The Common Ills

Tuesday, September 08, 2015

Yes, things can (and do) get worse in Iraq

The thugs making up the Shi'ite militias are attempting to destroy Iraq yet again. Alsumaria reports the so-called popular mobilization -- thugs with guns -- decided to intimidate the Parliament today as they gathered to denounce any efforts of the Parliament to pass a law creating a National Guard. They insist the law is being pushed by enemies of the people.

September 10, 2014, US President Barack Obama declared, "We’ll also support Iraq’s efforts to stand up National Guard Units to help Sunni communities secure their own freedom from ISIL’s control."

He'd actually begun backing the proposal months before.

And this was actually supposed to be a 'conditional' -- US support was supposed to require that this be passed.

Over a year after Barack began bombing Iraq -- to help Iraq, you understand -- there is still no law.

Alsumaria notes Parliament was supposed to hold a session on the National Guard proposal today but it's now been postponed until at least Wednesday.

Objections are also coming from Iraqiya. Al Mada reports that the political bloc's spokesperson Maysoon al-Damalouji declared today that the bloc remains bothered by the lack of clarity regarding who would be in charge of the National Guard -- the provinces, smaller local units, etc. The bloc Ayad Allawi leads believes that the National Guard should be placed under the control of the prime minister and does not appear willing to support it until that is made clear.

If Barack had insisted that US efforts work towards a political solution, maybe the struggle over the bill wouldn't be continuing over a year later?

June 19, 2014, it was Barack who insisted publicly that the only solution to Iraq's multitude of crises was a political solution.

But it was the same Barack who directed all efforts -- Defense and State -- towards war -- finding other countries to join in the bombing campaign.

There is no solution in Iraq today mainly because Barack doesn't want one.

He's more than ready to kick the can and let the next president deal with his mess.

Someone needs to tell him to get off his ass and do something.

Doubt it?

‏@IraqiSpringMC

ميليشيا ما يسمى "حزب الله" في العراق تتحدث عن امكانياتها القادرة على خطف السفير الأمريكي وليس العمال الاتراك فقط 

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As I interpret the speech, what's being floated is the kidnapping of the US Ambassador to Iraq.

A political solution could have allowed Iraq to focus on needed fixes.

Instead, the focus has been on creating more and more violence.

The Iraqi government and the US government have repeatedly failed the Iraqi people.

In Basra, Kitabat notes, activists are staging a sit-in. They state they have realized that only they can force the needed changes by demanding them. The security forces are insisting that they have the right to remove the tents and the protesters because Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says that such actions cannot be carried out -- despite the Constitution stating otherwise.

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

Iraq

Monday, September 07, 2015

Iraq

"German intelligence confirms Isis used mustard gas in Iraq, says news report," "German Intelligence Has Proof IS Used Mustard Fuel in Iraq," on and on it goes.

Only one outlet gets it right, the CBC, "Mustard gas used in ISIS attack, Germany says."

Germany says.

Or do we just blindly and foolishly take claims as facts?

Remember this claim:

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Bully Boy Bush made it in the January 2003 State Of The Union speech.

It wasn't true.

But he made the claim.

And many outlets reported the claim as fact.

Few outlets offer the truth Global Research does. Today, they feature a report/timeline by Harmeet Sooden on War Crimes in Iraq which includes:

11 March 2015 – An ABC News investigation into Iraqi units known as the ‘dirty brigades’ uncoversphotographic evidence of “Iraq’s most elite units and militia members massacring civilians, torturing and executing prisoners, and displaying severed heads”. For example, a “photo posted in September [2014] showed the severed head of [an] alleged ISIS fighter lashed to the grill of a U.S.-donated Humvee bearing an Iraqi Army license plate” and a “second related photo surfaced of what appeared to be an Iraqi Army soldier holding up the same severed head next to the gun truck.” In a video circulating in January 2015, “[f]ighters who appear to be a mix of militia and army…take pictures of a captured teenaged boy who appears terrified” and “shoot him to death”. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch review the “graphic evidence of Iraqi government forces committing torture, summarily executing civilians – including children – and even beheading captives.”
13 March 2015 – A UN report concludes that, throughout the summer of 2014, pro-government militias and the popular mobilisation forces (PMF) “seem[ed] to operate with total impunity, leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake.”
18 March 2015 – Human Rights Watch releases a report and media statement with evidence of “[m]ilitias, volunteer fighters, and Iraqi security forces engaged in deliberate destruction of civilian property after these forces, following US and Iraqi air strikes, forced the retreat of [ISIS] from the town of Amerli and surrounding areas in early September 2014” and displaced thousands.
19 March 2015 – Physicians for Social Responsibility releases a report attributing the deaths of up to one million Iraqis to the Iraq War (between 2003 and 2012).
28 March 2015 – An article in Foreign Policy argues the US-led coalition is effectively providing air cover for ethnic cleansing for government-backed militias.

3 April 2015 – Amnesty International begins investigating reports of “widespread human rights abuses” by government-backed militias during and after the re-capture of the Tikrit area, including “reports that scores of residents have been seized early last month and not heard of since, and that residents’ homes and businesses have been blown up or burned down after having been looted by militias”, and “summary executions of men who may or may not have been involved in combat but who were killed after having been captured”.
4 April 2015 – Reuters correspondents witness “a convoy of Shi’ite paramilitary fighters – the government’s partners in liberating the city – drag a corpse through the streets behind their car.” They also witness “two federal policemen…[u]rged on by a furious mob, [who] took out knives and repeatedly stabbed the man in the neck and slit his throat” in an apparent attempt to behead him, and then “fastened [a cable] to the dead man’s feet and dangled him from the pole.” Official sources told Reuters that “dozens of homes had been torched in the city” and “they had witnessed the looting of stores by Shi’ite militiamen.”

11 April 2015 – The Baghdad bureau chief for Reuters, Ned Parker, leaves Iraq after he was threatened on Facebook and denounced by a Shi’ite paramilitary group’s satellite news channel in reaction to a Reuters report that detailed lynching and looting in Tikrit. Parker is a 12-year veteran of Iraq war coverage. A media advocacy group, Committee to Protect Journalists, says that at least 15 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the beginning of 2013.

12 April 2015 – The Wall Street Journal interviews several Iraqi soldiers being trained at Taji Military Complex, who openly say “they actively served on their days off with Shiite militia – some of them…still listed by the U.S. as terrorist groups.”

Lastly, anyone remember Hillary Clinton and Iraq?

Specifically, her inability for years and years to apologize for her vote for the war.

Then, when campaigning in 2007, and pressed, she got hostile and rude.

So, this go round, she tries to say she's already covered it in the ghost-written book that didn't sell.

Isn't that a lot like her e-mail scandal currently?

She refuses to apologize.

Pride really is her downfall, isn't it?

She's too damn stupid to just offer an apology and move on.

She's just too damn stupid (which also explains her vote for the Iraq War).

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

Iraq

Sunday, September 06, 2015

Hejira

A tale of two Tweets?

Evidence for the War Crimes trial?

Maybe a bit of both.

Sex addict Brett McGurk Tweets:

That's one view of course.

An unfeeling view, you could argue.

An ignorant one as well.

The bombs dropped?

#IRAQ شمرية العراق ‏@moonnor27 17 hours ago

#Iraqi army crimes bombed today sunni civilians in Ramadi killed innocent women &children #Iraq
5:52 AM - 6 Sep 2015 · Details

That's the reality freaks like Brett McGurk never own up to.

That's the violence the US government is promoting.

Those are the pictures the US press ignores.

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

The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4497.

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