Saturday, June 07, 2014

Nouri's Iraq: Civilians killed by the military, university stormed, and more

In Iraq today, the big news was what happened on a campus.  AFP reports, "Jihadists took students and staff hostage at Anbar University in the Iraqi city of Ramadi on Saturday, while fighting between security forces and militants in a northern city killed 59 people." Xinhua adds, "Earlier in the day, dozens of gunmen stormed campus of Anbar University, which located in the western edge of the provincial capital city of Ramadi, while hundreds of students and teachers were trapped in the school buildings, the source said." AP offers, "Several hours later, gunmen left the university under unclear circumstances. Students then boarded buses provided by the local government to flee the school, though gunfire erupted as security forces attacked retreating militants, police said."



Ramadi is, of course, in Anbar Province which Nouri has been attacking since December 30th.  He claimed it would be an operation which lasted only a couple of weeks.  That was six months ago.  Ramadi and Falluja are the two most populated cities in the largely Sunni province.  Kareem Fahim (New York Times) reports:


Officials said that some of the students at Anbar University were briefly held hostage by militants and then released. But two professors who were at the university said that the gunmen they encountered had in fact encouraged civilians to leave the grounds.
The assault was the latest blow to government forces after three days of fierce attacks by Sunni militants stretching across the country.



BBC News offers a video report by Youssef Taha who observes, "It's an operation that would attract a lot of media attention, but it's a major embarrassment for the prime minister."


Nouri's a War Criminal.

They don't shame easily.

Since the start of the year, he's committed War Crimes by bombing the residential neighborhoods of Falluja.  He's killed and wounded tons of civilians -- this includes children.  Today?

NINA reports 7 civilians were killed (including "children") and seventeen more were left injured (also including "children").

Apparently feeling Nouri should up the daily death toll, the White House is providing him with F-16s.

And Nouri's expanded it to Mosul.  NINA reports that he's begun bombing Mosul neighborhoods today.

Mosul is in Nineveh Province -- so now he's targeting both Anbar and Nineveh.  What do they have in common?  Unlike the Shi'ite Nouri al-Maliki, the people in those two provinces are predominantly Sunni.

And Barack's handing Nouri F-16s so he can complete the ethnic cleansing all the sooner.

In other violence, Al Arabiya News notes, "A wave of car bombs exploded across Baghdad on Saturday, killing more than 60 people."  Belfast Telegraph notes the bombings "largely focused on Shiite neighborhoods."  National Iraqi News Agency reports Baghdad Operations Command announced they killed 9 suspects, a Mosul battle left 9 police members dead with a tenth injured, and an al-Ratba battle left 1 police member dead and two Iraqi soldiers injured.  Also on this topic, Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) has a report (video and text) on violence in Mosul on Friday.



The following community sites -- plus Chocolate City, Dissident Voice, Susan's On the Edge, Ms. magazine's blog, Antiwar.com, Pacifica Evening News, Guardian, House Veterans Affairs Committee and Z on TV -- updated:









  • The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.







    cnn
    mohammed tawfeeq 

















     





    I Hate The War

    This week's big development was the sudden interest in war resisters on the part of the corporate 'left' and its lackeys.

    Rachel Maddow felt the need to pontificate in her wordy but useless manner in defense of a soldier who many said deserted.

    The world's collective jaw dropped in shock.

    Maddow hails from Air America Radio -- and, as with MSNBC, she couldn't find an audience there either.


    On Air America Radio, The Majority Report (Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seder) would speak to war resisters. Not Rachel Maddow.  And when the topic of war resisters was raised during a live broadcast of the show, raised on the Unfiltered message board, Rachel had a freak-fest on air.  A meltdown.

    All that had been said on the message board by a listener was that Rachel and Lizz brought on vets twice weekly but never brought on a veteran against the war.

    This initial comment -- which other Unfiltered listeners agreed with -- outraged Rachel and Lizz.

    They had been on the air for nearly a year (at the one year mark, the show would be cancelled for low ratings) and never once had a veteran against the war -- let alone a war resister -- on the program which aired three hours each day, Monday through Friday.

    When listeners of the show who posted regularly on the message board raised the issue one day, it was meltdown time on air.


    While Rachel was trying to be the most macho tough guy in her rant about the comments, Lizz was like the  Chicken Lady (played by Mark McKinney) on The Kids in the Hall as she squawked and shrieked.

    And what's really funny was that Rachel and Lizz were trashing a longterm listener -- and a guy at that -- for kicking off the comments by raising the topic.  Their ratings were in the toilet. In just a little bit, they would be replaced on Air America with Jerry Springer.  But there they were trashing one of their male listeners who always posted to their program's message board.

    They were trashing him and running him down and making total idiots of themselves.

    Until Elaine posted (again) to say, "Hey, Starfish" or whomever "didn't post that comment, I did."

    Lizz Winstead is a useless piece of trash.   She toyed at being a radical but she's just really a bitch and how did Mike put it last month when he named her idiot of the week?  Oh, that's right she suffers from "a penis allergy."

    Lizz is useless, she's ugly, she's not funny, she's not talented.

    But the notion that she would attack her own fans?

    Well, it's good now that she no longer has any.

    For the real deal on Lizz and Rachel's awful and now forgotten show, click here for Rebecca's first post -- she started her website the day two kennel dogs went after Elaine.  Elaine, by the way, never produced bad radio.  She was too busy, due to the wars, treating veterans -- and doing so pro bono. Unlike Rachel or Lizz, Elaine's life has actually mattered, had purpose and meaning.

    So the point, those who self-check out, those who resist?  Condemned or ignored by Rachel Maddow until now and now she cares and she cares because her precious Barack is being criticized about a man who supposedly deserted.

    So suddenly she cares, the old War Whore suddenly cares.

    Because?

    Because she's trying to excuse Barack's actions.

    She's just a dirty whore.

    Like David Corn.

    At Mother Jones, he was all over defending Barack over Barack's predatory friendship with Bill Ayers.  (Barack used Bill, Barack's a user and Bill's always been an idiot.)  There was Corn Nuts insisting the Weather Underground was so long ago.

    Do you grasp the level of his whoring?

    They were laughing at The Nation magazine.

    The Nation had done a cover story on the Weather Underground in 2007 (we called it out at Third).  It was a vicious and bitchy article (which in retrospect demonstrated where Katrina vanden Heuvel intended to take the magazine) and a number of people -- staff, advisors, etc. -- were outraged.

    Not David Corn.

    He felt the article didn't go far enough.

    So when it emerged that Barack knew Bill much better than he let on (it was left to the Guardian to expose Barack's lie that his daughters played with the Dohrns' children -- Bernardine Dohrn and Bill's children were too old), Corn Nuts went into overdrive trying to rescue Weather Underground to save the Christ-child.

    Corn's actions in April 2008 were so bad that we would award him "Dumb Ass of the Week: David Corn" and "Liar of the Week: David Corn" at Third.

    David Corn, like Toad Gitlin, hates the Weather Underground.  But he bit his tongue.  He did more than bite his tongue.  He wrote to defend and applaud them.

    Why?

    To defend Barack.

    He would whore for Barack.

    And that's what's gone down this week.

    The corporate 'left' has whored to protect Barack.

    It hasn't been a good moment for the real left -- weak assed or spine enhanced.

    Weak assed can be seen with Ron Jacobs' ridiculous article.  The weak ass of US Socialist Worker saw their role as whoring for Barack as well.

    So the Rons write crap articles about the current soldier but fail to mention the war resisters of today's wars, the ones who publicly stood up, the ones who went to Canada, none of them are mentioned.

    After the 2008 election and before he was sworn in as president, we repeatedly insisted the left needed to press Barack to pardon the war resisters.

    But the Ron Jacobs can't ask for anything, let alone demand.

    So that didn't happen.

    Last week, as they whored for Barack, they made clear that there would be no efforts to use the current spotlight to attract attention to the war resisters in Canada.

    Remember when we used to include this?


     Ehren Watada  is part of a movement of war resistance within the military that also includes Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Justin Colby, Camilo Mejia, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson,  Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Joshua Key, Ricky Clousing, Mark Wilkerson, Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia,  Patrick Hart, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum. 
    Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.

    Some of those -- Ehren Watada, Camilo Mejia, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Kevin Benderman, etc. -- did not go to Canada.  But a number did.  Some remain in Canada: Jeremy Hinzman, Corey Glass, Kyle Snyder, etc.

    It's really amazing.

    Last week, corporate 'left' and weak ass 'left' wanted to rush to defend a soldier from charges of deserting.  But they didn't want to defend the war resisters who need defending.

    And two weeks ago, Monday, May 26th, we opened an entry with this:


    Iraq remains a story even if the world media lost interest.
    A service member who publicly refused to deploy to Iraq wrote an e-mail asking if he was manipulated?
    He took a stand that proved costly for him.  He lives with that stand and feels it was the right thing for him. But he wonders about all the 'support' he briefly had.  He notes how quickly it vanished and how the people he thought were outraged by the Iraq War no longer appear to care.
    We've gone from expressing outrage, he noted, over the conditions in Iraq to not even caring.
    And he's right.



    Where are those people who pretended to care about war resisters when Bully Boy Bush was in office?

    This past week was the perfect time for them to show up and demand that we remember there are people who refused to fight in an illegal war that the government lied about -- demand that we remember them and that they be pardoned.

    But the corporate 'left' doesn't care at all, the weak ass left is too far up Barack's ass and spine-enhanced left?  They just stayed silent.


    :



    It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
    There's a war going on
    So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
    And I'm writing a song about war
    And it goes
    Na na na na na na na
    I hate the war
    Na na na na na na na
    I hate the war
    Na na na na na na na
    I hate the war
    Oh oh oh oh
    -- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)


    The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4489.

    The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.





    54th VR Live Panel: Eastern Europe between Russia and West - bridge or wall?

    Exceprt from The Voice of Russia:

    54th VR Live Panel: Eastern Europe between Russia and West - bridge or wall?

    Speaking at the celebration of the anniversary of the first victory of non-communist parties at elections in Poland, Obama lashed out at Russia for what he called provoking violence in eastern Ukraine. He threatened imposing more sanctions on Russia and pledged to allot one billion dollars in military aid, which would increase NATO's military presence in Poland and other East European nations bordering Russia.


    These remarks by Obama found an enthusiastic audience on the Castle Square in Warsaw, where he delivered his speech. He was applauded by not only the presidents of Poland and Ukraine, but also by the presidents of the Baltic states, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovenia.

    But does it mean that the peoples of all of these countries actually view Russia as a threat to be countered by increased NATO military presence and by what Mr. Obama called "isolation"?

    Francis Boyle, professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and a graduate from Harvard University, James Thacara, a novelist and a human rights activist, Peter Lavelle, a well known RT's  television host, and Srđa Trifković, the foreign affairs editor at Chronicles Magazine, participated in Radio VR 54th Live Discussion Panel to share their views on the issue.

    Mr. Lavelle was puzzled by a rather belligerent speech delivered by Obama in Warsaw. "There are plenty of people like Victoria Nuland that continue this steamrolling of bringing military hardware and alliance that actually does use violence (we've seen it in Afghanistan, in Libya) and it gives NATO, in my opinion, a new breath on life. This is what they've been looking for. They need an enemy and Russia is the most convenient one," he said.

    Francis Boyle noted the absence of Mikhail Gorbachev at the ceremony despite the fact that he played a much more important role in the events 1989 than some presidents of Eastern Europe present. "Gorbachev would have been an embarrassment, because, as you know, Jim Baker made a promise to promote the reunification of Germany, that NATO would not advance one inch to the east. And of course President Clinton immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union proceeded to violate that pledge. And now with what is happening in Ukraine, we are seeing a reorientation of the American foreign policy towards a direct confrontation with Russia," Mr. Boyle said.

    He also added that it is a "dual confrontation" as the US seeks to take on both Russia and China at the same time, and that perhaps the fact that Obama was essentially Zbigniew Brzezinski's apprentice might be an important factor. "In the 2008 presidential campaign, and this really explains how Obama came from nowhere on the south side of Chicago to running for the president, Brzezinski was in charge of managing the entire foreign affairs and defense component of Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. And then, he stacked the Obama administration with his protégés," he said.








    LBJ AND J.E. HOOVER BEHIND MLK MURDER, NEW BOOK CHARGES (Sherwood Ross)

    37 Lyndon Johnson 3x4.jpg


    This is from Sherwood Ross.

    LBJ AND J.E. HOOVER BEHIND MLK MURDER, NEW BOOK CHARGES 

    By Sherwood Ross
    President Lyndon Johnson and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover were behind the murder of the Rev. Martin Luther King, a new book on the controversial assassination charges.

    "Hoover hated Rev. King because he thought he was a hypocrite, unfaithful to his wife, and a potentially subversive Communist, and he had opposed the Vietnam War," writes James D. Norvell, J.D., in the book "Treason, Treachery & Deceit," and "LBJ thought he would start a revolt against America's economic system."

    Rev.King was shot dead April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn., on the second floor balcony of the Lorraine motel. Escaped convict James Earl Ray was convicted of the assassination in March of 1969. Ray pled guilty in order to avoid a trial and possible death penalty but Norvell says Ray never shot Dr. King.

    The facts are clear, Norvell writes, that former FBI officials removed Dr. King's defenses just before he was killed, transferred potential witnesses the day before the murder and tampered with, "lost," and destroyed the evidence.

    Norvell---who spent 13 years investigating the assassinations of Rev. King and the Kennedy brothers---reported that Hoover and Texas oil magnate H.L. Hunt had argued over how to put an end to King's crusades. Hunt initially thought his radio broadcasts would silence Rev. King but Hoover thought they needed a "permanent" solution, Norvell writes. After the assassination of Rev. King, Hunt conceded to John Curington, his security assistant, that Hoover had won the argument.

    Author Norvell, late of Ft. Worth, Tex., was a 1964 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy with a degree in naval engineering. While in the Navy, he obtained an MSE from the University of Michigan and a juris doctor with honors from George Washington University. He rose to the position of Lt.-Cmdr. in the U.S. Navy and after resigning his commission practiced law for 30 years, some of them as attorney for LBJ aide and confidant Billy Sol Estes. 

    "James Earl Ray was another innocent patsy (similar to Lee Harvey Oswald) sold down the river by his attorneys, much like Sirhan-Sirhan (alleged killer of Senator Robert F. Kennedy) was," Norvell writes. "Each attorney was interested more in his own pocketbook than in defending Ray (or the other alleged assassins)." Ray's prison escape from Jefferson City, Mo., was "engineered," Norvell asserts, so that he could be the fall guy for the murder and because Ray was probably looking at life imprisonment anyway, if captured, and wouldn't mind if his guilty plea for Rev. King's "murder" got him 99 years.

    In addition to conspirators LBJ, Hoover and Hunt, Norvell identifies two shooters of Rev. King in his book: Lloyd Jowers and a mysterious U.S. intelligence agency operative known as Raoul, said to have confessed his part in the murder. Jowers was manager of Jim's Bar & Grill opposite the Lorraine motel.

    According to author Norvell, Raoul was Ray's handler and gave him assignments, such as the purchase of a deer rifle, and moved him to several cities around the country before ordering him to Memphis. Ray was a poor shot and not used in the assassination except to be set up as a "patsy."

    Rev. King's chauffeur, Solomon Jones, waiting in the parking lot of the Lorraine, saw two white men listening to Rev. King's conversation with his aides up on the balcony. When the fatal shot was fired, Jones cried out, "There they are, right there!"

    Norvell says neither of the men was Ray. He also notes that the black officers of the fire and police departments were pulled off the job before the slaying.

    The book, "Treason, Treachery, and Deceit: The Murderers of JFK, MLK & RFK" by James D. Norvell, may be ordered through Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, e-books, and nook books, among others.

    The book has been widely acclaimed and endorsed, including by military writers. Brig. Gen. John H. Grubbs, Ret., PhD, who refers to it as "a spellbinding masterpiece." Douglas Horne, former Chief Analyst for Military Records of the Assassination Records Review Board, writes, "Mr. Norvell does not pull any punches and does not sugarcoat the assassination in any way." 

    The 585-page book contains several hundred pages of graphic evidence.

    On the book's cover is the following statement: "This historical novel solves all three murders and refutes government propaganda." The book is 585 pages in length.
                                              #

    (This article prepared by media consultants Sherwood Ross Associates, publicists for the book. Reach Sherwood Ross at sherwoodross10@gmail.com. Ross formerly reported for the Chicago Daily News, UPI, and Reuters, and was a personal friend of Dr. King.)












    Friday, June 06, 2014

    Iraq snapshot

    Friday, June 6, 2014.  Chaos and violence continue, Nouri's War Crimes continue, the UN Security Council struggles with reading comprehension and possibly basic math as well,  more are displaced in Falluja, US Senators issues a bi-partisan call with regards to the VA, we take on a conspiracy theorist, and much more.






    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                 CONTACT: Murray Press Office (202) 224-2834
    Friday, June 6th, 2014                     
     
                                        
    VETERANS: Murray Joins Bipartisan Group of Senators to Urge Administration to Accept Free Private Sector Help to Fix Broken VA Scheduling System
    In letter to President Obama, Senators urge top-level private sector review of VA systems

    WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, joined a bipartisan group of nine U.S. Senators to call on the Obama Administration to accept private sector assistance in fixing the broken Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) scheduling system. In the letter, Murray along with Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Richard Burr (R-NC), Al Franken (D-MN), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), and Michael Bennet (D-CO), urged the VA to follow the example of the Army, which in 2010 allowed a consortium of leading technology companies to provide expertise in designing a corrective plan, at no cost to the taxpayers, to fix widespread data management issues uncovered at the Army’s Arlington National Cemetery.

    “Because of the immediacy of the many challenges at the VA, we urge you to work with us to implement a similar cost-effective, private sector initiative so we can begin restoring the trust of our veterans and the American public in the ability of the VA to meet the commitments our nation has made to our veterans.  Our military men and women, their families, and our veterans deserve nothing less.”

    “Engaging the tech sector and the best minds from leading American IT firms produced a comprehensive business plan to help the Army modernize its workflow procedures and upgrade the data management systems at Arlington.  That effort, conducted at no cost to the taxpayers, represented the very best traditions of corporate citizenship,” the senators wrote.

    Full text of the letter is below, and a PDF of the signed letter can be accessed here.

    June 5, 2014

    President Barack Obama
    The White House
    1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
    Washington, D.C.

    Dear Mr. President:

    Like most Americans, we are outraged at the documented misconduct at the U.S. Veterans Health Administration that has caused our military veterans to face long waits when seeking the medical care they have earned.  That some veterans actually have died while waiting for needed care adds urgency to our efforts to act immediately.  While last week’s preliminary Inspector General’s (IG) report indicated this is a systemic problem that dates back many years, it is our responsibility to take swift, decisive action now.

    The IG report details widespread information technology challenges that enabled many of the unacceptable and inappropriate use of scheduling gimmicks and outright fabrication of performance metrics at the VA.  We should be able to move quickly to begin restoring confidence in the VA by addressing these technology and data management problems in the current scheduling system.

    This is a crisis that requires immediate action, and we recommend enlisting the expertise of the private sector to provide an assessment and recommendations for improvements to the current IT and workflow challenges at VA.  By calling on our best minds across the private sector in a pro bono demonstration of solid corporate citizenship, we could create a blueprint for achievable action the VA should undertake within 60-to-90 days.  Our veterans deserve this quick action on these urgent issues. 

    We already have an effective template that sorts through most of the legal and process issues to allow this type of private-sector assistance.  For example, a 2010 Inspector General’s investigation revealed widespread mismanagement at the U.S. Army’s Arlington National Cemetery, including misplaced and mishandled remains of our warfighters.  The IG report also revealed that Cemetery managers continued to rely upon decades of vulnerable, hand-written paper files in managing burial records.  A consortium of technology companies operating under the auspices of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) jumped in quickly to provide their services and expertise at no cost to the taxpayer.  This task force ultimately worked with the Army to create a legal framework that enabled the Army and Arlington National Cemetery to accept their pro bono help.

    Engaging the tech sector and the best minds from leading American IT firms produced a comprehensive business plan to help the Army modernize its workflow procedures and upgrade the data management systems at Arlington.  That effort, conducted at no cost to the taxpayers, represented the very best traditions of corporate citizenship.

    We are confident that private sector expertise from across the country could be assembled to provide a similar pro bono service to help fix the challenges at the VA, and we stand ready to assist the Administration in moving quickly to help empanel this group. 

    Not every problem requires a government solution.  Because of the immediacy of the many challenges at the VA, we urge you to work with us to implement this cost-effective, private sector initiative so we can begin restoring the trust of our veterans and the American public in the ability of the VA to meet the commitments our nation has made to our veterans.  Our military men and women, their families, and our veterans deserve nothing less.

    ###
    Kathryn Robertson
    Deputy Press Secretary 
    Office of U.S. Senator Patty Murray
    154 Russell Senate Office Building
    Washington D.C. 20510

    202-224-2834



    Meanwhile, Jennifer Jackett (Gospel Herald) reports:

    Open Doors International, the "world's largest outreach to persecuted Christians in the most high-risk places," released a top 10 list, comprised of countries in which Christians have experienced the most violent incidents for their faith in Jesus Christ.  The report, based on persecution incidents that have occurred between November 1, 2012 and March 31, 2014, is topped by Nigeria and Syria.
    The remainder of the countries that made the list are: 3. Egypt, 4. Central African Republic (CAR), 5. Mexico, 6. Pakistan, 7. Colombia, 8. India, 9. Kenya, and 10. Iraq.


    What a proud moment for War Criminal Nouri al-Maliki, chief thug and prime minister of Iraq.

    He continued his War Crimes today.  National Iraqi News Agency reports Nouri continued bombing residential neighborhoods in Falluja and 3 civilians were killed with eleven more left injured.

    Nouri's been bombing Falluja like this for months now, killing civilians since January, bombing hospitals, water plants, electrical plants, you name it.  These are War Crimes and he is a War Criminal.

    The United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees issued the following on Falluja today:

    GENEVA, June 6 (UNHCR) The UN refugee agency on Friday said that violence in central Iraq's restive Anbar province has displaced close to half-a-million civilians so far this year. "With a deteriorating security situation, it is also becoming harder for humanitarian actors to reach those in need," said UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards.
    He told journalists in Geneva that the Iraqi government puts the number of displaced since January at 434,000 men, women and children. "However, the full scale of the displacement from this under-reported conflict is unknown, as the Iraqi authorities have had to suspend registration over the past month because of insecurity," he said, adding: "UNHCR believes the current figure is now close to 480,000."
    Iraq's new displacement crisis began in January with fighting between government forces and rebels in eastern Anbar. It has continued in various waves as the fighting locales shifted within Anbar. There was further displacement last month when fighters deliberately breached a dam in Anbar's Abu Ghraib district, flooding the area and forcing some 72,000 Iraqis from their homes.
    While the floodwaters have subsided, and people are returning to their homes, there are now health and recovery worries. Access to clean water is a pressing concern, because the flooding damaged water treatment plants. Local officials say 28 tanker truckloads of potable water are being delivered to the area every day, but this is only meeting 50 per cent of needs.
    There are also fears about further civilian flight from the city of Fallujah. Recent shelling of the city has sparked new displacement and hit a city hospital and water plant there.
    "Our field teams report that many displaced people are struggling to cope in desperate conditions, spread out across Iraq," UNHCR's Edwards noted. The highest concentrations of displaced people are in the Anbar and Salah al-Din governorates (provinces), followed by Erbil, Kirkuk, Sulaymaniyah and Baghdad.
    The more fortunate are living with friends and relatives, but others are in tents, schools, unfinished buildings and other types of communal shelters. In Anbar alone, where there are almost 300,000 displaced people, more than two-thirds are living in schools.
    "Displaced people tell us housing stock is limited, and increasingly expensive. Most are without income and are going into debt to pay for essential needs. Families say access to housing and food is a top priority," Edwards said.
    While UNHCR has provided emergency relief kits to more than 48,000 people and emergency cash assistance to 3,000 of the most vulnerable people, this represents a fraction of what is needed.

    "We urgently need to ramp up our response," Edwards stressed while noting that the challenges included difficulties reaching people because of the insecurity; the displaced are spread out across the country; and there is insufficient donor support. A UNHCR special appeal for US$26.4 million launched in March is only 12 per cent funded. "Better funding is critical to help those who are displaced now, and when they return home in the future," Edwards said.

    While the UNHCR cares, the United Nations Security doesn't give a damn about Iraq.  They make that clear again today with their latest nonsense.  Here's the first paragraph, see if you can spot the problem:


    The United Nations Security Council has stressed its support for the engagement of all political groups in Iraq, where nearly 800 people fell victim to violence last month, on concerted efforts to ensure security for its entire population, particularly in Anbar province, which has been embattled for months.  

    Did you spot the problem?

    Zoom in on "nearly 800 people fell victim to violence last month."

    Last month would be the month of May.

    I think we can all agree on that.

    800 victims of violence?

    There we've got a problem.  Victims of violence would include the dead as well as the injured.  Yes, the injured are victims of violence.

    'Okay, they said nearly 800 victim to violence when they meant 800 dead.  Big deal.'

    Well, it is a big deal.

    The wounded are a big deal.

    The wounded have to live in the violence. The dead are lucky in that regard, their suffering ended.  They're not now, for example, living in a war zone but without a limb.

    But that's not even the problem.

    Yeah, the UN Security Council meant nearly 800 dead.

    They meant it but they were too stupid to say it.

    You know what else they were too stupid to do?

    Read.

    Read and comprehend.

    This is the UNAMI statement containing the figures that the Security Council is using:



    Baghdad, 1 June 2014 – According to casualty figures released today by UNAMI, a total of at least 799 Iraqis were killed and another 1,409 were injured in acts of terrorism and violence in May*.


    The number of civilians killed was 603 (including 144 civilian police), while the number of civilians injured was 1108 (including 218 civilian police). A further 196 members of the Iraqi Security Forces were killed, and 301 were injured (not including casualties from Anbar operation).
    “I strongly deplore the sustained level of violence and terrorist acts that continues rocking the country. I urge the political leaders to work swiftly for the formation of an inclusive government within the constitutionally mandated time frame and focus on a substantive solution to the situation in Anbar”, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General (SRSG), Mr. Mladenov said.
    Anbar excluded, Baghdad was the worst affected Governorate with 932 civilian casualties (315 killed, 617 injured), followed by Ninewa (113 killed 248 injured), Salahuddin (94 killed 146 injured), Kirkuk (22 Killed, 60 injured), Diyala (38 killed 28 injured). 
    *CAVEATS: Data do not take into account casualties of the current IA operation in Anbar, for which we report at the bottom the figures received by our sources.

    Operations in Anbar
    According to information obtained by UNAMI from the Health Directorate in Anbar, the total civilian casualties in Anbar up to 30 May were 195 killed and 499 injured, with 95 killed and 222 injured in Ramadi and 100 killed and 277 injured in Fallujah.

    How many people died in the month of May from violence?

    If you say "799," you may be stupid enough to serve on the UN Security Council -- in fact, you may be dumb enough to qualify as a permanent member.

    799 excludes Anbar Province.  Add the 195 to 799.  The total is 994.

    994 deaths is what UNAMI has for the month of May. 994 isn't "nearly 800," it's over 800.


    Let's stay with violence.  National Iraqi News Agency reports a Tikrit bombing left 1 police officer dead. a Baquba bombing and mortar attack left 1 person dead and five more injured, a Baghdad mortar attack left seven people injured, a Hawija attack left one officer injured, a Ramadi battle left 1 Iraqi soldier and 3 rebels dead, a Kirkuk car bombing left three people injured,  and 2 Qadisiyah bombings left one police member and his brother injured.  They also noting fighting in Mosul has left 7 Iraqi soldiers dead and three more injured, six police members injured, 25 rebels were killed, 7 police members were killed and twenty-three injured, 10 Iraqi soldiers dead and fourteen injured, and 2 car bombings left 25 civilians dead and thirty-five injured.  AFP reports that "two suicide bombers blew up vehicles in the Shabak village of Al Muwaffaqiyah, east of Nineveh provincial capital Mosul, killing four people and wounding 45, police and medical officials said." Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts 166 violent deaths today with 101 people left injured.


    Moving over to conspiracy theories, nut job MJ Rosenberg (MWD) froths:

    The Bergdahl frenzy is the phoniest pretense for Obama bashing since Benghazi. But that does not mean it won't succeed.
    In fact, I think it is possible that a Republican Congress will impeach Obama over one or both of those issues (ike President Clinton, he would not be convicted because even a GOP Senate could not muster 67 votes for conviction.)


    Is that what you think, you raving nut job conspiracy theorist?

    MJ Rosenberg is a graduate of Media Matters which means he majored in sexism and minored in delusion.  He lets the crazy run free because that's what Professor David Brock taught -- carrier monkey that he is.  Excuse me, diseased carrier monkey that he is bringing all of his unethical methods over to the left from the right after he'd burned his bridges there.

    Taught by the master teacher in deception and lies, David Brock, a student can learn to make up any lie in the world and pimp it.  That's what the disgraced David Brock did to Anita Hill, after all.  A cheap little liar who has never made amends.

    MJ Rosenberg studied under a quack and a liar so he is what he was taught.

    But in the real world, there are many reasons to be upset with Barack surrendering 5 prisoners from Guantanamo for one US soldier.

    1) The Congress wasn't informed.  First and foremost -- though a 'graduate' from Media Matters would never understand this, those who train under David Brock don't learn the Constitution -- this is a democracy, this is not a monarchy.  Senator Dianne Feinstein is offended by the lack of notification to Congress.  I've known Dianne for years.  I'll say about 20% of her being offended is personal as a member of Congress who should have been notified.  But the other 80%?  That's Dianne being offended -- rightly -- because of her role.  It's not about her.  It's about America's representatives.  That's what Dianne is, she's in the Senate to represent the people of California -- so is Senator Barbara Boxer.  And whatever other faults I have with them, both women do grasp the importance of their roles.  I would argue that's true of other senators as well.  Senator Al Franken takes it so seriously it's almost an obsession.  (And that's a great obsession to have, trying to represent the people of your state.)  Those are just Democrats but there are Republicans -- many -- in the Senate who take this role and this obligation seriously.  We have a system of checks and balances.  We do not have a king in the US.

    Glenn Greenwald:

    But as even stalwart Obama defenders such as Jeffery Toobin admit, Obama “clearly broke the law” by releasing those detainees without providing Congress the 30-day notice required by the 2014 defense authorization statute (law professor Jonathan Turley similarly observed that Obama’s lawbreaking here was clear and virtually undebatable).


    2) Glenn Greenwald has made this very clear: By ignoring Congress to release the 5 from Guantanamo, Barack has made it clear that he thinks he could have released everyone there and closed it.  So why hasn't he?  He swore he'd do it if elected.  Then he got sworn in (January 2009) and broke his promise.  As Glenn has noted, this is a rather big point of the story.  Mike weighed in on that point earlier this week.

    3) Any soldier rescued would raise questions.  Jessica Lynch never lied about what happened to her.  I'm really tired of the dicks -- including Rachel Maddow and her phantom penis -- who try to lie about Jessica Lynch or use her name as a punchline.  When she spoke, she spoke the truth.   She was not responsible for the lies and the spin created by an administration trying to rally support for their illegal war.  My point here is that even when the spin was that she was being tortured or harmed, there were still some who wondered why a rescue mission was being carried out for her?  (There was no rescue mission.  She was being cared for -- as she herself notes -- in an Iraqi hospital.  She was not a prisoner.) Even at the height of the administration propaganda, there were people who questioned whether Jessica was 'worth' a rescue.  And, guess what, in a democracy that's allowed.  In a democracy, people discuss issues and find the point where everyone can agree.  That's what self-rule is. So the US soldier who was released in exchange for the five prisoners Barack surrendered, he was always going to be a question mark.

    4) Find a better family spokesperson.  I saw that crap this morning.  Good talking points.  Some of them cribbed from here.  But  he should have stuck to what the White House told him.  I picked up the phone while that nonsense was airing and asked, "You didn't tell him to talk about the mom did you?"  Don't talk about the mom.  She may be wonderful, she may be awful.  But she's married to the father and the father has been a bad image on this story since Saturday.  He needs to shave his beard immediately and appear in public and if anyone doesn't like that, my response is, "Grow up, this isn't about him.  This is about his son." You better believe if one of my children were in trouble, I would change anything -- hair, clothes, whatever -- to lessen any hostility towards one of my children.  This isn't about your right to grow a beard.  No one questions that right.  This is about you getting off your ass and helping your son.  Shave the damn beard.

    (FYI, when I saw the photos Saturday, I called an administration friend to ask why the hell the father didn't shave before appearing with Barack.  That bushy crap -- not shaped, not styled -- was disrespectful to the office of the president. Worse than that, it fed into the image of 'these are strange people.'  Shave the damn beard.)

    5) The White House has offered an ever changing storyline.  That doesn't help.  Each day is a new day for the novelist.  At this point, this late in the game, stop changing the story.  It makes the White House look dishonest.  Bite the bullet and own the decision or continue to have this dominate the news cycle.  See Frank James' "Explaining The Bergdahl Swap Hasn't Been Obama's Finest Hour" (NPR).

    6) The terms of the deal have been criticized.  The US got one person, the Taliban got five.  Elise Labott (CNN) noted earlier this week:

    While secretary of state, Hillary Clinton was skeptical of early plans to trade Taliban prisoners for American captive Bowe Bergdahl, former officials involved in the process told CNN on Tuesday.
    Clinton pushed for a much tougher deal than the one with Qatar that secured the Army sergeant's release in exchange for five terror detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, they said.

    Josh Rogin (Daily Beast) reports:

    Despite that the White House’s claim this week that the United States did not negotiate “directly” with the Taliban to secure the Bergdahl swap, the State Department, Defense Department, and White House officials did meet several times with Taliban leaders in 2011 and 2012 to discuss the deal. The negotiations, held in in Munich and Doha, fell apart in early 2012. But before they did, Clinton had a framework deal drawn up that was much tougher on the Taliban than what ultimately got done two years later.
    Three former administration officials who were involved in the process told The Daily Beast that Clinton was worried about the ability to enforce the deal and disinclined to trust the Taliban or the Haqqani network in Pakistan, which held Bergdahl until this weekend. Clinton was so concerned, the former officials added, that she may not have even signed off if the negotiations had succeeded.

    In Barack's administration, Leon Panetta headed the CIA and later was Secretary of Defense. David Conti (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) reported Wednesday:

     “I don't fault the administration for wanting to get him back. I do question whether the conditions are in place to make sure these terrorists don't go back into battle,” former CIA director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told a gas industry gathering in Pittsburgh.
    Panetta, who was in the Cabinet for four of the five years Bergdahl spent in Taliban custody, said he opposed a swap for the terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when he was Defense secretary.
    “I said, ‘Wait, I have an obligation under the law,'” Panetta said during a lunchtime address at the Hart Energy Developing Unconventionals DUG East conference at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown. “If I send prisoners from Guantanamo, they have to guarantee they don't go back to the battlefield. I had serious concerns.”


    That's two people who were in the administration and they're not rushing to dance in the streets.  If members of the administration were skeptical are you really surprised that there are Americans who would be as well?


    7) CBS News reports Hillary writes in her book (which is officially released Tuesday) on negotiating with the Talbian:

    I acknowledged, as I had many times before, that opening the door to negotiations with the Taliban would be hard to swallow for many Americans after so many years of war,

    Wow, is Hillary a psychic?

    No, she's just got more common sense than MJ Rosenberg.

    8) The soldier is a 'deserter' in the eyes of many.  If he self-checked out and had he gone public, we would have covered him here.  We cover war resisters.  I find MJ Rosenberg's sudden concern for war resisters to be suspect.  First off, he only applies it to one person.

    We cover war resisters.  We used to cover them all the time, for years and years.  There's just not enough information to cover them as much as we used to.  But we covered them and I know the hate mail that came in for that.  I personally support war resisters.  You don't have to agree with me on that.  But to be so outraged that they were even mentioned?  They are part of history.  They are news.

    This is from the April 17, 2007 snapshot:

    Starting with war resister news, Ehren Watada's father, Bob Watada, shared Saturday of how his son's struggle has inspired him.  Ehren Watada, in June 2006, became the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq.  In February 2006, his court-martial ended a mistrial and his next court-martial is scheduled for July 16th.  Brian Charlton (AP) reports that Bob Watada spoke Saturday at a Honolulu meeting of the Society of Professional Journalists where he explained, "It was because of him that I've gone out and educated myself."  Charlton notes the stroke Rosa Sakanishi (Ehren's step-mother) suffered.  That was in January at the rally in DC, shortly after Bob Watada spoke.  Ann Wright managed to catch Sakanishi as she was falling.
    There are many lessons to be learned from Watada and other war resisters.  Ehren Watada  is part of a movement of war resistance within the military that also includes Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Justin Colby, Camilo Mejia, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson,  Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Joshua Key, Ricky Clousing, Mark Wilkerson, Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia,  Patrick Hart, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum. 

    Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.

    That second paragraph?  It appeared daily in every snapshot for about two years.  Maybe longer.

    When a non-war resister in Canada attacked me online, we continued to cover war resisters.  When a name mentioned in the list had a freak-fest in the e-mail, we continued to cover war resisters.  (And I continued to cover him.)  We covered them because their stands are important.  We also covered them because of the hate mail from people who were outraged that we would cover war resisters.  There were tons of e-mails every week expressing hate and threats.  I don't back down in the face of threats, I never have.  Threats usually make me determined to continue to do something.

    The Iraq War is illegal (it's also ongoing though people in this country don't want to admit that either).  I do not slam anyone for deploying to Iraq.  I also do not slam anyone for refusing to deploy to Iraq (or redeploy).  My non-slam policy does not extend to those who planned and started the illegal war.  But I don't condemn  those who served or those who resisted -- I do condemn those who gave the orders for war and those who continued the war -- that includes liars in the press, cowards and liars in the Congress, it's a long, long list which includes President Barack Obama and former Oval Office Occupant Bully Boy Bush.

    Jim Acosta (CNN -- link is text and video) reports on National Security Advisor Susan Rice:

    Susan Rice, who on Sunday said Bergdahl served the United States with "honor and distinction," told CNN in an interview that she was speaking about the fact the Idaho native enlisted and went to Afghanistan in the service of his country.
    "I realize there has been lots of discussion and controversy around this," Rice said. "But what I was referring to was the fact that this was a young man who volunteered to serve his country in uniform at a time of war. That, in and of itself, is a very honorable thing."

    Great, Susan.  So you'll now praise Joshua Key for doing "a very honorable thing" since he enlisted and deployed to Iraq?  He self-checked out as the press insists Bergdahl did.  Will you take the time to say he served with "honor and distinction"?  What about Camilo Mejia or Kyle Snyder -- both of whom served in Iraq and then self-checked out?

    No, you wouldn't, Susan.  You're a hypocrite just like the goons of MSNBC or, for that matter, Media Matters.

    I defend war resisters.  I am very aware that many others do not.  So MJ Rosenberg needs to stop his whoring and his hypocrisy.  There is no real caring on his part for war resisters.  He's whoring to protect Barack.

    9) This is not the first time Barack has released killers in US custody.  That was the whole point of "Now you're outraged by negotiations with terrorists."  Barack entered into negotiations with the terrorist group the League of Righteous.  That group killed and kidnapped many foreigners in Iraq -- including US service members.  Barack released their leaders -- who had been in US military custody -- to Nouri.  And did so over vocal opposition in the Senate.  He insisted that they would be held in prisons by Iraqis but instead they walked -- on all the charges, they walked.  Nouri set them free.  Now he arms them and gives them uniforms so they can terrorize Sunnis in Iraq.

    MJ Rosenberg is an unethical hypocrite.  Those are only nine things about the deal which might trouble Americans.  If it does trouble them, they need to address it, the media needs to address it, it needs to be part of a national conversation.  That's what happens in a democracy.

    I can be mature enough to know that as much as I support war resisters, there are Americans who never will.  That's their right.  They need to be true to their beliefs just as I need to be true to mine.  The expression of their beliefs and their objections does not mean they hate Barack, they want to impeach him or any thing else.  But conspiracy theorists like MJ Rosenberg have to see hate everywhere.


    As for the soldier in the news, did he self-checkout?

    I've stated all week, we don't know what he did and what he didn't do.  (Click here for a three-part video report on him from CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper.)  A few have e-mailed to say we should call him a war resister based on what is known.

    No.

    We made that mistake about eight years ago.  A family member of a soldier labeled the soldier a war resister  in press interview after press interview and we went with it and the press went with it and we walked it back months later saying ____ was not a war resister. When ___ finally spoke, ____ didn't speak of war resistance.  I can be the biggest idiot in the room but I do learn from my mistakes.

    Which is why, despite supporting Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic Party primaries, I won't be supporting her now.  I do learn from my mistakes.  The former First Lady, US Senator and Secretary of State has held hostage the willing news media with another book she had help writing -- why don't you credit co-writers, you just look stupid and vain otherwise -- and CBS News got an advance copy of the book and noted many things including this passage on Iraq:

    "[M]any Senators came to wish they had voted against the resolution. I was one of them. As the war dragged on, with every letter I sent to a family in New York who had lost a son or daughter, a father or mother, my mistake become (sic) more painful."
    "I thought I had acted in good faith and made the best decision I could with the information I had. And I wasn't alone in getting it wrong. But I still got it wrong. Plain and simple."



    As we noted this morning, "At this point, Hillary, what difference does it make?"  She should have said it in 2008.  Instead, it's taken her 12 years to get to this point.  A presidential term is four years.  I don't know that American can afford a slow thinker in the post.  She was in pain, you understand, because she had to write letters to families who had lost a loved one.

    Her pain?

    That's what she goes with?

    Her pain?

    How hard it was on her to write people whose loved one had been killed in Iraq?

    Again, I do learn from my mistakes.  Should she run in 2016, she will not have my support unless she gets honest about Iraq (including about how Nouri is a thug which she knows and has stated) and apologies to Pat Smith and others.


    I've said this before.  If Bill Clinton was the person involved, he would have already called Pat Smith and apologized to her.  (Pat Smith's son Sean Smith died in Bengahzi September 11, 2012.  Smith feels misled by Hillary and ignored by her due to Hillary failing to keep a promise she made.  The other three Americans who died that day -- who are known to have died that day -- were Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty and Chris Stevens.)

    Hillary's too politically stupid to grasp that she needs to apologize to Pat Smith.  She's also too politically stupid to come clean on Iraq.  If you wait 12 years to offer anything "plain and simple," people have a right to expect that you have reflected deeply during this time and have something of value to share.  Hillary is being as superficial in her 'reflection' as she was the day she voted for the Iraq War.







    elise labott





















    At this point, Hillary, what difference does it make?

    In her new book, Hillary Clinton's testing the waters for a possible presidential run.  It's all so disappointing, it's all so yesterday.

    But the same press that applauded her aggression in January of 2013 is mainlining her still-not-released book.  For example, Joel Siegel (New York Daily News) gets giddy:

      In a stark admission, Hillary Clinton says she "got it wrong. Plain and simple” when she voted as a U.S. senator to authorize the war in Iraq, according to her new memoir.
    Clinton’s support, in 2002, for the Iraq War Resolution dogged her unsuccessful 2008 run for President against Barack Obama, who opposed the war from the start.
    Clinton has distanced herself from her vote — but never in such forceful terms as in her soon-to-be released book, “Hard Choices.”


    Is it a stark admission?

    Sounds a little weak to me -- plain and simple.

    Catalina Camia (USA Today) offers:

    Recounting the criticism she encountered in the 2008 campaign for voting for the Iraq War, Clinton writes her “mistake” became more painful every time she sent a condolence letter while she was a U.S. senator to a New York family that lost a son or daughter.
    “I thought I had acted in good faith and made the best decision I could with the information I had. And I wasn’t alone in getting it wrong,” Clinton says, according to CBS News. “But I still got it wrong. Plain and simple.”


    And that seems strangely untrue.

    Here's CBS quoting from the book:

    "[M]any Senators came to wish they had voted against the resolution. I was one of them. As the war dragged on, with every letter I sent to a family in New York who had lost a son or daughter, a father or mother, my mistake become (sic) more painful."
    "I thought I had acted in good faith and made the best decision I could with the information I had. And I wasn't alone in getting it wrong. But I still got it wrong. Plain and simple."

    For the record, ahead of the New Hampshire primary, I started rooting for Hillary in January 2008.  Prior to that, I wasn't supporting her.  I wasn't supporting anyone.  I was focused on Iraq.  I was asked, by a friend at a college, to fill in for the Hillary speaker.  The poli sci class was hearing from a variety of people speaking for candidates and the Hillary speaker couldn't make it for whatever reason. I was there to speak to another of my friends' courses (two I believe) about Iraq.  But I filled in and thought about it -- I honestly was not focused on the primaries other than Iraq -- and thought she'd do a good job, Hillary.

    I'd already been face to face with the other two.  And I know Hillary.  So she seemed like the best choice.  John Edwards?  Please, Mr. Grabby Hands?  No.  Barack?  Elaine and I met him when he was seeking the Senate seat.  A friend was throwing a big bash to get big money donations and Elaine and I wanted to support this anti-war candidate.  But in our face to face, we brought up Iraq and the 'antiwar' politician told us the US was in Iraq so . . .  Antiwar, our ass.  Elaine and I walked out right then without writing a check.

    At that point, it was Hillary, Edwards and Barack.

    bloodywarhawks


    "Bloody War Hawks," Isaiah had dubbed the three.


    Dennis had given his voters to Barack to allow Barack to 'win' Iowa.  With that fake ass move exposed, Dennis found himself out of the debates and out of the running.


    So I was okay with Hillary. I was also sick of all the sexism.

    But I could handle Hillary despite the Iraq War vote.  And of the remaining candidates, none voted against it (in 2004, Barack told the New York Times he didn't know how he would have voted for the 2002 measure if he was in the Senate at that time).

    But that was then.

    Let me screech like Hillary did January 23, 2013, "At this point, Hillary, what difference does it make?"


    Her story now makes no sense.

    She knew it was wrong while she was in the Senate writing to the families of the fallen?

    Then why she didn't take real responsibility for it then or now?

    A few lines in a book?

    In 2008, her vote was used by Barack's campaign to destroy her.

    She might have said then what she says in her book, it might have meant something back then.

    But today?

    What it proves today is she doesn't appear fit to be president.

    She wasn't smart enough to save her own campaign by sharing this then.

    That does not speak well to her efforts to save the country.

    It takes her 12 years to own up to a mistake?

    That does not speak well to the skills required for a leader.

    What we're left with is that she's testing a trial run and trying to get Iraq behind her.

    That would explain the stupidity on her part that thought a few lines about an American disaster -- one she supported -- that tore apart at least two countries (the US and Iraq) -- would let her off the hook.

    It feels like tossed out sop.  It feeds into her negatives with the public which include "craven."

    National Iraqi News Agency reports a Tikrit bombing left 1 police officer dead. and 2 Qadisiyah bombings left one police member and his brother injured.  They also noting fighting in Mosul has left 7 Iraqi soldiers dead and three more injured, six police members injured, 25 rebels were killed, 7 police members were killed and twenty-three injured, 10 Iraqi soldiers dead and fourteen injured, and 2 car bombings left 25 civilians dead and thirty-five injured.

    That's just some of the violence.

    And it's on Hillary's hands.

    She supported the illegal war with her vote.

    Bad enough.

    Worse, she knows Nouri's a thug but she went along with Barack's unconstitutional plotting to give Nouri a second term.  When does she write about that?  About how, under Barack, the US government stomped out possible move towards democracy by Iraq?  About how demanding Nouri got a second term caused one crisis after another in Iraq over the last four years?

    Do we have to wait 12 years for her to get honest about that?

    She tosses out the fallen, stands on their backs, please note.

    There's no soul searching.

    She just tosses out the dead in one sentence where she makes it about her pain.

    Surely, it's more painful to write a letter than it is to lose a child in the Iraq War, right?

    To believe Hillary today, you have to believe that lie.

    She has yet again made it all about herself.

    She still hasn't dealt with Iraq or what her vote did or what the administration she was a part of from 2009 to to January 2013.

    Before Nouri was given a second term by the US government (via the US brokered Erbil Agreement), violence in Iraq had fallen, the Minister of Women was speaking out about what was needed, the woman even resigned in protest.  There was so much hope that a free Iraq might be created.

    Instead, Nouri was handed a second term by the US government and violence increased, he attacked protesters, he attacked and tortured journalists, he ran secret prisons and on and on.

    When Hillary wants to get honest about that, she may have something to say.

    Right now, she's just standing on the backs of the American dead trying to pretend she's genuinely sorry. Book writers who are genuinely sorry about something tend to devote a minimum of a chapter to what they're sorry about.

    Hillary just tosses out a couple of sentences.

    Reading that ridiculous sop, you really do have to wonder, "At this point, Hillary, what difference does it make?"


    The following community sites -- plus UK Socialist Worker, Cindy Sheehan, Tavis Smiley, FPIF and Antiwar.com -- updated:






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    The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.