Winter Patriot Community Blog

On Monday 6th Jan 2020 at 8pm local time, the Iraqi Government received a letter from William H Seely III, Commanding General US Marine Corps, informing them that the American military would be withdrawing from Iraq and that the government should expect to witness increased flights in and out of the International Zone (IZ).
The Letter
Also see here

This increased air activity at night was nothing to worry about as it was being undertaken to “alleviate any perception that we may be bringing more Coalition Forces to the IZ (International Zone)”.

When the letter became public, the military first denied its authenticity and then claimed it was an unsigned draft that had been sent out prematurely. This last excuse had some surface plausibility because the contents were extremely odd. Here is a military commander saying they will be withdrawing because the Iraqi Parliament voted on them leaving. So they were going to leave because, "We respect your sovereign decision to order our departure"! What's wrong with that picture?

Much of the international press got it wrong. Here is an example of that misunderstanding complete with an amusing cartoon-
Daft Draft

The leaked letter was unsigned but the acting Iraqi Prime Minister, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, confirmed that he had actually received this letter and that his copy, complete with Arabic translation was signed and there were in fact two versions of it – the second one had an amended Arabic translation on the reverse side.
https://www.france24.com/en/20200107-iraq-pm-abdel-mahdi-says-he-receive...

So the US military are lying about the letter being first a fraud, then the letter being a draft and never being intended to be sent. Should we be surprised at the lies when we know that General William H Seely III is in charge of Marine Intelligence? What do we know about all intelligence agencies? They Lie. Lies are their 'stock in trade'. That's what they do. Its not called Psychological Warfare (Psy-Ops) for nothing.

So what's going on? Here is what I think William of Ockham would say about it.

'The Letter' was sent as designed and received by the Iraqi Prime Minister as intended and its purpose was to deceive the Iraqi government into thinking that troops were leaving the International Zone at night when in fact, under the cover of darkness, more troops were being brought into the IZ.

After all, if you want to avoid the perception that troops might be coming in when in fact they were going out, wouldn't it be better to do that in daylight? Clearly, Seely III's intention was to deceive and that was the purpose of the letter.

What General William H Seely III didn't count on was someone in his command taking a picture of it (before it has been signed) and releasing it on the net. He also didn't calculate on the Iraqi PM confirming its existence when asked. Seely III would have had a reasonable expectation that it all would be confidential as the Iraqi PM admitted that multiple threats of extra-judicial killings had been threatened over the years and had even been carried out and all without the public being any the wiser. (Folks, you need to read that last link!) Here is an example from it -

"Later on, when the Iraqi Minister of Defense publicly said that a third side was targeting both protesters and security forces alike, Abdul-Mahdi allegedly received a new call from Trump who threatened to kill both him and the Minister of Defense if they kept talking about this "third side".

That, along with much else in the Middle East has changed now courtesy of the US/Israel extra-judicial killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.

Well done, chaps!

POSTSCRIPT

Here is a very important article written by Frederico Pieraccini that directly quotes Iraqi acting Prime Minister, Adel Abdul-Mahdi addressing the Iraqi parliament regarding Trumps threats of violence -

The Deeper Story Behind the Assassination of Soleimani

Like a wounded Leviathan, the US and its military is thrashing around causing as much damage as it can with no thought of its impending death except that, “It has to do something . . . . NOW”.

The Leviathan hopes to entangle Iran in its death throws, but Iran will do what it has done for the last twenty years. It will step back, do the minimum it needs to do to defend itself from the US, attack and defeat the US proxies and otherwise give the US the room it demands to undo itself.

You can't go against the Laws of Nature, the Law of Non-aggression, forever and hope to survive. Empires exist solely through coercion and they fall when the coercion no longer works. The corruption promotes incompetence from within and fear of the coerced without is replaced with a determination to end the violence. That moment has come for the US in the Middle East.

The killing of General Qassem Soleimani is the lightning rod for that determination. The days of the US occupation of the Middle East are surely numbered.

The war hawks behind the decision to kill Soleimani and Iraqi government militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis are blatantly attempting to incite a war with Iran and cower the Iraqi government.

The fact that these men were Iraqi and Iranian government officials and were murdered while engaged in official, publicly scheduled, business on Iraqi sovereign territory in broad daylight is outrageous. The significance of this unprecedented arrogance of the US government will not be lost on the governments of many countries around the world, least of all Russia and China.

Now that fear of the US is waning along with its declining image of omnipotence and mental competence, the US is hoping to replace that fear in the hearts of Iraqi's with anger - anger that will cause them to do something stupid. What the US does not want, but what it is going to get, is a cold, calculating determination to be rid of them for good.

That determination is going to be led by the Iranian government through the Quds Force, through the Iraqi government, through the Iraqi military including the PMU's (Popular Mobilization Units).

It is unlikely that the Iraqi Prime Minister (or acting Prime Minister) will formally order the US military Forces to leave Iraq. That would be signing his own death warrant. But what we will certainly see is all effective co-operation with the US Forces cease. The US will be increasingly isolated within Iraq and increasingly the soldiers will be effectively confined to base.

We can expect the Iraqi government factions to pull together with Iran's Qud Forces and unite against the occupying US forces.

Next, the Iraqi military (including the PMU's) will go after the Kurds, Turkmen and any Sunni's or one else tempted to continue to co-operated with the US military.

This will remove the US's proxies and force them to do their own dirty work on the ground. This means increasingly exposing themselves outside of their bases and increasingly becoming targets.

They will have to get used to being stopped and harassed at checkpoints and their mobility generally being hampered – not to mention shot at. Everyone has a gun in Iraq.

Next, further constraints will be imposed through US Air Force jets and helicopters coming under ground fire when taking off and landing.

With ground patrols severely limited and Iraqi government and military co-operation withdrawn, these hit and run attacks against US aircraft will become far more viable and effective.

Russia will provide Iran with more intelligence and weapons, such as the S400 missile defence system, to defend itself from attack.

China will step up infrastructure building and finance with Iran to further integrate it with the One Belt One Road transcontinental transport and trade system and thus alleviate the economic situation for Iranians.

Within a few months, US will become increasingly isolated internationally and the US bases within the US and Syria will cease to be fortresses and quickly become prisons.

And the morons behind the US's aggressive decisions will be left to wonder just what went wrong.