Saturday, February 23, 2013

Nouri's forces attack in Mosul to create violence

Violence continued in Iraq today.  Among the targeted were politicians.  AFP reports, "The suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at Governor Omar Al-Humairi’s house in Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, wounding him, killing two of his guards and injuring six more, a police lieutenant colonel and a doctor said." And they note a Babil Province car bombing claimed the life of Shekih Hassan Hadi al-Janabi who was a candidate in the provincial elections which are supposed to take palce in April.  All Iraq News reports on al-Humairi's press conference where he declared, "My bodyguards opened fire targeting the suicide bomber to prevent his advance.  After detonating the car, gunmen carrying silenced handguns attempted to storm my house, but the bodyguards clashed with them. The gunmen fled to unknown destination after they failed in storming my house."  Al Mada adds that he explained he wasn't at home at the time of the attack and that 1 female family member was killed in the explosion.


Politicians weren't the only ones targeted.  Alsumaria notes that tribal leader Aguarh Kahleed Mahmoud was shot dead in front of his Sulaymaniyah home, 1 person was shot dead in front of his Mosul home,  and 1 woman was shot dead in front of her Mosul home.  All Iraq News notes a Mosul home invasion left a woman injured and her husband dead.  Trend News Agency adds that 2 police officers were shot dead in Mosul, a Mosul roadside bombing left two Iraqi soldiers injured and an armed exchange between police and suspects led to the death of five suspects.

Iraq Body Count counts 293 violent deaths in Iraq so far this month -- and there are still a few days left.



 Yesterday, Iraq saw massive demonstrations in the ongoing protets with participants number over 3 million -- especially amazing in a country where that would make an estimated 10% of the population.   Note the photo below.


protests



Nouri's forces are taping the protesters.  This happened in 2011 as well.  And then the protesters began to be targeted not at the protests, but at their homes.  The photo is from Iraqi Spring Media Center.  Zarzis Thomas (Al Mada) reports on Mosul's protest yesterday where things were so ugly that Governor Atheel al-Nujaifi went down to ask what was going on. Protesters reported that they were being arrested and harassed.  al-Nujaifi took down the names of protesters said to have been arrested.  When he was leave, the governor reports that federal police (they are controlled by Nouri al-Maliki) attempted to attack his car and his security detail in an attempt to get them to fire guns.  He states the federal police deliberately attempted to create a crisis, deliberately attempted an attack on a sitting governor. In addition, Tigris Operation Command (Nouri's force) -- specifically Brigades 46 and 47 -- continue to do house raids in the area.  Nouri and his forces are out of control.  National Iraqi News Agency quotes Iraqiya MP reading a statement about events in Mosul today, "The Third Army Division in Mosul has shut down the Square protest and blocked access in and out and cut the power, prevented the media from covering the events, and the purpose of this measure is an attempt to get the protesters out of their peaceful protest ."

At some point, the White House is going to have to answer for this.  The way they're going, they would've backed the thugs who did the slaughter inTiananment Square (1989, Chinese demonstrators were slaughtered for peacefully demonstrating in Beijing).  If you're not getting how violence is Nouri's response to Constitutionally protected free speech, NINA reports he declared today that he will ask the judiciary to condemn (that would be a death sentence) "anyone who talks in sectarianism."

Alsumaria reports that the Anbar Province protesters have sent a delegation to Erbil.  Citing Dr. Abdul Razak al-Shimari, NINA reports that the protesters did not send anyone to Erbil.  Erbil is the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government.



A candidate for the provincial elections died today.  What's the status on those elections? They really should have already taken place.  But they got pushed back to early April and now to April 20th. So they'll take place then, right?  Oops.  State of Law says "maybe."  All Iraq News reports that State of Law MP Ammar al-Shibli is stating that they might be postponed -- blaming violence and the Kurds if that happens.  Meanwhile National Iraq News Agency reports there is an ongoing discussion about electronic voting in the provincial elections.  NINA also notes that National Alliance leader Ibrahim al-Jafaari is calling for a strong turn out in the provincial elections and for the voters to replace those politicians who did not achieve.

In other news, Alsumaria reports that Khudair Khuzaie spoke to the press today to note that he had visited Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in his German hospital and Talabani was recovering. This follows Alsumaria's report yesterday that one of the doctors treating Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has issued a statement that Talabani's recovering and that he's experienced major progress and will be able to return to Iraq to perform his duties.  National Iraqi News Agency identified the doctor as Dr. Najmoldeen Kareem.  As with Alsumaria, no specific time for a return is given, nor is any estimate offered.  Jalal has been out of the country seeking treatment in Germany for months now.   Late on December 17th (see the December 18th snapshot), Jalal Talabani had a stroke and was admitted to Baghdad's Medical Center Hospital.    Thursday, December 20th, he was moved to Germany.  He remains in Germany currently. [Saad Abedine (CNN) reported talk that it was a stroke the day the news broke (December 18th) and January 9th, the Office of President Talabani confirmed it had been a stroke.]  Isabel Coles and Nick Macfie (Reuters) report Kirkuk Governor Najmaldin Karim states, "I am in continuous contact with the German team treating President Talabani.  He can talk now with the people around him and started to think in a good way."

The following community sites -- plus Ms. magazine's blog, the House Committee on Veterans Affairs and Antiwar.com -- updated last night and today:


Mikey Likes It!
Nikita: Black Badge
10 hours ago

Ms Magazine Blog
Alterna-Oscars–Vote for Women Directors!
12 hours ago


In yesterday's snapshot, we noted, "The leader of the Green Party of England and Wales is Australian-born Natalie Bennett who is a journalist, holds a degree in agricultural science (University of Sydney) and whose accomplishments include 'the founder of the blog Carnival of Feminists.'  In addition to founding The Carnival of Feminists,  Bennett's blog is Philobiblon.  The Green Party is holding their national conference and Natalie Bennett addressed the conference today noting that it was the 40th anniversary of the Green Party of England and Wales."  We excerpted the Iraq part.  If we'd had more room, we would have included more.  We'll do so today.  You can stream the two videos or read the speech after the videos (or do both).







 "Thank you….  It’s great to be in Nottingham, just up the road from Leicester, where the remains of the last English king killed in battle, Richard III, were recently found underneath a council carpark. Not one of our favourite kings, and man who today sounds particularly unwise in crying “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!” About as unwise as George Osborne crying “Plan A, Plan A, Always Plan A for Austerity.”
Last time I was addressing conference, I had been leader of the Green Party for four days, and those four days had been such a media whirl that I tended to end conversations by saying "right, where's the next journalist?"
The five or so months since have been a similar, if more varied, whirl.
I have been to Bristol to support our excellent mayoral campaign there. 
In  Lancaster I spoke at  the University of Lancaster at lunchtime and the University of Cumbria in the evening.
I was delighted to be in Margate helping the Isle of Thanet Green Party get off the ground at a rousing 70-strong meeting in the memorable Walpole Bay Hotel.
In Manchester I was interviewed on community radio just before they switched to their weekly slot out of Jamaica, and in Oxford to open their spectacularly good festive Green Fair.
Last week I was in Cambridge at a 50-strong public meeting on a winter's Friday night, and another evening enjoying a lovely Indian buffet with the Surrey Greens.
There's been a wide range of media too. The Any Questions Buckinghamshire audience, which cheered roundly at everything from the living wage and decent benefits to my simply saying "I am a feminist", was a delightful surprise.
On The Andrew Marr show, I got four minutes to explain how we'd deal with Britain's economic and environmental crises, before Jeremy Hunt got 30 on the NHS. I would have loved to swap that around!
All of that travelling has left me with one certainty – that whenever and wherever I give a speech calling for renationalisation of the railways, I’ll get a great response from the audience – and I’ll have no problem filling in the bit of my speech that reads “insert today’s travel disaster story here”.
Some have suggested that the travelling and speaking sounds glamorous - I have to reply that it often isn't. This week I was having a quick chat with BBC Radio Coventry and Warwickshire drivetime, in between my train getting into Coventry and a talk at the University of Warwick.
I needed somewhere quiet - which is how I came to be crouched between two buildings in the Transport Police Car park, using them to block out the sounds of the trains on one side and the buses on the other. Glamorous it wasn't. It probably looked quite suspicious!
We are, however, going to have some glamour at this conference, at a grand party tomorrow night. You might have noticed, in the Guardian on Monday, or from your conference pack, that this conference marks the Green Party's 40th birthday.
In fact, Elisabeth Whitebread and her team of volunteers are organising a whole year of celebrations - do talk to them if you've got some colourful memories to record for posterity. And don't miss tomorrow night's party - our own Darren Johnson has been selecting the soundtrack, although I do suspect he might also be taking to the dance floor himself - and this time without a certain Boris to spoil the pictures.
That anniversary left me with an obvious temptation today -to speculate about where the Green Party might be in 40 years' time, when I hope to come along as a proud retired spectator, leaning on my walking stick, watching our latest Green prime minister outline how Britain, having long cut carbon emissions to less than 10 per cent of 2009 levels, is exceeding its targets for cutting other resource use, is vastly improving its soil, air and water quality, how inequality has reached new record lows, with top  salaries for every organisation in the country at no more than five times the lowest paid staffer. And they are staffers now, the failed neoliberal experiment of outsourcing having ended, with enforcement of the decent minimum wage and contract standards ending the obscenity of zero-hours contracts and long-term casual employment...
 I could go on, for it is important that we present a positive image of how we want to reshape Britain in a jobs-rich, low-carbon future.
But it’s also pressing to highlight just how wrong the current direction of the Coalition government is, and how the Labour party is failing to be the effective opposition that the country desperately needs.
Before I do that, however, there’s another, tragic, anniversary I have to highlight – a 10-year anniversary. For it is a little more than 10 years since the great, 2-million strong anti-war protest took to the streets of London, and a little less than 10 years since the Labour Government utterly ignored the views of those people, and millions of others, and started the Iraq war.
A Guardian survey last week showed that 55 per cent of Britons agree that "the London marchers were right", because "a war sold on a false prospectus delivered little but bloodshed". And the Iraqi people are still struggling, and dying, as a result of the consequences of that war.
Yet Ed Milliband, who HAS apologised for the Blair government’s immigration policy, has failed to apologise for the decision to take Britain into an unjustifiable war.
We’re still waiting for Sir John Chilcot’s report into the war. That’s one landmark that we can expect future historians to look back on this year.
Another may well be even bigger – a turning point. What I’ll hazard a guess the historians might say “the year the British people said ‘no more’”.
Up and down the country, as I’ve travelled around, I’ve founds groups and individuals saying “no more”.
“No more” to poverty wages – people working fulltime, yet unable to meet the cost of even the basic necessities. Or stuck in a part-time job they can’t survive on, unable to get any more hours.
“No more” to child poverty – children who go to school hungry, children who don’t have a proper winter coat, children who can’t go on the school trip their peers will be talking about for weeks.
“No more” to shivering pensioners shivering under layers of quilts in drafty, cold homes they can’t afford to heat.
People increasingly are saying “no more” to zero-hours contracts, which trap workers in continuous uncertainty – will they get four hours’ work this week or 40? Will they be able to pay the rent? Will they be able to buy food?
“No more” to workfare - the unemployed being forced into such alleged "educational" roles as stacking for Poundland for not just low wages, but no wages at all.
And people are increasingly saying “No more” to the demonisation of benefit recipients. They recognize that nearly all of us are only one medical incident, one traffic crash, away from disability, from depending on the support of the state.
None of us can be sure that employment is certain, that we won’t find ourselves applying increasingly desperately for jobs where employers, faced with hundreds or thousands of applications, don't even reply to all applicants.
One group of people who are very firmly saying “no more” are the Occupiers at the University of Sussex in Brighton, who I visited this week. People in the front rows can see that I’m wearing a yellow ribbon – that’s the symbol of support for the Occupation – and it was great to see larger yellow squares in windows of offices and accommodation all around the university.
We’ve seen thecomprehensive failure of the outsourcing model – the dreadful litany of A4E, G4S, and the awful Atos – yet somehow the university administration thought they could sneak through a privatisation. Well done to the student occupiers for saying “no more”.
Another group saying “no more” to great effect is UK Uncut. I’m sure many people in this room took part in their action against Starbucks, the fast growing but mysteriously totally unprofitable coffee chain that infests our high streets like a particularly pernicious weed.
And another group saying “no more” are the bee campaigners. Just yesterday I was at Defra, helping to hand in a 41,000-strong petition against pesticides from Causes.com. They are saying no more to putting the profits of the chemical companies before the health of an essential link in our ecosystem - and our food growing.
So many people and groups are saying “no more”.
But sadly, mysteriously, one group that isn’t saying “no more” is the Labour Party.
Well, maybe it isn’t so mysterious…. They’re only offering more of the same that we had for 13 years under Blair and Brown.
We know that it was Labour who championed the “light touch” regulation of the financial industries that the Tories have only continued, Labour who abandoned all interest in supporting manufacturing and farming and was content to allow the jobs, the cash, the people of Britain to concentrate more and more in the south east corner of the country.
We know that it was Labour who started the marketisation of the NHS, that's become the privatisation of the NHS, it was Labour who championed the undemocratic Academy schools that have morphed into Michael Gove’s Free Schools, it was Labour who dotted the country with immensely expensive, but immensely profitable, PFI schemes that today's babies will still be paying for when they are parents.
And we know that Labour is failing to challenge the government’s deeply divisive, deeply corrosive, deeply dishonest “strivers versus shirkers” rhetoric.
We are living too in a Britain in which the mistakes, the great errors, of the past, have not been properly acknowledged, let alone dealt with, even though they are glaringly obvious.
We know the neoliberal model of a globalized economy in which we specialize in casino banking, arms sales to human-rights-abusing regimes and pharmaceuticals, while leaving it to the rest of the world to make our goods and grow our food, has hit the buffers: hit the buffers economically, and hit the buffers environmentally.
We know that we can’t keep living as though we’ve got three planet Earths to exploit.
Yet the Labour Party is content to mutter empty platitudes about being “one nation”, keep its head down, not apologise for the mistakes of the past, and not offer any change in direction, just hope that the incompetence and economic failings of George Osborne’sPlan A of austerity will deliver government back to them in 2015.
And the Labour Party is failing to speak up on the environmental issues that so desperately need attention. 
Indeed, when Ed Miliband gave his Autumn Conference speech, he entirely “forgot” to mention the environment. It’s so important to him, that after he’s spent weeks carefully memorizing it all, that that was the part – the entire topic of the environment – that slipped his attention.
Yet we only have to look around us here in Britain, look at the statistics, look at the fields, look at the woods, to see that this “green and pleasant land” is groaning under the strain of human exploitation.
Scientists tell us that hedgehog numbers declined by over a third in just the past decade. Moths are fast disappearing – three species extinct in Britain this century after 62 last century. And sparrows – remember city sparrows? Those of you who are too young to remember them might want to ask your elders about them.
And of course the immediate environmental degradation that we see all around us in Britain is only a tiny part of a much bigger story – the despoliation of the earth, the threatening of our very future by human-caused climate change.
It is no longer any question to any sensible, unbiased person that climate change is here – traditional conservatives on the issues, from the International Energy Agency to the World Bank – are thoroughly convinced it is real.
It is just about one thousand days until COP 21 – the  21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. That’s when we’re supposed to have an agreement to replace Kyoto, to come into effect by 2020.
Yet we know that we must act today, tomorrow and the day after – take immediate, direct, swift action.
In practical terms in Britain we know that we must now pass a fit-for-purpose Energy Bill, one that gets serious about energy conservation, and provides policy certainty for the big investment in renewables that we urgently need - decarbonisation by 2030 is the important aim - one for campaigners to really push for.
And we must abandon the mad idea of fracking – smashing the very ground under our feet, using vast quantities of water and chemicals to pollute our water tables, creating 1,000s of lorry movements across our countryside.
The independent Committee on Climate Change tells us we can’t frack and meet our legally binding emissions targets – but we also can’t afford to ruin our countryside, damage tourism and farming, and our quality of life – for this anyway uncertain prospect.
In British politics it’s only the Green Party that gets climate change – has the ideas, the plans, the vision, to create a low-carbon, jobs-rich economy. And in the coming three years we have the chance to convince voters that we can fix our economic and environmental crises together – that this isn't an either-or choice, but an essential pairing.
First in May, on the 2nd of May, just 10 weeks away from today, we have the council elections. This is a real chance to grow the number of Green councillors up and down the country.
And that's a good in its own right - I will get later to a short account of the many achievements of Green councillors around the country.
But it is also a chance for many more people to have local elected Green representatives.
Then in 2014, about 15 months away we've got the European elections - Britain's one and only nationwide fair - that is proportional representation - election. That's a big opportunity. It would take only a net swing of 1.6 per cent for us to treble our number of MEPs, to six - and the Scottish Greens are also feeling pretty confident so it could be seven overall.
That will mean many more people across Britain will have elected Green representatives all around them - will come to think of Green as one of the choices just normally available on the political smorgasbord.
We can combine with that the growing Green track record across the country and at levels of government….
I can start with Caroline Lucas, our immensely effective Green MP. When David Cameron says, as he did just recently at Davos, that he wants to make multinational companies pay their taxes, we can tell him: 'Caroline's already shown you how'.
In the Tax and Financial Transparency Bill of 2011, she set out how companies could be made to declare their earnings, profits and staff in every country in which they operate - exposing to scrutiny those curious Cayman Islands and Delaware subsidiaries that somehow on 1.5 staff members and an office dog scoop up 20per cent profits for multimillion pound trades.
Caroline, in her Land Value Tax Bill, now before parliament, has shown how Britain's profoundly regressive, profoundly damaging system of council tax could be replaced by a far more equitable land value tax, which would also help rationalise land use and deal with our housing shortage.
And she’s a leader on drugs policy - generating a debate about how we can replace the failed war on drugs with a different approach. She just launched an e-petition calling for a full review and cost benefit analysis of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act.
In Brussels, we have two hardworking and highly effective MEPs. Jean Lambert and Keith Taylor. There the Greens have done great work with the recent adoption by Parliament of the “youth guarantee”, which would ensure a job or genuine training opportunity for every young person who’s been unemployed for four months. And there’s the widely publicised changes in fisheries policies, in which the Greens played a big part.
Then we can move on to our first Green council, in Brighton and Hove. Despite the pressures of running a minority administration, and with particularly savage funding cuts from the national government, Brighton has, to pick just three achievements
- Introduced the Living Wage for all council staff and have reduced high/low pay ratio to 10:1
- approved and are rolling out a city-wide twenty miles per hour speed limit
- protected eligibility criteria for social care, kept all branch libraries and children's centres open and protected funding for the third sector.
Then up and down the country, we can point to smaller groups of Green councillors and even individual councillors making big differences to their communities.
In St Albans where we have just one Green Councillor, Simon Grover got 11 asks included in the Council's budget this month, the second year in a row that he's had significant impact on the budget.  His measures from last year have already seen an expanded market in the city and hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of solar panels fitted to Council buildings.  In the next 12 months, St Albans hopes to see a new youth centre, a cycling action plan and a procurement policy for the Council, which supports local businesses first. That's what just ONE Green Councillor is achieving.
In Kirklees, when the principal of a newly formed High School Academy threatened a much loved middle school system by extending their intake to cover years 7 and 8, they had the misfortune of being in an area covered by Green Party-led Kirkburton Parish Council. Green councillors threatened a Parish Poll. The very next day, realising they would lose, the Academy dropped their plans and the middle school system, which was so important to local people, was saved."
After the County Council cut local bus services in Suffolk, Green Parish Councillor Robert Lindsay, fought hard to ensure a bus service was reinstated on market days serving local villages to en route to Sudbury.  With 15,000 households without access to a car in rural Suffolk, Robert was ensuring they weren’t left stranded.
By 2015, when we expect a general election, we'll be able to put that record - and by then much more - before voters. And whereas in 2010 we had to work very, very hard indeed to convince the voters of Brighton Pavilion that we could beat the first past the post system (that they could elect a Green to Westminster) this time, up and down the country, from Bristol to Lancaster, Norwich to Huddersfield, we'll be able to say to voters "Brighton Pavilion did it; you can too!"
Of course that's a big ask, and doing more than returning Caroline in 2015 is a huge challenge.
 But it is important to remember the message that appears on billboards advertising financial products - "past performance is no guarantee of future returns" - also applies to politics. It's important to remember that, not just if you want to keep your cash out of the hands of the casino bankers, but important too if you think about politics.
We are heading into new times. Past political performance is no guarantee about the future.
Green Party campaigners up and down the country are working with anti-cuts campaigners - defending local libraries, defending local youth clubs, defending local Sure Start centres. And that’s a critically important part of our work.
But it’s important that we stress that simply being anti-cuts isn’t enough – it isn’t radical enough – it isn’t going to deliver the radical change in our society that we must make NOW. We don’t just want to go back to 2006 – back to when under a Labour government more than a quarter of children and a quarter of pensioners were living in poverty, when the minimum wage was, as it still is, greatly below a living wage.
It doesn’t have to be like this: the increasing number of people saying “no more” have it right.
The Green Party has a positive alternative vision, of a country where the minimum wage is a living wage, where benefits are set at a level allowing a decent life and granted ungrudgingly to all who need them, where there are warm, comfortable low-carbon homes for all, including the 1 million empty homes now found in parts of the country blighted by the unbalanced overdevelopment of the South East. A country living within the limits of our one planet. 
A country with a jobs-rich, low-carbon economy, with orchards and richly growing fields, vibrant manufacturing industries, and strong local economies built around small businesses and cooperatives. A country fit for the 21st century - and a country that can look forward to a stable, comfortable 22nd.
That was the kind of vision the founders of the Green Party began with forty years ago. I congratulate all of you for carrying on that vision … and I look forward to working with you over the next four days as we hone and polish that vision, and the ways in which we can deliver it.
Thank you."






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





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I Hate The War


MANNING, BRADLEY  PFC  HEAD AND SHOULDERS  4-26-2012



The Scotsman reports, "Events were held across the world yesterday [Saturday], including Britain, to mark the 1,000th day in prison for an American soldier arrested and charged over the alleged leaking of classified documents to whistleblowing website WikiLeaks."  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 before the November 2012 election but it was postponed until after the election so that Barack wouldn't have to run on a record of his actual actions.

The Daily Mail reports, "Campaigners gathered outside the United States Embassy in London on Saturday in support of a US soldier arrested over the leaking of classified documents to whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. The protest was organised to mark Private Bradley Manning's 1,000th day in prison without trial."  BBC adds, "Events have been held across the UK, and the rest of the world, to mark the 1,000th day spent in prison by alleged Wikileaks source Bradley Manning."

It would have been nice if the United States left could have gotten its act together.  Clearly today was an important day for Bradley Manning.

And the mood for protest could have been primed and pumped if worthless rags like The Nation and The Progressive and so many other useless outlets which believe 'independent' mean either whoring for Barack Obama's offensive policies or, if they can no longer hold their nose (like at The Progressive increasingly) distracting by calling Republicans names.

In England, the 10th anniversary of the February 15, 2003 protests drew weeks and weeks of coverage recently.  In the US, the protest couldn't even be noted.

That's only one segment that failed.

Today should have been about Bradley.

Bradley's not accused of raping anyone.

Bradley's not a fugitive on the lam.

There was no reason for Julian Assange's more ridiculsou and nutty supporters to insist upon opening their uninformed and stupid mouths this week.  They should have stayed out of the way so the week could be about Bradley.


But that would be too much, now wouldn't?

Do the whores like Naomi Wolf ever get how ridiculous they look?  Probably not, she's on so many drugs these days.  But next time they're name checking or they're at an event and they dust Daniel Ellsberg off to parade him one more time, might they grasp that Daniel Ellsbeg wasn't publisher of the New York Times or the Washington Post?

They get that, right?

They're such liars it's hard to know.  They're the ones who keep insisting precious Julian is just like a newspaper.  Just like the newspapers that published the Pentagon Papers.

That would make Bradley the Daniel Ellsberg.  Or do they not get that?

So maybe at some point, Naomi Wolf stops fingering herself while she types with one hand and moans over Little Julie Assange?

At this site, we've noted we have no idea whether Assange raped two women or not.  We've noted that needs to be treated seriously.

Naomi Wolf -- who once covered a gang rape to avoid being called a "lesbo" (read her book Promescutities) -- has named them women, has trashed the women, has done nothing but damage and yet wants to present herself as a voice for rape victims and as a voice for Julian Assange.

So the tired and ugly beast Naomi Wolf decided that this was week to attack the two women again.  Couldn't let Bradley have a moment in the spotlight, not Naomi.  ZNet felt the perfect way to 'honor' Bradley was to trash the women who may have been raped by publishing Naomi's latest crap on them Friday.

Trashing women has been very good to Naomi.  ZNet didn't give a damn about her in 2003 or 2004 or . . . But now that she can be counted on to trash two women who say they were raped, she's finally the 'left' hero she never could be in the 90s.  Naomi was always jealous -- in all those debates with the author of that awful book Sexual Personae -- of the attention the author got, the support from the mainstream.  Now she's discovered that, like that author, when you attack women, when you belittle issues like rape, you will be embraced by the mainstream.

Then there's the idiot Nozomi Hayase who took to CounterPunch to argue for Julian and for stupidity.  The idiot writes of Assange, "As of mid February, he has been detained without charge for 802 days, 240 days at the Equadorian Embassy, due to England's unwillingness to offer safe passage."

The uninformed and uneducated should really lower their volume.  Bradley Manning has now been detained 1,000 days.  Julian Assange?  No.  "240 days at the Equadorian Embassy"?  He jumped bail.  Many people do -- some are guilty, some aren't.  The perception is you are guilty or you wouldn't have jumped bail.  If I were Julian's attorney and there was even a small chance that we'd end up in court in the next 12 months, I'd be telling his supporting to shut their damn mouths.  I wouldn't need the kind of senseless frothing that Naomi and Nozomi offer.  I would grasp how damaging that is.

See, the world did not embrace Julian.  The world attitude currently is, "Why would he hide away in an Embassy to avoid answering questions about rape -- questions he was supposed to answer before he left Swittzerland."

That's the consensus and, as an Julian's attorney, it would be my job to know it and to grasp that Nozomi and Naomi and all the other tired hookers are hurting my client.

There will be no rousing embrace from the public if Julian and I march into court in June.  It will be snickers of, "Remember when that nut case was saying his time in the Ecuadorian Embassy was the same as being behind bars?"

Naomi and Nozomi, you really need to take the crazy around to the backyard.  If that's too damn difficult for you, put it on a leash.

The rape accusations harmed Julian and made him guilty in the eyes of many.

Why?

Because of the attacks on the women.

Michael Ratner needs to buy 100 damn clues.  The minute you allowed and encouraged attacks on two women who may have been raped, you did not help Julian Assange.

What you demonstrated was that two possible rape victims could be beat up int he public square by his supporters.  And if his supporters would do that, what would he do?

That is the question that you, John Pilger, Naomi Wolf, Ray McGovern and the rest ensured would enter the public mind.

Over a year ago, I made a promise to a friend who was working on the case that I wouldn't say Julian was guilty and wouldn't even raise the issue unless the women were attacked.

It wasn't a hard promise to make. I wasn't there.  I don't know what happened.  So I have no reason to say Julian Assange committed rape.  By the same token though, his supporters have no reason to say the women are lying.

Now Naomi Wolf is attacking the women yet again.  I guess we should all consider ourselves lucky about that.  I mean, if she had any spare time she might be writing a sequel to her recent non-seller Vagina.  What's next?  Naomi Wolf's Colon Speaks.

It would appear it speaks quite frequently in public.

Bradley Manning is held, unlike Julian Assange.  He has not sought asylum.  He has been held for 1000 days.  He is a political prisoner.  He was long ago pronounced guilty by Barack Obama.

That should be an issue.  But people don't want to make that the issue.  They want to attack rape victims.  Or they want to protect Barack Obama.

Margaret Flowers is part of the reason Bradley doesn't get attention.  She used her time this week not to talk about issues but to trash Hillary Clinton -- a woman Flowers seems unaware is no longer even Secretary of State.

Here's how Flowers used her time this week:


What are some of the truths? There are so many. In this short newsletter, we want to focus on one – Hillary Clinton.  She is the most popular woman in the world, according to polls. If she wants the presidency, the media tells us, it is hers. Yet, what do the Wikileaks documents which whistleblower Bradley Manning released show us? They show us she is not fit to be president and rather than being admired, she should be prosecuted.  That will sound extreme to the ears of Americans who have had the truth hidden from them, but it is a factual statement.


If there's an argument to be made for Hillary not being president, I'm not really sure that this was the week to do so, especially if you're with an organization attempting to spotlight Bradley, which Flowers is.

She's also a dumb ass nothing who'll never amount to anything because she's so damn stupid.  That's why she lost a campaign, that's why she's a loser and loser wafts off her.


Let's go into Persuasion 101.  If my goal is to raise awareness and support for Bradley, do I pen a column, right before the protests, calling out someone I state "is the most popular woman in the world, according to polls."  Really?  That's how I get people on my side?

That's how I drum up support?

Next up, Flowers goes after Justin Bieber!  Just knowing that such an attack will turn out 'the masses.' 

Again, the stupidity of Flowers is appalling and has always been.  She has repeatedly presented herself as an advocate over the years for this and for that and no one hurts her causes more than she does.

Again, Hillary's not even Secretary of State.  There's no reason to bring her into this.  Secretary of State isn't the presidency.  Barack is the reason Bradley's been behind bars for over 1,000 days.

If you're going to call someone out, you call out the one responsible.  Or you look like a coward.  In other words, Flowers just bit into an Egg McMuffin and found a toe.  So she wants to scream about the clerk who took her order and avoid calling out the one actually responsible.

That just makes Flowers a joke.  And if you're a joke don't expect to be taken seriously.

I don't expect Flowers to grasp that because, again, she's had decades to grasp how her efforts have undercut one cause after another that she supported.

Could Julian Assange be a rapist?  Of course he could.  There's a talking head, Democrat, on TV these days -- back on TV -- who did a fade for about a decade because he raped a woman.  He could have gone to prison but paid her off instead.

As late as 1999, I thought he was a wonderful guy.  Yeah, I know him.  He was always a gentleman around me but I didn't date him and I didn't drink with him.  He raped a woman, now he's back on TV because he paid her off (and intimidated her).

So Julian's supporters need to grasp that anyone can be a rapist.  If they can grasp that, they need to look at their own behavior.

Every time that they mock or trash or even negatively talk about those two women who may have been raped, it demonstrates to the public that they don't have compassion and that they really don't respect women.  That's really not the message that his supporters need to be sending to the public.

Funny thing, before they went with that message?  Julian Assange had support.  Even after the rape charges, he had support.  His public support only slipped and dropped after his supporters attacked those two women.

In the time since, you'll note, no new women have emerged.  Because they're stupid.  Michael Ratner can't even talk to women on his radio show with equality.  But if I'd been on Team Julian (instead of Team Truth), I would've been saying, "Guys" because everyone else in the room would have been a man with two exceptions "we need to bring women in and we need to do it now.  We need to bring in women so that we look women friendly.  We need to do it before the hostility and misogny is next unleashed."  It's been unleashed over and over.

It's too late for them now.  But they should have. They should have had the brains to grasp that these snarling, angry men (Pilger, Ratner, McGovern, etc) denoucing the women didn't play well in public and that they needed public faces that didn't look like attackers.

Bradley Manning is not appearing before a European judge.  He's appearing before a US military official.  It would be really great if his case could be treated on its own merits and if it's appears to be one of those rare moments where he might actually get some attention, the Julian Assange Defense League could close their mouths long enough to let at least one important day -- like the 1,000 day? -- be about him.

There are about 70 e-mails in the inbox of the public e-mail saying something similar to what one woman wrote in response to our noting Bradley in two entries yesterday, "I know I should be more supportive but it's really hard for me to get too supportive when I see so many people trying to say that he and Julian Assange are the same.  I also want nothing to do with those [censored] who attack the two rape victims."

Again there are about 70 e-mails that came in in the last 24 hours expressing that sentiment.  Julian Assange supporters need to take a look at their actions.

(And, for the record, I agree with the word I censored - I use the word censored many times a day.  But this is a work safe site and we can't have that word up here.)





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.
















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Friday, February 22, 2013

Iraq snapshot

Friday, February 22, 2013.  Chaos and violence continue, assassinations today include a judge and a police officer, millions turn out to protest in Iraq today, a call is made for England's Labour party to apologize for Tony Blair's part in the Iraq War, support actions for Bradley Manning are planned, and more.

Unlike in the United States where national politics are largely a story of the duopoly parties, in England there are numerous political parties.  There is the Labour Party which, prior to the ascent of Tony Blair and his Blair-ites, was considered a party for the working people in the United Kingdom.  Labour currently has 257 members in the House of Commons (the lower House in the UK).  Tony Blair's ascension was when Big Money really took hold in Labour and it was thought that the Conservative Party was relegated to runner up status.  But Blair wanted war on Iraq and the accountability for his War Crimes were, in the end, inflicted upon the Labor Party.  To Labour's 257 seats, the Conservative Party can hold up 305 seats in the House of Commons.  They also -- via a coalition with the Liberal Democratic Party -- now also claim the spot of prime minister (David Cameron).  The Liberal Democrats hold 57 seats.   In addition to those three, there are eight other political parties which have seats in the House of Commons.  The Green Party of England and Wales is one of the eight other political parties and it has one seat in the House of Commons (Caroline Lucas).

The leader of the Green Party of England and Wales is Australian-born Natalie Bennett who is a journalist, holds a degree in agricultural science (University of Sydney) and whose accomplishments include "the founder of the blog Carnival of Feminists."  In addition to founding The Carnival of Feminists,  Bennett's blog is Philobiblon.  The Green Party is holding their national conference and Natalie Bennett addressed the conference today noting that it was the 40th anniversary of the Green Party of England and Wales.  She also noted another anniversary:

But it’s also pressing to highlight just how wrong the current direction of the Coalition government is, and how the Labour party is failing to be the effective opposition that the country desperately needs.
Before I do that, however, there’s another, tragic, anniversary I have to highlight – a 10-year anniversary. For it is a little more than 10 years since the great, 2-million strong anti-war protest took to the streets of London, and a little less than 10 years since the Labour Government utterly ignored the views of those people, and millions of others, and started the Iraq war.
A Guardian survey last week showed that 55 per cent of Britons agree that "the London marchers were right", because "a war sold on a false prospectus delivered little but bloodshed". And the Iraqi people are still struggling, and dying, as a result of the consequences of that war.
Yet Ed Milliband, who HAS apologised for the Blair government’s immigration policy, has failed to apologise for the decision to take Britain into an unjustifiable war.
We’re still waiting for Sir John Chilcot’s report into the war. That’s one landmark that we can expect future historians to look back on this year.

That's only one part of her speech but it's resulting in headlines.  BBC News offers "Green Party conference: Natalie Bennett calls for Iraq war apology from Labour," the Guardian offers Rajeev Syal's "Green party leader calls on Ed Miliband to apologise for Iraq war,"  and politics.co.uk offers Tony Hudson's "Labour 'utterly ignored' millions: Greens demand Miliband apology for Iraq."  And the speech is getting attention on Twitter, including:

  2. 2 hrs
    Green Party calls on Labour leader Ed Miliband to apologise for "disastrous" Iraq war
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  3. 3 hrs
    Green Party leader calls for an apology from Miliband over the illegal Iraq war. As should
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  4. 3 hrs
    Greens call for Iraq war apology: Green Party leader Natalie Bennett calls on Labour leader Ed Miliband to apo...
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The Iraq War is not going away for Labour until they address it.  Last week's speech by shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy was a step in the right direction.  A step.  More needs to be done.

Also popping up on Twitter today?


  1. 1 hr
    the people want to overthrow the regime
    View photo
  2. 8 hrs
    now into their third month.
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It's Friday, the Iraqi Spring continues.   Alsumaria reports today is dubbed "Iraq or al-Maliki."  al-Maliki would be Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister since 2006 when Bully Boy Bush said no to the Parliament's choice of Ibrahaim al-Jaafari.  In 2010, Iraqis said no to to Nouri but he refused to step down and the White House again backed Nouri (though now Barack Obama was president).  To get around the vote and the Iraqi Constitution, the US brokered a contract giving Nouri a second term in exchange for Nouri agreeing to various demands from the political blocs signing off on the contract.  Nouri used The Erbil Agreement to grab a second term and then refused to honor his written promises within the contract.  Alsumaria notes that thousands of demonstrators turned out in Kirkuk and Hawija.  Mohammed al-Jubouri tells Alsumaria that over 15,000 took to the streets in Hawija for "legal, civil and peaceful demonstrations as guaranteed in the Constitution."  Protesters also demonstrated in Mosul where Shabak and Yezidis participated and thousands took part in the ongoing sit-in which has lasted more than 57 days.  Alsumaria notes that participants in Kut included "hundreds" of Shi'ite followers of Moqtada al-Sadr and that there was a call for an end to the violations of Palestinians by the Israeli government.

Al Mada notes that the number of participants continued to increase today -- as has happened each Friday over the last three months.  One count places the number demonstrating at 3,955,000.  The newspaper notes, in Samarra, a sit-in continues and demonstrators called for Baghdad to be returned to the citizens of Iraq, the real owners.  Sheikh Mohammed Taha Saadoun said it was time to change hands of leadership and that government promises continue to go unfulfilled.  National Iraq News Agency reports multiple protests in Diyala Province (including Baquba) and quotes Sheikh Shibab al-Badri ("Vice President of the clerics of Iraq, Diyala branch"), stating, "Thousands of participants in the unified prayer flocked to mosques merging in eight administrative units amid tight security.  Calling on the Iraqi government to speed up the implementation of constitutional and legitimate usurped rights of the demonstrators in the provinces."   Iraqi Spring MC adds that the Sheikh said the sit-in continues in support of the detained and oppressed. Iraqi Spring MC notes that children participated in the protests in Falluja (here and here).  National Iraq News Agency notes that an Anbar Province coordinating committee member stated, "The masses determined to topple the government of Maliki that ignore the restitution of the usurped rights of the people, but cause them harm."   Iraqi Spring MC also offers video of the Tikrit protest and Baiji protests.   Protests also took place in Baghdad and Stop Killing Muslims in Iraq posts this photo of the Baghdad demonstration.  And if you're trying to get a sense of how large the Baghdad group was (it was huge), this photo is a must see.

One sermon delivered in Ramadi by Sheikh Abdel Moneym Badrani called for the government to cease the stalling and procrastination and respond to the demands of the protesters.    Iraqi Spring MC posts a video of an Iman in Duluiya this morning delivering a sermon about how Iraq is bleeding internally and the country needs attention -- which is why the people are protesting.

What are they calling for?  Workers World offered this list last month:




The protesters are justly demanding:
1. The immediate release of detained protesters and dissident prisoners.
2 . A stop to the death penalty.
3. The approval of an amnesty law for innocent detainees.
4. The abolition of anti-terrorism laws (especially Clause 4 used to target them).
5. The repeal of unfair rulings against dissidents.
6. Fair opportunities for work based on professionalism.
7.The end of the use of all military command based on geographic areas.
8. The provision of essential services to all areas in Iraq neglected by the state.
9. The holding of all … governmental officials, army or security units who have committed crimes against dissidents accountable, especially those who have violated the honor of women in prisons.
10. A U.N.-sponsored population count.
11. An end to marginalization, a stop to agitating divisions between ethnic and religious groups, and a stop to the house raids without legal warrant based on the information of secret informers.
12. A stop to financial, administrative and legal corruption.
13. The combating of sectarianism in all its forms by returning religious buildings and all religious properties to their rightful owners, and the abolishment of law No. 19 of 2005.
The International Occupation Network (IAON) welcomes the spread of these non-sectarian protests and supports the efforts of the Iraqi people to regain their full independence and national sovereignty. Ten years of foreign occupation is enough! Ten years of massive human rights violations is enough! Ten years of corruption and depriving the whole population of basic services is enough!
— The International Anti-Occupation Network / IAON


Nouri continued to use the armed forces to intimidate the protesters.  Iraqi Spring MC notes that Nouri used the forces to arrest and terrorize peaceful demonstrators (at least three in Mosul -- Rashid Hamid, Faisal Shibley and Saeed Ali) and they note Nouri's action in an important way -- they note that the orders came from the Commander-in-Chief . . . and the Minister of Defense . . . and the Minister of Interior.




 Turning to violence, CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq Tweets:
  1. 42 mins
    Gunmen clad in Iraqi army uniforms attacked a security checkpoint & killed seven members of Sahwa on Friday morning, police told
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Xinhua reports, "Unidentified gunmen kidnapped eight pro-government militants and killed seven of them on Friday in Iraq's restive central province of Salah ad Din, said the local police."  Kitabat reports that the eighth is seriously injured.  Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) notes that the assailants wore "military uniforms."  Alsumaria adds that the assailants used armored vehicles while Reuters notes that the assailants were on motorcycles.   AFP locates the attack "in the village of Halaiwat."  The attacked were Sahwa which have also been called "Awakenings" and "Sons Of Iraq" when male and "Daughters Of Iraq" when female.

At the April 8, 2008 Senate Armed Services hearing then-top US commander in Iraq Gen David Petraeus explained that  "there are now over 91,000 Sons of Iraq -- Shia as well as Sunni -- under contract to help Coalition and Iraqi Forces protect their neighborhoods and secure infrastructure and roads. These volunteers have contributed significantly in various areas, and the savings in vehicles not lost because of reduced violence -- not to mention the priceless lives saved -- have far outweighed the cost of their monthly contracts."   World Bulletin notes, "On February 2, a suicide bomber targeted Sahva forces 20 kilometers away from capital Baghdad and 19 of them were killed, 40 wounded."

Officials were also targeted for violence.   National Iraqi News Agency notes "that gunmen burst into the house of Judge Mawlood Abdullah, the Judge of Tarmiya Court, in Tarmiya area, 30 km north of Baghdad, opened fire at him from guns with silencers, killing him instantly and fled" while another assassination attempt in Tarmiya failed to kill its intended target, police Col Hameed Mohammed Ali (but did result in the death of 1 civilian and four people injured.   In Babil, an assassination attempt succeeded when the Iraqi National Accord nominee for Babil Provincial Council, Hassan Hadi Sayil al-Janabi, and two of his bodyguards were killed. The outlet also notes, "The Governor of Nineveh, Atheel al-Nujaifi, said that a hand-to-hand combat erupted between police and the Governor's guard near the protest area (Ahrar Square) in downtown Mosul, when he was at the area" and 2 Kirkuk bombings left three people injured.

In addition,  All Iraq News notes that 1 person was shot dead in Mosul and a Mosul bombing left a police captain injured.  Alsumaria notes that a shop owner was shot dead in Baquba and a Baghdad car bombing killed 2 people and left a third injured.

Turning to health news, Alsumaria reports that one of the doctors treating Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has issued a statement that Talabani's recovering and that he's experienced major progress and will be able to return to Iraq to perform his duties.  National Iraqi News Agency identified the doctor as Dr. Najmoldeen Kareem.  As with Alsumaria, no specific time for a return is given, nor is any estimate offered.  Jalal has been out of the country seeking treatment in Germany for months now.   Late on December 17th (see the December 18th snapshot), Jalal Talabani had a stroke and was admitted to Baghdad's Medical Center Hospital.    Thursday, December 20th, he was moved to Germany.  He remains in Germany currently. [Saad Abedine (CNN) reported talk that it was a stroke the day the news broke (December 18th) and January 9th, the Office of President Talabani confirmed it had been a stroke.] Talabani was seen by some as a calm voice and one of the few able to restrain Nouri in any way. 


Last week, Dale Gavlak (AP) reported, "A Syrian government official warned Wednesday of rampant trafficking in antiquities from his country and appealed for U.N. help in halting the illicit trade that has flourished during the nearly 23-month-long civil war [and] asked UNESCO to appeal to Turkey and Iraq to enact stricter measures to prevent the smuggling of artifacts across their borders. Turkey has strained ties with the Assad regime, while Iraq's porous frontier with Syria is difficult to monitor."  What Syria is experiencing is something Iraq's experienced throughout the Iraq War.  At the end of December, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a press release which noted:

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad hosted a delegation of nine American subject matter experts in the fields of federal law enforcement, justice and cultural heritage protection including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents, from Dec. 17 to 20 at a training conference on "Countering Antiquities Trafficking." The four-day training, sponsored by HSI in collaboration with the U.S. Department of State, was provided to the Iraqi Ministry of Interior police investigators representing 15 provinces on methods of identifying Iraqi cultural heritage sites, and preventing and investigating looting and illegal trafficking within and beyond Iraq's borders. Assistant Chief of Mission Ambassador James Knight opened the conference stating that, "Perhaps the most important reason for organizing a meeting such as this is Iraq's unparalleled cultural heritage. Preserving that heritage is to preserve some of mankind's greatest treasures. Not only are they a precious window into the past, they are tangible reminders to future generations of Iraqis of a glorious history."
"The countering antiquities trafficking conference in Baghdad marked a new beginning in HSI's efforts in assisting Iraqi Antiquities Police in their fight against the illegal trafficking of Iraq's cultural property," said Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ransom Avilla, HSI liaison in Baghdad. "We are hopeful that this training conference will provide the tools necessary for Iraqi Ministry of Interior police to detect, investigate and protect their national heritage."
Other law enforcement agencies that participated in the training conference included U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department of Justice, Interpol and the U.S. National Park Service.

And again, the effort to steal these national treasures is ongoing.  Khayoun Saleh (Azzman) reported this week that "Iraqi police have seized 13 archaelogical pieces in the southern Province of Dhiqar" and that the "initial assessment by scientists dated them to the early periods of Mesopotamian civilization that flourished in southern Iraq more than 5,000 years ago."  Also this week, Khalid al-Taie (Al-Shorfa) reported that the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities had agreed to allow "six foreign teams to start archaelogical excavations" and that the "teams [are] from Italy, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic."   On this topic,  Samer Hijazi (Arab American News) reports that, from March sixth through ninth, Dr. Hashim al-Tawil will be in Sweden giving lectures at various places.  He is an art history professor with Henry Ford Community College in Michigan:

Dr. Al-Tawil, who is chair of the art history area study at HFCC, will be presenting and discussing two key points; the first will be focusing on the looting of Iraq's antiques, which have been eluted and smuggled during and after the U.S. invasion. The second point will focus on the consequences and impact of the deterioration of life conditions in Iraq since the eighties, but more specifically after the invasion in 2003.

Many of the Iraq's archeological sites and museums with rich materials and artifacts were looted, and destroyed; historical artifacts, antiquity pieces, and artworks were smuggled during the course of the invasion and the immediate years that followed. According to Dr. Al-Tawil, thousands of professional Iraqis, scholars, and academicians in all fields were displaced, assassinated, or scared away and sought refuge in neighboring countries, Europe and North America, which left the country void of these professionals. Currently there are too many less qualified, untrained, and under educated individuals who filled that vacuum and are now in charge of Iraq's major cultural and educational institutions. This in turn has negatively affected the different aspects of life in Iraq especially in the field of education, culture, health service and other public services.

"When a country loses knowledgeable and well educated scientists, scholars, professors and well trained archaeologists, inadequate and opportunist individuals jump in to fill their spots illegitimately. Beside the severe deterioration in the quality of the service there is the probability of further compromising Iraq's culture. Thousands of these displaced Iraqi professionals are in the Diasporas with no opportunity to serve their country and there is no indications from the Iraqi authorities to utilize their expertise and knowledge in rebuilding Iraq," Dr. Al-Tawil said.


Final topic,  Duncan Roden (Green Left) reports tomorrow will be "the 1000th day in which alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower 24-year-old US Army intelligence officer Bradley Manning, has been jailed by US authorities without trial."  Background, 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 before the November 2012 election but it was postponed until after the election so that Barack wouldn't have to run on a record of his actual actions.



Alex Kane (In These Times) notes, "40 cities around the world are set to mark the 1,000th day of WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning’s imprisonment. Manning’s whistleblowing acts will be honored and his imprisonment without a speedy trial denounced this weekend in places ranging from Denver to Rome to Sydney."  These events will take place today (a few), Saturday (most) and Sunday (a few).  BradleyManning.org notes they will be "around the world are planning demonstrations, rallies, and marches on February 23. From California, to Florida, to Italy, to Germany, supporters of PFC Manning will make their protests known."  Here's their list:



U.S. Events
Tucson, AZ     Feb 23, 11am-5pm
Tempe, AZ     Feb 23, 5:30-6:30pm
Guerneville, CA     Feb 23, 12-1pm
Cahuenga (L.A.), CA     Feb 23, 9-11am
Los Angeles, CA     Feb 23, 5:30-6:30
Long Beach (L.A.), CA 
Feb 23 at 1pm until Feb 24 at 2pm
Montrose (L.A.), CA     Feb 23, 5:30-7pm
Studio City (L.A.), CA     Feb 22, 6:30-7:30pm
San Francisco, CA     Feb 23, 1-4pm
San Diego, CA     Feb 23, 7-9pm
Denver, CO     Feb 23, 12-3:30pm
Washington, DC     Feb 24, 6:30-9pm
Daytona, FL     Feb 24, 11am-2pm
Ft. Lauderdale, FL     Feb 23, 12-1:30pm
Pensacola, FL     Feb 23, 5:30-6:30pm
St. Petersburg, FL     Feb 23, 7pm
Tallahassee, FL     Feb 23, 12-1pm
Hilo, HI     Feb 22, 3:30-5pm
Honolulu, HI     Feb 22, 4-5:30pm
Chicago, IL     Feb 23, 12-1:30pm
Ft. Leavenworth, KS     Feb 23, 1-3pm
New Orleans, LA     Feb 23, 2-6pm
Boston, MA     Feb 23, 1-2pm
Augusta, ME     Feb 23, 11:30am-12pm
Portland, ME     Feb 23, 12pm
Detroit, MI     Feb 23, 3-8pm
Kalamazoo, MI     Feb 23, 2-3pm
Minneapolis, MN     Feb 23, 9:30am-12pm
Wilmington, NC     Feb 23, 12-1:45pm
Eatentown, NJ     Feb 23, 12-1:30pm
Highland Park, NJ     Feb 23, 11:30am-12:30pm
Albuquerque, NM     Feb 23, 10am-12pm
Santa Fe, NM     Feb 23, 12-1pm
New York, NY     Feb 23, 2-4pm
Rochester, NY      Feb 23, 10am-12pm
Toledo, OH     Feb 23, 12pm
Corvallis, OR     ongoing
Philadelphia, PA     Feb 23, 2-4pm
Newport, RI     Feb 23, 1-2pm
Austin, TX     Feb 23, 10:30am
Houston, TX     Feb 23, All Day
Bristol, VT     Feb 23, 10am-12pm
Seattle, WA     Feb 23, 12-4pm

International Events
Melbourne, Australia     Feb 22, 2-4pm
Sydney, Australia     Feb 23, 11am-2pm
Brussels, Belgium     Feb 23, 1-2pm
Vancouver, Canada     Feb 23, 1-5pm
Paris, France     Feb 23, 3-5pm
Berlin, Germany      Feb 23, 12:30-3pm
Kaiserslautern, Germany     Feb 23, All Day
Rome, Italy      Feb 23, 4-5pm
Oslo, Norway      Feb 23, 10am-12pm
Oporto, Portugal     Feb 23, 3-6pm
Seoul, South Korea     Feb 23, 11am
Kampala, Uganda     Feb 23, 10am-12pm
Dublin, Ireland     Feb 23, 1-3pm
Birmingham, UK     Feb 23, 2pm
London, UK     Feb 23, 2pm
Peterborough, UK     Feb 23, 12-2pm
Yorkshire, UK     Feb 23, 11am
Fairford, UK      Feb 23, 9:30am-12pm
Bangor, Wales, UK     Feb 23, 11am-2pm
Cardiff, Wales, UK     Feb 23, 10:30am-2:30pm
Wales/Ireland/Scotland/England     ongoing





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