Mosul, 18 maanden na 'de bevrijding'

Door recente droogte is Mosul weer onder de aandacht gekomen van de internationale media, daar die droogte ervoor zorgde dat een oude ruïne bloot kwam te liggen van een 3.400 jaar oud paleis.

De aandacht van de reguliere westerse media voor Mosul was tijdens 'de bevrijding' van die stad vooral wat het VS leger en het Iraakse bewind daarover te zeggen hadden. Zo was Hans Jaap Melissen* één van de 'journalisten' die embedded waren bij de VS/Irak coalitie en die verboden werd de stad in te gaan...... Deze zogenaamde oorlogscorrespondenten lepelden braaf op wat hen was voorgekauwd door de propaganda machine van die coalitie......

Met name 'de bevrijding' van West-Mosul heeft een enorm aantal doden gekost en waarbij de historische binnenstad werd vernietigd door bombardementen van de VS...... Diverse mensenrechtenorganisaties en zelfs de VN hebben de VS destijds gesmeekt te stoppen met die bombardementen, daar de bewoners van de oude stad zo hutjemutje op elkaar woonden..... (de VS trok zich daar niets van aan....) Dit was dan ook de oorzaak voor het enorme aantal omgekomen burgers bij die bombardementen.......

Na 'de bevrijding' van Mosul heeft het Iraakse leger niet gepoogd slachtoffers te bergen, nee men koos ervoor de ruïnes te bulldozeren, met de slachtoffers nog onder het puin. Er moeten tienduizenden burgers zijn omgekomen (men houdt het officieel op het ongeloofwaardig aantal van 10.000; zie de links onder het hieronder opgenomen artikel), echter door het bulldozeren van de ruïnes zullen we nooit weten hoeveel slachtoffers terreurentiteit VS heeft gemaakt met haar terreurbombardementen.....

Intussen leven de teruggekeerde inwoners nog steeds tussen ruïnes en is er een gebrek aan zaken als sanitaire voorzieningen waardoor ziekten de kop opsteken, die de zo geplaagde bevolking nog verder in de ellende storten......

In het hieronder opgenomen artikel gaat de schrijver, T.J. Coles dieper in op deze zaak, o.a. met het noemen van het enorme aantal bommen dat de VS op Irak en Syrië heeft doen neerkomen, waarvan een aanzienlijk deel op Mosul (en later op Raqqa in Syrië), voorts stelt hij nogmaals dat de VS de hoofdverantwoordelijke is voor het ontstaan van IS, de terreurgroep aan wie de VS zelf meermaals wapens en ander militair tuig heeft geleverd.... (zie ook daarvoor weer de links onder het hieronder opgenomen artikel) Het artikel van Coles werd gisteren gepubliceerd op CounterPunch:

Life Among the Rubble: Mosul 18 Months after “Liberation”

by T.J. COLES

Photograph Source: Mstyslav Chernov – CC BY-SA 4.0

Recent news of drought has brought Mosul, Iraq, to the attention of Western media; for the drought has led to the discovery of ancient ruins of archaeological significance. But let’s not forget the other news: the UN report on returnees. The refugees are returning to the carnage wrought upon the city by the US and its allies under the pretext of “liberating” it from Daesh: carnage that transformed much of the city to modern ruins.

ANCIENT RUINS DISCOVERED

Mosul is a city in Iraqi Kurdistan with a population of 1.3 million; 60% of whom are Sunni Arabs, around 25% of whom are Kurds. Ongoing drought has brought Mosul to the attention of Western media, as receding water levels at Kemune reservoir reveals the ruin of a 3,400 year-old palace. Researchers from the University of Tübingen and the Kurdistan Archaeology Organization reckon that the palace was part of the Mittani Empire (circa 1450-1350 BCE). According to onearchaeological history, “[Mittani’s] end as independent realm can be dated to the time of Hittite king Šuppiluliuma I in the middle of the 14th century BC.”

Echoes of the conquests and rivalry of the ancient past haunt both recent history and the present. The so-called Mosul Question was a territorial dispute in the early-20th century between the British and Ottoman empires, with both parties wanting a share of the region’s oil. In the latter-part of the 20th century, Iraq’s one-time US-British-backed dictator Saddam Hussein launched the Anfal genocide against Kurds who have historic and ongoing links to the region. A couple of years ago, the US-approved leaders of the central Iraqi government and the regional Kurdish authorities squabbled over control of Mosul, anticipating that Daesh would be defeated.

But the discovery of ancient Mittani ruins coincides with darker news. A recent report by the UN International Organization for Migration documents the effects of the US-led coalition bombardment of the city. It begins: “Entire neighborhoods have not yet been rebuilt, basic services are insufficient in some areas, and poor sanitation is contributing to serious public health problems and the spread of diseases. Furthermore,” the report continues, “reports of harassment and violence against civilians by state as well as non-state actors are undermining efforts to build trust in state institutions and authorities.” Western-led humanitarian intervention is the price that Iraqis pay for being an oil-rich, militarily vulnerable nation.

MAKING ENEMIES

Daesh (a.k.a., Islamic State) was largely the by-product of US-British savagery in Iraq. Having left the nation politically and infrastructurally decimated by decades of unprecedented sanctions, military occupation, and divide-and-conquer strategizing, the more extreme Islamic elements in Iraq—backed by foreign powers for their own geostrategic interests—sprouted from fertile ground. The US Army’s Strategic Studies Institute launched an unusually scathing attack on the Bush II administration’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and how it and the succeeding Obama administration handled the occupation. Ignoring moral questions and focusing solely on tactics, as well as blaming the US-backed politician Ahmed Chalabi, the report (worth quoting at length) says that the growth of the Islamic State Organization (ISO):

“did not occur in a vacuum … The ISO would not exist, or at this level of severity at least, had the ruling Shia elements in Iraq following the USG [US Government] occupation made the essential, painful choices required to pursue a new social compact with the nation’s Sunni population. Or, had the USG not operationalized Ahmad Chalabi’s long-dreamt of goal of imposing a punitive de-Ba’athification,”

meaning the dismantling of Iraq’s political, military, and policing infrastructure. It goes on:

“Or, had the USG not imposed the disastrous policy of dissolving the Iraqi armed forces and security forces, numbering in the hundreds of thousands; or had been prepared for a Sunni insurgency; or had developed a realistic post-occupation, longer-term stabilization policy based in a keen and learned awareness that the USG’s decapitation, occupation, and empowerment of Iraq’s Shia would profoundly destabilize an existing equilibrium in Iraq; or understood that the decapitation of the Iraqi regime would profoundly alter the terms of the broader Sunni-Shia rivalry inaugurated by the emergence of a Shia revolutionary State in 1979, and thereby further energizing proponents and antagonists who view this schism as a difference so wide as that between God and the Devil; or, finally, had the USG not first gone into Iraq the wrong way, and later repeated the error by disengaging from Iraq the wrong way.”

Even though US-British violence created Daesh, the US-British answer to defeating Daesh was more violence.

AIR AND GROUND WAR

In June 2014, Daesh took Mosul, triggering a refugee flight of half a million. According to the timeline, by September ten Arab majority states announced their participation in the US-led anti-Daesh coalition. Britain started bombing Iraq, again, on September 30th with Paveway IV and Brimstone missiles. As well as using Reaper drones in its anti-Daesh operations, the UK supplied 275 ground troops. By the end of the destruction of Mosul, the UK had 600 personnel on the ground in Iraq. Maj. Gen. Rupert Jones boasted that “the UK was the second biggest contributor from a military perspective in the campaign.” According to Forces.Net, the British Army trained 75,000 Iraqi military personnel at Camp Taji and other bases. Many of those who fought in Mosul committed war crimes, including torturing and murdering alleged Daesh members. In particular, the US-trained 16th Division executed suspects, including children.

These atrocities pale in comparison to the devastation of the aerial bombardments.

In 2016, the US-led coalition dropped 30,743 bombs on Iraq and Syria. In 2017, it dropped 39,577. In 2018, the coalition dropped over 6,800 bombs. In February 2018, Pehr Lodhammar of the UN Mine Action Service reported that the “liberation” of Mosul had left 11 million tonnes of debris, burying two-thirds of the unexploded bombs (UXB). The anti-mine, anti-UXB operations will take the UN a decade to complete; assuming that their budget isn’t reduced. It took the agency 12 months to remove 25,000 explosive remnants in Mosul alone. The BBC reported that UK Ministry of Defence bombs “malfunctioned and strayed off target” sometimes by “hundreds of metres,” adding to the civilian death toll which reached up to 10,000; 11,000, according to the same Forces.Net source noted above. Mosul resident and civilian, Abdel Rahman Ali, lost five children to the blitz. “Nobody destroyed us except the coalition,” he told the BBC.

In its written evidence to the British government, Amnesty International says: “Our field research constitutes prima facieevidence that Coalition strikes, which killed and injured civilians in Syria and Iraq, violated International Humanitarian Law (IHL).” Criticizing what it calls a “crisis in accountability,” Save the Children’s written evidence notes that $700 million-worth of damage was wrought on each of Mosul’s 54 residential districts. Save the Children concludes: “In Mosul, the UN Security Council also found that at least 4200 civilians were killed by EWIPA [explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas] between October 2016 and July 2017. Research undertaken by the UN suggests that in such settings, over 90 percent of the casualties are civilians.”

IN CONCLUSION

Instead of being decapitated and immolated by Daesh, thousands of inhabitants of Mosul were blown to pieces and incinerated by US-British bombs. UN International Organization for Migration’s recent report notes that, at its peak, nearly one million residents fled the city. By now, 350,000 or so remain “internally displaced persons” (IDPs). “Many IDPs are unable to return because their houses have been destroyed, either by [Daesh] or during the battle, and renting or buying new property is prohibitively expensive.” They are some of the millions of refugees generated by the US-British imperial war machine. Mosul is a small part of a much larger tragedy: one of US global hegemony in the age of Full Spectrum Dominance.

More articles by: T.J. COLES

Dr. T. J. Coles is director of the Plymouth Institute for Peace Research and the author of several books, including Voices for Peace (with Noam Chomsky and others) and the forthcoming Fire and Fury: How the US Isolates North Korea, Encircles China and Risks Nuclear War in Asia (both Clairview Books).

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Nog even over de gifgasaanvallen in de 80er jaren van de vorige eeuw door Saddam Hoessein: zakenman van Anraat werd veroordeeld voor het leveren van grondstoffen voor dat gifgas, echter zijne VVD kwaadaardigheid Bolkestein, die destijds tegen advies van deskundigen in, toestemming gaf voor de export van die grondstoffen, een oorlogsmisdaad van formaat, waarvoor deze VVD ploert nooit werd vervolgd......

* Melissen blaast nu weer regelmatig op Radio1 over zijn bezoeken aan Syrië, waar deze plork eerder embedded was bij een terreurorganisatie, die hij loofde als gematigde oppositie, maar die later door de mand vielen als een afschuwelijke terreurorganisatie....... Onbegrijpelijk dat er nog iemand is die deze zakkenwasser serieus neemt..... (voor meer berichten met Melissen, klik op het label met zijn naam, direct onder dit bericht)

Zie ook:
'Misvormde kinderen in Irak door gebruik van verarmd uranium in VS munitie'

'9/11 voorkennis verzwegen in officiële rapporten' (deze link daar de illegale oorlog van de VS tegen Afghanistan, in feite de voorloper is van die tegen Irak; zie ook de andere links in dat bericht naar 9/11)

'The massacre of Mosul: 40,000 feared dead in battle to take back city from Isis as scale of civilian casualties revealed'

'Iraakse strijdmacht gaf grif toe dat tot hun orders voor West-Mosul ook het vermoorden van vrouwen en kinderen behoorde........'

'CIA valt nogmaals door de mand als wapenleverancier van IS.......' (zie ook de links in dat bericht over VS wapenleveranties en training van terreurgroepen >> je gelooft je ogen niet...)

'Kinderen in Irak vermoord middels VS terreur.......'

'Mosul: minstens 40.000 gedode burgers in 9 maanden tijd, ofwel VS terreur op grote schaal.....'

'Mosul, stad van lijken: vele honderden doden onder het puin'

'Mosul verwoest door VS.........'

'Mosul, het verschil in berichtgeving vergeleken met de bevrijding van Oost-Aleppo...........'

'Raqqa, een strijd als om West-Mosul, echter met geheel andere media aandacht..........'

'Bombarderen was een probleem in Mosul, maar niet bij het nieuwe Iraakse/VS offensief.......'

'Mosul 'zal met precisie ontdaan worden van de terroristen, inclusief een minimum aan burgerslachtoffers.......'' (een ongelofelijk en ongeloofwaardige belofte....)

'VS vermoordde met bombardementen in augustus 433 burgers in Raqqa.......... Westerse media alweer stil.......'

'Hennis-Plasschaert hoopte nog zo, dat IS de bevolking van Mosul niet als schild zou gebruiken........'

'Honderden burgerslachtoffers in Mosul door VS bombardementen, ofwel grootschalige terreur......'

'Mass Media Siege: Comparing Coverage Of Mosul and Aleppo' (met mogelijkheid tot vertaling)

'After Mosul’s “Liberation,” Horror of US Siege Continues to Unfold' (met mogelijkheid tot vertaling)

'Mosul (bijna) bevrijd: 'een positief verslag' van de BBC'

'Mosul 'bevrijd' en BBC anti-Assad propaganda..........'

'Mosul is 'bevrijd' zo stelt de VS, daar zijn echter wel wat aanmerkingen op te maken.........'

Arabieren en Afghanen zijn bepaald niet bedroefd om de dood van McCain......

In een opiniestuk van As’ad AbuKhalil in Consortium News (door mij overgenomen van Anti-Media), beschrijft hij hoe anders arabieren en een volk als de Afghanen kijken naar de dood van oorlogsmisdadiger, oorlogshitser en grootlobbyist van het militair-industrieel complex McCain.

In een voorbeeld geeft hij aan hoe verschillend alleen al een uitspraak van McCain wordt geïnterpreteerd door westerlingen of arabieren. Een vrouw in een zaal waar hij vanwege z'n presidentscampagne van 2008 sprak, kreeg van McCain als reactie op haar uitlating dat Obama een arabier is, dat Obama geen arabier is, hij is een nette familieman. Westerse media jubelden 't uit, wat een fantastische man die McCain, immers hij zou als republikein Obama hebben verdedigd...... 

Deze ontkenning van McCain zal iemand die goed geïnformeerd is over WOII, doen denken aan ontkenningen in en na de oorlog, de ontkenning dat iemand geen fanatieke nazi kan/kon zijn, daar hij een 'nette familieman' was...... Zoals men na de oorlog maar al te vaak ontdekte van fanatieke psychopathische nazi's die in concentratiekampen tekeergingen, zoals kampcommandanten, die thuis de brave huisvader uithingen.... 

Hoe een arabier over deze uitspraak zal oordelen is wel duidelijk, hij of zij ziet in de uitspraak van McCain een bevooroordeelde westerse klootzak, die stelt dat een arabier geen nette persoon kan zijn........

Uiteraard zien arabieren McCain zoals hij was, een smerige oorlogsmisdadiger door wie tienduizenden mensen om het leven zijn gekomen, zo stond de schoft ook achter de illegale oorlog tegen Irak (intussen meer dan 1,5 miljoen doden...), sterker nog, daar was hij al meteen na 9/11 voorstander van, zoals hij ook voorstander was van de illegale oorlog tegen Syrië (al vanaf 2006 voorbereid door de VS, natuurlijk met hulp van McCain....), verder was hij voor een oorlog tegen Iran..... 

Waarbij dit alles nog opgeteld moet worden, dat hij terreurstaat Israël zwaar steunde en alle bloedvergieten door die fascistische apartheidsstaat niet eens bekritiseerde, neem het grote aantal moorden begaan door Israëlische scherpschutters, die sinds maart dit jaar aan de grens met de Gazastrook een groot aantal ongewapende, vreedzaam demonstrerende Palestijnen hebben doodgeschoten*, terwijl ze zich NB op 'Palestijns grondgebied' bevonden...... Daarbij vermoordden deze psychopaten zelfs kinderen, invaliden, duidelijk herkenbare journalisten en als zodanig herkenbare medisch hulpverleners...... McCain was veel eerder zelfs tegen de onderhandelingen van Israël met Yasser Arafat (PLO)........

Lees het uitstekende stuk van AbuKhalil voor veel meer duidelijkheid (zo vertelt hij dat de directeur van Human Rights Watch een lovend stuk over McCain schreef....), voorts zie de berichten over McCain onder de links, die weer onderaan in dit bericht terug zijn te vinden:

Being on the deadly end of his policies, many Arabs view John McCain in a very different way than the U.S. mass media has presented him.

The destruction of Mosul. (Wikimedia Commons)

(CN Op-ed) — It is not unusual that Arabs and Americans look at the same event from divergent lenses. Take, for instance, a scene from John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign when he told  a woman in the audience who had called Obama an Arab: “No, Ma`am. He is not an Arab. He’s a decent family man.”

That brief exchange has been tweeted and retweeted thousands of time in the last few days following McCain’s death. It has been promoted by people in mainstream media (and think tanks and academia) as evidence of the civility, “classiness”, and lack of prejudice of McCain.  Yet, Arabs saw something entirely different in that exchange.  They saw bigotry from McCain, who was denying that Obama was Arab in the same way one denies that someone is a Nazi.  He clearly implied that an Arab can’t be a decent family man.  In fact, Gen. Colin Powell was the only U.S. politician who pointed this out at the time.  But a new image of McCain is being formulated before our eyes.

For Arabs in the Middle East and in the U.S., the view of McCain does not conform to the hagiography of U.S. media.  People in the region remember well that McCain supported every U.S. and Israeli war, invasion, or attack against any Arab target. They remember that he was a major proponent of invading Iraq and argued for the expansion of U.S. wars into Iran, Libya and Syria in the wake of Sep. 11.

While the Washington director of Human Rights Watch was writing tributes to McCain, Arabs were remembering him as a champion of Middle East dictators (except those on bad terms with the U.S. and Israel.) It was not a coincidence that both the official Saudi regime lobby in DC and AIPAC promptly released emotional eulogies for McCain. The English-language, Arab Times (a mouthpiece of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman) dedicated a special issue to him.

McCain never wavered in his conformity with AIPAC’s agenda.  He never had disagreements with the Israeli government except in outbidding them in his hostility to Palestinian rights and the usefulness of negotiations with Arabs.

Yet in the context of Washington politics, McCain was not regarded as the anti-Arab/anti-Muslim that he was, perhaps because there were Arabs and Muslims that he approved of. He championed, for instance, Iraqi opposition figure Ahmad Chalabi (a key fabricator in the buildup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq) and the Afghan Muhajedeen. He was very close to Arab despots and approved arms sales to their repressive armies and intelligence apparatuses. He spoke of democracy but in the way that invading and colonizing states glorify “freedom” to justify conquest.

McCain was a champion of Syrian rebels and pictures of him with Jihadi extremists (in Libya and in Syria) were circulated by Arabs on social media in the last week. while the Washington press corps and Human Rights Watch were paying tribute him as “a defender of democracy.”

Schooled by Scoop

McCain was mentored on the Middle East, according to his biographies, by Henry “Scoop” Jackson, who for years was the dean of ardent Zionists in the U.S. Congress. Those were in the days when a few members—mostly Republicans—dared to challenge AIPAC. McCain’s first trip to Israel was a member of a delegation led by Jackson when McCain was the Navy’s liaison to the Senate.  Typically, like all U.S. politicians who visit Israel, McCain became convinced by  the view from Israeli military helicopters of the vulnerability of “little Israel” and that Israel needed to continue to occupy, invade, attack and assassinate.

Self-propelled howitzers of the Gaddafi forces, destroyed by French Rafale airplanes at the west-southern outskirts of Benghazi, Libya, in March 2011 in another war backed by McCain. (Wikimedia Commons)

In Congress, McCain managed to become associated with AIPAC’s agenda more than his colleagues. He always argued for more support for Israel. And when Israel and the U.S. both accepted negotiations with Yasser Arafat, he remained skeptical, raising doubts about the intentions of the Palestinians.

After his election to Congress, McCain quickly set himself up as an expert on defense and foreign policy. His first foreign policy posture in Congress was in 1983, when he opposed U.S. intervention in Lebanon, but not on humanitarian grounds. Instead he basically argued that far more force was needed against Syria and its allies in Lebanon. This became a pattern for the Vietnam veteran: that more force is always needed wherever U.S. troops are deployed. Some attribute the “surge” to him, as if the surge really salvaged American fortunes in Iraq.

In an article written during his 2008 presidential campaign, The New York Times talked about the McCain Doctrine and referred to his reaction to Sep. 11, when he argued for war on Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan.  For McCain, war was the only recourse for dealing with foes of the U.S. and Israel. And war was not effective for McCain without massive force and heavy troop deployments.

The Senator and the Ikhwan

McCain was a champion of the Muslim Brotherhood (Jam’iyat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin), even if that put him at odds with Gulf rulers who he also supported.  This position may seem uncharacteristic given his longstanding fealty to AIPAC and its agenda, and his general unfriendliness to Arabs and Muslims. But McCain may have undertaken this role at the behest of AIPAC.

Homs, Syria

In the aftermath of the Arab uprisings, McCain negotiated with leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt.  It was after a series of visits from leaders of those movements to Washington that they basically reversed their traditional position on Israel. Leaders of An-Nahda rescinded their plan to criminalize normalization with Israel, while leaders of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood pledged commitment to the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. 

Similarly, the stance of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood abandoned any hostility toward Israel and even toward its occupation of the Golan heights.  McCain’s confidence in the ability of the Ikhwan to deliver the interests of Israel and U.S., led him to oppose Sisi’s coup as he trusted that Mohammed Morsi would be able to guard U.S. interests and the interests of the Egyptian-Israeli military-intelligence alliance.

McCain became, in this manner, an unabashed champion of what is called in the West (and in the Gulf regimes’ media) the “Syrian revolution”.  He also trusted the Islamists in the “revolution” and hoped that Israeli interests would be served by a change of regime that would be aligned with the U.S. and Israel. The risk of promoting Jihadi Islamist rebels was, for McCain and the Israeli lobby, worth the effort.  For that, McCain’s death was mourned by leaders of the “liberal” exile opposition and by Jihadis of the Syrian rebels, including Huthaifah `Azzam, the son of `Abdullah `Azzam (the mentor of Usamah bin Laden). (Huthaifah `Azzam later deleted his post after I drew attention to it).

The career of McCain intersected with the rise of AIPAC on Capitol Hill.  He also benefited from the Reagan and Bush Doctrines, both of which relied on the use of massive force against the enemies of U.S. and Israel.

The assessment of McCain can’t hope to achieve a measure of balance given the adulation by mainstream media for a man whose political sins were always instantly forgotten.  His reference to Vietnamese by a pejorative term was seen as an example of his frank talk—not of his prejudice. His involvement with Charles Keating was seen as an example of a minor error and not of the corruption of an influential senator.  His endorsement of war, the Israeli occupation, and his embrace of tyrants (especially in the Gulf and North Africa) have not been perceived as inconsistent with the media’s image of a champion of human rights.

In the end, John McCain was a major face of American empire, just as were two people who attended his funeral–Obama and Bush –and one who did not, Trump.

By As’ad AbuKhalil / Republished with permission / Consortium News / Report a typo

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* Het totale aantal doden sinds maart dit jaar, Palestijnse mensen die door 'heldhaftige scherpschutters werden vermoord) lag op 13 augustus jl. op 168 waaronder 23 kinderen..... Het aantal gewonden (van licht- tot zwaargewond) lag op meer dan 20.000..... (waarbij 68 Palestijnen een amputatie moesten ondergaan...)

Zie ook:
'McCain terminaal ziek: vier als het zover is zijn dood luidruchtig, niets om je voor te schamen'

'McCain oorlogsmisdadiger >> massaal ten onrechte geëerd na z'n dood'

'John McCaine: politieke helden zijn op den duur meestal teleurstellend'

'Begrafenis McCain: onbeschaamde verering van een massamoordenaar en oorlogshitser'