The Cruel Jest of American ‘Humanitarian Aid’ to Iraq

By Juan Cole

U.S. soldier stands in front of an Iraqi woman’s house during a search for three missing soldiers in Al Thobat, Iraq in 2007. The U.S. Army (CC BY 2.0)

This post originally ran on Juan Cole’s Web page.

The United States of America has no claim on the language of “humanitarian aid” to Iraq after what it did to that country.  It is rather as though Washington should send Meals Ready to Eat to the good people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  One is happy that the U.S. has dropped food aid for the Yezidis trapped on a mountain after they escaped the so-called “Islamic State” of self-styled “caliph” Ibrahim.  But the U.S. press either has a short memory or is being disingenuous when they talk about a humanitarian mission in Iraq!

Why Is Obama Bombing Iraq, Really?

By Juan Cole

This post originally ran on Juan Cole’s Web page.

Al-Zaman reports that a U.S. drone hit mortar emplacements and F-18s struck artillery arrays and armored vehicles deployed by the so-called “Islamic State” (IS) in Kuwair east of Mosul on the way to the Kurdistan capital of Irbil, and near a major dam, some areas of which are controlled by the IS fighters.

Also on Friday, the Naqshbandi Army denied any involvement in a push on the Kurdistan capital of Irbil, denouncing it as racist.  The Naqshbandi Sufi order is important in Mosul and was infiltrated and used by agents of Baathist high official Izzat al-Duri, a former vice president of Saddam Hussein.  The Naqshbandis are said to be nowadays having tensions with the so-called Islamic State, with which they allied to kick al-Maliki’s largely Shiite government out of Mosul.

Obama & Airstrikes to Protect Iraqi Kurds: 1991 Deja Vu all Over Again

By Juan Cole

Everett Collection / Shutterstock.com

This post originally ran on Juan Cole’s Web page.

During the Gulf War in early 1991, then-president George H. W. Bush called on Iraqis to rise up against Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party.

In the Kurdish north and in the Shiite South, hundreds of thousands heeded his call.  But after the short war was over in March, Bush appears to have completely lost interest in the Kurds and Shiites who rose up and now were in danger of being massacred by the Baath army.  Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf told the Iraqi military it could not fly armed helicopter gunships (as a way of protecting Iraqi crowds that had demonstrated).  The Iraqi officers said that they used the helicopter gunships as aerial ambulances, but that some were armed with rockets.  Could they please fly the armed helicopters?  Schwarzkopf said that he was too tired to argue, and said “OK.”

Top 5 Ways the U.S. Is Israel’s Accomplice in War Crimes in Gaza

By Juan Cole

Shutterstock

This post originally ran on Juan Cole’s Web page.

The U.S. State Department became a little testy with Israel on Sunday over the 6th school shelling by the Israeli military, which killed 10, saying

“The United States is appalled by today’s disgraceful shelling outside an UNRWA school in Rafah sheltering some 3,000 displaced persons, in which ten more Palestinian civilians were tragically killed,” reads the statement from State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki. “We once again stress that Israel do more to meet its own standards and avoid civilian casualties.”

As for the standard Israeli military pretext for such war crimes, that Hamas was hiding out in the school or firing from the school, no reporter on the ground has seen any evidence of any such activity by Hamas in schools where there are people.  Then the Israeli military obfuscates things by saying that Hamas was “in the area.”  Since Gaza is so small, I suppose they are in the area of almost everything.  But the State Department didn’t let Tel Aviv off the hook this time:  “The suspicion that militants are operating nearby does not justify strikes that put at risk the lives of so many innocent civilians.”

Boycott of Israel Spreads in European Civil Society Over Gaza War, Could Cost $5 Bn/Yr

By Juan Cole

Shutterstock

This post originally ran on Juan Cole’s Web page.

The ill-considered and remarkably brutal Gaza war likely will give further impetus to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement by Western civil society to pressure Israel on its illegal actions toward the Palestinians.  A thoroughgoing such European set of sanctions could cost Israel as much as $5 bn a year and more.  Roughly a third of Israeli trade is with Europe, and the EU is Israel’s largest single trading partner.

Unite, the largest British trade union, has now resolved to campaign for adoption of BDS against Israel.

The Sinn Fein mayor of Newry in Northern Ireland is also calling on retailers in the town to boycott Israel.