U.S. airstrikes target Islamic State militants in northern Iraq

[DonViejo]

Source: Washington Post

By Karen DeYoung and Loveday Morris August 8 at 8:58 AM

U.S. military aircraft carried out airstrikes on Islamist militants besieging Kurdish forces in northern Iraq, the Pentagon announced Friday.

The airstrikes targeted artillery being used by militants of the Islamic State extremist group against Kurdish forces defending the Irbil, the Kurdish regional capital, the Pentagon said. It said the artillery was used “near U.S. personnel.”

The U.S. action came after President Obama authorized airstrikes against Sunni Muslim extremists who punctured Kurdish defenses in a powerful offensive in northern Iraq on Thursday. Obama also sent U.S. military aircraft to drop food and water to besieged Iraqi civilians in the region.

Obama, in a statement delivered at the White House late Thursday, said that strikes would be launched against extremist convoys “should they move toward” the Kurdish capital of Irbil, where the United States maintains a consulate and a joint operations center with the Iraqi military.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/islamic-state-militants-seize-christian-town-in-northern-iraq-thousands-flee/2014/08/07/942a553a-1e2b-11e4-ab7b-696c295ddfd1_story.html?wpisrc=al_national

[AngryAmish]

1. Samantha Powers just jizzed herself

We don't know what we are doing there.

[RDANGELO]

2. We are saving some innocent lives.

[AngryAmish]

5. Maybe.

Didn't Bush say we were invading for humanitarian purposes?

[BumRushDaShow]

6. Poppy wanted Saddam and sent his son to deliver him. nt

[Gore1FL]

13. Not unless you consider removing (nonexistent) WMD as a humanitarian effort.

That was the excuse I remember. They did conflate Iraq with 9/11, but I wouldn't consider that a humanitarian argument, either.

[ballyhoo]

9. You mean with those pinpoint strikes that only

kill bad guys? Been there, seen that--

[IronGate]

10. You've actually seen that?

You've actually been in combat and seen a pinpoint airstrike?

[candelista]

16. +1.

[EEO]

4. So it begins.

[malthaussen]

7. Thursday they deny it, Friday they admit it.

And then they wonder why we don't trust them.

-- Mal

[IronGate]

8. Not quite.

Thursday it was the Iraqi Air Force using the SU-25 "Frogfoot" close air support aircraft to hit ISIS forces, while today, it was the US Navy's F/A-18 "Hornet" that bombed ISIS artillery that was firing on the town of Irbil.

[George II]

11. "They" never denied anything, and "they" never "admitted" anything!

Who and what the fuck are you referring to?

[ballyhoo]

12. Yep. I read the stories too. No one

trusts them or us anymore. Wonder what he'd done if AUMF had already expired?

[Gore1FL]

14. The same thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution

U.S. strikes happened after the Iraqi strikes. They truthfully denied performing the strikes that the Iraqis performed

[Leontius]

15. Every intel, surveillance and air asset the US can use needs to be used to smash

these guys in Iraq and in Syria. Make them spend every second they live looking skyward in fear.

[candelista]

17. You are channeling the son of Agalaion.

He had a yearning to look at dead bodies.