The Common Ills: Iraq snapshot

Monday, February 09, 2015

Iraq snapshot

Monday, February 9, 2015. Chaos and violence continue, Barack wants authorization for his war, Queen Raina Al Abdullah wants the region to know they determine their own priorities, US Gen Barry Allen says Iraqi forces will soon begin a counteroffensive, US State Dept spokesperson Jen Psaki argues whether his words were true, the lies of Brian Williams just continue to multiply, and so much more.

Today Jordan's Queen Raina Al Abdullah addressed a summit in Dubai via videolink. Petra quotes her stating of the Islamic State:

The Muslim is the man they murdered. The one who observed the pillars of his faith; who honored his parents; and served his country. A man [slaughtered Jordanian pilot Muath Al-Kasabeh] who made it his mission to defend his country and his faith -- a mission he lived and died by. [. . .] We are in a race against time to adopt policies that address the priorities which confront us today: most importantly, to eliminate the ideology of hate and terrorism, not just militarily, but ideologically as well.

Also today, her husband, King Abdullah II, met with US President Barack Obama's Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State, Gen John Allen. AFP notes:

“There will be a major counter offensive on the ground in Iraq,” John Allen, the chief envoy for the international coalition against the Islamic State (IS) group, said in an interview with Jordan’s official Petra news agency.

“In the weeks ahead, when the Iraqi forces begin the ground campaign to take back Iraq, the coalition will provide major firepower associated with that,” he added, stressing that the Iraqis would lead the offensive.

Allen's remarks were an issue raised at today's US State Dept press briefing where spokesperson Jen Psaki faced questions from Al Quds' Said Arikat.

QUESTION: I just wanted to start where you began at the top --

MS. PSAKI: Okay.

QUESTION: -- about General Allen.

MS. PSAKI: Yes.

QUESTION: He gave statements yesterday basically suggesting that an assault, a ground assault maybe, is imminent. Could you clarify that?

MS. PSAKI: That’s not actually what he said, Said.

QUESTION: Okay. Well --

MS. PSAKI: I’m happy to – I believe I have his quote in here somewhere, so let me check on that. One, I think any military action that would be taken in Iraq to address the threat of ISIL would be led by the Iraqi Security Forces. Obviously, they’re – continue to be in the training phase, and it remains our belief that they need to be ready.
Let me just pull up, I believe I have it in here, what exactly General Allen said. He said, “And in the weeks ahead when the Iraqi forces begin the ground campaign to take back Iraq, the coalition will provide major firepower associated with that.” So the Arab component will be in action supporting Iraqi Security Forces. We support their efforts. They would be in the lead. We want them to be prepared. I don’t have any other predictions beyond that.

QUESTION: But the message there is that second attack is imminent, correct?

MS. PSAKI: I don’t – I did not hear it or read it that way, and that is not what he was conveying.

QUESTION: Okay. The reason I’m asking this, because there has been talk about a spring offensive to liberate Mosul, and this has been going on for a long time. But then exactly 10 days ago or so, General Lloyd Austin, commander of the central command, said that that was not the case. He was – basically described that there is no coordination between the Peshmerga forces and the Iraqi forces, all of the different forces that need to be involved in any kind of ground assault to liberate Mosul, hence the confusion. So would you say now this confusion has been cleared?

MS. PSAKI: Well, there has been coordination. I don’t know what quote you’re referencing, but that’s inaccurate and not reflective of all of the coordination that’s happening. Obviously, the Department of Defense and the Government of Iraq would be the most appropriate entities to talk about operational planning; they don’t typically outline that publicly. So again, we’re working with them, we want them to be ready. Beyond that, I don’t have any predictions of additional next steps.

QUESTION: And finally from my side, also General Allen said – put the blame squarely on the former government of Nouri al-Maliki for the collapse of the Iraqi army back in June of last year, and then when Mosul fell to ISIS fighter. Do you have any comment on that?

MS. PSAKI: Well, I think, as we know, Said, and we’ve talked about a bit in here, there were – there was a lack of preparedness, certainly, by the security forces; many were taken by surprise. We talked about that quite extensively last winter. And there’s no question that we have encouraged, many countries in the region have encouraged Prime Minister Abadi to operate in a different way and to be more inclusive of the Sunni tribes, be more inclusive about how he is overseeing the building of the military. So I don’t think anything should come as a surprise in that regard.

You have to feel sorry for Jen Psaki and Marie Harf. August 8th, Barack Obama's 'plan' kicked off with bombings. The US planes -- and others in the coalition -- continue to bomb Iraq.

And it's really made no visible impact at all.

Yet they're expected to spin it as a success and as a plan.

There has been no success. The editorial board of the Washington Post points out that the White House attempts to sell the 'answer' as a national guard in Iraq but there's still no national guard:

The problem is that legislation to create the guard has yet to pass the Iraqi parliament; Shiite leaders are reluctant to grant authority to the Sunni tribes. Meanwhile, ammunition and other gear promised to the Sunni tribesmen is not getting through, for much the same reason. Mr. Abadi, who is praised by Mr. Abu Risha for his conciliatory steps, has nevertheless failed to bridge the divide. He has also failed to establish the government’s authority over Iranian-backed Shiite militias, which, with no supply problems, are retaking ground from the Islamic State, sometimes with U.S. air support, and then imposing their own sectarian rule.

In his Senate confirmation hearing, Defense Secretary-designate Ashton Carter said red tape had often frustrated prompt delivery of U.S. arms supplies and vowed to tackle the problem once he is on office. That’s welcome, but the trouble in Iraq appears to be more than a bureaucratic blunder. Festering political problems in Baghdad have not been addressed, and President Obama’s commitment of resources and extended timeline for action are simply inadequate. As Mr. Abu Risha told us: “The longer [Islamic State] is in Anbar the more dangerous they will be.”

The hearing on Ashton Carter's nomination to be Secretary of Defense was Wednesday. We covered it in two snapshots last week: "Iraq snapshot" and "Iraq snapshot." In the hearing, it was clear that Iraq's crises will not be solved by dropping bombs on the country.

One such exchange:

Ranking Member Jack Reed: One of the issues -- particular with respect to Iraq -- is that not only improvement as you suggest in your comments, the longterm defeat, uh, of ISIL rests not just on military operations but on political arrangements. And what we've witnessed in Iraq particularly was a political arrangement that consciously and deliberately degraded the Sunni population. At least, that's there perception. And it gave rise. So would you acknowledge that part of a strategy has to be constituting an Iraqi government that is perceived by its own people as being a bit fairer and inclusive?

Ashton Carter: Absolutely. That's what the previous government of Iraq did not do and that was instrumental in their military collapse.

Ranking Member Jack Reed: And one of the issues that complicates, you've pointed out, in terms of Iran being a strategic issue for the United States in the region is their relative influence in Iraq and throughout the region was enhanced over the last several years by the government in Iraq, by the [Nouri al-] Maliki government. Is that accurate?

Ashton Carter: That is accurate, yes.

And yet still no work on the political.

But apparently the White House does remember its past time to get a fig leaf of Congressional authority to 'legalize' Barack's actions in Iraq. Patricia Zengerle (Reuters) reports:

The White House will ask Congress by Wednesday for new authority to use force against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters, congressional aides said on Monday, paving the way for lawmakers’ first vote on the scope of a campaign that is already six months old.

Kristina Wong (The Hill) adds, "The new resolution will likely spark a contentious debate over the U.S. strategy against the terror group. Democrats have warned against mission creep and want set limits on U.S. action, including barring the use of ground troops. But Republicans warn that they will reject any language that could handcuff efforts to fight ISIS."

And how will Congress address the issue of the Shi'ite militias?

Kenneth Roth ‏@KenRoth Feb 8

Given Iraq's need for US air power, why isn't US insisting on end to Shia militia atrocities? http://trib.al/lC2s4ZF

View photo 114 retweets 58 favorites

The White House appears unaware of just how bothered Congress is over the militias.

It's true that Ashton Carter was able to glide over the topic.

But in his barest of moments on the subject, he agreed with members of the Senate Armed Services Committee who were bothered by the Shi'ite militias targeting Sunnis throughout Iraq -- and doing so under the protection of the Baghdad government.

This wasn't just one political party. Democrats and Republicans were clearly bothered.

And the White House really thinks Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's weak statements at a press conference two Saturdays ago have calmed concerns in the Senate and House.

That's just not the case.

Meanwhile, Sinan Salaheddin (AP) reports, violence in Baghdad has left "at least 22 people [dead] and wounded dozens. Deutsche Welle points out, "On Saturday, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had lifted a midnight-5 a.m. curfew in place in Baghdad in various forms since 2004, when Iraq fell into violent chaos following the US-led invasion the year before. On Saturday, multiple bombings in the capital killed 35 people." Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts 96 dead across the country with seventy more left injured.

This afternoon, Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "The Nightly News Fill In" went up. It features Lester Holt behind the anchor desk for NBC Nightly News with Holt saying, "Good evening. I'm Lester Holt. Brian Williams is off tonight. When he returns, who knows what made up s**t he's going to tell."

After years of lying about coming under fire or being hit or whatever struck in the moment, Brian Williams' tale of Iraq near-miss finally exploded in his face. Travis J. Tritten (Stars and Stripes) explains what happened:

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams admitted Wednesday he was not aboard a helicopter hit and forced down by RPG fire during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a false claim that has been repeated by the network for years.
Williams repeated the claim Friday during NBC’s coverage of a public tribute at a New York Rangers hockey game for a retired soldier that had provided ground security for the grounded helicopters, a game to which Williams accompanied him.

Brian Williams is in the midst of a scandal of his own making. He lied repeatedly and finally got caught. I stated last week that Ava and I would weigh in and we did with "TV: NBC's Biggest Diva: Little Miss Brian Williams" noting that NBC had allowed their so-called journalists to cross the line into celebrity and had degraded their own brand. Brian had grown to see himself not as a reporter -- governed by facts -- but as a celebrity who didn't have to follow the rules.

It's a point the editorial board of the Mesabi Daily News grasps, "But the celebrity and performer in Williams obviously took Williams the journalist hostage. And when that happens to this degree, it is a big and bad thing for journalism, which is based on the trust of readers and viewers."

Brian Moylan attempts to make similar points but gets lost as an only an idiot like Brian Moylan can. He should probably stick to the topics he can almost handle -- like his weekly recaps of the 'real' housewives of wherever or "How to suck an uncut cock" or "NFL Players We Wish Were Gay" or any of his many laments to the demise of the gay bathhouses and the unprotected, random sex that took place there.

The Guardian's just as stupid as Moylan because they label his scribbles an "analysis."

The discrediting of journalist Brian Williams doesn't matter -- unlike which NFL player is a bottom and which is versatile? -- because NBC wants him to be an entertainer, Moylan insists, and that's what people want to. They'd rather get their news from, Moylan insists, Jon Stewart.

Uh, actually no.

When you're that stupid, stick to writing about porn and trashy 'reality' shows.

What an idiot.

Many fools make this argument at other times.

But here's reality: It doesn't matter one bit how many people love Jon Stewart.

The Daily Show pulling in 2.02 million viewers is considered amazing. By contrast, Rick Kissell (Variety) reports on Friday's ratings -- and noting that Friday is generally the lowest rated broadcast of the evening news programs, we're still left with these numbers: "in total viewers, ABC (8.461 million) beat out NBC (7.979 million) for its only nightly victory of the week, with the former down 10% from its Monday-Thursday average and the latter down 20%."

Now that's too much reality for Brian Moylan to handle.

In his simple minded world, it's all about trending and other bulls**t.

Reality, Brian Williams is not paid millions of dollars by NBC News to be 'cool' on late night television. He's paid to bring in viewers as the anchor of Nightly News.

Jon Stewart's viewers, let's be brutally honest, who don't watch news don't really care about the news. They're not getting their news from Jon, they're getting their chuckles.

There has been one failed attempt after another to make the news trendy -- most recently the nightmare that is Ronan Farrow's hideous MSNBC program.

They fail.

They fail over and over because 'analysts' and suits are idiots.

A very tiny portion of Jon Stewart's audience cares enough to follow the news.

The rest of them watch to chuckle and to enjoy the celebrity portion of the show -- the interviews. It's not even pretending to be a news program -- Jon himself notes that he is a comic.

People interested in news will follow it -- on TV, radio, podcast, in print, whatever.

They don't need it to be 'entertaining,' they want it to be more accurate.

Brian Williams lies may not mean a thing to someone writing about how to suck an uncut cock, but outside the trash culture, among news consumers, it matters whether you lie or tell the truth.

Brian's lied.

He's betrayed his post. He's betrayed news consumers.

And all the idiots lusting over the small number of viewers for The Daily Show should grasp the number of network news consumers far outnumbers the people tuning in for The Daily Show. Combining just NBC and ABC together have eight times as many viewers as The Daily Show, if you add in the viewers of The NewsHour and CBS Evening News, the audience for a network newscast is even larger. And all the nonsense claims do is push what should be news programming into entertainment fluff which is cheap and easy to produce and why the network execs are always on board for any effort to degrade news even further.

Jon Stewart is pretty much useless. Comedy Central knows his best days are behind him and Jon had hoped he'd have a directing career by now (didn't happen). He's old. His hair's gray. He's trying to make a largely uninformed audience laugh.

So today he went on about Brian without dislcosing Brian's a personal friend.

And he demonstrated why he can deliver news.

Jon has to be funny.

When the truth won't get a laugh, the truth is tossed aside.

Jon Stewart's big joke tonight was that finally someone had been held accountable for misleading regarding Iraq.

The 2006 and 2008 elections were repudiations of the Republican Party which most strongly held to the lies leading into the Iraq War.

In addition, Judith Miller lost her job at the New York Times.

That was over Iraq. Maureen Dowd got it right in her column. The paper would have cut her even sooner if she hadn't refused to name sources on another matter (the outing of Valerie Plame).

That's two right there who've paid -- the Republican Party and Judith Miller.

And we can name many others.

But that truth would've spoiled Jon Stewart's punchline.

And that's why he's not news. He repeatedly drops out anything that steps on the laugh line.

It's left to Greg Mitchell to point out what Jon also left out:

As for Brian Williams' lies, Bob Somerby (Daily Howler) has a good run down of how Brian's stories (a) enhance his own image and (b) are actually all beyond belief. For example:

He also told a strange-seeming story about the sandstorm which forced his team to hunker down in the desert for three days.

The sandstorm was real. Did the rest of this peculiar-sounding story actually happen?

WILLIAMS: [Bradley fighting vehicles and Abrams tanks] surrounded us for three days during the sandstorm that was so big it suspended the war effort. It was called Orange Crush. And they got us out of their alive.

LETTERMAN: You were on the ground, in combat, for three days?

WILLIAMS: Yeah—unbeknownst to anyone back here. NBC sent my wife and children to The Breakers in Florida to keep their minds off it and keep them occupied because no one knew where we were. We couldn’t be in touch.

Really? Williams was missing in a war zone for three days. In response, NBC sent his wife and his kids to a fancy hotel in Florida “to keep their minds off it?” And they actually went?

Everything is possible! But that sounds strange to us.

And in yet more bad news for Brian Williams, Braden Goyette (Huffington Post) reports, "Now a video from 2007 has surfaced in which Williams claims that the RPG fired at his helicopter, in addition to downing the one in front of him, and that he was close enough to stare down the barrel of the weapon."

Yeah, he's been lying for years. NBC News bosses told him to stop repeating the Iraq tale. He refused to. He knew it was a lie and he just kept lying.

iraq