Those are the two biggest issues though some idiots are trying to pretend otherwise -- VOX, we'll get to you in a moment. As I pointed out at the start of August, the Democratic Party has used the immigration issue/crisis to whip up anger against President Donald Trump. And they seem to think that, if elected, they can then blow off the issue -- the way they did the Iraq War following the 2006 mid-terms. This is not the Iraq War.
The immigration issue/crisis directly impacts people on US soil. Whether the media covers it or not, the issue won't go away. It's not the Iraq War which vanished from many people's radars when the US press withdrew in large numbers at the end of 2008. Remember how ABC was going to cover it after that? By using reports from the BBC -- that's what they announced. And they helped the country pretend that the war was over.
That won't happen with immigration. Deportations are happening on US soil. The people being deported have friends and family in the US. The Democratic Party -- a segment of which supported the Iraq War -- used the war to demonize Bully Boy Bush and turn out voters. Then they did nothing. Today, they use the immigration issue/crisis to demonize Donald and to turn out votes. But if you pay attention, very few Democrats in Congress have offered any leadership on this issue nor will they following the 2020 election. In fact, for all the pretense of opposition to the wall, it's not that different, what Donald's trying for, then what Hillary Clinton and others have proposed in the past.
So that makes it the biggest issue of the debate. It effects the lives of so many and the Democrats are promising to fix the issue but that fix is not coming.
The racism directed against Julian Castro? We are seeing a punditry use racism while they castigate Donald a s a racist. That's a major story. The Anglo White man was challenged by the Anglo Latino and the press -- which spends so much time posing as 'woke' -- has responded with a racist attack on Julian Castro.
Let's turn to Iraq. We're using the NBC NEWS transcript.
MUIR: Mayor Buttigieg, thank you.
I
want to turn to Vice President Biden, because the concerns about any
possible vacuum being created in Afghanistan, if you pulled the U.S.
troops out, has been heightened by what we've seen in recent days on the
ground in Iraq.
When you were vice
president, President Obama turned to you to bring the troops home from
Iraq. You have said on the campaign trail, quote, "I made sure the
president turned to me and said, Joe, get our combat troops out of
Iraq." There was a major drawdown of U.S. troops, and then ISIS seized
by some estimates 40 percent of the territory in Iraq. You then had to
send thousands of troops back in. Was it wrong to pull out of Iraq that
quickly? And did the move actually help ISIS take hold?
BIDEN:
No, it wasn't wrong to pull out. But I want to answer your Afghanistan
question. I've been in and out of Afghanistan, not with a gun, and I
admire my friend for his service. But I've been out of Afghanistan I
think more than anybody on this -- and it's an open secret, you reported
a long time ago, George, that I was opposed to the surge in
Afghanistan.
The whole purpose of going to
Afghanistan was to not have a counterinsurgency, meaning that we're
going to put that country together. It cannot be put together. Let me
say it again. It will not be put together. It's three different
countries. Pakistan owns the three counties -- the three provinces in
the east. They're not any part of -- the Haqqanis run it. I will go on
and on.
But here's the point. The point is
that it's a counterterrorism strategy. We can prevent the United States
from being the victim of terror coming out of Afghanistan by providing
for bases -- insist the Pakistanis provide bases for us to air lift from
and to move against what we know.
We don't
need those troops there. I would bring them home. And Joe Dunford's a
fine guy, but this has been an internal argument we've had for eight
years.
With regard to -- with regard to
Iraq, the fact of the matter is that, you know, I should have never
voted to give Bush the authority to go in and do what he said he was
going to do. The AUMF was designed, he said, to go in and get the
Security Council to vote 15-0 to allow inspectors to go in to determine
whether or not anything was being done with chemical weapons or nuclear
weapons. And when that happened, he went ahead and went anyway without
any of that proof.
I said something that was not meant the way I said it.
I
said -- from that point on -- what I was argued against in the
beginning, once he started to put the troops in, was that in fact we
were doing it the wrong way; there was no plan; we should not be
engaged; we didn't have the people with us; we didn't have our -- we
didn't have allies with us, et cetera.
And
it was later, when we came into office, that Barack turned -- the
president turned to me and said, "Joe" -- when they said we've got a
plan to get out, he turned to the whole security and said, "Joe will
organize this. Get the troops home."
My son
spent a year in Iraq, and I understand. It made -- and we were right to
get the combat troops out. The big mistake that was made, which we
predicted, was that you would not have a circumstance where the Shia and
the Kurds would work together to keep ISIS from coming -- from moving
in.
MUIR: Mr. Vice President, thank you.
I
want to turn to Senator Sanders on this. Because the concern over
Afghanistan is very similar to what we saw in Iraq when the troops came
out. ISIS filled that vacuum.
What do you
make of people out there who are worried that if we pull out U.S. troops
too quickly from Afghanistan, it will create safe haven all over again,
like the plotters of 9/11?
SANDERS: David, let me answer that, but let me just comment on something that the vice president said.
You
talked about the big mistake in Iraq and the surge. The truth is, the
big mistake, the huge mistake, and one of the big differences between
you and me, I never believed what Cheney and Bush said about Iraq...
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: You're right.
SANDERS: I voted against the war in Iraq
(APPLAUSE)
...
and helped lead the opposition. And it's sad to say -- I mean, I, kind
of, you know, had the feeling that there would be massive
destabilization in that area if we went into that war.
As
the former chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, I want
to pick up on what Pete said. We cannot express our gratitude to all of
the men and women who have put their lives on the line to defend them
-- defend us, who have responded to the call of duty. But I think, also,
I am the only person up here to have voted against all three of Trump's
military budgets.
(APPLAUSE)
I don't think we have to spend $750 billion a year on the military when we don't even know who our enemy is.
(APPLAUSE)
I
think that what we have got to do is bring this world together -- bring
it together on climate change, bring it together in fighting against
terrorism. And make it clear that we as a planet, as a global community,
will work together to help countries around the world rebuild their
struggling economies and do everything that we can to rid the world of
terrorism. But dropping bomb on Afghanistan and Iraq was not the way to
do it.
MUIR: Senator Sanders, thank you.
Bernie Sanders voted against the Iraq War. History has demonstrated that this was the correct position. Bernie was right. That deserves applause, that deserves recognition. And it should be pointed out that, for many who voted for the Iraq War, it wasn't about getting it wrong, it was about making a political calculation. Bernie could have done that. Voting for war in 2002 was supposed to be the safe move. Bernie didn't just do the right thing, he did the brave thing. That needs to be recognized especially by the Democratic Party.
Every ticket since the war started has had at least one person on the ticket who voted for the Iraq War. In 2004, the ticket was John Kerry and John Edwards -- both voted for the Iraq War. In 2008, it was Barack Obama and Joe Biden -- Joe voted for the Iraq War. In 2012, it was also Barack and Joe. In 2016, it was Hillary Clinton and the instantly forgettable Tim Kaine -- Hillary voted for the Iraq War.
Every ticket since the war started in 2003 has had at least one person who voted for the Iraq War. Not once has a Democratic Party presidential ticket since 2003 offered anyone who voted against the Iraq War.
The same media that refused to do their job when covering the Iraq War -- both before it started and after -- refuses to cover this topic. Indicting the leadership of the Democratic Party for this would require admitting their own errors and lies.
Joe Biden has been a serial liar on Iraq. Let's put his statements below:
BIDEN: With regard to -- with regard to Iraq, the fact of the matter is that, you know, I should have never voted to give Bush the authority to go in and do what he said he was going to do. The AUMF was designed, he said, to go in and get the Security Council to vote 15-0 to allow inspectors to go in to determine whether or not anything was being done with chemical weapons or nuclear weapons. And when that happened, he went ahead and went anyway without any of that proof.
I said something that was not meant the way I said it.
I said -- from that point on -- what I was argued against in the beginning, once he started to put the troops in, was that in fact we were doing it the wrong way; there was no plan; we should not be engaged; we didn't have the people with us; we didn't have our -- we didn't have allies with us, et cetera.
And it was later, when we came into office, that Barack turned -- the president turned to me and said, "Joe" -- when they said we've got a plan to get out, he turned to the whole security and said, "Joe will organize this. Get the troops home."
My son spent a year in Iraq, and I understand. It made -- and we were right to get the combat troops out. The big mistake that was made, which we predicted, was that you would not have a circumstance where the Shia and the Kurds would work together to keep ISIS from coming -- from moving in.
The lies never end with Joe. He voted to authorize war. He still can't be honest about that or stop pretending that Bully Boy Bush tricked him. He still can't take responsibility.
From his latest series of lies (above), he's still not able to tell the truth that the war was wrong. He's now showing his disgusting neoliberal core, 'It was fought wrong.' Oh, b.s. It was an illegal war based on lies. Joe can't get honest and the media has the same damn problem.
Zach Beauchamp offers at VICE:
I’ve spent a while pondering this last line — “the big
mistake that was made, which we predicted, was that you would not have a
circumstance where the Shia and Kurds would work together to keep ISIS
from coming” — and I can’t make heads or tails of it.
The Shia majority and ethnic Kurdish minority are ISIS’s
bitter enemies, given that ISIS is a Sunni jihadist group. I think Biden
is trying to say that they should have cooperated on counter-ISIS
efforts between 2011 and 2014, but didn’t. But lack of Kurdish-Shia
coordination isn’t really what led to the rise of ISIS in Iraq (there were a lot of other causes).
I am so sick of the lies and liars. At the end of the excerpt above, Zach links to an earlier piece he wrote poorly.
In the earlier piece, he tries to discuss ISIS and fails repeatedly.
It is a lie to state, suggest or imply that most Sunnis embraced ISIS. That never happened. We covered it in real time and repeatedly noted that the attitude was a pox on both their houses. The Sunnis did not figure it was their fight. They were being persecuted by the Iraqi government -- Zach acknowledges a tiny portion of that persecution in the article he's linked to -- and they weren't going to defend that government. ISIS was an extremist organization that they weren't going to support either. It wasn't their fight. That's what we noted in real time from the start, that's what NPR reported months into the rise of ISIS. That's what reality was.
Zach never notes that Iraqi women and girls were being raped and tortured in Iraqi jails, prisons and secret prisons. He never notes that the outrage grew so intense that Nouri had to do a for show production where he pretended the women were being released. (Iraqi media reported that after that press conference, families stated their female relatives were not returned home.) The Iraqi Parliament called out these actions.
This is not minor and Zach disappears it. I'm sick of you f**king liars. We called this out in real time and we did so because it mattered. Stop your damn lying. Zach,, I'm sorry you were too stupid to see what was happening but own your mistakes. We all make mistakes. That includes me. I'm wrong all the time. And I will own those mistakes.
We're not going to get anywhere until people start getting honest.
Zach also fails to note that Nouri's tactics including grabbing Iraqi journalists on the streets and torturing them. NPR and THE WASHINGTON POST both reported on that. (THE NEW YORK TIMES turned it into a joke.)
These are not minor issues. Nouri intimidated the press repeatedly to get them to stop reporting news.
What Nouri did is the public record.
But the reason for the rise of ISIS has always been that Barack Obama and Joe Biden gave Nouri a second term as prime minister in 2010. In March of 2010, Iraqis went to the polls and voted for a new future and for the Iraqiya coalition. Nouri refused to step down. For eight months, the loser refused to step down. Barack and Joe overturned the vote via The Erbil Agreement -- when is Zach going to write about that. Ned Parker had already reported on Nouri's secret prisons for torture before Joe and Barack gave Nouri a second term.
He was a danger to the Iraqi people which is why they voted him out.
Nouri's second term gives rise to ISIS and Zach can minimize and lie all he wants but that is the reality and Barack admitted himself publicly.
We documented it here over and over in real time. Emma Sky has written about it in THE UNRAVELING: HIGH HOPES AND MISSED OPPORTUNITIES IN IRAQ. Let's again note the
August 2015 broadcast of Kevin Sylvester's THIS SUNDAY EDITION (CBC) which featured Emma Sky discussing Iraq:
Kevin Sylvester: People who felt they'd been shut out during Maliki's regime basically -- or his governance.
Emma Sky: Yes, people that felt, you know, that they wanted to be part of the country called Iraq not -- they wanted to be this, they wanted Iraq to be the focus and not sect or ethnicity to be the focus. And Maliki refused to accept the results. He just said, "It is not right." He wanted a recount. He tried to use de-Ba'athification to eliminate or disqualify some Iraqiya members and take away the votes that they had gained. And he just sat in his seat and sat in his seat. And it became a real sort of internal disagreement within the US system about what to do? So my boss, Gen [Ray] Odierno, was adamant that the US should uphold the Constitutional process, protect the political process, allow the winning group to have first go at trying to form the government for thirty days. And he didn't think Allawi would be able to do it with himself as prime minister but he thought if you start the process they could reach agreement between Allawi and Maliki or a third candidate might appear who could become the new prime minister. So that was his recommendation.
Kevin Sylvester: Well he even calls [US Vice President Joe] Biden -- Biden seems to suggest that that's what the administration will support and then they do a complete switch around. What happened?
Emma Sky: Well the ambassador at the time was a guy who hadn't got experience of the region, he was new in Iraq and didn't really want to be there. He didn't have the same feel for the country as the general who'd been there for year after year after year.
Kevin Sylvester: Chris Hill.
Emma Sky: And he had, for him, you know 'Iraq needs a Shia strongman. Maliki's our man. Maliki's our friend. Maliki will give us a follow on security agreement to keep troops in country.' So it looks as if Biden's listening to these two recommendations and that at the end Biden went along with the Ambassador's recommendation. And the problem -- well a number of problems -- but nobody wanted Maliki. People were very fearful that he was becoming a dictator, that he was sectarian, that he was divisive. And the elites had tried to remove him through votes of no confidence in previous years and the US had stepped in each time and said, "Look, this is not the time, do it through a national election." So they had a national election, Maliki lost and they were really convinced they'd be able to get rid of him. So when Biden made clear that the US position was to keep Maliki as prime minister, this caused a huge upset with Iraqiya. They began to fear that America was plotting with Iran in secret agreement. So they moved further and further and further away from being able to reach a compromise with Maliki. And no matter how much pressure the Americans put on Iraqiya, they weren't going to agree to Maliki as prime minister and provided this opening to Iran because Iran's influence was way low at this stage because America -- America was credited with ending the civil war through the 'surge.' But Iran sensed an opportunity and the Iranians pressured Moqtada al-Sadr -- and they pressured him and pressured him. And he hated Maliki but they put so much pressure on to agree to a second Maliki term and the price for that was all American troops out of the country by the end of 2011. So during this period, Americans got outplayed by Iran and Maliki moved very much over to the Iranian camp because they'd guaranteed his second term.
Kevin Sylvester: Should-should the Obama administration been paying more attention? Should they have -- You know, you talk about Chris Hill, the ambassador you mentioned, seemed more -- at one point, you describe him being more interested in putting green lawn turf down on the Embassy in order to play la crosse or something. This is a guy you definitely paint as not having his head in Iraq. How much of what has happened since then is at the fault of the Obama administration? Hillary Clinton who put Chris Hill in place? [For the record, Barack Obama nominated Chris Hill for the post -- and the Senate confirmed it -- not Hillary.] How much of what happens -- has happened since -- is at their feet?
Emma Sky: Well, you know, I think they have to take some responsibility for this because of this mistake made in 2010. And Hillary Clinton wasn't very much involved in Iraq. She did appoint the ambassador but she wasn't involved in Iraq because President Obama had designated Biden to be his point-man on Iraq and Biden really didn't have the instinct for Iraq. He very much believed in ancient hatreds, it's in your blood, you just grow up hating each other and you think if there was anybody who would have actually understood Iraq it would have been Obama himself. You know, he understands identity more than many people. He understands multiple identities and how identities can change. He understands the potential of people to change. So he's got quite a different world view from somebody like Joe Biden who's always, you know, "My grandfather was Irish and hated the British. That's how things are." So it is unfortunate that when the American public had enough of this war, they wanted to end the war. For me, it wasn't so much about the troops leaving, it was the politics -- the poisonous politics. And keeping Maliki in power when his poisonous politics were already evident was, for me, the huge mistake the Obama administration made. Because what Maliki did in his second term was to go after his rivals. He was determined he was never going to lose an election again. So he accused leading Sunni politicians of terrorism and pushed them out of the political process. He reneged on his promises that he'd made to the tribal leaders who had fought against al Qaeda in Iraq during the surge. [She's referring to Sahwa, also known as Sons of Iraq and Daughters of Iraq and as Awakenings.] He didn't pay them. He subverted the judiciary. And just ended up causing these mass Sunni protests that created the environment that the Islamic State could rear its ugly head and say, "Hey!" And sadly -- and tragically, many Sunnis thought, "Maybe the Islamic State is better than Maliki." And you've got to be pretty bad for people to think the Islamic State's better.
Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, in ENDGAME, also called out the refusal of Barack and Joe to support the winner of the 2010 election and instead give thug Nouri a second term.
The US government overturned an election. The only two Cabinet members who argued against this? Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton. Give Hillary her due, she knew this would harm the Iraqi people. She knew Nouri was a thug -- she'd called him that publicly in April 2008 Senate hearing.
Iraq would be better off today if the will of the Iraqi people, their votes in a democratic election, had been honored.
As long as Zach and everyone else lies, Joe's never going to be asked the important question: What gave you the right to overturn a democratic election?
That's the question he needs to be asked.
The following sites updated:
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HUSTLERS3 hours ago
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How to find a Tiger in Africa12 hours ago
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Idiot of the week1 day ago
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