Monday, March 05, 2012

The gender traitor speaks

Janury 26th, we first called out Gender Traitor Ibtihal al-Zaidi. Ever since her outrageous and offensive remarks the piece of trash has attempted a make over. We ignored her sudden interest in women athletes after her attacks on women. Some covered her sudden admiration for women but most outlets avoided the trashy Minister of Women.

The trash wants to try again at a make over and looks around at the media landscape of foreign journalists in Iraq, ignores Lara Jakes, Jane Arraf and other women and runs straight to a man: AFP's Mohamad Ali Harissi. How sweet.

Gender traitor tells Mohamad Ali Harissis that Iraq will not see a female prime minister for decades. As Goldie Hawn tells Eileen Brennan in Private Benjamin, "No s**t." (Screenplay by Nancy Meyers, Charles Shyer and Harvey Miller.)

Mohamad Ali Harissis apparently was wooed by the Gender Traitor -- did she give him a hand job? -- because he writes, "She also defended remarks made in recent weeks that men held a superior position in society to women, but said they had been misinterpreted." They weren't misinterpreted. She told that lie already. Al Mada went back over their notes and stated they stood by their report, that she did make those statements.

Those statements? Why isn't AFP telling you what those statements are?

And why the F**K has AFP sat on this story? They're happy to spin and enlist in her attempts at a make over, but they never, EVER, reported on what that trashy Gender Traitor said. This is their first acknowledgment.

Reading this garbage -- and it is garbage -- you'd never know that the Gender Traitor's offensive remarks resulted in Iraqi women demonstrating in the streets of Baghdad because that's apparently not something AFP wants to note now and they didn't want to note before.

I didn't ask and I didn't expect the men of AFP -- emphasis on men -- to cover this issue but when they finally get around to it, they offer a one-sided take, they offer copy that is a publicist dream.

Doubt me?

A public official makes offensive statements. An interview takes place that includes denial, denial, claims of being misinterpreted by the subject. And the reporter never tells you what the quotes were. Never.

Not only did Iraqi women take to the streets and remind Baghdad and the country of the tradition of strong Iraqi women and it dating back to the start of the 20th century with, among other things, the Iraqi magazine Layla, women in Parliament also called out the Gender Traitor's words.

You don't get that in the AFP story either.

What's so F**KING offensive about this crappy story is that it leads up to International Women's Day (March 8th). AFP should be ashamed of themselves. You expect this piggery from the New York Times, AFP's supposed to be a little more advanced.

Instead, it's spin and spin some more. "The 47-year-old lamented the fact that she was the only woman in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's 33-member cabinet, despite the fact that Iraq's 325-member parliament is required to allot 25 percent of its seats to women." In what world is that either accurate or illustrative?

How many posts are there in the current Cabinet? 41. How many are filled? 35. How in the world do you get 33? You can click here for Wikipedia's chart. Now let's talk reality that AFP forgot to provide, they were so busy covering for the Gender Traitor. In the 2006 Cabinet, there were four women. Despite the fact that Nouri has increased the number of Cabinet ministers, there are less women holding posts now than in 2006. It's not about, as Gender Traitor maintains and AFP parrots, waiting for the slow slog women will have to make, it's about their being undercut and attacked and undermined every step of the way and apparently AFP is a-okay with that.


When the supposedly misquoted Minister of Women is quoted she states, "By superiority, I do not mean that men should exert their authority over women arbitrarily." Only the piggish at AFP could bury the lede. (It's at moments like this that I do understand why a very good friend complains about the erosion of French liberties and values in the last decades of France. I don't agree with her conclusions but I do understand why she is so outraged.)

The Minister of Women has just declared that men have authority over women. The stupid Gender Traitor needs to read the Constitution. As the women in Parliament and the women demonstrating in the streets of Baghdad pointed out, the Constitution grants Iraqi men no such right and establishes equality. She should be stripped of her position. She's a token only present because women -- including Jalal Talabani's relatives -- slammed Nouri for failing to name a single woman to his Cabinet. She's nothing but a Queen Bee, there to destroy the rights of Iraqi women. She makes that clear when she, the Minister of Women, defines her duties as a government servant: "My duty is to first satisfy God, and then the people and the women of Iraq." Women come third. May she reap all that she has sewn. XKJDKOIEHDL.

Al Rafidayn has an article on the KRG that quotes the gender traitor on women in the KRG and that also quotes some homophobe on AIDs cases in the KRG. Baghdad is not over the KRG. The KRG does not report to Baghdad. The Gender Traitor is nothing but Nouri's sexual plaything and if she's shooting off her uninformed mouth about the KRG, you can be sure Nouri has ordered her to. Point being, we're not interested in her lies. Or her and Nouri's efforts to discredit the KRG -- which is not Mecca and has its own problems but they pale besides Baghdad's problems.

Bonnie reminds that Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Jim Moron." On this week's Law and Disorder Radio -- a weekly 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) -- topics explored include Mumia Abu-Jamal, Egypt NGOs, Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and, with attorney Maria LaHood, the Olypia Food Co-op's legal victory.



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






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Sunday, March 04, 2012

Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Jim Moron"

jim moron


Isaiah's latest The World Today Just Nuts "Jim Moron." US House Rep and Victorian lady Jim Moran declares, "A refined lady such as myself will not allow H-E-double-hockey sticks to appear in public. It makes me tingle in my lady parts. Free speech does not cover vulgarities or words that make me tingle." A couple to the right looks at the 'refined lady' with the man asking, "Is that Jim Moran" and the woman replying, "I think it's Jim Moron." If you're late to the party on this, Jim Moran's decided free speech doesn't include "hell" and is making a big fool and priss of himself demanding an advertisement telling Barack to go to hell be pulled. You can refer to "THIS JUST IN! PUNK ASS MORAN!" and "Call him 'Punky Brewster'" (Wallly and Cedric's joint-post). Isaiah archives his comics at The World Today Just Nuts.






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And the war drags on . . .

Iraq's Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi remains in the KRG and Sunday saw Nouri demanding the KRG hand him over. That's a detail no one wanted to report -- it was Nouri -- but before we get to that, let's note that AP covers the story, AFP covers the story and Reuters covers the story. Who does so well, who does so poorly?

AP and AFP both have strong sections but I'd say AFP is the strongest over all. Reuters? All over the map with one mistake after another.

Reuters maintains that the arrest warrant for Tareq al-Hashemi "triggered a political crisis -- with Hashemi's Sunni-backed bloc announcing a boycott of parliament and the Shiite-led cabinet" which probably makes wonderful copy but, sadly, isn't backed up by the facts.

Check the archives. We note the announced boycott in the December 16th snapshot and again in a December 17th entry and December 18th is when al-Hashemi and Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq are pulled from a Baghdad flight to the KRG but then allowed to reboard the plane. December 19th is when the arrest warrant is issued.

Facts are facts. Don't try to create a timeline if you don't know them.

Reuters maintains, "The crisis has abated somewhat in recent weeks, with most members of Hashemi’s Iraqiya bloc agreeing to lift the boycott." That is true if you wrongly see the crisis as beginning December 21st. Kurds don't see that. Iraqiya doesn't see that -- right there you have over a third of the seats in Parliament.

The political crisis began in December 2010. That's when Nouri was moved to prime minister (and shouldn't have been since he failed to meet the Constitutional requirement of appointing a Cabinet) and disregarded the Erbil Agreement. Political Stalemate I is the eight months after the March 2010 elections when Nouri refuses to step aside as prime minister and the country is gripped by gridlock. The White House backs Nouri so he knows he can wait out his rivals. Then the US government brokers the Erbil Agreement which is supposed to allow Nouri to remain on as prime minister in exchange for other deals. Nouri takes what he wants and promptly discards the Erbil Agreement. People wait to see if this is the case -- the press keeps insisting it's not and covering for Nouri. By the summer, it's clear and that's when the Kurdistan group becomes the first to call for a return to the Erbil Agreement. They are followed by Iraqiya and others.

That is the political crisis.

What has allowed it to be less prominent? The work on the national conference.

Starting December 21st, Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujfafi and President Jalal Talabani began calling for a national conference.

If one was going to be held it should have been held already. Now, supposedly, it will take place after the Arab Summit (March 29, 2012).

But Nouri lied to the Iraqi Youth who fell for it. "100 Days" he insisted and corruption would be no more. His 100 days was nonsense and a stalling technique. The refusal of the Iraqi Youth to call it out is part of the reason their movement is so small now (yes, they are right that they are threatened with violence but had they stood up to Nouri back then, he didn't yet have thugs-in-training to harass them in Tahrir Square, that really happens beginning in June). [For a good article on the protests, click here.]

Nouri doesn't want a national conference. He doesn't even want it called a national conference. What he's doing is attempting to wait out his rivals yet again. At some point when people so willfully delude themselves, it's hard to feel sorry for them.

All three outlets want to say someone issued the latest order to turn over Tareq al-Hashemi. The Ministry of the Interior gets credit. That's not a person. That's a building. A building can't issue a request. A building can't even speak.

So who issued it?

The Minister of the Interior?

What's her or his name?

Oh, that's right.

There is no Minister of the Interior.

Nouri refused to nominate people to head the three security ministries. This was a violation of the Constitution. Instead of noting that, outlets like the New York Times wanted to tell you in December of 2010 that Nouri would name those posts shortly, in a few weeks. Critics of Nouri -- whom other outlets quoted by the Times didn't -- said b.s. They said Nouri wouldn't appoint the posts and would keep them vacant as a power grab.

That's what he's done. (Those Nouri-apologists in this country insist are 'acting ministers' are no such thing. The Constitution does not recognize that category and without going through the nomination process and being approved by Parliament, they have no protection. They do what Nouri says or they are fired. Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq was approved by Parliament. That's why although Nouri made clear in December that he wanted to fire al-Mutlaq, al-Mutlaq thus far retains his position. Nouri can't fire him. Parliament approved him and only Parliament can fire him.)





They're just there to try and make the people free,
But the way that they're doing it, it don't seem like that to me.
Just more blood-letting and misery and tears
That this poor country's known for the last twenty years,
And the war drags on.
-- words and lyrics by Mick Softly (available on Donovan's Fairytale)

Last Sunday, the number of US military people killed in the Iraq War since the start of the illegal war was 4487. Tonight? PDF format warning, DoD lists the the number of Americans killed serving in Iraq at 4487.

Monday's violence we'll cover when it's Monday here. Sunday, Xinhua reported 1 Ministry of National Security official was shot dead in Baghdad, a Baghdad sticky bombing left two people injured, a Mosul grenade attack claimed the life of 1 woman and left four other people injured, a Tikrit sticky bombing injured one person and, dropping back to Saturday, 1 person (brother of a police officer) was shot dead "in front of his [Balad] house."





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Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Jim Moron" went up earlier but I'm going to change the time stamp so it remains at the top of this site until tomorrow morning's entries go up.
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