Saturday, March 30, 2013

THIS JUST IN! WHAT ECONOMIC PROBLEMS!


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


 KILLER BARRY O IS TOO TIRED TO TRY TO FIX THE ECONOMY OR EVEN DEAL WITH IT.

NOT TOO TIRED FROM HIS DRONE WAR, YOU UNDERSTAND, BUT TOO TIRED FROM  HIS DAY OF GOLF AND GOING TO A BASKETBALL GAME.


REACHED FOR COMMENT, KILLER BARRY DECLARED BEING PRESIDENT MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY FOR BEING LAZY.

 FROM THE TCI WIRE:



Kitabat notes that protests took place in six provinces today -- with Saleh al-Mutlaq being called out throughout which well get to.  Kitabat notes that Falluja protesters say they are in it for the long haul, until the suffering Iraqi people ends.  National Iraqi News Agency reports:


The protester's spokesman in Anbar, Sheikh Saeed Allafi highly praised the stand taken by Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Sadrists movement towards demonstrators and protesters in a number of governorates of Iraq, denouncing in the same time what he called the opportunistic pragmatic attitudes by deputy PM, Saleh al-Mutlaq.
Lafi added in a statement to NINA: "Muqtada al-Sadr, chose to stand with the masses when he deduced that the government arbitrary robs the rights of the masses.
He said: "The protesters of Anbar condemn the shameful attitude of Mutlaq, who stripped from the Iraqiya Slate and went to support Maliki government at the expense of the oppressed people.


Al-Shorfa notes:

 Protesters in Baghdad, Diyala, Salaheddine, Anbar, Kirkuk and Ninawa asked the Iraqi government to meet 13 demands they said were legitimate and constitutional.
"We hope this Friday will be the start of the end for the peaceful popular movement, by way of the government's response to our demands," said Sheikh Qusay Eddine al-Zein, spokesman for Anbar demonstrators.
"The demonstrators will not leave until the last demand has been met," he told Al-Shorfa. "Not as a favour from the government but as an enshrined right that must be restored to us under the new democratic system in Iraq."
"The government began discussing the demands and announced it would meet four of them," said Sheikh Abdullah al-Samarrae, Friday preacher in Samarra, Salaheddine province. "That is a good sign, but all demands must be met."



Al Jazeera and the Christian Science Monitor's Jane Arraf Tweets:


  1. 9h

    's beautiful, brief protest art. 'I can see you' young artist tells politicians. His mural taken down tonight
    View photo




Iraqi Spring MC has video of the Baghdad protests and other cities for protests include Samarra, Baiji, Kirkuk, Falluja, Muqdadiyah, and Tamiyah.  The last one is where Nouri sent his forces in to do searches and arrests.  In addition, Nouri's forces instituted a crackdown preventing anyone from entering or leaving Tamiyah.  Raids also took place in Baiji. At Baghdad's Abu Hanifa, Nouri's forces surrounded the mosque and prevented worshipers from entering and at least one person was beat up by Nouri's forces.  Dar Addustour reports on the Ramadi and Falluja protests noting that the protesters feel betrayed by certain politicians such as Saleh al-Mutlaq and that they have declared that only protesters from a province can speak for the protesters of that province.  In Falluja, Sheikh Hussein Obeid said that the government's refusal to meet the protesters demands are provoking a crisis.

One topic of the protests was Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq.  Also getting attention was Mohammed Tamimi (Minster of Education) and Ahmed Karbouli (Minister of Industry) who joined al-Mutlaq at the Wednesday Cabinet meeting presuming to speak for the protesters -- they don't speak for the protesters and the protesters don't approve of what was said.  Iraqi Spring MC shows a huge poster carried with Saleh al-Mutlaq's face on it, a big red X across his face and the proclamation that he is a traitor to the Iraqi people.  Alsumaria has a photo of his face being carried on posters.    He was denounced in Babylonian for his "false assertions."  He was denounced at the Baiji protest as someone looking to increase their own stature by pretending to speak for the protesters.

NINA notes that Iraiqya is blaming the al-Mutlaq split on Hayder al-Mulla.  In Samarra, Iraqi Spring MC documents, a banner was raised at the sit-in noting the cry of "No on federalism, no on sectarianism, no on divisions. Yes to the glory and dignity of Iraq."



All Iraq News notes a Kirkuk car bombing today has "resulted in killing and injuring a number of citizens,"And at first, it appeared that was it.  Then it all started pouring in.  All Iraq News reports 5 Baghdad bombings which have claimed 14 lives and left twenty-five injured.  Alsumaria notes a Muqdadiya bombing has left 9 dead and ten injured and, on that Kirkuk bombing, they count 2 dead and thirty-five injured.  In addition, police shot dead 1 suspect in Mosul, and a Baquba bombing left three police members injured.  AFP's Prashant Rao Tweets:

7h

Car bombs kill 18 at Shiite mosques in Iraq, 3 others dead in separate shootings - 's wrap:
Expand

And AFP notes that the Kirkuk bombing death toll grew to 4 with seventy-two injured while 2 teachers were shot dead in Kut and the press received the usual treatment: "Security forces elsewhere in the capital threatened to detain AFP journalists for attempting to film and take photographs of the aftermath of the bombings."   On the topic of violence, Jane Arraf Tweets:



13h

Sistani rep Muhsin al-Battat seriously wounded in car bombing of Shia mosque after delivering Friday sermon.

Expand




12h

Very bad development - Sistani rep, voice of moderation in , critically wounded by car bomb after giving Friday sermon in .
Expand



Remember this:


With very few exceptions, an important event in Iraq went unnoticed in the U.S. media this month. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki sent a force that included helicopters to western Iraq to arrest Rafi al-Issawi, the former finance minister and a leading Sunni Arab opposition member. Al-Issawi, who was protected by armed members of the Abu Risha clan, one of post-2003 Iraq’s most powerful Sunni tribes, escaped capture.

This action came on the heels of al-Maliki’s telephone conversation with Secretary of State John Kerry and took Washington by surprise. Had a confrontation ensued, the results would have been calamitous. It could even have provided the spark for the beginning of a civil war. Still, al-Maliki’s actions represent another nail in the coffin for a unified Iraq. Al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, had previously accused Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a leading Sunni political figure, of terrorism, forcing him to flee Iraq in 2011. Al-Hashimi was subsequently tried in absentia and sentenced to death.

Al-Maliki’s policies have significantly raised tensions in the Sunni regions of Iraq. There are demonstrations in many of the Sunni provinces that seek to emulate those of the Arab Spring. They are one reason al-Maliki has targeted al-Issawi. He wants to contain the dissent before it spreads.

It's from Professor Henri J. Barkey's "Iraq's great divider: Prime Minister Maliki's actions may lead to the country's breakup, as the U.S. stands idly by" (Los Angeles Times).  We noted it this week when the Los Angeles Times published it, we noted it became huge on Arabic social media (also it was reported on by the Iraqi Times) and now Stars and Stripes is carrying the column.  It's an important column.  I wonder if Barkey had any idea of the reach it would have when he wrote it?


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"THIS JUST IN! REMEMBER THE ECONOMY?"
Posted by at

Friday, March 29, 2013

THIS JUST IN! REMEMBER THE ECONOMY?


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

FOR THE SECOND SOLID WEEK, UNEMPLOYMENT INCREASED.

KILLER BARRY O SPENT YESTERDAY ADDRESSING . . . GUN CONTROL.

"SHAME ON US IF WE'VE FORGOTTEN," AMERICA'S BREASTY NANNY SAID, READY TO WET NURSE THE NATION.

PACKING A BREAST PUMP, KILLER BARRY SAID HE'D BE GOING TO COLORADO NEXT WEEK TO TALK ABOUT . . . GUN CONTROL.


FROM THE TCI WIRE:



Haider Ali Hussein Mullick (The Diplomat) insists today, "However, given that international terrorist organizations can -- and have -- threatened our livelihood, the United States can’t wish away counterinsurgency."  Actually, it could and it should.  But war addicts like Haider Ali Hussein Mullick are idiots and/or fools.  There is no proof that counter-insurgency has done a damn thing to protect the United States.  If you look at the root cause of 9-11 -- which all these years later, we still aren't supposed to -- counter-insurgency would fall into exactly the sort of actions that cause the hostility and resentments at the root of the 9-11 attacks.  Outside of the US there were wide discussions on the causes.  For example, September 29th, 2011, Arundhati Roy weighed in at the Guardian noting:


For strategic, military and economic reasons, it is vital for the US government to persuade its public that their commitment to freedom and democracy and the American Way of Life is under attack. In the current atmosphere of grief, outrage and anger, it's an easy notion to peddle. However, if that were true, it's reasonable to wonder why the symbols of America's economic and military dominance - the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon - were chosen as the targets of the attacks. Why not the Statue of Liberty? Could it be that the stygian anger that led to the attacks has its taproot not in American freedom and democracy, but in the US government's record of commitment and support to exactly the opposite things - to military and economic terrorism, insurgency, military dictatorship, religious bigotry and unimaginable genocide (outside America)? It must be hard for ordinary Americans, so recently bereaved, to look up at the world with their eyes full of tears and encounter what might appear to them to be indifference. It isn't indifference. It's just augury. An absence of surprise. The tired wisdom of knowing that what goes around eventually comes around. American people ought to know that it is not them but their government's policies that are so hated. They can't possibly doubt that they themselves, their extraordinary musicians, their writers, their actors, their spectacular sportsmen and their cinema, are universally welcomed. All of us have been moved by the courage and grace shown by firefighters, rescue workers and ordinary office staff in the days since the attacks.
America's grief at what happened has been immense and immensely public. It would be grotesque to expect it to calibrate or modulate its anguish. However, it will be a pity if, instead of using this as an opportunity to try to understand why September 11 happened, Americans use it as an opportunity to usurp the whole world's sorrow to mourn and avenge only their own. Because then it falls to the rest of us to ask the hard questions and say the harsh things. And for our pains, for our bad timing, we will be disliked, ignored and perhaps eventually silenced.

Those conversations couldn't take place in the US.  When people tried they were demonized.  Susan Sontag wrote three paragraphs on 9-11, they were three well written paragraph, they were basic in logic, and for that the likes of tub of trash Andrew Sullivan demonized her.  He can pretend to be sorry about Iraq today all he wants, but he has never apologized for the way he demonized people in the years leading up to the start of the Iraq War.  He was a fat and ugly bully then and he's a fat and ugly bully now.  How did the US end up in the Iraq War?  Fat ugly bullies like Andrew Sullivan.  Here's Sontag's first paragraph:

The disconnect between last Tuesday's monstrous dose of reality and the self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing. The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public. Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a "cowardly" attack on "civilization" or "liberty" or "humanity" or "the free world" but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of the ongoing American bombing of Iraq? And if the word "cowardly" is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards.


Counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism?  Are they really helping to improve US relations or are they just the breeding ground for future anger and future resentments?

If you're confused as to how to answer, maybe you waste your time trusting Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! to tell you the truth?  As Ava and I noted Sunday:


Let's clarify that.  It's not just that she didn't do the investigative report, it's that it didn't cost her.  British public television and England's Guardian newspaper paid for it.  Goody put it this way, "As we continue to mark the 10th anniversary of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, we turn today to a shocking new report by The Guardian newspaper and BBC Arabic detailing how the United States armed and trained Iraqi police commando units that ran torture centers and death squads."

A shocking new report?  We'll we're in.  Oh, wait.  She was talking about James Steele: America's Mystery Man In Iraq -- the documentary we covered in "TV: The War Crimes Documentary" two weeks ago.


14 days late and playing it cheap, Goody decided to kind-of, sort-of get serious.

Or as serious as a Class of '79 Harvard Whore can.

We were tipped off by a friend at The Guardian that the paper's Maggie O'Kane was asked not to use the term "counter-insurgency"  during her appearance on Democracy Now!

If you've seen the documentary, you know that counter-insurgency is what the documentary's all  about.

[. . .]

Counter-insurgency is at the heart of the British documentary.  It's a policy.  Goody wanted to reduce it to random acts of torture with no real American fingerprints on the crimes.  To hear Goody tell it and offer selective edits of the documentary, James Steele trained some bad guys and that's really all.



Harvard's connection to counterinsurgency ensures that Goody won't talk about counter-insurgency.  But others talk about.  For example, last week it was the topic of a Foreign Policy roundtable, and the participants were all COIN enthusiasts including Eliot Cohen who explained:



The first thing is just to remind us all, counterinsurgency is a kind of military operation. There's an American style to counterinsurgency; there was a German style to counterinsurgency; there's a Soviet or Russian style to counterinsurgency. It's just a kind of operation that militaries do, and I think particularly in the popular discussion there's this tendency to call counterinsurgency the kind of stuff that's in the manual.
[. . .]
And finally, having played a very modest role in helping get the COIN manual launched, I've got two big reservations about it. Actually three. One is a technical one, which is it underestimated the killing part of counterinsurgency and particularly what Stan McChrystal and his merry men were doing [with special operations]. I think that is a large part of our counterinsurgency success. We killed a lot of the people who needed to be killed, or captured them, and that's not something you want to talk about. You'd rather talk about building power plants and stuff, but the killing part was really important, and I think we have to wrestle with that one because it's obviously problematic.



Does that sound like it's helping?  Does Barack Obama's Drone War help?  As Cedric and Wally noted this morning, the chorus against The Drone War just added a choir.  Dan Merica (CNN) reports priests, rabbis and reverends have made a "video [which] criticizes the Obama administration, stating that the use of war does not follow Just War Theory, which has Roman and Catholic influences.  The theory includes criteria that legitimize war, including ensuring that war is a last resort and that it is being carried out with the right intentions. According to the religious leaders in the video, titled “Drones and Religion,” the drone program fails to meet several of these criteria."  The group is known as Brave New Foundation and they note:

Brave New Foundation has the honor of releasing a video to accompany a seminal report by human rights law experts at Stanford and New York University law schools. The report, entitled Living Under Drones presents chilling first-hand testimony from Pakistani civilians on the humanitarian and security costs of escalating drone attacks by the United States. The report uncovers civilian deaths, and shocking psychological and social damage to whole families and communities – where people are literally scared to leave their homes because of drones flying overhead 24 hours a day.
The report is based on nine months of research, including two investigations in Pakistan. The Stanford-NYU research team interviewed over 130 individuals, including civilians who traveled out of the largely inaccessible region of North Waziristan to meet with the researchers. They also interviewed medical doctors who treated strike victims, and humanitarian and journalist professionals who worked in drone impacted areas.
As U.S. citizens, we feel a responsibility to know the real impact of the policies of our government. We hope you will join us at www.WarCosts.com to be part of this fight for a more humane and just world.

Dan Merica (CNN) notes, "The video criticizes the Obama administration, stating that the use of war does not follow Just War Theory, which has Roman and Catholic influences.  The theory includes criteria that legitimize war, including ensuring that war is a last resort and that it is being carried out with the right intentions."  Bully Boy Bush said Just War Theory didn't matter when it declared illegal war on Iraq.  That's why Pope John Paul II made clear the war was illegal January 13, 2003 (two months before it broke out) with remarks which included:

War is not always inevitable.  It is always a defeat for humanity.  And what are we to say of the threat of a war which could strike the people of Iraq, the land of the prophets, a people already sorely tried by more than 12 years of embargo?  War is never just another means that one can choose to employ for settling differences between nations.


"War is not always inevitable," declared Pope John Paul II but Haider Ali Hussein Mullick insists that counter-insurgency can't be wished away?  The conceptual limitations of him and his ilk ensure that war will continue.  As Pope John Paul II also noted in that speech, "Yet everything can change.  It depends on each of us.  Everyone can develop withing himself his potential for faith, for honesty, for respect of others and for commitment to the service of others."

And we can make a change -- even the Haider Ali Hussein Mullicks -- if we can be honest with ourselves. 



  1. 11h
    Today, one trial ends, and a new journey begins.
    Expand

Lt Dan Choi knows about honesty.  Speaking to Adam Kokesh on Adam vs. the Man last week,  he explained serving under Don't Ask, Don't Tell.


Dan Choi:  Don't Ask, Don't Tell was a violation of the Constitution, I thought.   But it prevented me from telling the truth about who I was even though the West Point honor code said, "You will not lie or tolerate those who do."  And I never really thought that it was a lying issue, I never really thought that it was an honor or integrity issue because I said, "This is the rule, this is what I signed up for, I knew that was part of the contract."  And it wasn't until I fell in love for the very first time -- I was 26-years-old.  And I never had a girlfriend.  Never had a boyfriend.  Never expressed love.  Never felt that somebody else was that important to me, that would be more important to me than myself.  And when I did fall in love, and I had come back from Iraq, that's when I realized that it really was lying.  When you have to lie about the person that supports you no matter what, when you put them in the closet, it then became an intensely selfish thing, Don't Ask, Don't Tell.  And I know a lot of soldiers are out there, and I used to think the same way, that it's a very noble thing to suffer.  That's a very common soldier-military mentality.  And then I realized because you're forcing someone else to go into nonexistence for your own career, or for your own status or paycheck or rank, that's not anything that I signed up for.  I never got promised that I would be a one-star general, four-star general. That's not what service was about.  So I looked down the barrel of possibly of giving up everything in order to live a life of real truth.  And it was because of love that I found out what the honor code really meant.


In March 2009, Dan went on MSNBC and came out publicly.  He also became active in demanding US President Barack Obama honor the campaign promise he made to overturn Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Getting active meant speaking out and taking part in protests.  In 2010, that meant three times chaining himself to the White House fence.  That's what he was on trial for today.  August 31, 2011, Dan was appearing before Judge John Facciola who put the case on hold after, as Jessica Gressko (AP) reported, noting "Choi has shown, at least preliminary, that he is being treated differently because of the subject of his protests, the nature of his speech or what he said."

Dan's case was much weaker today as a result of a decision another judge made.  Ann E. Marinow (Washington Post) notes, "But Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled that the magistrate judge could not consider the issue of how Choi came to be prosecuted in reaching a verdict."  Why he was being prosecuted wasn't an issue?  What a sad day for justice.


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"THIS JUST IN! HIS FACE IS RED!"

Posted by at

Thursday, March 28, 2013

THIS JUST IN! HIS FACE IS RED!

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

 KILLER BARRY O IS STILL SMARTING FROM A NEW COMMERCIAL PUT TOGETHER BY BRAVE NEW FOUNDATION -- A JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN GROUP -- WHICH CALLS OUT HIS DRONE WAR.

"THEY OBJECT TO 'ASSASSINATION BY REMOTE CONTROL!'" KILLER BARRY SPUTTERED.  "HOW ELSE AM I SUPPOSED TO DO IT?  WITH MY OWN BARE HANDS?  AND RISK MY STILETTO PRINT MANI?"


NO, OF COURSE NOT.  THE PRINCESS SHOULD NEVER BE PUT OUT OR FORCED TO WORK.


FROM THE TCI WIRE:


Today Anonymous Tweeted:




5h
He fought for us now let's fight for him.
View conversation

Anonymous is right.  Dan Choi fought for equality.  Now the Justice Dept, the administration, wants to trash him.  He fought for equality and they're dragging him into court tomorrow.  Peace activist Cindy Sheehan notes, "Dan Choi served his country and stood up for something bigger when he got home -- and they still prosecute him for making a difference.  This is insane."  So what's he going on trial for?  Protesting.  You'd think this was Nouri al-Maliki's Iraq the way the White House is trying to treat a protester.


Adam vs the Man is a show hosted by Iraq War veteran Adam Kokesh.  Last week, Adam spoke with Dan.  Dan was opposed -- as were most people -- to the policy of Don't Ask, Don't Tell which allowed gay men and women to serve in the military as long as they hid who they were or lied about who they were.  From the broadcast.

Dan Choi:  Don't Ask, Don't Tell was a violation of the Constitution, I thought.   But it prevented me from telling the truth about who I was even though the West Point honor code said, "You will not lie or tolerate those who do."  And I never really thought that it was a lying issue, I never really thought that it was an honor or integrity issue because I said, "This is the rule, this is what I signed up for, I knew that was part of the contract."  And it wasn't until I fell in love for the very first time -- I was 26-years-old.  And I never had a girlfriend.  Never had a boyfriend.  Never expressed love.  Never felt that somebody else was that important to me, that would be more important to me than myself.  And when I did fall in love, and I had come back from Iraq, that's when I realized that it really was lying.  When you have to lie about the person that supports you no matter what, when you put them in the closet, it then became an intensely selfish thing, Don't Ask, Don't Tell.  And I know a lot of soldiers are out there, and I used to think the same way, that it's a very noble thing to suffer.  That's a very common soldier-military mentality.  And then I realized because you're forcing someone else to go into nonexistence for your own career, or for your own status or paycheck or rank, that's not anything that I signed up for.  I never got promised that I would be a one-star general, four-star general. That's not what service was about.  So I looked down the barrel of possibly of giving up everything in order to live a life of real truth.  And it was because of love that I found out what the honor code really meant.  In many ways that's sad --

Adam Kokesh: (Laughing) That's not how the Army planned it, Dan!

Dan Choi:  I sort of went off the -- off the plan.   But sometimes in your life and in your journey, you realize that your training is not just what's comfortable, it's not what everybody else is doing.  That's when your training really does come into play, when you're in the middle of combat, that's one kind of bravery.  But then going home to my parents after having falling in love and wanting to come out to them -- I had come out to my cousin, I had come out to my sister, I had come out to some of my friends in the Army.  But I was afraid of coming out to my dad, coming out to my mom.  And I thought it was like going into combat without the body armor. 



Peter G. Tatchell (Huffington Post UK) explains:

This Thursday, 28 March, at 9am in the US District Court, Washington DC, gay Army Lieutenant Dan Choi, Arabic linguist, West Point graduate and Iraq war veteran, stands trial for his past protests against the since repealed anti-gay military policy 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' (DADT).
[. . .]In 2010, to protest against his dismissal, and against President Obama's failure to repeal DADT, Choi handcuffed himself to the White House fence three times. These protests help force the issue of DADT up the political agenda at a time when the Oval Office and Congress were dragging their heels on repeal.
Choi explained why he resorted to direct action methods: "We knew that presidential leadership was critical to civil rights and military service. Our Commander In Chief finally led only after we used the same tactics of Alice Paul, the Suffragettes, African American civil rights protestors, and many other identity groups that have won their equality through sacrifice."
Three years after Choi's handcuffing protests, the US Federal Attorney's Office refuses to dismiss the charges against him. The prosecution is being pursued by Assistant US Attorney, Angela S. George.

Tomorrow, before the trial goes into session, there will be a pre-trial rally on the steps of the courthouse with speakers like Peter Tatchell, the NAACP's Ben Jealous, Evelyn Thomas, Robin Tyler and Rev Jesse Jackson.


Moving over to Iraq, AFP reports that Iraq executed 18 people this month.   November 29th, speaking to the United Nations Security Council, Martin Kobler noted the vast number of executions that had taken place in 2012. 

Martin Kobler:  To date, this year, 123 people have been executed in Iraq.  53 of them since July.  The latest executions were carried out on 11 November, when 11 convicts were executed, including one Egyptian.  I continue to reiterate the Secretary-General's call in his report for the government of Iraq to consider a moratorium on all executions, in accordance with the relevant General Assembly resolutions. 

Kolber is the Special Envoy to Iraq for United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.  Today KUNA notes, "EU High Representative Catherine Ashton [. . .] expressed concern over recent reports of a number of executions in Iraq."  Elena Ralli (New Europe) quotes Ashton stating:

I deeply regret that the authorities have chosen to re-start executions now, when the Iraqi government had committed to re-examining the cases of prisoners and detainees. Iraq is aware of the EU's unequivocal position against the death penalty. The EU strongly believes that capital punishment violates the most fundamental of human rights. The EU appreciates the seriousness of the crimes for which those sentenced to death have been convicted. The EU however does not believe death penalty will act as a deterrent.

Ashton is only one of many who've expressed concerns recently.   At the end of last year, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme's Deputy Director Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui declared, "Death sentences are being flung out after grossly unfair trials relying on 'confessions' obtained under torture.  Instead of carrying out executions, the Iraqi authorities should prioritize fixing its deeply flawed criminal justice system."  Also last year, Human Rights Watch's Joe Stork pointed out, "The Iraqi authorities' insistence on carrying out this outrageous string of executions, while unwilling to reveal all but the barest of information, underlines the opaque and troubling nature of Iraq's justice system.  Rather than executing people, Iraq should focus on reforming its security and judicial systems to protect its citizens from increasing human rights violations."  Dahr Jamail (Al Jazeera) recently outlined the process to obtaining one 'confession' in Iraq:


One Iraqi woman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said her nephew was first detained when he was just 18. Held under the infamous Article Four which gives the government the ability to arrest anyone "suspected" of terrorism, he was charged with terrorism. She told, in detail, of how her nephew was treated:

"They beat him with metal pipes, used harsh curse words and swore against his sect and his Allah (because he is Sunni) and why God was not helping him, and that they would bring up the prisoners' mothers and sisters to rape them," she explained to Al Jazeera.  "Then they used electricity to burn different places of his body. They took all his cloths off in winter and left them naked out in the yard to freeze."

Her nephew, who was released after four years imprisonment after the Iraqi appeals court deemed him innocent, was then arrested 10 days after his release, again under Article 4. This law gives the government of Prime Minister Maliki broad license to detain Iraqis. Article four and other laws provide the government the ability to impose the death penalty for nearly 50 crimes, including terrorism, kidnapping, and murder, but also for offenses such as damage to public property. While her nephew was free, he informed his aunt of how he and other detainees were tortured.

"They made some other inmates stand barefoot during Iraq's summer on burning concrete pavement to have sunburn, and without drinking water until they fainted. They took some of them, broke so many of their bones, mutilated their faces with a knife and threw them back in the cell to let the others know that this is what will happen to them."
She said her nephew was tortured daily, as he wouldn't confess to a crime he says he didn't commit. He wouldn't give names of his co-conspirators, as there were none, she said.
"Finally, after the death of many of his inmates under torture, he agreed to sign up a false confession written by the interrogators, even though he had witnesses who have seen him in another place the day that crime has happened," she added.


The forced 'confessions,' the torture to produce them, has gone on in Iraq repeatedly. Amnesty International's just released  [PDF format warning] "Iraq: A Decade of Abuses"  explains how the 'confessions' are then used:



The Ministry of Human Rights has gone some way towards acknowledging this reality, observing that detainees are "subjected in some instances to torture and ill-treatment in order to coerce them to confess or to obtain information."  Once they have "confessed" in this way, detainees are generally taken under guard to appear before an investigating judge, often under threat of further torture or other ill-treatment if they refuse to confirm their confession or complain of mistreatment.  In some cases, detainees are reported to have been threatened or assaulted by their guards in the presence of the investigating judge to force them to confess.  Investigating judges are supposed to ensure that any incriminatory statements have been freely given, without coercion or duress, yet cases continue to be reported where they appear to have preferred to "look the other way" and accept self- incriminating statements from detainees without question despite their allegations or other evidence of abuse.  This, when it occurs, may have profoundly damaging consequences for the detainee.  For example, the Central Criminal Court in Baghdad [case number 1479 of 2012, Branch 2] ruled on 3 December 2012 that it would accept as evidence a confession made in pre-trial detention by a defendant although that defendant "denied any relation with the accusation brought against him and stated that his previous confession in front of the investigating judge was not true as it had been obtained by pressure and coercion that he was subjected to by the investigator".  The court said it found the confession acceptable because it was "elaborate and detailed" [mufassal wa daqiq], then convicted the defendant under the Anti-Terrorism Law and sentenced him to life imprisonment.  As experienced Iraqi criminal lawyers have attested to Amnesty International, courts place great weight on "confessions" recorded by investigating judges and tend to accept them even though defendants withdraw and repudiate them at trial.


Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi lives outside of Iraq after his bodyguards were tortured -- one to death -- for 'confessions.'  Nouri has dubbed him a terrorist and used the laughable 'justice' system to convict Tareq -- judges in Baghdad held a press conference to announce Tareq's guilt -- February 16, 2012 -- months before the trial started, before any evidence was presented.  With one of the judges not just declaring Tareq guilty at the press conference but also saying Tareq had tried to kill him, you knew that once the trial began, a conclusion of guilty had already been obtained by Nouri.



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Wednesday, March 27, 2013

THIS JUST IN! SORRY OR SELF-OBSESSED?


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


APPARENTLY OPRAH WAS BOOKED.  FORMER C.I.A. DIRECTOR DAVID PETRAEUS SHOWED UP AT AN R.O.T.C. DINNER LAST NIGHT -- HAIR HEAVILY SPRAYED -- TO ANNOUNCE HE WAS SORRY.

NO, HE DID NOT APOLOGIZE FOR THE AFFAIR.

HE DID NOT EVEN MENTION IT.

HE JUST ALLUDED TO IT.

BUT PRESS WHORES ARE ALREADY HUMPING HIS LEG AND DECLARING ALL IS FORGIVEN.



FROM THE TCI WIRE:




Last week was the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War.  The retrospectives weren't that many.  The finest I caught -- and I caught 20 if you include Al Jazeera -- was the radio documentary that Nora Barrows-Friedman did for Flashpoints (KPFA) entitled Iraqi Frequencies: 10 Years of Occupation and Resistance.  If you missed it, you can currently click here and stream. It is also posted at Project Censored for streaming but that's a KPFA stream as well.  Nora made the documentary with Shakomako and they've posted it at their website.


Dahr Jamail (Al Jazeera journalist, author of Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq and  The Will To Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan): So Iraq is, today, a shattered country.  It's a failed state.  Again, it's a country where the Maliki regime -- You know I've referred to Prime Minister Maliki as a Shia Saddam and I think that that's accurate.  One of the bizarre experiences was being in our Baghdad bureau last year -- December and January -- and watching Maliki -- this was just in the wake of the so-called US withdrawal.  He had a military parade.  It was the first military parade in Iraq since the last one that Saddam had just before he was removed from power by the invasion.  And Maliki had it in the exact same place.  It was in the Green Zone.  It was on the same street that goes underneath the two big swords arching over the street.  And Maliki stood in the same place and there was the same camera angle of him that Saddam did.  It was a very surreal experience to watch. A new dictator brought in to replace the former one -- and yet this one also supported by the US.  So it was a bit surreal and particularly given that while he was standing there, the Green Zone was taking mortar fire from resistance fighters and the city, even to this day, remains largely unreconstructed.  Again the electricity situation, the water situation, employment  all of them are dismal.  As I said, Iraq remains a failed state.


So-called withdrawal is correct.  Today, US President Barack Obama signed into law the "Department of Defense, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013."  [PDF format warning, click here.]   From page 101.

SEC. 8094.  The Department of Defense shall continue to report incremental contingency operations costs for Operation New Dawn and Operation Enduring Freedom or any other named operations in the U.S. Central Command area of operation on a monthly basis in the Cost of War Execution Report as prescribed in the Department of Defense Financial Management Regulation Department of Defense Instruction 7000.14, Volume 12, Chapter 23 "Contingency Operations", Annex 1, dated September 2005.

Or take page 128:

For an additional amount for "Operation and Maintenance, Defense-Wide", $7,714,079,000: Provided, That of the funds provided under this heading, not to exceed $1,650,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2014, shall be for payments to reimburse key cooperating nations for logistical, military, and other support, including access, provided to United States military operations in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, and post-operation Iraq border security related to the activities of the Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq, notwithstanding any other provision of law: Provided further, That such [. . .]

From page 154:

SEC. 9012.  From funds made available to the Department of Defense in this title under the heading "Operation and Maintenance, Air Force" up to $508,000,000 may be used by the Secretary of Defense, notwithstanding any other provision of law, to support United States Government transition activities in Iraq by funding the operations and activities of the Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq and security assistance teams, including life support, transportation and personal security, and facilities renovation and construction: Provided, That to the exxtent authorized under the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013, the operations and activities that may be carried out by the Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq may, with the concurrence of the Secretary of State, include non-operational training activities in support of Iraqi Ministry of Defense and Counter Terrorism Service personnel in an institutional environment to address capability gaps, integrate process relating to intelligence, air sovereignty, combined arms, logistics and maintenance, and to manage and integrate defense-related institutions: Provided further, That not later than 30 days following the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State shall submit to the congressional defense committees a plan for transitioning any such training activities that they determine are needed after the end of fiscal year 2013, to existing or new contracts for the sale of defense articles or defense services consistent with the provisions of the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2751 et seq.): Provided further, That not less than 15 days before making funds available pursuant to the authority provided in this section, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to the congressional defense committees a written notification containing a detailed justification and timeline for the operations and activities of the Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq at each site where such operations and activities will be conducted during fiscal year 2013.

AP reports it "provides another $87 billion for overseas military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq" -- military operations in Iraq.  Last week, as Mike noted,  Kai Ryssdal observed on American Media's Marketplace, "The United States has officially been out of Iraq for about 15 months.  But there are still thousands of American soldiers stationed in the country today, ten years after the first full day of war."

Let's review what those forces are based on previous reporting.  Most recently,  Adam Entous, Julian E. Barnes and Siobhan Gorman's "CIA Ramps Up Role in Iraq" (Wall St. Journal) reported March 11th:


 In a series of secret decisions from 2011 to late 2012, the White House directed the CIA to provide support to Iraq's Counterterrorism Service, or CTS, a force that reports directly to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, officials said.
The CIA has since ramped up its work with the CTS -- taking control of a mission long run by the U.S. military, according to administration and defense officials. For years, U.S. special-operations forces worked with CTS against al Qaeda in Iraq. But the military's role has dwindled since U.S. troops pulled out of the country at the end of 2011.


Previously, December 12, 2011 on NBC's Rock Center with Brian Williams, Ted Koppel reported who would remain in Iraq after the drawdown:




MR. KOPPEL: I realize you can't go into it in any detail, but I would assume that there is a healthy CIA mission here. I would assume that JSOC may still be active in this country, the joint special operations. You've got FBI here. You've got DEA here. Can, can you give me sort of a, a menu of, of who all falls under your control?


AMB. JAMES JEFFREY: You're actually doing pretty well, were I authorized to talk about half of this stuff.



That was during the drawdown masquerading as a withdrawal.  In addition that, US forces were beefed up in the fall.  September 25, 2012,  Tim Arango (New York Times) reported:

 
 Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to General [Robert L.] Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with intelligence.


Negotiating an agreement?  We covered that agreement.  It was finalized December 6, 2012 (and it's posted in full in that day's snapshot). It's the Memorandum of Understanding For Defense Cooperation Between the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Iraq and the Department of Defense of the United States of America.  We addressed its meaning at length in the December 10th and the December 11th snapshots.  John Glaser (Antiwar.com) pointed out March 12th:


Most Americans have been led to believe that all US forces besides those guarding the massive American Embassy in Iraq have been withdrawn since the end of last year.
In reality, US Special Operations Forces as well as the CIA have been providing this support to these elite Iraqi forces that report directly to the increasingly authoritarian Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. They have essentially been used as a secret police force for Maliki to attack, detain, and torture his political opponents and crack down harshly on public dissent.




And Nouri  has not impressed professor Henri J. Bakey (Los Angeles Times):


 Iraq is on its way to dissolution, and the United States is doing nothing to stop it. And if you ask people in Iraq, it may even be abetting it.
With very few exceptions, an important event in Iraq went unnoticed in the U.S. media this month. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki sent a force that included helicopters to western Iraq to arrest Rafi Issawi, the former finance minister and a leading Sunni Arab opposition member. Issawi, who was protected by armed members of the Abu Risha clan, one of post-2003 Iraq's most powerful Sunni tribes, escaped capture.
This action came on the heels of Maliki's telephone conversation with Secretary of State John F. Kerry and took Washington by surprise. Had a confrontation ensued, the results would have been calamitous. It could even have provided the spark for the beginning of a civil war. Still, Maliki's actions represent another nail in the coffin for a unified Iraq. Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, had previously accused Vice President Tariq Hashimi, a leading Sunni political figure, of terrorism, forcing him to flee Iraq in 2011. Hashimi was subsequently tried in absentia and sentenced to death.



Luiz Flavio Gomes (Pravda) sums up Iraq today, "After a decade, and more than a billion dollars spent, a new Iraq is far from built from the rubble today, ruled by a tendentiously dictatorial Prime Minister , that wants to perpetuate himself in power, with Parliament voting against it."  Mustafa Habib (Niqash) reports that the way Nouri handled the 2013 budget showed he has no concern over power-sharing or consensus and notes:

There is a lack of trust in government and there is a lot of missing legislation as well as a lack of civil peace.  That's why it's still important that alls ectors of Iraqi society be represented in politics -- then they won't feel marginalized and they will be reassured that a new dictatorship cannot emerge.  When those various sectors do start to feel left out of the political process, the results have been violence and tension, they say. 

 

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Tuesday, March 26, 2013

THIS JUST IN! HE TRIES TO DISTRACT!

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

WITH THE ECONOMY DESTROYING HIS POLL NUMBERS, KILLER BARRY O IS ATTEMPTING TO SHIFT THE FOCUS TO IMMIGRATION.  AS HE FLEES TO THAT TOPIC TO PUMP UP HIS POLL NUMBERS, HE HAS THE NERVE TO CALL FOR OTHERS TO BE BRAVE.


FROM THE TCI WIRE:


This week, Iraq War veteran Lt Dan Choi again goes on trial.  Margaret Cho (Huffington Post) notes:

He is an Arabic linguist -- the kind of soldier desperately needed there -- yet because he is gay and proud and refused to stay silento n the matter of the military's systematic homophobia, he was unfairly discharged and now has to stand trial.  His work as a gay activist led to the eventual demise of Don't Ask Don't Tell which allowed LGBT folks to serve openly in the military, and in a cruelly ironic twist of fate, is still being asked to pay for the "crime" of being gay.

Nine a.m. Thursday morning, Dan goes into the US District Court in DC and this is over his 2010 protests at the White House:


Three years after Choi’s handcuffing protests, the US Federal Attorney’s Office refuses to dismiss the charges against him. The prosecution is being pursued by Assistant US Attorney, Angela S. George.
Generally, White House protestors are arrested and required to pay $100 fine to a municipal court, the equivalent of a parking ticket in the District of Columbia. Instead, in this case, the US Attorney’s Office is invoking a seldom-used federal level criminal charge called "Failure to Obey".
Lt Choi retorts:
“The charge is baseless. It assumes traffic was blocked, but there is no traffic to block on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The main reason for this charge is to prevent me from re-joining the military, to paint me as simply disobedient. It prevents my rejoining (the military) in a vindictive waste of resources. I stand trial to assert my rights and the rights of all to be treated equally under the law.”
Choi’s case is the first time since anti-Iraq war protester Cindy Sheehan was prosecuted, that a protestor has been tried federally for demonstrating at the White House.
National Security Agency whistleblower, Navy and Air Force veteran Thomas Drake remarked: "This is yet another sad example of the federal government overstepping their bounds against critics they do not like."



Today, Lela Gilbert (Huffington Post) notes a conversation she had recently in Jerusalem with an Iraqi Jew:

He told me that he and his family had fled Baghdad in the late 1970s, driven out of Iraq like hundreds of thousands of other Jews from Muslim lands between 1948 and the early 1970s. They escaped ever-increasing dangers -- matters of life and death. He said, "The Christians saw what happened to us. But they didn't read the writing on the wall about what would happen to them."


Yesterday,  Alsumaria reported a Christian in Kirkuk was released after his family paid the kidnappers a ransom.  Last week, The Economist noted, "The lot of Iraq’s Christian population is particularly glum. Though a steady trickle had been leaving for decades, the exodus became a flood after the American invasion in 2003, when radical Islamists unleashed a sectarian onslaught against Shia Muslims, Christians and others. The ferocity of attacks such as the one against the church of Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad in 2010, which left at least 58 Christians dead, speeded the departure of many more. In the past decade as many as two-thirds of Iraq’s 1.5m Christians are thought to have emigrated." Iraqi Christians make up a significant number of Iraq's refugees who've left the country.  In addition, many of those who have stayed have left their homes and moved to northern Iraq (the Kurdistan Regional Government) in an attempt to find safety.  Rana told Annabel Roberts (NBC News) last week, "I didn't like Saddam Hussein, but he didn't bother the Christians.  He was a dictator.  When he went, the gangs came from everywhere."  So she sought asylum in London:

 In a pew near Rana sat Wasseem, a 26-year-old who arrived in the U.K. five months ago. The murder of his friend Rariq haunts him, Wasseem said through a translator. Rariq, also a Christian, was a driver for American forces in Baghdad and was kidnapped on his way to meet Wasseem. Rariq’s dismembered body was returned to his family five days later.

 Anugrah Kumar (Christian Post) translates the departures into an easy to understand context, "Iraq had 300 churches and 1.4 million Christians in 2003, but now only 57 churches and about half a million Christians remain" -- from 300 churches to 57.


The Christian presence isn't the only one on retreat in Iraq.  Arwa Damon (CNN) Tweets on leaving Iraq.

24 Mar
Gutted 2 B leaving ...very worried about people & future. friend last night said in his area sectarian threats resumed & assassinations
Expand

23 Mar
going through notebooks & stuff gathered from last 10yrs in ..."700 bodies this month in "..."complex IED attack against US"...
Expand





Al Jazeera and the Christian Science Monitor's Jane Arraf writes for Foreign Policy about the retreat of press freedoms:

Television is particularly difficult. With almost every bombing, the government imposes a new layer of regulations. Police and soldiers who used to talk freely now need permission from the Interior or Defense Ministry. Being allowed into a press conference at the prime minister's office involves handing over your watch as well as your pen and notepad. Tape recorders are completely out of the question.
Even entering the parliament building now requires prior written permission, and both cosmetics and over-the-counter drugs are considered a security risk and confiscated at the entrance. Once you get in the building, parliamentary session themselves still aren't open to the media. The press gallery was closed years ago, "for security reasons," and the only recordings of proceedings are an edited, delayed television feed.
For the first time since the Saddam era, there are official travel restrictions. The government recently announced that foreign journalists need prior Iraqi Army permission to travel to the restive Anbar Province, where Sunni protesters have been staging regular demonstrations against the government. Journalists for foreign news organizations trying to cover the ongoing protests have been stopped at Iraqi Army checkpoints. Some have been arrested.


Yesterday, Iraq had a prominent visitor.  Jane Arraf Tweets some thoughts on the visit:


    1. 24 Mar
      Anyone else find it odd that Kerry comes to Baghdad near 10th anniversary of war and talks to travelling US reporters but not press?
      Expand
    2. 24 Mar
      How can he talk to them if the Iraqi government doesn't invite the press?
      Expand
    24 Mar
    iraqi govt did invite press but there was no presser. Seems state dept wanted event more controlled and dare I say, undemocratic.
    Hide conversation
    1:36 PM - 24 Mar 13 · Details

I believe Sohar Hamudi with Amar-Iraqiya is an Iraqi journalist and US Secretary of State John Kerry.  He is one of three reporters Kerry took questions from at the US Embassy in Baghdad on Sunday.  In response to Hamudi's question, Kerry's response included:


With respect to demonstrations, we believe very strongly that every citizen has the right to have their voice heard. And under the constitution of Iraq, people have a right to be able to affiliate, to express any political view, and nobody should be penalized for that.
So we urge people to demonstrate peacefully if they choose to demonstrate. We do not want to see, nor do we advocate anything but peaceful demonstration, but we urge the government to respond to those demonstrations in an appropriate way – not with violence, not with repression, but rather with the openness that a democracy merits. The country will be stronger for people having the right to be able to express their views in a peaceful way.


Along with Hamudi, Kerry took a question from Paul Richter (Los Angeles Times) and Anne Gearan (Washington Post).  Hamudi was the only one to ask about Iraq proper.  Richter and Gearan's concerns were Syria.

The protests have been going on since December 21st.  Approximately 10% of the country has participated in the protests.  What are they about?

The same thing that happened in 2011. We'll do this as briefly as possible.  March 2010 saw Iraqis go to the polls and vote in parliamentary elections.  Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law came in second to Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya.  Per the Constitution, Iraqiya was due to have the prime minister-designate.  That's a 30-day position.  They name someone to be prime minister but he or she has only 30 days to put together a full cabinet.  Failure to do so within 30 days means someone else is named prime minister-designate.  Nouri refused to step down as prime minister.  He refused to let the process go forward.  For eight months after the election -- with the support of the US White House -- he brought things to a standstill.  The whole time the US government was leaning on the political blocs, telling them Nouri could go 8 months more, telling them if they cared about Iraq, they'd be the grown ups and they'd let things move forward.  That's when the US-brokered Erbil Agreement gets introduced.  It's a legal contract.  The US says it's legal binding.  Give Nouri a second term as prime minister and the Kurds can get Articel 140 implemented.  All sorts of deals were written in to get the political blocs to agree to go along.

Nouri used this contract to get a second term.  But he refused to honor the promises he made in the contract.  He instead initiated a power-grab.  This lead to the 2011 protests that started in January and got really active in February.  The Iraqi people were tired of not having potable water and dependable electricity, they were tired of the lack of jobs, of the 'disappeared' in the so-called Iraqi 'justice' system, they were tired of the lack of jobs.  They took to the streets.  Nouri got them to leave the streets by promising if they gave him 100 days he would fix everything.

Nouri lies and Nouri stalls.  He did so to get his second term.  He did so to send the protesters packing.  After 100 days, nothing had changed.  This led the Kurds, Iraqiya and cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr to publicly call for the Erbil Agreement to be implemented.  Tensions continued to build.  There is no progress for the Iraqi people.  On top of that, fall 2012 saw reports emerge that made the Iraqi 'justice' system even more disgusting: Women and girls were being tortured and raped in Iraqi prisons and detention centers. 

Eli Sugarman (The Atlantic) sums it up this way:

Iraq's increasingly powerful Shi'ite Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, started accumulating power following the 2010 parliamentary elections. He secured a second term -- after a drawn out eight-month power struggle - by promising to share power with other political blocs, including Iraqiyya (a more secular party that has attracted Sunni support) and the Kurds. That promise quickly disintegrated. Instead, Al-Maliki preferred to assert personal control over the security forces, target senior Sunni officials with arrest, and otherwise eviscerate many of the safeguards enshrined in the Iraqi Constitution. His actions ignited widespread protests in Sunni majority provinces in December 2012 that continue as of writing. Today, many in Iraq's Parliament fear that he is a dictator-in-the-making.

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