Sunday, November 04, 2012

Hejira

If Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had a brain, he might be dangerous. Instead the simpleton digs his own grave daily.  Case in point, his targeting of Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi.  He was already in rocky waters two weeks ago as the US military refuted his claim that they had evidence that Tareq was a terrorist.  Then came Thursday with the Nouri-controlled Criminal Court in Baghdad giving Tareq a second death sentence. 

Today?  It's time for a third death sentence. 

'Wait,' you say, 'another case?  I never knew.'

You weren't the only one left in the dark.  AP reports that the Criminal Court didn't even inform the defense according to attorney Muayad Obeid al-Exxi.  AFP adds, "Born in 1942, Hashemi became one of Iraq's vice presidents in April 2006, the same month his brother and sister were shot dead in separate attacks."

Despite three death penalty convictions (more coming?), Tareq remains Vice President.  He's never been removed from office.  If he's not removed and his term hasnt expired, per the Constitution, he can't be put on trial.  Nouri's pulling 'laws' out of his ass.  But karma has a way of slapping tyrants like Nouri up side the face.  So possibly in the near future, Nouri will discover that if a sitting Vice President can be put on trial, so can a sitting prime minister -- and if a sitting vice president can be handed the death penalty, so can a sitting prime minister.  Should that happen, I wouldn't expect a long delay for Nouri to be swinging from the rafters.  He has no real allies.

As he tries to push through a majority-government, he depends upon Ibrahim al-Jaafari who can't stand him and the two-faced Ammar al-Hakim who was lustily cheering on the idea of a no-confidence vote in Nouri behind Nouri's back.  In fact, Ammar is said to be the biggest snitch to foreign governments (including the US government and the Iranian government) in the Iraqi government.  And these are the people Nouri counts on.


Alsumaria reports a Mousl bomb (outside of a women's hair salon) left four people injured, 1 person was killed in a Baghdad attack, 1 elementary school director was murdered in Kirkuk, and 33 'terrrorists' were arrested -- the bulk north of Tikrit.

All of that violence was missed by the European press but the Independent notes, "A car bomb targeting a military vehicle in south-east Turkey on Sunday killed an 11-year-old child and wounded 18 other people."









I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away
-- "Hejira," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album of the same name

 The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4488.



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