Thursday, March 15, 2012

The State Dept bit off more than it could chew

The US State Dept refuses to publicly rebuke the killing of Iraqi youths. The Department won't make a statement on the record nor will Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Iraqis thought to be gay and/or Emo are beign threatened, bullied and killed. And the State Dept is silent. And wishing Americans would shut up already because then the State Dept could function without accountability and below the radar.

If you're not getting how unaccountable and ineffectual the State Dept is, Al Mada reports this morning that the Ministry of the Interior will be removing the February statement attacking the Emo kids. That statement, reported on by Reuters, CNN and other outlets, has been up the entire time.

Why did they finally take it down?

Because the press kept pointing to it.

Not because the State Dept lodged a complaint. Not because the State Dept did a damn thing.

Late this morning, Victoria Nuland will stand before the press -- or maybe it will be Mark Toner today -- and will they raise the issue of Iraqi youth? Will the press raise it to them? So far both sides have played silent.

In other news, Al Rafidayn reports that KRG President Massoud Barzani has made clear that Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi is safe in the KRG and they will not hand him over to Baghdad. Nouri is targeting Iraqiya and that includes al-Hashemi. Nouri accuses the vice president of terrorism.

That ongoing crisis hasn't been resolved either (Barzani wants the three presidencies to resolve it -- that's Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi and Nouri). The State Dept's done nothing to help their either.

Since October of last year, the State Dept was supposed to be running the US mission in Iraq. Thus far, they're an abject failure.

Pretend not to notice. As violence continues to increase, as the political crisis grows more entrenched, as even Victoria Nuland is forced to agree (last Friday's press briefing) that Iraqi is a complete failure as a US project.

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