Monday, January 12, 2015

Iraq snapshot

Monday, January 12, 2015.  Chaos and violence continue, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi criticizes the US government's support, several US senators offer criticism of him as well, Jake Tapper offers an opinion offensive to The Cult of St. Barack so they feel they can lie about him, and more.



Don't you hate lying pieces of trash?



Maybe they're not liars in all cases.  I seriously question the sanity of The Obama Diary.

They're apparently too busy drooling over the cock of US President Barack Obama to form actual thoughts beyond "Must wrap lips around."

At Third, we called the idiots out for their inability to get that Bully Boy Bush going to his ranch-ette in Crawford, Texas wasn't the problem, going to war on Iraq was.

Today The Obama Diary is yet again lost.






















    • The link?

    It doesn't say that.

    The Obama Diary apparently hopes you're so stupid -- the way they are -- that you'll just take their word for it.

    The Obama Diary is the worst of our side (the left).  A cheap whorish thug that thinks it can lie and get away with it.

    They're attacking Jake Tapper today for a reason we'll get to in just a second.

    But let's deal with their charge first.

    Media Matters in 2007 and 2008 whined about a lot of reporters.  Jake Tapper was one.

    The link goes to a whine about Jake saying Barack was still smoking despite Barack saying he had quit.

    As most now know, once in the White House, Barack was still smoking.

    Jake was actually correct.

    And Media Matters wrote a lengthy post suggesting he was wrong and a lengthy post to tell you how trivial the topic -- that, again, they wrote a lengthy post on -- was.

    The Obama Diary thinks this establishes something.

    All it establishes is just how stupid and whorish The Obama Diary is.  A certain 'sports' commentator in Chicago is equally stupid.  He slams Jake today by slamming CNN's Iraq coverage in 2002 and 2003 -- Jake Tapper didn't work for them then.

    Where did Jake Tapper work in 2002 and 2003?

    Salon.

    Salon didn't do investigative journalism.  It wasn't the sewer it is today where Joan Walsh regularly slimes people and calls them "un-American" because she doesn't like them.  But it didn't do investigative journalism. Didn't have the budget for it.  It was columns and opinion pieces and interviews.

    This is Jake Tapper's reporting for Salon on Iraq:











    Is Saddam alive?

    Rumsfeld won't say, but some early reports suggest that the puffy-faced man in glasses on Iraqi TV was one of Hussein's many impostors -- and that the real one may be dead.
    Thursday, Mar 20, 2003 11:53 AM CDT
    News 

    A cry for jihad

    The White House says that a war with Iraq has nothing to do with Islam, but imams all over the world are calling for a holy war.
    Thursday, Mar 20, 2003 06:45 PM CDT
    News 




    The undead

    U.S. and British officials keep insisting that Iraqi TV images of Saddam and his top cohorts are fake. But reports of their demise seem premature.
    Tuesday, Mar 25, 2003 08:06 PM CDT
    News Iraq war




    War? What war?

    Dean, McAuliffe and the DNC wine and dine the party faithful in New York, pretending affirmative action, abortion and ethanol are really what's on their minds.
    Wednesday, Apr 2, 2003 10:01 AM CDT
    News 



    Why won’t anyone listen to Gary Hart?

    The former, and possibly future, presidential candidate says he pushed a resolution that could have kept the U.S. out of war. But no Democratic leader wanted to hear it.
    Thursday, Apr 3, 2003 07:37 PM CDT
    News 






    The last place we liberated

    The White House calls Afghanistan a success story. But the failure to commit needed resources has left it a chaotic, increasingly dangerous country where violent warlords run amok. Are we going to repeat our mistake in Iraq?
    Thursday, Apr 10, 2003 05:39 PM CDT
    News 

    WMD, MIA?

    Hasty, incomplete news reports have suggested that coalition troops found chemical weapons, or even nukes, in Iraq. They haven't -- at least not yet. And the rest of world is watching skeptically.
    Wednesday, Apr 16, 2003 05:35 PM CDT
    News



    Lowered WMD expectations

    Before the war, the Bush administration said the weapons existed and we would find them. Now, it's saying maybe we won't find them after all -- and the rest of the world smells a rat.
    Wednesday, Apr 30, 2003 05:52 PM CDT
    News






    Allies: Where are the WMDs?!

    The Dems and the U.S. public may meekly accept the administration's ever-changing answers about Saddam's alleged weapons. But our foreign allies don't -- and the more the White House spins, the angrier they get.
    Friday, May 30, 2003 05:32 PM CDT
    News











    The hyping of Saddam’s WMD

    Last August, Bush said Saddam merely "desired" weapons of mass destruction. A month later, as he began selling the Iraq war, his tone suddenly changed.
    Wednesday, Jun 18, 2003 05:46 PM CDT
    News



    More or less in order, above is his work on Iraq while at Salon (there are two stories not included which may be on Afghanistan alone or Afghanistan and Iraq -- they're about US efforts to sell image to the Muslim communities and I didn't have time to read those and determine whether they were about Iraq or not so didn't include them).


    There are minor stories, there are major stories.  It's a body of work and it looks at the topic from a number of angles.  I see nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed about.  And that's before you add the qualifier of 'compared to other outlets.'  When you add that qualifier, the work becomes even more significant.

    The Obama Diary has a fit and thinks they can slime him.  All they prove is that they lie and that they're stupid.

    I would argue Jake Tapper is one of the few journalists who takes the news and accuracy seriously.  I don't know Jake, I've never met him.  In 2008, he got an issue wrong -- as did every other outlet.  Ava and I wrote "There was no pardon, Barack (Ava and C.I.)" following a debate where Barack lied -- or, if you want to be kind -- misspoke.  And the media ran with his lie without checking it out.

    That same day, Ava and I wrote "Jake Tapper, correct your error" and I called a friend at ABC News (where Jake was working at the time) to ask that they take a look at the report.

    The media got it wrong.  Not just Jake.

    Why did we single out Jake?

    Because co-workers and peers of his had portrayed him as someone who took his work seriously.  So we felt we had the best chance of someone bucking the narrative -- which was false -- with him.

    By the time I was online the next morning, Jake and ABC News had corrected the error.

    Not the bitchy way that David Corn did.

    And we can talk about that briefly -- no links, google Third, we covered it there at length.  But Barack lied/misspoke in the debate and claimed Bill Clinton pardoned two members of the Weather Undergound when he did no such thing.  It was days after the debate -- and long after Jake Tapper had led the way for others in the media to self-correct.  Yet David Corn continued to repeat the lie.  He had three posts on the lie in fact.  And he refused to correct it.  When community members informed me that Mother Jones -- when you called them about this -- had a bitchy receptionist who didn't want to take it seriously, I spoke to 'friends' at the magazine.  David Corn had to do a correction -- he was forced to (unlike bitchy receptionist, he wasn't fired) -- and he did the nastiest little correction where he slimed Bill Clinton (by bringing up a pardon that had nothing to do with the Weather Underground) and acted like that was how journalism was done.  

    Jake didn't do that.  He corrected the error.  Corn Nuts is a joke.

    And, sadly, Corn Nuts represents too much of the media.

    Helen Thomas did not like Jake's politics (he was too centrist for her) but she repeatedly stated that Jake was the one to watch out of the then-current political class.  She was only one of many of his peers who vouched for him and offered praise of him.

    Thus far, I think he's lived up to Helen's evaluation of his talent and integrity.

    This morning, a friend at CNN called about a column Jake had written "I'm ashamed by U.S. leaders' absence in Paris:"


    And world leaders were standing together amidst a procession that included Francois Hollande of France, Angela Merkel of Germany, David Cameron of Great Britain, Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, along with the leaders of Mali, Jordan and Turkey.
    It is no small thing for the king of Jordan, a direct descendent of the Prophet Mohammed, to march in a rally prompted by the murders of people who mocked Islam as well as of innocent Jews -- all of whom were killed by Islamic extremists.
    The United States, which considers itself to be the most important nation in the world, was not represented in this march -- arguably one of the most important public demonstrations in Europe in the last generation -- except by U.S. Ambassador Jane Hartley, who may have been a few rows back. I didn't see her. Even Russia sent Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
      I say this as an American -- not as a journalist, not as a representative of CNN -- but as an American: I was ashamed.
      I certainly understand the security concerns when it comes to sending President Barack Obama, though I can't imagine they're necessarily any greater than sending the lineup of other world leaders, especially in aggregate.
      But I find it hard to believe that collectively President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and Attorney General Eric Holder -- who was actually in France that day for a conference on counterterrorism -- just had no time in their schedules on Sunday. Holder had time to do the Sunday shows via satellite but not to show the world that he stood with the people of France?


      That's the excerpt we went with.

      Tapper goes on to call out those politicians considered to be planning runs for the Democratic and Republican Party's presidential nominations for not being present, he calls out Congressional leaders.

      It was a brave column.

      I was asked, by the CNN friend, if I could work it in during the day?  I said we'd do an excerpt in the morning entry.

      Whether you agreed with him or not (I did agree), Jake Tapper wrote a strong column.  If you disagreed and you were functioning adult, you should have been able to grasp where he was coming from.

      If you disagreed and were a functioning adult, you could have written a rebuttal.

      But instead of doing that, people chose to lie and attack.

      If they'd stayed away from Iraq, I would've ignored it.

      But when it's a journalist who did try to be truthful about Iraq and that record is distorted and lied about, we will focus on it.

      And people should.

      They should focus this week on his Iraq work.  For example, those of us (that includes me) who still feel there's been no accountability for those officials who lied the US into an illegal war should note that, once upon a time, Senator John McCain was concerned about those lies.  Where's that concern today?

      The column Jake wrote was an important one but the responses to it?  The Obama Diary and their ilk are just ridiculous.  They're not being honest, they're not thinking, they're just being attack poodles on behalf of Barack.  Even the White House today acknowledged the error.  Greg Jaffe and Katie Zezima (Washington Post) report:

      World leaders marched arm-in-arm with millions through the streets of Paris. There were long-time adversaries such as the Israeli prime minister and the head of the Palestinian Authority, and stalwart allies such as the leaders of Germany, France and the United Kingdom.
      What was missing was the presence of senior official from the United States — a mistake for which the White House repeatedly apologized Monday.
      “I think it’s fair to say that we should have sent someone with a higher profile,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday.


      The Obama Diary -- and the rest of the Cult of St. Barack -- are why we can't have a better country or a better government.  Instead of addressing issues, these attack poodles work overtime to smear anyone who raises an issue or a question about the object of their affection.  It's not about truth -- if it were, they wouldn't lie about Jake Tapper's record -- it's about silencing any voices that speak out.

      And that's why our government is so depressing today -- to put it mildly.

      It's really past time that liars are rebuked and shunned.  They are not contributing to an informed dialogue or conversation.  They deliberately work to obscure issues and silence voices that raise concerns.

      And that attitude is exactly how Bully Boy Bush was able -- with the help of the US Congress -- to start an illegal war.


      It's the kind of mindless sheep following that Spandan Chakrabarti offers at "The People's" View:

      You want to be ashamed, Jake Tapper? Be ashamed of your and your colleagues' march to war in lockstep so that you could film shock-n-awe. Be ashamed that you helped deliver as many as a million innocent Iraqis to the doorstep of death. Be ashamed your station and others still hold "debates" on whether waterboarding is torture. You want to be ashamed, Mr. Tapper? Don't look at Paris. Look in the mirror.

      No, Spandan, you look in the mirror and acknowledge the stupid whore staring back at you, the stupid whore that didn't bother to look and see what Jake Tapper wrote about Iraq.  That would be a little too much work, wouldn't it?  
      Jake Tapper was in Paris.  He was covering a unity march which xenophobes and sheep in the United States don't see as very important because the attack didn't happen on US soil.

      But it was important, the attack, the unity march.  And Jake was embarrassed as an American that there was no effort to send any high ranking US official to participate in the march.  

      Idiots like The Obama Diary and Spandan really offer nothing to the public debate.  They don't do the basic work required.  They lie.  And, I don't care about tone, but if you're going to try to be bitchy, pull it off.  Make me laugh.  Otherwise, you come off like Ann Coulter -- someone who thinks they just wrote or said the funniest thing while everyone around them exchanges looks of horror at how unfunny the remark was.



      Today, All Iraq News notes Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had some criticism for the US government as he declared, "The US-led Coalition to the IA [Iraq Army] is too slow, but it was improved in the last two weeks."


      Don't dish it out if you can't take it.  Today saw US senators call out al-Abadi on his inability to provide humanitarian assistance for those in need in northern Iraq.  Senator Barbara Boxer's office issued the following:
      Monday, January 12th 2015

      Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) – joined by Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ed Markey (D-MA), Christopher Coons (D-DE), and Tim Kaine (D-VA) – sent a letter to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi regarding humanitarian aid for the nearly two million Iraqis displaced by the violent campaign of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
      The letter follows a Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing chaired by Senator Boxer last month on ISIL’s brutal tactics and the growing regional humanitarian crisis.  (Full video of that hearing is available here. Senator Boxer’s statement from the hearing is available here. Senator Johnson’s statement from the hearing is available here.)
      “We have heard firsthand about the suffering and harsh conditions facing these men, women, and children—many of whom have taken refuge in Iraq’s Kurdistan region,” wrote the Senators. “These civilians are in dire need of basic necessities—food, clean water, and shelter. In particular, we are concerned about the welfare of women and children—who make up a majority of the displaced population.”
      In their letter, the Senators ask for Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Abadi’s leadership in ensuring that critical humanitarian assistance reaches vulnerable communities most in need—including Iraqi civilians who have taken refuge in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.
      “As such, we respectfully ask that you take every action to ensure there are no gaps or delays in aid distribution, and that available assistance is dispersed without any discrimination based on sect, ethnicity, or religion. We also ask that you coordinate closely with KRG officials, local authorities, and key international actors to provide them with the resources they need to protect and care for displaced civilians and to continue the fight against ISIL,” the Senators wrote.

       The full text of today’s letter is below.

       January 12, 2015
      His Excellency Dr. Haider Al-Abadi
      Prime Minister, Republic of Iraq

       Dear Prime Minister Al-Abadi:

       We write to commend and show appreciation for your efforts as Prime Minister in beginning to heal the sectarian rifts within Iraqi society and to build a stable, secure and more prosperous country for all Iraqis.
      As you know well, one of the greatest threats facing our two nations is the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Over the past year, ISIL has taken control of vast swaths of territory across Iraq and Syria with the goal of establishing radical Islamic rule. In its wake, ISIL has left a trail of brutal violence and abuse—targeting other Muslims, ethnic and religious minorities, and women and girls. As a result, nearly two million Iraqis have been displaced.
      We have heard firsthand about the suffering and harsh conditions facing these men, women, and children—many of whom have taken refuge in Iraq’s Kurdistan region. These civilians are in dire need of basic necessities—food, clean water, and shelter. In particular, we are concerned about the welfare of women and children—who make up a majority of the displaced population. 
      The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has stepped forward to provide sanctuary to many of these desperate individuals. However, the sheer volume of the displaced has put a tremendous burden on the KRG. According to the KRG Education Ministry, over 600 schools have been converted into shelters to help deal with the estimated 520,000 displaced people now living in the Dohuk region. Even outside the Kurdish Region of Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens also need urgent assistance – whether clean water and food or shelter for winter.
      Despite pledges by your government and the international community to address this humanitarian crisis, we are deeply concerned that these critical resources are not reaching those who need them most. With winter now settling in, it is imperative that these vulnerable civilians receive immediate and sustained assistance.
      As such, we respectfully ask that you take every action to ensure there are no gaps or delays in aid distribution, and that available assistance is dispersed without any discrimination based on sect, ethnicity, or religion. We also ask that you coordinate closely with KRG officials, local authorities, and key international actors to provide them with the resources they need to protect and care for displaced civilians and to continue the fight against ISIL. We are hopeful that under your leadership all Iraqis will one day have an equal opportunity to live in peace and security.
      We stand ready to work with you on this and other issues of mutual interest.
      Sincerely,
      Barbara Boxer
      United States Senator
      Ron Johnson
      United States Senator
      Richard Durbin
      United States Senator
      Marco Rubio
      United States Senator
      Jeanne Shaheen
      United States Senator
      Ed Markey
      United States Senator
      Christopher Coons
      United States Senator
      Tim Kaine
      United States Senator
      ###


      Kristina Wong (The Hill) points out:

       While their letter focused on humanitarian aid, lawmakers have also been concerned that the Iraqi government, dominated by Shia, has been withholding U.S. military assistance from Kurdish fighters known as peshmerga.  
      "I am concerned by the varying reports I have received from the Obama administration about the equipment and support that has been provided to the Kurds to date," said Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) on Friday.

      Haider is either unwilling or unable to provide the Kurds with military aid -- despite depending on them as the sole functioning military in Iraq.

      He also can't get a budget passed.  Still.

      All Iraq News notes that Parliament did   a second reading of the 2015 budget today.  Remember all those promises -- five so far from the Speaker of Parliament -- about how a vote was only days away -- all those remarks so many weeks and months ago?

      Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts 206 dead in acts of violence throughout Iraq today with another sixty-five injured.












      kristina wong










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      CNN's Jake Tapper offers some thoughts

      Sameer Yacoub (AP) reports an Abasiyat suicide car bomber has taken his own life and the lives of 12 Iraqi security forces.  And yesterday, Alsumaria reports, the continued bombing of Falluja's residential neighborhoods left 11 civilians dead with seven more injured.  These bombings of Falluja are illegal and legally defined War Crimes.  Nouri al-Maliki kicked them off in January of last year.  September 13th, Iraq's new prime minister announced they were wrong (they are illegal, not just wrong) and that they were stopping.  Despite that announcement, these bombings continue daily.  And the people carrying out the bombings?  The Iraqi military.

      Meanwhile, we'll leave Iraq to note a column by Jake Tapper (CNN).  Jake was in Paris on Sunday when the unity march was held.  This is from his "I'm ashamed by U.S. leaders' absence in Paris:"


      And world leaders were standing together amidst a procession that included Francois Hollande of France, Angela Merkel of Germany, David Cameron of Great Britain, Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, along with the leaders of Mali, Jordan and Turkey.
      It is no small thing for the king of Jordan, a direct descendent of the Prophet Mohammed, to march in a rally prompted by the murders of people who mocked Islam as well as of innocent Jews -- all of whom were killed by Islamic extremists.
      The United States, which considers itself to be the most important nation in the world, was not represented in this march -- arguably one of the most important public demonstrations in Europe in the last generation -- except by U.S. Ambassador Jane Hartley, who may have been a few rows back. I didn't see her. Even Russia sent Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
        I say this as an American -- not as a journalist, not as a representative of CNN -- but as an American: I was ashamed.
        I certainly understand the security concerns when it comes to sending President Barack Obama, though I can't imagine they're necessarily any greater than sending the lineup of other world leaders, especially in aggregate.
        But I find it hard to believe that collectively President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and Attorney General Eric Holder -- who was actually in France that day for a conference on counterterrorism -- just had no time in their schedules on Sunday. Holder had time to do the Sunday shows via satellite but not to show the world that he stood with the people of France?



        New content at Third:


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











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        Sunday, January 11, 2015

        Hejira

        Isabel Coles, Saif Hameed, Ned Parker and Gareth Jones (Reuters) report that Saturday and Sunday saw battles in the Kurdish town of Gwer which left at least 24 Kurdish security forces dead.

        This is exactly the sort of attack we were talking about October 26th with regards to the Kurdistan Regional Government sending Peshmerga forces not just out of the KRG but out of Iraq into Kobane:



        Kitabat carries an AFP report about members of Iraq's Parliament expressing doubt that the KRG can independently send Peshmerga outside of Iraq without the permission of the Iraqi Parliament.  (The Kurdistan Regional Government is a group of three or four provinces in northern Iraq which are semi-autonomous.)  Kitabat also features Hussein Zangana's argument that the deployment is legal and does not require a stamp of approval from the Iraqi Parliament.
        I don't doubt the legality of the KRG's move.
        I just question why you send the Peshmerga out of Iraq when they should be needed in Iraq?
        Shouldn't their efforts right now be focused on, for example, Mount Sinjar where the Yazidis continue to be held hostage?
        The UN is calling it a possible genocide and yet the Peshmerga has forces to spare to send out of the country?
        It makes no sense.
        And expect huge outrage if the Islamic State stages a major attack in the KRG while Peshmerga forces are sent to the  Syrian border.



        The Reuters reporters call the Gwer attack "one of the deadliest single battles for the Kurds since last summer."


        This should be the incident which prompts the KRG to utilize the Peshmerga to protect the KRG.

        It would appear that their years of being the 'calmer' Iraq have lulled them into a false sense of security.

        Ahlul Bayat News Agency notes, "Kurdish-controlled Gwer is likely to be a launch-pad for any future attempt by Iraqi and Kurdish forces to retake Mosul, the biggest city in northern Iraq which ISIS seized last June."


        Meanwhile AFP reports that Prime Minister of Iraq Haider al-Abadi is slamming the coalition the US government has put together and saying it is taking to long to provide "military support" to the Iraq military, "The international coalition is very slow in its support and training of the army."



        Now to pick up on an issue I hoped to address on Saturday night.

        Friday's remarks upset a few people.  I'm sorry to upset anyone with an opinion -- I'm not likely to fret over upsetting anyone with the ugly facts.

        My opinion has been and always will be that people are responsible for their own actions.

        The only exception is if someone is mentally incapacitated.


        If someone is mentally ill, their illness can be sparked by anything.

        I never believed -- and never will -- that Martin's film Taxi Driver was responsible for the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan.  I don't believe Jodie Foster's stardom are attractiveness were responsible either.

        John Hinkley was mentally ill.

        I am furious many times a day.  I've never picked up a gun to shoot someone.

        If I do, I'm either mentally ill or I'm acting on my desires.

        Unless I'm mentally incapacitated, I'm responsible for my actions.

        You can disagree with that take and many do.

        But if you do disagree with it, you better own up to the fact that what you're disagreeing with is also the disagreement the US government offers for refusing to release various photos and reports -- that it would cause violence.

        So you can have that opinion but you better own up to the fact that your opinion supports censorship and government secrecy.




        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] 4494.  (It's actually 4492 but they haven't updated the toll since the most recently announced death.)


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





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