Collective punishment is defined as a War Crime and Nouri excels at War Crimes. So today, his indiscriminate shelling of Falluja residential neighborhoods left 6 people dead and seventeen injured.
Turning to some of today's other reported violence, National Iraqi News Agency reports a Tuz attack left 1 "employee in the North Oil Company" dead and twelve more injured, a Zuham Village bombing left 1 Sahwa and 1 civilian dead and two children injured, Joint Operations Command announced they killed 6 suspects in Kirkuk, a Tariq Camp attack left 3 Iraqi soldiers dead and four more injured, a Ramadi clash left four Iraqi soldiers injured, 2 Iraqi soldiers were shot dead in Abu Ghraib, 1 person was shot dead in Mada'in, 2 Iraqi soldiers were shot in Bahbahan, Colonel Salem Hassan was shot dead in eastern Mosul, a Mosul roadside bombing left three police members and two civilians injured, a Taji roadside bombing left 2 police members dead and two more injured, a Muttahidoon coalition MP, Nahida al-Daini, was targeted for assassination with a Mahroot bombing today and while she survived without injury two of her bodyguards and nine civilians were injured, a Khirbet Aziz Village bombing left four military personnel injured, 2 Iraqi soldiers were shot dead during an attack on a Mosul checkpoint, security forces killed 1 suspect in Tal Afar, Deputy Police Chief of Kirkuk Turhan Abdul Rahman announced they killed 3 suspects in Kirkuk, an al-Zaidan bombing left 1 Iraqi soldier dead and four injured, Major General Ali Ghaidan announced they killed 2 suspects in Qarma, a Hilla suicide bomber took his own life and the lives of 47 people with another one hundred-and-twenty-five injured, and the corpse of 1 Ministry of Transport employee was found dumped in eastern Baghdad.
Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts 97 dead and 237 injured today.
As we noted yesterday, thug Nouri gave an interview to France state television (France24) in which he accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of causing the problems in Iraq. BBC states today, "In the past, he has blamed unnamed regional countries for destabilising Iraq."
Unnamed?
Do they have amnesia? He's repeatedly named Saudi Arabia and Turkey in the past. He also previously had a public war with Qatar. He ended that war of worlds in order to get good press. Apparently, he no longer cares or thinks he doesn't need good press.
Meanwhile, the guilty dog barks. Al-Manar reports, "Iraq's transportation minister Hadi al-Amiri told a news conference
Sunday that he'd pay for the losses out of his own pocket and would hand
his son over to authorities if the investigation proved he was behind
the Middle East Airline flight being stopped from landing on Thursday."
How stupid is Nouri's Cabinet? I guess it's a prerequisite that you be immensely stupid if you're going to be Nouri's friend and Hadi al-Amiri is really stupid.
He declares he'll pay for the costs and "hand his son over to authorities" if it is "proved he was" the one behind this.
Who is "he"?
Let's play this out.
Iraq's transportation minister Hadi al-Amiri told a news conference
Sunday that he'd pay for the losses out of his own pocket and would hand
his son over to authorities if the investigation proved [Hadi al-Amiri] was behind
the Middle East Airline flight being stopped from landing on Thursday.
In that interpretation, the Transportation Minister is saying that if it's proved he himself was behind preventing the plane from landing, he would turn his son over to authorities.
Why?
How would that make sense?
'I have been found guilty of doing it, so here is my son.'?
Let's try it another way.
Iraq's transportation minister Hadi al-Amiri told a news conference
Sunday that he'd pay for the losses out of his own pocket and would hand
his son over to authorities if the investigation proved [his son] was behind
the Middle East Airline flight being stopped from landing on Thursday.
How is his son potentially behind it?
We can see his son making a call to his father and his father issuing an order.
But is Hadi al-Amiri floating the notion that his son, having missed the plane that waited on the runway for him for six additional minutes, picked up the phone and dialed the Baghdad Airport and ordered them -- in a "Do you not know who my father is!" manner -- to tell the plane to turn around and go back to Lebanon?
It appears that's what he is attempting to float publicly. He refused to take questions.
If you're new to the story, you can refer to Thursday's snapshot and Friday's snapshot for more.
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] 4489.
Kat's "Kat's Korner: Are you listening to Ben Taylor?" went up earlier today. On this week's Law and Disorder Radio, an hour long program that airs Monday mornings at 9:00 a.m. EST on WBAI and around the country throughout the week, hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Michael S. Smith and Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights)
topics addressed include net neutrality (with attorney Matt Wood), the dismissal of the case involving the NYPD spying on Muslims in New Jersey (with guest Professor Deepa Kumar), the upcoming Brooklyn Folk Festival and feedback from listeners.
We're still working on Third. Two biggest hold ups?
1) No editorial idea. If Iraq is the problem, Ava and I cover Iraq in our TV piece so the editorial can actually be on any topic in the world.
2) Jim wants Ava and I to do another piece. We are saying "no." He thinks he can break that no but he can't. We already wrote a mammoth TV piece (covering SNL, an MSNBC 'special,' a radio critique, a celebrity interview and Democracy so-called Now). That left us exhausted. Not only are we tired, we want to give it a wee to see if Women's Media Center can find a spine or maybe the blog for Ms. magazine. We could have written the piece last week and almost did. But the real war on women never ends. And we'll return to that topic but do so next week when we can note that a number of feminist outlets do their part to encourage the war on women.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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