Last week, on August 3, Iraqi Yazidis marked a bitter anniversary. Two years ago, ISIS fighters drove off Kurdish Peshmerga militiamen defending the Yazidi town of Sinjar and took control. The ISIS force quickly killed 2,000 Yazidi men. All told ISIS fighters would massacre some 5,000 Yazidi men in the Sinjar region. A systematic campaign […]
Iraq
Posted inOp-Eds
Islamic State utilizing human shields
In mid-May, Iraqi officials and U.S. advisers expressed deep concern that Islamic State fighters defending the city of Fallujah would employ “human shields.” On May 31, Islamic State fighters began using human shields — hostages — to blunt an Iraqi Army attack in Fallujah’s southern neighborhoods. Fox News reported that the shields consisted of “several […]
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U.S. troops continuing buildup in Iraq
The emerging policy shaping the Obama Administration’s slow war against ISIS stirs very bad memories for the U.S. military — Vietnam memories. That policy is “gradual escalation.” The Obama Administration does not use the term, but that is what we witness. Gradual escalation proved to be the strategic curse of the Johnson Administration, an error […]
Posted inNation / World, sj-web
Iraq: U.S. to deploy 200 more troops and Apache helicopters
BAGHDAD — The U.S. has agreed to deploy more than 200 additional troops to Iraq and to send Apache helicopters for the first time into the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq, the first major increase in U.S. forces in nearly a year, U.S. defense officials said Monday. The uptick in American fighting […]
Posted inNation / World, sj-web
U.S. captures ISIS top chemical weapons engineer
BAGHDAD — U.S. special forces captured the head of the Islamic State group’s unit trying to develop chemical weapons in a raid last month in northern Iraq, two senior Iraqi intelligence officials told the Associated Press, the first known major success of Washington’s more aggressive policy of pursuing the jihadis on the ground. The Obama […]
Posted inMaine
Poliquin, Collins and King take differing views on blocking Syrian refugees
A coalition of Maine immigrants is urging Maine’s 2nd District congressman and Republican Gov. Paul LePage to “check their facts” and reconsider their support for efforts to block Syrian and Iraqi refugees from entering the U.S. In a statement issued earlier this week, the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition said it was deeply saddened by the […]
Posted inNation / World, sj-web
U.S. soldier killed in raid to free hostages from Islamic State
American and Kurdish commandos raided an Islamic State prison compound in northern Iraq, freeing at least 70 Kurdish captives and leaving one U.S. service member dead, sources said Thursday. It marks the first time a U.S. military member has been killed in a combat situation in Iraq since the United States began attacks against the […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Creating Desert Storm’s effective coalition
Twenty-five years have passed since Aug. 2, 1990, the day Saddam Hussein’s forces invaded Kuwait. Saddam stunned the world. Oil prices skyrocketed, economies rich and poor reeled. The headlines and commentariat fret were fearful, the excuses tendered by Saddam’s apologists intellectually boggling and morally bankrupt. Saddam expected U.S. and Saudi opposition, but suddenly he faced […]
Posted inOp-Eds
New strategy necessary for Iraq and Syria
WASHINGTON — It is time for a new strategy in Iraq and Syria. It begins by admitting that the old borders are gone, that a unified Syria or Iraq will never be reconstituted, that the Sykes-Picot map is defunct. We may not want to enunciate that policy officially. After all, it does contradict the principle […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Cal Thomas: Lives lost in Ramadi all in vain?
“…that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain…” — Abraham Lincoln, the Gettysburg Address While the U.S. military in recent years has had a difficult time winning wars, it has had an easier time surrendering to political correctness and social experimentation. Arguments against gays in the military were rejected, […]