The Common Ills: Iraq snapshot

Monday, March 21, 2022

Iraq snapshot

Monday, March 21, 2022. JACOBIN whores for the IRaq War.

Over the weekend, the Iraq War hit the 19th mark, 19 years and still going. Will US troops ever leave Iraq? At this rate, no. And we know how the corporate media in the US did their part to start the illegal war and to keep it going. We address that fact constatly. We've also noted, over the years, how Pandhandle Media -- the beggar media -- send money, send money -- also keeps the illegal war going. This anniversary?

Silence from the beggar media for the most part.

To be clear, when we don't get silence from them on Iraq, we don't get much of anything. They do af, "It's 19 years old" statement and then rush to offer what everone knew back when Bully Boy Bush occupied the White House. Nothing as recent as two years prior is ever offered because they don't pay attention to Iraq. They can show up to do their useless segments and writing that would be the same if they wrote it ten years ago but they can't talk about Iraq today -- the political stalemate, the protests (more and more over rising costs), the large number of women being murdered (Juare is apparently the furthest US 'feminists' will allow their minds to wonder when women are being targeted), etc.

Enter JACOBIN and Saif Ansari -- the latter of whom bill shimself as "Philosopher, lawyer and writer. Indian American/Muslim atheist." SOmeone break it to the idiot that Muslim isn't a race, it's a religion so, if you bill yourself as an aehist, you're not a Mulsim. Basics are hard for Saif as he makes clear when writing about Iraq for Jacobin -- a place he doesn't normally cover but apparently someone at JACOBIN felt that the piece was needed and theyf armed it out to Saif as one of the non-White guys they actually have working at JACOBIN. Isn't that just another form of colinialism?

At any rate, Saif starts out his piece slamming US President Joe Biden which is more than fair. Joe is president and the war continues under his watch. Joe supported the war in the US Senate. And then, the whole thing quickly falls apart. The first section with huge pro lems:

And yet not even during the heated final debate of the primaries in 2020 did Bernie Sanders (who had voted against the invasion in 2002 as a representative of Vermont) make the case — which he had alluded to on the campaign trail more than once — that Biden was unfit to serve as president because of what was, in Sanders’s view, “the worst foreign policy blunder in the modern history of the United States.”

Elizabeth Warren, another candidate who had called the Iraq War a mistake, also failed to challenge Biden’s historical defense of the invasion — from denying that he had ever believed Hussein possessed WMDs to lamenting that the only mistake he had made was to trust the Bush administration. When asked whether Biden was to blame, Warren — a legal academic who had begun her political career taking on the president over the 2005 bankruptcy bill — demurred.

In fact, the most strenuous criticism against Biden’s role in the Iraq War was leveled in March 2020 by an air force veteran who accused Biden of having the blood of fellow service members on his hands. But despite his overtures that he had come to regret his support for the war — which became increasingly unpopular in the upper echelons of the Democratic Party in subsequent years — Biden never learned from his mistake.

Eleven years after the intervention in Libya’s [. . .]

Tulsi Gabbard? Isn't that the name that belongs in the above? Yes, it is. Caling Tulsi out for fake assery isn't a popular move. We don't worry about popularity here. We worry about the truth. SO we won't just be Abby Martin saying her name on a JaACOBIN podcast and then laughing. No, we'll actually go there as we did in real time. In the final debate that candidate Tulsi made the stage for, we were all expecting the big showdown. This was anti-war Tulsi. She'd played that anti-war arm chair zealot over and over. And the war, she'd tell voters over and over, was her biggest issue. It effected everything -- including how much money we had to spend on other issues -- needed issues.

Bill de Blasio and others had confronted Joe during the debqtes of the candidates for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Tulsi hadn't. And she had an excuse, she wasn't on the stage with him. The field was so crowded back then that they had to divide them up into groups.

So she'd go on MSNBC, for example, on June 26, 2019 and slam Joe for his actions regarding Iraq but she wasn't on stage with him.

But Wednesay, July 31st, she was finally on stage with Joe Biden. And big talking Tulsi, whose big issue was the war, was on stage with Joe Biden who voted for the IRaq, War, who did a pre-war hearing that was stakced with war supporters though Joe tried to pretend it was fair and balanced, the man who voted over and over to keep funding the war, the man whod efended it over and over (despite his 2019 lie that he had turned on the wr the minute bombs started ropping). Here was Tulsi's chance to finally take the fight to Joe.

It was going to be an epic throwdown, right?

Wrong.

We recounted it at lenght and repeatedly over and over. For example, see the next day's snapshot.

Joe Biden was on the ropes. He was struggling and he could have been eliminated that night. If Tulsi had done the job she should have, he could have been out of the primary.

But instead, she decided to take out Kamala Harris. Jimmy Dore rightly points out that Kamala ended up without any support at all. Throughout the entire thing, the long process, no one was flacking to her. He's right. But he is someone who has some allegience to Tulsi that is greater than his allegiance to the truth. Now I'll overlook that on Jimmy. He speaks out on many important topics. And I'll defend her from the lunatic attacks from WHoopi Goldberg and others.

But I'm not going to pretend that we saw Tulsi was a whore at the debates.

Read the transcript -- or read the snapshot -- because Tulsi went after Kamala and Kamala was no threat. She was never going to get the nomination. She had no large base of support. Most women did not rally to her. African-Americans in the south did not relate to her.

But Tulsi used her time and her ammo on Kamala. Not on Joe.

Her defenders -- and, sadly, that included BLACK AGENDA REPORT -- would make excuses for her. There was no excuse. Joe Biden was the choice of the establishment and he was being carried by the corporate meid and covered and pimped by them.

She should have taken out Joe.

Sher refused to do so.

If you missed that debate, you may join the liars and insist that she was making statements and -- B.S. That's a damn lie. Jake Tapper was a moderator. He specifically called on her regarding Joe Biden and he was puzzled -- watch his face -- by her remarks which were rescuing Joe and excusing his actions.

He looks like he's wondering if she understood the question. SO he then goes back to her for a second time and is more specific. And Tulsi again takes a pass.

That night, the next day and through the weekend, Tulsi shows up where ever she could on TV and repeatedly insisted that Joe said his vote was wrong and that was good enough for her.

His actions wnet far beyond just his initial vote but Tulsi buried that in hre comments and buried Joe's Iraq issues for the press. When the self-promoted anti-war candidate told the American people and the press that Joe had nothing to apologize for or make amends for that everything was fine? There was no longer a story there. The media wants conflict. And it wants conflict is can hide behind to pretend to be objective. Had Tulsi held Joe accountable on the stage, the issue of the Iraq War would have been forced itno the conversation by the national press.

My allegiance is not to any politician.

Tulsi is one of the reasons Joe Biden is in the White House. She had the chance to tak ehim out and instead aimed her fire at Kamala. People like pig Michael Tracey were overjoyed.

What they refuse to admit now is that Tulsi gave the nomination to Joe on that night in July of 2019. They refuse to also admit that the woman Tulsi 'destroyed' on stage is now Vice President of the United States. So exactly how badly did Tulsi destroy Kamala?

It was pure fake assery.

Dennis Kucinich left people in tears in Boston back in 2004 at the DNC convention. I didn't defend him. I told the young teenagers who were crying in the open -- especially one young woman -- that Dennis didn't deserve them. That they had more integrity and more ethics than he ever would.

I don't whore for a politician. I hold them accountable.

It's a shame that no one wants to hold Tulsi accountable. It's how we will get another Bernie Fake Ass SAnders to divert us all and we will pour energies into him and risk our own health to try to deliver the nomination to him and he will sell us out and try to use us as his fan clubm.

JACOBIN trets Tulsi as an aside because they get vicious feedback. I don't care what the e-mails to the public account are like. I will defend her right to speak. I will defend her from vicious attacks on her patritoism. I will not, however, pretend that she's anti-war or that she will speak with an anti-war voice.

She betrayed everyone and she needs to be held accountable.

Saif writes:

American voters used to give a damn about the Iraq War. In 2008, Barack Obama leveraged widespread discontent with the war to secure the Democratic nomination, courting progressives and young people alike. In fact, it’s widely believed that Hillary Clinton lost to the senator from Illinois not just because she had voted for the war — and was instrumental in rallying ambivalent Democrats to the cause — but because Obama had decried the invasion from the start.

Where do you start with that garbage.

American voters used to give a damn about the Iraq War?

The voters are the ones who walked away?

I don't remember the voters issuing a statement the week after the November 2008 election stating that they were shutting down. No, that was United for Peace and Justice which made a ton of money off the war. But they then used their organization to shelter elected Democrats and theywhore to get Barack into the White House. Leslie Cagan is a grown ass woman and then some -- the whiskers on her chin prove that. But the woman who's too cowardly to tell a board meeting that she's a Community -- she is one -- is the same woman who whored for Barack and didn't want to be around to hold him accoutnable.

They lied. They lied to the voters and told them Barack was an anti-war candidate.

He wasn't. He never was.

The media stuck in on Iraq just a little bit longer. As 2008 drew to a close, newspapers and networks in the US announced that they were closing BAghdad desks ABC announced that anything that happened in Iraq could be covered by their using BBC coverage of the war.

So the 'leaders' deserted and then the US news deserted all before Janaury 2009 and yet the person JACOBIN blames is voters?

When we do our Zooms there are always students who will say they showed up thinking this was going to be historical, a look at what had been done to Iraq. They didn't realize that it was still being done. I don't them blame them or attack them. I understand why they don't know about Iraq, the corporate media doesn't cover it and the so-calleldl politicians who care (Barbara Lee) won't mention it.

Saif writes tht ''some believe'' Barack used Iraq to destroy Hillary's chances. Some believe that? It was his whole argument advanced by his suppoters. as well as by himself. It demonstrated his supposed superior judgment.

We heard tht over and over. And we saw CODESTINK bird dog Hillary while avoid him despite the fact that hew as voting for the Iraq War once he was in office.

No, he did not vote for the 2002 authorization of the war. He was not in the US Senate at the time so he could not vote for it.

Patricia J. Williamson was a typical whore for Barack. Despite being a law professor, and presumably understanding what ethics are, she wnet on KPFA and lied on THE MORNING SHOW about how Barack, in 2002, had voted against the Iraq War. When confronted with her lie by a caller, Patty refused to admit the truth.

They all lied, they all whored. THey used poor Kimberlé Crenshaw. I told her they were using her so I don't feel sorry for her. She was warned. They wanted to attack Hillary and promote Barck so White women teamed up with Kimberle to use her skin color in the byline. They didn't give a damn about her or her observations. She thought she was breaking through. HUFF POST, THE PROGERESSIVE,e veryone was noting some column she had co-written and the importance of it and . . . . By 2009, when she was no longer needed as cover to hide behind, she went back to being unwanted in the circle jerk that ignores most people of color. But for awhile there, she was convicnced that everyone was interested in her and she'd finally broken through.

Saif wants you to know that Barack was agains the war from the start.

But he wasn't.

He was against it enough to give a tiny speech. It was so smallt hat iwas insignificant. Footage existed of it -- I'm still friends with the person who asked Barack tp speak in Chicago that day. But the turnout was small. So 2008 campaign decided to 'recrete' it and the press let them do that. I've seen the original. It's not inspiring, the voice doesn't soar. Hes not impressive in his remarks or in his delivery. So they shot it several years later and the press let him get away with it.

Why dods it matter?

I mentioned Boston 2004, remember. I was there. I was there when he gave that lousy speech at the convention. Matthew Rothschild called it out in THE PROGRESSIVE. It was a war speech. And then, three years later, Matty wants to whore for Barack and begins praising the speech. That's what a whore does, erase the past.

And that's what JACOBIN's doing.

It was in Boston that THE NEW YORK TIMES asked Barack -- anti-war Barack -- about he Iraq War and noted that the top of the ticket, John Kerry had voted for it. Barack pointed out that he wasn't in Congress and said he didn't know how he would have voted if he had been in Congress.

When Bill Clinton raised this point, he was smeared as a racist. We've repeatedly noted Bill's criticue over the years

But since you raised the judgment issue, let's go over this again. That is the central argument for his campaign. 'It doesn't matter that I started running for president less a year after I got to the Senate from the Illinois State Senate. I am a great speaker and a charismatic figure and I'm the only one who had the judgment to oppose this war from the beginning. Always, always, always.' "
"First it is factually not true that everybody that supported that resolution supported Bush attacking Iraq before the UN inspectors were through. Chuck Hagel was one of the co-authors of that resolution. The only Republican Senator that always opposed the war. Every day from the get-go. He authored the resolution to say that Bush could go to war only if they didn't co-operate with the inspectors and he was assured personally by Condi Rice as many of the other Senators were. So, first the case is wrong that way."
"Second, it is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, numerating the years, and never got asked one time, not once, 'Well, how could you say, that when you said in 2004 you didn't know how you would have voted on the resolution? You said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war and you took that speech you're now running on off your website in 2004* and there's no difference in your voting record and Hillary's ever since?' Give me a break."This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen...

I dictate the snapshots. I am not looking at the above. I mention that because as we repeatedly returned to that quote, we would add more links to it to back up what Bill was saying. My friend's pulled that from a piece I did with Ava back in 2011. I steered him to that because I'm hopning it has all the links in it. If it doesn't do the research yourself. I'd also recommend the piece for THIRD entitled "The Temple Prostitutes in the Cult of St. Barack."

JACOBIN fits in that same temple with the other prostitues when they publish garbage like this.

And I'm not even at the half-way mark on that awful article.

How does the Iraq War continue? Be cause of whoring like what JAOCBIN posted that never hodls anyone acountable.

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "We Feed Them" went up Saturday night.