Iraq's Shi'ite militia, Kurds use U.S. air strikes to further own agendas

[GeorgeGist]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - snip


Helped by the United States and Iran, Kurdish forces and Shi’ite militia are finally beating back Islamic State militants who overran most Sunni Arab areas in northern and central Iraq nearly three months ago.

But the aftermath illustrates the unintended consequences of the U.S. air campaign against Islamic State.

Kurdish and Shi'ite fighters have regained ground, but Sunni Muslims who fled the violence are being prevented from returning home and some have had their houses pillaged and torched.

Rather than help keep the nation together, the air strikes risk being used by different factions for their own advantage in Iraq's sectarian and ethnic conflicts.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/09/us-iraq-security-consequences-idUSKBN0H40B820140909

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Ending one clusterfuck leads to another. Who'd a thunk it?

[salib]

1. This why you don't do stupid shit.

Like bombing people.

[geek tragedy]

2. This is why Obama did not lift a finger

while Maliki was holding onto power. Only an inclusive national government made US action possibility.

Also, greater Kurdish autonomy is not the worst thing in the world.

[KG]

3. nothing the u.s. can do now is going to lead to a positve outcome

[Fantastic Anarchist]

4. Situation FUBAR. n/t

[TwilightGardener]

5. We did have to break the siege at Amerli, because of the humanitarian situation

there. I think we've been pretty careful so far to not be the Sunni or Shia air force. That said, the Sunnis are the ones who enabled ISIS to come into Iraq and supported them, in order to overthrow Maliki. It's hard to feel a lot of sympathy for them now that it's biting them in the butt.

[bemildred]

6. Proxies do sometimes have that drawback, having ideas of their own. nt

[quadrature]

7. you have to start somewhere, to end the Cluster*** that is the MiddleEast ...nt

[lark]

8. Resson #1 we never should have returned to Iraq

All we're doing is pissing off all the Sunni Arabs. Shiites will take the American made weapons from ISIS and use them against any Sunni, whether they are fighters are not. They will also turn them against American targets as well. Why doesn't the government ever learn? Guess the upside for the MIC is just too great and that counts more than anything to the people making the decisions.

[LynnTheDem]

9. Gee.

Nobody coulda seen this coming.

Well...nobody who's a MFing idiot moran, that is.

[amandabeech]

10. This is what Richard Engel was talking about on MSNBC last night after the

President's speech. Ethnic and sectarian divides seem to dictate just about every action in Iraq, despite our insistence that all groups just put away their histories and get along. It's right back to the warnings that others in the neighborhood gave to both Presidents Bush about taking out Saddam Hussein. Neighbors said only a severe dictator could hold Iraq together against the sectarian and ethnic divisions.

"H.W." did not take Baghdad for that reason. His idiot son ignored the warnings and took out Hussein and his government with the predicted consequences. Perhaps we are still hoping that the predicted consequences are no longer a factor.


From the article:

The unlikely coalition of Kurdish peshmerga fighters, Shi'ite militias and the U.S. air force won a major victory when it broke a siege of the Shi’ite Turkman town of Amerli last week and drove Islamic State from 25 nearby Sunni towns and villages.

But the aftermath is far from what the Americans envisioned. Smoke now rises from those Sunni villages, where some houses have been torched by Shi'ite militia. Others are abandoned, the walls daubed with sectarian slogans.

“There is no way back for them: we will raze their homes to the ground,” said Abu Abdullah, a commander of the Shi’ite Kataib Hizbollah militia in Amerli.