Saturday, October 31, 2009

The violence allegory or who's Brando?

As Iraq reeled from last week’s twin bombings in Baghdad that killed more than 150 people and injured 500, public anger turned against Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister.
His government, which goes to the polls in January, has benefited from security gains in the past two years. The ruling party made strides in provincial elections last February, but each new terrorist attack erodes its support.
Recent bombings claimed by Al-Qaeda have targeted government buildings in the heart of the capital. Officials said the toll from last Sunday’s attacks against the justice ministry and the provincial government came to 153, but it was impossible to say how many were men, women or children because so many bodies were unrecognisable.
Families faced desperate searches to find remains of their loved ones. Mohammed Haj Abdallah spent five days looking for his daughter, Sana, and his grandson. Ironically, Sana had gone to the provincial government building to claim the pension of her husband who had been killed in an earlier bombing.

The above is from Hala Jaber's "Iraqis blame prime minister Nouri al-Maliki for Baghdad bombings" (Times of London). Last Sunday's bombings did nothing to encourage the passage of an election law. There is still no movement on that. Supposedly the issue will be taken up again on Sunday. Sunday bombings have resulted in at least 61 announced arrests. In a new development today, Al Jazeera reports that a suspect is dead after having killed a police officer in the midst of an interrogation:


"One of our police officers was killed by a suspect involved in Sunday's bombings," the statement said.
The statement said that the incident occurred at 22:00 GMT on Thursday at the Criminal Investigations Directorate in the capital.
The man was shot and died after being rushed to the hospital, but interior ministry officials did not specify whether he had turned the gun on himself or been shot by police.
The announcement came shortly after the United Nations confirmed a special envoy would be visiting Baghdad on the following day to make preliminary findings on security after last weekend's bombings and a similar attack against government offices in August.

It's like a scene out of The Chase, isn't it? Which was an allegory for . . . In other reported violence . . .

Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad sticky bombing which wounded six people and a Baghdad mortar attack which wounded nine people. Reuters notes a Mosul car bombing which left five people injured, a Mosul grenade explosion which left four people wounded (two were police officers) and a Baghdad car bombing which claimed the life of 1 Justice Ministry employee and three more people were injured.

We'll close with this from Debra Sweet's "Surging on or Droning on?" (World Can't Wait):

ALERT: Street Protests & Die-Ins on the evening President Obama announces the plan to expand the occupation of Afghanistan. That's the night the media will be looking for response from the people. Get signs and banners ready, and make your gathering plans now.
Whether Barack Obama announces a troop increase to Afghanistan, or chooses the covert operations & unmanned drone option to try to "win" in Afghanistan, we should be in the streets opposing any escalation.
The only acceptable announcement to come from the administration would that they're withdrawing combat troops, support troops, CIA drones, covert operations, and all private contractors NOW.


Carly Simon's latest album is Never Been Gone and it was released Tuesday. Like Kat, I'll note Carly's Tweets:

Listen to Carly Simon on the Tavis Smiley radio show. http://tinyurl.com/ydab5p311:24 AM Oct 30th from web
Carly Simon's new album has moved up to # 39 on Amazon. They are selling like "Hotcakes"..pun intended. http://tinyurl.com/mgfrt64:07 PM Oct 29th from web
Great NPR Talk of the Nation interview with Carly Simon & John Forte. Listen or download today. RT http://tinyurl.com/yhkky632:19 PM Oct 29th

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