Monday, September 09, 2024

Iraq snapshot

Monday, September 9, 2024.  All the crazies running around aren't just named Trump -- some are named Glenneth, Edward and Ajamu  -- among other names.


Starting in the US where we are 56 days away from the election.   And yet Republicans in Congress continue to be unable to do the job that they were voted into office for.   Lolita C Baldor (AP) reports:


  Passage of a six-month temporary spending bill would have widespread and devastating effects on the Defense Department, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said in a letter to key members of Congress on Sunday.

Austin said that passing a continuing resolution that caps spending at 2024 levels, rather than taking action on the proposed 2025 budget will hurt thousands of defense programs, and damage military recruiting just as it is beginning to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic. 


So they took their unneeded August vacation and now they're back and they can't do their job.  And they're showing this  to the nation weeks ahead of an election.

Where is the plan for the country?  Or is it just let Donald Trump make unhinged rants and threats and pretend that's going to put food on people's table?


At COMMON DREAMS, Amy Hamauer explains:


  As U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump get ready to debate for the first time this week, what can we expect from their campaigns in terms of taxes?

Harris endorses multiple proposals to generate revenue from the richest people and the biggest corporations and deliver a middle-class tax cut—with the former paying for the latter. Trump would cut some middle-class taxes but promotes a new tariff tax on imports that would hike the price of nearly everything Americans purchase and, doubling down on past practice, he’d slash taxes for millionaires and corporations. He hasn’t identified a single business or billionaire that should pay more.

When Trump and congressional Republicans passed the 2017 tax law, they made massive tax cuts for corporations permanent but set the individual cuts, which were heavily skewed to the extremely wealthy, to expire at the end of 2025. This means taxes are on next year’s policy agenda in a way that rarely comes along. The approaches articulated by the campaigns would pull the nation in profoundly different directions.

  Trump says he would again slash corporate tax rates, keep all corporate cuts from the 2017 tax law, extend 2017’s expiring cuts for everyone including the uber-wealthy, and impose large tariffs that fall on everyone who spends money on anything.

Trump’s tariff tax proposals—60% tariff taxes on imports from China and 20% on all other imports—would cost the typical American household over $2,600 a year according to economist Kim Clausing. Earlier analysis of a previously-discussed 10 percent worldwide tariff tax shows an increase in inflation resulting from the plan, which would also generate $2.8 trillion in revenue over the next decade, raised from consumers.

Much of that revenue would go to corporations. When lawmakers cut the corporate rate from 35% to 21% in 2017, corporate tax payments plummeted, and huge, profitable corporations continued to pay far below the statutory rate. We’d see this on steroids if Trump slashed the corporate rate to 15%. Such cuts increase income and racial inequality and send a massive windfall—40 cents of every dollar—to foreign investors.

The law that the Trump administration passed in 2017 delivered enormous tax cuts to those in the top 1%, a narrow sliver of well-off people with income over $800,000 a year. These individual cuts for the rich expire in 2025, but the Trump campaign wants to make them permanent, sending almost two-thirds of that money to the richest fifth of Americans. This would cost more than $280 billion in 2026 alone, slashing revenue that could otherwise provide tax cuts for middle-income Americans, reduce the national debt, or fund childcare, healthcare, or infrastructure.

Republican Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance has mentioned more than doubling the Child Tax Credit but has provided few details and Trump has not signed on.

Harris backs most of the revenue raisers and middle class tax cuts laid out in President Joe Biden’s 2025 budget. The revenue components raise nearly $5 trillion over a decade, entirely from wealthy people and corporations, reducing inequality, both economic and racial, and generating funds for things the American people need.

Harris plans to boost revenue from corporations by raising the corporate rate, increasing the corporate minimum tax, increasing the stock buyback tax, and reining in corporate offshore tax avoidance. She’d better tax the wealthy by allowing expiration of the parts of the 2017 tax law that exclusively help those making more than $400,000. For those who make over $1 million a year, Harris would eliminate tax breaks on capital gains and dividends. For incomes exceeding $100 million a year, she’d tax currently exempt investment income that many billionaire CEOs receive. These provisions would do much to reform a tax code that most Americans say raises too little from corporations and the wealthy.

Harris would fully extend temporary tax cuts from the 2017 tax law for people earning less than $400,000 and try a new down-payment assistance program for some first-time homebuyers. She’d also expand the Child Tax Credit to $6,000 for newborns, $3,600 for children up to age five, and $3,000 for older children. This is one of the best and most well-proven ways to cut poverty, reduce inequality, and help middle-class families. 


There's some reality.  But everyone wants to weigh in on the race and that means a lot of crackpots are piping up, not just Donald Trump.



I'm sorry.  What brought down the Twin Towers, Ajamu Baraka?  You're a conspiracy theorist.  Remember?  You've denied 9/11 for decades now.  Why should anyone listen to you?  Because in 2016 you were on the ticket with anti-vaxer Jill Stein?  Because you were the token in her claim for fame?  Or maybe because you and Jill lied to Cornel West and told him he'd be the Green Party nominee when the nomination wasn't yours to give?  There's also Ajamu's Holocaust denial.  


In fact, before anyone listens to Ajamu, they might need to read Gideon Resnik's "The Wild Beliefs of Ajamu Baraka, Jill Stein’s Green Party Running Mate" (THE DAILY BEAST) from 2016:


Ajamu Baraka, professorial with kind eyes, was an accomplished human-rights activist before joining the Green Party ticket as Jill Stein’s running mate.


But the two leftist candidates—due for a mainstream close-up in a CNN town hall on Wednesday—also have engaged with some fringe thinkers and conspiracy theories. Baraka, especially, has an accomplished résumé in this field.

Earlier this year, the former executive director of the U.S. Human Rights Network had his work featured in a book edited by accused Holocaust denier (“the Holocaust controversy was a legitimate topic of historical debate”) and self-described 9/11 truther Kevin Barrett. The book, Another French False Flag? Bloody Tracks from Paris to San Bernardino, featured the likes of Jewishness-loathing Gilad Atzmon and Ken O’Keefe, who once made a YouTube video explaining how “Hitler was right.”

Baraka, though, says that he was not aware of Barrett’s views prior to having his work appear in the book.

“When Kevin Barrett, someone who has interviewed me in the past, contacted me to ask if he could include my piece in a compilation on the Paris Attacks, I didn’t see any problem with it,” Baraka said in a statement to Gawker in which he stridently disavowed Holocaust denial. “I didn’t inquire as to the other authors and don’t know much about some of them or their positions on various issues. I stand by everything I wrote in that article and would be happy to discuss the details.”

Neither he nor the ticket’s spokesman responded to requests for further comment from The Daily Beast. 


That's the land of crazy and they benefit from the fact that most of us don't want to visit it.  That's why, for example, Renee Johnston could rip apart her 2013 work on the Green Party and its money problems caused by Jill Stein in order to serve up her garbage last Saturday.


They have no fixed point, they have nothing they will stick with.


Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney have now both endorsed Kamala Harris for president.  My thoughts on Dick Cheney are established and up here and have been for 20 years now.  I don't applaud him.  I also don't see the need to attack him when he does realize the very real threat to democracy that Donald Trump represents -- a threat that too many want to ignore like the disgusting Glenneth Greenwald still posing as Girl Reporter when, in fact, he was never a reporter.  Russian defector Edward Snowden dumped documents on him and we were all supposed to pretend that the idiot columnist (who did cheerlead the Iraq War) Glenneth is suddenly a reporter.


But a reporter covers a story.


Glenneth covered it up.  The trove handed over by Snowden made Glenneth rich but it didn't get to the American people, did it?  When THE GUARDIAN was under attack and balked at releasing more, Glenneth dressed up as a reporter and announced he was done with them -- done, done, done!  And he went to what became THE INTERCEPT and?  No more documents.  THE INTERCEPT now has buried them for good and no apologies from the grifter Glenneth.


Meanwhile: Shut up, Ed Snowden.


The idiot -- and, yes, he always was an idiot, that's how he ended up trapped in Russia where he remains to this day -- wants to weigh in.  Apparently, Ed sees Alaska from his front porch and thinks we need to hear from him.


He's having a fit about Dick Cheney's endorsement as well.


Will Ed be voting in the election?


No.  


He's in Russia -- with Tara Reade -- and his life in the US is over.  Now if he wanted to do something of value, he'd be talking about what THE INTERCEPT sits on.  But, no, he's really not brave.


He could never have held up to what Chelsea Manning did.  He would have buckled in a week.  


So he ran like an idiot.  You run?  When do you think running stops?


It doesn't, you idiot.  


And no one sees you as a hero anymore because everything didn't get released.  No one is impressed with you because you are a coward who ran.


Now you could impress us by explaining what THE INTERCEPT continues to sit on.  


Or you could even impress us by creating a life for yourself in Russia.  The place you chose to go.  The reason people laugh at you and Tara Reade?  You chose to go Russia and all you do is obsess over the United States.  You're pathetic lives are no more fulfilled in Russia than they were in the US?  How many countries will you have to stay in before you grasp that your problems are not external -- they are inside you and you carry them with you where ever you go.


I don't like Dick Cheney.  Do I appreciate that he doesn't want to see our country destroyed?  Yes, I do.  


Over the weekend, news about Iraq floated around.  Not that the Ajamus wanted to address it.  They're fake little bastards who only hop what they hope is popular that they can use to ride to significance.


Supposedly, US troops will be withdrawing from Iraq.  Again!  Of course the withdrawal under Barack Obama was not a withdrawal.  It was a drawdown as thousands remained in Iraq.  In the fall of 2012, Barack began sending more US troops -- special forces.  The press ran with "withdrawal" while the US military (rightly) termed it a "drawdown."  Yes, there is a difference.  


So applause to WION for its use of terms in the video below entitled "Will some US troops remain in Iraq after drawdown?"



IRAQI NEWS reports:


Different sources revealed that Baghdad and Washington agreed on a strategy for the departure of coalition forces led by the United States from Iraq.

Reuters mentioned that hundreds of troops are expected to leave Iraq by September 2025 and the remaining forces by the end of 2026, according to the agreement, which still needs confirmation from top authorities in both countries and an announcement date.

Last week, the Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, confirmed that the remnants of the terrorist group ISIS are no longer a danger to the country.


Will it be a withdrawal?  No.  No, it will be a drawdown, "Reuters also reported that the two governments aim to establish a new advisory relationship that could see some US troops remain in Iraq after the drawdown."  NEWSWEEK wrongly sells it as a withdrawal.  A withdrawal means all leave (except Marines guarding the US Embassy).  A drawdown means a number leave but not all.  It's amazing that NEWSWEEK can't get it right even as they quote anonymous US military officials.   SHAFAQ NEWS notes, "However, the report highlighted that a US force will remain stationed in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region, serving as a key link to US operations in Syria."

For any who have forgotten, US troops invaded Iraq  in March of 2003.  Barack Obama carried out a drawdown -- but not a withdrawal -- and US troops remain in Iraq.  21 years later and US troops remain in Iraq. 


If you're not getting it, Thomas Watkins (THE NATIONAL) explains:


The US is likely to maintain significant military capabilities to fight extremists in Iraq after the anti-ISIS coalition wraps up in the coming years, an American official said on Friday.

Speaking after it was reported that US-led coalition forces would leave Iraq by the end of 2026, the official said their departure “doesn't necessarily change” the military's ability to go after ISIS.

“I would be extremely surprised if they pulled all US presence out,” the official told The National. Baghdad and Washington agreed in late July on a two-year plan to end the coalition's mission in Iraq, which was brought in to fight ISIS a decade ago.






 Turning to Gaza . . . 





This morning, Alda Massoud (THE NATIONAL) reports:

 

The Palestinian mission to the UN has circulated a General Assembly draft resolution calling for an end to Israel's “unlawful presence” in Gaza and the West Bank within six months.

The resolution urges countries not to legally recognise Israel's presence in the territories, to impose sanctions on Israeli officials, and to stop the transfer of arms that could be used in the occupied areas. It also calls on nations to refrain from establishing diplomatic missions in Jerusalem.

The text calls for a conference to address sanctions, grave breaches, and the urgent need to enforce the Geneva Convention in the Palestinian territories.

A vote on the draft resolution is expected next week at the UN General Assembly.

A lot of news over the weekend, from Saturday's WEEKEND EDITION (NPR):


STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

We have one picture of the war in Gaza. While it's hard for foreign journalists to make it into Gaza, many images have made their way out. We've seen destruction from the air and from the ground. We've seen children in peril, people alive and dead. And now we have the story behind a single image from this week, which some people will find disturbing. This report is just a little over two minutes. NPR's Aya Batrawy has the story of the girl in the pink roller skates.

AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Tala Abu Ajwa was heading out to play with her brother when a bomb hit their building in Gaza City. Shrapnel went flying through the air, piercing her neck. The 10-year-old died within minutes. The photo of her in her pink roller skates quickly spread online.

HUSSAM ABU AJWA: (Non-English language spoken).

BATRAWY: I reached Tala's father, Hussam Abu Ajwa, by phone in Gaza City. He says his daughter was bubbly and ambitious.

ABU AJWA: (Non-English language spoken).

BATRAWY: He tells me the day before she was killed, she told him, Baba, I want to become a dentist and go back to school. She told her dad she wanted to celebrate her brother's birthday and forget about the war.

ABU AJWA: (Non-English language spoken).

BATRAWY: He promised to try. Abu Ajwa, a high school chemistry teacher before the war, sends me photos of how the family once lived. Tala's arms are wrapped around his neck in a pool. In other photos, she's hugging her siblings, dolled up in dresses, headbands, a Daisy Duck sweater. She loved taking selfies. This last photo of her in the morgue, still wearing her skates, has gone viral on social media.

ABU AJWA: (Non-English language spoken).

BATRAWY: Abu Ajwa says he tried his best to keep the family safe. The Israeli military says it takes precautions to limit civilian deaths in its targeting of Hamas. It did not respond to NPR's request on why this residential building was hit. Tala's father says the booms of Israeli airstrikes would scare her. She'd curl up in his arms.


Meanwhile, REUTERS noted, "Israeli military strikes across the Palestinian Gaza Strip killed at least 61 people in the space of 24 hours, local medics said on Saturday, as Israeli forces battled Hamas-led militants in the territory." Among the targets bombed by the Israeli government?  Halima al-Sa’diyya school.  They keep bombing schools. ALJAZEERA added, "Israel has continued attacks in Gaza. At least four people, including the deputy director of Palestinian Civil Defence in the North Gaza governorate, Abu al-Abd Morsi, have been killed in an attack on a house in the Jabalia refugee camp."


And still there was no cease-fire.  FRANCE 24 notes, "The war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza entered its 12 month Saturday with little sign of respite for the Palestinian territory or hope for Israeli hostages still held captive."  There were protests Sunday.  THE NATIONAL reported:


Thousands of anti-government protesters gathered in Tel Aviv again on Saturday demanding a deal to free the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza.

Organisers said 400,000 people blocked Derech Menachem Begin, one of the city's main thoroughfares.

Protests were also held in other cities, including Haifa, Jerusalem and Caesarea, near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's private residence.

Demonstrators, including the family of the hostages, held banners that read "we are all kidnapped" and "get them out of hell".


THE TIMES OF ISRAEL adds, "Speakers at the Saturday night Tel Aviv rally were to include: Andrey Kozlov, a former hostage rescued from Gaza in an IDF operation; former hostage Danielle Aloni who was released along with her young daughter Emilia during the November ceasefire; Shay Dickmann, cousin of Carmel Gat, whose murder was announced by the IDF earlier this week along with five other hostages; Nissan Calderon, brother of hostage Ofer Calderon; ⁠Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of US-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander; ⁠and Einav Moses, the daughter-in-law of 80-year-old hostage Gadi Moses."  London also witnessed a large protest.  THE SOCIALIST WORKER reports:


Anger at the Labour government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide filled the streets of central London on Saturday. 

Around 125,000 people joined the 17th national demonstration for Palestine since Israel began its genocide last October. 

The immense vitality of the Palestine movement was on show with many first-time marchers. Kamar told Socialist Worker, “This is my first demonstration in London—and it won’t be my last.” 

The march was infused with outrage at Labour only suspending 30—out of 350—British arms export licences to Israel last week. 

Kamar said Western governments have made some concessions because they “want to be seen to be on the right side of history” while still backing Israel. “The British government has suspended some arms sales to Israel, but it’s very small,” she said. 

Imad, a lorry driver from West Bromwich in the Midlands, told Socialist Worker, Labour is failing to do enough. It suspended 30 arms licences—but why not all? It’s just trying to shut people down with gestures to show they are doing something. If it was serious, Labour would have suspended all licences.”

But, Imad added, “Anyone who wants to be in Downing Street has to support Zionism.” 

Protestor Ian, who had travelled to London, agreed, 30 out of 350 arms contracts is nothing but lip service. 

“Labour is still providing arms for the F35 fighter jets, so there’s no real difference between Labour and the last Tory government.”


In other news,  Benedict Garman (BBC NEWS) reports:


Israeli forces have been laying tarmac on a key road in Gaza along its southern border - in what some commentators see as a signal that they're not prepared to fully withdraw from the territory any time soon.

The road has become a major sticking point in the negotiations for a new ceasefire and hostage release deal.

BBC Verify has analysed satellite imagery, photos and video that show the surfacing of a road along the narrow but strategically important strip of land running the length of Gaza's border with Egypt, long known by its Israeli military codename: the Philadelphi Corridor.

Between 26 August and 5 September, satellite imagery captured at regular intervals shows fresh paving along a section of road extending 6.4km inland from the coast along the border fence.



Gaza remains under assault. Day 338 of  the assault in the wave that began in October.  Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion.  The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.  But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets:  How to justify it?  Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence."   CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."  ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them."  NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza."  The slaughter continues.  It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service.  THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll rises to 40,972, with 94,761 injured."   Early on, Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) pointed out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide."    Months ago, United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of of acute food insecurity or worse."   Months ago,  AP  noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing."  February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home."  February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:

 


April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "In addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into Israeli prisons.  In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."
 


Winding down, Susie Beever (THE MIRROR) reports:

An American woman was shot and killed in the West Bank on Friday, doctors have said.

The woman, aged 26, was shot in the head in the northern region of the Palestinian territory and died after being rushed to hospital, medical official Dr Ward Basalat said. Dr. Fouad Naffa, the head of the hospital, also confirmed the death of an American woman, who has not yet been named.


AP notes, "Witnesses, activists and Palestinian media said she was shot by Israeli troops while attending a pro-Palestinian demonstration against settlement expansion in the Nablus area of the northern West Bank, near the town of Beita. Israel's military said it was still looking into the incident, but it confirmed that troops had opened fire in the area."


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