Saturday, June 24, 2023

Collapse, Corruption, Cornel

So many different kind of people
Trying to be the same
"No way," baby
He said
Baby there's no way
If we could start again
Well who knows
Have we really changed
Some say we have
Reflecting our past
Who can say
Who can say

Races are run
Some people win
Some people always have to lose

-- "Races Are Run," written by Stevie Nicks.


Sadly, two often the people who lose are We The People -- repeatedly.  The laughable Cornel West continues his campaign for some reason.  We're going to note Joseph Kishore's WSWS piece:


The character of West’s campaign is evident in its beginning. On June 5, West released a video on Twitter declaring himself the presidential candidate of the People’s Party, a decision he said elsewhere had been arrived at in discussions between himself and People’s Party Chair Nick Brana.

The People’s Party, founded in 2017, is largely dominated by Brana, a former Democratic Party operative and staffer for Bernie Sanders. Over the past year, the “party,” which has no real program or policies, has focused its efforts entirely on forging a close political alliance with the far right, in particular, the Libertarian Party with which it co-organized the “Rage Against the War Machine” Rally in February and a follow-up event, the “Independent National Convention” in April. Both were politically dominated by right-wing and even fascistic individuals and organizations, on the basis of the call for a “left-right” political alliance.

On June 13, just over a week after his initial campaign launch, West announced that he was no longer running as the candidate of the People’s Party but rather would be seeking nomination for the Green Party, an organization that has long operated as a pressure group oriented to the Democratic Party. The switch was reportedly made after consultations with journalist Chris Hedges, himself a participant in People’s Party-organized events and someone at least as politically confused as West himself.

Whether the change was made due to unease over the evermore openly right-wing character of the People’s Party, concerns about the sexual scandals surrounding Brana, or pragmatic considerations relating to the Green Party’s access to ballot lines in more states—or some combination of these—is unclear. Regardless, the rapid flitting from one party to another speaks to the absence of any semblance of political coherence to the campaign.

[. . .] 

Under conditions of unprecedented capitalist crisis, West is now developing this conception in his proposal for a “United Front” presidential campaign for “truth and justice.” For the ruling elites, such campaigns as West’s play the valuable role of serving as safety valves, hence the professor’s sympathetic treatment in the media.

What one has in the end is a complete pragmatic mess that can serve no other function than to spread confusion and undermine the development of a political movement in the working class. In a word, a muddle.


 Joseph's piece would be stronger if he could talk about reality and not theory.  By that I mean, the realities that Chris Hedges and Cornel planned to run for the presidency on The People's Party ticket -- until Chris Hedges was informed by his wife that he couldn't be on the ticket.  Then when TPP's nightmare of problems -- racism, sexual harassment, flirtation and reach arounds with Nazis, etc -- began imploding on Cornel within days of his announcement, Chris formed a cabal with Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka that attempted to force The Green Party to announce that Cornel was their nominee.  The Green Party refused.  Cornel is just one person running for that party's nomination.  Jill's now heading his campaign, by the way.  Good to see the scum step out of the shadows.  


The whole thing is corrupt and was back door dealing from the get-go.  


Nothing good can come of it.  


Let's move over to Iraq. As many of us noted in real time, Mustafa al-Kadhimi was a portrait of corruption and that the disappearances so infamous during Nouri al-Maliki's two terms had returned under Mustafa.  It was surprising to those us paying attention to see various individuals in the US play dumb and try to talk of the need for Mustafa to continue his (mis)leadership.  They did not want Mohammed Shia Al Sudani to become prime minister.  They lost that battle.  But while it was ongoing, they echoed the US government in pimping Mustafa and attacking Mohammed.  Their real problem -- and the US government's real problem -- was Mohammed had ties to Iran.  Ties are not shocking -- Iran borders Iraq, the two countries are neighbors.


Whether Mohammed will be better, I have no idea.  But we can look to 2010 to see what happens when a despot is given a second term when it's already known that he's disappearing people and running secret chamber tortures.  (Nouri al-Maliki, installed by the US to a second term in November of 2010 which promoted the rise of ISIS in Iraq and all that nearly brought the country to verge of complete collapse instead of just the point of corruption.)

As his months of being out of power add up, more outlets feel free to note just how bad Mustafa actually was.  

Sinan Mahmoud (THE NATIONAL) reports:


Torture and extortion mired the work of a special government committee tasked with investigating corruption in Iraq under the administration of former prime minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi, the government said on Wednesday.

The government dismissed nine senior Interior Ministry officials as part of its investigation.

Shortly after taking office as interim prime minister in May 2020, former spy chief Mr Al Kadhimi established what is known as Committee 29, granting it special authority to investigate major corruption cases.

The now-defunct committee was headed by influential Interior Ministry official Lt Gen Ahmed Abu Ragheef, who served as deputy minister for intelligence and federal investigations.

It made several high-profile arrests of senior government officials and businessmen accused of corruption. Among them were the former director of the pension fund, the former president of the Baghdad Investment Commission, the former deputy electricity minister and the former director of the privately-owned electronic payment company Qi Card.

Critics of Mr Al Kadhimi, mainly Iran-backed Shiite political parties and militias, accused him of using Lt Gen Abu Ragheef’s committee to target opponents. Mr Al Kadhimi had troubled relations with pro-Tehran factions as he sought to rein them in.

Last December, the current Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani ordered an investigation into alleged human rights offences perpetrated by the committee after a report by The Washington Post said it was using forms of torture to extract confessions.

On Wednesday, government spokesman Basim Al Awadi announced that the investigation found “shortcomings and human rights violations”.

"The probe committee recommended sending the file and all investigation papers to the judiciary, as there have been proven shortcomings," Mr Al Awadi said.

The spokesman only mentioned Lt Gen Abu Ragheef, eight other security officials and a police officer.


On corruption, Azhi Rasul (RUDAW) reports:


Rampant corruption plagues all levels of the Iraqi state, and official figures published last year estimated that well over 400 billion dollars have gone missing from state coffers since the regime of Saddam Hussein was overthrown in 2003. 

The crisis-hit country ranks 157 out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index. 

Last week, Iraq’s Integrity Commission announced that it had conducted 210 investigations on corruption cases across 15 Iraqi provinces, excluding the Kurdistan Region. Basra province lead the chart with 36 cases, followed by Anbar with 21.

In late April, Iraqi courts sentenced a former local official to six years in prison for corruption-related charges and “wasting public funds.” 

An investigation by the Iraqi finance ministry in October concluded that $2.5 billion in tax funds were stolen from the General Commission of Taxes’ account at Baghdad’s Rafidain Bank between September 2021 and August 2022, during the tenure of former finance minister Ali Allawi. 

The Iraqi government has repeatedly vowed to retrieve the stolen funds but has so far only retrieved a small portion of that amount despite arresting the main suspect in the case over six months ago.


The following sites updated:

 

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