Wednesday, October 19, 2011

THIS JUST IN! AMERICA HELD HOSTAGE!

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

CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O WAS LEFT TO STUMBLE AND STAMMER "UH-UH-UH" FOR TWO HOURS STRAIGHT YESTERDAY FOLLOWING THE THEFT OF HIS TELEPROMPTERS.

"THE NATION IS HELD HOSTAGE!" DECLARED KEITH OLBERMANN IN A SPECIAL COMMENTARY DECRYING THE THEFT AS YET ANOTHER SIGN OF THE MORAL ROT AND DECAY . . . IN HIS OWN LIFE.

IN AN EFFORT TO RESTORE CALM AND ORDER, FORMER GOVERNOR SARAH PALIN WAS FLOWN IN FROM ALASKA TO BARRY O AND PALIN SPENT 30 MINUTES EXPLAINING HOW TO WRITE NOTES ON YOUR HAND. BUT AT THE END OF THE HALF HOUR, BARRY O WAS HEARD TO CRY, "IT'S NOT THE SAME! I WANT MY TELEPROMPTER!"

THEY WERE THE FIRST TWO COMPLETE SENTENCES HE'D MANAGED TO UTTER SINCE THE TELEPROMPTERS WERE STOLEN.



FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Today Kiran Stacey and Elizabeth Rigby (Financial Times of London) report that a United Kingdom delegation of over 70 business people -- including "BP, Petrofac and other oil and gas services companies" -- will visit Iraq next week, specifically Erbil, and work towards increasing trade between England and Iraq. So it was all worth it, right? The lies Tony Blair his Cabinet told to get England into the illegal war, the deaths of Iraqis, the deaths of 'coalition' forces, it was all worth it? Including yet another violation, just reported by Ian Drury (Daily Mail) today?
Drury reports that the UK sent 4 "child soldiers" -- under the age of 18 -- to the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan. Drury quotes the charity War Child stating, "Using kids as soldiers constitutes one of the most horrendous breaches of those rights and it is simply and unequivocally wrong." And the US got in bed with the UK -- and Bully Boy Bush and Liar Tony did heavens knows what but the world's still paying for the wars they started. In the US, five years after the start of the Iraq War, the Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2008 was passed. PDF format warning, click here. It calls on "the United States Government should condemn the conscription, forced recruitment, or use of children by governments, paramilitaries, or other organizations" but don't expect a peep when it's England. (And don't be surprised if similar news leaks out about the US military also sending under-age males into combat -- especially those attempting to earn citizenship.)
The greed sends a delegation to Iraq from the UK next week -- well to the 'safe' portion, to the KRG. But even there the ongoing war is felt. Luis Martinez (ABC News) quotes US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta stating of negotiations between the US and Iraq to extend the US military presence in Iraq beyond 2011, "At the present time, you know, I'm not discouraged because we're still in negotiations with the Iraqis. At this stage of the game, you know, I think our hope is that the negotiators can ultimately find a way to resolve this issue in terms of what are the Iraqi needs and how can we best meet them, once we've concluded our combat operations." Panetta was in Italy and Robert Burns (AP) adds that he stated that the US Ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey and the top US commander in Iraq Gen Lloyd Austin were still having "discussions with Iraqi leaders" and that Nouri publicly referred to a "NATO alternative." As noted here repeatedly during the first week of October, NATO is among the many possibilities that the White House has considered for keeping troops in Iraq. And should no deal be made by the end of the year? Barbara Starr, Chris Lawrence, Chelsea J. Carter and Adam Levine (CNN) add, "The United States also could send a limited number of personnel on training missions back into Iraq from Kuwait assuming the immunity issue can be worked out, a senior defense official told CNN on Monday." Josh Rogin (Foreign Policy) offers:

Discussions with the Iraqis have focused on the administration's demand that U.S. troops remaining in Iraq have immunity from Iraqi courts. In August, Iraqi Ambassador Samir Sumaida'ie told The Cable that a deal on immunity was in the works and that the Iraqis would formally request an extension of thousands of U.S. troops' presence "in our own sweet time."
But the current U.S.-Iraq bilateral agreements dictate that all U.S. troops must withdraw by the end of the year, and as time runs out, the chances of a deal on immunity are fading fast.
Ramzy Mardini, a scholar at the Institute for the Study of War who traveled to Iraq in July, said that the reason a deal isn't likely is because, though there is a consensus among Iraqi leaders to give U.S. troops immunity, State Department lawyers determined that the immunity would only be ensured if the Iraqi parliament formally endorsed it.

As noted before, State and Defense have been at odds over whether or not immunity had to come through the Parliament. Those under Panetta have been of the opinion that it's a DoD issue so they really didn't see the point in giving credence to State's take. As noted yesterday, the White House is now of the legal opinion that Nouri can grant immunity by himself.
I try not to come down too hard on Think Progress, it's nothing but a partisan cheerleader fully willing to distort facts and lie at any given moment. Ali Gharib demonstrates today just how quickly that will happen. Herman Cain, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, has criticized Barack Obama for, among other things, possibly pulling all troops out of Iraq and Ali Gharib wants the world to know that if that happens, it's Bush's fault!!!!
Before we get to Ali's foolish nonsense, let's get Herman Cain's remarks in here. Cain appeared Sunday on Meet The Press (NBC -- link is transcript and video):
David Gregory: Were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan a mistake?
Herman Cain: I don't think the war in Iraq was a mistake because there were a lot of other reasons we needed to go to Iraq, and there have been a lot of benefits that have come out of Iraq. Now, that being said, I don't agree with the president's approach to drawdown 40,000 troops and basically leave that -- leave that country open to attacks by Iran. Iran has already said that they want to wait till American leaves --
David Gregory: So President Cain would want -- even beyond the deadline -- leave American troops there?
Herman Cain: I would want to leave American troops there if that was what the commanders on the ground suggested. And I believe that that's what they are saying.
Now back to Ali Gharib's nonsense. I think the "Think" in "Think Progress" is meant to be hipster ironic. If all US troops were to leave Iraq, would Think Progress really hail Bully Boy Bush for the 2008 SOFA? Really? No, they'd praise Barack and give him all the credit. And, truth be told, if that should happen -- for whatever reason including incompetence -- Barack will deserve credit and will have kept a campaign promise.
But due to Ali Gharib's post, it's going to be really difficult now for Think Progress to take that position. While other Democratic sites congratulate Barack, Think Progress will have to be serving up praise for Bully Boy Bush.
Herman Cain is correct that Barack can continue to keep US service members in Iraq. Barack can do that right now by keeping 5,000 there without any immunity. He can give the order on that. He can keep US troops in by shifting them under the State Dept's umbrella (State has an agreement with the Iraqi government) or by using NATO's agreement. Or he can do it by playing hardball and telling Nouri, "You're getting immunity for the US troops."
Hardball? Iraq needs and wants US dollars. It needs them because their government is full of so many who have and continue to fleece the national treasury. It's very easy for the President of the United States to declare, "If you don't think US troops are worthy of immunity, we don't think, in the midst of an economic crisis, we need to invest billions in your country." Again, Think Progress is going to be a in a sticky position if the US does withdraw all troops because Ali Gharib has put them there via his bad spin. You better believe that if Barack does keep his campaign promise, there are going to be partisan sites on the right who insist that it was Bush's doing. How sad that Think Progress has joined them in that spin.
Ali Gharib clearly does not understand the legal aspects of the Status Of Forces Agreement. There's so much ignorance in that post, it is embarrassing. He could have taken on the Iraq War exchange in other ways. Let's go back to it.
David Gregory: Were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan a mistake?
Herman Cain: I don't think the war in Iraq was a mistake because there were a lot of other reasons we needed to go to Iraq, and there have been a lot of benefits that have come out of Iraq. Now, that being said, I don't agree with the president's approach to drawdown 40,000 troops and basically leave that -- leave that country open to attacks by Iran. Iran has already said that they want to wait till American leaves --
Ali could have raised questions around the claim that there were "other reasons we needed to go to Iraq" but he surely should have been able to argue against Cain's assertion that "there have been a lot of benefits that have come out of Iraq." The most obvious thing that has come out of Iraq -- ask Iraq's neighbors -- would be the external refugees. That was a "benefit"? The largest refugee crisis in the Middle East since 1946. Iran and Iraq are now much closer as a result of the Iraq War. That's a benefit? The infrastructure of the country -- shaky before the start of the illegal war -- is destroyed. That's a benfit? The increase in widows and orphans is a beneift? Aswat al-Iraq reports today, "The Iraqi Press Freedoms Observatory expressed astonishment with the attack on the residence of journalist Khalil al-Alwani without a court warrant, calling to resort to law and the constitution. According to a statement issued by the Observatory, received by Aswat al-Iraq, Alwani said that a military force attacked his house and terrorized his family, while he was in the newspaper he is working with." That's a benefit?
And did it make other countries safer? No.
Dropping back to the July 20, 2010 snapshot:
[Eliza] Manningham-Buller was the witness to watch. BBC News notes that she's testified the Iraq War has "substantially" upped the chance of England being a target for terrorism and that the threat assessment wasn't "substantial enough" to merit going to war: "If you are going to go to war, you need to have a pretty high threshold to decide on that." Gordon Rayner (Telegraph of London) quotes her stating, "Our involvement in Iraq radicalised, for want of of a better word, a whole generation of young people -- not a wholel generation, a few among a generation -- who saw our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as being an attack on Islam. . . . Arguably we gave Osama bin Laden his Iraqi jihad so that he was able to move into Iraq in a way that he was not before." Miranda Richardson (Sky News) emphasizes the same quote Rayner did and the link has video of Manningham-Buller testifying.
Eliza Manningham-Buller is the former head of British intelligence, MI5, and she's returned to this topic repeatedly. From the September 6th (this year) snapshot:
Eliza Manningham-Buller: War was declared on a rogue state, an easier target than an elusive terrorist group based mainly at that stage in the difficult terrain of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. And, in my view, whatever the merits of putting an end to Saddam Hussein, the war was also a distraction from the pursuit of al Qaeda. It increased the terror threat by convincing more people that Osama bin Laden's claim that Islam was under attack was correct. It provided an arena for the jihad for which he had called so that many of his supporters including British citizens traveled to Iraq to attack western forces. It also showed very clearly that foreign and domestic policies are intertwined, actions overseas have an impact at home and our involvement in Iraq spurred some young British Muslims to turn to terror.
In addition, October 15, 2007 US National Counterterrorism Center's Adm Scott Redd told Richard Engel (NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams -- link has text and video) that the Iraq War had been a recruiting tool for al Qaeda. Former CIA Middle East expert Bruce Riedel told Engel that the Iraq War has made things worse: "No question, it's made America less safe. By diverting so much money, so much of our intelligence effort and so much of our special forces in the military to fighting a war in Iraq, we have diverted resources from the central battlefield in the war against al Qaeda." Last year the Los Angeles Times editorial board concluded, "The United States was no safer after the war, because there had been no imminent threat before it. Arguably, Americans were more at risk. Al Qaeda exploited Iraqi resentment of U.S. troops, who were viewed as occupiers rather than liberators by much of the Muslim world. Abuses committed by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison fanned anger and anti-Americanism. Though Al Qaeda was not a force in Iraq before the war, it was after. And rather than stabilizing the region, the war shook a strategic balance. Hussein's Sunni regime had servced as a useful if unsavory counterwieght to the Shiite government of Iran."
ABC News Radio notes the US military has announced the death of a US service member in southern Iraq. The Defense Dept will announce the name of the fallen after his or her designated contact has been notified and, once that's done, the death will be counted in the Pentagon's official count.



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