Stephen Lendman

ISIS didn’t arrive out of thin air. Washington created it along with other terrorist groups.

They’re used as imperial foot soldiers, taught to commit appalling atrocities, largely against civilians.

A new UN report on the Iraq conflict said “the scourge of ISIL continues to kill, maim and displace Iraqi civilians in the thousands and to cause untold suffering.”

Conflict from January 2014 through October 31, 2015 claimed “at least 55,0547 civilian casualties,” 18,802 killed, another 36,245 wounded, the report said.

It ignored millions of Iraqi deaths from US imperial wars since the 1980s - from violence, preventable diseases, severe malnutrition, starvation, lack of potable water and overall deprivation.

Mass internal and external displacement continues, millions driven from their homes in search of safe havens, unwanted, treated like outlaws.

The UN called appalling conditions in Iraq “staggering.” Six US presidents since Jimmy Carter ravaged Iraq for over 35 years.

ISIS “continues committing systematic and widespread violence and” human rights abuses, flagrant genocidal high crimes.

The UN failed to explain how Washington orchestrates them, CIA operatives and special forces training its fighters how to commit high crimes, including beheadings and other appalling atrocities.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Saudi prince Zeid bin Ra’ad, said “(e)ven the obscene casualty figures fail to accurately reflect exactly how terribly civilians are suffering in Iraq.”

“The figures capture those who were killed or maimed by overt violence, but countless others have died from the lack of access to basic food, water or medical care.”

Refugees fleeing war-torn areas endure appalling “horror(s),” unwanted imperial victims. ISIS holds thousands of Iraqis in bondage, women as sex slaves, mostly ethnically Kurdish Yazidi community members.

Called “devil worshippers,” they’re told to “convert or die.” Thousands were massacred earlier, many others abducted.

A survivor said “(t)hey came for all of us. The men were killed, the women and children were taken. In the village of Kocho, they never got a chance to run. ISIS took thousands there.”

Entire families were massacred or enslaved. Survivors became refugees. Iraq is a US-created cauldron of endless violence, chaos and human suffering. UN authorities failed to lay blame where it belongs.

World leaders ignore what demands responsible intervention. An entire population continues enduring unspeakable torment.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.