BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O IS BACK TO WHINING AGAIN -- DID HE EVER STOP?
BARRY O IS NOW WHINING THAT HIS 'FIRST DATE' WAS MADE POLITICAL.
WITH 2 WARS GOING ON, THE ECONOMY IN THE TANK, GUANTANAMO STILL 'OPEN FOR BUSINESS' AND SO MUCH MORE, YOU MIGHT THINK CANDY ASS WOULD HAVE SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT BESIDES HIMSELF.
BUT HE FIRMLY BELIEVES HE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN ALL OUR LIVES -- NOT THE WORK HE MIGHT DO, GOODNESS KNOWS HE DOES NO WORK -- BUT HE, HIMSELF.
THE CELEBRITY IN CHIEF, THE OVER EXPOSED CELEBRITY IN CHIEF.
$10 TO THE FIRST REPORTER BRAVE ENOUGH TO VISIBLY YAWN THE NEXT TIME BARRY O OFFERS ANOTHER "I" OR "ME" STORY.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
The US military announced yesterda: "CAMP VICTORY, Iraq – A Multi-National Corps-Iraq Soldier died today of a non-combat related injury at Camp Victory. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense. The names of service members are announced through the U.S. Department of Defense official website at http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/. The announcements are made on the Web site no earlier than 24 hours after notification of the service member's primary next of kin. The incident is under investigation." DoD identifes the fallen as Maj David L. Audo from Saint Joseph, Illinois who was 35-years-old. The announcement brings the total number of US service members killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war to 4352.
"How stable is Iraq?" asked Riz Khan last night on his self-titled Al Jazeera program. "Stable enough for national elections in January?" He was joined by a panel consisting of Iraqi Laith Kubba, the New America Foundation's Steven Clemmons and one-time director of the US Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq J. Scott Carpenter.
Riz Khan: Let me ask a question that came from our Facebook page, and I'll put this to Steven Clemmons here, this came from Ninveh Albazi in California, Steven, here in the US. And Ninveh says, "The longer the US military stays, the more terrorists will come in Iraq to fight. If they leave, more bombings over power will occur. Either way the Iraqi people will suffer." How do you feel about that -- the presence of -- US presence actually being a trigger for these kind of attacks?
Steven Clemmons: Well I think that there are some people in society -- and we've seen it throughout the Middle East -- that react very viscerally and negatively to the sense that they're being occupied by foreign troops. In Afghanistan, it's one of the things that's driving Pashtun resistance beyond the question of, uh, the Taliban. And-and so, I think it would be wrong to-to-to argue that in fact the American troop presence doesn't drive some violent minorities. I think on the whole, Iraqi society has felt as if the United States has done more beneficial things recently and so those feelings are not as widespread. But-but certainly there are people like Robert Pape at the University of Chicago among others that have shown that foreign troop deployments do drive a kind of -- drive suicide bombings, drive some of the more radical responses from societies. So there is some truth to it. I don't think I would agree with the-the decibel level of the questioner's comments though.
Riz Khan: Well, Laith, this came in via Twitter to us, a viewer by the name of Mosharraf Zaidi who says, "Even with stability in Iraq, does Maliki have the sense to ensure a free and fair process? Is it even up to him?"
Laith Kubba: Well, I mean, the good news is there is sufficient, I think, awareness and organization in Iraq to have elections that are, generally speaking, fair and free. I think the last elections had a high turnout -- about 70%. Of course, there were cases of fraud. But by and large, I think it was representative. So that's on the good side. But I think on the negative side, even if you had representatives in Parliament, the system is in a grid-lock because it's a parliamentary system, not a presidential system. It does not produce an effective executive that takes the country and move forward. You have, ultimately, a quote over power and that paralyzes government.
Riz Khan: I'll get to the intracacise of that in a moment because there are some interesting intracacies to the elections in Iraq but, Scott, if I could put this to you from LiveStation chat room, people are online here, Crane in the USA says, "How can fair and transparant elections be ensured when there are repeated bombings?" And let me ask you, do you think the elections will go ahead in January with all the delays and potential problems?
J. Scott Carpenter: I do. I'm a perinally optimist about this, that at the last minute -- however late the last minute is, the Iraqis will find some way to have these elections because they see how important they are to the political future of Iraq, to American withdrawal -- frankly. I do think there will be elections that are credible in Iraq because people don't trust each other and so there will be lots of observation which is what drove the credibility and legitimacy of the provincial elections is that there were so many political party observers watching one another that when the results were broadcast, no one really questioned the legitimacy of the results.
Riz Khan: Steven Clemmons, do you think the west, there are those who think the west is really pushing for the elections as a way of closure to finally dust their hands and finally close the chapter on Iraq.
Steven Clemmons: I don't think it's just to dust their hands and put a punctuation point. I mean I think everyone would like to see that what we did there succeeded in something. But I think that we've seen Iraqi society already get near ripping itself in shreds internally and the reason why elections and civil institution building and these democratic processes which J. and Laith were speaking about are so important is it creates opportunites for cohesive and collaborative governance within Iraq. That if it doesn't proceed and move forward, the place has a high possibility of pulling itself apart. So I think it's much more than us saying we're done with this -- with this experiment although, clearly, I would like us to move on as well and see Iraqi society take responsibility for itself succeed. But on the other hand, I think that this is an important part of showing that the Iraqi government can have some durability and sustainability after we begin to much more greatly downsize our troop presence.
Riz Kahn: We have this came in, I'll put this to you, Laith, this comes in from Facebook as well and it's from Cambodia where a viewer by the name of Heidi Aljani in Pursat says, "We were warned of the United States' prolonged military presence when Obama spoke of Iraq. The new excuse: Iraqi people and their government are to blame for the inability to govern themselves." Now do you believe that the elections are definite and looking at this issue that Iraq has too much of an issue trying to govern itself. What's your view?
Laith Kubba: Well two things. Number one, I think elections will take place, that's not the issue. Yes, there is a problem currently in finding the right formula on how Iraq should govern itself. But I think by and large, it is the right thing to do is to leave Iraqis to work it out for themselves; however, that does not mean walking out. I think it's really too idealistic. I think that will create enough power vacuum and might lead to escalating violence where the US has to send back some troops and intervene again.
Staying with the issue of the elections, this morning Dow Jones reports that the KRG's represenative Qubad Talabani is stating that, following the January elections, the draft oil law may "finally pass." Sahar Issa and Hannah Allam (McClatchy Newspapers) report that a bill may be presented "to parliament for a vote within days". Qassim Abdul-Zahra (AP) reports that KRG President Massoud Barzani "demanded" today that Kirkuk become a part of the Kurdistan Region. Kirkuk is disputed territory due to Saddam Hussein forcing Kurds out of the region during his reign. Both the Baghdad-based government or 'government' and the KRG claim Kirkuk really belongs to them. This is not a new issue. It is so not a new issue that the 2005 Iraqi Constitution addressed the issue and mandated that a referendum be held on the matter. Article 140 has never been followed. The issue has not been resolved. It is repeatedly pushed aside. Sort of like the draft election law. Weeks ago was the deadline for passing the elections law and the deadline was missed. Appearing before the US House Armed Services Committee last week, the Pentagon's Michele Flournoy insisted that time remained:Although the government of Iraq's self-imposed deadline of October 15th for passing the elections law has passed, we judge that the COR [Council Of Representatives] still has another week or two to come to some kind of an agreement on the elections law before it will put the January date -- the early January date -- in jeopardy in terms of the election commission's ability to actually physically execute the, uh, the election. If a new law with open lists is not passed, the fall back solution for them is to return to the 2005 election law which is based on a closed list system. But that could be used for upcoming elections, the COR would simply have to vote on an election date. If that law is not passed in the next two weeks, they will be looking at slipping the date to later in January which would still be compliant with the [Iraqi] Constitution but would be later than originally planned. It is now one week since Flournoy claimed Iraq had two weeks. There is no progress. The same day she was testifying to Congress, " Rod Nordland (New York Times) reported, "The Iraqi Independent High Electoral Commission and United Nations elections experts have said Iraq needs at least 90 days to adequately prepare for the vote. Iraq's existing election law was declared unconstitutional by its highest court, which said it needs to be replaced or amended." The court ruling would appear to render obsolete Flournoy's claim that the law for the 2005 elections could still be used with just passage of legislation for a new date. In addition, 90 days? There are 3 days left in this month, 30 in November and 31 in December. That's 64.90 days needed. 90 minus 64 (check my math always) is 26 days. That would be January 26th, if legislation passed Parliament today. If. And maybe. The Iraqi Freedom Congress' Amjad Ali weighs in with "Amid violence, Iraq Freedom Congress calls for a sovereign, secular, transitional government" (Flesh & Stone):Over nearly seven years the "political process" did not result in anything but ferocious fighting between the forces and the parties that were part of this process in order to gain as much privilege, influence, power and wealth as possible. This conflict resulted in prolongation of the political chaos, an insecurity in Iraq, exacerbated poverty and destitution, and curtailed social and health services.The elections, one of the mechanisms of imposing the "political process," have never solved the issue of the power struggle because none of the elections held changed the sectarian and ethnic quotas. And that means the elections merely reproduced the same forces that are currently in power. All of the elections have been characterized by farces such as fraud, political assassinations, and the delayed announcement of voting results until agreements among the influential forces had been reached. However, after every election, we witnessed an increase of violence and terrorist activities as part of political arm twisting among these forces. National reconciliation was one of the themes to bring together the political movements that did not participate in power sharing with the forces that supported the war and occupation. The reconciliation was projected by the occupation administration to involve the pan-Arab nationalist forces who were excluded from the formation of a new Iraq to impose security and political stability. However, fears of the parties in power (political Islam, Shiite in particular, and Kurdish nationalists) has undermined national reconciliation.In the midst of the current political situation, neither the occupation nor the successive governments have been able to establish a state in Iraq. The conflict among the parties and the forces has always been a key factor in that lack of progress. Moreover, the conflict over what would be the identity of the state -- whether an Islamist Shiite, a Islamist Sunni, Arab nationalist, or federal moderate Islamist --is another obstacle to the establishment of an Iraqi state. The ongoing violence, which is another form of political conflict, will not end through a political process that was brought by the occupation. And the experience of nearly seven years of conflict between the political forces taught us that the violence would not be terminated. In fact, it would only reproduce more violence and terror. What is happening today, such as restructuring old alliances and forming new ones and the escalation of the conflicts within the one party, is an explanation of how deep the crisis is. As a result we could hear the prime minister and a number of political parties calling for an end to the rule of consensus or democracy through consensus.
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