Friday, October 10, 2014

Spanked on the Global Stage



 Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Spanked on the Global Stage"

spanked on the global stage

 

From July 24, 2011, that's "Spanked on the Global Stage." 

And as Libya continues to break apart and be consumed by violence, I'd argue that in death, Muammar Gaddafi continues to spank Barack.

C.I. wrote:

 Muammar Gaddafi has Barack over his knee and asks, as he spanks, "Who 'must leave now'? Huh? Who?" Barack responds, "Republicans are so much easier to punk! Ow! Ow!" Isaiah archives his comics at The World Today Just Nuts.


 

I think that one holds up. 


Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"



Thursday, October 9, 2014.  Chaos and violence continue, World Can't Wait calls out the continued Iraq War, Barack Obama's 'plan' for Iraq is shot down across the political spectrum, 'trend stories' aren't news, 'trend stories' are frequently insulting to women, there's no such thing as a heroic or good suicide bomber, one country's media whores may have to find real jobs (yes, I wish it were the US but it's not) and much more.




Let's start with The World Can't Wait this is from their most recent statement where they point out the problems were not caused by the drawdown of US forces at the end of 2011:



The U.S. withdrawal left what had been a relatively secular country split along sectarian lines, with a weak puppet government, and a huge opening for Islamic fundamentalists to push for religious rule.
No party in this fight, not Islamic militias, not the new Iraqi government — paid for by the U.S. — and certainly not the war machine of the U.S. itself, has "right" on its side. Tomahawk missiles fired from US carriers in the Persian Gulf, drone strikes and bombs can only bring unimaginable suffering to the Iraqi people.
We in the U.S. must speak out against any U.S. attacks on Iraq & Syria. By exposing and standing against the lies and crimes of our government, whether by Bush or Obama, we can make a difference in how people see what's going on.
Months of cable "news" repeating Pentagon press releases, has created a situation where people in the U.S. are  supporting more war on Iraq - and now on Syria - based on lies.   Huge numbers -- enough to elect a Democrat as president in 2008 -- had come to oppose the Bush regime's unjust and immoral war on Iraq.
But now too many people are drawn back into accepting new wars, on the basis that "something has to be done about ISIS."
The Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) is both a response to U.S. occupation of the region, and also literally, in some cases, was created by torture in U.S. prisons in Iraq; by billions of dollars in U.S. arms strewn about the region; and funded by close U.S. allies Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, societies where people also have scarcely any rights.  The Islamic State offers a disastrous future for the people, and is no damn good.
But U.S. occupations, bombs, economic exploitation, and support of every reactionary regime in the region have done more damage, by far, than any Islamic fundamentalist group in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It was the Bush regime that sold the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq — countries which never attacked the U.S. — on the basis of defeating the Taliban and al Qaeda, only to have strengthened the basis on which they operate.
The U.S. military cannot do anything to stop the violence of ISIS. NOTHING good can come from U.S. bombing, and we need to say so immediately and widely. Join us.

Download PDF (half-page, double-sided).


 

Good for World Can't Wait -- and I mean that.


Too many people are silent, a fact Elaine noted in her last post:

 For two years now, I've called out Medea [Benjamin]'s 'protest' literature on The Drone War for slamming this or that person but never Barack Obama.  There are articles she's written condemning The Drone War that don't even mention Barack.
She's a dirty whore.  She was just in Latin America a few months back saying we in the US had to worry because the next president might be worse than Barack.
Worse?
How?
We're spied on, he kills people with drones, he's apparently after Julian Assange and Ed Snowden, he's started one war after another.
If there's not a movement in the US -- and there really isn't -- that's on the heads and asses of whores like Medea who've spent the last six years applauding Barack and refusing to call him out.


And Elaine's right.

And when others refuse to speak it pushes the work off onto those of us who will and we're already doing all we can.

I'm tired and I'm tired of being online.

But good news, I don't have to be.

No, a man e-mailed today to inform me that, "since you claim to be a feminist," I have to write about Nicholas Vinocur and Pauline Mevel (Reuters) report which opens:


 Foad, a French truck driver of Moroccan origin, traveled alone through Syria to rescue his 15-year-old sister from an Islamist group she said was holding her captive. But when they finally stood face to face, in tears, she would not leave.
Foad is convinced that his sister Nora, whom he described as an impressionable teen who loved Disney movies before leaving for Syria one afternoon in January, stayed on because she was threatened with execution by the French-speaking commander, or emir, of the group she joined.

The former high school student is among dozens of European girls, many of them her age, living with such groups in Syria. It is an aspect of the conflict that is beginning to worry European governments previously more focused on the flow of young men to join the ranks of Islamic State and others.



Do I have to write about that?


Well it's good to know I can step down and hand off the baton, or at least the curling wand, to a man so capable and knowing that he knows what I must do as a feminist.


Except I don't see the feminist value in that story.


I guess you can argue that it proves women can be into destruction and killing but is that really a newly emerging detail?  Did we miss all of human history as well as Hillary Clinton's 'diplomatic' efforts in and out of office?


There's nothing a woman can't do -- whether it's doing good or doing bad.


The Reuters story?


It's the sort of 'trend' story Susan Faludi's documented so well in Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women.


It's heavy on anecdotes and it's short on facts.


More to the point though, it's one of those It Sings stories.

They don't celebrate women, they don't note women.  The hook of these stories, the very narrative, is, "Look at what it can do" (or has done).  Women are "it."  Or maybe it's our vaginas are "it."

We've ignored two similar stories.

A female peshmerga went into an Islamic State area in Iraq and blew herself up.

She completed a suicide mission.

I don't get where I applaud that.

There were many people -- men and women -- e-mailing that this 'heroic' act had to be celebrated.

My own feelings about suicide would be if that's what someone wants to do, it's what they want to do and some of us carry more pain or handle it worse or whatever.  I'm not going to condemn anyone who's taken their own life.

But I'm also not going to celebrate suicide bombing as heroic.

If it's heroic for one side to do it, it's heroic for another side to do it.

I don't want to live in a world where suicide bombing is applauded or considered heroic.

Had the woman fought to the death, it wouldn't have surprised me.  Many women throughout history have.  However, I would have agreed that could be heroic.

But I don't want suicide bombers all over the world because some nut jobs in the peshmerga think this is a cool way to kill.  There's nothing cool about it and if we applaud it in Iraq, we'll need to applaud it in the United States and elsewhere.

There was nothing heroic about what the woman did.  I wouldn't even call her a "human bomb" -- she was divorced from humanity when she took part in that effort.

And that has nothing to do with her gender, I'd feel the same way if it was a man.

I'm very bothered that the press tried to present her actions as glamorous or brave because if a suicide bomber goes off in Denver, it won't be glamorous or brave.

The other one we ignored was women fighters and how they may terrify the Islamic State.

We've covered women fighters before.  We may be the only who regularly noted the Daughters of Iraq. And we noted them and treated the development as something serious.  But then, repeatedly, the Daughters of Iraq popped up and disappeared based on whether or not they could be packaged as a 'trend story.'

We use "police officer" or "police member" here.  We realize the power of words and we know in spite of all the women in Iraq who had been part of the police force prior to the start of the illegal war in 2003, there was an effort to make it a job only men could do as Iraq was controlled by fundamentalists like Nouri al-Maliki.

And make no mistake, when you can't appoint women to your Cabinet, when even your Minister of Women's Affairs is a man, you're a fundamentalist.  You're actually much worse than that but we'll keep it clean.

My plan was to avoid these awful recent stories because at least women were getting recognized and the real story of Iraq reporting in the last eleven years is how western reporters have repeatedly ignored women and presented the story of Iraq as taking place in men's prison.  But this repeated nonsense in the e-mails where some drive-by insists this or that 'trend story' is about feminism or women's advancement is grating.

I don't know how to explain it with any more clarity but, no, feminism is not turning yourself into a walking bomb.

Now I am a feminist voice, not the feminist voice, but I'd be more than happy to have an exchange with any feminist that thought becoming a walking bomb was feminism -- mainly due to hearing just how they could shore up such a weak argument.


Speaking of weak arguments, Barack Obama's 'plan' for Iraq.

It's being called out across the political spectrum.

RIA Novosti quotes former Russian Ambassador to Libya Veniamin Popov stating, "Airstrikes alone are not enough to win against the Islamic State organization.  This is the US that lifted the lid, because they actively tried to overthrow [Syrian President Bashar] Assad, and thought that all means are good. So that, they directly or indirectly supported the terrorist organizations [in Syria]. And they got what they created."


In the US, Bill Van Auken (World Socialist Web Site ) notes yesterday's meeting Barack had with US military officials and explains, "As the meetings took place, there was further evidence that American policy in the region is in a state of disarray, beset by the immense contradictions in US policy, which had backed Islamist militias in the war for regime change in Syria, and is now attempting to curb the largest of these sectarian-based armed groups, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), after its overrunning of roughly a third of Iraq’s territory. American policy is further roiled by the conflicting agendas of the so-called “international coalition” that Obama has assembled to support the US-led war."

The Washington Examiner's editorial board weighs in noting, "Even where the casual deployment of air power can tip the balance of a war, it cannot establish a just or stable peace afterward. The best possible outcome of this strategy in Iraq and Syria might well be prolonged war among most of the same parties, but with a different balance in terms of their relative strength and odds of victory."

 

The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal offers:


A senior Obama Administration official headlined a leading story in Wednesday’s New York Times about American frustration with Turkish “inaction” in Syria. “There’s growing angst about Turkey dragging its feet to act to prevent a massacre less than a mile from its border,” this anonymous official said. “This isn’t how a NATO ally acts while hell is unfolding a stone’s throw from their border.” The charge was repeated in other media outlets.
It’d be nice to know why the White House thinks a public spat with a crucial NATO and Middle Eastern partner helps the war against ISIS. The U.S. “angst” over “dragging its feet” applies far better to what the French and British, the Arab Gulf allies, Jordan and above all Turkey have thought about American inaction on Syria while hundreds of thousands died and an Islamist ISIS army emerged to take huge chunks of territory.


Outside of the ever shrinking Cult of St. Barack, questions are being asked about the 'plan' and how it even qualifies as a plan.  On the issue of Turkey, Karen DeYoung and Liz Sly (Washington Post) report:


 In a sign of their reluctance to directly antagonize Turkey on the eve of a key diplomatic meeting, U.S. officials sent mixed signals on Ankara’s demand that the United States establish a protected buffer zone along Turkey’s border with Syria.
“It is not now on the table as a military option that we’re considering,” said Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary.

Separately, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said the idea of a buffer zone was “worth looking at very, very closely” and that it would be discussed when retired Gen. John Allen, coordinator of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria, holds high-level meetings in Turkey on Thursday.



The paper's Liz Sly Tweets:
7 hours ago

ISIS is on the verge of capturing Iraq's Anbar province. Important story by



Back to DeYoung and Sly's report, if the administration isn't sending mixed signals, they're antagonizing allies or would be allies.

They're also antagonizing the Iraqi people.  All the propaganda in the world can't hide that.  Yes, CENTCOM notes:


In Iraq, an airstrike south of Sinjar destroyed an ISIL bunker and ammunition cache and a small ISIL unit. Another airstrike, south of Sinjar Mountain, destroyed an ISIL armed vehicle and a small ISIL unit. To conduct these strikes, the U.S. employed attack aircraft deployed to the Centcom area of operations. All aircraft exited the strike areas safely.

 The strikes were conducted as part of President Barack Obama's comprehensive strategy to degrade and destroy ISIL.


Mu Xuequan (Xinhua) reports:

In Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, more than 20 people were killed and some 30 others wounded in the morning air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition against buildings believed to be IS headquarters in the eastern part of the provincial capital city of Mosul, some 400 km of Baghdad, an official from the security committee of Nineveh's provincial council told Xinhua.

Which is a polite way of saying the US just bombed civilians (again).  Still on violence, NINA notes a Baquba car bombing left 9 people dead and ten more injured and an Abu Dshir roadside bombing left 2 people dead and eight more injured.

Of course, today's Iraq news wasn't all bad.  Ibrahim Saleh (Niqash) reports:

Media organizations that fostered close links with and, some say, published or broadcast propaganda, for Iraq’s former Prime Minister are finding that their funding has dried up. Analysts and other suitably qualified individuals who used to defend al-Maliki in the media are having the same problems.


While his bosses searched for a new investor, young Iraqi journalist Hussein Aslawi was forced to resign. As the search for extra funding went on, the satellite TV channel Aslawi worked for had decided to cut down on its number of staff.

“And I tendered my resignation because things just are not the same anymore,” explains Aslawi, who worked as a news editor. “All of this is happening because the channel’s administrators have strong links to [former Iraqi Prime Minister] Nouri al-Maliki. So this is the result of his election loss,” Aslawi notes.


The media organisation’s administrators had pinned all their hopes – and the future of their operating budget - on al-Maliki winning a third term. “And despite our warnings, they didn’t do anything to protect themselves in case al-Maliki lost,” Aslawi says. “That’s why things have gotten so bad.”

Shortly before the last general elections in Iraq, held at the end of April this year, Aslawi says the satellite channel, whose name he did not want to reveal for fear of repercussions, received a lot of money from al-Maliki and his allies from out of a special campaign budget. “The money was paid on the condition that the channel changed its policies and supported al-Maliki,” says the young journalist, who adds that he and his colleagues were all shocked when they heard about the deal.  


“The channel became like al-Maliki’s spokesperson,” Aslawi says. “And it stayed that way up until Haider al-Abadi [the new Iraqi prime Minister] was assigned to form a government.”


At that stage, the channel was forced to stop broadcasting for almost two weeks. “And today its fate lies in finding somebody to finance it,” Aslawi notes. “But that seems very unlikely to happen.”


Whores forced out of their jobs?  Forced to work real ones or starve?

It could happen here!

Pacifica Radio could be taken down -- largely because of the waste and theft at WBAI throughout the '00s  and because All Media Whore Amy Goodman scammed Pacifica and walked away with millions.  The Nation has the coffers filled enough to continue online but print is iffy by the financial projections they hope no one leaks to the media.  (Will I or won't I? -- that is the question.) Others are even more worse off.

And should be.

Your loyalty should be to your listeners and readers.  You shouldn't whore yourself out for the powerful.  When someone's in the Oval Office, they have not just the Secret Service but also a team of rabid attack dogs to defend them.  They don't need the so-called press whoring to protect them.

But democracy does need a real press.

And Panhandle Media has failed the country and if dried up and disappeared what would we really miss?

Not much at all.

They don't report, they don't do much of anything except explain how awful Republicans are (or anyone who criticizes Barack) and look the other way.

They don't deserve to be on the air and they certainly don't deserve your money.

In Iraq, whores are being sent packing.

Too bad we can't say the same for the United States.


Lastly, David Bacon's latest book is The Right to Stay Home: How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration. We'll close with this from Bacon's "Tribunal Takes Up Mexico's Migrant 'Hell'" (The Progressive):



 MEXICO CITY (10/8/14) -- Just before judges heard testimony on migration at the Permanent People's Tribunal in Mexico City last week, the Mexican government announced a new measure that might have been deliberately intended to show why activists brought the Tribunal to Mexico to begin with, three years ago.  Interior (Gobernacion) Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong told the press that the speed of trains known by migrants as "La Bestia" (The Beast) would be doubled.

Photos of "La Bestia" have become famous around the world, showing young migrants crowded on top of boxcars, riding the rails from the Guatemala border to near the U.S. It's a slow train, but many boys and girls have lost arms and legs trying to get on or off, and wind up living in limbo in the Casas de Migrantes -- the hostels run by the Catholic Church and other migrant rights activists throughout Mexico.  Osorio Chong said Mexico would require the companies operating the trains - a partnership between mining giant Grupo Mexico and the U.S. corporation Kansas City Southern - to hike their speed to make it harder for the migrants.

In the Tribunal, young people, giving only their first names out of fear, said they'd see many more severed limbs and deaths as a result, but that it wouldn't stop people from coming.  Armed gangs regularly rob the migrants, they charged, and young people get beaten and raped.  If they're willing to face this, they'll try to get on the trains no matter how fast they go.  "Mexico is a hell for migrants already," fumed Father Pedro Pantoja, who organized the Casa de Migrantes in Saltillo.









iraq











 

Read on ...
Posted by Isaiah at 2:29 AM 0 comments

Thursday, October 2, 2014

War Whore



war whore


 

From July 17, 2011, that's  "War Whore." 


C.I. wrote:

 No, it's not Mrs. Doubtfire. The woman explains, "Hi. I'm Babsie Ehrenreich and you should listen to me when I pretend to be against the current wars. True, I don't call out Barack but my ugly daughter Rosa was the Counselor to the Under Secretary of Defense for policy. Getting now why I never call out Barack? The term for me is 'War Whore'." Isaiah archives his comics at The World Today Just Nuts.

I didn't remember drawing that when I pulled it up tonight.  And I still don't remember.

Usually, something can jog my memory.

I stand by the cartoon and am glad I did it but I really don't remember drawing it.

In terms of capturing the awful Ehrenreich, I think I drew her pretty accurately.



Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"



Thursday, October 2, 2014.  Chaos and violence continue, Australia is set to join in the bombing of Iraq, Leon Panetta tells some uncomfortable truths, Salon sends the lightest weight in their bordello out to 'argue' against Panetta, the administration finally wants to focus some on diplomatic efforts at a political solution in Iraq, and much more.



US President Barack Obama's Better Living Through Bombing 'plan' just officially got another partner.

  • 1 hour ago
    Australia cabinet gives approval for fighter jets to join air strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq
    Expand
  • 2 hours ago
    : PM Tony Abbott has announced Australia will begin air strikes and deploy special forces in Iraq.
    Expand



    • While Australia joins the UK and US in the bombings, , DPA reports that Germany's Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen declared today that her country will be sending an unspecified number of "military doctors" into northern Iraq.

    The contrast between Germany's approach and Barack's is telling.



    Let's move to this:

     The deal never materialized. To this day, I believe that a small U.S. troop presence in Iraq could have effectively advised the Iraqi military on how to deal with al-Qaeda’s resurgence and the sectarian violence that has engulfed the country.
    Over the following two and a half years, the situation in Iraq slowly deteriorated. Al-Maliki was responsible, as he exacerbated the deep sectarian issues polarizing his country. Meanwhile, with the conflict in Syria raging, an al-Qaeda offshoot—ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria—gained strength. Using Syria as its base, it began to move into Iraq in 2014, grabbing power in towns and villages across Iraq’s north, including Mosul and Tall ‘Afar. These were strategically important cities that U.S. forces had fought and died to secure.


    That's from an excerpt of Leon Panetta and Jim Newton's Worthy Fight -- from an excerpt which Time magazine has published. (October 7th, Penguin Press publishes the book.)  Panetta has served in the US army (where he rose to the rank of First Lieutenant), the US House of Representatives, as the Director of Office of Management and Budget during Bill Clinton's presidency, as the White House Chief of Staff during Bill's presidency, as the Director of the CIA during Barack Obama's presidency and finally as Secretary of Defense during Barack's presidency.  As disclosed before, I know Leon and have known him for years.


    The deal?

    The deal Panetta's referring to.

    Leaving thousands of US troops in Iraq after December 31, 2011.

    Panetta explains he wanted it, others in Defense and State wanted and US President Barack Obama had an attitude if they put it together he was for it but he wasn't going to help them in any way.

    The lackadaisical president?


    Yes, that is Barack.  What people who have left the administration attempt to figure out is Barack so tentative because he's afraid of making a mistake or is he just bored?

    The American people thought -- those who voted for him -- that they had someone who would fight for them and then discovered he could rouse himself for the corporations -- who donated so often and so well to his campaigns -- but he had no stomach for fighting for the people.

    The book -- yes, I've read it -- goes beyond Iraq -- and will be carried beyond Iraq -- to paint a portrait that the mainstream press has largely shielded the public from.

    Which is why the whores of Salon come out swinging.


    Like den mother Joan Walsh, the kids of Salon barely pass for half-wits.

    Simon Maloy is the joke chosen to feed comfort food to Salon's uninformed readers.

    Simon kicks off things with a factual inaccuracy -- what most would call a lie:

    Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta caused quite a stir today when he wrote a piece for Time magazine laying blame for the current chaos in Iraq at the feet of the Obama administration.


    That's it, that's the moron the whores of Salon send out?

    Leon wrote a book -- co-wrote.

    "Wrote a piece for Time"?

    Time is excerpting the book.

    How damn stupid is Simon Maloy?

    And how the hell did even the gutter trash of Salon see fit to let this surface?


    After insulting Republicans -- that's all Joan Walsh decaying and demented crew can handle -- Simon then wants to lie some more or just flaunt his damn stupidity -- and he's pretty damn stupid:

    To sum up the situation: in late 2008, George W. Bush and Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki signed a security agreement stipulating that all U.S. troops would be withdrawn from the country by the end of 2011. Starting in 2010, the Obama administration began negotiating with the Iraqis to rejigger the agreement to allow a small residual force of American soldiers to remain behind. Those negotiations were ultimately unsuccessful. By October 2011 both sides had agreed that all troops would be gone by the end of that year, in accordance with the original security agreement.


    Is that summing up?

    Is it, really?

    It's lying, that's for damn sure.




    Then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta: Senator, as I pointed out in my testimony, what we seek with Iraq is a normal relationship now and that does involve continuing negotiations with them as to what their needs are.  Uh, and I believe there will be continuing negotations.  We're in negotiations now with regards to the size of the security office that will be there and so there will be -- There aren't zero troops that are going to be there. We'll have, you know, hundreds that will be present by virtue of that office assuming we can work out an agreement there.  But I think that once we've completed the implementation of the security agreement that there will begin a series of negotiations about what exactly are additional areas where we can be of assistance? What level of trainers do they need? What can we do with regards to CT [Counter-Terrorism] operations? What will we do on exercises -- joint-exercises -- that work together?


    "By October 2011 both sides had agreed that all troops would be gone by the end of that year, in accordance with the original security agreement," Simon scribbles.

    Then why did Leon tell the Senate Armed Services Committee the sentences I just quoted above?

    They're from the November 15, 2011 snapshot.

    That snapshot is covering that day's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.  [Community reporting on that hearing also includes the November 16, 2011 "Iraq snapshot," the November 17, 2011 "Iraq snapshot," by Ava in "Scott Brown questions Panetta and Dempsey (Ava)," by Wally with "The costs (Wally)," by Kat in "Who wanted what?" and by Third Estate Sunday Review in "Enduring bases, staging platforms, continued war" and "Gen Dempsey talks "10 enduring" US bases in Iraq."]

    Both sides had not agreed by the end of October 2011, negotiations continued.

    I'm real sorry that Simon and Salon are cheap, lying whores who never do the work required.  You'd think if you'd signed on to whore and lie for Barack, you'd put a little more effort into lying convincingly.

    Simon's a piece of trash.

    He's aware of that hearing.  In limited form.

    He's basically cribbed Kat's report noted above.

    He 'magically' notes the exchange she reported on, that she quoted.

    But she did it back in November 2011.

    And she also understands the context which has escaped a thief and liar like Simon who goes around grabbing the work of others but, having not been at the hearing or even went to the archives to watch the hearings, he doesn't understand the exchange at all.

    Simon's a liar. He's a thief.  He's a whore.

    He couldn't work anywhere but Salon.

    And that the left puts up with Salon because it tells pleasing lies about the White House?

    Joan Walsh should have been escorted to a padded cell years ago.

    Maybe when she was attacking Latinos and Latinas?  She doesn't want you to know about that.  She probably doesn't stand by that xenophobia now either.

    But then she doesn't stand by anything.  She recasts herself daily based on the shifting winds of popularity.

    America needs reporting.  It can take informed commentary as well.  But this nonsense of partisan attack squads passing themselves off as journalists?

    These people are whores.  Whether they're whoring for Bully Boy Bush or whoring for Barack Obama, they're whores.  They may tell you a pleasing lie -- a whore will say whatever it takes to turn a trick -- but they don't inform you, they don't make your life or anyone else's better.


    Since February 2003, I have publicly spoken out against the Iraq War -- then it was the impending war, now it's the never-ending war.  Since November 2004, I've been online here and, starting in January 2005, helping at Third.

    I didn't pull punches or kiss as when Bully Boy Bush was running the illegal war and I don't now that it's Barack.  My positions don't change because the White House flips parties or the House or whatever.

    There is no consistency to Salon -- it's not the only bordello posing as a news or media outlet.

    As someone who has thought about Iraq every day (and written about it every day) -- regardless of whether it's a 'hot topic' or not -- it bothers me tremendously when little whores bring their disease ridden bodies out in public and attempt to rewrite basic facts to benefit whatever politician they're having wet dreams over today.

    Iraq matters.

    It matters all by itself, without noting US losses (no one should have died in the illegal war).

    It matters because it's not a thing, it's not an object.

    It is a land where millions of people try to live -- in spite of the bombings by this faction or that faction or the US government or the British government or . . .

    Salon and the other whores reduce Iraq to a political football, something they can attack Republicans with or improve Democrats' image with.

    Iraq is not a political football.

    It is the home to millions.  It was the home to over a million Iraqis who died in this illegal war, this unprovoked attack on their country.

    I don't have any respect for some cheap whore who wants to turn it into 'Barack was right!' or 'Bush was right!'

    They have never suffered the way the Iraqi people have suffered and continue to suffer.


    If you're so divorced from humanity that you can't recognize their suffering, at least have the brains to stop using them to prop up your political paper dolls.



    14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi was gang-raped by US soldiers while her parents and five-year-old sister were murdered in the next room and then Abeer was murdered.


    That 2006 War Crime?  Salon gave it 9 mentions.  Two of those were with regards to Brian De Palma's classic film Redacted.  Only 1 of the 9 was a piece about Abeer.  In the other 8, she's an aside.

    That's how Salon 'covered' it.  One brief report in 2006 and then name dropping her in 8 more articles -- briefly name dropping her.

    We didn't ignore Abeer here.  And we followed the Article 32 hearing on the War Crimes, we then followed the courts-martial on it and the civil criminal case against ringleader Steven Dale Green.

    When Nouri al-Maliki was targeting Iraqi youth who were either gay or perceived as gay, we spent months covering it here.

    Salon?

    They had US politicians to whore for.

    Over and over, as Iraqis suffered, Salon turned a blind eye.  Now they want to act as experts on Iraq?  A whore will tell you anything up until the point that the money changes hands.

    Rebecca Kaplan (CBS News) reports  -- reports -- on Panetta's remarks here.


    Partisans have attacked Senator John McCain for his remarks about the agreement not reached with Iraq.  They have called him a liar and worse.  I've called him many things here (check the archives) and few of them nice but I have defended him from the claims that he's lied re: the agreement process. I don't like John McCain (I do like and know Cindy McCain), I would never vote for John McCain but, unlike Salon, I'm not interested in authoring political erotica.  McCain was not lying and today he and Senator Lindsey Graham issued this statement:

    STATEMENT BY SENATORS McCAIN AND GRAHAM ON SECRETARY PANETTA AND AMBASSADOR CROCKER REFUTING ADMINISTRATION FALSEHOOD ON RESIDUAL FORCE IN IRAQ

    Washington, D.C. ­– U.S. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) today released the following comment on statements made this week by former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Ambassador Ryan Crocker confirming that the Obama Administration could have reached an agreement to leave residual forces in Iraq, but never made a full effort, despite being warned that failing to do so may lead to the situation we are in today in Iraq:
    “The latest statements by two of the most respected national security officials to serve under President Obama definitively refute the falsehood that this Administration has told the American people for years about their efforts to leave a residual force in Iraq,” said Senators McCain and Graham. “As we have said all along, and as Secretary Panetta and Ambassador Crocker have now confirmed, the Obama Administration never made a full effort to leave a residual force in Iraq, despite being warned that failing to do so would risk exactly the scenario we’ve seen unfold today, with the emergence of terrorist safe-havens as Iraq slides back into chaos, threatening America’s national security.”
    Below are Secretary Panetta’s book excerpt in TIME Magazine and Ambassador Crocker’s Defense One interview.



    At some point, the whores will start the 'what difference does it make' and 'let's not rehash the past' arguments -- as they realize they have no ground to stand on, they'll shift to silencing the topic itself.

    But what happened does matter and understanding it can help with what's happening currently in Iraq.

    Barack keeps insisting he has a 'plan.'  Like Bully Boy Bush, he doesn't.  Like Bully Boy Bush, he's merely passing it on to the next occupant of the White House.

    Jen Psaki, State Dept spokesperson, offered an overview of the 'plan' today that made more sense than anything anyone else in the administration has been able to offer:



     Finally, as you may all have seen, Special President – Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL General John Allen and Deputy Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk arrived in Iraq today for intensive consultations with Iraqi Government officials and regional Iraqi leaders on how the United States can support Iraq in the fight against ISIL. That Special Envoy Allen went to Iraq for his first international trip in his new capacity speaks to the importance of – the United States places on coordination with and support for Iraq as we build this global coalition to degrade and defeat ISIL. General Allen and Ambassador McGurk’s discussions in Iraq and elsewhere will follow on the coalition-building efforts that President Obama and Secretary Kerry led at the NATO summit in Wales, during meetings in Jeddah and in Cairo, and most recently in New York at UNGA.
    From Iraq, General Allen and Ambassador McGurk will travel on to Brussels for meetings with NATO and EU leadership, where the focus will be cracking down on ISIL’s foreign fighter pipeline and countering its financing streams. Then they will travel on to Amman for consultations with Jordanian officials and key regional players. From Amman they will travel to Cairo to meet with Egyptian Government officials and the Arab League ambassadors. Their conversations there will follow on President Obama’s recent meeting with President Sisi in New York and Secretary Kerry’s discussions during his last trip to Cairo. They will finally conclude their visit in Turkey, a key NATO ally, where they will meet with Turkish military and political leaders to discuss their potential contributions to the international coalition, including combating the threat from foreign fighters. In Turkey, they will also meet with Syrian opposition leaders, both affirming our continued support for their brave efforts in the fight against ISIL and continuing our ongoing dialogue about the best ways to support these efforts.

    In conversations with General Allen and Ambassador McGurk – in these conversations they will have they will discuss coalition cooperation across the five lines of effort – not just military support for our partners, but also – with our partners, I should say, but also stopping foreign fighters, slashing ISIL’s access to financing, maximizing humanitarian assistance and protection for vulnerable victims of the conflict, and exposing ISIL’s extremist, nihilistic message for what it really is. There’s been lots of attention paid to the military component, as we’ve discussed in here, but this trip is about more than that. It’s about expanding this coalition and about building on the five lines of effort that they’re focused on. They will also finally return to the region later this month to meet with other key coalition partners as well, so this will be the first of a number of trips.


    Let's hope the administration is finally going to work the diplomatic angle.

    Psaki was speaking at today's State Dept press briefing.

    She raised the issue of Iraq herself and did so before taking questions.

    Maybe she felt she had to since all week long reporters at the briefings have ignored Iraq?

    We'll note this from today's briefing:
    QUESTION: When he will be arriving to Ankara, Ambassador McGurk and General Allen?
    MS. PSAKI: Next week. But again, we’re still finalizing some specifics about the trip. So I think we’ll have more technical updates with each day about who’ll they be meeting with and what day they’ll arrive, et cetera.
    QUESTION: Should we assume that each city one day? I mean, Iraq, Baghdad, Brussels, Amman, Cairo, and Ankara (inaudible)?
    MS. PSAKI: About that, but some may spend more than one day. So again, I said the end of the trip is Turkey, so I would assume the end of next week.
    QUESTION: And – but the meetings with the president, the prime minister, is there any --
    MS. PSAKI: Again, as I just said, because we’re talking about a week and a half from now or near the end of next week, I think we’ll have more updates on specific meetings as we get a little bit closer, and as soon as we have that information, we’ll make it available.
    QUESTION: So it’s almost one month that – when President Obama started to discuss this issue with the Turkish side since the Wales summit. So how do you see right now the – where we are in terms of the fight against the ISIL in terms of the contribution coming from Ankara?
    MS. PSAKI: Well, I think, one, we welcome the Turkish parliament’s vote to authorize Turkish military action, as I mentioned. Turkey has – and their leaders – have indicated they want to play a more prominent role with the coalition. We welcome that. They’re an important counterterrorism partner, an important NATO ally, so we understand the sensitivity that they had for several weeks with – the country had with their diplomats, and now we’re ready to move forward. And they’ve indicated they want to be an active partner.
    QUESTION: Do you believe that – are you on the same page with the Turkish leadership in terms of the priorities in this fight? I mean, ISIS is obviously the priority for U.S. side, but do you think that the Turks also are seeing ISIS as a priority while --

    MS. PSAKI: I think Turkey, from all of our discussions with them, certainly understands the threat posed by ISIL. But I would point you to them for more on that particular question.




    Brett McGurk Tweeted earlier today:




    It's good to see the administration finally addressing the diplomatic angle.  And hopefully it's not too late.


    Diplomacy might have some impact -- it probably would have at an earlier date -- but the 'plan' itself remains a joke.  Peter Certo (link goes to the Institute for Policy Studies) points out:

    Obama says the plan is to hammer IS targets from the air while bolstering partners on the ground—including the Iraqi Army, Kurdish fighters in Iraq, and “moderate” Syrian rebel groups—in a bid to roll back the advance of IS throughout Iraq and Syria without putting U.S. “boots on the ground” (never mind those 1,600 troops and advisers that have already been sent to Iraq, along with a likely undisclosed number of special forces).
    As my colleague Phyllis Bennis is fond of saying, you can’t bomb extremism out of existence. She’s right.
    For one thing, bombs cause civilian casualties, which are inherently radicalizing. “The U.S. bombs do not fall on ‘extremism,’” Bennis has written of the strikes on IS’ capital in Syria. “They are falling on Raqqa, a 2,000 year-old Syrian city with a population of more than a quarter of a million people—men, women, and children who had no say in the takeover of their city by ISIS. The Pentagon is bombing targets like the post office and the governor’s compound, and the likelihood of large number of civilian casualties, as well as devastation of the ancient city, is almost certain.”
    A protracted air campaign is likely to cause a raft of unintended consequences. In Yemen and Pakistan, for example—the targets of the vast majority of U.S. drone strikes on alleged al-Qaeda “militants”—civilian populations have grappled with severe trauma and stress from living under the constant hovering drones. Terrorist recruiters have repeatedly sought to exploit this trauma—especially among the thousands of Yemenis and Pakistanis who have lost innocent loved ones. The best that can be said of these years-long campaigns from a national security perspective is that they’re holding actions. Al-Qaeda has certainly not been destroyed in either country, and it’s entirely possible that the drones themselves are providing a continued rationale for the group’s survival. It’s unclear why the Obama administration seems to think it can effect a different outcome in the vastly more complicated theater of Iraq and Syria.
    Then there’s the problem of what comes after the bombs. If IS falls back under the weight of U.S. airstrikes, who moves in to secure the territory on the ground?
    In Iraq, there are a few possibilities at this stage: the Iraqi Army, one of a number of Shiite paramilitary groups, or, in the north, Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

    We saw the limitations of the Iraqi Army most dramatically earlier this summer in Mosul, where, after firing scarcely a shot, some 30,000 Iraqi soldiers turned the city—and millions of dollars worth of U.S.-supplied military equipment—over to just 800 attacking IS soldiers. In the years leading up to its capture of the city, IS had freely operated a lucrative protection racket among Mosul’s private businesses and cut deals with corrupt local leaders and members of Iraq’s security forces. So despite the Iraqi Army’s heavy footprint in Mosul—including a burdensome and much loathed system of traffic checkpoints—IS had been consolidating power there long before formally taking over.



    On the Iraqi forces, Ryan Crocker tells Bernard Gwertzman (Council on Foreign Relations):

    If you look at it from former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s perspective, with Iraq’s history of military coups, his own coming of age as a member of a sectarian and persecuted political party, you are going to see an enemy behind every bush.
    When he chose his commanders, he didn’t choose them on the basis of their leadership capability or their battlefield experience. It was loyalty. Could he be absolutely certain that they would never turn against him?

    [Maliki] put individuals with no command ability [and who] were not a threat to him into command positions—when you look at what happened in June, it wasn’t the rank and file that broke first, it was the leadership. Division commanders suddenly decided they needed to be in Baghdad before they ever engaged with ISIS.



    We'll close with an Iraq War veteran (still) being held in Mexico.


       
    Image from Free USMC Sgt Andrew Tahmooressi Facebook page.  
    Iraq and American Veterans of America issued the following:

    IAVA Urges Mexico to Release Imprisoned U.S. Marine

    CONTACT: Gretchen Andersen (212) 982-9699 or press@iava.org
    IAVA Urges Mexico to Release Imprisoned U.S. Marine 
    New vets stand by Jill Tahmooressi in her quest to free her son 

    New York, NY (Oct. 1, 2014) – Today, the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere heard testimony from Jill Tahmooressi on the imprisonment of her son, U.S. Marine Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi, who has been detained in Mexico since March. IAVA released the following statement from CEO and Founder Paul Rieckhoff:


    “IAVA stands strongly with U.S. Marine Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi’s mother, Jill, in her relentless quest to have him freed from prison in Mexico. Ms. Tahmooressi’s articulate and strong appeal for her son – who has been wrongly imprisoned for mistakenly crossing into Mexico in March – not only pulls at the heartstrings; it angers all veterans who should be able to count on their government to have their backs when they return from active duty. Andrew is one of our own, and America should never leave one of our own behind.
    “Andrew’s combat-related PTSD was acquired in defense of his country, and he needs to return to the United States immediately for treatment. We urge President Obama to intervene directly with Mexico, cut through the red tape, and get Sergeant Tahmooressi back on U.S. soil. America’s veterans have not forgotten him, and the President should not forget about him either. Andrew deserves to come home, get treatment, and have a chance to live a productive life.”


    Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (www.IAVA.org) is the nation's first and largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization representing veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and has nearly 300,000 Member Veterans and civilian supporters nationwide. Celebrating its 10th year anniversary, IAVA recently received the highest rating - four-stars - from Charity Navigator, America's largest charity evaluator.
    ###










    Read on ...
    Posted by Isaiah at 10:51 PM 0 comments

    Thursday, September 25, 2014

    9th Circuit Shows Leadership


    9th circuit shows leadership
     


    From July 7, 2011, that's "9th Circuit Shows Leadership." 



    C.I. wrote:

    Holding his teddy bear and commenting on the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals decision, Barack insists, "I would've ended Don't Ask Don't Tell. I would've! Maybe end of the year. Maybe next year. It's like potty training. You can't rush it." Isaiah archives his comics at The World Today Just Nuts.

    I sometimes wonder if people remember how the tide changed not because of Barack but in spite of him.

    He was way behind the curve when it came to marriage equality as well as with regards to putting an end to Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell.



    Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


    Thursday, September 25, 2014.  Chaos and violence continue, the issue of illegal and toxic weapons in Iraq is raised, a prime minister yells 'fire!' in New York and Paris subways, an activist is killed by the Islamic State, World Can't Wait stays strong, CodePink finally starts to find its voice, IVAW cowers in silence and much more.



    Iraq is in the midst of being bombed yet again.  Who knows with what?  As we (re)learned during the early days of the current Iraq War, the US government was more than happy to use illegal weapons in Iraq.  Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following:



    Depleted Uranium Coordinates Needed for Clean-Up of Dangerous Sites in Iraq
    Contact: press@ccrjustice.org

    September 25, 2014, New York – Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Department of Defense (DOD) and the State Department on behalf of itself and Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) seeking the firing coordinates of weapons used in Iraq that contained depleted uranium (DU). As the US launches new military actions in the Middle East, the groups say getting information about the military’s use of DU in weaponry and its long-term effects is as urgent as ever. According to “In a State of Uncertainty,” a report by the Netherlands-based organization PAX, Iraq has been subject to the largest use of DU munitions of all areas of conflict and test sites, conservatively estimated to be at least 440 metric tons, though the United Nations Environment Programme has estimated an amount up to five times that based on satellite imagery. Iraqi civilians thought to have been exposed to DU and remaining debris have suffered high rates of cancer and birth defects and U.S. veterans report unexplained illnesses.  
     
    “DU is but one example of the toxic legacy left by our wars in Iraq,” said CCR Attorney Jeena Shah. “Veterans who served in Iraq are suffering side effects, while many Iraqis still live surrounded by piles of metal debris left over from the war and with soil and ground water potentially contaminated by DU. The only way to deal with its effects and to ensure it is cleaned up is to have a full accounting of where weapons containing DU were deployed.”
     
    DU is a byproduct of enriched uranium and is used in armor-piercing weapons due to its high density. When DU hits a target, its fragments burn and vaporize into a fine dust. If a person inhales, ingests, or is exposed by radiation to DU, radioactive material can be absorbed into the lungs, bone, kidney, skeletal tissue, reproductive system, brain, and other organs. A report recently published by the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons concluded after reviewing approximately fifty peer-reviewed studies on DU that it is clearly a genotoxic agent, known to be involved in the development of cancer and potentially responsible for genetic damage. Some of the wreckage left behind from the war has entered the unregulated trade in scrap metal, sometimes even made into cooking pots. No safe levels of exposure to DU have been established, and researchers advise that all exposure should be avoided. Iraq and other UN member states have called for the banning of DU and the issue will be before the United Nations in October.
     
    Said Maggie Martin, Organizing Director of IVAW, “Veterans have been fighting for decades to have our injuries recognized by the U.S. government— from Agent Orange to Military Sexual Trauma. We were promised healthcare in return for our service, and we deserve to know if we've been exposed to depleted uranium. This is an important matter of health for over two million veterans and for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan who are experiencing the worst of the toxic legacy of war.” 
     
    “Laid to Waste,” a report by Wim Zwijnenburg of PAX, details the difficulty of limiting civilian exposure to DU in the absence of reliable information about locations where it was used and the limited efforts to address the issue.
     
    “In addition to regular bombardment, our country and our communities have been left with a toxic legacy from decades of U.S. war in Iraq,” said Yanar Mohammed, President of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq. “If the U.S. is truly concerned about civilian well-being, it should assist in a full accounting of DU contamination and rigorous study of its health effects by making public the locations where weapons containing DU were deployed.”
     
    CCR and IVAW are seeking this information as part of the Right to Heal Initiative, which they launched together with the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq and the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq. Visit the website to learn more about the Right to Heal Initiative.
    The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.





    Is there a worse news outlet covering Iraq right now than AFP?

    For years, AFP was the most sexist outlet.  Prashant Rao -- apparently aping the John F. Burns Iraq era of the New York Times -- demonstrated little to no interest in covering Iraqi women.

    Prashant is gone (for now) but AFP is actually worse.

    "US pressures IS with strikes and diplomatic drive."

    That's the headline AFP offers.

    This morning,  Aziz Alwan, Zaid Sabah and Khalid Al-Ansary (Bloomberg News) reported on the failure of the new Iraqi government thus far to produce a Sunni buy-in:


    Iraq Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi assumed power earlier this month promising to build an inclusive government, and has promoted the idea of a national guard that could incorporate Sunni militias. So far, Shiite lawmakers have rebuffed Abadi’s proposed Sunni candidate for defense minister. The national guard plan has also yet to materialize.
    “Significant doubts linger over whether Abadi has the political wherewithal to achieve genuine unity,” Jordan Perry, an analyst at U.K.-based risk forecasting company Maplecroft, said by e-mail. 



    We discussed how the US government -- including the State Dept -- was too busy focused on bombing and bringing in more countries to bomb Iraq and Syria in yesterday's snapshot and how the clock was ticking down, that the time to show Iraqi people that the change in prime ministers meant a change.

    AFP should be embarrassed to claim that a diplomatic drive is going on -- lining up partners to bomb is not diplomacy nor is it the 'diplomatic drive' that will provide a political solution for Iraq.

    There is no political solution from bombing.

    Debra Sweet (World Can't Wait) notes today:


     Once again, from the most powerful military in world history, protecting the largest-ever economy, bombs.  As in 24 years of bombing Iraq, 13 of  Afghanistan, like Libya, Somalia and Yemen. Has this done anything to liberate anyone or save lives? These illegitimate, unjust immoral wars of aggression have not.
    If by “we,” you mean the U.S. government and its military, NO.  The U.S. military cannot do anything to stop the violence of ISIS.  It can only continue creating the conditions on which it grows: 9/11's all over the region.
    Obama owns this ultimate war crime — invasion of a sovereign nation that poses no imminent threat to the aggressor. “We” did not ask for or approve this war.  U.S. attacks always lead to civilian casualties and are fueling — not “degrading” — the spread of groups like ISIS.
    NOTHING good can come from U.S. bombing, and we need to say so immediately and widely.  We began Tuesday in NYC, and Wednesday in Chicago and San Francisco.

    Are you in?  Write me!


    Good for Debra.

    Sad for the United States that so few others can speak out.

    Is there anything more pathetic than Iraq Veterans Against the War?

    Does anyone remember those blustering boys and girls trying to push their way through the front of the peace movement?

    Insisting they knew, they were there.

    Reality, Jeremy Hinzman didn't need to go to Iraq to know the war was wrong.  Nor did Ehren Watada.

    I'm not spitting on the notion of learning from your experiences.

    I'm just noting that was IVAW's claim once upon a time.

    And today those brave boys and girls say what?

    You guessed it!

    Not one damn thing.

    Having shoved aside many (and a number of IVAW made rude remarks about Cindy Sheehan), they now have nothing to say.

    The President of the United States has spoken about Iraq how many times in the last two months?

    Yeah, constantly.

    They last weighed in on Iraq June 19th?

    Remember that when they beg for money.

    Remember that when they boast about how important their work is.

    What work?

    Begging?

    That now qualifies as work?

    "Against the War."  It's in their organization's name.

    But the little kittens and puppies of IVAW can't stand up against Barack.

    It's too hard for them, you understand.

    So they cower in their own piss, scared of their own shadows, too cowed to speak up.



    Meanwhile it's certainly taken CodePink long enough to get started but they're finally offering something of value.






    Let's hope that's not a one time thing or empty talk.

    Empty talk is all the White House offers, all the administration offers.

    There is no military solution in Iraq, Barack insists publicly, only a political one.

    Yet he and others in the administration refuse to pour even half the energy they've used building a 'coalition' of bombers into building up government institutions in Iraq.



    If you want to know how poorly the US efforts at diplomacy are, you need look no further than press briefings.

    The State Dept's "daily press briefing"?  They haven't done one since September 19th.



    Q: Since the -- since the strikes began a few days ago in Syria, have you seen any evidence of Assad forces taking any ground that was previously held by ISIS? And the corollary to that, in Iraq, have -- to what extent has the Peshmerga or the Iraqi forces been able to retake territory because of American airstrikes? If you could just update us on that situation, as well.

    REAR ADM. KIRBY: I haven't seen any movement by Assad regime forces to move into facilities or infrastructure that we've hit. We've also seen -- not seen a lot of -- to be quite honest, haven't seen much in terms of reaction by ISIL inside Syria as a result of these attacks. In other words, were not seeing a lot of movement or major muscle movement changes by them in just the last couple of days.
    In Iraq, the -- I could point to the preservation of Haditha Dam. I could point to their ability to work with Kurds, to retake the Mosul Dam facility. I can point to the town of Amerli, which we prevented with them a humanitarian disaster. We could go on and on and on.

    I would also note -- and this gets forgotten a little bit -- that Baghdad is still relatively secure. I mean, there's been a couple of minor IED attacks inside Baghdad, but the ISF, the Iraqi Security Forces, in and around the capital are still defending the capital. And it's not like ISIL hasn't posed a threat there. You may have noticed that some of the strikes that we've taken lately in the last week or so have been south and southwest of Baghdad, because we know they continue to threaten the capital.




    That is from a press briefing today.  But it's the Pentagon's press briefing.  Even though the State Dept can't or won't do press briefings so far this week, the Pentagon can.

    I guess when you do nothing, you have nothing to talk about?


    Does it bother anyone?

    And does anyone have a memory or have we all erased our brains?

    The US government was supposed to go heavy on diplomacy before.

    It was 2007.

    Bully Boy Bush called for a 'surge' in the number of US troops.

    Anyone remember why?

    This was, the White House insisted, to give the Iraqi officials time to work on political solutions.  And the US was going to help.

    But all the US government has ever done is supply weapons and utilize the weapons and stir up the violence.

    And, just as back then, no one wanted to point out that while the military was doing their part of the surge, the US' diplomatic effort was half-hearted and a non-starter.

    As it was then, so it is now.

    It's not as if Iraq is dealing with only one political crisis, it's multiple crises.  On today's Fresh Air (NPR -- link is audio and text), Dexter Filkins discussed Iraq with Terry Gross:


     GROSS: This is FRESH AIR and if you're just joining us, my guest is Dexter Filkins. He's a writer for The New Yorker. He covered the Iraq war for The New York Times, won several awards for doing that. He's covered the whole region for many years. He just went to Kurdistan in the north of Iraq from a period of June through August. He made two trips during that period for a total of about a month's time. And now he has a piece in The New Yorker called "The Fight Of Their Lives: The White House Wants The Kurds To Help Save Iraq From ISIS, The Kurds May Be More Interested In Breaking Away." That's the title and subtitle of the piece.
    So why did you want to go to Kurdistan for this piece that you just wrote?
    FILKINS: Well the - you know, the Kurds are - I mean, when everybody looks at Iraq including me and you just say Iraq, what do you think of? I mean, you think of chaos, and car bombs, and bloodshed, and political strife and stalemate and everything else. And when you go to Kurdistan, this small corner of Iraq, there's nothing - it's nothing like that. And it really struck me when I was there writing the piece earlier this year when I was there doing a piece on Maliki in Baghdad and I was in Baghdad and I wanted to go to Kurdistan. And I had been in Baghdad for about three weeks - and Baghdad in 2014 looks pretty much the way it did in 2004. It's - despite the fact that the Iraqi government is pumping enormous amounts of oil and making tons of money, they're the second-largest producer in OPEC. We're talking tens of billions of dollars, $85 billion a year. There's just not much evidence of that oil money being spent and I think frankly, it's because a lot of it's being stolen. But, it's not a happy story - but, Baghdad's a wreck. I mean, it looks pretty much the way it did during the war.
    And then I got on a plane and I flew to Erbil, which is the capital of Kurdistan. And it's like - you know, you feel like Dorothy (laughter) and it's amazing. You know, there's a Jaguar dealership in Erbil and there's sushi restaurant and there's dance clubs. And I remember one night I'd been out of town and I drove back in at 3 a.m. and I found a liquor store open and bought a six-pack of beer at 3 o'clock in the morning in the Middle East. I mean, that's impossible anywhere for a thousand miles. So it's such a shock when you see it. You think, oh, my God, I can't believe I'm still in Iraq. And in a way - and really that's what the story's about - in a way, it's not part of Iraq, not anymore.
    GROSS: And they don't want to be part of Iraq anymore.

    FILKINS: No, I mean, sort of technically - technically they're part of Iraq, but, you know, they don't want to be and, you know, a de facto way, in a very real way, they're not, they're not part of Iraq. I mean, they're pulling away. And I think they want to make it official and I think probably - I mean, you can never foretell the future in that part of the world - but probably it will be independent, I think, sooner rather than later, although it's hard to tell exactly when.


    There are so many problems in Iraq, so many crises, destroying unity and what's the new prime minister doing?


    While he's unable to build political unity at this time,   Haider al-Abadi, is willing to make waves internationally.  Kristina Fernandez (China Topix) reports he declared today that Iraq had "credible intelligence" that the Islamic State was plotting an attack on the subway systems in Paris and NYC.

    He insisted the information was reliable because it had come from suspects in Iraqi custody.

    Huh?

    The Iraq interrogations are known as torture sessions -- they even killed a bodyguard of then-Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi during one of them.

    So, at best, whatever al-Abadi thinks or thought he has was most likely the product of torture.

    Terry Atlas and Angela Greiling Keane (Bloomberg News) quote White House National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden declaring, "We have not confirmed such a plot, and would have to review any information from our Iraqi partners before making further determinations.  We take any threat seriously and always work to corroborate information we receive from our partners. We're obviously very focused on the issue of foreign fighters."  The State Dept's Marie Harf went on CNN and suggested maybe it was true.

    But as night was coming, even the White House realized how damaging al-Abadi's claims were.  Ann Mercogliano (Pix 11) reported: 


     Mayor Bill de Blasio, NYPD Commissioner Bratton, FBI and NYPD officials were at the Union Square Subway Station Thursday to show the subways are safe after Iraq’s Prime Minister reportedly said a plot had been uncovered to attack subways in New York City and in France.



    As Haider attracted all the wrong attention, it was left to Anderson Cooper (CNN) to say what so many were thinking:

  • 3h
    Why is Iraq's new Prime Minister in NY? Shouldn't he be in Baghdad with his sleeves rolled up trying to rebuild his army and country?
    Expand



    • It's a great question.  And why was the President of Iraq also out of the country to attend the meeting at the UN?

    Do either of them do any work in Iraq?

    All Iraq News notes al-Abadi did repeat his claim -- from two Saturdays ago -- that he had ordered an end to bombings of civilian areas in Falluja.  Of course, the bombings have continued.

    So apparently the new prime minister is powerless over the Iraqi military despite the fact that he's commander in chief of the military.



    Lastly, UNAMI issued the following this morning:



    Thursday, 25 September 2014 07:09

    UN Envoy Condemns Public Execution of Human Rights Lawyer, Ms. Sameera Al-Nuaimy



    Baghdad, 25 September 2014 – “The public execution of well-known human rights lawyer and activist, Ms. Sameera Salih Ali Al-Nuaimy, in Mosul, is yet another of the innumerable sickening crimes committed against the people of Iraq by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)”, said the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Iraq (SRSG), Mr. Nickolay Mladenov, on learning of the unspeakable way Ms. Al-Nuaimy was seized from her home, tortured and murdered. “My heartfelt condolences are extended to Ms. Al-Nuaimy’s family and to the thousands other victims of ISIL’s brutality,” he added. 

    UNAMI has learned that Ms. Al-Nuaimy was seized from her home by the ISIL group on 17 September 2014, reportedly following posts on her Facebook page that were critical of their destruction of places of religious and cultural significance. She was convicted by a so-called “Shari’a court” for apostasy. She was then held for a further five days during which she was subjected to torture in an attempt to force her to ‘repent’, before she was executed in public. 
    “By torturing and executing a female human rights’ lawyer and activist, defending in particular the civil and human rights of her fellow citizens in Mosul,  ISIL continues to attest to its infamous nature, combining hatred, nihilism and savagery, as well as its total disregard of human decency”, Mr. Mladenov underlined. “ISIL has repeatedly targeted the weak and defenseless in acts of brutality and cowardice that are beyond description, bringing about unfathomable suffering to all Iraqis regardless of their gender, age, religion, faith or ethnicity”, the SRSG continued. 
    “I call on the Government of Iraq and the international community to resolutely face the life-threatening danger to peace, safety and security of Iraq and the Iraqis from the ISIL and to do all they can to ensure the perpetrators of such crimes are held to account”, Mr. Mladenov concluded. 









    debra sweet
    the world cant wait

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