Friday, November 01, 2013

If this is typical of what Al Jazeera America has to offer, why did they open?

A moron grows in Brooklyn, eh, Jay Cassano?  He teams up with Michael Brooks for a piece on reparations to Iraq at Al Jazeera America.  It's a non-story for the non-thinkers.

You'd expect a little more brains from the Center for Constitutional Rights or the Organization of Women's Freedom In Iraq and assorted others. But it's par for the course for Iraq Veterans of America which last felt the need to weigh in with an opinion -- at their own site -- in August.  What bravery, why dedication.

The authors are idiots with nothing on Iraq of value.  That would require paying attention.  They don't. They take the attitude that the war and the occupation ended.

That's not just stupid, it's imposing their questionable judgment skills on Iraq.  Twice this week, al Sadr's bloc has issued statements about how the US needs to leave and how the ongoing occupation needs to stop.  They're far from the only ones aware of the ongoing US presence in Iraq.  But that's just two statements this week alone.

The US State Dept may now head the US mission but the US military remains in Iraq.  September 2012, nearly a year after the 'withdrawal' at the end of 2011, Tim Arango (New York Times) reported:

 
Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to General [Robert L.] Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with intelligence.        

So I'm offended by the lies and sloppy facts.  And I'm offended that two lazy assholes see Iraq (briefly) in the US news and slap together a piece of crap article that doesn't appear to have registered one detail of 2013 so that they can see their byline.

Most of all I'm offended by the crap about reparations.

The US government does owe reparations.  I don't dispute that.  I personally don't see Iraq ever really getting them anymore than the Vietnamese did, but I don't dispute that they're owed.


I do dispute the noting that this is something we need to be working on right now.

There's no point in it.

Peg Mackey (Reuters) reported last week, "Production of nearly 3 million bpd earned Baghdad $94 billion in 2012 and netted $61 billion in the first eight months of this year."

That money did what for the Iraqi people?

Not one damn thing.

$61 billion in 2012.  Iraq's population is around 30 million.  That's over two billion they could have spent or given to each citizen.  They didn't.  Nouri didn't.  Prime Minister and thug Nouri al-Maliki did nothing to help the people.  2012 was the same as every year since 2006 when the US installed Nouri as prime minister.  What's life like for the Iraqi people today?   Yesterday on Here and Now (NPR -- link is audio and text), Robin Young and Jeremy Hobson spoke with the BBC's Hadya al-Alawi about Iraq today.


Hadya al-Alawi: I mean, how can I explain that life there is terrible? There is no electricity, and it's boiling hot in Iraq at this time. There is no water. The basic, main services are not provided in the country. I mean, security is very important. How can you go out about your daily life without knowing that you can come back, actually, to your kids at night? Or how can you go to work thinking I'm going to die today in an explosion, for example?

That's life for the Iraqi people where even the government now admits 6 million Iraqis live at or below poverty level.  A fifth of the country.  A fifth of the country that rakes in billions and billions of dollar off oil each year.

Where does the money go?  Nouri and his family live high, don't they, high on the hog.





Live Leak posted that video of the new Little Uday Hussein, Nouri's son Ahmed, zipping around London and the Ferrari.  They note:



In this short video, Ahmed, the gangster son of one of the world's most corrupt leaders Nuri Al-Maliki, drives his Ferrari around central London, while he was on a �200 million property spending spree with Iraq's money.
Ahmed was of course cleared of all charges in a huge corruption case involving Iraqi Government procurement of Russian arms in 2012. 
Nuri Al-Maliki is known to own numerous several properties and a hotel in the UK, and has long been rumoured to be planning to live here when his time as the chief bribe taker in Iraq is over.
He also owns the Seyedeh Zainab Ambassador hotel in Damascus.
London is the natural home of blood soaked African warlords, Russian gangsters/Oligarchs, and of corrupt Middle Eastern despots, and their offspring.
Iraqi puppet leader Nuri Al-Maliki's gangster son Ahmed is spending the Iraqi people's money very wisely
Iraqi puppet leader Nuri Al-Maliki's gangster son Ahmed is spending the Iraqi people's money very wisely
Iraqi puppet leader Nuri Al-Maliki's gangster son Ahmed is spending the Iraqi people's money very wisely
Iraq,Corruption,Bribery,,London,London,C­ity of,United Kingdom (UK/GB)


And these two idiot writers -- and a bunch of other idiots -- want reparations given to Iraq now?  Where do they think that money will go?

Last year, over $60 billion poured into Iraq from oil and yet no potable water, no reliable sewage system, no reliable electricity.  It is the same damn story it's been since 2006.  Wake the hell up.

Reparations would go into the pockets of Iraq's corrupt leadership.

Here's a picture of mini-tyrant Ahmed al-Maliki.

Posted Image



As you can see, he gets his ugly from his father.  Here he is trying to look cleaned up.





    Here's CNN  on Ahmed last year:


    Iraq’s Kurdistan Democratic Party’s official newspaper, Khebat, revealed that Nouri Maliki’s son has expensed over $150 million of the Iraqi people’s assets purchasing castles and hotels in foreign countries. The newspaper wrote quoting a source: After his father became Chairman of the Dawa Party, Ahmed Nouri al-Maliki purchased the Marry Anderson Castle in London for a price of £40 million. In addition, he purchased the Seyedeh Zainab Ambassador Hotel in Damascus at a price of $35 million, and is now purchasing the Ajmon Ambassador Hotel at a price of $75 million.
    The source added that Ahmed Nouri al-Maliki has purchased an 85 thousand square meter land in front of the Zainab Hotel for $52 million.
    Iraq’s Kurdistan Democratic Party’s official newspaper, Khebat, added: Iraqis who live with power outages and no public services, and while a day doesn’t go by that a number of people don’t lose their lives as a result of explosions, ask the Maliki government: Where does Maliki’s son bring all this money from?




    And two idiots and CCR and IVAW and others think the thing to do is reparations right now?  If the US government paid --and a court ordering it to wouldn't mean the US government would pay -- that money would not go to the Iraqi people any more than the billions and billions of dollars that pour into Iraq each month from oil sales have gone to the Iraqi people.

    Again, I support reparations.  And I think it's a battle worth fighting . . . when US puppet Nouri is gone and there's a chance that the Iraqi people might actually see the money.

    And on Little Uday, Nouri's son Ahmed.  If you read the Iraqi press -- too much work for western journalists apparently -- you know Ahmed's been all over it this month with his terrorizing that was called out by many leaders -- Shi'ite and Sunni -- and which Nouri had to insist was "security operations" Ahmed was overseeing.  Ahmed has no official title but he's smashing and crashing homes and wounding and killing Iraqis.


    Why do I have the feeling that Barack Obama will never raise that issue with Nouri?


    Bonnie reminds that Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "It's The Great Bumpkin, Barry O" and "Accountability" went up yesterday.

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


























     

















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