When an Air-Strike Not an Air-strike.

As you may have heard while the World was busy pouring criticism on Israel over its operation in Gaza a group called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have continued their rampage across Iraq.

It would take me far too long to detail the history of ISIL but their main ideology is simply one of death. They wish to re-establish the medieval state known as the Levant because some of the wilder branches of Sunni Islam believe this is where the Messiah will re-appear heralding the end of the World. In their present form they began fighting against the Syrian government but when they discovered that the Syrian government was prepared to fight back they simply switched to attacking soft, civilian targets like the worst type of school yard bully.

In January 2014 ISIL seized control of Iraq's western Anbar province. In June ISIL took control of Iraq's northern and central provinces including Salah al-Din and Kirkuk. Over the past week they have advanced in Nineveh province and are threatening Arbil. Wherever ISIL have advanced to the have simply massacred Shia civilians in the area and given all other religious groups including Sunni Muslims the choice to convert to their extreme brand of Islam, leave or be killed. Those who choose to remain have been forced to submit to cruel and degrading practises such as female genital mutilation, rape and slavery. In Nineveh province alone ISIL slaughtered 100 people per hour for 24 hours producing a death toll that far exceeds Israel's operation in Gaza. In excess of 40,000 Yazidis have been forced to flee and are now trapped on a mountain in the desert where they have already begun to die of thirst.

The acts of mass murder, extermination (genocide), religious persecution, extra-judicial killing, ethnic/religious cleansing and inhuman treatment such as rape and slavery that we have seen from ISIL all constitute crimes against humanity that go far beyond mere war crimes. They have also been committed across international borders. As a result the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) yesterday (7/8/14) condemned the actions of ISIL and called on the international community to take action to stop them.

While all this has been going on the United States has had military advisers on the ground in Iraq and a carrier group equipped with F-18 ground attack aircraft standing just off-shore watching all this happen. As a result the US President Barack Obama has come in for plenty of justified but stinging criticism over his inaction. Yesterday journalists attending the daily White House press briefing responded to the announcement that the "White House was monitoring the situation" by telling the press secretary that he was simply watching people being slaughtered. Later in the day the New York Times went so far as to circulate a false story that the US had begun air-strikes against ISIL. The intention being to force the White House to explain why it had yet to begin air-strikes against ISIL. 

This pressure forced Obama to address the nation last night. The headline that Obama hoped everybody would take away from the address is that he has finally authorised air-strikes against ISIL. However if you concentrate on the detail you will quickly discover that Obama was actually erecting a series of barriers to further delay taking action against ISIL. He has now said that he will only take action if ISIL advance on the city of Irbil and then only if that advance threatens US military personnel. Obama then repeated his usual excuse of American military power being unable to solve Iraq's problems. This is of course nonsense because US air power alone can most certainly break ISIL as a fighting force.

As a result I can only conclude that Obama is calculating that all the Yazidis will be dead and forgotten long before November's mid-term elections.

11:30 on 8/8/14 (UK date).

Edited at around 14:45 on 8/8/14 (UK date) to add;

Since publishing the above the US has carried out a single air-strike in Iraq near the town of Irbil. This involved 2 F-18 jets dropping a single 500lb bomb on a single ISIL artillery piece. In military terms this is nothing more then a sick joke.

Make no mistake military action is dirty, it is dangerous and ultimately it kills people. As such it should only be undertaken when there is no other option. However once all other alternatives have been exhausted - as they clearly have in Iraq - and military action is taken it needs to be taken decisively and there can be no half measures.

So rather then this perverse game of Hokey-Cokey that Obama seems intent on playing the moment that military force was authorised the US should have immediately struck all of ISIL's heavy weapons in and around Irbil. They should then have moved on to target ISIL supply routes along with their command and control centres and bases. To put it bluntly they should have set about killing as many of ISIL's estimated 15,000 fighters as possible.

If Obama does not have the stomach for that he should immediately withdraw the US military from the area and concede that genocide and ethnic cleansing are simply prices he is prepared to pay in order to win control of Congress.