BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O FOUND OUT JUST HOW QUICKLY FAME FADES ON HIS TRIP TO GERMANY.
CROWDS FAILED TO GATHER, THE SEAS FAILED TO PART. HE WAS JUST ANOTHER CROOKED POLITICIAN IN A COUNTRY THAT KNOWS WHAT ONE LOOKS LIKE AND THEY REFUSED TO EXTEND HIM A WELCOME.
REACHED FOR COMMENT TODAY, WHITE HOUSE PLUS-SIZE SPOKESMODEL JAY CARNEY DECLARED, "THAT WAS A BAD TRIP. AND I KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT BAD TRIPS. I ONCE ROAMED THE GROUNDS OF YALE IN A PAIR OF WET, BAGGY TIGHTY WHITIES WHILE HOPPED UP ON TWO TABLETS OF FLINTSTONES CHEWABLES AND A SWIGGING FROM A BOTTLE OF ROBITUSSIN. AND THAT WAS JUST LAST YEAR!"
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Proving that War Hawks need lots of (ego) feeding to survive, Andy Bowers of Slate (a War Hawk who got in the faux antiwar club as a result of the circle jerk) gushes today, "George Packer, a New Yorker staff writer known for his brilliant coverage of the Iraq War, turns his attention to problems here at home in his new book The Unwinding.
" No, no one who gave a damn about Iraq would ever note Packer's
"brilliant coverage of the Iraq War" because it just wasn't there.
George Packer is a War Hawk. Oh, he wrote a (bad) play. Who the hell
cares? He cheerleaded the Iraq War whined in a book that there wasn't
enough military on the ground because, hey, the war's not wrong, it was
just fought wrong, we can fight it better next time! That's what these
people sell over and over. There is no awareness, there is no
awakening, there is only attempts to defend war and insist any mistakes
must result not from the decision to start a war but from the way it was
fought. In his awful 2006 'book,' he wanted to argue that , even
though the Iraq War was a war of choice, "this didn't make the war
immoral by definition."
From the classic comedy sketch (about the quiz show scandal) . . .
Mike Nichols: It's a moral issue.
Elaine May: Yes!
Mike Nichols: A moral issue.
Elaine May: Yes! Yes! Yes! It is a moral issue.
Mike Nichols: A moral issue.
Elaine May: And to me that's always so much more interesting than a real issue
Always be skeptical of those who talk 'morality' but ignore the law.
The War Hawks love to conceal their true natures. Norman Solomon (Huffington Post) calls War Hawk Thomas Friedman out and when Friedman attempts to spin, Norman quotes Friedman.
National Iraqi News Agency reports 1 person was killed by a mortar attack on an Anbar Province polling station and another was left injured. and that, according
to the Nineveh Province Police Brigadier General Khaled al-Hamdani,
bombings are taking place in various areas of that province in order to
prevent voting.
Iraq has 18 provinces. 3 of the 18 are the KRG -- a semi-autonomous
region that will hold provincial elections in September. Being
semi-autonomous it votes on its own schedule (and did during the 2009
provincial elections as well). The exception being the parliamentary
elections when all Iraqi provinces that are voting vote at the same
time.
So the 3 KRG provinces didn't vote in the April 20th provincial elections.
In addition, Kirkuk (again) did not get to vote. This is because, long
story short, Kirkuk is disputed territory -- claimed by the central
government in Baghdad and by the KRG.
The United Nations was pressing the case for allowing Kirkuk to vote.
Even so, that was unlikely to happen. It's even more unlikely now that
the UN Secretary-General Special Representative to Iraq is an empty
seat. Next month, Martin Kobler is placed over the Congo. No one has
been named (still) as Kobler's replacement.
That adds up to four provinces. There are 18. So 14 should have voted, right?
Only 12 voted. Nouri decided to penalize the two provinces where he is
most unpopular -- Anbar and Nineveh -- by refusing to allow them to vote
in April. Kirk H. Sowell (Foreign Policy) rightly observed,
"Iraq's April 20 provincial elections were like two elections in one
country. They included all provinces outside the Kurdistan region
except Kirkuk, due to a long-standing dispute over election law, and the
predominately Sunni provinces of Anbar and Ninawa, where the cabinet
postponed elections under the pretext of security following a series of
candidate assassinations."
Today, they were finally allowed to vote. The US Embassy in Baghdad issued the following statement:
The United States congratulates Iraq for conducting successful
provincial elections in Anbar and Ninewa today, ensuring that the
citizens of these two provinces have the opportunity to exercise their
democratic rights at the ballot box. This was an important step toward
solidifying Iraq’s democratic future.
We also congratulate Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission
(IHEC), which managed and organized the elections in the face of a
challenging security environment. Iraqi police and military forces
should be commended for their work in securing polling sites and
protecting voters as they cast their ballots at over 1,000 polling
centers in Anbar and Ninewa.
This day did not pass without violence, however. We condemn the
attacks that occurred at polling stations in both provinces that wounded
a number of Iraqis.
Wang Yuanyuan (Xinhua) reports,
"The state-run television Iraqia showed Parliament
Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi entered a polling station to cast his vote in
his hometown city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province. Iraqi
security forces spread into the cities of the two provinces,
cordoned off polling centers and imposed a traffic ban on vehicles."
AFP notes
that the two provinces have nearly 3 million registered voters and that
there are at least 1185 politicians competing for 69 seats. Alsumaria reports
that there were over 1107 polling stations in the two provinces. In
the two provinces. You catch that right? Apparently there was no
concern over refugees who fled the provinces being able to vote. When
the 12 provinces were allowed to vote in April, there were polling
stations set up in Anbar and Nineveh -- but just for refugees from the
12 provinces who had moved in to Anbar and Nineveh to vote. The Independent High Electoral Commission announced
that there were "special polling centers" set up for displaced persons
from Nineveh and Anbar . . . if they were in the KRG. Only, if they
were in the KRG. Now if you were a member of the armed services and
resided in Anbar or Nineveh in your downtime but were deployed to other
provinces, IHED had 266 polling stations in 15 of the other provinces for you to vote.
But if you were a resident of Anbar or Nineveh who had been displaced
and went to any province other than the three in the KRG, you were out
of luck on voting.
As Iraqiya leader Ayad Allawi told BBC World Service's Sarah Montague interviewed
yesterday, only 30% of registered voters voted in the April 20th
elections. Safety concerns and disillusionment may be the reason for
the low turnout in April.
Today, AFP quotes Mosul college student Fahd Ismail stating, "I have come to the polling
centre not to vote, but just to destroy my ballot. I saw that students
who graduated before me got nothing from the government, and now we are
in the same situation." Last week, Mustafa Habib (Niqash) quoted
voters in the two provinces with reasons why people might not vote.
Candidate Imad Zakariya stated, "The hot weather at this time of year
will make people reluctant to vote. In spring, when it is cooler,
people are more inclined to get out and vote." It was 105 degrees (F)
in Ramadi this afternoon and 'dropped' to 100 degrees at nightfall.
Ramadi is a major city in Anbar Province. Mosul is a major city in
Nineveh Province. The high in Mosul today was 104 degrees (F). Anbar
Province resident Harith al-Ani told Niqash last week, "The changes in
the election dates and in voter registration centres has also caused
confusion."
The Journal of Turkish Weekly notes,
"A vehicle ban was imposed in major cities in the two provinces and
thousands of policemen have been deployed" and "The United Nations
reported 17 candidates were assassinated ahead of this year's election,
more than half of them in Anbar and Nineveh. Adam Schreck and Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) also note,
"A total of 17 candidates have been assassinated ahead of this year's
election, with the bulk of them from Ninevah, according to Jose Maria
Aranaz, the chief electoral adviser at the United Nations mission to
Iraq."
Despite all of that and much more, it appears the voting in Anbar and Nineveh was successful today. Alsumaria reports
that the Independent High Electoral Commission states 37.5% of
registered voters turned out in Nineveh and that 49.5% turned out in
Anbar. Alsumaria notes
that UNHCR assisted with the elections and were at polling places. At
five o'clock, when voting was scheduled to end, UNHCR checked to make
sure that all voters were out of the polling stations and then locked
the doors and, with IHEC, secured the ballot boxes. All Iraq News notes
that IHEC's Electoral Office head Muqdad al-Shiriefi declared in a
Baghdad press conference this evening, "There are no violations in the
PCs elections of the provinces." NINA reports
that the Mottahidoon Coalition issued a statement declaring the high
rate of turnout in the two provinces was an indication that the
protesters, who "have suffered various severe conditions in order to get
their demands and recover their usurped rights," believe in their
democratic rights.
The United Nations notes:
20 June 2013 – The United Nations envoy in Iraq today congratulated
the men and women of the Anbar and Ninewa governorates on casting their
votes on local elections that were delayed two months ago over mounting
concerns about security.
“The people of Anbar and Ninewa overcame threats to cast their vote
today, and violence failed to disrupt the democratic process,” said the
Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq, Martin Kobler.
Most Iraqi governorates held their local elections two months ago.
However, voting was delayed by officials in Anbar and Ninewa because of
security concerns.
The past couple of months have been some of the deadliest on record for
Iraq, with a series of bombings killing hundreds and injuring many more
across the country. Candidates have been regularly targeted, and on
Wednesday a suicide bomber reportedly blew himself up as he embraced a
political leader in northern Iraq, killing the candidate and four of his
relatives.
In addition, a roadside bomb targeted a bus carrying five officials from
the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) in the town of Baiji
in Ninewa today, killing one of them.
“Despite the best efforts of the security forces, it is very sad that
lives were also lost in this process,” Mr. Kobler said. “Several
candidates were targeted in the lead-up to today’s vote, while an IHEC
staff member was tragically killed in an attack on a bus today and
several IHEC colleagues were wounded.”
Delegations from the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI)
visited a number of polling centres, and Mr. Kobler commended the
professionalism and commitment of the IHEC in carrying out the
elections. He also welcomed the efforts of Iraqi Security Forces under
the command of the High Electoral Security Committee in assuring safe
conditions for voting.
Mr. Kobler extended his deepest condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to the wounded.
The violence didn't end when the voting was completed. Reuters reports, "A[Ramadi] suicide bomber killed seven people at an Iraqi vote counting centre on
Thursday evening, police said, hours after polls closed in two Sunni
Muslim-dominated provinces." 4 of the 7 "were members of Iraq's electoral commission." Alsumaria notes
the death toll rose to 9 and that twelve people were also injured.
They also explain the bombing occurred directly outside the polling
station. In addition, Alsumaria reports a Kirkuk bombing targeting a military convoy left 1 military officer dead and another injured. Through yesterday, Iraq Body Count counts 333 violent deaths in Iraq so far this month.
On the topic of the ongoing violence, Rudaw reports:
An upsurge of violence and deadly car bombs in Iraq in the past few
months appear to have served as a wake up call to some Iraqi leaders,
among them former Vice President Adil Abd Al-Mahdi.
“Terrorism is clear in its message, but we are not clear in our plans
and reactions,” Abd Al-Mahdi wrote last week on his personal Facebook
page.
Abd Al-Mahdi is from the Supreme Islamic Council (SIC) and is considered one of Iraq’s most influential Shiite leaders.
His party controls many important security and army posts. But Abd
Al-Mahdi believes that the government does not quite know how to deal
with the problem of terrorist attacks.
“We either react to it on a sectarian basis or only give it more
popular support and space, which it doesn’t deserve,” he wrote, “Or we
deal with it haphazardly and kill the innocent instead of the culprit.”
Abd Al-Mahdi served from 2006 to 2010 as vice president -- alongside
Tareq al-Hashemi -- and was named for a second term in November 2010.
He left the post in the summer of 2011 after Nouri had asked the Iraqi
people to give him 100 days to clear up corruption and after Nouri had
let the 100 days expire without ever addressing the corruption.
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