Sunday, June 30, 2013

Hejira

Iraq had a little bit of everything today.

Considering that so many Iraqis are targeted unfairly with mass arrests, let's start with a novel twist on mass arrests.


 National Iraqi News Agency reports 31 people were arrested by the Karbala police -- these people, by the way?  They're members of Nouri's SWAT forces and they've been arrested after their attack on football coach Mohammed Abbas who died Sunday morning.  Please remember, this relatively new force in Iraq has been trained, since last fall, by US forces and equipped by the US government.  They have been a holy terror in Iraq leading to leaders of various provinces to ask Nouri to keep this menace out of their province.  May they find the same 'justice' behind bars that they condemned so many others too.

A little bit of everything includes a prison break.  NINA reports that 9 inmates of  Qurna prison outside Basra escaped today.  Later, two were arrested -- later, also, it was learned 10 had escaped, not nine.

Turning to politics, Nouri met yesterday with US Senator John McCain. Alsumaria reports on that visit and notes he also met with Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns.  Burns and Nouri discussed the need for cooperation in fighting terrorists or 'terrorists.'  Nouri's now headed to Moscow.


All Iraq News reports cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr issued a response to a question in which he declared Iraq's next prime minister will not conduct business with the occupying US.  He states, "We will nominate a Prime Minister who loves Iraq and Iraqis and will not deal with the US occupiers to let down Iraq and its honor -- and will not let the USA possess its wealth."  This is said to be in response to statements US Ambassador to Iraq Stephen Beecroft recently made.  Dropping back to Friday's snapshot:

 
 Al Rafidayn reports that the US Ambassador to Iraq Stephen Beecroft met with the Iraqi media and answered questions.  Among them, a new Iraqi prime minister?  Parliamentary elections are scheduled for 2014.  Beecroft stated it is the job and right of the Iraqi people to pick their leaders and the US is prepared to have a diplomatic relationship with any Iraqi chosen to represent the people.  He refused to speculate on any particular person.  He was asked about the F-16 fighters and stated that they would not be delivered until September 2014.


Some who dismiss Moqtada will dismiss his statements as idle threats.  They'd do well to remember the rumors that, in the fall of 2010, the Iranian government stated they would back Moqtada as the next prime minister of Iraq and that he should just go along with them now on Nouri al-Maliki.


Turning to violence, through Saturday, Iraq Body Count counts 599 violent deaths in Iraq so far this month.  Today?  NINA reports a Hilla sticky bombing claimed 1 life and left another person injured, 1 Iraqi soldier was shot dead in Mosul, a Basra home invasion resulted in the deaths of 3 women, a Mosul roadside bombing left 1 man dead and his brother injured, the storming of a Mosul power station left 1 employee dead, the Iraqi military states they killed "the leader of Ansar al-Sunna," and a Baghdad football field bombing claimed 6 lives and left ten people injured.  All Iraq News adds an armed attack to the north of Tikrit left two Sahwa injured.  That's 14 reported deaths and fourteen people injured.



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.


New content at Third:


Where is Isaiah?  Isaiah did a backlog of comics for the community newsletter before going on vacation.  He's on vacation.  He may have a comic this week for this site. (He's still on vacation this week.  He's already done comics that will run in this week's community newsletters.)

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

 






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