Wednesday, June 22, 2022

Iraq snapshot

Wednesday, June 22, 2022.   The persecution of Julian Assange is a war on the press and a war on the truth, Moqtada al-Sadr remains out of power, and much more.


Around the world, everyone watches as US President Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange.  The Geneva Press Club Tweets:

#Journalists associations, medias, editors in chief, mobilize on June 22, 11 AM CEST in Geneva to #FreeAssange after UK ordered today his extradition. In violation of #HumanRights and #pressfreedom. Sign up here

This persecution of Julian is about silencing the press.  Monday April 5, 2010, 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.  That is when the persecution begins.  It was an intimidation carried out by multiple presidents starting with Barack Obama, continuing with Donald Trump and now the baton for killing the press has been handed off to Joe Biden. This has had the effect of scaring off many traditional news outlets.  They once partnered with Julian to report and now they act as though they've never heard of him.  Saving their own asses?  They may think that.  If they do, they're dead wrong.  An attack on Julian is an attack on all.  And if the attack on Julian is not loudly and publicly rebuked, you can be sure that next up will be THE WASHINGTON POST or THE MIAMI HERALD or some other institution -- despite the US Constitution -- the same one that's being ignored in this attack on Julian.

Jonathan Cook (DISSIDENT VOICE) details how certain press assets of the CIA in the UK delivered lies to the public as truth:

We now know, courtesy of a Yahoo News investigation, that through 2017 the CIA hatched various schemes either to assassinate Assange or to kidnap him in one of its illegal “extraordinary rendition” operations, so he could be permanently locked up in the US, out of public view.

We can surmise that the CIA also believed it needed to prepare the ground for such a rogue operation by bringing the public on board. According to Yahoo’s investigation, the CIA believed Assange’s seizure might require a gun battle on the streets of London.

It was at this point, it seems, that Cadwalladr and the Guardian were encouraged to add their own weight to the cause of further turning public opinion against Assange.

According to her witness statement, “a confidential source in [the] US” suggested – at the very time the CIA was mulling over these various plots – that she write about a supposed visit by Farage to Assange in the embassy. The story ran in the Guardian under the headline “When Nigel Farage met Julian Assange.”

In the article, Cadwalladr offers a strong hint as to who had been treating her as a confidant: the one source mentioned in the piece is “a highly placed contact with links to US intelligence”. In other words, the CIA almost certainly fed her the agency’s angle on the story.

In the piece, Cadwalladr threads together her and the CIA’s claims of “a political alignment between WikiLeaks’ ideology, UKIP’s ideology and Trump’s ideology”. Behind the scenes, she suggests, was the hidden hand of the Kremlin, guiding them all in a malign plot to fatally undermine British democracy.

She quotes her “highly placed contact” claiming that Farage and Assange’s alleged face-to-face meeting was necessary to pass information of their nefarious plot “in ways and places that cannot be monitored”.

Except of course, as her “highly placed contact” knew – and as we now know, thanks to exposes by the Grayzone website – that was a lie. In tandem with its plot to kill or kidnap Assange, the CIA illegally installed cameras inside, as well as outside, the embassy. His every move in the embassy was monitored – even in the toilet block.

The reality was that the CIA was bugging and videoing Assange’s every conversation in the embassy, even the face-to-face ones. If the CIA actually had a recording of Assange and Farage meeting and discussing a Kremlin-inspired plot, it would have found a way to make it public by now.

Far more plausible is what Farage and WikiLeaks say: that such a meeting never happened. Farage visited the embassy to try to interview Assange for his LBC radio show but was denied access. That can be easily confirmed because by then the Ecuadorian embassy was allying with the US and refusing Assange any contact with visitors apart from his lawyers.


The war on Julian is a war on the press and a war on the truth.



Kevin Gosztola discussed the issues in the video below.



US House Rep Ilhan Omar Tweets:

The prosecution of Assange is still indefensible!
Quote Tweet
Ilhan Omar
@IlhanMN
·
On his show @mehdirhasan makes the case for why the prosecution of Assange is indefensible. Give it a listen👇🏽

At TRUTHOUT, Marjorie Cohn notes, "This the first time the United States has prosecuted a journalist or media outlet for publishing classified information. The extradition, trial and conviction of Julian Assange would have frightening ramifications for investigative journalism. On June 17, the editorial board of The Guardian wrote, 'This action potentially opens the door for journalists anywhere in the world to be extradited to the US for exposing information deemed classified by Washington'."


Turning to Iraq, the government remains without a prime minister, without a president, all this time after the October 10th elections.  Some in the western media are apparently butt hurt over getting it so wrong last fall when they praised Moqtada al-Sadr as a "kingmaker" and ran all these puff pieces on the man who leads a cult, on the man responsible for the deaths of US troops, on the man who has terrorized minority groups in Iraq, etc.  If you missed it, after months of being unable to form a government, Moqtada announced he was taking his toys and going home.  The 73 MPs in his bloc have resigned from Parliament.

Now the western press whores are trying to sell that as a victory.

Moqtada has a master plan! He's playing three dimensional chess!  This will force everyone to bend to his will!

Dubious claims at best.

Moqtada couldn't hack and he left.  Arabic social media has been addressing it for the last two weeks.  The government in Iran put pressure on the KDP leadership (the Barzani family) and Moqtada was about to experience a very public break in coalition.  The KDP got a huge number of votes.  Without them, Moqtada was nowhere near getting enough members in his coalition to form a government.

It would have been an even bigger failure so Moqtada elected to take his toys and go home -- hoping there was a least one shred of dignity left that he could cover himself in.  (There wasn't.)

 

After winning last year’s election, Sadr appeared to be in the driver’s seat of Iraqi politics — and claimed to be on a path to form a majority government and sideline his main rivals, former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and parts of the Iran-aligned Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).

Eight months later, Sadr seems to be walking away from the government-formation process, throwing Iraqi politics into uncertain terrain.

What’s his end game? Our interviews with senior figures within Sadr’s group suggest he may now focus on leading protests against political opponents. The protest space is where Sadr has been uniquely powerful as the leader of one of the largest Islamist movements in the region, organized around his personal authority as a charismatic, religious figurehead.

For Iraq, the result now may be further political instability — and potentially another early election. But more critically, the approaching summer will put added pressures on Iraq’s government amid scorching heat and growing public anger over the lack of jobs and basic services. This summer may see a repeat of last year’s blackouts, for instance — and protests. And supply disruptions could exacerbate ongoing protests over unemployment, wages and working conditions in the public sector.

A replay of the delicate balancing act that served Sadr well in the past seems likely. He reportedly will now try to retain his influence across the government’s most powerful institutions while rallying anti-establishment protests in the streets. But will it work this time?


It's a strong piece.  At last, a report at THE POST treats Nouri al-Maliki as the instrument of power he remains.  I think he's a thug.  My thoughts don't do a damn thing to alter the power he does and the power that he's used in 2021 and still today.  It was a huge mistake for the US media to impose a blackout on Nouri in order to sell Moqtada as some form of leader.  They also note -- as we've for years now -- Moqtada is not the protest leader.  He controls his cult, yes.  The October Revolution that emerged in 2019 was not led by him.  He attempted to co-opt it and, when he failed, he began attacking them.  These were young Shi'ites.  Too many e-mails come into the public account that still don't grasp that point.  Sunnis were not part of The October Revolution.  Moqtada's hold on the average Shiite was never that strong to begin with.  It's grown weaker.  (As has his hold on his cult which is why he got so many fewer votes this go round. Despite ordering his cult to vote in these elections.) 

So let's add to the analysis with some other basics.

Nearly 20 years after he emerged as the angry young man opposed to US forces, he's no longer young.  He does not speak for the youth.  Nor do they want him to.  He wants to be the face of protests.  He wanted that in 2019 so he tried to co-opt the movement.  He realized in early 2020 that he couldn't, so he attacked the movement.  By the time he was ordering them, April 2020, to not allow males and females to protest together, they were openly laughing at him and carrying protest signs that ridiculed him.

His aging out as the 'voice of youth' is not uncommon in any country.  It is especially not uncommon in a country where so many have died due to the war that the median age is now is now 21-years-old.

Here's another reality he's going to have to come up against.

If he starts the protests up again, his cult will turn out, yes.  Other Shi'ites?  He's going to be protesting against a new government.  How is that going to work this summer?

Let's say everything breaks the way they need it for Nouri's group.  So in 30 days or so, they're in power.  And there's Moqtada, in early August, calling them out for what they haven't done?

They will only have been in power a few weeks and the entire country is aware that it was Moqtada who, for over eight months, was unable to deliver.  That it was Moqtada who finally stepped aside and quit.  That had he done this earlier, a government could have been formed before the obscene summer heat hit Iraq.

Anything can hapen.  But Moqtada's got a lot of negatives and they make his ability to recapture the days of 2005 much, much more difficult.

We'll wind down with this from Ms.

Ms. Magazine
MORE THAN A MAGAZINE, A MOVEMENT
 

Dear Common Ills,

 

With the Supreme Court expected to soon overturn Roe v. Wade, the biggest challenge we all face is finding ways to protect five decades of hard-fought gains for women.

 

Winning this historic battle means providing accurate, timely and actionable information to hundreds of thousands of activists, student, volunteers and the press.

 

That's what we do at Ms. We have been reporting on the battles for abortion rights since our launch 50 years ago in 1972. And for each of these 50 years, Ms. has been on the frontlines, spotlighting strategies for moving forward in the fight for full equality.

 

You more than most, because of your deep commitment to women’s rights and equality, will understand and appreciate the urgent nature of this e-mail. 

 

It's because your support is critical that we're inviting you to join a small, select group. A special and integral part of our Ms. community.

 

We call each other Ms. Partners. And, as the name indicates the purpose is to “partner” with and advance the essential mission of Ms. going into the critical months and years ahead.

 

You can make a one-time tax-deductible contribution of $50 or more (a dollar for every year Ms. has been reporting). If you give $1,000 or more, you become a Lifetime Partner and member of the Ms. Community.

 

Or you can join our Sustaining Partner Program by setting up a recurring gift of $10 or more each month.

 

Our Partners make it possible for Ms. to keep our readers informed, both in print and online at the very moment equality, women’s rights and democracy itself are under assault by the far-right hell bent on imposing their distorted beliefs on the rest of us.

 

Ms. started a powerful strategy in the abortion rights fight

 

Ms. covers the news and makes it; reports on trends and helps make them. In its 1972 debut issue, Ms. ran a bold petition in which 53 well-known U.S. women called for an end to laws prohibiting abortion and declared “We Have Had an Abortion” – despite laws in most states rendering the procedure illegal. 

 

The Washington Post credited the petition with the “start of a powerful strategy in the U.S. abortion rights movement: ending the secrecy that had kept many women out of the fight.”

 

Now we must once again demand the repeal of all laws restricting women’s reproductive freedoms. And we must finally secure the Equal Rights Amendment in the Constitution.

 

The final drive for the ERA

 

The ERA is the ultimate insurance policy – a permanent guard against the whims of the Court and of a future right-wing majority in Congress.

 

Ms. is closely tracking and reporting on efforts to ensure the ERA is finally added to the U.S. Constitution as the 28th Amendment. Although all the requirements set out in the Constitution for an amendment have been met, the final certification of the ERA has been blocked by Senate Republicans wielding the filibuster to prevent a vote by the Senate.  

 

One thing is certain. Whether we’re dealing with the overturn of Roe v. Wade by a Supreme Court stacked with Trump-appointed justices… or overcoming the final barriers to enshrining the Equal Rights Amendment in the Constitution… we simply must be prepared for what is nothing less than major battles for the survival and advancement of women’s rights.

 

And that’s where you and the special Ms. Partners are critical.

 

YOUR Role in Helping Make History

 

Members of this special group make it possible for Ms. magazine to provide accurate, timely and actionable information, in print, online and through our highly acclaimed podcasts.

 

There’s no doubt that by joining together we can meet the challenges that lie ahead in 2022. And this means being able to count on the partnership of caring, committed friends like you.

 

We hope you will accept this special invitation

and become a Ms. Partner today.

           

Ms. is far, far more than a magazine--for 50 years Ms. has played a key role in the women’s movement and stood firmly as its trusted information source. With the support of dedicated Partners like you Ms. will remain fiercely independent and on the frontlines.

 

Through good times and bad, we know we can count on you to help carry on the critical mission of Ms. Together we can strengthen Ms. and the feminist movement.

 

Reporting. Rebelling. & Truth-telling for Equality,

 

Ellie Smeal Signature
Kathy Spillar
Executive Editor
 
Kathy Spillar Signature
Eleanor Smeal
Publisher
 

P.S. Your Ms. Partner contribution is tax-deductible. And as a special thank you for your support, we’ll make sure your name is printed in the Ms. Partners or Sustaining Members section of the 50th Anniversary Issue of Ms. this fall.

 

You won’t want to miss out on seeing your name listed along with other Ms. Partners in our 50th Anniversary Collector’s Issue. So please join us today. AND please make sure your name appears the way you want it listed in the Special 50th Anniversary edition.

 

FacebookTwitterRSS

Enjoy this newsletter? Forward to a friend!
Was this email forwarded to you by a friend? Subscribe.

Ms. Magazine
1600 Wilson Boulevard
Suite 801
Arlington, VA 22209
United States



The following sites updated: