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Nov 1, 2009
CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O HAD 2 REVELATIONS TO INJECT HIMSELF INTO THE NEWS CYCLE TODAY. FIRST HE ANNOUNCED HE WOULD DRESS AS GEORGE W. BUSH FOR HALLOWEEN. "SCARY,"
HE SAID DRAWING OUT EVERY LETTER OF THE WORD. "BUT ALSO MY WAY OF
ACKNOWLEDGING THAT I AM JUST LIKE MY PREDECESSOR. I NEVER KNEW MY
DADDY, HE DIDN'T WANT A FAMILY OR AT LEAST NOT ME, SO I USED TO PRETEND
THAT GEORGE H.W. BUSH WAS MY DADDY. I'VE INVITED HIM TO THE WHITE HOUSE
AND INTEND TO HOP INTO HIS LAP BEFORE THE NIGHT'S OVER AND ASK HIM TO
TUCK ME IN." POOKIE'S
EXACT DETAILS AND GENDER -- JUST LIKE BARRY'S -- ARE IN DISPUTE. BUT HE
WANTS IT OUT THERE THAT HE "KILLED COUSIN POOKIE BECAUSE I THINK IT
WILL GET ME SOME RESPECT. I DON'T GET NO RESPECT. I'M LIKE RODNEY
DANGERFIELD TRYING TO ACT SOULFUL." On the second hour of today's The Diane Rehm Show, Iraq was addressed by guest host Frank Senso, NPR's Tom Gjelten, CNN's Elise Labott and McClatchy Newspapers' Jonathan Landay. Frank
Senso: To Iraq now, and in a few minutes, to our phone calls, to bring
our audience into this and any other conversation that they may want to
have with respect to what's going on in the world. But in Iraq
discussions amidst ongoing, violence, intensifying violence in some
cases, about trying to fix the national election law because that is
what is looming large. Jonathan Landay, what's the landscape look like
right now? Jonathan
S. Landay: Well they've tried for a third time to pass an election law
in time for the January elections and they've failed again. The issue
-- there are a number of issues, but the main issue has to do with the
city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq and uh a city that sits atop billions
of gallons of untapped oil. Uh, the issue has to do with the -- what
census is going to be used to register voters there. Now this is a city
that the Kurds -- now this is right now a predominately Kurdish city.
It was, the Kurds say, a predominately Kurdish city before the reign of
Saddam Hussein who ethically [ethnically] cleansed Kurds out of the
city and brought in Arabs. The issue is, do you -- since the fall of
Saddam Hussein, the Kurds have been restoring their majority in that
city and, indeed, other ethnic groups claim over uh restoring their
majority, bringing in more Kurds than there had been before. The Kurds
want voter registration to be based on the most recent census, I think
it was in fact, done this year. The Sunni Arabs and other ethnic groups
there -- the Turkomen for instance -- want the voter registration based
on the 2004 census and they have not been able to come to an agreement
on this and this has hung up the passage of this law and what it really
-- and what it really comes down to it appears is contol over that
massive amount of untapped petroleum. Frank
Senso: And yet this-this-this dispute, this stand off over the election
law comes just after this Sunday terrible bombing in Baghdad, the worst
in two years killing more than 150, wounding hundreds more, severely
damaging three major government buildings now there's been an arrest of
some 50 odd security and there was some suggestion that this
intensifying violence might drive the politicians to nail down this
election law and drive those to some kind of political, if not
resolution, progress. Tom? Tom
Gjelten: Well it seems, Frank, that the Iranians, I mean the Iraqis,
have become so inured to this kind of violence that just sort of
everything proceeds normally and that's true I think in both a good
sense and a bad sense. In a good sense, there has been this move
towards stability and peace in Iraq and Iraq's been filling more
confident about their future and they seem amazingly enough to have
taken this bombing in stride in a sense. I mean there have been other
bombings -- Frank Sesno: It's almost unimaginable, isn't it? Tom
Gjelten: It's almost unaimaginable. But they have -- this is six years
that they've been through this and they seem to be able to cope with
these great tragedies. On the other hand, the negative side is that, as
you say, you know, you would -- you would hope that this would jolt
them into sort of some reality but, again, they become so used to this
that they just proceed with the same stalemate.
Frank Sesno: What's behind the uptick in violence, Elise? Elise
Labott: Well, we saw -- first we saw an uptick in violence in August
and there were also some massive bombings at the Foreign Ministry, at
the Finance Ministry and this seemed to be kind of a way to sew
sectarian tensions once again and they thought that maybe this would
lead Iraq down the path it was in 2006, 2007 with major sectarian
tensions. Now what officials says is they think that these foreign
fighters are [or?] the real hard core al Qaeda in Iraq are trying just
at anything, they tried at religious targets, now they're just trying
at softer targets to kill a lot of people. They think maybe it can
effect the election in January. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been
running as the security candidate. He's the one that's bringing
stability to Iraq, he's the one that got US forces out of the city. The
question is now is this going to effect his standing as the security
candidate. Jonathan
S. Landay: There may be also something else going on here. The more
instability, I think perhaps the insurgen -- whoever is behind these
bombings create, in their mind, it delays perhaps the departure of
American forces and what do you get from that? Well you get a delay or
perhaps problems coming up with additional American forces to send to
Afghanistan and there may very well be that thinking going on on the
part of those who are responsible for these massive bombings. On the above. Jonathan S. Landay used the term census. That is incorrect. There has been no census. The issue, which McClatchy's Sarah Issa and Hannah Allem and which the New York Times' Timothy Williams
have outlines, is where the voting rolls for 2009 or the voting rolls
for 2004 will be used. There has been no census. "Census" is a concrete
term. And, in fact, a census in Kirkuk is mandated -- as is a
referendum -- by Iraq's 2005 Constitution. No census has been
conducted. This is not a minor issue and it goes to the dispute over
Kirkuk. "Census" was the wrong term to use. There is NO census thus
far. That's (A). (B) Tom Gjelten.
What the ___ was that? I'm reminded of when Goodtime Gals Linda
Robinson and Gwen Ifill decided to discuss Blackwater's September 17,
2007 slaughter ( see the October 8, 2007 snapshot)
-- a discussion noteable for its appalling ignorance and gross lack of
concern for human life. Gjelten can argue that some of his remarks were
intended to be about officials. But he can only argue that about some
of his remarks. And what exactly does he want Iraqis to do? They're
shell shocked and just because he hasn't reported on the multitude of
studies, THE MULTITUDE OF STUDIES, on the effects this illegal war has
had on Iraqi children doesn't mean the damage isn't real and doesn't
exist. So his happy talk bulls**t was embarrassing. That was really a
shameful moment for NPR. The 'good' and the 'bad' of the bombings? How
appalling. What made it worse for NPR was that it wasn't a guest from,
for example, NBC News. It was an NPR reporter. That's shameful. The
good and the bad of bombings? Pay attention, Tommy. Our
children are surrounded by violnce. Most of them are traumatized. I
call them the silent victims. Our Iraqi childeren are the silent vctims. From
January to March of last year, the World Health Organization worked
with Iraqi psychiatrists on a series of studies on the mental health of
children in the cities of Baghdad, Mosul and Dohuk. (Watch the effects of war on children  ) One
of the studies on primary-school-age children in Baghdad found that
nearly half of the 600 children surveyed had experienced a major
traumatic event since the war began. Just over one in every 10 suffered
from post-traumatic stress disorder, the study found. Another
of the studies found that older children in Mosul suffered even worse.
Thirty percent of the 1,090 children surveyed showed signs of
post-traumatic stress disorder. Nearly all of those with PTSD symptoms,
92 percent, had not received any treatment, according to the study. In
fact, the doctors aren't immune to the dangers of the conflict. Fifty
percent of Iraq's psychiatrists have fled the country or been killed
since the war began, said Dr. Naeema Al-Gasseer, the WHO's
representative for Iraq. A month after CNN filed that report, NPR's Linda Wertheimer spoke with Dr. Mohammed al-Aboudi about the mental stress Iraqi children were under.
Now we can go through various reports and studies. We can enlarge and
look at other segments of the country's population. But the above alone
demonstrates how offensive Tom's statements are. The population is
shell shocked and the illegal war has caused that trauma. The bombings
that he thinks have good and bad are the same violence responsible for
creating the world's largest refugee crisis. And the UN has already
advised that Sunday's bombings will most likely results in Syria and
Jordan receiving some additional Iraqi refugees. I'm not seeing any
"good and bad" to the bombings. And Tom's statements were inarticulate
and offensive. Frank Senso did a fine job this week filling in for
Diane but had Diane been present, she probably would have said
something. She generally does when gas baggery replaces discussion --
when human beings are removed from the issue, she generally brings them
back into the picture even if it means she has to disagree with a
guest. (She did that most recently with a guest gas bagging -- and
glorifying -- the drone strikes in Pakistan when she made a point to
note the civilian deaths the man was dismissing.) Tom's statements were
offensive and it's only more so because he works for NPR. He declared
that "you would hope that this would jolt them into sort of some
reality" -- Tom, we'd hope the reality of the violence in Iraq and the
fact that it is an inhabited country would jolt you into some sort of
reality but there's no evidence, as yet, that it has. [. . .] Violence
was kind-of, sort-of an issue yesterday in the US House Armed Services
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. The hearing was about
IEDs and the money spent on studying them. The Pentagon's James Schear
and Lt Gen Thomas Metz as well as the GAO's William Solis were the
witnesses, Vic Snyder is the Subcomittee Chair. Subcommittee
Chair Vic Snyder: IEDs remain the number one cause of casulities to
coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although IEDs are not a new
threat, they have been used with unprecedented frequency in Iraq and
Afghanistan. While the decrease in successful attacks in Iraq is
encouraging, that success has not been replicated in Afghanistan which
has seen an increase in success in fatality attacks with our increase
in forces there. Since former CENTCOM commander General [John] Abizaid
called for a Manhattan Project like effort 5 years ago to defeat IEDs,
Congress has provided nearly $17 billion to DoD's efforts. This effort
has grown from a twelve-man army task force to the Jointed IED Defeat
Organization, or JIEDDO, which currently employs a staff of about 3600
dedicated government, military and contract personnel. Lt
Gen Thomas F. Metz declared, "What's really different in the two
theaters is that over time in Iraq, as we were experiencing 1500, 2500
IEDs a month -- and finding and clearing half of them, we were gaining
an enormous amount of forensics and biometrics information. We use that
in the COIC [Counter-IED Operations Integration Center] to our
advantage It is our asymetric advantage." US House Rep Duncan Hunter noted a lack of mobilization. He referred to NPR's report
on IEDs this week and how, despite all the money being spent, it was
human beings noting, for example, "that corpse wasn't there yesterday"
and guessing that it appeared to hide an IED. He noted that Marines in
Afghanistan report they have only rarely seen predator drones and that
instead they rely on "hand held mine sweepers -- a version of which
people use on the beach to find coins." He also showed a child's
innocence or foolilshness as he lived in a world where only the
'guilty' were killed. US
House Rep Duncan Hunter: This doesn't make me feel comfortable that we
are truly doing everything that we can right now. Once-once more, if
Secretary Gates said, "No more IEDs to be buried" -- I understand that
there are tons in Afghanistan and they can be turned on like that at
any point in time. But we could do that. We could stop IEDs from being
buried if we mobilize to do it. And -- and if we want to politically
about this war too -- it would fall off the map if nobody was dying.
Iraq's not in the paper anymore because nobody's dying. One reason is
we've knocked off IEDs, huge in 2007 and 2008, with [Gen William] Odum
by killing over 3,000 IED placers. Project Odom with IEDS killed more
people than every single other person in Iraq put together -- with all
the offensive operations, Odom killed more and they were all bad guys
-- not one single civilian, they were all inputting IEDs. "Not
one single civilian." Just "bad guys." Because a drone is judge and
jury. So if a drone says it's "bad guys" that's all the proof Duncan
Hunter needs. (And, to clarify, this is Duncan Hunter the younger, the
32-year-old elected to his father's seat. Still wet behind the ears and
with a child's wide-eyes, he needs correcting, not the blanket approval
Snyder gave him when Snyder followed Hunter. And someone might have
bothered to inform Hunter that, despite his claims that "nobody's
dying" in Iraq, Iraq saw at least 155 people die on Sunday alone.
"Nobody's dying"? That didn't require a correction? Did he mean no US
service members? If so, even that's wrong because there are 8 announced
dead in Iraq so far this month -- granted 2 of them were announced
today so, at the time of the hearing, only 6 had been announced. And
it's a good thing to Duncan Hunter that the news media walked away from
Iraq? Really? (Hunter is a veteran of both the Iraq and Afghanistan
Wars, FYI.) Congress had time for that nonsense yesterday. Not for
anything important, but they had time for that.
Posted at 02:32 pm by cedricsbigmix
Permalink
Oct 31, 2009
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills)
Friday,
October 30, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, the US military
announces more deaths, no movement on an election law, a new attack on
press freedoms in Iraq, nepotisim is an ugly thing, and more. Today the US military announced:
"BAGHDAD -- A Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldier died, Oct. 30, of
non-combat related injuries sustained in a vehicle accident. The name
of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin
and release by the Department of Defense. The names of the service
members are announced through the U.S. Department of Defense Official Website
[. . .] The announcements are made on the Website no earlier than 24
hours after notification of the service member's primary next of kin.
The incident is under investigation." And they announced:
"CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE, Iraq -- A Soldier assigned to
Multi-National Division - South died of non-combat related injury
October 30. [. . .] The incident is under investigation." The
announcements bring the total number of US service members killed in
Iraq since the start of the illegal war to 4355. On the second hour of today's The Diane Rehm Show, Iraq was addressed by guest host Frank Senso, NPR's Tom Gjelten, CNN's Elise Labott and McClatchy Newspapers' Jonathan Landay. Frank
Senso: To Iraq now, and in a few minutes, to our phone calls, to bring
our audience into this and any other conversation that they may want to
have with respect to what's going on in the world. But in Iraq
discussions amidst ongoing, violence, intensifying violence in some
cases, about trying to fix the national election law because that is
what is looming large. Jonathan Landay, what's the landscape look like
right now? Jonathan
S. Landay: Well they've tried for a third time to pass an election law
in time for the January elections and they've failed again. The issue
-- there are a number of issues, but the main issue has to do with the
city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq and uh a city that sits atop billions
of gallons of untapped oil. Uh, the issue has to do with the -- what
census is going to be used to register voters there. Now this is a city
that the Kurds -- now this is right now a predominately Kurdish city.
It was, the Kurds say, a predominately Kurdish city before the reign of
Saddam Hussein who ethically [ethnically] cleansed Kurds out of the
city and brought in Arabs. The issue is, do you -- since the fall of
Saddam Hussein, the Kurds have been restoring their majority in that
city and, indeed, other ethnic groups claim over uh restoring their
majority, bringing in more Kurds than there had been before. The Kurds
want voter registration to be based on the most recent census, I think
it was in fact, done this year. The Sunni Arabs and other ethnic groups
there -- the Turkomen for instance -- want the voter registration based
on the 2004 census and they have not been able to come to an agreement
on this and this has hung up the passage of this law and what it really
-- and what it really comes down to it appears is contol over that
massive amount of untapped petroleum. Frank
Senso: And yet this-this-this dispute, this stand off over the election
law comes just after this Sunday terrible bombing in Baghdad, the worst
in two years killing more than 150, wounding hundreds more, severely
damaging three major government buildings now there's been an arrest
of some 50 odd security and there was some suggestion that this
intensifying violence might drive the politicians to nail down this
election law and drive those to some kind of political, if not
resolution, progress. Tom? Tom
Gjelten: Well it seems, Frank, that the Iranians, I mean the Iraqis,
have become so inured to this kind of violence that just sort of
everything proceeds normally and that's true I think in both a good
sense and a bad sense. In a good sense, there has been this move
towards stability and peace in Iraq and Iraq's been filling more
confident about their future and they seem amazingly enough to have
taken this bombing in stride in a sense. I mean there have been other
bombings -- Frank Sesno: It's almost unimaginable, isn't it? Tom
Gjelten: It's almost unaimaginable. But they have -- this is six years
that they've been through this and they seem to be able to cope with
these great tragedies. On the other hand, the negative side is that,
as you say, you know, you would -- you would hope that this would jolt
them into sort of some reality but, again, they become so used to this
that they just proceed with the same stalemate.
Frank Sesno: What's behind the uptick in violence, Elise?
Elise
Labott: Well, we saw -- first we saw an uptick in violence in August
and there were also some massive bombings at the Foreign Ministry, at
the Finance Ministry and this seemed to be kind of a way to sew
sectarian tensions once again and they thought that maybe this would
lead Iraq down the path it was in 2006, 2007 with major sectarian
tensions. Now what officials says is they think that these foreign
fighters are [or?] the real hard core al Qaeda in Iraq are trying just
at anything, they tried at religious targets, now they're just trying
at softer targets to kill a lot of people. They think maybe it can
effect the election in January. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been
running as the security candidate. He's the one that's bringing
stability to Iraq, he's the one that got US forces out of the city. The
question is now is this going to effect his standing as the security
candidate. Jonathan
S. Landay: There may be also something else going on here. The more
instability, I think perhaps the insurgen -- whoever is behind these
bombings create, in their mind, it delays perhaps the departure of
American forces and what do you get from that? Well you get a delay or
perhaps problems coming up with additional American forces to send to
Afghanistan and there may very well be that thinking going on on the
part of those who are responsible for these massive bombings. On the above. Jonathan S. Landay used the term census. That is incorrect. There has been no census. The issue, which McClatchy's Sarah Issa and Hannah Allem and which the New York Times' Timothy Williams
have outlines, is where the voting rolls for 2009 or the voting rolls
for 2004 will be used. There has been no census. "Census" is a
concrete term. And, in fact, a census in Kirkuk is mandated -- as is a
referendum -- by Iraq's 2005 Constitution. No census has been
conducted. This is not a minor issue and it goes to the dispute over
Kirkuk. "Census" was the wrong term to use. There is NO census thus
far. That's (A). (B) Tom Gjelten. What the
___ was that? I'm reminded of when Goodtime Gals Linda Robinson and
Gwen Ifill decided to discuss Blackwater's September 17, 2007 slaughter
( see the October 8, 2007 snapshot)
-- a discussion noteable for its appalling ignorance and gross lack of
concern for human life. Gjelten can argue that some of his remarks
were intended to be about officials. But he can only argue that about
some of his remarks. And what exactly does he want Iraqis to do?
They're shell shocked and just because he hasn't reported on the
multitude of studies, THE MULTITUDE OF STUDIES, on the effects this
illegal war has had on Iraqi children doesn't mean the damage isn't
real and doesn't exist. So his happy talk bulls**t was embarrassing.
That was really a shameful moment for NPR. The 'good' and the 'bad' of
the bombings? How appalling. What made it worse for NPR was that it
wasn't a guest from, for example, NBC News. It was an NPR reporter.
That's shameful. The good and the bad of bombings? Pay attention,
Tommy. Our children are surrounded by
violnce. Most of them are traumatized. I call them the silent victims.
Our Iraqi childeren are the silent vctims. From
January to March of last year, the World Health Organization worked
with Iraqi psychiatrists on a series of studies on the mental health of
children in the cities of Baghdad, Mosul and Dohuk. (Watch the effects of war on children ) One
of the studies on primary-school-age children in Baghdad found that
nearly half of the 600 children surveyed had experienced a major
traumatic event since the war began. Just over one in every 10 suffered
from post-traumatic stress disorder, the study found. Another
of the studies found that older children in Mosul suffered even worse.
Thirty percent of the 1,090 children surveyed showed signs of
post-traumatic stress disorder. Nearly all of those with PTSD symptoms,
92 percent, had not received any treatment, according to the study. In
fact, the doctors aren't immune to the dangers of the conflict. Fifty
percent of Iraq's psychiatrists have fled the country or been killed
since the war began, said Dr. Naeema Al-Gasseer, the WHO's
representative for Iraq. A month after CNN filed that report, NPR's Linda Wertheimer spoke with Dr. Mohammed al-Aboudi about the mental stress Iraqi children were under.
Now we can go through various reports and studies. We can enlarge and
look at other segments of the country's population. But the above
alone demonstrates how offensive Tom's statements are. The population
is shell shocked and the illegal war has caused that trauma. The
bombings that he thinks have good and bad are the same violence
responsible for creating the world's largest refugee crisis. And the
UN has already advised that Sunday's bombings will most likely results
in Syria and Jordan receiving some additional Iraqi refugees. I'm not
seeing any "good and bad" to the bombings. And Tom's statements were
inarticulate and offensive. Frank Senso did a fine job this week
filling in for Diane but had Diane been present, she probably would
have said something. She generally does when gas baggery replaces
discussion -- when human beings are removed from the issue, she
generally brings them back into the picture even if it means she has to
disagree with a guest. (She did that most recently with a guest gas
bagging -- and glorifying -- the drone strikes in Pakistan when she
made a point to note the civilian deaths the man was dismissing.)
Tom's statements were offensive and it's only more so because he works
for NPR. He declared that "you would hope that this would jolt them
into sort of some reality" -- Tom, we'd hope the reality of the
violence in Iraq and the fact that it is an inhabited country would
jolt you into some sort of reality but there's no evidence, as yet,
that it has. Let's break that up for a moment to note this: What
are the lessons of Iraq that I carry with me? The cultures are as
different as mountains and desert, and for outsiders, there is a
familiar struggle to see the place as it truly is, not as we might wish
it would be. Back in 2003, the Americans wanted to believe that an age
of brotherhood and integration, loosed by American military might, had
come to Iraq. Many Iraqis wanted to believe it, too. Thinking too much
about the depth of distrust, long latent between sects and ethnicities,
would mean acknowledging that a frenzy of violence waited in the wings.
They swept into the desert sands the centuries-long struggle of Sunnis
and Shiites for dominance in the fertile river basin between the Tigris
and Euphrates Rivers. It was as if officials thought that perhaps by
saying they were brothers, they would become them. Back
to NPR, (C) Jonathan S. Landay and Elise Labott's speculation --
presented as such with Labott making clear she was referring to what
officials were stating. It's a shame that more time wasn't spent on
that. No one knows why the bombings are taking place (other than due
to the ongoing, illegal war). Could they be to influence the
elections? Possibly. Could they be to harm Nouri al-Maliki?
Possibly. But it's equally true that the message can be sent
throughout Iraq. The August 9th bombing just outside Mosul,
for example, was deadly (at least 35 dead) and it received huge
attention within Iraq and outside of it. Why target only Baghdad if
the issue is just the elections? It's not as if only residents of
Baghdad will be voting. Equally true is that there are other areas
that should be easier to attack than the region targeted on Sunday. So
why those targets? Puppet
government police forces arrested three people claimed to be wanted in
al Hadbaa area of eastern Mosul. In
al Furat area of Baghdad, continous arrest and raid campaigns
perpetrated by government army forces led indiscriminate arrests of
dozens. Eyewitnesses said that aforementioned forces used sectarian and
irritating slogans beating civilians. During the arrest campaigns the
area was monitored by American occupation forces. On
the other hand, government police and army forces arrested eight
civilians in various areas of Diyala Province. In Basra, government police forces arrested 20 people in raid and search campaign alleged to be wanted. In
Tuzkharmotu of Saladin Province, government police forces arrested
three civilians who were beaten, insulted and
irritated. In
Latifiya of southern Baghdad, sectarian government army forces arrested
seven civilians in raid and search attacks. Today Deng Shasha (Xinhua) reports
that Iraq's Sunni vice president (Iraq has two vice presidents -- one
Sunni, one Shia) Tariq al-Hashimi has "called on an evaluation of
running the security dossier after Sunday's bloody suicide bombings
that claimed the lives of 155 Iraqis." Meanwhile Prashant Rao (AFP) reports
that today saw many clerics using the sermons to call out "Iraqi
authorities" and quotes Sheikh Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalai stating, "With
insurgents having repeated the same bombings, with the same style and
in the same secure area, we have to review the security plan that has
been implemented in Baghdad" while Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani declared,
"I demand immediate and urgent checks for the reasons that led to teh
bombings." Nouri's government rsponse has been to attack Syria
(naturally) and to attack the press (ibid). On the latter, Azzaman reports
he has "banned movement by press vehicles with equipment to broadcast
live. [. . . ] The order has been issued by the military command of
Baghdad operations which specificially denies television broadcasters
the right of live coverage." Turning to some of today's reported violence . . . Bombings? Shootings? Corpses? Reuters notes
1 corpse discovered in Mosul while 1 police officer -- who may or may
not have been part of the investigation into Sunday's bombings -- was
discovered dead (from a shooting) in his Baghdad office.
Violence
was kind-of, sort-of an issue yesterday in the US House Armed Services
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. The hearing was about
IEDs and the money spent on studying them. The Pentagon's James Schear
and Lt Gen Thomas Metz as well as the GAO's William Solis were the
witnesses, Vic Snyder is the Subcomittee Chair. Subcommittee
Chair Vic Snyder: IEDs remain the number one cause of casulities to
coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although IEDs are not a new
threat, they have been used with unprecedented frequency in Iraq and
Afghanistan. While the decrease in successful attacks in Iraq is
encouraging, that success has not been replicated in Afghanistan which
has seen an increase in success in fatality attacks with our increase
in forces there. Since former CENTCOM commander General [John]
Abizaid called for a Manhattan Project like effort 5 years ago to
defeat IEDs, Congress has provided nearly $17 billion to DoD's efforts.
This effort has grown from a twelve-man army task force to the Jointed
IED Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO, which currently employs a staff of
about 3600 dedicated government, military and contract personnel. Lt
Gen Thomas F. Metz declared, "What's really different in the two
theaters is that over time in Iraq, as we were experiencing 1500, 2500
IEDs a month -- and finding and clearing half of them, we were gaining
an enormous amount of forensics and biometrics information. We use that
in the COIC [Counter-IED Operations Integration Center] to our
advantage It is our asymetric advantage." US House Rep Duncan Hunter noted a lack of mobilization. He referred to NPR's report
on IEDs this week and how, despite all the money being spent, it was
human beings noting, for example, "that corpse wasn't there yesterday"
and guessing that it appeared to hide an IED. He noted that Marines in
Afghanistan report they have only rarely seen predator drones and that
instead they rely on "hand held mine sweepers -- a version of which
people use on the beach to find coins." He also showed a child's
innocence or foolilshness as he lived in a world where only the
'guilty' were killed. US House Rep
Duncan Hunter: This doesn't make me feel comfortable that we are truly
doing everything that we can right now. Once-once more, if Secretary
Gates said, "No more IEDs to be buried" -- I understand that there are
tons in Afghanistan and they can be turned on like that at any point in
time. But we could do that. We could stop IEDs from being buried if we
mobilize to do it. And -- and if we want to politically about this war
too -- it would fall off the map if nobody was dying. Iraq's not in the
paper anymore because nobody's dying. One reason is we've knocked off
IEDs, huge in 2007 and 2008, with [Gen William] Odum by killing over
3,000 IED placers. Project Odom with IEDS killed more people than every
single other person in Iraq put together -- with all the offensive
operations, Odom killed more and they were all bad guys -- not one
single civilian, they were all inputting IEDs. "Not
one single civilian." Just "bad guys." Because a drone is judge and
jury. So if a drone says it's "bad guys" that's all the proof Duncan
Hunter needs. (And, to clarify, this is Duncan Hunter the younger, the
32-year-old elected to his father's seat. Still wet behind the ears
and with a child's wide-eyes, he needs correcting, not the blanket
approval Snyder gave him when Snyder followed Hunter. And someone
might have bothered to inform Hunter that, despite his claims that
"nobody's dying" in Iraq, Iraq saw at least 155 people die on Sunday
alone. "Nobody's dying"? That didn't require a correction? Did he
mean no US service members? If so, even that's wrong because there are
8 announced dead in Iraq so far this month -- granted 2 of them were
announced today so, at the time of the hearing, only 6 had been
announced. And it's a good thing to Duncan Hunter that the news media
walked away from Iraq? Really? (Hunter is a veteran of both the Iraq
and Afghanistan Wars, FYI.) Congress had time for that nonsense
yesterday. Not for anything important, but they had time for that. Politicians
always clamor that we have to "support our troops" and take care of our
veterans first. The White House Web site quotes Obama's proclamation
that "we...owe our veterans the care they were promised and the
benefits that they have earned." But
the VA's latest failure to deliver on educational benefits--coming just
a few years after the scandal of VA health care negligence at Walter
Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C.--leaves these lofty
assertions sounding like just another example of the politicians' empty
rhetoric. And given
Obama's increasingly clear record of impressive speeches followed by
little action, some veterans are calling his administration "the
audacity of nope." While the veterans at
the VA office in Chicago expressed relief at finally receiving their
first check, the bitterness persists. Bureaucratic red tape and
mismanagement always holds up money and benefits for veterans, but
there always seems to be an abundant supply of cash for bank bailouts,
the "cash for clunkers" program to help U.S. automakers, a failed
Olympic bid for the city of Chicago, or a bloated Pentagon
budget. How is that
related? One damn hearing. That's all the Congress is going to hold on
that scandal? Really? One damn hearing. They fawned over VA
Secretary Eric Shinseki October 14th
-- even when he admitted that the VA knew before he became the
Secretary (and that he found out as soon as he became the Secretary)
that they wouldn't be able to implement the benefit checks in a timely
manner. They acted like smiling zombies. October 15th,
when he was present, they were suddenly concerned for their one and
only hearing thus far into the scandal. That's disgusting. That
effected so many veterans and it got so little attention from
Congress. Most importantly, it's still not 'fixed.' Read Martin
Smith's report. But Congress has other things to do and, point of
fact, the Senate held no hearings on the issue. Want to explain how
that happened? Meanwhile Lauren DeFranco (WABC -- link has text and video) reports
Christal Wagenhauser gave birth to a two month premature daughter and
she and the family want Cpl [Keith] Wagenhouser -- currently stationed
in Iraq -- home to see the baby: "If the baby's condition deteriorates,
it would take Wagenhauser a week to get home. At that point, it would
be too late."Jennifer Logan (CBS) reports
that Keith Wagenhauser was finally given time to visit his family and
arrived in New York yesterday and explains: "In an incubator adorned
with her father's military photo, Madison, born by life-saving
caesarean section, weighing just 2-pounds 11-ounces is being treated in
the neonatal intensive care unit of Stony Brook University Medical
Center. Initially, marine brass explained that emergency leave is
granted only in cases of imminent or actual death in their immediate
family and that Madison's condition was not sufficiently life
threatening enough to grant an exception." So while the military brass
did the right thing, what's the hold up with the US Congress when it
comes to the latest (known) threat to deport the spouse of a veteran? Iraq War veteran Jack Barrios would probably love some downtime with his family but the government keeps creating problems as LA's KABC reports (link has text and video): Subha
Ravindhran: [. . .] Frances Barrios considers herself an American. She
grew up and went to high school here in Van Nuys but for the past 17
years, she's been living in this country illegally. Now she and her
husband, an Iraq War veteran, must deal with the consequences.
26-year-old Army Specialist Jack Barrios can barely talk about the time
he served in Iraq. Jack Barrios: I'll skip that. Subha Ravindhran: You don't want to talk about that. Jack Barrios: Yeah. Subha
Ravindhran: But what he can speak about is the battle his family is
going through now. His wife, 23-year-old Frances, is facing deporation
back to Guatemala -- a country she left when she was just
six-years-old. Jack Barrios: I'm pretty sad and angry that we will get separated. Subha
Ravindhran: Not only will three-year-old Matthew and one-year-old
Allanna be separated from their mother, but Jack will also lose his
main caretaker. Since he returned from Iraq in 2007, he's been
suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Frances Barrios: He was
an outgoing person, you could say. He used to like being outside with
his friends and just, you know, having a good time. When he came back,
like I said, he shut down. It wasn't him. Subha Ravindhran: Their attorney Jessica Dominguez says the chances of keeping Frances here are slim. Jessica
Dominguez: It's just mind boggling to try to understand that in a
situation like this, Mr. Barrios cannot be assured that his family is
going to stay together because immigration laws do not protect the
sanctity of his family at this point. The
US government wants to deport her. (She's from Guatemala originally,
entered the US with her mother when she was just six-years-old.) As
offensive as that is -- and it's really offensive -- it's also
economically stupid because Jack suffers from PTSD. The US government
is going to provide him a caretaker who will do all that Frances
currently does? Really? Teresa Watanabe (Los Angeles Times) reported earlier this week: But
as he undergoes counseling and swallows anti-depressants, the soldier
is fighting an even bigger battle: to keep his family from collapsing
as his wife, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, faces
deportation. His
wife, 23-year-old Frances, was illegally brought to the United States
by her mother at age 6, learned of her status in high school and
discovered just last year that removal proceedings have been started.
Her possible deportation has left Barrios in panic as he contemplates
life without her. The
Army reservist says his wife is the family's anchor, caring for their
year-old daughter and 3-year-old son and helping him battle his
post-traumatic stress."She's
my everything," Barrios said as he sat glumly in the family's sparsely
furnished but tidy Van Nuys apartment. "Without her, I can't function.
It would be like taking away a part of my soul." Hundreds
of U.S. soldiers are facing the same trouble as they fight to legalize
their spouses' status, a difficult process that has affected their
military readiness, according to Margaret Stock, a lieutenant colonel
in the Army Reserves and an immigration attorney specializing in
military cases. Dropping back to the October 21st snapshot, "In the US yesterday, a twenty-year-old Iraqi woman was run over along with her 43-year-old friend. James King (Phoenix News) reports
that police are looking for the twenty-year-old's father, Faleh Hassan
Almaleki, whom they supsect of running the two women down and that the
alleged motive is that the daughter was 'becoming too westernized.' Katie Fisher (ABC 15 -- link has text and video) reports
the 20-year-old woman is Noor Faleh Almaleki and her 43-year-old friend
is Amal Edan Khalaf and the friend is also the mother of the
twenty-year-old's boyfriend." CNN reports
he was arrested yesterday in Atlanta -- after he had gone to Mexico,
flown to London where British officials refuse him admittance in
England, and returned to the US. CNN states his daughter is still in
the hospital and "unresponsive" to treatment thus far. Sarah Netter (ABC News -- link has text and video) reports on the apparent attempted honor killing and notes that Noor's status as "life-threatening condition". TV notes. NOW on PBS begins
airing on many PBS stations tonight (check local listings for times and
for other dates if it doesn't air on your PBS station tonight): Home
to a worldwide summit on climate change in early December, Denmark is
setting a global example in creating clean power, storing it, and using
it responsibly. Their reliance on wind power to produce electricity
without contributing to global warming is well known, but now they're
looking to drive the point home with electric cars. To do this, they've
partnered with social entrepreneur Shai Agassi and his company Better
Place.This week, NOW
investigates how the Danish government and Better Place are working
together to put electric cars into the hands of as many Danish families
as possible. The idea is still having trouble getting out of the garage
here in America, but Denmark could be an inspiration.Will so much green enthusiasm bring about a "Copenhagen Protocol"?Washington Week
also begins airing tonight on many PBS stations and sitting around the
table with Gwen this week are Ceci Connolly (Washington Post), John
Dickerson (Slate and CBS News), Marilyn Serafini (National Journal) and
Nancy A. Youssef (McClatchy Newspapers). Meanwhile Bonnie Erbe
will sit down with Karen Czarnecki, Melinda Henneberger, Eleanor Holmes
Norton and Genevieve Wood to discuss the week's events on PBS' To The Contrary. Check local listings, on many stations, it begins airing tonight. And turning to broadcast TV, Sunday CBS' 60 Minutes offers: H1N1 Vaccine
Scott Pelley reports on the manufacture, distribution and safety of the H1N1 flu vaccine. | Watch Video
Yakuza
How
does a foreigner jump the line in America for a life-saving liver
transplant? It might be because he is a high-ranking member of Japan's
mafia, known as the Yakuza, whose criminal influence is worldwide. Lara
Logan reports.
The Movie Pirates
They
are the bane of Hollywood: criminals who copy films - sometimes before
the movies even reach the theater - and distribute them illegally on
the Internet, costing Hollywood billions in lost revenue. Lesley Stahl
reports.
60 Minutes, this Sunday, Nov. 1, at 7 p.m. ET/PT. |
Posted at 10:23 am by cedricsbigmix
Permalink
Oct 30, 2009
BULLY BOY
PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG
MIX -- THE KOOL-AID
TABLECONFRONTED
WITH THE ALLEGATIONS THAT MONEY IS BUYING ACCESS AND POSSIBLY INFLUENCE AT THE
WHITE HOUSE, CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O DECLARED THAT WAS NOT WHAT WAS
HAPPENING. "WHAT'S GOING ON," HE EXPLAINED, "IS THAT I JUST HAVE A
LITTLE FAN CLUB AND THEY PAY DUES AND IF THEY PAY SAY X, THEY GET TO HAVE LUNCH
WITH ME. AND IF THEY PAY Y, THEY GET A CALL FROM ME. HEY, IF THEY PAY Z, I'LL
EVEN GIVE THEM A WAKE UP KISS AND FIX PANCAKES AND BACON." "THEY'RE
FANS," BARRY INSISTED. "FANS. THEY'LL DO ANYTHING. THEY'LL PAY ANYTHING. IT'S A
MUTUALLY REWARDING RELATIONSHIP." FROM
THE TCI WIRE:
Today the US military
announced: "JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq – A Soldier who was currently
assigned to the 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) died Wednesday of a
non-combat related injury at Camp Adder, Iraq. The name of the deceased is being
withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of
Defense.The names of service members are announced through the U.S. Department
of Defense official website at http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/. The
announcements are made on the Web site no earlier than 24 hours after
notification of the service member's primary next of kin. The incident is under
investigation." The announcement brings the total number of US service members
killed in Iraq to 4353. Meanwhile Sunday's Baghdad bombings have pretty much erased the August
Baghdad bombings ("Bloody Wednesday," "Black Wednesday," "Gory Wednesday,"
"Iraq's 9-11," etc.). Press TV
reports, "Iraq has arrested some 60 security forces over the weekend
twin bombings which targeted government buildings in Baghdad, killing up to 153
people." The Sentinel states the 60 were compoes
of "11 army officers and 50 security officials". Xinhua adds, " The
arrested were in charge of providing security for a downtown Baghdad district
which was hit by the deadly suicide attacks that targeted government buildings,
Major General Qassim Atta said." BBC News notes, "The BBC's
Gabriel Gatehouse in Baghdad says it is not clear whether those arrested are
accused of negligence or collusion. However, he added, it seems to confirm what
many people have suspected - that the security forces are susceptible to
infiltration by insurgents or are just not up to the job." Reuters reports Qassim al-Moussawi,
spokesperson for Baghdad security, "said that officers, foot soldiers and police
in areas where attacks happen would be arrested in the future and placed under
investigation." Jomana Karadsheh (CNN)
adds, Baghdad Governor "Abdul Razzaq said security forces made
mistakes and were negligent in their work, and he demanded a court-martial for
those who allowed explosive-laden vehicles to get through checkpoints."
Karadsheh also notes the number arrested is 61. Timothy Williams and
Mohammed Hussein (New York Times) explain, "The statement
Thursday that announced the arrest order came from Baghad Operations Command,
which is responsible for security in the capital and reports directly to Prime
Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. The statement did not offer any further details,
so it remained unclear whether the 61 security force members were suspected of
having adied those who carried out the attacks." The death toll for the Sunday bombings is at least 155 and does include
children. Mohammed Jamjoom (CNN)
reports: The force of the
blast threw Rawnaq against the wall of her office at the Ministry of Justice.
She instantly thought of her two children in the day care center just two floors
below."I rushed downstairs and found
all the children under the rubble," says Rawnaq, "My daughter Tabarak was
standing near the stairs. My son Hamoodi outside. Me and a colleague took them
out, running. A police car drove us to the hospital."Both children were injured, 3-year-old Tabarak much
more so than her 2-year-old brother. Severe head and back injuries have left the
little girl needing extensive surgery and unable to sleep due to unceasing pain.
She is also deeply afraid.Back in August, the day before Bloody Wednesday, Iraqi Thug and Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki was in Syria where he was demanding that nearly 200
Iraqis be handed over to Iraq. It was all like a bad acid flashback since Nouri
spent years in Syria and the Syrians refused to turn him over at the whims of
Saddam Hussein. Nouri was grateful back then, now he's just a raging drama
queen. Bloody Wednesday came the next day and Nouri immediately blamed the
bombings on Syria. He and his spokespeople and cabinet would sometimes say that
it was former Ba'athists in Syria. Sometimes. Mainly they would rail against
Syria. That hasn't ceased all this time later. Phil Sands (Le Monde)
offers today that "Syria is perhaps the only country in the Arab
middle east that can truly claim to be independent from the US, and Damascus
remains a thorn in the side of American regional ambitions. [. . .] In the
post-Saddam Hussein world, the Iraqi government is jealous of its sovereignty,
an independence that goes only as deep as the presence of more than 100,000
American soldiers on Iraqi soil allows. There is little sign a planned pull-out
will be complete." Syria has a huge number of Iraqi refugees and we'll turn now
to the topic of Iraqi refugees. Joseph A. Kechichian
(Gulf News) explains:
According to the International Organisation on Migration, there are
still 1.6 million internally displaced Iraqis who cannot "return home". Many are
trying to survive "without work, their own home, schooling for children, access
to water, electricity and health care". These refugees are Iraqi citizens who
are not represented in government but whose fates will probably determine
whether the pool from which opposition forces can recruit bombers will shrink.
As it is widely recognised, remnants of the Baath party or any number of the
security services created by the old regime are still active, even if Baghdad
and its allies continue to hearken to Al Qaida.
The United Nations' World Food Program has
launched "a pilot project in Damascus" in which food vouchers are
distributed "in the form of mobile phone text messages to Iraqi refugees. [. .
.] Around one thousand families are involved in the four-month pilot phase,
which will be extended if it is successful. The project has been developed in
cooperation with the Syrian government, enabling the refugees to redeem their
vouches in state-run stores in the Jaramana and Sayeda Zeinab neighourhoods of
Damascus. The mobile phone service provider MTN has donated SIM cards for the
project." Cassandra Vinograd
(Wall St. Journal) reported Tuesday, "In the WFP program,
each family will receive one $22 voucher per person every two months. After each
transaction, families will receive an updated balance, also sent by SMS to their
mobile numbers -- free of charge. There are more than 1.2 million displaced
Iraqis in Syria, according to government figures. To date, about 130,000
regularly receive food assistance from WFP with complimentary food and non-food
assistance from the U.N.'s refugee agency." Though some have criticized the WFP
for targeting people with cell phones (under the mistaken belief that refugees
wouldn't have them), Richard Spencer
(Telegraph of London) reports, "The discovery that most of
the 130,000 people to whom the organisation provided food vouchers had mobile
phones gave officials the idea for the pilot scheme, to be targeted at 1,000
families in the first instance." Laura MacInnis
(Reuters) quotes Emilia Casella, WFP spokesperson, stating,
"They will be able to exchange their electronic vouchers for rice, wheat, flour,
lentils, chickpeas, oil and canned fish, as well as cheese and eggs -- items
that cannot usually be included in conventional aid baskets." Saeed Ahmed (CNN) quotes
Casella stating, "It infuses some contribution to the communities, because we're
not giving food away. They have to go to the local shops to buy it." Staying
with Syria, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees expects more Iraqi
refugees to flee to Syria as a result of Sunday's bombings. EU News Network
states UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic "told a delegation in Geneva
earlier this month that the United Nations recommended the resettlement of more
than 80,000 Iraqi refugees to other countries." Meanwhile UNHCR is building homes in Taza, Iraq following bombings
there this sumemr which ledft many people homeless, "Immediately
after the blast, UNHCR field staff visited Taza to assess the damage and to
distribute emergency aid to the survivors. The team found that about 160 houses,
mostly made from mud bricks, had been totally destroyed and some 400 damaged. As
a result, around 3,500 people were left without shelter. The refugee agency
immediately swung into action, funding the reconstruction of 150 collapsed homes
and the renovation of 73 shops and two other buildings in Shorja Market. The
work was carried out by an Iraqi implementing partner as part of UNHCR's
emergency shelter programme which has helped rehabilitate some 10,000
conflict-damaged buildings for refugees and internally displaced Iraqis and aims
to double this figure in 2010." But in Syria, IRIN reports, a
significant number of Iraqis are attempting to win asylum "across the Middle
East to Europe and North America" and they note, "A year after its launch,
strikingly few Iraqis have taken up the UN's Voluntary
Repatriation Programme. Less than 300 families from Syria have
returned to Iraq under the programme, though the number claiming resettlement
has grown rapidly." The Chicago Tribune did a multi-article series at the start of the
week on Iraqi refugees in the US. The paper noted of one
group: "Back home, they worked for the Americans, as translators,
project specialists and office managers. For that, they received death threats
from militants opposed to the U.S., and they ask to remain anonymous, fearing
retribution against relatives in Iraq." Then there's Layla
Mousa whose husband is in Jordan while she and their three children
are in Chicago where she struggles to make ends meet, find work (she's a hair
dresser) and rebuffs offers of payment for sex and states, "Now I want to go
back to Iraq, not even Jordan. America is just a lie." Layla Mousa is among the
Iraqi refugees who Ahlam Mahmoud attempts
to asist even though she herself is a refugee: "She didn't have it
easy herself. When she and her two children arrived in Chicago in 2008, she had
only the clothes she was wearing when she left Syria, where, she says, she was
imprisoned for refusing to spy on foreigners. The apartment they got in Chicago
had three beds, one plate, a fork, a spoon and two knives." In Syria, Ahlam
Mahmoud was also someone refugees turned to. Using her own resourceful nature,
she quickly began developing a network of assistance and advice. Due to her
connections, the Syrian government attempted to force her to spy on other Iraqi
refugees. She refused and was thrown into prison. When the outcry and attention
became too much, the Syrian govenment ordered her released from prison and she
was quickly transported to the US. Also attempting to assist other refugees is
Fatima Hindi who became
an Iraqi government official, was then kidnapped and sought Egypt and
then the US for safety along with her three-year-old daughter Takwa. She states,
"They kidnapped me because of America. America couldn't protect me. When I first
got here, I cried on the street." Today Nancy Eshelman
(Patriot-News) reports on Iraqi refugee Zina Alkubaisy who
ended up in the United States with her husband and their children following her
husband's kidnapping: "Alkubaisy began working the phones. She contacted people
who knew people and eventually learned what militant group had snatched her
husband. Her connections arranged to have him released the next day. But a
chilling phone call warned the couple they would not be so lucky the next time.
It would be in their best interest to leave the country."
UNHCR is concerned about the fact that some European states have
begun forcibly returning Iraqi originating from the region of Central Iraq over
the last few months. In our guidelines issued last April, we noted that in view
of the serious human rights violations and continuing security incidents
throughout Iraq, most predominantly in the central governorates, asylum-seekers
from these governorates should be considered to be in need of international
protection. UNHCR therefore advises against involuntary returns to Iraq of
persons originating from Central Iraq until there is a substantial improvement
in the security and human rights situation in the country.
This reminder comes after the UK attempted to forcibly return 44
Iraqi men to Baghdad earlier this month. They were reportedly unsuccessful
asylum claimants held in immigration removal centres in the UK. Iraq only
accepted 10 who were allowed to leave the chartered aircraft in Baghdad, and the
remaining 34 were returned to the UK and placed in immigration centres.
Other European states have signed readmission agreements with Iraq
for voluntary and forced return. Denmark has forcibly returned 38 people
originating mainly from Central and Southern Iraq since signing its agreement in
May 2009. Sweden has undertaken some 250 forced returns with an unspecified
number of returnees originating from the five central governorates of Iraq since
signing an agreement in February 2008. UNHCR has also concerns about the safety
and dignity of these returns.
Concerning asylum-seekers from the three northern governorates, as
well as those from the southern governorates and Al Anbar, UNHCR recommends that
their protection needs are assessed on an individual basis.
RECOMMENDED: " Iraq
snapshot" " Arrests in Iraq, election
bill still waits" " US military announces a
death" " Carly Simon on Today
today" " Carly Simon invites you into her
dreams" " Kucinich, computer issues" " carly
coming around again" " Equality, Russ Feingold, Carly
Simon" " Carly, Tweets, Never Been Gone" " The smell of it!!!" " Carly Simon, Dennis
Kucinich" " Pay for Play" " Barack steps in it
again" " Does he ever not talk about
himself?" " THIS JUST IN! SELF-OBSESSED
MUCH!"
Posted at 04:21 pm by cedricsbigmix
Permalink
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills)
Thursday,
October 29, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, the US military
announces another death, the Iraqi refugee crisis continues, problems
with the public inquiry into the Iraq War the UK government plans to
hold, no election law passed by the Iraqi Parliament, and more. Today the US military announced:
"JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq – A Soldier who was currently assigned to the
13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) died Wednesday of a non-combat
related injury at Camp Adder, Iraq. The name of the deceased is being
withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the
Department of Defense.The names of service members are announced
through the U.S. Department of Defense official website at http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/.
The announcements are made on the Web site no earlier than 24 hours
after notification of the service member's primary next of kin. The
incident is under investigation." The announcement brings the total
number of US service members killed in Iraq to 4353. Meanwhile
Sunday's Baghdad bombings have pretty much erased the August Baghdad
bombings ("Bloody Wednesday," "Black Wednesday," "Gory Wednesday,"
"Iraq's 9-11," etc.). Press TV reports,
"Iraq has arrested some 60 security forces over the weekend twin
bombings which targeted government buildings in Baghdad, killing up to
153 people." The Sentinel states the 60 were compoes of "11 army officers and 50 security officials". Xinhua adds, " The
arrested were in charge of providing security for a downtown Baghdad
district which was hit by the deadly suicide attacks that targeted
government buildings, Major General Qassim Atta said." BBC News notes,
"The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse in Baghdad says it is not clear whether
those arrested are accused of negligence or collusion. However, he
added, it seems to confirm what many people have suspected - that the
security forces are susceptible to infiltration by insurgents or are
just not up to the job." Reuters reports
Qassim al-Moussawi, spokesperson for Baghdad security, "said that
officers, foot soldiers and police in areas where attacks happen would
be arrested in the future and placed under investigation." Jomana Karadsheh (CNN) adds,
Baghdad Governor "Abdul Razzaq said security forces made mistakes and
were negligent in their work, and he demanded a court-martial for those
who allowed explosive-laden vehicles to get through checkpoints."
Karadsheh also notes the number arrested is 61. Timothy Williams and Mohammed Hussein (New York Times) explain,
"The statement Thursday that announced the arrest order came from
Baghad Operations Command, which is responsible for security in the
capital and reports directly to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.
The statement did not offer any further details, so it remained unclear
whether the 61 security force members were suspected of having adied
those who carried out the attacks." The death toll for the Sunday bombings is at least 155 and does include children. Mohammed Jamjoom (CNN) reports: The
force of the blast threw Rawnaq against the wall of her office at the
Ministry of Justice. She instantly thought of her two children in the
day care center just two floors below."I
rushed downstairs and found all the children under the rubble," says
Rawnaq, "My daughter Tabarak was standing near the stairs. My son
Hamoodi outside. Me and a colleague took them out, running. A police
car drove us to the hospital."Both
children were injured, 3-year-old Tabarak much more so than her
2-year-old brother. Severe head and back injuries have left the little
girl needing extensive surgery and unable to sleep due to unceasing
pain. She is also deeply afraid. Back
in August, the day before Bloody Wednesday, Iraqi Thug and Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki was in Syria where he was demanding that
nearly 200 Iraqis be handed over to Iraq. It was all like a bad acid
flashback since Nouri spent years in Syria and the Syrians refused to
turn him over at the whims of Saddam Hussein. Nouri was grateful back
then, now he's just a raging drama queen. Bloody Wednesday came the
next day and Nouri immediately blamed the bombings on Syria. He and
his spokespeople and cabinet would sometimes say that it was former
Ba'athists in Syria. Sometimes. Mainly they would rail against
Syria. That hasn't ceased all this time later. Phil Sands (Le Monde) offers
today that "Syria is perhaps the only country in the Arab middle east
that can truly claim to be independent from the US, and Damascus
remains a thorn in the side of American regional ambitions. [. . .] In
the post-Saddam Hussein world, the Iraqi government is jealous of its
sovereignty, an independence that goes only as deep as the presence of
more than 100,000 American soldiers on Iraqi soil allows. There is
little sign a planned pull-out will be complete." Syria has a huge
number of Iraqi refugees and we'll turn now to the topic of Iraqi
refugees. Joseph A. Kechichian (Gulf News) explains: According
to the International Organisation on Migration, there are still 1.6
million internally displaced Iraqis who cannot "return home". Many are
trying to survive "without work, their own home, schooling for
children, access to water, electricity and health care". These refugees
are Iraqi citizens who are not represented in government but whose
fates will probably determine whether the pool from which opposition
forces can recruit bombers will shrink. As it is widely recognised,
remnants of the Baath party or any number of the security services
created by the old regime are still active, even if Baghdad and its
allies continue to hearken to Al Qaida. The United Nations' World Food Program has launched "a
pilot project in Damascus" in which food vouchers are distributed "in
the form of mobile phone text messages to Iraqi refugees. [. . .]
Around one thousand families are involved in the four-month pilot
phase, which will be extended if it is successful. The project has been
developed in cooperation with the Syrian government, enabling the
refugees to redeem their vouches in state-run stores in the Jaramana
and Sayeda Zeinab neighourhoods of Damascus. The mobile phone service
provider MTN has donated SIM cards for the project." Cassandra Vinograd (Wall St. Journal) reported
Tuesday, "In the WFP program, each family will receive one $22 voucher
per person every two months. After each transaction, families will
receive an updated balance, also sent by SMS to their mobile numbers --
free of charge. There are more than 1.2 million displaced Iraqis in
Syria, according to government figures. To date, about 130,000
regularly receive food assistance from WFP with complimentary food and
non-food assistance from the U.N.'s refugee agency." Though some have
criticized the WFP for targeting people with cell phones (under the
mistaken belief that refugees wouldn't have them), Richard Spencer (Telegraph of London) reports,
"The discovery that most of the 130,000 people to whom the organisation
provided food vouchers had mobile phones gave officials the idea for
the pilot scheme, to be targeted at 1,000 families in the first
instance." Laura MacInnis (Reuters) quotes
Emilia Casella, WFP spokesperson, stating, "They will be able to
exchange their electronic vouchers for rice, wheat, flour, lentils,
chickpeas, oil and canned fish, as well as cheese and eggs -- items
that cannot usually be included in conventional aid baskets." Saeed Ahmed (CNN) quotes
Casella stating, "It infuses some contribution to the communities,
because we're not giving food away. They have to go to the local shops
to buy it." Staying with Syria, the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees expects more Iraqi refugees to flee to Syria as a result
of Sunday's bombings. EU News Network states
UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic "told a delegation in Geneva earlier
this month that the United Nations recommended the resettlement of more
than 80,000 Iraqi refugees to other countries." Meanwhile UNHCR is building homes in Taza, Iraq following bombings there this sumemr which ledft many people homeless,
"Immediately after the blast, UNHCR field staff visited Taza to assess
the damage and to distribute emergency aid to the survivors. The team
found that about 160 houses, mostly made from mud bricks, had been
totally destroyed and some 400 damaged. As a result, around 3,500
people were left without shelter. The refugee agency immediately swung
into action, funding the reconstruction of 150 collapsed homes and the
renovation of 73 shops and two other buildings in Shorja Market. The
work was carried out by an Iraqi implementing partner as part of
UNHCR's emergency shelter programme which has helped rehabilitate some
10,000 conflict-damaged buildings for refugees and internally displaced
Iraqis and aims to double this figure in 2010." But in Syria, IRIN reports,
a significant number of Iraqis are attempting to win asylum "across the
Middle East to Europe and North America" and they note, "A year after
its launch, strikingly few Iraqis have taken up the UN's Voluntary Repatriation Programme.
Less than 300 families from Syria have returned to Iraq under the
programme, though the number claiming resettlement has grown rapidly." The Chicago Tribune did a multi-article series at the start of the week on Iraqi refugees in the US. The paper noted of one group:
"Back home, they worked for the Americans, as translators, project
specialists and office managers. For that, they received death threats
from militants opposed to the U.S., and they ask to remain anonymous,
fearing retribution against relatives in Iraq." Then there's Layla Mousa
whose husband is in Jordan while she and their three children are in
Chicago where she struggles to make ends meet, find work (she's a hair
dresser) and rebuffs offers of payment for sex and states, "Now I want
to go back to Iraq, not even Jordan. America is just a lie." Layla
Mousa is among the Iraqi refugees who Ahlam Mahmoud attempts to asist
even though she herself is a refugee: "She didn't have it easy herself.
When she and her two children arrived in Chicago in 2008, she had only
the clothes she was wearing when she left Syria, where, she says, she
was imprisoned for refusing to spy on foreigners. The apartment they
got in Chicago had three beds, one plate, a fork, a spoon and two
knives." In Syria, Ahlam Mahmoud was also someone refugees turned to.
Using her own resourceful nature, she quickly began developing a
network of assistance and advice. Due to her connections, the Syrian
government attempted to force her to spy on other Iraqi refugees. She
refused and was thrown into prison. When the outcry and attention
became too much, the Syrian govenment ordered her released from prison
and she was quickly transported to the US. Also attempting to assist
other refugees is Fatima Hindi who became an Iraqi government official,
was then kidnapped and sought Egypt and then the US for safety along
with her three-year-old daughter Takwa. She states, "They kidnapped me
because of America. America couldn't protect me. When I first got here,
I cried on the street." Today Nancy Eshelman (Patriot-News) reports
on Iraqi refugee Zina Alkubaisy who ended up in the United States with
her husband and their children following her husband's kidnapping:
"Alkubaisy began working the phones. She contacted people who knew
people and eventually learned what militant group had snatched her
husband. Her connections arranged to have him released the next day.
But a chilling phone call warned the couple they would not be so lucky
the next time. It would be in their best interest to leave the
country." UNHCR
is concerned about the fact that some European states have begun
forcibly returning Iraqi originating from the region of Central Iraq
over the last few months. In our guidelines issued last April, we noted
that in view of the serious human rights violations and continuing
security incidents throughout Iraq, most predominantly in the central
governorates, asylum-seekers from these governorates should be
considered to be in need of international protection. UNHCR therefore
advises against involuntary returns to Iraq of persons originating from
Central Iraq until there is a substantial improvement in the security
and human rights situation in the country. This
reminder comes after the UK attempted to forcibly return 44 Iraqi men
to Baghdad earlier this month. They were reportedly unsuccessful asylum
claimants held in immigration removal centres in the UK. Iraq only
accepted 10 who were allowed to leave the chartered aircraft in
Baghdad, and the remaining 34 were returned to the UK and placed in
immigration centres. Other
European states have signed readmission agreements with Iraq for
voluntary and forced return. Denmark has forcibly returned 38 people
originating mainly from Central and Southern Iraq since signing its
agreement in May 2009. Sweden has undertaken some 250 forced returns
with an unspecified number of returnees originating from the five
central governorates of Iraq since signing an agreement in February
2008. UNHCR has also concerns about the safety and dignity of these
returns. Concerning asylum-seekers
from the three northern governorates, as well as those from the
southern governorates and Al Anbar, UNHCR recommends that their
protection needs are assessed on an individual basis. The second problem is a profound lack of understanding or respect for the rule of law at all levels of UKBA. Six Iraqis
were taken off the removals flight because they had managed to get in
touch with good lawyers. A high court judge was persuaded that the
flight might be unlawful because the route and destination were unknown
and Iraq is a highly unstable country, as the appalling recent bomb
attacks and interviews
with those who did return to Iraq vividly demonstrate. The flight was
no less unlawful for the other Iraqis yet UKBA went on regardless,
simply because the other Iraqis did not manage to get a lawyer. Some
may disagree with the refugee convention and human rights law, but they
are the law of the land and while they remain so they must be
respected.
But
like an unruly toddler, the Home Office believes that what matters is
whether they are caught, not what the rules are. Time and time again
the Home Office is found to be acting unlawfully: on prolonged unlawful
detention, secret policies, misleading the courts and failure to
respect court judgments in the last fortnight alone. Substantial
compensation is paid to some of the victims as a result. What UKBA
fails to appreciate is that there are many, many more victims whose
rights are violated but who never manage to secure the protection of
the rule of law. Friday's snapshot noted that Christians in northern Iraq were under attack again and weighing whether or not to leave Kirkuk. Richard Spencer (Telegraph of London) noted
"Baghdad's dwindling Christian population. Even in the darkest days of
Saddam Hussein's rule, it was a thriving community. Now it is half
gone,d riven out by the casual lawlessness of the streets." Iraqi
Christians make up a significant number of external refugees. (It
should also be noted that Baghdad's Jewish community has been decimated
since the start of the illegal war.) While much attention was given to
the government buildings damaged and destroyed in Sunday's bombings, Adirenne S. Gaines (Charisma Magazine) reports that St. George's Church in Baghdad was also badly damaged. Though the issue wasn't important enough for the New York Times to put it in print, they did post a blog by Rod Nordland:
"Built in 1936 by the British military during their occupation of Iraq,
the church loast some of its famous stained-glass windows when the
United States military bombed a nearby building in 1992, and more were
destroyed during the invasion in 2003, leaving only three examples
remaining. They were mementos of British regiments stationed there.
Sunday the last three stained glass windows were blown out by suicide
bomb blasts that destroyed three Iraqi government buildings nearby,
according to the church's lay pastor, Faiz Georges." Episcopal Life notes the church has approximately 2,000 members. On the issue of Iraq's religous minorities, Senator Carl Levin's office released the following statement Monday: WASHINGTON
-- Calling the plight of religious minorities in Iraq "a tragic
consequence" of the war there, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., today
introduced a Senate resolution calling on the U.S. government, Iraqi
government and United Nations Mission in Iraq to take steps to
alleviate the dangers facing these minority groups. Sens. Sam
Brownback, R-Kan., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., joined Levin in sponsoring
the sense of the Senate resolution."While
violence has declined in Iraq overall, religious minorities continue to
be the targets of violence and intimidation," Levin said. "Members of
many minority groups who have fled other parts of the country have
settled in the north, only to find themselves living in some of the
most unstable and violent regions of Iraq. We strongly urge the Iraqi
government, the United Nations and the U.S. government to address this
crisis without delay."Of
approximately 1.4 million Christians of various denominations living in
Iraq in 2003, only 500,000 to 700,000 remain. Another minority group,
the Sabean Mandeans, has seen its population decline by more than 90
percent. Iraq's Jewish community, once one of the largest in the Arab
world, has almost ceased to exist.According
to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, members of
religious minorities "have experienced targeted intimidation and
violence, including killings, beatings, abductions, and rapes, forced
conversions, forced marriages, forced displacement from their homes and
businesses, and violent attacks on their houses of worship and
religious leaders." The U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees reported
that in 2008, there were an estimated 2.8 million internally displaced
persons living in Iraq. Of that 2.8 million, nearly two out of three
reported fleeing their home because of a direct threat to their lives,
and, of that number, almost nine out of ten said they were targeted
because of their ethnic or religious identity.The
resolution introduced by the senators addresses the tragedy in several
ways. It states the sense of the Senate that the fate of Iraqi
religious minorities is a matter of grave concern and calls on the U.S.
government and the United Nations to urge Iraq's government to increase
security at places of worship, particularly where members of religious
minorities are known to face risks. The resolution calls for the
integration of regional and religious minorities into the Iraqi
security forces, and for those minority members to be stationed within
their own communities. The resolution calls on the Iraqi government to
ensure that minority citizens can participate in upcoming elections,
and to enforce its constitution, which guarantees "the administrative,
political, cultural, and educational rights" of minorities. Finally, it
urges a series of steps to ensure that development aid and other forms
of support flow to minority communities in Iraq. Iraq
is the source of more external refugees than any other country
currently; however, Iraq does have refugees in its own country
including the Palestinians who are trapped on borders and largely
ignored by the global community as they live lives as prisoners, unable
to leave Iraq and unable to leave the tented, border communities
they've been exiled to since the start of the illegal war. In addition
to the Palestinians, there are the Iranian refugees of the MEK.
Welcomed into Iraq by Saddam Hussein decades ago, they've called Iraq
home for some time. The Iranian government doesn't care for them so
you know Nouri's going to jump when that government snaps. Until 2009,
the US was protecting the MEK who reside in Camp Ashraf. Nouri gave
the US government repeated assurances that he would respect the
refugees. Then, on July 28th, he launched an assault on Camp Ashraf. The
situation came to a head July 28, when some 2,000 Iraqi forces stormed
Ashraf, and to add insult to injury, used American Humvees and weapons
to do so, while the Americans stood by and watched. The attack left 11
dead and 500 injured - and the Iraqis took 36 Ashraf residents as
hostages. I was one of them. At
first, we were held outside Ashraf. During the first days of captivity
we were severely beaten, and went through physical and psychological
torture. Some of us who were run over by Humvees and hit by bullets
were in excruciating pain. Then,
we were transferred to the local prison in the city of Khalis. From
there, they took us to an Iraqi military intelligence detention center
and finally to the prison at al-Muthana airfield.The goal was to break
us down. But we refused to give in. In
protestof the raid and being taken hostage, we went to a hunger strike
and refused food for weeks, and we prayed for deliverance. We had no
idea what was happening or why we were being held. And we had no idea
of the support we were getting around the world. The government
or 'government' out of Baghdad can't help the refugees or their own
people. They can't even pass an election law apparently. "If it
doesn't make a deal before this weekend, Iraq will run out of time to
organize an election before Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's term
expires," Renee Montagne observed on today's Morning Edition (NPR). Renee Montagne: What, Quil, is at stake with the delay of this election law?Quil
Lawrence: Well, as you say, the Iraqi prime minister and his
government's term run out on January 31st so the election commission
here has said they need 90 days to organize a legitimate poll and
Parliament is deadlocked on over a dozen or so complicated issues
regarding the election. They may vote on it today. If the elections are
delayed or if they are rushed, there's a risk that Iraq's government
could be deemed illegitimate and then a whole Pandora's Box of problems
can open up -- issues of legitimacy of the government, maybe even a
crisis like we've seen in Afghanistan. One big question is whether the
US has done enough to push it through, especially since their plan to
pull out 70,000 troops by August can't really start until the elections
are done.Renee
Montagne: Well six years on the ground in Baghdad, hasn't the American
embassy there worked up a fair amount of what you might call
institutional knowledge regarding Iraqi politics?Quil
Lawrence: Well the problem is it took the Obama administration four
months to get an ambassador confirmed and out here and that's taken
that ambassador another couple of months to assemble a new political
team. So he's got a good number of people with expertise in the region
-- a good number of Arabic speakers -- but they've never been to Iraq
before, many of them. So before they can have much influence, they need
to learn who the players are and build these personal relationships
with them and that could take months and years. Renee Montagne: Although haven't American diplomats been, in a sense, pressing the flesh at the Parliament.Quil
Lawrence: There's been as many as six of them at a time over at the
Parliament but it's sometimes curious who they're meeting with or not
meeting with on the Iraqi side. And like I said, they're just getting
up to speed so it's possible they could walk right past a very
important Iraqi politician in the halls of Parliament and not even know
him by face.Okay, on the above. On pulling out
troops (which is the draw-down, not the "withdrawal" as so many outlets
keep insisting -- confusing the two in a way that even the White House
doesn't) and how it can't start until after the election? Yesterday,
the KRG swore in their prime minister's cabinet. Yesterday. Elections
were held in July. In December 2005, Iraq last held the national
elections. Nouri comes along in April as the US-installed prime
minister (after the US rejected the Iraqis first choice). In May, he
announces his cabinet. Point? The counting of the votes, the verifying
and assorted other issues mean the elections are not 'over' in January
even if held then. As for a vote happening as early as today, CNN reports
that as well but notes, "The Kurdish bloc in the Iraqi parliament
intends to boycott the vote on a proposed election law if the oil-rich
province of Kirkuk is banned from voting in next year's national
elections, two Kurdish lawmakers say." Mu Xuequan (Xinhua) reports
that "the Iraqi parliamentary legal committee again failed to reach a
compromise over Kirkuk issue, and decided to delay Thursday's
parliament session to Sunday, an official in the parliament told
Xinhua." This, Xuequan reports, despite efforts today by US Ambassador
to Iraq Chris Hill and the top US commander in Iraq Gen Ray Odierno to
"urge" Iraqi politicians to pass a law. No law was passed but violence continued . . . Bombings? Shootings? As
the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war announces its first public
hearings, serious concerns about censorship and secrecy are beginning
to arise. Some of those who are thinking about giving evidence are
wondering how free they will be to do so and whether the evidence they
present will ever see the light of day. Tony
Blair's upcoming appearance at the Inquiry has taken centre stage, with
his actions on Iraq threatening his bid to become the first EU
president. While Blair won't face prosecution in this Inquiry for
launching the war, witnesses fear they might be prosecuted for talking
about it. Other political
factors also play a role in the timing of the hearings, which will open
on 24 November. Sir John Chilcot said that the Inquiry intends to stop
these hearings during the general election campaign, expected in the
spring. It appears that the move is intended to limit the possibility
for highly charged appearances or new disclosures to influence voters.
This should not be a consideration for the Inquiry, which is supposedly
independent of government. Chilcot
has also suggested that the Inquiry's report, which is not expected
until at least the end of next year, might not be published in full but
might include a secret annexe dealing with intelligence matters. Meanwhile in Malaysia tomorrow and Saturday, Meena L. Ramadas (Sun Daily) reports,
a tribunal, the War Criminal Conference and Exhibition, will be held
which will hear from "a Sudanese reporter and a Briton who were
detained without trial in Guantanamo Bay" "in an effort to bring Iraq
war perpetrators to justice." Tun Mahathir bin Mohamad (Malaysia's
prime minister from 1981 to 2003) will be the keynote speaker and he
states, "International institutions and the courts established by the
United Nations charter have done nothing in dealing with war crimes.
Even the powerful nations like the United States and the United Kingdom
have done nothing." War is big business. Tom Fowler (Houston Chronicle) reports
that with KBR getting less work in Iraq, it "reported a 14 percent drop
in third-quarter profit". KBR insists it did professional work. Few
not currently working for KBR who've seen their work in Iraq make the
same assertions. KBR's shoddy work may be responsible for multiple
deaths of US citizens -- death by shower. On the topic of death by
shower, Jeremy Scahill's " Pentagon Investigation Iraq Electrocution Death" ( The Nation) reports: The
Department of Defense has confirmed that the US Army Criminal
Investigation Command has launched a formal investigation into the electrocution death of 25-year-old Adam Hermanson,
a US Air Force veteran-turned private security contractor who died in a
shower at the compound of his employer, Triple Canopy, at Camp Olympia
inside Baghdad's Green Zone on September 1, 2009. The State
Department's Regional Security Office is also
investigating. The
DoD appears to be placing responsibility for the deadly incident
squarely on Triple Canopy. "As part of the terms and conditions of the
JCC-I/A contract, Triple Canopy is solely responsible for providing
billeting, showers, latrines and other life support activities to its
employees at Camp Olympia," according to Under Secretary of Defense
Ashton B. Carter. Hermanson is the nineteenth US soldier or contractor
to die from electrocution in Iraq since 2003. KBR
denies having anything to do with the wiring which, if true, would mean
they weren't responsible for the above shock . . . just approximately
230 other ones. The heartbeat went out of our house
The rhythm went out of our romance
But in life that happens and you just have to remember to breathe . . .
That's from Carly Simon's "Coming Around Again" as redone on her latest album, Never Been Gone. Today she was on NPR's Talk Of The Nation and
discussed a variety of topics including singing with Lucy Simon in the
Simon Sisters and recently on the phone. In terms of revisiting ten of
her classic songs for the new album, Carly observes, "Yes, it was a
very interesting kind of synergy between the old and the new." To hear her segment with host Neal Conan click here and note NPR online has paired it up with her 2008 concert which you can also stream. Click here to watch Carly on Monday's Good Morning America (ABC). Carly Simon appeared on NBC's Today Show yesterday and performed "You Belong To Me." |
Posted at 10:44 am by cedricsbigmix
Permalink
Oct 29, 2009
Does he ever not talk about himself?
BULLY BOY
PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG
MIX -- THE KOOL-AID
TABLECELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O IS BACK TO
WHINING AGAIN -- DID HE EVER STOP? BARRY
O IS NOW WHINING THAT HIS 'FIRST DATE' WAS MADE POLITICAL. WITH 2
WARS GOING ON, THE ECONOMY IN THE TANK, GUANTANAMO STILL 'OPEN FOR BUSINESS' AND
SO MUCH MORE, YOU MIGHT THINK CANDY ASS WOULD HAVE SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT
BESIDES HIMSELF. BUT HE FIRMLY BELIEVES HE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT
THING IN ALL OUR LIVES -- NOT THE WORK HE MIGHT DO, GOODNESS KNOWS HE DOES NO
WORK -- BUT HE, HIMSELF. THE CELEBRITY IN CHIEF, THE OVER EXPOSED
CELEBRITY IN CHIEF. $10 TO THE FIRST REPORTER BRAVE ENOUGH TO VISIBLY
YAWN THE NEXT TIME BARRY O OFFERS ANOTHER "I" OR "ME" STORY. FROM
THE TCI WIRE:
The US military announced
yesterda: "CAMP VICTORY, Iraq – A Multi-National Corps-Iraq Soldier
died today of a non-combat related injury at Camp Victory. The name of the
deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by
the Department of Defense. The names of service members are announced through
the U.S. Department of Defense official website at http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/. The
announcements are made on the Web site no earlier than 24 hours after
notification of the service member's primary next of kin. The incident is under
investigation." DoD identifes
the fallen as Maj David L. Audo from Saint Joseph, Illinois who was
35-years-old. The announcement brings the total number of US service members
killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war to 4352. "How stable is Iraq?" asked Riz Khan last night on
his self-titled Al Jazeera program. "Stable enough for national
elections in January?" He was joined by a panel consisting of Iraqi Laith Kubba,
the New America Foundation's Steven Clemmons and one-time director of the US
Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq J. Scott Carpenter.
Riz Khan: Let me ask a question that came from our Facebook page,
and I'll put this to Steven Clemmons here, this came from Ninveh Albazi in
California, Steven, here in the US. And Ninveh says, "The longer the US military
stays, the more terrorists will come in Iraq to fight. If they leave, more
bombings over power will occur. Either way the Iraqi people will suffer." How do
you feel about that -- the presence of -- US presence actually being a trigger
for these kind of attacks?
Steven Clemmons: Well I think that there are some people in society
-- and we've seen it throughout the Middle East -- that react very viscerally
and negatively to the sense that they're being occupied by foreign troops. In
Afghanistan, it's one of the things that's driving Pashtun resistance beyond the
question of, uh, the Taliban. And-and so, I think it would be wrong to-to-to
argue that in fact the American troop presence doesn't drive some violent
minorities. I think on the whole, Iraqi society has felt as if the United States
has done more beneficial things recently and so those feelings are not as
widespread. But-but certainly there are people like Robert Pape at the
University of Chicago among others that have shown that foreign troop
deployments do drive a kind of -- drive suicide bombings, drive some of the more
radical responses from societies. So there is some truth to it. I don't think I
would agree with the-the decibel level of the questioner's comments though.
Riz Khan: Well, Laith, this came in via Twitter to us, a viewer by
the name of Mosharraf Zaidi who says, "Even with stability in Iraq, does Maliki
have the sense to ensure a free and fair process? Is it even up to
him?"
Laith Kubba: Well, I mean, the good news is there is
sufficient, I think, awareness and organization in Iraq to have elections that
are, generally speaking, fair and free. I think the last elections had a high
turnout -- about 70%. Of course, there were cases of fraud. But by and large, I
think it was representative. So that's on the good side. But I think on the
negative side, even if you had representatives in Parliament, the system is in a
grid-lock because it's a parliamentary system, not a presidential system. It
does not produce an effective executive that takes the country and move forward.
You have, ultimately, a quote over power and that paralyzes government.
Riz Khan: I'll get to the intracacise of that in a moment because
there are some interesting intracacies to the elections in Iraq but, Scott, if I
could put this to you from LiveStation chat room, people are online here, Crane
in the USA says, "How can fair and transparant elections be ensured when there
are repeated bombings?" And let me ask you, do you think the elections will go
ahead in January with all the delays and potential problems?
J. Scott Carpenter: I do. I'm a perinally optimist about this, that
at the last minute -- however late the last minute is, the Iraqis will find some
way to have these elections because they see how important they are to the
political future of Iraq, to American withdrawal -- frankly. I do think there
will be elections that are credible in Iraq because people don't trust each
other and so there will be lots of observation which is what drove the
credibility and legitimacy of the provincial elections is that there were so
many political party observers watching one another that when the results were
broadcast, no one really questioned the legitimacy of the
results.
Riz Khan: Steven Clemmons, do you think the west, there are those
who think the west is really pushing for the elections as a way of closure to
finally dust their hands and finally close the chapter on Iraq.
Steven Clemmons: I don't think it's just to dust their hands and
put a punctuation point. I mean I think everyone would like to see that what we
did there succeeded in something. But I think that we've seen Iraqi society
already get near ripping itself in shreds internally and the reason why
elections and civil institution building and these democratic processes which J.
and Laith were speaking about are so important is it creates opportunites for
cohesive and collaborative governance within Iraq. That if it doesn't proceed
and move forward, the place has a high possibility of pulling itself apart. So I
think it's much more than us saying we're done with this -- with this experiment
although, clearly, I would like us to move on as well and see Iraqi society take
responsibility for itself succeed. But on the other hand, I think that this is
an important part of showing that the Iraqi government can have some durability
and sustainability after we begin to much more greatly downsize our troop
presence.
Riz Kahn: We have this came in, I'll put this to you, Laith, this
comes in from Facebook as well and it's from Cambodia where a viewer by the name
of Heidi Aljani in Pursat says, "We were warned of the United States' prolonged
military presence when Obama spoke of Iraq. The new excuse: Iraqi people and
their government are to blame for the inability to govern themselves." Now do
you believe that the elections are definite and looking at this issue that Iraq
has too much of an issue trying to govern itself. What's your
view?
Laith Kubba: Well two things. Number one, I think elections will
take place, that's not the issue. Yes, there is a problem currently in finding
the right formula on how Iraq should govern itself. But I think by and large, it
is the right thing to do is to leave Iraqis to work it out for themselves;
however, that does not mean walking out. I think it's really too idealistic. I
think that will create enough power vacuum and might lead to escalating violence
where the US has to send back some troops and intervene again.
Staying with the issue of the elections, this morning Dow Jones reports that the
KRG's represenative Qubad Talabani is stating that, following the January
elections, the draft oil law may "finally pass." Sahar Issa and Hannah Allam
(McClatchy Newspapers) report that a bill may be presented
"to parliament for a vote within days". Qassim Abdul-Zahra
(AP) reports that KRG President Massoud Barzani "demanded"
today that Kirkuk become a part of the Kurdistan Region. Kirkuk is disputed
territory due to Saddam Hussein forcing Kurds out of the region during his
reign. Both the Baghdad-based government or 'government' and the KRG claim
Kirkuk really belongs to them. This is not a new issue. It is so not a new issue
that the 2005 Iraqi Constitution addressed the issue and mandated that a
referendum be held on the matter. Article 140 has never been followed. The issue
has not been resolved. It is repeatedly pushed aside. Sort of like the draft
election law. Weeks ago was the deadline for passing the elections law and the
deadline was missed. Appearing before the US
House Armed Services Committee last week, the Pentagon's Michele
Flournoy insisted that time remained: Although the government of
Iraq's self-imposed deadline of October 15th for passing the elections law has
passed, we judge that the COR [Council Of Representatives] still has another
week or two to come to some kind of an agreement on the elections law before it
will put the January date -- the early January date -- in jeopardy in terms of
the election commission's ability to actually physically execute the, uh, the
election. If a new law with open lists is not passed, the fall back solution for
them is to return to the 2005 election law which is based on a closed list
system. But that could be used for upcoming elections, the COR would simply have
to vote on an election date. If that law is not passed in the next two weeks,
they will be looking at slipping the date to later in January which would still
be compliant with the [Iraqi] Constitution but would be later than originally
planned. It is now one week since Flournoy claimed Iraq had two
weeks. There is no progress. The same day she was testifying to Congress, " Rod Nordland (New
York Times) reported, "The Iraqi Independent High Electoral
Commission and United Nations elections experts have said Iraq needs at least 90
days to adequately prepare for the vote. Iraq's existing election law was
declared unconstitutional by its highest court, which said it needs to be
replaced or amended." The court ruling would appear to render obsolete
Flournoy's claim that the law for the 2005 elections could still be used with
just passage of legislation for a new date. In addition, 90 days? There are 3
days left in this month, 30 in November and 31 in December. That's 64. 90
days needed. 90 minus 64 (check my math always) is 26 days. That would be
January 26th, if legislation passed Parliament today. If. And maybe. The Iraqi
Freedom Congress' Amjad Ali weighs in with " Amid violence, Iraq Freedom Congress
calls for a sovereign, secular, transitional government" ( Flesh & Stone):
Over nearly seven years the "political process"
did not result in anything but ferocious fighting between the forces and the
parties that were part of this process in order to gain as much privilege,
influence, power and wealth as possible. This conflict resulted in prolongation
of the political chaos, an insecurity in Iraq, exacerbated poverty and
destitution, and curtailed social and health services.
The elections, one of
the mechanisms of imposing the "political process," have never solved the issue
of the power struggle because none of the elections held changed the sectarian
and ethnic quotas. And that means the elections merely reproduced the same
forces that are currently in power.
All of the elections have been
characterized by farces such as fraud, political assassinations, and the delayed
announcement of voting results until agreements among the influential forces had
been reached. However, after every election, we witnessed an increase of
violence and terrorist activities as part of political arm twisting among these
forces.
National reconciliation was one of the themes to bring together the
political movements that did not participate in power sharing with the forces
that supported the war and occupation. The reconciliation was projected by the
occupation administration to involve the pan-Arab nationalist forces who were
excluded from the formation of a new Iraq to impose security and political
stability. However, fears of the parties in power (political Islam, Shiite in
particular, and Kurdish nationalists) has undermined national
reconciliation.
In the midst of the current political situation, neither the
occupation nor the successive governments have been able to establish a state in
Iraq. The conflict among the parties and the forces has always been a key factor
in that lack of progress. Moreover, the conflict over what would be the identity
of the state -- whether an Islamist Shiite, a Islamist Sunni, Arab nationalist,
or federal moderate Islamist --is another obstacle to the establishment of an
Iraqi state.
The ongoing violence, which is another form of political
conflict, will not end through a political process that was brought by the
occupation. And the experience of nearly seven years of conflict between the
political forces taught us that the violence would not be terminated. In fact,
it would only reproduce more violence and terror. What is happening today, such
as restructuring old alliances and forming new ones and the escalation of the
conflicts within the one party, is an explanation of how deep the crisis is. As
a result we could hear the prime minister and a number of political parties
calling for an end to the rule of consensus or democracy through
consensus.RECOMMENDED: " Iraq
snapshot" " The
bombings and Iraq wants to go nuclear" " US
military announces a death" " Carly Simon's last
album?" " Carly Simon's Never Been Gone" " Recommend album: Never Been
Gone" " carly releases new album, blowhard
attacks" " Andy Worthington, Carly Simon" " carly releases new album, blowhard
attacks" " Carly" " Some things do not require an
apology" " Carly Simon makes sense, Patrick
Cockburn doesn't" " Thomas E. Ricks, buy a bra" " Afghanistan and
more" " Choices" " THIS JUST IN! FRANCHISE
BABY!"
Posted at 03:27 pm by cedricsbigmix
Permalink
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills)
Wednesday, October
28, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces
another death, still no election law in Iraq, more on the Iraqi
govenrment's desire to go nuclear, Najaf gets a new bank, the KRG gets
a new cabinet, and more. The US military announced yesterda:
"CAMP VICTORY, Iraq – A Multi-National Corps-Iraq Soldier died today of
a non-combat related injury at Camp Victory. The name of the deceased
is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by
the Department of Defense. The names of service members are announced
through the U.S. Department of Defense official website at http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/.
The announcements are made on the Web site no earlier than 24 hours
after notification of the service member's primary next of kin. The
incident is under investigation." DoD identifes
the fallen as Maj David L. Audo from Saint Joseph, Illinois who was
35-years-old. The announcement brings the total number of US service
members killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war to 4352. "How stable is Iraq?" asked Riz Khan last night on his self-titled Al Jazeera program.
"Stable enough for national elections in January?" He was joined by a
panel consisting of Iraqi Laith Kubba, the New America Foundation's
Steven Clemmons and one-time director of the US Coalition Provisional
Authority in Iraq J. Scott Carpenter. Riz
Khan: Let me ask a question that came from our Facebook page, and I'll
put this to Steven Clemmons here, this came from Ninveh Albazi in
California, Steven, here in the US. And Ninveh says, "The longer the US
military stays, the more terrorists will come in Iraq to fight. If they
leave, more bombings over power will occur. Either way the Iraqi people
will suffer." How do you feel about that -- the presence of -- US
presence actually being a trigger for these kind of attacks? Steven
Clemmons: Well I think that there are some people in society -- and
we've seen it throughout the Middle East -- that react very viscerally
and negatively to the sense that they're being occupied by foreign
troops. In Afghanistan, it's one of the things that's driving Pashtun
resistance beyond the question of, uh, the Taliban. And-and so, I think
it would be wrong to-to-to argue that in fact the American troop
presence doesn't drive some violent minorities. I think on the whole,
Iraqi society has felt as if the United States has done more beneficial
things recently and so those feelings are not as widespread. But-but
certainly there are people like Robert Pape at the University of
Chicago among others that have shown that foreign troop deployments do
drive a kind of -- drive suicide bombings, drive some of the more
radical responses from societies. So there is some truth to it. I don't
think I would agree with the-the decibel level of the questioner's
comments though. Riz
Khan: Well, Laith, this came in via Twitter to us, a viewer by the name
of Mosharraf Zaidi who says, "Even with stability in Iraq, does Maliki
have the sense to ensure a free and fair process? Is it even up to him?"
Laith
Kubba: Well, I mean, the good news is there is sufficient, I think,
awareness and organization in Iraq to have elections that are,
generally speaking, fair and free. I think the last elections had a
high turnout -- about 70%. Of course, there were cases of fraud. But
by and large, I think it was representative. So that's on the good
side. But I think on the negative side, even if you had
representatives in Parliament, the system is in a grid-lock because
it's a parliamentary system, not a presidential system. It does not
produce an effective executive that takes the country and move forward.
You have, ultimately, a quote over power and that paralyzes government.
Riz Khan:
I'll get to the intracacise of that in a moment because there are some
interesting intracacies to the elections in Iraq but, Scott, if I could
put this to you from LiveStation chat room, people are online here,
Crane in the USA says, "How can fair and transparant elections be
ensured when there are repeated bombings?" And let me ask you, do you
think the elections will go ahead in January with all the delays and
potential problems? J.
Scott Carpenter: I do. I'm a perinally optimist about this, that at the
last minute -- however late the last minute is, the Iraqis will find
some way to have these elections because they see how important they
are to the political future of Iraq, to American withdrawal -- frankly.
I do think there will be elections that are credible in Iraq because
people don't trust each other and so there will be lots of observation
which is what drove the credibility and legitimacy of the provincial
elections is that there were so many political party observers watching
one another that when the results were broadcast, no one
really questioned the legitimacy of the results. Riz
Khan: Steven Clemmons, do you think the west, there are those who think
the west is really pushing for the elections as a way of closure to
finally dust their hands and finally close the chapter on Iraq. Steven
Clemmons: I don't think it's just to dust their hands and put a
punctuation point. I mean I think everyone would like to see that what
we did there succeeded in something. But I think that we've seen Iraqi
society already get near ripping itself in shreds internally and the
reason why elections and civil institution building and these
democratic processes which J. and Laith were speaking about are so
important is it creates opportunites for cohesive and collaborative
governance within Iraq. That if it doesn't proceed and move forward,
the place has a high possibility of pulling itself apart. So I think
it's much more than us saying we're done with this -- with this
experiment although, clearly, I would like us to move on as well and
see Iraqi society take responsibility for itself succeed. But on the
other hand, I think that this is an important part of showing that the
Iraqi government can have some durability and sustainability after we
begin to much more greatly downsize our troop presence. Riz
Kahn: We have this came in, I'll put this to you, Laith, this comes in
from Facebook as well and it's from Cambodia where a viewer by the name
of Heidi Aljani in Pursat says, "We were warned of the United States'
prolonged military presence when Obama spoke of Iraq. The new excuse:
Iraqi people and their government are to blame for the inability to
govern themselves." Now do you believe that the elections are definite
and looking at this issue that Iraq has too much of an issue trying to
govern itself. What's your view? Laith
Kubba: Well two things. Number one, I think elections will take place,
that's not the issue. Yes, there is a problem currently in finding the
right formula on how Iraq should govern itself. But I think by and
large, it is the right thing to do is to leave Iraqis to work it out
for themselves; however, that does not mean walking out. I think it's
really too idealistic. I think that will create enough power vacuum and
might lead to escalating violence where the US has to send back some
troops and intervene again. Staying with the issue of the elections, this morning Dow Jones reports
that the KRG's represenative Qubad Talabani is stating that, following
the January elections, the draft oil law may "finally pass." Sahar Issa and Hannah Allam (McClatchy Newspapers) report that a bill may be presented "to parliament for a vote within days". Qassim Abdul-Zahra (AP) reports
that KRG President Massoud Barzani "demanded" today that Kirkuk become
a part of the Kurdistan Region. Kirkuk is disputed territory due to
Saddam Hussein forcing Kurds out of the region during his reign. Both
the Baghdad-based government or 'government' and the KRG claim Kirkuk
really belongs to them. This is not a new issue. It is so not a new
issue that the 2005 Iraqi Constitution addressed the issue and mandated
that a referendum be held on the matter. Article 140 has never been
followed. The issue has not been resolved. It is repeatedly pushed
aside. Sort of like the draft election law. Weeks ago was the deadline
for passing the elections law and the deadline was missed. Appearing before the US House Armed Services Committee last week, the Pentagon's Michele Flournoy insisted that time remained: Although
the government of Iraq's self-imposed deadline of October 15th for
passing the elections law has passed, we judge that the COR [Council Of
Representatives] still has another week or two to come to some kind of
an agreement on the elections law before it will put the January date
-- the early January date -- in jeopardy in terms of the election
commission's ability to actually physically execute the, uh, the
election. If a new law with open lists is not passed, the fall back
solution for them is to return to the 2005 election law which is based
on a closed list system. But that could be used for upcoming elections,
the COR would simply have to vote on an election date. If that law is
not passed in the next two weeks, they will be looking at slipping the
date to later in January which would still be compliant with the
[Iraqi] Constitution but would be later than originally planned. It
is now one week since Flournoy claimed Iraq had two weeks. There is no
progress. The same day she was testifying to Congress, " Rod Nordland (New York Times) reported,
"The Iraqi Independent High Electoral Commission and United Nations
elections experts have said Iraq needs at least 90 days to adequately
prepare for the vote. Iraq's existing election law was declared
unconstitutional by its highest court, which said it needs to be
replaced or amended." The court ruling would appear to render obsolete
Flournoy's claim that the law for the 2005 elections could still be
used with just passage of legislation for a new date. In addition, 90
days? There are 3 days left in this month, 30 in November and 31 in
December. That's 64. 90 days needed. 90 minus 64 (check my math
always) is 26 days. That would be January 26th, if legislation passed
Parliament today. If. And maybe. The Iraqi Freedom Congress' Amjad Ali
weighs in with " Amid violence, Iraq Freedom Congress calls for a sovereign, secular, transitional government" ( Flesh & Stone):
Over
nearly seven years the "political process" did not result in anything
but ferocious fighting between the forces and the parties that were
part of this process in order to gain as much privilege, influence,
power and wealth as possible. This conflict resulted in prolongation of
the political chaos, an insecurity in Iraq, exacerbated poverty and
destitution, and curtailed social and health services.
The
elections, one of the mechanisms of imposing the "political process,"
have never solved the issue of the power struggle because none of the
elections held changed the sectarian and ethnic quotas. And that means
the elections merely reproduced the same forces that are currently in
power.
All of the elections have been characterized
by farces such as fraud, political assassinations, and the delayed
announcement of voting results until agreements among the influential
forces had been reached. However, after every election, we witnessed an
increase of violence and terrorist activities as part of political arm
twisting among these forces.
National
reconciliation was one of the themes to bring together the political
movements that did not participate in power sharing with the forces
that supported the war and occupation. The reconciliation was projected
by the occupation administration to involve the pan-Arab nationalist
forces who were excluded from the formation of a new Iraq to impose
security and political stability. However, fears of the parties in
power (political Islam, Shiite in particular, and Kurdish nationalists)
has undermined national reconciliation.
In the midst of the current
political situation, neither the occupation nor the successive
governments have been able to establish a state in Iraq. The conflict
among the parties and the forces has always been a key factor in that
lack of progress. Moreover, the conflict over what would be the
identity of the state -- whether an Islamist Shiite, a Islamist Sunni,
Arab nationalist, or federal moderate Islamist --is another obstacle to
the establishment of an Iraqi state.
The ongoing
violence, which is another form of political conflict, will not end
through a political process that was brought by the occupation. And the
experience of nearly seven years of conflict between the political
forces taught us that the violence would not be terminated. In fact, it
would only reproduce more violence and terror. What is happening today,
such as restructuring old alliances and forming new ones and the
escalation of the conflicts within the one party, is an explanation of
how deep the crisis is. As a result we could hear the prime minister
and a number of political parties calling for an end to the rule of
consensus or democracy through consensus. Whenever
the elections take place, they'll be the first national elections since
2005. In January 2009, provincial elections were held in 14 of Iraq's
18 provinces. In July the Kurdistan Region's three provinces held their
elections. Today KRG Prime Minister Barham Salih's cabinet was sworn in:
"Dr Salih was appointed Prime Minister by the Kurdistani List
coalition, which won the Kurdistan Region parliamentary elections in
July with 58 percent of the vote, and voter turnout of nearly 80
percent. Mr Azad Barwari, a senior member of the Kurdistan Democratic
Party, was appointed Deputy Prime Minister." AFP reports the swearing in was "clouded by several MPs walking out after a refusal of separate votes for each minister." Vahal (Mideast Youth) offers this: In
a ceremony attended by the president of the region, Mr. Massoud
Barzani, the outgoing PM, Mr. Nichervan Barzani as well as the Iraqi
first lady, Mrs. Hero Ibrahim Ahmad, the sixth cabinet was sworn in at
the Parliament. The new
cabinet will have only one woman, Asos Najib Abdullah who will be the
minister of labor and social affairs. Here
is some poetic justice, the man who sentenced Saddam Hussein to death
by hanging, judge Ra'ouf Rashid will now be the minister of Justice in
Barham Salih's cabinet. Sunday's bombings resulted in many deaths which means many burials. Saad Fakhrildeen (Los Angeles Times) reports,
"The cars streamed into Najaf over the last two days as families buried
loved ones killed in Sunday's double bombing in Baghdad. By Tuesday
afternoon, what was thought to be the last of the dead were brought to
the Valley of Peace cemetery, the most sacred burial ground for Iraq's
Shiite majority. Undertaker Mehdi Assadi had listened to mourners'
screams as at least 80 of the estimated 155 killed in Sunday's Baghdad
bombings were buried in the Valley of Peace." Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports
approximately 60 children are still missing following Sunday's Baghdad
bombings with some believing they may be buried/trapped under the
rubble and the Iraqi military rejecting the assertion with the
following statement: "There is no truth in reports that there are
bodies under the rubble of the Ministry of Justice in Baghdad. All the
martyrs and injrued have been taken to hospitals." The military is
awfully sure of themselves. Suprising when you consider Monday's report
by Miguel Martinez on ABC's World News Tonight with Charlie Gibson
where Martinez showed some of the destruction and noted, "This is the
hole created by the explosion. It goes down about twenty-five feet. The
blast was so powerful they burst a water main, flooding this section of
Baghdad. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who faces re-election in
January has campaigned on his ability to make Iraq safer. His opponents
say this bombings proves the military is infiltrated." If you saw the
broadcast, you know no one could see to the bottom of the crater -- the
very wide crater -- because it was filled with water. On Sunday's
bombings, an Iraqi correspondent for McClatchy poses a number of questions at Inside Iraq,
beginning with: "Is it completely correct to keep accusing only the
neighboring countries all the time? If we assume they are involved, who
implement their plans in Iraq?" Yesterday's snapshot noted Martin Chulov (the Guardian) report
on Iraq attempting to "become a nuclear player [. . .] The Iraqi
government has approached the French nuclear industry about rebuilding
at least one of the reactors that was bombed at the start of the first
Gulf War. The government has also contacted the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) and United Nations to seek ways around resolutions
that ban Iraq's re-entry into the nuclear field." Today he does an audio report at the Guardian on the issue. Martin
Chulov: I think Iraqi politicians are looking around and they're seeing
that they're out of options as far as delivering services to their --
to their constituents. It's got no electricity capacity, or very
little. It has very little water capacity. And not much for science and
technology so they figure now that a new reactor may help them serve
their energy needs and all sorts of other scientific and health needs
that might lead them forward. Jon Dennis: Iraq hasn't had a very happy history with its nuclear technology. Martin
Chulov: It certainly hasn't. Three decades of Saddam during which he
attempted to make good and maintain a nuclear program ended in
catastrophe. All three nuclear reactors were bombed and destroyed. And
he was invaded twice, partly on the basis that he had these reactors.
So it's been a long and fraught and ultimately fruitless history with
nuclear energy in Iraq but now, six years after Saddam was ousted, the
Iraqis are looking to have another go at it. Jon Dennis: But how could Iraq ensure that any new nuclear facility would be secure? Martin
Chulov: And this is indeed the problem and this is going to be a giant
step -- a giant obstacle in getting any sort of approval. Iraq is a
signatory to a number of non-proliferation treaties that were -- that
were imposed after the invasion and which a number of yellow cake vials
did, in fact, go missing. There are some contaminets out here in the
Iraqi community that have not been recovered in six years since. Iraq
has shown a very limited capacity to ensure its essential
sites including four of its ministries which have been destroyed over
the past three months by suicide bombers who have been able to drive
straight up to the gates. The report is a segment of Guardian Daily, the newspaper's daily audio broadcast. Today Oliver August (Times of London) observes: Iraq's
new masters insist they have no intention of trying to develop nuclear
bombs. "We are co-operating with the IAEA and expanding and defining
areas of research where we can implement nuclear technology for
peaceful means," the Science and Technology Minister, Raid Fahmi, told
the Guardian. That is
unlikely to reassure Iraq's neighbours, however, given the chaotic
conditions that reign in the country. The
insurgency is by no means subdued, with a group linked to Iraqi
al-Qaeda claiming responsibility for the latest bombings, which killed
more than 155 people on Sunday. The Sunni extremist group said on a
website that its "martyrs . . . targeted the dens of
infidelity". The New Zealand Herald adds,
"Iraq has also begun lobbying the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) and the United Nations to overturn resolutions which ban Iraq
using atomic energy." At Iran's Press TV, a commentator named Jaled Ali Ayoub shares this opinion,
"wake up, stupids they destroyed all irak with their amunitions and
know they are going to reconstract irak with the companies, owned by
them and paid by all the irakis population. You cannt by more
ignorents, because when the morality of the iraks gain the power of
irak, i sware that they will destroy it again. look to another horizon
the green go and the english, they only represents death to all arabs
and muslim. 10 of billions of US$ was stolen from your country." Turning to some of today's reported violence . . . Bombings? Jenan Hussein (McClatchy Newspapers) reports
a Baghdad roadside bombing which wounded six people, a Baghdad sticky
bombing which claimed the lives of 3 women and left four men injured
and a Mosul roadside bombing which claimed 4 lives and left six people
injured. Reuters notes a Tikrit roadside bombing "blew up an oil tanker" claiming 2 lives in the process ("the driver and his assistant"). Lin Zhi (Xinhua) reports
a Diyala Province bombing which left three people injured (one female,
two males) and a Diyala Proinvce "makeshift bomb" wounded a father and
son. Shootings? Reuters notes that Iraqi and US forces "killed a suspsected al Qaeda member" in Mosul yesterday. Meanwhile Mu Xueuqan (Xinhua) reports
Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General, stated today that the UN will send
someone to the country "for preliminary consulations related to Iraq's
security and sovereignty." Khaled Farhan (Reuters) reports
Najaf has a new bank, "In one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest cities, a bank
has opened a branch only for women, hoping to tap a potentially large
market and meet pent-up demand from Muslim women for financial services
that meet their needs." The Iraq War drags on and, if you doubt that, you're not paying attention. In the US, Pamela E. Walck (Savannah Morning News) reports
Fort Stewart is sending 400 soldiers from the 2nd Heavy Brigade Combat
Team, 3rd Infantry to Iraq for a year. Jessica Fitzgerald's husband
(Spc Kevin Fitzgerald) is among those deploying and she tells Walck,
"This is his second deployment. It's not any easier this time." Spc
Carla Robinson tells Walck, "I'm really feeling pretty positive right
now. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can come home." And Sgt
Brandon Bodily states, "This is my first deployment. I'm just hoping I
come back safely." P. Norman Moody (Floriday Today) reports,
"Florida National Guard soldiers from Cocoa began intense training this
week for deployment in January to Iraq and Kuwait. The Guard's 53rd
Infantry Brigade kicked off the training for 2,500 troops in what's
expected to be the largest single-unit deployment of the Florida
National Guard since World War II." Meanwhile Sify News reports
that India qill not be sending troops to Iraq or Afghanistan according
to Defense Minister A.K. Anthony. That declaration came on the same
day that UPI reports,
"U.S. and Indian forces wrapped up their largest joint military
exercise to date, practicing a set of maneuvers simulating environments
in Iraq and Afghanistan." Turning to the US. Tony Perry (Los Angeles Times) reports
the US military believes they've stumbled onto a category of people
with an advanced level of detection when it comes to roadside bombs:
"Military researchers have found that two groups of personnel are
particularly good at spotting anomalies: those with hunting
backgrounds, who traipsed through the woods as youths looking to bag a
deer or turkey; and those who grew up in tough urban neighborhoods,
where it is often important to know what gang controls which block."
You have to wonder why the military can spend money studying that but
they can never seem to study rape within the ranks? That issue was a
topic yesterday on Democracy Now! (link has text, video and audio) as Amy Goodman and Sharif Abdel Kouddous spoke with a director of a new documentary. AMY GOODMAN: Rape in the Ranks: The Enemy Within
is a documentary that focuses on the cases of three female service
members victimized by rape and other forms of sexual assault. One of
the victims, Tina Priest, she was found dead in Iraq in March 2006,
just weeks after she had accused a male soldier of raping her. Her
family was told she took her own life, but they don't believe that.
They think she may have been killed because she came forward with the
rape accusation. In this scene from the film, Tina Priest's mother, Joy
Priest, visits her daughter's gravesite.
PASCALE BOURGAUX: How did she die?
JOY
PRIEST: She died in Iraq from what the Army says was a self-inflicted
gunshot wound to her chest. That's what the Army says. I don't -- I
don't know how she died. I want to find out how she died.
PASCALE BOURGAUX: What do you think?
UNIDENTIFIED: Don't know what to think.
JOY
PRIEST: There are so many different opinions. I don't -- I don't see
her killing herself. But if she did, I can understand why --
PASCALE BOURGAUX: Why?
JOY
PRIEST: -- she did. Yes, because of the trauma that she had been
through with the rape and the way that people treated her afterwards.
And so, I can see how she would be depressed enough to do that. But
it's not like her.
AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of Rape in the Ranks: The Enemy Within.
For more, we're joined by the film's director, Pascale Bourgaux, a
French journalist and filmmaker. The film had its premiere last night
here in New York at the Independent Film Festival.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Talk about Tina and the other three women you profile.
PASCALE
BOURGAUX: So, Tina, the -- you've seen in the excerpt, it's -- I mean,
the family is still looking for the truth, because they're convinced
that she didn't commit suicide, that she was killed. But the case is
dead. They asked answer -- they ask answer to the Army, but they never
-- you know, they never answer those questions they raised. And then,
the three other cases. There is Suzanne. She was raped by her command.
She deserted. She refused to go back to Iraq to escape from her
commander. And then she was in jail. Finally, Grammy, Academy Award and Golden Globe winning singer-songwriter Carly Simon appeared on NBC's Today Show this morning and performed "You Belong To Me." The Carly classic (which Carly co-wrote with the Doobie Brothers' Michael McDonald) is part of a new album released this week, Never Been Gone.
Carly offers two songs she hadn't previously recorded for commercial
release as well as ten of her best-loved classics that she's reimagined
to find diferent levels in and meanings to including "You're So Vain,"
"Anticipation," "Let The River Run," "The Right Thing To Do," "Boys In
The Trees" and "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be."
Thursday she's on Tavis Smiley (PBS) and also on NPR's Talk Of The Nation. Click here to watch Carly on Monday's Good Morning America (ABC).
Posted at 10:45 am by cedricsbigmix
Permalink
Oct 28, 2009
BULLY BOY PRESS
& CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE
KOOL-AID TABLECELEBRITY
IN CHIEF BARRY O LEARNED TODAY THAT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO WANTS TO HOUSE HIS
LIBRARY. HE TOLD THESE REPORTERS THAT HE'D LOVE TO SEE SHELVES AND SHELVES
"OF THE TWO BOOKS I WROTE ABOUT ME AND THE NEXT 57 I'M PLANNING TO." BUT
ISN'T IT A LITTLE EARLY FOR A PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY? "WELL," BARRY O SAID,
"IT WAS EITHER THAT OR 'THE BARACK OBAMA TOPLESS BEACH AND BBQ' BUT MELODY
BARNES SAID SHE WOULDN'T PROVIDE COVER FOR ME ON THAT." FROM
THE TCI WIRE:Frank Sesno
was the guest host on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show today and the first hour was devoted to
Iraq and Afghanistan. Sesno spoke with McClatchy Newspapers Nancy A. Youssef,
Wall St. Journal's Peter Spiegel and Crazy Ass Thomas E. Ricks. Frank
Sesno: Tom Ricks, let's start with these incredible bombings in Iraq and the
shockwave they've sent through the military and the political systems there.
What signal were they intended -- intending to send? Thomas E. Ricks: I
think they were intended to send the signal that [Prime Minister Nouri al-]
Maliki does not have the control over Iraq that he asserts and that's really his
sole campaign plank -- is look "You may not like me, you may not like how we're
running the government but at least you're feeling safer" and I think was
designed to undermine that. I was struck -- I read this morning that one of the
trucks used to do the bombings was stolen in Falluja which indicates it probably
came out of Anbar Province. Frank Sesno: Which means? Thomas E.
Ricks: Which means a Sunni extrimist probably working with al Qaeda.
Simeloutaneous large blast is one of the al Qaeda signatures that they like to
do. We all remember that from 9-11. Did Thomas E. Ricks just make a total
idiot of himself? Yes, he did. He attempted to conflate al Qaeda in Mesopotomia
with the al Qaeda group thought to be responsible for 9-11. The two are not
related. Thomas E. Ricks is worse than George W. Bush because Ricks actually had
a semi-functioning brain that wasn't destroyed via drink and cocaine. But that
didn't stop him from conflating two separate things. al Qaeda in Mespotamia is a
homegrown (Iraqi) group. It did not exist prior to the 2003 invasion. It is a
response to the 2003 invasion. And Thomas E. Ricks needs to learn to choose his
words a little more carefully. With each day, he drifts further and further from
journalism. What a moron. That anyone -- let alone a journalist -- would
attempt to conflate 9-11 and Iraq at this late date is offensive. That a
journalist would do so -- knowing full well that this conflation helped sell the
illegal war -- helped sell it because the news media refused to call it out --
the same ones that will fact check a Saturday Night Live skit -- is just beyond
belief. But notice that on the program, they just moved along past Crazy Ass
Thomas Ricks -- not unlike they ignored that LIE when it was sold by the Bush
administration. There WAS NO and IS NO connection between Iraq and 9-11 -- no
matter what Thomas E. Ricks jibber-jabbers. Frank Sesno: Which means,
Nancy Youseff that Iraq is what? No where near as stable as the previous lull
had indicated? Nancy A. Youssef: Well it indicates that sectarian
violence is still continuing despite the US military assertion that it's not as
aggressive as it would be. These were Sunni attackers hitting Shia government
buildings. It's an effort to sort of revitalize the sectarian fighting and I
think it raises questions about ultimately what Iraqis and what Americans
consider acceptable levels of violence in Iraq. Can these sort of occassional
bombings -- you'll remember that the last one was in August -- will the Iraqis
accept it? Will the Americans accept it as a condition for their leaving?
That-that attacks will continue to go on? There are fewer attacks but they're
becoming more and more spectacular. Frank Sesno: And, Peter, at a
critical critical moment. Peter Spiegel: It is a critical moment because
you have elections coming up in January. And just to not be overly pessimistic
here 'cause, as Nancy mentioned, there was a very similar attack in August, we
did not see the country descend into another round of sectarian violence. That's
the good news. The other good news, as Tom pointed out, they seemed to be very
political oriented. There are elections coming up. You know Maliki is vying for
position with other Shia parties, with other Sunni parties. Is this just a
domestic political issue being expressed through violence? If that's the case,
there's an argument that as long as there's some sort of Sunni outlet through
the political system, this may eventually go away. Now the problem is there
appears to be no Sunni outlet for legitimate political expression right now
because most of the parties are still dominated by Shi'ites and a lot of the
government institutions are dominated by Shias -- they're using them to suppress
Sunnis in the country. So as long as that continues, as long as there's no
legitimate way for Sunnis to express their political outrage this stuff could
continue. Frank Sesno: Do you expect this stuff to
continue? Thomas E. Ricks: I do actually. The last line in the last book
I've written on Iraq, The Gamble, is a quote from [former US] Ambassador [to
Iraq] Ryan Crocker. He said to me twice in the course of 2008, "The events for
which the Iraq War will be remembered have not yet occurred." There's a
significant chance that the war will go on for another five to ten years. I
think we're going to have American troops there for many, many years. They'll
call them "trainers" and "advisors" but this war is far from over. Frank
Sesno: But Tom as they leave, as we have pulled out of the cities and as we
withdraw to concentrated areas around the country, what vulnerability then does
this latest string of events suggest for the innocent public in Iraq trying
desparately to put their lives back together again because it suggest the
vulnarability is extreme. Thomas E. Ricks: Recently, the former mayor of
Tal Afar, a city up in the northwest, wrote a very interesting essay in which he
said all the conditions for civil war in Iraq are still there. This is why I
think the civil war failed. It succeeded tactically, it improved
security. Frank Sesno: For the moment. Thomas E. Ricks: Yes, but
it's purpose was to lead to a political breakthrough and that didn't happen.
That's not my saying what the purpose was, that's what the president said the
purpose was. Frarnk Sesno: Nancy, I see you nodding your
head. Nancy A. Youssef: Yeah, you know, what's interesting is that when
you ask them at the Pentagon, "Look there have been two massive attacks in the
last few months and what are you going to do?" And there's sort of a shrugging
of the shoulders. The Status Of Forces Agreement calls for us to leave and the
Pentagon's focused on Afghanistan now and yet if you go right below the surface
you can feel from soldiers who have served, who wear braclets of fallen
comrades, the frustration that potentially the United States is leaving as
sloppily as it entered, that you've got 120,000 troops still based in Iraq and
yet nothing is being done to-to-to stop this. The-the line -- Frarnk
Sesno: Nothing is being done to stop this? Nancy A. Youssef: No, because
the line at the Pentagon is "We're asking for Maliki to ask us for help" or
we're waiting for something like the Samarra mosque bombing. But if it gets to
that level, it's already too late. I mean the Samarra mosque bombing didn't
happen in a vacuum. That was a building of sectarian violence that manifested
itself in a very violent way. Peter Spiegel: One other issue, there are
still 120,000 troops in Iraq which everyone seems to forget, which is about the
levels they were pre-surge, which is still a very big level. But what is
happening in sort of the granularity of that is a lot of assets that are needed
to track down these bombing networks -- the UAVs, the unmanned drones, the
intelligence assets -- all that is being sucked away to Afghanistan. And having
spent time with General [Ray] Odierno, who is the commander there, a year ago,
his-his real -- the thing he's most proud of is the ability to track down these
networks through human intelligence through systems like unmanned drones and
dismantle them. Well if you move all those assets to Afghanistan, are you still
able to dismantle all those bombing networks that are still clearly sort of
roving freely in Baghdad and be able to do these kind of things? Frarnk
Sesno: These bombs went off near three government buildings -- three important
government buildings. How much of a set back does this present to the fledgling,
struggling Iraqi government itself? Nancy A. Youssef: I don't think we
know yet. I mean, you saw the government try to respond by passing an election
law which they've been debating for several months now as a way to sort of speak
up. I think you're seeing Maliki -- it hurts Maliki the most, as Tom mentioned,
because his political platform, his election platform is "I bring security to
you." You saw rival political parties trying to exploit that. Nancy A.
Youssef was referring to a proposal put together by the Political Council for
National Security and then passed on to Parliament. That was a proposal made (with much fanfare)
yesterday. Like just about everything else on the governance front in Iraq,
it fell apart. John Leland (New York Times) reports there was no
consensus today and that they are at a stalemate, "another blockage in
negotiations that have dragged on for weeks, threatening national elections
scheduled for January 16th." 'Scheduled'? I believe the appropriate term is
intended. Suadad al-Salhy (Reuters) adds that the issue of
Kirkuk was the falling out point for the "proposal submitted by a high-ranking
council that included Maliki and President Jalal Talabani." Repeating, no
election law. Still. RECOMMENDED: " Iraq snapshot" " Coverage and non-coverage of the Baghdad
bombings" " Another service member's spouse threatened with
deportation" " Show
me what stupidity looks like (like Naomi)" " wowOwow,
Carly" " Mondays" " carly simon's new album" " Cancer,
gene patenting" " Carly's
new CD" " Isaiah,
Shamus Cooke" " Somerby" " Isaiah,
Carly Simon, Hank" " Isaiah, Carly Simon, Third" " His favorite topic" " THIS JUST IN! NOTHING HE'D RATHER TALK ABOUT!"
Posted at 03:15 pm by cedricsbigmix
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"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills)
Tuesday, October 27, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, Iraq wants to go nuclear, Thomas E. Ricks repeats the lies that sold the illegal war (connecting Iraq to you know what), if your loved one takes his or her own life while serving in a war zone the President of the United States sends you no letter expressing sorrow, and more. Frank Sesno was the guest host on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show today and the first hour was devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan. Sesno spoke with McClatchy Newspapers Nancy A. Youssef, Wall St. Journal's Peter Spiegel and Crazy Ass Thomas E. Ricks. Frank Sesno: Tom Ricks, let's start with these incredible bombings in Iraq and the shockwave they've sent through the military and the political systems there. What signal were they intended -- intending to send? Thomas E. Ricks: I think they were intended to send the signal that [Prime Minister Nouri al-] Maliki does not have the control over Iraq that he asserts and that's really his sole campaign plank -- is look "You may not like me, you may not like how we're running the government but at least you're feeling safer" and I think was designed to undermine that. I was struck -- I read this morning that one of the trucks used to do the bombings was stolen in Falluja which indicates it probably came out of Anbar Province. Frank Sesno: Which means? Thomas E. Ricks: Which means a Sunni extrimist probably working with al Qaeda. Simeloutaneous large blast is one of the al Qaeda signatures that they like to do. We all remember that from 9-11. Did Thomas E. Ricks just make a total idiot of himself? Yes, he did. He attempted to conflate al Qaeda in Mesopotomia with the al Qaeda group thought to be responsible for 9-11. The two are not related. Thomas E. Ricks is worse than George W. Bush because Ricks actually had a semi-functioning brain that wasn't destroyed via drink and cocaine. But that didn't stop him from conflating two separate things. al Qaeda in Mespotamia is a homegrown (Iraqi) group. It did not exist prior to the 2003 invasion. It is a response to the 2003 invasion. And Thomas E. Ricks needs to learn to choose his words a little more carefully. With each day, he drifts further and further from journalism. What a moron. That anyone -- let alone a journalist -- would attempt to conflate 9-11 and Iraq at this late date is offensive. That a journalist would do so -- knowing full well that this conflation helped sell the illegal war -- helped sell it because the news media refused to call it out -- the same ones that will fact check a Saturday Night Live skit -- is just beyond belief. But notice that on the program, they just moved along past Crazy Ass Thomas Ricks -- not unlike they ignored that LIE when it was sold by the Bush administration. There WAS NO and IS NO connection between Iraq and 9-11 -- no matter what Thomas E. Ricks jibber-jabbers. Frank Sesno: Which means, Nancy Youseff that Iraq is what? No where near as stable as the previous lull had indicated? Nancy A. Youssef: Well it indicates that sectarian violence is still continuing despite the US military assertion that it's not as aggressive as it would be. These were Sunni attackers hitting Shia government buildings. It's an effort to sort of revitalize the sectarian fighting and I think it raises questions about ultimately what Iraqis and what Americans consider acceptable levels of violence in Iraq. Can these sort of occassional bombings -- you'll remember that the last one was in August -- will the Iraqis accept it? Will the Americans accept it as a condition for their leaving? That-that attacks will continue to go on? There are fewer attacks but they're becoming more and more spectacular. Frank Sesno: And, Peter, at a critical critical moment. Peter Spiegel: It is a critical moment because you have elections coming up in January. And just to not be overly pessimistic here 'cause, as Nancy mentioned, there was a very similar attack in August, we did not see the country descend into another round of sectarian violence. That's the good news. The other good news, as Tom pointed out, they seemed to be very political oriented. There are elections coming up. You know Maliki is vying for position with other Shia parties, with other Sunni parties. Is this just a domestic political issue being expressed through violence? If that's the case, there's an argument that as long as there's some sort of Sunni outlet through the political system, this may eventually go away. Now the problem is there appears to be no Sunni outlet for legitimate political expression right now because most of the parties are still dominated by Shi'ites and a lot of the government institutions are dominated by Shias -- they're using them to suppress Sunnis in the country. So as long as that continues, as long as there's no legitimate way for Sunnis to express their political outrage this stuff could continue. Frank Sesno: Do you expect this stuff to continue? Thomas E. Ricks: I do actually. The last line in the last book I've written on Iraq, The Gamble, is a quote from [former US] Ambassador [to Iraq] Ryan Crocker. He said to me twice in the course of 2008, "The events for which the Iraq War will be remembered have not yet occurred." There's a significant chance that the war will go on for another five to ten years. I think we're going to have American troops there for many, many years. They'll call them "trainers" and "advisors" but this war is far from over. Frank Sesno: But Tom as they leave, as we have pulled out of the cities and as we withdraw to concentrated areas around the country, what vulnerability then does this latest string of events suggest for the innocent public in Iraq trying desparately to put their lives back together again because it suggest the vulnarability is extreme. Thomas E. Ricks: Recently, the former mayor of Tal Afar, a city up in the northwest, wrote a very interesting essay in which he said all the conditions for civil war in Iraq are still there. This is why I think the civil war failed. It succeeded tactically, it improved security. Frank Sesno: For the moment. Thomas E. Ricks: Yes, but it's purpose was to lead to a political breakthrough and that didn't happen. That's not my saying what the purpose was, that's what the president said the purpose was. Frarnk Sesno: Nancy, I see you nodding your head. Nancy A. Youssef: Yeah, you know, what's interesting is that when you ask them at the Pentagon, "Look there have been two massive attacks in the last few months and what are you going to do?" And there's sort of a shrugging of the shoulders. The Status Of Forces Agreement calls for us to leave and the Pentagon's focused on Afghanistan now and yet if you go right below the surface you can feel from soldiers who have served, who wear braclets of fallen comrades, the frustration that potentially the United States is leaving as sloppily as it entered, that you've got 120,000 troops still based in Iraq and yet nothing is being done to-to-to stop this. The-the line -- Frarnk Sesno: Nothing is being done to stop this? Nancy A. Youssef: No, because the line at the Pentagon is "We're asking for Maliki to ask us for help" or we're waiting for something like the Samarra mosque bombing. But if it gets to that level, it's already too late. I mean the Samarra mosque bombing didn't happen in a vacuum. That was a building of sectarian violence that manifested itself in a very violent way. Peter Spiegel: One other issue, there are still 120,000 troops in Iraq which everyone seems to forget, which is about the levels they were pre-surge, which is still a very big level. But what is happening in sort of the granularity of that is a lot of assets that are needed to track down these bombing networks -- the UAVs, the unmanned drones, the intelligence assets -- all that is being sucked away to Afghanistan. And having spent time with General [Ray] Odierno, who is the commander there, a year ago, his-his real -- the thing he's most proud of is the ability to track down these networks through human intelligence through systems like unmanned drones and dismantle them. Well if you move all those assets to Afghanistan, are you still able to dismantle all those bombing networks that are still clearly sort of roving freely in Baghdad and be able to do these kind of things? Frarnk Sesno: These bombs went off near three government buildings -- three important government buildings. How much of a set back does this present to the fledgling, struggling Iraqi government itself? Nancy A. Youssef: I don't think we know yet. I mean, you saw the government try to respond by passing an election law which they've been debating for several months now as a way to sort of speak up. I think you're seeing Maliki -- it hurts Maliki the most, as Tom mentioned, because his political platform, his election platform is "I bring security to you." You saw rival political parties trying to exploit that. Nancy A. Youssef was referring to a proposal put together by the Political Council for National Security and then passed on to Parliament. That was a proposal made (with much fanfare) yesterday. Like just about everything else on the governance front in Iraq, it fell apart. John Leland (New York Times) reports there was no consensus today and that they are at a stalemate, "another blockage in negotiations that have dragged on for weeks, threatening national elections scheduled for January 16th." 'Scheduled'? I believe the appropriate term is intended. Suadad al-Salhy (Reuters) adds that the issue of Kirkuk was the falling out point for the "proposal submitted by a high-ranking council that included Maliki and President Jalal Talabani." Repeating, no election law. Still. The perpetrators of the huge bomb attacks are unknown. Not unexpectedly, every Iraqi faction is blaming its enemies. Maliki is blaming Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Baathists, but at the very least the attacks have severely hurt Maliki's main cliam to leadership, namely, that he's kept Iraq safe. Many Sunnis are blaming Iran, charging that Iran's intelligence service is orchestrating the Baghdad attacks in order to force Maliki to abandon his independent electoral stance and sign on to the Shiite bloc, the Iraqi National Alliance. And, indirectly speaking for the Shiite bloc, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran has blamed "foreign agents" for the attacks: "The bloody actions being committed in some Islamic countries, including Iraq, Pakistan and in some parts of the country (Iran), are aimed at creating division between the Shiites and Sunnis.... Those who carry out these terrorist actions are directly or indirectly foreign agents."
Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the bombings, but such claims have to be taken with a grain of salt. Ann Curry: We turn now to Iraq, still reeling from massive explosions that wrecked three buildings in Baghdad on Sunday. The dead now number more than 150. Hundreds more are injured. And the attacks raise the question: can the Iraqi government keep the lid on? The latest tonight from NBC's Tom Aspell.
Tom Aspell: Grief and shock today at some of the funerals for bombings in Baghdad. Iraqi police and hospitals now say that up to thirty children from a day care center at the Justice Ministry are among the dead. The second blast was captured on a cell phone. The blast destroyed two government buildings outside the Green Zone in central Baghdad. Iraqi officials said at least 150 people were killed, at least 500 people were wounded. A security spokesman said two buses were used to carry the explosives -- 2,000 pounds in one and 1500 pounds in the other. It was the worst attack in Baghdad for two years. This morning Iraqis were blaming the government for lax security issues. There are checkpoints every one-hundred yards How did these vehicles come here" asked this man. Iraqi troops were patrolling Baghdad streets this morning. The government is warning there could be more attacks before elections in three months time. Tom Aspell, NBC News, London. Also covering the bombings was PBS' NewsHour (link has text, audio and video options) and this an excerpt: JANE ARRAF [Christian Science Monitor]: It has. The death toll looks like it's going past about 150, Ray, and hundreds more wounded. And more than that, a lot of questions being raised as to how this actually could have happened just two months after the horrific bombing of the Finance and Foreign Ministries. Now, yesterday, at the site, there were absolute scenes of devastation, people sobbing, carrying away wounded relatives, trying to find their relatives, and pretty much chaos for the first little while. The streets were flooded. Rescue workers were trying to wade through bystanders. It really was one of the most horrific scenes that many of us have seen in quite a long time. We had kind of thought this was over with. And now it seems to have started again. And that is definitely the feeling that you feel on the streets, that things could very much get worse again.RAY SUAREZ: You mentioned that August attack. At the time, weren't measures put in place to make this kind of operation less likely in Baghdad?JANE ARRAF: Absolutely. That August attack, which killed at least 100 people with an eerily similar attack, a truck packed with explosives in two different places, and a suicide attack, at that, was actually a wakeup call. And it was said to have been a systemic failure -- failure of security. Now, the Iraqi government responded by firing some senior Iraqi security officials. It said it put new measures in place. I spoke with a senior American official today who said, indeed, they had put measures in place. But it has not prevented these two bombings, which, again, were eerily similar. These were trucks traveling streets where no trucks are supposed to be in daytime. They apparently went through checkpoints, where they should have been checked, but weren't. And they managed to explode in one of the busiest times of the day, in one of the most packed places in Baghdad, killing government workers, as well as passersby, including children. ABC World News Tonight with Charlie Gibson covered the bombings. Charlie Gibson: In Iraq meanwhile the funerals began today in the wake of the stunning twin bombings that tore through the heart of Baghdad yesterday. The death toll is now 155 with the grim discovery that 24 children at a day care center were among those killed. The attacks raised questions about Iraq's security. Miguel Marquez was at the scene of the blasts.Miguel Marquez: The devastation is almost unimaginable, buildings shredded as far as the eye can see, glass, blood splattered clothing and burned rubber. When the bombs went off they shattered the relative calm here. Six months ago this street was off limits to traffic but with security improving the barriers were lifted. An investigation is now underway into how two vehicles carrying 1500 pounds of explosives each including military grade C4, got through multiple military checkpoints before reaching their targets. Despite all the security agencies the government here is helpless he says, they only cause traffic jams. Today Iraqis begin the wrenching task of burying their loved ones. Comfort was in short supply. They blame their government for failing to stop the violence. This is the hole created by the explosion. It goes down about twenty-five feet. The blast was so powerful they burst a water main, flooding this section of Baghdad. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who faces re-election in January has campaigned on his ability to make Iraq safer. His opponents say this bombings proves the military is infiltratedIraqi National Security Advisor Mouwaffak Rubaie: What we need to concentrate on is enabling our intelligence agencies. This is an intelligence led war now. Miguel Marquez: The bombings are especially shocking because security here has improved by leaps and bounds in the last two years. Construction is everywhere and night life has made a roaring comeback. [An Iraqi woman speaks.] "We have one quiet week and then the next week things get worse," she says. "The security situation is still the same." The US military says it is assisting in the investigation but there are no plans to increase US patrols here nor slow the rate of pulling US forces out of Iraq. Miguel Marquez, ABC News, Baghdad. Not everyone provided significant time for the news. CBS Evening News (Harry Smith sitting in for Katie Couric) reduced it to a five-sentence headline. Remember that when you've heard a story and are trying to select an evening newscast in order to find out what happened. It was just a headline to CBS Evening News. Oliver August (Times of London) quotes a government employee stating, "Sadness is overwhelming today in the office. It's as if we are sitting at a funeral in the office because many of our colleagues and people we know were killed." Ernesto Londono (Washington Post) quotes an employee injured in the bombings, Shauki Abdul Jabar, stating, "There is no security, no hope." And he reports on three men searching through the rubble for some sign of Youssef Musen Nouri, their four-year-old nephew whom they now assume is dead. It wasn't just a passing headline to any of those people. The heartbeat went out of our house The rhythm went out of our romance But in life that happens and you just have to remember to breathe . . . -- "Coming Around Again," written by Carly Simon from her new recording on Never Been Gone. Meanwhile Mu Xuequan (Xinhua) reports, "Baghdad governor on Tuesday said that his council voted to demand resignation of Iraqi minister of interior and chief of Baghdad operations command over Sunday's bloody blasts that enraged Iraqis and shaped a setback to the Iraqi government which struggle to restore normalcy in the country nearly three months ahead of the country's national elections." Sammy Ketz (Mail & Guardian) adds that Baghdad Governor Salah Abdul Razzaq said of the bombings (after viewing video footage of it), "It's a human failure . . . It can only be negligence or collusion." And while these bombings are fresh on everyone's mind, someone might want to ask who in the world thinks nuclear power is needed in Iraq? What if a nuclear reactor were in Iraq and had been targeted on Sunday. It's something people better start considering. Martin Chulov (Guardian) reports: Iraq has started lobbying for approval to again become a nuclear player, almost 19 years after British and American war planes destroyed Saddam Hussein's last two reactors, the Guardian has learned. The Iraqi government has approached the French nuclear industry about rebuilding at least one of the reactors that was bombed at the start of the first Gulf war. The government has also contacted the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and United Nations to seek ways around resolutions that ban Iraq's re-entry into the nuclear field. Iraq says it envisages that a reactor would be used initially for research purposes. "We are co-operating with the IAEA and expanding and defining areas of research where we can implement nuclear technology for peaceful means," the science and technology minister, Raid Fahmi, told the Guardian. JANNETT KEESLING: I spoke to Chancellor the night before he died for about four minutes. And as always, he wore a really tough exterior, because even after conversations with some of the soldiers after he died, no one saw that he was in any type of distress or trouble. I know they say he was sleeping. He was happy that morning. He was singing.
But what he did tell me that night is that he was going to have a very long, difficult day. His conversation was quite brief. Normally he would say that he loves me, and he would say goodbye. But this time he simply hung up. I had the feeling that something was definitely bothering him more than the norm. And the next thing we knew, they were at our door saying that he had --
GREGG KEESLING: He had passed.
JANNETT KEESLING: -- passed away.
AMY GOODMAN: Where was he?
JANNETT KEESLING: But nobody saw.
GREGG KEESLING: He was at Camp Stryker in Baghdad. And he --
AMY GOODMAN: And what did they explain to you? What happened?
GREGG KEESLING: That he had gone to a latrine and locked himself in the latrine and took his own life, with his M4. [. . .] GREGG KEESLING: Well, I just -- we do not believe our son would have taken his life if he had been here at home. This would not have happened. This is directly related to his military service. Our casualty officer -- the military has been very, very, very good to us in helping us. And our casualty officer, though, said the same thing, that "We do not believe your son would have taken his life if he was back home." And, you know, every other benefit that the military provides to families has been afforded to us. We were flown to Dover to greet the body, in a very emotional experience. And we had a military burial and the twenty-one-gun salute. And Jannett was presented the American flag, which is a very moving ceremony.
But the issue of presidential condolences -- in fact, we were shocked. I began -- President Obama has set up the suicide task force, and I began to talk with Brigadier General Colleen McGuire and members of staff there, and they were very helpful and wonderful. And during those conversations, I mentioned, "By the way, you know, when do you think the letter comes from the President?" And she goes, "I don't know. I'll check it out." And we talked again a few times. And every time at the end of the conversation, you know, "How are you guys doing?" and all that. And I said, "By the way, when are we going to get the letter from the President?" And on our third conversation, one of the staff members said to me, "Oh, my god, Mr. Keesling, I've just discovered there's a longstanding policy that prevents the President from acknowledging the death of a soldier who takes his life in the war theater by his own hand." And I nearly dropped to my knees. I was shocked. And I just said to her that I think this is a policy that should change.
Our loss is no different. He was on his second tour. The investigative report shows that he was a good soldier. One of my favorite comments in the report is that his unit commander said, or unit leader says, "I wish I had fifteen Keeslings." He was a good soldier. He helped other soldiers. In fact, there's a soldier back stateside today who was at risk of suicide that Chancy intervened to help. And we got his uniform back, and when my sister was packing away the uniform, she found in the pocket and pulled out the suicide information card. He had it in his pocket of his uniform. And he helped other soldiers, but he was unable to help himself.
And so, our grief is deep. And, you know, the letter won't stop -- we'll still be hollow inside for the rest of our lives, but the acknowledgement from the President that our son gave his life in service to the causes of the United States is important to us, and I think it should be important to the hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of suicide victims in this war in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well. It's my understanding that the suicide rate in the military has, for the first time, surpassed the civilian suicide rate. The mental health issues are quite severe. And so, we're just simply appealing to the President to change the policy, to offer condolences to the families, like ours, that are struggling and suffering with the unique form of suffering a military suicide leaves in its wake. And it's been especially hard for us. The suicide rate has repeatedly increased and the stories of it are usually 'this happened, then that happened' in a sort of timeline manner that rarely connects the death to the loss those who survive feel. The parents expressed their loss today and on July 31st, on the second hour of NPR's The Diane Rehm Show, guest host Susan Paige spoke with a caller who wanted to address this topic. Susan Paige: Let's go to Pamela. She's calling us from New Jersey. Pamela, thanks so much for calling. Pamela: Yes. Good morning, how are you? Thank you for taking my call. I am responding to a comment I heard earlier and it really just like shot me in my heart. And the comment was that the suicide rates [in the US military] are skyrocketing and how this has to be addressed. And I literally like I said stopped dead in my tracks. I . . . lost my brother in service due to suicide. He was home on a leave and, uh, about to be, pardon me, to go back and to serve and, uh, was, uh -- the difficulty in getting the mental health services I believe that he needed -- I mean he was married with two children -- was most, most difficult and delayed and a long wait and this and that. And then the unfathomable happened and, uh, when I, uh, at times decided to share how he died rather than just say he died in the war and I would say he died by suicide the remark I would hear unfortunately was, "Oh my goodness, he didn't die a hero then." And-and I continually hear this and I guess I want to make a statement that how someone dies, um, should not be -- that -- that is not a definition of how they lived their lives. And here was a good man who gave and did so much for the community and yet because of how he died -- which you know is a mental illness health related, etc. etc. -- he is now being defined as -- not -- as a zero. And not being defined. And I think you know this-this suicide issue is getting way out of control and for every person that dies by suicide there are at least six to ten people that are horribly effected as well to the point where their mental health also, uh, you know, begins to fall apart and the whole mental health, how to get help, starts all over again. And I should say that the support groups for those that lose a loved one by suicide are now separated from regular grief groups and while attending one and sharing how my loved one died, people were going around the room, people said to me, "Oh my God, why is she here?" I've been asked to leave meetings because -- grief support meetings -- because of how my brother died and I don't think that's fair or correct or right and, um, so the issue goes far beyond the pain of losing a loved one and is extremely complicated. And, um, I wanted to share all that. And if ever anybody hears of someone that dies of a suicide please just say "I'm sorry for your loss" and ask about the person. And don't say anything cruel or unkind because, again, how one lives their entire life for 38 years should not be defined by a, you know, a irrational moment that effects -- that became a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Changing topics, Senator Carl Levin's office released the following statement yesterday: WASHINGTON -- Calling the plight of religious minorities in Iraq "a tragic consequence" of the war there, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., today introduced a Senate resolution calling on the U.S. government, Iraqi government and United Nations Mission in Iraq to take steps to alleviate the dangers facing these minority groups. Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., joined Levin in sponsoring the sense of the Senate resolution. "While violence has declined in Iraq overall, religious minorities continue to be the targets of violence and intimidation," Levin said. "Members of many minority groups who have fled other parts of the country have settled in the north, only to find themselves living in some of the most unstable and violent regions of Iraq. We strongly urge the Iraqi government, the United Nations and the U.S. government to address this crisis without delay." Of approximately 1.4 million Christians of various denominations living in Iraq in 2003, only 500,000 to 700,000 remain. Another minority group, the Sabean Mandeans, has seen its population decline by more than 90 percent. Iraq's Jewish community, once one of the largest in the Arab world, has almost ceased to exist.According to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, members of religious minorities "have experienced targeted intimidation and violence, including killings, beatings, abductions, and rapes, forced conversions, forced marriages, forced displacement from their homes and businesses, and violent attacks on their houses of worship and religious leaders." The U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees reported that in 2008, there were an estimated 2.8 million internally displaced persons living in Iraq. Of that 2.8 million, nearly two out of three reported fleeing their home because of a direct threat to their lives, and, of that number, almost nine out of ten said they were targeted because of their ethnic or religious identity. The resolution introduced by the senators addresses the tragedy in several ways. It states the sense of the Senate that the fate of Iraqi religious minorities is a matter of grave concern and calls on the U.S. government and the United Nations to urge Iraq's government to increase security at places of worship, particularly where members of religious minorities are known to face risks. The resolution calls for the integration of regional and religious minorities into the Iraqi security forces, and for those minority members to be stationed within their own communities. The resolution calls on the Iraqi government to ensure that minority citizens can participate in upcoming elections, and to enforce its constitution, which guarantees "the administrative, political, cultural, and educational rights" of minorities. Finally, it urges a series of steps to ensure that development aid and other forms of support flow to minority communities in Iraq. And lastly Carly Simon's latest album is released, Never Been Gone. The twelve track album is Carly dipping into her songwriting canon and providing two new songs and ten re-imaginings of earlier favorites including "You're So Vain," "Let The River Run" (her Grammy, Academy Award and Golden Globe winning song as Diane Sawyer pointed out yesterday on ABC's Good Morning America), "Anticipation," "You Belong To Me," "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" and "The Right Thing To Do." Tomorrow Carly's on NBC's The Today Show, Thursday's she's on Tavis Smiley (PBS) and also on NPR's Talk Of The Nation. | " target="_self">"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills)
Tuesday,
October 27, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, Iraq wants to go
nuclear, Thomas E. Ricks repeats the lies that sold the illegal war
(connecting Iraq to you know what), if your loved one takes his or her
own life while serving in a war zone the President of the United States
sends you no letter expressing sorrow, and more. Frank Sesno was the guest host on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show today and the first hour was devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan. Sesno spoke with McClatchy Newspapers Nancy A. Youssef, Wall St. Journal's Peter Spiegel and Crazy Ass Thomas E. Ricks. Frank
Sesno: Tom Ricks, let's start with these incredible bombings in Iraq
and the shockwave they've sent through the military and the political
systems there. What signal were they intended -- intending to send? Thomas
E. Ricks: I think they were intended to send the signal that [Prime
Minister Nouri al-] Maliki does not have the control over Iraq that he
asserts and that's really his sole campaign plank -- is look "You may
not like me, you may not like how we're running the government but at
least you're feeling safer" and I think was designed to undermine
that. I was struck -- I read this morning that one of the trucks used
to do the bombings was stolen in Falluja which indicates it probably
came out of Anbar Province. Frank Sesno: Which means? Thomas
E. Ricks: Which means a Sunni extrimist probably working with al Qaeda.
Simeloutaneous large blast is one of the al Qaeda signatures that they
like to do. We all remember that from 9-11. Did
Thomas E. Ricks just make a total idiot of himself? Yes, he did. He
attempted to conflate al Qaeda in Mesopotomia with the al Qaeda group
thought to be responsible for 9-11. The two are not related. Thomas
E. Ricks is worse than George W. Bush because Ricks actually had a
semi-functioning brain that wasn't destroyed via drink and cocaine.
But that didn't stop him from conflating two separate things. al Qaeda
in Mespotamia is a homegrown (Iraqi) group. It did not exist prior to
the 2003 invasion. It is a response to the 2003 invasion. And Thomas
E. Ricks needs to learn to choose his words a little more carefully.
With each day, he drifts further and further from journalism. What
a moron. That anyone -- let alone a journalist -- would attempt to
conflate 9-11 and Iraq at this late date is offensive. That a
journalist would do so -- knowing full well that this conflation helped
sell the illegal war -- helped sell it because the news media refused
to call it out -- the same ones that will fact check a Saturday Night Live
skit -- is just beyond belief. But notice that on the program, they
just moved along past Crazy Ass Thomas Ricks -- not unlike they ignored
that LIE when it was sold by the Bush administration. There WAS NO and
IS NO connection between Iraq and 9-11 -- no matter what Thomas E.
Ricks jibber-jabbers. Frank Sesno: Which means, Nancy Youseff that Iraq is what? No where near as stable as the previous lull had indicated? Nancy
A. Youssef: Well it indicates that sectarian violence is still
continuing despite the US military assertion that it's not as
aggressive as it would be. These were Sunni attackers hitting Shia
government buildings. It's an effort to sort of revitalize the
sectarian fighting and I think it raises questions about ultimately
what Iraqis and what Americans consider acceptable levels of violence
in Iraq. Can these sort of occassional bombings -- you'll remember that
the last one was in August -- will the Iraqis accept it? Will the
Americans accept it as a condition for their leaving? That-that
attacks will continue to go on? There are fewer attacks but they're
becoming more and more spectacular. Frank Sesno: And, Peter, at a critical critical moment. Peter
Spiegel: It is a critical moment because you have elections coming up
in January. And just to not be overly pessimistic here 'cause, as Nancy
mentioned, there was a very similar attack in August, we did not see
the country descend into another round of sectarian violence. That's
the good news. The other good news, as Tom pointed out, they seemed to
be very political oriented. There are elections coming up. You know
Maliki is vying for position with other Shia parties, with other Sunni
parties. Is this just a domestic political issue being expressed
through violence? If that's the case, there's an argument that as long
as there's some sort of Sunni outlet through the political system, this
may eventually go away. Now the problem is there appears to be no Sunni
outlet for legitimate political expression right now because most of
the parties are still dominated by Shi'ites and a lot of the government
institutions are dominated by Shias -- they're using them to suppress
Sunnis in the country. So as long as that continues, as long as there's
no legitimate way for Sunnis to express their political outrage this
stuff could continue. Frank Sesno: Do you expect this stuff to continue? Thomas
E. Ricks: I do actually. The last line in the last book I've written on
Iraq, The Gamble, is a quote from [former US] Ambassador [to Iraq] Ryan
Crocker. He said to me twice in the course of 2008, "The events for
which the Iraq War will be remembered have not yet occurred." There's a
significant chance that the war will go on for another five to ten
years. I think we're going to have American troops there for many, many
years. They'll call them "trainers" and "advisors" but this war is far
from over. Frank
Sesno: But Tom as they leave, as we have pulled out of the cities and
as we withdraw to concentrated areas around the country, what
vulnerability then does this latest string of events suggest for the
innocent public in Iraq trying desparately to put their lives back
together again because it suggest the vulnarability is extreme. Thomas
E. Ricks: Recently, the former mayor of Tal Afar, a city up in the
northwest, wrote a very interesting essay in which he said all the
conditions for civil war in Iraq are still there. This is why I think
the civil war failed. It succeeded tactically, it improved security. Frank Sesno: For the moment. Thomas
E. Ricks: Yes, but it's purpose was to lead to a political breakthrough
and that didn't happen. That's not my saying what the purpose was,
that's what the president said the purpose was. Frarnk Sesno: Nancy, I see you nodding your head. Nancy
A. Youssef: Yeah, you know, what's interesting is that when you ask
them at the Pentagon, "Look there have been two massive attacks in the
last few months and what are you going to do?" And there's sort of a
shrugging of the shoulders. The Status Of Forces Agreement calls for us
to leave and the Pentagon's focused on Afghanistan now and yet if you
go right below the surface you can feel from soldiers who have served,
who wear braclets of fallen comrades, the frustration that potentially
the United States is leaving as sloppily as it entered, that you've got
120,000 troops still based in Iraq and yet nothing is being done
to-to-to stop this. The-the line -- Frarnk Sesno: Nothing is being done to stop this? Nancy
A. Youssef: No, because the line at the Pentagon is "We're asking for
Maliki to ask us for help" or we're waiting for something like the
Samarra mosque bombing. But if it gets to that level, it's already too
late. I mean the Samarra mosque bombing didn't happen in a vacuum. That
was a building of sectarian violence that manifested itself in a very
violent way. Peter
Spiegel: One other issue, there are still 120,000 troops in Iraq which
everyone seems to forget, which is about the levels they were
pre-surge, which is still a very big level. But what is happening in
sort of the granularity of that is a lot of assets that are needed to
track down these bombing networks -- the UAVs, the unmanned drones, the
intelligence assets -- all that is being sucked away to Afghanistan.
And having spent time with General [Ray] Odierno, who is the commander
there, a year ago, his-his real -- the thing he's most proud of is the
ability to track down these networks through human intelligence through
systems like unmanned drones and dismantle them. Well if you move all
those assets to Afghanistan, are you still able to dismantle all those
bombing networks that are still clearly sort of roving freely in
Baghdad and be able to do these kind of things? Frarnk
Sesno: These bombs went off near three government buildings -- three
important government buildings. How much of a set back does this
present to the fledgling, struggling Iraqi government itself? Nancy
A. Youssef: I don't think we know yet. I mean, you saw the government
try to respond by passing an election law which they've been debating
for several months now as a way to sort of speak up. I think you're
seeing Maliki -- it hurts Maliki the most, as Tom mentioned, because
his political platform, his election platform is "I bring security to
you." You saw rival political parties trying to exploit that. Nancy
A. Youssef was referring to a proposal put together by the Political
Council for National Security and then passed on to Parliament. That was a proposal made (with much fanfare) yesterday. Like just about everything else on the governance front in Iraq, it fell apart. John Leland (New York Times) reports
there was no consensus today and that they are at a stalemate, "another
blockage in negotiations that have dragged on for weeks, threatening
national elections scheduled for January 16th." 'Scheduled'? I believe
the appropriate term is intended. Suadad al-Salhy (Reuters) adds
that the issue of Kirkuk was the falling out point for the "proposal
submitted by a high-ranking council that included Maliki and President
Jalal Talabani." Repeating, no election law. Still. The
perpetrators of the huge bomb attacks are unknown. Not unexpectedly,
every Iraqi faction is blaming its enemies. Maliki is blaming Al Qaeda
in Iraq and the Baathists, but at the very least the attacks have
severely hurt Maliki's main cliam to leadership, namely, that he's kept
Iraq safe. Many Sunnis are blaming Iran, charging that Iran's
intelligence service is orchestrating the Baghdad attacks in order to
force Maliki to abandon his independent electoral stance and sign on to
the Shiite bloc, the Iraqi National Alliance. And, indirectly speaking
for the Shiite bloc, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran has blamed "foreign
agents" for the attacks: "The
bloody actions being committed in some Islamic countries, including
Iraq, Pakistan and in some parts of the country (Iran), are aimed at
creating division between the Shiites and Sunnis.... Those who carry
out these terrorist actions are directly or indirectly foreign
agents."
Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the bombings, but such claims have to be taken with a grain of salt. Ann
Curry: We turn now to Iraq, still reeling from massive explosions that
wrecked three buildings in Baghdad on Sunday. The dead now number more
than 150. Hundreds more are injured. And the attacks raise the
question: can the Iraqi government keep the lid on? The latest tonight
from NBC's Tom Aspell.
Tom
Aspell: Grief and shock today at some of the funerals for bombings in
Baghdad. Iraqi police and hospitals now say that up to thirty children
from a day care center at the Justice Ministry are among the dead. The
second blast was captured on a cell phone. The blast destroyed two
government buildings outside the Green Zone in central Baghdad. Iraqi
officials said at least 150 people were killed, at least 500 people
were wounded. A security spokesman said two buses were used to carry
the explosives -- 2,000 pounds in one and 1500 pounds in the other. It
was the worst attack in Baghdad for two years. This morning Iraqis were
blaming the government for lax security issues. There are checkpoints
every one-hundred yards How did these vehicles come here" asked this
man. Iraqi troops were patrolling Baghdad streets this morning. The
government is warning there could be more attacks before elections in
three months time. Tom Aspell, NBC News, London. Also covering the bombings was PBS' NewsHour (link has text, audio and video options) and this an excerpt: JANE ARRAF [Christian Science Monitor]:
It has. The death toll looks like it's going past about 150, Ray, and
hundreds more wounded. And more than that, a lot of questions being
raised as to how this actually could have happened just two months
after the horrific bombing of the Finance and Foreign Ministries. Now,
yesterday, at the site, there were absolute scenes of devastation,
people sobbing, carrying away wounded relatives, trying to find their
relatives, and pretty much chaos for the first little while. The
streets were flooded. Rescue workers were trying to wade through
bystanders. It really was one of the most horrific scenes that many of
us have seen in quite a long time. We had kind of thought this was over
with. And now it seems to have started again. And that is definitely
the feeling that you feel on the streets, that things could very much
get worse again.RAY
SUAREZ: You mentioned that August attack. At the time, weren't measures
put in place to make this kind of operation less likely in Baghdad?JANE
ARRAF: Absolutely. That August attack, which killed at least 100 people
with an eerily similar attack, a truck packed with explosives in two
different places, and a suicide attack, at that, was actually a wakeup
call. And it was said to have been a systemic failure -- failure of
security. Now, the Iraqi government responded by firing some senior
Iraqi security officials. It said it put new measures in place. I spoke
with a senior American official today who said, indeed, they had put
measures in place. But it has not prevented these two bombings, which,
again, were eerily similar. These were trucks traveling streets where
no trucks are supposed to be in daytime. They apparently went through
checkpoints, where they should have been checked, but weren't. And they
managed to explode in one of the busiest times of the day, in one of
the most packed places in Baghdad, killing government workers, as well
as passersby, including children. ABC World News Tonight with Charlie Gibson covered the bombings. Charlie
Gibson: In Iraq meanwhile the funerals began today in the wake of the
stunning twin bombings that tore through the heart of Baghdad
yesterday. The death toll is now 155 with the grim discovery that 24
children at a day care center were among those killed. The attacks
raised questions about Iraq's security. Miguel Marquez was at the scene
of the blasts.Miguel
Marquez: The devastation is almost unimaginable, buildings shredded as
far as the eye can see, glass, blood splattered clothing and burned
rubber. When the bombs went off they shattered the relative calm here.
Six months ago this street was off limits to traffic but with security
improving the barriers were lifted. An investigation is now underway
into how two vehicles carrying 1500 pounds of explosives each including
military grade C4, got through multiple military checkpoints before
reaching their targets. Despite all the security agencies the
government here is helpless he says, they only cause traffic jams.
Today Iraqis begin the wrenching task of burying their loved ones.
Comfort was in short supply. They blame their government for failing to
stop the violence. This is the hole created by the explosion. It goes
down about twenty-five feet. The blast was so powerful they burst a
water main, flooding this section of Baghdad. Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki who faces re-election in January has campaigned on his
ability to make Iraq safer. His opponents say this bombings proves the
military is infiltratedIraqi
National Security Advisor Mouwaffak Rubaie: What we need to concentrate
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Oct 27, 2009
BULLY
BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE
KOOL-AID TABLECELEBRITY IN
CHIEF BARRY O'S SELF-LOVE IS MATCHED ONLY BY HIS SELF-TALK. BARRY WAS SUPPOSED
TO BE CONNECTING WITH VOTERS AGAIN TODAY BUT HE WAS OFF BRAGGING ABOUT HIMSELF
AND YAMMERING AWAY ABOUT HIS SKINNY BODY. IF EVERYONE WAS AS
INTERSTED IN BARRY O AS HE IS, HE'LL STILL WOULDN'T HAVE A SINGLE ACCOMPLISHMENT
TO POINT TO.
FROM
THE TCI WIRE:Sunday Baghdad saw
bombings resulting in a higher death total than Black Wednesday, Bloody
Wednesday, Gory Wednesday August 19th. Eleanor Hall (Australia's ABC's The World Today -- link has text
and audio) explained, "Twin suicide bombers targeted the Iraqi Ministry of
Justice all but destroying the government department's headquarters, which are
just outside the high-security 'green zone' in the centre of Baghdad." Shane
McLeod added, "The sound of the second blast was captured by a mobile phone
video camera being used to survey the aftermath of the first. Targeted was the
headquarters of the Ministry of Justice, just a few hundred metres from the
fortified green zone in Baghdad." Sahar Issa and Hannah Allam (McClatchy Newspapers) report that
Iraqi government figures are stating that "a water tanker and a refrigerated
food truck" were used in the attacks. This morning, Jack Kimball and Michael Christie (Reuters) report that the
death toll has climbed and is currently at 155 with over five hundred left
injured. Rod Nordland (New York Times) observes that "an
uncertain number of children" are among the dead. CBS News and AP add that 24 "children who were
killed were on a bus leaving a daycare center near the Justice Ministry when the
attack occurred". Ned Parker and Caesar Ahmed (Los Angeles Times)
sketch out yesterday's assault, "Cars clogges the road as tehy approached
the traffic circle in front of the Justice Ministry, with its statue of modern
Iraq's first ruler, King Faisal, mounted on a horse. An old white pickup truck
had broken down by the traffic circle and its driver approached a policeman and
started yelling. [. . .] It was then that the first of two car bombs exploded on
opposite ends of the block." Xinhua adds, "Xinhua correspondent at the scene
said that he saw ponds of blood and parts of human bodies scattered close to the
blast site near the Mansour Hotel where the wreckage of dozens of civilian cars
could be seen near the site." Martin Chulov (Guardian) offers, "Witnesses
described body parts sprawled across the area. Mohammed Falah, was caught in the
blast: 'There was a woman's leg next to me. I picked it up and gave it to the
ambulance'." Sharif Abdel Kouddous (Democracy Now! -- link has
text, video and audio) asked Rick Rowley for his take on the bombings
today: Well, first of all, the first thing to say is that, you know,
there is no peace in Iraq, that these bombings, first of all, put the lie once
again to the three myths that we've been pushed about the war in Iraq: first,
the story that the war is over; second, that we won the war; and third, that the
lessons of this victory can be applied to Afghanistan. The fact is that what
passes for calm in Iraq today isn't peace at all; it's a fragile, fraying truce
after a brutal sectarian civil war, and it's a truce without reconciliation that
-- because it's put in place a system that is a continuing engine for violence,
and tragedies like these are a legacy of the American occupation and will remain
one for years to come. So, bombings like these today -- or on Sunday were
attempts -- I mean, you know, they're being blamed on al-Qaeda in Iraq, and it
seems likely that it was a group like al-Qaeda in Iraq that carried them out.
And there are attempts by those extreme elements inside the Sunni insurgency to
target the Shiite-led government, which they see as their sectarian enemy, but
also to try to draw the Shiite militias back into an all-out civil war that
could unite the Shiites again in their resistance. I mean, bombings like the
ones on Sunday are remarkable for their massive scale, the carnage they cause,
but there are multiple bombings in Iraq every single week. [. .
.] And yeah, absolutely, I mean, the government in Baghdad is seen by
al-Qaeda in Iraq and by the extremists inside the Sunni resistance as a proxy,
as an Iranian proxy, dominated by the Supreme Council and by the Dawa Party,
both parties that were -- well, I mean, the Supreme Council was formed in Iran,
and Dawa, you know, spent most of its existence in Iran. And, you know, these
parties were put by the US in mid-2004, were put in charge of the government,
and their militias were turned into the core of the Iraqi security structure.
So, as the civil war kicked off, the main protagonists in the civil war were
militias inside the police force that were -- came from these parties and, you
know, versus Sunni insurgents on the outside who were doing bombings and these
kinds of soft-target attacks on civilians. So, you know, clearly, I mean,
institutions and ministries that are controlled by ISCI, the Supreme Council,
and by Dawa are definitely seen as sectarian enemies. I mean, the Ministry of
Justice, as well, you know, it's -- the police and the court system have been
seen in the -- I mean, not so much the court system. The police and the prison
system in Iraq have been seen as one of the tools in the sectarian fight that
the Shiite militias have used from the very beginning. Gina Chon (Wall St. Journal) noted yesterday that
the charge of "al Qaeda in Iraq" was instantly being made by some including
Nouri al-Maliki, US-installed thug of the occupation. Mohammed al Dulaimy and Hannah Allam (McClatchy Newspapers -- link
has text and video) add, "Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, released a statement
blaming elements of Saddam Hussein's predominantly Sunni Baath Party and
militants from al Qaida in Iraq for the attack. As of late Sunday, no group had
claimed responsibility." Yes, Maliki couldn't wait to start (yet again) blaming
former Ba'athists. ELEANOR HALL: Given the number of people killed though
in these two recent attacks and the outrage from the public that we are already
hearing, I mean what is this attack and the August one likely to mean for the
elections in January? SAM PARKER: Well, clearly it undercuts Prime Minister
Maliki's main narrative which is Iraq was chaos and he brought it back from the
brink. It definitely hurts him and certainly if you look at what has followed
the August bombings there has been a lot of that, a lot of finger pointing and a
lot of people saying your claims are bogus. That Iraq is just as unsafe as it
has always been and that generally is not true.I mean, yes you can point to
these like high-profile mass casualty attacks and as tragic as they are, overall
death counts in Iraq are still, even despite these attacks, are still much lower
than they have been at any period except for right after the invasions. So for
the entire war, we are still at the lowest points and so these large scale
attacks largely had propaganda value to them. Liz Sly and Usama Redha (Los Angeles Times)
explain, "It is Maliki who stands to lose the most from a security
breakdown, because he is campaigning on his record as the leader who helped
restore a good measure of security after the sectarian warfare that raged after
the U.S.-led invasion. Overall, violence is down 90% since the peak in 2006,
U.S. commanders say." Anthony Shadid (Washington Post) adds, "The
attacks came at a precarious moment in Iraqi politics. Parliament has yet to
agree on legislation to organize the planned Jan. 16 vote, despite warnings by
the United States and the United Nations that time will probably run out by next
weekend. Critics have also complained that some of the key officials charged
with security -- Maliki and Interior Minister Jawad Bolani -- are more engaged
in the election than in running the country." Kurdish MP Mahmoud Othman tells Al Jazeera, "This
sends two messages, one of them is to the investment conference in Washington
held just a few days ago as if to tell investors not to come to Iraq . . . At
the same time I think it may be a message to the meeting today of the political
council of national security." Baghdad governor Salah Abdel Razaq tells Elizabeth
Palmer (CBS News), "The bodies I have seen -- these innocent people, what
have they done? To have this destiny, it is very terrible." Timothy Williams (New York Times) explains, "In
large part, Mr. Maliki's popularity has rested on the belief that he has kept
the country reasonably safe. But the bombings at four high-profile,
well-protected government buildings within a two-month span led some Iraqis to
say Sunday that they were reconsidering their support for Mr. Maliki." It should
be noted that "Mr. Maliki's popularity" -- like Ashlee Simpson's talent -- is something that's
been assumed but never verified. Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor) provides a voice for
people on the streets such as vendor Abbas Fadhil who states, "This is all from
the political parties -- they want to gain seats in the election." Um Ali tells
Arraf, "There had to be someone with official backing behind this -- how could
they get through the checkpoints? Why are our children, our sisters still being
killed? For 20 years we've been fighting." Gina Chon (Wall St. Journal) puts the bombings
into the larger instability landscape that is Iraq: "The timing of the Sunday
bombings coincided with plans by Iraq's top political body, the Political
Council for National Security, comprising top political leaders and cabinet
ministers, to consider ways to end a stalemate over a crucial election law
needed to begin work ahead of the vote. The legislation has stalled over
disagreements between factions over how the vote will be conducted in Kirkuk, an
oil-rich region in the north torn by sectarian and ethnic tensions among the
area's Kurds, Arabs and Turkomen." Ranj Alaaldin (Guardian) offers his take on the
bombings: A broad analysis suggests complicity on the part of the
Sunni-Arab world: keep Iraq unstable and you stop the country from becoming an
effective Iranian client state when the US withdraws; or, at the very least,
facilitate terrorist attacks in the country and you have some form of a
counter-measure to Iran's unmatched influence. Alternatively, the attacks on
Kurdish-run and Shia-run ministries may have sought to encourage incorporation of the Sunnis, specifically the Sons
of Iraq fighters, into the Shia-led government, which has so far been slow in
doing so. The objectives are not necessarily independent of each other. A
more straightforward analysis suggests prime minister Nouri al-Maliki as the
prime target of all this: destabilise Iraq in the run-up to January's
parliamentary elections and you hurt Maliki's chances of success, as he will be
campaigning on the same security platform that won him this year's provincial
elections. Indeed, things are not looking too rosy for the premier now that he
has lost his security card. Iraqis will struggle to list his achievements in
recent times and find the country no closer to better services and increased
employment levels. As far as observations go, James Denselow (Guardian) is on stronger ground than
anyone when he observes: It takes a certain death toll for Iraq to
make it back on to the headlines. Despite the presence of some 120,000 US troops
(and 100 or so British naval trainers who were recently let back into the country) Iraq appears to be old
news. In many people's minds it is yesterday's conflict; the surge was a success
and the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is a democratically mandated strongman
who is bringing economic success to the country -- or so the narrative
goes. RECOMMENDED: " Iraq snapshot" " Death toll rises to 155" " Bombings, Swine flu" Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "'Feminist' Naomi
Wolf speaks" " And the war drags on . . ." " Those wacky, Iraqi elections" " The US Embassy in Baghdad" Truest
statement of the weekTruest
statement of the week IIA
note to our readersEditorial:
When all the lies are exposedTV:
Hank TanksThe
Carly RoundtableThe
Idiot Barack (Ava and C.I.)The
gas bag journalsIraqYou
can judge a book by its coverHighlights
" The press says the darndest things" " THIS JUST IN! THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE ADULTS!"
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"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills)
Monday,
October 26, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, Iraq's death toll from
yesterday's massive bombings rises and includes children,
finger-pointing becomes the favorite past-time, a US 'helper' and his
ties to an oil company are explored, a US Iraq War resister seeks
sanctuary in a Canadian church, and more. Ned Parker and Caesar Ahmed (Los Angeles Times) sketch out
yesterday's assault, "Cars clogges the road as tehy approached the
traffic circle in front of the Justice Ministry, with its statue of
modern Iraq's first ruler, King Faisal, mounted on a horse. An old
white pickup truck had broken down by the traffic circle and its driver
approached a policeman and started yelling. [. . .] It was then that
the first of two car bombs exploded on opposite ends of the block." Xinhua adds,
"Xinhua correspondent at the scene said that he saw ponds of blood and
parts of human bodies scattered close to the blast site near the
Mansour Hotel where the wreckage of dozens of civilian cars could be
seen near the site." Martin Chulov (Guardian) offers,
"Witnesses described body parts sprawled across the area. Mohammed
Falah, was caught in the blast: 'There was a woman's leg next to me. I
picked it up and gave it to the ambulance'." Well,
first of all, the first thing to say is that, you know, there is no
peace in Iraq, that these bombings, first of all, put the lie once
again to the three myths that we've been pushed about the war in Iraq:
first, the story that the war is over; second, that we won the war; and
third, that the lessons of this victory can be applied to Afghanistan.
The fact is that what passes for calm in Iraq today isn't peace at all;
it's a fragile, fraying truce after a brutal sectarian civil war, and
it's a truce without reconciliation that -- because it's put in place a
system that is a continuing engine for violence, and tragedies like
these are a legacy of the American occupation and will remain one for
years to come. So, bombings like these today -- or on Sunday were
attempts -- I mean, you know, they're being blamed on al-Qaeda in Iraq,
and it seems likely that it was a group like al-Qaeda in Iraq that
carried them out. And there are attempts by those extreme elements
inside the Sunni insurgency to target the Shiite-led government, which
they see as their sectarian enemy, but also to try to draw the Shiite
militias back into an all-out civil war that could unite the Shiites
again in their resistance. I mean, bombings like the ones on Sunday are
remarkable for their massive scale, the carnage they cause, but there
are multiple bombings in Iraq every single week. [. . .] And
yeah, absolutely, I mean, the government in Baghdad is seen by al-Qaeda
in Iraq and by the extremists inside the Sunni resistance as a proxy,
as an Iranian proxy, dominated by the Supreme Council and by the Dawa
Party, both parties that were -- well, I mean, the Supreme Council was
formed in Iran, and Dawa, you know, spent most of its existence in
Iran. And, you know, these parties were put by the US in mid-2004, were
put in charge of the government, and their militias were turned into
the core of the Iraqi security structure. So, as the civil war kicked
off, the main protagonists in the civil war were militias inside the
police force that were -- came from these parties and, you know, versus
Sunni insurgents on the outside who were doing bombings and these kinds
of soft-target attacks on civilians. So, you know, clearly, I mean,
institutions and ministries that are controlled by ISCI, the Supreme
Council, and by Dawa are definitely seen as sectarian enemies. I mean,
the Ministry of Justice, as well, you know, it's -- the police and the
court system have been seen in the -- I mean, not so much the court
system. The police and the prison system in Iraq have been seen as one
of the tools in the sectarian fight that the Shiite militias have used
from the very beginning. ELEANOR HALL: Given
the number of people killed though in these two recent attacks and the
outrage from the public that we are already hearing, I mean what is
this attack and the August one likely to mean for the elections in
January?
SAM PARKER: Well,
clearly it undercuts Prime Minister Maliki's main narrative which is
Iraq was chaos and he brought it back from the brink. It definitely
hurts him and certainly if you look at what has followed the August
bombings there has been a lot of that, a lot of finger pointing and a
lot of people saying your claims are bogus. That Iraq is just as unsafe
as it has always been and that generally is not true.I mean, yes you
can point to these like high-profile mass casualty attacks and as
tragic as they are, overall death counts in Iraq are still, even
despite these attacks, are still much lower than they have been at any
period except for right after the invasions. So for the entire war, we
are still at the lowest points and so these large scale attacks largely
had propaganda value to them.
Liz Sly and Usama Redha (Los Angeles Times) explain,
"It is Maliki who stands to lose the most from a security breakdown,
because he is campaigning on his record as the leader who helped
restore a good measure of security after the sectarian warfare that
raged after the U.S.-led invasion. Overall, violence is down 90% since
the peak in 2006, U.S. commanders say." Anthony Shadid (Washington Post) adds,
"The attacks came at a precarious moment in Iraqi politics. Parliament
has yet to agree on legislation to organize the planned Jan. 16 vote,
despite warnings by the United States and the United Nations that time
will probably run out by next weekend. Critics have also complained
that some of the key officials charged with security -- Maliki and
Interior Minister Jawad Bolani -- are more engaged in the election than
in running the country." Kurdish MP Mahmoud Othman tells Al Jazeera,
"This sends two messages, one of them is to the investment conference
in Washington held just a few days ago as if to tell investors not to
come to Iraq . . . At the same time I think it may be a message to the
meeting today of the political council of national security." Baghdad governor Salah Abdel Razaq tells Elizabeth Palmer (CBS News), "The bodies I have seen -- these innocent people, what have they done? To have this destiny, it is very terrible." Timothy Williams (New York Times) explains,
"In large part, Mr. Maliki's popularity has rested on the belief that
he has kept the country reasonably safe. But the bombings at four
high-profile, well-protected government buildings within a two-month
span led some Iraqis to say Sunday that they were reconsidering their
support for Mr. Maliki." It should be noted that "Mr. Maliki's
popularity" -- like Ashlee Simpson's talent -- is something that's been assumed but never verified. Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor) provides
a voice for people on the streets such as vendor Abbas Fadhil who
states, "This is all from the political parties -- they want to gain
seats in the election." Um Ali tells Arraf, "There had to be someone
with official backing behind this -- how could they get through the
checkpoints? Why are our children, our sisters still being killed? For
20 years we've been fighting." Gina Chon (Wall St. Journal) puts
the bombings into the larger instability landscape that is Iraq: "The
timing of the Sunday bombings coincided with plans by Iraq's top
political body, the Political Council for National Security, comprising
top political leaders and cabinet ministers, to consider ways to end a
stalemate over a crucial election law needed to begin work ahead of the
vote. The legislation has stalled over disagreements between factions
over how the vote will be conducted in Kirkuk, an oil-rich region in
the north torn by sectarian and ethnic tensions among the area's Kurds,
Arabs and Turkomen." A
broad analysis suggests complicity on the part of the Sunni-Arab world:
keep Iraq unstable and you stop the country from becoming an effective
Iranian client state when the US withdraws; or, at the very least,
facilitate terrorist attacks in the country and you have some form of a
counter-measure to Iran's unmatched influence. Alternatively, the
attacks on Kurdish-run and Shia-run ministries may have sought to encourage incorporation
of the Sunnis, specifically the Sons of Iraq fighters, into the
Shia-led government, which has so far been slow in doing so. The
objectives are not necessarily independent of each other. A
more straightforward analysis suggests prime minister Nouri al-Maliki
as the prime target of all this: destabilise Iraq in the run-up to
January's parliamentary elections and you hurt Maliki's chances of
success, as he will be campaigning on the same security platform that
won him this year's provincial elections. Indeed, things are not
looking too rosy for the premier now that he has lost his security
card. Iraqis will struggle to list his achievements in recent times and
find the country no closer to better services and increased employment
levels. It
takes a certain death toll for Iraq to make it back on to the
headlines. Despite the presence of some 120,000 US troops (and 100 or
so British naval trainers who were recently let back
into the country) Iraq appears to be old news. In many people's minds
it is yesterday's conflict; the surge was a success and the prime
minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is a democratically mandated strongman who
is bringing economic success to the country -- or so the narrative goes. And as the instability thrives, Nouri depends upon US forces to prop him up. Mohammed al Dulaimy and Hannah Allam (McClatchy Newspapers) explain,
"U.S. Marines arrived at the scene of Sunday's attack with Iraqi
forces, in accordance with a U.S.-Iraq security pact that requires
American forces to coordinate with their Iraqi counterparts before
getting involved in combat or other operations. Americans at the scene
asked Iraqi security guards for surveillance videos from buildings in
the area, and investigators took soil samples and carted off pieces of
twisted metal." The US government has attempted to call the assault a
"terrorist" attack -- it's a war. All sides could be labled
"terrorists." That would inclue the US which bombed and raided Iraq
for the last six years and counting. It was an attack, it was an
assault. It was not "terrorism." It was an attack which took place in
an ongoing war and was most likely aimed at a government installed by
foreigners and made up of Iraqi exiles who spent most of the last
decade living abroad. Wamith al-Kassab (MideastYouth) ponders the bombings: what
just happened? Cause I watch the news every day ,and I saw Hilary
Clinton give a speech on Iraq-American conference in Washington and she
was promising the Iraqi displace families that there will be efforts to
return them to Iraq as security improved , Almalky said in his speech
in the same conference that security in Iraq has improved and today
Iraqi people can go outside at night and drive safely to visit the
holly shrines in Najaf ( Iraqi leaders measure security by the times
when people get killed visiting holly shrines and days when people can
go safely ,which brings us to bigger question , is security in Iraq
related to shiaa visits to shrines or it is a whole state
security?) yes , the Iraq I
left after working for 7 years in medical camps for refugees ,was a
safe place ,I mean it was not totally safe , cause there is few nasty
bad boys who usually beats the hell of journalists in the middle of the
streets ,and threats to kill you cause you post some bloges on human
rights every now and then , and yes ,if I return today my chances is
zero to go out of Baghdad airport alive ,but come on ,I am only 1
person and this is small terrorist attacks that should not effect the
magnificent large picture of security change in Iraq ,we had 600,000
Iraqi soldiers most of them trained in Jordan ,Kurdistan ,few went to
USA ,all of them were train by Americans ,we had security companies(
they work to protect the VIP only ,but any way we had ones) ,we bought
armed cars ,we bought weapons ,we had police forces ,the support forces
from Sunni ( waking councils) ,we had beshmerka ( Kurdish army which
sometimes goverment say they are militia ,others time they are official
army) ,we had small armies for each party in Iraq ,we had many people
who carry guns and I do not know why ,just I know you do not whanna
mess with them. So we had
allot of people who formed check points with metal and weapons and
explosive detectors devices ,we had concrete walls all over Baghdad and
we had traffic jam because of the check points has to check each car to
prevent terrorist from attacking the innocent Violence continued today in Iraq. Bombings? Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports
a Karbala suicide car bombing which claimed the life of the driver and
4 civilians leaving fourteen more people injured, a Mosul sticky
bombing which wounded one person and a Falluja roadside bombing which
injured four people. Shootings?
Kidnappings? Corpses? (man who had been kidnapped Saturday). The latest flashpoint in the battle to keep war resisters in Canada has been the case of Rodney Watson who on Monday October 19, 2009, decided to seek sanctuary in a B.C. [British Columbia] church rather than face deporation to the United States to face desertion charges. Watson, who is originally from Kansas City, Kansas,
enlisted in the US Army in 2004 for a three-year contract with the
intentions of becoming a cook since he wanted to serve the troops in a
non-combat capactiy. In 2005, he was deployed to Iraq just north of Mosul, where he was put in charge of searching vehicles and Iraqi civilians for explosives, contraband and weapons before they entered the base. He was also expected to "keep the peace" by monitoring Iraqi civilians who worked on the base and fire his weapon at Iraqi children who approached the perimeter. When he was informed he was being deported, Rodney sought asylum at the church. Earlier this month, Stig Nielsen (Metro Vancouver) reported: Rodney
Watson of Kansas City had just returned from a deployment in Iraq in
2006 when the U.S. army extended his contract for three years. Watson
said he felt he had served his time and that he wasn't about to go back
to a war he doesn't agree with. "The
main thing was the disrespect for the people -- some guys would have a
bad day and they would just beat up on some Iraqi civilians," Watson
said.He deserted three years ago and crossed the border into Canada, where he fell in love and became a father.The 31-year-old is at First United Church on Hastings Street in Vancouver where he's been granted asylum since September. Camille Bains (Canadian Press) reported that he was ordered deported September 11th: Ric
Matthews, lead minister of First United Church in Vancouver, said the
board and the congregation support Watson. Matthews
said he met Watson at a rally organized on his behalf by the War
Resisters Support Campaign and that Watson later approached him about
staying at the church. "There
will be an effort to try and help create the momentum for something
constructive to come out of this," he said. "I
think the United Church in general, beyond just us, would now be
working through some of our people who have experience in working with
refugee claims and in engaging with government in
conversation." Matthews said Watson's fiancee and son often visit him at the church, which provides daily meals for people in need. Peter Galbraith. Jasim al-Azzawi: When Norway's most respected financial newspaper, Dagens Noeringsliv,
covered the activities of a small, Norwegian oil company called DNO
operating in northern Iraq, no one expected subsequent investigations
to implicate the former US politician Peter Galbraith. Ambassador
Galbraith is now suing DNO for a quarter of a billion dollars because
the Kurdistan Regional Government has squeezed him out of his 5% stake
in the company. What is more devastating for Iraq is the role Mr.
Galbraith played as a political consultant to the KRG writing Iraq's
Constitution in a way that can only be described as a potential ticking
time bomb. This story has all the marks of dual loyalty, betrayal and
international intrigue. [. . .] I am now joined from Oslo by Terje
Erikstad, a financial news editor at Dagens Naeringsliv and from London
by Sabah al-Mukhtar, president of Arab Layers Association in London.
And we were also supposed to be joined by Mohammad Ihsan, Minister for
Extra-Regional Affairs of the KRG but unfortunately we were informed at
the last minute that he fell sick and cannot join the program. Sabah
and Terje, welcome to Inside Iraq. Terje, let me start with you. Were
you surprised to discover that the name of Mr. Peter Galbraith, former
US Ambassador to Croatia and a leading figure in Washington, he had a
5% stake in the DNO? Terje
Erikstad: Yes, indeed we were very much surprised because it all
started with a Norwegian company being fined by the Oslo stock
exchange. And we started working on this case as an ordinary conflict
between a company on the stock exchange and the stock exchange. And it
ended up with Peter Galbraith owning oil interests or having oil
interests in Kurdistan. That was very surprising for us indeed. Jasim al-Azzawi: Sabah, who is Peter Galbraith? Set the situation for us. Sabah
al-Mukhtar: Galbraith is a professor of international politics in the
USA. He was an ambassador in a variety of capacities -- in Croatia and
Afghanistan. He was advisor to the US government. He was a man who was
being paid a salary by the government of the United States of America.
He was at the same time being paid a salary by the Kurdish government
as an advisor. And at the same time, he was taking money from a company
which is going to apply for oil in Iraq. He has been instrumental in
assisting the Americans and the Kurds to produce a Constitution for
Iraq which is a designer made country, which is a failed state, to
install a government and a regime there that has been looking after the
interests of-of Mr. Galbraith. And this reminds us and reminds the
listeners and the viewers that this is again history repeating itself.
In the past, there was a Mr. [Calouste] Gulbenkian -- Mr. 5% -- during
the Ottoman Empire who had five-percent of the oil of Iraq and now we
have this man having a 5% interest in the Kurdish area -- in Tawke
field in particular -- but now they seem to have turned the table on
him. That's why he's on an arbitration course with them. Jasim
al-Azzawi: If that is the case, Terje, explain to me how come in a very
lengthy explanation and justification by the Minister of Natural
Resources of the KRG, Mr. Ashti Hara, at the website of the KRG.org, he
mentioned what happened, the genesis of the story of DNO and its
operations in Kurdistan for almost five, six pages and yet the name of
Peter Galbraith has not been mentioned even once. How do you explain
that? Terje
Erikstad: Because Peter Galbraith was a secret partner with the
Norwegian company you mentioned, DNO International, and this company
had two secret partners in their exploration in Kurdistan. The interest
of Mr. Galbraith was hidden behind the company name -- behind the
company named Porcupine and this Porcupine is incorporated in one of
the states in the USA, Deleware, and it was very difficult to know
about his identity. We found it through the company registry and it was
all hidden, it was -- He is in a conflict with the DNO because the
Kurdish government did not recognize his interests when the new oil law
was applied to this field, the Tawke field in Kurdistan. And he is now
in an arbitration process with DNO. And it was all kept secret until we
found out the-the identity of the company in this arbitration process
and the man behind it, Mr. Galbraith. The Kurdish government say that
they know nothing about this but that is very difficult to understand. Jasim
al-Azzawi: Indeed it is very difficult to understand. Sabah al-Mukhtar,
if you were Peter Galbraith, here's a man who spent the better part of
almost four years consulting and advising the KRG. He shepparded them
through the lengthy process of the Constitution writing. He insterted
some very important clauses to the benefit of the KRG regarding the
relationship between Baghdad and Irbil, regarding the oil law,
regarding the peshmerga, regarding their territorial authorization.
And yet, at the very last minute, they squeezed him out and they
crossed him and the five-percent that he was banking on never
materialized. Sabah
al-Mukhtar: Well I think this is a -- when you have, when you have a
dispute between the forty thieves of Baghdad that's what you end up
with. You end up with disclosures that I think this is going to run a
little more. Galbraith at the present moment has a problem with the KRG
but I think within the KRG itself there are a variety of individuals
who may have interests vested interests, who may have conflict of
interests and that is part of the problem. But to go back to what
Galbraith did, in the Constitution, he's the one who instigated the
idea that a federation is set up in Iraq, but based on ethnicity which
is not the concept of federal government He has encouraged the Kurds
and insisted on having the local government -- the local government
having priority over the federal government. He has given the local
government the final say. He's given the oil rights to the regional
government rather than the federal government. He has assisted them in
drafting the Constitution which by any stretch of imagination could not
be accepted as a proper Constitution to the extent that there is
Article 142 of the Constitution which called for a revision and review
of that Constitution within four months which -- until now -- they have
failed to do. He then -- he assisted them in working on the idea,
what's called "the land grab" -- i.e. taking areas which were not
within the regional government of Kurdistan to be part of Kurdistan so
that he can have the oil. He has encouraged them to have the -- the
type of contract that he signed with them but then subsequently the
problem with the federal government and the regional government stopped
that contract from going on and I think, for reasons I don't know,
there is, they have fallen out. Having paved the way for them to set up
this arrangement, he now stands to lose the money but I think he's a
man who has been working on conflict of interests on a variety of
levels from the USA to Iraq, to the politics, to the Kurdish government
and at the same time working for a company which is going to contract
with the Kurdish government and this is an extreme case of conflict of
interest which I think amounts to an illegal act but I think this is a
matter for the US to deal with. Picking
back up on "in a very lengthy explanation and justification by the
Minister of Natural Resources of the KRG, Mr. Ashti Hara, at the
website of the KRG.org, he mentioned what happened, the genesis of the
story of DNO and its operations in Kurdistan for almost five, six pages
and yet the name of Peter Galbraith has not been mentioned even once"?
Jasim al-Azzawi appears to be referring to the letter from Dr. Ashti
Hawrami to DNO ("Subject: Causing Serious Harm to KRG Reputation") that
the KRG posted -- in PDF format -- September 21st. The KRG has now
removed the letter from their website. You can find a copy of it (PDF
format warning) here. The letter was quoted from in the September 22nd snapshot. We'll note this from Sherwood Ross' " U.S. FORCIBLY DEPORTED ISLANDERS AND GASSED THEIR DOGS TO MAKE WAY FOR DIEGO GARCIA MILITARY BASE" ( Veterans Today): In
order to convert the sleepy, Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia into a
dominating military base, the U.S. forcibly transported its 2,000
Chagossian inhabitants into exile and gassed their dogs.By
banning journalists from the area, the U.S. Navy was able to perpetrate
this with virtually no press coverage, says David Vine, an assistant
professor of anthropology at American University and author of "Island
of Shame: the Secret History of the U.S. Military on Diego Garcia
(Princeton University Press).""The
Chagossians were put on a boat and taken to Mauritius and the
Seychelles, 1,200 miles away, where they were left on the docks, with
no money and no housing, to fend for themselves," Vine said on the
interview show ""Books Of Our Time," sponsored by the Massachusetts
School of Law at Andover."They
were promised jobs that never materialized. They had been living on an
island with schools, hospitals, and full employment, sort of like a
French coastal village, and they were consigned to a life of abject
poverty in exile, unemployment, health problems, and were the poorest
of the poor," Vine told interview host Lawrence Velvel, dean of the law
school.Their pet dogs were rounded up and gassed, and their bodies burned, before the very eyes of their traumatized owners, Vine said."They
were moved because they were few in number and not white," Vine added.
The U.S. government circulated the fiction the Chagossians were
transient contract workers that had taken up residence only recently
but, in fact, they had been living on Diego Garcia since about the time
of the American Revolution. Merchants had imported them to work on the
coconut and copra plantations. Vine said the U.S. government induced
The Washington Post not to break a story spelling out events on the
island."Through Diego
Garcia," Vine pointed out, "the U.S. can project its power throughout
the Middle East, and from East Africa to India, Australia and
Indonesia. With Guam, the island is the most important American base
outside the U.S." He said U.S. bases now number around 1,000, including
287 in Germany, 130 in Japan and Okinawa, and 57 in Italy. |
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