Syria and Iraq news

12-28-18     

    in April 2018 Trump added that the US had gotten “nothing out of $7 trillion [spent] in the Middle East over the last 17 years.”  …“Russia and the West are fighting to decide whether Syria will be run by Sunni Islamists backed by Saudi Arabia or Shiite Islamists backed by Iran,” warns Daniel Greenfield.  Deciding whether to support Sunni or Shiite Muslims in a holy war is a casus belli devoid of any Just War morality.

  “This insane civil war has burned up countless lives, not to mention plenty of dollars, rubles, euros and pounds.  The only certain winners of this war, once the dust has settled, will chant ‘Allahu Akbar’ and call for the death of infidels.”  https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272367/syria-was-never-just-war-jules-gomes

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12-30-18     Residents of Mosul said they are increasingly facing the same corruption that bedeviled their city in the run-up to the Islamic State’s blitzkrieg rise to power in 2014. Government soldiers and local militia groups that run the city routinely commit human rights violations, including racketeering, unjust imprisonment and extortion....

Authorities routinely arrest people with little evidence other than their names matching those on a list of fugitives.  Many Mosul residents avoid passing checkpoints out of fear that their names will appear on such lists in error.

About 350,000 people have the same names on a list of 60,000 terrorists, said Ahmed al-Jubori, a member of the Iraqi parliament representing Mosul and a member of Civilized Alliance (Tamadon), a coalition of left-leaning political parties.  https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/dec/30/mosul-iraq-corruption-rises-after-isis-fall/