The Common Ills: 2019-01-13

Saturday, January 19, 2019

Protesters have been shot at five times in recent weeks but throw a rock and suddenly it's 'violent'

In Basra, protests continued on Friday. It's interesting, no links to liars, that some want to claim they "turned violent." Some rocks injured a police officer. Boo-hoo. Where were you at the start of the week when the police shot into crowds again? When they shot a protester in the back? Where were you and your sudden concerns about violence.

No where to be found. As usual in the US, outlets -- even those we think of as 'friends' -- half-ass their way and miss one story after another.

What were the protesters protesting on Friday?

The same things that they have been protesting all along with one addition.

They had a new call but you won't find that in any US press -- not even the 'independent' press.

From PARS TODAY:

Neben dem Ruf nach Beendigung der desolaten Wirtschaftslage in ihrer Stadt forderte die Demonstranten auch die Freilassung aller Demonstranten, die vor einigen Tagen bei Protesten in der Region "Ezzadin Salim" festgenommen worden sind.

The new demand is a call for the release of the protesters who were arrested earlier this week.

The same US outlets that ignore that demand ignored the arrest of the protesters earlier this week. From the January 15th snapshot:

ALSUMARIA reports Basra Operations Command announced yesterday that they will be releasing protesters . . . shortly. They insist that this is for the "protection" of the activists. These protesters were demonstrating yesterday. And "protection" included, apparently, also shooting one protester in the back. That's at least the fourth time in recent weeks that Basra Operations Command have used "live ammo" on activists. The third time was this past Friday.

Recent weeks have seen protesters fired on five times (the fifth was yesterday) and yet when a protester throws rocks suddenly it's "violent." That tells you all you need to know about the bias built-in to these 'reports.' They are not objective and they certainly are not fair.

Over at PBS, Saturday's NEWSHOUR included a report on the way the Iraqi government is failing the families of soldiers killed and failing soldiers who have been injured.

Meanwhile, at THE NATIONAL INTEREST, Daniel L. Davis argues, "America is not made secure by permanent combat deployments overseas." From his essay:

The point should be painfully clear: the Middle East is a violent and chaotic place, and it hasn’t mattered whether American troops were engaged there or not—and the nature of the region won’t change after we leave. Amidst all of this chaos, however, the security of the American homeland was guaranteed by our overwhelming conventional and nuclear deterrent.
Continuing to keep tens of thousands of American military, contractor, and government officials deployed overseas in military occupations with no clear objective are not merely pointless, but they degrade our ability to protect the American homeland from potential existential threats that may arise.
I have fought in large-scale tank-on-tank battles, traditional counterinsurgency fights, and foreign military training missions. I also served in Korea in the 1990s against the backdrop of a perpetual threat of large-scale battle, in Germany during the Cold War patrolling the East-West border between the Soviet Union and Western Europe, and served as the second-in-command of an Armored Cavalry Squadron.

The long-term effects of detracting our operational and training focus away from preparing for peer-on-peer fights since 9/11 has unquestionably reduced America’s ability to fight and win major conventional wars.

The following community sites -- plus Cindy Sheehan and Jody Watley -- updated: