On this day in 2016, ISIS claimed responsibility for a suicide bomber who attacked a funeral tent, killing six people and wounding another 11.
ABU GHRAIB, IRAQ – Abu Ghraib is associated with a terrible US prison site where torture took place: it is also associated with an ISIS terrorist attack.
The US invasion of Iraq led to a lot of mistakes – the very invasion itself was a mistake – many of which besmirched the reputation of that country. Not surprisingly, armed conflict results in bad things, many of which involve civilians. As military members all know no plan survives first contact with the enemy (this was first stated by a Prussian commander Helmuth van Moltke in the 1870s).
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One of the darkest stains was their use of a prison in a town near Baghdad called Abu Ghraib. Sound familiar? It should as there was a lot of coverage in the press when it was learned that US military guards used humiliating punishments against Iraqi prisoners, regardless of the alleged crimes they committed to get to that institution.
The abuses encountered in Abu Ghraib undermined whatever it was the Americans were trying to achieve (after overthrowing the Saddam Hussein regime I am not so sure there was a ‘day after’ plan). The US portrays itself as the good guy and, in truth, they do a lot of good. But you cannot engage in the same kinds of inhuman acts of the dictatorship you have just ousted.
There is of course another actor in Iraq that carried out much more heinous human rights abuses than the US (I am not talking about Hussein, whose decades in power were brutal). I am referring of course to Islamic State (ISIS). They have featured a lot in my blogs and podcasts for the simple reasons that they are a recent example of a terrorist group and they have been so busy that I cannot ignore them all the time.
On this day in 2016 ISIS executed yet another mind-numbing attack against civilians. ISIS claimed responsibility for a suicide bomber who attacked a funeral tent, killing six people and wounding another 11. The funeral was for a member of the Sahwa – Sunni tribal forces that have fought against both Al Qaeda and ISIS.
One could ask who sees a funeral as a legitimate target but we are talking ISIS here. You cannot use ‘legitimate’ and ‘ISIS’ in the same sentence.
