Is Nouri preparing his return?

MEHR reports:

A number of members of the Iraqi Parliament called for an immediate response to the Turkish Army and a cease to its advancement into northern Iraq, stressing the need to maintain Iraqi sovereignty, Almaloumah reported.

Fazel Jaber, a representative of the Iraqi Fatah Coalition lashed out at the Iraqi position in this regard and stated that Iraq's position is shameful because it has not taken any action to deter Turkey and to stop its repeated attacks on the sovereignty of Iraq.

The government and other officials must take serious action to deter Turkey and stop its actions in northern Iraq.

Guess who is among the ones making the call?  State of Law.  Nouri al-Maliki's political coalition.  State of Law's Kate Najman is quoted in the article about the violation of Iraq's sovereignty.  

Nouri's been preparing for the upcoming elections.  I think he's a thug but I'm not an Iraqi voter.  He's been out of office (as prime minister) since 2014.  Is it long enough for most Iraqis to forget why they disliked him?

Maybe.

He was kicked out of office by Barack Obama. Now the US president is Joe Biden.  

In the 2010 elections, the voters kicked Nouri out of office.  But he wouldn't go.  He refused to step down.  For over eight months.  It created a political stalemate in the country.  Instead of supporting the Iraqi people and their voters, Barack's administration decided to back Nouri.  Joe Biden oversaw The Erbil Agreement, a legal contract that tossed aside the votes of the Iraqi people and gave Nouri a second term.

Historian Ehsan Butt Tweets:

Iran-linked assassin arrived at the gates of Baghdad’s heavily fortified US embassy area Green Zone where US president Biden's old friend Nouri al-Maliki, stepped in to protect the assassin https://washingtonpost.com/world/iraq-ira

And he reTweets this from November:

Biden the Assassin: How after the Bush era Biden & his Iranian agent friend al-Maliki continued the Jesuits conspiracy to empower Mullahs of Iran over Iraq by disenfranchising Sunnis to fuel sectarian killings https://thehindu.com/news/international/Biden-al-Maliki-discuss-lsquoblacklistedrsquo-candidates/article16839246.ece… https://twitter.com/ehsan_butt/sta

And this from July:

US brought Nouri al-Maliki to Iraq from Iran & made him PM In 2003. WikiLeak revealed in 2014 Report That US Used him to fuel ISIS onslaught by persuading Sunnis they'd be better off under ISIS than his unrelentingly hostile Shiite govt https://wikileaks.org/berats-box/emailid/31183

In other news,  AFP reports,:

An Iraqi anti-graft police officer was shot dead outside his home Friday, a police official told AFP, in the second such murder in the country's south over the last month.

"Armed assailants this morning shot dead Mohammed al-Shemussi, a captain in the anti-corruption section, in front of his home," said Majed Hamid, a police captain in Amara, the capital of Missan province.

The perpetrators "fled in a taxi", he added.

Shemussi was in charge of applying the mandates of the integrity commission, the federal government's anti-corruption body.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

#RichardMedhurst israel Breaks Ceasefire: Anti-Arab March in Jerusalem & Bombing Gaza

 

Support the show on Patreon: https://patreon.com/richardmedhurst Donate on PayPal: https://paypal.me/papichulomin Donate on GoFundMe: https://gf.me/u/yctyrt Richard Medhurst on Twitter: https://twitter.com/richimedhurst Like the show on Facebook: https://facebook.com/richardtmedhurst Richard Medhurst on Instagram: https://instagram.com/richardtmedhurst Richard Medhurst on Substack: https://richardmedhurst.substack.com/ Independent media is constantly under threat and we need your help to keep going. Rokfin: https://rokfin.com/richardmedhurst Venmo: @RichardMedhurst CashApp: $RichardMedhurst Bitcoin address: bc1qnelpedy2q6qu67485w4wnmcya5am873zwxxvvp About Richard Medhurst: #RichardMedhurst is an independent journalist and commentator. Regular live streams and interviews with popular guests from the Left such as Glenn Greenwald, Mike Figueredo (Humanist Report) and Max Blumenthal (Grayzone). Fluent in English, Arabic, French, German, and having grown up across several continents, Medhurst’s show aims to provide a critical analysis of electoral politics and international affairs from an anti-imperialist viewpoint.

Mindless disposal of surplus products into militarization & urbanization - David Harvey

 

"What are the mindless forms through which capital can successfully dispose of its surplus product? There are two mindless forms which comes straight away to [my mind]. Since 1945 one of the mindless forms is military expenditures... The other way is through what I would call mindless, stupid urbanization." - David Harvey Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/keD9m5EizsM ________________________________________ David Harvey's Anti-Capitalist Chronicles is a @Democracy At Work production. To our supportive and generous Patreon community: thank you for supporting this podcast. Your contributions help us compensate the staff and workers it takes to put each episode together. Thank you for being part of the ACC team! If you would like to support this project and see more of Prof. Harvey, visit us at www.patreon.com/davidharveyacc. Follow us ONLINE: Website: www.democracyatwork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/davidharveyacc Facebook: www.facebook.com/democracyatwrk Twitter: www.twitter.com/democracyatwrk www.twitter.com/davidharvey Instagram: www.instagram.com/democracyatwrk Shop our union coop-made merch: www.democracy-at-work-shop.myshopify.com Visit our books page: www.democracyatwork.info/books David Harvey's new book "Anti-Capitalist Chronicles" is available now: https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745342.

Morning Joe Laughs at AOC, Biden Steals Oil, GOP vs. Nancy

 

Send us a Superchat: https://streamlabs.com/hardlensmedia99 Support us on Patreon at - https://www.patreon.com/HardLensMedia Join us on Odysee - https://odysee.com/$/invite/@HardLens... Join Our Discord Server - https://discord.gg/AQzJG8x Join us on Rokfin - https://rokfin.com/hardlensmedia?cont... We have Merch - https://teespring.com/stores/hlm3 Show Notes:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n... See Other Shows in Our Network - https://www.99perspectives.tv Intro and Outro Music by NoCopywriteSounds provided by http://spoti.fi/NCS In a majority of its Livestream Content

Aaron Maté Explains How The Young Turks Did Him A Favor In Feud With Cenk Uygur & Ana Kasparian

 

Grab our new "The Dive" merch!! https://represent.com/store/jacksonhi... Subscribe to Built Different: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtVo... Support the show with a contribution: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdKW... Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jacksonhinkle PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/thedi... Venmo: www.venmo.com/thedivewithjackson @thedivewithjackson Subscribe to the Show: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/thedivewithja... Rokfin: https://www.rokfin.com/jacksonhinkle Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/jacksonhinklle Discord: https://discord.gg/T23vzEH My Lifestyle Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpsn... Follow Jackson: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jacksonhink... Twitter: https://twitter.com/jacksonhinklle Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jackson.hink... TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@reallifesocia... The Dive with Jackson Hinkle is a populist-left perspective on news & politics which airs daily. Aaron Maté Explains How The Young Turks Did Him A Favor In Feud With Cenk Uygur & Ana Kasparian #AaronMaté #TheYoungTurks #CenkUygur TYT

How Far Have We Come on Racial Justice?

 

OZY On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, to take control of the state and declare — two years and six months after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation — that slavery had been abolished. It’s said that the formerly enslaved people began to celebrate the day with prayer, feasting, song and dance.  Over a century and a half later, Juneteenth is a day of celebration, but also an occasion that forces us to take a deep look at our violent past and the systems that continue to uphold racial injustice in this country. What tangible change has been prompted by the recent racial reckoning following George Floyd’s murder? What are the next steps required for further progress?  WATCH NOW Tune in NOW for a special live edition of The Carlos Watson Show to discuss where we’ve been — and where we go from here. Join the conversation with Carlos and special guests including activist DeRay Mckesson, comedian W. Kamau Bell, acclaimed writer Baratunde Thurston, chef Carla Hall, Harvard professor Jarvis Givens and more. Don’t forget to weigh in with your own thoughts in the live chat — and click here to join the conversations on Twitter! See you there!   TV   |  PODCASTS  |  NEWS   |  FESTIVALS A Modern Media Company OZY Media, 800 West El Camino Mountain View, California 94040

Rep. Ken Buck's Statement on Voting to Repeal the 2002 Iraq War Powers Resolution

 

     June 17, 2021

Press Release

Today, I voted to repeal the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), the legislation that licensed much of the United States’ military engagement in the Middle East for the last 20 years. This blank check resolution authorized the executive branch to conduct broad military operations, and Congress has disregarded its Constitutional oversight powers. Congress' action to repeal the outdated 2002 AUMF today brings Congress one important step closer to restoring its check on Executive fiat.

United States military forces are present in the Middle East pursuant to an Authorization for Use of Military Force that was enacted 20 years ago. At the time, Congress did not conceive that this authorization would sanction an endless military commitment.

The United States is not the world’s policeman, and it is incredibly unwise to promote this level of involvement in international disputes. However, Democrat and Republican presidents alike have abused the powers of war granted under the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs, and Congress must act to reign back the executive branch’s war authorities. Further, continuing to dump trillions of dollars into these endless wars is irresponsible, runs contrary to American economic and security interests, and unnecessarily places American lives in jeopardy.

It is clear that the basis for the AUMFs currently in force have long expired, and Congress must fulfill our Constitutional responsibility and ensure we are conducting proper oversight of the executive branch’s military operations.

Despite broad agreement in Congress on this matter, efforts to reclaim Congress’ Article I powers have been repeatedly extinguished. On July 12, 2019, Congress passed an amendment to the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act to repeal the 2002 AUMF, but this was removed from the bill before it was enacted into law. On November 14, 2018, a resolution was introduced to assert Congress’ War Powers authority over the executive branch related to military operations in Yemen, but the House Rules Committee stripped the effort of its procedural privilege in a rule on an unrelated bill. In a similar move shortly thereafter, the House Rules Committee made the expansive decision to suspend the privileges of the War Powers resolutions for the remainder of the 115th Congress. It is long past time for Congress to face this issue head-on.

To this end, Congress must carefully examine the military needs on the ground in the Middle East, including by holding hearings and coordinating with the administration to determine what military authorities are necessary to mitigate threats and address the current security concerns in the region.

However, I am concerned that a wholesale repeal of military authorities risks leaving our military and national security vulnerable. Legitimate threats to the United States remain active in the Middle East. Most notably, Iran poses a credible and significant threat to the United States. Congress must address these state and non-state terrorist threats in a responsible way, and we must be prepared to prevent and respond to these threats.

The existing AUMFs were never intended to address these current threats and are plainly outdated, which is why Congress must re-assess these authorities.

###

Rep. Roy’s statement on repealing the 2002 Iraq AUMF

 

 June 17, 2021

Press Release

WASHINGTON—Today, Rep. Chip Roy (TX-21) issued the following statement after voting to repeal the 2002 Iraq Authorization for Use of Military Force:

Today I voted in favor of H.R. 256 to repeal the 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against Iraq, a piece of legislation that was authorized to target the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. Nearly twenty years later, it’s time Congress lives up to its Constitutional responsibility, reclaim its war powers, and repeal the antiquated 2002 AUMF. We should prioritize enacting authorities that are needed to go after those who wish to destroy us today. Our nation will be stronger and more unified if we debate, vote on, and pass an updated and relevant AUMF with a clear mission, strategic objectives, and necessary time limits on the authorization to force congressional review.

###

Tell congress to put an end to FRT!

 From Restore The Fourth:

Friend, It’s time to put an end to facial recognition technology. We’ve seen that FRT is notoriously inaccurate and biased, and has the potential to ruin innocent lives because of a single misidentification. We know that when FRT doesn’t work it can land the wrong person in jail and that even when it does work it is an invasive violation of our civil liberties and privacy. FRT is like being in a constant police line up. If your face ends up in a database that is used in criminal investigations (which is shockingly likely if you have a state ID or use social media). Your photo can be regularly compared against images of suspects without your knowledge or consent—potentially putting you at risk of misidentification and a lengthy legal battle to clear your name. With the viral proliferation of closed circuit televisions feeding data to police departments, real-time crime centers and fusion centers, facial surveillance enables the kind of state controlled censure meted out by China to Uyghurs. This is why we can’t let the government continue to use this technology totally unchecked. Understanding the urgency of reining in biometric surveillance, Senators Ed Markey and Jeff Merkley lead the reintroduction of the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act of 2021 in the senate. If passed this bill would effectively ban government use of highly invasive and deeply problematic facial recognition technology, as well as other biometric surveillance tech.

Send a Letter

Tell your representative to put an end to government use of FRT across the nation and support the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act of 2021 here.

​Goodbye to an AUMF

 

Goodbye to an AUMF

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, June 17, 2021
https://worldbeyondwar.org/goodbye-to-an-aumf/

With the U.S. House voting and the U.S. Senate promising to vote on repealing an AUMF (Authorization for the Use of Military Force) from 2002 (essentially a sort of weasely pseudo-permission for President George W. Bush to decide on his own whether to attack and destroy Iraq in violation of the UN Charter and Kellogg-Briand Pact, among other laws), we could end up saying good-bye to a shameful piece of legislation. And without a replacement AUMF yet in place to justify new wars. This is all to the good, but . . .

This is not Congress asserting its authority. This is Congress acting because the current president told it to.

This is not Congress repealing the 2001 AUMF that has been widely denouncd for its use as an excuse for horrific criminal wars for 20 years. That one is being conspicuously left in place.

This is not Congress ending a single war, not even the war on Yemen that both houses voted to end twice when they could count on a Trump veto, not the war on Afghanistan, not the war on Syria (or, as President Biden likes to call it, “Libya”). This is not Congress refusing yet more insane increases in military spending. This is not the prevention of so much as a single drone murder. In fact, no AUMF, not even the 2001 AUMF, has been among the claimed justifications for current wars for quite some time. Trump didn’t rely on AUMFs and neither does Biden.

This “antiwar” action is a bit like failing to reform police or prisons or taxes or college costs or student loans or the minimum wage, and then making Juneteenth a holiday. It’s window dressing. But it does highlight a certain danger, namely that the Congress plans to create a new AUMF, perhaps in the proper moment of fear and panic, prior to repealing the AUMF from 2001. Here are six reasons that’s a bad idea. Feel free to find five of these reasons crazy. Any one of them should be sufficient alone.

1. War is illegal. While all wars are illegal under the Kellogg-Briand Pact, most people ignore that fact. Yet, many fewer ignore the fact that virtually all wars are illegal under the UN Charter. President Biden defended his March missiles into Syria with a ridiculous claim of self-defense, explicitly because there is a self-defense loophole in the UN Charter. The U.S. sought UN authorization for the 2003 attack on Iraq (but didn’t get it) not as a courtesy to the dispensable nations of the world, but because that’s the legal requirement, even if ignoring the existence of the Kellogg-Briand Pact (KBP). There is no way for Congress to word an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) to make the crime of war into something legal. There is no way for Congress to finesse it by claiming that some level of force isn’t actually a “war.” The UN Charter bans force and even the threat of force, and requires the use of only peaceful means — as does the KBP. Congress has no special dispensation to commit crimes.
2. Stipulating for the sake of argument that war is legal, an AUMF would still be illegal. The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the exclusive power to declare war, and no power to authorize an executive to declare war. Stipulating for the sake of argument that the War Powers Resolution is Constitutional, its requirement that Congress specifically authorize any war or hostilities cannot be met by declaring that a general authorization of the executive to authorize whatever wars or hostilities he or she sees fit simply is a specific authorization. It isn’t.
3. You do not end wars by authorizing wars or by authorizing someone else to authorize wars. The 2001 AUMF stated: “That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001,or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.” The 2002 AUMF said: “The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to — (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.” These laws are nonsense, not just because they are unconstitutional (see #2 above) but also because the second one’s dishonest whereas clauses connecting Iraq to 9-11 render it unnecessary under the first one. Yet, that second one was necessary politically in the United States. A new AUMF was also necessary for Syria 2013 and Iran 2015, which is why those wars did not happen on an Iraqlike scale. That another declaration or AUMF was not necessary for numerous other wars, including the war on Libya, including the smaller scale and proxy war on Syria, is a political fact more than a legal one. We are completely capable of making it necessary for Biden to obtain a new pseudo-declaration of war for any new war, and of denying it to him. But handing him a new AUMF now and expecting him to put all the missiles away and behave like a grownup would be tying one hand behind our backs as advocates for peace.
4. If Congress cannot be compelled to repeal existing AUMFs without creating a new one, we’re better off keeping the old ones. The old ones have added a layer of legalisticishness to dozens of wars and military actions, but not actually been relied upon by Bush or Obama or Trump, each of whom has argued, absurdly, that his actions were (a) in compliance with the UN Charter, (b) in compliance with the War Powers Resolution, and (c) authorized by nonexistent presidential war powers imagined into the U.S. Constitution. At some point Congress’s excuses for passing the buck fade into ridiculousness. There is still on the books from 1957 an authorization to combat international communism in the Middle East, but nobody mentions it. I’d love to get rid of all such relics, and for that matter half the Constitution, but if the Geneva Conventions and the Kellogg-Briand Pact can be memory-holed, so can these outrageous Cheney-droppings. On the other hand, if you create a new one, it will be used, and it will be abused beyond whatever it literally states.
5. Anyone who’d seen the damage done by recent wars would not authorize another goddamned thing. Since 2001, the United States has been systematically destroying a region of the globe, bombing Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria, not to mention the Philippines and other countries scattered around the world. The United States has “special forces” operating in dozens of countries. The people killed by the post-9-11 wars is likely around 6 million. Many times that have been injured, many times that indirectly killed or injured, many times that made homeless, and many times that traumatized. A huge percentage of the victims have been little children. Terrorist organizations and refugee crises have been generated at an amazing pace. This death and destruction is a drop in the bucket compared to the lost opportunities to save people from starvation and illness and climate-disasters. The financial cost of over $1 trillion each and every year for U.S. militarism has been and is a trade-off. It could have done and could do a world of good.
6. What’s needed is something else entirely. What’s actually needed is to compel an end to each war, and to weapons sales, and to bases. The U.S. Congress actually acted to (redundantly but apparently necessarily) forbid war on Yemen and on Iran when Trump was in the White House. Both actions were vetoed. Both vetoes were not overridden. Now Biden has committed to sort of kind of partially ending U.S. participation (except in certain ways) in the war on Yemen, and Congress has gone mute. What’s actually needed is for Congress to forbid any participation in the war on Yemen and make Biden sign it, and then the same on Afghanistan, and then the same on Somalia, etc., or do several at once, but do them, and make Biden sign or veto them. What’s needed is for Congress to forbid murdering people around the globe with missiles, whether or not from drones. What’s needed is for Congress to move the money from military spending to human and environmental crises. What’s needed is for Congress to end U.S. weapons sales currently going to 48 of the 50 most oppressive governments on earth. What’s needed is for Congress to close the foreign bases. What’s needed is for Congress to end deadly and illegal sanctions on populations around the world.

We’ve just seen a meeting of President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, at which the major advocates for hostility and war were all members of the U.S. media. We can expect the U.S. media to clamor for a new AUMF precisely because of the hostility generated by the U.S. media toward Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and — lest we forget! — UFOs. But this is a far more dangerous, not better, moment in which to create such a dangerous document than was 2001.

--

David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is executive director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.

Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook.

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Dissenter Weekly: Reality Winner Released From Prison

 

Join Shadowproof editors Kevin Gosztola and Brian Sonenstein as they go through whistleblower stories from the week of June 17

MOC #97 - A Social Media Platform That Could Change Everything!

 

Click here for my free comedy special – https://LeeCampAmerican.com To join the free email newsletter text "REDACTED" to 33-777. Free comedy special at LeeCampAmerican.com New book at LeeCampBook.com