Monday, September 24, 2012

Children among the dead from today's violence

Violence continues in Iraq.  All Iraq News notes a suicide car bombing in Hit targeting an elementary school in which 4 students were killed and five more people (most students) were injured.  Alsumaria adds the death toll has climbed to 5, that 3 of the were first graders and it was their first day at school, and that the number injured is six.  Alsumaria also reports an attack on a military checkpoint in nothern Babylon Province that left 1 Iraqi solder dead and three more injured.  Bahrain News Agency says three soldiers were killed.

In Iraq, the political stalemate  and crisis continues.  Muhannad Jawad (Al Mada) reports that Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc is calling for the political parties to hold a hearing to discuss the crisis and outline some steps to end it.  Saturday, we explained the spin State of Law's planning.  As part of that spin process, Al Mada reports today they've declared that Iraqiya is trying to derail a national conference. For their spin campaign to work, everyone has to be really stupid and forget that, since December 21st when the Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi first called for a national conference, State of Law has repeatedly resisted, thrown up road blocks and insisted that a 'reform committee' could handle it.  (How's that paper from the reform committee coming?)

Speaking of al-Nujaifi, Alsumaria reports that he's in the dispute Kirkuk today speaking with the governor and the chair of the provincial council.  Diyala Province has a disputed area and Alsumaria reports that their provincial council declared today a line in the sand stating that Baghdad could not annext the  seven areas on the south of the province. 

Meanwhile like the elderly Mrs. Manson Mingott in Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, Jalal, immobilized by his girth?, continues receiving people.  All Iraq News reports Ahmed Chalabi visited him today.  And they note Nechirvan Mustafa also met with Jalal.  Alsumaria says they'd hadn't spoken in four years.  Meanwhile, Jalal's successor is being groomed.  Al Rafidayn reports Barham Salih is wooing the US government in an attempt to get their support to be the next president of Iraq.  The 52-year-old Kurd is a member of Jala's political party (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) and was prime minister of the KRG from September 2009 through the middle of January 2012. 

Saturday, Robert S. Beecroft was confirmed as US Ambassador to Iraq.  In his Wednesday Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing,  Committee Chair John Kerry and other senators made clear that aid to Iraq could be tied to conditions.  Victoria Nuland at the State Dept immediately (and ridiculously) announced that State didn't support that.  But Kerry was the winner on Friday as the Committee's stance was already seeing some results in Iraq.  Today, the New York Times editorial board offers "On The Wrong Side:"
But the Obama administration says that after a pause, Baghdad allowed the flights to resume in July. Since then, every American official to visit Iraq has made the case that the arms shipments must stop, according to Robert Beecroft, the new ambassador to Baghdad. On Friday, Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. stepped up the pressure with a telephone call to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. Given Iraq’s recalcitrance, Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, was right to warn last week that American aid could be reconsidered if Iraq failed to change course.
Perhaps to address the mounting criticism, Iraqi officials may be altering their stance. On Friday, Reuters reported that Iraq had denied permission for a North Korean plane bound for Syria to use its airspace. On Saturday, an Iraqi government spokesman said authorities will start searching Syrian-bound Iranian planes if they have reason for suspicion.




The paper also has a strong piece by Michael R. Gordon which finally starts to tell the story of 2010.  It's not a pretty story.  We've noted it here.  And been savaged by little idiots who cheered on Nouri and consider themselves to be 'analysts.'  They are liars.  They are fools.  And they never knew what was going on because they had no one to talk to in the State Dept or at the White House.

 Today's going to be really hard on them and on the fools who re-Tweeted them.  Reality, thankfully, has a habit of slapping liars in the face.

From Gordon's article:

The attempt by Mr. Obama and his senior aides to fashion an extraordinary power-sharing arrangement between Mr. Maliki and Mr. Allawi never materialized. Neither did an agreement that would have kept a small American force in Iraq to train the Iraqi military and patrol the country’s skies. A plan to use American civilians to train the Iraqi police has been severely cut back. The result is an Iraq that is less stable domestically and less reliable internationally than the United States had envisioned.
The story of these efforts has received little attention in a nation weary of the conflict in Iraq, and administration officials have rarely talked about them. This account is based on interviews with many of the principals, in Washington and Baghdad.

You'll learn about the effort to get Jalal Talabani to step down as president so Ayad Allawi could be president and how Jalal blew off Barack (who made the request in a personal call).  You'll learn just how active the US was.  Again, a lot of little idiots are going to be realizing what idiots they are this morning.  If they hadn't spent the last two years pressing lies and distortions off as truth (and attacking me for telling the actual truth), they wouldn't look like such idiots today.  But that's on them.


Bonnie reminds that Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "The Hollow Man" went up last night.  On this week's Law and Disorder Radio,  an hour long program that airs Monday mornings at 9:00 a.m. EST on WBAI and around the country throughout the week, hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Michael S. Smith and Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights) topics addressed include
the NDAA, Palestine (guests are Alice Walker and Dennis Banks) and Debby Pope discusses the Chicago teachers' strike. 

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


 


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