Tuesday, December 28, 2010

11 dead, 3 wounded in today's news cycle

Aaron C. Davis (Washington Post) reports on yesterday's Ramadi attacks claimed 19 lives and left forty-five injured while DPA reports attacks in Mosul (a car bombing and an assault on police) have claimed 8 lives. Alsumaria TV reports that a Baquba bombing claimed the life of 1 child and left another person injured, a Baghdad bombing wounded a Foreign Ministry employee and a US patrol in Najaf was targeted with a bombing (no word on whether anyone was harmed -- US or Iraqi). Reuters adds an attack on a Tal Afar Iraqi military checkpoint resulted in the death of 1 Iraqi soldier and another left injured and, dropping back to last night, 1 employee of the Parliament was shot dead in Baghdad. That's 11 dead and three wounded in today's news cycle.

Meanwhile Sam Dagher (Wall St. Journal) reports on an interview he conducted with thug and prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. Were Dagher still working for the New York Times, the laughable report would never have been printed. You've had too many reports from too many reporters at that paper about the plans for 2012 for any of the nonsense printed without question to fly.

One example:

A majority of Iraqis -- and some Iraqi and U.S. officials -- have assumed the U.S. troop presence would eventually be extended, especially after the long government limbo. But Mr. Maliki was eager to draw a line in his most definitive remarks on the subject. "The last American soldier will leave Iraq" as agreed, he said, speaking at his office in a leafy section of Baghdad's protected Green Zone. "This agreement is not subject to extension, not subject to alteration. It is sealed."


Let's start with World Can't Wait's Debra Sweet being interviewed by Angela Keaton (Antiwar Radio).

Debra Sweet: And don't forget that the war in Iraq is not over. The occupation is as robust as ever. 50,000 -- you know, now they call the troops advisors or trainers -- they're still there with the full compliment of military equipment. They're still an occupying army. And all they've done is militarize some of the people under the control of the State Dept and those are the combat troops. Now, this is kind of incredible, run not by the Defense Dept but now by commanded by Hillary Clinton and the State Dept. This is what passes for an end of the occupation of Iraq: 17 military bases, huge numbers of private contractors that they don't even have to account for and reveal to us.

Debra's describing the widely reported -- and acknowledged -- plan for what happens if US soldiers have to 'leave' Iraq. In that case, they continue to stay but under the cover of the State Dept (and commanded not by Hillary but by the NSA -- which is why NSA has been in Iraq so much in 2010 -- but don't notice that, don't notice that the NSA has issued more statements on Iraq in 2010 -- and often issued from Baghdad -- than has the current US Ambassador to Iraq -- an ambassador who also has NSA ties).

But that's the back up. That's what the US government will do if they can't get an extension. Joe Biden thinks they'll get one, Robert Gates thinks it's probable, those are just some of the executive branch employees on the public record.

Nouri says it's not happening! Well for the Wall St. Journal that probably passes for 'reporting.' Away from it? Most would feel the need to note that Nouri made similar noises in 2006 -- before extending the UN mandate -- and in 2007 -- before extending the UN mandate. Only the Wall St. Journal would ignore pattern.

We'll close with this from Chris Hedges' "2011: A Brave New Dystopia" (Information Clearing House) -- (and for the record, I'd argue Margaret Attwood :The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake are the two greatest visions of a future dystopia):

The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second.

We have been gradually disempowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through sensual gratification, cheap mass-produced goods, boundless credit, political theater and amusement. While we were entertained, the regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled, the laws that once protected us were rewritten and we were impoverished. Now that credit is drying up, good jobs for the working class are gone forever and mass-produced goods are unaffordable, we find ourselves transported from “Brave New World” to “1984.” The state, crippled by massive deficits, endless war and corporate malfeasance, is sliding toward bankruptcy. It is time for Big Brother to take over from Huxley’s feelies, the orgy-porgy and the centrifugal bumble-puppy. We are moving from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions to one where we are overtly controlled.

Orwell warned of a world where books were banned. Huxley warned of a world where no one wanted to read books. Orwell warned of a state of permanent war and fear. Huxley warned of a culture diverted by mindless pleasure. Orwell warned of a state where every conversation and thought was monitored and dissent was brutally punished. Huxley warned of a state where a population, preoccupied by trivia and gossip, no longer cared about truth or information. Orwell saw us frightened into submission. Huxley saw us seduced into submission. But Huxley, we are discovering, was merely the prelude to Orwell. Huxley understood the process by which we would be complicit in our own enslavement. Orwell understood the enslavement. Now that the corporate coup is over, we stand naked and defenseless. We are beginning to understand, as Karl Marx knew, that unfettered and unregulated capitalism is a brutal and revolutionary force that exploits human beings and the natural world until exhaustion or collapse.

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake,” Orwell wrote in “1984.” “We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”



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