BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
TIME MAGAZINE'S JAY NEWTON-SMALL JUST GOT A NEW VIBRATOR, A REALLY BIG ONE, AND HE'S DUBBED IT "EL TORO."
TAKING IT FOR A TEST RUN, HE CHURNED OUT SOME FAN FICTION ON HIS WET DREAM BARRY O.
"AFTER SIX YEARS," NEWTON-SMALL TYPED WITH ONE HAND WHILE HE WORKED "EL TORO" IN AND OUT WITH THE OTHER, "OBAMA DRAWS COMPARISONS LIKE NO OTHER PRESIDENT."
POSSIBLY DUE TO THE FACT THAT HE'S GOT NO REAL CORE AND NO SPINE, THAT HE IS TO POLITICS WHAT MADONNA IS TO MUSIC: POPULAR BUT NOTHING OF LASTING VALUE?
WHO KNOWS HOW JAY'S SLASH FICTION WILL END BUT A WORD OF CAUTION.
TYPING WITH JUST ONE HAND CAN LEAD TO TYPOS AND "OSAMA" AND "OBAMA" HAVE ONLY ONE LETTER DIFFERENCE SO BE CAREFUL -- ONE LETTER COULD SPELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HAPPY ORGASM OR PUBLIC EMBARRASSMENT.
AND CONGRATULATIONS, JAY, ON "EL TORO,' MAY YOUR RELATIONSHIP LAST AS LONG AS THE DURACELL BATTERIES REQUIRED BUT NOT INCLUDED.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Kenneth Pollack offered an idiotic analysis
last week. I'm used to whorish American 'analysts' who pin all the
blame on the government of Iran and ignore what the US government is
done so this wasn't all that surprising:
Iran wields considerable influence in Iraq, unquestionably more than any
other foreign country and far more than the United States. It was Iran
that ultimately engineered Nuri al-Maliki’s re-election as prime
minister in 2010 by strong-arming the Sadrists to back him. It was the
Iranians who preserved his rule in 2012 by convincing Jalal Talabani to
refuse demands to call for a vote of no-confidence—a vote that Maliki
seemed likely to lose.
Pollack is with Brookings and to their credit and his credit they at
least pay attention to Iraq but I'm just not able to stomach the
whoring.
Iran's government probably was involved in the decision and certainly
the First Lady of Iraq makes pilgrimages to Iran all the time. However,
as Americans, we should be holding our own government accountable.
And Pollack doesn't have any desire to do that. The US government was
all over Talabani to prevent the vote against Nouri from taking place.
They pressured him with face-to-face visits, they pressured with phone
pleas (including from Vice President Joe Biden). We covered all of this
in real time. It's nearly two years later and Pollack won't cover it
but will point out that Iran supposedly pressured Talabani (I don't
doubt that they did but I don't know that they did -- I do from State
Dept friends that the US government pressured Talabani -- the same way I
know that the State Dept asked for net censorship and got it and we'll
probably be writing about that here in a few days).
The no-confidence vote was an attempt to oust Nouri.
Why?
Because the US government demanded Nouri get a second term as prime
minister even those his State of Law lost the 2010 parliamentary
elections to Ayad Allawi. How did they do that?
They brokered an extra-constitutional contract (The Erbil Agreement).
The US told the leaders of the political blocs that Nouri had refused
to step down for 8 months following the 2010 election and he could go
for 8 months more. As Nouri refused to step down, the government was at
a standstill (this is the political stalemate) and the US flattered the
egos of the leaders telling them they were the bigger persons and that
they could do what was right for Iraq and sign this legally binding
contract and let the country move forward.
Now that was playing to their egos and flattering them. That didn't get
to sign over a second term to Nouri. To get that, their had to be quid
pro quo. So, for example, to get the Kurds on board, it was written
into the contract that Article 140 of the Constitution (which would
resolve who gets Kirkuk -- the KRG or the central government out of
Baghdad).
All of these various promises were written into The Erbil Agreement and
Nouri put his binding signature to it like every political bloc leader.
Nouri used the contract to get his second term. He immediately then
said it couldn't be implemented immediately.
He stalled on delivering his end of the promises. That was November
2010. By the summer of 2011, cleric and movement leader Moqtada
al-Sadr, the Kurds and Iraqiya were publicly calling for Nouri to
implement the rest of the contact -- the part of it where he kept his
promises to them.
At this point, Nouri's spokesperson starts the contract wasn't legal.
As Nouri continued to refuse to implement his end of the contract, pleas
were made for the US government to help -- this contract was sold with
the backing of the White House ("the full backing," Talabani was told).
The pleas fell on deaf ears. As the contract was still not implemented
at the start of 2012, the Constitutional measure of a no-confidence vote
was raised. By April, Moqtada had signed onto the notion. He
repeatedly stated in public that Nouri could end the move towards a vote
at any point by implementing The Erbil Agreement.
They began gathering signatures and got enough. The signatures then go
to the President (Jalal) who forwards them onto the Parliament.
Under intense pressure from the US government -- and, Pollack says, from
the Iranian government -- Jalal invented these 'powers' where he was
supposed to vet signatures. He wasn't. Nor was he supposed to say,
"You did sign it? Okay, would you sign it now? Are you really, really
sure?" He trashed the signatures.
Then he ran to Germany, pretending he had a serious medical problem.
As we were noting last week, call it karma, call it the universe, whatever, it has a way of slapping back.
Jalal had elective knee surgery. But he lied that he had a life
threatening medical problem and had to leave for Germany to be treated.
He lied because the fallout from his unconstitutional actions was huge.
But Jalal's in Germany now, has been for about 16 months now. And he
really has had a life threatening problem. So maybe he shouldn't have
lied in May of 2012 because the universe made his lying true.
Pollack, if he got honest, probably could do a good analysis. The crap
he offered last week wasn't a good analysis. It included this garbage:
In addition, Muqtada al-Sadr’s bizarre and unexpected decision to disband his political party and withdraw from politics has further benefitted Maliki. Many former Sadrists are expected to sign on to Maliki’s SoL coalition.
Is Pollack that stupid or he is that much of a whore?
I have no idea but I read those lies and just want to scream. We
already covered this b.s. spin that Moqtada's followers were going to
flock to Nouri. It's xenophobic and pretends that Shi'ites will support
any Shi'ite. From the February 18th snapshot and we're using "--------" to note the beginning and the ending of the excerpt:
----------------------------------------------------
Moqtada al-Sadr was strong armed into supporting Nouri -- strong armed
by the Iranian government. His followers never supported Nouri.
More than that, they clearly rejected him.
Does no one remember what happened in 2010?
For one thing, immediately after the elections Moqtada threw it to his supporters 'who he should back?'
Have we all forgotten that?
From the April 7, 2010 snapshot:
That interview took place Monday and while there is no coalition-sharing
government/arrangement as yet from the March 7th elections, Friday and
Saturday, another round of elections were held -- this to determine whom
the Sadr bloc should back. Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc won 40 seats in the
Parliament. Kadhim Ajrash and Caroline Alexander (Bloomberg News) report
that Ibrahim al-Jaafari "won 24 percent of the 428,000 ballots cast in
the internal referendum, ahead of al-Sadr's second cousin, Jafar
Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, who obtained 23 percent, Sadrist spokesman Salah
al-Ubaidi said today in the southern city of Najaf." Al Jazeera notes
that Nouri al-Maliki received 10% of the vote and Ayad Allawi 9%. The
US military invaded Iraq in March 2003 (and still hasn't left).
Following the invasion, Ayad Allawi became Iraq's first prime minister,
Ibrahim al-Jaafari became the second and Nouri al-Maliki became the
third. It's a little more complicated.
Nouri wasn't wanted,
Nouri wasn't chosen. Following the December 2005 elections, coalition
building took place and the choice for prime minister was al-Jaafari.
But the US government refused to allow him to continue as prime
minister. The Bush administration was adamant that he would not continue
and faulted him for, among other things, delays in the privatization of
Iraq's oil. Though the US had no Parliamentary vote, they got their way
and Nouri became the prime minister. al-Jaafari had won the vote with
the backing of al-Sadr's bloc, just as he won the vote that took place
this weekend. The vote can be seen as (a) a show of support for
al-Jaafari whom Sadarists have long supported and (b) a message to the
US government.
Stop lying that Nouri benefits from Moqtada dropping out. He doesn't.
The Sadr bloc can't stand Nouri -- that's been obvious in Parliament for the last four years.
Moqtada's supporters can't stand Nouri either. They remember his
attacks on them in 2008 in Basra and Sadr City. Moqtada is seen as
supporting the poor, Nouri's done nothing for the poor. BRussells Tribune carries an Al-Monitor article from last week by Amal Sakr which opens:
The head of the Model Iraqi Women Organization, Athraa Hassani, provided Al-Monitor with
this information, quoting World Bank officials who discussed these
statistics during a meeting in Turkey with a number of members of civil
society organizations seeking to find a solution to the poverty crisis
in Iraq.
Hassani questions the accuracy of the poverty rates announced by the
Iraqi government, affirming that these rates are continuously increasing
because of a rise in daily violence and spike in unemployment rates in
addition to a weakening of the Iraqi economy.
Based on the World Bank’s figures, this would mean that out of Iraq’s
34.7 million citizens, more than 9.5 million individuals are living below the poverty line.
Nothing has happened since 2010 to increase Nouri's standing among Sadr
supporters. In fact, since 2010, the efforts Moqtada and Ayad Allawi
have worked on have probably resulted in greater support for Allawi
which has let Nouri fall even lower. Probably.
But what is known is that Sadr supporters did not support Nouri in 2010.
They didn't support when the March 2010 voting took place and they did
not support a month later in the poll Moqtada carried out.
------------------------------------------------------
There is nothing to indicate that Moqtada's followers would support
Nouri -- there is ample evidence to demonstrate that they won't.
Equally true, Moqtada's not retired. We pointed that out weeks ago when
he returned to Iraq. Prior to his return, we pointed out that his
'retirement' didn't really mean anything. It didn't mean he couldn't be
prime minister, it didn't mean anything. And that was before he came
back to Iraq. And repeatedly denounced Nouri (which, again, means his
followers will not be supporting Nouri).
Joel Wing (Musings On Iraq) offers an analysis which includes:
In March and April the Sadr movement continued to criticize
Prime Minister Maliki. From March 10 to 12 Sadrists held
rallies in Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala, Basra, Kirkuk, Maysan, Dhi Qar, Babil,
Wasit, and Diyala against the premier for his remarks belittling Moqtada
al-Sadr. There were also reports of attacks upon Dawa offices, which were
played down by both parties so that the election didn’t get sidetracked by violence.
March 23, Sadr’s Ahrar List said it opposed
Maliki serving a third term, stating that other parties and the Iraqi
people wanted change. It went on to say that Maliki had failed to secure the
country or to provide political stability. Continuing with that line on April 3
Sadr gave a speech
calling Maliki a dictator who was leading the country towards one party rule by
banning his opponents. Sadr was joined by parliamentarian Jawad Shahlya from
Ahrar and independent lawmaker Saban al-Saadi, both of which had been barred
from running in this year’s vote. Sadr went on to accuse the prime minister of
attempting to marginalize Sunnis by launching military operations in Anbar.
Sadr finished by calling on Maliki to
step aside so someone else could try running the country. Finally, on April
5 Shahlya claimed Maliki was attempting to pass a law that would give him
broad powers that would lead to the declaration of a state of emergency and the
dissolution of the parliament.
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