The Common Ills: Nouri 'celebrates' International Women's Day

Saturday, March 08, 2014

Nouri 'celebrates' International Women's Day

Today was International Women's Day and Iraq's prime minister and chief thug Nouri al-Maliki celebrated in multiple ways.

First up, Suadad al-Salhy (Reuters) reports, "About two dozen Iraqi women demonstrated today in Baghdad against a draft law approved by the Iraqi cabinet that would permit the marriage of nine-year-old girls and automatically give child custody to fathers." The offensive, disgusting and illegal bill was proposed by Nouri's Minister of Justice Hassan al-Shimaria. Nouri and his Cabinet signed off on it February 25th. There's a photo of some of the protesters here.

Ban Ki-moon is the United Nations Secretary-General. His Special Envoy in Iraq is Nickolay Mlandenov. Mladenov Tweeted the following today:

Nine-year-olds getting married, that's what sicko Nouri wants, he wants to nail some nine-year-old girl because he's a disgusting piece of filth who's not fit for public office.

In addition, he wants to strip mothers of their custody rights.

This is all so disgusting and all so predictable.

Where the hell is the US State Dept which lied to Congress repeatedly about what it's role would be when it assumed control over the US mission in Iraq?

I seem to recall all these generic statements -- and we can shame and name those who made them -- about all the money that was going to be spent on programs improving the status of women.

But John Kerry, Secretary of State, never has time to oversee Iraq because he's always too busy screaming that the US needs to go to war with Syria or Russia.

Kerry needs to explain how this little bill got out of Nouri's Cabinet and what the hell the US did to help Iraqi women? See, that way he can hem-and-haw and stammer through his first response and just sit in silence, catch his breath while he says nothing, in response to the second question.

That wasn't the only way Nouri celebrated International Women's Day in Iraq. No, he had his military again shell residential areas in Falluja leading to the death of 1 woman and 1 child with six more people ("including two young girls") being left injured.

Of course the US government has not only failed to object to the civilian deaths in Anbar, they've also provided Nouri with the weapons being used to kill the people of Anbar.

In other violence, National Iraqi News Agency reports an al-Qaherah car bombing left 2 people dead and nine more injured, a Ramadi bombing left five people injured, an al-Jeraishy battle left 4 Iraqi soldiers dead, an al-Hasowah battle left 3 Iraqi military personnel dead and four soldiers injured, a Ramadi suicide car bomber took his own lives and the lives of 3 Iraqi soldiers with seven more left injured, 1 Shabak was shot dead in Mosul, a roadside bombing north of Baquba left 1 "army regiment commander" dead and four of his bodyguards injured, a car bombing southwest of Ramadi left 3 police dead and four more injured, Joint Command Operations announced they killed 4 suspects in Falluja and Samarra, Mohammed Hussein Hamid ("candidate for the Alarabiya Slate in the province of Nineveh") was shot dead near Sharqat, and 1 corpse was discovered in the streets of Almaqalii south of Mosul.

Xinhua counts 31 dead and 49 injured in today's violence.

Meanwhile, the award for least convincing performance goes to Hadi al-Ameri:

Iraqi Transport Minister Hadi al-Ameri on Saturday stressed on the “historical and brotherly” ties between Lebanon and Iraq, assuring that recent events will not change these relations.

"The bubble that happened lately will not change the historical and brotherly relations between Baghdad and Beirut,” al-Ameri said at Rafic Hariri International Airport upon his arrival in Beirut, adding that Iraq will “probe the incident and penalize all delinquents.”

Naharnet reports the above. For those late to the story, Thursday Mahdi al-Ameri missed his flight back to Baghdad. When this was discovered, the plane was told it could not land in Baghdad and that it needed return to Lebanon. Once it had and Mahdi, Hadi's son, boarded the plane, it took off and was allowed to land in Baghdad. The Transportation Minister? The plane was turned around to pick up his son. It's corruption and what the Iraqi people suffer with as officials live off the hog in the Green Zone while the rest of Iraq lives with non-stop violence and a lack of jobs and public services. As the editorial board of The National points out, "It is unclear what Mr Al Amiri gained from this exercise, except a chance to demonstrate to Iraqis the truth of their belief that relatives of government officials think they are above the law."

Meanwhile Nouri's bad TV interview (to France's state TV) is attracting attention in Iraq due to Nouri's insults of cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr. All Iraq News notes Nouri's termed him "immature."

The following community sites -- plus Dissident Voice, On the Wilder Side, Antiwar.com, Susan's On the Edge, Out FM, the Pacifica Evening News and The Lead with Jake Tapper -- updated: