BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O HAD 2 REVELATIONS TO INJECT HIMSELF INTO THE NEWS CYCLE TODAY.
FIRST HE ANNOUNCED HE WOULD DRESS AS GEORGE W. BUSH FOR HALLOWEEN.
"SCARY," HE SAID DRAWING OUT EVERY LETTER OF THE WORD. "BUT ALSO MY WAY OF ACKNOWLEDGING THAT I AM JUST LIKE MY PREDECESSOR. I NEVER KNEW MY DADDY, HE DIDN'T WANT A FAMILY OR AT LEAST NOT ME, SO I USED TO PRETEND THAT GEORGE H.W. BUSH WAS MY DADDY. I'VE INVITED HIM TO THE WHITE HOUSE AND INTEND TO HOP INTO HIS LAP BEFORE THE NIGHT'S OVER AND ASK HIM TO TUCK ME IN."
AS PART OF HIS COSTUME, HE ORDERED THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT TO TRY AND KILL A CASE ON WARRANTLESS WIRE TAPPING.
IN OTHER NEWS, BARRY O DECLARED, "I KILLED COUSIN POOKIE!"
POOKIE'S EXACT DETAILS AND GENDER -- JUST LIKE BARRY'S -- ARE IN DISPUTE. BUT HE WANTS IT OUT THERE THAT HE "KILLED COUSIN POOKIE BECAUSE I THINK IT WILL GET ME SOME RESPECT. I DON'T GET NO RESPECT. I'M LIKE RODNEY DANGERFIELD TRYING TO ACT SOULFUL."
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
On the second hour of today's The Diane Rehm Show, Iraq was addressed by guest host Frank Senso, NPR's Tom Gjelten, CNN's Elise Labott and McClatchy Newspapers' Jonathan Landay.
Frank Senso: To Iraq now, and in a few minutes, to our phone calls, to bring our audience into this and any other conversation that they may want to have with respect to what's going on in the world. But in Iraq discussions amidst ongoing, violence, intensifying violence in some cases, about trying to fix the national election law because that is what is looming large. Jonathan Landay, what's the landscape look like right now?
Jonathan S. Landay: Well they've tried for a third time to pass an election law in time for the January elections and they've failed again. The issue -- there are a number of issues, but the main issue has to do with the city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq and uh a city that sits atop billions of gallons of untapped oil. Uh, the issue has to do with the -- what census is going to be used to register voters there. Now this is a city that the Kurds -- now this is right now a predominately Kurdish city. It was, the Kurds say, a predominately Kurdish city before the reign of Saddam Hussein who ethically [ethnically] cleansed Kurds out of the city and brought in Arabs. The issue is, do you -- since the fall of Saddam Hussein, the Kurds have been restoring their majority in that city and, indeed, other ethnic groups claim over uh restoring their majority, bringing in more Kurds than there had been before. The Kurds want voter registration to be based on the most recent census, I think it was in fact, done this year. The Sunni Arabs and other ethnic groups there -- the Turkomen for instance -- want the voter registration based on the 2004 census and they have not been able to come to an agreement on this and this has hung up the passage of this law and what it really -- and what it really comes down to it appears is contol over that massive amount of untapped petroleum.
Frank Senso: And yet this-this-this dispute, this stand off over the election law comes just after this Sunday terrible bombing in Baghdad, the worst in two years killing more than 150, wounding hundreds more, severely damaging three major government buildings now there's been an arrest of some 50 odd security and there was some suggestion that this intensifying violence might drive the politicians to nail down this election law and drive those to some kind of political, if not resolution, progress. Tom?
Tom Gjelten: Well it seems, Frank, that the Iranians, I mean the Iraqis, have become so inured to this kind of violence that just sort of everything proceeds normally and that's true I think in both a good sense and a bad sense. In a good sense, there has been this move towards stability and peace in Iraq and Iraq's been filling more confident about their future and they seem amazingly enough to have taken this bombing in stride in a sense. I mean there have been other bombings --
Frank Sesno: It's almost unimaginable, isn't it?
Tom Gjelten: It's almost unaimaginable. But they have -- this is six years that they've been through this and they seem to be able to cope with these great tragedies. On the other hand, the negative side is that, as you say, you know, you would -- you would hope that this would jolt them into sort of some reality but, again, they become so used to this that they just proceed with the same stalemate.
Frank Sesno: What's behind the uptick in violence, Elise?
Elise Labott: Well, we saw -- first we saw an uptick in violence in August and there were also some massive bombings at the Foreign Ministry, at the Finance Ministry and this seemed to be kind of a way to sew sectarian tensions once again and they thought that maybe this would lead Iraq down the path it was in 2006, 2007 with major sectarian tensions. Now what officials says is they think that these foreign fighters are [or?] the real hard core al Qaeda in Iraq are trying just at anything, they tried at religious targets, now they're just trying at softer targets to kill a lot of people. They think maybe it can effect the election in January. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been running as the security candidate. He's the one that's bringing stability to Iraq, he's the one that got US forces out of the city. The question is now is this going to effect his standing as the security candidate.
Jonathan S. Landay: There may be also something else going on here. The more instability, I think perhaps the insurgen -- whoever is behind these bombings create, in their mind, it delays perhaps the departure of American forces and what do you get from that? Well you get a delay or perhaps problems coming up with additional American forces to send to Afghanistan and there may very well be that thinking going on on the part of those who are responsible for these massive bombings.
On the above. Jonathan S. Landay used the term census. That is incorrect. There has been no census. The issue, which McClatchy's Sarah Issa and Hannah Allem and which the New York Times' Timothy Williams have outlines, is where the voting rolls for 2009 or the voting rolls for 2004 will be used. There has been no census. "Census" is a concrete term. And, in fact, a census in Kirkuk is mandated -- as is a referendum -- by Iraq's 2005 Constitution. No census has been conducted. This is not a minor issue and it goes to the dispute over Kirkuk. "Census" was the wrong term to use. There is NO census thus far.
That's (A). (B) Tom Gjelten. What the ___ was that? I'm reminded of when Goodtime Gals Linda Robinson and Gwen Ifill decided to discuss Blackwater's September 17, 2007 slaughter (see the October 8, 2007 snapshot) -- a discussion noteable for its appalling ignorance and gross lack of concern for human life. Gjelten can argue that some of his remarks were intended to be about officials. But he can only argue that about some of his remarks. And what exactly does he want Iraqis to do? They're shell shocked and just because he hasn't reported on the multitude of studies, THE MULTITUDE OF STUDIES, on the effects this illegal war has had on Iraqi children doesn't mean the damage isn't real and doesn't exist. So his happy talk bulls**t was embarrassing. That was really a shameful moment for NPR. The 'good' and the 'bad' of the bombings? How appalling. What made it worse for NPR was that it wasn't a guest from, for example, NBC News. It was an NPR reporter. That's shameful. The good and the bad of bombings? Pay attention, Tommy.
Our children are surrounded by violnce. Most of them are traumatized. I call them the silent victims. Our Iraqi childeren are the silent vctims.
That's Iraqi psychiatrist Dr. Saied al Hashimi speaking to Jennifer Eccleston (CNN) in 2007. From that report:
From January to March of last year, the World Health Organization worked with Iraqi psychiatrists on a series of studies on the mental health of children in the cities of Baghdad, Mosul and Dohuk. (Watch the effects of war on children )
One of the studies on primary-school-age children in Baghdad found that nearly half of the 600 children surveyed had experienced a major traumatic event since the war began. Just over one in every 10 suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, the study found.
Another of the studies found that older children in Mosul suffered even worse. Thirty percent of the 1,090 children surveyed showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. Nearly all of those with PTSD symptoms, 92 percent, had not received any treatment, according to the study.
In fact, the doctors aren't immune to the dangers of the conflict. Fifty percent of Iraq's psychiatrists have fled the country or been killed since the war began, said Dr. Naeema Al-Gasseer, the WHO's representative for Iraq.
A month after CNN filed that report, NPR's Linda Wertheimer spoke with Dr. Mohammed al-Aboudi about the mental stress Iraqi children were under. Now we can go through various reports and studies. We can enlarge and look at other segments of the country's population. But the above alone demonstrates how offensive Tom's statements are. The population is shell shocked and the illegal war has caused that trauma. The bombings that he thinks have good and bad are the same violence responsible for creating the world's largest refugee crisis. And the UN has already advised that Sunday's bombings will most likely results in Syria and Jordan receiving some additional Iraqi refugees. I'm not seeing any "good and bad" to the bombings. And Tom's statements were inarticulate and offensive. Frank Senso did a fine job this week filling in for Diane but had Diane been present, she probably would have said something. She generally does when gas baggery replaces discussion -- when human beings are removed from the issue, she generally brings them back into the picture even if it means she has to disagree with a guest. (She did that most recently with a guest gas bagging -- and glorifying -- the drone strikes in Pakistan when she made a point to note the civilian deaths the man was dismissing.) Tom's statements were offensive and it's only more so because he works for NPR. He declared that "you would hope that this would jolt them into sort of some reality" -- Tom, we'd hope the reality of the violence in Iraq and the fact that it is an inhabited country would jolt you into some sort of reality but there's no evidence, as yet, that it has.
[. . .]
Violence was kind-of, sort-of an issue yesterday in the US House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. The hearing was about IEDs and the money spent on studying them. The Pentagon's James Schear and Lt Gen Thomas Metz as well as the GAO's William Solis were the witnesses, Vic Snyder is the Subcomittee Chair.
Subcommittee Chair Vic Snyder: IEDs remain the number one cause of casulities to coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although IEDs are not a new threat, they have been used with unprecedented frequency in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the decrease in successful attacks in Iraq is encouraging, that success has not been replicated in Afghanistan which has seen an increase in success in fatality attacks with our increase in forces there. Since former CENTCOM commander General [John] Abizaid called for a Manhattan Project like effort 5 years ago to defeat IEDs, Congress has provided nearly $17 billion to DoD's efforts. This effort has grown from a twelve-man army task force to the Jointed IED Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO, which currently employs a staff of about 3600 dedicated government, military and contract personnel.
Lt Gen Thomas F. Metz declared, "What's really different in the two theaters is that over time in Iraq, as we were experiencing 1500, 2500 IEDs a month -- and finding and clearing half of them, we were gaining an enormous amount of forensics and biometrics information. We use that in the COIC [Counter-IED Operations Integration Center] to our advantage It is our asymetric advantage."
US House Rep Duncan Hunter noted a lack of mobilization. He referred to NPR's report on IEDs this week and how, despite all the money being spent, it was human beings noting, for example, "that corpse wasn't there yesterday" and guessing that it appeared to hide an IED. He noted that Marines in Afghanistan report they have only rarely seen predator drones and that instead they rely on "hand held mine sweepers -- a version of which people use on the beach to find coins." He also showed a child's innocence or foolilshness as he lived in a world where only the 'guilty' were killed.
US House Rep Duncan Hunter: This doesn't make me feel comfortable that we are truly doing everything that we can right now. Once-once more, if Secretary Gates said, "No more IEDs to be buried" -- I understand that there are tons in Afghanistan and they can be turned on like that at any point in time. But we could do that. We could stop IEDs from being buried if we mobilize to do it. And -- and if we want to politically about this war too -- it would fall off the map if nobody was dying. Iraq's not in the paper anymore because nobody's dying. One reason is we've knocked off IEDs, huge in 2007 and 2008, with [Gen William] Odum by killing over 3,000 IED placers. Project Odom with IEDS killed more people than every single other person in Iraq put together -- with all the offensive operations, Odom killed more and they were all bad guys -- not one single civilian, they were all inputting IEDs.
"Not one single civilian." Just "bad guys." Because a drone is judge and jury. So if a drone says it's "bad guys" that's all the proof Duncan Hunter needs. (And, to clarify, this is Duncan Hunter the younger, the 32-year-old elected to his father's seat. Still wet behind the ears and with a child's wide-eyes, he needs correcting, not the blanket approval Snyder gave him when Snyder followed Hunter. And someone might have bothered to inform Hunter that, despite his claims that "nobody's dying" in Iraq, Iraq saw at least 155 people die on Sunday alone. "Nobody's dying"? That didn't require a correction? Did he mean no US service members? If so, even that's wrong because there are 8 announced dead in Iraq so far this month -- granted 2 of them were announced today so, at the time of the hearing, only 6 had been announced. And it's a good thing to Duncan Hunter that the news media walked away from Iraq? Really? (Hunter is a veteran of both the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, FYI.) Congress had time for that nonsense yesterday. Not for anything important, but they had time for that.
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BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
CONFRONTED WITH THE ALLEGATIONS THAT MONEY IS BUYING ACCESS AND POSSIBLY INFLUENCE AT THE WHITE HOUSE, CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O DECLARED THAT WAS NOT WHAT WAS HAPPENING.
"WHAT'S GOING ON," HE EXPLAINED, "IS THAT I JUST HAVE A LITTLE FAN CLUB AND THEY PAY DUES AND IF THEY PAY SAY X, THEY GET TO HAVE LUNCH WITH ME. AND IF THEY PAY Y, THEY GET A CALL FROM ME. HEY, IF THEY PAY Z, I'LL EVEN GIVE THEM A WAKE UP KISS AND FIX PANCAKES AND BACON."
"THEY'RE FANS," BARRY INSISTED. "FANS. THEY'LL DO ANYTHING. THEY'LL PAY ANYTHING. IT'S A MUTUALLY REWARDING RELATIONSHIP."
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Today the US military announced: "JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq – A Soldier who was currently assigned to the 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) died Wednesday of a non-combat related injury at Camp Adder, Iraq. 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." The announcement brings the total number of US service members killed in Iraq to 4353.
Meanwhile Sunday's Baghdad bombings have pretty much erased the August Baghdad bombings ("Bloody Wednesday," "Black Wednesday," "Gory Wednesday," "Iraq's 9-11," etc.). Press TV reports, "Iraq has arrested some 60 security forces over the weekend twin bombings which targeted government buildings in Baghdad, killing up to 153 people." The Sentinel states the 60 were compoes of "11 army officers and 50 security officials". Xinhua adds, "The arrested were in charge of providing security for a downtown Baghdad district which was hit by the deadly suicide attacks that targeted government buildings, Major General Qassim Atta said." BBC News notes, "The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse in Baghdad says it is not clear whether those arrested are accused of negligence or collusion. However, he added, it seems to confirm what many people have suspected - that the security forces are susceptible to infiltration by insurgents or are just not up to the job." Reuters reports Qassim al-Moussawi, spokesperson for Baghdad security, "said that officers, foot soldiers and police in areas where attacks happen would be arrested in the future and placed under investigation." Jomana Karadsheh (CNN) adds, Baghdad Governor "Abdul Razzaq said security forces made mistakes and were negligent in their work, and he demanded a court-martial for those who allowed explosive-laden vehicles to get through checkpoints." Karadsheh also notes the number arrested is 61. Timothy Williams and Mohammed Hussein (New York Times) explain, "The statement Thursday that announced the arrest order came from Baghad Operations Command, which is responsible for security in the capital and reports directly to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. The statement did not offer any further details, so it remained unclear whether the 61 security force members were suspected of having adied those who carried out the attacks."
The death toll for the Sunday bombings is at least 155 and does include children. Mohammed Jamjoom (CNN) reports:The force of the blast threw Rawnaq against the wall of her office at the Ministry of Justice. She instantly thought of her two children in the day care center just two floors below."I rushed downstairs and found all the children under the rubble," says Rawnaq, "My daughter Tabarak was standing near the stairs. My son Hamoodi outside. Me and a colleague took them out, running. A police car drove us to the hospital."Both children were injured, 3-year-old Tabarak much more so than her 2-year-old brother. Severe head and back injuries have left the little girl needing extensive surgery and unable to sleep due to unceasing pain. She is also deeply afraid.
Back in August, the day before Bloody Wednesday, Iraqi Thug and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was in Syria where he was demanding that nearly 200 Iraqis be handed over to Iraq. It was all like a bad acid flashback since Nouri spent years in Syria and the Syrians refused to turn him over at the whims of Saddam Hussein. Nouri was grateful back then, now he's just a raging drama queen. Bloody Wednesday came the next day and Nouri immediately blamed the bombings on Syria. He and his spokespeople and cabinet would sometimes say that it was former Ba'athists in Syria. Sometimes. Mainly they would rail against Syria. That hasn't ceased all this time later. Phil Sands (Le Monde) offers today that "Syria is perhaps the only country in the Arab middle east that can truly claim to be independent from the US, and Damascus remains a thorn in the side of American regional ambitions. [. . .] In the post-Saddam Hussein world, the Iraqi government is jealous of its sovereignty, an independence that goes only as deep as the presence of more than 100,000 American soldiers on Iraqi soil allows. There is little sign a planned pull-out will be complete." Syria has a huge number of Iraqi refugees and we'll turn now to the topic of Iraqi refugees. Joseph A. Kechichian (Gulf News) explains:
According to the International Organisation on Migration, there are still 1.6 million internally displaced Iraqis who cannot "return home". Many are trying to survive "without work, their own home, schooling for children, access to water, electricity and health care". These refugees are Iraqi citizens who are not represented in government but whose fates will probably determine whether the pool from which opposition forces can recruit bombers will shrink. As it is widely recognised, remnants of the Baath party or any number of the security services created by the old regime are still active, even if Baghdad and its allies continue to hearken to Al Qaida.
The United Nations' World Food Program has launched "a pilot project in Damascus" in which food vouchers are distributed "in the form of mobile phone text messages to Iraqi refugees. [. . .] Around one thousand families are involved in the four-month pilot phase, which will be extended if it is successful. The project has been developed in cooperation with the Syrian government, enabling the refugees to redeem their vouches in state-run stores in the Jaramana and Sayeda Zeinab neighourhoods of Damascus. The mobile phone service provider MTN has donated SIM cards for the project." Cassandra Vinograd (Wall St. Journal) reported Tuesday, "In the WFP program, each family will receive one $22 voucher per person every two months. After each transaction, families will receive an updated balance, also sent by SMS to their mobile numbers -- free of charge. There are more than 1.2 million displaced Iraqis in Syria, according to government figures. To date, about 130,000 regularly receive food assistance from WFP with complimentary food and non-food assistance from the U.N.'s refugee agency." Though some have criticized the WFP for targeting people with cell phones (under the mistaken belief that refugees wouldn't have them), Richard Spencer (Telegraph of London) reports, "The discovery that most of the 130,000 people to whom the organisation provided food vouchers had mobile phones gave officials the idea for the pilot scheme, to be targeted at 1,000 families in the first instance." Laura MacInnis (Reuters) quotes Emilia Casella, WFP spokesperson, stating, "They will be able to exchange their electronic vouchers for rice, wheat, flour, lentils, chickpeas, oil and canned fish, as well as cheese and eggs -- items that cannot usually be included in conventional aid baskets." Saeed Ahmed (CNN) quotes Casella stating, "It infuses some contribution to the communities, because we're not giving food away. They have to go to the local shops to buy it." Staying with Syria, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees expects more Iraqi refugees to flee to Syria as a result of Sunday's bombings. EU News Network states UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic "told a delegation in Geneva earlier this month that the United Nations recommended the resettlement of more than 80,000 Iraqi refugees to other countries." Meanwhile UNHCR is building homes in Taza, Iraq following bombings there this sumemr which ledft many people homeless, "Immediately after the blast, UNHCR field staff visited Taza to assess the damage and to distribute emergency aid to the survivors. The team found that about 160 houses, mostly made from mud bricks, had been totally destroyed and some 400 damaged. As a result, around 3,500 people were left without shelter. The refugee agency immediately swung into action, funding the reconstruction of 150 collapsed homes and the renovation of 73 shops and two other buildings in Shorja Market. The work was carried out by an Iraqi implementing partner as part of UNHCR's emergency shelter programme which has helped rehabilitate some 10,000 conflict-damaged buildings for refugees and internally displaced Iraqis and aims to double this figure in 2010." But in Syria, IRIN reports, a significant number of Iraqis are attempting to win asylum "across the Middle East to Europe and North America" and they note, "A year after its launch, strikingly few Iraqis have taken up the UN's Voluntary Repatriation Programme. Less than 300 families from Syria have returned to Iraq under the programme, though the number claiming resettlement has grown rapidly."
The Chicago Tribune did a multi-article series at the start of the week on Iraqi refugees in the US. The paper noted of one group: "Back home, they worked for the Americans, as translators, project specialists and office managers. For that, they received death threats from militants opposed to the U.S., and they ask to remain anonymous, fearing retribution against relatives in Iraq." Then there's Layla Mousa whose husband is in Jordan while she and their three children are in Chicago where she struggles to make ends meet, find work (she's a hair dresser) and rebuffs offers of payment for sex and states, "Now I want to go back to Iraq, not even Jordan. America is just a lie." Layla Mousa is among the Iraqi refugees who Ahlam Mahmoud attempts to asist even though she herself is a refugee: "She didn't have it easy herself. When she and her two children arrived in Chicago in 2008, she had only the clothes she was wearing when she left Syria, where, she says, she was imprisoned for refusing to spy on foreigners. The apartment they got in Chicago had three beds, one plate, a fork, a spoon and two knives." In Syria, Ahlam Mahmoud was also someone refugees turned to. Using her own resourceful nature, she quickly began developing a network of assistance and advice. Due to her connections, the Syrian government attempted to force her to spy on other Iraqi refugees. She refused and was thrown into prison. When the outcry and attention became too much, the Syrian govenment ordered her released from prison and she was quickly transported to the US. Also attempting to assist other refugees is Fatima Hindi who became an Iraqi government official, was then kidnapped and sought Egypt and then the US for safety along with her three-year-old daughter Takwa. She states, "They kidnapped me because of America. America couldn't protect me. When I first got here, I cried on the street."
Today Nancy Eshelman (Patriot-News) reports on Iraqi refugee Zina Alkubaisy who ended up in the United States with her husband and their children following her husband's kidnapping: "Alkubaisy began working the phones. She contacted people who knew people and eventually learned what militant group had snatched her husband. Her connections arranged to have him released the next day. But a chilling phone call warned the couple they would not be so lucky the next time. It would be in their best interest to leave the country."
The October 22nd snapshot noted the United Nations High Commisoner for Refguees (UNHCR) released a new report entitled "Asylum Levels and Trends in Inudstrialized Countries First Half 2009: Statistical overview of asylum applications lodged in Europe and selected non-European countries." The report found that Iraqis continued to be the number one aslyum-seekers around the globe. Last Friday UNHCR's Andrej Mahecic spoke on the issue of Iraqi refugees and the forcible deportation of them:
UNHCR is concerned about the fact that some European states have begun forcibly returning Iraqi originating from the region of Central Iraq over the last few months. In our guidelines issued last April, we noted that in view of the serious human rights violations and continuing security incidents throughout Iraq, most predominantly in the central governorates, asylum-seekers from these governorates should be considered to be in need of international protection. UNHCR therefore advises against involuntary returns to Iraq of persons originating from Central Iraq until there is a substantial improvement in the security and human rights situation in the country.
This reminder comes after the UK attempted to forcibly return 44 Iraqi men to Baghdad earlier this month. They were reportedly unsuccessful asylum claimants held in immigration removal centres in the UK. Iraq only accepted 10 who were allowed to leave the chartered aircraft in Baghdad, and the remaining 34 were returned to the UK and placed in immigration centres.
Other European states have signed readmission agreements with Iraq for voluntary and forced return. Denmark has forcibly returned 38 people originating mainly from Central and Southern Iraq since signing its agreement in May 2009. Sweden has undertaken some 250 forced returns with an unspecified number of returnees originating from the five central governorates of Iraq since signing an agreement in February 2008. UNHCR has also concerns about the safety and dignity of these returns.
Concerning asylum-seekers from the three northern governorates, as well as those from the southern governorates and Al Anbar, UNHCR recommends that their protection needs are assessed on an individual basis.
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CONFRONTED WITH THE ALLEGATIONS THAT MONEY IS BUYING ACCESS AND POSSIBLY INFLUENCE AT THE WHITE HOUSE, CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O DECLARED THAT WAS NOT WHAT WAS HAPPENING.
"WHAT'S GOING ON," HE EXPLAINED, "IS THAT I JUST HAVE A LITTLE FAN CLUB AND THEY PAY DUES AND IF THEY PAY SAY X, THEY GET TO HAVE LUNCH WITH ME. AND IF THEY PAY Y, THEY GET A CALL FROM ME. HEY, IF THEY PAY Z, I'LL EVEN GIVE THEM A WAKE UP KISS AND FIX PANCAKES AND BACON."
"THEY'RE FANS," BARRY INSISTED. "FANS. THEY'LL DO ANYTHING. THEY'LL PAY ANYTHING. IT'S A MUTUALLY REWARDING RELATIONSHIP."
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Today the US military announced: "JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq – A Soldier who was currently assigned to the 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) died Wednesday of a non-combat related injury at Camp Adder, Iraq. 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." The announcement brings the total number of US service members killed in Iraq to 4353.
Meanwhile Sunday's Baghdad bombings have pretty much erased the August Baghdad bombings ("Bloody Wednesday," "Black Wednesday," "Gory Wednesday," "Iraq's 9-11," etc.). Press TV reports, "Iraq has arrested some 60 security forces over the weekend twin bombings which targeted government buildings in Baghdad, killing up to 153 people." The Sentinel states the 60 were compoes of "11 army officers and 50 security officials". Xinhua adds, "The arrested were in charge of providing security for a downtown Baghdad district which was hit by the deadly suicide attacks that targeted government buildings, Major General Qassim Atta said." BBC News notes, "The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse in Baghdad says it is not clear whether those arrested are accused of negligence or collusion. However, he added, it seems to confirm what many people have suspected - that the security forces are susceptible to infiltration by insurgents or are just not up to the job." Reuters reports Qassim al-Moussawi, spokesperson for Baghdad security, "said that officers, foot soldiers and police in areas where attacks happen would be arrested in the future and placed under investigation." Jomana Karadsheh (CNN) adds, Baghdad Governor "Abdul Razzaq said security forces made mistakes and were negligent in their work, and he demanded a court-martial for those who allowed explosive-laden vehicles to get through checkpoints." Karadsheh also notes the number arrested is 61. Timothy Williams and Mohammed Hussein (New York Times) explain, "The statement Thursday that announced the arrest order came from Baghad Operations Command, which is responsible for security in the capital and reports directly to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. The statement did not offer any further details, so it remained unclear whether the 61 security force members were suspected of having adied those who carried out the attacks."
The death toll for the Sunday bombings is at least 155 and does include children. Mohammed Jamjoom (CNN) reports:The force of the blast threw Rawnaq against the wall of her office at the Ministry of Justice. She instantly thought of her two children in the day care center just two floors below."I rushed downstairs and found all the children under the rubble," says Rawnaq, "My daughter Tabarak was standing near the stairs. My son Hamoodi outside. Me and a colleague took them out, running. A police car drove us to the hospital."Both children were injured, 3-year-old Tabarak much more so than her 2-year-old brother. Severe head and back injuries have left the little girl needing extensive surgery and unable to sleep due to unceasing pain. She is also deeply afraid.
Back in August, the day before Bloody Wednesday, Iraqi Thug and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was in Syria where he was demanding that nearly 200 Iraqis be handed over to Iraq. It was all like a bad acid flashback since Nouri spent years in Syria and the Syrians refused to turn him over at the whims of Saddam Hussein. Nouri was grateful back then, now he's just a raging drama queen. Bloody Wednesday came the next day and Nouri immediately blamed the bombings on Syria. He and his spokespeople and cabinet would sometimes say that it was former Ba'athists in Syria. Sometimes. Mainly they would rail against Syria. That hasn't ceased all this time later. Phil Sands (Le Monde) offers today that "Syria is perhaps the only country in the Arab middle east that can truly claim to be independent from the US, and Damascus remains a thorn in the side of American regional ambitions. [. . .] In the post-Saddam Hussein world, the Iraqi government is jealous of its sovereignty, an independence that goes only as deep as the presence of more than 100,000 American soldiers on Iraqi soil allows. There is little sign a planned pull-out will be complete." Syria has a huge number of Iraqi refugees and we'll turn now to the topic of Iraqi refugees. Joseph A. Kechichian (Gulf News) explains:
According to the International Organisation on Migration, there are still 1.6 million internally displaced Iraqis who cannot "return home". Many are trying to survive "without work, their own home, schooling for children, access to water, electricity and health care". These refugees are Iraqi citizens who are not represented in government but whose fates will probably determine whether the pool from which opposition forces can recruit bombers will shrink. As it is widely recognised, remnants of the Baath party or any number of the security services created by the old regime are still active, even if Baghdad and its allies continue to hearken to Al Qaida.
The United Nations' World Food Program has launched "a pilot project in Damascus" in which food vouchers are distributed "in the form of mobile phone text messages to Iraqi refugees. [. . .] Around one thousand families are involved in the four-month pilot phase, which will be extended if it is successful. The project has been developed in cooperation with the Syrian government, enabling the refugees to redeem their vouches in state-run stores in the Jaramana and Sayeda Zeinab neighourhoods of Damascus. The mobile phone service provider MTN has donated SIM cards for the project." Cassandra Vinograd (Wall St. Journal) reported Tuesday, "In the WFP program, each family will receive one $22 voucher per person every two months. After each transaction, families will receive an updated balance, also sent by SMS to their mobile numbers -- free of charge. There are more than 1.2 million displaced Iraqis in Syria, according to government figures. To date, about 130,000 regularly receive food assistance from WFP with complimentary food and non-food assistance from the U.N.'s refugee agency." Though some have criticized the WFP for targeting people with cell phones (under the mistaken belief that refugees wouldn't have them), Richard Spencer (Telegraph of London) reports, "The discovery that most of the 130,000 people to whom the organisation provided food vouchers had mobile phones gave officials the idea for the pilot scheme, to be targeted at 1,000 families in the first instance." Laura MacInnis (Reuters) quotes Emilia Casella, WFP spokesperson, stating, "They will be able to exchange their electronic vouchers for rice, wheat, flour, lentils, chickpeas, oil and canned fish, as well as cheese and eggs -- items that cannot usually be included in conventional aid baskets." Saeed Ahmed (CNN) quotes Casella stating, "It infuses some contribution to the communities, because we're not giving food away. They have to go to the local shops to buy it." Staying with Syria, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees expects more Iraqi refugees to flee to Syria as a result of Sunday's bombings. EU News Network states UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic "told a delegation in Geneva earlier this month that the United Nations recommended the resettlement of more than 80,000 Iraqi refugees to other countries." Meanwhile UNHCR is building homes in Taza, Iraq following bombings there this sumemr which ledft many people homeless, "Immediately after the blast, UNHCR field staff visited Taza to assess the damage and to distribute emergency aid to the survivors. The team found that about 160 houses, mostly made from mud bricks, had been totally destroyed and some 400 damaged. As a result, around 3,500 people were left without shelter. The refugee agency immediately swung into action, funding the reconstruction of 150 collapsed homes and the renovation of 73 shops and two other buildings in Shorja Market. The work was carried out by an Iraqi implementing partner as part of UNHCR's emergency shelter programme which has helped rehabilitate some 10,000 conflict-damaged buildings for refugees and internally displaced Iraqis and aims to double this figure in 2010." But in Syria, IRIN reports, a significant number of Iraqis are attempting to win asylum "across the Middle East to Europe and North America" and they note, "A year after its launch, strikingly few Iraqis have taken up the UN's Voluntary Repatriation Programme. Less than 300 families from Syria have returned to Iraq under the programme, though the number claiming resettlement has grown rapidly."
The Chicago Tribune did a multi-article series at the start of the week on Iraqi refugees in the US. The paper noted of one group: "Back home, they worked for the Americans, as translators, project specialists and office managers. For that, they received death threats from militants opposed to the U.S., and they ask to remain anonymous, fearing retribution against relatives in Iraq." Then there's Layla Mousa whose husband is in Jordan while she and their three children are in Chicago where she struggles to make ends meet, find work (she's a hair dresser) and rebuffs offers of payment for sex and states, "Now I want to go back to Iraq, not even Jordan. America is just a lie." Layla Mousa is among the Iraqi refugees who Ahlam Mahmoud attempts to asist even though she herself is a refugee: "She didn't have it easy herself. When she and her two children arrived in Chicago in 2008, she had only the clothes she was wearing when she left Syria, where, she says, she was imprisoned for refusing to spy on foreigners. The apartment they got in Chicago had three beds, one plate, a fork, a spoon and two knives." In Syria, Ahlam Mahmoud was also someone refugees turned to. Using her own resourceful nature, she quickly began developing a network of assistance and advice. Due to her connections, the Syrian government attempted to force her to spy on other Iraqi refugees. She refused and was thrown into prison. When the outcry and attention became too much, the Syrian govenment ordered her released from prison and she was quickly transported to the US. Also attempting to assist other refugees is Fatima Hindi who became an Iraqi government official, was then kidnapped and sought Egypt and then the US for safety along with her three-year-old daughter Takwa. She states, "They kidnapped me because of America. America couldn't protect me. When I first got here, I cried on the street."
Today Nancy Eshelman (Patriot-News) reports on Iraqi refugee Zina Alkubaisy who ended up in the United States with her husband and their children following her husband's kidnapping: "Alkubaisy began working the phones. She contacted people who knew people and eventually learned what militant group had snatched her husband. Her connections arranged to have him released the next day. But a chilling phone call warned the couple they would not be so lucky the next time. It would be in their best interest to leave the country."
The October 22nd snapshot noted the United Nations High Commisoner for Refguees (UNHCR) released a new report entitled "Asylum Levels and Trends in Inudstrialized Countries First Half 2009: Statistical overview of asylum applications lodged in Europe and selected non-European countries." The report found that Iraqis continued to be the number one aslyum-seekers around the globe. Last Friday UNHCR's Andrej Mahecic spoke on the issue of Iraqi refugees and the forcible deportation of them:
UNHCR is concerned about the fact that some European states have begun forcibly returning Iraqi originating from the region of Central Iraq over the last few months. In our guidelines issued last April, we noted that in view of the serious human rights violations and continuing security incidents throughout Iraq, most predominantly in the central governorates, asylum-seekers from these governorates should be considered to be in need of international protection. UNHCR therefore advises against involuntary returns to Iraq of persons originating from Central Iraq until there is a substantial improvement in the security and human rights situation in the country.
This reminder comes after the UK attempted to forcibly return 44 Iraqi men to Baghdad earlier this month. They were reportedly unsuccessful asylum claimants held in immigration removal centres in the UK. Iraq only accepted 10 who were allowed to leave the chartered aircraft in Baghdad, and the remaining 34 were returned to the UK and placed in immigration centres.
Other European states have signed readmission agreements with Iraq for voluntary and forced return. Denmark has forcibly returned 38 people originating mainly from Central and Southern Iraq since signing its agreement in May 2009. Sweden has undertaken some 250 forced returns with an unspecified number of returnees originating from the five central governorates of Iraq since signing an agreement in February 2008. UNHCR has also concerns about the safety and dignity of these returns.
Concerning asylum-seekers from the three northern governorates, as well as those from the southern governorates and Al Anbar, UNHCR recommends that their protection needs are assessed on an individual basis.
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Wednesday, October 28, 2009
THIS JUST IN! SELF-OBSESSED MUCH!
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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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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Tuesday, October 27, 2009
THIS JUST IN! FRANCHISE BABY!
BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O LEARNED TODAY THAT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO WANTS TO HOUSE HIS LIBRARY. HE TOLD THESE REPORTERS THAT HE'D LOVE TO SEE SHELVES AND SHELVES "OF THE TWO BOOKS I WROTE ABOUT ME AND THE NEXT 57 I'M PLANNING TO."
BUT ISN'T IT A LITTLE EARLY FOR A PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY?
"WELL," BARRY O SAID, "IT WAS EITHER THAT OR 'THE BARACK OBAMA TOPLESS BEACH AND BBQ' BUT MELODY BARNES SAID SHE WOULDN'T PROVIDE COVER FOR ME ON THAT."
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Frank Sesno was the guest host on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show today and the first hour was devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan. Sesno spoke with McClatchy Newspapers Nancy A. Youssef, Wall St. Journal's Peter Spiegel and Crazy Ass Thomas E. Ricks.
Frank Sesno: Tom Ricks, let's start with these incredible bombings in Iraq and the shockwave they've sent through the military and the political systems there. What signal were they intended -- intending to send?
Thomas E. Ricks: I think they were intended to send the signal that [Prime Minister Nouri al-] Maliki does not have the control over Iraq that he asserts and that's really his sole campaign plank -- is look "You may not like me, you may not like how we're running the government but at least you're feeling safer" and I think was designed to undermine that. I was struck -- I read this morning that one of the trucks used to do the bombings was stolen in Falluja which indicates it probably came out of Anbar Province.
Frank Sesno: Which means?
Thomas E. Ricks: Which means a Sunni extrimist probably working with al Qaeda. Simeloutaneous large blast is one of the al Qaeda signatures that they like to do. We all remember that from 9-11.
Did Thomas E. Ricks just make a total idiot of himself? Yes, he did. He attempted to conflate al Qaeda in Mesopotomia with the al Qaeda group thought to be responsible for 9-11. The two are not related. Thomas E. Ricks is worse than George W. Bush because Ricks actually had a semi-functioning brain that wasn't destroyed via drink and cocaine. But that didn't stop him from conflating two separate things. al Qaeda in Mespotamia is a homegrown (Iraqi) group. It did not exist prior to the 2003 invasion. It is a response to the 2003 invasion. And Thomas E. Ricks needs to learn to choose his words a little more carefully. With each day, he drifts further and further from journalism.
What a moron. That anyone -- let alone a journalist -- would attempt to conflate 9-11 and Iraq at this late date is offensive. That a journalist would do so -- knowing full well that this conflation helped sell the illegal war -- helped sell it because the news media refused to call it out -- the same ones that will fact check a Saturday Night Live skit -- is just beyond belief. But notice that on the program, they just moved along past Crazy Ass Thomas Ricks -- not unlike they ignored that LIE when it was sold by the Bush administration. There WAS NO and IS NO connection between Iraq and 9-11 -- no matter what Thomas E. Ricks jibber-jabbers.
Frank Sesno: Which means, Nancy Youseff that Iraq is what? No where near as stable as the previous lull had indicated?
Nancy A. Youssef: Well it indicates that sectarian violence is still continuing despite the US military assertion that it's not as aggressive as it would be. These were Sunni attackers hitting Shia government buildings. It's an effort to sort of revitalize the sectarian fighting and I think it raises questions about ultimately what Iraqis and what Americans consider acceptable levels of violence in Iraq. Can these sort of occassional bombings -- you'll remember that the last one was in August -- will the Iraqis accept it? Will the Americans accept it as a condition for their leaving? That-that attacks will continue to go on? There are fewer attacks but they're becoming more and more spectacular.
Frank Sesno: And, Peter, at a critical critical moment.
Peter Spiegel: It is a critical moment because you have elections coming up in January. And just to not be overly pessimistic here 'cause, as Nancy mentioned, there was a very similar attack in August, we did not see the country descend into another round of sectarian violence. That's the good news. The other good news, as Tom pointed out, they seemed to be very political oriented. There are elections coming up. You know Maliki is vying for position with other Shia parties, with other Sunni parties. Is this just a domestic political issue being expressed through violence? If that's the case, there's an argument that as long as there's some sort of Sunni outlet through the political system, this may eventually go away. Now the problem is there appears to be no Sunni outlet for legitimate political expression right now because most of the parties are still dominated by Shi'ites and a lot of the government institutions are dominated by Shias -- they're using them to suppress Sunnis in the country. So as long as that continues, as long as there's no legitimate way for Sunnis to express their political outrage this stuff could continue.
Frank Sesno: Do you expect this stuff to continue?
Thomas E. Ricks: I do actually. The last line in the last book I've written on Iraq, The Gamble, is a quote from [former US] Ambassador [to Iraq] Ryan Crocker. He said to me twice in the course of 2008, "The events for which the Iraq War will be remembered have not yet occurred." There's a significant chance that the war will go on for another five to ten years. I think we're going to have American troops there for many, many years. They'll call them "trainers" and "advisors" but this war is far from over.
Frank Sesno: But Tom as they leave, as we have pulled out of the cities and as we withdraw to concentrated areas around the country, what vulnerability then does this latest string of events suggest for the innocent public in Iraq trying desparately to put their lives back together again because it suggest the vulnarability is extreme.
Thomas E. Ricks: Recently, the former mayor of Tal Afar, a city up in the northwest, wrote a very interesting essay in which he said all the conditions for civil war in Iraq are still there. This is why I think the civil war failed. It succeeded tactically, it improved security.
Frank Sesno: For the moment.
Thomas E. Ricks: Yes, but it's purpose was to lead to a political breakthrough and that didn't happen. That's not my saying what the purpose was, that's what the president said the purpose was.
Frarnk Sesno: Nancy, I see you nodding your head.
Nancy A. Youssef: Yeah, you know, what's interesting is that when you ask them at the Pentagon, "Look there have been two massive attacks in the last few months and what are you going to do?" And there's sort of a shrugging of the shoulders. The Status Of Forces Agreement calls for us to leave and the Pentagon's focused on Afghanistan now and yet if you go right below the surface you can feel from soldiers who have served, who wear braclets of fallen comrades, the frustration that potentially the United States is leaving as sloppily as it entered, that you've got 120,000 troops still based in Iraq and yet nothing is being done to-to-to stop this. The-the line --
Frarnk Sesno: Nothing is being done to stop this?
Nancy A. Youssef: No, because the line at the Pentagon is "We're asking for Maliki to ask us for help" or we're waiting for something like the Samarra mosque bombing. But if it gets to that level, it's already too late. I mean the Samarra mosque bombing didn't happen in a vacuum. That was a building of sectarian violence that manifested itself in a very violent way.
Peter Spiegel: One other issue, there are still 120,000 troops in Iraq which everyone seems to forget, which is about the levels they were pre-surge, which is still a very big level. But what is happening in sort of the granularity of that is a lot of assets that are needed to track down these bombing networks -- the UAVs, the unmanned drones, the intelligence assets -- all that is being sucked away to Afghanistan. And having spent time with General [Ray] Odierno, who is the commander there, a year ago, his-his real -- the thing he's most proud of is the ability to track down these networks through human intelligence through systems like unmanned drones and dismantle them. Well if you move all those assets to Afghanistan, are you still able to dismantle all those bombing networks that are still clearly sort of roving freely in Baghdad and be able to do these kind of things?
Frarnk Sesno: These bombs went off near three government buildings -- three important government buildings. How much of a set back does this present to the fledgling, struggling Iraqi government itself?
Nancy A. Youssef: I don't think we know yet. I mean, you saw the government try to respond by passing an election law which they've been debating for several months now as a way to sort of speak up. I think you're seeing Maliki -- it hurts Maliki the most, as Tom mentioned, because his political platform, his election platform is "I bring security to you." You saw rival political parties trying to exploit that.
Nancy A. Youssef was referring to a proposal put together by the Political Council for National Security and then passed on to Parliament. That was a proposal made (with much fanfare) yesterday. Like just about everything else on the governance front in Iraq, it fell apart. John Leland (New York Times) reports there was no consensus today and that they are at a stalemate, "another blockage in negotiations that have dragged on for weeks, threatening national elections scheduled for January 16th." 'Scheduled'? I believe the appropriate term is intended. Suadad al-Salhy (Reuters) adds that the issue of Kirkuk was the falling out point for the "proposal submitted by a high-ranking council that included Maliki and President Jalal Talabani." Repeating, no election law. Still.
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CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O LEARNED TODAY THAT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO WANTS TO HOUSE HIS LIBRARY. HE TOLD THESE REPORTERS THAT HE'D LOVE TO SEE SHELVES AND SHELVES "OF THE TWO BOOKS I WROTE ABOUT ME AND THE NEXT 57 I'M PLANNING TO."
BUT ISN'T IT A LITTLE EARLY FOR A PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY?
"WELL," BARRY O SAID, "IT WAS EITHER THAT OR 'THE BARACK OBAMA TOPLESS BEACH AND BBQ' BUT MELODY BARNES SAID SHE WOULDN'T PROVIDE COVER FOR ME ON THAT."
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Frank Sesno was the guest host on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show today and the first hour was devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan. Sesno spoke with McClatchy Newspapers Nancy A. Youssef, Wall St. Journal's Peter Spiegel and Crazy Ass Thomas E. Ricks.
Frank Sesno: Tom Ricks, let's start with these incredible bombings in Iraq and the shockwave they've sent through the military and the political systems there. What signal were they intended -- intending to send?
Thomas E. Ricks: I think they were intended to send the signal that [Prime Minister Nouri al-] Maliki does not have the control over Iraq that he asserts and that's really his sole campaign plank -- is look "You may not like me, you may not like how we're running the government but at least you're feeling safer" and I think was designed to undermine that. I was struck -- I read this morning that one of the trucks used to do the bombings was stolen in Falluja which indicates it probably came out of Anbar Province.
Frank Sesno: Which means?
Thomas E. Ricks: Which means a Sunni extrimist probably working with al Qaeda. Simeloutaneous large blast is one of the al Qaeda signatures that they like to do. We all remember that from 9-11.
Did Thomas E. Ricks just make a total idiot of himself? Yes, he did. He attempted to conflate al Qaeda in Mesopotomia with the al Qaeda group thought to be responsible for 9-11. The two are not related. Thomas E. Ricks is worse than George W. Bush because Ricks actually had a semi-functioning brain that wasn't destroyed via drink and cocaine. But that didn't stop him from conflating two separate things. al Qaeda in Mespotamia is a homegrown (Iraqi) group. It did not exist prior to the 2003 invasion. It is a response to the 2003 invasion. And Thomas E. Ricks needs to learn to choose his words a little more carefully. With each day, he drifts further and further from journalism.
What a moron. That anyone -- let alone a journalist -- would attempt to conflate 9-11 and Iraq at this late date is offensive. That a journalist would do so -- knowing full well that this conflation helped sell the illegal war -- helped sell it because the news media refused to call it out -- the same ones that will fact check a Saturday Night Live skit -- is just beyond belief. But notice that on the program, they just moved along past Crazy Ass Thomas Ricks -- not unlike they ignored that LIE when it was sold by the Bush administration. There WAS NO and IS NO connection between Iraq and 9-11 -- no matter what Thomas E. Ricks jibber-jabbers.
Frank Sesno: Which means, Nancy Youseff that Iraq is what? No where near as stable as the previous lull had indicated?
Nancy A. Youssef: Well it indicates that sectarian violence is still continuing despite the US military assertion that it's not as aggressive as it would be. These were Sunni attackers hitting Shia government buildings. It's an effort to sort of revitalize the sectarian fighting and I think it raises questions about ultimately what Iraqis and what Americans consider acceptable levels of violence in Iraq. Can these sort of occassional bombings -- you'll remember that the last one was in August -- will the Iraqis accept it? Will the Americans accept it as a condition for their leaving? That-that attacks will continue to go on? There are fewer attacks but they're becoming more and more spectacular.
Frank Sesno: And, Peter, at a critical critical moment.
Peter Spiegel: It is a critical moment because you have elections coming up in January. And just to not be overly pessimistic here 'cause, as Nancy mentioned, there was a very similar attack in August, we did not see the country descend into another round of sectarian violence. That's the good news. The other good news, as Tom pointed out, they seemed to be very political oriented. There are elections coming up. You know Maliki is vying for position with other Shia parties, with other Sunni parties. Is this just a domestic political issue being expressed through violence? If that's the case, there's an argument that as long as there's some sort of Sunni outlet through the political system, this may eventually go away. Now the problem is there appears to be no Sunni outlet for legitimate political expression right now because most of the parties are still dominated by Shi'ites and a lot of the government institutions are dominated by Shias -- they're using them to suppress Sunnis in the country. So as long as that continues, as long as there's no legitimate way for Sunnis to express their political outrage this stuff could continue.
Frank Sesno: Do you expect this stuff to continue?
Thomas E. Ricks: I do actually. The last line in the last book I've written on Iraq, The Gamble, is a quote from [former US] Ambassador [to Iraq] Ryan Crocker. He said to me twice in the course of 2008, "The events for which the Iraq War will be remembered have not yet occurred." There's a significant chance that the war will go on for another five to ten years. I think we're going to have American troops there for many, many years. They'll call them "trainers" and "advisors" but this war is far from over.
Frank Sesno: But Tom as they leave, as we have pulled out of the cities and as we withdraw to concentrated areas around the country, what vulnerability then does this latest string of events suggest for the innocent public in Iraq trying desparately to put their lives back together again because it suggest the vulnarability is extreme.
Thomas E. Ricks: Recently, the former mayor of Tal Afar, a city up in the northwest, wrote a very interesting essay in which he said all the conditions for civil war in Iraq are still there. This is why I think the civil war failed. It succeeded tactically, it improved security.
Frank Sesno: For the moment.
Thomas E. Ricks: Yes, but it's purpose was to lead to a political breakthrough and that didn't happen. That's not my saying what the purpose was, that's what the president said the purpose was.
Frarnk Sesno: Nancy, I see you nodding your head.
Nancy A. Youssef: Yeah, you know, what's interesting is that when you ask them at the Pentagon, "Look there have been two massive attacks in the last few months and what are you going to do?" And there's sort of a shrugging of the shoulders. The Status Of Forces Agreement calls for us to leave and the Pentagon's focused on Afghanistan now and yet if you go right below the surface you can feel from soldiers who have served, who wear braclets of fallen comrades, the frustration that potentially the United States is leaving as sloppily as it entered, that you've got 120,000 troops still based in Iraq and yet nothing is being done to-to-to stop this. The-the line --
Frarnk Sesno: Nothing is being done to stop this?
Nancy A. Youssef: No, because the line at the Pentagon is "We're asking for Maliki to ask us for help" or we're waiting for something like the Samarra mosque bombing. But if it gets to that level, it's already too late. I mean the Samarra mosque bombing didn't happen in a vacuum. That was a building of sectarian violence that manifested itself in a very violent way.
Peter Spiegel: One other issue, there are still 120,000 troops in Iraq which everyone seems to forget, which is about the levels they were pre-surge, which is still a very big level. But what is happening in sort of the granularity of that is a lot of assets that are needed to track down these bombing networks -- the UAVs, the unmanned drones, the intelligence assets -- all that is being sucked away to Afghanistan. And having spent time with General [Ray] Odierno, who is the commander there, a year ago, his-his real -- the thing he's most proud of is the ability to track down these networks through human intelligence through systems like unmanned drones and dismantle them. Well if you move all those assets to Afghanistan, are you still able to dismantle all those bombing networks that are still clearly sort of roving freely in Baghdad and be able to do these kind of things?
Frarnk Sesno: These bombs went off near three government buildings -- three important government buildings. How much of a set back does this present to the fledgling, struggling Iraqi government itself?
Nancy A. Youssef: I don't think we know yet. I mean, you saw the government try to respond by passing an election law which they've been debating for several months now as a way to sort of speak up. I think you're seeing Maliki -- it hurts Maliki the most, as Tom mentioned, because his political platform, his election platform is "I bring security to you." You saw rival political parties trying to exploit that.
Nancy A. Youssef was referring to a proposal put together by the Political Council for National Security and then passed on to Parliament. That was a proposal made (with much fanfare) yesterday. Like just about everything else on the governance front in Iraq, it fell apart. John Leland (New York Times) reports there was no consensus today and that they are at a stalemate, "another blockage in negotiations that have dragged on for weeks, threatening national elections scheduled for January 16th." 'Scheduled'? I believe the appropriate term is intended. Suadad al-Salhy (Reuters) adds that the issue of Kirkuk was the falling out point for the "proposal submitted by a high-ranking council that included Maliki and President Jalal Talabani." Repeating, no election law. Still.
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Monday, October 26, 2009
THIS JUST IN! NOTHING HE'D RATHER TALK ABOUT!
BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O'S SELF-LOVE IS MATCHED ONLY BY HIS SELF-TALK. BARRY WAS SUPPOSED TO BE CONNECTING WITH VOTERS AGAIN TODAY BUT HE WAS OFF BRAGGING ABOUT HIMSELF AND YAMMERING AWAY ABOUT HIS SKINNY BODY.
IF EVERYONE WAS AS INTERSTED IN BARRY O AS HE IS, HE'LL STILL WOULDN'T HAVE A SINGLE ACCOMPLISHMENT TO POINT TO.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Sunday Baghdad saw bombings resulting in a higher death total than Black Wednesday, Bloody Wednesday, Gory Wednesday August 19th. Eleanor Hall (Australia's ABC's The World Today -- link has text and audio) explained, "Twin suicide bombers targeted the Iraqi Ministry of Justice all but destroying the government department's headquarters, which are just outside the high-security 'green zone' in the centre of Baghdad." Shane McLeod added, "The sound of the second blast was captured by a mobile phone video camera being used to survey the aftermath of the first. Targeted was the headquarters of the Ministry of Justice, just a few hundred metres from the fortified green zone in Baghdad." Sahar Issa and Hannah Allam (McClatchy Newspapers) report that Iraqi government figures are stating that "a water tanker and a refrigerated food truck" were used in the attacks. This morning, Jack Kimball and Michael Christie (Reuters) report that the death toll has climbed and is currently at 155 with over five hundred left injured. Rod Nordland (New York Times) observes that "an uncertain number of children" are among the dead. CBS News and AP add that 24 "children who were killed were on a bus leaving a daycare center near the Justice Ministry when the attack occurred".
Ned Parker and Caesar Ahmed (Los Angeles Times) sketch out yesterday's assault, "Cars clogges the road as tehy approached the traffic circle in front of the Justice Ministry, with its statue of modern Iraq's first ruler, King Faisal, mounted on a horse. An old white pickup truck had broken down by the traffic circle and its driver approached a policeman and started yelling. [. . .] It was then that the first of two car bombs exploded on opposite ends of the block." Xinhua adds, "Xinhua correspondent at the scene said that he saw ponds of blood and parts of human bodies scattered close to the blast site near the Mansour Hotel where the wreckage of dozens of civilian cars could be seen near the site." Martin Chulov (Guardian) offers, "Witnesses described body parts sprawled across the area. Mohammed Falah, was caught in the blast: 'There was a woman's leg next to me. I picked it up and gave it to the ambulance'."
Sharif Abdel Kouddous (Democracy Now! -- link has text, video and audio) asked Rick Rowley for his take on the bombings today:
Well, first of all, the first thing to say is that, you know, there is no peace in Iraq, that these bombings, first of all, put the lie once again to the three myths that we've been pushed about the war in Iraq: first, the story that the war is over; second, that we won the war; and third, that the lessons of this victory can be applied to Afghanistan. The fact is that what passes for calm in Iraq today isn't peace at all; it's a fragile, fraying truce after a brutal sectarian civil war, and it's a truce without reconciliation that -- because it's put in place a system that is a continuing engine for violence, and tragedies like these are a legacy of the American occupation and will remain one for years to come. So, bombings like these today -- or on Sunday were attempts -- I mean, you know, they're being blamed on al-Qaeda in Iraq, and it seems likely that it was a group like al-Qaeda in Iraq that carried them out. And there are attempts by those extreme elements inside the Sunni insurgency to target the Shiite-led government, which they see as their sectarian enemy, but also to try to draw the Shiite militias back into an all-out civil war that could unite the Shiites again in their resistance. I mean, bombings like the ones on Sunday are remarkable for their massive scale, the carnage they cause, but there are multiple bombings in Iraq every single week.
[. . .]
And yeah, absolutely, I mean, the government in Baghdad is seen by al-Qaeda in Iraq and by the extremists inside the Sunni resistance as a proxy, as an Iranian proxy, dominated by the Supreme Council and by the Dawa Party, both parties that were -- well, I mean, the Supreme Council was formed in Iran, and Dawa, you know, spent most of its existence in Iran. And, you know, these parties were put by the US in mid-2004, were put in charge of the government, and their militias were turned into the core of the Iraqi security structure. So, as the civil war kicked off, the main protagonists in the civil war were militias inside the police force that were -- came from these parties and, you know, versus Sunni insurgents on the outside who were doing bombings and these kinds of soft-target attacks on civilians. So, you know, clearly, I mean, institutions and ministries that are controlled by ISCI, the Supreme Council, and by Dawa are definitely seen as sectarian enemies. I mean, the Ministry of Justice, as well, you know, it's -- the police and the court system have been seen in the -- I mean, not so much the court system. The police and the prison system in Iraq have been seen as one of the tools in the sectarian fight that the Shiite militias have used from the very beginning.
Gina Chon (Wall St. Journal) noted yesterday that the charge of "al Qaeda in Iraq" was instantly being made by some including Nouri al-Maliki, US-installed thug of the occupation. Mohammed al Dulaimy and Hannah Allam (McClatchy Newspapers -- link has text and video) add, "Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, released a statement blaming elements of Saddam Hussein's predominantly Sunni Baath Party and militants from al Qaida in Iraq for the attack. As of late Sunday, no group had claimed responsibility." Yes, Maliki couldn't wait to start (yet again) blaming former Ba'athists.
ELEANOR HALL: Given the number of people killed though in these two recent attacks and the outrage from the public that we are already hearing, I mean what is this attack and the August one likely to mean for the elections in January?
SAM PARKER: Well, clearly it undercuts Prime Minister Maliki's main narrative which is Iraq was chaos and he brought it back from the brink. It definitely hurts him and certainly if you look at what has followed the August bombings there has been a lot of that, a lot of finger pointing and a lot of people saying your claims are bogus. That Iraq is just as unsafe as it has always been and that generally is not true.I mean, yes you can point to these like high-profile mass casualty attacks and as tragic as they are, overall death counts in Iraq are still, even despite these attacks, are still much lower than they have been at any period except for right after the invasions. So for the entire war, we are still at the lowest points and so these large scale attacks largely had propaganda value to them.
Liz Sly and Usama Redha (Los Angeles Times) explain, "It is Maliki who stands to lose the most from a security breakdown, because he is campaigning on his record as the leader who helped restore a good measure of security after the sectarian warfare that raged after the U.S.-led invasion. Overall, violence is down 90% since the peak in 2006, U.S. commanders say." Anthony Shadid (Washington Post) adds, "The attacks came at a precarious moment in Iraqi politics. Parliament has yet to agree on legislation to organize the planned Jan. 16 vote, despite warnings by the United States and the United Nations that time will probably run out by next weekend. Critics have also complained that some of the key officials charged with security -- Maliki and Interior Minister Jawad Bolani -- are more engaged in the election than in running the country." Kurdish MP Mahmoud Othman tells Al Jazeera, "This sends two messages, one of them is to the investment conference in Washington held just a few days ago as if to tell investors not to come to Iraq . . . At the same time I think it may be a message to the meeting today of the political council of national security." Baghdad governor Salah Abdel Razaq tells Elizabeth Palmer (CBS News), "The bodies I have seen -- these innocent people, what have they done? To have this destiny, it is very terrible." Timothy Williams (New York Times) explains, "In large part, Mr. Maliki's popularity has rested on the belief that he has kept the country reasonably safe. But the bombings at four high-profile, well-protected government buildings within a two-month span led some Iraqis to say Sunday that they were reconsidering their support for Mr. Maliki." It should be noted that "Mr. Maliki's popularity" -- like Ashlee Simpson's talent -- is something that's been assumed but never verified. Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor) provides a voice for people on the streets such as vendor Abbas Fadhil who states, "This is all from the political parties -- they want to gain seats in the election." Um Ali tells Arraf, "There had to be someone with official backing behind this -- how could they get through the checkpoints? Why are our children, our sisters still being killed? For 20 years we've been fighting."
Gina Chon (Wall St. Journal) puts the bombings into the larger instability landscape that is Iraq: "The timing of the Sunday bombings coincided with plans by Iraq's top political body, the Political Council for National Security, comprising top political leaders and cabinet ministers, to consider ways to end a stalemate over a crucial election law needed to begin work ahead of the vote. The legislation has stalled over disagreements between factions over how the vote will be conducted in Kirkuk, an oil-rich region in the north torn by sectarian and ethnic tensions among the area's Kurds, Arabs and Turkomen."
Ranj Alaaldin (Guardian) offers his take on the bombings:
A broad analysis suggests complicity on the part of the Sunni-Arab world: keep Iraq unstable and you stop the country from becoming an effective Iranian client state when the US withdraws; or, at the very least, facilitate terrorist attacks in the country and you have some form of a counter-measure to Iran's unmatched influence. Alternatively, the attacks on Kurdish-run and Shia-run ministries may have sought to encourage incorporation of the Sunnis, specifically the Sons of Iraq fighters, into the Shia-led government, which has so far been slow in doing so. The objectives are not necessarily independent of each other.
A more straightforward analysis suggests prime minister Nouri al-Maliki as the prime target of all this: destabilise Iraq in the run-up to January's parliamentary elections and you hurt Maliki's chances of success, as he will be campaigning on the same security platform that won him this year's provincial elections. Indeed, things are not looking too rosy for the premier now that he has lost his security card. Iraqis will struggle to list his achievements in recent times and find the country no closer to better services and increased employment levels.
As far as observations go, James Denselow (Guardian) is on stronger ground than anyone when he observes:
It takes a certain death toll for Iraq to make it back on to the headlines. Despite the presence of some 120,000 US troops (and 100 or so British naval trainers who were recently let back into the country) Iraq appears to be old news. In many people's minds it is yesterday's conflict; the surge was a success and the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is a democratically mandated strongman who is bringing economic success to the country -- or so the narrative goes.
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
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"Bombings, Swine flu"
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"And the war drags on . . ."
"Those wacky, Iraqi elections"
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Highlights "The press says the darndest things"
"THIS JUST IN! THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE ADULTS!"
CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O'S SELF-LOVE IS MATCHED ONLY BY HIS SELF-TALK. BARRY WAS SUPPOSED TO BE CONNECTING WITH VOTERS AGAIN TODAY BUT HE WAS OFF BRAGGING ABOUT HIMSELF AND YAMMERING AWAY ABOUT HIS SKINNY BODY.
IF EVERYONE WAS AS INTERSTED IN BARRY O AS HE IS, HE'LL STILL WOULDN'T HAVE A SINGLE ACCOMPLISHMENT TO POINT TO.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Sunday Baghdad saw bombings resulting in a higher death total than Black Wednesday, Bloody Wednesday, Gory Wednesday August 19th. Eleanor Hall (Australia's ABC's The World Today -- link has text and audio) explained, "Twin suicide bombers targeted the Iraqi Ministry of Justice all but destroying the government department's headquarters, which are just outside the high-security 'green zone' in the centre of Baghdad." Shane McLeod added, "The sound of the second blast was captured by a mobile phone video camera being used to survey the aftermath of the first. Targeted was the headquarters of the Ministry of Justice, just a few hundred metres from the fortified green zone in Baghdad." Sahar Issa and Hannah Allam (McClatchy Newspapers) report that Iraqi government figures are stating that "a water tanker and a refrigerated food truck" were used in the attacks. This morning, Jack Kimball and Michael Christie (Reuters) report that the death toll has climbed and is currently at 155 with over five hundred left injured. Rod Nordland (New York Times) observes that "an uncertain number of children" are among the dead. CBS News and AP add that 24 "children who were killed were on a bus leaving a daycare center near the Justice Ministry when the attack occurred".
Ned Parker and Caesar Ahmed (Los Angeles Times) sketch out yesterday's assault, "Cars clogges the road as tehy approached the traffic circle in front of the Justice Ministry, with its statue of modern Iraq's first ruler, King Faisal, mounted on a horse. An old white pickup truck had broken down by the traffic circle and its driver approached a policeman and started yelling. [. . .] It was then that the first of two car bombs exploded on opposite ends of the block." Xinhua adds, "Xinhua correspondent at the scene said that he saw ponds of blood and parts of human bodies scattered close to the blast site near the Mansour Hotel where the wreckage of dozens of civilian cars could be seen near the site." Martin Chulov (Guardian) offers, "Witnesses described body parts sprawled across the area. Mohammed Falah, was caught in the blast: 'There was a woman's leg next to me. I picked it up and gave it to the ambulance'."
Sharif Abdel Kouddous (Democracy Now! -- link has text, video and audio) asked Rick Rowley for his take on the bombings today:
Well, first of all, the first thing to say is that, you know, there is no peace in Iraq, that these bombings, first of all, put the lie once again to the three myths that we've been pushed about the war in Iraq: first, the story that the war is over; second, that we won the war; and third, that the lessons of this victory can be applied to Afghanistan. The fact is that what passes for calm in Iraq today isn't peace at all; it's a fragile, fraying truce after a brutal sectarian civil war, and it's a truce without reconciliation that -- because it's put in place a system that is a continuing engine for violence, and tragedies like these are a legacy of the American occupation and will remain one for years to come. So, bombings like these today -- or on Sunday were attempts -- I mean, you know, they're being blamed on al-Qaeda in Iraq, and it seems likely that it was a group like al-Qaeda in Iraq that carried them out. And there are attempts by those extreme elements inside the Sunni insurgency to target the Shiite-led government, which they see as their sectarian enemy, but also to try to draw the Shiite militias back into an all-out civil war that could unite the Shiites again in their resistance. I mean, bombings like the ones on Sunday are remarkable for their massive scale, the carnage they cause, but there are multiple bombings in Iraq every single week.
[. . .]
And yeah, absolutely, I mean, the government in Baghdad is seen by al-Qaeda in Iraq and by the extremists inside the Sunni resistance as a proxy, as an Iranian proxy, dominated by the Supreme Council and by the Dawa Party, both parties that were -- well, I mean, the Supreme Council was formed in Iran, and Dawa, you know, spent most of its existence in Iran. And, you know, these parties were put by the US in mid-2004, were put in charge of the government, and their militias were turned into the core of the Iraqi security structure. So, as the civil war kicked off, the main protagonists in the civil war were militias inside the police force that were -- came from these parties and, you know, versus Sunni insurgents on the outside who were doing bombings and these kinds of soft-target attacks on civilians. So, you know, clearly, I mean, institutions and ministries that are controlled by ISCI, the Supreme Council, and by Dawa are definitely seen as sectarian enemies. I mean, the Ministry of Justice, as well, you know, it's -- the police and the court system have been seen in the -- I mean, not so much the court system. The police and the prison system in Iraq have been seen as one of the tools in the sectarian fight that the Shiite militias have used from the very beginning.
Gina Chon (Wall St. Journal) noted yesterday that the charge of "al Qaeda in Iraq" was instantly being made by some including Nouri al-Maliki, US-installed thug of the occupation. Mohammed al Dulaimy and Hannah Allam (McClatchy Newspapers -- link has text and video) add, "Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, released a statement blaming elements of Saddam Hussein's predominantly Sunni Baath Party and militants from al Qaida in Iraq for the attack. As of late Sunday, no group had claimed responsibility." Yes, Maliki couldn't wait to start (yet again) blaming former Ba'athists.
ELEANOR HALL: Given the number of people killed though in these two recent attacks and the outrage from the public that we are already hearing, I mean what is this attack and the August one likely to mean for the elections in January?
SAM PARKER: Well, clearly it undercuts Prime Minister Maliki's main narrative which is Iraq was chaos and he brought it back from the brink. It definitely hurts him and certainly if you look at what has followed the August bombings there has been a lot of that, a lot of finger pointing and a lot of people saying your claims are bogus. That Iraq is just as unsafe as it has always been and that generally is not true.I mean, yes you can point to these like high-profile mass casualty attacks and as tragic as they are, overall death counts in Iraq are still, even despite these attacks, are still much lower than they have been at any period except for right after the invasions. So for the entire war, we are still at the lowest points and so these large scale attacks largely had propaganda value to them.
Liz Sly and Usama Redha (Los Angeles Times) explain, "It is Maliki who stands to lose the most from a security breakdown, because he is campaigning on his record as the leader who helped restore a good measure of security after the sectarian warfare that raged after the U.S.-led invasion. Overall, violence is down 90% since the peak in 2006, U.S. commanders say." Anthony Shadid (Washington Post) adds, "The attacks came at a precarious moment in Iraqi politics. Parliament has yet to agree on legislation to organize the planned Jan. 16 vote, despite warnings by the United States and the United Nations that time will probably run out by next weekend. Critics have also complained that some of the key officials charged with security -- Maliki and Interior Minister Jawad Bolani -- are more engaged in the election than in running the country." Kurdish MP Mahmoud Othman tells Al Jazeera, "This sends two messages, one of them is to the investment conference in Washington held just a few days ago as if to tell investors not to come to Iraq . . . At the same time I think it may be a message to the meeting today of the political council of national security." Baghdad governor Salah Abdel Razaq tells Elizabeth Palmer (CBS News), "The bodies I have seen -- these innocent people, what have they done? To have this destiny, it is very terrible." Timothy Williams (New York Times) explains, "In large part, Mr. Maliki's popularity has rested on the belief that he has kept the country reasonably safe. But the bombings at four high-profile, well-protected government buildings within a two-month span led some Iraqis to say Sunday that they were reconsidering their support for Mr. Maliki." It should be noted that "Mr. Maliki's popularity" -- like Ashlee Simpson's talent -- is something that's been assumed but never verified. Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor) provides a voice for people on the streets such as vendor Abbas Fadhil who states, "This is all from the political parties -- they want to gain seats in the election." Um Ali tells Arraf, "There had to be someone with official backing behind this -- how could they get through the checkpoints? Why are our children, our sisters still being killed? For 20 years we've been fighting."
Gina Chon (Wall St. Journal) puts the bombings into the larger instability landscape that is Iraq: "The timing of the Sunday bombings coincided with plans by Iraq's top political body, the Political Council for National Security, comprising top political leaders and cabinet ministers, to consider ways to end a stalemate over a crucial election law needed to begin work ahead of the vote. The legislation has stalled over disagreements between factions over how the vote will be conducted in Kirkuk, an oil-rich region in the north torn by sectarian and ethnic tensions among the area's Kurds, Arabs and Turkomen."
Ranj Alaaldin (Guardian) offers his take on the bombings:
A broad analysis suggests complicity on the part of the Sunni-Arab world: keep Iraq unstable and you stop the country from becoming an effective Iranian client state when the US withdraws; or, at the very least, facilitate terrorist attacks in the country and you have some form of a counter-measure to Iran's unmatched influence. Alternatively, the attacks on Kurdish-run and Shia-run ministries may have sought to encourage incorporation of the Sunnis, specifically the Sons of Iraq fighters, into the Shia-led government, which has so far been slow in doing so. The objectives are not necessarily independent of each other.
A more straightforward analysis suggests prime minister Nouri al-Maliki as the prime target of all this: destabilise Iraq in the run-up to January's parliamentary elections and you hurt Maliki's chances of success, as he will be campaigning on the same security platform that won him this year's provincial elections. Indeed, things are not looking too rosy for the premier now that he has lost his security card. Iraqis will struggle to list his achievements in recent times and find the country no closer to better services and increased employment levels.
As far as observations go, James Denselow (Guardian) is on stronger ground than anyone when he observes:
It takes a certain death toll for Iraq to make it back on to the headlines. Despite the presence of some 120,000 US troops (and 100 or so British naval trainers who were recently let back into the country) Iraq appears to be old news. In many people's minds it is yesterday's conflict; the surge was a success and the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is a democratically mandated strongman who is bringing economic success to the country -- or so the narrative goes.
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
"Death toll rises to 155"
"Bombings, Swine flu"
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"And the war drags on . . ."
"Those wacky, Iraqi elections"
"The US Embassy in Baghdad"
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Editorial: When all the lies are exposed
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The Idiot Barack (Ava and C.I.)
The gas bag journals
Iraq
You can judge a book by its cover
Highlights "The press says the darndest things"
"THIS JUST IN! THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE ADULTS!"
Sunday, October 25, 2009
THIS JUST IN! THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE ADULTS!
BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
OBJECT TO CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O ON ANYTHING?
PROFESSIONAL IDIOT AND AMATEUR POLITICAL WHORE CHARITA GOSHAY -- NO, SHE DOESN'T ARRIVE WITH PICO DE GALLO -- WILL PISS HER GRANNY PANTIES INSISTING THERE'S SOMETHING 'UNNATURAL' WHEN THE ONLY THING UNNATURAL IS ANY PARENT STUPID ENOUGH TO NAME THEIR CHILD "CHARITA" OR STUPID ENOUGH TO ENCOURAGE A "CHARITA" TO THINK OF HERSELF AS A WRITER.
REACHED FOR COMMENT, CHARITA SAID, "SLURP, SLURP, BARRY'S ASS TASTES SO GOOD!" LICK IT UP, CHARITA, LICK IT UP.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
From Parliament issues to the US Congress, we're dropping back to yesterday. And we'll start with a question: Does the US Congress exist to help scoundrels rake in more ill gotten gain?
Thursday, we (Ava, Wally, Kat and myself) attended a hearing that was a complete waste of time unless you're a lobbyist/business person needing Congress to give you a stamp of approval. We attended the waste of time hearing because it was entitled "Afghanistan and Iraq: Perspectives on US Strategy." Due to votes, there was a lengthy break in there and, if we'd been smart, we would have bailed during the break because after one hour of that hearing, one hour when NO ONE mentioned Iraq, it was as obvious as it was embarrassing -- embarrassing for the US House Armed Services Committee's Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. Do they have trouble reading on the Hill?
For most of us in the United States, a hearing entitled "Afghanistan and Iraq: Perspectives on U.S. Strategy" would be about . . . Afghanistan and Iraq. So where the hell was Iraq?
They didn't have time for it. They had time to call war mongers "public servants."
What the hell is Barry McCaffrey doing testifying to Congress to begin with? Retired general? BR McCaffrey Associates, LLC is his company. And his company is in the business of prolonging wars so when he says the military has to stay and when he refers to the 'justifiable' "anger" Americans had towards Afghanistan -- and laments it being gone -- every damn word out of his mouth is suspect because he's working the street, under the street lamp, trolling for bucks.
Here's SourceWatch on the Old War Whore Barry:
In April 2008 documents obtained by New York Times reporter David Barstow revealed that McCaffrey had been recruited as one of over 75 retired military officers involved in the Pentagon military analyst program. Participants appeared on television and radio news shows as military analysts, and/or penned newspaper op/ed columns. The program was launched in early 2002 by then-Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke. The idea was to recruit "key influentials" to help sell a wary public on "a possible Iraq invasion."[1]
[. . .]
Shortly after the March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, McCaffrey exclaimed on MSNBC: "Thank God for the Abrams tank and... the Bradley fighting vehicle." The "war isn't over until we've got a tank sitting on top of Saddam's bunker," he added. The Nation noted, "in March [2003] alone, [Integrated Defense Technologies] received more than $14 million worth of contracts relating to Abrams and Bradley machinery parts and support hardware." [15]
The above says he's got nothing to say that isn't either suspect or paid for. He sells war and he profits from it. There is no reason the US Congress needs to waste their time or US tax payer dollars getting Barry's opinion on Afghanistan. He is not, no matter how many times some members of Congress got it wrong, "a public servant." He is a lobbyist and he lobbies for war. That's reality.
Reality is also that if you're hearing's entitled Iraq and if US forces are in Iraq -- more than are in Afghanistan -- it's pretty damn stupid and insulting not to even shoot the s**t about Iraq in passing during the hearing. Now Pakistan the subcommitee made time for in the hearing despite Pakistan not being in the hearing's title.
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert made an idiot of himself (no surprise there) in an online discussion with David Brooks (Brooks was no better but the world has grown accustomed to that). Here's Herbie:
Bob Herbert: David, the president is deciding what we should be doing with regard to troop deployments in Afghanistan. It seems to me that however one feels about this war and the war in Iraq, the environment here on the home front is bizarre. This is as weird a wartime atmosphere as I can imagine. For most Americans, there is nothing in the way of shared wartime sacrifices. There is no draft. We have not raised taxes to pay for the wars. Except for the families of those in the military, most Americans are paying very little attention to these conflicts. I've brought this matter up a few times on college campuses and the response has been, in essence, a collective shrug.
We addressed that in terms of the press last night (click here). But, hey, Bob Herbert, what does it say when the US Congress forgets the Iraq War? Riddle me that, Bob Herbert.
Here's a section of the hearing:
US House Rep Susan Davis: Help me with this issue because we are continuing to raise the issue of the role of women and whether or not we're abandoning them in any way if we move into negotiating or how we're able to have some kind of reconciliation in Afghanistan -- we want to focus on them. Where -- where does security lie because clearly the military has paved the way for many efforts in Afghanistan. I mean there's no doubt about that. And yet on the other hand, I understand that it's perhaps overly ambitious of us to believe that all of those efforts with the military and civilian capacity both are not necessarily in the best -- are picking up the best -- the best interests of the Afghan people -- or the region, assuming that Pakistan we're talking about as well. Do you want to -- Ms. Cole?
Beth Ellen Cole: I think that with governance -- like all of these issues -- we have to enlarge our view of security. I mean security is not just something that military forces can bring to the communities of Afghanistan. In the United States, we think of the security as school guards and bank guards and people who protect judges. And it's not just a question of military or police forces. Border guards, people that are dealing with looking at money laundering and bank operations and we -- in that sense, this -- the debate about troops is a very, very important debate but we have to think about the other assets that we have to bring to bear including -- with the Afghans -- including putting women as police officers in certain places or as school guards which we've shown we can do in Liberia. [. . .]
US House Rep Susan Davis: General Barno, do you have any thoughts?
Lt Gen Dave Barno (retired general): Two things. I think one, on the issue of security, you're absolutely correct that there -- it's not a sequential problem of security and reconstruction and development, these things are concurrent , these things have to parallel with one another. [. . .] The other question I think you alluded to was this idea of "What does it mean to women if we negotiate with the Taliban?" That's a paraphrase of what, perhaps, I think you were saying you were saying. And-and I do think we have to be aware that in my estimation, I think from a policy standpoint right now, having the Taliban be part of the government of Afghanistan is not where this is going, is not the objective. Having reformed Taliban, ex-Taliban, Taliban that have rejected violence, put down their weapons and join the political process, that's a very different outlook. The small "t" if you will, the individuals, not-not the movement. And I think that's where we have to be careful that we don't inadvertently send this message that we're willing to negotiate with the Taliban because we're really trying to exit -- as opposed to we're willing these Taliban, former Taliban fighters, lay down their arms and become part of this political process. Our goal when I was there was not to kill the Taliban -- collectively in the big strategic picture, it was to make the Taliban irrelevant, make no one want to become part of the Taliban, no one aspire to the Taliban and that takes a very nuanced approach of many different elements of simply security and military forces.
US House Rep Susan Davis: Mm-hm. Mr. Waldman, can I just real quickly get a response from you on that?
Matthew Waldman: Sure. I-I-I mean, in terms of security [. . .] But as has been said by Ms. Cole, the notion of security is much broader and-and of course, really security will political strategy which is indigenous In terms of women, you're absolutely right to raise this, I think it's a very serious issue. I think the-the-the -- when one travels the country and talks to Afghans, it's very clear that they want their girls to go to school -- if you look at the numbers now, over 2 million girls in school, yeah, you know, there's this universal desire to see that happen and for women to have the uh, in most areas, for women to be able to work and have rights, freedoms and rights that-that men have. It is alarming that the Shia law was passed recently, which you're probably aware of. And I certainly think that one has to ask about the commitment to the current administration to --
Us House Rep Susan Davis: Yes --
Matthew Waldman: -- women's rights.
US House Rep Susan Davis: -- which is doubtful.
Matthew Waldman: Yeah, yes. It certainly is. And uh we've yet to see real substance behind the-the-the work to try to-to empower women and to uh support their opportunities and rights. But you're also right that there is concern about women's rights after -- as negotiations move forward. Now of course reconciliation -- truth and reconciliation -- is essential in Afghanistan.
To review the participants above: Cole works for the US Institute of Peace (US government), Waldman works for the Carr Center AGAINST Human Rights (US government mouthpiece with a major in counter-insurgency studies and cheerleading) and Barno (Near East South Asia Center For Strategic Studies -- billed as "the preeminent U.S. Government institution for building relationships and understanding in the NESA region"). So the US government is more than well represented and we can all chuckle and pretend the stammering and stumbling Waldman represented the land of academia as well. So what did Barry represent? The War Machine. So that gets a seat at the table in front of Congress? That's really pathetic and really shameful and it's past time that Barry was pulled from Congressional panels because he's not an expert and he uses the fact that Congress calls on him as part of his business portfolio.
Now we didn't highlight the above exchange to say: The US must stay in Afghanistan for the women! That's b.s. The Afghanistan War's gone on long enough. Suddenly, the US gives a damn about women's rights? No, it's time to fly that false flag and see if you can get anyone to salute it.
No one should.
And you need to relate it back to Iraq where women did have a higher social standing, the highest in the region. And they've lost all that. It's much too late to worry about women's rights. Women were sold out by the US government and it was not by accident or happen-stance. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the US government made the decision (after making the decision for illegal war) to install thugs with US ties that they thought they could interact with (in stealing the natural resources of both countries) and that they thought could terrorize the local population (the non-exiles) into a state of fear where they would not fight back.
They went for thugs. They installed thugs. Thugs don't respect rights. They don't respect women's rights, they don't respect women. At the start of this month, Najaf banned alcohol -- and not out of any concern over alcoholism but to 'condemn' the 'sin' of drinking alcohol. They're reactionary zealots and thugs and they were installed because that's what they were.
We do not need to get caught up in the cry of "for the women!" -- of Iraq or Afghanistan. The US has destroyed the lives for women in both countries and the US is not the one who can fix it. They've had more than enough time to try. They don't give a damn. With Iraq, US President Barack Obama could have sent a powerful message by making the US Ambassador to Iraq a woman. He wasn't interested. He went with the inept Chris Hill. And, as Republicans in the Senate knew, Chris Hill would screw things up because that's what he does -- as his personnel file demonstrates -- and they knew they could turn around and use him in any campaign. "Chris Hill screwed up Iraq!" "We had the surge and everything was wonderful! Then Chris Hill was installed!"
The Obama administration refuses to learn from mistakes and refuses to anticipate them. The arrogance is what is bringing them down (and, yes, they are being brought down -- the hero worship is over). Republicans (the current incarnation) would not attack Ray Odierno. He's military. So if they wanted to attack on Iraq -- a very serious issue to many voters -- they were going to go civilian. Therefore, who Barack appointed as ambassador was a serious issue. He or she was going to be attacked regardless. A competent woman doing a wonderful job would still have been attacked by the Republicans. But that said (whomever was installed in the post would be attacked), it's no excuse to install an incompetent of either gender but that's what happened with Chris Hill.
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OBJECT TO CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O ON ANYTHING?
PROFESSIONAL IDIOT AND AMATEUR POLITICAL WHORE CHARITA GOSHAY -- NO, SHE DOESN'T ARRIVE WITH PICO DE GALLO -- WILL PISS HER GRANNY PANTIES INSISTING THERE'S SOMETHING 'UNNATURAL' WHEN THE ONLY THING UNNATURAL IS ANY PARENT STUPID ENOUGH TO NAME THEIR CHILD "CHARITA" OR STUPID ENOUGH TO ENCOURAGE A "CHARITA" TO THINK OF HERSELF AS A WRITER.
REACHED FOR COMMENT, CHARITA SAID, "SLURP, SLURP, BARRY'S ASS TASTES SO GOOD!" LICK IT UP, CHARITA, LICK IT UP.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
From Parliament issues to the US Congress, we're dropping back to yesterday. And we'll start with a question: Does the US Congress exist to help scoundrels rake in more ill gotten gain?
Thursday, we (Ava, Wally, Kat and myself) attended a hearing that was a complete waste of time unless you're a lobbyist/business person needing Congress to give you a stamp of approval. We attended the waste of time hearing because it was entitled "Afghanistan and Iraq: Perspectives on US Strategy." Due to votes, there was a lengthy break in there and, if we'd been smart, we would have bailed during the break because after one hour of that hearing, one hour when NO ONE mentioned Iraq, it was as obvious as it was embarrassing -- embarrassing for the US House Armed Services Committee's Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. Do they have trouble reading on the Hill?
For most of us in the United States, a hearing entitled "Afghanistan and Iraq: Perspectives on U.S. Strategy" would be about . . . Afghanistan and Iraq. So where the hell was Iraq?
They didn't have time for it. They had time to call war mongers "public servants."
What the hell is Barry McCaffrey doing testifying to Congress to begin with? Retired general? BR McCaffrey Associates, LLC is his company. And his company is in the business of prolonging wars so when he says the military has to stay and when he refers to the 'justifiable' "anger" Americans had towards Afghanistan -- and laments it being gone -- every damn word out of his mouth is suspect because he's working the street, under the street lamp, trolling for bucks.
Here's SourceWatch on the Old War Whore Barry:
In April 2008 documents obtained by New York Times reporter David Barstow revealed that McCaffrey had been recruited as one of over 75 retired military officers involved in the Pentagon military analyst program. Participants appeared on television and radio news shows as military analysts, and/or penned newspaper op/ed columns. The program was launched in early 2002 by then-Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke. The idea was to recruit "key influentials" to help sell a wary public on "a possible Iraq invasion."[1]
[. . .]
Shortly after the March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, McCaffrey exclaimed on MSNBC: "Thank God for the Abrams tank and... the Bradley fighting vehicle." The "war isn't over until we've got a tank sitting on top of Saddam's bunker," he added. The Nation noted, "in March [2003] alone, [Integrated Defense Technologies] received more than $14 million worth of contracts relating to Abrams and Bradley machinery parts and support hardware." [15]
The above says he's got nothing to say that isn't either suspect or paid for. He sells war and he profits from it. There is no reason the US Congress needs to waste their time or US tax payer dollars getting Barry's opinion on Afghanistan. He is not, no matter how many times some members of Congress got it wrong, "a public servant." He is a lobbyist and he lobbies for war. That's reality.
Reality is also that if you're hearing's entitled Iraq and if US forces are in Iraq -- more than are in Afghanistan -- it's pretty damn stupid and insulting not to even shoot the s**t about Iraq in passing during the hearing. Now Pakistan the subcommitee made time for in the hearing despite Pakistan not being in the hearing's title.
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert made an idiot of himself (no surprise there) in an online discussion with David Brooks (Brooks was no better but the world has grown accustomed to that). Here's Herbie:
Bob Herbert: David, the president is deciding what we should be doing with regard to troop deployments in Afghanistan. It seems to me that however one feels about this war and the war in Iraq, the environment here on the home front is bizarre. This is as weird a wartime atmosphere as I can imagine. For most Americans, there is nothing in the way of shared wartime sacrifices. There is no draft. We have not raised taxes to pay for the wars. Except for the families of those in the military, most Americans are paying very little attention to these conflicts. I've brought this matter up a few times on college campuses and the response has been, in essence, a collective shrug.
We addressed that in terms of the press last night (click here). But, hey, Bob Herbert, what does it say when the US Congress forgets the Iraq War? Riddle me that, Bob Herbert.
Here's a section of the hearing:
US House Rep Susan Davis: Help me with this issue because we are continuing to raise the issue of the role of women and whether or not we're abandoning them in any way if we move into negotiating or how we're able to have some kind of reconciliation in Afghanistan -- we want to focus on them. Where -- where does security lie because clearly the military has paved the way for many efforts in Afghanistan. I mean there's no doubt about that. And yet on the other hand, I understand that it's perhaps overly ambitious of us to believe that all of those efforts with the military and civilian capacity both are not necessarily in the best -- are picking up the best -- the best interests of the Afghan people -- or the region, assuming that Pakistan we're talking about as well. Do you want to -- Ms. Cole?
Beth Ellen Cole: I think that with governance -- like all of these issues -- we have to enlarge our view of security. I mean security is not just something that military forces can bring to the communities of Afghanistan. In the United States, we think of the security as school guards and bank guards and people who protect judges. And it's not just a question of military or police forces. Border guards, people that are dealing with looking at money laundering and bank operations and we -- in that sense, this -- the debate about troops is a very, very important debate but we have to think about the other assets that we have to bring to bear including -- with the Afghans -- including putting women as police officers in certain places or as school guards which we've shown we can do in Liberia. [. . .]
US House Rep Susan Davis: General Barno, do you have any thoughts?
Lt Gen Dave Barno (retired general): Two things. I think one, on the issue of security, you're absolutely correct that there -- it's not a sequential problem of security and reconstruction and development, these things are concurrent , these things have to parallel with one another. [. . .] The other question I think you alluded to was this idea of "What does it mean to women if we negotiate with the Taliban?" That's a paraphrase of what, perhaps, I think you were saying you were saying. And-and I do think we have to be aware that in my estimation, I think from a policy standpoint right now, having the Taliban be part of the government of Afghanistan is not where this is going, is not the objective. Having reformed Taliban, ex-Taliban, Taliban that have rejected violence, put down their weapons and join the political process, that's a very different outlook. The small "t" if you will, the individuals, not-not the movement. And I think that's where we have to be careful that we don't inadvertently send this message that we're willing to negotiate with the Taliban because we're really trying to exit -- as opposed to we're willing these Taliban, former Taliban fighters, lay down their arms and become part of this political process. Our goal when I was there was not to kill the Taliban -- collectively in the big strategic picture, it was to make the Taliban irrelevant, make no one want to become part of the Taliban, no one aspire to the Taliban and that takes a very nuanced approach of many different elements of simply security and military forces.
US House Rep Susan Davis: Mm-hm. Mr. Waldman, can I just real quickly get a response from you on that?
Matthew Waldman: Sure. I-I-I mean, in terms of security [. . .] But as has been said by Ms. Cole, the notion of security is much broader and-and of course, really security will political strategy which is indigenous In terms of women, you're absolutely right to raise this, I think it's a very serious issue. I think the-the-the -- when one travels the country and talks to Afghans, it's very clear that they want their girls to go to school -- if you look at the numbers now, over 2 million girls in school, yeah, you know, there's this universal desire to see that happen and for women to have the uh, in most areas, for women to be able to work and have rights, freedoms and rights that-that men have. It is alarming that the Shia law was passed recently, which you're probably aware of. And I certainly think that one has to ask about the commitment to the current administration to --
Us House Rep Susan Davis: Yes --
Matthew Waldman: -- women's rights.
US House Rep Susan Davis: -- which is doubtful.
Matthew Waldman: Yeah, yes. It certainly is. And uh we've yet to see real substance behind the-the-the work to try to-to empower women and to uh support their opportunities and rights. But you're also right that there is concern about women's rights after -- as negotiations move forward. Now of course reconciliation -- truth and reconciliation -- is essential in Afghanistan.
To review the participants above: Cole works for the US Institute of Peace (US government), Waldman works for the Carr Center AGAINST Human Rights (US government mouthpiece with a major in counter-insurgency studies and cheerleading) and Barno (Near East South Asia Center For Strategic Studies -- billed as "the preeminent U.S. Government institution for building relationships and understanding in the NESA region"). So the US government is more than well represented and we can all chuckle and pretend the stammering and stumbling Waldman represented the land of academia as well. So what did Barry represent? The War Machine. So that gets a seat at the table in front of Congress? That's really pathetic and really shameful and it's past time that Barry was pulled from Congressional panels because he's not an expert and he uses the fact that Congress calls on him as part of his business portfolio.
Now we didn't highlight the above exchange to say: The US must stay in Afghanistan for the women! That's b.s. The Afghanistan War's gone on long enough. Suddenly, the US gives a damn about women's rights? No, it's time to fly that false flag and see if you can get anyone to salute it.
No one should.
And you need to relate it back to Iraq where women did have a higher social standing, the highest in the region. And they've lost all that. It's much too late to worry about women's rights. Women were sold out by the US government and it was not by accident or happen-stance. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the US government made the decision (after making the decision for illegal war) to install thugs with US ties that they thought they could interact with (in stealing the natural resources of both countries) and that they thought could terrorize the local population (the non-exiles) into a state of fear where they would not fight back.
They went for thugs. They installed thugs. Thugs don't respect rights. They don't respect women's rights, they don't respect women. At the start of this month, Najaf banned alcohol -- and not out of any concern over alcoholism but to 'condemn' the 'sin' of drinking alcohol. They're reactionary zealots and thugs and they were installed because that's what they were.
We do not need to get caught up in the cry of "for the women!" -- of Iraq or Afghanistan. The US has destroyed the lives for women in both countries and the US is not the one who can fix it. They've had more than enough time to try. They don't give a damn. With Iraq, US President Barack Obama could have sent a powerful message by making the US Ambassador to Iraq a woman. He wasn't interested. He went with the inept Chris Hill. And, as Republicans in the Senate knew, Chris Hill would screw things up because that's what he does -- as his personnel file demonstrates -- and they knew they could turn around and use him in any campaign. "Chris Hill screwed up Iraq!" "We had the surge and everything was wonderful! Then Chris Hill was installed!"
The Obama administration refuses to learn from mistakes and refuses to anticipate them. The arrogance is what is bringing them down (and, yes, they are being brought down -- the hero worship is over). Republicans (the current incarnation) would not attack Ray Odierno. He's military. So if they wanted to attack on Iraq -- a very serious issue to many voters -- they were going to go civilian. Therefore, who Barack appointed as ambassador was a serious issue. He or she was going to be attacked regardless. A competent woman doing a wonderful job would still have been attacked by the Republicans. But that said (whomever was installed in the post would be attacked), it's no excuse to install an incompetent of either gender but that's what happened with Chris Hill.
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
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"I Hate The War"
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"TNAOC"
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"Friday, at last"
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"Harry Reid"
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"Applause and boos"
"THIS JUST IN! EVEN HE CAN'T BELIEVE IT!"
"Not even Britney fell so quickly"
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