Curious how and why the US is "boosting" US GDP by selling over $4 billion worth of weapons to Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia [7], ostensibly to provide these countries with protection against ISIS (the same ISIS, incidentally, which a leaked document last week [8]admitted had been effectively created by the US)? Simple: by first "losing" a billion dollars worth of Humvees so that, drumroll, ISIS can be the best-armed "terrorist" force in the middle east, a force whose mere presence will demand billions in subsequent military orders from the US military-industrial complex by all those who are threatened by ISIS.
AFP reports [9]that Iraqi security forces lost 2,300 Humvee armored vehicles when ISIS overran the northern city of Mosul, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Sunday.
"In the collapse of Mosul, we lost a lot of weapons," Abadi said in an interview with Iraqiya state TV. "We lost 2,300 Humvees in Mosul alone."
While the exact price of the vehicles varies depending on how they are armored and equipped, it is clearly a hugely expensive loss that has boosted ISIS's capabilities.
Last year, the State Department approved a possible sale to Iraq of 1,000 Humvees with increased armor, machineguns, grenade launchers, other gear and support that was estimated to cost $579 million.
It is therefore safe to say that 2,300 Humvees would be worth a little over $1 billion: a great investment considering now the US can sell over $4 billion in weapons to countries "terrorized" by those same weapons!
As AFP reminds us, clashes began in Mosul, Iraq's second city, late on June 9, 2014, and Iraqi forces lost it the following day to ISIS, which spearheaded an offensive that overran much of the country's Sunni Arab heartland.
It was as if ISIS came out of nowhere, and nobody - certainly not the infamous NSA that knows everything that happens in the US but "nothing" of what goes on in the world - had a clue. Not one person.
The militants gained ample arms, ammunition and other equipment when multiple Iraqi divisions fell apart in the country's north, abandoning gear and shedding uniforms in their haste to flee.
Iraqi security forces backed by Shiite militias have regained significant ground from ISIS in Diyala and Salaheddin provinces north of Baghdad.
But that momentum was slashed in mid-May when ISIS overran Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, west of Baghdad, where Iraqi forces had held out against militants for more than a year.
Best of all, ISIS is literally the gift that will keep on giving: as the CIA director said earlier today "This is going to be a long fight [10]."
And if the fight ever seems like it is about to end, well... the US will just "give" ISIS another 2,300 Humvess.
