petreoleum, which bonded with Libya’s pro-Soviet Sunni anti-imperialist and anti-Western Muammar Gaddafi, Western oil companies generally allied with the Saud family, who had allied with the most intensely Sunni clergy of all, who were the followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who had personally agreed in 1744, with Muhammad bin Saud, that the Sauds and Wahhabs would jointly control the Kingdom and ultimately the world — Wahhabs controlling the laws, and Sauds controlling the military.

In short: America’s aristocracy bonded with Sunni aristocrats, and Russia’s aristocracy bonded with Shia ones. Ukraine has now joined the Sunni alliance, and this is done with Obama’s blessing. Continue reading →