JUST PHILOSOPHISING - 'THE LIBERATION OF MOSUL AND OTHER SIMILAR PLACES.' PART 1.

For the people of the Mosul and the Iraqi army and government, the biggest threat to them might not be that of ISIS or Daesh. But the challenge of the 'liberation' not being a pyrrhic one. 

That for the non-ISIS residents of Mosul, the price of 'liberation' does not prove so great that they have no City left and nothing to celebrate. 
Liberation bought at the cost of the destruction of people's livelihoods and where they live, is a questionable 'liberation.'


So, how can an army really 'liberate' a place like Mosul, that city in Iraq, when such a 'liberation', according to media reports. 

Appears to be being achieved by the physical destruction of large areas of the city.  And the dispersal of, not only the insurgents who have captured it, but also of the civilians who have been living there? Some of who will, undoubtedly, be sympathetic to the insurgents?

It would be a ruthless person who would unequivocally hold the people of Mosul accountable.  For how they have resorted to deal with the terrible predicament which the Iraqi Army, and, by implications, the government of Iraq, has condemned to.  

By effectively surrendering the City to the insurgents  in 2014. A disastrous act, for which they would also pay a terrible price, as ISIS executed thousands of them.  

In effect, the Army and government of Iraq have left the people of Mosul to their terrible fate, as it were. 

So, by what right  can this Army and government, feel that they can treat all the people of the City of Mosul as if they are all enemy combatants. And show a blatant lack of regard to their safety and the protection of their property, in persecuting the offence against the insurgents?

Yes, we can imagine that the justification will be that of 'pragmatism', and 'war is hell, and does not discriminate between the combatant and the non-combatant, between the 'enemy and the supporter or potential supporter of the enemy', between 'the loyalist' and the 'rebel.' At least, there are too many times and situations when it does not do so.

Of course some of the residents of Mosul will have been sympathetic to the insurgents, probably due to ethnic, religious, political and/or tribal affiliations. 

Of course some will have feigned sympathy towards the insurgents in their attempt to preserve their own lives. 

And of course some will have been converted to cause of the insurgents, through having fallen for their propaganda and indoctrination. 

Just as how many Syrians in Aleppo, Idleib, Ragga and other parts of Syria which has been overtaken by opposition forces. 

Such has been the nature of armed conflict for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

People collude or appear to have colluded with 'the enemy', out of necessity and not necessarily out of choice.

To be continued.