BULLY BOY
PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID
TABLE
THESE REPORTERS DIDN'T REALIZE (A) THAT AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY OCCUPIED THE WHITE HOUSE OR (B) THAT AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY HAD RUN ON A PLATFORM OF OFFERING THE MOST TRANSPARENCY EVER.
THAT'S BECAUSE (C) THEY DIDN'T.
BUT THE SO-CALLED CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY WON'T GET HUNG UP BY LITTLE THINGS LIKE FACTS, NOT WHEN THERE'S WHORING TO BE DONE. HOW THE ONE SELF-IMPRESSED HAVE FALLEN.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Discussing recent violence with Renee Montagne (NPR's Morning Edition -- link is audio and transcript), Al Jazeera and Christian Scientist Monitor correspondent Jane Arraf explained, "In Kirkuk this week also there was another suicide bombing, a very dramatic one, that was actually a group which involved suicide car bombs, gunmen, trying to free prisoners from one of the prisons." In addition, All Iraq News reported this morning that Monday's Taji attack was an attempt to free prisoners (that's what the Ministry of Justice has announced today). Jane Arraf files this report (text and video) for Al Jazeera today and notes, "The deadly attack on Tuesday was part of an attempt to break into the jail and free the prisoners."
Arraf notes people are blaming al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
I'm sure they are. Stupid people.
Let's pretend for a moment it's al Qaeda. The US war created al Qaeda in Mesopotamia (al Qaeda had no Iraq presence prior to the start of the Iraq War). So it will be ten years old shortly. So for ten years, Iraqi and US forces have been fighting it. US troops remain in Iraq for counter-terrorism operations. They never left. And last fall they were beefed up. Tim Arango (New York Times) reported at the end of September, "At the request of the Iraqi government, according to [US] General [Robert] Caslen [Chief of the Office of Security Cooperation - Iraq], a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with intelligence." So nearly ten years and what do they have to show for it? Not a damn thing.
So maybe the question isn't "Who?" but "Why?"
Why are they attacking prisons?
There's Iraq's death penalty. Dropping back to the November 12th snapshot:
Staying with violence, as noted in the October 15th snapshot, Iraq had already executed 119 people in 2012. Time to add more to that total. Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) reported
last night that 10 more people were executed on Sunday ("nine Iraqis
and one Egyptian"). Tawfeeq notes the Ministry of Justice's statement
on the executions includes, "The Iraqi Justice Ministry carried out the
executions by hanging 10 inmates after it was approved by the
presidential council." And, not noted in the report, that number's only
going to climb. A number of Saudi prisoners have been moved into
Baghdad over the last weeks in anticipation of the prisoners being
executed. Hou Qiang (Xinhua) observes, "Increasing
executions in Iraq sparked calls by the UN mission in the country, the
European Union and human rights groups on Baghdad to abolish the capital
punishment, criticizing the lack of transparency in the proceedings of
the country's courts."
Does 129 seem like a lot of people? It is a lot of people. And it appears that 2013 may top that figure. Already, in the second month of the year, the 100 mark looms. Dropping back to the February 1st snapshot:
91 executions and the year is just starting. Sunnis feel they are the ones being executed. Nouri al-Maliki's refusal to honor United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's call for a moratorium on executions is seen as an attempt by Nouri to kill off as many Sunnis as possible.
How are so many people in Iraqi prisons to begin with? Mass arrests which take place every day. 'Terrorists' are arrested under Article IV. Article IV, you may remember, has been at the heart of the current and ongoing protests in Iraq. They want Article IV tossed. Article IV allows the Iraqi government to do what the US military did in the early years of the war, arrest innocent people -- known to be innocent but known to be related to someone they want to arrest. So a mother, a daughter, a son, a grandfather, a spouse, anyone related to a suspect is arrested as a 'terrorist.' These people then disappear into the 'justice' system. From the January 14th snapshot:
First for the wave of Happy Talk. Adam Schreck Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) report
that some 'prisoners' were 'freed' today with some ("dozens') at a
ceremony presided over by "one of the prime minister's most trusted
political allies" Deputy Prime Minister Hussain al-Shahristani who
distributed candy and Korans. Having a hard time seeing Nouri okaying
candy for Sunnis? You're not alone. Though they're trying to spin this
as prisoners being released to meet the protesters demands, they won't
give details about the prisoners (including whether they are Sunni or
not). Schreck notes that some of those 'freed' had already completed
their sentences. That's really not 'freed,' that's sentence was
completed and they were released. Suadad al-Salhy, Patrick Markey and Angus MacSwan (Reuters) also note the 'release' aspect, "Officials
said a ministerial committee had freed 335 detainees whose jail terms
had ended or whose cases had been dismissed for lack of evidence." In other words, people who should have never been held got released. And how many are women?
The western outlets -- except for AFP
-- have ignored that aspect. Women are said to have been raped and
tortured in the prisons. The protesters have demanded the women
prisoners be released, it's not a minor point. The Arabic press grasps
that. Alsumaria leads
with the claim that 335 prisoners have been released over the last days
and only four of these were women. Four. Alsumaria notes the mass
demonstrations that have been taking place and that the demands have
included demands about women prisoners.Eventually, the laughable Hussain al-Shahristani would claim 3,000 had been freed. Cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr would point to the releases as proof that innocent people are being held in Iraqi prisons and jails and needed to be released immediately. The four women? They would disappear. And when the Iraqi press noted that the four women had not gone home to their families (so who paid the 'bail' Nouri demanded?) and that there were questions about the women's release, there would be no more talk of women prisoners being released.
Last week, Human Rights Watch released "Iraq: A Broken Justice System:"
Most recently, in November, federal police invaded 11 homes in the
town of al-Tajji, north of Baghdad, and detained 41 people, including 29
children, overnight in their homes. Sources close to the detainees, who
requested anonymity, said police took 12 women and girls ages 11 to 60
to 6th Brigade headquarters and held them there for four days
without charge. The sources said the police beat the women and tortured
them with electric shocks and plastic bags placed over their heads
until they began to suffocate.
Despite widespread outcry over abuse and rape of women in pre-trial detention, the government has not investigated or held the abusers accountable. In response to mass protests over the treatment of female detainees, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued a pardon for 11 detainees. However, hundreds more women remain in detention, many of whom allege they have been tortured and have not had access to a proper defense.
Despite widespread outcry over abuse and rape of women in pre-trial detention, the government has not investigated or held the abusers accountable. In response to mass protests over the treatment of female detainees, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued a pardon for 11 detainees. However, hundreds more women remain in detention, many of whom allege they have been tortured and have not had access to a proper defense.
Getting why prisons are an issue? Getting why prison breaks might happen? And note the mass arrest took place where? That's right Taji. Same place, for the last two days, there have been two attempts at breaking into a prison.
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