Thursday, October 27, 2011

When puppet regimes meet . . .

When puppet regimes meet . . .
Do they show one another their strings?

Al Sabaah reports Nouri al-Maliki met with Mohammad Karim Khalili who is vice president "of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan" and Nouri bragged about how he had battled terrorism and "succeeded" as a result of having built up the security forces. Nouri forgot to credit his most important weapons -- false charges and forced confessions. Currently, he's launched another witch hunt against opponents and is, yet again, labeling them 'Ba'athists!' He's usually successful deploying the B-bomb. The only time there's been significant pushback was when he attempted to label the Friday activists protesting in Tahrir Square as 'Ba'athists.' He quickly realized that even the B-bomb has some limits.

Al Sabaah reports that the crackdown is ongoing and the government claims it has arrested 75% of the 'Ba'athists' so far (over 500 arrested, they brag). Sounding a great deal like Hogan's Heroes' Col Klink insisting, "We have ways to make you talk," Ministry of the Interior flack Adnan al-Asadi declares that "We have eyes and ears allowing us to detect a plot of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Ba'ath Party." And to apparently make it sound even more of-the-moment, al-Asadi adds there is PKK involvement in the plot as well. What's worse? The lie or that fact that Nouri and company clearly thought it would be easily believed?

Well puppets don't get picked for their brains. Nor do thugs and Aswat al-Iraq reports, "Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr supported the measures taken by Iraqi minister of higher education to demote some universtiy personnel who were connected with the former Baath Party, as stated by his office." Did he? Well if they're 'Ba'athists' and 'dangerous' why were they demoted? Aren't they going to pollute the campuses just by being present?


But back to those eyes and ears al-Asadi was claiming, Al Mada reveals that the government is stating their source for the 'tips' about the alleged Ba'athist plot to take over Iraq came from the Transitional Government of Libya. The so-called rebels. A number of whom were in Iraq killing both Iraqis and US troops and British troops, several years ago. And supposedly prepping to rule Libya currently so you'd assume they had their hands full.

Grasping that geography isn't an American strength (a finger points back at me, I only know where every state is due to constant travel -- same of world countries -- and in college my geography teacher sat me in his office for the final, in front of a world map and then left his office -- stupid me, I thought he'd forgotten the map was there and turned myself away from it and scored a big F on the geography final that he upgraded when grades came out), let me point out that Iraq borders many countries; however, Libya is not one of them. Not only do they not border one another, they are on separate continents and there's nearly 2,000 miles between Baghdad and Tripoli (roughly 1800 miles).

Tim Arango (New York Times) maintains that "secret intelligence documents" were discovered by the so-called 'rebels' that provided a link between Libya's late president Muammar Gaddafi and Ba'ath Party members and that Mahmoud Jibril made a trip to Baghdad to turn over the info. Jibril was acting prime minister who stepped down October 23rd. (We're back to when puppet regimes meet!) One would have assumed he had other things to focus on. It's also curious that this 'rebel' would have 'learned' after the fall of Tripoli of a plot. Curious because, unlike a number of 'rebel' leaders in Libya, Langley didn't ship Jibril in from Virginia, he was Gaddafi's hand picked head of the National Economic Development Board (2007 to 2011). One would assume he would have been aware of any big plot long before the so-called rebels began the US war on Libya.

al-Asadi also wanted to talk 'trainers.' They're not really needed, Al Sabaah reports he has stated, but any that are used will not be paid for by Iraq. He insists the costs will come out of billions the Congress has granted for expenses such as housing. He noted that there are thousands of mercenaries in Iraq and that Blackwater's been replaced by Triple Canopy (among others) and that the US Embassy provides cover for it. He also brings up the residents of Camp Ashraf and says they will be dispersed to other 'camps' (plural) throughout Iraq by the end of the year and that will help Iraq in sending them back to their home country (Iran) or other countries. 'Other countries' reads like an aside. Camp Ashraf residents have long feared the plan is to return them to Iran where, as dissidents, they will face persecution.

And in other disturbing news, Dar Addustour reports that Parliament has begun identity checks on various journalists and is concluding that many are not journalists.


The following community sites -- and Antiwar.com -- updated last night:


And we'll close with this from Debra Sweet's "The World Still Waiting For US Withdrawal" (World Can't Wait):

Despite the Obama administration’s announcement Friday that U.S. combat troops are finally leaving Iraq — giving rise to the popular perception that “Iraq war is over”– I ask those who are celebrating to consider: where is the joy coming from?
It’s been ten years now since Donald Rumsfeld’s brain went “9/11 = attack Iraq,” apparently minutes after the WTC was hit by airliners. From that moment, when the world’s largest military machine began planning it, through today, after over a million Iraqi deaths, this war and occupation has never been legitimate, just or moral!
Tens of millions of us who care about humanity protested to prevent the Bush regime from getting the coalition it sought to attack Iraq; much of the world was convinced the U.S. was not invading to “save” Iraqis but to advance its own imperial agenda. Our actions did contribute to this loss of legitimacy as the United States military ran into deep geopolitical difficulties in the region (remember, Bush and Cheney planned to sweep through Iraq as a gateway to dominating the rest of the region, including Iran, a strategy that has, shall we say, not gone well.)
The Nobel Peace President, who promised an end to war on Iraq, isn’t exactly blazing a peace trail. The Bush Regime set this time frame of “withdrawal” in 2011.
In fact the Obama administration, through the State Department, pursued very hard the plan to keep U.S. fighting forces in Iraq beyond this year. It was the Maliki government, which in general has been very compliant to its U.S. funders, who balked at allowing U.S. military to stay because the terms demanded by Obama included immunity from local prosecution for the troops.



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