I can't wrap my mind around this

On March 12, US Consul General Steve Walker visited Al-Sadr Teaching Hospital in Basra to pay his respects to wounded members of the Popular Mobilization Units. The visit marked the first time a US official has publicly met these troops....
Walker made it clear that the trip was not just a courtesy visit. Accompanied by TV stations such as the US-based Alhurra, which broadcast the visit and his remarks in Arabic, Walker said, "The US recognizes the important contribution of the Popular Mobilization Units under the command of Prime Minister [Haider al-Abadi], and most of the Popular Mobilization troops came from the south. This is why I would like to express my condolences to the people of Basra and the south who have lost their loved ones or friends in the war against the Islamic State."
Walker expressed his solidarity with the wounded, who welcomed his visit. He told them, "The US and Iraqi people are very, very proud of you."
The visit coincided with the debate on the Popular Mobilization Units' participation in the battle for Mosul. On Feb. 29, the Ninevah Provincial Council voted against their participation in the operations to liberate the city. Atheel al-Nujaifi, the former governor of Ninevah province and head of a small military force consisting of volunteers from Mosul called Hashid Watani (Arabic for "National Mobilization"), said, "The Popular Mobilization Units' participation in the battle for Mosul is unacceptable … and the insistence on such participation implies an insistence on the destruction of Mosul."

Let's be clear about a few things:
1) Several of these groups are listed as terrorist groups by the State Department
2) All of them have killed American soldiers

Just to give you an idea, this is the latest news about these so-called allies.

A militia group in Iraq has purportedly used Instagram to put to a vote the fate of a captured Islamic State fighterwhich, if genuine, is “unquestionably” a war crime.
The account @iraqiswat, claiming to be that of Iraq Special Operation Force, posted an image to its 80,400 followers on Monday that appeared to show a captured Isis fighter.
According to the caption, the Isis jihadi had been arrested south of Mosul, and followers had one hour in which to decide whether he was killed or released.
“You can vote For (kill him or let him go) You have one houer to vote We will post his fate after one houer Tag your friends and take your right take your reveng from isis right now. Please we dont have the time just one houer so tag your friends,” the post reads.
A follow-up image indicated the “vote” had resulted in the fighter’s death.

Diplomacy: Libyan style

Libya's U.N.-brokered unity government threatened on Thursday to send the names of 17 of the country's rival politicians, militia leaders and religious figures to the international police organization Interpol and the U.N. Security Council for "supporting terrorism" if they continue to "impede democratic transition."
The prime minister-designate of the U.N.-backed government, Fayez Serraj— who landed by sea in the Libyan capital of Tripoli on Wednesday— is slowly taking steps to consolidate his grip on power in a country already split between two rival governments, two parliaments, and militias in eastern and western Libya.

And in immediate response...

Gunmen stormed the headquarters of a Libyan television station, as the authorities in control of Tripoli demanded the departure of the newly-arrived prime minister designate in a blow to hopes for a peaceful power handover.
Armed men burst into the headquarters of satellite TV station Al-Nabaa in central Tripoli late Wednesday, cut its transmissions and forced out its staff, according to two journalists from the channel...
But in a sign of the formidable challenge facing his government, Tripoli's unrecognised authorities demanded that he leave the capital or "hand himself in".
"Those who entered illegally and secretly must surrender or turn back," the head of the Tripoli authorities Khalifa Ghweil said in a televised address. "We won't leave Tripoli as long as we are not sure of the fate of our homeland," he added.

There's a symbol here

The US government spent $86 million over seven years developing a counter-narcotics surveillance aircraft for Afghanistan, but the plane has never carried out a mission and is sitting idle in Delaware, a watchdog said on Wednesday.
After years of war in Afghanistan, a global hub of opium and hashish production, the US Drug Enforcement Administration had until now largely avoided criticism for questionable spending of the sort leveled widely against the US military.
But Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said in a report that an aircraft purchased by the DEA and modified with tens of millions of Defense Department dollars missed every delivery deadline and remained inoperable.

And now a word from Captain Obvious

It has been nearly 18 years since the United Nations was first asked to support the budding U.S. war on terror with a Security Council resolution calling on states to cooperate in pursuing those behind the Aug. 7, 1998, attacks on two U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Following the 9/11 attacks, the U.N. built an industry of counterterrorism panels and committees that has documented the spread of militant organizations across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The world body has pressed countries to rewrite laws, share intelligence, and criminalize terrorism.
But extremist violence continues to bedevil the big powers, prompting a major rethink of counterterrorism priorities.
“Here we are, 18 years later, with pretty much the same problem and no really strong strategic approach for dealing with it,” Richard Barrett, a former director of global counterterrorism for the British Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, who headed U.N. investigations into al Qaeda, told Foreign Policy. “It’s very much about bombing and arresting rather than understanding why this is happening and what can be done to try to address that.”
The problem has become so pronounced that even the U.N.’s most senior leaders are sounding the alarm.

Once more for the cheap seats

April Fools believe suicide bombers can be stopped with more body scanners and police surveillance. Fifteen years of bigger, better blast walls, checkpoints, limits on access, barricades, obstacle courses and ever-expanding restrictions at airports and government buildings may fend off car bombers, but driven suiciders with a bit of planning can obviously wreak havoc whenever they wish in San Bernardino or Paris, Brussels or Boston, Ankara or Lahore.
April Fools believe the “war on terror” can be won using bombs and bomb threats, and that bombs will end it. But all the military means being used to discourage attacks on Our civilians have been killing Other civilians, and, consequently, a prolonged war morphs to a permanent one and a relative small terror group is now a caliphate with 7.8 million new refugees in flight from it. Newspapers, magazines, books, movies and endlessly detailed TV coverage of Our innocent victims necessarily and deliberately ignores, trivializes and even negates acknowledgement of the thousands of Other innocent lives shredded, maimed, or obliterated by US commandos, drones, and jet bombers.