Iraq snapshot

Iraq today?  Patrick Cockburn (Independent of London) sums it up as follows: "A civil war between Sunni and Shia Muslims is spreading rapidly through central Iraq, with each community seeking revenge for the latest massacre."  That pretty much describes life on the ground.  There's also more news in the inquiry to the death of Jake Kovco as well as news on Medea Benjamin and Cindy Sheehan.

 

Bombings?

 

Outside Baghdad's Technology Institute, three bombs went off.  AFP notes that a "police patrol" had just passed by and that the interior ministry of Iraq is saying that police were the targets of the bombings. Reuters reports five dead and 22 wounded in the three bombs -- first came the car bomb, then two others went off "apparently targeting a crowd that gathered at the scene."

 

The other single event getting the most press attention at this time is the kidnapping of  at least 19 people.  Al Jazeera explains that fourteen were kidnapped on Tuesday "by gunmen in civilian clothes" and that an additional five were traveling in a vehicle, forced off the road, and then kidnapped.  The Associated Press reports that the twenty (they go with the figure of 20) were all employees of the Sunni Endowment and that the agency's response has been to announce they "would stop working effective immediately and that its chairman, Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samaraie, would give more details later." (Reuters also goes with the figure of 19 kidnapped and it taking place yesterday and today.)

 

Elsewhere, Reuters reports that mortar rounds have claimed the life of a two-month-old child and left another child and one adult wounded and that a bombing in Kirkuk has left at least four dead and at least 16 wounded.  CBS and the AP note a roadside bombing in Kirkuk that took the lives of two.

 

 

Shootings? 

 

AFP reports that Major General Fakhr Abdel Hussein was killed in Baghdad ("in front of his home").  AFP notes that he was "[t]he head of the interior ministry's justice office".  In Najaf, Reuters covers the death of the owner of "a women's hair salon" and notes that 3 are dead and 11 wounded after a market was stormed by assailants. AFP also notes: "Gunmen in the eastern suburb of Baghdad Jadida opened fir on a store selling vegetables, killing four people inside.  They then planted explosives inside the store and blew it to pieces."  Also in Balad, AFP reports, a home invasion has left a child dead and a woman wounded.

 

Corpses? 

 

Reuters notes a corpse ("gunshot wounds") discovered in Mosul as well as 18 corpses discovered in Mahmudiya ("gunshot wounds . . . signs of torture").  Meanwhile the AFP reports that six corpses were discovered in Baghdad and one in Karbala.

 

Addressing the UN report that found almost 6,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the months of May and June on  The KPFA Evening News yesterday, Max Pringle noted that: "In the first six months of the year it said 14,338 people had been killed. The UN report also details the rise in kidnappings particularly of large groups of people. In addition women report that their rights have been rolled back by religious muslim groups both Shi and Sunni.  They say that their social freedoms have decreased since the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and they are now barred from going to the market alone, wearing pants and driving cars."

 

Brian Edwards-Tiekert also addressed the report today on KPFA's The Morning Show , noting that it indicates that "violence is claiming more lives in Iraq now than at any time since the US invasion of that country.  The UN estimates 100 Iraqis are dying a day" 

 

Speaking of the report yesterday, UN Secretary-General spokesperson Farhan Haq noted that "the report raises alarm at the growing number of casualities among the civilian population killed or wounded" and that's a thought echoing in today's press with some noting occupation puppet Nouri al-Maliki's statement from last week that Iraq was getting it's "last chance" or Hoshiyar Zebari's assertion that "months" remain before "all-out civil war" breaks out.

 

Turning to Australia and the case of Jake Kovco who died in Iraq on April 21st, the inquiry into the events of his final moments continue.  Dan Box (The Australian) reports that: "HOMICIDE detectives will trave to Baghdad to take DNA samples from soldiers who served with Private Jake Kovco after tests revealed unidentified DNA samples on the trigger of the gun that killed him."  Speaking on The World Today (Australia's ABC) with host Eleanor Hall, Conor Duffy reported that Detective Inspector Wayne Hayes found "what . . . [he] called a gross amount of someone else's DNA, and that DNA was on the trigger of the gun, the slide and on the grip."  Australia's ABC reports that: "As many as 30 Australian soldiers in Baghdad could be DNA tested."  Dan Box also reports that the two roommates of Jake Kovco will testify to the board next week "by videolink" from Baghdad.  Judy and Martin Kovco, Jake's parents, have been fighting to have soldiers serving with their late son called to testify before the inquiry -- though the testimony will be by "videolink," the 'win' on this is due to their persistence.

 

And in peace news, Matthew Cardinale (Atlanta Progressive News) reports on Cindy Sheehan and Medea Benjamin's visit to Atlanta to show their support for Cynthia McKinney in her primary bid (McKinney won the most vote but now faces Hank Johnson in a primary runoff). Medea Benjamin states: "The peace movement is aat a very critical juncture because on one hand, we have managed to capture public opinion.  Most people think the Invasion of Iraq was a mistake and want the troops home at the end of the year.  72% of troops themselves say this.  You can't continue to have politicians voting for the war.  What's new on this is the Iraqi said, not just Iraqi people, but the  [Iraqi] President, Vice President, and National Security Advisor".

 

Medea Benjamin and Cindy Sheehan continue their fast as part of the Troops Home Fast protest.  From CODEPINK:

 

TROOPS HOME FAST! On July 4, we launched an historic hunger strike called TROOPS HOME FAST in Washington, DC in front of the White House. While many Americans expressed their patriotism via barbeques and fireworks, we're fasting in memory of the dead and wounded, and calling for the troops to come home from Iraq. We're inviting people around the world to show their support for this open-ended fast by fasting for at least one day. Read an interview with Diane Wilson to learn more. Please sign here to to support us and encourage your friends to do the same. Click here to view photos, and read our blogs!

 

The fast is ongoing, anyone can join at any time, for a single day or more.

 

Finally, the BBC reports that four more people kidnapped from the "meeting of the Iraqi Olympic Committee last week" have been released and that the number of those released is now nine.

 

 

iraq
kpfa
the morning show
codepink
the kpfa evening news
medea benjamin

cindy sheehan

jacob bruce kovco
jake kovco

patrick cockburn
brian edwards-tiekert

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4 Tunes latter day could consider singing

Twenty-five years ago I stared into the eyes of Michael Berman, chief operative for his congressman-brother, Howard Berman. I was a neophyte running for the California Assembly in a district that the Bermans claimed belonged to them. "I represent the Israeli defense forces," Michael said. I thought he was joking. He wasn't. Michael seemed to imagine himself the gatekeeper protecting Los Angeles' Westside for Israel's political interests, and those of the famous Berman-Waxman machine. Since Jews represented one-third of the Democratic district’s primary voters, Berman held a balance of power.
All that year I tried to navigate the district's Jewish politics. The solid historical liberalism of the Westside was a favorable factor, as was the strong support of many Jewish community leaders. But the community was moving in a more conservative direction. Some were infuriated at my sponsorship of Santa Monica's tough rent control ordinance. Many in the organized community were suspicious of the New Left for becoming Palestinian sympathizers after the Six Day War; they would become today's neoconservatives. I had traveled to Israel in a generally supportive capacity, meeting officials from all parties, studying energy projects, befriending peace advocates like the writer Amos Oz. I also met with Palestinians and commented favorably on the works of Edward Said. As a result, a Berman ally prepared an anti-Hayden dossier in an attempt to discredit my candidacy with the Democratic leadership in the California state capital. This led to the deli lunch with Michael Berman. He and his brother were privately leaning toward an upcoming young prosecutor named Adam Schiff, who later became the congressman from Pasadena. But they calculated that Schiff couldn’t win without name recognition, so they were considering "renting" me the Assembly seat, Berman said. But there was one condition: that I always be a "good friend of Israel." This wasn't a particular problem at the time. Since the 1970s I had favored some sort of two-state solution. I felt close to the local Jewish activists who descended from the labor movement and participated in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam movements. I wanted to take up the cause of the aging Holocaust survivors against the global insurance companies that had plundered their assets. While I believed the Palestinians had a right to self-determination, I didn't share the animus of some on the American left who questioned Israel’s very legitimacy. I was more inclined toward the politics of Israel’s Peace Now and those Palestinian nationalists and human rights activists who accepted Israel’s pre-1967 borders as a reality to accommodate. I disliked the apocalyptic visions of the Israeli settlers I had met, and thought that even hard-line Palestinians would grudgingly accept a genuine peace initiative. I can offer my real-life experience to the present discussion about the existence and power of an "Israel lobby." It is not as monolithic as some argue, but it is far more than just another interest group in a pluralist political world. In recognizing its diversity, distinctions must be drawn between voters and elites, between Reform and Orthodox tendencies, between the less observant and the more observant. During my ultimate 18 years in office, I received most of my Jewish support from the ranks of the liberal and less observant voters. But I also received support from conservative Jews who saw themselves as excluded by a Jewish (and Democratic) establishment.

The above, noted by Brady, is from Tom Hayden's "Things Come Round" (Truth Dig). It takes a lot of spirit to write the above so, if you use links, check out the entire essay. We'll lead with that and make it one of four things are actually important (as opposed to silly "tone" arguments and shout-outs to Evan Blah -- see previous entry).

Liang notes Kathleen Christison's "Atrocities in the Promised Land" (CounterPunch) (and notes that Laura Flanders interviewed Christison's husband not that long ago):

But it needs to be said now, loudly: those who devise and carry out Israeli policies have made Israel into a monster, and it has come time for all of us -- all Israelis, all Jews who allow Israel to speak for them, all Americans who do nothing to end U.S. support for Israel and its murderous policies -- to recognize that we stain ourselves morally by continuing to sit by while Israel carries out its atrocities against the Palestinians.
A nation that mandates the primacy of one ethnicity or religion over all others will eventually become psychologically dysfunctional. Narcissistically obsessed with its own image, it must strive to maintain its racial superiority at all costs and will inevitably come to view any resistance to this imagined superiority as an existential threat. Indeed, any other people automatically becomes an existential threat simply by virtue of its own existence. As it seeks to protect itself against phantom threats, the racist state becomes increasingly paranoid, its society closed and insular, intellectually limited. Setbacks enrage it; humiliations madden it. The state lashes out in a crazed effort, lacking any sense of proportion, to reassure itself of its strength.
The pattern played out in Nazi Germany as it sought to maintain a mythical Aryan superiority. It is playing out now in Israel.
"This society no longer recognizes any boundaries, geographical or moral," wrote Israeli intellectual and anti-Zionist activist Michel Warschawski in his 2004 book Towards an Open Tomb: The Crisis of Israeli Society. Israel knows no limits and is lashing out as it finds that its attempt to beat the Palestinians into submission and swallow Palestine whole is being thwarted by a resilient, dignified Palestinian people who refuse to submit quietly and give up resisting Israel's arrogance.
We in the United States have become inured to tragedy inflicted by Israel, and we easily fall for the spin that automatically, by some trick of the imagination, converts
Israeli atrocities to examples of how Israel is victimized. But a military establishment that drops a 500-pound bomb on a residential apartment building in the middle of the night and kills 14 sleeping civilians, as happened in Gaza four years ago, is not a military that operates by civilized rules.

So we've got two highlights on the Middle East, Lloyd notes the topic of spying, Matthew Rothschild's "Homeland Security Spies on Student Anti-War Groups" (McCarthyism Watch, The Progressive):

You probably know that the Pentagon has been spying on anti-war groups.
Now it turns out that Homeland Security has been working hand in glove with the Pentagon--at least in California.
The ACLU of Northern California released two documents on July 18 that reveal Homeland Security as a source of information for the Pentagon on protests at the University of California Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz.
One Pentagon document is dated April 6, 2005. It is labeled a "Talon report." Talon stands for Threat and Local Observation Notice, and that's the system the Pentagon uses to gather data on what it considers to be domestic threats.
Under "Incident Type," this document says "Specified Threats."
Under "Subject," it says, "Protest Against Military Recruiters at University of California at Santa Cruz (USC) on 5 Apr. 05."
Under "Source," it says: "A special agent of the Federal Protective Service, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Source is reliable."
Evidently, the source had access to the e-mail of the peace activists because the document says: "Source received an e-mail from [blacked out] at e-mail address [blacked out] dated 1 April 2005 (PST), subject: Action Tuesday to Kick Military Recruiters Out of USC!"
This e-mail tells demonstrators "to have fun and bring 5 friends," the Pentagon document notes. It also says, "Sign the petition to ban recruiters from USC."
The document adds, "The text of the e-mail does not state if civil disobedience is planned to occur at this protest."
Under "Coordinating Agencies," the document lists, among others, "902d MI Group," and "JTTF San Francisco."
"The 902d Military Intelligence Group conducts Counterintelligence (CI) activities in support of Army Commanders and to protect Army forces, secrets, and technologies by detecting, identifying, neutralizing and exploiting Foreign Intelligence Services (FIS) and International Terrorist Threats," according to its website.
JTTF stands for the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. "They are our nation's front line on terrorism: small cells of highly trained, locally based, passionately committed investigators, analysts, linguists, SWAT experts, and other specialists from dozens of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies," says the FBI at its website.

FYI, West e-mailed to say Matthew Rothschild stated on Progressive Radio (with guest Alison Bechdel) that he'd recently finished a book. (Writing. Obviously, he "finishes" many books in the reading sense -- insert my usual plug for The Progressive's book reviews.)

Lastly, Billie says another name needs to be added. Along with Nancy A. Youssef and Aaron Glatnz coverage of the fact that the US does keep body counts of Iraqi civilians, Billie notes
Juliana Lara Resende's "50,000 Dead, But Who's Counting?" (IPS):

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 7 (IPS) - After famously telling reporters that they "don't do body counts", Pentagon officials now say that they have in fact been keeping a record of civilian casualties in Iraq for one year. And while that number remains classified, independent estimates suggest that at least 50,000 people have died in the country since the 2003 invasion.
According to statistics compiled by the Baghdad morgue, the Iraqi Health Ministry and other agencies, as reported recently in the Los Angeles Times, that total is 20,000 higher then the George W. Bush administration had previously estimated. Last year, Bush asserted that, "30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis."
In terms of population size, this would be equivalent to 570,000 U.S. citizens killed in the same period of time, noted the Jun. 25 LA Times article. However, the Iraqi Health Ministry says this figure is artificially low since it does not include deaths that occurred outside Baghdad in the first year of the occupation, or those in the three northern provinces of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan.
And due to the ongoing daily violence and security crackdowns, as well as power shortages and failing communications networks, health workers have been unable to compile accurate data concerning how many people die in the country.

So that's four items worth following (as opposed to the nonsense noted in this entry). The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

tom hayden
kathleen christison
matthew rothschild
juliana lara resende

Online, latter day Dylan hits another sour note and the Evan Blah lovers

As noted, we're moving quick. (Noted in the previous entry.) Patrick Healy contributes "Lieberman Rival Seeks Support Beyond Iraq Issue" in this morning's New York Times. The article upends previous Times' coverage on Ned Lamont. It also dubs him "darling of the antiwar left" but someone forgot to send me the poster.

We're not interested in Healy, we have other things to address.

Starting with the online, latter day Dylan who's looked in the mirror and seen . . . the faults of others. He's on a screech again (long gone are his melodic days) and, this time, no one e-mailing is aware of what tune he's attempting to sing?

Who knows? And who cares? But to get this topic out of the e-mails, latter day Dylan's not concerned with the war. Look at what he's chosen to write about day after day for three years plus now. He doesn't care. If you feel he's rushing to Joe Lieberman or Evan Blah's defense, you're probably right.

Lieberman was a problem before the war. The anger towards Lieberman has been building for years and years.

Whatever online latter day is writing about, who knows? Who can tell anymore? Who cares anymore? It's his valentine to the center. Is that a surprise from the man who praises William Kristol? Is that a suprise from the man who had a Tourette's episode over Joe Wilson?

He's useless. (And his "for the record" laughable since, for the record, he's for Hillary.) The most offensive thing about the piece that I'm seeing is that he's coming off, yet again, as the scold. Whining about the way centrists are treated. (He loves him some Joe Klein, but give it a few more weeks.) As though his own hands don't have blood on them? If anything, it explains his attacks on Nancy Pelosi (and make no mistake, those were attacks). His treatment of all women has been noted at length. He doesn't matter.

Just accept the fact that all he has is the oldies and that's all he'll ever have at this point. If you enjoy sweating to the oldies, keep checking him out. I was never someone who thought it was "funny" to listen to Rush. If I don't like something, if someone's thoughts (or "thoughts") have no value to me, I avoid them. Life's too short.

He may be attempting to address something larger than he has in months, who knows?

But, as he offers yet another 'tone' op-ed, he's useless. He's made himself so.

Now let's deal with the praises going to Evan Blah. A site's got two bits of praise to Evan Blah. That's the other big topic in the e-mails.

You know, we didn't need the hula hoop of "framing" in this community. But that site did push it. So it's shocking that they're praising Blah's hideous speech.

Wally addressed it. For those who missed it (and I don't think many did judging by the e-mails), Blah gave a speech to inform America that the Democrats needed to stop focusing on the poor and start going after the middle class.

Reality is that the Dems haven't gone after poor voters.

They've been the party of big business. DLC-er Blah offers more of the same and it gets praise. This is the same trash the DLC has been selling for two decades and you have to be an idiot (or in a coma) to praise it.

What he's doing is saying (again) that the poor don't matter to the elections. He's also (FRAMERS, pay attention!) trashing the Democratic Party by feeding into the stereotype that they are out of touch with the common person ("man"). It's not praise worthy.

That site and Dylan both seem to have a problem with reality. Dylan seems to think that if you're Democrat, left, liberal or progressive, you have to be a cheerleader for every centrist that wants to claim the party i.d. "Democrat." You don't.

In their own way, both are playing rallying around the party and offering cautionary tales of what might happen in 2008 (two years from now) if you don't. What will happen in 2008 if people start marching in lock step is that we'll have more of the same DLC crap that we've all had quite enough of.

For the framing crowd, they should be calling Blah out. He's attacking the party (his own party) with stereotypes. He's saying, "Yes, we were out of touch but now we'll be in touch." If you missed it, the Kerry campaign and the Gore campaign didn't target the poor voters. They weren't concenred with them. They weren't concerned with the working poor and they certainly weren't concerned with single working mothers.

But here comes Blah, feeding into every Fox "News" stereotype of the Democratic Party ("Bill O'Reilly was right! They aren't for the middle class!") and he's getting praise. That's a problem. People need to start thinking a little bit more. If this continues, we'll delink from that nonsense. (We'll keep Dylan for the archives.) They've already reduced the Middle East conflict to the most simplistic terms (at the start of the week) and now they're propping up a DLC-er.

Do they believe that nonsense? No. But they'd have to think first before offering their mini-summaries and, more and more, it appears thought is too much for them. (Which may be why they ignored Nancy A. Youssef's article despite the fact that Mike exchanged e-mails with them on this topic repeatedly.)

Evan Blah has done what the DLC does. It's coming out of his DLC mouth and not Al Frum's, that's the only difference. That ___ can't grasp that indicates that ___ is on a thinking holiday.
This is the same attack that the right's been making since the days of JFK, LBJ and Bobby Kennedy. (All of which were picked up by the DLC in the 80s.) That some on the left want to get behind Blah's nonsense is nonsense.

At a time when they're all so damn concerned about the 'values' voters, the 'vangical voters, they might also want to ask how damn selfish is Evan Blah that he's whining about (non-existant) attempts to help the poor? He's slashing and burning the party and he's also attacking John Edwards. (Edwards is making poverty an issue of his hoped for 2008 campaign. One more issue than Blah can find with both hands.)

Evan Blah doesn't deserve applause. Those wanting to feed into that nonsense are feeding into attacks on the Democratic Party (right-wing attacks) and they're also trashing John Edwards' campaign, whether they grasp it or not.

In the real world, 20 government employees have been kidnapped in Iraq. That matters. If we can all leave the useless to the useless, we can talk about some things that actually matter as opposed to those who delude themselves over Evan Blah or those who want to make tone arguments (and never thought to apply their argument to themselves).

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

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