Saturday, November 03, 2012

The violence Nouri breeds

Alsumaria reports that 3 Iraqi soldiers were killed in Taji, an alcohol shop was blown up in Abu Ghraib, a Sharqat home was blown up injuring two people, an Alekiarp bombing claimed the life of 1 police officer and mass arrests continued across Iraq with the largest being 35 in Anbar.  All Iraq News reports that 1 Iraqi soldier was shot dead in Mosul.  Alsumaria also notes that the PKK announced they had killed 3 Turkish soldiers on the Iraqi border with Turkey.  Reporting on violence the same day, AFP only finds 3 dead.  Are you getting the 'how' of why AFP's count is always such an undercount at the end of each month?  It's two days short here, three days short there and, by the end of the month, they're a hundred off.  To their credit, they do their own count.  To their misfortune, no one appears to have learned to count very high so they go 'un, deux, trois' and then apparently start over instead of going on to quatre . . .  They undercount the Baghdad shooting by one, turning it into two soldiers dead.  This despite the fact that even English-language oultest -- Sameer N. Yacoub of AP, for example -- report 3 shot dead.

AFP also ignores the mass arrests.   The mass arrests have been going on for how long?  How many hundreds and thousands will be arrested this year.  At what point do people stop considering Nouri to be the 'voice of Iraq' when so many are against him?

That's the really rotten tell about Nouri's second term.

Iraqis are not struggling against him out of fear of the unknown.  He's been prime minister since 2006.  His current term expires at the start of 2014 but watch him try to extend that if he's not elected to a third term.  (He wasn't elected to a second term.  In 2010, the White House insisted he get a second term.)  They know who he is.  And his actions do not speak of inclusion.  His actions do not speak of a better Iraq.  30,000 'terrorists' (rough number from UN friend) arrested last year should seem like an alarming number if it happened in the US.  But it happened in Iraq where the population is thought to be somewhere between 26 and 31 million.  (There's been no census in years.)

The continued opposition -- which is 'terrorists' as well as actual terrorists --  to Nouri is a protest against him.

Instead of his grasping that, he's going to destroy Iraq even more.

3 Turkish soldiers were killed, the PKK asserts.  For decades now, the PKK and the Turkish government have been at war.  The death toll is in the thousands.  And the PKK took up arms for one reason only: Kurds in Turkey were not full citizens.  They weren't allowed to speakt heir own language, they didn't have the same rights that others living in Turkey did.

If that could have been fixed in real time, a lot of people would still be alive, a lot of people would not be physically wounded, a lot of families would still have their loved ones.

Since Nouri's already made clear that his February 2011 'promise' not to go for a third term wasn't a promise, it's very likely Nouri intends to steal another term as prime minister.

He was never wanted.  He was the choice of Bully Boy Bush in 2006.  In 2010, he was the choice of Barack.  And the Iraqi people have had no say.

It's not a surprise that the violence has increased in the last years.  And will it only continue to increase.  People like Nouri are idiots, criminally insane.  They want power and they then rush to destroy their enemies.

That's not how you maintain power. That's how you build a strong opposition.

And that's also how you make it very hard to hire police and military even in bad economic times (Iraq has even worse unemployment today than they did in 2003 and the ration card system has been greatly reducted at the same time).  Along with making it difficult to hire, it makes it difficult to keep loyalty within the ranks.  When the country's goal is not some larger issue, some national identity, it becomes very hard to keep loyalty within the ranks -- as demonstrated historically around the world with military coups -- attempted and completed.

Nouri's an idiot.  And Barack is as well.  (Bush?  Most of us always knew and accepted already that he was an idiot.)

What was the point in giving Nouri four more years?  It did not speak to democracy -- voters had backed Iraqiya so the Constitution dictated someone from that slate, most likely leader Ayad Allawi, be named prime minister-designate.  But the White House used a legal contract, the Erbil Agreement, to overturn the will of the Iraqi people.

This was an important event but one that we still aren't supposed to talk about.  When a writer did (Michael R. Gordon with Bernard Trainor), he pretty much found his new book shut out of public discourse in the United States. John Barry's "'The Engame' Is A Well Researched, Highly Critical Look at U.S. Policy in Iraq" (Daily Beast) zoomed in on the key finding:

Washington has little political and no military influence over these developments [in Iraq]. As Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor charge in their ambitious new history of the Iraq war, The Endgame, Obama's administration sacrificed political influence by failing in 2010 to insist that the results of Iraq’s first proper election be honored: "When the Obama administration acquiesced in the questionable judicial opinion that prevented Ayad Allawi's bloc, after it had won the most seats in 2010, from the first attempt at forming a new government, it undermined the prospects, however slim, for a compromise that might have led to a genuinely inclusive and cross-sectarian government."


Nouri is the problem.  Today a September Tikrit prison break is back in the news so let's drop
And now this non-choice who has twice been forced off on Iraq by the United States says he's forming a majority-government -- a government built around himself and his own second place State of Law.

Today, a September Tirkit prison break is back in the news.  So let's drop back to the September 27th snapshot:


 The latest day's violence includes a prison attack BBC News reports assailants using bombs and guns attacked a Tikrit prison.  AFP quotes a police Lieutenant Colonel stating, "A suicide bomber targeted the gate of the prison with a car bomb and gunment then assaulted the prison, after which they killed guards" and a police Colonel stating, "The prisoners killed one policeman and wounded (prison director) Brigadier General Laith al-Sagmani, the gunmen took control of the prison, and clashes are continuing."  Kitabat states two car bombs were used to blow up the entrance to the prison and gain access and they also state 12 guards have been killed. Reports note the riot is continuing.  Alsumaria reports four guards have died, 1 police officer and the injured include two soldiers and the prison director al-Sagmani.  There's confusion as to whether a number of prisoners were able to escape in the early stages after the bombing and during gunfire.  Reuters goes with "dozens" escaping which is probably smarter than the hard number some are repeating. Mu Xuequan (Xinhua) reports 5 police officers killed and another two injured -- the numbers are going to vary until tomorrow, this is ongoing -- and state over 200 prisoners escaped with 33 of them already having been recaptured.  If you skip the English language media, what's not confusing is why it happened and why it was able to happen.   Alsumaria reports that there are approximately 900 inmates in the prison and that many have death sentences.  Alsumaria does even more than that.  It notes the recent prison violence throughout the country and ties it into the death sentences.  These aren't just happening at random, this is about the many people being sentenced to death -- a fact the English language press either doesn't know or doesn't think people need to know.
When prisoners escape, as some have, without being caught, it makes a lot of sense when you grasp that they are seen as persecuted.  They're not the deadly evil suddenly let loose and roaming through a town that's going to cause people to pick up the phones and call the authorities.  These are people that many Iraqis feel didn't get a fair trial or received an unduly harsh sentence.  The refusal for this part of the story to be reported goes a long way towards explaining the confusion over what's been taking place in Iraq for months with these increased attacks on prisons.
Already the English-language press is obsessed with the Islamic State of Iraq -- a violent group that may be responsible.  And they may be. July 22nd, the Islamic State of Iraq released an audio recording announcing a new campaign of violence entitled Breaking The Walls which would include prison breaks and killing "judges and investigators and their guards."  (They also threatened to attack America on US soil.)  They've had great success since then in launching deadly attacks.  And one of the reasons for their success is Nouri al-Maliki.  The Islamic State of Iraq is using violence which appalls many Iraqis but for reasons that a number of Iraqis can identify with. 
Nouri created this.  Nouri's the reason it thrives.  Again, the English-speaking press has ignored it but there have been mass arrests all month.  Alsumaria reports 17 arrested today for 'terrorism' just south of Baghdad, another 17 arrested in Nineveh Province and another 44 in Kirkuk -- while in Diyala Province, the federal forces are said to be out of control but they insist that they have not seized control of residential areas and that they are not putting up barriers as part of their security measures or 'security measures.'  Mass arrests create a climate in which the Islamic State of Iraq's actions can garner sympathy.  You may be lucky and it didn't happen to anyone in your family but, down the street, it happened to one of your neighbors and the thing about mass arrests is that they (rightly) create distrust in the government.  And they create sympathy for responses like the Islamic State of Iraq.   You see and overhear plotting and planning, in a stable society you might call the police.  In Nouri's Iraq, you instead understand the motives and you may not take part in violence yourself but your attitude is you're not going to stop it.

You can't institute a crackdown, round up thousands and then be surprised when people don't buy-into your 'vision' of Iraq.

Kitabat reports that Brigadier General Laith al-Salmani, the director of the Tikrit prison, has been arrested over the prison break in which over 100 prisoners escaped.  al-Salmani was arrested as he returned from an ERbil hospital where he'd been treated for the gun shot wound he received in the prison assault.

Dar Addustour notes that 36 employees of the Central Bank remain held in prison with no word on when they will be released.  Are you getting how Nouri's only real success is in turning people against him? 


 The following community sites -- plus Antiwar.com, Cindy Sheehan, Pacifica Evening News -- updated last night and today:




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





iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq





Posted by at

I Hate The War

James Petras (Dissident Voice) has an interesting article about left whoring for Barack.  Two key passages:
Will the “progressives” ever play honest and publicly state: we back Obama in “swing states” because he has “only” murdered 10,000 Afghans, 5,000 Iraqis, is starving 75 million Iranian’s via sanctions, gives $3 billion for Israeli displacement of millions of Palestinians, personally oversees the arbitrary executions of US citizens and promises an extended kill list … because Romney promises to be worse … Expecting honesty from the proponents of ‘lesser evils’ is as farfetched as taking serious their criticisms between elections. The political damage incurred by the social movements and US working class under the Obama presidency is unprecedented and has laid the groundwork for further social regression and greater imperial bellicosity.







And:
Last but not least, the Obama regime has co-opted progressive liberal social critics via backdoor support. In the name of “opposing Romney” the progressive pundits, like Chomsky and Ellsberg, end up in alliance with Wall Street and Silicon Valley billionaires, Pentagon militarists, Homeland Security boosters and Zionist ideologues (Dennis Ross) to elect Obama. Of course, the support of the progressives will be accepted — but hardly acknowledged — but they will have no influence on future Obama policy after the election: they will be discarded like used condoms.


 At War Is A Crime, Sam Husseini points out:

Earlier this year President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law. It allows for the indefinite detention without trial for any U.S. citizen deemed to be a terrorist or an accessory to terrorism.

Some might have thought that there would be wide-spread revolt among people who voted for Obama against legalized indefinite detention. And there was some protest, mostly led by Chris Hedges (who did not vote for Obama), with some legal victories against the law.

But the political success seems to have come from the law itself -- in favor of Obama. Instead of provoking a revolt, the result seems to be this:

Obama is in effect telling his supporters: "You better support me more, because I just signed this law saying the president of the U.S. can detain anyone he wants. Now, do you want me to have this power, or do you want Mitt Romney to have this power?"

And so, perversely, Obama by signing a law most of his supporters almost certainly didn't want, has actually ensured a greater grip on them. He has in effect indefinitely detained them.

And World Can't Wait offers "12 Steps to Overcoming Addiction to Voting for the 'Lesser' of 2 Evils."

No offense meant to Petras, Husseini or Debra Sweet and the people at World Can't Wait, but they're not seen as geniuses.  Smart, yes, but no one thinks they're going to figure out the cure for cancer or devise instaneous space travel tomorrow.  So if they're not geniuses so far above the rest of the country, if what they rely on is the same brain power most of us do, why can they write what they write?

Because they value honesty and truth.  Their brain power may be the same as the rest of us but they have a lot more bravery because they're not going to sell out what they believe in or the lives of others just because it's profitable or will help them.

Noam Chomsky has yet again sold out.  Yet again.  I've avoided calling him out on the issue of the Palestinians.  His position is and remains appalling and ahistorical.  And he should have been preparing for that.  A number of us have warned him to his face that he needs to adapt.  But Noam's a enius and he knows it all so no one's going to tell him anything.

But what the idiot doesn't grasp is that Palestinian-Americans are not going away and his lies and revisions that have harmed Parlestinians are not going to stay buried.  Noam has very little time left.  A smart person concerned about their historical impact would be seriously addressing the issue. 

Instead, Noam's decided to whore for Barack. 

Fixing his own record didn't matter to the genius because he really doesn't get what's coming over the next 15 years, the truth's that's going to unseat him, leave him a disgrace.  he can't recongize what's not just coming but what's laready been let in the door.

By the same token, he's so stupid that he believes whoring for Barack will give him some sort of teflon coating.

Barack is not Ghandi.  He's just another US president who has harmed many around the world.  How fitting that Noam would choose not to get honest about the tragic conditions of the Palestinians while at the same time binding himself closer to the face of imperialism.

Were he still a young man, people would make excsues for Noam.  And, for many years, they did.  I like Noam.  I've always felt sorry for him.  But I don't have sympathy anymore.  Repeatedly, he's been handed the opportunity to either show bravery or shut up.  Repeatedly, he's whored his continually diminishing name.  At some point, he needs to answer if it was wroth it because I don't see any justification for it.



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!)


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



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





Posted by at

Friday, November 02, 2012

Iraq snapshot

Friday, November 2, 2012.  Chaos and violence continue, Nouri tries to stage a trade fair in Baghdad, the government of Turkey feels threatened by Kurds in the region, mass arrests continue, and more.
 
 

All Iraq News reports that US Ambassador to Iraq "Stephen Beecroft" (that's how he's billed -- maybe he's finally dropped the three names) is praising the Baghdad International Fair which just started.  Al Mada notes the fair started Thursday and that the first Baghdad International Fair was in 1957 though it wasn't called that until 1964.  Alsumaria notes this is the 39th Baghdad International Fair and that twenty countries are participating.  Yang Lina (Xinhua) quotes Nouri al-Maliki declaring,  "Iraq is now the investment opportunity in the region that everything here needs for reconstruction, particularly its infrastructure." 
 
Everything you need here -- if what you need is no booze, if what you need is security forces who do not obey the law they're supposed to enforce.  In fact, here's a YouTube video of Nouri's forces executing someone on the spot.  Iraq, where there's so much corruption, you may not even notice the bombings. Baghdad, infamous for kidnapping and killing foreigners.  Or maybe you'll be like Peter Moore and just suffer for years in captivity without being killed.
 
 
Nouri attended the opening ceremony and then split.  If you were Nouri, you would too.  That's a pathetic showing.  And if you doubt it, consider the 8th Erbil International Fair was last month and had 23 countries participating.  Poor, inept Nouri, always living in the shadow of the KRG. Hurriyet notes that, despite sharing a border with Iraq, "not many Turkish firms attended the event."  It appears to be shaping up to be another Arab League Summit type event -- where people grade on the pity scale and say, "It's a success!  Regardless of the fact that it accomplished litte or even nothing, it's a success!"  Poor Nouri, between his threats against corporations and his authoritarian streak, there's little to attract international investors to Baghdad. 
 
 
  And it's going to be evident for a prolonged period because Dar Addustour notes it's a ten day event.  The KRG where there's, by comparison, safety.  Where religious zealots will not prevent your consumption of alcohol.  Where you aren't confined to a pen named the "Green Zone."  And the KRG already has a business image -- a strong one.  Businesses don't fear they're going to be ripped off.  Of course Nouri has given Baghdad a strong image as well -- as a contract-breaking center.  And the only thing worth less than a written contract with the Baghdad government is Nouri's word.
 
 
 
Moving over to violence, Alsumaria reports a roadside bombing just south of Mosul claimed the life of 1 contractor who was killed "on the spot" according to source with the police. Alsumaria also reports that in Salahuddin Province a student was shot.  All Iraq News notes that Turkish warplanes began bombing northern Iraq in the early morning hours today.  Today's Zaman adds that there are reports "that four Turkish F-16 jets struck the PKK targets in the region."  This is part of the ongoing struggle between the Turkish government and the PKK.    Aaron Hess (International Socialist Review) described the PKK in 2008, "The PKK emerged in 1984 as a major force in response to Turkey's oppression of its Kurdish population. Since the late 1970s, Turkey has waged a relentless war of attrition that has killed tens of thousands of Kurds and driven millions from their homes. The Kurds are the world's largest stateless population -- whose main population concentration straddles Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria -- and have been the victims of imperialist wars and manipulation since the colonial period. While Turkey has granted limited rights to the Kurds in recent years in order to accommodate the European Union, which it seeks to join, even these are now at risk."  Ofra Bengio (Minority-Opinion) offers this take today:
 
The signs are not hard to read.  Most dramatically, the traditionally marginalized Kurds of Syria have found new energy in the cauldron of the Syrian uprising and are now demanding a federal system in which they would gain significant autonomy in a post-Assad Syria.  The extremely restive Kurds of Turkey are pressing for what they call democratic autonomy.  The Kurds of Iran, typically unremarked upon in the media, are stirring beneath their blanket of obscurity.  But most important of all these are the Kurds of Iraq.  Iraq was the epicenter of the Kurds' great leap forward in the early 1990s: the establishment of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which is a euphemism for a de facto Kurdish state.  It is to the KRG experience that Iranian, Syrian and Turkish Kurds increasingly look for lessons and guidance, and rightly so.
 
 
This is an ongoing struggle throughout the region.  In Turkey, that gets resolved only by recognition and equality of the Kurds. The Kurds there have been denied inclusion and that's what's fueled the struggle.  It's what's led to a hunger strike.  Ivan Watson and Gul Tuysuz (CNN) report,  "Turkey's government announced Friday that at least 682 inmates were participating in a hunger strike in at least 67 prisons across the country, but it insisted that no protesters were in critical condition." Daren Butler (Reuters) explains, "Jailed Kurdish militans on hunger strike in Turkey may start to die within the next 10 days, Turkey's main medical association warend on Thursday, saying the prime minister's dismissal of the protest as a 'show' risked hardening their resolve."   Gareth Jenkins (Great Britain's Socialist Worker) reports:
 
 
Up to 200 people from Kurdish and Turkish organisations protested outside the Turkish embassy today, Friday.
The protest marked the 52nd day since 63 Kurds in Turkish prisons started a hunger strike. They have been joined by 600 others.
Some may be near death. Thousands of Kurds around Europe have gone on solidarity hunger strikes.
Kurds make up roughly 30 per cent of the population in Turkey and have faced decades of repression. Thousands of Kurds, including MPs and mayors, are political prisoners.
Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdish nationalist party, the PKK, has been held in prison since 1999.
Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently dismissed the hunger strikes—but protests have broken the wall of silence.
Mehmet Aksoy from the Kurdish Federation told Socialist Worker, "We want freedom for Öcalan, for there to be meaningful negotiations. And we want an end to the ban on using Kurdish in the law courts and in schools.
"We want the cries of the hunger strikers to be heard. We are here today to call on the international community to pressure Turkey into meeting our demands as the only way to bring a just and honourable peace."
© Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original.
 
The KRG (three provinces in Iraq) are the closest to a Kurdish homeland.  As such, the government of Turkey has long been threatened by it, afraid that the KRG would result in (louder) cries among Turkey's Kurdish population for a section of Turkey to set up a homeland.  UPI  notes, "Turkey will not condone a separate autonomous Kurdish government in Syria, similar to the one in Iraq, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said."  Hurriyet quotes Erdogan stating, "We cannot let playing of such a scenario [Kurdish autonomy] here [in Syria].  We told this to [KRG President Massoud] Barzani too.  We wanted him to know this."  Whether he heard it or not, Emirates News Agency reports, "His Highness General Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces has received Masoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq who is on current visit to the UAE."
 
The statements by Turkish government officials will not be surprising to the KRG nor will they be all that important to the KRG either.  There are a number of issues, however, that are important to the KRG.  For example, the Kurdistan Regional Government notes Glen Campbell's BBC World Service News report:
 
 
Iraqi Kurds in Britain have begun a campaign for the mass murder of their people in Iraq in the late-1980s to be formally recognised as genocide.
At least 180,000 Kurds were killed by Saddam Hussein's forces. 
The justice4genocide campaign says many more died in atrocities carried out by regimes from the 1960s onwards. 
It is petitioning the UK government to declare the mass killing of Kurds as a genocide and press the European Union and United Nations to do the same.
 
 
Though not everyone may agree on genocide, there's this believe that everyone will agree on voting.    Al Mada reports that the United Nations is urging Iraqis to vote in the upcoming provincial elections scheduled for April 20th currently.  If UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Special Envoy to Iraq Martin Kobler really wants Iraqis to turn out for the provincial elections, he might try working on a slogan -- something like, "Vote in the provincial elections -- the only ones so far that the US government doesn't overrule."

The US government did let the 2009 provincial elections -- both sets (the KRG did not hold them at the same time the other provinces -- minus Kirkuk -- did).  It was the Parliamentary elections of 2010 that they overruled because they wanted their pet Nouri al-Maliki to get a second term as prime minister after Nouri's State of Law came in second to Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya.  So they backed him on his eight month political stalemate and then they negotiated the Erbil Agreement guaranteeing him a second term as prime minister. 

That legal contract found the political blocs granting that concession to Nouri in exchange for Nouri making concessions to them.  Nouri got what he wanted (the second term) and then discarded the contract.  That created the current stalemate.  Now the second place Nouri that the US re-installed in 2010, wants to shut out Iraqiya by forming a majority-government.  Al Mada reports that a split if evident in Parliament over the move.  And Al Mada quotes State of Law MP Abdul Salam al-Maliki stating that the answer is a majority government and that anyone who disagrees with that is not a supporter of democracy.  It's as if State of Law got all the MPs who fell on their heads.
And the UN continues to grade on the pity scale.  "Poor inept Nouri, but he managed . . ."  Reality, no one has to handhold the KRG to get them to plan their provincial elections.  Reality, the disputed Kirkuk Province?  That was supposed to have been decided by the end of 2007 -- per the Iraqi Constitution -- that's Article 140.  Nouri ignored that in his first term and he ignores it in his second and, guess what, Kirkuk won't be voting in the provincial elections.    But let's all pretend that 14 of the 18 provinces voting is amazing and flatter Nouri.
 
Why hasn't the United Nations publicly called otu the continued mass arrests which largerly target Sunnis in Iraq?   From yesterday's snapshot:

 
On violence, yesterday was the end of the month.  Iraq Body Count's counts 253 reported violent deaths in Iraq for the month of October.  Last month, their total was 356 which means a reduction of about 100 deaths.  AFP, forgetting fairy tales are for bedtime, notes the government total for October is 136.  AFP also forgets to note that there were over 550 reported mass arrests in Iraq in the month of October.  Nouri's round up largely focused on Sunnis.

Today, Alsumaria reports that in Mosul alone, last month saw the arrest of 90 for 'terrorism.'  It really is amazing how US and European press ignore these ongoing mass arrests.  Already today Alsumaria is reporting a mass arrest of 9 people for 'terrorism.'
 
 
 
 
In the US,  April Baer (OPB -- link is text and audio) reports, "A federal jury in Portland has awarded $85 million  in damages to twelve former soldiers who were exposed to hazardous material while on duty with the Oregon Guard. The jury deliberated for two days on evidence presented in a three-and-a-half week trial."  Teresa Carson (Reuters) adds, "Each Guard soldier was awarded $850,000 in non-economic damages and another $6.25 million in punitive damages for 'reckless and outrageous indifference' to their health in the trial in U.S. District Court in Portland."  Mike Francis (Oregonian) quotes Jason Arnold stating, "It's a little bit of justice" and Aaron St. Clair stating, "We're not disposable.  People are not going to make money from our blood."
 
 
 Veterans Day is approaching.  US House Rep Jeff Miller is also the Chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.   He has a column in the Pensacola News Journal which opens:
 
 
America has many great qualities, each of which makes us the greatest nation in the world. Few of these qualities are as vital, however, to America's success as the strength and determination of our war fighters. For more than 225 years, Americans have signed up, at great peril to themselves, to defend the ideals upon which this nation was founded.
Once a year, on Veterans Day, all Americans turn their eyes to this group of heroes and honor their service to our nation. Nov. 11 is a special day. It is a reminder for us to always respect and pay tribute to our men and women in uniform who served. But in my opinion, and I know others agree, one day is not enough. Many veterans will tell you they signed up to serve expecting nothing in return. It is that type of selflessness that makes our veterans unique. We should mirror that selflessness and celebrate our veterans throughout the year.
 
 
Vietnam veteran and author (most recently, The Nostradamus Secret) Joseph Badal writes at his blog about Iraq War veterans Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods:
 
By now you have all heard about the actions of two brave men, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, on September 11, 2012, in Benghazi, Libya. Their actions while under fire to rescue other Americans were astounding. They could have delayed taking action, but didn't. They could have made excuses to not take action, but didn't. Even when they were ordered to "stand down," they didn't. They stepped up and did the right and courageous thing to save the lives of other Americans.
But Glen and Tyrone were everyday people from everyday backgrounds, and all of that has been lost in the noise around who told whom to do what and when.
 
 
For how they died, we'll refer to the Chair of the House Oversight Committee:
 
Committee Chair Darrell Issa:  On September 11, 2012, four brave Americans serving their country were murdered by terrorists in Benghazi, Libya.  Tyrone Woods spent two decades as a Navy Seal serving multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Since 2010, he protected the American diplomatic personnel.  Tyrone leaves behind a widow and three children.   Glen Doherty, also a former Seal and an experienced paramedic, had served his country in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  His family and colleagues grieve today for his death.  Sean Smith, a communications specialist, joined the State Dept after six years in the United States Air Force.  Sean leaves behind a widow and two young children.  Ambassador Chris Stevens, a man I had known personally during his tours, US Ambassador to Libya, ventured into a volatile and dangerous situation as Libyans revolted against the long time Gaddafi regime.  He did so because he believed the people of Libya wanted and deserved the same things we have: freedom from tyranny. 
 
 
That's US House Rep Darrell Issa speaking at the House Oversight Committee (he is the Chair of the Committee) on October 10th.  We covered the hearing in the October 10th and October 11th snapshots.  That Doherty and Woods were working for the CIA was not news if you were at the hearing.  That and the large number of injured CIA personnel were obvious at the hearing -- and why US House Rep Jason Chaffetz kept objecting and stating that certain things were classified.  Today, the media wants to treat it as news.
 
And not because they give a damn about Doherty and Woods but because they think it clears the administration.  One charge being tossed around (as 'fact' by some) is that the CIA was the target of the attack.  That's interesting.  You're saying Libyan terrorists knew that was a CIA outpost?  That's very interesting.  Equally interesting is the lie that Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty working for the CIA means the four deaths are a CIA problem or have nothing to do with the administration.  A US Ambassador is supposed to travel with a security detail.  This was the point Chaffetz was constrained to make in an open hearing but kept coming close to it. 
 
If Chris Stevens were traveling to Benghazi to hear a briefing from the CIA and a Turkish asset, he was traveling.  The fact that the CIA was on end-point for the trip did not relieve the administration of the responsibility to provide Stevens with security while en route and one he arrived. 
 
There are a lot of lies being told and once again it's not to help anyone except Barack Obama.  Americans have a right to know what happened.  At this point, they still don't.  And nothing 'emerging' today changes the larger story.
 
 

Douglas Sloan (Oxonian Globalist) observes, "On the same day that President Barack Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage, an openly homosexual American solider experienced his 714th  day of incarceration. He had not been convicted of any crime. Bradley Manning, the alleged Wikileaks informer, has been in custody since May 2010, and was in solitary confinement for nine months."  Bradley Manning, like Barack's kill-list, is a topic the faux left doesn't want to address in an election year.  Alexander Reed Kelly (TruthDig) notes of  Gary Dorrien's The Obama Question: A Progressive Perspective which is meant to churn out the vote for Barack:


The chapter titled "Moral Empire and Liberal War," which serves to justify Obama's expansion of the American military establishment, is the most telling in terms of its omissions. According to a Google Books search, the name "Bradley Manning" appears nowhere in the section's 30 pages. Neither do the words "whistle-blower" or "rendition." "Surveillance" comes up once, and the unmanned drone war, which has claimed dozens of civilian lives in Pakistan since Obama took office, gets a passing mention in a single paragraph.


But though whores might wish Bradley would just disappear, he remains and possibly the hatred being spewing by the faux left has to do with the fact that Bradley is the ghost that haunts them, the truth that mocks them.

Monday April 5, 2010, WikiLeaks released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7, 2010, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported in August 2010 that Manning had been charged -- "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." In March, 2011, David S. Cloud (Los Angeles Times) reported that the military has added 22 additional counts to the charges including one that could be seen as "aiding the enemy" which could result in the death penalty if convicted. The Article 32 hearing took place in December.  At the start of this year, there was an Article 32 hearing and, February 3rd, it was announced that the government would be moving forward with a court-martial.  Bradley has yet to enter a plea and has neither affirmed that he is the leaker nor denied it.  The court-martial was supposed to begin this month has been postponed until after the election . 

Douglas Sloan explains:

Not only have Manning's reputation and credibility been attacked using his homosexuality, but his defence centres on the assertion that he struggled with gender identity issues. As a result of having to suppress his homosexuality due to the prevailing 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy, Manning's defence deems that he was not mentally fit to be given access to classified information, and as such the blame for the leak lies with his superiors. That homosexuality can be considered a defence in such a case seems to undermine both the work done by LGBT rights groups and the progress that the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' represents. To view it as a plea of homosexuality, however, is to misunderstand the issue at hand. Manning's defence is more one of aggravated mental disturbance than of sexuality, for all this aggravation was a consequence of his sexuality and the military's reaction to it.
Questions must be asked of an institution that drove a man to such extremes that he would go for a weapons rack during a counselling session, send pictures of himself in women's dress to his commanding officer and potentially leak thousands of sensitive documents. Whether he was responsible for the leak or not, his situation hardly reflects well on the American military.


Today is Bradley's 894th day imprisoned.  He has still not had a trial.  There are 365 days in a year.  Barack has imprisoned an American citizen for close to three years.  Barack has denied Bradly his Constitutional right to a fair and speedy trial. David E. Coombs and will be speaking December 3rd in DC.  This Day In WikiLeaks notes that and two other events:
  • Bradley Manning's attorney David Coombs will be giving his first ever public presentation on December 3 at the All Souls Church Unitarian in Washington D.C. The presentation will give an overview of pending defence motions in U.S. v. PFC Manning, as well as other facts about the case.
  • A rally will be held at Fort Meade on November 27, the first day of Bradley Manning's hearings related to his unlawful pretrial punishment.
  • An Election Day demonstration will be held at the U.S. Embassy in London on November 6. Anthony Timmons of WISE Up Action will speak about Bradley Manning.
 
 
 
 
Posted by at

Nouri living in the KRG's shadow

Al Mada reports that the United Nations is urging Iraqis to vote in the upcoming provincial elections scheduled for April 20th currently.  If UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Special Envoy to Iraq Martin Kobler really wants Iraqis to turn out for the provincial elections, he might try working on a slogan -- something like, "Vote in the provincial elections -- the only ones so far that the US government doesn't overrule."

The US government did let the 2009 provincial elections -- both sets (the KRG did not hold them at the same time the other provinces -- minus Kirkuk -- did).  It was the Parliamentary elections of 2010 that they overruled because they wanted their pet Nouri al-Maliki to get a second term as prime minister after Nouri's State of Law came in second to Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya.  So they backed him on his eight month political stalemate and then they negotiated the Erbil Agreement guaranteeing him a second term as prime minister. 

That legal contract found the political blocs granting that concession to Nouri in exchange for Nouri making concessions to them.  Nouri got what he wanted (the second term) and then discarded the contract.  That created the current stalemate.  Now the second place Nouri that the US re-installed in 2010, wants to shut out Iraqiya by forming a majority-government.  Al Mada reports that a split if evident in Parliament over the move.  And Al Mada quotes State of Law MP Abdul Salam al-Maliki stating that the answer is a majority government and that anyone who disagrees with that is not a supporter of democracy.  It's as if State of Law got all the MPs who fell on their heads.

From yesterday's snapshot:

 
On violence, yesterday was the end of the month.  Iraq Body Count's counts 253 reported violent deaths in Iraq for the month of October.  Last month, their total was 356 which means a reduction of about 100 deaths.  AFP, forgetting fairy tales are for bedtime, notes the government total for October is 136.  AFP also forgets to note that there were over 550 reported mass arrests in Iraq in the month of October.  Nouri's round up largely focused on Sunnis.

Today, Alsumaria reports that in Mosul alone, last month saw the arrest of 90 for 'terrorism.'  It really is amazing how US and European press ignore these ongoing mass arrests.  Already today Alsumaria is reporting a mass arrest of 9 people for 'terrorism.'

All Iraq News reports that US Ambassador to Iraq "Stephen Beecroft" (that's how he's billed -- maybe he's finally dropped the three names) is praising the Baghdad International Fair which kicked off today.  Alsumaria notes this is the 39th Baghdad International Fair and that twenty countries are participating.  Nouri attended the opening ceremony and then split.

If you were Nouri, you would too.  That's a pathetic showing.  And if you doubt it, consider the 8th Erbil International Fair was last month and had 23 countries participating.  Poor, inept Nouri, always living in the shadow of the KRG.  And it's going to be evident for a prolonged period because Dar Addustour notes it's a ten day event.


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





iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq
Posted by at

Bradley Manning

Douglas Sloan (Oxonian Globalist) observes, "On the same day that President Barack Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage, an openly homosexual American solider experienced his 714th  day of incarceration. He had not been convicted of any crime. Bradley Manning, the alleged Wikileaks informer, has been in custody since May 2010, and was in solitary confinement for nine months."  Bradley Manning, like Barack's kill-list, is a topic the faux left doesn't want to address in an election year.  Alexander Reed Kelly (TruthDig) notes of  Gary Dorrien's The Obama Question: A Progressive Perspective which is meant to churn out the vote for Barack:


 The chapter titled “Moral Empire and Liberal War,” which serves to justify Obama’s expansion of the American military establishment, is the most telling in terms of its omissions. According to a Google Books search, the name “Bradley Manning” appears nowhere in the section’s 30 pages. Neither do the words “whistle-blower” or “rendition.” “Surveillance” comes up once, and the unmanned drone war, which has claimed dozens of civilian lives in Pakistan since Obama took office, gets a passing mention in a single paragraph.


But though whores might wish Bradley would just disappear, he remains and possibly the hatred being spewing by the faux left has to do with the fact that Bradley is the ghost that haunts them, the truth that mocks them.

Monday April 5, 2010, WikiLeaks released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7, 2010, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported in August 2010 that Manning had been charged -- "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." In March, 2011, David S. Cloud (Los Angeles Times) reported that the military has added 22 additional counts to the charges including one that could be seen as "aiding the enemy" which could result in the death penalty if convicted. The Article 32 hearing took place in December.  At the start of this year, there was an Article 32 hearing and, February 3rd, it was announced that the government would be moving forward with a court-martial.  Bradley has yet to enter a plea and has neither affirmed that he is the leaker nor denied it.  The court-martial was supposed to begin this month has been postponed until after the election . 

Douglas Sloan explains:

Not only have Manning’s reputation and credibility been attacked using his homosexuality, but his defence centres on the assertion that he struggled with gender identity issues. As a result of having to suppress his homosexuality due to the prevailing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy, Manning’s defence deems that he was not mentally fit to be given access to classified information, and as such the blame for the leak lies with his superiors. That homosexuality can be considered a defence in such a case seems to undermine both the work done by LGBT rights groups and the progress that the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ represents. To view it as a plea of homosexuality, however, is to misunderstand the issue at hand. Manning’s defence is more one of aggravated mental disturbance than of sexuality, for all this aggravation was a consequence of his sexuality and the military’s reaction to it.
Questions must be asked of an institution that drove a man to such extremes that he would go for a weapons rack during a counselling session, send pictures of himself in women’s dress to his commanding officer and potentially leak thousands of sensitive documents. Whether he was responsible for the leak or not, his situation hardly reflects well on the American military.


Today is Bradley's 894th day imprisoned.  He has still not had a trial.  There are 365 days in a year.  Barack has imprisoned an American citizen for close to three years.  Barack has denied Bradly his Constitutional right to a fair and speedy trial. David E. Coombs and will be speaking December 3rd in DC.  This Day In WikiLeaks notes that and two other events:
  • Bradley Manning's attorney David Coombs will be giving his first ever public presentation on December 3 at the All Souls Church Unitarian in Washington D.C. The presentation will give an overview of pending defence motions in U.S. v. PFC Manning, as well as other facts about the case.
  • A rally will be held at Fort Meade on November 27, the first day of Bradley Manning's hearings related to his unlawful pretrial punishment.
  • An Election Day demonstration will be held at the U.S. Embassy in London on November 6. Anthony Timmons of WISE Up Action will speak about Bradley Manning.


I'm throwing this in here because the Barack spinners do love to lie.  A friend HOST called about a mutual friend PERFORMER.  During an interview, PERFORMER seemed unbalanced.  Uh, yeah.  And that's what happens when you get too far from your roots.  I don't know what planet PERFORMER is living on but that's the crazy.  Among other things, PERFORMER lied about basically always being out.  As I said to HOST on the phone this morning, "Are we all supposed to forget the 1980s law suit" one that PERFORMER lost which was filed solely because there was footage of PERFORMER with same-sex love?

I have no idea.  But PERFORMER was an idiot and shouldn't have talked election politics because all it did was reveal how ignorant PERFORMER is.  PERFORMER is among those who will say to me, "But isn't the Iraq War over?"  If it's not on MSNBC prime time, it's not happening in PERFORMER's world.  So maybe the smart thing would be for a number of artists to stop discussing politics?  If you don't follow, don't speak.  Want to tell who you're going to vote for?  Fine.  But don't start talking issues if you don't know what you're talking about.

Last night a CPB friend called.  Angry over a regional NPR program where a guest flat out lied and the host allowed it.  The program comes from a state that hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964.  Yet every day the host has on another guest talking up the Democratic Party's presidential ticket.  How is that public radio?

How does that represent the local interests?

So the guest was a bad fiction writer who is voting for Barack (or apparently wouldn't have been booked on the show) and wanted to talk about why he was voting for Barack.  Apparently not having a reason for voting for Barack, he had to explain how much he hated Mitt Romney and he had to explain how Romney was evil because he _______.  What followed was a string of sentences broadcast over public radio and not one of them was accurate. 

Now maybe that's what the MSNBC liars say happened.  But they're TV hosts, they're not reporters.  The report on that -- a lengthy report in the Washington Post some months ago -- contained details and it wasn't a pretty story about Mitt Romney.

But the bad fiction writer had to 'improve' on the fact a reporter has reported and create additional things that happened.

And the host let him get away with it.  The host went to station identification (the male writer was ranting like a loon) but when the host came back, there was no correction offered.

This is public radio?

We're probably writing about the public radio thing -- Ava and I -- at Third.  I haven't seen the HOST interview of PERFORMER and would prefer not to because not only was there the lawsuit to hide PERFORMER's sexuality, there's also the fact that the PERFORMER was repeatedly called out in the 90s for being in the closet.  So for PERFORMER to claim to always be out of the closet was b.s.  And I'd really rather not have to call out a friend on that lie and several others told in the interview.  Not to mention calling PERFORMER out for lying about Mitch McConnell.


The following community sites -- pluse Pacifica Evening News, Jane Fonda, Tavis Smiley,  Antiwar.com,  The Diane Rehm Show and C-SPAN -- updated last night and this morning:


Cedric's Big Mix
The crazy gets loose
1 hour ago
The Daily Jot
THIS JUST IN! THE WANKERS WANK!
1 hour ago 
 
 
 
 
 
We'll close with this from David Swanson's "Respectable Murderers: An Open Letter to Dan Ellsberg" (War Is A Crime):
 

Dear Dan,
You and I are getting ready to tape a debate on the question of whether to vote for Obama (in "swing states"). It will air on Lila Garrett's "Connect the Dots" show on KPFK next Monday. I'm looking forward to it, if for no other reason, because I think our public discourse lacks much serious debate between people who respect each other's intentions. I have nothing but respect for you and believe you mean nothing but the best in advocating votes for Obama. You honestly believe I was catastrophically wrong to vote for Jill Stein in Virginia, as I've done, and I honestly believe you are horrendously misguided to be expending your valuable energy trying to get others to vote for Obama. And yet we'll be friends through this and regardless of whether one or both of us ever change our minds.
An hour debate will also be a refreshing change from the usual sound byte simplification of the media, and yet not necessarily sufficient. So, let me tell you a couple of stories.
I wandered over to the Obama campaign office here in Charlottesville, Va., on Wednesday when former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was scheduled to visit. She showed up, in fact, and told everyone how terrific Obama is.
[. . .]
In between elections, as we move from having voted for the less evil party toward the inevitable contest four years hence between two parties that are both more evil than the time before, our activism is neutered by a system of unions, PACs, and nonprofit clicktivist and media complexes that seek their funding, power, and sense of importance from one half of the government. It has become routine for grassroots or astroturf activist leaders to head into the veal pen and ask the elected officials of the Good Party or of the "Progressive" wing of the good party what they should ask their members to demand. This is an inversion of representative government. You'll recall groups that favored single-payer healthcare forbidding their members from mentioning it, asking instead for a "public option" because so-called public servants had instructed the public to ask for that. The point is not that legislators should never compromise, but that we should leave it to the legislators, because when we pre-compromise, we end up with even less in the end.
When Obama was in Charlottesville, hundreds of people waited in line for hours for the chance to cheer anything he said. Some of us went to talk to the people waiting in line. We wanted to get a sense of how they felt about all the policies that had produced such outrage under Bush and been expanded under Obama. Under Obama, as you may know, wealth is concentrating faster, the environment is deteriorating faster, the military has spread further and cost more, the warrantless spying has spread and been firmly established as without criminal penalty, rendition and torture have become policy choices rather than crimes, imprisonment without charge or trial has been "legalized" (although Obama is still fighting for that power in court), an assassination program has been created and openly advertised, wars have been launched without the courtesy of lying to Congress, the CIA has been given major war powers, "special" forces are in 70 nations on any given day and raiding a dozen homes to kill on any given night, drones have raised to new heights the percentage of war victims who are civilians and the percentage of the people in certain nations who hate our government, secrecy has mushroomed, and retribution against whistleblowers has exploded. You are aware of all of this. We couldn't find a single person in that crowd who had ever heard of any of it. Major news stories that would have put people into the streets in outrage if the president were a Republican did not exist to this crowd.
Sure, you know the facts. But are you devoting every ounce of energy to spreading the word and building resistance? Of course not. You're investing your time in campaigning for Obama votes (in swing states). You may understand that there's been no step back from Bush's policies, that Obama has advanced them further. Yes, Romney could advance them even further even faster than Obama would in the next four years -- even in the face of the public opposition that would likely materialize for a President Romney. But we need a reversal of course, not a slightly slower death, not even a significantly slower death. The environment is collapsing. Weaponry and hostility are spreading. We're dealing with a need for survival, not a desire for utopia. What we need for survival is a credible independent movement.
When a labor union today says "Reform NAFTA and push for the Employee Free Choice Act, or else," the "or else" is empty and everyone knows it. When Bill McKibben says "The tar sands pipeline is your test," nobody believes that when Obama fails the test McKibben will oppose his reelection. Compare this battered-spouse relationship with that of Latinos who posed a credible threat to desert Obama and thereby won some modest immigration rights.
You know that we had a significant (pitiably weak but significant) peace movement in 2005 and 2006. Why? Because opponents of war and opponents of Republican presidents' wars were teamed up together. That fell apart as Democrats took power in Congress in 2007 and as 2008 turned out to be the year of one of those endlessly recurring "most important elections of our lifetime." The movement was temporarily shut down, never to be restored. We went from Mitch McConnell secretly warning Bush to get out of Iraq to Obama getting credit for withdrawing from Afghanistan even as the troops there were double the number deployed when Obama entered the White House.



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





iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq
Posted by at
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)