Fully support President of #Iraq Fuad Masum as guarantor of the Constitution and a PM nominee who can build a national consensus.
What's going on?
As usual, Nouri al-Maliki is the problem.
Some people refuse to see that.
For two terms, they've refused to see it.
Maybe tonight, they finally do?
Loveday Morris (Washington Post) reports:
In actions that had all the markings of a political coup, Maliki gave a defiant late-night speech in Baghdad saying he would lodge a legal case against the country’s president, who has resisted naming him as the candidate for another term as prime minister.
Tanks rumbled onto major bridges and roads in the capital as security forces were put on high alert, with militiamen also patrolling Shiite neighborhoods. The special forces teams surrounding the Green Zone were taking orders directly from the prime minister, security officials said.
The Guardian quotes from a statement by US State Dept spokesperson Marie Harf:
The United States fully supports president Fuad Masum in his role as guarantor of the Iraqi constitution. We reaffirm our support for a process to select a prime minister who can represent the aspirations of the Iraqi people by building a national consensus and governing in an inclusive manner. We reject any effort to achieve outcomes through coercion or manipulation of the constitutional or judicial process.
This is different. Brett and Marie? This is a different approach from the US government.
Ahmed Rasheed (Reuters) explains, "Washington seems to be losing patience with Maliki, who has placed Shi'ite political loyalists in key positions in the army and military and drawn comparisons with executed former dictator Saddam Hussein, the man he plotted against from exile for years."
None of what the western press reports Nouri is doing today is surprising.
In fact, it's all so predictable that my only question was which politician is he targeting with tanks?
That's his other move, remember?
He first did it to Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi. He's done it since. So who's he targeting now?
All Iraq News tells you what others avoid:
Security forces surrounded the residence of the Iraqi President Fuad Masoum inside the Green Zone of central Baghdad.
A
source from inside the Green Zone reported to AIN "Security forces
surrounded the residence of the Iraqi President Fuad Masoum and forbid
the entrance and departure of any person out of or inside the Green
Zone."
Zach Beauchamp (Vox) attempts to sort things out.
This is not a new issue and you need to know certain things. I am not attacking Beauchamp. I might attack Adam Ashton (McClatchy Newspapers) who writes:
His announcement came as a constitutional deadline expired for the Iraqi parliament to name a prime minister after April’s inconclusive elections, revealing Maliki’s determination to hold on to his position despite calls for his resignation from many Iraqi leaders and U.S. officials.
Did that happen? Did it?
Do you know if I wrote what I want to write right now, this wouldn't be a work safe website.
No.
No, it wouldn't.
With Beauchamp, he's coming in late and doesn't realize it.
Ashton knows.
Ashton knows 2010.
In the US, so we're all on the same page, Bully Boy Bush did many horrible things. For example, his illegal spying.
Why is it wrong that Barack embraced it?
Yes, he opposed it verbally when seeking the presidency so it's wrong because it makes Barack a hypocrite or a liar or both.
But if it's allowed, if the Congress doesn't do their job, it is now pattern. There is law by writing and there is law by custom.
Adam Ashton wants you to know a deadline was missed.
And so what?
It's not even four months.
As Ashton knows, in 2010, it was over 8 months after the election before a prime minister-designate was named.
When that happened, things changed.
So, truly, don't cite this or that provision of the Iraqi Constitution because there's written law and there's custom.
Things are confusing enough right now in Iraq without people lying.
Ashton's a damn liar today. He's better that and he should be ashamed of the piece he wrote which includes crap like this:
In 2010, Maliki’s State of Law coalition came in second place in national elections, but Maliki held on to his position by challenging the results in Iraq’s supreme court. Since then, he has built the government around himself with special military units that report directly to him.
No, he didn't.
You're a damn liar, Adam Ashton.
The court verdict Ashton's referring to?
Rendered prior to the election.
Nouri kept it in his pocket and didn't make it public until after the election and after he lost to Iraqiya.
It didn't let him stay in power, The Erbil Agreement did.
I am tired of liars and whores.
Tonight was supposed to be an easy one. I was just going to cover Barack's revisionary history from yesterday and be done.
But, no, everything had to go crazy.
And, when that happens, people need honesty.
They don't need the crap Ashton's offering.
But the reality is the non-Iraqis working for McClatchy have always been reluctant to tell the truth about Nouri (Lelia Fadel is the sole exception).
While Ned Parker broke one story after another on corruption and secret prisons, McClatchy did nothing. Nancy A. Youssef got cozy with generals and other military officers. Roy Gutman amused himself with food. Hannah was the mess she remains to this day.
But Adam Ashton was usually straightforward.
And today he's just another little liar, taking the truth and watering it down so Nouri looks better.
He even lies about the military stationed in Baghdad, claiming it's because Nouri fears an armed coup.
I'm tired of the lying and I'm tired of the whoring.
Nouri is the main problem.
After him?
The trashy useless press that's covered for him day after damn day, year after damn year.
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.
New content at Third:
- Truest statement of the week
- Truest statement of the week II
- A note to our readers
- Editorial: United for Peace and Justice -- the ult...
- Media: Barack Lies, Cher Tweets and Martha Plays (...
- He can't afford the free way
- TV: Barack joins the cast of Mistresses
- The suffering hits close to home
- Our very low standards
- This edition's playlist
- Exploding Gender Stereotypes
- US bombs will make Iraq's crisis worse
- Miller Statement on VA Reform Bill Becoming Law
- Highlights
Isaiah's latest goes up tonight. I don't know when. I want to get away from the computer. I may or may not do an entry in the morning. I'm sick of the computer and I'm even more sick of the liars in the press. And, to be clear, in this entry, Adam Ashton is the only one I'm calling a liar. And it's deeply disappointing to see him turn in copy like that, he's so much better than that.
