Trump Merely Carrying Out Obama's Bombing Policy in Mosul, Iraq

It should come as no surprise to deluded supporters of the Democratic Party, yet it would if they'd ever let the facts into their brains (which they won't), but Trump is just continuing Obama's bombing policy in Mosul, a policy that slaughters dozens or more civilians for each ISIS sniper "taken out" (as U.S. slang for kill has it).

Anand Gopal of The Nation Institute (a project of The Nation magazine) let this particular cat out of the bag in an interview on Democracy Now! Gopal had recently returned from iraq.

Here is a key quote from Gopal:

"What Trump has been doing in Iraq is essentially carrying out Obama's policy. It seems from here like it's an escalation but it's actually not an escalation....Obama actually relaxed the rules of engagement a number of times including most recently in late December, when he made it easier for forces on the ground to call in airstrikes, and I think this is actually the biggest cause for the spike in civilian casualties nothing that Trump has done." [My emphasis.] [1]

Yet Obama is still allowed to shelter his brutal butchery behind his mask of benignness, thoughtfulness, and sham progressivism.

This strategy is totally unnecessary militarily. Instead of employing countersnipers to kill ISIS snipers, or using a more appropriate ordnance to do the job, the U.S. drops heavy explosives from the air, demolishing buildings and slaughtering scores of civilians sheltering in basements. These airstrikes are often called in by U.S. “Special Forces” on the ground in Mosul. All the while, the U.S. military piously parrots its guff about how much they try to minimize civilian casualties.

Another way the U.S. shifts responsibility is using the Israeli line when the Israelis exterminate Palestinians civilians- their intended targets used the victims as “human shields.” Two points: if you know there are civilians in the way, and you kill them anyway, that's on YOUR head. Second: if you DON'T know civilians are there, then the “enemy” DIDN'T employ them as “shields.” To be “shields,” the enemy would have to announce it, make it obvious, conspicuously put the civilians in harm's way. Of course, in neither the case of the repeated Israeli assaults on Gaza (“mowing the lawn,” in the blood-chilling phrase the Israelis use among themselves to refer to these periodic “cleansings”) nor the U.S. case of bombing mosques and homes and whatever is it true that civilians were used in this way. The U.S. claims to be unaware of the presence of civilians in the targets it bombs.

And we know the U.S. has competent snipers it could use instead of aerial bombing- surely better-trained ones than those ISIS can deploy. The late racist killer Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL sniper, boasted of killing hundreds of Iraqis. During the Vietnam War, Marine sniper Carlos Hathcock slaughtered hundreds of Vietnamese. One of the most chilling things I ever read was in a celebratory book describing how he exterminated a company of badly-led teenage soldiers in Vietnam. Horrible. Alvin York was a self-taught sharpshooter who killed 25 German soldiers in a single attack in World War I. By now, the U.S. military has refined sniping to an advanced science, enabling their killers to eliminate enemies from distances of over a mile away. They are also highly trained in created hidden positions from which to observe and snipe.

Meanwhile, in Syria, according to Gopal, Obama assiduously avoided bombing assets of the Assad regime. This in utter contradiction to his announced policy that "Assad must go," and alleged U.S. support for Syrian rebels. Obama's bombing concentrated on bombing jihadist groups. Trump's one-off attack on an Assad airbase following the sarin attack that killed children and adults was the first U.S. airstrike against the Assad regime. (Unfortunately it was largely ineffective as the base was operational within a day and more air attacks on the Syrian population followed.)

Cynical and immoral, the U.S. avoids yet another opportunity to use its force wisely in ways to help those they pretend they want to help.

1] “Trump Carrying Out Obama's Bombing Policies in Iraq, Sacrificing CiviliansTo Kill ISIS Snipers”-Videoclip here. From Democracy Now! 4/20/17 program. Democracy Now! airs a one-hour program Monday through Friday, the audio of which is broadcast on radio stations. The television show, with additional segments, is available free on their well-constructed website, democracynow.org, along with transcripts. It is a good source for information that the corporate oligarchic media (aka “the media”) either barely mentions or blacks out entirely. Also people who rarely or never get to speak in establishment media have a platform here. Unfortunately the politics of democracy now! Is rather muddled and naive. For example, since they adamantly oppose any use of U.S. military power ever, (this being “pro-peace,” apparently) their response to such things as ISIS atrocites, the murderousness of the Assad regime, etc., is limited to handwringing, bleating ineffectual “demands,” and calls for “a diplomatic solution,” apparently not realizing no such thing is possible with the likes of ISIS, Assad, etc.

Perhaps worse, they are also in effect accessories in major crimes of the Deep State by refusing to air the facts about them, such as the three major U.S. Domestic assassinations (the Kennedys and King- they never mention who killed King for example, despite frequent references to his assassination) and the nanothermite demolition of the three buildings at the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001.

Still, the website/program is valuable for what it offers.