Sunday, March 10, 2013

Hejira

Amnesty International notes:

“Ten years after the end of Saddam Hussein’s repressive rule, many Iraqis today enjoy greater freedoms than they did under his Ba’athist regime, but the fundamental human rights gains that should have been achieved during the past decade have signally failed to materialize,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director at Amnesty International.
“Neither the Iraqi government nor the former occupying powers have adhered to the standards required of them under international law and the people of Iraq are still paying a heavy price for their failure.”
Torture is rife and committed with impunity by government security forces, particularly against detainees arrested under anti-terrorism while they are held incommunicado for interrogation.

The report [PDF format warning] is entitled "Iraq: A Decade of Abuses."  It's 76 pages of text, we'll go over it in the snapshot tomorrow.  Of the report, Patrick Cockburn (Independent) observes, "Forced confessions are at the heart of the present legal system with prisoners being given life and death sentences on the basis of false statements extracted by torture. In one case last year, cited by Amnesty, four men were arrested in Ramadi, held incommunicado and tortured by various means, including being hung up by the wrists and beatings, until they confessed."

This is not the past, this is what is going on right now.  This is the government that Barack Obama elected to prop up.  When the Iraqi people put Nouri al-Maliki and his State of Law in second place in the 2010 elections, Barack could have supported the people and their vote.  Instead, he backed Nouri who refused to step down for eight months.  Instead, he had US officials broker The Erbil Agreement to get around the vote, around the Iraqi Constitution and around democracy and give second place Nouri another term as prime minister.

Nouri was repeatedly exposed for the secret prisons, for the torture, for the abuse.  There was no reason to back Nouri in a second term.  But that's what Barack did.  Again quoting from John Barry's "'The Engame' Is A Well Researched, Highly Critical Look at U.S. Policy in Iraq" (Daily Beast):

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."



How long are the US taxpayers supposed to support the corrupt regime in Iraq?


The violence never ends.  At least four people were killed today and at least four injured in violence.

National Iraqi News Agency reports Muthana Jorwan al-Kubaisi, Chair of Rutba City Council, was shot dead while leaving a mosque, Rawa City Council member Muna'im Abdul Salam was shot dead outside his home, a Bani Saad roadside bombing left two people injured, an armed attack in Mukhisa left one farmer wounded, a Hilla sticky bombing left one person injured,  1 day worker was shot dead in Hilla, there was a rocket attack on the Army Fourth Division headquarters in Tikrit, and  "the General Coordinator of the popular committees overseeing the sit-ins of Kirkuk Bunyyan Sabbar al-Obeidi was killed today."  AFP adds, "Obeidi’s death comes two days after activists said security forces fired on a demonstration in Mosul, another north Iraq city, killing at least one protester and wounding others."


It's actually 3 dead from the attack on the Mosul protesters Friday.



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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Isaiah had the night off for a family function.  He may try to do another comic this week or just wait until next Sunday.






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