Saturday, February 04, 2012

Talabani hails the success of the national conference

Al Rafidayn reports that Nouri's Brown Shirts gathered in Tahrir Square yesterday to demand that Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq resign. Because of his performance? No, because Nouri's been calling for him to step down since December. (Parliament's refused to heed Nouri's call to strip al-Mutlaq of his office thus far.) Iraqi males never look more emasculated, more self-castrated, than when they take to the streets to argue for their beloved same-sex crush Nouri. Maybe next Friday they can increase the turnout by offering a grand prize of dinner and a movie with Nouri?

Iraq's in the midst of the political crisis, hence Nouri's need to attempt to spin and shore up support via The Nouri Brigade of Male Love Slaves which have been storming the Baghdad Friday protests since at least June to prove that they took Tammy Wynette's advice to heart ("Stand By Your Man"), even though they have no respect for the Constitution or the people of their country.

Nouri's attempting anything and everything to distract from the ongoing political crisis he started and ignited? AFP reported Wednesday that Nouri was stating corruption was as great a danger to Iraq as terrorism. And he should know, right? Dar Addustour reports the Parliament's is preparing the release of their investigation of corruption in Nouri's office. Hey, maybe they can release the amount of Nouri's salary?

Remember February 2011 when Nouri offered promises about slashing his salary in half -- his salary that no one knows the figure of? And remember how the press stayed on that story to unearth it? What's that? You don't remember the second point? That's because it didn't happen. The press trumpeted Nouri's claim and never made an effort to see if he kept his promise. In fairness to them, they'd have to know how much he made to know if he had slashed his salary in half.

Al Rafidayn reports Nouri's Baghdad commander is bragging that al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has been reduced from 33,000 to 3,000. They still can't do a census of the Iraqi population but -- click your heels -- and believe they can do one of al Qaeda.

Though the political crisis continues, some news might indicate it could wind down soon. Aswat al-Iraq notes:

A leading member in al-Iraqiya Bloc, chaired by Iyad Allawi, has announced on Saturday that his Bloc reached an agreement with Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, to draw a Road-Map on the way to settle the current political crisis in Iraq, according to the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat (Middle East) Newspaper,
"Al-Iraqiya Bloc has achieved what may be called as a "Road Map," to settle the current crisis with Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki," Hamza al-Gartany said, pointing out at the same time for the "the suspension by al-Iraqiya's ministers to attend the Cabinet's meetings, pending its final decision to be taken by the Bloc".

This and other events has President Jalal Talabani screaming success for the national conference (as noted by Al Mada); however, it's probably a bit of a stretch to call a national conference a success . . . before it's been scheduled, let alone before it takes place.

Reuters notes a Mosul bombing that claimed the lives of 2 Iraqi teenagers, 2 corpses were discovered in Mosul ("shot in the head"), a Baghdad bus bombing injured one person, an Udhaim bombing targeted the home of a Sahwa and left hims and one family member injured, and a Baquba sticky bombing claimed the life of 1 Sahwa.

We'll close with this from William Astore's "The Peril of Idolizing Our Military" (Huffington Post):


Do you believe with President Obama that our military today constitutes a "generation of heroes" and that their teamwork and courage in battle show us the proper path forward in civilian life? Do you believe that the deadly effectiveness of the Navy SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden should inspire us to put aside differences in politics and to work together as a people?
As a retired veteran, such pro-military rhetoric in the president's state of the union address resonates with me, but as a student of history it makes me more than uncomfortable. In democratic societies, armed forces are funded and fielded to preserve liberties, not to provide templates for personal and societal behavior.
When civil aspirations are guided by and defined within military matrices, one gets the Iraq war of yesterday, the Afghan war of today, and the Iran (or Syria or insert-new-terrorist-nation here) war of tomorrow. Forever war is indeed the price for a nation that glorifies its military as the very best of its people and their ideals.



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