Monday, September 12, 2011

Moqtada loves Nouri, US forces accused of bring crocs into Iraq and more

Political Stalemate I in Iraq was the eight month period after the March 7, 2010 elections when nothing was accomplished, Nouri al-Maliki (whose slate, State of Law, came in second) refused
to step down as prime minister (a caretaking government should have been put in place by the
UN by March of 2010, the terms had expired for Parliament and for the prime minister, the US government opposed Nouri being replaced because he had promised to keep US troops in Iraq beyond 2011). (Some US elements supported Allawi. The White House, most vocally Samantha Power, supported Nouri.) Political Stalemate I ended in November of 2010 with the Erbil Agreement hammered out in Erbil between the major political blocs (and the US) whereby every one was supposed to make concessions. The Kurds would get to keep Jalal Talabani as president. They thought they would get three vice presidents. Iraqiya won the elections in March 2010 and
the political bloc was headed by Ayad Allawi. Nouri wasn't stepping down and the White House was backing Nouri. For Nouri to remain prime minister, Allawi was promised he would head a new, independent council over security issues. He was also promised that the Iraqiya candidates demonized as Ba'athists and forced out of the 2010 elections by Nouri's friends would have their names cleared.

On November 11th, the new Parliament held their first real session. They voted Osama al-Nujaifi Speaker of Parliament (he was from Iraqiya and that was part of the Erbil Agreement), Jalal was named president and Nouri was named prime minister designate (but we were all informed in the following days that this was 'unofficial' -- once named prime minister-designate, you have 30
days, per the Constitution, to put together a Cabinet and get the Parliament to sign off on each member). But what of the security council? What of clearing the names of the falsely accused?

That would come, State of Law insisted, in time.

Allawi and a number of Iraqiya members walked out. They should have refused to participate
from that day forward. Instead, they foolishly believed promises (from both State of Law and
the White House). Nobember 25th, Jalal 'officially' named Nouri prime minister-designate.

Nouri had created Political Stalemate I by refusing to surrender the prime minister post. He'd done that for eight months. In that time, he should have had some ideas about a Cabinet. But Nouri's problem was he over-promised to get support. So when it was time to name a Cabinet, suddenly the Cabinet had more ministers and deputy ministers than it had previously (from 37
in 2006 to 42 in 2010). And he still couldn't keep his promises to everyone.

December 22nd, the Constitution was tossed by the wayside and Nouri was allowed to move
from prime minister-designate to prime minister because he'd assembled a kind of Cabinet.
He named 31 out of 42 ministers and people pretended that was good enough. He had failed
to meet the Constitutional mandate of naming a Cabinet but everyone looked the other way.

He refused to name the security posts: National Security, Interior and Defense. His defenders (including the White House) swore those posts would be named in a matter of weeks. His detractors saw the refusal as part of a pattern of power grabs on Nouri's part and stated he wouldn't fill the posts. This is the start of Political Stalemate II.

It is weeks away from nine months but Political Stalemate II goes on. Nouri has still not
named people to those posts. (There are two 'acting' ministers in the three ministries.
'Acting' does not count. They have not been approved by Parliament and Nouri can fire them without any say from Parliament. They are not independent and they only have as much
power as Nouri allows them.)

The post Ayad Allawi was promised never materialized and the council he was to head never
did as well.

Nouri got what he wanted from the agreement and then broke it.

Over the weekend Kurdish officials began floating the notion that the Erbil Agreement should
be made public in fool. Aswat al-Iraq reports that Iraqiya is now backing that call "because
the Iraqi people have the right to know what is being carried out behind doors."

Meanwhile Mackenzie Weinger (POLITICO) reports US Senator Lindsey Graham is calling out
the proposal (one of several options) to keep 3,000 US troops in Iraq beyond 2011. Graham's objection is based on his belief that 3,000 is too small a number. The Ventura County Star is
full of s**t as usual. Notice, I don't say Lindsey is. I know Lindsey. He honestly believes that US troops need to remain in Iraq. I honestly disagree. But disagreements don't mean I scream, "You're a liar!" The Ventura County Star's editorial board is full of cowards and liars. Pick a position, you damn idiots. Are you for it or against it? If you don't have an opinion (a) why are
you in the news business and (b) why did you chose to write an editorial? And (C) quit whoring
for Barack. If US troops are in Iraq beyond 2011, he will have broken his promise, not bent.
Facts are facts and they are clearly too much for the idiots on the VCS' editorial board. By
contrast, the editorial board of the Toledo Blade picks a side, they're for withdrawal and
explain why here.

Meanwhile Al Rafidayn reports that Iraq's very own Evita Peron will be staging a pro-Nouri al-Maliki love fest in Baghdad this Friday. Moqtada al-Sadr may or may not attend the
protest -- no doubt it's dependent upon whether or not he can fine a stylish mumu to show off
his girlish figure. Why Friday? Because the Youth Activists already have a Baghdad protest planned and Moqtada knows a lot of journalists will wrongly give him credit for every body in Baghdad. While Moqtada drums up support for Nouri, Al Mada reports that Judge Rahim
Ugaili is rumored to be planning a press conference today in Baghdad. He was the Chair of the Integrity Commission until Nouri forced him out over the weekend.

Journalist and activist Hadi al-Mahdi was assassinated last Thursday in his Baghdad kitchen.
Al Mada reports on the international outcry over the assassination and the call for a full and complete investigation. They also add this detail, there were security cameras in Hadi's neighborhood and the day before the assassination, a man was observed climbing over a wall
to reach a camera. Asked what he was doing, he said he was examining the camera so that
similar ones could be installed at the home of an MP but now it turns out that the camera's
wires were pulled and it had been disabled.

Finally, Al Mada reports that Parliament's Committee on Health and Environment has
accused US forces of bringing crocodiles "and other predators" into southern Iraq. Other?
Snakes and "scary wild animals." The committee plans to search for evidence and maintains
that the will hold US forces accountable. August 7th, a crocodile surfaced in the Diwaniyah
River scaring youngsters who had been swimming there. Police killed the crocodile.

Last week, I noted if anyone with the Truth Movement wanted to use the public e-mail to
submit something, they should feel free, and that I was willing to link to stuff leading up to
the 10th anniversary. Our take on the 9-11 Truth Movement is they will unearth many
important things, as did those citizen-investigators looking into the JFK assassination, and
we wish them well in their pursuit while congratulating them for being focused on something
that is an actual issue and not a trend, a celebrity, or a TV show. We didn't get anything. Until yesterday. And I don't add in things on Sunday. But we will note this from Salem-News. This is from Dr. Anthony Hall's "When War is Promoted as a Remedy for Terror: Reflections on the
Tenth Anniversary of 9/11" (Salem-News):

In early May President Barack Obama announced his administration’s most dramatic commemoration of this, the tenth-anniversary year of the 9/11 debacle.
He boasted to the world that his government had murdered in Pakistan Osama
bin Laden, who the US president described as “al-Qaeda’s leader and symbol.”
“The death of bin Laden,” Obama declared, “marks the most significant achieve-
ment to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al-Qaeda.”[ii]
In this military operation “Geronimo” was the code name used to identify bin
Laden or his impersonator. The skeletal remains of Geronimo’s head form part
a key part of the Bush clan’s family lore with its deep intergenerational connec-
tion to Yale University’s Skull and Bones Society. Skull and Bones is not a myth,
but its secret rituals are legendary. As is well documented, Yale’s Skull and
Bones Society has been an important seeding nursery for the national security
state, but especially the CIA. Like many old fortunes in New England and New
York, the money to start Skull and Bones came primarily from the smuggling
of East India Company opium into China.

There's a whole historical section -- lengthy -- on colonialism that's very interesting but I'll stop
it there to highlight this section (lest I be accused of not indeed allowing 9-11 Truth here after
I'd said we'd note it in the lead up to the 9-11 anniversary):

The evidence gathered over the last ten by scores of scholars and practitioners,
but especially by Professor David Ray Griffin, has removed any reasonable doubt that some elements of the Bush-Blair regime are, along with deep-state operatives
of Israel, deeply implicated in the lies and crimes of 9/11. In his tenth 9/11 book, which poses the question of what happens When State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed, Professor Griffin sums up the air-tight case he has developed from his exhaustive engagement with the evidence of official involvement in one of
history’s most consequential crimes.[x]
With eloquence and erudition Professor Griffin’s scholarly work on 9/11 speaks
for many more people than have actually read his carefully documented and dispassionately reasoned publications. One way or another, many millions of
global citizens have taken the time to look beyond the 9/11 fable; to explore one or more aspects of the empirically-verifiable evidence concerning what actually happened on 9/11. The well-known mantra of this cultural constituency of truth seekers, a new kind of agglomeration of activism in civil society, is that “9/11 was
an inside job.” Its a catchy slogan but also problematic in that the question is begged-- inside of what?
In spite of the broadly-based citizens’ movement that has coalesced around the
goal of breaking through the blockade of officially-sanctioned lies, ten years have gone by without a credible process in government or in any high-profile media to
get to the bottom of the contested interpretations of what really happened on 9/11. This failure has contributed significantly to a huge loss of public confidence in the integrity of many of our most important institutions.
The thick obstacles consistently and unrelentingly put in the way of the citizens’ quest for even a glimmer of truth from officialdom on 9/11 makes many of our supposed leaders in government, in the academy, and in the press complicit in a collective crime of omission. The solidarity displayed in the cover-up is
remarkably strict. Let the self-serving alibi of ignorance or disinterest in the lies
and crimes of 9/11 be seen for the complicity it announces. This complicity is especially marked when it comes to the denialism of those holding positions of
high public trust such as law enforcement officers, teachers, journalists, elected officials as well as the bureaucrats that advise them.
The complicity of accomplices begins with ignoring abundant warnings in the prelude to the 9/11 attacks. It extends to the media’s looking away from the
mounting evidence of 9/11 as a classic example of false flag terrorism.[xi] The complicity of officialdom edges towards involvement when it comes to setting up Islamic patsies that are sometimes paid and manipulated by agents who claim
to be fighting terror on our behalf. In the black markets of the privatized terror economy the stimulation, manipulation and exploitation of fear reigns supreme.
It is the universal gold for those who combine the business of promoting war, empowering the police and the selling of private security with enterprise of managing public perceptions.
The areas of direct involvements by officialdom are spread out across the vast complexities of this, the most many-faceted and ultra-high-tech of twenty-first century crimes. Much of the official involvement was, no doubt, so tightly compartmentalized and so well contained within rigid protocols of command-and-control, as well as “need-to-know,” that many who contributed to the crime’s commission may not be aware to this day of the consequences of their actions or inactions.

This was sent to the public account on Sunday. Before anyone starts a rumor or there's a misunderstanding, I don't include things on Sunday. I focus solely on Iraq and try to get
done as quickly as possible because I'm dead tired from working with everyone on Third. If I wanted to ignore it or go back on what I'd promised, I would have simply said, "They should
have sent it in by Saturday morning because I don't include things on Sunday and now it's
too late." We have included it. I have no problem with the 9-11 Truth Movement. I have friends
who are part of it, I have friends who loathe it. When both are present at my home, all I ask
is that they be respectful to one another.

Ava and I were not present for most of the "Roundtable" at Third because we were working
on the two TV pieces we wrote. We did type up the roundtable and regarding the topic
addressed when we weren't present? I agree with Stan. Others in the roundtable as well
but Stan's the one who raised the issue first. I'm not going to say the man's name because I'm beginning to think he does it for attention. But if you're an economist, Stan's right, your show
last Saturday should have been about Barack's economic speech. Your decision to interview a "turncoat" (I agree with Stan's terminology and he's right that people should stop trusting
these late-to-the-party conversions) and then to do an attack on 9-11 Truth -- yet another attack from you on it -- is damn embarrassing. You're supposedly an economist. If you don't believe in 9-11 Truth, find another topic. You've certainly made it clear you hate them. Why do you
continue to go to that topic? Maybe it's the only way your show gets attention?

I don't know but Ava and I did bust our butts doing research and getting tutorials in order to
be able to write "TV: That Awful Speech" about Barack's speech. And that an economist took
a pass on doing what was required so he could go to town yet again on the 9-11 Truth Movement demonstrates that he's got many, many problems and those problems are internal, not external.

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