Sunday, April 27, 2014

Hejira

Violence continued today in Iraq.  Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) reports, "At least 41 people were killed and 63 more were wounded today."



Iraqis vote in the parliamentary elections on Wednesday.  Osama al-Khafaji and Ghassan Hamid (Alsumaria) have noted that there are 9032 candidates competing for 328 seats.  And Baghdad Operations Command says Nouri's forces are in charge of the polling stations as of Saturday.  CIHAN notes that Iraqi refugees in many countries will be voting, "About 800 thousand Iraq citizens living in 19 foreign countries will vote during upcoming two days at the embassies of the country across the world."  Refugees in Syria won't be allowed to vote.  The Chicago Tribune notes that Agnes Merza (Morton Grove Village in Illinois) voted Sunday and was eager to be the first in line.  All Iraq News reports Iraqi refugees in New Zealand have completed voting, approximately 23,000 voted in Jordan, voting has started in Egypt where 30,000 Iraqis are expected to vote over two days, and voting has started in the United Kingdom. National Iraqi News Agency notes that the Iraqi vote in Iran was extended by two hours and is now over.

World Bulletin reports:

 Iraq's former prime minister Ayad Allawi on Sunday described as "unfair" the atmosphere in which his country's current legislative elections take place.
"Even with this, I am full of confidence that the Iraqi people will win at the end," Allawi, the leader of the Wataniya parliamentary bloc, told journalists during a visit to a polling station for Iraqi expatriates in the Jordanian capital Amman.


We're confused, are we, why Allawi would declare the elections unfair?  Strange because if you check his Twitter feed, it's not such a mystery and he's posted in both Arabic and English.





It appears Allawi's bothered by disqualified candidates from his party and by "the serious intimidations, arrests and attacks on 6 of our candidates- all in just 2 days."  Doesn't seem all that mysterious to me.


NINA reports,  "MP, Hamzah Algirtani for Mottahidoon coalition described swamping areas of west of Baghdad, as a series to achieve a malicious schema aiming to exclude the population of these regions from participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections."

Mottahidoon is the party Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi is heading.  In the 2010 parliamentary elections, he was part of the winning coalition, Iraqiya which was headed by Ayad Allawi.  They beat Nouri's State of Law.  Despite predictions from the western press that Nouri's State of Law would win and would win by a huge margin.

Didn't happen.

Nouri lost.

Might happen again.  

Xu Ruiqing and  Jamal Hashim (Xinhua) report:


 But many local analysts said that Maliki will face severe challenges in seeking a new term from other electoral entities, including rival Shiite blocs, after his eight years of reign.
[. . .]
Now there are increasing signs that an alliance, mainly including Kurdish blocs, Ahrar Coalition and Citizen Coalition, are coordinating their efforts to prevent Maliki from getting a third term in office. Meanwhile, analysts said Iran also plays a crucial role in deciding the fate of Maliki.


No one knows what's going to happen.  Especially not western media outlets.

If you doubt that, they got the 2010 parliamentary results wrong.  They also predicted Nouri would sweep to victory in the 2013 provincial elections yet State of Law's results were embarrassing.  So embarrassing that western media argued after the elections that Nouri wasn't that popular.

You think?

Now they're back to insisting he's beloved.

Based on what the US government asks them to say.







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] 4489.

Isaiah's latest comic goes up after this.  On 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) the topic is the Armenian Genocide and its addressed by Jennie Grabedian, Harry Mazadorian, Roxy Garabedian, Lucy Simonian, Roxie Maljanian, Mary Abrahamian, John Maljanian, Agnes Karanian, Ruth Swisher and Artie Shahverdian.


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