Tuesday, September 03, 2013

Iraq: Ashraf, Nouri's authoritarianism and violence

ABC News Radio notes, "United Nations officials are trying to determine what happened Sunday at an Iranian exile camp in Iraq where more than 50 people were allegedly killed." Sunday, Camp Ashraf was attacked by Nouri al-Maliki's forces.  This was not the first time Nouri's forces had attacked the camp.  Today, Press TV notes that the British government has condemned the assault:

 Last December, a former MKO member Massoud Khodabandeh said in an interview with Press TV that Britain and other western governments are financially and politically supporting the terrorist group-let.
“I don’t see any terrorist organization capable of continuing, unless somebody wants it. Somebody has got to want this terrorist organization [MKO], somebody has got to finance it and somebody has got to arm it,” Khodabandeh told Press TV’s political program ‘The Monarchy’.
“One of the reasons that I am saying they have support is; not facing them directly to stop their violent activities in the West and to stop their money laundering in the West. When I say money laundering, I have been in it, I have seen it. This is not an unknown concept for the British government,” he added.

The British government did condemn the attack.  So did the European Union, the US State Dept and the United Nations.  Press TV hasn't had time to file on all three, but it has filed a similar report accusing the US of also embracing the Camp Ashraf residents:

 Zayd al-Isa, a London-based Middle East expert, told Press TV on Monday that Washington has been waging a campaign to prevent the Iraqi government from relocating MKO members despite Baghdad’s attempts to move ahead with the relocation process.
“The US wants to utilize them as a tool to undermine the Islamic Republic of Iran and also the Saudis want to utilize them as a means to destabilize, discredit and derail the political process with the ultimate goal of dismantling the newly democratic Iraq,” Isa stated.


That is beyond stupid and makes Press TV look stupid.  The residents are reviled.  Try defending them the way you would any other group and watch the attacks come in.  They are not a popular group.  The US has not lived up to its obligation -- legal obligation -- to the residents.  In addition, a court had to order the US State Dept to review its terrorist designation of MEK.  Then-Secretary Hillary Clinton refused to comply and the court had to weigh in again.  It still took forever.  Finally, the group was taken off the terrorist list and even then the US government is not living up to its legal obligation to the residents. Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) has observed that "since 2004, the United States has considered the residents of Camp Ashraf 'noncombatants' and 'protected persons' under the Geneva Conventions."  And yet they've been attacked again and, again, the US government doesn't give a damn.  Two of the other assaults took place -- as Conservative MPs in England like to point out -- when then-US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was on the ground there.


The editorial board of the Providence Journal notes, "Some would characterize today’s Iraqi government as authoritarian, not democratic. One result has been that minority Sunnis have seen their trust in Iraq’s nascent democratic institutions decline precipitously, to the point that al-Qaida has rekindled its bid to stir trouble there." Press TV isn't concerned with that, they carry the water for Nouri.  They aren't the only outlets that carry Nouri's water but it's becoming ever more difficult to look the other way with the increased violence and Nouri's actions. Tim Arango (New York Times) reports:

 As security has deteriorated, Iraqis say it has become clearer with each bombing attack, each spasm of vigilante violence, that Iraq's American-trained security forces have been ineffective and, worse, a growing source of abuses themselves. And the hope for stability under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has vowed to be a leader for all Iraqis, is giving way to fears that his government is mimicking many of the repressive tactics that his Shiite constituency suffered under the past Sunni minority regime.
As Sunni jihadist groups have staged ever more deadly bombings this year, al-Maliki's forces have responded with their harshest security crackdowns yet - including, rights advocates say, indiscriminate roundups of Sunnis, the use of torture to extract confessions, the tainted use of secret informant testimony to secure convictions and frequent demands for bribes from the families of detainees.
A powerful notion of revenge, a subtext to much of the current turmoil across the Middle East, underlies the increasingly systemic violence in Iraq. Sunni bombings bring Shiite crackdowns as payback, driving more Sunnis toward extremism. Each fuels the other, again and again.

The lack of public services (reliable electricity, water that's safe to drink, a functioning sewage system, etc) also doesn't help the mood in the country.  Nor does the gross inequality of income.  Zvi Bar'el (Haaretz) observes:

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis went out and demonstrated all over the country two days ago, protesting against the excessive pension payments emjpyed by members of parliament, ministers and senior officials. The salary of a member of parliament reaches $30,000 a month, say reports on Iraqi social networks; and they will enjoy a pension of 70 percent of that amount for the rest of their lives - even if they serve only one term in the legislature.
Apparently this is just a drop in the ocean of corruption in which the regime is sailing unhindered. Nonetheless, Iraqis were outraged by the symbolism of this corruption. "Why do we need to pay salaries to members of parliament at all? Just because they sit in the parliament building?" one citizen asked in an Internet post. "What have they accomplished for us? What social welfare protection have they legislated for the public?" fumed another.
There are still no mandatory pensions for ordinary citizens and just 2 percent of workers in the private sector have pension protection. The unemployed get no social welfare benefits. It's just the families of victims of terrorism and "military accidents" (in other words, instances in which the army harms civilians), who get assistance. And then it is a one-time payment and sometimes a pension of about $250 a month.
That's a pitiful sum considering the fact that the standard of living in Iraq has risen and the average annual wage has jumped from $400 a year during the period of sanctions against the country to about $4,000 now. 


All Iraq News notes a draft law was announced today, by the Parliamentary Legal Committee, which would cancel the pensions in question.


September has just started.  Yet in the first two days of the month, Iraq Body Count notes 106 people have already died in violence.  Today,  National Iraqi News Agency reports an attack on a home to the south of Baghdad left 5 people dead ("father, mother and three children"), a Babil car bombing left 5 people dead and five injured, 1 person was shot dead in Basra, a Falluja roadside bombing has left two people injured, and a Baquba sticky bombing left two police officers injured.


Yesterday, Beth's "Iraq, favoritism and feminism (Beth)," Ruth's "Ruth's Report," Kat's "Kat's Korner: Jackson and His Computerband Glow" and Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Just Keep Lying" and "Missing Hillary" all went up.


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