BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL AID TABLE
IT WAS A GOOD DAY FOR FADED CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O.
THERE WAS A VERY PUBLIC TEMPER TANTRUM THROWN IN THE OVAL OFFICE BUT, FOR A NICE CHANGE, BARRY O WASN'T THE ONE STOMPING HIS TINY FEET.
REACHED FOR COMMENT, BARRY O TOLD THESE REPORTERS, "WAH! WAH! IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE MY MOMENT!"
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
The lies about Iraq never end. USA Today's dim-witted editorial board fashioned a series of hogwash statements that they hope idiots will applaud -- idiots on my side (the left) because it's little more than self-stroking. And that the editorial board of any supposed objective paper thinks they can get away with lying demonstrates that the crisis in journalism which helped sell the Iraq War continues to this day. Case in point:
Obama's policies have indeed made things worse. But in arguing that he should have kept troops in Iraq longer, his critics skip over the inconvenient fact that he pulled out on a schedule negotiated by Bush.
No, that's not a fact.
Here's a fact for the lying whores of USA Today's editorial board: The SOFA was a three year contract. That's all it was. It was not the end of the US occupation of Iraq.
I'm sorry that you're too damn stupid or too dishonest to tell that truth.
However, we told it in real time the day the White House released the SOFA -- Thanksgiving Day, 2008 -- look it up in the archives -- we published the SOFA in full and I wasted my Thanksgiving night reading and analyzing it.
I went on to repeatedly explain that this was the replacement for the yearly United Nations mandate. That wasn't a controversial call and it had been made in the April 10, 2008 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing by then-Chair Joe Biden and by then-US Senator Russ Feingold among others.
It did not mean that the US left at the end of 2011. It only gave coverage for 2009, 2010 and 2011. A new contract could replace it.
For noting that reality, I endured three years of e-mails telling me I was wrong, I didn't know what I was talking about, the SOFA meant it was the end, blah blah blah.
At one point, I got very irritated and pointed out here that everyone who's broken a contract with a multi-national but managed to keep the seven-figure salary, keep standing. Oh, what, only me?
Yeah, so just stop talking, stop pretending you know a thing about contract law unless, like me, you've walked out on a contract and did so with no legal consequences because you were smart enough to read and comprehend the contract and see where the wiggle room was.
Who was right? The thousands e-mailing with their 'expertise' or me?
In 2011, Barack Obama began serious discussions about a new SOFA with the Iraqi government. In 2010, he backed Nouri al-Maliki -- who had lost the 2010 elections -- because Nouri had promised he would allow US troops to stay on the ground in Iraq beyond 2011. Vice President Joe Biden declared it was a "sure thing" with Nouri as prime minister.
And it could have been. But Barack wanted a smaller number than Nouri did.
Nouri feared a military coup.
Only a military coup.
He terrorized the Iraqi people -- with the Iraqi military and other forces -- and didn't fear them.
The politicians?
The US government had a way of keeping them in line -- a method former Iraq Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi described to Iran's Press TV in 2008 "as a matter of blackmailing" and "political blackmail."
That just left the Iraqi military whom Nouri encouraged to break the laws and disobey the Constitution. And if they'd so quickly do that, why wouldn't they also launch a coup against him?
Nouri wanted thousands of US troops to protect him from a coup.
US Senator John McCain has repeatedly accused Barack of tanking the SOFA talks. The reason he makes that charge is because McCain was repeatedly in Iraq including in 2011 when he spoke to various leaders about what was needed to get a new SOFA through Parliament?
Like Nouri, they wanted more US troops. (Nouri also conveyed that to McCain but McCain was not relying solely on Nouri's stated needs.)
To put this before the Parliament (the 2008 one went before the Parliament and 'passed' -- it didn't pass, there weren't enough votes for it or members present), they needed to have a sizable force or it just wasn't worth the political risk they'd be taking (the risk being the backlash from the people as well as from Moqtada al-Sadr and his movement which represented the largest and most sustained element in Iraq calling for all US troops and officials to leave the country).
Barack wouldn't budge on the number and it wasn't worth it politically to Nouri who was also getting promises from Tehran that if he didn't extend the US occupation of Iraq, he could count on Iranian forces to suppress any attempted coup which might take place.
USA Today insists, "But in arguing that he should have kept troops in Iraq longer, his critics skip over the inconvenient fact that he pulled out on a schedule negotiated by Bush."
USA Today is the one skipping over inconvenient facts such as the one where Barack Obama attempted to get a new SOFA. Here's Tim Arango and Michael S. Schmidt (New York Times) reporting in October of 2011:
President Obama’s announcement on Friday that all American troops would leave Iraq by the end of the year was an occasion for celebration for many, but some top American military officials were dismayed by the announcement, seeing it as the president’s putting the best face on a breakdown in tortured negotiations with the Iraqis.
And
for the negotiators who labored all year to avoid that outcome, it
represented the triumph of politics over the reality of Iraq’s fragile
security’s requiring some troops to stay, a fact everyone had assumed
would prevail. But officials also held out hope that after the
withdrawal, the two countries could restart negotiations more
productively, as two sovereign nations.
The tens of thousands is what Nouri stated he would back. When McCain accuses Barack of tanking the talks, he's making that accusation based on the fact that it was known 5,000 was unacceptable to Nouri.
That doesn't make McCain's accusation true but that's the basis for his charge.
That's too confusing for the editorial board of USA Today.
So let's really underscore that Barack Obama sought to extend the SOFA. This is from one of Barack's rare press briefings (this one is June 19, 2014) and he's speaking with CNN's Acosta.
Q Just very quickly, do you wish you had left a residual force in Iraq? Any regrets about that decision in 2011?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, keep in mind that wasn’t a decision made by me; that was a decision made by the Iraqi government. We offered a modest residual force to help continue to train and advise Iraqi security forces. We had a core requirement which we require in any situation where we have U.S. troops overseas, and that is, is that they're provided immunity since they're being invited by the sovereign government there, so that if, for example, they end up acting in self-defense if they are attacked and find themselves in a tough situation, that they're not somehow hauled before a foreign court. That's a core requirement that we have for U.S. troop presence anywhere.
The Iraqi government and Prime Minister Maliki declined to provide us that immunity. And so I think it is important though to recognize that, despite that decision, that we have continued to provide them with very intensive advice and support and have continued throughout this process over the last five years to not only offer them our assistance militarily, but we’ve also continued to urge the kinds of political compromises that we think are ultimately necessary in order for them to have a functioning, multi-sectarian democracy inside the country.
Samantha Power has stated to various friends that Nouri was willing to give on immunity if Barack would increase the number of US troops and, when he wouldn't budge, Nouri wouldn't either.
But right there, Barack saying he was trying to get an agreement.
So USA Today needs to learn how to be factual and how to tell the truth.
The problem the press has is that they suck up to whomever is in office.
They're little whores to the powerful.
FAIR used to make that point but fell silent when Barack took the White House.
It's why they're useless and why everyone can laugh when a Republican is in the White House again and suddenly FAIR is aghast over the press worship and over the amount of money spent on inaugural balls -- when it was Bully Boy Bush occupying the Oval Office, FAIR thought it unseemly -- at a time of war -- to be holding these lavish balls.
I've been talking to several friends -- high up in the Democratic Party -- about the sudden interest in WMD.
It's been explained that this is how Hillary wins.
If the entire Iraq War is about WMD then Hillary can play the "I'm just a little girl who misunderstood intelligence. I'm only a little girl."
So that's why we've suffered through this talking point for nearly two weeks.
Let's be really clear on something here, if Iraq had WMD, if nuclear weapons had been discovered in Iraq in April of 2003, it wouldn't have made the Iraq War "right," "legal" or "ethical."
WMD is a distraction.
That's all it was in real time.
It was a fear based talking point meant to silence debate and discussion and distract from the illegal nature of attacking a country that has not attacked you.
Hillary's not a little girl.
She's rather heavy and dumpy -- even for her age. And she's a woman, not a girl.
Most of all she was an attorney.
She has a functioning knowledge of the law -- it's how she so often skirts it successfully and semi-successfully.
Even if the delicate flower was misled by intelligence -- she wasn't -- she still knew Just War theory -- it was very big when she was in college due to what was taking place in Vietnam. So she needs to be asked about the Iraq War. Not about the distraction of WMD, but about how someone who knows the law could support illegal actions, a war of aggression.
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