by Lordo » Sat Feb 21, 2015 3:09 pm
just in case you missed this.
It took the fall of Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, for Western elites to finally begin to understand what many of us saw firsthand in the years since 2003:
The Iraqi government is hopelessly sectarian, corrupt, and generally unfit to govern what could be one of the world’s most prosperous nations.Washington’s response to the Islamic State’s (IS) advance, however, has been disgraceful: The United States is now acting as the air force, the armory, and the diplomatic cover for Iraqi militias that are committing some of the worst human rights abuses on the planet. These are “allies” that are actually beholden to our strategic foe, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and which often resort to the same vile tactics as the Islamic State itself.
Perhaps the most vivid and disturbing evidence that the Iraqi government simply does not share America’s core values emerged on Feb. 6. In a grainy video posted on YouTube, a three-minute horror show plays out on the front lines somewhere in Iraq. Iraqi military officers and presumably Shiite militiamen — dressed in black, skull-adorned “Sons of Anarchy” shirts — crowd an ambulance emblazoned with the Iraqi state seal. Inside, a blindfolded and hog-tied man in military fatigues pleads for mercy as the Iraqi vigilantes beat him over the head, taunting him with expletives.
“We will f— your sisters,” they shout.
“No, God,” the prisoner weeps.
One of the vigilantes picks up a metal toolbox and slams it down on the crying man, as others enter the ambulance to beat and kick the helpless prisoner. A minute into the video, the man is dragged out of the ambulance and onto the ground, still blindfolded, arms bound behind his back. A dozen fighters surround him and begin kicking him until he lies motionless, blood dripping from his head. With some yelling “enough,” a man in camouflaged trousers walks up to the prisoner and beats him over the head repeatedly with a sandal, a gesture of monumental insult. Another man, also in camouflaged trousers, leaps up twice and lands with his full weight on the detainee’s skull. A third man, in full military uniform, kicks and punches the haemorrhaging man, whose blood spills across the sand below.
In the final horrific minute, the vigilantes carry the man a few feet away and drop him to the ground. Several men armed with U.S.-supplied M4 rifles then empty several magazines — perhaps more than 100 rounds — into the man.
america go home.