Throughout the Iraq War, various liars and propagandists have shown up to proclaim a "turned corner" -- so many turned corners, in fact, that the cars not doing loops, it's doing squares.
Reality has a tendency to slap these people upside their face.
So Lt. Gen. Paul E. Funk II should get ready for his slap.
Or maybe Junior should prepare for a public spanking?
At any rate, Paul Jr. insists at ARMY TIMES:
The liberation of Mosul broke the back of ISIS in Iraq and gave the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people the confidence to work together and rid their country of this scourge permanently.
This military and social transformation materialized not only in the fight against ISIS but in every facet of civil society. We are beginning to see all aspects of the Iraqi security architecture working closely with the judicial system to ensure citizens’ rights are upheld. Arrests are conducted using warrants and executed by law enforcement organizations that are ethnically and religiously diverse, against suspects wanted for their crimes, not because of their political or sectarian affiliation.
It's not just that little Paul Jr. is full of s**t, it's that he's stupid and full of s**t.
And willing to flaunt it in public.
From the June 29th "Iraq snapshot:"
Iraq's legal system remains a joke. Trials take mere minutes. There
are few who receive even adequate defense. Evidence is not required for
a conviction. Women whose 'crime' consists of being married to a
member of ISIS or someone suspected of being a member of ISIS can be
imprisoned and sentenced to death.
Charges -- related to ISIS or otherwise -- are often based on personal
grudges and not actual events. The whole system is a mess.
And on Monday, AP published a series of reports. One explains, "Over three days in late May, the presiding judge of the counterterrorism
court in Baghdad heard an average of 12-13 cases a day and sentenced to
death at least 10 defendants accused of being Islamic State group
members." In another,
Any allegation of having taken up arms for the militant group can
bring the ultimate penalty, even while the evidence is thin and cursory.
The heavy reliance on informants
is particularly glaring, given the potential that some are motivated by
personal grudges. Informants never appear in court; their claims are
passed to the judges in dry, written reports from intelligence officials
with no hint of their possible motivation.
Thousands of defendants are
rushed through the courts, with trials as short as 10 or 15 minutes and a
third of the cases ending in the death penalty. Witnesses are rarely
called and no forensic evidence presented, raising the likelihood of
innocent people going to the gallows.
So, no, the legal world in Iraq is not as portrayed by Paul Junior.
And the coming together that he's seeing?
That's not happening.
More to the point, every member of the US Congress doesn't want it to as evidenced by their recent vote calling out the bloc that came in second -- the militias -- in the May 12th elections, calling them out and calling them terrorists.
Little Paul Jr. somehow missed that as well.