Friday, February 07, 2014

Nouri bombs own soldiers

In Iraq, the assault on Anbar continues.


For 'fun,' Nouri ordered the military to also raid two mosques in western Baghdad (Amiriya).

No where is sacred in Nouri's Iraq, everyone is a victim and everyone is a target.

There is no respect for anything, certainly not for human life.  Nouri makes that clear every day.

Nouri's forces conducted 110 bombings in Anbar today, NINA notes.

It didn't always turn out the way tyrant Nouri al-Maliki hoped.  But when does it ever?

Even so he must be licking his paws in sorrow because, while he's happy to bomb and kill civilians, it's hard to picture him humping someone's leg excitedly when he heard the news that, as Iraqi Spring MC reports, Nouri's helicopters accidentally bombed some of Nouri's forces to the north of Falluja -- bombed and killed.


As if he wasn't already having enough problems recruiting volunteers for his killing squads.

That's not all he bombed.  Iraqi Spring MC reports he bombed the power station in Falluja and the city is now without electricity.

That qualifies as a War Crime as well.  But he's gotten away with collective punishment (a War Crime) because so many have been too stupid or too scared to call him out.

I'm not referring to the Iraqi people.  I'm referring to non-Iraqi news outlets and non-Iraqi blogs and websites.  I'm referring to the article we just addressed in "Activism or just masturbating to old hate fantasies."  I'm referring to a lot of wasted time and a lot of wasted space.

The Iraqi people are at the mercy of a blood thirsty dictator -- first installed by Bully Boy Bush and then Barack illegally ensured that Nouri got a second term after he lost 2010 elections.

Your comfort level is really not my concern.

I include John Pilger in that because he's plugging his own appearance on BBC where he recently spoke of the number killed during Bully Boy Bush but couldn't spare a second -- on BBC or in print at the Guardian -- to note the continued assault on the Sunnis in Iraq today.

And isn't it really past time that when they mount their high horses over the death toll in Iraq prior to the birth of the Christ Child Barack (at which point they pretend the killing stopped) that they start including the toll of the executed?  Iraq doesn't have a functioning judiciary.

The death and dying continue.



National Iraqi News Agency reports Falluja General Hospital received 5 dead and twenty-injured people as a result of Nouri's shelling of the city (the dead and wounded included children and women),  Nouri's military shot dead 4 people in eastern Ramadi, a Sadr City car bombing left 2 people (one a police member) dead and seven more injured, 1 person was shot dead in Muqdadiyah, a Hammam al-Aleel roadside bombing left the brother of the area's police chief injured, an armed clash in Garma left 6 rebels dead and four Sahwa injured, Joint Operations Command declared they shot dead 2 suspects in Mosul, a Baiji car bombing targeted Maj Gen Hamid Mohammed Kemer didn't harm the officer but left three soldiers injured, 1 candidate with the Ahrar bloc was assassinated in Baghdad (Ghazaliya area), and clergy members Sheik Shehab Mahmoud al-Hamdani and Sheikh Abu Noah al-Hamdani were shot dead in Hamman al-Aleel. All Iraq News adds a Tuz Khurmato bombing killed 4 people and left twenty-three more injured.



Even in the face of all the above, in the face of Nouri's assaults, even the violence, cannot stop the ongoing demonstrations that kicked off December 21, 2012 and have continued ever since.

  2.  5h
    الجمعة الموحدة في منطقة العامرية غرب العاصمة بغداد.
     Expand


Protesters turned out in Amiriya today.  Yes, they do protest in that section of Baghdad and let's all just pretend that Nouri ordering two mosques raided in Amirya today had nothing to do with that.

 Iraqi Spring MC notes that protests also took place in Baiji, Jalawla, Baquba and Rawa.


The following community sites -- plus Jake Tapper, Susan's On the Edge, Latino USA, Tavis Smiley, Ms. magazine's blog, Jody Watley, the ACLU, Dissident Voice and Antiwar.com -- updated last night and today:



  • Cedric's Big Mix
    Gutting food stamps
    43 minutes ago

  • The Daily Jot
    THIS JUST IN! HE WORKS FOR THE CORORATIONS!
    43 minutes ago 
  •  Latino USA
    #1406 – Control
    1 hour ago
  • On the Edge
    They Want Us Dead
    2 hours ago
  • The World Today Just Nuts
    Barack Desmond
    2 hours ago
  • Mikey Likes It!
    Elementary
    2 hours ago
  • Thomas Friedman is a Great Man
    Not a Susan Hayward fan
    2 hours ago
  • Ruth's Report
    Junk mail
    2 hours ago
  • Ms Magazine Blog
    Misconceiving Reproduction
    3 hours ago

  • Tavis Smiley | PBS
    Actress Joy Bryant
    3 hours ago 
  • Dissident Voice
    What about Apologizing to Ukraine, Ms. Nuland?
    6 hours ago
  • Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union
    Persistent Aerial Surveillance: Do We Want To Go There, America?
    7 hours ago

  • The Official Jody Watley Website
    Jody Watley Legends of Soul Tour Diary. One.
    7 hours ago

  • Ann's Mega Dub
    Look who's got an image make over
    14 hours ago
  • Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude
    fox goes back to 'the good wife'
    14 hours ago
  • SICKOFITRADLZ
    Jay's last show
    14 hours ago
  • Oh Boy It Never Ends
    The very stupid Sasha Weiss of The New Yorker
    14 hours ago
  • Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills)
    Music and legends
    14 hours ago
  • Trina's Kitchen
    Unemployment benefits
    14 hours ago
  • News From Antiwar.com
    Obama: Religious Freedom the ‘Central Goal’ of US Foreign Policy
    17 hours ago 



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    Activism or just masturbating to old hate fantasies?

    Three British community members e-mailed asking about an article and if I was going to weigh in?  I planned to do so in yesterday's snapshot but there wasn't room.

    Before I wade in and weigh in, I just want to note this.

    The snapshots are supposed to be smaller.  I'd planned that, I'd announced that.

    I hadn't counted on Nouri al-Maliki assaulting Anbar Province.

    That's the reason that no only are the snapshots still longer than I'd like them to be, but some this week have actually been the longest of any ever.

    That extra space has not translated into covering additional topics.  For example,  this week's Law and Disorder Radio,  an hour long program that airs Monday mornings at 9:00 a.m. EST on WBAI and around the country throughout the week, hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Michael S. Smith and Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights) had a really great interview with Professor Rick Wolff and Dr. Harriet Fraad about their essays in Imagine: Living In A Socialist USA.  I specifically wanted to note Harriet Fraad's last remarks before Michael Smith went back to Rick Wolff.  There's been no room. If you haven't listened, make a point to listen to the interview.

    We're spending time tonight again on the Brett McGurk appearance before Congress.  I don't know if we'll finish it in tonight's snapshot.  We may still need to come back on Monday or Tuesday.  I don't know.

    But the main focus has been Iraq -- Harriet did mention Iraq in passing and I might be able to work in a small thing from Law and Disorder in tonight's snapshot that way -- we're trying to point out as much as we can about what's going on.  That includes covering the oh-so-rare Iraq hearings in Congress.  In the old days, when we could get five or more hearings on Iraq a year, I didn't worry but in 2012, we barely got any.  Now, when we do get a hearing on Iraq, it's covered in much more depth because they are so rare and because they matter.

    Yesterday, The New Statesman published Burhan al-Chalabi's "Why the US should apologise for deaths in Iraq."  al-Chalabi's a British citizen who left Iraq decades ago and became a British citizen decades ago (I believe he left Iraq before Saddam Hussein was a political factor, let alone president of Iraq).

    I have several thoughts on the article.

    The first would be, how dare you?

    Anbar's being assaulted and innocents are dying and instead of trying to bring attention to that in the supposed left New Statesman, we've got yet another bulls**t article that doesn't illuminate what's going on in Iraq and that really has no bearing on today.

    No bearing on today?

    Should those responsible for the Iraq War apologize?

    Sure.

    Is that the most pressing issue as residential areas and mosques and hospitals in Anbar are bombed and shelled by Nouri's military?

    No, it's really not.

    It's a bit like asking, "Do you like me in this dress?"  Asking that as someone next to you is bleeding to death.

    Priorities, learn them.

    Second, al-Chalabi is a British citizen publishing in a British magazine.

    Talk about gall and ignorance.

    Bully Boy Bush is a War Criminal.  I don't dispute that.  This site has always called him that.

    But we've also called out War Criminals John Howard (the forgotten axis of true evil) and Tony Blair -- the three men are responsible for the Iraq War.  The US, the UK and Australia provided the largest number of troops to Iraq, the three leaders lied and sold an illegal war.

    Did I miss Tony Blair's apology?

    Repeating: al-Chalabi is a British citizen publishing in a British magazine.

    Where is the call for Blair to apologize?

    Bully Boy Bush is a War Criminal.  So is Tony Blair (former UK Prime Minister) and so is John Howard (former Australian Prime Minister).

    I'm an American citizen.

    As such, I don't shy from calling out the US government.  That's the first one I need to call out when wrong doing takes place.  That's what a democracy requires.

    Were I to write a piece on Blair acting as though he alone started the Iraq War?

    That would be chicken s**t.

    If you can't call out your own, you're worthless.

    The easiest thing in the world is to point a finger at others -- other countries, other leaders.

    If you can't criticize your own for the same behavior you're a worthless coward.

    John Howard is forgotten.  And that frustrates him.  He is very pissed that he has not received the 'credit' he believes he deserves.  So I really don't care that much when he's overlooked outside Australia.  I often assume he's overlooked intentionally because he's made it known how pissed he is for not getting his share of the 'glory' -- so the writer of a piece is having a little fun, meting out a little justice by ignoring Howard.

    But Blair and Bully Boy Bush?

    I don't know how you write, as a British citizen, in a British magazine, about how a leader who lied to start the Iraq War needs to apologize and that leader's not Tony Blair.

    It's cowardly and pathetic.

    Even more so if you grasp that War Criminal Blair parades around the world stage -- has even been given an official role (he's supposed to bring about Middle East peace) while Bully Boy Bush has largely found a rock to live under and rarely ventures out in public.

    Are we on third or fourth?

    At any rate, I also find it appalling that some idiot writes an article as though the violence has stopped.  Or as though Barack Obama and Gordon Brown who both continued the Iraq War instead of immediately stopping it aren't also guilty.

    Barack, for example, is arming Nouri in his current attack on the Sunnis in Iraq.

    That's a violation of the Leahy Amendment and it's also a violation of international law.

    I'm really tired of these pathetic types who notice that Iraq's suddenly back in the news and so they dust off their thoughts from five or six years ago (or more) and dash off a bad piece of writing that really has little bearing on the tragedy so many Iraqis are living through right now.

    You want to talk The Erbil Agreement?  That's why Iraq is worse now than it was in 2009.

    But they don't want to talk about that.

    They're immature brats who just want to stomp their feet about Bully Boy Bush.

    Look, there's no crime I would put past him.

    But Bully Boy Bush has been out of the White House (thank heavens) for over five years now.

    I'm focused on what's taking place in Iraq today.

    I'm fearful that Nouri's going to again prevent Anbar and Nineveh from voting -- as he did in the 2013 provincial elections.  Yes, after international pressure, they were allowed to vote in June.  The other provinces -- except for the KRG which votes on its own schedule in provincial elections and Kirkuk which Nouri prevented from voting -- voted in April.

    Provincial elections are just for the province.  Parliamentary elections are national elections and will determine who ends up prime minister.

    Wait, sorry, stop laughing.  Let me reword: Should determine who ends up prime minister.

    Barack wasn't going to let the Iraqi people decide in 2010 and we saw that but The New Statesman never called that out.

    And let's be really clear, this silence allows the slaughter today to take place.

    There will not be free or fair elections unless everyone votes on the same day.

    This is not a minor issue or one in the far off future.

    Elections are supposed to take place April 30th.

    But let's not talk about things that matter, let's obsess over Bully Boy Bush instead and pretend that everything's fine in Iraq.


    I could continue.  But the main point here is, idiots like al-Chalabi are distractions.  He came along to feed the hate impulse, to distract everyone to pick up the torches and storm the village like it was 2005.  Screaming for the head of the War Criminal Bush is a nostalgic pastime that is not only indulgent but puts the lives of the Iraqi people at risk.

    Bully Boy Bush is a War Criminal.  That point was established years ago.

    Can we try focusing on the attacks and assaults the Iraqi people are currently living under?  The torture and rape of Iraqi girls and women in prisons and detention centers?

    Or do we just want to masturbate to old hate fantasies?

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









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    An olympic struggle between oligarchs of West and East (Alex Callinicos)

    Repost from Great Britain's Socialist Worker:



    An olympic struggle between oligarchs of West and East

    by Alex Callinicos

    David Cameron eyes Russian leader Vladimir Putin
    David Cameron eyes Russian leader Vladimir Putin (Pic: G8 UK)
    The Winter Olympics in Sochi start this week amid a welter of controversies. Radical lawyer Bill Bowring summed them up—corruption and cronyism surrounding the construction of Olympic facilities, the war between Moscow and Central Asian jihadis, Russia’s anti-LGBT law, and so on.


    But underlying these is a more fundamental conflict.


    Russia’s gas heats Europe and gives its oligarchs the billions to buy London mansions and football teams, and send their children to English public schools. But the Russian state under Vladimir Putin remains firmly outside the Western system of alliances.


    One can speculate whether this was an inevitable outcome of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Putin’s predecessor Boris Yeltsin was much more pliant during the 1990s.


    But the US under George Bush senior and Bill Clinton played a strong hand ruthlessly. They encouraged the devastating neoliberal shock therapy that impoverished most of the population and gave the oligarchs control of Russia’s natural resources.


    Clinton also reneged on Bush’s promise not to expand Nato into Eastern and Central Europe. This gave Putin the support he needed for a project of rebuilding Russian imperial power. He has recentralised control over the energy industry in state corporations run by political cronies.

    But, rather than return to Soviet-era state capitalism, Putin’s version of authoritarian capitalism harks back to the imperial glories and Orthodox Christianity of the tsars.

    Hence the jailing of punk band Pussy Riot and last year’s anti-gay law.


    Ensuring that Russia continues to dominate the now-independent states to its east and west that were once part of the Romanov and Soviet empires is crucial to Putin’s strategy.


    In 2008 he fought a brief but brutal war with Georgia that scared the US away from expanding Nato to Russia’s borders. This was as much about Ukraine as it was about Georgia.


    Absorbing Ukraine in the 17th century allowed Russia to emerge as a great power. Ukraine’s incorporation into the Western system of alliances would represent a potentially fatal threat to Putin’s strategy.

     No-brainer


    So when an arrogant and inept European Union refused to offer any money up front as part of an association agreement with Ukraine, it was a no-brainer for Putin.


    He tried to lure president Viktor Yanukovich away with a mixture of threats and promises of financial assistance.


    According to George Friedman of the strategic intelligence website Stratfor, Putin “is not interested in governing Ukraine. He is not even all that interested in its foreign relationships.


    “His goal is to have negative control, to prevent Ukraine from doing the things Russia doesn’t want it to do. Ukraine can be sovereign except in matters of fundamental importance to Russia.”


    Of course, from the perspective of Washington and Brussels, even this is bad enough.


    They want no obstacles, political or economic, to the free flow of capital across a world that accepts the hegemony of US capitalism and its European junior partners.


    So, as during the “Orange Revolution” of 2004-5, Ukraine is being ripped apart in the struggle between two gangs of oligarchs aligned respectively to the West and to Russia.


    It’s hard to say who will win this particular proxy struggle. In the larger contest with the US, Putin enjoys economic advantages thanks to the high price of oil and natural gas.


    The rouble has been hit by the emerging markets sell-off, but Russia has huge foreign exchange reserves and relatively low debts.


    In the longer term, Russia’s dependence on energy is a weakness. Oil and gas count for 75 percent of Russia’s exports, but imported goods make up more than two fifths of retail sales.


    Russia is far too weak to rival the US globally. This doesn’t mean it can’t exploit the relative decline of American power and Washington’s distraction by crises, as it has in Syria. The Russian exception isn’t going to go away any time soon.










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