but how does it benefit them when it comes to Iraq unless Iraq is about Iran too? What I mean is US multinationals have contracts in both the Super Giant oil fields to the south and in Kurdistan to the north which is something they don't have in Syria or Iran. Shia expansion is ridiculous though because of the numbers. The majority of Iraq's population is Shia they make up about half while Sunnis & Kurds make up the other half. There are more groups than that but simplifying the breakdown
OK article makes it clearer it was about Syria more which is obvious. They have been a thorn in the US side since the 70s I think only for nationalizing oil production and not sharing it. I think he briefly let in a British multinational in 2011 but it didn't last very long. The US is probably more interested in fighting ISIS in Iraq or hitting strategic parts of Syria as that is where the base of their support developed but there was genuine interest from everybody of Syria to oppose Assad.
In Iraq they didn't need any help from US.
raqi Sunnis forced to abandon homes and identity in battle for survival
Rise of Shia militias in wake of Isis atrocities reopens sectarian wounds and raises fear for country’s diversity (reopen is kinda late since they were reopened awhile ago and the Shia militia atrocities are nothing new -- hence the tolerance of ISIS as a protection against the militias.
raqi Sunnis forced to abandon homes and identity in battle for survival
Rise of Shia militias in wake of Isis atrocities reopens sectarian wounds and raises fear for country’s diversity
Last November, with his home in flames and his father missing, 21-year-old Omar Mazen abandoned his home town of Baquba and fled to the Iraqi capital, 60 miles south.
But his home was not the only thing he left behind. He also decided to abandon his name.
The journey was perilous. At every checkpoint, Shia militiamen or Iraqi soldiers read his papers and stared suspiciously at his identifiably Sunni name. “I didn’t want to show them,” he said. “I was terrified every time. So many Sunnis had disappeared at checkpoints and my father was one of them.”
Somehow, he made it through the heart of the fight against Islamic State that was raging all along the highway. But afterwards he faced a constant dilemma of how to stay safe in a city and society in which Sunni Iraqis – the core of the ruling class under Saddam Hussein – were often viewed by the new Shia-led establishment as either enablers or agents of the extremist insurgency.
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Mazen decided to change his name to a more neutral Ammar, and seek refuge among the Shias. In February, he went to the residency office and started the process. “They were helpful,” he said of the government officials he dealt with – not an observation often made about Iraq’s turgid bureaucracy. “They said it would take about a month.”
Mazen’s dilemma reflects the latest upheaval in Iraq, as its existential fight against Isis approaches a second year. In the past 10 months, huge numbers of people – perhaps a quarter of the population – have again been displaced, and Iraq’s social fabric, badly frayed through the years of civil war, is once more being tested.
Sunnis who had moved back into restive communities as the five-year convulsion of violence started to abate in 2008 have again been forced out, this time mostly by Isis extremists who claim to be fighting in the name of their faith. In Baquba, Shia militias who have at times been indiscriminate as they lead the pushback against Isis have also exiled residents. And, in Tikrit, the predominantly Sunni city that was reclaimed from Isis by Shia militias and Iraqi forces last week, reports have emerged of looting and sabotage at the hands of the conquerers.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/05/iraqi-sunnis-forced-abandon-homes-identity-survival-shia-militia-isis
I think the reporter is new to the issue. Al-Maliki was locking up Sunnis under the new anti-terrorism laws that allow for indefinite detention and torturing as early as 2005.
Iran’s Shiite Militias Are Running Amok in Iraq
Post-2003 Iraq was supposed to be different. Throughout the past decade, however, countless NGOs and international news organizations have borne witness to the accelerating pace of abuses. The Republic of Fear is being reborn.
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 hemorrhaging 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.
The video concludes with one man chillingly yelling, “Enough! What’s wrong with you?”
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/19/irans-shiite-militias-are-running-amok-in-iraq/
This has been going for years but is nothing new even before Saddam Hussein. The first King, where Iraq became independent. I think he died in Switzerland, suspected by arsenic poisoning. His son died in a suspicious car accident "there are no accidents in Iraq" there was some other guy that died in a helicopter accident like Saddam's ex-brother in law. Anyway the person suspected of ordering the kill and the one that benefited was a pretty bad dude. Brutally oppressed protestors & opposition -- Iraq had a democracy before we gave them one but the numerous coups were problematic -- anyway, I can't remember how he was killed but his corpse was dragged through the streets of Baghdad, hung up, burned, and mutilated -- sound familiar? That was the 1950s, I think. Saddam also fired too early during that decade disorganizing an assassination attempt where the was the huge arrest operation -- Saddam was hiding in Egypt with the help of Murburak. The same person whose anniversary party that Saddam's sadistic son shot one of his servants at an anniversary party for Murbarak.
Anyway, they just need 1 person to allow fair & open participation in the new government and probably need to get rid of those anti-terrorism charges but this is like deep seeded stuff we're talking about here.
= new reply since forum marked as read
