Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- July 17, 2017

A detained man, accused of being an Isis fighter, sits in front of newly displaced men near a checkpoint east of Mosul last year Reuters

Patrick Cockburn, The Independent: More than just revenge: Why Isis fighters are being thrown off buildings in Mosul

Last Days of the Caliphate: In the latest in his special series on the fall of Mosul, Patrick Cockburn examines why the number of extrajudicial killings has been so high in the recent conflict

Iraqi security forces kill Isis prisoners because they believe that if the militants are sent to prison camps they will bribe the authorities in Baghdad to release them. “That is why Iraqi soldiers prefer to shoot them or throw them off high buildings,” says one Iraqi source. A former senior Iraqi official said he could name the exact sum that it would take for an Isis member to buy papers enabling him to move freely around Iraq.

The belief by Iraqi soldiers and militiamen that their own government is too corrupt to keep captured Isis fighters in detention is one reason why the bodies of Isis suspects, shot in the head or body and with their hands tied behind their backs, are found floating in the Tigris river downstream from Mosul. Revenge and hatred provoked by Isis atrocities are motives for extrajudicial killings by death squads, but so is distrust of an Iraqi judicial system, which is notoriously corrupt and dysfunctional.

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Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- July 17, 2017

What will post-ISIL Mosul look like? -- Farah Najjar, Al Jazeera

Who is responsible for the civilian cost of the battle for Mosul? -- A.C. Robinson, RUDAW

Mosul, A New Textbook Case For Urban Warfare -- Alain Barluet, World Crunché/Figaro

'Islamic State' jihadism could live on -- Loay Mudhoon, DW

The Middle East's New Peacemaker: Israel -- Zev Chafets, Bloomberg

AP Explains: Why is SKorea pushing for talks with NKorea? -- Hyung-Jin Kim, AP

Is Trump using North Korea threat as trade leverage with South? -- Julian Ryall, DW

This is India's China War, Round Two -- Neville Maxwell, South China Morning Post

One year after the South China Sea ruling, a deceiving calm. -- Benoit Hardy-Chartrand, Japan Times

Did Liu Xiaobo Die for Nothing? -- Minxin Pei, Project Syndicate

Macron Caves to the Military -- Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, Bloomberg

Vladimir Putin's PR Victory. Will he never pay a price for his hostile acts? -- Garry Kasparov, Weekly Standard

Germany’s Not Such a Great Candidate to Lead the Free World Either -- James Kirchik, Daily Beast

After Lula's Corruption Conviction. Where Brazil Goes From Here -- Juan de Onis, Foreign Policy

Ecuador's Succession Politics Get Ugly -- Mac Margolis, Bloomberg

Dershowitz: Ruling shows I'm right on Trump and corruption -- Alan Dershowitz, The Hill