Saturday, March 02, 2013

Nouri's said to be holding 19 arrest warrants on political rivals

It's a new month and yet the violence continues in Iraq.  All Iraq News reports that a Tikrit armed attack on the homes of 2 Iraqi soldiers has left them dead, an armed attack in Samarra utilized bombs and left 1 police officer dead and five more injured, and they note that Baghdad is warning that there is a new weapon, explosive mobile phone chargers.  The National Iraq News Agency adds that an attack on the Nineveh border left 1 Iraqi soldier dead and six more injured (supposedly by Syrian rebels)  [on Iraq and Syria, you can check out Ron Beasley's post at The Moderate Voice],  2 suspects were shot dead in Mosul by police, a Kirkuk sticky bombing injured police Col Qassem Hamid, a Falluja sticky bombing injured provincial election candidate Fakhri Sarhan, and, dropping back to Friday night, the son of Gen Wathiq al-Hamdani was shot dead in MosulAlsumaria notes mobile phone trucks exploded in Baghdad killing six people.

Kitabat reports the latest of Nouri's paranoia: He's convinced if the Syrian army falls (and President Bashar Assad falls), that he will be the next leader deposed.  After Bully Boy Bush made Nouri prime minister in the spring of 2006, the State Dept began charting Nouri's paranoia.  By 2010, when the vote of the Iraqi people meant Nouri should have been shown the door, Barack Obama decided Nouri had to stay.  He overrode the vote and the Constitution to keep Nouri in place.  When he did that, there were four years of documentation regarding Nouri's paranoia.  To put a puppet in place is wrong and undemocratic.  To put or keep a puppet who is plagued by paranoia in place is green-light to abuse and murder.

Maybe the protesters will manage to topple Nouri's corrupt reign?

Maybe not.  But there's a good sign that they will be successful: They're being trashed by the Telegraph of London's Colin Freeman.  Considering how wrong he's been repeatedly about Iraq, this is good news for the protesters.  The UN notes that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres is calling for the Camp Ashraf residents (most now at Camp Liberty) to be protected.  The UN notes:



“After the despicable attacks on Camp Liberty on 9 February, it is particularly important that we redouble our efforts to resettle the residents and find durable solutions for them outside Iraq as quickly as possible,” said Mr. Kobler.
He noted that, under the memorandum of understanding of 25 December 2011, the Government of Iraq is responsible for the security and safety of the residents.
Mr. Kobler also thanked Mr. Guterres for the efforts of UNHCR and assured him that the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), which he heads, will continue to support the agency to bring about a quick resettlement of the residents to third countries.


That "despicable attack" war ordered by Nouri al-Maliki.  The same guy Freeman drools over.



Yesterday, at the Ramadi protest,  Minister of Finance Rafie al-Issawi resigned.  Alsumaria reports today that Nouri's State of Law is dismissing the notion that others will step down from the council.   Al Mada adds that al-Issawi called today for others to leave the council including Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq.  al-Issawi and al-Mutlaq are both members of Iraqiya.  Iraqiya came in first in the 2010 parliamentary elections, besting Nouri's State of Law.


You may remember Mutlaq attempting to speak to protesters and being booed.  Some wanted to say that what ensued (his guards firing at protesters) demonstrated "violence" on the part of protesters.  No, it demonstrated an intolerance for whores.  Saleh al-Mutlaq sells out everyone.  He is a joke and he will always be a joke.  He thought he could parade his usual fraud act before protesters and that they'd lap it up.  They had no need to.  He can deliver nothing and he's got no backbone.

While al-Issawi was calling for him to resign, al-Mutlaq was instead currying favor.  All Iraq News reports he and Nouri met today to bond and discuss Iraq. No word on whether al-Mutlaq had to apply a new coat of lipstick after a session of kissing Nouri's butt.  NINA notes that Nouri issued a statement which included, "The meeting touched the political situation and the measures that should be adopted to meet the current challenges." NINA quotes Hamid al-Jubouri, the spokesperson for the  Hawija protesters, stating, "More than two months when the demonstration and sit-ins stared regularly in the province, during which people declared condemnations of the bombings, which killed Iraqis whether in Shiit or Sunni areas steaming from our belief that all are Iraqi citizens all over. "  And they quote Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Mashhadani stating,  As hundreds gathered in the courtyard of /Pride and Honor/ in Kirkuk where Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Mashhadani,  Imam and preacher of Friday prayers stressing as saying: "Our gathering is devoted to remove injustice, but the Prime Minister made a deaf ear and a blind eye."

NINA quotes Falluja protest organizer Sheikh Khalid Hmoud al-Jumaily stating, "The people of Anbar did not come out in support of the Finance Minister, even though he is the province's citizen; the people took to the streets demanding their rights, mainly releasing the detainees.  Everybody must know that the people of Anbar are not supporters of a party, bloc or person." 

al-Issawi tells Kitabat that he resigned because there had been over 70 days of protest and the government had still not responded to the protesters.  He notes that a government is supposed to be responsive to the people, not ignore them.  He tells Alsumaria that Article IV -- which has been used to punish so many Sunnis -- is no longer going to work and that the government refused to listen to the protesters or to take accountability for the eleven shot dead in Falluja by Nouri's forces January 25th.   He feels the solution to the crises facing Iraq can be found in the sit-ins taking place.


Ayad Allawi is the head of the Iraqiya.  All Iraq News notes he has declared that the clergy in Iraq are helping to preserve the unity and that he met today with Sheikh Hussein al-Sadr.

From the February 27th snapshot:

  This morning,  National Iraq News Agency was reporting:

The MP, of the state law coalition, Sadiq al-Labban revealed that "the government would issue arrest warrants against those who instigated and participated in fueling sectarian strife through exploiting the demonstrations to split the Iraqi National Front, noting that among these names, the Finance Minister Rafie al-Issawi. 


This is apparently  another case of Nouri's State of Law political slate being unable to control themselves in public.  In this case, al-Labban has revealed something in existence that Nouri wasn't wanting known just yet.

Rafie al-Issawi is a member of Iraqiya, the political slate that came in first in the March 2010 elections (beating Nouri's State of Law).  He is also Sunni.  Nouri's reputation is one for fighting dirty against political opponents.  If the warrants are real, expect things in Iraq to get a lot worse a lot quicker than many anticipated.  If the talk of warrants if false, al-Labban just made some very uninformed remarks that will have huge repercussions.

NINA quotes Iraqiya MP Wissal Saleem stating:
The statements of the State of Law coalition's MPs about arrest warrants against the leader of the Iraqiya, Finance Minister Rafie al-Issawi is dangerous [and]  if they have court orders issued by their courts, this is another subject.  We do not know the basis that the state of law coalition's MP is authorized to talk about an arrest warrant while the judiciary did not say anything about it, indicating that the goal is to create new crises after failing of the Government.   These remarks will lead to a backlash, especially at this critical juncture, through which the Iraqi state is passing.


Distrust, anger and hostility are just some of the feelings State of Law has created with the comments about arrest warrants.


Kitabat reports today that Nouri has 19 arrest warrantes ready to serve on members of Iraqiya.
Dar Addustour also reports security sources say there are 19 arrests and the outlet notes that Iraqiya plans to hold an emergency meeting on Sunday.



The following community sites -- plus Susan's On the Edge, the Guardian, Ms. magazine's blog, Jody Watley, Media Channel and Antiwar.com  --  updated last night and today:


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





iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq





I Hate The War

 How do you know someone doesn't give a damn about Iraq?

For starters, they ignore it.

But the tenth anniversary approaches and it's like an essay topic the teacher just scrawled across the blackboard/greenboard/projector from the laptop.  So now a lot of people feel like they need to write about Iraq.

And we're going to see some really bad writing.

Today's worst?  Coleen Rowley.

Writing for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Coleen yet again demonstrates that she can write about herself.  In fact, she brags about herself in the opening paragraph.  She demonstrates that she can heap scorn on Dick Cheney and Bully Boy Bush.  (Of course, the majority of us on the planet can do that.)

Paragraph four finds her moving to a topic other than herself, Iraq and the Middle East and Africa.  Paragraphs four, five and six are generic statements that could have been written four, five, six, seven years ago.  Nothing really about Iraq.  Then she wants to move onto a paragraph about the kill list and thinks herself brave for mentioning "the Obama administration."  (If only she had the guts to apply the same scorn she has for Dick and Bully to Barack.)

Now we're really off to the races.  She wants to include Timothy McVeigh, "the Beltway sniper," Robert Flores, Christopher Dorner, Waco and so much more.  It's all name check, not illuminating.  Then she goes on for four more paragraphs -- remembering to name check Iraq in two sentences.

The paper calls her ramblings "Ten Years After Iraq."  Leaving aside that Waco and McVeigh are from the 90s and not ten years ago . . .

The column's not about Iraq.

She's using Iraq.  She's manipulating a country where the people suffer to advance her own pet causes.

When does Iraq get to be recognized?

The US attacked Iraq.  At what point in this country, do we feel the need to recognize that and to talk about what happened to Iraqis and what is happening to them now as a result of the illegal war?

Ten years ago?  You'd think people 'reflecting' would be writing about the huge increase in birth defects in and around Falluja and Basra.  You'd think they'd be writing about the ongoing protests.  You'd think they be writing about the US pouring billions into Iraq still to prop up the US-backed Nouri al-Maliki.

But we can't have that honesty.

I think I prefer the delusional War Hawks who write that Iraq is great and that the Iraq War is worth it.  Those freaks you can argue with.

How do you argue with an idiot like Coleen?  'Uh, the beltway sniper . . .'

I don't know a damn thing about the beltway sniper and don't care to learn.  I'm not a true crime addict.  I will never be one of those pathetic women writing, 'Dear killer, Learning of your recent killing spree made my panties damp in a way that nothing ever has.  I will wait for you until you are released -- from prison or this earth.'

Coleen apparently is one of those women.

The topic is Iraq.

If you can't stay on topic, find another one to write about.  If you don't give a damn about Iraqis and the way they suffer today, ten years after the start of the war, don't insult them further by using them as the starting point for 'what I really want to write about.'






It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)


The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4488.



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











Friday, March 01, 2013

Iraq snapshot

Friday, March 1, 2013.  Chaos and violence continue, protests take place throughout Iraq, the Finance Minister resigns,  Bradley Manning gets some attention, and more.

We're starting with Iraq War veteran Bradley Manning who confessed yesterday that he passed on documents to WikiLeaks.  Alexa O'Briean has transcribed his statement in full.  We're going to note a section at the top:


The CIDNE system contains a database that is used by thousands of Department of Defense--DoD personel including soldiers, civilians, and contractors support. It was the United States Central Command or CENTCOM reporting tool for operational reporting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two separate but similar databases were maintained for each theater-- CIDNE-I for Iraq and CIDNE-A for Afghanistan. Each database encompasses over a hundred types of reports and other historical information for access. They contain millions of vetted and finalized directories including operational intelligence reporting.
CIDNE was created to collect and analyze battle-space data to provide daily operational and Intelligence Community (IC) reporting relevant to a commander's daily decision making process. The CIDNE-I and CIDNE-A databases contain reporting and analysis fields for multiple disciplines including Human Intelligence or HUMINT reports, Psychological Operations or PSYOP reports, Engagement reports, Counter Improvised Explosive Device or CIED reports, SigAct reports, Targeting reports, Social and Cultural reports, Civil Affairs reports, and Human Terrain reporting.
[. . .]

I felt that we were risking so much for people that seemed unwilling to cooperate with us, leading to frustration and anger on both sides. I began to become depressed with the situation that we found ourselves increasingly mired in year after year. The SigActs documented this in great detail and provide a context of what we were seeing on the ground.
In attempting to conduct counter-terrorism or CT and counter-insurgency COIN operations we became obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists and not being suspicious of and avoiding cooperation with our Host Nation partners, and ignoring the second and third order effects of accomplishing short-term goals and missions. I believe that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information contained within the CIDNE-I and CIDNE-A tables this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as [missed word] as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan.
I also believed the detailed analysis of the data over a long period of time by different sectors of society might cause society to reevaluate the need or even the desire to even to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the effected environment everyday.

I don't get -- or I didn't -- why people still aren't covering counter-insurgency.  Bradley Manning's been behind bars for over 1000 days because he hoped to spark a national dialogue.  24 hours after he states that, there's still nothing in the media. 
For those late to the party, Monday April 5, 2010WikiLeaks released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7, 2010, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported in August 2010 that Manning had been charged -- "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." In March, 2011, David S. Cloud (Los Angeles Times) reported that the military has added 22 additional counts to the charges including one that could be seen as "aiding the enemy" which could result in the death penalty if convicted. The Article 32 hearing took place in December. At the start of this year, there was an Article 32 hearing and, February 3rd, it was announced that the government would be moving forward with a court-martial. Bradley has yet to enter a plea. The court-martial was supposed to begin before the November 2012 election but it was postponed until after the election so that Barack wouldn't have to run on a record of his actual actions.  Independent.ie adds, "A court martial is set to be held in June at Ford Meade in Maryland, with supporters treating him as a hero, but opponents describing him as a traitor."

At Rolling Stone, Janet Reitman asks, "Did the Mainstream Media Fail Bradley Manning?" And suddenly it falls together.  Not because of what Reitman finds -- she finds nothing.  Not because of Kevin Gosztola's hypothesis that the Washington Post and the New York Times might have been too scared to publish it.

Check the archives, but we covered the WikiLeaks releases in real time.  Today, a lot of people like to pretend they did but they didn't.  In Little Media, they wrote for magazine websites and for magazines and they had their own programs but they never used them to explore what was released.  They didn't have time for it.  They didn't give a damn until they got their postage of Julian Assange.

They still don't give a damn about Bradley.  But Julian they could get behind. 

Janet Reitman wants to know if the press failed Bradley?  It wasn't about Bradley.  It was about Iraq.

And, yes, the US press failed Iraq.  Failed before the start of the war, failed it after.

Did you pay attention to the recap earlier.  People pretend like there was great interest in the WikiLeaks 2007 video.  No, there wasn't.  There should have been but there wasn't.  And there was even less interest when they began publishing various documents.

The question to ask is "Did the press fail Iraq?"  Yes, it did.  By the time WikiLeaks released the Iraq information, there had been a withdrawal from Iraq -- a press withdrawal.  ABC closed down their operation and lied that they'd grab BBC if there were any developments.  (Use the BBC for their evening news.) They didn't really.  NBC was out.  The networks pulled out.  McClatchy Newspapers was pulling out.  No one gave a damn in the US press about Iraq. 

And if you complained -- and I did to many producers and editors -- you were told that the viewers were tired of Iraq.  I didn't then and don't now see how that's possible.

Among the trash that passes for 'independent' media in the US, Demcoracy Now! couldn't be bothered with the topic, nor could The Nation magazine, nor could The Progressive.

In the spring of 2009, Steven D. Green went on trial.  We covered it every day here.  May 7th Steven D. Green was convicted for his crimes in March 12, 2006 gang-rape and murder of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, the murder of her parents and the murder of her five-year-old sister while Green was serving in Iraq. Green was found to have killed all four, to have participated in the gang-rape of Abeer and to have been the ringleader of the conspiracy to commit the crimes and the conspiracy to cover them up. May 21st, the federal jury deadlocked on the death penalty and instead he was sentenced to life in prison. 

This was a War Crime.  It should have been covered widely.  Instead it was Kentucky media.  It was the Associated Press' Brett Barrouquere and Time magazine's Jim Frederick.  That was it for the national mainstream press.  Arianna Huffington deserves credit for sending a reporter down there (Gail Mellor) and even more for realizing the best reporting was coming from high schooler Evan Bright and carrying his coverage at The Huffington Post.  We interviewed Evan for a May 3, 2009 piece at Third.  Evan was covering every day of the trial.  Evan wasn't shy.  Why wasn't he on Democracy Now! during the trial?  Why did Pacifica Radio waste all that money on the garbage that was Mitch Jeserich's Letters from Washington but fail to send even one reporter to Kentucky for a War Crimes trial?  Why wasn't Matthew Rothschild or Katrina vanden Heuvel at all concerned with the gang-rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by US soldiers? 


It's in that climate that Bradley Manning tries to interest the media in what he has.  It wasn't about Brad, it was about the complete lack of interest on the part of the press with anything to do with Iraq by 2010.  If you need a 'reputable source' making that observation, here's PEW on Iraq War coverage in 2010:

The ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were on the periphery of both the American public’s and news media’s radar in 2010. Just 1% of the total news coverage last year was devoted to events related to and policy debates about the Iraq war. In no single week did Iraq consume more than 10% of the newshole. With the exception of a week in September, during a large troop withdrawal, most of the public reported they were not following events in Iraq very closely when surveyed throughout the year.



Get it?  The media didn't fail Bradley.  Long before Bradley tries to interest the media, it had already failed Iraq.

And the Amy Goodmans and Greg Mitchells can pretend they did something but they didn't.  They didn't treat the WikiLeaks releases seriously in real time.  After Julian Assange became a folk hero to some, once they had their poster on the wall, the Goodys and Mitchells suddenly could give a damn . . . about Julian Assange.  Not about Iraq, not about Iraqis, never about Iraq, never about Iraqis.

And what we're seeing yet again, right now, is an attempt to posterize.  We're not talking about the War Crimes, we're not writing about the War Crimes, we're rehashing this and that and blah blah blah.  I'm not going into counter-insurgency today.  Unlike Amy Goodman, we've covered it here (and called it out) regularly.   I don't have the time or space for/in this snapshot today to go over counter-insurgency again.

But we've covered it (including yesterday -- and we first covered it in 2006 when the ridiculous Montgomery McFate got her first press via The New Yorker.  These are the issues of substance.  A whole rag-tag assembly wants to pretend that they support Bradley.  Yet they still won't take the time to write and talk about counter-insurgency.  Even now, 24 hours after Bradley outlined his hope/intent to spark a debate on the policy.

You can't argue whether Bradley was in the right or in the wrong to release the documents if you can't address the importance of the documents.  Support him?  Then kick-start the national dialogue on counter-insurgency.  Yeah, it might take a little work and, goodness knows, a little work's too much for our Panhandle Media.  But if we want the mainstream to cover it and if we want people to know the importance of Bradley's actions, then we're going to need to do a little work. 



Let's stay in the US and turn to a loser named James Fallows sets the low mark -- the all time low mark -- for 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq rambles.  The cowardly scribbler for The Atlantic cowers as only the spineless truly can.  The invasion, Fallows whimpers "was the biggest strategic error by the United States since at least the end of World War II and perhaps a much longer period."

What nonsense.  It's not an "error," it's a crime. And if you can't say that, why the hell are you scribbling today to begin with? 

And could you maybe learn to write Jimmy Fallows?  Stop resting on work you did before many readers were born and learn to write today? "The biggest strategic error by the United States since at least the end of World War II and perhaps a much longer period" -- what is that?  Cover your ass in case senility's set in and you're not remembering some major event?  And what is that wording?  Are you aware you're suggesting -- via your construction -- that the worst strategic errors were invading Iraq and ending World War II?  Do you need someone to remind you to take your meds?

If my claim to fame was being a speechwriter for then-President Jimmy Carter -- one of the most bland and boring speakers of all time, I think I'd be trying real hard for another credit to put by name.   And in Fishbowl Idiot, Fallows may have finally found another credit.

This is just completely a puzzle to Fallows, this Iraq War.  "Vietnam," he writes, "was costlier and more damaging, but also more understandable.  As many people have chronicled, the decision to fight in Vietnam, was a years-long accretion of step-by-step choices, each of which could be rationalized at the time."  Anything can be rationalized at any time.  Second, Vietnam, for the US government, was not just criminal, it was more stupid than Iraq because the US followed France's failure in Vietnam but kidded itself that it was so much better at War Crimes that it would be victorious over the Vietnamese.  The US government was wrong.

By contrast, the Iraq War is completely understandable.  September 11, 2001 was an attack on the United States.  We could have dealt with it as we had other attacks.  We could have followed the law.  We could have been grown ups and had honest discussions.  We didn't follow the law and we demonized those who wanted to speak honestly (such as Susan Sontag).  By refusing to address what happened, the events that follow are completely understandable.

We put aside thinking, logic, processing and everything else and were left with nothing but injury and hurt and we looked for someone in a weaker position to lash out at to feel better.  Strip the tired colloquialisms from Thomas Friedman's bad writing and TV appearances and what your left with is a tiny, impotent and angry man raging with violence.

Where in the world did you think that rage would go?  Because it had to go somewhere.


Bully Boy Bush stoked the rage, encouraged the rage and he and his administration attacked anyone and everyone who questioned in any way or tried to use actual thought.  The rage had to go somewhere.  And they knew what they were doing having decided early on to use 9-11 to push for war with Iraq.  (September 11, 2001 -- though repeatedly linked to Iraq by Bully Boy and his administration -- had nothing to do with Iraq.  While Saddam Hussein was President of Iraq, al Qaeda didn't even have a base in Iraq because secular Hussein and fundamentalist al Qaeda were at complete odds with one another.)

Bully Boy Bush repeatedly picked away at 9-11 because it had to be an unhealed wound, it had to be gaping, for him to misuse the horror of it to push for the Iraq War.

I'm sorry that James Fallow is confused.  I truly am sorry that he's such an imbecile because, after 10 years, if we still can't recognize and name what happened and how, there's not much hope for any of us.  All these years later and we still can't be honest?  The refusal to honestly address what happened allowed emotions to be manipulated and played to.  If we can't be honest about that, we're never going to learn from it so forget about any talk of preventing  it from happening again.

Let's go to someone far wiser than James Fallows: Joan Didion.  In 2003, The New York Review of Books published her Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11.  From that slender book overflowing with wisdom.  Excerpt.


And yet, all through the summer of 2002, the inevitability of going to war with Iraq was accepted as if predestined.  The "when" had already been settled.  "Time is getting short," The New York Times had warned us in July, "for decisions that have to be made if the goal is to take action early next year, before the presidential election cycle intrudes."  That last cause bore study.
"Before the presidential election cycle intrudes."  In case the priorities were still unclear.
The "why" had also been settled.  The President had identified Saddam Hussein as one of the evildoers.  Yes, there were questions about whether the evildoer in question had the weapons we feared he had, and yes, there were questions about whether he would use them if he did have them, and yes, there were questions about whether attacking Iraq might not in fact ensure that he would use them.  But to ask those questions was sissy, not muscular, because the President had said we were going to do it and the President, if he were to back down, risked losing the points he got on the muscular "moral clarity" front.
"I made up my mind," he had said in April, "that Saddam needs to go."  This was one of many curious almost petulant statements offered in lieu of actually presenting a case.  I've made up my mind, I've said in speech after speech, I've made myself clear.  The repeated statements became their own reason: "Given all we have said as a leading world power about the necessity for regime change in Iraq, "James R. Schlesinger, who is now a member of Richard Pearl's Defense Policy Board, told The Washington Post in July, "our credibility would be badly damaged if that regime change did not take place."




Why can we not be honest?  What purpose does James Fallows' nonsense serve?  He wants to brag about his 2002 nonsense.  It won a National Magazine Award.  2002 and 2003 are the worst years for American journalism.  So you can imagine the kind of nonsense he wrote to win.  Of that garbage, he says today, "I feel I was right in arguing, six months before the war in 'The Fifty-First State,' that invading Iraq would bring on a slew of complications and ramifications that would take at least a decade to unwind."  Oh, the bravery.  (That was sarcasm.)  He wrote an article in October 2002 proclaiming points of interest if the Iraq War happened.  You know Jim Hoagland was doing the same thing in a Washington Post column in June of 2002?  In fact, the topic was all over the place long before Fallows used it to offer his centrist tour of potential things to look for after the war starts.  A real journalists should have been working on questioning the claims.  But James Fallows isn't a real journalist.  There was no money to be made off telling the truth.  During Vietnam, he couldn't be counted on to do anything either, except lie to avoid serving there.  Couldn't rally, couldn't organize the war but didn't want to go there.  How sad that as the days wind down, Fallows is as timid and ineffectual as he was in his college years.

The kind of garbage he provides, we don't need.  If you're writing about Iraq on the 10th anniversary of the start of the illegal war, you should be doing to explain how things are today or to explain how the illegal war was sold.

How things are today? 

Protests across Iraq.  The Iraqi Spring Media Center proclaims:

Here the People of Iraq Revolt against Tyranny and Oppression
It is not important which sect you belong to or race
What is important is that you seek to regain your Iraqi Identity
What is important is you regain your Honour, and live in your
                                 country with dignity!!!





Of all the protests across Iraq, Ramadi received the most attention due to a high profile speaker.  Alsumaria notes  Minister of Finance Rafie al-Issawi attended and, in his speech, resigned his office.  Hamdi Alkhshali (CNN) adds, "The finance minister resigned because the government has not met the demands of the demonstrators to end the marginalization, spokesman Aysar Ali told CNN."

Zaid Sabah (Bloomberg News) quotes al-Issawi telling the protesters, "I am with you, I am your son.  I will not return to this government."  Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) quote al-Issawi telling the crowd, "I am presenting my resignation in front of you. I do not care about a government that does not respect the Iraqi blood and its people." Sabah notes the protesters chanted back, "We are with you! We are with you!"
al-Issawi tells Reuters, "More than 70 days of demonstrations and this government hasn't fulfilled our people's demands.  It doesn't honor me to be part of a sectarian government.  I decided to stay with my people."  Alsumaria notes that Nouri al-Maliki has declared he will not accept the resignation until a legal and financial investigation is completed.  Ayad Tamimi (Al Mada) reports that Iraqiya leader Ayad Allawi states that there are secret arrest warrants Nouri is holding on Iraqiya politicians.  Allawi states the members are innocent and this is part of an effort to silence Nouri's political rivals.  Iraqiya came in first in the 2010 provincial elections, besting Nouri's State of Law in the process.



In Mosul, Nouri's forces refused to allow journalists access to the protestNouri's forces also raided a mosque in Mosul to prevent morning prayers. Journalists trying to report on the morning prayers in Baghdad's Adhamiya section were arrested by Nouri's forces.   Nouri's State of Law sees other reasons for the protests.  MP Abdul al-Abbas, for example, insists to All Iraq News that the protests are a plot to run the economy of Iraq.  Iraqi Sping MC notes that protests took place today in Baquba,  in Jalawla, in Samarra and in DuluiyaAl Mada reports that participation in the protests increased today in Falluja and Ramadi and that Samarra protesters are calling for a general strike in the cities throughout the province.


The Washington Post's Liz Sly Tweets:


  1. "Iraqis are still to some extent prisoners of a self-image the US fashioned and left behind..." 10 years on:




  2. To understand Iraq 10 years on - and the real tragedy of the US legacy - read nothing but this. Brilliant and true


Muhammad Yassine (translated by Nicolas Dagher for World Meets US) offers a look at Iraq's crises:


Prime Minister Maliki, commander-in-chief of the armed forces and primarily responsible for the security situation in the country, refuses to descend from the fragile throne he ascended to years ago through an open agreement between America and Iran. Nouri al-Maliki was put there as a cover for their mistakes. Citing the Constitution, which he says gives him all rights and authority, Maliki has refused to give up even a small measure of influence or administrative authority to his political partners. With his poor judgment, he has lost many of his partners and allies, particularly among the Kurds.
Maliki's gambit to remain in power by relying on the Americans and Iranians was misplaced. When he ignored the demands of anti-government demonstrators on February 25th, 2011, he laid the groundwork for a worsening of the crisis between the corrupt political class and the disenfranchised public. No one can deny the success Maliki has had cutting down to size his political partners, who obeyed his deranged demands to resign in return for personal favors and privileges. With privileges granted by marginalizing and excluding huge segments of the Iraqi people, these partners conspired against the voters and their constituents, hiding under the cloak of Maliki's dictatorial powers.



The violence never ends in Iraq. Probably because Nouri al-Maliki has been as much a failure at Iraqi security as he has been at Iraqi unity.   Today Alsumaria speaks with Diwaniya Poice Chief Brigadier Abdul Jalil al-Asadi who explains 2 car bombs went off in a livestock market (cattle and sheep) resulting in 5 deaths and forty people being left injured.  Imad al-Khuzaie, Suadad al-Salhy, Isabel Coles and Patrick Graham (Reuters) quote butcher Jassim Khalid stating, "I came to buy some calves and was checking them when the explosion happened, I threw myself on the ground, then the second explosion happened."  AFP reminds, "The blasts came a day after at least 26 people were killed and more than 60 wounded in a series of bomb attacks in the Baghdad area and shootings in northern Iraq."  Alsumaria notes a home invasion just to the south of Baquba (8 kilometers to the south) in which Ghalib Abdul Ali was shot dead by machine guns and his son was left wounded and a Mosul sticky bombing claimed the lives of 2 Iraqi soldiersAll Iraq News adds that Kaen Saleem, Commander of Salah-il-Din Emergency Regiment, was targeted with three Dijail bombings leaving him and one civilian injured and a Babel car bombing targeted a kindergarten (but there are no reported injuries).


AFP's WG Dunlop Tweets on violence:



  1. Day-by-day breakdown of Feb. attacks in , based on reports from security and medical sources



Finally, David Bacon's latest book is Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press) which won the CLR James Award. We'll close with this from Bacon's "MERCADO WORKERS PROTEST SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND FIRINGS" (Truth-Out):


Valentine's Day sometimes brings chocolates and sometimes flowers. But Valentine's Day in Oakland, California, brought angry women out to the Mi Pueblo supermarket in the heart of the barrio. There they tried to speak to the chain's owner, Juvenal Chavez, not about love, but about the sexual harassment of women who work there.
As they gathered next to the parking lot holding pink placards, Latino families in pickup trucks and beat up cars honked and waved. Laura Robledo then stepped up to an impromptu podium and told her story. As she spoke, her teenage daughter held her protectively around the waist, and stared angrily at the doorway where managers stood waiting for trouble.
Robledo used to work at the Mi Pueblo market in San Jose. She lost her job when she complained to the company that she'd been sexually harassed by a coworker. "I had two witnesses who heard everything he said," she recalled angrily. "The words were so low and degrading it was horrible just to hear them. He even tried by force to kiss and embrace me."
So she complained to the company. That was unusual, because workers at the markets complain about intimidation by managers, and that those who complain lose their jobs.
Fear at Mi Pueblo has been high since last August, when the company announced it was using the E-Verify database to check employees' immigration status. Then in October company lawyer Julie Pace said the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was auditing Mi Pueblo's personnel records. Almost all the chain's workers are immigrants.
In each store employees were herded into meetings, where they were shown a video in which Juvenal Chavez told them that if their immigration status was questioned they would be fired. "The possibility of losing one of our employees will hurt my heart," he assured them. "And it will feel like losing a family member."
When Robledo went to the company to report the harassment, however, she says it didn't feel at all like a family. "They said they'd investigate it," she recounted. "But they did nothing. After two weeks they gave me a letter saying they'd finished their investigation and that nothing had happened and that workers were always treated with respect. For me this was terrible. I felt very humiliated because I could see they didn't respect my rights as a woman."
Robledo was a new employee, having only started working at the store that October. The harassment began almost immediately, she says. Despite getting the letter claiming she had no basis for her charges, she continued working. Robledo is a single mother of three children, and couldn't afford to quit.
The company then made that decision for her. "I worked a couple of weeks after getting the letter," she recalls. "Then they accused me of getting into an argument with another worker, which wasn't true. It was just a pretext. They fired me because I kept complaining about sexual harassment. They knew that because I know my rights and I'm willing to defend myself that eventually I'd expose the truth."
























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qassim abdul-zahra

Nouri's Iraq: Protesters and journalists arrested, look who's resigning

Muhammad Yassine (translated by Nicolas Dagher for World Meets US) offers a look at Iraq's crises:


Prime Minister Maliki, commander-in-chief of the armed forces and primarily responsible for the security situation in the country, refuses to descend from the fragile throne he ascended to years ago through an open agreement between America and Iran. Nouri al-Maliki was put there as a cover for their mistakes. Citing the Constitution, which he says gives him all rights and authority, Maliki has refused to give up even a small measure of influence or administrative authority to his political partners. With his poor judgment, he has lost many of his partners and allies, particularly among the Kurds.
Maliki's gambit to remain in power by relying on the Americans and Iranians was misplaced. When he ignored the demands of anti-government demonstrators on February 25th, 2011, he laid the groundwork for a worsening of the crisis between the corrupt political class and the disenfranchised public. No one can deny the success Maliki has had cutting down to size his political partners, who obeyed his deranged demands to resign in return for personal favors and privileges. With privileges granted by marginalizing and excluding huge segments of the Iraqi people, these partners conspired against the voters and their constituents, hiding under the cloak of Maliki's dictatorial powers.
 
 
 
 
protests


It's last Friday, in Mosul, where Nouri's forces began videotaping the protesters.







Because, you know, this is such a special moment for Nouri, he wants a keepsake that he can use to remember these special days, right?

Wrong, the videos are to help him further target the protesters as well as to attempt to intimidate them  -- his forces have already been following them home from protests to find out where they live. 

But still they protest, refusing to be silenced. 

There are reports of Sheikhs arrested today, of mosques targeted by Nouri's forces, of journalists prevented from covering the protests.  And still the Iraqi people protest, they refuse to back down or live in fear.


iprotest

Iraqi Sping MC notes that protests took place today in Baquba,  in Jalawla (screen snap from the video posted above), in Samarra and in Duluiya (photo below).


From Duluiya من الضلوعية
In Mosul, Nouri's forces refused to allow journalists access to the protestNouri's forces also raided a mosque in Mosul to prevent morning prayers. Journalists trying to report on the morning prayers in Baghdad's Adhamiya section were arrested by Nouri's forces.

Alsumaria notes protests took place in Ramadi and a high profile guest attended:  Minister of Finance Rafie al-Issaqi.  Or rather, former Minister of Finance.  When he spoke at the rally, he announced his resignation. 


The violence never ends in Iraq. Probably because Nouri al-Maliki has been as much a failure at Iraqi security as he has been at Iraqi unity.   Today Alsumaria speaks with Diwaniya Poice Chief Brigadier Abdul Jalil al-Asadi who explains 2 car bombs went off in a livestock market (cattle and sheep) resulting in 5 deaths and forty people being left injured.  Imad al-Khuzaie, Suadad al-Salhy, Isabel Coles and Patrick Graham (Reuters) quote butcher Jassim Khalid stating, "I came to buy some calves and was checking them when the explosion happened, I threw myself on the ground, then the second explosion happened."  AFP reminds, "The blasts came a day after at least 26 people were killed and more than 60 wounded in a series of bomb attacks in the Baghdad area and shootings in northern Iraq."  Alsumaria notes a home invasion just to the south of Baquba (8 kilometers to the south) in which Ghalib Abdul Ali was shot dead by machine guns and his son was left wounded and a Mosul sticky bombing claimed the lives of 2 Iraqi soldiersAll Iraq News adds that Kaen Saleem, Commander of Salah-il-Din Emergency Regiment, was targeted with three Dijail bombings leaving him and one civilian injured and a Babel car bombing targeted a kindergarten (but there are no reported injuries).




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





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When does the conversation begin?

 MANNING, BRADLEY  PFC  HEAD AND SHOULDERS  4-26-2012


 Yesterday, on the 1005th day of his non-stop impisonment, Bradley Manning (above) entered a plea to ten charges and admitted to passing documents to WikiLeaks. Bradley  was one of the topics on The World Today With Eleanor Hall (Austrlia's ABC) as Emily Bourke and Jane Cowan discussed yesterday's events:


EMILY BOURKE: Well, Bradley Manning's already been behind bars for some time now. What are the prospects of him ever being a free man?

JANE COWAN: You're right, Em. He's been in custody since he was arrested in Iraq in May 2010 so that's almost three years now and Bradley Manning supporters just held vigils recently marking day 1000 of the 25-year-old's detention.
The aiding the enemy charge carries a life sentence and even the 10 charges he's admitting to do expose him to a sentence of 20 years combined so that's a long time behind bars no matter what happens.
Remember too, the military judge Colonel Denise Lind, last month decided to shave something like 112 days off any eventual sentence to compensate for the overly harsh treatment that she judged he had suffered while he was being held in detention at Quantico marine base but even that is a drop in the bucket you have to say when Private Manning is staring down life behind bars if he's convicted of that main charge.


Monday April 5, 2010, when WikiLeaks released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7, 2010, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported in August 2010 that Manning had been charged -- "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." In March, 2011, David S. Cloud (Los Angeles Times) reported that the military has added 22 additional counts to the charges including one that could be seen as "aiding the enemy" which could result in the death penalty if convicted. The Article 32 hearing took place in December. At the start of this year, there was an Article 32 hearing and, February 3rd, it was announced that the government would be moving forward with a court-martial. Bradley has yet to enter a plea. The court-martial was supposed to begin before the November 2012 election but it was postponed until after the election so that Barack wouldn't have to run on a record of his actual actions.  Independent.ie adds, "A court martial is set to be held in June at Ford Meade in Maryland, with supporters treating him as a hero, but opponents describing him as a traitor."

On The NewsHour (PBS -- link is text, audio and video) last night, Judy Woodruff spoke with PRI and PBS' Arun Rath and with the New York Times' Charlie Savage about what took place in the military courtroom:


JUDY WOODRUFF: Arun Rath, help us understand what he didn't plead guilty to today.

ARUN RATH, FRONTLINE: Well, not pleading guilty to the main -- the biggest charge, which is aiding the enemy, that is huge. At least, that's the one that carries potentially the life sentence for him.
And it seems like what they're trying to do is kind of peel away the leak from the criminality of it, from trying to say that he was trying to hurt the country. And that was a big part of the statement that he made today justifying what he did.
He made a big point of saying that he didn't want to release any information that would damage the United States. He said he found information that he thought would be embarrassing, but not damaging. And they're trying to sort of play that on those terms, I think.


Arun Rath spoke with Marco Werman (The World, PRI -- link is audio only) yesterday about the developments and Charlie Savage's article on the events for the Times is here (and Kat praised the article last night at her site).

JUDY WOODRUFF: Charlie Savage, what did you take away from watching from him today as he read his statements, as he gave his explanation? What did you see?

CHARLIE SAVAGE: Well, he was sitting at a -- I was watching from the media center, which is sort of a filing center close to the courtroom. It has a closed caption circuit feed. And most of the reporters were there today.
And he was sitting before the judge next to his lawyers. He's sort of a small person. And he was reading from the -- this prepared statement, this lengthy prepared statement that was basically his narrative, his statement at last about why he did what he did. For a few years now, ever since this book, we have about him and his mental troubles, his struggles with his sexuality, his suicidal periods and the abuse that he may have received in prison once he was locked up.
And there's been all these surrounding conversations. And this was the moment after all these years in which he was able to say, here's what I did and here's why. And his message was squarely that he was a whistle-blower, didn't use that term, but as he marched through the narrative of how he came to download these documents just for his own work as a military analyst in Iraq, and then as he became troubled by what he was seeing, and he thought that what the American people needed to know if these documents came out would spark -- would be enlightening, would spark a massive conversation about foreign policy and about what the government is doing.
And so he decided to find a way to bring them to light.


Most of the coverage is not worth noting.  That includes the crazy -- such as Press TV with George Galloway's remarks -- and the insane and disappointing -- Marjorie Cohn's garbage.

It's all garbage. 

Ben Nuckols, Ed Pilkington and Charlie Savage wrote articles that mattered.  You could even throw in Ernesto Londono and Julie Tate's piece that closed a lot of loopholes.

But the rest?

Crazy Marjorie's supposed to be a legal mind.  All she's doing is repeating what she got from the wires.  She could have written her garbage a week ago or months ago.  It serves no purpose.

In yesterday's snapshot, we utilized a variety of observations by a variety of reporters.  But we also did what Bradley Manning said was needed, what he hoped to spark, a discussion.  Where is that discussion?

Do we really need Crazy Ass Marjoie Cohn playing AP (badly) when she should be advancing the discussion Bradley wanted started.

Ava and I'll probably touch on this on Sunday in a piece about the media failures.  (We spoke on that topic last night and Kat said after that we should make that our media piece for Third.)   We've covered what Bradley wanted discussed here.  Yesterday's snapshot, yes, but I've also called out all the pathetic chickens on my side (the left) who can't make the time to condemn counter-insurgency, they won't even discuss it.  If the left won't discuss it, how's the nation supposed to?


Counter-insurgency's going on in Mali right nowAfghans are set to take over the counter-insurgency in their countryright now they just lead on joint-missions.  In fact, we could list all the countries right now where it's being used or about to be.

At what point do we find the ability to call it out?  As I've pointed out before, during Vietnam, we (on the left) could and did call it out.  Today, we're so pathetic we can't even mention the topic, apparently.  There's Tom Hayden and David Price and that's about it that have called it out in the last few years.  Credit to Susan Page for hosting a discussion on it -- on The Diane Rehm Show as a guest host. 

Why is Marjorie Cohn, a legal mind, unable to call out counter-insurgency? 

Exactly when we do have the discussion Bradley hoped to start?


The following community sites -- plus Adam Kokesh, The Diane Rehm Show, Susan's On the Edge, C-SPAN,  Jody Watley, Antiwar.com and Chocolate City --  updated last night and this morning:


The Fabulous Jody Watley
19 hours ago 
 
 
I've been needing to note something by David Bacon all weekend -- there hasn't been time.  We'll include it in the snapshot today.
 
 
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.





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