Monday, April 30, 2012

Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Celebrity In Chief"

Celebrity In Chief
Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Celebrity In Chief."  Lindsay Lohan waives her meth works and asks, "Okay to use my glass pipe."  Barack responds, "After Columbia, anything goes! Check out Clooney's smooth chest."  Isaiah archives his comics at The World Today Just Nuts.  He notes Wally and Cedric long ago coined and popularized "celebrity in chief."








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Sunday, April 29, 2012

Hejira

Reuters reports that the deputy head of the Iraqi Parliament's Security and Defense Committee, Iskander Witwit, has declared that 24 of the F-16 fighter jets will arrive at the start of 2014.  That's 24 out of thirty-six.  This isn't a surprise.  And, for some, it's a cause for alarm.  At the start of the month,  Wladimir van Wilgenburg (Rudaw) reported:


After increased tensions between the Iraqi and the Kurdish governments, Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani told Alhurra TV last Thursday that Baghdad is considering the use of F-16 fighter planes against the Kurds.
In the interview, Barzani says the issue with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is not personal, but it is about his dictatorial policies. "I still consider him a brother and a friend," he said. According to Barzani, division commanders in the Iraqi army are supposed to be approved by parliament, but this hasn't happened.
Barzani told Alhurra that he has confronted the Iraqi PM many times and been told by Maliki that he will act, but he hasn't, and suggested there is talk of a "military solution" to confront the Kurds in Baghdad. Barzani said that in an official meeting with Iraqi military commanders, it was stated that they should wait for F-16s to arrive to help push back the Kurds.


Though KRG President Massoud Barzani has called out the planned delivery and stated that it puts many in danger if Nouri is over those F-16s, the State Dept has dismissed any concerns over the weapons transfer.  From the April 23rd snapshot when White House Spokesperson Victoria Nuland was asked about the weapons deal:


QUESTION: About the --  just a follow-up about an oil agreement made by Exxon-Mobil and KRG. Since it's an American company, the Exxon-Mobil, this agreement is excluding Baghdad Government's role in the use of oil in KRG region. Do you have any comment? How do you see this agreement? Is it threatening to unity of Iraq, or how do you see Exxon-Mobil and KRG oil agreement?
MS. NULAND: We've talked about this issue many times. Our position on it has not changed, that we think the lack of a comprehensive oil agreement is holding Iraq back, that we've called on all sides to continue to work through what is necessary to come up with a national oil policy. And we also regularly counsel our companies, including Exxon, about the fact that there isn't such an agreement. So I think we'll have a little bit more to say on the issues of Iraq and energy later today. We're going to have -- we have the U.S.-Iraqi energy dialogue going on, and we'll have some folks briefing later this afternoon on those things.


Meanwhile Jason Ditz (Antiwar.com) reported today that "Iraqi MP Sami al-Askari, a State of Law member and top aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, has termed the Kurdistan Regional Government’s weaponry a 'threat' to Maliki’s continued rule."   Margaret Griffis covers it here.  Let's do something that the press and children don't like to do, let's apply logic.

Which is more possible, the person who controls 15 provinces attacking three provinces in an all out war or the person who controls 3 provinces attacking someone who controls 15?

For those not wanting a suicide mission, it's the one with 15 provinces.  That would be Nouri.  In addition, context, the KRG isn't just about the KRG.  There are Kurds around the world who watch closely to see what happens in the KRG.  And KRG leaders know that.  Meaning they know that their starting a war that they would likely lose would result in mass condemnation from Kurds everywhere who would note that the closest thing to a Kurdish homeland -- a desire millions of Kurds have -- was destroyed to start an unwinnable war.

So, no, it's not logical that the Kurds would attack Baghdad.  Might they use the weapons to defend themselves/  Damn right they would.  And if, in defending themselves, a war broke out, Kurds around the world would be more tolerant of a loss realizing that Iraqi Kurds were standing up for a dream held by many Kurds.

The Kurds would be stupid to let go of their tanks and other weapons.  They needed them against Saddamn, they still need them against Nouri.



I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away
-- "Hejira," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album of the same name




Last Sunday, the number of US military people killed in the Iraq War since the start of the illegal war was 4488. Tonight? PDF format warning, DoD lists the the number of Americans killed serving in Iraq at 4488.

IANS reports 3 people died in violence today in Iraq with nine more injured.

New content at Third:




Isaiah's latest goes up after this.  Pru notes Great Britian's Socialist Worker's "Shrinking food shores up firms' profits:"

Multinationals are ripping us off by shrinking products while keeping prices the same.
The process is known as “shrink-ray”.
The Which? consumer group found that a 405g jar of Branston pickle has shrunk to 360g for the same price.
A pack of Birds Eye Chicken was cut from 360g to 340g, while a tub of Dairylea spread shrank from 200g to 160g—a cut of 20 percent.
Kraft, which owns Dairylea, announced a 22 percent leap in its quarterly profits in November last year.
© Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original.

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




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Big Erbil Meet-up, Nouri not invited

In Iraq, the political crisis continues.  Gozde Nur Donat (Today's Zaman) observes:

In the midst of a massive wave of political transformation across the entire Middle East, Iraq’s Tehran-backed Shiite leadership has turned a blind eye to the country’s fragile truce among various ethnic and sectarian groups, throwing Iraq’s key power-sharing agreement into disarray in an attempt to consolidate power and further stoking concerns that the unprecedented political crisis in the war-torn country may risk its division.
“The current political situation in Iraq is like a time bomb that could explode at any moment,” Sadrist lawmaker Bahaa al-Araji, whose group backed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in 2010, recently told the media.
The lawmaker accused the prime minister of creating the current political impasse in Iraq and said the Kurds could be the first domino to fall in a broken Iraq. “Baghdad has the same problems with other provinces,” he said, adding that “this will lead to the dividing of Iraq, and there will be no Iraq on the world map.”

Al Mada reports that there was a meet-up in Erbil today.  Among those attending were Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, KRG President Massoud Barzani, Ayad Allawi (head of Iraqiya) Speaker of Parliamen Osama al-Najaifi and a representative of Moqtada al-Sadr's.  [Moqtada's presence isn't noted in this article but he was also present.] The consensus was that there must be a national partnership and that the Erbil Agreement must be implemented.

This wasn't at all surprising.  They and others have been calling for the Erbil Agreement to be implemented for months and months. Nouri al-Maliki is the one who agreed to the agreement and then trashed it when he got what he wanted out of it.


March 2010 saw parlimentary elections.  State of Law (Nouri al-Maliki's slate) came in second to Iraqiya (led by Ayad Allawi).  Nouri did not want to honor the vote or the Constitution and refused to allow the process to move forward (selecting a new prime minister).  Parliament was unable to meet, nothing could take place.  This is Political Stalemate I and it lasted for over eight months.  In November 2010, Political Stalemate I finally ended.  What ended it?

The US-brokered Erbil Agreement.  This was a written document where everyone made concessions and everyone got something out of it.  Nouri got to be prime minister.  He was loving the Erbil Agreement then.  And as soon as he was named prime minister-designate, he began demonstrating he wouldn't honor the Erbil Agreement.  He had called for a referendum and census on Kirkuk for December 2010.  He was supposed to have done that by the end of 2007.  But he refused to even though Article 140 of the Constitution demanded it.  But as he was trying to get everyone to agree to the Erbil Agreement, he was trying to appear resonable and scheduled the referendum and census.  After being named prime minister desisngate, he called off the census and referndum.  It's still not taken place all this time later.  He was also fully on board with the idea of an independent national security commission and it being headed by Ayad Allawi.  But then he got named prime minister-deisgnate and suddenly that was something that couldn't be created overnight but would take time.  17 months later, it's still not happened.


Nouri used the Erbil Agreement to get a second term as prime minister and then trashed the agreement.  He used everyone's concession to him but refused to honor his concessions to them.

This is Political Stalemate II, the ongoing political crisis in Iraq and, no, the political crisis in Iraq did not start December 19th or 21st as Nouri went after political rivals from Iraqiya (Iraqiya came in first in the 2010 elections).  From Marina Ottaway and Danial Kaysi's [PDF format warning] "The State Of Iraq"  (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace):

Within days of the official ceremonies marking the end of the U.S. mission in Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki moved to indict Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi on terrorism charges and sought to remove Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq from his position, triggering a major political crisis that fully revealed Iraq as an unstable, undemocractic country governed by raw competition for power and barely affected by institutional arrangements.  Large-scale violence immediately flared up again, with a series of terrorist attacks against mostly Shi'i targets reminiscent of the worst days of 2006.
But there is more to the crisis than an escalation of violence.  The tenuous political agreement among parties and factions reached at the end of 2010 has collapsed.  The government of national unity has stopped functioning, and provinces that want to become regions with autonomous power comparable to Kurdistan's are putting increasing pressure on the central government.  Unless a new political agreement is reached soon, Iraq may plunge into civil war or split apart. 

Lara Jakes (AP) calls the meet-up a "mini summit" and feels that the participation of a wide range of groups -- including Shi'ites -- "underscored the growing impatience with the Shiite prime minister." Dar Addustour quotes from a press release noting the Erbil Agreement and the power-sharing and that the participants stress the need for things to be done logically (that may be "scientifically," I think it's logically), fairly and that the needs of the Iraqi people are paramount, they must be served and there should be no disruption of services.

The paper also notes that Ammar al-Hakim (head of the Islamic Supreme Countil of Iraq) was not present.  And it notes various reasons for that.  One common trait is he was not invited.  Why he was not invited is in dispute.  One explanation is that al-Hakim is seen as too close to Nouri, another given is that his stand is known and that those present were calling for possible solutions and debating their potential. 


Alsumaria reports on the meet-up and publishes a photo of the meet-up -- Moqtada al-Sadr is seated between Talabani and Allawi.   Alsumaria notes that there's also a call to implement Moqtada's 18 points.  That's apparently on the same level of importance as returning to the Erbil Agreement.  Moqtada's 18 points were presented Thursday in Erbil.  There's been talk of them in the press; however, there's not any publication of the 18 points themselves.  They have been said to support the Erbil Agreement, they're supposed to guarantee judicial independence and be good for Iraqis but that's from statements made on Moqtada's behalf and not from anyone working with the 18 points.  Here's AP reporting on the 18 points on Thursday:


On Thursday, Moqtada Al Sadr offered an 18-point plan to solve the Iraq crisis, mostly through dialogue and political inclusiveness. The plan calls for having good relations with neighbouring nations, but to not let them meddle in Iraq's affairs. That appeared to be a reference to Iran, which is close to Nouri Al Maliki's Shiite-dominated government.
In a nod to Kurdish President Masoud Barzani, Al Sadr said Iraq's oil must be used for the benefit of Iraq's people, "and no individual has the right to control it without participation from others".

Al Rafidayn notes that the meeting today was closed-door and took place at the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. That's the political party Talabani heads. They also note that the meeting lasted three hours.

Also Al Rafidayn notes that Ibrahim al-Jaafari (leader of the National Alliance) declared Friday that Iraq needs to hold a national conference and needs to do so next month, the first week.  The previous deadline Nouri was working with came from Massoud Barzani.  The KRG will hold provincial elections in September and Barzani's made clear that if the political crisis isn't solved by then the issue of what the KRG does next can go on the ballot.  al-Jaafari just moved the deadline up and moved it up signficantly.

Like Ayad Allawi, Ibrahim al-Jaafari has held the post Nouri al-Maliki currently does, prime minister of Iraq.  In fact, Ibrahim was the choice of Iraqi MPs in 2005 and 2006.  The US refused to allow al-Jaafari to be named prime minister again and insisted that their pet Nouri be named.

Turning to violence, Alsumaria reports that a tribal leader's home in Basra was bombed -- no one was killed or injured,  1 police officer and 1 bystander were shot dead by assailants in Salahuddin Province (with another police officer injured), 2 people were shot dead in Diyala Province and a Baquba sticky bombing claimed 1 life.

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