Sunday, August 08, 2021

Dennis Dee Tee Thomas, Joni Mitchell, David Rovics

That's "Celebration" by Kool & the Gang. It's a great song. It's a song that defined the early 80s. Long after it had its huge chart run. It topped the dance chart, the R&B chart and the top forty (two weeks at number one). It was a huge hit. And it remained a hit afterwards, you'd hear it on TV shows -- sitcoms such as GIMMIE A BREAK, etc. You'd hear it at wedding receptions. It was a great song. An amazing one. I mention the song because AP notes:

Dennis "Dee Tee" Thomas, a founding member of the long-running soul-funk band Kool & the Gang known for such hits as "Celebration" and "Get Down On It," has died. He was 70.

He died peacefully in his sleep Saturday in New Jersey, where he was a resident of Montclair, according to a statement from his representative.

Thomas was the alto sax player, flutist and percussionist. He served as master of ceremonies at the band's shows. His last appearance with the group was July Fourth at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.

Born Feb. 9, 1951, in Orlando, Fla., Thomas was known for his prologue on the band's 1971 hit, "Who's Gonna Take the Weight." Known for his hip clothes and hats, he was also the group's wardrobe stylist. In the early days, he served as their "budget hawk," carrying their earnings in a paper bag stuffed into the bell of his horn, the statement said.

NBC NEWS notes:

Thomas' death comes nearly a year after co-founder Ronald 'Khalis' Bell died in September 2020 at the age of 68.

Kool & the Gang grew from jazz roots in the 1960s to become one of the major groups of the 1970s, blending jazz, funk, R&B and pop. Thomas started the band with Bell, Bell's brother, Robert “Kool” Bell, and neighborhood friends Robert “Spike” Mickens, Charles Smith, George Brown and Ricky West. After a brief downturn, the group enjoyed a return to stardom in the ’80s.

Throughout the group's more than 50-year history, Kool & the Gang earned two Grammy Awards and seven American Music Awards. The group has had more than 20 top 10 R&B hits, nine top 10 pop hits and 31 gold and platinum albums.

Two other musical items. First up, Joni Mitchell.

Singer-songwriter David Rovics has a new column at COUNTERPUNCH:

At the beginning of August, 1917, a multiracial group of tenant farmers and other people mostly from Oklahoma, including the infamous abolitionist John Brown’s grandson, began what they hoped would turn into an armed uprising in Washington, DC, from different parts of the country, with the aim of putting an end to the imperial, capitalist war machine.
Hard-pressed tenant farmers from all backgrounds — white, black, brown, indigenous, women, men, including prominent indigenous women organizers — were involved with this abortive effort that became known as the Green Corn Rebellion. Less well-known than even this virtually unknown Oklahoma uprising is the fact that it was born out of a secret multiracial network known as the Working Class Union, with an estimated 35,000 members in Oklahoma alone, which had been waging a campaign of armed resistance and industrial sabotage against the landed gentry and the mine operators of the region for years.
Although most people reading this are probably people already fairly knowledgeable about historical events a lot of other people have never heard of, my guess is most of you have never heard of the Working Class Union in Oklahoma or their campaign of sabotage and armed struggle, or the fact that it was a consciously multiracial endeavor.
One hundred years ago this month, in August, 1921, in another part of the US, a multiracial uprising of union coal miners commandeered trains and cars across the state of West Virginia and emptied armories of their contents, as they marched to the town of Mingo, where a hundred of their fellow union miners were being held without charge by the corrupt authorities.

No, I had not heard of it.

Time is slipping away with this weekend, but if I can find a little spare time, I will do a music review. If.

Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Friday, August 6, 2021. The occupation of Iraq continues, Moqtada recalculates on COVID, a beauty pageant is a good enough reason not to deploy (take it up with the US military, I didn't make the call), and much more.

Ruth made a joke in "CONVO COUCH" about the hideous Ana Kasparian and how she should come with a warning when someone plays a clip of her. I agree. Better idea though? Don't play her at all. Jackson Hinkle does in a video we reposted right before this snapshot. I have no idea what his points are. I made it through a little over a minute. I can't take her yelling (or refusal to take a breath -- does she ever shut the f**k up?). It's not even her lies and her whoring -- I expect that by this point. But just that yelling and snarling voice. Does it ever stop? Why would anyone stream her crap by choice? Charm-free, that's the best term for Ana Kasparian who apparently intends to be the Rush Limbaugh of the 21st century.

Let's move over to Iraq. Iraq earns billions in oil revenues yearly but can't even provide for the people due to government corruption, public servants stealing from the public. We usually note areas like electricity and water and infrastructure. But let's note this video about another area impacted.

Here's the caption to A24's video above:

After many years of Iraqi and Arab intellectuals being interested in the House of Cultural Affairs because of its legacy and publication by great writers and intellectuals, today it suffers from negligence and disappearance in its facilities, offices, and halls, due to the lack of government’s fund. The Director-General of the House of General Cultural Affairs, Aref Al-Saadi, stated that after 2003 its funding system switched from central to self-reliant, affecting its printing production ability. He pointed out that this house specialized in publishing official books, curricula, and everything related to government activities, noting that the private sector’s presence had a negative influence on the institution's operation.

Iraq's cultural heritage should be celebrated. Instead, it's stolen or allowed to crumble. On the former, PRI's Marco Werman notes:

This week, the US agreed to return more than 17,000 treasures to Iraq, including an ancient clay tablet containing a portion of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

The majority of the artifacts date back 4,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia and were recovered from the US in a recent trip by Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi. Other pieces were also returned from Japan, Netherlands and Italy, Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said in a joint press conference with Culture Minister Hasan Nadhim.

“There’s still a lot of work ahead in this matter. There are still thousands of Iraqi artifacts smuggled outside the country," Nadhim said.

Iraq's government has been slowly recovering the plundered antiquities for decades but archaeological sites across the country continue to suffer from neglect due to a lack of funds.

Iraq's prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has used the return of some artifacts to strut and preen and take credit -- Hobby Lobby was overruled on their theft by the US courts, this had nothing to do with Kadhimi -- but where he could be doing something -- like with the publishing house, Mustafa does nothing.

Moving on, let's note this Tweet:

Rewriting the history of #mathematics: Oldest example of applied geometry is discovered on a 3,700-yr-old clay tablet using maths attributed to #Pythagoras 1,000 yrs LATER
The tablet was 1st discovered in what is modern day #Iraq in the 19th Century

7:05 AM · Aug 6, 2021

Donna Lu (GUARDIAN) reports:

An Australian mathematician has discovered what may be the oldest known example of applied geometry, on a 3,700-year-old Babylonian clay tablet.

Known as Si.427, the tablet bears a field plan measuring the boundaries of some land.

The tablet dates from the Old Babylonian period between 1900 and 1600 BCE and was discovered in the late 19th century in what is now Iraq. It had been housed in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum before Dr Daniel Mansfield from the University of New South Wales tracked it down.

Mansfield and Norman Wildberger, an associate professor at UNSW, had previously identified another Babylonian tablet as containing the world’s oldest and most accurate trigonometric table. At the time, they speculated the tablet was likely to have had some practical use, possibly in surveying or construction.

Nick Pearson (Australia's 9NEWS) adds:

"It's the only known example of a cadastral document from the OB (Old Babylonian) period, which is a plan used by surveyors to define land boundaries," mathematician Daniel Mansfield said.

"In this case, it tells us legal and geometric details about a field that's split after some of it was sold off."

But what is significant about the drawing is the inclusion of Pythagorean triples, which are used to make accurate right angles.

"The discovery and analysis of the tablet have important implications for the history of mathematics," Dr Mansfield said.

"This is over a thousand years before Pythagoras was born."

And Bhumika Itkan (REPUBLIC WORLD) adds, "Many ancient civilizations, including Babylonia, Ancient Egypt, and Ancient Greece, were responsible for the development of early geometry. The earliest known evidence of Geometry dates back to 3000 BCE, based on what is known at this time."

Meanwhile, Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's attempting to reposition himself. Since his party controls government and the government is corrupt, Moqtada announces he will not run for office -- while giving the impression that his bloc would not participate (as noted in a snapshot earlier this week, per an elected official in Sadr's group, the reality is that they will be running for office). The repositioning continues. Halgurd Sherwani (KURDISTAN 24) reports:

Iraq’s top Shia cleric, Moqtada al Sadr, called for a suspension of Friday prayer sermons to curb the spread of coronavirus infections across the country.

Friday sermons, including those in which Sadr himself addresses followers, can be attended by thousands of people, particularly Shia worshippers across the southern Iraqi provinces.

The decision was made “in accordance with the [health ministry] High Committee of Health and Safety,” Sadr’s office said.

The populist cleric, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, downplayed the severity and danger of the coronavirus, despite the fact that the country’s health ministry was run by a minister affiliated with the Sadr movement.

In fairness to Moqtada, he's not the only person who is having to redraft a COVID position. As AP notes, US President Joe Biden's 'mission accomplished' came before the mission was completed:

President Joe Biden's administration drew up a strategy to contain one coronavirus strain, then another showed up that's much more contagious.

This week, a month late, Biden met his goal of 70% of US adults having received at least one COVID-19 shot. Originally conceived as an affirmation of American resiliency to coincide with Independence Day, the belated milestone offered little to celebrate.

[.. . .]

Yet on May 13, when the CDC largely lifted its mask-wearing guidance for fully vaccinated adults indoors, topline indicators were still flashing green. The agency said unvaccinated people should keep wearing masks _ and get their shots soon. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris celebrated by doffing their masks and strolling in the Rose Garden of the White House. Around the country, an everyday celebration spread to coffee shops, supermarkets, beer gardens and restaurants. People planned weddings and music festivals.

Drowned out in the applause were expert warnings that there was no way to tell who was and who wasn't vaccinated, and a country restless for an end to the pandemic was essentially being placed on the honor system.

"The single biggest mistake of the Biden presidency when it comes to COVID 19 was the CDC's precipitous and chaotic change in masking guidance back in May,'' said Dr. Leana Wen, a former Baltimore health commissioner and commentator. "t had the direct result of giving people the impression the pandemic was over. It allowed unvaccinated people to have free rein and behave as if they were vaccinated, and therefore we have the surge of the delta variant."

On COVID 19, we'll note this from the US Defense Dept:

COVID-19 and other such coronaviruses likely will stay in the environment and continue to mutate, Army Lt. Gen. Ronald J. Place, director of Defense Health Agency, said.

"And we're going to have to deal with it," he told participants today at the Sea-Air-Space Exposition at National Harbor, Maryland, on the topic of the COVID-19 response and post-pandemic national security.

59:12

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The United States is in an "OK place, but not a great place," at this point in the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, adding, "I think one of the things that many of us believe — which is a fallacy — is that [COVID-19] is going to go away. It's not going away, just like influenza is not going away. And the thing about many viruses is they tend to mutate, and they tend to do things that keep them alive."

One of the things people should feel comfortable with is the Defense Department medical team has insatiable curiosity, he told the audience, adding that medical research is a continuous process of improvement.

Place said the first order of illness always calls for prevention, followed by diagnosis.

"We're interested in taking care of everybody — service members, family members, retirees — but the Military Health System exists for the military," the general said. "That's our purpose. And so we think about service members and what we can do to keep them healthy. … What piece of gear, what piece of anything can we use to prevent anything bad from happening to them?" It can be something infectious such as a cold, or an emerging injury, he noted.

Looking at COVID-19 from a military scientific perspective, it is a biological event, he said. And the COVID-19 vaccine should be considered biological body armor.

However, the general said, "Tens of thousands of Americans die every year from influenza, and while most of us in the uniformed services get vaccinated, most Americans actually don't. That's a problem for us."

The reason the United States has such a suite of good vaccines "isn't because that magical thinking happened by some manufacturers in the spring of 2020," Place said. "This is [research] based on years, in some cases, and more than a decade of research on how to take the vaccination methodology to a new level."

There are huge improvements in the way we're looking at how vaccines work, he said. "And I believe we will get to a place where we're not talking about COVID all the time." He warned, however, that getting that peace of mind probably won't happen this year.

"We will get to a place where it's going to be another infectious disease that we worry about, or we think about — much like influenza, measles or tetanus" where people get vaccinations to ward off diseases, Place said. "It's going to be part of our reality for a long time."

Let's note a passing. From the US Defense Dept:

The Department of Defense announced today the death of an Airman who was supporting Operation Inherent Resolve.

Chief Master Sergeant Tresse Z. King, 54, of Raeford, North Carolina, died Aug. 3 2021, in a non-combat related incident at Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait. The incident is under investigation.

She was assigned as squadron superintendent of the 96th Force Support Squadron, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.

For more information, media may contact the 96th Test Wing Public Affairs Office at 850-882-3649.

It's worth noting that while FOX NEWS is giddy and gushing over a beauty contest:

Under normal circumstances, Army Spc. Maura Spence-Carroll – who was crowned Miss Colorado 2021 earlier this year – would be getting herself ready for an upcoming deployment overseas.

Instead, she's helping her fellow soldiers prepare for their rotation to Iraq in support of Operation Inherent Resolve and will remain in Fort Carson near Colorado Springs.

"I volunteered and then my unit said 'No you're going to have to go to Miss America' – this is before I was Miss Colorado… so they didn't put me on the manifest," she told Fox News.

A beauty contest? I'm glad when anyone is sent to war but I'm also shaking my head because i can remember in the early months of the war -- yes, all those years ago in 2003 -- when there were parents deploying -- both parents. The case would be made that one parent shouldn't be deployed but the US military would overrule family concerns. I also remember women -- for example, the mother or newborn twins -- who were single parents arguing that their deployment should be delayed. But, again, the military overruled any family concerns.

So, yeah, I'm a little disgusted that a beauty contest is something the US military feels is worth delaying a deployment for when young children didn't suffice.

Let's wind down with this from Eric S. Margolis' latest:

Will US occupation troops really leave Iraq? That’s the question that Washington is so far unable to answer. The White House says the official date of the long goodbye is this month, August 2021.

Donald Trump announced a pullout of US troops while still in office but his deadline was simply ignored by the new Biden administration which has also been under mounting pressure to end the two-decade US occupation of Mesopotamia. Left wing Democrats wanted a full end to the war the US has waged since 2003. Right-wing Republicans, blissfully unaware of Mideast realities, urged more troops be sent to Iraq.

After losing some 4,431 troops and 8,000 mercenaries (aka ‘contractors’) and 1,145 troops from allied nations dragooned into the Iraq conflict, and 31,994 wounded – many with serious head wounds from roadside bombs - Washington switched gears in Iraq and adopted the old British Imperial system of colonial rule.

The Britain Empire created Iraq in the 1920’s from the wreckage of the dying Ottoman Empire to secure possession of Mesopotamia’s abundant oil. At the time, the mighty Royal Navy was converting from coal to oil. Iraq became Britain’s vast fuel depot.

A new figurehead king from the Hashemite tribes was put into power by London, backed by a local constabulary, British garrison troops and, most effectively, the Royal Air Force.

In the 1920’s, Winston Churchill approved RAF fighters to bomb restive Arab and Kurdish tribes with mustard gas and poisonous Yperite. The British eventually crushed domestic resistance in Iraq while shamelessly denouncing fascist Italy for also using poison gas against Libyan nationalist rebels.

The RAF bombed and staffed rebellious Iraqis right up to the late 1940’s. British air power played a key role in crushing the nationalist uprising in Iraq by Rashid Ali, who was smeared a pro-fascist by Britain’s imperial press.

The US eventually adopted the low-cost British colonial system for ruling Iraq. US warplanes were stationed at up to six former Iraqi airbases, becoming the principal enforcer of the occupation. US troops were thinned out. By 2020, this job was done so skillfully that the US presence in Iraq became almost invisible.

Iraq was occupied by western forces but it looked like an independent nation with a US-installed president and executive branch.

I would guess that the occupation will continue and Iraqis will not be allowed to control their own country.

The following sites updated:

Thursday, August 05, 2021

Trust Cuomo?

Journalist Lindsay Nielsen makes some really good points:

Lindsay Nielsen, a former Albany-based investigative reporter who spoke to state investigators during their probe of the New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, thinks CNN viewers deserve an explanation from the troubled governor’s little brother.
Nielsen has accused Cuomo’s administration of intimidation and bullying and took part in Attorney General Letitia James' investigation that concluded the governor sexually harassed multiple women.
While the findings didn’t surprise her, Nielsen was baffled that CNN anchor Chris Cuomo was mentioned in the report as part of a team of outside confidants who helped advise his big brother while also serving as a cable news anchor. The report said the CNN host even drafted a statement for his brother to respond to the allegations against him in February.
"They're saying he was working in a capacity for the State of New York without an official title. I mean, that in and of itself right there, I think is another issue that has come out of this whole report," Nielsen told Fox News.
Critics often mock CNN for giving hosts such as Chris Cuomo an "anchor" title when he typically offers left-wing opinions and Nielsen questioned how viewers can trust him if he doesn’t admit his role on air.
"It’s a very difficult situation," Nielsen said. "How can you trust that someone is being fair and unbiased when he hasn't even addressed it?"

Is Chris Cuomo an employee of CNN or an employee of the state of New York? He's both and that was not disclosed on air. That's appalling and disgraceful.

Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, August 5, 2021. What's going on with the Talabanis?

Starting in the US where THE HILL reports:

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Wednesday said her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney (R), is “deeply troubled” about the state of the Republican Party.

“My dad is deeply troubled about where our party is, deeply troubled about where the country is,” Cheney said during an event hosted by the Aspen Institute.

She said her father, who served under former President George W. Bush, has been a “tremendous source of advice and guidance and wisdom for me.”

That's where she gets her "advice and guidance and wisdom" from? Well that certainly explains why she's so damn stupid, doesn't it?

I thought she was just so repulsive and stupid because of karma for being a deferment baby. That's what she was. Her father who destroyed Iraq was a young man once. And the US was at war with Vietnam. And Dick Cheney didn't want to go. So he had Liz and the others in the litter.

As Timothy Noah (SLATE) explained in 2004:

Cheney’s unself-consciousness about this is (or at least was) so pronounced that in 1989 he told George C. Wilson of the Washington Post, “I had other priorities in the ‘60s than military service.”

What Chatterbox never realized until recently, however, is that Cheney’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth Cheney, likely owes her very existence to her father’s avoidance of the Vietnam draft.

The Washington Post’s Phil McCombs made the intimate calculations in a profile published in April 1991, when Cheney was defense secretary. The timeline:

Aug. 29, 1964: Dick and Lynne Cheney marry.May 19, 1965: The Selective Service classifies Dick Cheney 1-A, “available immediately for military service.”July 28, 1965: President Lyndon Johnson says draft calls will be doubled.Oct. 26, 1965: The Selective Service declares that married men without children, who were previously exempted from the draft, will now be called up. Married men with children remain exempt.Jan. 19, 1966: The Selective Service reclassifies Dick Cheney 3-A, “deferred from military service because service would cause hardship upon his family,” because his wife is pregnant with their first child.July 28, 1966: Elizabeth Cheney is born.Jan. 30, 1967: Dick Cheney turns 26 and therefore becomes ineligible for the draft.

Dedicated students of obstetrics will observe that Elizabeth Cheney’s birth date falls precisely nine months and two days after the Selective Service publicly revoked its policy of not drafting childless husbands. This would seem to indicate that the Cheneys, though doubtless planning to have children sometime, were seized with an untamable passion the moment Dick Cheney became vulnerable to the Vietnam draft. And acted on it. Carpe diem!

Who says government policy can’t affect human behavior?

That's Dick Cheney. A War Hawk unless he has to serve and then he has 'better' things to do. And he's hailed as hero by his daughter that got him out of serving. Liz is a War Hawk as well. Why didn't she serve? It's interesting how so many War Hawks are so quick to find something else to do but are more than happy to send others to fight wars.

Iraq is an ongoing tragedy. Maybe Liz Cheney needs to grasp that her father is a War Criminal and no one needs to hear from him or her? Sorry that I can't join the faux resistance in rooting on a piece of trash like Liz Cheney or her father.

Sorry that I can't overlook the million-plus Iraqis who are dead or the others who have been left wounded, the ongoing suffering, to celebrate the hideous Dick Cheney and his butt ugly daughter.

Before we move outside the US, we'll note this statement from Senator Dick Durbin's office:

Durbin Statement On Senate Committee Vote On Repeal Of 2002 Iraq AUMF

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) released the following statement regarding today’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote on the repeal of the 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) in Iraq:

“Our Constitution is clear—only the United States Congress has the power to declare war. For too long, Congress has abdicated this most serious of responsibilities. I support this bipartisan effort to terminate the Authorization for the Use of Military Force against Iraq. As one of only 23 Senators to vote against the 2002 Iraq War authorization, it is long overdue that we turn the page on this war.”

In a speech on the Senate floor today, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) reiterated his intention to bring the repeal up for a vote in the Senate later this year.

Let's move over to northern Iraq, to the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region. Amberin Zaman (AL-MONITOR) reports:

The power struggle for leadership of Iraqi Kurdistan’s second most powerful political party has escalated once again, as one of the contenders declared he was not pulling out of the fight, raising fears of protracted instability in what remains the most secure and Western-friendly part of Iraq.

Lahur Talabani, the ousted co-chair of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), declared Tuesday that authorities had issued a warrant for his arrest and dozens of men both armed and unarmed had gathered outside his home in Sulaimaniyah over the past two days in a bid to scare him into leaving the country.

He was shorn of all of his powers in a bloodless coup by his cousins Bafel Talabani and Qubad Talabani last month. He said he had no intention of caving and would “face this plot head-on” and “will not leave my nation until my last breath.”

The drama is unfolding against a backdrop of mounting public fury with the elites that share power in the Kurdistan Regional Government — namely, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) led by the Barzani family, and the PUK that was founded by Bafel and Qubad’s late father, Jalal Talabani. Nechirvan Barzani is the president of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and his cousin Masrour Barzani is the prime minister. Qubad Talabani is the deputy prime minister and, unlike Lahur Talabani who is openly hostile to the Barzanis, has excellent relations with the KDP.

The Talibanis continue to struggle. It's hard to overcome lying to the voters. That's what the Talabanis did to hold on to power. They betrayed the people. Jalal was presidnet of Iraq. He had a stroke and they lied for over a year. Jalal wasn't able to speak. He wasn't aware of his surroundings for the bulk of the eighteen months he was out of Iraq -- he was in Germany. And, no, he couldn't carry out his duties. But the Talabani family lied over and over to the Iraqi people. The Talabani family even posed his body for photos to try to trick people.

They are still having to address that. It's what fueled Groan's prominence. It was just another struggling political party with CIA-seed money until the Talabanis tripped over their own ego. It's so very interesting how you have a huge story that has impacted the PUK, has harmed it and it's a story that the western press really never told -- not then or since.

We'll note a Tweet from Joel Wing:

After Lahur Talabani refused to leave Iraq PUK and KDP media posted video accusing his brothers of corruption

PUK media outlets release video accusing Lahur Sheikh Jangi’s brothers of extortion

nrttv

rttv.com

1:05 PM · Aug 3, 2021

And from the NRT report:

Head of the Kurdistan Veteran Peshmerga Association Jamil Hawrami said on Wednesday (August 4) that no conclusions were reached during a meeting of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s (PUK) Politburo earlier in the day with regard to the power struggle between party co-presidents, Bafel Talabani and Lahur Sheikh Jangi.

The meeting was chaired by Talabani, but Sheikh Jangi was absent. The two are engaged in a battle for factional primacy within the party.

A readout of Wednesday’s conference lacked substance about what was discussed, beyond the general political situation within the party and the upcoming parliamentary election in October.

Although it had been simmering for months, Talabani and Sheikh Jangi’s rivalry exploded into public on July 8, when Talabani and his younger brother, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani, began a campaign to oust Sheikh Jangi’s allies from leadership positions within the party’s affiliated security forces.

During an appearance on NRT’s Tawtwe interview program, Hawrami said that the powerful PUK General Leadership Council is expected to meet soon to discuss the dispute, appearing to indicate that that body’s role could be more influential than the private meetings between the major players in the party that have taken place so far.

The family dysfunction plays out on the public stage. Ara Tweets:

Bafel Talabani has sent forces to Lahur Sheikh Jangi his house. Bafel sent him a final letter giving Lahur the opportunity to leave Kurdistan but Lahur rejected it.

4:57 PM · Aug 4, 2021

There is a whole story about the betrayals of the Talabanis. They are out of touch and have demonstrated that repeatedly. After deceiving the country about Jalal's health -- he should have been removed from office for being incapacitated -- what was the family's next big public move? To do the US government's bidding. A Talabani rushes back to Iraq, from his home in the US (his home in the US, that's where his home is) and opposed the KRG non-binding resolution asking whether Kurds would rather be part of Iraq or their own autonomous nation.

Cheered on by the US press, he was a bit of a celebrity . . . outside of Kurdistan. That resolution passed by approximately 95%. Do you get how out of step the Talabanis are with their fellow Kurds? Do you get the damage the family continues to do to the PUK.

Sure, they get US tax payer money to line their own pockets but, at some point, they need to grasp that they won't get that money if they have no influence over the Kurds. And they're approaching that point. Soon they may not be able to afford pricey homes across the US. Zack Kopplin (THE NEW REPUBLIC) noted last year:

Bribing one politician is bad. Bribing all the politicians is worse. The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating a group of companies in Kurdistan, Iraq’s semi-independent northern region, that appears to be doing the latter in order to secure a monopoly on Pentagon fuel contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

A previous New Republic investigation outlined how Kurdish and American firms used shell companies with connections to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the region’s two major political parties, to dominate fuel sales to the U.S. military and inflate prices. But PUK-aligned groups aren’t the only ones cashing in on these American fuel purchases: A tangled network of corruption illustrates how ostensible rivals can cooperate to rip off the Defense Department.

According to Kurdish government documents provided to the Government Accountability Project, where I work, additional shell companies also connect the fuel-fleecing to the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the region’s other major political faction, led by former President Massoud Barzani and his powerful family, a clan of American-sponsored kleptocrats. The billionaire Barzanis are Kurdistan’s “unofficial monarchs,” said Kamal Chomani, a nonresident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy and editor in chief of the Kurdistan Times, an independent news outlet. “We always referred to them as the Mafia,” said a former U.S. government adviser in Iraq, who requested anonymity to speak candidly.

The Barzani family’s assets span the globe. “It was never practical to keep track of that stuff,” a former U.S. anti-corruption official said about the vast Barzani holdings, which were spread from Syria to Switzerland. And, in an awkward twist, some of the millions swindled from the U.S. military may have ended up as investments in California’s luxury real estate market.

While the scope of the Barzanis’ wealth is vast, its source is simple: The money comes from Kurdistan’s rich oil and gas industry and deals like the Pentagon fuel purchases. Requests for comment sent to an adviser for Kurdish Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, as well as to a public relations firm that previously worked for the Barzani family, went unanswered.

Tracing the Kurdish fuel deals leads to a Virginia-based logistics company, DGCI. For at least half a decade, DGCI has been the Pentagon’s go-to fuel provider in Kurdistan and has been dogged by questions about its connections to Kurdish politicians.

Most recently, DGCI was contracted by the U.S. military to deliver wildly overpriced jet fuel, at rates as high as $10 a gallon, to an American base at the international airport in Erbil, Kurdistan’s capital. The Erbil airport is a key staging point for fuel deliveries into Syria, part of America’s continued involvement in that country’s civil war.

[. . .]

In Kurdistan, monopolies happen because you have power or pay off those who do. DGCI is paired with a Kurdish conglomerate called Zozik Group; together, they share ownership of a subsidiary called Triple Arrow. Zozik, which did not respond to my requests for comment, has faced long-standing allegations that it’s a channel for bribes to PUK officials, as detailed in the earlier New Republic investigation.

But PUK connections alone don’t explain DGCI’s overpriced deliveries to Erbil, which is outside the party’s primary territory. Even early in the U.S. occupation of Iraq, State Department officials conceded internally that corruption in Erbil “centers more on the Barzani clan,” according to diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks. In Erbil, “the Barzanis have to have at least half of the shares of big businesses,” said Abdulla Hawez, a Kurdish journalist and researcher. Sources said that Zozik and DGCI cooperated with companies linked to Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party bloc in order to deliver fuel to the U.S. government.

The Barzanis greed is so obvious that even THE NEW YORK TIMES has covered the $47 billion Beverly Hills mansion that US taxpayers appear to be fotting the bill on.

Kanaa Ayoub Tweets:

Dozens of unknown armed men flocked to Beit @LahurTalabany
 after the PUK leadership asked him to hand over all wanted persons and leave Kurdistan. 
Lahur Talabani is Iran's upper hand in Kurdistan and the architect of the 2017 delivery of Kirkuk to alhashd Alshabi and Iran

11:12 AM · Aug 3, 2021

There is a huge story that's being ignored by the bulk of western media.