Sunday, January 16, 2022

Iraq -- Nouri al-Maliki and other things

I am not promoting anyone in Iraq for prime minister.  I do not think -- which is in line with most Iraqis -- that Mustafa al-Kadhimi should have a second term.  He said it would be one term and he's corrupt and ineffective and now he's going for a second term despite earlier promises proving that he's also a liar.  But some visitors e-mailing the public account are convinced that I'm rooting for Nouri al-Maliki.


Huh?


Anytime I mention him in a snapshot or entry, you will find "former prime minister and forev er thug Nouri" so how does that qualify as an endorsement or my rooting for him?


Now granted, we cover Nouri more in the community newsletters which visitors don't see.  But what goes up here in public is not an endorsement of Nouri and if you're thinking that you really need to read more carefully.  


I don't vote in Iraq so I don't do endorsements.  I haven't been impressed with anyone, since the invasion, named prime minister-designate.  You're named that, per the 2005 Constitution, you have 30 days to put together a Cabinet -- if you do that, you become prime minister, if you don't someone else is supposed to be named.  But actually, the same person for another 30 day trial.  That's never happened but the Constitution's never been followed on this.  


I was curious, from time to time, to see how poorly someone would do -- such as when the CIA's long recommended choice became prime minister after they had championed him for over a decade.  


I do think things would be different if the results from the 2010 elections had been honored and Barack and Joe hadn't overruled the Iraqi people with The Erbil Agreement which gave loser Nouri a secondd term.  It should have been Iraqiya forming the government and it should have been Ayad Allawi as prime minister.  Would he have been better?  We don't know.  He couldn't have been worse than Nouri ended up being in his second term -- Nouri's actions resulted in the rise of ISIS. More to the point, Iraqis would have seen that their vote mattered.


It is hilarious to read the liars in the western press tut-tut about voter apathy in Iraq but never note how that apathy was created -- Barack and Joe overturned the 2010 results to give their pet Nouri a second term.


Actions have consequences -- unless it's the US government's actions and then the press wants to ignore the consequences.  If you were an Iraqi who went to the polls in 2010 and, like most did, voted to send Nouri packing and eight months later the US government overturned your vote, why would you believe in voting?  Why would you ever believe your vote mattered?


Some of us -- a handful -- called this b.s. out in real time.  Some of us noted the longterm effects from this move.  Others, like Patrick Cockburn, just lied like a whore.  To this day, Paddy and his burning pee-wee has never once written of The Erbil Agreement.  Because that's what whores do.  Historians have not been silent and it's already part of the historical record.  And we'll make sure that part of the record is that Patrick Cockburn never told the truth about The Erbil Agreement, he was just a cheap liar who lied repeatedly.  

It matters.


History matters.


One piece I did for the community newsletter that I would've loved to have repeated here was about Nouri Tweeting -- as he backed the legal challenges to the October 10th vote -- that the vote, as it was, wasn't fair to women because it didn't meet the quota set aside for women.


As I noted, that was hysterical from the man who couldn't find women to put in his Cabinet in his second term, a prime minister who even made a man (Hoshyar Zebari) the Minister of Women's Affairs.  Yet in December of 2021 -- eleven years later -- wants to lament the lack of representation for women in Parliament?


I covered it in a gina & krista round-robin back in December.


Did you see anyone in the press eve r cover it?  Nope.  A) Women don't matter to the western press.  B) The press doesn't know history about Iraq -- or doesn't care to share it.  So it wasn't covered by the western media.  


Meanwhile, US troops remain under attack in Iraq.  Joe Biden's lie that combat is over hasn't stopped the attacks.  US troops need to be brought home immediately.  AHLU BAYT NEWS AGENCY reports, "Iraqi sources reported a new attack launched on US army’s logistics convoy in Iraq's Basra on Sunday afternoon."


 The following sites updated:



 

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