‘No will’ to fight ISIS? US Defense Sec blasts Iraqi troops

[pocaracas]

http://rt.com/usa/261681-carter-iraq-fight-isis-ramadi/

US Defense Secretary Ash Carter has lashed out at the Iraqi army, which last week abandoned the major central city of Ramadi, as well as millions of dollars’ worth of equipment, to the Islamic State, despite reportedly outnumbering the jihadists 10-to-1.
[...]

Details from last Sunday’s withdrawal have trickled out during the past week, with Pentagon officials admitting that when the Iraqi army fled, they left behind half a dozen US-made tanks, the same number of artillery pieces, even more armored carriers, and over 100 wheeled vehicles, mostly Humvees.

[...]

More alarming analyses emerged later, suggesting that deep-lying sectarian divides could be behind the lack of desire to fight.
“The Iraqi army is dominated by Shia, and they were fighting in a Sunni area – and they don’t want to get killed fighting to defend Sunnis,” Ivan Eland, a military analyst, told RT. Notably, Sunni tribesmen, on whom the US is increasingly relying to fend off IS, are also said to have refused to take up positions next to Shia fighters.

Just picture it: On the red corner, catholics, on the blue corner, Evangelicals.

The Southern baptists go a little batshit crazy, but their fellow evangelicals refuse to kick them in the nuts to keep them in line, while the catholics, with the majority of fire and man-power, refuse to help the other evangelicals.

That's pretty much what's going on here, but on the muslim side of the barricade.

One small step for religions... one giant trample for mankind!

[downbeatplumb]

I weep for the archaeology that ISIS will destroy in the name of allah.

[abaris]

What they all failed to understand is that Iraq isn't a nation. It's a construct, drawn up in a colonial office in London without giving ethnicity, religious affiliation and deep rooted tribal traditions any thought or regards. The last decades before the invasion, the minority Sunnis oppressed the majority Shia as well as the minority Kurds, who are of a different ethnicity.

Not that this was a good situation, but in 2003 the secular lid was removed from the already boiling religious kettle.