Thursday, June 29, 2017

We can only hope

Saw this:




Demonizing Russia has been bad politics in every sense but the fact that it didn't help with voter turnout may be the thing that finally kills it.

Thank you.

It should have never happened.

I have a friend who becomes less a friend every year -- don't worry, she won't read this -- and she attacks people viciously.

Say someone doesn't believe in whatever -- vaccines, for example -- then they are not fact based and she will ridicule them and rip them apart.

But she herself?

Believes the Russia hysteria.

I spoke to her about it and said, "You know there's no proof."

"I don't need proof," she responded, "I believe it."

Now she mocks religious people of every strife for belief.

But here she is believing that Russia hacked the election.

Because that's what she wants to believe.

Idiots.



"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Thursday, June 29, 2017.  The Mosul Slog continues, despite claims from some.



Right now, there a lot of claims like this:


Iraq state TV announces Mosul liberation, ISIL fall








So the Iraqi government's forces now control Mosul?


No.

ALJAZEERA reports, "Iraqi authorities expect the battle to end in the coming days as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group has been bottled up in a handful of neighbourhoods of the Old City."


That reality doesn't interfere with some.


Self-styled fortune teller Liz Sly takes the time to Tweet:


Reuters: Iraqi forces have captured the Nuri Mosque where Baghdadi declared the ISIS caliphate. The battle for Mosul is as good as over.









You really have to marvel over that nonsense.

Liz Sly is paid to report what is.

She clearly doesn't grasp the job.

She'd rather offer pleasing words.

Grown ups don't need fairy tales, they need the truth.


The truth is the battle continues.

But the truth is tossed to the side by the immature.

That would include those who lap at the crotches of military men (they themselves haven't usually served ever).



MOSUL LIBERATED has fallen in Lions of Iraqi forces retake the city of Mosul from ISIS completely.
 
 





Those are the heroes?


I would think the people of Mosul who managed to survive three years of being occupied by the Islamic State would be the heroes.

You know, the people the Iraqi government abandoned for over two years?

The ones the Iraqi government made no effort to assist or help?




Reality: It's day 249 of The Mosul Slog.

It could end today.

It might not.

But as of right now, it continues.



ALJAZEERA offers this map:


As the Iraq army seizes ruins of Mosul's al-Nuri mosque from ISIL, we look at who controls what in the city
 
 







More reality: once the Islamic State no longer controls any of Mosul, the focus returns to the failures of the Iraqi state which are many.


Harlan Ullman and Arnaud de Borchgrave (UPI) note that "the Sunni-Shia schism has not been reconciled. Nor have relations between Baghdad and Kurdistan been resolved."


The Islamic State has allowed many to ignore the problems with the government.



Here's another reality:





500,000 people used to live in Ramadi, . Fighting left 80% of the city destroyed. Inside war in cities:
 
 






Maybe Liz Sly could take a break from palm reading and report on what passes for post-liberation in Iraq?






The following community sites -- plus PACIFICA EVENING NEWS and GORILLA RADIO -- updated:










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