An estimated 1.8 million people remain displaced by the conflict between Iraqi forces and the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) two years after the heaviest fighting ended.

​A new Human Rights Watch web feature highlights the experiences of families who are struggling to find a safe home in post-ISIS Iraq.
 
“Iraqi authorities have put in place a system that has allowed communities, security forces, and government agencies to collectively punish families whose relatives were allegedly linked to ISIS,” said Belkis Wille, senior Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“This system has put these families in a purgatory that prevents them from returning home, imprisons them in camps, and forces them to endure dire conditions that portend bleak futures for their children.”



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​MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - The only sign that Sunni-majority Mosul’s newest and busiest marketplace is in Shi’ite Muslim hands is a small plaque in the office of its leaseholder from Baghdad.

​“The Imam Hussein Market,” it reads, dedicated to the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson and most revered Shi’ite imam.

Banners of Shi’ite leaders that militiamen erected after helping drive out the Sunni extremists of Islamic State two years ago have been removed amid fears of renewed sectarian tension.

Iraq’s second city, once a recruitment center for Sunni officers in Saddam Hussein’s army, became an al Qaeda hotbed after the 2003 U.S. invasion that toppled the dictator, and later the base from where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate in 2014.

Khaled*, 13, sat leaning against his grandmother’s shoulder, toying with a piece of wire. She wrapped her arm around him and kissed his head as she said:

“We don’t want them to take him. He’s the only son we have left now.”

Surrounding them both in a semi-circle sat his mother, several of his aunts, and other female relatives. The large family arrived at the camp in August 2017 when it first opened, on the eastern bank of the Tigris River in Ninewa governorate. They have been living there ever since. The decision as to whether they can return home lies with men in their villages.
​
Khaled’s mother, Nawal*, explained: “In our village there was a meeting. They said our family can never come back. Others who had a Daeshi [family member who joined IS] have been allowed back. They had someone who supported them. We have no one. All our men are either dead, missing or in jail.”

If Amiri is any example to go by during the Iran-Iraq War, Iraqi Shia jihadists would attack US interests, forcing a kinetic response from the White House.

​Iran absolutely loves to make a song and a dance about how it stands up to the American “Great Satan.”

Tehran will not miss an opportunity to remind the world that it stands opposed to the United States and that it is ready and willing to use violence to achieve its aims and to harm US interests in the Middle East and beyond.

Its proxies who fight with money, training and arms from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) spare no expense in dedicating airtime to how they would seek “martyrdom” in any fight against the United States. It is with some surprise to Iraq observers, then, that these zealots are oddly timid about the prospect of a war between Iran and the United States.

Baghdad must unify its foreign policy and fix its domestic politics before it can realistically play that role.

​Tensions have again flared between the US and Iran. The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, followed by Tehran’s warnings of resuming its nuclear programme, have revived a crisis that spans several decades. 

Within the Trump administration, influential leaders - including National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo - seem to be steering the US into conflict with Iran.  

This conflict has never been a direct confrontation, instead mainly featuring in countries across the Middle East. Iraq has been the most cherished prize for both sides. Recently citing an increased threat, the US evacuated all non-essential staff from Iraq. Then, a rocket suspected to have been fired by a pro-Iranian militia landed near the US embassy in the Green Zone; President Donald Trump subsequently warned that any escalation would be the end of Iran.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) is at it again. And by "it," I mean willingly offering up information about questionable shit he did while he served as a Marine.

​In an interview for Barstool Sports' Zero Blog Thirty podcast, Hunter was asked about his support of Navy SEAL Chief Edward "Eddie" Gallagher, who has been accused of war crimes including stabbing a captured ISIS fighter to death.

Hunter responded that he "frankly [doesn't] care" if the ISIS fighter was killed, and that "even if everything the prosecutors say is true in this case, then Eddie Gallagher should still be given a break, I think."

"I just feel like it's such a slippery slope, and it goes against our honor so egregiously if that is the case," one of the hosts, also a former Marine, said to Hunter.

​Wars require preparation and forethought about the post-conflict aftermath—that's something America didn't do when it withdrew from Iraq.

F​ifteen years removed from the first night of Operation Iraqi Freedom, most Americans have come to the conclusion that the war in Iraq was a blunder of epic proportions. In its naive pursuit of Western-style freedom and democracy in the Middle East, the George W. Bush administration went into Iraq underprepared, overconfident in what it could accomplish, and negligent about the post-conflict aftermath.

​The terrible planning, misplaced assumptions, and ideological close-mindedness were bad enough—add in the dumb decision to disband the Iraqi army and ignorance about Iraqi history and demography, and it was amateur hour in the Bush White House.

But what about the human costs of the war? How many people have been killed by the various parties in these conflicts? The disturbing reality is that we simply don’t know. There are a variety of data sets in the public domain, but they only provide us with a rough estimate of the fatalities.

In November 2005, two terminals for a new secure communications platform arrived at the U.S. military base at Bagram Airfield, outside Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul. The first of its kind, the system would enable the U.S.’s electronic eavesdropping organization, the National Security Agency, to instantaneously share select classified information with America’s closest allies in the fight against the Taliban, speeding the delivery of critical information to soldiers.

​Previously, the only way to pass intelligence at Bagram between the U.S. and partner nations was to hand it over as hard copy. These two first nodes in what would eventually become a larger network, known as CENTER ICE, would end the paper shuffling, ultimately saving the lives of troops in combat.

The NSA was to set up one of the two initial systems at Bagram for its own use, and the other for its counterpart from Norway, the Norwegian Intelligence Service, or NIS. The Norwegians were perfect guinea pigs. A “gregarious, friendly bunch” who threw good barbecue parties, they had “almost no collection capability” to eavesdrop independently and were thus “heavily dependent on the U.S.,” an NSA staffer at Bagram later wrote on an internal agency news site, SIDtoday. (The article and the other intelligence documents in this story were provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.) One of the new terminals failed when the NSA attempted to turn it on, but after the provision of some “necessary spares,” both were operational.

​Spies from the two nations were about to get a dramatic example of how powerful the digitization of intelligence-sharing could be. One morning a few weeks after CENTER ICE went live, the Norwegians sent an urgent email using the new system: “Our guys think they are being shadowed… Are you seeing anything?”

​Soldiers pay attention to example. Murderous leaders command murderous units.

​In early 2003, as a cavalry officer, I stood in front of my scout platoon at dusk after a long day preparing to deploy to Iraq. I spoke with them about the law of war and how they should treat civilians when we got into theater.

​It wasn’t a long conversation, but I felt that giving clear guidance about what was acceptable — and not acceptable — was important. They should treat the civilians as they would neighbors, I told them. Soldiers take most seriously the things their leadership makes most serious.

On Monday, President Trump pardoned the convicted war criminal Michael Behenna, who had murdered Ali Mansur, an unarmed, naked Iraqi, by shooting him in the head and chest. Making a specious claim of self-defense, Behenna argued that Mansur threw a piece of concrete at him and “ stood up like he’s coming at me.”

And so he neutralized this threat, a naked man, already released by the Army. Behenna was supposed to be returning Mansur home to his village. A military court convicted Behenna of unpremeditated murder. American soldiers testified against him. The military court of appeals and a review panel upheld that conviction, though he was paroled early, in 2014.