The Common Ills: Hejira

Sunday, November 01, 2015

Hejira

It's another week of press attention for tabloid scandal Tony Blair.

The disgraced former prime minister of the United Kingdom remains a War Criminal at large.

Some, however, see the knoose tightening.

Those who feel Blair will soon be arrested will no doubt feel even more that way with the latest allegations.

Ben Riley-Smith (Telegraph of London) reports:

Ministers in Tony Blair’s government were told to “burn” a private document warning that the Iraq War was illegal, it has been claimed.
A 13-page legal note from Lord Goldsmith, then-attorney general, produced in the run-up to war suggested it could be challenged under international law.
However senior figures were told “burn” and “destroy” the document after it was circulated, according to the Mail on Sunday.

BBC News notes Blair's spokesperson dismisses the reports as "nonsense."

The latest scandal comes as the world is still rejecting Blair's non-apology last week.

Pakistan's News International offers a typical reaction in a letter to the editor from Masood Khan:

Millions of people dead, injured or displaced, a country devastated for ages – and you just say, ‘sorry’? What if this were the other way around – Iraqi forces invading and occupying Britain and America and later saying: sorry. But as Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has very correctly spotted, ‘Blair’s spin operation’ had swung into action as Sir John Chilcot prepares to publish the long-awaited enquiry report into the Iraq war. One thing is for sure, it is the Chilcot report that forced Tony Blair to spill a few beans of truth, otherwise till the recent past he was the only person on this globe to defend the invasion. I am sure a war crime tribunal can get far more facts from the people who planted, planned and executed the invasion in a systematic way and then forgot to put the genie of sectarianism back in the bottle.

Meanwhile the US Defense Dept announced these aistrikes today:

Airstrikes in Iraq
Attack, ground-attack, bomber, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 30 airstrikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:

-- Near Al Huwayjah, one strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL checkpoint.

-- Near Al Qaim, one strike struck an ISIL logistical facility.

-- Near Bayji, one strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL vehicle.

-- Near Kisik, one strike struck an ISIL tactical unit.

-- Near Mosul, three strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two ISIL fighting positions and two ISIL artillery pieces, and another fighting position in a separate strike.

-- Near Qayyarah, one strike struck an ISIL staging area.

-- Near Ramadi, seven strikes struck three separate tactical units and destroyed two ISIL rocket rails, an ISIL trench, 12 ISIL fighting positions, eight ISIL buildings, an ISIL recoilless rifle, an ISIL heavy machine gun, an ISIL mortar system, an ISIL weapons cache, three command and control nodes, suppressed an ISIL fighting position, and denied ISIL access to terrain.

-- Near Sinjar, 11 strikes struck 10 separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed 10 ISIL fighting positions, two ISIL vehicles, an ISIL VBIED, an ISIL homemade explosives cache, an ISIL assembly area, two ISIL bunkers, wounded an ISIL fighter and suppressed an ISIL mortar position.

-- Near Sultan Abdallah, two strikes destroyed an ISIL excavator and wounded an ISIL fighter.

-- Near Tal Afar, two strikes destroyed an ISIL vehicle, an ISIL checkpoint and wounded two ISIL fighters.

When (broadcast) network news actually was news, the Defense Dept's announced strikes would be noted daily in the 30 minute broadcasts.

These days, they go with gossip passed off as news and then segue into even more fluff.

This actually helps the White House (which ever political party is in control of it in the current period) because Americans aren't confronted with the military actions of the US government on a daily basis.

And that allows them to believe in lies about 'success.'

All the bombs dropped on Iraq since August 2014 have not defeated the Islamic State and likely never will.

I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away
-- "Hejira," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album of the same name

The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War was 4497 before the White House killed DoD's coverage of the dead (it's at least 4498).

The following community sites -- plus Jody Watley -- updated: