Last night we nearly exploded when the adminstration tried to explain how the 130 Marines [7](military advisers) were non-combat troop 'boots-on-the-ground' in Iraq. Today, the State Department, Pentagon, and White House are all out with mind-numbing propaganda to reassure an anxious America that a planned rescue mission of 'thousands' of Yezidi will be entirely supported by non-combat troops.
As Reuters reports, the headlines are mind-numbing:
State Department:
- *`IT'S A VERY DIRE HUMANITARIAN SITUATION ON THE MOUNTAIN': HARF
Pentagon:
- *U.S. GROUND FORCES WILL NOT BE IN COMBAT ROLE IN IRAQ: RHODES
White House:
- WHITE HOUSE SAYS U.S. HAS NOT MADE DECISIONS ABOUT HOW TO CARRY OUT RESCUE MISSION IN NORTHERN IRAQ, WANTS OPTIONS TO GET STRANDED IRAQIS TO SAFER PLACE
- OBAMA HAS RULED OUT USING U.S. GROUND FORCES IN COMBAT IN IRAQ, BUT THERE ARE OTHER WAYS U.S. CAN SUPPORT BRINGING IRAQIS TO SAFE PLACE -WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN
- WHITE HOUSE CONSIDERING RANGE OF OPTIONS INCLUDING SAFE CORRIDORS AND AIRLIFTS TO MOVE STRANDED IRAQIS
But perhaps even the White House knows we are not all that dumb...
- WHITE HOUSE DECLINES TO RULE OUT POSSIBILITY OF U.S. FORCES ON THE GROUND IN IRAQ IN HUMANITARIAN ROLE.
Because it seems like so far the US has made no difference:
- *ISLAMIC MILITANTS STILL CONTROL SINJAR CITY, HIKMAT SAYS
* * *
Just be honest - it's about the oil [8](not a few thousand 'alleged devil-worshippers') [9] and these are full-fledged hard-to-the-core US Marines and SpecOps personnel...
As Dmirty Orlov wrote recently: [10]
If you've been paying attention to the news, the US is bombing Iraq again, this time to avert a humanitarian crisis: a group of Yezedis is stranded on top of a mountain, driven there by those Daashing lads from the Islamic State (the Arabic name for them is “Daash”).
Now, if your reaction on hearing these news was “Who the heck are the Yezedis?” then you are in good company. This is a very obscure, fairly small, incredibly ancient cult, and few people have heard of them. I have, and so my reaction was “Oh no, they are killing the devil worshipers!”
...
The Yezidis are quite secretive about their very complicated religion and its myriad compulsive rituals and superstitions, but it is known that they worship a deity known as the Peacock Angel, which, correctly or incorrectly, has been interpreted to be Satan. Consequently, the Yezidis have been persecuted as devil worshipers with gruesome consistency. There is no doubt that the boys from the Islamic State consider them to be the worst kind of heathen, and, since their policy is to behead first and ask questions later, there is little chance that they can be shifted from this position. Spin it any way you like, but everyone in the region knows this group as “the Yezedi devil-worshipers.”
Preventing genocide and ethnic cleansing is generally considered a pretty good reason to start a fight. But the Obama administration seems quite selective in this regard.
