News From Around the World - Iraq Update

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[caption id="attachment_2693" align="aligncenter" width="400"] News from Around the World[/caption]

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 Welcome back My Dear Readers to The Other Shoe. While I was looking to the stars, yesterday, I missed out on reporting what was likely one of the major stories of the day. Militant troops, claiming to be the Islamic States of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have taken over major cities in Iraq. Now, before we get into the logistics of this attack I want to give you a breakdown of the players. In the country of Iraq there are, basically, three individual geo-political groups. Currently in control of the government of Iraq, and the military, are the Shiites.

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[caption id="attachment_3020" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Iraq Religious Ethnic Map 2013[/caption]

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When America invaded Iraq we helped shift the power from the Ba’athist party (Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party) and helped shift the government of Iraq to the Sunni party. The third ethic/religious group is mostly in northern Iraq and is the Kurds. When the dust settled after the American invasion of Iraq, nobody… no single group was ‘happy’ with the division of power and geography. To be honest? There really isn’t enough land in Iraq to make all these ethic/religious groups happy. This understanding of the age-old blood/religious differences in this part of the world was the big reason a lot of us never wanted to get into Iraq .

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To their credit the Kurdish people of Iraq have never really wanted all the power in Iraq. For the most part these Kurdish people are happy to remain in the northern parts of Iraq that border Turkey. (See maps in this article) Back to the results of the American war in Iraq; America came in and removed all the Ba’athists in power… from the top down by removing Sad am Hussein. Then, America made the deliberate decision to place the Sunni populous in the power of Iraq. Yes, there were elections… but we all know how elections in ‘Third-World’ countries work out. There were elections and the (largest demographic group) Sunnis took the Presidency and with it the reins to the Iraq government.

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As one can well imagine, this was never ‘OK’ with the Shiite population. The Shiites have ties into; Iran, Syrian and North Africa. OK… My Dear Readers, this (pretty much… as a thumbnail of this situation) we have an ancient blood-feud between Sunni and Shiite. America handed Iraq over the Shiite population and the Sunnis got the short end of the stick. In Syria, the tables are reversed! Syria has a Sunni controlled government and a large Shiite population. What has happened? Syrian Sunni rebels (with the help of Iran and Syria) have now flooded into Iraq. The ISIS has taken the key cities of Mosul and Tikrit. Not wanting to stop while they are ahead, they are claiming they will soon march on Baghdad, the capital of Iraq and seat of the current Shiite government.

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[caption id="attachment_3018" align="aligncenter" width="364"] Iraq Ethnoreligious groups 2003-2013[/caption]

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My Dear Readers, put aside the spin! This blood-feud has be raging for, well, thousands of years. There is nobody that could have predicted this happening, today. There is nothing any ‘Western’ government could have done (short of occupying Iraq for generations) to stop the current bloodbath. It is my humble opinion… do not get involved. There need be no more American blood spilled in the sands of Iraq. Honestly? This is the Crusades of the twenty-first century. Only, there is no Holy Grail for us to bring home, in the end.

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If flying over with bombers… we can help the Iraqi army/military keep or return control of areas… MAYBE. I am just not too thrilled about spending one thin dime on Iraq… ever again. We did our part. The Shiites said ‘we got this… get out’ and we did. There will never be enough for one simple reason. This is a blood feud between two geo-political-religious sects that has raged for more than a thousand years. God couldn’t settle this dispute, what makes us think America, can?

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[caption id="attachment_3019" align="aligncenter" width="416"] Iraq Provinces Map[/caption]

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Now, My Dear Readers, I am going to try to work on this week’s episode of ‘The Horror in Smithville’. I am in some pretty severe pain, but I am going to rest a little and then get up and work at providing you, My Dear Readers, with Part Eleven.

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Adieu!

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Thank YOU!

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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="234"] The Other Shoe eBay Store[/caption]

http://www.ebay.com/usr/enzomatrixlt

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[caption id="attachment_2866" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Danny Hanning of The Other Shoe - May 6th, 2014[/caption]