This morning I wrote about how the common people accept tyranny and, in fact, come to adore it. People in Iraq must be missing Saddam Hussein right about now. A mean man and a heavy-handed dictator he was. Brutal. But he didn’t tolerate terrorists in his country (outside his regime). And he didn’t lose cities to them.

Major operations are underway in Iraq at this moment to free Mosul from ISIS after two years of captivity. The battle is expected to take two months.

Forces east of Mosul also secured control over a significant stretch of the Irbil-Mosul road, a key strategic route, the General Command of Peshmerga Forces of Kurdistan Region said, while Iraq’s military declared that it had inflicted “heavy losses of life and equipment” on ISIS to the southeast.

It appeared US troops were at the back of the first column of Peshmerga to cross into ISIS-held territory at dawn Monday. The troops wore clothes consistent with US military — including one who wore a US flag patch on his arm — and were driving vehicles distinctive to US military.

For now, the Americans are mainly with Iraqi counterterrorism units and the Kurdish forces.

The United States, which lent advisers and air support, had earmarked about 500 of its nearly 5,000 service members in the country for the mission. Most are working on logistics, although there are also special operations forces among that number.

The United States still believes ISIS may try to use rudimentary mustard agent as a chemical weapon in the campaign’s final stages. There are reports of ISIS setting fires to oil and tire pits to try to use the smoke to obscure their locations from aircraft targeting them.

Our troops are in the rear with the gear. But they’re still there. We’re still there. We’re in Iraq, in basically the same stupid war, as we have been for the past twenty-five years. A quarter century of insanity.

A short history of U.S.-Iraqi “relations”:

• During the 1980s Saddam was our ally as he opposed Iran. We have been meddling in Iran since the 1950s; nobody remembers why.
• Despite posing no threat to the U.S., suddenly Saddam was the enemy (the 314th coming of Adolf Hitler, and not the last…);
• The U.S. staged a pointless invasion of Iraq in 1991;
• Between 1991 and 2003 the U.S. meddled constantly in Iraq, both militarily and economically;
• In 2003 the U.S. fully re-invaded Iraq for reasons demonstrably fictional);
• Iraq was occupied and Saddam was captured, “tried” and executed;
• The occupation went on;
• 1,000,000+ locals were killed, maimed or left homeless;
• Some idiots chanted, “USA! USA! USA!”;
• The banksters made a fortune;
• Terrorist factions rapidly formed in Iraq;
• The U.S. partially pulled out of Iraq leaving a corrupt and weak government and a power vacuum;
• ISIS filled the vacuum, occupying Mosul (2014) and other cities and even attacked Baghdad;
• More locals died;
• The banksters made more money;
• ISIS spread throughout the Middle East;
• The U.S. launched more idiotic wars;
• The banksters made more money;
• More people died;
• The Iraqi government, propped up by the U.S. began preparation to re-take Mosul;
• And on and on and on…

Twenty five years. Thousands dead (ours and theirs). Hundreds of thousands wounded for life (ours and theirs). Hundreds of thousands homeless (we have homeless veterans in America by the thousands). Trillion$ we didn’t have in the first place down the drain. Terrorism spread like wildfire drunk on jet fuel. And all for absolutely nothing – nothing except making a sh!t ton of money for a bunch of criminals.

Iraqi oil fields burning, or American money fields burning. Hard to tell. Life / Google.

Imagine if we were still fighting the Nazis in the 1970s – all based on lies and with no point and no end in sight. Well, no, it’s not the same. Back then we fought to win. The banksters of the day profited but the profits stopped when the war ended. Today it’s all for the money and so the killing is ceaseless. Hillary may introduce the nuclear payout to the banking purse – at our great expense.

And people are excited about an election next month. The chance to impliedly or explicitly support more of the same Satanic evil and waste.

I can’t even remember why Saddam was the bad guy, suddenly, 25 years ago. Something about another little country that didn’t at all concern us. Or was it a corrupt Kingdom in the sands? Small matter now. As is, we’ll just have to accept fighting ISIS over there. Otherwise they might shoot up nightclubs, stab out malls, and bomb train stations here.