Of all the disturbing events in the last weeks in Iraq, the one that's gotten the least attention is probably the new members of the Justice and Accountability Commission. The rare English coverage has treated it as a good thing with some saying it proves that the Iraqi government can fucntion, look members were assigned to it!
I'm failing to see how that's a good thing.
And not just because of 2010 though that certainly factors in. In 2010, the Justice and Accountability Commission was utilized to keep certain people from running. As it alarmed many observers, the Commission insisted that they were banning Shi'ites as well, not just Sunnis. That was always a lie. Yes, some minor Shi'ites who ticked off the wrong person got banned. But the Commission was used to terrorize Sunnis.
Iraqiya lost large numbers of candidates because of that commission. And it banned people from running weeks before the election.
Provincial elections come up shortly in Iraq and that's followed by the parliamentary elections in the not too distant future. The country wouldn't seem to need the tensions the commission will most likely again create.
And everyone thought it was dead. It was supposed to have served its purpose. So how is it good news that new members have been appointed to keep it going?
In 2007, Nouri agreed it was time to take the de-Ba'ahtification process and stop it -- de-deBa'athification. He agreed to it formally, in writing. That was part of the benchmarks the White House came up with to measure success in Iraq.
The existence of the commission in 2010 demonstrated that there never was any real movement on that targeted goal.
That's in response to an e-mail. Another one asks about how the tags at the bottom of many entries (not this one and not the snapshot) no longer run like this:
iraq
iraq
the new york daily news
zora neale hurston
and now instead reads like this:
iraq iraq iraq iraq
That's the result of the template change.
Another e-mail asked how highlights are chosen in the morning? (And evenings on Saturdays and Sundays.) I go through the public e-mail account and figure out what's worth noting. Based upon that, I try to work it in as the final thing in an entry. But I'm also up against a clock and frequently don't include something for that reason.
And how do those things get chosen? There was a really good piece by David Swanson. I read it to the end. Too bad for him. It could have been included but I'm not promoting a pedophile. When Swanson felt the need to cite a pedophile, I lost the need to try to find time and space to include an excerpt from his article.
I really can't believe that all this time later, a pedophile's still being included by some on the left and I'm supposedly the big bad bitch because I won't just smile and go along with it. How many times does someone have to be arrested before you're outraged?
During the years Bully Boy Bush occupied the White House, people lied and kidded that the pedophile was targeted because he was a Bush critic. That never dealt with what he did. That only would explain why he was targeted -- if you bought into it. But he's either in prison or headed to it now because of an arrest months after Barack Obama was sworn in as president. I don't believe anyone's accused Barack of having an enemy list of people to arrest.
So now the lie that the pedophile was targeted is exposed as a lie. At what point do people start dealing with what he was convicted of (convicted again)?
It's disgusting. Either women and girls matter or they don't. And a grown man targeting young girls is not someone we highlight or treat as a 'trusted voice' here. And if that makes the big bad bitch. I'll live with it.
Laura Flanders self-represents as a feminist. Yet she repeatedly had that man on her radio show. And then had the nerve, in 2008, to act appalled that a campaign was using a Gary Glitter song. Because of Glitter's pedophilia. But it was okay for her to bring on the pedophile?
None of these people have ever apologized for their actions.
(And side note, the pedophile ridiculed Cindy Sheehan. We remain the only site that called him out for that.)
We were never fans of him. He was noted, not gushed over. And then a friend with CNN asked me why I was highlighting him? I said some people liked him. I didn't know about the arrests, just that he was supposedly targeted. My friend sent over all the CNN stuff including his refusing to answer about the arrests when asked on camera. After that we didn't highlight that pig again. And we made a point to name him and call him out and repeatedly point out that the Amy Goodmans and Laura Flanders featuring this man better be willing to take responsibility if he gets arrested again. And that they better pray it's a police officer and not a young girl like he thinks because if it's a young girl that's going to be on the Amy Goodmans and Laura Flanders because they promoted him, they made him socially acceptable.
It remains a sign of how little value is placed on women's rights and safety that so many on the left have been happy -- and remain happy -- to cite this now three-times busted, three-times convicted pedophile.
I'll be the big, bad bitch, thank you. And know damn well that I never left any young girl who passed by this website with the mistaken idea that Scott Ritter was someone she could trust.
It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)
Last week, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4488. Tonight it's [PDF format warning] 4488.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
iraq
i hate the war
the ballet
