Thursday, November 10, 2016

Iraq snapshot

Thursday, November 10, 2016.  Chaos and violence continue -- and that's just in the US.


Ayad Allawi is the person who should have been prime minister of Iraq in 2010 but the White House went around the will of the Iraqi people and threw out their votes via the contract known as The Erbil Agreement.  Allawi remains a Shi'ite who is popular in Iraq with all sects.


We congratulate and wish him every success. We support in its mission for world peace and freedom.




In the wake of Republican Donald Trump's stunning (but not surprising -- the polls always showed Bernie Sanders was the stronger candidate against Donald) defeat of so-so Democrat and long-term War Hawk Hillary Clinton, some took to the streets yesterday to protest.

Protesters light US flags on fire in front of Trump Tower


Why?

Because they're self-involved, self-obsessed jerks who never learned much of anything being led by the same forces Hillary's campaign paid to stir up s**t and incite violence throughout the last months.

'They were protesting for undocumented immigrants!'

Really?

Where were their asses the last eight years?

In August, Serena Marshall (ABC NEWS) reported:

President Barack Obama has often been referred to by immigration groups as the "Deporter in Chief."
Between 2009 and 2015 his administration has removed more than 2.5 million people through immigration orders, which doesn’t include the number of people who "self-deported" or were turned away and/or returned to their home country at the border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
[. . .]
According to governmental data, the Obama administration has deported more people than any other president's administration in history.
In fact, they have deported more than the sum of all the presidents of the 20th century. 



Where was your protest during all of that?

Your stupidity is being broadcast around the world.

You are revealed as selfish bastards.

Yesterday, the protests took place.

Yesterday, Missy Ryan (WASHINGTON POST) reported:


The number of civilians killed by U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria is more than double the previous estimate, U.S. Central Command said on Wednesday, after reexamining its air campaign based on allegations from activist groups.

The announcement of 64 additional deaths brings the total civilian death toll in U.S. air attacks to 119 since the campaign against the Islamic State began in 2014, Centcom said. The command, responsible for U.S. military operations in the Middle East, is investigating other allegations.



You've been out in the streets protesting these deaths when?

Oh, that's right, never.

Because you're selfish bastards.

An election didn't go your way and it's to the streets!

Donald Trump will deport vast number of immigrants -- he's most likely going to focus on those with criminal records.  Hillary would have deported vast numbers.

Jill Stein wouldn't have, Jerry White wouldn't have, Gloria La Riva wouldn't have.

So maybe if this issue suddenly matters to you -- despite your inactivity throughout Barack's two terms -- you should ask yourself why you didn't work to build the campaigns of Jill, Jerry or Gloria?

The election didn't go your way.

Boo-hoo.

It wasn't stolen.

The 2000 election was stolen.

The Supreme Court gifted it to Bully Boy Bush.

Sandra Day O'Connor is among those who should have recused herself.

And, on election night, when she had her little incident, a snort or something expressing disgust when Al Gore was temporarily predicted to win, a number of us thought it was outrageous that she was sitting on the case of Bush v. Gore.

Contrast that with this year when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg starts offering a critique/attack on one of the presidential candidates.

She grossly overstepped her bounds and her role.

She was only one of many who thought the rules didn't apply.

Patrick Martin (WSWS) observes:

Two days before Obama appeared on the steps of the White House to salute the president-elect, he was denouncing Trump as a menace to the republic, a threat to democratic rights, someone who was “temperamentally unfit to be commander in chief” and would be a danger to mankind if put in charge of the US nuclear arsenal.


That was not only outrageous on Barack's part, it was grossly irresponsible.

Donald Trump always stood a chance of winning.

He has won.

Who did Barack's remarks help?

There's a reason a sitting president has to watch his words during an election.

But Barack never thought the rules applied to him.

Remember how you legalized ✔Assassinating anyone ✔NSA mass spying ✔Prosecuting publishers ✔CIA drones everywhere It's all Trumps in 71 days



It's a shame none of that mattered to last night's protesters until Donald Trump was elected.

I'm so sick of this need to insist that 'our person' is above reproach and 'the other' person is pure evil.

I don't see a great bit of difference between Barack or Bully Boy Bush.


The protesters apparently do since they sat on their fat asses forever and a day while people were killed in Iraq, in Libya, in Honduras . . .

But you don't like the results of an election so now you take to the streets?

You really just showed the world how pathetic and uncaring you truly are.

And for those of us who do real protests?

Your b.s. actions will have us all lumped in as sore losers.

If Donald declares war on Jordan, for example, and those of us opposed to war hit the streets to protest, we'll face "Oh, they just protest because it's Trump.  Remember how, the day after he was elected, the losers were in the street whining."

And that's what you're doing, you're whining.

You could have been helping the Iraqi people, you could have been helping the Palestinians, you could have been standing up for injustice.

Instead, you sat on your fat asses following the Twitter feeds of your pathetic and fake celebrities (every 'surprise visit' Miley Cyrus made at that dorm was pre-approved) and don't give a damn about the lives of people around the world that are being wrecked by US invasions, US wars and US policies.

It was all cool because Barack did Twitter and he went on Comedy Central.

You really are pathetic.

Barack Obama supported and backed a government (Nouri al-Maliki's Iraq) where the government went into schools with pamphlets encouraging students to kill people suspected of being gay and lesbian, that same government allowed the militias to publicly attack men and women suspected of being gay -- and post videos of the murders.

And you didn't take to the streets.

But War Hawk Hillary Clinton didn't win the election and now you whine?

Please, take your participation trophies and your grossly overfed egos home with you already.

Patrick Martin, in the article we linked to earlier, is puzzled, surprised, mystified, over the fact that Hillary and Barack both passed on noticing the popular vote.

His article would be a lot stronger if he hadn't been so shy about reality.

They aren't going to complain.

They don't give a damn about ending the electoral college.

The electoral college makes elections very easy.

You figure out through it which states to target for ads and campaigning on the ground.

Eliminating it (and it should be eliminated) means suddenly every state count, every vote counts.


That's why Congress will never eliminate the electoral college in a two party system.  Their party benefits from the electoral college.

That  Patrick Martin fails to make that point (a point I would hope he at least grasps) is shocking.

Hillary promised to obliterate Iran if it attacked Israel.

This is what those spoiled bastards were demonstrating in support of last night?

Her fear mongering over Russia was disgusting.

But let's hop into the streets to support her?

You are truly a misguided and dangerously uneducated group of people.

Let's hope Debra Messing has a role as your leader because I don't imagine many acting roles will be coming her way after she's pissed on Bernie supporters, Green Party members, Libertarians, Republicans, conservatives, Donald Trump supporters, non-voters, etc.

Do the math.

With approximately 323 million people in the US, Debra's ridiculed and attacked 262,961,807 people.

Which network wants to invest millions in developing a show for her?

And don't forget, this investment would follow her three failed series attempts since leaving WILL & GRACE.

And for those wondering, until Debra started frothing at the crotch for Hillary Clinton, she wasn't out there protesting the Iraq War, she wasn't out there making a difference in anything.

As one friend from WILL & GRACE likes to point out, the only protest she ever staged before was her tantrum over what they made her character wear because she was tired of Grace being made fun of by Karen (the basis of the entire show, by the way).

Other idiots join in.

It begins. Protest and more protest. My niece in Chicago is already voicing what we all are feeling!




Jamie Lee, the whole world jokes about your birth.

Now you 'star' in a low rated series and you're going to do your best to piss off more people?

Great job, Jamie.

What a career you'll have.

('Star'?  She's basically the captain on THE LOVE BOAT or Tattoo on FANTASY ISLAND.)


Your candidate lost.

Grow up.

There are real issues and you aren't dealing with any of them.


You lied to yourselves about Hillary Clinton.

You lied about what she was.

You lied about how she was unbeatable.

Neocons thought Iraq was going to be a "cakewalk" & the Clintonites thought the same about the election. Hubris -- it'll get you every time.

You lied about everything.

And now you want to stomp your feet.

But when you lying bastards saw the nomination being stolen from Bernie Sanders, when WikiLeaks only made that more clear, your cry was, for the good of the country, everyone must get behind Hillary?


And yet now you protest like little babies.


Me too love. Wish everyone had. Imagine if we'd supported the chosen true grassroots candidate.


Here's some reality for you.





  1. Dear , you were hideously wrong. It's OK. Just apologize to us, hand control of the party to , & go away forever.
  2. . Failure this catastrophic cannot be tolerated

  3. Entire failed DNC should be fired now, their replacements hired by the party's new leaders: , &
  4. Bernie Sanders is now effectively the head of the Democratic Party
  5. We should have been speaking to peoples' hearts and not trying to shame and boss grown folks around
  6. Because, like so much else from and her campaign, it was a lie.

  7. Would be a 'perfect' ending: BHO pardons HRC, but not himself, then Trump prosecutes Obama for emailing her server.

  8. . and I SCREAMED from rooftops in May/June that was stronger candidate. They didn't listen
  9. Stop lying that this election was just about race. Some minority voters from the Obama coalition flipped for Trump.


  1. Of course blames 3rd parties for DNC's defeat, instead of the party itself for promoting & protecting Hillary against people's will

  2. Each & every one of the Superdelegates who backed HC over Bernie, even when Bernie won their State, has to answer for this.
  3. Feingold (WI): lost Teachout (NY): lost Cooper (NC): lost Bayh (IN): lost Kander (MO): lost HRC dragged down the rest of the party with her


I'm not going to march with Jamie and Debbie and all the losers.

Sorry you cowards, I didn't buy into the national meltdown over 9/11.  It was a great tragedy.  And then it was exploited.  I was bored with the fear mongering by day three and turned off the TV and hit the road, on the advice of a good friend who did the same and wrote several very strong essays about the reality on the ground in the US at that time as opposed to the fear being broadcast by cable 'news.'

I don't live in fear.

Susan Sarandon has many great Tweets in the last 24 hours but here's one that especially should make people stop being so damn whiny.

Out of the mud grows the lotus.




That's the road we'll go down.

The whiny can continue on their own path.

They never help anyone but themselves anyway.

They never do a thing to protest these wars on people carried out for profit.

They don't do a damn thing and look the other way as Palestinians are slaughtered.

They just telegraph to the world that all they care about is themselves.

It's up to the rest of the world to pull together to fight for something better.

It's 24 days since operation Mosul began and it's still a slog.  Ahmed Qassim (AA) reports that the campaign in the east is on hold.  Qassim's correct that the Iraqi forces are suffering losses, he fails to note what everyone's talking about on Arabic social media: Yet again, the Iraqi forces -- military and militia -- have the same problem -- desertion during combat.

This is the second hold for those who've been paying attention.

Yet again, this is apparently about the desertions being so high that the operation has to be put on hold while more troops are shipped in to fill the ever increasing void the desertions keep creating.


In other success from the Mosul operation, Amnesty International notes:


The Iraqi authorities must urgently investigate reports that fighters wearing Iraqi Federal Police uniforms tortured and extrajudicially executed residents in villages they captured south of Mosul, said Amnesty International.
Researchers from the organization visited several villages in the al-Shura and al-Qayyara sub-districts of Ninewa governorate, south-west and south of Mosul, and gathered evidence indicating that up to six people were extrajudicially executed in late October, apparently due to suspicions they had ties to the armed group calling itself the Islamic State (IS).
“Men in Federal Police uniform have carried out multiple unlawful killings, apprehending and then deliberately killing in cold blood residents in villages south of Mosul. In some cases the residents were tortured before they were shot dead execution-style,” said Lynn Maalouf, Deputy Director for Research at Amnesty International’s Beirut Regional Office.

“Deliberately killing captives and other defenceless individuals is prohibited by international humanitarian law and is a war crime. It is crucial that the Iraqi authorities carry out prompt, thorough, impartial and independent investigations into these crimes under international law, and bring those responsible to justice. Without effective measures to suppress and punish serious violations, there is a real risk that we could see war crimes of this kind repeated in other Iraqi villages and towns during the Mosul offensive.”
The killings took place against the backdrop of armed confrontations in the al-Shura sub-district on 21 October between IS and Iraqi forces. As the area was largely depopulated and Iraqi forces suffered at least one fatality that morning, it appears that Iraqi forces were presuming that only IS fighters had remained behind. 
As well as launching an investigation, Amnesty International calls on the Iraqi authorities to guarantee that witnesses to these crimes and their families are protected from any revenge attacks or intimidation.
A number of Iraqi forces participating in the conflict against IS, including army units, fighters from two local Tribal Mobilization militias and members of federal and local police, are believed to have been present in, or passed through, the villages while the torture and extrajudicial executions were taking place. Some reports suggest that a senior commander of the “Operations to Liberate Ninewa” may have been in the vicinity at the time.
According to information obtained by Amnesty International, on the morning of 21 October around 10 men and a 16-year-old boy, mainly from the villages of Na’na’a and al-Raseef, were tortured and otherwise ill-treated after they handed themselves over to a small group of men wearing Federal Police uniforms, in an area known as Nus Tal. They had waved a white cloth and lifted their shirts to show that they were not wearing explosive belts and did not pose a threat.
Shortly afterwards, reinforcements arrived and the men were taken on foot to an open desert area, about a kilometre away between the town of al-Qayyarah and the al-Shura sub-district, identifiable by a broken-down caravan. Fighters dressed in Federal Police uniforms beat the group with cables and rifle butts, punched and kicked them, and pulled their beards – even setting one man’s beard alight.
The victims were made to lie on their stomachs and shots were fired between their legs, as they were insulted, often using sectarian language, and accused of being members of “Daesh” (the Arabic acronym for IS).  
Ahmed Mahmoud Dakhil and Rashid Ali Khalaf from the village of Na’na’a, as well as a third man from the village of Tulul Nasser, were then separated from the larger group. Men in Federal Police uniforms then subjected them to particularly brutal beatings before shooting them dead. Their decomposing remains were found in the same area some five days later. Rashid Ali Khalaf’s head had been severed from his body.
Another villager from al-Raseef, Hussein Ahmed Hussein, was last seen alive on 21 October. He was being handcuffed and led away by a group of men in Federal Police uniforms, near the caravan, after being beaten with rifle-butts, punched and insulted. His body was discovered nearby a week later.
Retreating IS fighters forcibly moved hundreds of women, children and older men from the villages of Na’na’a and al-Raseef to Hamam Alil in an apparent attempt to use them as human shields. IS fighters made public announcements ordering the villages’ residents to leave their homes using the local mosques’ loudspeakers, on 19 October. However, some younger men apparently managed to stay behind, hiding in unfinished or abandoned buildings.
Hussein Dakhil was among the few who defied IS’s orders. Two days later, on 21 October after government forces arrived in the village, he was found dead with two bullet wounds, to the chest and chin, shortly after leaving a house near the Mishraq Sulphur Company building in the Shura sub-district, which IS fighters had set fire to before leaving the village. He was blindfolded with his torso exposed, suggesting that he had been detained before being extrajudicially executed.
On that same day, another man, Bashar Hamadi, was also apparently shot dead as he ran towards forces that included men in Federal Police Uniform, while pulling up his clothes to show that he had no explosives. According to information received by Amnesty International, he was shot from about 50 metres away and left on the ground. His body was found about a week later.

All those killed were buried without autopsies after their corpses were found.
“When the Mosul military operation began, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi made clear that violations by Iraqi armed forces and its allies would not be tolerated. Now is the time for him to prove just that,” said Lynn Maalouf.
“The Iraqi authorities must immediately investigate these alarming reports of extrajudicial executions and torture. They must remove from active duty all individuals who are suspected of committing war crimes and other serious human rights violations, pending the outcome of judicial investigations.” 
Background
This is not the first time Amnesty International has documented extrajudicial executions by men in Iraqi Federal Police uniform. On 27 May 2016, during operations to retake Falluja and surrounding areas, at least 16 men and boys from the Jumaili tribe were shot dead near Sijir, after handing themselves over to fighters, some of whom were wearing Federal Police uniforms. 

The Federal Police is part of the Ministry of Interior, and has been involved in counter-insurgency efforts.


That's what's happening in Iraq.

That's what the US government is backing.


But, by all means, protest the results of an election because your sweetheart lost.

Never worry about people who are in danger right now.

Or the fact that Barack coddled Nouri al-Maliki and gave him a second term despite/because Nouri was persecuting Sunnis.

Where were yesterday's whiny people when the Iraqi people went to vote in 2010 and voted our Nouri al-Maliki only to have Barack Obama insist Nouri get a second term?

It's that second term that led to the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq.

Where were your protests then?

Oh, that's right, you don't care about the world and you don't care about anyone else.

Got you.

You're making that clear to everyone in the world.




As we keep our focus on Trump, is NOW DRILLING UNDER THE G**DAM LAKE! Where the F*CK is ?



  1. Turn your emotions in to action. can stop the Dakota Access Pipeline and help our planet:




There's plenty of work to do.

The whiny need to stop wallowing in their own egos and think about others for once.



The following community sites -- plus Tavis Smiley -- updated:














  • And one more thing from Susan's Twitter feed -- go read it, she's covering tons -- and a topic will we address in the next snapshot (I've been waiting for all of California to be counted).


    FiveThirtyEight fact-check Stein & Johnson didn't elect Trump, Nader didn't elect Bush. Let's finally put that nonsense to rest and move on.









    iraq