Saturday, October 4, 2014. Chaos and violence continue, Barack's big 'plan' continues to show no results and we take an in depth look at US failure Chris Hill and his latest attempt at revisionary history.
Mitchell Prothero (McClatchy Newspapers) reports:
Islamic State militants have taken control of key cities in Iraq’s
western province of Anbar and have begun to besiege one of the country’s
largest military bases in a weeklong offensive that’s brought them
within artillery range of Baghdad.
The Islamic State and its
tribal allies have dominated Anbar since a surprise offensive last
December, but this week’s push was particularly worrisome, because for
the first time this year Islamist insurgents were reported to have
become a major presence in Abu Ghraib, the last Anbar town on the
outskirts of the capital.
How's US President Barack Obama's 'plan' for Iraq working out?
AP reports the Islamic State "shot down an Iraqi military attack helicopter" near Baiji on Friday. NINA adds both pilots were killed in the crash.
Again, how's that 'plan' of Barack's working out?
All Iraq News reports that Alan Hennin, a UK aid worker, has been shown beheaded in a video released by the Islamic State -- following their previous video releases of the beheadings of "two U.S. journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff and a British aid worker, David Haines."
We know the question, right? How's the 'plan' working out?
So let's move to something else.
And I have to start with a disclaimer: I'm not voting for Hillary Clinton if she runs for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination and, should she seek the nomination and receive it, I won't be voting for her in the general election. She lost my support for a number of reasons and that was obvious when she behaved like a rabid dog in her infamous 'what difference would it make' moment before Congress which encapsulated her tenure as Secretary of State, where she refused oversight and served four years without an Inspector General. John Kerry, by contrast, only had to be asked by a Congressional committee once, right after he became Secretary of State, and he promised they would have an IG by the end of the year and they had one a little over four months after he made that promise.
I know Hillary -- or I thought I did. I don't know that beastly creature who appeared before Congress, refused to take accountability and belittled the deaths of 4 Americans with 'what difference does it make.' As with her 1992 idiotic comments regarding baking cookies and offending Tammy Wynette, Hillary can't keep her damn feet out of her own mouth. She would make a lousy president for that reason alone. Her mouth always gets her in trouble. As an independent critic, she can say whatever she wants. As a member of the Senate, she only needs to please a plurality of voters in a state. As president, she would be a frightmare.
If you want to vote for her, that's your business. I'm not here to tell you who to vote for. I probably, as I did in 2012, will vote for every office but the president in 2016. I don't see anyone earning my vote -- I'd love to be surprised on that -- and I refuse to be part of the fear campaign. In 2004, when The Nation magazine couldn't stop heavy panting that it was the torture election and the whole world would end, and that women would be enslaved and blah blah blah blah. It was just too much. I don't live in fear and I don't cower.
You can vote however you want, it's your vote. You should use it as you feel comfortable -- and that might mean supporting Hillary or a GOP candidate or whomever or it might mean making the choice not to vote for any of them. Your vote belongs to you and you need to use it in a way that you are satisfied with.
In what follows, there will be some defense of Hillary and there will be some criticism. This is about what happened, it's not about swaying your vote. I don't care who you vote for. If I know you personally, my only care is that you're happy with your vote at the time of your vote.
I think we've been the biggest and most vocal critic from the left of Barack Obama. There will likely be favorable comments on Barack which follow in this. He's a War Hawk. I don't support him. In 2008, I didn't vote for him (first time I ever didn't vote for a Democrat for president) and instead went with a non-duopoly candidate.
If I was Salon ragazine, I wouldn't be focusing what we're about to.
Former US Ambassador to Iraq Chris Hill has told a pack of lies.
Those lies smear Hillary and Barack. If they were personally smeared -- Hillary or Barack said to be gay in Hill's efforts to court homophobia, for example -- I wouldn't waste time on the issue. But this is about Iraq and that's what we cover.
Chris Hill is responsible for what went wrong in Iraq and for where Iraq is today. He's not solely responsible. Barack's responsible, for example, for nominating him, for trusting him for far too long and for a few other things.
But Hill's nonsense at POLITICO -- where else does nonsense go -- oh, right, Salon! -- is nothing but lies and spin.
Hill betrayed Barack's nomination and trust by doing a half-assed job and repeatedly lying to the administration about what was taking place in Iraq.
Hill betrayed Barack. Not the other way around as Hill tries to paint it in his bad essay.
Hill insists that Hillary gave him no support when she was Secretary of State in 2009, she made one trip to Iraq and she left him alone and whine, whine, whine.
Hillary wasn't over Iraq.
She might have liked to have been but Barack wasn't going to put her over Iraq.
Two reasons were Samantha Power. She was Barack's advisor when he was in the Senate and she's had his ear ever since. Power did not want Hillary in the administration (she can spin that if she wants but she didn't want Hillary in the administration at all -- however, once the two had to work together, they did get along -- Hillary can win people over and Power saw that she had misjudged Hillary and could own that reality). That's reason one. Reason two, which Power used to ensure Hillary wasn't in charge of Iraq, was that Hillary supported the Iraq War at the start. Power said that judgment was fatal to moving forward in Iraq. (Power herself supported the illegal war -- a fact she's denied and one that the press, in 2008, was eager to help her bury.)
Power was personally against Hillary and Hillary had supported the war and was notorious for that support.
Those are two reason which carried weight with Barack.
Here's the third:
During my last visit to Iraq in January, I expressed my reservations
about the ability of the Iraqi government, led by Prime Minister Maliki,
to make the tough political decisions necessary for Iraq to resolve its
sectarian divisions. Since my visit, Iraqi leaders have not met their
own political benchmarks to share power, modify the de-Ba'athification
laws, pass an oil law, schedule provincial elections, and amend their
constitution. During his trip to Iraq last week, Senator Carl Levin, the
Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee on which I serve,
confirmed that the Iraqi Government’s failures have reinforced the
widely held view that the Maliki government is nonfunctional and cannot
produce a political settlement, because it is too beholden to religious
and sectarian leaders.
I share Senator Levin’s hope that the Iraqi parliament will replace Prime Minister Maliki with a less divisive and more unifying figure when it returns in a few weeks.
That statement was released by then-Senator Hillary Clinton in August of 2007.
I happen to agree with her -- and with Carl Levin.
I think history and events since certainly demonstrate how accurate her publicly expressed hope was -- that the Parliament would vote Nouri out of office -- it would have been a no-confidence vote (which was attempted in the spring of 2012 but blocked by the White House via Jalal Talabani).
But here's was the thing for Barack -- how could Hillary be Secretary of State and interact with Nouri?
She couldn't.
So she was not the lead on Iraq.
That's why she traveled, she had a lot of time to fill. Unlike her predecessor Condi Rice, Hillary was not a lead on Iraq.
She can rightly step away -- to some degree -- from the chaos in Iraq now because she was not a lead on this issue.
Nouri al-Maliki was notoriously paranoid. We explained that here and how the State Dept had documented it and some wanted to scoff but, years later, the WikiLeaks Iraq State Dept cables demonstrated we were right and the term "paranoid" is applied to Nouri in them.
Nouri could not have worked with Hillary in any form because of her statements. The White House knew that and addressed that.
For those late to the party, Nouri al-Maliki was only booted out as prime minister over the summer. His reign of terror ran from 2006 to 2014.
So for Chris Hill to lie and claim that Hillary wasn't there for him -- his snide remark about her ability to charm included -- is just a pack of lies. And he was not her nominee.
He was Barack's nominee.
Let's note another liar, CIA contractor Juan Cole. The day after Hillary issued her statement we noted above -- a week after Carl Levin made his (Carl's statement was a joint statement with Senator John Warner) -- Juan 'discovers' a rumor that there is a plot to topple Nouri. It turns out, Juan insists, Bully Boy Bush wants to get rid of Nouri.
These lies were then spread by venereal disease carrier Daily Kos which reposted Juan's 'proof' that Ayad Allawi was going to be the new pm because -- among other things -- Allawi penned a column for the Washington Post!
How sinsister!!!!
Juan just makes s**t up -- or maybe follows CIA orders, who knows.
But Bully Boy Bush was not walking away from Nouri and you can say, "Well, C.I., sure, we know that now but back then --"
Back then, we knew it too.
Hillary's statement that we quoted?
A response for Bully Boy Bush's praise of Nouri to the VFW just before she released her statement. Her statement was in response to Bully Boy Bush's comments.
From the White House transcript of that August 22, 2007 speech to the VFW:
Bully Boy Bush: Prime Minister Maliki is a good guy, a good man with a difficult job, and I
support him. And it's not up to politicians in Washington, D.C. to say
whether he will remain in his position -- that is up to the Iraqi people
who now live in a democracy, and not a dictatorship. (Applause.) A free
Iraq is not going to transform the Middle East overnight. But a free Iraq
will be a massive defeat for al Qaeda, it will be an example that provides
hope for millions throughout the Middle East, it will be a friend of the
United States, and it's going to be an important ally in the ideological
struggle of the 21st century. (Applause.)
The next day, at his (un)Informed Comment, Juan Cole was spreading lies that Bully Boy Bush was walking away from 'poor' Nouri. Cole hadn't read the speech and, as usual, didn't know a damn thing.
Back to Hill, Barack made a mistake in choosing Chris.
In his article, Chris wants to paint Barack as disengaged and uninformed.
On some topics, that is true of Barack and his presidency.
But no one was more disengaged from Iraq and uninformed than Chris Hill.
At the start of his presidency, Barack cared a great deal about Iraq because it was how he won the White House. He wrongly agreed to back Nouri in 2010 and that was based in part on Samantha Power insisting US forces would not be able to drawdown at the end of 2011 without the "stability" (the term she used) Nouri provided the country.
In 2010, Ayad al-Allawi won the elections.
Power felt Allawi as prime minister was a question mark and she noted his "populist leanings" (again, her term) and how this could be a problem for the US because Nouri had no desire to represent the Iraqi people and was more inclined to ignore the will of the Iraqi people. (Which does sum up his two terms as prime minister, on that Power was correct.)
Barack ultimately bears responsibility. He is president and he made the decision.
But would he have made it if he received accurate reports?
If the administration received accurate reports, I doubt even Samantha Power would have backed Nouri. I think she would have smelled the stench wafting off him and how damaging he could be to her image of "Never Again!" and argued that Barack shouldn't support him for a second term.
Chris Hill was unsuited for the job he was nominated to perform.
He did not speak Arabic. He had no knowledge of the Middle East and was an idiot when it came to Iraq.
We covered his confirmation hearing (see the March 25, 2009 snapshot and the March 26th snapshot ) and, despite weeks of briefing, he still didn't understand what was going on, what the issues were or what the facts were. (He also showed up at the confirmation hearing with his hair needing to be combed and a food stain on his shirt. Was he applying for night manager at Denny's or US Ambassador to Iraq?)
Though he didn't know anything about Iraq -- most evident by his failure to grasp the importance of Kirkuk but also present in his testifying under oath that Nouri was now paying Sawha (Nouri was not) -- he presumably did know how to make a promise and his promise to the Committee was that if they confirmed him, he would be in Iraq the next day.
His first lie.
People say a lot when they want the job
Lining up eager around the block
Promising, promising never to quit
Well it's a full time job to be a hypocrite
Maybe they remember that they've done it before
Practicing, with their dolls on the floor
The lie itself becoming the seed
The messy mascara, the future deed
The actor's bow, the junkie's need
They line up again just to wipe you clean
-- "People Say A Lot When They Want The Job," written by Carly Simon, first appears on her This Kind of Love
April 21st Chris was confirmed.
He didn't drag his tired ass to Baghdad until April 25th.
He broke his promise.
It registered here because if someone appears before a Congressional committee and gives their word, even uses the words "I promise, if confirmed," we pay attention to whether those are empty words or a promise kept.
Upon arriving, his chief concern was: Where is the press?
He wanted to be a media star. But the cherubic looks (never handsome or pretty) had faded due to age, balding and weight gain. So he'd have to attract media attention some other way.
Hill takes a swipe at Allawi in his essay, insisting Allawi was more interested in being on CNN than anything else. It's called "projection" -- Hill's projecting his own desires and aims on to others.
In that section, he also insists that, while he was in Iraq in 2010, Allawi was more interested in going on CNN and calling Nouri the new Saddam.
That's interesting.
It didn't happen while Chris was US Ambassador to Iraq.
But if Chris couldn't make s**t up, what would he do?
Tell the truth?
Oh, we're all laughing at that slim prospect.
While Hill struggled to get media attention -- he fared better with NPR where endless jawboning often passes for 'discussion' -- the media was interested in the top US commander in Iraq, Gen Ray Odierno. That was true the weekend Hill arrived and it remained true throughout.
While Chris went through a phase of wanting to be called "Christopher" and then "Mr. Hill" and then, when he wanted to be liked, "Call me, Chris," Odierno, the moment he was named top US commander in Iraq, stated publicly he was "Ray," not "Raymond."
Odierno was down-to-earth and plain spoken which made for good copy. He also looked like a man. Hill babbled and looked like a soft overgrown boy.
Those working under Chris saw nothing "soft," they saw a diva throwing tantrums -- and hurling objects in the office -- when his daily schedule failed to include the media. Explaining that the media wasn't interested led Chris to explode, then pout, then hide out in his office napping.
While Hill was napping, Odierno was working.
He was rightly suspicious of Nouri al-Maliki. He felt Nouri was harmful to Iraq.
Possibly because he wanted to get attention, Hill countered those observations by insisting Nouri was a real leader and a friend to America and blah blah blah.
Now maybe Chris believed those lines, he is and was deeply stupid. But it's very likely he took that position just to counter Odierno and in the hopes that it would garner him attention.
Hill's views fed into Samantha Powers' views (again, had Hill been honest, I seriously doubt Power would have thrown her name behind Nouri).
Barack now had both his most trusted advisor (Power) and his ambassador to Iraq insisting Nouri was the answer to all the problems.
And Ray Odierno began to be shut out by the administration.
He was informed he was not to speak to the media anymore because it disturbed the diva Chris Hill.
Worse than that was the White House blew off Odierno's input.
Months before the March 2010 elections, Odierno wanted the White House to deal with a possibility no one wanted to consider.
What, Odierno wanted to know, does the US government do if Nouri loses the election and refuses to step down?
Hill insisted that would never happen and it was a waste of time to even consider. That became the answer for the White House.
In March 2010, Iraq held elections and Nouri lost to Ayad Allawi. What followed was a political stalemate that led Iraq to set the world record (it has since been reset) for the longest time between an election and the formation of a government.
This was due to the fact that, although Nouri lost, Nouri refused to step down.
In other words, what Odierno tried to get the White House to prepare for, the very thing Hill insisted would never happen, was taking place.
In his essay, Hill ignores Odierno's pre-election warning and brings up a post-election comment Odierno made that Nouri was attempting a "rolling coup d'tat" and Hill says he was shocked by the comment that came out of nowhere. Hill is such a liar.
Much worse was taking place in Iraq and Hill was lying that everything was moving smoothly and a new government was only weeks away -- a lie he repeated monthly.
In fact, when he finally left August 13, 2010, Hill was still repeating these lies.
That day the late Anthony Shadid (New York Times) reported, "Hours before his departure from Baghdad,
he said a power-sharing arrangement between the main winners in the
March election was just weeks away."
August 13 to November 10?
That is "weeks."
In fact, it's around twelve weeks or three months away.
Hill never knew a damn thing. He lied or he babbled stupidity.
To his credit, Shadid noted in his report that Iraqi officials were not rushing to agree with Hill.
Shadid also pointed out, "Preparation
for the election, the vote and the negotiations on a new government have
dominated the tenure of Mr. Hill, who took over the American Embassy at
a time when Iraq was less violent and more stable, but only in
comparison to the anarchic months of 2006 and 2007."
Hill wasted everything was built up in Iraq.
He turned a blind eye to Nouri's abuses, rushed to throw his lost (and the US government's lot) in with Nouri.
He withheld any bad information about Nouri from President Barack Obama.
It was left to Odierno to bring reality into the picture and he met with then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to basically say Hill was shading the truth and misleading the administration.
Gates listened and evaluated and then took Odierno to meet with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She and Gates then met with Barack to discuss the newly discovered problem.
And that is why Hill was fired -- and he was asked to hand over his resignation -- as US Ambassador to Iraq.
Hill was a liar and served Nouri al-Maliki, not the US government, not the American people. The day he left Iraq, Alsumaria TV reported,
"Hill explained that the
political situation in Iraq is normal and doesn’t differ from any other
country where the difference is slight between two winning parties."
He couldn't stop lying and since then all he's done is try to salvage his reputation with more lies.
Barack put Vice President Joe Biden over Iraq. Hill apparently did not like that. Nor did he like the fact that Joe was popular with a number of Iraqi politicians -- including then-President of Iraq Jalal Talabani, KRG President Massoud Barzani, Ayad Allawi and others.
Hill can't stop revealing his own bias such as when he types "Ayad Allawi’s Iraq National Party, or Iraqiyya, a party that was
disproportionately Sunni, won 91 seats, while Maliki’s State of Law
coalition had 89 seats." Disproportionately Sunni?
What was State of Law but approximately 97% Shi'ite?
Iraqiya, Allawi's party, was not sectarian -- it was inclusive and that included Shi'ites (like Allawi) and Sunnis (such as Tareq al-Hashemi, Saleh al-Mutlaq, Osama al-Nujaif and others). The success of Iraqiya was a testament to the Iraqi people and their desire for a united Iraqi identity and not one based on sect. Hill misses that today as he did in real time.
Barack deserves blame for the current state of Iraq. But for Hill to pretend he did not mislead Barack in his 'reports' from Iraq is a lie.
Samantha Power is a War Hawk. She's also someone who has sold herself to the public as being on the side of right and not might, as someone who will protect the innocents from genocides. She would not have ever risked her self-created reputation for Nouri had Hill not dismissed reports (of secret prisons) and insisted Nouri was willing to work with everyone and wanted inclusion and . . .
If he had told the truth, even a little of it, Power would have dropped her support for Nouri -- if only to protect her own image.
Without Power pressing on Nouri, Barack would have walked away from Nouri.
Following the start of Nouri's second term -- after Barack had personally phoned Ayad Allawi and made (false) promises to get Allawi to call off the Parliamentary boycott, Barack did walk away.
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Saturday, October 04, 2014
Friday, October 03, 2014
Chris Hill rewrites history to attack Barack, Hillary and Ray
Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "The Pig-Pen Ambassador" from April 5, 2009 commenting on Chris Hill's confirmation hearing (see the March 25, 2009 snapshot and the March 26th snapshot ).
Chris Hill, the failed US Ambassador to Iraq, is back in the news because he's making a public spectacle of himself yet again.
He's written a fact-free and reality-challenged essay for POLITICO.
And were we like Salon, I'd just ignore it or maybe even highlight it and proclaim, "It's true!"
Because it does feed a truthful narrative of Barack Obama being isolated and refusing to engage, etc., etc.
The White House really can't push back on Leon Panetta. Panetta's a known and he also knows a great deal more than he put in his book, they don't want to be in a p.r. struggle with him.
Chris Hill, however, is the perfect person to go after. They could, for example, leak his personnel file. Of course, the backfire there is revealing a certain incident that should have prevented from being nominated to be US Ambassador to Iraq.
Chris isn't a very smart person so he may be being as truthful as he can be when he claims that Hillary Clinton betrayed him or Iraq or whatever.
Hillary was not in charge of Iraq. First off, the entire time Hill was over there (and he should have known this), the Defense Dept was the lead on Iraq. That's because troops were on the ground there in large numbers.
But Hillary was never going to be in charge of Iraq. It went through the National Security Council on up to Joe Biden, Vice President. That was decided long before Hillary was confirmed by the Senate as Secretary of State.
Chris has a 'troubled' history with women -- yeah, Chris, I read your file -- and it comes through as he attempts to use Hillary as a bookend -- slamming her in his bitchy way at the start of his essay and at the end.
I'm not rescuing Hillary with these comments. I hope she doesn't run for president. I will not vote for her if she does. I believe that was noted the day she snarled "What difference does it make!" to Congress.
But Hillary was not in charge of Iraq and we noted that over and over from 2009 and forward.
Chris plays fast and loose with the truth throughout.
He writes of "Ray" betraying him in a meeting after Iraq's 2010 elections.
Gen Ray Odierno did not like Chris Hill.
He did not start out disliking him. He started out seeing him as someone he had to work with.
But Chris is a little bitch.
And when the press preferred to talk to Odierno who would answer questions directly as opposed to Chris who meandered and never got to the point, Chrissy pouted.
Chrissy whined to Odierno that he was making Chrissy look bad.
Odierno allegedly asked a lower ranking official present, after Chris left the room, "Is he for real?"
Because who has time for Chrissy's dramatics?
Chris was for real and stamped his feet until finally the White House -- which backed him at this point -- told Odierno that all press on Iraq would be done by Chris.
At this point, Ray Odierno is also cut out of the loop.
The top US commander in Iraq is no longer in direct communication with the White House which is now hearing 'reports' on Iraq solely from Chrissy.
We'll go into what that means in the snapshot today.
But for now, let's just note Chris Hill has written a self-serving column that is full of distortions and outright lies.
He vouched for Nouri -- a fact you never get in his long column -- and championed Nouri.
The White House could very easily point publicly to Hill's embrace of Nouri and their reliance on Hill for why they made the mistake, in 2010, in embracing Hill.
The election results were not, as Hill maintains, "a dead heat."
Two more members of Parliament than the other side is an election win.
Hill's self-serving lies do not hold up anymore than he held up as a US Ambassador. By June of 2010, the general consensus in the administration was that Hill might be cracking up. His long naps (sometimes under his desk), his diva-like explosions, his tirades against Iraqis (calling them stupid and "savages") -- while they were in hearing range -- were all filtering back to DC.
We'll go into in the snapshot and we'll also note why Hillary couldn't be lead -- not just the conflict with Samantha Power but a statement from 2008. Hillary was never going to be the lead on Iraq due to that statement.
The following community sites updated:
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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Thursday, October 02, 2014
Iraq snapshot
Thursday, October 2, 2014. Chaos and violence continue, Australia is set to join in the bombing of Iraq, Leon Panetta tells some uncomfortable truths, Salon sends the lightest weight in their bordello out to 'argue' against Panetta, the administration finally wants to focus some on diplomatic efforts at a political solution in Iraq, and much more.
US President Barack Obama's Better Living Through Bombing 'plan' just officially got another partner.
#BREAKING: PM Tony Abbott has announced Australia will begin air strikes and deploy special forces in Iraq.
While Australia joins the UK and US in the bombings, , DPA reports that Germany's Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen declared today that her country will be sending an unspecified number of "military doctors" into northern Iraq.
The contrast between Germany's approach and Barack's is telling.
Let's move to this:
The deal never materialized. To this day, I believe that a small U.S. troop presence in Iraq could have effectively advised the Iraqi military on how to deal with al-Qaeda’s resurgence and the sectarian violence that has engulfed the country.
Over the following two and a half years, the situation in Iraq slowly deteriorated. Al-Maliki was responsible, as he exacerbated the deep sectarian issues polarizing his country. Meanwhile, with the conflict in Syria raging, an al-Qaeda offshoot—ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria—gained strength. Using Syria as its base, it began to move into Iraq in 2014, grabbing power in towns and villages across Iraq’s north, including Mosul and Tall ‘Afar. These were strategically important cities that U.S. forces had fought and died to secure.
That's from an excerpt of Leon Panetta and Jim Newton's Worthy Fight -- from an excerpt which Time magazine has published. (October 7th, Penguin Press publishes the book.) Panetta has served in the US army (where he rose to the rank of First Lieutenant), the US House of Representatives, as the Director of Office of Management and Budget during Bill Clinton's presidency, as the White House Chief of Staff during Bill's presidency, as the Director of the CIA during Barack Obama's presidency and finally as Secretary of Defense during Barack's presidency. As disclosed before, I know Leon and have known him for years.
The deal?
The deal Panetta's referring to.
Leaving thousands of US troops in Iraq after December 31, 2011.
Panetta explains he wanted it, others in Defense and State wanted and US President Barack Obama had an attitude if they put it together he was for it but he wasn't going to help them in any way.
The lackadaisical president?
Yes, that is Barack. What people who have left the administration attempt to figure out is Barack so tentative because he's afraid of making a mistake or is he just bored?
The American people thought -- those who voted for him -- that they had someone who would fight for them and then discovered he could rouse himself for the corporations -- who donated so often and so well to his campaigns -- but he had no stomach for fighting for the people.
The book -- yes, I've read it -- goes beyond Iraq -- and will be carried beyond Iraq -- to paint a portrait that the mainstream press has largely shielded the public from.
Which is why the whores of Salon come out swinging.
Like den mother Joan Walsh, the kids of Salon barely pass for half-wits.
Simon Maloy is the joke chosen to feed comfort food to Salon's uninformed readers.
Simon kicks off things with a factual inaccuracy -- what most would call a lie:
Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta caused quite a stir today when he wrote a piece for Time magazine laying blame for the current chaos in Iraq at the feet of the Obama administration.
That's it, that's the moron the whores of Salon send out?
Leon wrote a book -- co-wrote.
"Wrote a piece for Time"?
Time is excerpting the book.
How damn stupid is Simon Maloy?
And how the hell did even the gutter trash of Salon see fit to let this surface?
After insulting Republicans -- that's all Joan Walsh decaying and demented crew can handle -- Simon then wants to lie some more or just flaunt his damn stupidity -- and he's pretty damn stupid:
To sum up the situation: in late 2008, George W. Bush and Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki signed a security agreement stipulating that all U.S. troops would be withdrawn from the country by the end of 2011. Starting in 2010, the Obama administration began negotiating with the Iraqis to rejigger the agreement to allow a small residual force of American soldiers to remain behind. Those negotiations were ultimately unsuccessful. By October 2011 both sides had agreed that all troops would be gone by the end of that year, in accordance with the original security agreement.
Is that summing up?
Is it, really?
It's lying, that's for damn sure.
"By October 2011 both sides had agreed that all troops would be gone by the end of that year, in accordance with the original security agreement," Simon scribbles.
Then why did Leon tell the Senate Armed Services Committee the sentences I just quoted above?
They're from the November 15, 2011 snapshot.
That snapshot is covering that day's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. [Community reporting on that hearing also includes the November 16, 2011 "Iraq snapshot," the November 17, 2011 "Iraq snapshot," by Ava in "Scott Brown questions Panetta and Dempsey (Ava)," by Wally with "The costs (Wally)," by Kat in "Who wanted what?" and by Third Estate Sunday Review in "Enduring bases, staging platforms, continued war" and "Gen Dempsey talks "10 enduring" US bases in Iraq."]
Both sides had not agreed by the end of October 2011, negotiations continued.
I'm real sorry that Simon and Salon are cheap, lying whores who never do the work required. You'd think if you'd signed on to whore and lie for Barack, you'd put a little more effort into lying convincingly.
Simon's a piece of trash.
He's aware of that hearing. In limited form.
He's basically cribbed Kat's report noted above.
He 'magically' notes the exchange she reported on, that she quoted.
But she did it back in November 2011.
And she also understands the context which has escaped a thief and liar like Simon who goes around grabbing the work of others but, having not been at the hearing or even went to the archives to watch the hearings, he doesn't understand the exchange at all.
Simon's a liar. He's a thief. He's a whore.
He couldn't work anywhere but Salon.
And that the left puts up with Salon because it tells pleasing lies about the White House?
Joan Walsh should have been escorted to a padded cell years ago.
Maybe when she was attacking Latinos and Latinas? She doesn't want you to know about that. She probably doesn't stand by that xenophobia now either.
But then she doesn't stand by anything. She recasts herself daily based on the shifting winds of popularity.
America needs reporting. It can take informed commentary as well. But this nonsense of partisan attack squads passing themselves off as journalists?
These people are whores. Whether they're whoring for Bully Boy Bush or whoring for Barack Obama, they're whores. They may tell you a pleasing lie -- a whore will say whatever it takes to turn a trick -- but they don't inform you, they don't make your life or anyone else's better.
Since February 2003, I have publicly spoken out against the Iraq War -- then it was the impending war, now it's the never-ending war. Since November 2004, I've been online here and, starting in January 2005, helping at Third.
I didn't pull punches or kiss as when Bully Boy Bush was running the illegal war and I don't now that it's Barack. My positions don't change because the White House flips parties or the House or whatever.
There is no consistency to Salon -- it's not the only bordello posing as a news or media outlet.
As someone who has thought about Iraq every day (and written about it every day) -- regardless of whether it's a 'hot topic' or not -- it bothers me tremendously when little whores bring their disease ridden bodies out in public and attempt to rewrite basic facts to benefit whatever politician they're having wet dreams over today.
Iraq matters.
It matters all by itself, without noting US losses (no one should have died in the illegal war).
It matters because it's not a thing, it's not an object.
It is a land where millions of people try to live -- in spite of the bombings by this faction or that faction or the US government or the British government or . . .
Salon and the other whores reduce Iraq to a political football, something they can attack Republicans with or improve Democrats' image with.
Iraq is not a political football.
It is the home to millions. It was the home to over a million Iraqis who died in this illegal war, this unprovoked attack on their country.
I don't have any respect for some cheap whore who wants to turn it into 'Barack was right!' or 'Bush was right!'
They have never suffered the way the Iraqi people have suffered and continue to suffer.
If you're so divorced from humanity that you can't recognize their suffering, at least have the brains to stop using them to prop up your political paper dolls.
14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi was gang-raped by US soldiers while her parents and five-year-old sister were murdered in the next room and then Abeer was murdered.
That 2006 War Crime? Salon gave it 9 mentions. Two of those were with regards to Brian De Palma's classic film Redacted. Only 1 of the 9 was a piece about Abeer. In the other 8, she's an aside.
That's how Salon 'covered' it. One brief report in 2006 and then name dropping her in 8 more articles -- briefly name dropping her.
We didn't ignore Abeer here. And we followed the Article 32 hearing on the War Crimes, we then followed the courts-martial on it and the civil criminal case against ringleader Steven Dale Green.
When Nouri al-Maliki was targeting Iraqi youth who were either gay or perceived as gay, we spent months covering it here.
Salon?
They had US politicians to whore for.
Over and over, as Iraqis suffered, Salon turned a blind eye. Now they want to act as experts on Iraq? A whore will tell you anything up until the point that the money changes hands.
Rebecca Kaplan (CBS News) reports -- reports -- on Panetta's remarks here.
Partisans have attacked Senator John McCain for his remarks about the agreement not reached with Iraq. They have called him a liar and worse. I've called him many things here (check the archives) and few of them nice but I have defended him from the claims that he's lied re: the agreement process. I don't like John McCain (I do like and know Cindy McCain), I would never vote for John McCain but, unlike Salon, I'm not interested in authoring political erotica. McCain was not lying and today he and Senator Lindsey Graham issued this statement:
At some point, the whores will start the 'what difference does it make' and 'let's not rehash the past' arguments -- as they realize they have no ground to stand on, they'll shift to silencing the topic itself.
But what happened does matter and understanding it can help with what's happening currently in Iraq.
Barack keeps insisting he has a 'plan.' Like Bully Boy Bush, he doesn't. Like Bully Boy Bush, he's merely passing it on to the next occupant of the White House.
Jen Psaki, State Dept spokesperson, offered an overview of the 'plan' today that made more sense than anything anyone else in the administration has been able to offer:
Finally, as you may all have seen, Special President – Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL General John Allen and Deputy Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk arrived in Iraq today for intensive consultations with Iraqi Government officials and regional Iraqi leaders on how the United States can support Iraq in the fight against ISIL. That Special Envoy Allen went to Iraq for his first international trip in his new capacity speaks to the importance of – the United States places on coordination with and support for Iraq as we build this global coalition to degrade and defeat ISIL. General Allen and Ambassador McGurk’s discussions in Iraq and elsewhere will follow on the coalition-building efforts that President Obama and Secretary Kerry led at the NATO summit in Wales, during meetings in Jeddah and in Cairo, and most recently in New York at UNGA.
From Iraq, General Allen and Ambassador McGurk will travel on to Brussels for meetings with NATO and EU leadership, where the focus will be cracking down on ISIL’s foreign fighter pipeline and countering its financing streams. Then they will travel on to Amman for consultations with Jordanian officials and key regional players. From Amman they will travel to Cairo to meet with Egyptian Government officials and the Arab League ambassadors. Their conversations there will follow on President Obama’s recent meeting with President Sisi in New York and Secretary Kerry’s discussions during his last trip to Cairo. They will finally conclude their visit in Turkey, a key NATO ally, where they will meet with Turkish military and political leaders to discuss their potential contributions to the international coalition, including combating the threat from foreign fighters. In Turkey, they will also meet with Syrian opposition leaders, both affirming our continued support for their brave efforts in the fight against ISIL and continuing our ongoing dialogue about the best ways to support these efforts.
In conversations with General Allen and Ambassador McGurk – in these conversations they will have they will discuss coalition cooperation across the five lines of effort – not just military support for our partners, but also – with our partners, I should say, but also stopping foreign fighters, slashing ISIL’s access to financing, maximizing humanitarian assistance and protection for vulnerable victims of the conflict, and exposing ISIL’s extremist, nihilistic message for what it really is. There’s been lots of attention paid to the military component, as we’ve discussed in here, but this trip is about more than that. It’s about expanding this coalition and about building on the five lines of effort that they’re focused on. They will also finally return to the region later this month to meet with other key coalition partners as well, so this will be the first of a number of trips.
Let's hope the administration is finally going to work the diplomatic angle.
Psaki was speaking at today's State Dept press briefing.
She raised the issue of Iraq herself and did so before taking questions.
Maybe she felt she had to since all week long reporters at the briefings have ignored Iraq?
We'll note this from today's briefing:
QUESTION: When he will be arriving to Ankara, Ambassador McGurk and General Allen?
MS. PSAKI: Next week. But again, we’re still finalizing some specifics about the trip. So I think we’ll have more technical updates with each day about who’ll they be meeting with and what day they’ll arrive, et cetera.
QUESTION: Should we assume that each city one day? I mean, Iraq, Baghdad, Brussels, Amman, Cairo, and Ankara (inaudible)?
MS. PSAKI: About that, but some may spend more than one day. So again, I said the end of the trip is Turkey, so I would assume the end of next week.
QUESTION: And – but the meetings with the president, the prime minister, is there any --
MS. PSAKI: Again, as I just said, because we’re talking about a week and a half from now or near the end of next week, I think we’ll have more updates on specific meetings as we get a little bit closer, and as soon as we have that information, we’ll make it available.
QUESTION: So it’s almost one month that – when President Obama started to discuss this issue with the Turkish side since the Wales summit. So how do you see right now the – where we are in terms of the fight against the ISIL in terms of the contribution coming from Ankara?
MS. PSAKI: Well, I think, one, we welcome the Turkish parliament’s vote to authorize Turkish military action, as I mentioned. Turkey has – and their leaders – have indicated they want to play a more prominent role with the coalition. We welcome that. They’re an important counterterrorism partner, an important NATO ally, so we understand the sensitivity that they had for several weeks with – the country had with their diplomats, and now we’re ready to move forward. And they’ve indicated they want to be an active partner.
QUESTION: Do you believe that – are you on the same page with the Turkish leadership in terms of the priorities in this fight? I mean, ISIS is obviously the priority for U.S. side, but do you think that the Turks also are seeing ISIS as a priority while --
MS. PSAKI: I think Turkey, from all of our discussions with them, certainly understands the threat posed by ISIL. But I would point you to them for more on that particular question.
Brett McGurk Tweeted earlier today:
It's good to see the administration finally addressing the diplomatic angle. And hopefully it's not too late.
Diplomacy might have some impact -- it probably would have at an earlier date -- but the 'plan' itself remains a joke. Peter Certo (link goes to the Institute for Policy Studies) points out:
Obama says the plan is to hammer IS targets from the air while bolstering partners on the ground—including the Iraqi Army, Kurdish fighters in Iraq, and “moderate” Syrian rebel groups—in a bid to roll back the advance of IS throughout Iraq and Syria without putting U.S. “boots on the ground” (never mind those 1,600 troops and advisers that have already been sent to Iraq, along with a likely undisclosed number of special forces).
As my colleague Phyllis Bennis is fond of saying, you can’t bomb extremism out of existence. She’s right.
For one thing, bombs cause civilian casualties, which are inherently radicalizing. “The U.S. bombs do not fall on ‘extremism,’” Bennis has written of the strikes on IS’ capital in Syria. “They are falling on Raqqa, a 2,000 year-old Syrian city with a population of more than a quarter of a million people—men, women, and children who had no say in the takeover of their city by ISIS. The Pentagon is bombing targets like the post office and the governor’s compound, and the likelihood of large number of civilian casualties, as well as devastation of the ancient city, is almost certain.”
A protracted air campaign is likely to cause a raft of unintended consequences. In Yemen and Pakistan, for example—the targets of the vast majority of U.S. drone strikes on alleged al-Qaeda “militants”—civilian populations have grappled with severe trauma and stress from living under the constant hovering drones. Terrorist recruiters have repeatedly sought to exploit this trauma—especially among the thousands of Yemenis and Pakistanis who have lost innocent loved ones. The best that can be said of these years-long campaigns from a national security perspective is that they’re holding actions. Al-Qaeda has certainly not been destroyed in either country, and it’s entirely possible that the drones themselves are providing a continued rationale for the group’s survival. It’s unclear why the Obama administration seems to think it can effect a different outcome in the vastly more complicated theater of Iraq and Syria.
Then there’s the problem of what comes after the bombs. If IS falls back under the weight of U.S. airstrikes, who moves in to secure the territory on the ground?
In Iraq, there are a few possibilities at this stage: the Iraqi Army, one of a number of Shiite paramilitary groups, or, in the north, Kurdish peshmerga fighters.
We saw the limitations of the Iraqi Army most dramatically earlier this summer in Mosul, where, after firing scarcely a shot, some 30,000 Iraqi soldiers turned the city—and millions of dollars worth of U.S.-supplied military equipment—over to just 800 attacking IS soldiers. In the years leading up to its capture of the city, IS had freely operated a lucrative protection racket among Mosul’s private businesses and cut deals with corrupt local leaders and members of Iraq’s security forces. So despite the Iraqi Army’s heavy footprint in Mosul—including a burdensome and much loathed system of traffic checkpoints—IS had been consolidating power there long before formally taking over.
On the Iraqi forces, Ryan Crocker tells Bernard Gwertzman (Council on Foreign Relations):
If you look at it from former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s perspective, with Iraq’s history of military coups, his own coming of age as a member of a sectarian and persecuted political party, you are going to see an enemy behind every bush.
When he chose his commanders, he didn’t choose them on the basis of their leadership capability or their battlefield experience. It was loyalty. Could he be absolutely certain that they would never turn against him?
[Maliki] put individuals with no command ability [and who] were not a threat to him into command positions—when you look at what happened in June, it wasn’t the rank and file that broke first, it was the leadership. Division commanders suddenly decided they needed to be in Baghdad before they ever engaged with ISIS.
We'll close with an Iraq War veteran (still) being held in Mexico.
Iraq and American Veterans of America issued the following:
New York, NY (Oct. 1, 2014)
– Today, the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western
Hemisphere heard testimony from Jill Tahmooressi on the imprisonment of
her son, U.S. Marine Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi, who has been detained
in Mexico since March. IAVA released the following statement from CEO
and Founder Paul Rieckhoff:
“IAVA stands strongly with U.S. Marine Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi’s mother, Jill, in her relentless quest to have him freed from prison in Mexico. Ms. Tahmooressi’s articulate and strong appeal for her son – who has been wrongly imprisoned for mistakenly crossing into Mexico in March – not only pulls at the heartstrings; it angers all veterans who should be able to count on their government to have their backs when they return from active duty. Andrew is one of our own, and America should never leave one of our own behind.
iraq
cbs news
rebecca kaplan
US President Barack Obama's Better Living Through Bombing 'plan' just officially got another partner.
Australia cabinet gives approval for fighter jets to join air strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq http://bbc.in/1mXcO90
-
BREAKING: Prime Minister Tony Abbott confirms Australia now joins air-strikes in Iraq
@BuzzFeedNews
While Australia joins the UK and US in the bombings, , DPA reports that Germany's Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen declared today that her country will be sending an unspecified number of "military doctors" into northern Iraq.
The contrast between Germany's approach and Barack's is telling.
Let's move to this:
The deal never materialized. To this day, I believe that a small U.S. troop presence in Iraq could have effectively advised the Iraqi military on how to deal with al-Qaeda’s resurgence and the sectarian violence that has engulfed the country.
Over the following two and a half years, the situation in Iraq slowly deteriorated. Al-Maliki was responsible, as he exacerbated the deep sectarian issues polarizing his country. Meanwhile, with the conflict in Syria raging, an al-Qaeda offshoot—ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria—gained strength. Using Syria as its base, it began to move into Iraq in 2014, grabbing power in towns and villages across Iraq’s north, including Mosul and Tall ‘Afar. These were strategically important cities that U.S. forces had fought and died to secure.
That's from an excerpt of Leon Panetta and Jim Newton's Worthy Fight -- from an excerpt which Time magazine has published. (October 7th, Penguin Press publishes the book.) Panetta has served in the US army (where he rose to the rank of First Lieutenant), the US House of Representatives, as the Director of Office of Management and Budget during Bill Clinton's presidency, as the White House Chief of Staff during Bill's presidency, as the Director of the CIA during Barack Obama's presidency and finally as Secretary of Defense during Barack's presidency. As disclosed before, I know Leon and have known him for years.
The deal?
The deal Panetta's referring to.
Leaving thousands of US troops in Iraq after December 31, 2011.
Panetta explains he wanted it, others in Defense and State wanted and US President Barack Obama had an attitude if they put it together he was for it but he wasn't going to help them in any way.
The lackadaisical president?
Yes, that is Barack. What people who have left the administration attempt to figure out is Barack so tentative because he's afraid of making a mistake or is he just bored?
The American people thought -- those who voted for him -- that they had someone who would fight for them and then discovered he could rouse himself for the corporations -- who donated so often and so well to his campaigns -- but he had no stomach for fighting for the people.
The book -- yes, I've read it -- goes beyond Iraq -- and will be carried beyond Iraq -- to paint a portrait that the mainstream press has largely shielded the public from.
Which is why the whores of Salon come out swinging.
Like den mother Joan Walsh, the kids of Salon barely pass for half-wits.
Simon Maloy is the joke chosen to feed comfort food to Salon's uninformed readers.
Simon kicks off things with a factual inaccuracy -- what most would call a lie:
Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta caused quite a stir today when he wrote a piece for Time magazine laying blame for the current chaos in Iraq at the feet of the Obama administration.
That's it, that's the moron the whores of Salon send out?
Leon wrote a book -- co-wrote.
"Wrote a piece for Time"?
Time is excerpting the book.
How damn stupid is Simon Maloy?
And how the hell did even the gutter trash of Salon see fit to let this surface?
After insulting Republicans -- that's all Joan Walsh decaying and demented crew can handle -- Simon then wants to lie some more or just flaunt his damn stupidity -- and he's pretty damn stupid:
To sum up the situation: in late 2008, George W. Bush and Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki signed a security agreement stipulating that all U.S. troops would be withdrawn from the country by the end of 2011. Starting in 2010, the Obama administration began negotiating with the Iraqis to rejigger the agreement to allow a small residual force of American soldiers to remain behind. Those negotiations were ultimately unsuccessful. By October 2011 both sides had agreed that all troops would be gone by the end of that year, in accordance with the original security agreement.
Is that summing up?
Is it, really?
It's lying, that's for damn sure.
Then-Secretary of Defense Leon
Panetta: Senator, as I pointed out in my testimony, what we seek with
Iraq is a normal relationship now and that does involve continuing
negotiations with them as to what their needs are. Uh, and I believe
there will be continuing negotations. We're in negotiations now with
regards to the size of the security office that will be there and so
there will be -- There aren't zero troops that are going to be there.
We'll have, you know, hundreds that will be present by virtue of that
office assuming we can work out an agreement there. But I think
that once we've completed the implementation of the security
agreement that there will begin a series of negotiations about what
exactly are additional areas where we can be of assistance? What level
of trainers do they need? What can we do with regards to CT
[Counter-Terrorism] operations? What will we do on exercises --
joint-exercises -- that work together?
"By October 2011 both sides had agreed that all troops would be gone by the end of that year, in accordance with the original security agreement," Simon scribbles.
Then why did Leon tell the Senate Armed Services Committee the sentences I just quoted above?
They're from the November 15, 2011 snapshot.
That snapshot is covering that day's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. [Community reporting on that hearing also includes the November 16, 2011 "Iraq snapshot," the November 17, 2011 "Iraq snapshot," by Ava in "Scott Brown questions Panetta and Dempsey (Ava)," by Wally with "The costs (Wally)," by Kat in "Who wanted what?" and by Third Estate Sunday Review in "Enduring bases, staging platforms, continued war" and "Gen Dempsey talks "10 enduring" US bases in Iraq."]
Both sides had not agreed by the end of October 2011, negotiations continued.
I'm real sorry that Simon and Salon are cheap, lying whores who never do the work required. You'd think if you'd signed on to whore and lie for Barack, you'd put a little more effort into lying convincingly.
Simon's a piece of trash.
He's aware of that hearing. In limited form.
He's basically cribbed Kat's report noted above.
He 'magically' notes the exchange she reported on, that she quoted.
But she did it back in November 2011.
And she also understands the context which has escaped a thief and liar like Simon who goes around grabbing the work of others but, having not been at the hearing or even went to the archives to watch the hearings, he doesn't understand the exchange at all.
Simon's a liar. He's a thief. He's a whore.
He couldn't work anywhere but Salon.
And that the left puts up with Salon because it tells pleasing lies about the White House?
Joan Walsh should have been escorted to a padded cell years ago.
Maybe when she was attacking Latinos and Latinas? She doesn't want you to know about that. She probably doesn't stand by that xenophobia now either.
But then she doesn't stand by anything. She recasts herself daily based on the shifting winds of popularity.
America needs reporting. It can take informed commentary as well. But this nonsense of partisan attack squads passing themselves off as journalists?
These people are whores. Whether they're whoring for Bully Boy Bush or whoring for Barack Obama, they're whores. They may tell you a pleasing lie -- a whore will say whatever it takes to turn a trick -- but they don't inform you, they don't make your life or anyone else's better.
Since February 2003, I have publicly spoken out against the Iraq War -- then it was the impending war, now it's the never-ending war. Since November 2004, I've been online here and, starting in January 2005, helping at Third.
I didn't pull punches or kiss as when Bully Boy Bush was running the illegal war and I don't now that it's Barack. My positions don't change because the White House flips parties or the House or whatever.
There is no consistency to Salon -- it's not the only bordello posing as a news or media outlet.
As someone who has thought about Iraq every day (and written about it every day) -- regardless of whether it's a 'hot topic' or not -- it bothers me tremendously when little whores bring their disease ridden bodies out in public and attempt to rewrite basic facts to benefit whatever politician they're having wet dreams over today.
Iraq matters.
It matters all by itself, without noting US losses (no one should have died in the illegal war).
It matters because it's not a thing, it's not an object.
It is a land where millions of people try to live -- in spite of the bombings by this faction or that faction or the US government or the British government or . . .
Salon and the other whores reduce Iraq to a political football, something they can attack Republicans with or improve Democrats' image with.
Iraq is not a political football.
It is the home to millions. It was the home to over a million Iraqis who died in this illegal war, this unprovoked attack on their country.
I don't have any respect for some cheap whore who wants to turn it into 'Barack was right!' or 'Bush was right!'
They have never suffered the way the Iraqi people have suffered and continue to suffer.
If you're so divorced from humanity that you can't recognize their suffering, at least have the brains to stop using them to prop up your political paper dolls.
14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi was gang-raped by US soldiers while her parents and five-year-old sister were murdered in the next room and then Abeer was murdered.
That 2006 War Crime? Salon gave it 9 mentions. Two of those were with regards to Brian De Palma's classic film Redacted. Only 1 of the 9 was a piece about Abeer. In the other 8, she's an aside.
That's how Salon 'covered' it. One brief report in 2006 and then name dropping her in 8 more articles -- briefly name dropping her.
We didn't ignore Abeer here. And we followed the Article 32 hearing on the War Crimes, we then followed the courts-martial on it and the civil criminal case against ringleader Steven Dale Green.
When Nouri al-Maliki was targeting Iraqi youth who were either gay or perceived as gay, we spent months covering it here.
Salon?
They had US politicians to whore for.
Over and over, as Iraqis suffered, Salon turned a blind eye. Now they want to act as experts on Iraq? A whore will tell you anything up until the point that the money changes hands.
Rebecca Kaplan (CBS News) reports -- reports -- on Panetta's remarks here.
Partisans have attacked Senator John McCain for his remarks about the agreement not reached with Iraq. They have called him a liar and worse. I've called him many things here (check the archives) and few of them nice but I have defended him from the claims that he's lied re: the agreement process. I don't like John McCain (I do like and know Cindy McCain), I would never vote for John McCain but, unlike Salon, I'm not interested in authoring political erotica. McCain was not lying and today he and Senator Lindsey Graham issued this statement:
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators John McCain
(R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) today released the following comment on
statements made this week by former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Ambassador Ryan Crocker
confirming that the Obama Administration could have reached an
agreement to leave residual forces in Iraq, but never made a full
effort, despite being warned that failing to do so may lead to the
situation we are in today in Iraq:
“The latest statements by two of the most respected national security officials to serve under President Obama definitively refute the falsehood that this Administration has told the American people for years about their efforts to leave a residual force in Iraq,” said Senators McCain and Graham. “As we have said all along, and as Secretary Panetta and Ambassador Crocker have now confirmed, the Obama Administration never made a full effort to leave a residual force in Iraq, despite being warned that failing to do so would risk exactly the scenario we’ve seen unfold today, with the emergence of terrorist safe-havens as Iraq slides back into chaos, threatening America’s national security.”
Below are Secretary Panetta’s book excerpt in TIME Magazine and Ambassador Crocker’s Defense One interview.
“The latest statements by two of the most respected national security officials to serve under President Obama definitively refute the falsehood that this Administration has told the American people for years about their efforts to leave a residual force in Iraq,” said Senators McCain and Graham. “As we have said all along, and as Secretary Panetta and Ambassador Crocker have now confirmed, the Obama Administration never made a full effort to leave a residual force in Iraq, despite being warned that failing to do so would risk exactly the scenario we’ve seen unfold today, with the emergence of terrorist safe-havens as Iraq slides back into chaos, threatening America’s national security.”
Below are Secretary Panetta’s book excerpt in TIME Magazine and Ambassador Crocker’s Defense One interview.
At some point, the whores will start the 'what difference does it make' and 'let's not rehash the past' arguments -- as they realize they have no ground to stand on, they'll shift to silencing the topic itself.
But what happened does matter and understanding it can help with what's happening currently in Iraq.
Barack keeps insisting he has a 'plan.' Like Bully Boy Bush, he doesn't. Like Bully Boy Bush, he's merely passing it on to the next occupant of the White House.
Jen Psaki, State Dept spokesperson, offered an overview of the 'plan' today that made more sense than anything anyone else in the administration has been able to offer:
Finally, as you may all have seen, Special President – Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL General John Allen and Deputy Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk arrived in Iraq today for intensive consultations with Iraqi Government officials and regional Iraqi leaders on how the United States can support Iraq in the fight against ISIL. That Special Envoy Allen went to Iraq for his first international trip in his new capacity speaks to the importance of – the United States places on coordination with and support for Iraq as we build this global coalition to degrade and defeat ISIL. General Allen and Ambassador McGurk’s discussions in Iraq and elsewhere will follow on the coalition-building efforts that President Obama and Secretary Kerry led at the NATO summit in Wales, during meetings in Jeddah and in Cairo, and most recently in New York at UNGA.
From Iraq, General Allen and Ambassador McGurk will travel on to Brussels for meetings with NATO and EU leadership, where the focus will be cracking down on ISIL’s foreign fighter pipeline and countering its financing streams. Then they will travel on to Amman for consultations with Jordanian officials and key regional players. From Amman they will travel to Cairo to meet with Egyptian Government officials and the Arab League ambassadors. Their conversations there will follow on President Obama’s recent meeting with President Sisi in New York and Secretary Kerry’s discussions during his last trip to Cairo. They will finally conclude their visit in Turkey, a key NATO ally, where they will meet with Turkish military and political leaders to discuss their potential contributions to the international coalition, including combating the threat from foreign fighters. In Turkey, they will also meet with Syrian opposition leaders, both affirming our continued support for their brave efforts in the fight against ISIL and continuing our ongoing dialogue about the best ways to support these efforts.
In conversations with General Allen and Ambassador McGurk – in these conversations they will have they will discuss coalition cooperation across the five lines of effort – not just military support for our partners, but also – with our partners, I should say, but also stopping foreign fighters, slashing ISIL’s access to financing, maximizing humanitarian assistance and protection for vulnerable victims of the conflict, and exposing ISIL’s extremist, nihilistic message for what it really is. There’s been lots of attention paid to the military component, as we’ve discussed in here, but this trip is about more than that. It’s about expanding this coalition and about building on the five lines of effort that they’re focused on. They will also finally return to the region later this month to meet with other key coalition partners as well, so this will be the first of a number of trips.
Let's hope the administration is finally going to work the diplomatic angle.
Psaki was speaking at today's State Dept press briefing.
She raised the issue of Iraq herself and did so before taking questions.
Maybe she felt she had to since all week long reporters at the briefings have ignored Iraq?
We'll note this from today's briefing:
QUESTION: When he will be arriving to Ankara, Ambassador McGurk and General Allen?
MS. PSAKI: Next week. But again, we’re still finalizing some specifics about the trip. So I think we’ll have more technical updates with each day about who’ll they be meeting with and what day they’ll arrive, et cetera.
QUESTION: Should we assume that each city one day? I mean, Iraq, Baghdad, Brussels, Amman, Cairo, and Ankara (inaudible)?
MS. PSAKI: About that, but some may spend more than one day. So again, I said the end of the trip is Turkey, so I would assume the end of next week.
QUESTION: And – but the meetings with the president, the prime minister, is there any --
MS. PSAKI: Again, as I just said, because we’re talking about a week and a half from now or near the end of next week, I think we’ll have more updates on specific meetings as we get a little bit closer, and as soon as we have that information, we’ll make it available.
QUESTION: So it’s almost one month that – when President Obama started to discuss this issue with the Turkish side since the Wales summit. So how do you see right now the – where we are in terms of the fight against the ISIL in terms of the contribution coming from Ankara?
MS. PSAKI: Well, I think, one, we welcome the Turkish parliament’s vote to authorize Turkish military action, as I mentioned. Turkey has – and their leaders – have indicated they want to play a more prominent role with the coalition. We welcome that. They’re an important counterterrorism partner, an important NATO ally, so we understand the sensitivity that they had for several weeks with – the country had with their diplomats, and now we’re ready to move forward. And they’ve indicated they want to be an active partner.
QUESTION: Do you believe that – are you on the same page with the Turkish leadership in terms of the priorities in this fight? I mean, ISIS is obviously the priority for U.S. side, but do you think that the Turks also are seeing ISIS as a priority while --
MS. PSAKI: I think Turkey, from all of our discussions with them, certainly understands the threat posed by ISIL. But I would point you to them for more on that particular question.
Brett McGurk Tweeted earlier today:
Great to be back in #Baghdad w/GEN John Allen. Our first stop in a tour of coalition capitals. First meeting tonight will be w/PM Abadi.
It's good to see the administration finally addressing the diplomatic angle. And hopefully it's not too late.
Diplomacy might have some impact -- it probably would have at an earlier date -- but the 'plan' itself remains a joke. Peter Certo (link goes to the Institute for Policy Studies) points out:
Obama says the plan is to hammer IS targets from the air while bolstering partners on the ground—including the Iraqi Army, Kurdish fighters in Iraq, and “moderate” Syrian rebel groups—in a bid to roll back the advance of IS throughout Iraq and Syria without putting U.S. “boots on the ground” (never mind those 1,600 troops and advisers that have already been sent to Iraq, along with a likely undisclosed number of special forces).
As my colleague Phyllis Bennis is fond of saying, you can’t bomb extremism out of existence. She’s right.
For one thing, bombs cause civilian casualties, which are inherently radicalizing. “The U.S. bombs do not fall on ‘extremism,’” Bennis has written of the strikes on IS’ capital in Syria. “They are falling on Raqqa, a 2,000 year-old Syrian city with a population of more than a quarter of a million people—men, women, and children who had no say in the takeover of their city by ISIS. The Pentagon is bombing targets like the post office and the governor’s compound, and the likelihood of large number of civilian casualties, as well as devastation of the ancient city, is almost certain.”
A protracted air campaign is likely to cause a raft of unintended consequences. In Yemen and Pakistan, for example—the targets of the vast majority of U.S. drone strikes on alleged al-Qaeda “militants”—civilian populations have grappled with severe trauma and stress from living under the constant hovering drones. Terrorist recruiters have repeatedly sought to exploit this trauma—especially among the thousands of Yemenis and Pakistanis who have lost innocent loved ones. The best that can be said of these years-long campaigns from a national security perspective is that they’re holding actions. Al-Qaeda has certainly not been destroyed in either country, and it’s entirely possible that the drones themselves are providing a continued rationale for the group’s survival. It’s unclear why the Obama administration seems to think it can effect a different outcome in the vastly more complicated theater of Iraq and Syria.
Then there’s the problem of what comes after the bombs. If IS falls back under the weight of U.S. airstrikes, who moves in to secure the territory on the ground?
In Iraq, there are a few possibilities at this stage: the Iraqi Army, one of a number of Shiite paramilitary groups, or, in the north, Kurdish peshmerga fighters.
We saw the limitations of the Iraqi Army most dramatically earlier this summer in Mosul, where, after firing scarcely a shot, some 30,000 Iraqi soldiers turned the city—and millions of dollars worth of U.S.-supplied military equipment—over to just 800 attacking IS soldiers. In the years leading up to its capture of the city, IS had freely operated a lucrative protection racket among Mosul’s private businesses and cut deals with corrupt local leaders and members of Iraq’s security forces. So despite the Iraqi Army’s heavy footprint in Mosul—including a burdensome and much loathed system of traffic checkpoints—IS had been consolidating power there long before formally taking over.
On the Iraqi forces, Ryan Crocker tells Bernard Gwertzman (Council on Foreign Relations):
If you look at it from former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s perspective, with Iraq’s history of military coups, his own coming of age as a member of a sectarian and persecuted political party, you are going to see an enemy behind every bush.
When he chose his commanders, he didn’t choose them on the basis of their leadership capability or their battlefield experience. It was loyalty. Could he be absolutely certain that they would never turn against him?
[Maliki] put individuals with no command ability [and who] were not a threat to him into command positions—when you look at what happened in June, it wasn’t the rank and file that broke first, it was the leadership. Division commanders suddenly decided they needed to be in Baghdad before they ever engaged with ISIS.
We'll close with an Iraq War veteran (still) being held in Mexico.
Iraq and American Veterans of America issued the following:
IAVA Urges Mexico to Release Imprisoned U.S. Marine
CONTACT: Gretchen Andersen (212) 982-9699 or press@iava.org
IAVA Urges Mexico to Release Imprisoned U.S. Marine
New vets stand by Jill Tahmooressi in her quest to free her son
“IAVA stands strongly with U.S. Marine Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi’s mother, Jill, in her relentless quest to have him freed from prison in Mexico. Ms. Tahmooressi’s articulate and strong appeal for her son – who has been wrongly imprisoned for mistakenly crossing into Mexico in March – not only pulls at the heartstrings; it angers all veterans who should be able to count on their government to have their backs when they return from active duty. Andrew is one of our own, and America should never leave one of our own behind.
“Andrew’s
combat-related PTSD was acquired in defense of his country, and he
needs to return to the United States immediately for treatment. We urge
President Obama to intervene directly with Mexico, cut through the red
tape, and get Sergeant Tahmooressi back on U.S. soil. America’s veterans
have not forgotten him, and the President should not forget about him
either. Andrew deserves to come home, get treatment, and have a chance
to live a productive life.”
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (www.IAVA.org)
is the nation's first and largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization
representing veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and has nearly 300,000
Member Veterans and civilian supporters nationwide. Celebrating its 10th
year anniversary, IAVA recently received the highest rating -
four-stars - from Charity Navigator, America's largest charity
evaluator.
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iraq
cbs news
rebecca kaplan
IAVA Urges Mexico to Release Imprisoned US Marine
Iraq and American Veterans of America issued the following:
IAVA Urges Mexico to Release Imprisoned U.S. Marine
CONTACT: Gretchen Andersen (212) 982-9699 or press@iava.org
IAVA Urges Mexico to Release Imprisoned U.S. Marine
New vets stand by Jill Tahmooressi in her quest to free her son
New York, NY (Oct. 1, 2014)
– Today, the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western
Hemisphere heard testimony from Jill Tahmooressi on the imprisonment of
her son, U.S. Marine Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi, who has been detained
in Mexico since March. IAVA released the following statement from CEO
and Founder Paul Rieckhoff:“IAVA stands strongly with U.S. Marine Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi’s mother, Jill, in her relentless quest to have him freed from prison in Mexico. Ms. Tahmooressi’s articulate and strong appeal for her son – who has been wrongly imprisoned for mistakenly crossing into Mexico in March – not only pulls at the heartstrings; it angers all veterans who should be able to count on their government to have their backs when they return from active duty. Andrew is one of our own, and America should never leave one of our own behind.
“Andrew’s combat-related PTSD was acquired in defense of his country, and he needs to return to the United States immediately for treatment. We urge President Obama to intervene directly with Mexico, cut through the red tape, and get Sergeant Tahmooressi back on U.S. soil. America’s veterans have not forgotten him, and the President should not forget about him either. Andrew deserves to come home, get treatment, and have a chance to live a productive life.”
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (www.IAVA.org) is the nation's first and largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization representing veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and has nearly 300,000 Member Veterans and civilian supporters nationwide. Celebrating its 10th year anniversary, IAVA recently received the highest rating - four-stars - from Charity Navigator, America's largest charity evaluator.
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[Note: Subject heading retitled to reflect IAVA.]
veterans