Saturday, June 28, 2014

THIS JUST IN! HE FINGERS HIS THROAT!


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


AMERICA'S GROOVIEST RELIC FROM THE PAST, FADED CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O, THINKS GOING PUBLIC WITH HIS EATING DISORDER CAN GET HIM SYMPATHETIC PRESS SO HE FOLLOWED UP A BIG MEAL BY RUSHING TO A GROCERY STORE TO STOCK UP ON SWEETS AND OTHER THINGS.

THIS IS THE BINGE CYCLE.

THE PURGE FOLLOWS.

BARRY O IS CURRENTLY NEGOTIATING WITH SEVERAL TABLOIDS OVER HOW MUCH HE CAN GET FOR PHOTOS OF HIM HURLING INTO THE TOILET.

"WHEN PEOPLE KNOW I SUFFER FROM BULIMIA, THEY'LL LOVE ME ONCE AGAIN," BARRY O INSISTED TO THESE REPORTERS.  "WHAT I REALLY NEED TO DO IS TO GET AMERICA TO FEEL SORRY FOR ME AND THEN THEY'LL FALL IN LOVE ALL OVER AGAIN."





Today's big news?  The Peshmerga, elite Kurdish forces, entered Kirkuk this month to provide protection.  Aslumaria reports KRG President Massoud Barzani declares that action is a form of Article 140 and the issue of who has the right to Kirkuk -- the KRG or the central government out of Baghdad -- has been decided with this action.  Of Article 140,  Chelsea J. Carter, Arwa Damon and Raja Razek (CNN) maintain, "However, the vote never took place because of instability in most of the disputed areas."

That's spin, that's not reality.

First, it wasn't just a vote.  It was a census and a referendum.

Second, in October of 2010, Nouri was backing holding a census in Kirkuk at the start of December 2010.  He only dropped that idea after The Erbil Agreement gave him a second term as prime minister.  Shortly after that happened, he announced the census was being put 'on hold.'  And, no, he did not give violence as a reason.

Dropping back to the July 26, 2011 snapshot for more on this issue:

Of greater interest to us (and something's no one's reported on) is the RAND Corporation's  report entitled "Managing Arab-Kurd Tensions in Northern Iraq After the Withdrawal of U.S. Troops."  The 22-page report, authored by Larry Hanauer, Jeffrey Martini and Omar al-Shahery, markets "CBMs" -- "confidence-building measures" -- while arguing this is the answer.  If it strikes you as dangerously simplistic and requiring the the Kurdish region exist in a vacuum where nothing else happens, you may have read the already read the report.  CBMs may strike some as what the US military was engaged in after the Iraqi forces from the central government and the Kurdish peshmerga were constantly at one another's throats and the US military entered into a patrol program with the two where they acted as buffer or marriage counselor.  (And the report admits CBMs are based on that.)  Sunday Prashant Rao (AFP) reported US Col Michael Bowers has announced that, on August 1st, the US military will no longer be patrolling in northern Iraq with the Kurdish forces and forces controlled by Baghdad. That took years.  And had outside actors.  The authors acknowledge:

Continuing to contain Arab-Kurd tensions will require a neutral third-party arbitrator that can facilitate local CMBs, push for national-level negotiations, and prevent armed conflict between Iraqi and Kurdish troops.  While U.S. civilian entities could help implement CMBs and mediate political talks, the continued presence of U.S. military forces within the disputed internal boundaries would be the most effective way to prevent violent conflict between Arabs and Kurds.


The issue should have been resolved long ago.  Equally true, Nouri took an oath to uphold the Constitution in 2006.  The Constitution said a census and referendum had to be held by the end of 2007.  Nouri blew it off. In 2010, when his State of Law lost the elections, he refused to step down as prime minister and the US-brokered Erbil Agreement gave him a second term.  The Kurds insisted that the contract include Nouri's promise that he would implement Article 140.  He never did.

As tensions increase between Nouri and the Kurds, the editorial board of the Times of India looks at what it would mean for other nations if Iraq split into three self-governing sections (Shi'ite, Kurd and Sunni) and they conclude, "With Iraq's blundering PM Nouri al-Maliki refusing to accede to a national unity government, the US and Iran should work together to stabilise the region and deal with new sovereign entities that may emerge."  AP reports Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has called on Iraq's political blocs to decide on a prime minister-designate before Tuesday's expected session of Parliament.


RT reports, "Jets from Russia and Belarus will hopefully make a key difference in the fight against ISIS in Iraq, the country’s Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said. He expressed regrets over Iraq's contract with the US, saying their jets are taking too long to arrive."

Yes, thug Nouri is complaining that he's been hampered in the tools he needs to attack the Iraqi people. The delay, for those who've forgotten, was to avoid allowing a despot to use them before the parliamentary elections.  All Iraq News notes Nouri declares it a mistake to have "just bought US jets."  A mistake by whom?

Alsumaria reports the UK has announced they will not participate militarily in Iraq.  Unlikey the US which clearly does not fear angry voters the way the UK does.  Today, UPI reports:

Pentagon spokesman Col. Steven Warren said, of the 500 American military personnel in Iraq, "Some of them are conducting an advise and assist mission, some are manning the joint operations center, some of them are part of the [Office of Security Cooperation] and yet others are Marines that are part of a [fleet anti-terrorism security team] platoon."

 All Iraq News notes only 180 of the 500 are 'advisors' so 120 are still en route to make up Barack's 300 'advisors.'





RECOMMENDED:  "Iraq snapshot"

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Friday, June 27, 2014

THIS JUST IN! BAD BARRY GETS SPANKED!


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


AS IF HIS POOR POLLING WASN'T BAD ENOUGH, THE SUPREME COURT JUST PULLED BARRY O'S PANTS DOWN, TOOK HIM OVER THE KNEE AND GAVE HIM A VERY PUBLIC SPANKING.


RESPONDED BARRY O, "OW! THAT HURTS! STOP SPANKING ME!"





A big story in today's news cycle is the CIA and a supposed dropped ball.


At the longtime CIA media outpost Newsweek, Jeff Stein wants you to know Nouri bega,n spying on and tracking the CIA in 2004.  If true, not surprising.  Supposedly, he was fed info by the Iranian government and fed back to them.  If true, the notion that the White House installed Nouri in 2006 and demanded he remained prime minister in 2010 makes both Bully Boy Bush and Barack Obama look even more stupid for supporting Nouri.  Stein writes:


According to [former CIA official John] Maguire and another former CIA operations officer, the Iraqis acquired sophisticated cell phone monitoring equipment, probably from Iran, and began tracking CIA operators to identify their spies, especially inside the Maliki government. “It wasn’t so much the agency people they were interested in as who they were meeting and talking to,” says another CIA source, a paramilitary operations specialist who did three tours in Iraq. Although he was not authorized to discuss the subject, he agreed to be quoted on condition of anonymity because he felt U.S. advisers just arriving in Iraq needed to be warned.
“They are very aggressive,” he says of the Iraqi security services. “They have the best equipment Iran has,” including devices known as StingRays, that can lock onto a cell phone and extract all its data, from contacts to photos and music.

AP's Ken Dilianianap speaks to CIA spokesperson Dean Boyd who states that "the intelligence community provided plenty of warning to the Obama administration that the insurgent Islamic State in Iraq and Levant --known as ISIL -- could move on Iraqi cities" and Dilianianap quotes US House Rep Mike Roger (House Intelligence Committee Chair) stating, "Anyone who has had access to and actually read the full extent of CIA intelligence products on ISIL and Iraq should not have been surprised by the current situation."

Dean Boyd is offended by any suggestion that the CIA in Iraq since 2011 have just been sitting behind desks or hiding out.  They've done much more than that and I'm not being sarcastic.  We've noted here at least three different times when drones were spotted flying over Baghdad.  I'm sure they've done many other missions as well.  In addition, they do have the outpost on the Turkish border which allows them fly drones over Iraq and Iran and that's also where most communications -- in Iraq and Iran -- are monitored from.

Nouri is said to have purged the CIA assets in Iraq.  That's also not 'news.'  The Iraqi press has noted repeatedly in the last two years -- especially Kitabat and Iraq Times -- that this or that official was run off (and often run out of the country) by Nouri who was accusing the official (usually a general) of being a spy for the United States.

All of this was known or should have been.  Did the CIA 'fail' the administration?

The previous administration?  Possibly.  (If they did, they did so by bending to the will of the Bully Boy Bush White House.)  The current administration?  No.


Let's again note that Jaime Dettmer (Daily Beast) reported earlier this week that the White House had months of warnings about ISIS and the warnings were ignored.  And who's talking about this?  Dettmer reports:


The prime minister of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, Nechirvan Barzani, says he warned Baghdad and the United States months ago about the threat ISIS posed to Iraq and the group’s plan to launch an insurgency across Iraq. The Kurds even offered to participate in a joint military operation with Baghdad against the jihadists.
Washington didn’t respond—a claim that will fuel Republican charges that the Obama administration has been dangerously disengaged from the Middle East. Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki dismissed the warnings, saying everything was under control.
The Kurds’ intelligence head, Lahur Talabani, says he handed Washington and London detailed reports about the unfolding threat. The warnings “fell on deaf ears,” he says.


There were warnings.  In addition, common sense told anyone paying attention this was coming.  hWe warned here repeatedly that when people were told they could make changes by votes and their votes were overturned (by the White House in 2010), when those politicians who tried to represent them were targeted by the government, what was left?  The only avenue for redress was protest.  And Nouri labeled the protesters 'terrorists' and attacked them.  And where was the US?



From Samarra من سامراء


"Obama, If you Cannot Hear Us Can you Not See Us?"

That's a pretty clear message.

And when Nouri began attacking protesters and the US government refused to say a word, that was pretty clear message as well.

The April 23, 2013 massacre of the sit-in in Hawija   resulted from  Nouri's federal forces storming in.  Alsumaria noted Kirkuk's Department of Health (Hawija is in Kirkuk)  announced 50 activists have died and 110 were injured in the assault.   AFP reported the death toll rose to 53.  UNICEF noted that the dead included 8 children (twelve more were injured).  And the State Dept had no statement calling it out and the White House couldn't be bothered.  And, step by step, things got worse and worse.

The current events are no surprise at all.  As Dexter Filkins told Terry Gross (Fresh Air, NPR, link is audio and text) yesterday, "Well, you know, it's pretty depressing (laughing). I mean, these guys are - I mean, some of those guys, you know, ISIS are just full on psychopaths. You know, these are the people that make beheading videos. It's not all of them. But there's a lot of them in there. And, you know, it's sad. I mean, it's not terribly surprising I have to say. You know, I was there a few months ago and it wasn't difficult to see what was happening. You know, I didn't - I certainly didn't predict what would ultimately happen. But everything was really fragile, there was so much anger and unhappiness that it looked like, you know, we're kind of one big event away from everything coming apart. It wasn't hard to see."


What this is about is that the Blame Bully Boy Bush for problems that emerged from 2009 to the present day is wearing thin so the White House is attempting to push the blame over to the CIA and the CIA is saying, "Oh, no, we're not going to be your fall guy."  It's an internal squabble, a game of hot potato.

This week's. Black Agenda Radio, hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey (first airs each Monday at 4:00 pm EST on the Progressive Radio Network),  features a discussion of the CIA's involvement in Iraq with Bill of Rights Defense Committee's executive director Shahid Buttar.

Glen Ford:  The NSA -- the National Security Agency which purports to be the all seeing eyes and the all hearing ears of the United States, how could the NSA not have known that ISIS -- the jihadist group which US funding has been so much a part of the growth of -- was not about to launch a major offensive or be the spearhead of a major offensive in Iraq? 

Shahid Buttar:  The CIA has a long history of being on both sides of conflicts and instigating conflicts which we then later sacrifice a great deal to address. And there's any number of places we could demonstrate this from [. . .] Saddam Hussein -- which the CIA supplied his regime for years, Iran -- which the CIA supplied, that's what the Iran-Contra scandal was about -- with the CIA basically trading weapons with our nation's central enemy and the idea that they are under the table, betraying American interests, taking tax dollars to do it, destabilizing our international relations is the short answer to why they hate us -- to the extent anyone hates us -- is the CIA.  It's three letters. It's not that long.  And I think it's very unfortunate that we see in ISIS the recreation of this pattern of the CIA's complicity with people who have been our enemies, will be our enemies, are allied with people who are currently our enemies[.]






RECOMMENDED:  "Iraq snapshot"



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Thursday, June 26, 2014

THIS JUST IN! THE HORNY GALS OF POLITICO!

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

FADED CELEBRITY BARRY O IS (SEE PHOTO BELOW FROM 2010) YET AGAIN STROKING HIS INNER JOAN RIVERS.

The Joan Rivers Presidency



THE TWO LITTLE BITCHES TRY TO COMPARE BARRY O TO BOTH A "BEAR" (GUESS WE KNOW WHICH BARS THEY HANG OUT AT) AND DON RICKLES -- DEMONSTRATING THAT THEY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT COMEDY AS WELL AS BEING IGNORANT ON POLITICS AND SEXUAL IDENTITY ("BEARS" ARE HAIRY MEN, NOT SMOOTHIES LIKE MOOBY BARRY). 

BUT THEY KNOW HOW TO SUCK UP, LITTLE BITCHES USUALLY DO -- WHEN NOT SCISSORING ONE ANOTHER.


IN THE REAL WORLD, BARRY O'S CATTY NATURE'S LONG BEEN NOTED, SUCH AS IN JUNE 2008.



themanwholovedcatdancing







Polls this week have not brought good news for Barack Obama.  For example, Andrew Dugan (Gallup) notes that 61% of respondents in a new Gallup poll "still support President Barack Obama's 2011 decision to remove nearly all U.S. troops from Iraq" but that this has fallen from 75% in October of 2011 and that the new poll was taken as Barack "has sent 275 military troops to help secure the U.S. embassy in Iraq and 300 military advisors to assist the Iraqi government."  This on the heels of the NBC-Wall St. Journal poll.  For those who missed that poll earlier this week, Carrie Dann (NBC News) reports 71% of the respondents in that poll describe the Iraq War as not "worth it."   Fox News announced the results of their latest poll today. Dana Blanton (Fox News) reports:


President Obama’s decision to send 300 special-forces advisers to Iraq leads most voters to believe a large number of combat troops will eventually go back there.
That’s according to a new Fox News poll released Tuesday.
The poll also finds that although most voters think the terrorist insurgents will win if the U.S. doesn’t help Iraq, a majority says it is more important to keep our troops out of Iraq than it is to stop the fighting.

This has not been a good news week for Barack. 

Might it get even worse?

Some think so.


"But sooner or later, honest liberals will have to admit that Obama’s Iraq policy has been a disaster." That's an argument Peter Beinart made earlier this week in "Obama's Disastrous Iraq Policy: An Autopsy" (The Atlantic).  In the essay, Beinart sketches out events so many want to avoid. 

We'll note this section on The Erbil Agreement which gave Nouri al-Maliki a second term after voters and the Iraqi Constitution didn't:


For the Obama administration, however, tangling with Maliki meant investing time and energy in Iraq, a country it desperately wanted to pivot away from. A few months before the 2010 elections, according to Dexter Filkins in The New Yorker, “American diplomats in Iraq sent a rare dissenting cable to Washington, complaining that the U.S., with its combination of support and indifference, was encouraging Maliki’s authoritarian tendencies.”
When Iraqis went to the polls in March 2010, they gave a narrow plurality to the Iraqiya List, an alliance of parties that enjoyed significant Sunni support but was led by Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite. Under pressure from Maliki, however, an Iraqi judge allowed the prime minister's Dawa Party—which had finished a close second—to form a government instead. According to Emma Sky, chief political adviser to General Raymond Odierno, who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq, American officials knew this violated Iraq’s constitution. But they never publicly challenged Maliki’s power grab, which was backed by Iran, perhaps because they believed his claim that Iraq’s Shiites would never accept a Sunni-aligned government. “The message” that America’s acquiescence “sent to Iraq’s people and politicians alike,” wrote the Brookings Institution’s Kenneth Pollack, “was that the United States under the new Obama administration was no longer going to enforce the rules of the democratic road…. [This] undermined the reform of Iraqi politics and resurrected the specter of the failed state and the civil war.” According to Filkins, one American diplomat in Iraq resigned in disgust.
By that fall, to its credit, the U.S. had helped craft an agreement in which Maliki remained prime minister but Iraqiya controlled key ministries. Yet as Ned Parker, the Reuters bureau chief in Baghdad, later detailed, “Washington quickly disengaged from actually ensuring that the provisions of the deal were implemented.” In his book, The Dispensable Nation, Vali Nasr, who worked at the State Department at the time, notes that the “fragile power-sharing arrangement … required close American management. But the Obama administration had no time or energy for that. Instead it anxiously eyed the exits, with its one thought to get out. It stopped protecting the political process just when talk of American withdrawal turned the heat back up under the long-simmering power struggle that pitted the Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds against one another.”


The agreement Peter's writing about is The Erbil Agreement.  Not only did it spit in the face of democracy, it did something even worse as time went on.  To get the political blocs to agree to sign off on this contract, the White House insisted the contract had their full backing.   The day after the contract was signed, Parliament finally held a session.  And, that day (November 11, 2010), The Erbil Agreement had the White House's backing as evidenced by a phone call Barack made.  From that day's snapshot:


Martin Chulov (Guardian) reports one hiccup in the process today involved Ayad Allawi who US President Barack Obama phoned asking/pleading that he accept the deal because "his rejection of post would be a vote of no confidence". Ben Lando, Sam Dagher and Margaret Coker (Wall St. Journal) confirm the phone call via two sources and state Allawi will take the post -- newly created -- of chair of the National Council On Higher Policy: "Mr. Obama, in his phone call to Mr. Allawi on Thursday, promised to throw U.S. weight behind the process and guarantee that the council would retain meaningful and legal power, according to the two officials with knowledge of the phone call." 

So then, that day, the contract had the full backing of the White House.

But Nouri used the contract to get his second term and then refused to honor what he had agreed to in writing, in the contract, to get that second term.  And the White House said and did nothing.  In the summer of 2011, Iraqiya, the Kurds, cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr began publicly demanding The Erbil Agreement be implemented as promised.

And the White House?

Said and did nothing.

And we could follow this through to all the later failures of the White House to back The Erbil Agreement (including May 2012 when the White House actively works to undermine it), but we've covered that before and we have a great deal to cover today.

Nouri signed a contract and broke his promise.  That's typical Nouri.  He has twice taken an oath to the Iraqi Constitution but refused to honor that oath by implementing Article 140 of the Constitution.  He breaks every promise.  Something as simple as buying weapons from Russia goes from the announcement of an over 4 billion dollar deal to months and months of on again off again -- all after a sales contract is signed -- because Nouri's word doesn't mean a thing.  He's known for breaking his word.

Despite Nouri's well known reputation for breaking his word, Barack wanted to make deals with Nouri this month.

Monday, June 16th, the New York Times explained the basics on The Diane Rehm Show (NPR):


Peter Baker:   That's the reason why President Obama's even thinking about, you know, potentially getting involved again in a place he really, really doesn't want to get involved in. 

Diane Rehm: How does he think he might be able to get involved? 

Peter Baker:  Well, for him, the first thing is trying to use this moment to leverage Prime Minister Maliki to be more inclusive, as we were just talking about, to reconcile to the extent he possibly can with the Sunni groups who have been marginalized, to take some of the political momentum out of ISIS as they are marching across Iraq. Then, in terms of military capacity, if he chooses to use it, he's not talking about boots on the ground, he says. He's talking about potentially air power, whether they'd be piloted aircraft or drone strikes, in addition to more intelligence, more equipment, more, you know advising kind of role. 



It's Wednesday which means Nouri takes to TV to deliver his weekly 'I hate Sunnis and Kurds' speech.  He offered a twist today.  To form a national salvation government, Alsumaria quotes him stating, would be a coup against the Constitution.  DPA reminds:

The U.S. has pushed for an inclusive government in Baghdad, citing charges by minority Kurds and Sunnis that Mr. al-Maliki, a Shia, has marginalised them during eight years of rule.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry repeated the call on Monday during talks with officials in Baghdad.
Mr. al-Maliki, who has been in power since 2006, eyes a third term. 

Nayla Razzouk and Selcan Hacaoglu (Bloomberg News) add, "Politicians including former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi as well as Shiite leaders who had helped bring Maliki to power have called on him to step down to allow the formation of a unity government to counter the advance of Sunni militants threatening to break up Iraq. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has also urged Iraqi leaders to form a more inclusive government "  Patrick Cockburn (Independent) explains, "Mr Maliki is opposed by the Sunni, Kurds, several Shia parties, the US and the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Shia spiritual leader. To have a chance of keeping his job he would need the full support of Iran, which does not want him to be replaced by a pro-American prime minister."   BBC's Richard Galpin offers an analysis which includes:

It was Mr Maliki's political rival Ayad Allawi who raised the issue of a national salvation government which the prime minister has so firmly rejected.
But it seems Mr Maliki is also firing a warning shot across the bows of the international community.
The United States in particular has been putting intense pressure on him to ensure a new government is formed as quickly as possible, with a broad spectrum of politicians.


NPR's Bill Chappell quotes Deborah Amos stating of the speech, "The prime minister lashed out, calling any attempts to form a unity government a coup against the constitution and Iraq's democracy. The U.S. has pushed for a more inclusive government, one that represents all religious and ethnic groups. Iraqi politicians widely blame Maliki for failing to reach past his Shiite Muslim political base."  Nouri's bellicose response may have been, in part, a reply to an interview John Kerry gave CBS News on Tuesday in which he noted (rightly) that Iraq has no government currently and also has military issues so US air strikes are not a possibility currently.  (They shouldn't be a possibility ever but at least they're not a possibility currently.)




RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
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Wednesday, June 25, 2014

THIS JUST IN! HIS TROUBLES MULTIPLY!

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

FADED CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O IS DRAGGING THE U.S. BACK INTO IRAQ.  HE'S ALSO FACING A LAWSUIT FROM SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE JOHN BOEHNER. 


THOSE ARE THE LEAST OF HIS PROBLEMS.

HE TRIED TO KILL CHARLIE RANGEL'S POLITICAL CAREER.

HOWEVER, RANGEL IS NOT YET IN THE GRAVE.

IF RANGEL HOLDS ON TO HIS LEAD, BARRY O WILL LEARN JUST HOW ROUGH THINGS CAN GET.





On this week's Cindy Sheehan Soapbox, Cindy speaks with Iraqi-American peace activist Dr. Dahlia Wasfi.

Cindy Sheehan:  Well, obviously, we were talking before the interview, it's just disheartening because Obama has gotten away with so much since he's been president.  And I'm not saying, you know, that an active movement against what he's doing would have stopped anything --

Dr. Dahlia Wasfi:  Right.

Cindy Sheehan:  -- but at least we would have -- we would be out there showing our opposition.  Now I want to talk about an article you just posted on CounterPunch called "Keep Calm and Trust Iraqis with Iraq."  Now I have been getting some communications with people and they're telling me, "But, Cindy, this is different because I protested to oppose the 2003 invasion and occupation but I don't want to see Iraq fall to Islamic fundamentalists."  First of all, is that what is happening? And secondly, like you wrote in your article, keep calm and trust Iraqis with Iraq.  What business is it of ours?  And can you just talk a little bit about that?

Dr. Dahlia Wasfi:  Sure.  It's been actually -- It's eye opening and quite disappointing though I think understandable just the level of discomfort and suspicion around Muslims in general. 

Cindy Sheehan:  Mmm-hmm.

Dr. Dahlia Wasfi:  That people can be so easily -- Just the concept of Islamic fundamentalism -- the seeds were planted and the roots run deep in this country of this fear of The Other.  And it's still working to trigger fear here.  It's upsetting.  But actually, if they didn't want Islamic fundamentalism in Iraq, then we shouldn't have handed the keys over to Nouri al-Maliki.

Cindy Sheehan:  Right.

Dr. Dahlia Wasfi:  We essentially brought a very conservative -- I don't know whether to say "right wing."  In this country, I would say right wing.  But a very conservative fundamentalist party that Nouri al-Maliki belongs to called the Dawa Party.  And they found, the Dawa Party started in Iraq but found its base in Iran when they -- some of them -- were exiled, some of them fled on their own.  But the reason for that was Saddam Hussein was secular and parties like the Dawa Party -- they're not the only ones -- but the multiple parties that were seeking theocratic rule which is, of course, what has been in Iran since 1979.  And they got support for that in Iran so they grew very strong -- at least grew strong in Iran since their days of exile -- I think mostly in the 1980s.  And over that time parties like this built up religious militias.  Now what happens when the US invaded was the borders were left wide open and, of course, for many years the Shia majority in Iran wanted access to the holiest  cities like Karbala in Iraq and Saddam Hussein purposely shut down that route -- that travel route -- again, to limit the amount of theocracy that was in the country and also everything was about maintaining and protecting the regime.  So after 2003, a lot of the parties, a lot of the followers, a lot of the militias, they all crossed the border into Iraq and the southern part of Iraq was greatly influenced and controlled, dominated, by these militias.  When we brought Nouri al-Maliki to power and  just before him Ibraham al-Jafaari and the Constitution that we helped "independent Iraq" write, this opened the door for Sharia Law -- very conservative rule and it's very sectarian.  What happened as we helped the training and arming of the new Iraqi army and police was that these militias -- members of these militias -- became incorporated into the army and police and they have been acting as death squads in Iraq.  So the big fear should have been back in 2003 -- very religious influence.  What we're seeing now is the backlash of that.  There are extremist groups on the other side.  Because we brought one extremist group to power, just from cause and effect, you're going to find other extremist groups merging like ISIS.  They are one of multiple groups who have set their political differences aside for now and are working together for the common goal of removing the Shia sectarian regime in Baghdad. It's messy.  It's not fully neat and tidy but this is what I'm hearing from the people on the ground.


That's just the opening of the interview.  Time permitting, we'll note more of it this week. Dexter Filkins (New Yorker) observes:


As dramatic as the insurgents’ approach has been, it is not terribly surprising. They have fed on the deep discontent that prevails across the Sunni heartland, provoked and sustained by Maliki. Since the last American forces departed, he has embarked on a stridently sectarian project aimed at marginalizing the Sunni minority. He has presided over the arrest of his Sunni political opponents, jailed thousands of Sunni men, and excluded the Sunni population from any meaningful role in government. The Sunni Finance Minister, Rafe al-Essawi, fled the capital; the Sunni Vice-President, Tariq al-Hashemi, fled the country and faces a death sentence if he returns. When the Sunnis rose up in anger, as they did in Falluja and elsewhere, Maliki ordered the Army to shell civilian areas and detain more Sunni men. Ever since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s Sunnis have been faced with the choice of pledging their allegiance to the Shiite-led government in Baghdad or to the armed groups within their own community.




Let's start with non-surprising news.  Jacob Siegel (Daily Beast) reports:

As Iraq devolves into a multi-party civil war, President Obama has moved one step closer to sending military forces back into the country. Yet the White House has not clearly explained what the proposed contingent of 300 special operations troops would actually do, other than some vague talk about advising their Iraqi counterparts. Veterans of the special operations community spoke with The Daily Beast about what the operation would likely entail and expressed their skepticism about how much it could accomplish.
Asked if he believed sending the small military force into Iraq was a good thing, a special operations veteran and former CIA officer said, “It’s not a good thing or a bad thing, it’s a no thing. These guys are being given an impossible mission. What are they going to do? Host a dinner party? It’s 300 guys to stop ISIS from taking over Baghdad.”
On Monday, as reports spread that ISIS had captured border crossing points along the length of Iraq’s western frontier, the Obama administration cleared the most significant obstacle to sending the U.S. military to Iraq. The White House announced a diplomatic agreementproviding immunity for U.S. forces from prosecution under Iraqi law. It now seems like only a matter of time before the planned 300 special operations troops arrive in Iraq. But what they will do there is an open question.


Last Thursday, we noted the plan was murky at best


It's an important point.  I don't support Barack sending troops in, [Senator Saxby] Chambliss does. We can agree that the mission needs to be clearly defined.
What is success? 
How it will it be measured? 
What would warrant even more troops being sent in?  What would result in US troops leaving?
None of this is defined.
A speech consisting of 946 words and nothing is clearly defined.
Whether you support or oppose the move, whether you support or oppose Barack, it needs to be defined.  If it's not defined, and Barack is your favorite president of all time, there's a good chance this mission will do huge damage to his reputation and his legacy.  It is in everyone's interest -- including the Iraqi people -- for Barack to clearly define this mission, its goals and the measurements for success or failure.
Barack insisted in his speech that there would be no "mission creep" -- well he was insisting that in 2007 to the New York Times -- check the transcript.

National Iraqi News Agency reports a Syrian fighter jet bombed the city of Qaim in Anbar Province today resulting in 20 deaths and ninety-three people being injured.  And this is why Barack can't guarantee "mission creep."  Incidents like the bombing of Qaim -- which may or may not have happened -- can pull the US further into a country.

'Advisors' were in Vietnam and then came the Gulf of Tonkin incident involving the USS Maddox.William P. O'Connor (CounterPunch) noted in 2008: 

According to President Johnson, the U.S.S. Maddox was fired upon by North Vietnamese forces. This so-called attack in international waters led to the direct and massive build up of American forces in the region. Many years after the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was passed, however, President Johnson said, “Hell, for all I know, we could have been shooting at a bunch of seals out there” (McNamara 141). The young soldiers in the field were not privy to such remarks.

In 2010, O'Connor noted:

After Kennedy’s assassination, his successor Lyndon Johnson never told the more than 150,000 U.S. casualties that his administration made up the “attack” on the U.S.S. Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin, which expanded the war. Johnson later joked, “For all I know they could have been shooting at a bunch of seals out there.” Determined not to be the first American administration to lose a war, the Executive Branch beat its breasts, twisted arms and waved the flag until Congress approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Johnson laughed and later called the resolution “grandma’s nightgown.” because he said, “It covers everything.” 


Some have mistaken Rachel Maddow's column this week -- originally for the Washington Post -- as 'antiwar.'  How stupid are you?

Rachel wants legislative cover for Barack.

There are many in Congress who want Congress to pass a bill granting authorization.  They're not opposed to providing troops on the ground.  They want to define (help spread war) what responses can further war.  An attack from Syria, like the one NINA is describing, would likely be such a response.  This is how you get mission creep.

(Aided by creeps like Rachel.)

Barack can't convey to the American people what he wants out of his Iraq mission.

And it's not a plan worth having.  The US shouldn't be in Iraq. 


 Gary Langer (ABC News) reports on a new ABC News - Washington Post poll.  "Two-thirds oppose sending ground troops to fight the Sunni insurgents in Iraq" and 52% of those surveyed disapproved of Barack's methods of addressing the issue of Iraq (the poll has a 3.5% margin of error).  Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Anthony Salvanto and Fred Backus (CBS News) report on another poll, a CBS News - New York Times poll, which finds only 18% of those surveyed feel the Iraq War was 'woth it' (75% say it was not worth it) and:

When Americans are asked about a range of military options in Iraq, there is support for some actions, but not others. A slim majority of Americans (51 percent) favor sending military advisers into Iraq to train and advise the Iraqi military and collect intelligence, which President Obama has proposed. Forty-two percent oppose it. There is bipartisan support for this plan.

Barack's mission is both controversial and ambiguous.  He's failed to define the mission, define success or even the need for it.

He's floundering.


She's floundering
Good God, what she does in one day you wouldn't believe
She's into Christian Science
And voodoo
And laugh therapy
And bathtub therapy
One day she's a Jesus freak
Then she goes Orange with Rajneesh
Oh, God, she uses the mandela
Gone to Silva Mind Control
She's into homeography
Chiropratic
Actualization
Est
And Sufism
-- "Floundering," written by Carly Simon, first appears on Carly's Hello Big Man





RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"


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