Who Is Turning Iraq and Syria to Heaps of Ruins?

They also claim that the ongoing military campaign by Iraqi soldiers, special forces, federal police, and Shiite volunteers to liberate Fallujah will turn the Sunni Arab city held by ISIL since early 2014 to ruins.

The established wisdom seems to be that half of the Middle East is in ruins because of the US-led wars and aggression that produced 700,000 widows in Iraq alone. In their eagerness to overturn governments, subvert democracy, impose blockades and boycotts, and “democratize” the region, the colonial powers carried out indiscriminate air raids, made deserts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya, and they called it peace. They made tens of millions of refugees and they called it “humanitarian intervention”. They facilitated the rise of terrorist groups and they called it “moderate democratic forces”. The applause is deafening even today, as they claim without their close air support, the anti-ISIL forces in Iraq and Syria would not have had their recent successes!

This is nonsense. The Iraqi Army and volunteer forces, backed by Iranian military advisors, have what it takes to recapture Fallujah. They will not destroy the city in the process either. Fallujah was in ruins long before the allied forces decided to launch the ground offensive. With or without the US-led airstrikes, the forces will take the city – just as the way they recaptured Ramadi from ISIL last December. More than 70 percent of that city’s infrastructure is also in ruins, not because of the allied forces, but because of the previous US-led bombing raids.

In fact, it is because of the US-led air raids that all water, electricity, sewage and other infrastructure – such as bridges, government facilities, hospitals and schools – suffer some degree of damage in Ramadi and Fallujah. Some of the destruction was also caused by ISIL IEDs, booby traps, mortars and suicide bombers, but most has been the result of US-led coalition airstrikes – the same politically correct warmongers that still congratulate themselves on the “pinpoint accuracy” of their sinister firepower and even gag for another war.

It is noteworthy to argue that if indeed their firepower had “pinpoint accuracy”, then why was it necessary for the US-led coalition to destroy Ramadi and Fallujah in earlier assaults? The same is true of their other “victories” over ISIL in Syria, where many cities and towns share the same fate. Why is it that they never talk about the role and the success rate of Russian airstrikes either?

In truth, the United States is not giving air support to Iranian-backed Shiite forces (Hashd al-Shaabi or Popular Mobilization Units) fighting alongside the combat-effective government security forces and regular army in the ongoing offensive to take Fallujah. The Pentagon officials say the US only acts in support of regular government forces and politically acceptable allies such as the Sunni tribal militias.

Their acknowledgement is more than sufficient to demonstrate that the allied forces have no US support, and with no US forces on front lines, they can still take Fallujah. What’s more, it is not necessary to systematically destroy the city in order to save it – something that the Pentagon perpetrators want to apply under their “pinpoint accuracy” doctrine.

As is, war is insane, and the War Party continues to perpetuate its insanity on others, having been constantly at war since at least 1991. The present assault on the “American Caliphate” is not designed to turn Fallujah to heaps of ruins in a long fight and through an unprecedented campaign of terrorism and murder by drone. Moreover, it is not motivated by criminal and deceitful aggressions violating International Law to assure control of geostrategic resources, deemed necessary to further the insatiable American way of life and hegemony.

What is happening in Fallujah is what will happen in Mosul: Stopping the lost souls of ISIL, liberating five million Sunni Arabs, power sharing deals, and active inclusion in the Iraqi government and politics – as honorably and humanely as possible.