The western press this morning on Iraq is at its typical uselessness.
It's all the spin garbage of 2003, presented in a fresh package.
X numbers of militants/Daash/et al killed.
Sometimes with a "____ says."
Because none of it is verified, just repeated.
Civilian deaths can be documented but, of course, the western press ignores those deaths. Always.
Instead they serve one wave of lies after another.
And, like the first three years of this illegal war, they promise that this or that high ranking leader has been killed.
It's all garbage.
Last week, we pointed out:
If Barack's stopped insisting he's not intimidated (first clue someone
is intimidated, they insist they aren't -- insist it when no one's even
asked) and Joe's stopped blustering about "the gates of hell," might
they start focusing on things that matter?
It's September 4th.
That day matters why?
Because September 11th looms!
Yes, but not due to the historic nature of the date. The 9-11-01 attacks are not the meaning of September 11th for Iraq.
It's okay if you've forgotten. It would appear the White House has as well.
August 11th what happened?
It was important enough at the time to warrant Barack speaking about it
while on his Martha's Vineyard vacation. He declared, "Today,
Iraq took a promising step forward in this critical effort. Last
month, the Iraqi people named a new President. Today, President Masum
named a new Prime Minister designate, Dr. Haider al-Abadi. Under the
Iraqi constitution, this is an important step towards forming a new
government that can unite Iraq’s different communities."
If Iraq's finally going to follow the Constitution -- they didn't for
Nouri -- that means prime minister-designate Haider al-Abadi needs to
have formed a Cabinet in 30 days of being named prime
minister-designate.
September 11th now becomes even more important because the White House has announced Barack will be speaking about Iraq on September 10th.
Be great if, at that speech selling further war on Iraq, Barack could add, as a plus, as a positive, "And Iraq has shown it is taking these efforts seriously by forming a new government."
But over the weekend, such a statement began looking iffy.
The Sunday session was pushed back to today -- Sunday session of Parliament -- where Haider al-Abadi's nominees would be voted on.
The Sunday session was pushed back to Monday morning and now has been pushed back to 8:00 pm Iraqi time. Parliament is meeting -- in starts and stops -- but won't address the Cabinet issue until 8:00 pm.
Starts and stops? They lacked a quorum at the start of the session and had to push it back half an hour. By then 203 members were present. (It's a 325 member body.)
Sunday also brought news that Ahmed Chalabi was out as nominee for Minister of Municipalities and Construction and had been replaced with Nasir al-Esawi. All Iraq News said that was done by the Sadr bloc. Moqtada al-Sadr is the powerful Shi'ite cleric and movement leaders. Alsumaria reports a spokesperson for the Sadr bloc announced today that it is not likely a vote will take place on the nominees tonight because there are disputes over two nominees -- the ones for Minister of the Interior and for Minister of Defense. (The spokesperson also says Nasir al-Esawi is nominated for Ministry of Industry.)
All Iraq News notes MPs are said to be calling for a serious review of the resumes of some of the nominees.
The White House has again done a very poor job and probably better step it up quickly, get every State Dept employee in the region into Iraq and working immediately.
Because?
If Barack makes the speech everyone's whispering he's going to make -- where he'll make limited appeals for support of increased troops and actions -- and Iraq still doesn't have a government, the critique from Congress could be blistering.
"The president wants us to commit more US treasures when the government of Iraq can't even demonstrate their willingness for our help by something as basic as forming a new government?"
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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