Monday, November 07, 2011

The fallen

Lt Dustin Vincent died Thursday in the Iraq War. Jessica Toumani (CW 33, link has text and video) reports his survivors include his wife and their daughter and she speaks with his aunt Jennie Gonzalez who states, "I was telling him I'm really worried and that I really wished that he didn't have to go. I remember hugging him. I remember his hug and how warm and strong it was. There was a smile on his face, reassuring me it's okay, I'm going to be fine." 25-year-old Dustin Vincent hailed from Mesquite which is a city in Dallas County.

"I didn't want my baby, you know, to go away, so I told him, 'I don't agree with it, but I'm here to support you," his mother Marty Vincent tells Monika Diaz (WFAA -- link is text and video). She also explains that her daughter-in-law is Samantha Vincent and that her son "legally adopted her [Samantha's] daughter, Nacomas" because, "In case something happened to him that she and the baby would be taken care of. I sometimes think maybe Dustin knew." "He loved that little girl," Chandra Usry, Dustin Vincent's stepsister, tells Ray Villeda (NBC DFW -- link has text and video). Peter Daut (Fox 4 News -- link has text and video) speaks with Dustin Vincent's friend Amanda Northum who explains, "He was just looking forward to coming home, and coming home to family. We just really, really miss him."

The Dept of Defense released the following on Friday:

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation New Dawn.
1st Lt. Dustin D. Vincent, 25, of Mesquite, Texas, died Nov. 3, in Kirkuk province, Iraq, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with small arms fire. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Field Artillery, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.
For more information the media may contact the Fort Riley public affairs office by email at matthew.howard1@conus.army.mil, nathaniel.s.smith@us.army.mil, or by phone at 785-240-6359/4928.

Two who have been silent? Well there's the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, who apparently can't be bothered with issuing a statement because he's too busy trying to prove he can handle the presidency. Repeating, he's too busy trying to prove he's up for a new job to do his current job. Someone claiming to be "a doer" should have already "done" released a statement. What should be even more embarrassing (he's not the first governor of a state to self-embarrass over this topic) is that CBS has a station in Dallas, CBS 11, and they don't have one article about Dustin Vincent at their website. Mesquite is in their viewing area. They don't have one story. Pretty shameful. I'm not trying to be rude here but the CW's news team got a story. The CW. And the CBS station can't? Repeating, the CW got a story, CBS didn't.

Bonnie notes Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Priorities" went up last night. On this week's Law and Disorder Radio -- a weekly 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) -- topics explored include Occupy Wall Street, Barack and the Constitution, a report on the Coalition of Immokalee Workers efforts to get a fair wage for Florida tomato pickers and Pam Martens (CounterPunch) explains how Wall Street firms spy on protesters with tax payers footing the bill for the spying. David Bacon's latest book is Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press) which won the CLR James Award. This is from his photo essay "OCCUPY NORTHWEST - BELLINGHAM AND TACOMA:"

Occupy Tacoma Protest Camp

Grassroots people and political activists occupy parks in Bellingham and Tacoma, Washington, to support the New York City demonstration, Occupy Wall Street. Occupiers erect and live in tent camps to protest economic inequality and its impact on working people, students, the poor and the young, calling it a protest by the 99% of the people who are exploited by a system that only benefits the top 1%.


I can't find it online anywhere currently. When it is, we'll provide a link to it. The photo above is David Bacon's. He retains all rights to it and it is not a public domain photo. It is one of many in his photo essay on the Tacoma and Bellingham occupations. And there's a caption to the photo:

TACOMA, WA - 02NOVEMBER11 - Grassroots people and political activists occupy a park in Tacoma to support the New York City demonstration, Occupy Wall Street, and to protest economic inequality and its impact on working people, students, the poor and the young. They call it a protest by the 99% of the people who are exploited by a system that only benefits the top 1%. Occupiers do street theater with signs for the traffic stopped at the intersection by the camp, wearing the Guy Fawkes masks made famous in the movie V for Vendetta.
Copyright David Bacon

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Sunday, November 06, 2011

Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Priorities"

priorities

Isaiah's latest The World Today Just Nuts "Priorities." Barack flies a plane while declaring, "The jobs report came out Friday and, good news, I still have one!" Isaiah archives his comics at The World Today Just Nuts.






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And the war drags on . . .

Today Baghdad was slammed by bombings. AP reports three bombs went off in a downtown market. Citing morgue sources, Reuters counts 10 dead with reports of twenty-six injured. Sky News (link has text and video) offers that a large black plume of smoke hung in the sky over Baghdad. Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) quotes survivor Saleh Mahmoud stating, "I was there when I heard explosions. Then a huge fire and black smoke came out. … We realized that it is Kinani building, which had a fire last year."

They're just there to try and make the people free,
But the way that they're doing it, it don't seem like that to me.
Just more blood-letting and misery and tears
That this poor country's known for the last twenty years,
And the war drags on.
-- words and lyrics by Mick Softly (available on Donovan's Fairytale)

Last Sunday, the number of US military people killed in the Iraq War since the start of the illegal war was 4485. Tonight? PDF format warning, DoD lists the the number of Americans killed serving in Iraq at 4485.

110611

The count hasn't been updated since Thursday. When it's updated next (most likely tomorrow at ten a.m.), it will have increased by one. In other reported violence, Reuters notes that a 5-year -old (Turkcman) was kidnapped in Kirkuk and that a Mosul roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 Iraqi soldier.

Al Sabaah reports that Nouri thinks he can alter the Constitution via his Council of Ministers. At question is Article 119 of the Constitution which covers how a province can become independent. The Council has written their own new bill and intend to force Parliament to vote on it. Another power grab by Nouri. Al Mada notes that the country is in the midst of a political crisis with no end in sight. This is Political Stalemate II. Nouri's refusal to abide by the outcome of the election and surrender the post of prime minister caused Political Stalemate I which only ended (November 2010) when the political blocs met up in Erbil and ironed out an agreement where everyone made concessions. This agreement is known as the Erbil Agreement. Upon all parties signing off, Parliament held their first real session in over eight months and Nouri was named prime minister-designate (Jalal Talabani would wait over a week to name him that 'officially' in order to give Nouri more time to put together a Cabinet.) Upon getting what he wanted, Nouri went on to trash the agreement. This is the start of Political Stalemate II which has continued since. The National Alliance, Iraqiya and the Kurdish politicians (except for Goran) have called for a return to the Erbil Agreement.

Sam Dagher (Wall St. Journal) reports on the continued stalemate and notes Nouri is firing people from the security and targeting people with arrests and "At the same time, Mr. Maliki is delaying appointments to top posts that oversee the security forces, now almost one-million strong including the army and police. Mr. Maliki continues to run the ministries of defense, interior and national security himself or through party and sectarian allies, contravening an agreement with Sunni-dominated and Kurdish political blocs that formed the current coalition government more than 10 months ago."

Al Sabaah quotes an MP (unnamed) with State of Law insisting that the security ministries are working on a plan for the country and that they will need US military help with intelligence efforts as well as for logistical support and that the purchase of weapons will also mean the need for training and maintenance via US troops. Nouri and Barack meet face-to-face in DC next month. Aswat al-Iraq reports:

Al-Alawi pointed out to Aswat al-Iraq that "there are pending dossiers, such as the present political crisis, the security situation following the withdrawal, immunity to trainers, latest developments on regions' questions", but he added that "the visit should come out with something new".
The White House announced that Premier Maliki will visit Washington on 12 December next upon an invitation by President Barrack Obama.
He elaborated that both sides will "reconsider the situation if the armed group found a way after US withdrawal".


Yes, the negotiations continue. New content at Third:




Isaiah's latest goes up after this. The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.




















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