Thursday, September 15, 2011

THIS JUST IN! SCHEER STILL AN IDIOT!

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

ROBERT SCHEER IS A TIRED OLD MAN WHO SHOULD HAVE RETIRED OR DIED LONG AGO -- EITHER WOULD HAVE BEEN HELPFUL.

INSTEAD THE MAN 'FAMOUS' FOR INTERVIEWING JIMMY CARTER FOR PLAYBOY -- YEAH, THAT'S ALL HE'S GOT ALL THESE YEARS LATER, A GOSSIP INTERVIEW IN A TRASHY SKIN RAG -- SPENT 2007 AND 2008 TRASHING RALPH NADER, TRASHING HILLARY CLINTON AND LYING THROUGH HIS TEETH ABOUT CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O.

NOW THE DIRTY OLD MAN WHO SHOULD BE IN A GRAVE OR RETIREMENT HOME WANTS YOU TO KNOW HE'S TRIED OF EXCUSING AMERICA'S PRINCESS BARRY O! AND TO PROVE IT, HE SPENDS AN ENTIRE COLUMN TRASHING . . .

BILL CLINTON.


YES, THE TIRED AND FLACCID AND NEVER GET IT UP AGAIN OLD MAN TRASHED BILL BECAUSE PRINCESS BARRY O DIDN'T CREATE JOBS AND SO HE'S JUST LIKE . . .

WAIT. BILL CLINTON CREATED JOBS! WAIT BILL CLINTON CREATED JOBS AT THE RATE WE CURRENTLY NEED TO GET OUT OF THE RECESSION. (CLICK HERE FOR THE DISCUSSION AT BLACK AGENDA REPORT, GO TO THE 9-12-2011 SHOW.)


FROM THE TCI WIRE:

In her latest column, Phyllis Bennis (Register Citizen) observes:

No U.S. troops were killed in Iraq last month. So why aren't we celebrating? Because the war isn't over yet and it costs way too much -- in Iraqi lives and our money.
With so much attention and so many billions of our tax dollars shifting from Iraq to the devastating and ever more expensive war in Afghanistan, it's too easy to forget that there are still almost 50,000 U.S. troops occupying Iraq. We're still paying almost $50 billion just this year for the Iraq War. And while we don't hear about it very often, too many Iraqis are still being killed.
No, we don't hear about it very often.
And now that's supposed to be our fault and not the media's.
Today on All Things Considered (NPR), Jackie Northam reports on a supposed lack of interest on the part of Americans in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars using Pew's Andew Kohut and insisting that only 25% forllowing the Afghanistan War and approximately the same number following the Iraq War is due to lack of interest.
Really?
I have absolutely no interest in any number of items -- for example, who Sarah Palin slept with or didn't sleep with in the 80s is of no conern to me -- but I can't escape this crap that passes for "news" at news sites and on news channels.
But I can very easily escape coverage of Iraq because it so seldom exists. Look at NPR and tell me where's the Iraq coverage?
And don't point to running Associated Press stories at the NPR website. That's embarrassing and shameful. NPR shouldn't have to resort to AP to cover Iraq. According to the 2011 fiscal year budget, Iraq should have been covered a lot more. Want to explain where the budgeted money went cause it sure as hell didn't go to covering Iraq. And the decision to repeatedly send Kelly McEvers to Syria for that non-story was a waste of money which damn well better be not be coming out of the Iraq budget. Does it take a Congressional hearing (maybe it does) to find out how National "Public" Radio spends the funds from listeners and the funds from tax payers?
If only 25% of the people in this country are following the wars that goes to the media, not to the people. They do not control what, for example, NPR chooses to air and what it chooses to ignore. The report is an embarrassment made all the more embarrassing by NPR's own refusal to cover Iraq. The NPR report attempts to ape a much better report that Michael Calderone filed for The Huffington Post on Friday. His actual report noted the lack of coverage of the wars and how they'd fallen off the radar. It featured quotes from news people like Dan Rather stating, "It's really unconscionable to have the nation fighting two major wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, and have the dearth of coverage we now have." Martha Raddatz (ABC News) explaining that she's been to Iraq 20 times during the war to report on it but not one of those visits took place in 2011. She states, "That tells you something." It certainly says a great deal about what the networks (broadcast, cable, radio) elect to cover. From Calderone's article:
Jane Arraf, who covers Iraq for Al Jazeera English and the Christian Science Monitor and previously did so for CNN and NBC News, says the number of jouranlsits stationed in Baghdad is clearly dwindling. Araf should know, considering that several journalists who've had their passports stamped in Iraq many times describe her as the longest-serving foreign correspondent in the country. "It's a bit depressing," she said. "A lot of major networks don't keep correspondents there."
Please understand that it takes a lot of nerve for NPR to ignore Iraq to begin with but to then turn around and broadcast a report blaming Americnas for not following coverage -- coverage that's not provided -- takes even more nerve.
Iraq is yet again slammed with violence, not that NPR filed a report on it today. They didn't have time and apparently the Iraq money in the FY 2011 was spent on something else. Annie Gowen (Washington Post) notes the biggest cause of deaths today has been a car bombing in Babel Province outside a restaurant. Among the dead are 3 children. Reuters notes the death toll is currently 15 with thirty-six injured. Habib al-Zubaidi (Reuters) quotes restraunt worker Tahsin Mahmoud stating, "I was in the kitchen when suddenly I heard a blast. I heard loud screams, and the sound of people running. I left the kitchen and went outside to see people covered in blood, lying on the ground. It took a long time for Iraqi security forces to reach the scene." Lara Jakes (AP) adds, "Associated Press video of the scene showed charred, crumpled cars outside the eatery that was pained orange and purple. Small groups of men stood ankle-deep in the wreckage." Haroon Siddique (Guardian) notes another bombing, at a Habaniya army base, has resulted in the deaths of 15 Iraqi soldiers with twenty more left injured. Reuters reports 2 Iraqi soldiers were killed in the Habaniya bombing (ten injured), 4 people were shot dead outside Iskandariya, a Baghdad car bombing left three people injured, a Mosul roadside bombing left one person injured and a man was injured in Kirkuk escaping from people who were trying to kidnap him. Yasir Ghazi (New York Times) adds that 3 corpses were discovered in Babil Province today, Shi'ites whose "hands were tired and they had multiple gunshot wounds". In an update, Ghazi notes that a Baghdad police checkpoint was attacked and 2 police officers were left dead while a third was injured. Ghazi notes Monday's assault on Shi'ite pilgrims. Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports of that Monday assault in which 22 Shi'ite pilgrims were killed:


The gunmen ordered the 15 women and children aboard the bus to get off, then drove away with the men, reports indicate.
The men's bodies, including that of the Syrian driver, were found 140 miles away, about 40 miles from the town of Nukhaib.
Each had been shot in the back of the head, said an Iraqi security officials who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the incident.


Dar Addustour notes the large reward being offered to find the culprits. And Nouri has sent the military in to find the killers. 22 deaths is very sad. But other non-Shia groups in Iraq can be forgiven for noting that attacks on their own communities never resulted in huge awards or Nouri's swift response. (And that topic popped up on Arab social media yesterday and continues to percolate.)
Dropping back to the September 8th snapshot:
Al Rafidayn reports on a doctor's funeral Monday in Kirkuk -- Dr. Yildirim Abbas Dmarja and his brother -- in a killing that is part of a wave of targeting doctors and other professionals in Iraq. This targeting also includes kidnappings. The Director General of Health in Kirkuk is leading a call for the government to provide protection for doctors. It is estimated that over a million and a half dollars (US equivalent) have been paid by families to kidnappers of doctors. Al Sabaah notes that Wednesday also saw a sit-in at a Kirkuk hospital as doctors and medical staff demanded protection from the ongoing violence. They also demanded that those responsible be brought to justice.
Today Al Mada reports on an Iraqi surgeon who, with his family, has fled to Malaysia who will not be returning to Iraq due to the continued violence and won't allow his named used in the article out of fear for his family's safety. Six years ago, he was dragged from his car in Baghdad, kidnapped and held for three weeks until a ransom fee was paid after which he was tossed on the side of a street. The article notes the "brain drain" that took place in waves in Iraq and how doctors are among the refugees who are the least likely to return to Iraq once they flee the country due to safety concerns.
Anna Fifield (Financial Times of London) reports that negotiations continue between the Iraq and US governments over US troops remaining in Iraq beyond 2011 and Fifield does what few does, notes Nouri was given the authority by the political blocs to conduct negotiations. She also speaks with Iraq's Ambassador to the US, Samir Sumaida'ie who states that "there is a political process in Iraq and things take time. Our political circumstances are constraining and can only move at a certain pace."
Last month Josh Rogin (Foreign Policy) interviewed the ambassador who declared, "The principle that there will be some military presence [in Iraq beyond 2011] to help train Iraqi military and police has been largely agreed upon. [. . .] You'll see it when you see it. Americans want everything now or yesterday. We don't do it like this. We do it in our own sweet time."
The big story in Iraqi newspapers today is on the US withdrawal or 'withdrawal.' Supposedly all US forces would leave Iraq at the end of December 2011. Al Rafidayn is one of the papers reporting that a meeting at the United Nations Mission in Baghdad a few days prior found the UN being informed by Iraqis and the US (James Jeffrey, US Ambassador to Iraq, is said to have represented the American side) that the US would pull soldiers due to leave Iraq because their tour of duty was up but that was it and it was a "formality" because, in fact, the US and Iraq had entered an agreement allowing US forces to remain in Iraq. This alleged agreement is a temporary one that would allow the US and Iraq more time to negotiate the details of a US presence beyond 2011. It would last six months. Dar Addustour also reports on this alleged temporary agreement that's been made.


RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
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