Saturday, October 17, 2020

Iraq and the militias

The headline reads "Iraqi cleric pushes for elections, new social contract, in support of prime minister" and those who don't follow Iraq closely probably assume Ali Mamouri is writing, at ARAB WEEKLY, about Moqtada al-Sadr; however, Moqtada's influence has been on the wane since he stabbed the protesters in the back last spring. 


It's really amazing how the western press -- Big and Small -- have worked overtime to write about Moqtada's upset in fortune.  By April, the protesters were mocking him in public and he's never really recovered.  He's got his cult, still.  He'll probably always have his cult.  But, over eight long years, he had built beyond that, reached beyond that and had gathered up real power only to throw it all away.


He could rebuild.  Anything can happen.  But he's at his weakest and so many don't want to tell you about it.  The 'left' media in the US -- I mean the beggars like Amy Goodman -- don't want to tell you because they don't support the protesters.  Among the 'crimes' the protesters committed?  When the US killed a thug in January, it didn't destroy the protesters.  They were aware that he'd killed protesters, that he had ordered the targeting of young Iraqi men suspected of being gay.  They were aware of his violent homophobia, of his hatred for Sunnis, etc.  And that's a crime to the Goodman's who glorify the Iranian government.  Now I've got nothing against the people of Iran and am sure that they are as nice as people everywhere else.  But I don't worship any government.  So when an agent of government who was a brutal homephobe is killed?  I don't have a fit on Twitter.  


Sidebar: The shoe thrower is a homophobe and a sadist who beats women.  Why am I covering that up -- asks an e-mail.  I'm not.  We never glorified the shoe thrower here.  I think it's hilarious that he threw a show at Bully Boy Bush.  Two, I think.  But I never worshipped the man.  You do know he ran for Parliament, right?  We didn't cover him.  He wasn't anyone worth covering.  Recently, on Twitter, his homophobia and his beating of women was raised.  We had other things to cover at the time and it wasn't like we needed to 'correct the record' since, again, we never presented as an amazing person.  He did something, throwing the shoe, that represented the anger so many Iraqis rightly felt.  


So back in January, I thought maybe some of the people didn't realize he was a homophobe or how he had terrorized the Iraqi people.  But they didn't care even when they found out.


We knew, community members and even semi-serious drive-by followers of this site, because he wasn't a new character to us.  And we'd covered the homophobic attacks -- carried out by Shi'ites connected to the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki -- back when they started.  In fact, we were the first in the US to cover it.  In fact, I was so thrilled one day when I picked up a paper in a New England city we were speaking to colleges at and I found an article on this.  I excitedly read it to Ava, Kat and Wally.  And on the fourth paragraph, I went from, "What an amazing report!" to "This sounds familiar."  That's because what I was reading was familiar.  They grabbed four paragraphs from a piece I wrote at this site -- four paragraphs word for word and -- strangely enough -- punctuation for punctuation.  I do love the double dash, don't I?  I don't think Katharine Hepburn loved it as much as I do.


So we knew it all along, we didn't have to play catch up after the terrorist was killed and try to figure out who he was.


And we don't have to play catch up with Moqtada.  Others apparently do and will be confused by the article at AL-MONITOR not being about Moqtada.  It's about Ammar al-Hakim:

In order to find a way out of the long-standing political crisis, Iraq is going through an early election process that could reshape the Iraqi political scene.

However, the parliament failed Oct. 14 in its attempt to pass a new electoral law for elections to be held next year. Also, the federal court in charge of overseeing the elections and the electoral commission that would manage the elections have not been finalized yet.

This is while the protesters are calling for a new wave of demonstrations to begin Oct. 25.

And there are other disputes in Iraq that are sharper and broader than the elections issue. There are militias acting against the state, and the United States is threatening to close its embassy in Baghdad, something that would shake the entire political system in the country. Also, the economic crisis is growing worse and worse.

Amid these circumstances, the head of the Hikma (Wisdom) movement, Ammar al-Hakim, is calling for a new social contract in Iraq to form a new political system responding to the Iraqi people's demands, which have greatly changed since the current system was put into place following the 2003 invasion.



About those militias, ALJAZEERA notes, "Pro-Iran factions in Iraq will cease targeting United States troops but their proposed truce is only temporary and depends on Washington completing a full military withdrawal by year-end, a key lawmaker said."  We noted last week that the truce was conditional but the defined timetable is a new development.  So they're saying two months is the deadline.  



Supporters of the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Front (PMF), an Iran-backed conglomeration of Shia militias, attacked and set fire to the headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Baghdad over comments made by a Kurdish leader, media reported.

Images shared by national broadcaster al-Sumaria TV showed supporters of PMF gathering outside the building as smoke billowed. They held up images of Shia figures, including US-assassinated Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.


Soeimani again?  You really thought I brought up the terrorist earlier for no reason?  ARAB WEEKLY notes that the militias are enraged by comments made by Iraq's former Minister of Foreign Affairs (2003 to 2014) Hoshyar Zebari:

Statements made by Kurdish politician Hoshyar Zebari questioning the deployment of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) in the Green Zone, where government offices and major international missions are located, and at Baghdad Airport have sparked a storm of controversy in Iraq.

Zebari's remarks brought to the fore questions about security authorities’ ability to face the challenges embodied by negative Iranian influence in the Iraqi capital.

Zebari, a veteran politician and diplomat who has served as foreign minister and finance minister in the federal government, said that the United States had already informed Iraq of its intention to close its embassy in Baghdad due to the threat posed by groups linked to Iran and their repeated Katyusha-rocket attacks, noting that it was the responsibility of Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi to handle the status and role of the PMF inside the Green Zone and to ensure the security of the road linking the US Embassy building and the Green Zone.

Zebari believes that the PMF’s continued control of the Green Zone and its roads leading to Baghdad airport will not serve Iraq and its foreign relations, especially its relations with major powers.

Of the attack, ANADOLU AGENCY notes, "Police Captain Hatem al-Jaberi said security forces failed to prevent angry protesters from storming the building."  Hussain Abdul-Huassain (ARAB NEWS) argues:

Iraq’s top cleric, Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, last month called for the disbanding of all militias. This would involve the state disarming the pro-Iran Popular Mobilization Units (PMU). In turn, this would neuter Tehran’s most reliable partner in Iraq, Kataib Hezbollah, the most dangerous alternative to state power in the country. Such then is the importance of Al-Sistani’s call for the integrity of the Iraqi state. Indeed, the prime minister, now provided cover by the religious leadership in Najaf, should act with haste. Yet all we have witnessed so far is an exhibition of inertia.
Kataib Hezbollah has been busy building a “statelet” within Iraq. If the government does not act quickly, it will soon become stronger than the Iraqi state itself; it will dominate Iraq in the way Hezbollah dominates in Lebanon and will seal Iraq’s slide into failure as a client state of Iran.





What do the militias do?  Terrorize.  In other news, Zhelwan Z. Wali (RUDAW) reports that twelve Sunnis were kidnapped in Salahaddain Province Saturday.  Of the twelve, ten have now turned up -- ten corpses.  Oh, and, by the way, Khaled Jabbarra ("head of Sunni political party Wafd and a member of Salahaddin's tribal forces") reminds RUDAW "that the security of Balad is under the control of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a faction of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi)."  He is quoted stating, "The PMF is responsible for the security of this area and we call on the Prime Minister [Mustafa al-Kadhimi] to send the interior minister to investigate the incident and find out the fate of the remaining two people."  The number ten pops up in another RUDAW report:

Ten percent of Iraq’s population do not have enough food, a United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) Iraq spokesperson has told Rudaw. 

"Around 3.8 million people are without sufficient food in Iraq - that is about 10 percent of the country's population," Sharon Rapose, Head of Communications at WFP Iraq, told Rudaw‘s Omar Kalo on Friday. 

The WFP works with refugees and displaced people all over Iraq and in over 80 countries worldwide, aiming at providing cash and food assistance to people in need. 




The following sites updated:
























 

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Wolff is an American Marxian economist, known for his work on economic methodology and class analysis. He is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University in New York. Wolff has also taught economics at Yale University, City University of New York, University of Utah, University of Paris I (Sorbonne), and The Brecht Forum in New York City. For info on Richard Wolff go to: https://www.rdwolff.com/ And make sure to follow him on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/profwolff ——— act.tv is a progressive media company specializing in next generation live streaming and digital strategy. Our YouTube channel focuses on animated explainers, livestreams from protests around the country, and original political commentary. Main site: http://act.tv Facebook: http://facebook.com/actdottv Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/actdottv Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/actdottv YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/actdottv @act.tv #DoMoreThanWatch





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Dr. Jo Jorgensen, Libertarian candidate for President, St. Petersburg, FL 10/16/20

 



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Just a little film I put together after recording Dr. Jorgensen's speech. Like and subscribe... more to come.

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Come Back Home (Carly Simon)

 

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