Headlines:
- Tikrit offensive reveals Iraqi army not ready for war
- Silencing Muslims in the UK
- Israel Spied on US
- US troops to remain in Afghanistan
Details:
Tikrit offensive reveals Iraqi army not ready for war
The offensive in Iraq to take back Tikrit is now three weeks old and despite making significant headway in taking back villages and areas outside the town, central Tikrit is proving a difficult target. The Iraqi army and its trainers from the US military were humiliated in the summer of 2014 when ISIS routed the Iraqi army from most of the Anbar province all the way to Baghdad. Many were in shock when many for the Iraqi army left their weapons and fled in the face of a few thousand ISIS force. This forced to the US to conduct airstrikes again and resend troops back into Iraq. The Tikrit offensive is an attempt to rebuild the Iraqi army for a major assault on Mosul itself. After failing the first time around to build the Iraqi army to protect the US constructed political architecture in Iraq, this time the US has tasked the job to building the Iraqi army to Iran.
The Iraqi offensive to take Tikrit is more or less completely an Iranian operation. The offensive began on March 1st involving 27,000 troops and militia who advanced in three columns. ISIS at most have up to 4500 personnel in Tikrit. Most of the attacking troops are Iraqi Shia militia organized, trained, armed and advised and mostly led by Iranian officers. Gen Qasim Solomani, Head of the IRQC Quds Force, personally supervised the operation. ISIS deployed many mines, remotely detonated bombs, oil wells set on fire and snipers to hinder the advance. This type of war is large-scale urban warfare, something the Iraqi Army is not ready for. Most of the militia have been trained to view this battle as a Sunni-Shi'ah war, ISIS train in a similar manner and that is why it is very likely an epic bloodbath made will take place in central Tikrit. Already there have been reports of militia groups massacre ring villages in Tikrit after being accused of supporting ISIS. Prime Minister Haider al-Abbadi said in a statement: "There is no neutrality in the battle against ISIS. If someone is being neutral with ISIS, then he is one of them." The people of Iraq suffered for a decade when the IS invaded the country. Then many in the north of Iraq suffered from the Malaki government who oppressed many of the Sunni to maintain his grip on power. The people suffered under ISIS and now once again sectarianism is being used to take back north Iraq.
Silencing Muslims in the UK
The UK Home Secretary, Teresa May, announced new measures as part of the Conservative party's new manifesto for the upcoming UK general election on May 7, 2015. She highlighted the UK will no longer tolerate the behaviour of Islamist extremists who "reject our values." She confirmed that anyone who does not adopt British values is an extremist. So separate seating for men and women, the Shariah, the establishment of the Khilafah "Caliphate" are all core Islamic beliefs which May declared ‘extremist.' This would mean anyone who speaks out against Britain's failed local and global policies and chooses a different way of life, would now be an extremist.
All of this confirms that Britain has failed to incorporate Muslims in the UK and the only way left was to force Britain's values upon them. Her claims to these ‘British' values are farcical as she broke them to protect them. Banning orders to protect free speech; enforce our beliefs to protect free choice; outlaw what people think to protect free thought! All of this is similar to Senator McCarthy, who throughout the 1950's contradicted US values in order to protect them.
Israel Spied on US
Soon after the US and other major powers entered negotiations last year to curtail Iran's nuclear program, senior White House officials learned Israel was spying on the closed-door talks.
The spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to penetrate the negotiations and then help build a case against the emerging terms of the deal, current and former US officials have now confirmed. In addition to eavesdropping, Israel acquired information from confidential US briefings, informants and diplomatic contacts in Europe. It was this information Netanyahu shared with US lawmakers and others to drain support from a high-stakes deal intended to limit Iran's nuclear program. One US official said, "It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy." The revelations by US NSA contractor, Edward Snowden on US espionage around the world, including its allies, makes this somewhat a refreshing development that the US is the victim for once.
Intelligence and espionage activities are similar to war, in the sense that they are just politics through other means. Just as military equipment and wars can yield results they can also lead to stalemates or even losses, espionage activities can also lead to results or failure. In the 21st century, espionage is as prominent a tool as it was during the cold war. This recent event reveals much about the inner workings and trends within the espionage community, and show that every nation is spying on other nations despite rhetoric to the contrary.
US troops to remain in Afghanistan
Speaking at a press conference on 24 March with the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, President Obama confirmed that the planned drawdown of US troops from Afghanistan this year has been suspended. There had been talk of "delaying" the drawdown for some time, and the issue finally came to a head this week with Ghani requesting the troop level be maintained through at least the end of 2015. President Obama insists that the plan to bring the current 9,800 troops down to simply an embassy-level by the end of 2016 remain in place, though he conceded that this was largely dependent on a negotiated settlement with the Taliban. Obama insisted that the specifics of the post-2015 drawdown are totally unknown, and will only be decided at a "later date."
After more than a decade of war, after using its proxies in the region to contain afg8ansdtan, the US has failed to control and secure afg8anstan, despite all its rhetoric to the contrary. The US supported government only maintain some control in central Kabul, much of the country after a decade of war is lawless with the Taliban still controlling much of the south of the country. The US trained Afghan forces are in no position to provide security to the country and like Iraq, Afghanistan is another failure in US regime change.
