CELEBRITY IN CHIEF AND PRINCESS BARRY O, JUST BACK FROM HIS EUROPEAN SHOPPING TRIP WHERE HE PURCHASED SILK PANTIES IN EVERY COLOR, HAS ANNOUNCED THAT THE U.S. DEBT LIMIT MUST BE RAISED.
IF IT'S NOT RAISED, HOW WILL BARRY O BE ABLE TO CONTINUE TO AFFORD HIS 73% INCREASE IN THE USE OF A LIMO?
IN HIS BEST MARIE ANTOINETTE MEASURE, BARRY O ASKED, "GOOD GOD WHAT WOULD THEY HAVE ME DO? MAKE LIKE CATHARINE THE GREAT AND RIDE A REALLY BIG STALLION? ACTUALLY THAT MIGHT BE FUN? GET ME ARNE DUNCAN! TO THE LINCOLN BEDROOM IMMEDIATELY!"
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Monday was Memorial Day for the United States -- a time to note the sacrifices of the fallen. From Kelley B. Vlahos' "Memorial Day in Wartime" (Antiwar.com):
Another Memorial Day. Of course it's been around for 103 years, but this is our ninth during wartime, which means we're simultaneously honoring dead soldiers, while were putting new ones in the ground at Arlington Cemetery.
As of Friday, 4,454 American servicemen and women have been killed in Iraq; 1,595 in Afghanistan. That doesn't seem like a lot when you consider the more than 58,000 dead in Vietnam and over 415,000 killed in World War II, but we know that today's singular medical capabilities have allowed for tens of thousands of soldiers and Marines to live today who wouldn't have made it off the battlefield 40 years ago. Let's just say it's been a war of a hundred thousand casualties.
Kimberly Hefling (AP) reminds that there are over "4,3000 children of U.S. troops killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars". Yesterday on PRI's The Takeaway, Celeste Headlee spoke with Iraq War widows LaNita Herlem (her husband, Sgt 1st Class Bryant Herlem, was killed in Baghdad April 28, 2006) and Tayrn Davis (her husband Cpl Michael Davis was killed in Baghdad May 21, 2007). Davis has started the American Widow Project.
Taryn Davis: I guess it all started when my husband Michael was killed in Baghdad, Iraq. I was 21-years-old and basically felt ostracized from society -- even though I had family and friends around -- due to my age and it being written off because I was 21. And I found myself on the internet looking for a way to embrace this title that I held as a military widow because I already knew it signified my husband's sacrifice and my own but I wanted to find the answers on how it could one day symbolize my survival. So I typed in "widow" and it came back with "Did you mean 'window'?" Which probably discouraged most. But it led me to doing more and more research and over half of those serving now are married so we're looking at around 3,000 military widows from Iraq and Afghanistan alone and over 83% of those are under the age of 35. So I just saw this need to bring together this new generation of military widows. Not so much find them counselors, but give them peer-to-peer support, let them see other twenty and thirty and forty-something-year-old widows that really had just started out this amazing lives with their spouses and had them torn apart.
Last week, Danielle Berger (CNN -- link has text and video) reported on the American Widow Project and explained, "When a widow first makes contact with the American Widow Project, Davis sends her an introductory packet that includes her documentary film. The website provides a 24/7 hot line that allows immediate connection to another widow, information on support and services, and personal stories from women who have lost their husbands. It constantly reminds the women that they are in familiar, accepting company." And where was the president of the United States? Niles Gardiner (Telegraph of London) reports:
Taryn Davis: I guess it all started when my husband Michael was killed in Baghdad, Iraq. I was 21-years-old and basically felt ostracized from society -- even though I had family and friends around -- due to my age and it being written off because I was 21. And I found myself on the internet looking for a way to embrace this title that I held as a military widow because I already knew it signified my husband's sacrifice and my own but I wanted to find the answers on how it could one day symbolize my survival. So I typed in "widow" and it came back with "Did you mean 'window'?" Which probably discouraged most. But it led me to doing more and more research and over half of those serving now are married so we're looking at around 3,000 military widows from Iraq and Afghanistan alone and over 83% of those are under the age of 35. So I just saw this need to bring together this new generation of military widows. Not so much find them counselors, but give them peer-to-peer support, let them see other twenty and thirty and forty-something-year-old widows that really had just started out this amazing lives with their spouses and had them torn apart.
Last week, Danielle Berger (CNN -- link has text and video) reported on the American Widow Project and explained, "When a widow first makes contact with the American Widow Project, Davis sends her an introductory packet that includes her documentary film. The website provides a 24/7 hot line that allows immediate connection to another widow, information on support and services, and personal stories from women who have lost their husbands. It constantly reminds the women that they are in familiar, accepting company." And where was the president of the United States? Niles Gardiner (Telegraph of London) reports:
Can you imagine David Cameron enjoying a round of golf on Remembrance Sunday? It would be inconceivable for the British Prime Minister to do so, and not just because of the usually dire weather at that time of the year. Above all, it would be viewed as an act of extremely bad taste on a day when the nation remembers and mourns her war dead. I can't imagine the PM even considering it, and I'm sure his advisers would be horrified at the idea. And if the prime minister ever did play golf on such a sacrosanct day he would be given a massive drubbing by the British press, and it would never be repeated.
Contrast this with President Obama's decision to play golf yesterday, Memorial Day, for the 70th time during his 28-month long presidency. For tens of millions of Americans, Memorial Day is a time for remembrance of the huge sacrifices made by servicemen and women on the battlefield. The president did pay his respects in the morning, laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, but later in the day traveled to Fort Belvoir to play golf. The story has not been reported so far in a single US newspaper, but was made public by veteran White House correspondent Keith Koffler on his blog.
So, with US troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, Barack basically tossed a wreath and then ran to the links, making clear his priorities.
Today Ayas Hossam Acommok (Al Mada) quotes State of Law's Izzat Shabandar stating that it is too soon to determine a position on whether or not to extend the presence of US military on Iraqi soil beyond 2011. Dar Addustour reports that US Ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey has stated in a media conference that the issue of withdrawal or remaining remains up in the air. Sunday on Weekend Edition, Liane Hansen wrapped up her strong tenure as host of the program (she will be strongly missed and hopefully will return as guest host from time to time -- she offers her goodbye to Sunday Weekend Edition here) and she examined Iraq with the US weapons inspector sent to Iraq (after the start of the war) to find WMD, David Kay. "We've taken our eye off Iraq," Kay observed and noted of telling the truth about WMD (he was sent to Iraq post-US invasion to locate WMD and there were none) that "you lose some friends by what position you take on various issues. I discovered -- although it really wasn't a new discovery -- that candor is one of the values not valued in Washington. Oh, what I miss most are the friendships that were shattered by that, just had staked too much of their career on there being weapons of mass destruction. And not only didn't we find them, we found that they didn't exist prior to the war." For any who have forgotten the lie of WMD is one of the biggest lies the US government told to start the Iraq War. The Sunday broadcast also featured a report by Kelly McEvers on Nouri's recent declaration that, if the majority of the political blocs agree, US troops can stay on the ground in Iraq beyond December 31, 2011.
Kelly McEvers: Before the speech, few thought Maliki would be bold enough to take such a position in public, mainly because many Iraqis still view an American troop presence as an occupation. Now, though, Maliki's advisers, along with officials in the U.S. military, are working on changing the narrative. They're not combat troops anymore, they say. The soldiers who'd be here next year wouldn't even be advisers. [. . .] Analysts in Iraq say a new agreement between the U.S. and Iraq to authorize some 20,000 American troops beyond December is likely; there are just under 50,000 troops now. But like other political debates in this deeply divided country, analysts say, it's going to be a long and drawn-out fight.
Sunday, on Weekend Edition, NPR became the first US mainstream news outlet to tell the truth about what the US government is working on. For weeks now, relying on the Arab press, we've noted the pressure that is taking place to extend the SOFA or develop a new arrangment. Day after day, the US press has ignored it. And, in the beggar media (the so-called alternative press), they've flat-out lied and told you nothing or told you it's all Robert Gates. Robert Gates is stepping down as the US Secretary of Defense. When that happens, who are these cowards going to hide behind to avoid placing the blame where it rightly goes?
Monday the New York Times' Tim Arango appeared on Talk of the Nation (NPR) and discussed Iraq -- specifically the variables if US forces stay on the ground in Iraq beyond 2011 -- thereby allowing NPR to be out front on the story. Arango observed of Moqtada al-Sadr's threats of violence if the US stays beyond the end of this year, "At the same time, you know, a lot of people, you know, a lot of people believe it's a bluff, and a lot of people say that he would have no chance with the, you know, fighting the Iraqi security forces today. The last time he did so was in 2008, and they've - you know, they're much improved." And, in 2008, he lost in Baghdad and he lost in Basra.
Arango then acknowledges what a minor presensce al-Sadr's bloc is in Parliament ("roughly 40" seats out of 325) but goes on to talk about how Moqtada backed Nouri for prime minister. While that is true, Nouri became prime minister. Unless there's a vote of no-confidence, it doesn't matter if Moqtada supports him or not. (In 2007 and 2008, Moqtada openly refused to support Nouri. Didn't force his government to collapse.) If Moqtada wants to push a no-confidence vote, it needs to be remembered that Moqtada would only be 40 votes and you need to be figuring who would align with Moqtada?
Let's play this out. Say the majority of the blocs vote to extend the SOFA and keep the US military beyond 2011 and Moqtada is against that. Is that issue going to be the one Moqtada rides to a no-confidence vote? Not at all. He can't. If the bulk of the blocs votes that way why would they then turn against Nouri over it? It makes no sense.
Moqtada vowed he would not support Nouri. He also vowed that he would hold a referendum and abide by the vote. Nouri was not the number one choice in the referendum or the number two choice. But Moqtada ran with Nouri when Iran broke down the facts and handed out the orders to Moqtada. What he did in October and November is now meaningless. He can't say, "I take back my October support!" We'll note this exchange.
CONAN: Secretary Gates, who of course retires next month, but he has said if we're going to stay beyond the end of this year, we're going to have to have a request from the Iraqi government for that pretty soon. Any idea of what's the drop-dead date?
Mr. ARANGO: You know, it's funny, when you talk to the military commanders, they'll say, and they'll remark, and it's been a trend throughout the war. Like, the Iraqis march to a different time than the Americans do, and there really is no drop-dead deadline. And I guess the drop-dead deadline is December 31st because I think - which is a bit of an exaggeration, but I think as they're planning the drawdown, they will always have these contingencies, the American military to leave X amount of troops should the Iraqis finally, you know, make this request.
What will happen if there's no extension by December 31st is that any US troops in Iraq will switch to State Dept's oversight and that a significant number will be deployed to Kuwait where they would wait in limbo if the White House believed that an extension of the SOFA was going to take place (though it hadn't by December 31st). That is the actual plan at this point.
(Not my plan. I'm for all troops out now. That's the White House's plan but they don't believe it's going to take that long. They believe they'll have an extension. And, of course, the back up plan has been -- as addressed in open hearings in Congress repeatedly -- to move the troops from the umbrella of DoD to the State Dept.)
Arango then acknowledges what a minor presensce al-Sadr's bloc is in Parliament ("roughly 40" seats out of 325) but goes on to talk about how Moqtada backed Nouri for prime minister. While that is true, Nouri became prime minister. Unless there's a vote of no-confidence, it doesn't matter if Moqtada supports him or not. (In 2007 and 2008, Moqtada openly refused to support Nouri. Didn't force his government to collapse.) If Moqtada wants to push a no-confidence vote, it needs to be remembered that Moqtada would only be 40 votes and you need to be figuring who would align with Moqtada?
Let's play this out. Say the majority of the blocs vote to extend the SOFA and keep the US military beyond 2011 and Moqtada is against that. Is that issue going to be the one Moqtada rides to a no-confidence vote? Not at all. He can't. If the bulk of the blocs votes that way why would they then turn against Nouri over it? It makes no sense.
Moqtada vowed he would not support Nouri. He also vowed that he would hold a referendum and abide by the vote. Nouri was not the number one choice in the referendum or the number two choice. But Moqtada ran with Nouri when Iran broke down the facts and handed out the orders to Moqtada. What he did in October and November is now meaningless. He can't say, "I take back my October support!" We'll note this exchange.
CONAN: Secretary Gates, who of course retires next month, but he has said if we're going to stay beyond the end of this year, we're going to have to have a request from the Iraqi government for that pretty soon. Any idea of what's the drop-dead date?
Mr. ARANGO: You know, it's funny, when you talk to the military commanders, they'll say, and they'll remark, and it's been a trend throughout the war. Like, the Iraqis march to a different time than the Americans do, and there really is no drop-dead deadline. And I guess the drop-dead deadline is December 31st because I think - which is a bit of an exaggeration, but I think as they're planning the drawdown, they will always have these contingencies, the American military to leave X amount of troops should the Iraqis finally, you know, make this request.
What will happen if there's no extension by December 31st is that any US troops in Iraq will switch to State Dept's oversight and that a significant number will be deployed to Kuwait where they would wait in limbo if the White House believed that an extension of the SOFA was going to take place (though it hadn't by December 31st). That is the actual plan at this point.
(Not my plan. I'm for all troops out now. That's the White House's plan but they don't believe it's going to take that long. They believe they'll have an extension. And, of course, the back up plan has been -- as addressed in open hearings in Congress repeatedly -- to move the troops from the umbrella of DoD to the State Dept.)
As continuing the US military presence is discussed, the US military recently ticked off a community. In Karbala, the US carried out a military operation involving a helicopter as they attempted to raid a home for a man . . . who died four days prior to the raid. And the response in Karbala? Aswat al-Iraq reports:
The deputy chairman of Karbala's Provincial Council disclosed that a letter of denunciation shall be handed to the U.S. Embassy due to the U.S. Army's airborne landing north of Karbala, calling on the central government to exert pressures on the U.S. army to cease its violations.
Nisayif Al-Khatabi told Aswat al-Iraq that "the U.S. forces carried out an airborne landing on house to arrest a citizen without any coordination with the local government or security forces."
The deputy chairman of Karbala's Provincial Council disclosed that a letter of denunciation shall be handed to the U.S. Embassy due to the U.S. Army's airborne landing north of Karbala, calling on the central government to exert pressures on the U.S. army to cease its violations.
Nisayif Al-Khatabi told Aswat al-Iraq that "the U.S. forces carried out an airborne landing on house to arrest a citizen without any coordination with the local government or security forces."
