Can someone explain to me Ari Shapiro's nonsense in this All Things Considered (NPR) feature?
Last night on NPR's headline news, we heard Tom Gjelten telling you how Barack and Bush's approach was similar and that it would be a continuation of Bush's 2006 statements.
So why is Ari Shapiro exclaiming that this is some major breakthrough?
It's not.
An e-mail wondered why we note NPR so much and Pacifica so rarely?
Have you listened to Pacifica?
Sorry, I can't stand the bulk of it. I no longer give to KPFA. A major break for me because I gave and gave for decades (not a lot). I just can't take it. I can't take the lying, I can't take the cheerleading and I can't take the lack of independence.
There are 'reports' on KPFA that are word for word from the White House's bullet points memo for the day. I can't stand listening to that crap.
Then I've got Kris Welch making an idiot out of herself and she whines and attacks Republicans. Uh, Kris, Republicans aren't continuing the Iraq War. That's Democrats. Why don't you stop whoring?
Or there's that crazy Aimee Allison who loves war and loves drones and thinks the drones killing innocent Pakistani civilians are a-okay bombs away because it's Barry Bomber.
I'm sick of it. I'm sick of Amy Goodman and her non-stop errors, lies and cheerleading.
I thought we had ethics, I thought we had a purpose. Pacifica felt otherwise. I'd rather hear reporting -- even bad reporting -- then listen to Pacifica and its never hear any reporting, just one lengthy column or editorial after another.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, May 26, 2010. Chaos and violence continue, Nouri 'suffers' for his public, Barack proves his presidential cry is "MEOW!", to avoid debt payments Iraq breaks up an airplane company, and more.
Last night, catty Barack Obama teamed up with catty Barbara Boxer who appears to be begging California to vote her out of office. Barry was droning on in his stop-stop, Sandy Dennis manner -- so many vocal tics you expect him to ask for a Coke. With. Crushed ice. Come Back To The Speech Therapist, Barry O, Barry O. He ended up heckled. And between his vanity and his well known bitchery, you knew Barry wasn't going to stand for it. As he scowled, Barbara Boxer snarls that "it's the same guy" who heckled Barry last time. The guy was Kip Williams and Barbara only likes it when closeted lesbians heckle Karl Rove. That she'll get behind and cheer.
Rafael Corral (KFRC) posts video of the exchange.
Barry: I have to say. You know. I saw. ThisguydowninLA. At a Barbara Boxer event.
Bitchy Barbara: That's right!
Barry: At. A. Barbaraboxerevent. About a month and a half ago. And -- uhhhh- I would -- two points I'd like to make. Number one. Uhhh. I hate to say this but he should -- I hate to say this but he really should like buy a ticket to -- Uhhhh. If-if he wants to demonstrate, buy a ticket to a guy who doesn't support his point of view and then you can yell as much as you want there. The other point is maybe he didn't read the newspapers.
That's enough of Barack's bitchy tirade against an American citizen. Forever low class, that's Barry O. And the holler monkeys assembled -- sounding like the same wet dreamers for George W. Bush in 2003 -- lap it up. Like many other things, Barack isn't good at math. A month and a half ago? Go to the April 20th snapshot to read about the last California heckling on April 19th.
On the joke of 'repealing' Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Carolyn Lochhead (San Francisco Chronicle) notes GetEQUAL's Lt Dan Choi:But Iraq veteran Lt. Dan Choi, who is facing dismissal for publicly stating that he is gay and who twice chained himself to the White House gates in protest, argued that there should be no compromise on ending discrimination and said the White House could stop dismissals now."If any groups are saying this is a reason to rejoice, they need to wake up to the reality of soldiers on the ground," Choi said. The policy "is still in place and (gay and lesbian personnel) are still going to get fired for telling the truth."At Newsweek, Dan explains:
I'm not going to lie. This compromise isn't what I, or any of my fellow advocates, wanted or expected. The compromise does not end the firings. Nor does it restore our integrity. It is the result of a White House that has been AWOL on "don't ask, don't tell" repeal for the last year and a half, and now is desperately trying to find a solution -- any solution, regardless of how unworkable -- to a problem and a promise it would rather just go away. Our "fierce advocate," as the president promised the gay community he would be, has presented us with a last-minute Hobson's choice, and it is no cause for celebration. As the clock continues ticking toward a Thursday vote in Congress, the president is asking the lesbian and gay community to praise this compromise because it's the best we could possibly get. My question for the president that I ask in this video is simple: under your compromise, when will the discharges end? How long can we ask gay service members to live a lie? How long can we deny existence to their families? How long do we need to study the injustice in order to understand that discrimination is un-American? Poll after poll shows that the American people don't need another study in order to know what's right. Nearly 80 percent of Americans, from all walks of life, already understand what the president and the Congress still find so hard to grasp. The people support a full repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" now. When will their leaders do the same?
At Blue Oregon, Iraq War veteran Eric Zimmerman explains:
The last sections of the amendment by Sen. Lieberman strike all concern for a timeline, implementation, and any actual substantive qualities of the effort to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Unfortunately there is no meat to this amendment and it quickly becomes a talking point rather than a policy change and a piece of anti-discrimination legislation. Would we have settled for such weak legislation, lack of timelines, and lack of implementation for any of the civil rights legislation of generations past? Absolutely not!
Contrast this amendment with racial civil rights legislation. Race would have remained a point of discrimination legally until the President of the United States, and members of his cabinet decided it was time to change. They would have received a report about implications; the report would have sat on their desk for weeks, months, years? Perhaps an entire term of the Presidency. Nothing in this bill holds decision-makers' feet to the fire. Congress, who enacted the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policies of the early nineties, washes their hands of the issue. No longer are the individual representatives and senators who represent us responsive to us on this issue because this amendment puts power in the hands of the President, his Secretary of Defense, and his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The President could of course replace the other two positions until he found people who would put their name to this policy change- but I don't have that kind of confidence in the President's agenda, nor should I. Politically, this issue does not warrant that kind of maneuvering. This is the right thing to do; it's a matter of just doing it. The SECDEF and the CJCS are good at what they do, they shouldn't be replaced for their lack of movement on the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. It shouldn't be their decision at all. Congress needs to repeal the ban and the President needs to sign the repeal into law. Bottom line.
What's really amazing, looking at this issue, is thinking of all the people who came of age after the March On Washington and other landmark events. They always like to say, coming of age after the battle, that they would have been on the right side. Reality is far different. They wouldn't have the guts then because they don't have it now. Instead of applauding Dan and Eric and everyone else fighting for a more equal America, they slam them. They say, as an idiot does at Blue Oregon, that you need "comrpomise. This is a compromise that will work". And they sneer "purity" at those striving for full equality.
People like that? That attitude? They were the same ones who felt that a few morsels tossed out justified continuing racial discrimination. Social change does not come about easily and look and see who today is on the side of equality and who is too busy carrying water for a president who will be out of office in two or six years. See who believes in equality and who believes in worshipping false gods. There is a very real battle going on for equal rights today. And it's not the within We The People. We The People have decided we want Don't Ask, Don't Tell ended. The battle is between We The People and our alleged representatives in the federal government. History doesn't come with do-overs. The present quickly becomes the historical record. People better be keeping that in mind when they decide whether they stand for equality or whether they're lustful teenage groupies making fools of themselves.
Meanwhile Joan Crawford in all her 'working girl' films never faced as much drama as Nouri al-Maliki attempts to create for himself. Caroline Alexander (Bloomberg News) reports the desperate-to-remain prime minister is claiming numerous assassination attempts have taken place and, here's the kicker, he didn't order them, he was the target. At one point, he insists that, in 2009, an airplane he was on was targeted: "A missile was fired against the plane but thermal decoys diverted it." He's seen far too many movies. AFP quotes the drama queen claiming, "There have been several attempts like this but they have all failed." Is he attempting to paint himself as indestructable or goading his alleged assassins on?
Each day brings us more laughable Nouri 'news' and it's getting so bad you expect to discover shortly that his agents trying to plant items in Liz Smith's latest column. Elections took place March 7th. The Iraqiya political slate won the most seats in Parliament (91). Nouri al-Maliki has repeatedly attempted to circumvent his slate's second place showing (State Of Law won 89 seats). Yesterday, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative to Iraq, Ad Melkert, gave a report to the UN Security Council. The UN News Centre quotes him stating to the Council, "At this juncture, Iraq would probably be better served by a broadly inclusive Government as a radical alternative to exclusion and disenfranchisement that many communities have experienced in the past. [. . .] Failure by the next government to address the needs and aspirations of the population will predictably be a source of increasing instability and undermind the gains of the democratic process so far." So tight with the US government that you can't tell them apart, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace weighs in with a post-election analysis by Marina Ottaway and Danial Kaysi:
Fissures are also appearing among the Kurdish parties, although they had announced after the elections that they would participate in national politics as a unified bloc. According to some reports, the agreement reached by State of Law and the INA when they formed the National Alliance assumed the Kurds would back the Alliance, and that they would keep the presidency in return for their support. Statements made recently by various Kurdish leaders call that idea into question. There is no doubt that current President Jalal Talabani and his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party want to retain the presidency and will back the INA-State of Law alliance as a result. But the leaders of Gorran, the party that broke off from the PUK and remains its main rival, is now suggesting that the Kurds should not demand the presidency, but the speakership of the Council of Representatives. Ostensibly, this is because the latter position is more powerful. Not incidentally, if the Kurdish parties accepted Gorran's position and opted for the speakership rather than the presidency, Talabani would be deprived of the position he covets. Even more revealing of dissension among the Kurds is that fact that Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan region and the leader of the Democratic Party of Kurdistan, appears to be distancing himself from Maliki. Barzani has stated that Iraqi politicians must respect the constitution and the people's will, and thus Allawi, whose Iraqiya coalition won the largest number of seats, should receive the mandate to form the government.
It is impossible to determine at this point whether Barzani's position is just an opening gambit to win more concessions from the Shi'i parties or whether there is a possibility that at least some Kurdish parties will break ranks and back Allawi. Two conclusions are clear, however. First, State of Law is both angry and worried about Barzani's position, because it needs Kurdish support to form a government. Speaking for the State of Law, Ali Dabbagh angrily declared that the Kurds were welcome to side with Iraqiya if they wanted, but then thought better of it and denied having made such a statement. Second, the Kurds are trying to exact a high price for their support. Reports indicate that they are demanding the implementation of Article 140 of the constitution, which calls for a referendum in Kirkuk; control of the presidency plus at least one of the sovereign ministries; an oil law that defends their interests; and a commitment by the government to provide funding for the peshmerga forces even though the peshmerga have a degree of autonomy from the Iraqi security apparatus. Baha'a Aaraji of State of Law has declared that the Kurds will have to reconsider their exorbitant demands if they plan to negotiate seriously.
Meanwhile Press TV reports the government or 'government' out of Baghdad continues to insist that the UN sanctions be lifted. This as Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) reports, "The Iraqi council of ministers decided to dissolve Iraqi Airways and liquidate its assets after the airline dropped flights to England and Sweden in a row with Kuwait over war reparations." Nayla Razzouk (Bloomberg News) adds, "Kuwait Airways Corp. is seeking $1.2 billion in compensation for 10 planes taken by Iraq, under the rule of Saddam Hussein when his forces invaded Kuwait in August 1990." Left unstated in both reports is that Nouri and his council really shouldn't be doing this because they really aren't in power. It's amazing what Nouri is pushing through in this post-election period and amazing how news outlets seem to work overtime to ignore that its taking place. Representing Kuwait Airways is Chris Gooding of Fasken Martineau LLP who tells BBC News:
This is not an action that's being pursued by the government of Kuwait. It's being pursued by Kuwait Airways company against Iraqi Airways company. So attempts to portray it as a political witchhunt are sadly misplaced. [. . .] It relates to the incorporation of airpcraft and spare parts taken from Kuwait International Airport by Iraqi Airways as part of an attempt to encorporate Kuwait Airways into Iraqi Airways. [. . .] These are not reparations, these are commercial court judgments totaling $1.2 billion. As I say, Iraq has defended itself throughout this action as far as the courts are concerned, these are commercial court judgments.
Hassan Hafidh and Daniel Michaels (Wall St. Journal) add, "Kuwait Airways, also state owned, has in recent years been awarded some $1.2 billion by British courts in compensation from the Iraqi carrier for the theft of 10 airplanes and millions of dollars worth of spare parts during Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Iraqi Air hasn't paid the award, so Kuwait Air recently sought to freeze the company's assets world-wide."
In other bad news for Nouri, Hassan Hafidh (Wall St. Journal) reports the one time head of South Oil Co (state-owned Iraqi oil company) is criticizing the oil deals Nouri's cabinet awarded and is calling for them to be re-examined. Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor) and Mohammed al-Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) report Nouri's running another secret prison, this one on Muthanna Iraqi Army Base, according to an Iraqi security forces member. This one appears to target Sunnis (based on the way the prisoners are described -- for example, Shi'ites aren't usually accused of being part of al Qaeda in Iraq) as did the last one but it also includes children, such as "an infant and a 3-year-old named Tiba." Along with children, wives are also being held:
In some cases, the women were being interrogated as possible suspects, but in others they were being used to try to extract confessions from their husbands. Using threats against women to elicit confessions from male relatives is a practice well-documented by rights groups.
"Four days ago when one of the men wouldn't confess they said, 'Bring in his wife.' They put her in a separate room nearby and beat her so he could hear her screaming," says the witness. "They went back to the man and said, 'We will rape her if you don't confess.' "
As part of another report, on prisoner abuse, Arraf (Christian Science Monitor) notes, "As the US prepares to withdraw from Iraq, serious concerns are surfacing about systematic torture by Iraqi forces in a country where ending human rights abuses was one of the main American goals."
Today Reuters reports a Tuesday Mosul clash in which 2 police officers were shot dead, a Tuesday Kirkuk attack in which an old man was shot dead and his corpse then hung and a 1 "agricultural crops guard" killed in Daquq Tuesday. Yesterday Baghdad saw the big gold robberies. Hannah Allam (McClatchy Newspapers) reports, "A nearby four-man police patrol responded to the sound of the grenades and got into a shootout with the attackers. All four officers were wounded, one attacker was killed and the other robbers fled with the loot, according to the Baghdad command center." Liz Sly and Usama Redha (Los Angeles Times) add, "On a street dotted with pools of blood and piles of broken glass, residents wondered how the gang had managed to launch such a well-organized attack in an area surrounded by blast walls and many checkpoints."
And as if Iraq hasn't suffered enough, Dan Healing (Calgary Herald) reports Canada's WesternZagros Resources were drilling a well in noterhn Iraq's Kurdamir and the village had to be evacuated -- everyone it -- and will apparently be homeless for "about 30 days" and everyone's supposed to rejoice that the company's chief executive has announced that "a temporary camp for the people" was built.
In the US RTT News reports the unethical Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (aka "Gimmie freebie tickets to all events!") joined with Democratic Party boi toi Jon Soltz of the front group VoteVets to accuse Republicans opposed to the war supplemental of not providing service members with what they need for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Special shame on Senator Jack Reed who actually does know right from wrong and shouldn't have participated in that garbage. (Reid and Soltz are apparently amoral judging from their past actions.) The best way to protect US troops is to stop funding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. I really don't care why some Republicans aren't for the measure. It doesn't matter. What's needed is a large number of "no" votes. (Republican objection, by their designated spokespersons public remarks, is to the supplemental war bill being stuffed with domestic agenda items.) And for those rubbing their eyes, yes, we are talking about a war supplemental and, no, you are not dreaming. Despite claiming in spring 2009 that he was doing his one and only war supplemental and despite offering a campaign promise of no war supplemental funding measures, Barack's back at the trough.
Also in the US, Bryan Mims (WRAL -- link has text and video) reported on a video apparently shot in Iraq -- by someone with the US military -- which was posted on Facebook May 14th by Robert Rodriguez and has the voice of a US male questioning two small children, apparently Iraqis, who do not understand English and making derogatory comments about sexuality and calling them terrorists. Sarah Netter (ABC News) quotes US Army Maj Bill Coppernoll stating, "The content in the video is disgraceful. [. . .] The vast majority of soldiers are doing the right thing, and I think the public knows that." Netter goes on to offer some pros and cons of a random sample of videos posted online by service members.
Weighing in on the Iraq War and how things are headed within the US, Andrew J. Bacevich (American Conservative) observes: Whether out of self-delusion or pure, unvarnished cynicism, those who promoted the invasion of Iraq as an appropriate response to 9/11 are now declaring the entire enterprise a great triumph. Celebrating the putative achievements of the surge, they evince little interest in recalling either the several years during which the war was grotesquely mismanaged or the very reasons conjured up to justify the invasion in the first place. "Bush's War," in their telling, has now been rechristened "Petraeus's War." Barack Obama has made himself party to this calculated revisionism. Keen to focus on their own agenda (to include their own war in AfPak), ostensibly liberal Democrats -- the ones who promised to change the way Washington works -- collaborate with neoconservatives and other right-wing militarists to put Iraq in the nation's rearview mirror. Will Washington succeed in perpetrating this fraud? The answer is almost certainly yes. No doubt the Congress will soon take up the business of commissioning an Iraq War memorial to be erected somewhere on the Mall amidst all the other memorials commemorating past American wars. What Congress will not do, however, is demand a full accounting of all that our long misadventure in Iraq has wrought. Nor will the American people insist on such an accounting. Truth will remain unwelcome. Our preference for sanitized history will persist.
Santized history may already be hear courtesty of Broadcasting & Cable and John Eggerton. Eggerton writes: "CNN has launched a Web subsite devoted to a list and various stats about the 1,761 U.S. and coalition casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan." Were this accurate, CNN would be a dumb ass. We all know, for example, that the number of US service members killed in Iraq currently stands at 4400. CNN doesn't say that but Eggerton hasn't learned to navigate the web yet. Someone get him a laptop with training wheels. When you go to the page, you do see "1,761" when the page finishes loading. But you are clearly on the Afghanistan tab. You have to hit the "IRAQ" tab to get "Showing 4,7171 US and Coalition casualties." CNN's John King USA on Memorial Day will devote the program to the fallen. Someone needs to explain how Broadcasting & Cable -- an industry news journal -- could be so out of it that they would actually print "1,761" as the number of fallen for US and ALL coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan? It's not that they got the number wrong. Getting the number wrong would be their being off by twenty or, if you want to be generous, by a hundred. But they are off by thousands and the writer didn't know that? And no one caught the mistake? Do they even register that the US is involved in two wars? Did they spend the last seven to nine years snoozing?
We'll close with an excerpt of Elaine Brower's "Philly: Army Experience Center Protesters Acquitted" (World Can't Wait):
On Monday, May 24th six co-defendants (Elaine Brower, Debra Sweet, Richie Marini, Joan Pleune, Beverly Rice and Sarah Wellington, appeared in a Philadelphia courtroom in front of Judge DeLeon to stand trial for arrests dating back to September 12, 2009.
On that date, hundreds of protesters converged on the "Army Experience Center", a place that literally takes small children and turns them into video thrill-seeking killers, on the taxpayer's dime. If you are not familiar with the place, it was built after the Pentagon decided to shut down five other recruitment centers in the Philadelphia area, and combine them into a high-tech, $14 million facility, complete with 19 gaming stations all equipped with the latest versions of murder software.
The DoD filled the place with nice looking recruiters, which they say are not recruiters, but mentors for the "children" who just want to "understand" today's Army. Really, a "PsyOps" program.
On that date last year, seven protesters were plucked out of the crowd of hundreds which was escorted into the mall by the local Philly PD, and civil affairs personnel, and selectively arrested. All were charged with "Conspiracy and Failure to Disperse". One was a journalist, who battled with the Philly DA and got her case dismissed, but the remaining six waited 8 months for our day in court. Our attorney, Paul Hetznecker, a Philadelphia civil rights attorney, did an amazing job of protecting our freedom of speech, and First Amendment rights.
Considering that we had been escorted into the privately owned mall, but were protesting a federally owned recruitment center, many issues came into play. Mr. Hetznecker spent months preparing his trial, actually serving a subpoena on the AEC to deliver the photos and video tapes of inside the center from that day.
iraq
the san francisco chroniclecarolyn lochhead
bloomberg newscaroline alexander
the calgary heralddan healingcnnmohammed tawfeeqnayla razzouk
the christian science monitor
jane arraf
mcclatchy newspapersmohammed al dulaimi
wralbryan mims
abc news
sarah netter
hannah allam
the los angeles timesliz slyusama redha
american conservativeandrew j. bacevichbroadcasting and cablejohn eggerton
the world cant waitelaine brower
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Will the crime be prosecuted?
My unimpressive senator, Barbara Boxer, chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and C.I. passed on that Boxer released a letter today that was sent to her by the Justice Department. The letter is below in full but, as you read it, ask why the Justice Department cannot answer a basic question?
U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Legislative Affairs
Washington. D.C. 20530
The Honorable Barbara Boxer
ChairmanCommittee on Environment and Public Works
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
May 25, 2010
Dear Madam Chairman:
This responds to your letter, dated May 17,2010, to the Attorney General concerning British Petroleum's actions in connection with the Deepwater Horizon explosion, fire and oil spill. At the outset, we wish to assure you that the Justice Department is committed to vigorous enforcement of all applicable laws in order to protect the people who work and reside near the Gulf of Mexico, as well as nearby wildlife, the environment and American taxpayers.
The Department of Justice will take all necessary and appropriate steps to ensure that those responsible for this tragic series of events are held fully accountable. Three weeks ago Attorney General Eric Holder dispatched a team of attorneys from the Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) and the Civil Division within the Department to monitor the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and assess the legal position of the United States in the aftermath of this environmental disaster. The team, headed by Ignacia Moreno, Assistant Attorney General for ENRD, and Tony West, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, met with the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana and the rest of the response team in New Orleans, as well as with state officials. Subsequently, Ms. Moreno and Mr. West convened a meeting of all of the United States Attorneys in the Gulf region to assure a coordinated effort.
The Department team is examining the full range of affirmative legal options that may be available to the United States. The team is providing daily legal advice and coordination for federal attorneys from across the Government, a vital function. Department attorneys also are defending the interests of the United States in suits brought by others.
The Department has sent formal demands to British Petroleum, Transocean and other companies to ensure the preservation of potentially relevant information. These letters invoke legal requirements for preserving evidence in anticipation of litigation. Department officials have spoken with BP and Transocean counsel to ensure they are complying with these demands.
You have asked the Department to open a criminal inquiry into events surrounding the oil spill. Consistent with long-standing policy, we neither confirm nor deny the existence of such an investigation. However we appreciate the facts that you have called to our attention and assure you they will receive due consideration.
In sum, the Department of Justice is responding to the Deepwater Horizon explosion, fire and oil spill with the utmost seriousness. We are taking all appropriate steps in the wake of an environmental tragedy in which eleven lives were lost and countless others have been grievously damaged.
Sincerely, Ronald Weich
Assistant Attorney General
cc: Senator James Inhofe
Ranking Minority Member
So let me get this right, okay? 35 days after the start of the Gulf Disaster, it not only continues but we can't even find out if there will be criminal prosecution.
One thing we do know is that BP will be left in charge because Barack doesn't like to get his hands dirty and is, in fact, allergic to actual work.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Tuesday, May 25, 2010. Chaos and violence continue, post-election madness continues, fear rise, a gold robbery takes place in Baghdad, and more.
"Two months after elections, the main political parties are no closer to forming a government, some progress has been made towards ratifying the results of the vote but the negotiations over the next prime minister might take weeks if not months," observed Riz Khan on his self-titled program last week (Al Jazeera, May 17th). "Iraqis are concerned that if either Shia or Sunni groups feel left out of the political process, sectarian tensions will rise again." Yesterday, newly elected MP Bashar Hamid Agaidi of the Iraqiya slate was assassinated in Mosul. In the lead in to reporting by Peter Kenyon (NPR's Morning Edition) notes today, Renee Montagne observed, "One of the biggest fears in Iraq is that it'll be overtaken, again, by sectarian violence before it can form a new government. And that fear was reinforced yesterday after a newly elected lawmaker was murdered." Iraq's not going to fall apart, it is falling apart and has been falling apart for some time. Catholic Culture reports Auxiliary Bishop William Shomali of Jerusalem delivered "The Middle Eastern Synod in Geopolitical and Patoral Context:"
The U.S. invasion decimated the Christian community. Before 1987, it numbered 1.25 million followers, mostly Chaldeans. Today they are less than 400,000. One of the great disasters of this century is the massive exodus of Iraqi Christians due to the insecurity and harassment of which they are victims. In Iraq, the war unleashed forces of evil in the country, among varying political streams and religious denominations. It has taken a toll on all Iraqis, but the Christians have been among the main victims because they represent the smallest and weakest of Iraqi communities. Even today, global politics completely fail to take them into account. This is in addition to other calamities that have struck the Christians of the Middle East in the past two centuries:
The genocide of one million and half Armenians in Turkey in 1915;
The genocide against the Maronites in 1860 and the Lebanese Civil War caused the exodus of many Christians;
The constant emigration of Christians from the Holy Land for more than a century.
Meanwhile Vatican Radio reports that Erbil has a bishop after not having one since 2005: "Pope Benedict XVI appointed Redemptorist Priest, Father Bashar Warda bishop of the Diocese" and "[s]ince the outbreak of war in Iraq it has become the place of refuge for thousands of persecuted Christians from the south." The persecution of the religious minorities has never stopped in Iraq. It is part of the reason Iraq has the largest refugee crisis in the world. And, in fact, for all the credit given to the "surge" and paying off Sahwa to stop attacking US troops and equipment, another reason why what's known as the "civil war" (ethnic cleansing) decreased may be due to the fact that so many who were being targeted fled the country -- over two million. Equally true is that another approximately two million Iraqis fled their homes but remained in Iraq (internal refugees).
A fear of being overtaken by sectarian violence? It's that fear, in part, that motivates Kirk Johnson (The List Project To Resettle Iraqi Allies) in his work attempting to garner asylum for Iraqis who were US collaborators during the illegal war. Johnson appeared on NHPR's Word Of Mouth today and told Virginia Prescott that the project currently has "a slate of several thousand names" of Iraqis they would like to resettle.
Virginia Prescott: Well what is the plan? I mean the US plans to have half of its 100,000 troops out of Iraq by the end of August of this year. What is the strategy for the Iraqis left behind?
Kirk Johnson: Well right now . . . I hate to say it but I'm worried that the plan is wishful thinking.
Asked for an estimate by Prescott of how many Iraqis are being discussed, Johnson revealed that the US has never kept a tally of how many Iraqis have worked for the US. When the British left Basra, Johnson asserted, those collaborators with the British military were targeted: "There were Iraqi interpreters that were dragged through the streets to their deaths. There was a single, public execution of 17 interpreters and their bodies were dumped in the streets." Earlier this month, Johnson wrote on the topic at Foreign Policy in "Left Behind in Iraq." Johnson left out an important development (it wasn't known when he appeared this morning) that will effect all Iraqi refugees including the ones his group wants to help.
Today the White House announced that Mark C. Storella was being nominated to be the US Ambassador to Zambia. This really is not the time for anyone in his position to be relocated (unless they're doing a poor job, we'll get to Chris Hill in a moment) and the White House notes:
Mark C. Storella is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service. He currently serves as the Senior Coordinator for Iraqi Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. He previously served as Deputy Permanent Representative and Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and other International Organizations in Geneva. Mr. Storella was also the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. His other overseas assignments include Rome, Paris, Bangkok and a previous tour in Phnom Penh. In Washington, Mr. Storella worked on the NATO and Japan desks, and as Executive Assistant to the Counselor of the Department of State. He received his A.B. degree from Harvard College and an M.A. in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Storella is the Senior Coordinator for Iraqi Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons at the US Embassy in Baghdad. Johnson (rightly) worries that the US government has no plans regarding the refugees Johnson's concerned about. Not only do they not have a plan but the go-to person in Baghdad, the US diplomat overseeing the refugee issue, is about to be transferred to another continent.
And for those left behind in the ongoing war? Zeina Khodr (Al Jazeera) looked at Iraq's children who have lost their parents to the illegal war:
Zeina Khodr: Hameedd and Abbas are victims of Iraq's War. Still traumatized from events three years ago, Abbas rarely speaks. His brother tells their story.
Hameed Abed Ali: My mother had psychological problems, terrorists captured her, they wanted ransom and asked my father whether we were Sunni or Shia. He didn't have the money. They put an explosive belt around her and blew it up among worshipers coming to Karbala.
Zeina Khodr: Many have similar stories. Three brothers and a sister are among scores of orphans left behind due to killings and violence. They all saw their father taken by armed men wearing masks from their home in Diyala just over two years ago.
Moustapha Sabah Hassan: First of all they took my father from the house and after three days they brought him back tortured and badly beaten. He died a few days later.
Zeina Khodr: Many of those who lost their parents in violence don't understand why they were killed and they have little understanding about the war and politics in their country; however, some of them fear for their future. They are aware of the world outside this orphanage. The realities in today's Iraq. Violence is still a part of daily life.
Social worker Intisar Shaker: Sometimes they're worried about the security situation. They ask me whether the terrorists will come and hurt them. We do our best to comfort them.
Zeina Khodr: But social workers and psychologists can only do so much. Shelter, food and care are just not enough for some to deal with the psychological scars.
Ahmed al-Amari of the Sayyed Hussein Sadr Institution: Maybe after years, they will be able to get better and re-integrate into society but we have one child who has been here for three years and continues to suffer, sometimes cries for hours.
Zeina Khodr: There are others who just don't remember their ordeal. Ali is one of them. He survived a car bombing in which his parents were killed in 2008. But those who do remember wish they could provide safety they themselves didn't know.
Hameed Abed Ali: When I grow up, I want to be a police man. Police men protect people and, when people need help, I can assist them.
Zeina Khodr: It is children like Hamid who need assistance now. A whole generation that will have to reconcile with a past while trying to build a future. Zeina Khodr, All Jazeera, Baghdad.
And for those lucky enough to be part of intact families? Peter Kenyon (NPR's Morning Edition) reported today that the violence and the uncertainty "Hamed wouldn't call it a panic, but the families he sees are those who have decided to play it safe by leaving now - to Syria, Jordan, and sometimes onto Europe or elsewhere - at least for this period of uncertainty." On The Real News, Paul Jay spoke with Amjad Ali about life in Iraq currently.
Paul Jay: Iraq has enormous oil reserves. The leaders of all these various ethnic factions are sections of the Iraqi elite who are fighting over who's going to divide up this enormous wealth. There's a lot to fight over, and it has been very violent in the last few years. What are the possibilities -- or how serious is the threat of civil war in Iraq?
Amjad Ali: Civil war is always on the verge. Iraqi people are always on the verge -- not the people, actually; those factions. As I mentioned earlier, the issue of armed groups, it's still there. Each faction has its own armed group and wants to get to a point that they cannot resolve their problem, their disputes, they resort to weapons, they resort to killing each other. And it happened just prior to the election -- a number of candidates were assassinated in Mosul. It happened in Baghdad prior to the election, when the government security forces went to Adhamiyah district, which is a Sunni-dominated area. They arrested a number of people there for no apparent reason. They were jailed, and they were released after the election. The election result right now, nobody got the majority. Nobody can form a government by himself. They are in the face of each other. Just yesterday there was a meeting between the Islamic Supreme Council group or faction with [Ayad] Allawi faction, Allawi who had 91 seats, who had the highest number of seats in the Parliament today. He said, I must -- and this is what -- I'm quoting -- he said, I must form the government because I do have the highest seats in the Parliament. The other faction, which is the Islamic Supreme Council, who formed another faction with al-Maliki, they are trying to be a mediator as to who's going to form what and what sort of government it's going to be, who's going to be the prime minister. There are a number of ministries or posts they are going to fight over, just like happened in 2005. The Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Interior, they call it, the Ministry of Oil, the Ministry of Finance, these are the ministries that there will be major issues among these factions.
Paul Jay: It's often said in the American press that it's the American troops—and the U.S. says this quite officially as well, that they think it's the U.S. troops that are preventing this civil war from breaking out. So to what extent is that true? And if in fact the U.S. does leave at the end of 2011, is that actually going to create the conditions for the beginnings of this kind of conflict?
Amjad Ali: Well, actually, no, that is not true. The American troops were in Iraq since 2003, and we saw a version of sectarian conflict and of kind of civil war in Iraq. The American troops did not participate, did not prevent that. They were just watching the whole issue. They wanted to know -- this is what we think they wanted to know -- who's going to win in the end. They did not have a serious intervention as to be a mediator to solve this conflict. They never did that. And what happened, who settled that, and this is what we strongly believe who settled that, is the people themselves did not want to be part of the civil war. They did not want to be part of the killing and kidnapping. It is right that we saw a lot of people were displaced from their neighbourhood to somewhere else.
In 2007, Bully Boy Bush started the escalation ("surge") and did so, he stated, because it would provide the space for diplomatic developments and advances. That never happened.
Ernesto Londono and Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) report that US diplomatic staff in Iraq no longer feel "overshadowed by their military counterparts"; however, as you read in, you grasp there's been no diplomatic surge, they're just referring to a tiny decrease in the number of US service members and, on the issue of Iraq descending into violence (as opposed to what today?), "U.S. diplomats say the oft-heard concerns of their military counterparts are unfounded. They argue that they are better suited to build on the security gains that the military helped achieve." The US military can't do anything. The Iraq War was illegal but the first step of the illegal war was a military mission: take out a leader. That was done. (Illegally, but it was done.) Everything since has not been a military operation. And the alternative is to have the US military continue to play mall cops for the next forty or fifty decades or to withdraw them. They should have never been sent to Iraq. There is nothing the US military can do. There's little the diplomatic team can do now either and that's thanks to Chris Hill who should never have been confirmed. You have to wonder how furious Ryan Crocker is when he looks at what he handed to Hill and what Hill didn't do with it? Chris Hill was never qualified for the post and the idea that the ass will remain in Baghdad -- continuing to create chaos with his personal drama -- until July shows that the diplomatic mission is still not a serious one.
Jamal al-Badrani (Reuters) notes that the MP Bahsar Mohammed Hamid al-Aqidi was buried today. Steven Lee Myers (New York Times) reports, "Mr. Hamid's cousin, Mahmoud al-Qaidi, said two men approached Mr. Hamid's office next to his home at 7:45 p.m. and joined a meeting in progress with six others. After a few minutes, they drew pistols and fired, hitting Mr. Hamid with seven bullets, the cousin said. One gunman was reported arrested." Mu Xuenquan (Xinhua) adds, "Two killers were captured in the northern city of Mosul, the third killer escaped, but was wounded by police, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity." Alsumaria TV notes that Bashar Hamid al-Ukaidi's driver was injured in the shooting and reminds, "Al Ukaidi is the second candidate of Al Iraqiya List to be assassinated in Nineveh. The first candidate was Soha Abdullah Jarallah Al Shammaa who was assassinated by unknown gunmen early February." Michael Jansen (Irish Times) provides this context:The killing coincided with a call by the ministries of interior and defence to the electoral commission to disqualify two candidates who won seats in the March 7th parliamentary election. The first, from the Iraqiya list faces criminal charges, and the second, from the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), allegedly broke the law by standing for parliament while serving in the armed forces.While the exclusion of these winners does not alter the result, the move shows that prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, who continues to hold the levers of power, is not ready to admit defeat. His State of Law bloc, with 89 seats, was edged out of first place by Iraqiya, headed by Iyad Allawi, with 91.According to the 2005 constitution, Mr Allawi's slender lead should have given him first crack at forming a government, but Mr Maliki mounted a blocking campaign which failed, leaving Iraqiya the largest grouping in the assembly. However, Mr Allawi has been unable to secure partners for a coalition commanding 163 seats.
Alsumaria TV notes that Ayad Allawi is traveling to Qatar on a visit "aimed to put Arab leaders in the loop of the situation in Iraq." Allawi and Tariq al-Hashimi (Sunni Vice President of Iraq) were among those visiting Ayatoallah and an Iraqi correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers share this observation:
From my own point of view, visiting Sistani is the most obvious sign of failure. It represents the miserable condition of our politicians. Since the announcement of the elections' results until now, they could not reach an agreement about the biggest parliamentary bloc and I don't expect them to agree about it soon. Although the fight over the prime minister position is exclusively between Iraqiya list and State of Law Coalition but truth is much bigger. Its a fight between the Islamists' ideology represented by Maliki and the secular ideology represented by Allawi. The two men always say they want to create a new Iraq where law is the real master. yet, the two man ruled Iraqi and we barely noticed any changes in Iraq. Bribes and administrative corruption was common during Allawi's reign in 2005 and it was the same since Maliki became the prime minister in 2006.
Meanwhile today Baghdad has seen multiple deaths as a result of what Al Jazeera's terming "deadly gold robbery" as criminals "hit nearly a dozen stores . . . killing the store owners and planting bombs". Citing Ministry of Interior sources, BBC News states there were ten robbers and "They threw grenades and then made off with gold and money after shooting some of the shop-keepers, says the BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad." AFP notes the most recent big Baghdad robbery: "Eight police guards were killed in a massive bank heist in the Iraqi capital last July. The pre-dawn raid on a branch of Al-Rafidain bank saw the robbers make off with 3.8 million dollars, but the sum was later recovered."
And because some numbers matter, we'll again note this. Journalists like to hide behind numbers and claim that numbers are objective and they don't lie. They may not lie but journalists damn well do decide what to emphasize and what to ignore. If you want an example of how that works, note this CBS News story by David Martin, this ABC news story by Jake Tapper, and we could go on and on but those are two of the better reporters and if that's what the best are doing . . . . Are they lying about the number of troops in Afghanistan? No, they're hiding behind that number (fed to them by the Pentagon, no reporter did the actual work on the numbers) and avoiding telling you about other numbers.
The most important number this week, as noted in yesterday's snapshot, is 171. That's the number of US service members who have died in the Iraq War since Barack was sworn in as President of the United States. "We want to end the war! And we want to end it now!" He hollered that often as tent revivals causing damp panties for many men and women. Now? End the illegal war now? He's been in office 16 months and the Iraq War drags on. The 'peace' candidate took office 16 months ago and has not ended the Iraq War, has continued it and is responsible for those 171 deaths. Now the Pentagon didn't supply that number. To get it, journalists would have to do what I did which was find out the death toll number when Barack was sworn in and then do the math. That may be more work than many of the well coiffed personalities are capable of. And certainly the fact the Pentagon isn't supplying that number makes it actual news -- as opposed to repeating and refurbishing the government's many press releases. Here's another number that matters but isn't being posted all over the place: The total number of US service members killed in Iraq to 4400. The 4400 number was noted by Hari Sreenivasan on last night's The NewsHour (PBS). The ease with which journalists rush to do the Pentagon's bidding (often out of laziness -- so much easier to file numbers the Pentagon gives you than to actually do the math yourself) makes it more jaw dropping that, as Walter Pincus (Washington Post) reports this morning, the Pentagon is still working propaganda operations within the US: "It is essential to the success of the new Iraqi government and the USF-I [U.S. Forces-Iraq] mission that both communicate effectively with our strategic audiences (i.e. Iraqi, pan-Arabic, international, and U.S. and USF-I audiences) to gain widespread acceptance of core themes and messages," according to the pre-solicitation notice for a civilian contractor or contractors to provide "strategic communication management services" there. Calling strategic communications "a vital component of operations in Iraq," the notice says one goal is "to effectively build U.S. decision makers' and the public's understanding of Iraq's current situation, future and strategic importance as a stabilizing presence and ally against terrorism in the Middle East." For propaganda the CIA weighed utilizing in the lead up to the Iraq War, click here for Jeff Stein's report. In other news, Waterkeeper Alliance's Kristine Stratton writes about the Gulf Disaster at Huffington Post (for 35 days now, the US government has allowed British Petroleum to oversea the disaster of their own making):
The implications of the BP oil disaster for the world are enormous - and far too great to be entrusted to a company with a history of environmental crimes, which is still on probation for some of them. The fact that BP will likely be named in upcoming criminal complaints and lawsuits is even more reason for observers to question their central role in response and their primary role in management of information.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton recently commented: "What we've done is worked with the responsible party to do everything we can to stop oil from leaking from the bottom of the Gulf and to mitigate the environmental disaster that we're seeing in the water right now. We are obviously working with BP because, frankly, they have the equipment that's necessary in order to get down to the bottom of the Gulf to help plug that hole."
BP should not be in charge simply because they "have the equipment" - any more than the oil industry should be in charge of regulation simply because they "have the equipment." The devastating results of that approach are quite visible in the Gulf of Mexico right now. As recently as September 2009, BP lobbied Congress extensively in opposition to regulations designed to prevent exactly the kind of disaster that we are experiencing today.
iraqnprmorning editionpeter kenyonrenee montagnethe new york timessteven lee myersxinhuamu xuenquanalsumaria tvthe irish timesmichael jansenal jazeerabbc newsjim muirthe washington posternesto londonokaren deyoung
nhprword of mouthvirginia prescott
al jazeerazeina khodr
cbs newsdavid martinabc newsjake tapperthe washington postwalter pincusjeff steinpbsthe newshourhari sreenivasan
U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Legislative Affairs
Washington. D.C. 20530
The Honorable Barbara Boxer
ChairmanCommittee on Environment and Public Works
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
May 25, 2010
Dear Madam Chairman:
This responds to your letter, dated May 17,2010, to the Attorney General concerning British Petroleum's actions in connection with the Deepwater Horizon explosion, fire and oil spill. At the outset, we wish to assure you that the Justice Department is committed to vigorous enforcement of all applicable laws in order to protect the people who work and reside near the Gulf of Mexico, as well as nearby wildlife, the environment and American taxpayers.
The Department of Justice will take all necessary and appropriate steps to ensure that those responsible for this tragic series of events are held fully accountable. Three weeks ago Attorney General Eric Holder dispatched a team of attorneys from the Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) and the Civil Division within the Department to monitor the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and assess the legal position of the United States in the aftermath of this environmental disaster. The team, headed by Ignacia Moreno, Assistant Attorney General for ENRD, and Tony West, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, met with the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana and the rest of the response team in New Orleans, as well as with state officials. Subsequently, Ms. Moreno and Mr. West convened a meeting of all of the United States Attorneys in the Gulf region to assure a coordinated effort.
The Department team is examining the full range of affirmative legal options that may be available to the United States. The team is providing daily legal advice and coordination for federal attorneys from across the Government, a vital function. Department attorneys also are defending the interests of the United States in suits brought by others.
The Department has sent formal demands to British Petroleum, Transocean and other companies to ensure the preservation of potentially relevant information. These letters invoke legal requirements for preserving evidence in anticipation of litigation. Department officials have spoken with BP and Transocean counsel to ensure they are complying with these demands.
You have asked the Department to open a criminal inquiry into events surrounding the oil spill. Consistent with long-standing policy, we neither confirm nor deny the existence of such an investigation. However we appreciate the facts that you have called to our attention and assure you they will receive due consideration.
In sum, the Department of Justice is responding to the Deepwater Horizon explosion, fire and oil spill with the utmost seriousness. We are taking all appropriate steps in the wake of an environmental tragedy in which eleven lives were lost and countless others have been grievously damaged.
Sincerely, Ronald Weich
Assistant Attorney General
cc: Senator James Inhofe
Ranking Minority Member
So let me get this right, okay? 35 days after the start of the Gulf Disaster, it not only continues but we can't even find out if there will be criminal prosecution.
One thing we do know is that BP will be left in charge because Barack doesn't like to get his hands dirty and is, in fact, allergic to actual work.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Tuesday, May 25, 2010. Chaos and violence continue, post-election madness continues, fear rise, a gold robbery takes place in Baghdad, and more.
"Two months after elections, the main political parties are no closer to forming a government, some progress has been made towards ratifying the results of the vote but the negotiations over the next prime minister might take weeks if not months," observed Riz Khan on his self-titled program last week (Al Jazeera, May 17th). "Iraqis are concerned that if either Shia or Sunni groups feel left out of the political process, sectarian tensions will rise again." Yesterday, newly elected MP Bashar Hamid Agaidi of the Iraqiya slate was assassinated in Mosul. In the lead in to reporting by Peter Kenyon (NPR's Morning Edition) notes today, Renee Montagne observed, "One of the biggest fears in Iraq is that it'll be overtaken, again, by sectarian violence before it can form a new government. And that fear was reinforced yesterday after a newly elected lawmaker was murdered." Iraq's not going to fall apart, it is falling apart and has been falling apart for some time. Catholic Culture reports Auxiliary Bishop William Shomali of Jerusalem delivered "The Middle Eastern Synod in Geopolitical and Patoral Context:"
The U.S. invasion decimated the Christian community. Before 1987, it numbered 1.25 million followers, mostly Chaldeans. Today they are less than 400,000. One of the great disasters of this century is the massive exodus of Iraqi Christians due to the insecurity and harassment of which they are victims. In Iraq, the war unleashed forces of evil in the country, among varying political streams and religious denominations. It has taken a toll on all Iraqis, but the Christians have been among the main victims because they represent the smallest and weakest of Iraqi communities. Even today, global politics completely fail to take them into account. This is in addition to other calamities that have struck the Christians of the Middle East in the past two centuries:
The genocide of one million and half Armenians in Turkey in 1915;
The genocide against the Maronites in 1860 and the Lebanese Civil War caused the exodus of many Christians;
The constant emigration of Christians from the Holy Land for more than a century.
Meanwhile Vatican Radio reports that Erbil has a bishop after not having one since 2005: "Pope Benedict XVI appointed Redemptorist Priest, Father Bashar Warda bishop of the Diocese" and "[s]ince the outbreak of war in Iraq it has become the place of refuge for thousands of persecuted Christians from the south." The persecution of the religious minorities has never stopped in Iraq. It is part of the reason Iraq has the largest refugee crisis in the world. And, in fact, for all the credit given to the "surge" and paying off Sahwa to stop attacking US troops and equipment, another reason why what's known as the "civil war" (ethnic cleansing) decreased may be due to the fact that so many who were being targeted fled the country -- over two million. Equally true is that another approximately two million Iraqis fled their homes but remained in Iraq (internal refugees).
A fear of being overtaken by sectarian violence? It's that fear, in part, that motivates Kirk Johnson (The List Project To Resettle Iraqi Allies) in his work attempting to garner asylum for Iraqis who were US collaborators during the illegal war. Johnson appeared on NHPR's Word Of Mouth today and told Virginia Prescott that the project currently has "a slate of several thousand names" of Iraqis they would like to resettle.
Virginia Prescott: Well what is the plan? I mean the US plans to have half of its 100,000 troops out of Iraq by the end of August of this year. What is the strategy for the Iraqis left behind?
Kirk Johnson: Well right now . . . I hate to say it but I'm worried that the plan is wishful thinking.
Asked for an estimate by Prescott of how many Iraqis are being discussed, Johnson revealed that the US has never kept a tally of how many Iraqis have worked for the US. When the British left Basra, Johnson asserted, those collaborators with the British military were targeted: "There were Iraqi interpreters that were dragged through the streets to their deaths. There was a single, public execution of 17 interpreters and their bodies were dumped in the streets." Earlier this month, Johnson wrote on the topic at Foreign Policy in "Left Behind in Iraq." Johnson left out an important development (it wasn't known when he appeared this morning) that will effect all Iraqi refugees including the ones his group wants to help.
Today the White House announced that Mark C. Storella was being nominated to be the US Ambassador to Zambia. This really is not the time for anyone in his position to be relocated (unless they're doing a poor job, we'll get to Chris Hill in a moment) and the White House notes:
Mark C. Storella is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service. He currently serves as the Senior Coordinator for Iraqi Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. He previously served as Deputy Permanent Representative and Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and other International Organizations in Geneva. Mr. Storella was also the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. His other overseas assignments include Rome, Paris, Bangkok and a previous tour in Phnom Penh. In Washington, Mr. Storella worked on the NATO and Japan desks, and as Executive Assistant to the Counselor of the Department of State. He received his A.B. degree from Harvard College and an M.A. in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Storella is the Senior Coordinator for Iraqi Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons at the US Embassy in Baghdad. Johnson (rightly) worries that the US government has no plans regarding the refugees Johnson's concerned about. Not only do they not have a plan but the go-to person in Baghdad, the US diplomat overseeing the refugee issue, is about to be transferred to another continent.
And for those left behind in the ongoing war? Zeina Khodr (Al Jazeera) looked at Iraq's children who have lost their parents to the illegal war:
Zeina Khodr: Hameedd and Abbas are victims of Iraq's War. Still traumatized from events three years ago, Abbas rarely speaks. His brother tells their story.
Hameed Abed Ali: My mother had psychological problems, terrorists captured her, they wanted ransom and asked my father whether we were Sunni or Shia. He didn't have the money. They put an explosive belt around her and blew it up among worshipers coming to Karbala.
Zeina Khodr: Many have similar stories. Three brothers and a sister are among scores of orphans left behind due to killings and violence. They all saw their father taken by armed men wearing masks from their home in Diyala just over two years ago.
Moustapha Sabah Hassan: First of all they took my father from the house and after three days they brought him back tortured and badly beaten. He died a few days later.
Zeina Khodr: Many of those who lost their parents in violence don't understand why they were killed and they have little understanding about the war and politics in their country; however, some of them fear for their future. They are aware of the world outside this orphanage. The realities in today's Iraq. Violence is still a part of daily life.
Social worker Intisar Shaker: Sometimes they're worried about the security situation. They ask me whether the terrorists will come and hurt them. We do our best to comfort them.
Zeina Khodr: But social workers and psychologists can only do so much. Shelter, food and care are just not enough for some to deal with the psychological scars.
Ahmed al-Amari of the Sayyed Hussein Sadr Institution: Maybe after years, they will be able to get better and re-integrate into society but we have one child who has been here for three years and continues to suffer, sometimes cries for hours.
Zeina Khodr: There are others who just don't remember their ordeal. Ali is one of them. He survived a car bombing in which his parents were killed in 2008. But those who do remember wish they could provide safety they themselves didn't know.
Hameed Abed Ali: When I grow up, I want to be a police man. Police men protect people and, when people need help, I can assist them.
Zeina Khodr: It is children like Hamid who need assistance now. A whole generation that will have to reconcile with a past while trying to build a future. Zeina Khodr, All Jazeera, Baghdad.
And for those lucky enough to be part of intact families? Peter Kenyon (NPR's Morning Edition) reported today that the violence and the uncertainty "Hamed wouldn't call it a panic, but the families he sees are those who have decided to play it safe by leaving now - to Syria, Jordan, and sometimes onto Europe or elsewhere - at least for this period of uncertainty." On The Real News, Paul Jay spoke with Amjad Ali about life in Iraq currently.
Paul Jay: Iraq has enormous oil reserves. The leaders of all these various ethnic factions are sections of the Iraqi elite who are fighting over who's going to divide up this enormous wealth. There's a lot to fight over, and it has been very violent in the last few years. What are the possibilities -- or how serious is the threat of civil war in Iraq?
Amjad Ali: Civil war is always on the verge. Iraqi people are always on the verge -- not the people, actually; those factions. As I mentioned earlier, the issue of armed groups, it's still there. Each faction has its own armed group and wants to get to a point that they cannot resolve their problem, their disputes, they resort to weapons, they resort to killing each other. And it happened just prior to the election -- a number of candidates were assassinated in Mosul. It happened in Baghdad prior to the election, when the government security forces went to Adhamiyah district, which is a Sunni-dominated area. They arrested a number of people there for no apparent reason. They were jailed, and they were released after the election. The election result right now, nobody got the majority. Nobody can form a government by himself. They are in the face of each other. Just yesterday there was a meeting between the Islamic Supreme Council group or faction with [Ayad] Allawi faction, Allawi who had 91 seats, who had the highest number of seats in the Parliament today. He said, I must -- and this is what -- I'm quoting -- he said, I must form the government because I do have the highest seats in the Parliament. The other faction, which is the Islamic Supreme Council, who formed another faction with al-Maliki, they are trying to be a mediator as to who's going to form what and what sort of government it's going to be, who's going to be the prime minister. There are a number of ministries or posts they are going to fight over, just like happened in 2005. The Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Interior, they call it, the Ministry of Oil, the Ministry of Finance, these are the ministries that there will be major issues among these factions.
Paul Jay: It's often said in the American press that it's the American troops—and the U.S. says this quite officially as well, that they think it's the U.S. troops that are preventing this civil war from breaking out. So to what extent is that true? And if in fact the U.S. does leave at the end of 2011, is that actually going to create the conditions for the beginnings of this kind of conflict?
Amjad Ali: Well, actually, no, that is not true. The American troops were in Iraq since 2003, and we saw a version of sectarian conflict and of kind of civil war in Iraq. The American troops did not participate, did not prevent that. They were just watching the whole issue. They wanted to know -- this is what we think they wanted to know -- who's going to win in the end. They did not have a serious intervention as to be a mediator to solve this conflict. They never did that. And what happened, who settled that, and this is what we strongly believe who settled that, is the people themselves did not want to be part of the civil war. They did not want to be part of the killing and kidnapping. It is right that we saw a lot of people were displaced from their neighbourhood to somewhere else.
In 2007, Bully Boy Bush started the escalation ("surge") and did so, he stated, because it would provide the space for diplomatic developments and advances. That never happened.
Ernesto Londono and Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) report that US diplomatic staff in Iraq no longer feel "overshadowed by their military counterparts"; however, as you read in, you grasp there's been no diplomatic surge, they're just referring to a tiny decrease in the number of US service members and, on the issue of Iraq descending into violence (as opposed to what today?), "U.S. diplomats say the oft-heard concerns of their military counterparts are unfounded. They argue that they are better suited to build on the security gains that the military helped achieve." The US military can't do anything. The Iraq War was illegal but the first step of the illegal war was a military mission: take out a leader. That was done. (Illegally, but it was done.) Everything since has not been a military operation. And the alternative is to have the US military continue to play mall cops for the next forty or fifty decades or to withdraw them. They should have never been sent to Iraq. There is nothing the US military can do. There's little the diplomatic team can do now either and that's thanks to Chris Hill who should never have been confirmed. You have to wonder how furious Ryan Crocker is when he looks at what he handed to Hill and what Hill didn't do with it? Chris Hill was never qualified for the post and the idea that the ass will remain in Baghdad -- continuing to create chaos with his personal drama -- until July shows that the diplomatic mission is still not a serious one.
Jamal al-Badrani (Reuters) notes that the MP Bahsar Mohammed Hamid al-Aqidi was buried today. Steven Lee Myers (New York Times) reports, "Mr. Hamid's cousin, Mahmoud al-Qaidi, said two men approached Mr. Hamid's office next to his home at 7:45 p.m. and joined a meeting in progress with six others. After a few minutes, they drew pistols and fired, hitting Mr. Hamid with seven bullets, the cousin said. One gunman was reported arrested." Mu Xuenquan (Xinhua) adds, "Two killers were captured in the northern city of Mosul, the third killer escaped, but was wounded by police, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity." Alsumaria TV notes that Bashar Hamid al-Ukaidi's driver was injured in the shooting and reminds, "Al Ukaidi is the second candidate of Al Iraqiya List to be assassinated in Nineveh. The first candidate was Soha Abdullah Jarallah Al Shammaa who was assassinated by unknown gunmen early February." Michael Jansen (Irish Times) provides this context:The killing coincided with a call by the ministries of interior and defence to the electoral commission to disqualify two candidates who won seats in the March 7th parliamentary election. The first, from the Iraqiya list faces criminal charges, and the second, from the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), allegedly broke the law by standing for parliament while serving in the armed forces.While the exclusion of these winners does not alter the result, the move shows that prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, who continues to hold the levers of power, is not ready to admit defeat. His State of Law bloc, with 89 seats, was edged out of first place by Iraqiya, headed by Iyad Allawi, with 91.According to the 2005 constitution, Mr Allawi's slender lead should have given him first crack at forming a government, but Mr Maliki mounted a blocking campaign which failed, leaving Iraqiya the largest grouping in the assembly. However, Mr Allawi has been unable to secure partners for a coalition commanding 163 seats.
Alsumaria TV notes that Ayad Allawi is traveling to Qatar on a visit "aimed to put Arab leaders in the loop of the situation in Iraq." Allawi and Tariq al-Hashimi (Sunni Vice President of Iraq) were among those visiting Ayatoallah and an Iraqi correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers share this observation:
From my own point of view, visiting Sistani is the most obvious sign of failure. It represents the miserable condition of our politicians. Since the announcement of the elections' results until now, they could not reach an agreement about the biggest parliamentary bloc and I don't expect them to agree about it soon. Although the fight over the prime minister position is exclusively between Iraqiya list and State of Law Coalition but truth is much bigger. Its a fight between the Islamists' ideology represented by Maliki and the secular ideology represented by Allawi. The two men always say they want to create a new Iraq where law is the real master. yet, the two man ruled Iraqi and we barely noticed any changes in Iraq. Bribes and administrative corruption was common during Allawi's reign in 2005 and it was the same since Maliki became the prime minister in 2006.
Meanwhile today Baghdad has seen multiple deaths as a result of what Al Jazeera's terming "deadly gold robbery" as criminals "hit nearly a dozen stores . . . killing the store owners and planting bombs". Citing Ministry of Interior sources, BBC News states there were ten robbers and "They threw grenades and then made off with gold and money after shooting some of the shop-keepers, says the BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad." AFP notes the most recent big Baghdad robbery: "Eight police guards were killed in a massive bank heist in the Iraqi capital last July. The pre-dawn raid on a branch of Al-Rafidain bank saw the robbers make off with 3.8 million dollars, but the sum was later recovered."
And because some numbers matter, we'll again note this. Journalists like to hide behind numbers and claim that numbers are objective and they don't lie. They may not lie but journalists damn well do decide what to emphasize and what to ignore. If you want an example of how that works, note this CBS News story by David Martin, this ABC news story by Jake Tapper, and we could go on and on but those are two of the better reporters and if that's what the best are doing . . . . Are they lying about the number of troops in Afghanistan? No, they're hiding behind that number (fed to them by the Pentagon, no reporter did the actual work on the numbers) and avoiding telling you about other numbers.
The most important number this week, as noted in yesterday's snapshot, is 171. That's the number of US service members who have died in the Iraq War since Barack was sworn in as President of the United States. "We want to end the war! And we want to end it now!" He hollered that often as tent revivals causing damp panties for many men and women. Now? End the illegal war now? He's been in office 16 months and the Iraq War drags on. The 'peace' candidate took office 16 months ago and has not ended the Iraq War, has continued it and is responsible for those 171 deaths. Now the Pentagon didn't supply that number. To get it, journalists would have to do what I did which was find out the death toll number when Barack was sworn in and then do the math. That may be more work than many of the well coiffed personalities are capable of. And certainly the fact the Pentagon isn't supplying that number makes it actual news -- as opposed to repeating and refurbishing the government's many press releases. Here's another number that matters but isn't being posted all over the place: The total number of US service members killed in Iraq to 4400. The 4400 number was noted by Hari Sreenivasan on last night's The NewsHour (PBS). The ease with which journalists rush to do the Pentagon's bidding (often out of laziness -- so much easier to file numbers the Pentagon gives you than to actually do the math yourself) makes it more jaw dropping that, as Walter Pincus (Washington Post) reports this morning, the Pentagon is still working propaganda operations within the US: "It is essential to the success of the new Iraqi government and the USF-I [U.S. Forces-Iraq] mission that both communicate effectively with our strategic audiences (i.e. Iraqi, pan-Arabic, international, and U.S. and USF-I audiences) to gain widespread acceptance of core themes and messages," according to the pre-solicitation notice for a civilian contractor or contractors to provide "strategic communication management services" there. Calling strategic communications "a vital component of operations in Iraq," the notice says one goal is "to effectively build U.S. decision makers' and the public's understanding of Iraq's current situation, future and strategic importance as a stabilizing presence and ally against terrorism in the Middle East." For propaganda the CIA weighed utilizing in the lead up to the Iraq War, click here for Jeff Stein's report. In other news, Waterkeeper Alliance's Kristine Stratton writes about the Gulf Disaster at Huffington Post (for 35 days now, the US government has allowed British Petroleum to oversea the disaster of their own making):
The implications of the BP oil disaster for the world are enormous - and far too great to be entrusted to a company with a history of environmental crimes, which is still on probation for some of them. The fact that BP will likely be named in upcoming criminal complaints and lawsuits is even more reason for observers to question their central role in response and their primary role in management of information.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton recently commented: "What we've done is worked with the responsible party to do everything we can to stop oil from leaking from the bottom of the Gulf and to mitigate the environmental disaster that we're seeing in the water right now. We are obviously working with BP because, frankly, they have the equipment that's necessary in order to get down to the bottom of the Gulf to help plug that hole."
BP should not be in charge simply because they "have the equipment" - any more than the oil industry should be in charge of regulation simply because they "have the equipment." The devastating results of that approach are quite visible in the Gulf of Mexico right now. As recently as September 2009, BP lobbied Congress extensively in opposition to regulations designed to prevent exactly the kind of disaster that we are experiencing today.
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Monday, May 24, 2010
Chatter
Last night Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Faith-based leadership" went up and if you believe in Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy then you can believe in Barack.
In the real world, what professional athlete in the Bay Area showed up tipsy at C.I.'s last night, wearing a tight t-shirt he more than filled out and a pair of shorts and proceeded to come on to C.I.?
C.I. was doing "And the war drags on . . ." when Jess walked him in (Jess had pushed the button to let him in through the gate). Maggie and I were in C.I.'s bedroom going through packages looking for music to listen to when we look over and our mouths drop open.
He was cute but demanding. And C.I. hates moments like those where it could go either way because she has this fear -- mortal fear -- of being called vain. So she plays dumb even though it's obvious what was going on. Then it becomes more and more obvious to the point that he has C.I.'s hand and is moving it down to his crotch and saying how much he's attracted to her.
C.I. pulls her hand free and says something like, "Now be nice, ____." And she calls to Jess to show ___ to a guest room (he was too tipsy to drive). After that she closes the door and asks us if we could believe that.
She says she did think about touching it out of curiosity because it did indeed look packed but thought that would have more than sent the wrong message.
He was tipsy and he was cute. I'm not sure I would have turned him down.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Monday, May 24, 2010. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces more deaths, as of today 4,400 US service members have died in Iraq (and don't look for the press to tell you how many of those deaths were announced after the "Change" president took over), the Iraq War continues to be an issue in England (someone let The Progressive know), an Iraqi politician is assassinated, and more.
Today the US military announced: "JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq -- One U.S. Soldier was killed Monday while conducting operations in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense. The names of service members are announced through the U.S. Department of Defense official website at http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/. The announcements are made on the Web site no earlier than 24 hours after notification of the service member's primary next of kind. The incident is under investigation." This is only one of the deaths announced since Friday. Saturday, the US military announced: "CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE SPEICHER, Iraq -- A United States Division-North Soldier was killed Friday near Mosul. The name of service member is announced through the U.S. Department of Defense official website at http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/. The announcements are made on the Web site no earlier than 24 hours after notification of the service member's primary next of kin. The incident is under investigation." There were two deaths announced on Saturday but they have still not fixed this at USF:
Soldier dies of non-combat related causes
Hits ( - )
RELEASE No. 20100522-01 May 22, 2010 CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE SPEICHER, IRAQ – A United States Division – North Soldier died Thursday of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident. ... United States Forces - Iraq PAO - Saturday, May 22, 2010 Which, as we noted Saturday, if you use the link, you'll see USF has linked to a September 2006 death announcement. They still have not fixed it. AP reports on the two deaths announced Saturday here. The three deaths bring the total number of US service members killed in Iraq to 4400. Barack Obama was sworn in as the US President on January 20, 2009 and, as noted in that day's snapshot, the death toll for US service members then stood at 4229. Other than the idiot Raed Jarrar, anyone still pretending the Super Model's a man of peace? 171 US service members have died in Iraq since Barack took the oath of office -- this alleged man of peace, this man who was allegedly going to end the Iraq War. 171 deaths. What a proud moment for War Hawk Obama.
Presumably the latest deaths are part of that "success" Howard LaFranchi (Christian Science Monitor) quoted Bush, er Barack, speaking of at West Point today. Will Inboden (Foreign Policy) observes of the speech:
President Obama's West Point speech on Saturday provides a great example of the structural continuities in American foreign policy. As president and commander-in-chief, Obama now embraces and owns policies that he previously eschewed. For example, after running his campaign denouncing the Iraq War and doubting the surge, he is now essentially declaring Iraq a victory ("this is what success looks like: an Iraq that provides no safe-haven to terrorists; a democratic Iraq that is sovereign, stable, and self-reliant.") After spending much of his first year in office downplaying if not ignoring democracy and human rights promotion, he is now making democracy and human rights promotion one of the four pillars of his national security strategy. After previously rhetorically distancing himself from American exceptionalism, he now says that a "fundamental part of our strategy is America's support for those universal rights that formed the creed of our founding."
The White House has posted Barack's idiotic speech -- one that implies he knows nothing about loyalty to country because he didn't attend West Point (hey, I'm not the moron that wrote it or the one that delivered it -- the point of the speech is that West Point taught them about America and love of country, something most Americans would argue their own families taught them long before they were teenagers). 171 US service members killed in Iraq since he took his oath of office and try to find that awareness in his idiotic ramblings.
While Super Model posed and preened before the cadets, World Can't Wait was outside the gates protesting. World Can't Wait's Debra Sweet offers a rebuttal to Barry O's claims that the Taliban was toppled and a new Afghanistan has 'hope' (apparently Barry O bottled some of his work out sweat and sent it over in soda bottles):
I contest every one of those statements, addressed as much to the world and the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq as to the graduating officers. See this youtube report from Channel 4 News in the UK: U.S. Trains, Backs Afghan Death Squads.
Bagram is the New Guantanamo....Except It's Worse. US Court Rules NO Habeas Rights
I can't say it better than Ken Theisen and Glen Greenwald said it after Friday's US Court of Appeals ruling that men detained by the U.S. in Bagram -- no matter where they were picked up from -- have no right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts.
Ken Theisen runs down the history and implications of the decision. The End of Habeas Corpus: This is "Justice" in Obama's America.
Tina Foster of the International Justice Network, who argued the plaintiff's case, and has traveled the world to find their familes, said that if the precedent set by Obama stands, "Obama and future presidents would have a free hand to 'kidnap people from other parts of the world and lock them away for the rest of their lives' without having to prove in court that their suspicions about such prisoners were accurate.
'The thing that is most disappointing for those of us who have been in the fight for this long is all of the people who used to be opposed to the idea of unlimited executive power during the Bush administration but now seem to have embraced it during this administration,' she said. 'We have to remember that Obama is not the last president of the United States.'"
Shawn Cohen (Lower Hudson Journal News) reports at least a hundred were present and protesting and:The protesters included several Vietnam era activists and one former member of the U.S. Army, Matthew Chiroux, who gave a speech about his service in Afghanistan. "I committed a crime when I went to Afghanistan," said Chiroux, who is 26 and from Brooklyn, calling Obama a war criminal. "I am done being a veteran. I am an insurgent for peace."
Barack is a War Criminal. And he's exactly like George W. Bush as he demonstrates every day. Ryan Jaroncyk (California Independent Voter) explains:
Following in the footsteps of George W. Bush, President Obama has requested another $33 billion of "emergency", off-budget spending on the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars.
As a presidential candidate, Obama often criticized President Bush's chronic use of supplemental war spending bills, which added to the national debt. In February 2009, President Obama told Congress, "For seven years, we have been a nation at war. We will no longer hide its price." In April 2009, Obama requested tens of billions more in supplemental funding for the wars, but wrote House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "This is the last planned war supplemental."
That was the last supplemental. And he's going to pull troops out of Iraq. Tell us another one, Barry. Gregg Carlstrom (Al Jazeera) notes the obvious and possibly a damn breaks for others to address reality as well:The US will almost certainly maintain a small long-term presence in Iraq - mostly troops serving in training roles - although Obama insists the vast majority of troops will be gone by 2012.The withdrawal remains broadly popular in Iraq, and Iraqi politicians endorse the timetable in public. But Hussain said many are using different language in private."Iraqi forces are begging the US not to withdraw, begging them to stay in order to avoid chaos, because the institutions of the state are not ready as of yet."Many parties are asking the US not to be hasty, not to withdraw."A longer occupation, of course, would require the US to renegotiate the so-called "status of forces agreement," the 2008 deal between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government.Did you catch it? "Would require the US to regnegotiate the so-called 'status of forces agreement'"? Yes, it can be renegotiated. Fred Hiatt hints at that in the Washington Post but didn't have the guts to say it. Good for Gregg Carlstrom. For those late to the party, this community supports an immediate withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. That's not the point of the excerpt. The point is the SOFA is not "The war ends . . ." It's really astounding how pathetic Tom Hayden, for example, is since he allows that lie to take hold despite his historical knowledge of all the Paris Peace Talks. The SOFA was not a treaty to end the war. Treaties that end wars are highly specific about that aspect. The SOFA replaced the yearly UN mandate. It allowed the US to remain on Iraqi soil for three more years. It does not translate into US TROOPS MUST LEAVE. It is an agreement, a contract. It can be tossed aside, it can be extended. Those who insist it means the end of the Iraq War have never known what they were talking about.
March 7th, Iraq concluded Parliamentary elections. The rules say that if no party or slate gets the needed 163 seats in Parliament needed to form the next government, the party or slate that gets the most seats has first shot at forming a power-sharing coalition. Iraqiya (led by Ayad Allawi) came in first with 91 seats. State Of Law came in second with 89 seats. Over the weekend, Leila Fadel (Washington Post) interviewed Nouri al-Maliki (current prime minister and State Of Law head) who stated, "If the government is formed in the wrong way, if it is formed by extremists Sunnis, who are present, or by extremist Shiites, who are also present, the sectarian violence will return and will wipe out everything we have already achieved. I say we should not bow to the pressures of time and make a big mistake." Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) notes that (and Ayad Allawi's meet up with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani) and observes, "Curiously, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki reversed direction this week and now wants to slow the formation of the new government, citing fears of sectarian violence. Since the March election, Maliki has been using every method available to ensure another turn as Iraq's premier and shutting out the Sunnis." Which most likely means that this is what he's showing while he pulls some sleight of hand to be revealed later. Just as he spent forever loudly challenging the results of the election while secretly attempting to form an alliance, he's now saying that everyone should wait while he's most likely attempt to steam roll over anyone in his path. Alsumaria TV reports, "Head of Al Iraqiya List Iyad Allawi affirmed to Alsumaria News that he has proposed on Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki to hold a meeting together. While the meeting was due on Saturday, Allawi was informed by Al Maliki on Friday night of a request to put off the meeting." Maad Fayad and Huda Jassem (Asharq Alawsat Newspaper) report that the meeting is now postponed -- possibly for nearly two weeks -- and they note, "Other sources from the Iraqiya List attributed the postponement to what they described as hesitation on the part of the State of Law coalition. Moreover, the announcement comes one day after al Maliki stated that the State of Law coalition will keep the premiership. In other words, he will remain in his position as there are no other candidates for the premiership from that coalition." This as Lebanon's Daily Star editorializes, "What Iraq needs is leaders with more than a thirst to rule, but a thirst rectify the country's ills; leaders with a vision for their country rather than a vision for themselves. We have yet to see this from the current crop of politicians vying for power." Today the Washington Post provides a transcription, via K.I. Ibrahim, of sections of Fadel's interview with Nouri and will note this section:
[Leila Fadel] Why is it that every time there is an agreement to meet with former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, it is postponed?
[Nouri al-Maliki]: I said to them if the meeting is to take place it should be based on a certain program or a dialogue. They said, 'No, we only want a meeting and pictures.' In fact, I find that this has no benefit, but still I do not reject that. If any person wishes to visit me he would be welcome, but I feel the country is in need of a dialogue. Why are they refusing that and only want a visit and take some pictures? The road is still open, and I would welcome him and any delegation from Iraqiya. We have informed them if you come with a delegation for talks and negotiations you are welcome. Even if Dr. Allawi wanted to come and visit me, he is welcome. I have no enmity or estrangement with him.
I only want to say there were no dates which were revoked by me at all. No date was ever set, but they only talk of these in the media.
[Leila Fadel] He said that he asked for a meeting with you several times, but it did not happen?
[Nouri al-] Maliki: He wants this type of a meeting only for the sake of picture taking. His cousin was here. I said to him welcome, but what are we meeting for? He said we don't want a dialogue; we want only a meeting with pictures. Still we said you are welcome.
In other election news, Alsumaria TV is reporting that the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Defense have informed the Independent High Electoral Commission that two candidates are being disqualified -- Iraqiya's Abdullah Hassan Rashid Dakhil and the Iraqi National Alliance's Furat Mohsen Said Marzouk. Steven Lee Myers (New York Times) observes, "It did not appear that the latest developments would alter the preliminary results of the vote, which have remained more or less the same despite the flurry of legal challenges and political disputes since Election Day. March 7. Even so, it was not clear why the latest efforts to disqualify newly elected lawmakers came at what seemed to be the 11th hour of the certification process." Supposedly, the de-Ba'athification process is 'complete' in terms of the candidates (Ali al-Lami has announced that he Ahmed Chalabi will now focus on purging the ministries).
"When Paul Bremer, the occupation's first civil administrator issued the [de-Ba'athification] law in 2003," explained Jasim Azzawi on the latest Inside Iraq (Al Jazeera, began airing Friday), "he designed it to bar only the highest echelon of the defunct party but Ahmed Chalabi, the mastermind behind de-Ba'athification, wielded the infamous law as a political weapon to eliminate rivals, settle scores and carve a powerful political position for himself. The latest agreement did not erase the law permanently." So will it continue to pop up and be utilized to do away with enemies? That's the topic Azzawi discussed with guests Mowaffak al-Rubaie (secretary general of the centrist movement) and MP Mustafa al-Hiti.
Jassim Azzawi: Mowaffak al-Rubaie, let us start with a very simple question and that is: This latest agreement among Iraqi politicians to put an apparent end to this de-Ba'athification, is it a good decision or is it a bad? Would you say good riddance to de-Ba'athification or would you say Iraqi politicians committed a grave mistake.
Mowaffak al-Rubaie: I think de-Ba'athification is still alive and kicking but I believe what has been decided recently is a positive step forward. Now the concept of de-Ba'athifcation or better known as Justice and Accountability legislation, this concept is driven or derived from de-Nazification and it is not an American concept please it is not a Jerry Bremer concept. This is a concept we've been discussing since 2001 and 2002 and when we were in the opposition we were reading about the de-Nazification and we made sure that this is not going to be perceived and wrongly understood that this is going to be de-Sunnifcation or to purge all the Sunnis or all the Ba'athists or the Ba'athist as individual. What we need to do is we need to avoid using the de-Ba'athification -- or the Justice and Accountability law -- to use it to settle political scores between different political parties.
Jassim Azzawi: We shall come to that. For the time being, let me ask the same question to Mustafa al-Hiti. Did they make a big mistake or was it a positive step?
Mustafa al-Hiti: We have to differentiate between two terminology: de-Ba'athification and Justice and Accountability. What's going on now in Iraq is a de-Ba'athifciation although the
law name is or the recent name is Justice and Accountability. If you have elements of Justice and Accountability to be applied to the law, there is nothing inside the law which really means it is not Accountability and Justice -- it is far away from that, even it is far from the Constitution. If you go to Clause 135 for the Constitution, point five and six, you will find it is more fair and more compatible with the term Justice and Accountability rather than de-Ba'athification and the law.
Jassim Azzawi: I noticed Mowaffak al-Rubaie used 'this is a positive step.' He neither said Iraqi politicians committed a big mistake by putting an end to this de-Ba'athification nor did he say 'good riddence to this law'. You kind of sat the fence. You're not willing, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, to say that this law is bad or this agreement is good.
Mowaffak al-Rubaie: Jasim, let me tell you something. Or tell your viewers something. This Justice and Accountability legislation was approved, discussed, and approved by the Council of Representatives, by the Parliament, and it was the outcome of a very difficult discussion and negotiation which were the Sunni bloc, if you like, eh-eh-eh and the Shia blocs and the Kurds bloc in the Parliament, they came to this compromise which is Justice and Accountability. Now whether it is just or injust, that's a -- that's a -- now it is a legal issue.
Really? Is that how we're pretending it went down? Nouri had signed off on the White House's benchmarks which included "Enact and implement legislation on de-Ba'athifcation reform." Nouri, yet again, had no functioning government. Massive walk outs. (And this is the man who wants to remain prime minister?) Forced to prove some 'success' to keep US tax dollars flowing into him, Nouri's cronies pushed through a laughable law, one that, when passed (January 2008) Fareed Zakaria (Newsweek) noted:
The national reconciliation that Iraqi politicians promised has not occurred. Some movement has taken place on sharing oil revenue but on almost nothing else. The complicated new law on de-Baathification has been, in the words of a senior Iraqi official, "a big mess, perhaps worse than if we had done nothing." The non-Kurdish parts of the country remain utterly dysfunctional, and chaos and warlordism are growing in the south. Of the 2.5 million Iraqis who have fled the country, a trickle -- a few thousand -- have returned home.
The vote took place January 12, 2008 and wasn't the love-in Mowaffak al-Rubaie tries to pretend. There were 275 members of the Parliament. How many voted for it? 90. (Most of the Parliament chose to sit out that day with 143 bing the number present for the vote.) Analyzing the law for the New York Times (Jan. 14, 2008), Solomon Moore noted "troubling questions -- and troubling silences -- about the measure's actual effects," "confusing and controversial, a document riddled with loopholes and caveats." The Center for American Progress offered, "This new legislation is meant to allow many of these former Ba'athists party members to return to government work or begin receiving pensions. However, the controversial legislation, passed with the support of less than a third of Iraq's members of parliament on a day when the body barely achieved a quorum, has received significant criticism from former Ba'athists and some Sunni groups. [. . .] At the surface level the Justice and Accountability Legislation appears to be a step in the right direction, but a closer reading reveals that it is riddled with considerable loopholes. More than a dozen Iraqi lawmakers, U.S. officials, and former Baathists here and in exile expressed concern in interviews that the law could set off a new purge of ex-Baathists, the opposite of U.S. hopes for the legislation."
In a sign of how little has been 'resolved,' Iraqiya MP Bashar Hamid Agaidi is dead. AFP reports the the 32-year-old was shot outside his Mosul home. Leila Fadel and Jinan Hussein (Washington Post) add, "Agaidi was in his car outside his home Monday evening when three men drove by in a Mercedes. One emerged through the sunroof and gunned down Agaidi, Capt. Suheil al-Karaghouli of the Mosul police said. Agaidi, an engineer and the head of a local student and youth organization, died from his wounds while being treated at a hospital." Jamal al-Badrani (Reuters) quotes Sunni Osama al-Nujaifi stating, "Iraqiya now is the target for the terrorist powers and unfortunately for the government also. There must be a way to protect Iraqiya." Ben Lando (Wall St. Journal) muses, "It isn't clear exactly how the killing might affect the political horse-trading now taking place among Iraq's various political blocs in the run-up to forming a new government. Mr. Lagaidi would likely be replaced in parliament by another member of his slate."
In other violence, Reuters notes two Ramadi bombs targeting the home "of a seinor police officer" which injured four family members and claimed the life of 1 guard, two more Ramadi bombings targeting police officer homes, a Mosul roadside bombing which injured a woman, a Mosul roadside bombing which injured two Iraqi service members, a Mosul home invasion in which 1 "elderly woman" was killed and 1 person shot dead in Mosul.
In other news, Martin Chulov (Guardian) reports that increased violence in Iraq (violence began visibly increasing on a monthly basis beginning in February) is being blamed on the release of prisoners from US prisons in Iraq. Chulov seems confused -- as do his Iraqi sources. The US release just puts the prisoners into the Iraqi system. If the Iraqi authorities feel people are being wrongly released, they are free to accept transfer of them and retain them as prisoners. In other words, it appears Iraq's found yet another way to play the blame game which absolves their own culpability and responsibility. Thomas Erdbrink and Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported Saturday on two Iranians who had been held in US prisons but were turned over to Iran . . . on Nouri al-Maliki's say so. AFP notes that the two were Ahmed Barazandeh and Ali Abdulmaliki and quotes an anonymous Iranian diplomat stating, "Two Iranians have been freed by the Americans after co-operation with the office of the prime minister (Nuri al-Maliki) and the Iranian embassy."
In England, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (Independent of London) calls out Ed Balls and Ed Miliband who are supposedly vying for the leadership post in the Labour Party and who are making statements regarding the Iraq War being wrong (Ed Balls more so than Ed Miliband), "Too little, too late for the dead, maimed, gas-poisoned Iraqi victims of our savage adventure, too presumptuous." As noted in Friday's snapshot, the dueling Eds are getting attention as well as criticism. Middle East Online notes other criticism:But rival candidate John McDonnell, who opposed the war from the outset, said their "conversion" was far too late. McDonnel said many lives could have been saved had they had the "courage" to speak out against the war at the time, but he urged the pair to join him in a call for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. "Others have said [their remarks] smacks of opportunism because of the leadership election but I want to say to them is we have got another war now and it's Afghanistan," McDonnel said. Miliband and Balls were not MPs when the decision to invade Iraq was made.Are you beginning to get why Rebecca called out a know-nothing gas bag who insisted the Iraq War was unimportant to England today? Along with criticism of Labour comes advice such as this offered by Bryan Gould (Guardian):, "This is not just a matter of acknowledging the mistakes that, in the end, disqualified Labour from re-election, though those failures -- the shocking invasion of Iraq, the sickening subservience to the City, the 'intense relaxation' about widening inequality, the complicity in torture -- must be repudiated." George Eaton (New Statesman) offers a factoid while attempting to handicap the horse race. I will repeat that Ed Miliband is attempting to wall off Ed Balls and is not making a serious critique -- is intentionally not making a serious critique.
It remains an issue in England and, yes, a Progressive columnist got it grossly wrong. In better news for The Progressive, Cindy Sheehan is Matthew Rothschild's guest on this week's Progressive Radio Show.
And we'll close with this from Sherwood Ross' "Pentagon Contractor Profits Rise -- Along With Casualties" (Pacific Free Press):The fighting in Afghanistan this week has resulted in the deaths of Canadian Colonel Geoff Parker, 42, of Oakville, Ontario, and U.S. Colonel John McHugh, 46, of W. Caldwell, New Jersey. It also claimed the lives of Lieutenant Colonels Paul Bartz, 43, of Waterloo, Wis., and Thomas Belkofer, 44, of Perrysburg, Ohio. Other fatalities were Staff Sgt. Richard Tieman, 28, of Waynesboro, Pa., and Specialist Joshua Tomlinson, 24, of Dubberly, La. The four officers were killed in Kabul, The New York Times reported May 21, when "A suicide bomber in a minibus drove into their convoy (of armored sports utility vehicles), killing the four officers, two other American servicemen and 12 Afghan civilians in a passing bus." The total number of U.S. service member deaths since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan eight years ago now stands at 1,064. The number of contractors killed in the fighting has been put at around 300. And in 2008 alone it is estimated that nearly 4,000 Afghan civilians perished. This writer deeply regrets each and every one of those deaths, especially those of the 12 innocent Afghan civilians this week. They likely would all be alive today if President George W. Bush had not chosen to invade a country that never attacked America and which the U.S. oil industry has long coveted for a pipeline route. They would be alive if President Barack Obama had withdrawn U.S. troops. Instead, he has escalated the conflict and increased "defense" spending to a record $708 billion for fiscal 2011 -- a step which will only make the U.S. military-industrial complex(MIC) more powerful. For those associated with MIC, however, "defense" spending means jobs and prosperity.
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k.i. ibrahim
gregg carlstrom
sherwood ross
the independent of londonyasmin alibhai-brownmiddle east onlinethe guardianbryan gouldthe new statesmangeorge eaton
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