"It's
a problem that manifests itself in veterans homelessness, in broken
families, and far too often in our veterans taking their own lives.
"It's a problem that neither the veterans themselves, nor government
alone can solve.
"But it is also one we need to do everything we can to address.
"And here in the Senate that means a bipartisan 'all hands on deck' strategy.
"And that is exactly what the Veterans Jobs Corps represents.
"Over
the next five years, the Veterans Jobs Corps will increase training and
hiring opportunities for all veterans using successful job training
programs from across the country.
"It
will help hire qualified veterans as police officers, fire fighters and
other first responders at a time when 85 percent of law enforcement
agencies were forced to reduce their budget in the past year.
"It
will also help train and hire veterans to help restore and protect our
national, state, and tribal forests, our parks, and other public lands.
"All
at a time when we face a $10 billion maintenance backlog for our public
lands – a backlog I have seen personally in many of the parks and lands
in my home state of Washington.
"And
because training and hiring our veterans has never been, and should
never be, an effort that divides us along partisan lines - the Veterans
Jobs Corps takes good ideas from both sides of the aisle.
"In
fact, the bill will provide veterans with access to the internet and
computers to conduct job searches at one-stop centers and certain other
locations an idea championed by Senator Toomey. It will help guarantee
that
rural and disabled veterans' have access to veterans' employment
representatives a bill from Senator Tester. It will increase transition
assistance programs for eligible veterans and their spouses a bill that
was introduced by Senator Boozman. And it will require consideration of a
veteran's training or experience gained while serving on active duty
when they seek certification and licenses a bill cosponsored by
Democrats and Republicans.
"This bill says that all good ideas are welcome, because our veterans need all the help they can get.
"And it is also fully paid for in a bipartisan way.
"It has been endorsed most recently by the National Association of Police
Organizations but but there are also many veterans service organizations that stand behind this bill.
"And they do so because they know that helping veterans find employment is critical
to meeting so many of the challenges they face returning home.
"You know, Mr. President our veterans don't ask for a lot.
"Often times they come home and don't even acknowledge their own sacrifices.
"My own father never talked about his time fighting in World War II.
"In fact, I never saw his Purple Heart, or knew that he had a wallet with shrapnel in it,
or a diary that detailed his time in combat, until after he had died and my family
gathered to sort through his belongings.
"But our veterans shouldn't have to ask.
"We should know to provide for them.
"When my father's generation came home from the war – they came home to
opportunity.
"My father came home to a community that supported him.
"He came home to college - then to a job.
"A job that gave him pride.
"A job that helped him start a family.
"And one that ultimately led to me starting my own.
"That's the legacy of opportunity this Senate has to live up to for today's veterans.
"I urge my colleagues to build on the successes we have had in passing bipartisan veterans employment legislation.
"Veterans returning home all across the country are watching us and they certainly
don't have time to let politics block their path to a job that will help serve their
community.
"Surely, this is something that we can show them that we can come
together on, no matter how close or far away we are from an election.
"Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor."
Today the White House issued the following list of nominations:
Robert
Stephen Beecroft, of California, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign
Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and
Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of
Iraq.
T. Charles Cooper, of Maryland, to be
an Assistant Administrator of the United States Agency for
International Development, vice Jeffrey J. Grieco.
Rose
Eilene Gottemoeller, of Virginia, to be Under Secretary of State for
Arms Control and International Security, vice Ellen O. Tauscher,
resigned.
F. Scott Kieff, of Illinois, to
be a Member of the United States International Trade Commission for the
term expiring June 16, 2020, vice Daniel Pearson, term expired.
Joshua
D. Wright, of Virginia, to be a Federal Trade Commissioner for the term
of seven years from September 26, 2012, vice J. Thomas Rosch, term
expiring.
Robert S.
Beecroft is Barack Obama's 4th nominee to be the US Ambassador to Iraq.
Senator Barack Obama participated in this process by voting to confirm
presidential nominees. But Barack's only been president since January
2009 -- not yet four years. No, it is not common for a president to
have to repeatedly nominate people to the same post over and over in one
term. And, no, no one died in the post.
When
Barack was sworn in, Ryan Crocker was the US Ambassador to Iraq.
Barack nominated Chris Hill who, once confirmed and in Iraq, quickly set
a record for afternoon naps. When it was realized that Chris Hill
wasn't working, James Jeffrey was nominated. Then Jeffrey wanted out
and Brett McGurk was nominated. But he withdrew his name, as
Press TV notes "over a sex scandal" and
Peter Baker (New York Times) notes, when "Democrats were unwilling to defend him because he previously worked for President George W. Bush."
Currently,
Robert Stephen Beecroft is the Charge d'Affaires of the US Embassy in
Baghdad. This means he's been running things since the US has no
Ambassador to Iraq at present. Yesterday, Barack Obama nominated
Beecroft to be the latest in his conga line of US Ambassadors to Iraq.
Unlike Chris Hill and Brett McGurk, Beecroft actually speaks Arabic.
From
June 6, 2008 through June 4, 2011, he was the US Ambassador to Jordan
-- he was sworn in to that post July 17, 2008 with his wife Anne and
their daughter Blythe present as then-Secretary of State Condi Rice
conducted the ceremony. Their daughter attended Brigham Young
University, as did Robert S. Beecroft (if you're wondering, yes, he is a
Mormon and his missionary work was done in Venezuela). Anne and Robert
Beecroft married in 1983, Blythe is their oldest child (22) followed by
Warren, Sterling and Grace. After practicing law for six years (UC
Berkeley Law School, 1988), Robert Beecroft joined the diplomatic corps
in 1994.
Iraq, we were told, was a democracy -- or at
least an emerging one. If that were true, it certainly would have
needed a steady hand in terms of the US diplomatic mission. It didn't
get that. And possibly that's allowed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
and the Maliki Thugettes to believe they could get away with anything?
This
believe that they can get away with anything and that others have no
rights and no right to expect safety or human kindness goes a long way
towards explaining how members of a group that was an oppressed majority
less than ten years ago is now represented by thugs who want to harm
others, not lift Iraq to a higher place.
First Iraqi Man: They came to me face-to-face and told me that I have to stop being gay otherwise we will kill you.
Second Iraqi Man: They made every excuse to get us out of the car. They took us away and five men started raping us.
Natalia
Antelava: In a tiny stuffy room, Ahmed, Nancy and Allou are hiding from
their families and the police. All three have received death
threats. Ahmed has not left this room for over two months now.
Ahmed:
I came here because I was gay and I was threatened by my family -- my
immediate family -- and some unknown guys from my neighborhood. The
situation a few years ago was very bad. But at that time, they did not
pay any attention to gays. Now they have nothing to do but look for
gays -- to kill them.
Allou:
The threat is much bigger now than before. It's not only the militias
now. It's the police, the government who are going after us.
Natalia
Antelava: I really wish we could show you their faces. Ahmed's got
big, dark, worried eyes on his thin face. Nancy's really pretty and I
would have never guessed that she was born male. And Allou's got this
very trendy haircut which would be completely normal in the West but
here in Iraq, this sort of hair could get you killed. Nancy is
especially vulnerable in Iraq. Born a transgender, she dreams of a sex
change operation but it is impossible to have it done in Iraq, she says,
and she has no way of leaving the country.
Nancy:
My mom tried to persuade me to act like a man because I am supposed to
be a man I couldn't. She didn't know what was inside me. She
couldn't understand that. I can't tell you how many times I've been
raped at checkpoints -- with the police, it's countless. The worst
incident was at a checkpoint on Al Sadun street. They asked me for my
ID, then asked me to get out of the car. It was dark. They put me
against the blast wall. Nine of them raped me. There was nothing I
could do. If I had resisted, they would have arrested me.
Natalia Antelava: If you could have anything that you wanted, what kind of life would you want to have?
Nancy:
I want to live the life I want. I want to be a woman and to be treated
like one. I am a human being and this is my right.
Natalia
Antelava: It's not just transgender, Allou had been raped too. And I
heard many other similar stories -- gay men, with even a slightly
feminine appearance say they're often raped by police at checkpoints.
Allou:
I am so tired, so sad. I have no freedom. I can't say that I am gay.
I can't live my life. I can't go home. I have to stay here doing
nothing and just wait.
Natalia
Antelava: He doesn't know what he's waiting for. The situation in
Iraq he says is only getting worse and without the support of
international organizations, they can't find the way out of the country.
They appear regularly without a warning. Each neighborhood gets its
own hit list with names and addresses of local residents who are
believed to be gay. Each time, it drives the already hidden gay
community here further underground and further into panic. Each time,
one of the gays told me, it signals the beginning of a new witch hunt.
Radical milita groups are believed to be behind this hit list. Although
officially they've been disbanded, militias still pose the greatest
threat to homosexuals. But those we spoke to say that they're just as
fearful of countless police and military checkpoints that are supposed
to be making Baghdad safe. This checkpoint is manned by the Interior
Ministry troops. But in Iraq, one's uniform never tells you the full
story. In this country, you can be a police man by day, a militia man
by night. These blurred lines and mixed allegiances have made it easy
for the government to blame militia groups for the killings of gays. But
we've discovered evidence that directly links the police with attacks
on gays in Iraq. Qais is gay and a former police man. He told me he had
been ordered to go after homosexuals. He couldn't refuse and so he quit
his job.
Qais:
In 2006, 2007 and 2008, we were busy fighting terrorsm. We didn't pay
attention to gays. On top of it, the Iraqi government had to respect
the rule of law when the Americans and the British were here. But now?
They have a lot of free time and the police are going after gays.
Natalia Antelava: Have you ever been called to arrest gays or kill gays or go after gays in any way?
Qais:
Yes, twice. We had to arrest this guy. He was having an argument with
someone. Once they arrested him, they accused him of being gay. We
were told to send him to another town where he was wanted for being
gay. We sent him to that town and he disappeared. His family came to
ask about him and we sent them to another town where they could not find
him. Then they got a death certificate from the police but they never
got the body.
Natalia
Antelava: With so much secrecy, fear and loathing, it's difficult to
establish the exact level of the government's involvement in the
persecution. But 17 gay men interviewed for this investigation said they
believed they were being singled out and hunted by the state. All see
the police as a major threat. All have recently had friends or
boyfriends killed. All said arrests were still happening. Until
recently, Ghaith worked a a police station. One day, he came to work to
find his boyfriend in a pre-trial detention cell.
Ghaith:
Being gay is not illegal in Iraq, it's not a crime. But he was told he
was arrested because he was gay. They call gays "puppies." They would
beat him, saying, "Puppies are destroying our country. We must rid our
country of you. We must kill you all. He was in the police station
for a week.
Natalia Antelava: The last time Ghaith saw his boyfriend was the day before he died.
Ghaith:
I was upset. I lost all control, had a fight with the guards. I was
screaming, "Why did you kill my lover!" They said, "Since you're like
him, you should be dead too." I started looking for any document
related to his death. I told them I was going to international human
rights organizations and tell them everything.
Natalia Antelava: Ghaith is now in hiding, terrorfied that he is next.
Credit
to the BBC which has been the world leader on this issue for broadcast
outlets. No other broadcast news outlet has done as much to raise this
issue or to report on the violence as the BBC has. In print form, the Denver Post has done more than any other daily newspaper and Boston's The Edge
has done more than any other weekly (especially reporter Kilian
Melloy). And I don't want to take anything away from those three news
outlets but it is a real shame that their strong work has not been
matched by others in what is not a one day or one month or one year
story but what is a story that's been going on since the start of the
war and a story whose latest wave of persecution has been going on for
nearly four years. A big thank you to those who have done such a great
job covering the story (and there are others who have -- especially
among the LGBT press) but it is shameful that so many outlets -- so many
name news outlets -- have elected to ignore this story -- repeatedly
ignore it.
In Iraq, the persecution and the violence continues. Today
All Iraq News notes a Falluja home invasion of a police officers home in which 1 family members was killed and five more were left injured.
Alsumaria notes 2 corpses were found dumped on a main road in Mosul, both men had been shot to death.
The political crisis continues in Iraq.
Al Rafidayn notes
that Nouri has been very skillful in playing various political blocs
against one another, tossing them off balance and allowing him to
continue doing whatever it is that they had been objecting to before he
pitted them against one another. (They also note Sunday's violence --
over 100 dead, over 400 wounded -- and speak with analyst
John Drake
who feels that the violence was more likely carried out by the Islamic
State of Iraq and not supporters of Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi.)
The
political crisis has lasted over a year. You can chart its beginning
to the end of December 2010 when it should have been clear that Nouri
was trashing the US-brokered Erbil Agreement (which gave him a second
term as prime minister) or the summer of 2011 when Iraqiya, Moqtada
al-Sadr and the Kurds were all calling for a return to the Erbil
Agreement publicly. The political crisis can be seen as beginning in
December of 2011 when Nouri's war on the Sunnis moves from mass arrests
of academics and the elderly in the fall of that year to targeting
Iraqiya (with his demand that Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq be
stripped of his post and his arrest warrant for Vice President Tareq
al-Hashemi -- al-Mutlaq and al-Hashemi are members of Iraqiya and also
Sunni).
Immediately after the political crisis begins, Speaker of
Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi and Iraq President Jalal Talabani begin
calling for a National Conference -- a meet-up of the political blocs --
to address the crisis. Nouri is immediately against it and says it's
not necessary. He'll go for a reform commission, he insists, but not a
national conference. He tries to throw one road block after another
before the National Conference as prep meetins are held. In late
February, he announces it can't take place in March because the Arab
League Summit will be held in Baghdad that month. Talabani uses the
international press spotlight to schedule the National Conference -- he
did that by announcing the weekend before the Summit, with press
arriving in Iraq in large numbers that were only expected to increase
(and did increase -- for the Summit) that they would hold the National
Conference Thursday, April 5th. The announcement having been made to
the press, Nouri tries to save face by announcing it himself while
instructing his State of Law MPs to work on killing the conference. The
day of the conference al-Nujaifi is forced to hold a press conference
to announce that the National Conference is off.
It was supposed
to be re-scheduled. Nouri then focused his efforts on killing a
no-confidence vote. Once he had done that (with the tremendous help of
Jalal Talabani), he announced that the reform commission he'd earlier
spoken of would do the work the national conference was supposed to.
No.
That
was never going to happen. And it ended up being nothing but a set of
non-binding statements written by his National Alliance allies. Turns
out it was even worse than that.
Al Mada reports today that the National alliance is stating that they will review the reform paper before it's put forward. Review it?
Al Mada reports State of Law wrote it.
State
of Law is Nouri's slate. Nouri wrote his own little 'reform' list.
Iraqiya is the political slate that came in first in the March 2010
elections. Nouri's slate came in second. Nouri is part of the
National Alliance (as is Moqtada al-Sadr and his bloc of MPs and the
Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and other Shi'ite groups). The Reform
Commission was supposed to be similar to the National Conference -- a
face to face meet-up of blocs where the various issues were addressed.
Instead, it became a paper written by elements of the National Alliance
sympathetic to Nouri. Now it's become a paper written by State of Law.
It
is a joke. I-Was-Right rights today go to Iraqiya leader Ayad Allawi
who was the first Iraqi to publicly call out the Reform Commission and
note that the whole thing was nothing but a distraction.
The
Reform Commission will accomplish nothing. Nouri implemented a
power-grab at the end of 2010 and has continued it. That's part of the
objection -- and why some Iraqi politicians have compared Nouri to
Saddam Husssein. The idea that the man accused of a power grab can
have his political slate write the reforms is laughable.
Part of
Nouri's power grab was ignoring the Constitution which requires a prime
minister-designate to name a Cabinet in 30 days or else someone else
will be named prime minister-designate and get the 30 days to accomplish
the task. The Constitution requires that you name the Cabinet in 30
days or you don't get moved from prime minister-designate to prime
minister. That's not 'partial Cabinet.' That's name your Cabinet.
Nouri
couldn't do that because he wouldn't do that. He never named ministers
to head the Interior, Defense or National Security. And, again, Ayad
Allawi was the first to publicly call this out. He said it was a
power-grab. The press insisted it wasn't. They insisted that in a
matter of weeks, Nouri would name nominees for these posts. It's now
September 2012 and he's never named nomineess.
Al Mada notes
Iraqiya is calling for nominees and saying they need to come quickly in
light of Sunday's violence. Iraqiya MP Hamid al-Mutlaq states that the
country is vulnerable to terrorists as a result of Nouri leaving those
positions empty.
All Iraq News adds that Iraqiya has submitted a list containing the names of four members they say are qualified to be Minister of Defense.
The PUK is Talabani's political party (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan).
They tell Al Rafidayn
that Jalal will return at the start of next week. In May, as the
no-confidence vote on Nouri was about to happen, Jalal suddenly began
declaring signatures void. He then ignored the request of the Kurdish
officials that no one leave Iraq. Iraq's vagabond president fled to
Germany with his office insisting that he needed life-threatening
surgery.
That ended up being knee surgery. (What a close call!)
He has remained in Germany ever since. He's been said to be on the
verge of returning before. He may or may not return next week but his
political party is stating he will be returning.
He did note
yesterday that the Sunday sentencing of his Vice Presdient Tareq al-Hashemi to be hanged was not helping the crisis.
Al Manar runs BBC's report
about Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declaring today that
al-Hashemi is welcome in and safe in Turkey and that "We will not hand
him over."
Hurriyet Daily News states
that Turkey's position is "crystal clear" and quotes Erdogan stating,
"We will host al-Hashemi in our country as long as he wants to remain in
Turkey. We will not hand him over."
Amnesty International weighed in today on Sunday's violence and on the sentence against Tareq al-Hashemi:
The
Iraqi authorities must urgently launch a thorough, impartial
investigation into a wave of bomb attacks and shootings across Iraq on
Sunday which reportedly killed at least 81 people, many of them
civilians, and left scores more injured, Amnesty International said.
The
apparently coordinated attacks in multiple cities appear to have
targeted Iraqi civilians. Members of the security and armed forces also
seemed to have been targeted. Car bomb explosions in several,
predominantly Shi'a areas were among the deadliest attacks.
"This
horrific wave of attacks shows an utter disregard for humanity – the
Iraqi authorities must ensure an immediate, thorough, impartial, and
transparent investigation is carried out and those responsible are
brought to justice in proceedings that comply with the most rigorous
internationally recognized standards for fair trial," said Hassiba Hadj
Sahraoui, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at
Amnesty International.
"There is no justification for the
deliberate targeting of civilians – it is abhorrent and shows a total
disregard for international human rights standards as well as the basic
principles of humanity."
Several bombings across southern Iraq –
including in the cities of Basra and Nasiriyah and a market near the
Imam Ali al-Sharqi shrine – also resulted in deaths and injuries.
Meanwhile,
a car bomb near the northern city of Kirkuk appeared to have targeted
people lining up to seek employment at an oil facility, and two
explosions in Kirkuk itself killed three people and wounded scores more.
Nobody has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks
Trial in absentia
The
attacks came as an Iraqi court sentenced the Iraqi Vice-President Tareq
al-Hashemi to death after he was convicted, together with his
son-in-law, Ahmed Qahtan for allegedly ordering killing a lawyer and a
Shi'a security official.
Al-Hashemi, is now in Turkey and has been in office since 2005.
He has denied the charges, which he claims are politically motivated.
"The
death penalty is the ultimate cruel, degrading and inhuman punishment
and a violation of the right to life. This latest sentence is part of an
alarming and sweeping use of the death penalty in Iraq. We call on the
authorities to commute al-Hashemi's sentence immediately" said Hassiba
Hadj Sahraoui.
Background
In
December, state run TV channel Al-Iraqiya broadcast "confessions" by men
said to be al-Hashemi's bodyguards saying that they had killed police
officers and officials from ministries in exchange for payoffs from
al-Hashemi. This is in violation of fair trial standards, especially the
presumption of innocence.
One of the bodyguards, Amer
al-Battawi, died in custody in March 2012 after being held for three
months. His family reportedly claimed his body bore signs of having been
tortured.
The Iraqi authorities denied the torture allegations and said al-Battawi died of kidney failure.
One of al-Hashemi's female employees is currently in detention.
Rasha
Nameer Jaafer al-Hussain, who was working at the Iraqi Vice-President's
Office, was arrested without a warrant at her parents' house in Baghdad
district on 1 January 2012. The security forces claimed they were
taking her away for questioning and that she would return two hours
later. Her family did not hear of her whereabouts for weeks.
A
second woman, Bassima Saleem Kiryakos, was released, apparently without
charge, on around 10 April. She was arrested after her house in Baghdad
was raided by over 15 armed security men in military uniform. The men
did not have an arrest warrant.
ENDS
For more information please call Amnesty International's press office in London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566 or email: press@amnesty.org
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