Sunday, November 29, 2009

 

Kat's Korner: Joni Mitchell's unearthed treasure

Kat: "Can you hear that?" Joni Mitchell asks on Armchitka, a new live album of a 1970 concert given by her, Phil Ochs and James Taylor for Greenpeace. What most will hear is how important sequencing and track selection is.

Amchitka
One of rock's true and unarguable classics is Joni's Blue and there are some who wrongly insist that with the title track, "A Case Of You," "River," "All I Want" and "My Old Man" on the album any other songs could be included for filler and the album would be just as powerful. While half an album of filler wouldn't have made Blue into Private Eyes or any other of Hall & Oates' substandard recordings, it wouldn't have made it Blue either. The inclusion of "The Hunter" would have turned Blue into a minor classic and that's if it had been the 11th track, forget if it it had been on the album instead of "All I Want" or "The Last Time I Saw Richard." The two tracks replaced "The Hunter" and "Urge For Going" at the last minute.


"The Hunter" is not a bad song, as Joni's live performance on the Armchitka album demonstrates; however, it is not up to the level of any of the ten tracks on Blue. She's singing of a stranger, a drifter presumably and a desirable one at that, a man she doesn't know who she lets sleep in a tool shed but not in the house.



"Well I don't know you, you're a stranger,

"I don't know you, I don't know where you been

"You can't come in here," said the keeper of the inn

"I don't want you in here," said the keeper of the inn.


It's not a bad song, in fact, it's the kind of song Leonard Cohen's been doing and redoing over and over for his entire career. The uptempo number could have fit easily on Ladies of the Canyon, but beginning with Blue, it's substandard Joni. Her leaps and artistic growth are so huge in 1971 and the years that follow that "The Hunter" never found a home on any of her albums. It's got a catchy beat but, for the standards she has been setting, that wasn't enough.


It works well on the live album which is two discs. The first is Phil Ochs and James Taylor performing their songs and the second disc is Joni performing her songs (plus Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and the early rock & roll standard "Bony Maroney") and sometimes joined by then-boyfriend James Taylor.


Joni's charming and riveting throughout. On "For Free," following the first chorus, she starts the second verse before declaring, "Sometimes this song gets kind of hard to sing. Let me just putter around here a moment." She does just that, finding her way back to the chords and resumes singing. The audience responds warmly to that and other developments which had me thinking about Joni live. I've seen her live many times and it's Joni's publicly stated belief that the concert halls got too big. I remember the Rolling Thunder tour and she was more or less warmly received from the moment she stepped out on stage. Rolling Thunder was Dylan's How Much Money Can I Squeeze Out and the sound quality was hideous (I covered six of tour's concerts in print publications back in the day, just FYI) but Joni, and all the performers, were warmly received.


Joni's publicly stated belief is that the smaller clubs were a better setting for her and that's surely true compared to the disaster that was the Amnesty benefit of the late 80s in Denver. Joni was pelted by the audience with water bottles and cups and assorted other items (I believe the term she used was -- rightly -- "s**t" to refer to all of it collectively.) It was shocking to see because (a) she was in fact turning in a fabulous set (and I wish she'd stuck with the arrangement of "Number One" she performed which was far funkier than what later ended up on Chalk Mark In A Rainstorm), (b) if this allegedly enlightened audience would treat Joni like that, what would they do to others?


It was a truly shocking moment and a telling one that confirmed that the just-do-something 'activism' of the 80s (Buy a ticket! Buy a CD! You've changed the world!) was as shallow as it's supposed beliefs and actions. I don't care if Joe Montgomery, that you never heard of, showed up on stage and his voice cracked on every note, an Amnesty International audience shouldn't be booing. But it wasn't an Amnesty audience. It wasn't a rock audience either. It was a 'hipster' audience, people who wanted to see Tracy Chapman, Bruce Springsteen and whomever else they considered the flavor of the month. Joni's the only one I remember get things thrown at her but I do remember several other acts being loudly jeered and heckled. I also remember middle-aged men (miles and aisles of them) wearing that annoying 80s 'cologne' of pheromones -- which always smelled like dried cum to me. And they were all decked out in their shades and pushed up jacket sleeves, an army of Don Johnsons, while the women were heavily tarted up, trying to paint over the years, with the whole thing reeking of the cocaine fad that had long since passed.


Whenever I read an interview with Joni and she's complaining about the stadium audiences, I always fall back to that concert. "Can you hear that?" Joni asks beginning "Carey" which she quickly merges into the Dylan classic of 'play a song for me' with Taylor joining her for the latter.

In her spoken remarks between songs, she's joking with the audience and laughing and the apparent difference between the decade apart benefits is that Greenpeace was not a hidden aspect. With the Amnesty tour, as noted in real time, it appeared the organization was using Tracy, Bruce, et al as Pied Pipers to lure in an audience and that audience wasn't necessarily concerned with human rights but they could afford the over-priced tickets (I got in on a press pass). By contrast, as Irving Stowe explains to the audience at the start of the 1970 concert (and track one of the first disc), "By coming here tonight, you are making possible a trip for life and for peace. You are supporting, you are supporting the first Greenpeace project: Sending a ship to Amchitka to try to stop the testing of hydrogen bombs there or anywhere."


Phil Ochs pleases the audience as well. Months before, in April of 1970, he'd bombed spectacularly at Carnegie Hall and on the quickly canceled tour that followed. This was when the protest singer Phil was squeezed into a too-tight gold lame suit and claiming to be a hybrid of Elvis Presley and Che Guevara. In all published accounts of Phil's career, that begins a downslide that continues through 1971. Of course those accounts (including Marc Eliot's Death of a Rebel) don't mention the Greenpeace concert. Here's Phil in October of 1970, supposedly after his career is over, and someone forgot to inform the audience.


"Oh, but he was doing his audience favorites!"


He did do his standards like "I Ain't Marching Anymore," "Changes," "The Bells," "Rhythms of Revolution" and "I'm Gonna Say It Now" as well as the folk classic "Joe Hill." But he also did the then-new songs "Chords Of Fame" and "No More Songs" (from 1970's studio album entitled Greatest Hits -- it wasn't a greatest hits, all the songs on the new album were new ones). "No More Songs" actually has recognition applause when Phil begins playing it. "This is a song about the dangers of show business," Phil mumbles right before he starts singing "Chords Of Fame." The song's well received and it's actually a bridge for singer-songwriters.


Phil began as a protest singer and remained that on much of his Elektra work. When he switched over to A&M, he began writing more personal and less topical songs. "Chords Of Fame" is about the price paid for fame -- presumably paid by Phil. Dismissed by many as a form of naval gazing in real time, the song was just the sort of approach singer-songwriters of the seventies would take. Some, like the Eagles, would do so with a special style. Others would fare far less well.


James Taylor was Joni's boy toy when the concert was thrown. As arm candy goes, he was the sort you might find in your grandmother's purse but nothing you'd search out on your own. In fact, the first time he registered with me was when he landed on the cover of Time and I thought, "It's Roger Chillingworth" -- a portent and that only became clearer in the passing years.


That was 1971 and he'd already had his minor hit with "Fire & Rain," a song containing all the stiff-non-rhythmic qualities that would characterize his later work as well as the poor intonation and nasal qualities. On the negative side, you won't find any of Taylor's big hits among the seven tracks on the live album; however, that's due to the fact that he'd yet to enter his Pat Boone period when he began dominating the charts with soulless covers of R&B classics such as "Handy Man," "Up On The Roof" and "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)." Instead he offers two tracks from his 1968 debut (which would become a best seller in 1971), three from his Sweet Baby James album (1970) and two tracks that would be featured on his 1971 album. His performance has a freshness that should delight Taylor fans who will no doubt overlook the insincerity that is as much a hallmark of any Taylor recording as is the thin, nasal vocals.


Introducing "Sweet Baby James," Taylor notes, "It's a lullaby, it's half for him [his nephew] and half for me." I include that because C.I. was including a mention of this new album in an "Iraq snapshot" at the start of the month and noting James Taylor's vanity. As she dictated the snapshot, I stopped her and said, "'Sweet Baby James' was written about his nephew." C.I. gave me a look but pulled the section on that track from the snapshot. I had Amchitka for about two weeks before I finally got around to listening to Taylor's tracks. At which point, I was mortified because, yes, Taylor's vanity is so immense that as a young man he was writing lullabies to himself. At the time C.I. had said the song was as much a lullaby to Taylor himself but that if I wasn't aware of that then most people wouldn't be and "it's not going to be worth all the e-mails that will come in disputing it." So for those, like myself, who were not familiar with JT's self-sung songs, I'll note that here.


As I said, I skipped Taylor's tracks for two weeks. The first week, I just listened to disc two, the Joni disc. The second week, I started listening to some of Phil Ochs' tracks as well after I ripped Amchitka onto my laptop via Windows Media Player. But the set belongs to Joni.


Her performance of "Cactus Tree," for example, is superior to the version included on Miles of Aisles (1974) or Song To A Seagull (1968). "The Gallery" live sounds as wonderful as it does on Clouds (1969). But it all sounds wonderful. So much so that when Joni asks that question ("Can you hear that?"), you want to scream back, "Yes!" The sound quality is amazing and Greenpeace deserves huge praise for that as well as for unearthing this largely forgotten concert. Most of all, they deserve huge credit for having the foresight to invite Joni Mitchell, one of the few acts of that period to achieve legend status and to have pursued art so relentlessly that she's one of our modern masters. "We don't need no piece of paper from the city hall," she sings in "My Old Man"; however, any serious music lover needs Amchitka in their collection. Greenpeace is selling the two-disc album for a limited time only, click here, and they are also offering it (in full and in individual tracks) for download.









 
permalink posted by Common Ills @ 1:30 AM

Saturday, November 28, 2009

 

The Iraq Inquiry

In the meantime, Greenstock is setting himself up as judge and jury in his own case. Ironically, the key issue is who decides who decides, ie whose opinion was valid as to whether UN security council resolution 1441 required further approval from the council to authorise war. Greenstock says his diplomacy was clever (too clever for its own good, he admits) in negotiating a resolution that did not make this explicit. Any other security council member that agreed the resolution but took a different line – well, they would say that wouldn't they? It surely must have occurred to him that, well, he would take his own particular line, wouldn't he? To say otherwise is would be to undermine himself. Didn't every Foreign Office legal adviser say the war would be illegal without a further resolution?
In a written statement to the inquiry, Greenstock openly admitted that one of the reasons why Britain could not agree that a further resolution was necessary was that to do otherwise would undermine the basis on which Britain bombed Iraq in 1998.
To have conceded that the use of force against Iraq was not legal under international law unless the security council took a specific, fresh decision would have been to reject the basis under which military action was taken in December 1998.
So we would say that, wouldn't we?
It was a very careful, self-justifying performance from a former ambassador with an admitted propensity to cover his and his country's diplomatic tracks. Prove me wrong, seemed to be his challenge to the inquiry. Despite a mountain of evidence, the committee seemed reluctant to do this. Maybe they feel sympathy for a man who put his heart and soul into seeking Iraqi disarmament, apparently unaware that regime change was the real agenda. I'm not so sure.

The above is from Chris Ames' "Who decides if a war is legal?" (Guardian) and the Iraq Inquiry, regardless of the outcome,, is news and there's much to be learned if, like Ames, you do some work. Others, like William Bowles, prefer to play self-important (with no real reason to puff out their chests) and offer crap like "Stop the Presses: Corporate Media Discovers Iraq War Set Up." For the record, William Bowles, neither BBC nor the Guardian qualify as "corporate media." That Bowles would be ignorant of that is only surprising if you've never read him. Strangely for a London-based person, Bowles citations tend to run to North American (the US or Canada). Does England not have an independent media? Oh wait, Bowles wouldn't know if they did, this is the fool that thinks BBC and the Guardian qualify as corporate media.


The Times of London is corporate media. Rod Liddle explores the hearings thus far and notes 8 things learned last week, of which, we'll include the first six:


First, the government knew all along that there was no evidence whatsoever to suggest Saddam Hussein had any links with Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden or international Islamic terrorism in general, contrary to what was said in America — particularly by Dick Cheney, the vice-president — at the time.
Second, as a perceived threat to the West, Iraq came a long way behind Libya, Iran and North Korea, according to intelligence reports. The government knew in 2002 from these reports that Saddam’s nuclear programme had been destroyed a decade previously and that Iraq had been “effectively disarmed” by sanctions and the threat of military pressure.
Third, while the US and Britain insisted that Iraq posed a “clear and present” threat to its neighbours, none of those neighbours was audibly desirous of an invasion of the country, and most were audibly opposed.
Fourth, the government included details in its infamous “dodgy dossier” of September 2002 that implied Iraq might be pursuing a nuclear programme when it had not the slightest evidence for this, simply an absence of evidence to the contrary. Which is not quite the same thing, is it?
Fifth, the foreword to the dodgy dossier, written by the prime minister at the time, Tony Blair, was an exercise in hyperbole and scaremongering from which the mandarins arraigned in the QE2 centre could not distance themselves more quickly if they tried. In particular, Blair’s assertion that Saddam had “beyond doubt” continued to manufacture chemical and biological weapons was a statement that was “impossible to make”, according to not only Chilcot but two of his interviewees. In other words — to use an appropriate iconic phrase — the document had been sexed up.
Sixth, an intelligence report in March 2003, shortly before the invasion, suggested Saddam had no chemical weapons whatsoever; they were all long since disassembled and useless. This report was taken by the government to imply confirmation that Iraq actually had chemical weapons, even if they were unusable, and the invasion proceeded.

Instead of a bit player with little credit to his name attempting to claim that he said it all years ago, he might try (a) grasping that he's missing a great many revelations as well as lies out of the hearing, (b) the world needs the remedial (for example, the inquiry has again established no link between al Qaeda and Iraq -- needed because on Oct. 27th, Thomas E. Ricks was promoting a false link between them on NPR -- and that's just the most recent liar), and (c) while he's dismissing things he doesn't even comprehend, he gives the world press the cover they need to hide behind for not covering it: "Well it's nothing new!"

Hey, remember November 8th and all the days that followed -- actually drop back to October -- when the press would 'report' that Iraq would hold elections in January. Doesn't look like that's going to happen. Those 'intended' elections. No one knows when they'll be held currently. SICI head, after the death of his father this fall, Ammar al-Hakim is sounding alarms about 'foreign interference' in the Iraqi process. Iran's Press TV quotes him saying of those attempting to interfere, "They are doomed to fail. (There is) a danger of foreign intervention in the electoral process. The election is an internal Iraqi affair. We must strive for consensus among all Iraqis." Meanwhile Micheal O'Brien (The Hill) notes that US Vice President Joe Biden had conversations by phone today with unnamed "Iraqi leaders" on the proposal to resolve the election stalemate. Presumably this would include the KRG leaders. The Kurdistan Regional Government has not registered their opinion of the proposal being bandied about yet but they did issue the following statment (on another topic) this week:


PM Barham Salih’s statement on International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women
Statement by Prime Minister Barham Salih Kurdistan Regional Government November 25, 2009
On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) reaffirms its commitment to protecting the rights of women and its dedication to increasing the role of women in the political and social spheres. Empowering women and securing their rights and wishes are the major principles of the KRG’s initiatives for women.
We have taken certain measures to ensure that this becomes a reality, and this is reflected in the number of women who are participating in Parliament and the equal opportunities made available them in all sectors of government. Nevertheless, we believe that these steps are only the beginning of finding and benefiting from the potential of this important part of society, which has previously been denied such rights through irrational pretexts.
The KRG therefore feels that it is our duty to eliminate any kind of violence against women in Kurdistan’s society, and to establish an environment where a woman is judged fairly on her skills and abilities. The KRG wants to mark the International Day of the Elimination of Violence against Women by enforcing its message with action.
One of the KRG’s priorities is to give support in particular to women’s efforts to eliminate violence and end so-called ‘honour’ killings. To fulfill this important task, the KRG needs the help and cooperation of all the NGOs and organisations that are working for women’s rights and freedoms. We all must have a hand in establishing and promoting legal and institutional measures to protect and secure those rights.
The KRG intends to form a committee, working directly under the Council of Ministers, charged with finding a mechanism for highlighting women’s issues and coordinating the government’s efforts to prevent discrimination and violations carried out under various pretexts. Furthermore, the KRG will work towards creating social awareness and a legal framework through which women’s rights will be secured.

Community sites posted the following in recent days:

"If you're surprised, who was lying to you?"
"Thanksgiving."
"To shop or not and the Iraq Inquiry"
"Influence of the Bully Boy"
"Cause for Alarm!"
"Yes"
"Post-Thanksgiving tips from the Kitchen"
"Shopping kit and more"
"Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang"
"No to shopping (except for kids)"
"newsweek prepares to close shop?"
"the sport of the shop"
"Equality"
"Pre-shopping questions"
"The death of the CD?"
"No on the shopping proposition"
"With Six You Get Egg Roll"
"To shop or not?"
"Easter Parade"
"No to Black Friday"
"Fiona"
"Comfort zone"
"Little girls love to play dress-up"
"THIS JUST IN! HE REALLY IS BUSH'S TWIN!"
"Who will she give diet tips too?"
"THIS JUST IN! TRASH TV TAKES THE WHITE HOUSE!"



The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.















thomas friedman is a great man






oh boy it never ends

 
permalink posted by Common Ills @ 3:28 PM
 

Media crackdown, militias returning, it's Iraq

Like millions of Muslims around the world, Iraqis are celebrating the religious festival of Eid al-Adha, but it is rather common for Iraqis after the U.S.-led invasion to reflect mixed feelings of hope for better life and bitter disappointment from the troubled political process.
The four-day annual festival falls on the 10th day of the month of Dhul Hijja of the lunar Islamic calendar. The Eid al-Adha, also known as the Feast of the Sacrifice, marks the end of the spiritual peak of the annual pilgrimage or Hajj in Arabic, when pilgrims descend from the hill of Arafat to the nearby holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
Muslims marked the end of the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia on Friday by sacrificing a sheep for the feast in symbolic recall of Prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son on God's orders.

The above is from Jamal Hashim's "Iraqis celebrate Eid al-Adha amid growing bitterness of wrangling political process" (Xinhua) and, yes, there is reporting out of Iraq . . . if you ignore so many of the lazy ass Western outlets. On Thursday, Waleed Ibrahim, Michael Christie and Myra MacDonald (Reuters) reported on the media crackdown in Iraq noting the multitude of suits "filed or threatened against both foreign and local media outlets critical of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite Muslim-led government, which will seek re-election in national polls due in early 2010," the recent 'judicial' finding against the Guardian and that "the department for communications and media has issued rules under which it can close down any media company that encourages 'terrorism, violence and tensions'." In related news, Oliver August (Times of London) reports on the return of the militia to Basra and notes:


The Basra police and army units, who can now be seen at checkpoints throughout the city, deny that they have a problem with returning militants. At the Basra mortuary, however, officials told The Times that they were seeing the bodies of victims from political killings every week. Naeem Hassan, a hearse driver, said: "I just drove the bodies of two Iraqis back to their home in Baghdad. They were working here for a foreign company with a foreign engineer. He was kidnapped and the two Iraqis were killed."
Few such killings are reported in the local media, which has complained about official intimidation in the past. "Don’t believe it when you hear from the police that Basra is safe," Mr Rady said. "Parts of the police are, and always were, part of the militia. They are infiltrated through and through."

When will Iraq learn? You crackdown on the media by cozying up to them. That's how you get the press you want. Ask any White House administration.

A current example: where's the US outlet covering the Iraq Inquiry?

NPR can only post an AP story? Really? They have no London correspondents? Really? That's the lie they want to stick to? Or you can look at the attack on the Guardian by the Iraqi 'judicial' 'system' and note the refusal of the Western press to call it out. (McClatchy Newspapers was the only western outlet covering it.)

The Iraq inquiry continues next week with public testimony but, in the US, we appear to have already seen that the bulk of the press has decided that anything revealed will not make it to US newsconsumers via their US outlets.

We'll close this entry out with Norman Kember's "Iraqis' stories must be heard" (Guardian):

Four years ago this week I was kidnapped in Baghdad. My trip to Iraq had been motivated by frustration at the government's deafness to all voices of reasoned opposition to the war in Iraq. I went to meet Iraqis to reassure them that most people in Britain did not regard them as enemies. Today, the lead-up to that war is back in the spotlight with the Chilcot inquiry. This is more than just an academic exercise to many. Anyone – in Britain, Iraq or elsewhere – who had a relative killed in the conflict will feel an intense personal need to discover the truth. They will be listening to testimony that appears to gravely undermine the official justification for going to war. They will want to learn the reaction by the then government to the advice of Middle East diplomats who knew about the conflicts within Iraqi society, conflicts that Saddam had suppressed but were always likely to explode on his removal. If you are going to war, ignorance of the probable effects on the country in the aftermath is inexcusable. Why else do you have a large diplomatic and intelligence force in the area?
I witnessed how much resentment was created by the revenge attacks of coalition forces on Iraqi towns and their apparent disregard for civilian lives. All our captors had suffered the loss of relatives, homes or jobs in the onslaught on Falluja. And, as they asked Jim Loney, the Canadian peaceworker who was also held hostage, "If the Americans had invaded and occupied your country, would you not have resisted them by all means at your disposal?" I am almost surprised that we were treated so moderately by our captors – apart, that is, from the tragic, largely unexplained, decision to kill Tom Fox, the American Quaker. Their opinion was that the coalition forces had deliberately stirred up the antipathies between Shia, Sunni and Kurd peoples.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.










 
permalink posted by Common Ills @ 3:24 PM

Friday, November 27, 2009

 

Iraq snapshot

Friday, November 27, 2009.  Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces a death, the Iraq inquiry continues in England and covers  many topics including Bush's teleprompter mishap, no solution yet for the Iraq's national elections (but possibilities), and more.
 
Today the US military announced: "BAGHDAD -- A Multi-National Division–Baghdad Soldier died, Nov. 27, of non-combat related injuries. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense. The names of service members are announced through the U.S. Department of Defense official website at http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/. The announcements are made on the Web site no earlier than 24 hours after notification of the service member's primary next of kin. The incident is under investigation." The announcement brings the total number of US service members killed in the Iraq since the start of the illegal war to 4366.
 
Meanwhile, I wasn't aware Thanksgiving was an Iraqi holiday but apparently it is.  That would explain all the outlets off today and unable to report especially on any violence.  The US military hypes, "Two cultures come together at a table. The hosts, strangers in an exotic land, welcome native guests with a rich history stretching back thousands of years.
This scene, reminiscent of the historic celebration at Plymouth, took place here on Forward Operating Base Falcon, Nov. 26, as dozens of Iraqi tribal, civil and military leaders and their families were guests of the 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team for Thanksgiving dinner." Reminscent of the historic celebration at Plymouth?  Did they really just say that?  And then they want to act shocked when accused of attempting to colonize Iraq.  Also suprisingly unhelpful is US Maj Marty Reigher who declares, "Iraqi culture is built on trust and a man's word."  It's disgusting how the US military continues to do their part and then some to make life more difficult for Iraqi women.  Not only was an American officer stupid enough to say it, someone was stupid enough to include it in a write up.
 
But at least the one writing up the hype worked today.  More than you can say for those who should be reporting on violence.  (No, there's no chance in hell that there was no violence in Iraq today.)  Yesterday AFP reported that a Mosul "church and a convent were struck by bombings" -- the Church of St. Ephrem and St. Theresa Convent of Dominican Nuns -- and quoted Father Yousif Thomas Mirkis stating, "These attacks are aimed at forcing Christians to leave the contry."
 
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad car bombing claimed 1 life and left ten people injured, a Baghdad sticky bombing claimed 1 life and left another person injured, a second Baghdad sticky bombing left one person injured, a third Baghdad sticky bombing claimed 1 life and left three people injured, 2 Babil market bombings which claimed 2 lives and left twenty-eight people injured.
Turning to the issue of Iraq's 'intended' January elections and Iraq as Groundhog Day.  It's apparently November 8th or a few days prior all over again.  Anthony Shadid and Nada Bakri (Washington Post) reported Thursday that a proposal has emerged which may or may not have backing in the Parliament and which may or may not pit Sunni against Kurd and, "Even with the agreement, which must now be approved by the Iraqi electoral commission, election officials said it would be almost impossible to hold the election in January as originally planned. Mid- to late February was more likely, since a major Shiite Muslim holiday will not end until Feb. 10."  Steven Lee Myers (New York Times) explains, "A compromise, however, did not appear likely to be reached before next week, as Iraqis began to celebrate the Islamic holiday Id al-Adha, or the Festival of Sacrifice, which lasts until Tuesday.  One of Iraq's two vice presidents, Tariq al-Hashimi, released several statements suggesting that he was open to a compromise. At the same time, he threatened to veto a new election law, as he did last week, raising the specter of a political and constitutional crisis."  Shadid and Barki reported this afternoon that while Tariq al-Hashimi has called the proposal "good news" he has also stated, "It's still early to talk about ratifying the law, because we are awaiting the electoral commission's interpretation of the agreement."  In addition, the reporters explain the Kurds have yet to indicate where they stand on the proposal.  Liz Sly and Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) report that even though the country's "constitution stipulates that the poll must be held by January," it does not appear to be likely that January elections will be held "so a delay will require some constitutional tinkering, which could set a dangerous precedent." AFP quotes Speaker Iyad al-Samarrai stating, "The (election) commission announced it would be held on January 16th, this is not possible anymore because there is no law. I believe that the election will be held in March."
 
In England, the Iraq Inquiry continues.  Those needing audio can't turn to Pacifica Radio because, despite all those "Thanksgiving is abomination!" 'reports' they inflict on listeners, the holiday rolls around and everyone needs off for Thursday and Friday so programs such as Free Speech Radio News and Democracy Now! offer canned 'news' programming.  Not unlike KPFA's infamous New Year's Eve Special on December 31, 2006 that was, in fact, not live despite being presented on air as live.  For audio on the hearing, the Guardian's podcast this week features Anne Perkins and Polly Toynbee discussing the inquiry. Thursday the inquiry heard from Christopher Meyer on the topic of Transatlantic Relationship and Jeremy Greenstock offered testimony today on the topic of Developments in the United Nations [links go to video and transcript options for the testimony of each witness].  Chris Ames (Guardian) observes of Meyer's testimony:
 
At the Iraq inquiry this morning, Sir Christopher Meyer has let so many cats out of the bag that it is hard to keep up with them all. He has confirmed that by the time Tony Blair met George Bush at Crawford, Texas in April 2002, Blair had already agreed to regime change. Meyer and others had told the US administration about this change of heart in March 2002. The "UN route" was a way to justify the war but the inspectors were never given the chance to do their job.        
Or did we know all that already? Ever since the war, there has been a massive gulf between what various leaked documents have shown and the official version. Previous inquiries have failed to close that gap. Now Meyer, who was the UK ambassador to Washington at the time, has done exactly that.     
The government's version of events was always that it was taking action to deal with the threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Leaked documents, most notably the Downing Street documents, show that the policy was to go along with the US desire for regime change and use weapons of mass destruction as a pretext. This version of events was confirmed by what Meyer said this morning. I don't think it could be more explosive.
 
We'll pick up where Meyer is discussing the 2002 meet-up between Bush and Blair.
 
Committee Member Martin Gilbert: That brings me to my last question before I hand over to Sir Roderic Lyne, and it brings me to Crawford in April 2002. What I would like to ask you is this: to what extent did American and British policy towards Iraq merge in April 2002 along the lines that you suggested during that weekend at the Crawford ranch, in particular Bush's commitment at that time, as he put it, to put Saddam on the spot by following the UN inspectors' route and also by constructing and international coalition, which was the Prime Minister's strong input?  How do you feel about the convergance of policy at that time?
 
Christopher Meyer: It took a while for policy to converge -- sorry, if we are talking about Americans, the President accepting, for realpolitik reasons, it would be better to go through the United Nations than not, which was a repudiation of where his Vice-President stood.  It took a while to get there, probably until August of that year.  I said in my briefing telegram to Tony Blair, before Crawford, a copy of which, again, I couldn't get hold of in the archive -- and by that time there had been a couple of months, maybe more, maybe three months, in which contingency discussion of, "If it came to war in Iraq, how would you do it?" It was all very -- it was all vey embryonic.  Of course, while regime change was the formal policy of the United States of America, it didn't necessarily mean an armed invasion, at that time, of Iraq and it may sound like a difference without a distinction or a distinction without a difference, but it wasn't, not at that time, and so I said -- I think as I remember I said to Tony Blair, "There are three things you really need to focus on when you get to Crawford.  One is how to garner international support for a policy of regime change, if that is what it turns out to be.  If it involves removing Saddam Hussein, how do you do it and when do you do it?" And the last thing I said, which became a kind of theme of virtually all the reporting I sent back to London in that year was, "Above all" -- I think I used the phrase "above all" -- "get them to focus on the aftermath, because, if it comes to war and Saddam Hussein is removed, and then . . .?"  The other thing at that time, Sir Martin, which people tend to forget is actually what was blazing hot at the time and a far more immediate problem -- and it wasn't Iraq, it was the Middle East, because the Intifada had blown up, hideous things were going on in the West Bank, the Israeli army were in the West Bank and we had prevailed on the Americans, as one example of British influence working that year, to put out a really tough statement before Tony Blair arrived in Crawford telling the Israelis in summary that they needed to withdraw from the West Bank towns and withdraw soon. Now, let me be quite frank about this. Crawford was a meeting at the President's ranch. I took no part in any of the discussions, and there was a large chunk of that time when no adviser was there, I think -- I don't know whether David Manning has been before you yet, but when he coomes before you, he will tell you, I think, that he went there with Jonathan Powell for a discussion of Arab/Israel and the Intifada. I think it was at that meeting that there was a kind of joint decision between Bush and Blair that Colin Powell should go to the region and get it sorted.  I believe that, after that, the two men were alone in the ranch until dinner on Saturday night were all the advisers, including myself, turned up.  So I'm not entirely clear to this day -- I know what the Cabinet Office says were the results of the meeting, but, to this day, I'm not entirely clear what degree of convergence was, if you like, signed in blood, at the Crawford ranch.  There are clues in the speech which Tony Blair gave the next day at College Station, which is one of his best foreign policy speeches, a very fine piece of work. 
 
Committee Member Martin Gilbert: How do you assess the balance in that speech between, as it were, potential pre-emption and the UN rule in Iraq?
 
Christopher Meyer: There were lots of interesting things in those speeches. It sort of repays a kind of criminological analysis. To the best of my knowledge, but I may be wrong, this was the first time that Tony Blair has said in public "regime change". I mean, he didn't only deal with Iraq, he mentioned other issues as well. But he -- I think what he was trying to do was draw the lessons of 9/11 and apply them to the situation in Iraq, which led, I think, not inadvertently, but deliberately, to a conflation of the threat by Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. It also drew in spirit on the 1999 Chicago speech on humanitarian intervention.
 
In one of the more interesting bits of the testimony, he recounted when the Bully of England met the Bully of the US with George W. Bush saying, "Hello, Tony. May I cally ou Tony? Welcome to Camp David," and Tony Blair responding, "Hello, George. May I call you George? Great to be here. What are we going to talk about?"  Oh, there's nothing more heart warming than two dithering idiots bonding.  He went on to declare that "I remember Condoleeza Rice saying to me, 'The President has just got back and he said the only human being he felt he could talk to was Tony, the rest of them were like creatures from outer space'. or some such phrase."
 
 
Moving on to today, John Chilcot is the Chair of the inquiry and he explained this morning, "The objective of this session is to help us build a picture of developments at the United Natins on policy towards Iraq in 2001 to the beginning of the military action in March 2003."   Gordon Rayner (Telegraph of London) reports of Greenstock's testimony:

Sir Jeremy told the inquiry panel: "I regarded our invasion of Iraq as legal but of questionable legitimacy, in that it didn't have the democratically observable backing of the great majority of member states or even, perhaps, of a majority of people inside the UK.
"So there was a failure to establish legitimacy, although I think we successfully established legality in the Security Council for our actions in March 2003 in that we were never challenged in the Secuity Council or in the International Court of Justice for these actions."
Sir Jeremy regarded it as essential for the UN to pass a resolution in 2002 establishing the case for war, and threatened to resign if no resolution was passed.


Alex Barker (Financial Times of London) adds, "Addressing the issue of whether weapons inspectors should have been given more time, Sir Jeremy told the inquiry: 'It seemed to me that the option of invading Iraq in, say, October 2003 deserved much greater consideration. But the momentum for earlier action in the United States was much too strong for us to counter'." Though some may cheer that statement, they shouldn't. In the construct of the response, he argues for war, just wanting it to wait until "say, October 2003." No where does he allow that the inspectors being allowed to complete their jobs could argue that there was no case for war. James Meikle (Guardian) reports, "Earlier, Greenstock told the inquiry that he had threatened to resign if the UN security council failed to pass a resolution on Iraq in the lead-up to the invasion." In other words, empty threats are part of the weakingly's make up. And to be clear, Greenstock claims that he was satisfied by the November 2002 resolution (1441) which really just allowed the weapons inspectors back into Iraq. It did not authorize a war. Greenstock failed to make clear why something as serious as starting a war didn't require a resolution or why he himself didn't feel that was grounds for resigning -- and, no, he can't (as he tries to do) push that off on Bush. Bully Boy Bush is a War Criminal, no question. He had no authority over Greenstock and none over Tony Blair. Greenstock needs to take some accountability for his own actions and stop trying to hide behind Bush.
We'll drop in on the issue of 1441 for an interesting factoid.
 
Committee Member Usha Prashar: But was it your view throughout the negotiations of 1441 on whether or not a second resolution would be needed?
 
Jeremy Greenstock: There are two different sorts of second resolution and this my explain why President Bush used the plural when he was ad libbing, when his teleprompter gave him the penultimate American text and not the text he had agreed to, by a mistake of his staff.  He ad libbed the words, "And we shall come to the UN for the necessary resolutions" from his memory. It wasn't that the telepromprter broke down, he saw that it was the wrong text on the teleprompter, as I understood the story.  There was, as part of the lead-up to the negotiation of 1441, the idea that there should be a pair of resolutions, not a single one in 1441 that should have the inspectors' conditions in one part and in the second resolution the consequences for Iraq on what would happen if they didn't comply with the the first one.  There was the possibility of passing those resolutions either together and simultaneously or sequentially in time. As it happened, in 1441 we built those two elements into a single text and it was successfully negotiated and passed unanimously on 8 November as a single text. 
 
Andrew Grice (Independent of London) adds, "He said the 'whole saga', in terms of UK policy, was driven by the belief that Iraq had WMD and any talk from the United States of other motivations for war, such as regime change, were 'unhelpful'. UK policy was solely focused on disarming Iraq, he insisted. The failure to secure another UN resolution had been damaging in terms of public perceptions of the reasons for going to war." Really? That's what Greenstock's going to go with?  That England "was driven by the belief that Iraq had WMD"?  In the US, Bush used many lies to push for war on Iraq and the most infamous one might be that 'Saddam Hussein attempted to aquire yellow cake uranium from Africa'. In England, Blair was fond of the fanciful boast that Iraq had the capability to attack England with WMD within 45 minutes. David Brown and Francis Elliott (Times of London) highlighted this important aspect of Wednesday's testimony, "Intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have access to weapons of mass destruction was received by the Government ten days before Tony Blair ordered the invasion of Iraq, the inquiry into the war was told yesterday."  Meanwhile Channel 4 continues to offer their live blog by Iraq Inquiry Blogger whose observations today included:

A final thought: while Meyer's book (you just may have picked up yesterday that he'd written a book) became a best-seller, Greenstock's The Costs of War never even made it to the bookshops. It was blocked by the FCO and Number 10, apparently because he'd quoted confidential diplomatic exchanges.
 
Thursday the Liberal Democrat Party issued a press release noting their leaders questioning of the current prime minister of England, Gordon Brown, on the issue of the Iraq Inquiry:
 
 

Nick Clegg, Leader of the Liberal Democrats yesterday challenged the Prime Minister on the government's ' culture of secrecy' with regards to the Iraq Inquiry.

The full text of nick's questions:

Mr. Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD): I would obviously like to add my own expressions of sympathy and condolence to the family and friends of Sergeant Robert Loughran-Dickson of the Royal Military Police, who tragically died serving in Afghanistan last week. I also add my tribute to PC Bill Barker, who lost his life in the line of duty dealing with the terrible floods in Cumbria. Our hearts go out to his wife and four children. At such times we all remember that it is the brave men and women of our emergency services who keep us safe when it really counts. We thank them for it.

It is vital that the Iraq inquiry, which started its work this week, is able to reveal the full truth about the decisions leading up to the invasion of Iraq. Will the Prime Minister therefore confirm that when Sir John Chilcot and his colleagues come to publish their final report, they will able to publish all information available to them, with the sole exception of information essential to national security?

The Prime Minister: I have set out a remit and brought it to the House of Commons. Sir John Chilcot has been given the freedom to conduct his inquiry as he wants. He has chosen to invite people to give evidence, and he will choose how to bring his final report to the public. That is a matter for the inquiry.

Mr. Clegg: As I think the Prime Minister must know, the matter is not just for the inquiry, because his Government have just issued a protocol-I have it here-to members of the inquiry, governing the publication of material in the final report. If he reads it, he will see that it includes nine separate reasons why information can be suppressed, most of which have nothing to do with national security. Outrageously, it gives Whitehall Departments individual rights of veto over the information in the final report. Why did the Prime Minister not tell us about that before? How on earth will we, and the whole country, hear the full truth of the decisions leading up to the invasion of Iraq if the inquiry is suffocated on day one by his Government's shameful culture of secrecy?

The Prime Minister: That is not what Sir John Chilcot has said. The issues affecting the inquiry that would cause people to be careful are national security and international relations. As I understand it, those are the issues referred to in the protocol. I believe that Sir John Chilcot and his team are happy with how they are being asked to conduct the inquiry.


Wednesday Cedric's "Little girls love to play dress-up" and Wally's "THIS JUST IN! HE REALLY IS BUSH'S TWIN!" emphasized that Barack plans to use West Point as a studio set to show boat on with his Afghanistan War announcement while other community sites explored the topic of Black Friday: Betty's "Yes," Mike's "To shop or not and the Iraq Inquiry," Rebecca's "the sport of the shop," Stan's "No to Black Friday," Elaine's "Comfort zone," Ruth's "Pre-shopping questions," Marcia's "To shop or not?," Trina's "Shopping kit and more ," Ann's "No to shopping (except for kids)" and Kat's "No on the shopping proposition."  And yesterday Mike offered "Thanksgiving."
 
 


 
permalink posted by Common Ills @ 7:27 PM
 

Inquiry told the Iraq War is illegitimate

It will cover Britain's role in Iraq from July 2001 to July 2009 and report some time next year, after the General Election.
Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's ambassador to the UN at the time, has already told the inquiry that the war was not legitimate.
Earlier Sir Christopher Meyer, then Britain's ambassador to Washington, suggested that a deal to invade Iraq may have been "signed in blood" by George Bush and Tony Blair in 2002.
There will doubtless be many more revelations, but what will be done as a consequence?

The above is from the Telegraph of London's "Iraq inquiry: what exactly will Sir John Chilcot's inquiry achieve?" which is not an opinion piece, at least not in the traditional sense. It's an opinion piece in the just-add-water sense. They're asking readers to leave comments on what they believe the inquiry will accomplish. The Telegraph's Gordon Rayner reports of today's testiomony by Greenstock:

Sir Jeremy told the inquiry panel: "I regarded our invasion of Iraq as legal but of questionable legitimacy, in that it didn’t have the democratically observable backing of the great majority of member states or even, perhaps, of a majority of people inside the UK.
"So there was a failure to establish legitimacy, although I think we successfully established legality in the Security Council for our actions in March 2003 in that we were never challenged in the Secuity Council or in the International Court of Justice for these actions."
Sir Jeremy regarded it as essential for the UN to pass a resolution in 2002 establishing the case for war, and threatened to resign if no resolution was passed.

Today is day four of the public testimony and Channel 4 continues to offer their live blog by Iraq Inquiry Blogger:

A final thought: while Meyer's book (you just may have picked up yesterday that he'd written a book) became a best-seller, Greenstock's The Costs of War never even made it to the bookshops. It was blocked by the FCO and Number 10, apparently because he'd quoted confidential diplomatic exchanges.

Alex Barker (Financial Times of London) adds, "Addressing the issue of whether weapons inspectors should have been given more time, Sir Jeremy told the inquiry: 'It seemed to me that the option of invading Iraq in, say, October 2003 deserved much greater consideration. But the momentum for earlier action in the United States was much too strong for us to counter'." Though some may cheer that statement, they shouldn't. In the construct of the response, he argues for war, just wanting it to wait until "say, October 2003." No where does he allow that the inspectors being allowed to complete their jobs could argue that there was no case for war. James Meikle (Guardian) reports, "Earlier, Greenstock told the inquiry that he had threatened to resign if the UN security council failed to pass a resolution on Iraq in the lead-up to the invasion." In other words, empty threats are part of the weakingly's make up. And to be clear, Greenstock claims that he was satisfied by the November 2002 resolution (1441) which really just allowed the weapons inspectors back into Iraq. It did not authorize a war. Greenstock failed to make clear why something as serious as starting a war didn't require a resolution or why he himself didn't feel that was grounds for resigning -- and, no, he can't (as he tries to do) push that off on Bush. Bully Boy Bush is a War Criminal, no question. He had no authority over Greenstock and none over Tony Blair. Greenstock needs to take some accountability for his own actions and stop trying to hide behind Bush.



The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.


the telegraph of london
gordon rayner
channel four


the guardian

 
permalink posted by Common Ills @ 8:55 AM

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