The Common Ills: The political solution gets forgotten as quickly as the 18 benchmarks

Tuesday, August 05, 2014

The political solution gets forgotten as quickly as the 18 benchmarks

National Iraqi News Agency reports the Iraqi air force has announced they killed the occupants of 54 cars that were enroute to Syria. The people were terrorists.

Not the terrorists of the air, the ones who keep killing people and dubbing them terrorists. No, the air force is saying the people in the 54 cars -- people they can't even provide a head count on -- were terrorists. These were terrorists, the air force says, who were attempting to leave Iraq and go into Syria.

Might they have been Iraqis fleeing the violence?

There can be no uncertainty, no questioning, in Nouri's world of 'justice.' Everyone is a terrorist.

How do you know they are a terrorist?

They died when bombs were dropped on them.

It's all very Salem witch trials.

And it's been going on forever.

But since November, Nouri's been asking for drones from the US government.

And since he ramped up the crazy, Barack's been making noise about the need for a political solution.

From June to today, what has Nouri done to work on a political solution?

Not one damn thing.

It's like when Bully Boy Bush came up with the set of benchmarks, remember? Democrats in the US Congress -- having just won control of both houses in the November 2006 mid-terms, were making noise about the failed war. And the White House came up with 18 benchmarks. By these 18 planks, progress or failure would be judged. Success on them would mean continued funding for Iraq by US taxpayers. Nouri agreed to the benchmarks.

It's 2014.

How many has he met?

Zero. Not one can be checked off.

And, thing is, these benchmarks, these US-government defined benchmarks, were not supposed to be completed in 7 years, they were supposed to be completed in one year.

Nouri is a failure as a leader, he is a failure at keeping his word.

Since June, Barack has insisted that there must be a political solution and Nouri has blown him off the same way he blew off the benchmarks.

Nouri's answer, coward that he is, is just to keep bombing.

Which is how Monday saw the deaths of 4 civilians with seven more left injured in his ongoing bombing of the residential neighborhoods of Falluja. Every day since the month of January he has ordered the residential neighborhoods of Falluja bombed.

I have no idea how many terrorists are in Iraq. But I do know one terrorist is leading the Iraqi government.

Nouri is not defeating terrorism. He may or may not be interested in defeating it. Certainly, starting in 2009, terrorism became his campaign slogan. He was 'the man' who would bring safety to Iraq -- the whole point of his refusing to stand with his political party (Dawa) and instead creating the State of Law coalition.

In 2009, Iraq was less violent.

Nouri's campaigns have only increased the violence.

He resorts to violence today non-stop and that's not ending terrorism or 'terrorism.' What it is doing is creating even more sympathy on the ground in Iraq for anyone who stands up to the madman who won't stop bombing Iraq.

Barack needs to more than mouth "a political solution is needed." He needs to be insisting on action on that front, he needs to stop providing Hellfire missiles. He needs to stand the f**k up to Nouri.

That may be scary for the boy prince, but he wanted to be president bad enough to lie and cheat during the 2008 primaries. So he needs to find some of that drive today and he needs to, yes, draw a line in the sand: No more weapons from us until you start working towards a political solution and demonstrating real results.

As it is, the US government is breaking the law -- US law and international law -- by supplying Nouri with weapons he is using on the Iraqi people.

Nouri's not going to do a damn thing unless he's forced to.

The US government should have stopped dealing with him long ago, pulled all support for him and let his corrupt regime topple like a house of cards.

Instead, Barack has propped Nouri up.

That needs to stop.

Nouri leaving office is the only way Iraq stands a chance at a reset.

A third term for Nouri means right now, the level of violence, this is the new norm for Iraq.

The following community sites -- plus Black Agenda Report, Z on TV, Antiwar.com, The Diane Rehm Show and Jody Watley -- updated: