REACHED FOR COMMENT, JUSSIE STATED HE COULDN'T SPEAK LONG, HE WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF PLANNING HIS NEXT HOAX, AN ATTACK ON HIM BY TWO "SISKEL AND EBERT TYPES WHO WILL SCREAM 'BAD ACTOR! BAD ACTOR! THIS IS MERYL STREEP COUNTRY!'"
BUT JUSSIE DID MAKE TIME TO EXPLAIN THAT "IF YOU LOCKED UP EVERY LIAR, THE PRISONS WOULD BE EVEN MORE OVERCROWDED. PEOPLE ARE BEING TOO SENSITIVE. IT WAS JUST A PRANK. I'M THE CHRIS ANGEL OF ACTING." FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Now she wants to rally everyone around no-war-on-Venezuela? Why should anyone care?
If protests break out in the US what would it even matter?
It would make a damn difference.
Because Jill, Medea Benjamin, Norman Solomon, Amy Goodman -- go down the
list. All these fools have made clear to the US government that if you
threaten war, we will oppose you . . . briefly.
What these idiots -- and so many others -- have made clear to the US
government is that the US government's desire for war is stronger than
the people's desire for peace.
Shame on Jill Stein. The Iraq War hits the 16 year mark and if she even
bothers to note that ongoing war, it's just to make it a reference
point. It's not to call for an end to it.
When an Elliott Abrams tells a president that war will be easy, he can
point to what's happened with Iraq and say, "Don't worry, they protest
now, but in a few months, these gadflies will have flitted elsewhere."
The violence didn't stop. The war never ended. The US government
continues to control Iraq. The Iraqi people are overruled and pushed
aside repeatedly. It's an occupation. But don't worry, we have brave
voices speaking out in the US . . . somewhere, right?
There is no follow through. Our so-called leaders are too busy thumbing
rides on the Highway of Causes, rushing from one to another, to have
any follow through.
DISGRACED FORMER EXECUTIVE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES JILL ABRAMSON IS NEWLY DISGRACED AS A RESULT OF PLAGIARIZING THROUGHOUT HER NEW BOOK 'MERCHANTS OF TRUTH.' ATTEMPTING TO DIG HERSELF OUT OF HER HOLE, JILL IS INSISTING THAT SHE DIDN'T PLAGIARIZE, SHE JUST HAD A "CITATION ERROR."
Former Vice President Joe Biden's words and policy positions on the Iraq War could come back to haunt him if he enters the race for the White House. Biden
is popular with Democrats, polls show he leads most of his competitors
in the 2020 field and a survey this week found more than 60 percent want
him in the race. He routinely leads polls of Democrats asked to pick
their favored presidential candidate. But his words on Iraq from
nearly two decades ago sound out-of-step with the increasingly
left-leaning party he would be seeking to lead. Biden backed the resolution giving President George W. Bush the
authority to invade Iraq, and he also praised the president in a Senate
floor speech at the time for his handling of the case for war.
Joe did not have the problems that Hillary Clinton or John Edwards had
when it came to Iraq. As the late Elizabeth Edwards noted, John Edwards
came clean on Iraq and apologized for it but Hillary refused to take
accountability for her support for the Iraq War (saying she was tricked
by Bully Boy Bush is not taking accountability, it is saying "I"m so
stupid even an idiot can fool me").
Parnes notes 2008 in one sentence but never addresses why it wasn't an
issue for Joe when he last attempted to be the Democratic Party nominee.
There are several reasons. First among them, the Iraq War wasn't his
focus, he was focused on partitioning Iraq or creating a federalist
system. He repeatedly denied this was partitioning Iraq. Many Iraqis
disagreed. During his brief 2007 and January 2008 campaign for the
nomination, he was repeatedly on the defense about this issue. Seeking
votes in Iowa in the last stages of his campaign, he was still having to
face the issue and clarify or expand on his previous remarks.
It is true that CODEPINK was bird-dogging Hillary Clinton over her vote
and support for the Iraq War at this time (and only bird-dogging her)
but Joe's mess at that time was being the face of US imperialism
announcing that Iraq should be three different government under a
federalist system. This was not what Iraqis were calling for at the
time and here was this non-Iraqi from a country that started the war now
insisting what would be done next.
Beau Biden is another factor. Beau served in Iraq. Chelsea Clinton did
not serve in Iraq (though she did support the Iraq War, a reality she
tries to lie about today). With a son in Iraq, the hypocrite label was a
little harder to hang on Joe.
There's also the fact that no one really thought Joe Biden stood a
chance at the nomination. He was gaffe prone. He infamously 'borrowed'
from another for a big speech in a previous run. He wasn't seen as a
viable candidate by the press.
What's different now?
Sexism will be called out. I'm not just referring to Anita Hill (Parnes
covers that). I'm also referring to the media itself. In New
Hampshire, speaking publicly, Hillary's eyes well. She does not cry,
she does not sob. But Bill Moyers, Jesse Jackson Jr. and countless
others mocked her for that, ridiculed her for that, etc. Months later,
Joe Biden, then on the ticket as Barack Obama's running mate, starts
crying on stage in the middle of a speech. It's not even one day's
coverage, let alone the weeks of coverage Hillary endured.
Things have changed and they won't help Joe. Most of all, his Iraq-free
card won't exist this time, not after he shamed himself by publicly
praising Bully Boy Bush at an awards ceremony last year. Joe's
popularity is as an idea. As an actual person? If he runs, his
popularity will plummet.
We heard attacks from warmongers in politics/media before. Those opposed to Iraq/Libya/Syria regime change wars are called “dicatator-lovers” or “cozy” with evil regimes. Rather than defend their position, they resort to name-calling & smears. American people wont fall for this.
US House Rep Tulsi Gabbard is running for the 2020 Democratic Party
nomination and you know she makes some tremble by the vicious media
attacks she's already enduring.
Last Saturday, she officially launched her campaign.
Tulsi Gabbard officially announced her candidacy for President of the United States and kicked off her campaign on Saturday, Feb. 2, 2019, in Hawaii. She was introduced by Ryan Soon, a fellow member of the Hawaii National Guard who served with her in Iraq and Kuwait.
Tulsi's friends, family, and supporters gathered to hear her vision for
the future of our nation. More than 3,500 private and public watch
parties across the country were coordinated by grassroots supporters to
take part in the live-streamed event. In her remarks, Tulsi Gabbard said,
"When we raise our right hand and volunteer to serve, we set aside our
own interests—to serve our country and to fight for ALL Americans. We
serve as one—indivisible and unbreakable, united by this bond of love
for each other and love for our country. It is this principle of putting
service above self, that is at the heart of every soldier, every
service member. And it is in this spirit that today I announce my candidacy for President of the United States of America.
"I will bring a soldier's values and principles to the
White House—restoring the values of dignity, honor, and respect to the
presidency. And above all, love for our people and love of country. I
ask you to join me, in this spirit of putting service before self, to
stand up against the forces of greed and corruption."
Possibly some of the press attacks stem from the press fear that Tulsi
will bring Iraq into the conversation. Parnes, for example, is
convinced that Iraq's not an issue in 2020.
A foreign policy that works for
all Americans must also be driven by honest assessments of the full
costs and risks associated with going to war. All three of my brothers
served in the military, and I know our service members and their
families are smart, tough, and resourceful. But having a strong military
doesn’t mean we need to constantly use it. An effective deterrent also
means showing the good judgment to exercise appropriate restraint.
Over the past two decades, the
United States has been mired in a series of wars that have sapped its
strength. The human cost of these wars has been staggering: more than
6,900 killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, another 52,000 wounded, and many
more who live every day with the invisible scars of war. By financing
these conflicts while cutting taxes, the country has essentially charged
the costs of war to a collective credit card for future generations to
pay, diverting money that could have been invested in critical domestic
priorities. This burden will create a drag on the economy that will last
for generations.
The costs have been
extraordinarily high, but these wars have not succeeded even on their
own terms. We’ve “turned the corner” in Afghanistan so many times that
it seems we’re now going in circles. After years of constant war,
Afghanistan hardly resembles a functioning state, and both poppy
production and the Taliban are again on the rise. The invasion of Iraq
destabilized and fragmented the Middle East,
creating enormous suffering and precipitating the deaths of hundreds of
thousands of people. The region remains a tangled mess—the promise of
the Arab Spring crushed, Iran emboldened, Syria devastated, the Islamic
State (or ISIS) and its offshoots stubbornly resilient, and a massive
refugee crisis threatening to destabilize Europe. Neither military nor
civilian policymakers seem capable of defining success, but surely this
is not it.
A singular focus on
counterterrorism, meanwhile, has dangerously distorted U.S. policies.
Here at home, we have allowed an imperial presidency to stretch the
Constitution beyond recognition to justify the use of force, with little
oversight from Congress. The government has at times defended tactics,
such as torture, that are antithetical to American values. Washington
has partnered with countries that share neither its goals nor its
ideals. Counterterrorism efforts have
often undermined other foreign policy priorities, such as reinforcing
civilian governance, the rule of law, and human rights abroad. And in
some cases, as with U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s proxy war in Yemen,
U.S. policies risk generating even more extremism.
As a member of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, I have seen up close how 17 years of conflict have
degraded equipment, sapped forces’ readiness, and forced the
postponement of investment in critical military capabilities. It has
distracted Washington from growing dangers in other parts of the world: a
long-term struggle for power in Asia, a revanchist Russia that
threatens Europe, and looming unrest in the Western Hemisphere,
including a collapsing state in Venezuela that
threatens to disrupt its neighbors. Would-be rivals, for their part,
have watched and learned, and they are hard at work developing
technologies and tactics to leapfrog the United States, investing
heavily in such areas as robotics, cybersecurity, artificial
intelligence, synthetic biology, and quantum computing. China is making
massive bets in these and other areas in an effort to surpass the United
States as a global technological power. Whether the United States will
maintain its edge and harness these technologies for good remains an
open question.
It is the job of the U.S.
government to do what is necessary to protect Americans, but it is long
past time to start asking what truly makes the country safer—and what
does not. Military efforts alone will never fully succeed at ending
terrorism, because it is not possible to fight one’s way out of
extremism. Some challenges, such as cyberattacks and nuclear
proliferation, require much more than a strong military to combat. And
other dangers, such as climate change and the spread of infectious
diseases, cannot be solved through military action at all. The United
States will spend more than $700 billion on
defense in the 2018–19 fiscal year alone. That is more in real terms
than was spent under President Ronald Reagan during the Cold War and
more than all the rest of the country’s discretionary budget put
together. But even as Washington spends more and more, U.S. military
leaders point out that funding a muscular military without robust
diplomacy, economic statecraft, support for civil society, and
development assistance only hamstrings American national power and
undercuts any military gains.
As a candidate, Trump promised to
bring U.S. troops home. As president, he has sent more troops into
Afghanistan. On the campaign trail, Trump claimed he did not want to
police the world. As president, he has expanded the United States’
military footprint around the globe, from doubling the number of U.S.
air strikes in Somalia to establishing a drone base in Niger.
As a candidate, Trump promised to rebuild the military, but as
president, he has gutted the diplomatic corps on which the Pentagon
relies. He promised to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation, but
he has undermined a successful nuclear deal with Iran, has failed to
roll back the North Korean nuclear program, and seems intent on spurring
a new nuclear arms race with Russia.
These actions do not make
Americans safer. It’s time to seriously review the country’s military
commitments overseas, and that includes bringing U.S. troops home from
Afghanistan and Iraq. They have fought with honor, but additional
American blood spilled will not halt the violence or result in a
functioning democratic government in either place.
We've noted that several times before. We've also noted that foreign
policy will be an issue in the 2020 election. How much of an issue, I
don't know. Even I was shocked by (see Wednesday's snapshot) the "CBS NEWS poll showed that the most pressing topic on the mind of
Americans was foreign policy and national security. Respondents ranked
that the number one issue (93%) with jobs and economy second (92%) and
healthcare third (80%)."
ASKED WHAT LESSON SHE HAD
LEARNED FROM HER PUBLIC EMBARRASSMENT, JILL RESPONDED, "NONE. I NEVER
LEARN ANY LESSON. I JUST GO ON BEING THE SAME USELESS ME THAT I HAVE
ALWAYS BEEN."
US President Donald Trump's remarks earlier this week about using
al-Asad base in Iraq to spy on Iran continues to make the news. ALJAZEERA reports:
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said Iraq aspires to
have "good and balanced relations" with all of its neighbours "based on
mutual interests and without intervention in internal affairs".
Iraq "rejects being a launching pad for harming any
other country", he said during a meeting with UN Iraq envoy Jeanine
Hennis-Plasschaert at the Muslim leader's base in Najaf.
AP also notes al-Sistani's remarks.
It's interesting, isn't it, how the supposed mainstream press is noting
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani on this issue when the ignored his
repeated remarks about the Iraqi government accepting foreign loans,
ignored his opposition to Iraq accepting IMF loans and his warnings
about how this would limit Iraq's independence.
But on this, they rush to quote him. Some times, apparently, al-Sistani
is a newsmaker worth listening to and, some times, he is not.
ALJAZEERA also notes the supposed leader of Iraq: Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, at his weekly news conference late
Tuesday, reminded Trump there are no US bases in Iraq and said he does
not accept the idea of his country becoming an arena for fighting a
neighbouring country. He called on Trump to retract his statements.
Despite traveling with press on Sunday and Monday, Mahdi refused to make any statement on the matter until "late Tuesday."
This allowed the press to rally around the president of Iraq and present
the world with the misinterpretation that the presidency was the
highest office in Iraq. (It's not.)
Donald's Sunday remarks have resulted in days of Iraq coverage -- the
kind of coverage not even seen when the Iraq War hit the fifteen year
mark. (It hits the sixteen year mark this March.)
The U.S. and Iraq opened talks Wednesday on a new agreement to allow U.S. forces to remain in the country, just days after Mr. Trump angered top officials in Baghdad by outlining plans to keep a military footprint in Iraq indefinitely to “watch” neighboring Iran and prevent a resurgence of terror groups such as Islamic State.
The negotiations come amid the meeting this week of
the U.S.-organized “Global Coalition to Defeat Islamic State,” the
79-nation consortium spearheading the fight against the Islamic State.
Mahdi has still been unable to find a Minister of Defense or Minister of
Interior. Four months (so far) those posts have been empty.
Why are US forces staying in Iraq? If their own government can't fill
the post of Minister of Defense at a time when they are 'at war,' why do
US forces need to waste their time on the ground in Iraq?
“Connect the dots” Thank you @EllenPage for speaking the truth with clarity and passion. Enough is enough.
FOLLOWING THAT TWEET, THESE REPORTERS CAUGHT UP WITH JENNIFER BEALS TO ASK HER A FEW QUESTIONS.
FOR STARTERS, IF YOU'RE ALL ABOUT DOING THE RIGHT THING, WHY DID YOU STAR IN A SHOW LIKE 'TAKEN' WHERE TORTURE WAS PORTRAYED AS AN EFFECTIVE WAY TO OBTAIN CONFESSIONS?
MS. BEAL REPLIED, "I WENT TO YALE NOT HARVARD." JUST LIKE SHE DID ON SO MANY AUTOGRAPHED PHOTOS IN THE 80S.
WE ASKED HER IF HER SUPPORT FOR TORTURE EXPLAINS WHY SHE WAS IN THE FILM 'THE BRIDE' AND MS. BEAL REPLIED, "I FEEL LIKE AN HONORARY LESBIAN AFTER PLAYING ONE ON THE 'L-WORD' FOR SIX SEASONS."
WE ASKED HER IF SHE FELT SHE'D EVER ACHIEVED ANYTHING OF NOTE AND MS. BEAL REPLIED, "I STARRED IN THE DANCE FILM 'FLASHDANCE' AND MARINE JAHAN, CRAZY LEGS AND SHARON SHAPIRO DID ALL MY DANCING. I DID, HOWEVER, TAKE OFF MY BRA ALL BY MYSELF."
From yesterday's snapshot: The Iraqi government remains corrupt, remains unresponsive to the needs
of the people, continues to arrest protesters and reporters covering
protests (as events in Basra have demonstrated). And every year, they
train and retrain and then train again the Iraqi military in an effort
to get it up to speed. Of course, the Iraqi military repeatedly fails.
The western press repeatedly works overtime to lie about that. The
Iraqi military would not have 'won' Mosul without US war planes blindly
bombing Mosul -- a city full of civilians.
Andrew Tillet (Australia's FINANCIAL REVIEW) reported yesterday: Australian fighter jets were involved in an air strike believed to have killed up to 18 civilians while fighting Islamic State terrorists in Iraq - the highest casualty rate implicating Australian forces - Defence chiefs have revealed. But
the pilots have been cleared of wrongdoing, with the investigation
finding they had acted in accordance with their rules of engagement and
laws of armed conflict as part of desperate efforts to save the lives of
Iraqi soldiers during brutal urban combat to liberate West Mosul.
The
deaths have been attributed to a lack of solid intelligence on the
ground as Iraqi troops fought, with no time to properly assess whether
surrounding buildings were clear of civilians before bombs were dropped.
While I have no problem with the pilots being cleared of wrongdoing, I
do have a problem with those over the strikes and the policy of the
strikes being cleared of wrongdoing. Mosul is a highly populated city.
That was known. That was known before the US or any other government
started dropping bombs on Mosul to 'fight' ISIS. There were no
'precision' strikes. That's a lie used to lull the public into
stupidity so they won't object to what's really going on -- the
equivalent of carpet bombing schools, places of worship, homes, etc.
[. . .]
Responding to the Australian Defence Force’s (ADF) admission that its
air strikes in Mosul, Iraq may have caused up to 18 civilian deaths in
2017, Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International’s Middle East Research
Director, said:
“The Australian Defence Force’s latest admission
that its air strikes killed civilians during the battle for Mosul in
2017 is a step in the right direction. Once again, the Australian
government has proven more willing to take responsibility for causing
loss of civilian life than its coalition partners, including the UK, USA
and France.
“The matter must not end here, however. The ADF
should continue to lead by example by providing the further details
necessary to help an independent assessment of whether this attack and
its operations in Mosul complied with international humanitarian law. We
know that an Australian plane struck a target in West Mosul and
unintentionally killed up to 18 civilians in a nearby house. In order to
understand how this happened the ADF needs to disclose more
information, including the type of weapon used in the strike, the nature
of the target, what measures were taken to ensure that the target was a
military objective, whether other means or methods of attack that would
have minimized the risk to civilians were considered, and what was done
to collect information about the presence of civilians in the vicinity.
The ADF has taken a positive step by acknowledging that their attacks
resulted in civilian casualties. What they must do now is provide the
victims’ families with the best chance of achieving justice and
accountability. The way to do this is to release the further information
required.
“The ADF has taken a positive step by
acknowledging that their attacks resulted in civilian casualties. What
they must do now is provide the victims’ families with the best chance
of achieving justice and accountability. The way to do this is to
release the further information required.”
Background
The Coalition’s battle to wrest Mosul from the armed group calling
itself Islamic State (IS) began in October 2016 and ended in July 2017.
Throughout the campaign, and especially in its later stages in West
Mosul, the Coalition relied heavily upon air power, despite the presence
of civilians trapped in the city by IS. Amnesty International revealed
the effects of this upon the civilian population with its July 2017
report, At Any Cost: The Civilian Catastrophe in West Mosul, Iraq.
On
31 January 2019, the Australian Defence Force’s Air Marshal Mel Hupfeld
acknowledged that as many as 18 civilians were killed in an attack on a
target in West Mosul in which two Australian Super Hornet F-18 jets
were involved on 13 June 2017. This follows a previous ADF admission on
28 March 2018 that it killed two adults and injured two children in a
strike on Mosul that came to light following Amnesty International
investigations on the ground.
Will other governments come clean? Will the US government
specifically? Probably not. The US government is involved in countless
wars while currently working for war with Iran and Venezuela. Bombing
from war planes has always been less 'offensive' to the American
people. It's boots off the ground and, in an operation like Mosul,
there's little chance of American fatalities since a group like ISIS
(being a terrorist group and not the military of another country)
doesn't have a fleet of airplanes.
So they know they can blindly bomb an area for weeks, months, in Mosul's
case, years and the American people won't pour into the street or even
bat an eye due to being lied to that these are 'precision' strikes and
that the government of the United States has done 'everything possible
to minimize civilian casualties.'
No, they haven't.
They haven't done anything to minimize civilian casualties. As for
doing 'everything' to minimize, doing everything would include not
bombing civilian areas. But they did bomb civilian areas -- over and
over and over.
The US government will most likely never get honest about civilian
casualties. At some point in the near future (say, five years on down
the line), they'll offer an under-count of the civilians killed in the
Mosul bombings -- but only when they can claim some new technology has
come along to make the strikes even more 'precise.' They'll use that to
sell more strikes.
It's really outrageous how little the media cares about the bombs being
dropped. (And if the media doesn't cover it, the American people have a
hard time hearing about it.)
