Saturday, December 03, 2011

State of Law says US Air Force will be 'leased' to Iraq

Hossam Acommok (Al Mada) reports that, "according to State of Law," the US and Iraq have reached an agreement for US forces to patrol Iraqi skies which is seen as good news by State of Law (Nouri's political slate) since Iraq cannot protect their own skies currently. In effect, the US will be turning the American Air Force into rent-a-cops. There will be no security agreement, per se, but instead these forces will be "leased" to Iraq. That State of Law source named for that information is MP Khalid al-Asadi who is not just a State of Law MP and leader, he's also very tight with Nouri. The commander of the Iraqi air force, Anwar Hama Amin, is quoted stating that he has not been informed of any such deal but stating that the Iraq air force needs "a lot" more equipment, more time and more money.

Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Rebecca Santana (AP) report on their outlet's interview with Nouri al-Maliki. Nouri claims that his forces are ready to defend Iraq. Is he unaware of what his buddy Khalid al-Asadi is telling the press? Or maybe he just wanted to lie? He does that claiming he was the target of the bombing.

We explained how foolish that was in yesterday's snapshot.

But liars can't help themselves, they lie and they lie some more and their lies get bigger and bigger. That's how we caught on the Myth of the Great Return. They couldn't stop lying. They kept adding details to it.

Today Nouri wants you to know that he has info that he was the target. He's quoted stating, "The preliminary intelligence information says that the car was due to enter parliament and stay there and not to explode. It was supposed to explode on the day I entered parliament."

Nouri's such a bad liar.

Apparently, he's forgotten the detail that was being pimped yesterday: Thursday was to be explosion day? Or maybe he realized how stupid that sounded? That could be. In which case, he's a good lair in that he's realized a glaring detail doesn't fit and needs to be dropped immediately. If so, good liar there. But still a bad liar.


Intelligence tells Nouri that he was the target. That's a good lead. Especially when they have no one to talk to. The reporters inform ou, "A body was found near the wrecked car, but authorities were still trying to determine the person's identity and whether he was the bomber or a bystander, officials have said." They can't even identify a body in terms of whether the person was or wasn't part of a plot. But they somehow have intel that allows them to determine Nouri was a target?

No, it doesn't play.


But what it should do is raise the concern level. It's one thing to have a flunky announce that you were a target. That's a bid for sympathy. But when it's paired with you announcing you were targeted for an assassination?

That may mean that you're going to use this lie to even some scores. For example, insisting it was an inside job that was to target Nouri allows Nouri to bring 'evil doers' to 'justice,' right? Considering his past record, the fact that Nouri gave an interview where he talked about the attempt on his own, concern levels should be rising. Especially when the Sadr bloc is asserting it was an "inside job."


While Nouri tries to present a happy face on Iraq these days, Patrick Cockburn (Independent) finds that things are less sanguine on the ground in Iraq:

Iraqis are worried. The last American soldiers leave the country in the next few days and they are waiting to see how the outcome of the struggle for power in Syria will affect them. "We are afraid about the future," said a businessman in Baghdad. "We are importing goods for two months ahead maximum, and not six months, as we usually do."
The nervousness of Iraqis is inspired in part by memories of the traumatising years between 2003 and 2009, when tens of thousands were slaughtered. Many were victims of "identity card" killings, when a Sunni or Shia caught at the wrong checkpoint or in the wrong area was routinely killed.


Suha Sheikhly (Al Mada) reports on the attacks on women and girls in Iraq. These include the so-called 'honor' killings for girls and women who have had sex outside of marriage. For girls and women. Not for boys and men. This includes teaching Iraq's school age females lies and teaching them lies on purpose, lies that put at risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. (AIDS is in Iraq. A few of Moqtada's little buddies tried blaming that on the US troops but it was such a bad lie that, these days, the popular scapegoat is foreign workers brought into the country from third world nations.) The culture that permits so-called 'honor' killings is being encouraged via intimidation. It's a very in-depth article. But you want to end honor killings?

Start punishing the men (and women) who are performing these. They're taking a life. Iraq's got the death penalty and has no problem using it. (I don't support the death penalty. I'm aware, however, that the rare 'punishment' in Iraq for these 'honor' killings has been a few weeks in jail and then you're released.) As long as people know there are no consequences for killing a girl or woman when you claim 'honor killing,' don't look for it to disappear. As Hatem al-Saadi (Society for Human Rights) notes, the government needs to pass laws to outlaw the practice and stop protecting the killer.

In today's violence reporting, Reuters notes a Mosul home invasion in which 2 men were killed, an Iskandaraiya roadside bombing which claimed 3 lives, 1 person was shot dead in a Mosul drive-by shooting, an armed clash in Mosul led to 1 death, 2 Baquba bombings injured three people and, dropping back to Friday night for the rest, 3 Kirkuk roadside bombings resulted in 1 death and twelve people being injured and a Baghdad roadside bombing left seven people injured.



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They always blow their own cover

Good for NPR. They decided today to remind everyone just how good of a propaganda outlet they could be and were.

So they showed up today on All Things Considered like cheap whores infected with every sexually transmitted disease known to human kind and yet desperate to turn one more trick before calling it a night.

Marvel over their whoring which is even worse online where they put up the PSYOPS photo of Saddam Hussein's statue being pulled down with the caption: "A U.S. marine watches a statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled in Firdaus Square in downtown Baghdad on April 9, 2003."

Really?

At this late date, you're going to play it that way?

David Zucchino (Los Angeles Times) reported July 3, 2004:

The Army's internal study of the war in Iraq criticizes some efforts by its own psychological operations units, but one spur-of-the-moment effort last year produced the most memorable image of the invasion.
As the Iraqi regime was collapsing on April 9, 2003, Marines converged on Firdos Square in central Baghdad, site of an enormous statue of Saddam Hussein. It was a Marine colonel -- not joyous Iraqi civilians, as was widely assumed from the TV images -- who decided to topple the statue, the Army report said. And it was a quick-thinking Army psychological operations team that made it appear to be a spontaneous Iraqi undertaking.

NPR wants to use a known, PSYOPS photo. Without informing that is what they're using. What dirty, trashy whores.

And you can't say "dirty, trashy whore" without conjuring the well-used 'reporter' Anne Garrels. No one gave it up harder for the US government than Annie.


And then she married a CIA agent. That's what happens often, work relationships. There was Anne, dating in the spawning pool.


She got a little too visible (Naked in Baghdad, really?) and that's why Anne's last years have been so insignificant.

When you're an unknown, you can show up as an escort on the arm of that male US senator. But when you're a known, you risk outing the whole agency.

So these days Annie spends her time trying to 'make friends' and keeping a low profile though she swears it's only a matter of time before she's front and center again.


The 'end of war' report includes this bit of whoring from Annie: "They were living in a profound dictatorship so they didn't know themselves and they were terrified of talking to foreigners."

She laid it on thick, didn't she. Well, she was very old by then. And to ply that trade at her age you really have to slap on a thick coating of foundation.

Annie was once eager to know radicals. Back in college, she loved talking to them. Of course, those professors and students would then end up spied upon. It was a development that happened over and over. Good thing she was 'placed' at ABC right after college. Remember how 'government friendly' ABC was in the sixties and early seventies?


Annie broadcast over NPR (2007) a 'confession' that emerged as a result of torture -- a fact she knew. The militia was backed by the CIA. A detail Annie 'forgot' to broadcast.

She also deliberately misreported on that second attack on Falluja.


Those who want to play like they didn't know the reality about Annie, have no excuses. She married into the CIA. Spy work and journalism don't mix. One is covert and intended to deceive the public, the other is supposed to be about informing the public.

The Iraq War hasn't ended. But thank goodness NPR wants to scream to America, "LOOK THE OTHER WAY!" If they weren't so eager to distract, they wouldn't have revisited the bad work of Annie.


The following community sites -- plus Jane Fonda and the ACLU -- updated last night or today:



We'll close with this from Tim King's "Will the U.S. Appease Iran for Afghanistan Supply Routes?" (Salem-News.com):

SALEM) - The sudden realization that the United States might need to utilize supply routes through Iran to continue its war in Afghanistan, is an absolute buzz kill for the rooting sections of pro-war Americans who back Israel's religious apartheid government in cries for war and the spillage of blood in Iran.

There are few concessions for sloppy combat work and the recent U.S. attack on two Pakistan military outposts could seriously refocus the priorities of a country that has been pounding away on an increasingly intolerant Afghan populace in a war that is becoming exponentially unpopular.

An article carried earlier by Salem-News.com, Dr. William Hathaway' 'Comparing Evils', contains an interview with the exiled Afghan Journalist Jamal Khan in Germany.

The Khyber Pass located near Peshawar, Pakistan.
Wikipedia photo by: Dr Mansoor Bokhary

His battles to survive in Afghanistan were myriad, but the brass tacks are not something you would like to accidentally step on in this case.

The Taliban are bad guys, no doubt about it. I'm not fond of them at all. They killed hundreds of people, including friends of mine. They would've killed me if I had stayed.

But the USA has killed fifty thousand Afghans just in this current war ... and more every day. They're devastating the country. They make the Taliban look like boy scouts.

Before the U.S. war and the Taliban war and the Russian war, Khyber Pass was widely known to thousands of people from the west and Asia who traveled it in the days of the Hippie trail. "Meet you in Kandahar" was a saying that hasn't been heard in many years, the place was a real destination in the old days for world travelers.




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Friday, December 02, 2011

Iraq snapshot

Friday, December 2, 2011.  Chaos and violence continue, Nouri appears to want a third term as prime minister, a rumor's presented that Nouri was the target of an assassination attempt, NATO negotiations with Iraq continue, Senator Patty Murray expresses serious concerns about the way the VA is handling mental health care, and more.
 
 
Starting with veterans issues.
 
Chair Patty Murray:  Dr. Zeiss, I wanted to ask you, when you testified before a hearing for this Committee May 25th, I asked you whether VA had enough resources to meet OEF OIF veterans needs for health care and you said the resources weren't the problem.  In light of what you've learned from last May, especially from your own providers do you stand by that statement from me?
 
Antonette Zeiss: I believe that we have unprecedented resources and that we have gotten them out to the field and that we have hired an enormous amount of staff. And at the time, I believed that they were adequate if used in the most effective ways possible. We continue to have an increasing number of mental health patients. We have looked at the FY'11 data and the numbers have again jumped from FY'10 and we are proactively predicting what kinds of increases there will be in FY 12 and we're working with the Office of Policy and Planning to ensure that those projection are embedded into the actuary model that drives the budget predictions so that I can say that we will be aggressively following all the data that we have available to ensure that we can make effective predictions at the policy level about what level of funding and level of staffing will be essential and we will be partnering very closely with Dr. Schohn's office who are responsible for ensuring that those resources are are used most effectively are used in the field to deliver the kinds of care that we have.
 
Chair Patty Murray:  So you still today do not believe that it's resources that's the issue?
 
Antonette Zeiss: I believe that we're at a juncture where we need to be looking absolutely at resources because of the greatly increased number of mental health patients that we are serving.  And some of that is because of very aggressive efforts we've made to outreach and ensure that people are aware of the care that VA can provide.  The more we succeed in getting that word across and serving increasing number of veterans, the more you're absolutely right, we have to look at what's the level of resources to keep -- to be able to sustain the level of care that we believe is essential.
 
Chair Patty Murray:  You're looking at it, we're asking.  We need to have this information upfront now if you need more resources.  You just look at the stories out there, the thousands of people coming home, the people that aren't getting served, the people are reaching out to. It just feels to me that this is something we should know now.  We've been ten years into this.
 
Anonette Zeiss: We . . . Uhm.  We believe that people are receiving an enormous amount of service from VA and we agree -- as Dr. Schohn has said -- that we need to focus on some specific aspects of care, particularly the evidence based therapies.  And we are working with Dr.Schohn who will be developing a very specific staffing model so that we can identify what are the levels of staffing that are available at specific sites and how does that --
 
Chair Patty Murray:  Well let me ask a specific question then.   Dr. Schohn according to the mental health wait data provided to the Committee by the VA, Veterans at Spokane VA, my own home state, wait an average of 12 days with a psychiatrist, with a maximum wait for a psychiatrist being 87 days.  Now I've been told that all of the psychiatrists in VA in Spokane are booked solid for several months and that there are other places in the country that are far worse than that.  You mentioned that the VA is working to fill those vacancies but the hiring process is very slow.  What can the Dept do now to make sure that we are shortening these wait times?
 
Mary Schohn:  In fact there is efforts already underway in Spokane to improve the hiring.  The waiting time has decreased.  There is a shortage and there is variability in our system in terms of ability to, for example, hire a psychiatrist in Spokane.  One of the efforts that's being made is to use tele-psychiatry. Essentially to use -- to provide service from a site where there's a greater ability to recruit psychiatrists and to use their services at the site where they are at and to then be able to provide resources to Spokane, for example.  The chief medical officer in Spokane has worked to ensure that coverage can come from other facilities within VSN 20, to where the needs of the veterans in Spokane are met.  Those are the kinds of things that we're working on as we come across evidence that we're short in some areas.  We know that in some other areas, there are not shortages and there may be some surpluses that can be used in those sites.
 
Chair Patty Murray:  Well let me ask you another question.  There was a provision on using community providers for mental health services in the Caregivers Omnibus  that was passed by Congress earlier this year. It included peer-to-peer services and we heard from our first panel how important peer-to-peer services are.  I am told that the Department is making very little progress on implementing that.  Can you tell me what's holding up that?
 
Mary Schohn: We have made some progress. I'm going to ask Dr. Kemp to talk specifically  on that.
 
Janet Kemp: As you're aware most of our peer-to-peer services -- Or a lot of our peer-to-peer services are provided by the vet centers which is an exceptional program that you are all very familiar with which we endorse and support. We've grown the number of vet centers.  By the end of the year, we will have three hundred vet centers across the country open and running in addition to the 70 mobile vet centers that will be up and traveling across the country.  So I think that we have made huge strides in providing those services to combat veterans and their families across the country.  We also have a contract which has been let out and is in the process of being filled to provide training to train more peer type support counselors.  We're looking forward to that being completed and we will get those people up and going as soon as we're able to get them on board.
 
Chair Patty Murray:  Okay --
 
Janet Kemp: We agree with the intent of that legislation for lots of good reasons and we will continue to implement those services.
 
Chair Patty Murray: Okay, well this Committee will be following that very closely. And before I turn it over to Senator Burr, I just want to say that I'm really disturbed by the disconnect between the provider data and your testimony on the wait time issue. And I am going to be asking the Inspector General for a review of that issue.  I assume, Senator Burr, you will join me in that. [Senator Burr nods]  And I would like all of your [VA witnesses on the panel]  commitment to work with them on that.
 
The three Witnesses replied "Absolutely" in unison, no doubt hoping they came off like the charites when in fact they more closely resembled the beastly cerberus. We'll come back to the beast.
 
It was Wednesday morning and Committee Chair Senator Patty Murray was calling to order the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee for a hearing, "Today's hearing builds upon our July hearing on the same subject.  At that hearing, the Committee heard about two service members who, even after attempting to take their own lives, had their appointments postponed and difficulties getting through red tape in order to access the care that they needed.  I know that, like me, many on this Committee were angered and frustrated by their stories and I'm glad that today we are going to have the opportunity to get more information and answers on why these delays persist.  [. . .]  At our hearing in July, I requested that the VA survey their frontline professionals about whether they have sufficient resources in order to get veterans into treatment.  The results that came back to me shortly after that were not good.  Of the VA providers surveyed, nearly 40% said they cannot schedule an appointment in their own clinic within the VA mandated 14 day window, 70% said they did not have adequate staff or space to meet the mental health care needs of the veterans they serve, and 46% said the lack of off-hour appointments prevented veterans from accessing care.  The survey not only showed that our veterans are being forced to wait for care -- it also captured the tremendous frustration of those who are tasked with healing veterans.  It showed wide discrepancies between facilities in different parts of the country -- including the difference between access in urban and rural areas.  And it provided a glimpse at a VA system that, 10 years into war, is still not fully equipped for the influx of veterans seeking mental health care."
 
10 years into war, the VA is still not fully equipped to deal with the influx of veterans seeking mental health care.  That's what the hearing was about. 
 
The Committee heard from two panels of witnesses.  The first panel was composed of retired Col Charles W. Hoge (who is a medical doctor), Barbara Van Dahlen, Michelle Washington and John Roberts.  They shared important experiences within the VA system.  We'll skip the panel to focus on the VA's incompentence and we're able to do that because we'll include questioning from Ranking Member Richard Burr which includes him asking about the testimony from the first panel.
 
The second panel? We're back to the ceberus -- a multi-headed beast in Greeky mythology that guards the entrance to the Underworld: the VA's Mary Schohn, Janet Kemp and, especially, Antonette Zeiss. 
 
 
Zeiss is a lousy witness.  She's such a lousy witness that you doubt she can do her job properly.  There's an issue of being professional.  This is the fourth or fifth time, I've  registered her outfits.  When you appear before Congress as a witness, you need to look professional.  Now were I to wear my hair a color of gray with garish off-yellow waxy streaks in it and it was down inches below my shoulder, I'd put some color on it or have the yellow waxy streaks removed.  [Looking at her hair, one is forever reminded of Mary Hartman (Louise Lasser) discussing yellow waxy build up on kitchen floors.] Were I not to cut it (and I would cut it), I would at the very least pin it up to try to look professional instead of showing up with a rat's nest spilling down my shoulders thereby revealing to the world that I can't afford either a comb or a brush. But,okay, maybe I'm a little too focused on hair.  (I don't think so.  And, again, she could and should pin it up if she's not going to cut it.  She's supposed to be appearing before Congress not chatting with Hugh Hefner on Playboy After Dark.) There is the issue of your professional uniform.  And the first time I noticed this with her, I thought, "Well, sure, we can all forget an appointment and then have no time to change.  And just have to pull together something to show up in."  Either she's always forgetting or no one ever taught her what constitutes professional dress.  Here's your first hint, an ugly blazer that needs to be dry cleaned (that sorely needs to be dry cleaned) and pressed to get all the wrinkles out doesn't qualify as professional.  Not even when quickly put it on top of a dress that doesn't qualify as professional but might qualify as a house dress. (Did she buy it on her way into DC, from a vendor on the side of the road?)  That's before you get to her putting that ratty blazer with every dress regardless of whether they match or not.  (Thus far, I haven't seen her match it with anything when testifying before Congress.  If she' suffers from color blindness, she should ask for help.)
 
Then there's her condescending way of answering questions.  She speaks slowler and in the tone of a voice that you'd use when speaking to a very young child.  It's patronizing and off-putting.
 
Now let's get to her profession's issues.  She's working for the VA.  Has been promoted throughout the VA.  There are problems in the VA and as Chair Murray noted, things are going to get more hectic with the huge influx of veterans about to be added to the system. So Zeiss might either need to agree to earn that salary or turn in her resignation to continue her on-the-side work on geropsychology. 
 
She's paid a salary by the tax payer and her little sidelines could be justified in the past with the claim (illusion or reality) that the VA was doing just great.  It's doing a lousy job and, specifically, her own areas need improvement.  So she can earn her salary by devoting her full attention to this issue or she can leave and do her geropscyhology work.  Or how about her more recent work on marriage?  So let's not pretend she's giving her all to the administrative role she's paid to perform. And, after 29 years with the VA, she really shouldn't need anyone else pointing out that obvious fact.  Of that, when you're salary, and not hourly, and things go wrong, you have to put in more than 40 hours.
 
Meanwhile the VA should be explaining why she and others oversee a psychiatry program.  Meaning?  That's a medical program.  Do you see me calling her "Dr. Zeiss"?  No.  Nor do I call anyone in these snapshots "doctor" unless they're a medical doctor.  (Or unless they're a veterinarian.)  Zeiss appears before the Congress and wants to be called "Doctor" and wants to talk about medical issues including psychiatry which is a medical license.  I have nothing against psychology (I have many friends who are psychologists including one of my best friends) but why is a psychologist over the VA's pyschiatry program? 
 
Would we put a gastroenterologist over a cardiac ward? 
 
Well, we wouldn't.  But the US government might.
 
And they have.  Outside of Lousiana, I don't believe a psychologist can prescribe medicine in the US.  (Correct me if I'm wrong on that.) Now when I hear the testimony of Schohn and Zeiss -- neither of whom is a psychiatrist -- that psychiatrist from one VA will be providing medical care to VA patients at another VA via the telephone, my first question is about meds.  That's what psyhaiatrists do that draws the line between them and psychologists.  So let's pretend I'm a veteran.  You're telling me I'm going to get the same level of care from a VA psychiatrist whether I'm on the phone with her or face to face?  
Is she able to prescribe for me over the phone? 
 
These are questions that should be asked. 
 
Ranking Member Burr had questions about flexibility and Schohn insisted they had flexible off hours and then tossed to Zeiss who needed a definition from Burr of "flexible."  Again, this is someone in charge of oversight?  We'll pick up right after that in the exchange.
 
 
Antonette Zeiss: Well I believe, as Dr. Schohn has been saying, we do have flexibility in hours of service.  What we've discovered, in looking at the data, is that the initial requirement was for evening clinic -- one evening clinic at least once a week and others as needed.  And what we're finding is that the data suggests is what works much better for veterans is early morning hours and weekend hours. And so the policy group is looking very carefully at that in terms of changing and creating even more flexibility than the original after hours policy. The Uniform Mental Health Services Handbook that Dr. Schohn referenced also has an incredible array of flexible programs and defines a very broad range and flexible range of mental health services.
 
Ranking Member Richard Burr:  Let me stop you there if I can.  Let me just say, I have a tremendous amount of respect for all of you.  I mirror what you've heard from other colleagues. I thank all the VA employees for what they do. But the fact that you've got something written in a book or you've put out a guideline and believe that you can still come in front of this Committee and say, "We've got it written! It's right there!" What we hear time and time again, and I heard from Mr. Roberts, in his testimony.  There is no evening options in areas.  It doesn't exist.  Whether your data shows that it's preferred to be in the morning or the afternoon.  In his particular case, your guideline shows the evening and he said, testified, it doesn't exist. So I hope you understand our frustration and, Dr. Schohn, I'm going to ask you if you would provide, for the Committee, a detailed audit of how the $5.7 billion has been spent.  And I'm not talking about breaking it down in 403 million dollar categories. I'm talking about, for the Committee, a detailed description of how we spent that $5.7 billion in additional mental health money.  Now let me just ask you, is Dr. Washington correct when she said a majority of the patients seen in the 14 day window are there for the purpose of information gathering, not necessarily treatment and many are not seen by a health care professional, they are seen by a staffer there to collect data.
 
Mary Schohn: That was -- That is not how the policy was written.  And if that is happening --
 
Ranking Member RIchard Burr: Well let me ask it again: Is she right or is she wrong?
 
Mary Schohn:  I -- I don't know about Wilmington.  I will admit.  That is something I would certainly want to follow up on because that is not the expectation of how services are to be measured.
 
Ranking Member Richard Burr: Let me, let me read you some comments that have been made today, Dr. Schohn, and you just tell me whether these are acceptable.  "Veterans have little access to follow up care."
 
Mary Schohn: That is not acceptable.
 
Ranking Member Richard Burr: "VA-- VA focuses on medication management."
 
Mary Schohn:  That is not acceptable and we have a huge policy and training program to ensure, in fact, that veterans have access to evidenced-based psycho-therapy.
 
Ranking Member RIchard Burr: "Can't fill appointments for the proscribed amount of time."
 
Mary Schohn: That -- I'm not totally clear what that means.
 
Ranking Member Richard Burr: I would take for granted that an attending has said somebody with PTSD needs to have X amount -- a frequency of consults, a frequency of treatments and it should extend for X amount of time.  Would you find it unacceptable if, in fact, the system was not providing what the health care professional prescribed them to have.
 
Mary Schohn: Absolutely. We do have a system set up in place to actually monitor if in fact this is not happening, we are concerned by reports that it's not happening in places, we have many evidences of places where it is happening, but as we hear these reports, we are as concerned as you are and have developed a plan to go out and visit sites to ensure that these things are happening and to make corrections when they're not.
 
Ranking Member Richard Burr: The inability to get appointments.
 
 
Mary Schohn:  Same thing.  We -- The VA is available to veterans.  We want to assure that any veteran needing medical health care has access to health care in the timeliness standards that we think are important. 
 
Ranking Member Richard Burr: "Mental health treatment is trumped by new entries into the system."
 
Mary Schohn:  Again, not acceptable.
 
Ranking Member Richard Burr: These are all issues that exist with the current mental health plan at VA. 
 
Again, Burr covers many of the issues raised by the first panel. Now we're going back to the issue I was raising.  All three heads of the beastly cerbeus lack a medical degree.  And yet they're evaluating mental health care treatment being carried out by doctors with medical degrees.  Okay.  Well an administrator with a degree in administration can be very effective.  But yet again not one of them has that either.
 
Part of the problem -- a very big part of the problem -- is that they're not qualifed.  A large number at the VA shares that quality.  They were basically grandfathered in -- often during the eighties -- some were psychologists, some were social workers.  It's past time that when this class that's graduated to management repeatedly fails that their qualifications for the position they hold are examined. And when their qualifications are found lacking, they need to be reassigned to an area they are qualified for.  And those who would argue experience is a qualification, I don't doubt that it is and can be.  Except when there are the same repeat problems.  At which point, clearly the experience or alleged experience is not making up for the lack of formal education in the required field.
 
Further evience of failure can be found in, as Senator Burr noted, the fact that there has been a 136% increase in the VA's mental health services budget since 2006 and yet when the VA's Inspector General surveyed the VA centers, it was discovered "only 16% of the sites they visited met the staffing requirements for mental health care."  That's something good adminstrators are aware of and on top of before an IG researches the issue. 
 
 
In the excerpt of the exchange with Ranking Member Burr, Zeiss brags about flexible hours -- but they clearly aren't flexible or VA centers would have changed them on their own.  Mary Schohn talks about how when she hears of a problem it makes her think they should check out a VA center.  I'm sorry, I thought their job did require supervision.  In fact, it does.  They're really not paid the big salaries they are to write manuals every other year.  They're paid to be administrators who supervise and ensure a quality of care.  This is the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal only because the wounds are mental and/or emotional and not solely physical, the press appears little skittish to really sink their teeth into this story.
 
If a veteran lost a limb would it be acceptable for them to wait 14 days for care? Then why is it acceptable for that time limit to be considered a good time limit for someone with mental or emotional wounds?
 
It is unacceptable.
 
And it is unacceptable that Mary Schohn appears to think she never needs to check out the facilities unless there's a complaint to Congress.  It would never get to that level if Mary and the other two heads of the cerberus were doing their job. 
 
It was a strong hearing.  Senator Jon Tester had a very strong exchange.  The first panel had witnesses who were really honest. Senator Daniel Akaka, who used to Chair the Committee, showed up and underscored with Chair Murray and Ranking Member Burr just how important these issues were and how unacceptable the VA's problems are.
 
From VA spin, let's go to Iraqi spin. Want to try to build sympathy for Nouri?  Take an assassination attempt and declare he was the target -- even though it makes no sense.  Fortunately, the press will play along with you and your flunky -- a flunky only AP doesn't feel the need to use a military title  -- "Major General" insists AFP and Reuters.  AP's correct, spokespeople -- no matter how masterful of word craft and covert propaganda -- really don't need military titles.  Yes, those titles give weight to their claims but that is why they're given the titles in the first place. So military spokesperson Qassim Atta insists that Monday's attack on Parliament was, in fact, an assassination attempt on Nouri. This is how, Atta claims, it was supposed to go down: The car filled with bombs would (and did) enter the Green Zone, it would then park near the Parliament.  On Thursday, it would go off taking out Nouri who was in the Parliament.
 
What a bunch of lies.  First, the bombs weren't enough to blow up Parliament -- as evidenced by the minimal physical damage done on Monday.  So to target Nouri, they would need to park as close as possible to where he would be.  How would they know where he would be?
 
And where did they get the idea that he would be in Parliament on Thursday?  It wasn't announced Monday or prior that he'd be in Parliament Thursday.  Dropping back to Wednesday's snapshot:
 
In major news on violence today, Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers via the San Francisco Chronicle) reports that the Monday attack on Parliament was a suicide car bomber and Issa observes, "The admission that a suicide car bomber had penetrated the fortified Green Zone, the first suicide attack there since April 2007, sent a wave of concern across the capital about the abilities, and loyalties, of Iraq's security agencies." As Sheikah (Dar Addustour) notes the questions about the attack in terms of how heavily protected the Green Zone is and how a "strange car with unknown identities" was able to penetrate the Green Zone. Al Rafidayn notes the need for permits to carry explosives in the Green Zone and indicates that some aspect of the attack was caught on cameras "deployed" in the area. This is major news and has been treated as such in the Iraqi press for two news cycles. As part of Monday's violence, it was noted as an aside in the small number of US outlets that cover Iraq. And a large number of that small number treated the notion that it could be a suicide bomber as some sort of Iraqi delusion. But it was a suicide bomber (not a mortar or a rocket) and the US press is strangely silent.
 
That may or may not be who was targeted.  But it is believable.  And it would go to how the car entered the Green Zone in the first place.  (Osama al-Nujaifi was already a target of Nouri's ire before he began speaking out in favor of the Constitution -- specifically Article 119.) Some press accounts are insisting that the story changed on Monday with claims that al-Nujaifi was targeted and then claims that he wasn't.  Nouri's people (employees and supporters) are the ones who were saying on Monday that it was a mortar or a rocket.  Parliament sources and the spokesperson for Parliament were saying on Monday that it was a car bombing and that Osama al-Nujaifi was the target.  From Tuesday's snapshot, here's a small sample of the way the bombing was being covered:
 
However, Iraqi papers are more focused this morning on yesterday's Parliament attack. Al Sabaah notes that Osama Nujaifi's office has stated that bombing was an attempted assassination (Nujaifi is the Speaker of Parliament) and that he was the target. They also maintain it was a suicide bomber and not mortars. The article notes a National Alliance insists it was a mortar while a police source states it was a suicide bomber. Sources tell Dar Addustour it was a suicide bomber in a car (black GMC) and that al-Nujaifi was the target. In addition, Dar Addustour reminds that following the April 16, 2007 attack on Parliament, security measures were beefed up. Dar Addustour's report indicates that had the man not raised suspicion by his actions, he would have gotten closer to the Parliament. Alsumaria TV picks up that thread as well, quoting al-Nujaifi's spokesperson Aidan Helmi stating, "The suicide bomber tried to join Parliament Speaker's convoy but Green Zone's guards suspected him and stopped his car. The driver changed his direction and slammed into a high sidewalk before the explosion." Aswat al-Iraq adds, "Northern Iraq's Kurdistan Alliance has expressed surprise towards a booby-trapped car being snuck into west Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, calling for an investigation to uncover 'those responsible' among the security bodies inside the Green Zone, according to a statement made by the Alliance and received by Aswat al-Iraq news agency on Tuesday."
Why would Nouri need the sympathy "aaaahhhh" of "He was almost assassinated!"?  Because of a development that AFP, Reuters and AP don't seem at all interested in.
 
Al Mada reports Nouri al-Maliki's legal advisor Fadhil Mohammad Jawad is informing the press that there is no law barring Nouri from a third term as prime minister.  Remember in January, as protests began in Iraq, there were complaints about the do-nothing government, about how elections had taken place (March 7, 2010) and nothing had changed -- the prime minister was the same, the president was the same, even the two vice presidents were them same (at that point, there were two vice presidents, shortly afterwards, there would be three until one resigned in July)? This happened despite the fact that Nouri's political slate, State of Law, came in second in the elections, Iraqiya, headed by Ayad Allawi, came in first. By the end of February, Iraq no longer saw scattered protests around the country but major protests throughout Iraq and the people were demanding a functioning and a responsive government (and jobs and that justice system be reformed and other things).

In this climate, as regimes in the MidEast were either falling, thought to be about to fall or trembling, Nouri attempted to garner support and made a string of announcements, ones that the press ran with as gospel. He claimed salaries would be cut, for example. And then he made his really big claim. For those who've forgotten, we're dropping back to the February 7th snapshot:

Of course no one does easy, meaningless words like Nouri. Saturday, his words included the announcement that he wouldn't seek a third term. His spokesperson discussed the 'decision' and Nouri himself announced the decision to Sammy Ketz of AFP in an interview. Ketz reported him stating he won't seek a third term, that 8 years is enough and that he supports a measure to the Constitution limiting prime ministers to two terms.
Well Jalal Talabani declared he wouldn't seek a second term as President of Iraq in an interview and then . . . took a second term. Point, if you're speaking to a single journalist, it really doesn't seem to matter what you say. Did Nouri announce his decision to the people? No,
Iraqhurr.org is quite clear that an advisor made an announcement and that Malliki made no "public statement" today.
In other words, a statement in an interview is the US political equivalent of "I have no plans to run for the presidency" uttered more than two years before a presidential election. That's Iraqi politicians in general. Nouri? This is the man who's never kept a promise and who is still denying the existence of secret prisons in Iraq.
Deyaar Bamami (Iraqhurr.org) notes the Human Rights Watch report on the secret prisons and that they are run by forces Nouri commands.
And Nouri couldn't even make it 24 hours with his latest 'big promise.' Sunday, Ben Lando and Munaf Ammar (Wall St. Journal) reported that Nouri's spokesperson, Ali al-Mousawi, declared today, "We would like to correct this article. Maliki said, 'I think that the period of eight years is adequate for the application of a successful program to the prime minister, and if he is not successful, he must vacate his place'." Of course he's not announcing that. He's a thug. His previous four year term was an utter failure.
That's not speculation, that's not opinion. He agreed to the benchmarks that the White House set. He was supposed to achieve those in 2007. Those benchmarks, supposedly, were what would determine whether or not the US tax payer continued to foot the bill for the illegal war. But he didn't meet those benchmarks and apologists rushed forward to pretend like they weren't a year long thing and that, in fact, he had 2008 as well. Well 2008 came and went and the benchmarks were still not met. Nor were they in 2009. Nor were they in his last year in 2010.
That's failure. When you agree you will meet certain things -- such as resolving the Kirkuk issue -- and you do not, you are a failure. Not only did he fail at the benchmarks, he failed in providing Iraqis with basic services. He failed in providing them with security.
There is no grading system by which Nouri can be seen as a success.
But just as he will not admit to or own his failures from his first term as prime minister, do not expect to own or admit to his failures in his second term. In other words, Little Saddam wants to be around, and heading the Iraqi government, for a long, long time.
 
Credit to the Wall St. Journal and Lando and Ammar; however, even when they reported Nouri was going back on his word, the US press continued to breathlessly repeat 'Nouri al-Maliki, for the good of Iraq, will not seek a third term! He's putting the needs of the country first!'
 
In today's reported violence, Reuters notes 2 Tuz Khurmato roadside bombings claimed the life of 1 police officer and left four more injured and an attack last night on a Shirqat Sahwa checkpoint resulted in 3 Sahwa being killed and two more injured.  Aswat al-Iraq reports a Sharta bombing left three people injured.
 
Earlier this week, Al Sabaah reported that the Iraqi Parliament's Security and Defense Committee has declared it was close to making an agreement which will put NATO forces on the ground in Iraq, according to a statement read by the Security and Defense Committee Chair Hassan Sinead. Sinead states it will be a one-year agreement and that it can be renewed. Yesterday AP reported that the issue of immunity was causing problems in the negotiations.  Today Josh Rogin (Foreign Policy) reports:
 
Here we go again. Only months after the United States and Iraq failed to come to an agreement on a post-2011 troop presence, NATO is now scrambling to negotiate an extension of its own training mission in Iraq, and the prospects don't look good.
"Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has repeatedly asked NATO to stay," Ivo Daalder, the U.S. Ambassador to NATO, said at a Friday morning breakfast meeting of the Defense Writers Group, an organization that brings reporters together with senior officials to discuss world affairs over greasy eggs and bacon.
"We are trying to make that desire for the NATO training mission to stay a reality," said Daalder, explaining that intense negotiations are underway but that, without an agreement by Dec. 31, all NATO trainers will have to leave Iraq.
 
 
Meanwhile Al Rafidayn reports that KRG President Massoud Barzani stated Wednesday that the US reposturing in Iraq may mean that the unresolved issue of Kirkuk remains undecided for a longer length of time. He vowed that the KRG will continue to call for a vote on the issue of Kirkuk. Per the Constitution (Article 140), the issue was supposed to have already been resolved. The 2005 Constitution explained that a census would be taken and then a referendum would be held. It was expected that the next prime minister (selected after the December 2005 elections) would oversee this since Article 140 mandated that these steps be taken no later than the end oof 2007. Nouri al-Maliki was installed in the spring of 2006 after the US rejected the Iraqi poltiical blocs' choice. Throughout his first term, Nouri ignored the Constitution. In 2010, during the long political stalemate, a desperate to hold onto the position of prime minister Nouri, swore the census would take place in December. In November he was named prime minister-designate. Weeks later, he called off the census.  And we'll close with this from the Great Iraqi Revolution:

  • Iraqi community in America have organized a demonstration on the day of the visit of the Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Maliki to the U.S. .
    The demonstration will be held in December 12th 2011 at 10 am in front of the White House..
    Please support us in this demonstration against the crimes of Al-Maliki regime in Iraq..
 

Turning over a billion US dollars when security ministries remain vacant

Al Mada declares that the "white flag" is being waived on the issue of the security ministries and, by white flag, they only mean surrender, not compromise. The political blocs do not think the posts heading any of the three securities ministries will be filled in the current session of Parliament. Even scarier, some are saying the posts may remain empty until after the next parliamentary elections.

If you don't get why that's scary, there are two basic reasons. First, violence is on the increase in Iraq so having no Minister of Interior, no Minister of Defense and no Minister of National Security right now isn't a good thing. The Minister of the Interior, in fact, should be coordinating with the US State Dept on police training -- see yesterday's snapshot -- something the US tax payer is going to fork over $1 billion dollars for but the State Dept is coordinating with a deputy at the Minister of the Interior because the ministry has no one in charge. $1 billion dollars of tax payer money and the State Dept is basically making plans on how to spend that with the night manager of the drive thru at Wendy's.

Second, the Constitutional issues. The prime minister is not elected by the people. The person getting the most votes (this is how it is supposed to work -- the Constitution was ignored in 2010) has the right to attempt to put together a Cabinet. How long does the person have? 30 days after they are named prime minister-designate by the president of Iraq.

If they are unable to nominate a full Cabinet and get it all those positions passed by the Parliament within 30 days, a new person is supposed to be named prime minister-designate per the Constitution. You cannot move from prime minister-designate to prime minister without creating your Cabinet. That's the only criteria by which you are supposed to declared prime minister.

Of course it got ignored for Nouri. The US government wanted him. So the US press whored themselves out in that way that they've whored themselves throughout the Iraq War. They insisted at the time that it was no big deal -- ignoring the Constitution was no big deal, what a lesson for Iraqis attempting to embrace some form of self-rule -- and that, of course, Nouri would fill the three security ministries in a matter of weeks.

They were making those assurances in December.

I'm sorry, they were making those assurances in December of 2010.

That's a year ago.

The ministries remain headless.

While the US press was giving assurances -- when they should have been offering skepticism -- a few people in the political blocs were sounding alarms, were saying that these positions would not be filled, that Nouri would keep them empty as part of a power-grab. That's exactly how it's turned out to be.

And now Al Mada's reporting that some are saying the positions may not be filled until after the next round of parliamentary elections? Well good thing that, the US press told us, Nouri would never seek a third term, right? Oh, wait. That bit of whoring bites 'em in the ass today as a trial balloon gets floated, doesn't it?

Al Mada makes clear that the problem remains Nouri. The political blocs have offered up multiple names to be candidates for the three posts.

The idea that the US government is about to waste $1 billion over the next five years on training a force that has no supervision (that would be a Minister of the Interior) is outrageous and the Congress should refuse to fund the State Dept's request for that reason alone. There are many other reasons to refuse it. There are even a few arguments for supporting the request. But if the head of the police, the Minister of the Interior, can't be named by Nouri, over a year after he was supposed to do that, the American tax payer should not be on the hook for one billion dollars that will surely be wasted.

Al Sabaah notes that Jalal Talabani, Iraq's president, declared yesterday that the US government has moved to "state building" in Iraq. Actually, there can be no state building when Nouri can't even do what the Constitution calls for him to. When, a year after being declared prime minister, he still can't put together a full Cabinet, there's no state there to build. It's a vanity colony, it's not a nation-state. And US dollars should not be wated in building up Nouri's little colony. The 'governor' should be informed that until he lives up to his Constitutional duties, there will be no US dollars.

The United Nations New Center notes:

The United Nations mission in Iraq said today it will, at the request of the country's Council of Representatives, play the role of adviser and observer in the ongoing selection of the board of the electoral commission, in an effort to enhance the transparency and credibility of the process.
The request that the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) play an advisory and observation role in the selection of the Board of Commissioners of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) was made by the Council of Representatives, through its Committee of Experts.

That's such an interesting way of putting it. Yes, the Parliament did make the request. They also had a reason for making the request: Nouri.

Back in January, he began declaring that the Independent High Electoral Commission answered to him and was not an independent body. Parliament disagreed. Nouri went ahead with his plans to force people out and to nominate new members. That's why the Parliament has requested the UN to step in. That's not as pretty as the UN press release paints it but that is what happened.

And years from now if Little Nouri is the New Saddam, people will wonder, "Geez, were theere any signs? How could people have not seen this?" There were plenty of signs, there were warnings galore. But he remained in power because the US government backed him. Even when he was overseeing the ethnic cleansing, even when he was destroying women's rights, even when was using the military, police and other bodies to take out his opponents, even when he was attacking protesters and journalists. It didn't matter. He was the guy the US picked in 2006 and they backed him.

Stuart Bowen is the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. A post he's held since 2004 and one that's already see him make, as he explained to Congress this week, 31 trips to Iraq. Sara Sorcher (National Journal) interviews him about a number of topics including the State Dept's plan for police training in Iraq:

NJ Is there one project that, to you, symbolized the reconstruction challenges?

BOWEN Falluja in 2004 was the center of the Sunni insurgency, and it was also the site of the most serious bloodshed in battles in the entire Iraq war. In the midst of that conflict, the reconstruction managers decided to build a $30 million wastewater treatment plant. I understand that part of a counterinsurgency operation’s mission is to win hearts and minds through economic support. The lesson is: Don’t begin with the very biggest projects. We launched, virtually on the battlefield, the biggest project this province has ever seen. It ended up costing over $100 million and taking seven years to finish; it was supposed to be done in two and a half. It only serves one-third of the people it was supposed to serve.

It captures a lot of the challenges in Iraq: trying to do too much too quickly in an unstable setting and, as a result, paying the price both in waste and bloodshed. The Iraqis were supposed to carry out the last-mile piece. When it finally came time for that, they weren’t ready to do it. We had this nice system mostly complete but serving nobody because the Iraqis hadn’t connected it to a single house. So we had to come in with U.S. money and start connecting houses, and finally the Iraqis provided some support. That disconnect with the Iraqis happened over and over again, at every stage of the reconstruction program.

NJ Do you see parallels with the police-development program, in terms of figuring out if Iraq needs or wants the roughly $1 billion for that program next year?

BOWEN The failure to get sufficient Iraqi buy-in, literally and figuratively, for the police-development program … [is] occurring even this year. They have to say this is what they really want. The senior official in the Ministry of Interior told us that as the program was structured and being presented to him, it really wasn’t something that he needed.


Al Rafidayn reports that KRG President Massoud Barzani stated Wednesday that the US reposturing in Iraq may mean that the unresolved issue of Kirkuk remains undecided for a longer length of time. He vowed that the KRG will continue to call for a vote on the issue of Kirkuk. Per the Constitution (Article 140), the issue was supposed to have already been resolved. The 2005 Constitution explained that a census would be taken and then a referendum would be held. It was expected that the next prime minister (selected after the December 2005 elections) would oversee this since Article 140 mandated that these steps be taken no later than the end oof 2007. Nouri al-Maliki was installed in the spring of 2006 after the US rejected the Iraqi poltiical blocs' choice. Throughout his first term, Nouri ignored the Constitution. In 2010, during the long political stalemate, a desperate to hold onto the position of prime minister Nouri, swore the census would take place in December. In November he was named prime minister-designate. Weeks later, he called off the census.

Last night, we were noting how the US press is pissing off the families of service members who are being stationed in countries around Iraq and those who will remain in Iraq after December 31st by refusing to acknowledge these service members (or the risks families fear their loved ones will be facing). It's not difficult to set aside the lie that ALL troops are coming HOME. Unless you're just someone who loves to lie. Real reporters should be able to accurately capture the US military's resposturing. Doubt it? Here's veteran journalist Helen Thomas showing how it's done in the opening of her latest column "Why Iraq?" (Falls Church News-Press):

The U.S. is pulling its troops out of Iraq by the end of the year. Well, not quite.There will still be a large group of soldiers left behind to train Iraqis and to repair the war-damaged sites.
Now, will someone from the White House hierarchy, past or present, please tell the American people why we invaded Iraq in March 2003?
The truth and nothing but the truth - that will be the day. Why are we still speculating on the reasons we went to war in the first place, other than to hunt down and kill Saddam Hussein, the brutal Iraqi dictator, who was at one time a friend of the U.S.?

And we'll close with this from the Great Iraqi Revolution:

Iraqi community in America have organized a demonstration on the day of the visit of the Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Maliki to the U.S. .
The demonstration will be held in December 12th 2011 at 10 am in front of the White House..
Please support us in this demonstration against the crimes of Al-Maliki regime in Iraq..


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
































Look who's floating the notion of a third term

A healthy sketicism is supposed to be a hallmark of journalism but it's probably the quality most missing in modern US journalism -- especially when it comes to Iraq. That becomes even more clear this morning with Al Mada reporting Nouri al-Maliki's legal advisor Fadhil Mohammad Jawad is informing the press that there is no law barring Nouri from a third term as prime minister.

This is big news because?

In January, as protests began in Iraq, there were complaints about the do-nothing government, about how elections had taken place (March 7, 2010) and nothing had changed -- the prime minister was the same, the president was the same, even the two vice presidents were them same (at that point, there were two vice presidents, shortly afterwards, there would be three until one resigned in July). This happened despite the fact that Nouri's political slate, State of Law, came in second in the elections, Iraqiya, headed by Ayad Allawi, came in first. By the end of February, these were no longer scattered protests but major protests throughout Iraq and they were demanding a functioning and a responsive government (and jobs and that justice system be reformed and other things).

In this climate, as regimes in the MidEast were either falling, thought to be about to fall or trembling, Nouri attempted to garner support and made a string of announcements, ones that the press ran with as gospel. He claimed salaries would be cut, for example. And then he made his really big claim. For those who've forgotten, we're dropping back to the February 7th snapshot:


Of course no one does easy, meaningless words like Nouri. Saturday, his words included the announcement that he wouldn't seek a third term. His spokesperson discussed the 'decision' and Nouri himself announced the decision to Sammy Ketz of AFP in an interview. Ketz reported him stating he won't seek a third term, that 8 years is enough and that he supports a measure to the Constitution limiting prime ministers to two terms.

Well Jalal Talabani declared he wouldn't seek a second term as President of Iraq in an interview and then . . . took a second term. Point, if you're speaking to a single journalist, it really doesn't seem to matter what you say. Did Nouri announce his decision to the people? No, Iraqhurr.org is quite clear that an advisor made an announcement and that Malliki made no "public statement" today.


In other words, a statement in an interview is the US political equivalent of "I have no plans to run for the presidency" uttered more than two years before a presidential election. That's Iraqi politicians in general. Nouri? This is the man who's never kept a promise and who is still denying the existence of secret prisons in Iraq. Deyaar Bamami (Iraqhurr.org) notes the Human Rights Watch report on the secret prisons and that they are run by forces Nouri commands.
And Nouri couldn't even make it 24 hours with his latest 'big promise.' Sunday, Ben Lando and Munaf Ammar (Wall St. Journal) reported that Nouri's spokesperson, Ali al-Mousawi, declared today, "We would like to correct this article. Maliki said, 'I think that the period of eight years is adequate for the application of a successful program to the prime minister, and if he is not successful, he must vacate his place'." Of course he's not announcing that. He's a thug. His previous four year term was an utter failure.

That's not speculation, that's not opinion. He agreed to the benchmarks that the White House set. He was supposed to achieve those in 2007. Those benchmarks, supposedly, were what would determine whether or not the US tax payer continued to foot the bill for the illegal war. But he didn't meet those benchmarks and apologists rushed forward to pretend like they weren't a year long thing and that, in fact, he had 2008 as well. Well 2008 came and went and the benchmarks were still not met. Nor were they in 2009. Nor were they in his last year in 2010.

That's failure. When you agree you will meet certain things -- such as resolving the Kirkuk issue -- and you do not, you are a failure. Not only did he fail at the benchmarks, he failed in providing Iraqis with basic services. He failed in providing them with security.

There is no grading system by which Nouri can be seen as a success.

But just as he will not admit to or own his failures from his first term as prime minister, do not expect to own or admit to his failures in his second term. In other words, Little Saddam wants to be around, and heading the Iraqi government, for a long, long time.



The Wall St. Journal was the only US newspaper that reported Nouri was going back on his word already. And even after Lando and Ammar's article, the US press continued to breathlessly repeat 'Nouri al-Maliki, for the good of Iraq, will not seek a third term! He's putting the needs of the country first!'

So it wasn't just there breathless naivete and lack of skepticism in the face of Nouri's announcement, it was the whoring they did after Ben Lando and Munaf Ammar reported that the pledge, not even 24 hours old, was being broken. "Whoring" is the only term when they ignore that development and continue to pimp, as they did for the rest of February 2011, that Nouri wouldn't seek a third term.

Now Nouri's legal advisor is telling the press that there's no law that could prevent Nouri from running for a third term. Gosh, what do you suppose that's a trial balloon for?

Imagine if we lived in a country with a functioning press, picture just how different things might be.

The following community sites -- plus Antiwar.com, the ACLU and NYT's blog -- updated last night:


Community member Todd e-mailed asking if I would promise we'd cover the Senate hearing in today's snapshot? Yes, I will promise that. Wednesday, we attended the House Subcommittee hearing on Iraq and the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing. Wednesday's snapshot did not have room for either. I noted I would try to cover both yesterday and ended up dropping the Senate hearing because there wasn't room for it and the more we edited what I'd dictated, the less sense the Senate hearing made. It will be covered in today's snapshot, I promise. We'll close with this from Sherwood Ross' "U.S. EXPANDING DRONE BASES TO ASSASSINATE 'SUSPECTS'" (Veterans Today):


Forecasting a future of robotic warfare in which perverted science is put at the service of its Empire, the U.S. has built 60 bases around the world for its unmanned, remotely controlled killer drone warplanes. And more bases are under construction.
“Run by the military, the Central Intelligence Agency, and their proxies, these bases...are the backbone of a new robotic way of war,” writes Nick Turse, an investigative journalist for [. . .] TomDispatch.
The bases “are also the latest development in a long-evolving saga of American power projection abroad---in this case, remote-controlled strikes anywhere on the planet with a minimal foreign ‘footprint’ and little accountability,” Turse points out.
He notes that there may be even more than 60 bases since the Pentagon has dropped a “cloak of secrecy” over its operations. With the recent murder of American citizen Anwar al-Aulaqi in Yemen, the drones are now assassinating suspects in no fewer than six countries, Turse says.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post also reports the Obama Pentagon is building a constellation of secret drone bases in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian peninsula to attack al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen.
A number of the drone bases are located in the U.S., centered at Creech Air Force base outside Las Vegas, Nev., where “pilots” seated in front of computer screens can direct the unmanned drones and command them to launch a Hellfire missile on a suspect in Afghanistan, 7,500 miles away.



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




the wall street journal
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