(Image grab taken from a propaganda video uploaded on June 8, 2014, by the jihadist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)- or Syria, (ISIS) depending on which part of the new Caliphate you prefer. Photo AFP/Getty Images)
Being a voting member of Virginia’s 7th Congressional District is a liberating feeling. It represents a profound step in getting out of Washington. Things are getting very strange up here- not that they aren’t normally pretty strange, but they are downright surreal this morning. I have got that ‘70s feeling, but I am not preparing to head for a disco to address it.
I don’t know how we are going to get through this news cycle and maintain a straight face. I was galvanized yesterday afternoon when I talked to a colleague who is still working for the Government and he commented, with no small amount of wonder, that the term “mass beheadings” had become a common phrase in his daily meetings.
I told him that it had been around a while in the civilian contract community, though we used it in the context of a metaphor about downsizing. He said it was no metaphor and it was happening right now in Iraq.
If you haven’t been paying attention, and God knows I would prefer not to, al Qaida is indeed on the run, just as we were told before the last election. The problem is that they appear to be running toward Baghdad, and the US-equipped Iraqi military was hurling down its weapons and running just ahead.
This blipped my scope when the insurgents took the storied town of Fallujah a week or so ago- the Marines fought there so hard in the second one that there might be a cruiser named USS Fallujah some day.
But not today.
The situation this morning, Eastern Standard Time, is too horrific to joke about. There are reports of Iraqi officers running away after telling their troops to stand firm. A squadron of US Blackhawk helicopters fell into the hands of the hands of the ISIS insurgents yesterday when Mosul fell- and a bank heist that netted the bad guys $429 million dollars and a pile of gold bullion.
A relative handful of rebels – estimated between 3-5,000- is kicking the crap out of more than 30,000 Iraqi Army troops.
It feels a lot like 1975, and the run up to the Fall of Saigon.
The speed with which the rebels are advancing may slow as they approach areas with higher percentages of Shias, and we should not forget that this is also a struggle between the two dominant strains of Islam, with the Saudis favoring the Sunnis and the Iranians favoring the Shias.
In any event, we are not going to intervene to slow down the offensive. The folks downtown have declined Iraqi requests for airstrikes, though we have helpfully offered more military equipment, which will be speedily turned over to the al Qaida affiliated revels.
Oh, the weapons and cash that are driving this? Before they became self-funding, the ISIS fighters benefited from the kindness of strangers.
It is evident to me that much of it came out of Benghazi in that bloody stupid mistake. The ‘phony scandal’ aspect is true enough. The real scandal is not about a video, and not about manipulated talking points. It has been laying out there in plain sight for more than a year. It is about a weapons transfer program to transfer weapons out of Qaddafi’s arsenal to the “moderate” Syrian rebels.
The operation was supposed to be a “two-fer,” taking weapons out of the Mahgreb and placing them in the hands of people who would take down the oppressive Syrian regime.
It does not appear to be working out that way. Al Qaida is indeed on the run, but not the direction we were told.
It feels a little like 1975 again, only that time we were not shipping arms into Haiphong.
Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303