A wave of violence Friday killed 52 people in Iraq, most of whom were kidnapped and shot dead with their corpses abandoned, in scenes harking back to Iraq’s sectarian war . . . More than 6,000 people have been killed this year, forcing Baghdad to appeal for international help in battling militancy just months before a general election, as official concern focuses on a resurgent Al-Qaeda emboldened by the war in neighbouring Syria.
52 dead in throwback to Iraq’s sectarian bloodshed | Bangkok Post: news – 11/30/2013.
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Oh my!
Will that do? Or should we take it up a notch?
Those bastards!
Raise the volume all you like, talk is talk and that’s all it is: in coming days, so one may suspect with reason, it will become near impossible for the morally pissed off and remote to be heard over or through the bodies piling up as they do when the cause has become nothing short of madness itself.
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STERLING HEIGHTS, MICH. — The Iraqi government is negotiating with the US government and BAE Systems to purchase 200 Bradley Fighting Vehicles sometime during the next 15 months, according to BAE officials.
The potential deal is expected sometime in 2014 and could come just before another expected agreement is reached with Saudi Arabia to buy Bradleys in 2015. The Iraq contract would provide recently upgraded M2A2 ODS (Operation Desert Storm) variants to the Baghdad government, the same vehicles that the US Army National Guard uses.
Iraq Requests 200 Bradley Fighting Vehicles; Saudi Deal in the Works | Defense News | defensenews.com – 8/28/2013.
Anyone see anything wrong with this picture?
Related: Iraq’s Months of Sectarian Violence May Lead to a Civil War | TIME.com – 10/1/2013; Iraq suffers ‘accelerated surge’ in sectarian violence – CNN.com 10/6/2013; from this place: Iraq – Back to the Dark Ages Today | BackChannels – 11/8/2013.
The search string “Iraq Sectarian Violence 2013” doesn’t produce news anymore: it produces a story line that starts with taking off the lid covering this simmering pot of scorpions, the seemingly unintended consequence of the 2003 invasion — ten years and eight months ago — and opens a long scene two or three (I don’t think three acts will do it for this part of the world) that is playing now and keeps cycling back to unconventional, sub-state, guerrilla style barbarism and sadism within the context of (yawn) Sunni-Shiite predispositions that have absolutely nothing to do — and they will have nothing to do — with tomorrow.
▶ Iraq 2013: Year of Carnage (Promo) – YouTube – 11/26/2013.
I’m sure my life in media’s fringe would be more exciting (and solvent) if I worked for RT!
However, it takes no genius to understand the astoundingly absurd structure of this portion of the Islamic Small Wars: Putin : cash / Assad : survival / Khamenei : ambition / Shiite : expansion and survival vs. Obama : Obama / Sunni Quasi-Democratic Kerfuffle (Syria) / Iraq : Sunni Reassertion with “gorious” Al Qaeda-type Edging.
Iraqis are suffering murder associated with or motivated by cultural and religious precepts that have absolutely nothing to do with the nature of God, humanity, or the universe — and for that, or just perhaps ignoring that, Iraq as a state is laying in large arms contracts.
Beware the next Gulf War.
All this other bloodletting: calisthenics.
Iraqis need an army of detectives, psychologists (cultural, ethnographic, linguistic, social), and wondrous poetic minds (preferably Jewish or, perhaps, Presbyterian — for the kindness thing), for every surprised and tortured corpse in this year’s Iraq body count, so far, of 6,000 (update that: 6010 or so as I type) was murdered by somebody else’s programming in the head, which programming always exists and persists as language foremost albeit molded by emotion best interpreted through the portal opened by the terms “civilizational narcissism” and “malignant narcissism”.
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Gun battles between Iraqi security forces and armed attackers have left at least ten dead and more than 40 injured in Kirkuk.
Suicide bombers and gunmen initially launched an assault on police intelligence headquarters in the northern Iraqi city.
A two-hour exchange of fire followed.
Co-ordinated attack in Kirkuk leaves several dead as violence in Iraq escalates | euronews, world news – with video – 12/5/2013
▶ Iraq violence producing a ‘damaged generation’ NewsNews – YouTube – Posted 12/5/2013; however: BBC News – Iraq violence producing a ‘damaged generation’ – 11/1/2013; related: BBC News – Iraq army asks tribe leaders to help end violence – 10/29/2013; US, Iraq agree more equipment needed to fight al Qaeda in Iraq – World News – 11/1/2013 (if a dateline is absent, the date posted here comes from the Google search engine).
At the state level, state forces consistently engage Al Qaeda when apparent, much to their credit, but the sub-state, transnational character of that insult to humanity knows its way around tanks and patrols. What’s needed would seem an extraordinary upgrade in intelligence concepts and methodology, including HUMINT.
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It was the second month in a row that the overall death toll declined, but the U.N. envoy to Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov, said he was “profoundly disturbed” by an uptick in “execution-style” killings. In three places around Baghdad last week, Iraqi police found bodies of 31 men, women and children who had been shot in the head.
World news digest: In Iraq, attacks raise fears of Sunni-Shiite violence – The Washington Post – 12/1/2013.
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By April 2013, simmering sectarian tensions boiled over and the country experienced its deadliest month in half a decade. If a day goes by in Iraq without scores being maimed or killed in car bombings outside schools, mosques or crowded markets, that day is the exception rather than the rule. Hundreds continue to die each month in such grisly attacks. What follows is an account of the violence that has gripped the country over the past year. There are no coffins draped in Stars and Stripes, but the cameras are rolling and the world is watching.
Iraq 2013: a year of carnage — About – 2013 attack data, month-by-month, day by day, to the end of November.
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RT: Score!
CNN: ?
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Syria has emerged as the new “Jihadist cause célèbre” across the Arab world, energizing that movement and providing a melting pot for foreign fighters from across the region to create personal ties that will underpin future terrorist networks.
By the measures of manpower, weaponry and territory, it can now be argued that the broader al Qaeda network is stronger than at any time since the peak of the Iraq insurgency half a decade ago, and perhaps even than at any time since 9/11.
Resurgent al Qaeda: new concern about U.S. homeland – CNN Security Clearance – CNN.com Blogs – 12/2/2013.
Maybe CNN will focus on Iraq a little more tomorrow.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
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