Iran-backed Shia militia says it will fight US Marines deployed to Iraq

(Hat tip: KimR) - One of the deadliest Iranian-backed militias in Iraq has threatened to attack US troops deployed fighting the Islamic State (Isil) and "deal" with them as occupying forces. Read more at the UK Telegraph Read More......

Terrible Suffering in Iraq: Thousands of Civilians Face Death, Displacement and Slavery

A new United Nations report has tried to count the civilian toll of continuing conflict in Iraq, largely at the hands of Islamic State militants, and the numbers are "staggering." --"Even the obscene casualty figures fail to accurately reflect exactly how terribly civilians are suffering in Iraq," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Jan. 19.

Read more at the National Catholic Register
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

“Abducting Women” and “Destroying Churches” is “Real Islam”—Iraqi Ayatollah

If they are people of the book [Jews and Christians] we demand of them the jizya—and if they refuse, then we fight them. That is if he is Christian. He has three choices: either convert to Islam, or, if he refuses and wishes to remain Christian, then pay the jizya [and live according to dhimmi rules]. But if they still refuse—then we fight them, and we abduct their women, and destroy their churches—this is Islam!

Read more at Human Events
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Iraqi PM to share anti-ISIS intel with Russia

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi announced on Saturday that Iraq will share anti-ISIS intelligence with Russia, Iran and Syria if cooperation is requested. --“We have been fighting ISIS more than a year and we have some important security information that no other country has regarding ISIS,” Abadi stated during a press conference which took place at the presidential office in the capital.

Read more at TRT World
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Facing Islamic State threat, Iraq digitizes national library

The digitization project aims to perserve priceless books and manuscripts from future threats; Baghdad National Library officials say that sharing Iraqi art and literature is key to combatting terrorism.
The dimly lit, dust-caked stacks of the Baghdad National Library hide a treasure of the ages: crinkled, yellowing papers holding the true stories of sultans and kings; imperialists and socialists; occupation and liberation; war and peace.

Read more at YNET News
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Judith Miller's "Story": Setting the Record Straight

“In the spring of 2002, a year before the invasion of Iraq, I was at the peak of my profession,” Judith Miller writes in the prologue to “The Story: A Reporter's Journey,” her compelling account of her life in journalism. Miller had been a versatile reporter at The New York Times for 25 years, but her special beat was the Arab world, Islamic extremism, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and war.  She was part of the Times staff that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting for its investigation of al-Qaeda's pre-9/11 global network; she received an Emmy that year for a documentary based on her co-authored book “Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War.” She was nine years into a happy marriage to New York publishing eminence Jason Epstein.  Three years later, with her reporting “mired in controversy,” the Times drove her out. A swarm of bloggers and more than a few fellow print journalists accused her of “hyping” the threat of WMD posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq, thus helping President George W. Bush and his team sell a misbegotten war to the American public. At best, Miller was blamed for lacking the requisite skepticism any serious reporter must have, for ignoring facts, and distorting information. At worst, she was charged with having morphed into one of the dreaded neoconservatives who, according to this media caricature, sought to export democracy to the Arab world by sword and fire.

Read more at Real Clear Politics
Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Obama Rejected "Best Military Advice"

As he laid out his strategy to combat the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria, President Obama rejected the “best military advice” of his top military commander in the Middle East.

Read more at Real Clear Defense Read More......

Iraq: The Day of Reckoning

Ernest Hemingway observed that people went broke gradually at first then all of a sudden.  Barack Obama’s career, for so long without visible means of support, has now moved onto the “all of sudden stage” of bankruptcy. ✧ The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an al-Qaeda affiliated front of Muslims, have followed up their lightning seizure of Mosul by taking Tikrit, the former stronghold of Saddam Hussein.

In Mosul and surrounding areas, more than 150,000 troops fled their posts as the militants advanced, leaving behind thousands of weapons, including tanks and helicopters, that are now in ISIL’s possession, said Jabbar Yawer, a spokesman for ethnic Kurdish armed forces in Erbil.

The speed with which ISIL and its allies have advanced after their seizure on Tuesday of Mosul – a city of two million people – has sent alarm bells ringing not only in Baghdad but in western capitals.

Read more at Belmont Club Read More......

UPI: Bush Praises Troops As They Leave Iraq

As the last U.S. combat troops leave Iraq, former President George W. Bush expressed thanks to the U.S. military for its service in Iraq. Read more at UPI... Read More......

53% Now Trust Republicans More Than Democrats on Health Care

RASMUSSEN REPORTS, 4/3/2010 - Voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on nine out of 10 key issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports, but the gap between the two parties has grown narrower on several of them. ∴ Following the passage of the health care bill, 53% now say they trust Republicans on the issue of health care. Thirty-seven percent (37%) place their trust in Democrats. A month earlier, the two parties were essentially even on the health care issue. Read more at Rasmussen's... Read More......

Polls Close in Iraq as Insurgent Attacks Kill 36

FOX NEWS, 2/7/2010 - (AP) Iraqis defied insurgents who lobbed hand grenades at voters and bombed a polling station Sunday in an attempt to intimidate those taking part in elections that will determine whether their country can overcome deep sectarian divides as U.S. forces prepare to leave. ∴ The conclusion of the vote, however, did not spell an immediate end to political uncertainty. It could be days until results come in and with the fractured nature of Iraqi politics, it could take months to form a government. Read more at FOX...

t was an election day that demonstrated starkly how far the country, a rare democracy in the Middle East, has come since the last nationwide parliamentary vote in December 2005 and how much still holds it back.

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War in Iraq will be called 'Operation New Dawn'

WASHINGTON POST, 2/19/2010 - The Obama administration has decided to give the war in Iraq a new name -- "Operation New Dawn" -- to reflect the reduced role U.S. troops will play in securing the country this year as troop levels fall, according to a memo from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. ∴ Since U.S. forces charged across the Kuwaiti border toward Baghdad in 2003, the war has been known as Operation Iraqi Freedom. The new name is scheduled to take effect in September, when U.S. troop levels are supposed to drop to about 50,000. Read more at the Washington Post... Read More......

Multi-National Force - Iraq

Visit the official website of the Multi-National Force-Iraq for a glimpse of what is being accomplished in Iraq. Then go to Flickr for photos. Enjoy. Read More......

Thank you from an Iraqi

An Iraqi woman just voted and she has something to say in a video message. Read More......

Prayers for fallen Oregon soldiers

Oregon Army National Guard Pfc. Taylor D. Marks (19), of Monmouth, and Sgt. Earl D. Werner (38), whose wife and son live in Amboy, Wash., were killed Friday in Iraq by an EFP device. A third soldier was injured but name and condition has not been released. (Provided by Oregon Military Department). Rest in peace young warriors and prayers and best wishes for the injured. Read more at the Corvallis Gazette-Times... Read More......

Bear what price, or burden?

Learning not to repeat the exit mistake of Vietnam
WASHINGTON TIMES, 8/19/2009 by Richard Botkin, Vietnam historian and Marine Corp veteran, (Hat tip: World Net Daily) - With the stroke of a pen 36 years ago this month, a Democratic-majority Congress passed the Fulbright-Aiken Amendment, a law that assured American politics, rather than battlefield achievement, would determine the freedom and fate of millions of South Vietnamese citizens. ∴ The Fulbright-Aiken Amendment cut off funding for ongoing American military operations in support of our Vietnamese ally. The amendment outlined a dramatic change in policy that said;

"Notwithstanding any other provision of the law, on or after August 15, 1973, no funds herein or heretofore appropriated may be obligated or expended to finance directly or indirectly combat activities by United States military forces in or over or from off the shores of North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Laos, or Cambodia."

In Iraq, democracy is balancing on a razor's edge. Read more at the Washington Times... Read More......

Silence

POLITICO, 8/13/2009 by Zachary Abrahamson and Eamon Javers - Obama Speechless On National Security As Violence Surges In Afghanistan And Iraq: “He may be presiding over two wars and facing a terror threat at home and abroad, but you'd hardly know it from listening to President Barack Obama speak.”Read "Obama's Words Downplay Wars" at Politico... Read More......

Re: An Important Milestone in the Iraq War

Following a link at www.rove.com (Karl Rove's website) with this simple summary, "Ingrates Speak," we get to an article at COMMENTARY'S Contentions by Jennifer Rubin in which she refers to President Obama's Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs,' response when he was asked "...if President Bush’s surge policy was to credit for facilitating Tuesday’s accomplishment, Gibbs drew a distinction between security improvements on the ground and political progress among Iraq’s governing factions." Gibbs:

“The president would say, obviously increasing the number of troops in that country improved the security situation,” he said. “But the surge was to improve the security situation so that the political reconciliation could take place. So while the security situation has improved, we still have a lot of work to do on the political side of this equation.”

Rubin added, "It is hard to imagine anything less gracious or less historically accurate. How does he think this political and military progress has been achieved — by magic or by a successfully implemented counterinsurgency strategy?" Read More......

Analysis: US role in Iraq doesn't end just yet

BREITBART.COM, 6/20/2009 by Robert Burns - WASHINGTON (AP): U.S. troops are out of Iraq's cities but not its future. Even a best-case scenario is likely to feature an American role there for years—militarily as well as diplomatically. ∴ That does not mean a permanent large U.S. troop presence in Iraq. Under a security deal struck with the Bush administration, American forces are to be out by the end of 2011. ∴ But it's no secret that Iraq's security forces are not fully ready to handle even a diminished insurgency on their own. ∴ Some senior U.S. military officers say privately they anticipate Iraqi setbacks in coming months, particularly if the insurgents regroup. But by partnering with American forces, the Iraqis stand a good chance of succeeding. That is why a number of U.S. troops will remain in the cities to assist and advise. Read more at Breitbart...

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Blast kills 33 as Iraq takes charge of security Read More......

A message to Mr. Obama from one of America's finest

(Hat tip: Linda Bartcher)

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