We are seeing this use of human shields in the fight in the southern Philippines, so we are reading articles like this one.
One major operational goal stressed by Iraq officers was minimizing civilian casualties. ISIS fighters use civilians as "human shields" to deter coalition attacks on their positions. The thugs who commit this war crime always accuse their adversaries of targeting the civilians. ISIS also makes routine use of mosques as battle positions and supply depots. That complicates offensive operations where the attackers are trying to minimize the destruction.
Something to remember when you read headlines accusing the Philippine soldiers of killing innocent civilians.
although I suspect they might "accidentally" kill some not so innocent folks pretending to be civilians...
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Also from SP: It took Colombia 20 years to essentially shut down their Marxist insurgents. The economy is booming.
a short background note:
A lot of the FARC guys who turned themselves in will get amnesty: However, like my son's birth sister's common law husband, who came in from the cold after a previous amnesty 20+ years ago, some of them may be found dead after being shot by unknown perpetrator (i.e. private payback).
The murder rate in Colombia is high, despite gun control.
Because of this, like here in the Philippines, most of the middle class folks have illegal guns hidden in their homes for self defense... Lolo used to hide his WWII submachine gun in the closet (and no, I don't know where it is: He gave it away after his first stroke).
The problem of civilians using guns for self defense is that if you are not trained to shoot automatically, you hesitate and end up dead.
The SP article notes that the drug gangs are still a big problem in Colombia, and the economic collapse of Venezuela is not helping things along.
nor are the ecowarrior types:
and then there is this dirty little secret: they worry more about farmers getting cancer than farmers being enslaved to work for drug dealers.
Accusations that the herbicide (Roundup) used to kill coca plants causes cancer has led to growing protests in rural areas and the government halted the spraying, even though there was no proof to back up the accusations.
The farmers often don't have much choice (grow the stuff or die, or try to flee).
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The clueless are complaining that there is a lack of "people of colour" in the new movie Dunkirk.
And my step son asked why this French beach had a "British" name. It's not British but Flemish...
This is an example of "out of the box" thinking: The Germans assumed they would either surrender or be killed, but the Brits found a third way to get them out, using civilian boats.
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I am not up to date with what'sup in Syria, but AustinBay at Instapundit links to this article on Military Times as a headsup.
... the videos of U.S. armored vehicles headed towards the embattled city of Raqqa calls into question the type of aid being delivered to the Kurdish allies and its adequacy to liberate the city from ISIS fighters.
one does hope the Kurds will be allowed their much desired independence after all of this.
One big roadblock was Turkey (who worries it might give their Kurdish minorities ideas) but given recent news from Turkey, I say "putang ina" to them.
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Speaking of "putang ina": US congress folks want to stop allowing the Philippines to get weapons for their cops and military to punish them for the drug war.
The dirty little secret is that China is supplying them now.
Our town's local news report gives an example of what's going on in corruption and murder...not all the murders are "drug related" you know.
the problem is that the strict "libel" laws means that the press can't print the rumors of why someone was killed.(i.e. criminals murdering during a robbery, private hits, including payback for a wrong done to someone, or a politician killing his rival, or if it is drug criminals killing snitches, or if it is cops dispensing "justice")
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