BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
"I WON!" EXCLAIMED A GIDDY BARRY O UNTIL VALERIE JARRETT PULLED HIM TO THE SIDE TO EXPLAIN THIS WAS BAD NEWS.
WHISPERED V.P. JOE BIDEN TO THESE REPORTERS, "EVEN I'M NOT THAT DUMB!"
A CRESTFALLEN BARRY O WIPED A TEAR AWAY AS HE TURNED TO THOSE ASSEMBLED AND ASKED, "BUT I'M STILL PRETTY, RIGHT? I'M STILL PRETTY?"
Today US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke to China Central Television (CNTV -- link is video). Excerpt.
Wang Guan: John Kerry, you just came back from Iraq. Now looking back at the turmoil -- this is something you have been very engaged in. Do you think the previous administration in Iraq in 2003 was, as some call, a grave mistake? And what will the US do next?
John Kerry: Well I am on record historically not only in saying that it was a grave mistake but in running against the president who ordered it and offering an alternative. So I'm-I'm hardly capable of [Kerry laughs] ducking that squarely. Yes, I think it was a grave mistake and I think we are still working through many of the problems associated with it even today. There's a huge, residual hangover, a cloud, that hangs over the region as a consequence of that decision. Now we are working very hard. President Obama's decision was to make certain that we tried to change that and that's why he moved to withdraw the combat troops. And now we're working very, very hard to empower the Iraqis themselves, they have to make this decision. Iraqis have to decide who their government is. And it needs to be a representative, unity government that brings people together and it resolves through it's reforms -- in terms of its relationships to the Kurds, it's relationships to the Sunnis -- Everybody, and the Shia, all have to be feeling as if their needs are being met through the governmental processes and structures that are established. That's what we hope will emerge through the Iraqis themselves and their decisions in the next few days.
"I'm on record historically not only in saying that it was a grave mistake"? "Offering an alternative"?
I'm sorry, that's just not true. I backed John Kerry in the Democratic Party primaries. Many of my friends were for Howard Dean who presented as an anti-Iraq War candidate. I remember their disgust with Kerry in the primaries and after he won the party's presidential nomination.
I like John, I supported his primary campaign and general election campaign (even though he chose John Edwards for a running mate -- Mr. Grabby Hands was also a snake in the grass who fed the press anti-Kerry remarks after the campaign was over). That doesn't mean I stay silent while he rewrites history. I -- and many of his other 2004 supporters -- wish he had called it a "grave mistake" and that his 2004 campaign was "offering an alternative" but that simply was not the case.
Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said Monday he would not have changed his vote to authorize the war against Iraq, but said he would have handled things "very differently" from President Bush.
Bush's campaign has challenged Kerry to give a yes-or-no answer about whether he stood by the October 2002 vote which gave Bush authority to use military force against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
The question of going to war in Iraq has become a major issue on the campaign trail, especially in light of the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been found there.
Read the full article. He's bothered by the planning of it. he's whining about tactics. But the war was based on lies, there were no WMDs -- and that was well known by August 2004. But he wasn't calling out the lies of WMD, he wasn't retracting his 2002 vote (except for the ridiculous "I was for it before I was against it" statement).
Today was supposed to be the big day to resolve everything political in Iraq via a session in Parliament. Supposed to be. June 20th, Tamara Keith (Morning Edition, NPR -- link is text and audio) reported on US President Barack Obama's desire for political solutions:
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: We do not have the ability to simply solve this problem by sending in tens of thousands of troops and committing the kinds of blood and treasure that has already been expended in Iraq. Ultimately this is something that is going to have to be solved by the Iraqis.
KEITH: How? Obama says a political solution is needed. Problem is Iraqi politics are a mess. The country's prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, is Shiite, and his policies have been hostile to Sunnis. The radical group ISIS capitalized on those sectarian divisions, easing their way into Sunni-dominated cities. President Obama wouldn't say whether he thinks Maliki needs to go, but he is calling for a unity government.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: Shia, Sunni, Kurds, all Iraqis must have confidence that they can advance their interests and aspirations through the political process rather than through violence. National unity meetings have to go forward to build consensus across Iraq's different communities.
What Barack was asking for is similar to the call made by Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Workers Revolutionary Party notes, "World leaders have insisted on a political settlement among Iraq’s Shiite Arab, Sunni Arab and Kurdish communities and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, revered among the country’s Shiite majority, has urged political leaders to quickly form a government after parliament convenes on Tuesday." Many made similar calls but more directly noting what "unity" really means -- no third term for Nouri. Prensa Latina reported yesterday:
Meanwhile, the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called today the State of Law coalition, led by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, to provide a new candidate for that office, since he will oppose his election for a third term in Parrliament.
Al-Sadr, whose followers in the so-called Mehdi Army enlisted to fight the ISIL, defined as decisive the parliamentary session to be held Tuesday to start the process of forming the new government and elect a president and two vice presidents.
While Sunni leaders have made clear that there should be no third term for Nouri al-Maliki, many Shi'ite leaders have also made that call -- Moqtada and Ahmed Chalabi being only two. Jason Ditz (Antiwar.com) noted yesterday, "Current Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki has made a lot of enemies over the years, and Ammar al-Hakim, a top figure in the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), says Maliki has two big obstacles to a third term: Shi’ites, and everyone else."
But he's a prime minister. Two terms! He must be so popular, after all. No. Nouri was never selected by Iraqis. Following the December 2005 parliamentary elections, Iraqi MPs wanted Ibrahim al-Jaafari named prime minister. In 2010, Iraqis voters made Nouri's State of Law a loser to Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya. So how did the non-popular choice emerge a two-time victor?
Nouri was installed as prime minister by the Bully Boy Bush administration in 2006 and kept by Barack's administration in 2010. The US puppet has destroyed Iraq, not brought the people together. Simon Assef (UK Socialist Worker) explained last month:
The Iraqi state that emerged under the occupation was corrupt and deeply divisive. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki deepened the schism by further alienating the country’s Sunni minority and threatening the autonomous Kurdish regions in the north
Disenfranchised Sunnis began peaceful protests in December 2012 in what was known as the “Iraqi Spring”. Security forces attacked the camps, killing dozens of people. Maliki then flooded Sunni areas with his security forces.
Thousands of people were rounded up, tortured and killed.
A deep disaffection with Maliki’s rule precipitated the disintegration of security forces in the face of Isis . Now his government is close to collapse.
The Socialist offers this take, "Since 2006, the western-supported Shia prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, presided over sectarian discrimination, torture and imprisonment without trial. Maliki deployed sectarian rhetoric to take attention away from the atrocious conditions facing all Iraqis. The forcing of a leading Sunni minister into exile triggered popular protests in Sunni areas in December 2012 and early 2013, which the authoritarian regime brutally suppressed. " How bad is the situation in Iraq? Yassamine Mather (UK Weekly Worker) observed, "The sharp improvement in the relations between the United States and the Islamic Republic (and subsequently between the United Kingdom and Iran) has been remarkable - Washington is seriously considering military cooperation with Iran over the civil war in Iraq."
All Iraq News reports 73 MPs failed to attend the session (255 did attend). Nouri's publicist Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor) maintains, "Despite talk of a boycott ahead of the opening, all but members of Ayad Allawi's Sunni bloc showed up." Wow, who knew Ayad Allawi's bloc won 73 seats.
They didn't. (2010's Iraqiya splintered. Ayad Allawi's section formed Al-Wataniya which won 21 seats in the April elections. Osama al-Nujaifi grabbed another section, Muttahidoon, which won 23 seats. The third section was Al-Arabiya and it won 10 seats and it's Saleh al-Mutlaq's section. Not only do you not get 73 if you add all three together, but Muttahidoon and Al-Arabiya were present for the session.)
Jane Arraf's in a difficult spot. She's whored for Nouri forever and day, writing one long lie after another. Her latest b.s. may set a new low even for her. Why the Christian Science Monitor employs the woman who was an apologist for Saddam Hussein and now is an apologist for Nouri al-Maliki is beyond comprehension. Arraf has lied so much and done so over and over, so very often. She is a one woman propaganda mill, whether 'reporting' for CNN or Al Jazeera or the Christian Science Monitor or NPR or PRI. Never has one 'reporter' done so much and informed so little.
While Iraqis were killed by Nouri for peacefully protesting, Jane looked the other way except for the occassional Tweet. When her Tweet about Nouri's forces killing a protester could have provided context for the Hawija massacred, Jane ignored Tweet and never reported on it. Never noted that the Tuesday massacre kicked off the Friday before when Nouri's forces killed a peaceful protester.
Jane's latest is another sewer of lies and distortions and that's apparently what she's decided she'll stick with.
You'll note the little media whore can't hide how one-sided she is. For example, in the bad article that the Christian Science Monitor should never have published, she quotes Nouri's State of Law twice in the first five paragraphs as they attack Kurdish politicians. Where in the entire article is the Kurdish response?
A one-sided whore risks heavy hip injuries, let's all hope Jane's prepared for her tawdry future.
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
