Iraqis reeling from ISIL onslaught: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Stephen Lendman, a writer and radio host in Chicago, about the ISIL onslaught on Iraq and the deplorable conditions of the crisis-stricken Arab country’s people.

A rough transcription of the interview is as follows:

Press TV: Generally speaking, as of when the ISIL terrorists invaded Iraq, how much has the United Nations helped the people of Iraq?

Lendman: The UN has done some help, but certainly not enough. And I think what needs to be emphasized is that the situation in Iraq is so deplorable and so long-standing. At least some sanctions were imposed on the Iraq government beginning in summer 1990 and then the sanctions under the Clinton administration throughout the 1990s. Along with intermittent bombings, he got virtually no coverage at least in America probably in the West followed by the 2003 war the conflict persisting to this day and now the interjection of ISIS forces, which are proxy US forces, is exasperating the desperate situation. Conditions in Iraq affecting millions of people can only be described as one of world history’s greatest crimes and it shows no signs of ending.

Press TV: What about those countries who have been supporting ISIL? How much has the support for ISIL worsened the situation in Iraq?

Lendman: Absolutely. ...... no ISIL existence, if it wasn’t for America and its cohorts. Recruiting these people, paying them, training them, arming them, and deploying them to where they wanted them to go, the situation of Syria is deposing the Assad government and replacing it with a pro-Western puppet, and the situation in Iraq is balkanizing the country into Baghdad, Basra in the south and the Kurdish in the north. And again, I mean they are just balkanizing it just for easier control and affecting desperately in trouble Iraqi people, causing them to go to a mean suffering again long term. And the blame lies in Washington. The plans were concocted in Washington many years ago beginning with the Bush one administration and continued with the Clinton and so on. But again, ....a generation of misery afflicted on millions of people, caused their displacements, unknown numbers are killed, millions of Iraqis are being killed and a human suffering going on out. The UN is helpless against a situation like this. If it were totally dedicated to do everything they wanted it to do, they are helpless in the face of American imperialism.      

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