Sunshine through the clouds this early Thursday on California’s north coast, all tempered by a sharp, chilly wind.
A small respite from the rain, with just ‘a chance’ the next few days.
Nothing is guaranteed, though.
Except maybe Iraq — supposedly the cradle of civilization is a nightmare (via USAToday): ‘Iraq said Tuesday it is building a wall and trench around Baghdad in an effort to secure the city from terror attacks.’
And the US is lying its way right-back into the horror tale…a narrative we created.
(Illustration found here).
The furnace of Iraq — according to an UN report last month, ‘...at least 18,802 civilians killed and another 36,245 wounded between January 2014 and October 2015, while another 3.2 million people have been internally displaced due to violence.’
And that wall/trench around Baghdad is apparently required infrastructure — from another report on causalities for just January 2016: ‘The figures showed that Baghdad Governorate was the worst affected, with 1,084 civilian casualties (299 killed, 785 injured), Diyala 61 killed and 79 injured, Ninewa 55 killed and 24 injured, while Kirkuk had 12 killed and 3 injured, and Salahadin 2 killed and 14 injured.’
Just this past Tuesday, 111 Iraqis were killed nationwide, and eight wounded. Numbers usually under-reported.
And we keep at it — from the DOD this morning: ‘Attack, fighter, ground-attack, and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 20 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government.’
An addition in explanation: ‘Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect.’
Even to the point of deception. Yesterday, Jason Ditz at antiwar.com nailed the key:
During last week’s deployment talks, the Pentagon suggested 3,700 troops were in Iraq, and the White House has repeatedly talked about troop levels being at 3,500 to 3,600.
Today, Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren admitted the figure was “well above 4,000.”
And the nightmare continues…