Saturday, June 28, 2014

Iraq -- who hurts it more, Nouri or the press?

Can the press please stop lying?


This is the epitome of lying and the Los Angeles Times and Shashank Bengali should hang their heads in shame.  This is not reporting, it is whoring:


A meeting Saturday of the main alliance of Shiite lawmakers failed to reach consensus on a prime ministerial candidate as the bloc remained divided over Maliki’s push for a third term. U.S. officials have urged Iraqi leaders to speedily form an inclusive government, and on Friday the revered Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali Sistani demanded that lawmakers choose a prime ministerial candidate before parliament opens Tuesday, a call that appeared likely to go unheeded.
Ali Fayadh, a lawmaker from of Maliki’s State of Law coalition, which won the most parliamentary seats and therefore had the first crack at nominating a prime minister, said the bloc was considering alternate candidates to Maliki but that it was “not in a hurry” to make a decision.


No, Nouri doesn't get first crack.

I'm tired of this and don't give me the excuse of "I was summarizing what Ali Fayadh said!"

No, you were whoring.

And this lousy whoring has led Iraq to this point.

Take responsibility for your actions and at least stop whoring for a few weeks.


Are we forgetting the 'judicial' decision Nouri pulled out of his ass in 2010?

The one he put in his pocket and failed to inform anyone of ahead of the election.  It was his worst case scenario card.  If he didn't win the most seats, he had that decision.

And he used it because he lost in 2010.

The judicial decision said it wasn't about the biggest grouping before the election, it was about the biggest grouping after the election.

So stop whoring.

Press whoring for the last four years have allowed Iraq to arrive at the crises.  If you can't be honest, just don't say a damn word.

Violence continues in Iraq.  Some of the reported news?  National Iraqi News Agency reports 7 rebels were killed in a battle to the "north of Falluja," a Jurf al-Sakhar battle left 4 Iraqi security forces dead and eight more injured, a Samarra mortar attack left 2 people dead, Baghdad Operations Command announced they killed 11 suspects, and Salahuddin Province Governor Ahmed Abdullah al-Jubouri announced 60 suspects were killed in the province,    



Last November, US President Barack Obama met with Thug Nouri al-Maliki in DC and then Barack demanded that a wary Congress -- concerned about Nouri's long list of well documented human rights abuses -- provide Nouri with weapons.  To the misfortune of the Iraqi people, Barack got his way and Nouri is armed.  Arwa Damon, Chelsea J. Carter and Laura Smith-Spark (CNN) report how that's going:

Iraq's air force carried out a series of airstrikes on Mosul, according to a senior Iraqi military official.
The airstrikes targeted four locations inside Iraq's second-largest city, including ISIS headquarters, said Mazen al-Safaar, a traffic director in Mosul.
But a doctor says the airstrikes also hit Mosul's administration building and the Old City's shopping district.
At least seven civilians were killed and two were wounded in the airstrikes, according to Dr. Salaheldin al-Naimi, the director of the health administration.

Now if this were a city which was predominately Shi'ite, Nouri would take care.  But it's just a Sunni town, after all, and Nouri's made clear that Sunnis are 'terrorists.'  Sunni politicians?  He's called them 'terrorists.'  Sunnis who peacefully protest?  He's called them 'terrorists' as well.

So he doesn't feel constrained by humanity or compassion when it comes to Sunni areas.  He doesn't even feel constrained by the law.  He knows he can -- and did -- commit War Crimes while Barack looked the other way.

He knows the US Congress is a cowardly bunch that will pass, for example, the Leahy Amendment, they just won't enforce it.  To do so would mean to cut off all funds to Iraq right now.

Can't have that, not when Barack's putting US troops in and having drones fly over Baghdad and so much more.

Heaven forbid that the laws -- either US laws passed by the Congress or international laws -- be followed.

At the Washington Post, Loveday Morris notes a whining baby:

“These planes are over 20 years old,” said a senior military officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the negotiations. He voiced concerns that using the outdated technology could mean large numbers of civilian casualties. “Even when you get them, you still need training for pilots. They aren’t just taxis that one can just jump into and drive,” he added, pointing out that many of the Iraqis who were trained to fly them are now too old.

Tip to Loveday, if you're going to quote someone be clear on who you're quoting.

I don't mean a name but I think readers have a right to know whether the cry baby liar is an American or an Iraqi "senior military officer."

Whichever, it's a damn liar.  Nouri's never given a damn about civilian casualties and maybe if the Washington Post had gotten their  ass and reported on Nouri's bombings of the residential neighborhoods of Falluja -- bombings he's been carrying out since January, the whole world would realize what a cheap whore the unnamed "senior military officer" was.

Iraqi Spring MC and BRussells Tribunal note the victims of Nouri in Falluja on Friday, "The intended random bombing continued by Maliki's army on civilian homes in the separated areas of Fallujah causing  --at the initial outcome- killing of three civilians including 17 years old girl –and wounding of 5 civilians."

Will Michelle Obama do a 'bring our girls home' for the 17-year-old Iraqi girl?

No, she won't.

Hashtag "doesn'tgiveadamn!"

These murders -- which are legally defined as War Crimes -- have been going on for six months now with not one word from the White House.

WG Dunlop (AFP) has a good overview of events of this week. Arab Times notes this on the political situation:

In a stunning political intervention on Friday that could mean the demise of Maliki’s eight-year tenure, powerful Shi’ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani urged political blocs to agree on the next premier, parliament speaker and president before a newly elected legislature meets in Baghdad on Tuesday. Saudi King Abdullah pledged in talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry to use his influence to encourage Sunni Muslims to join a new, more inclusive Iraqi government to better combat Islamist insurgents, a senior US official said on Saturday. Abdullah’s assurance marked a significant shift from Riyadh’s unwillingness to support a new government unless Maliki, a Shi’ite, steps aside, and reflected growing disquiet about the regional repercussions of ISIL’s rise. “The next 72 hours are very important to come up with an agreement ... to push the political process forward,” said a lawmaker and former government official from the National Alliance, which groups all Shi’ite Muslim parties. The lawmaker, who asked for anonymity due to political sensitivities, said he anticipated internal meetings by various parties and a broader session of the National Alliance including Maliki’s State of Law list to be held through the weekend. Some Sunni Muslim parties were to convene later on Saturday. Iraqi Sunnis accuse Maliki of freezing them out of any power and repressing their community, goading armed tribes to support the insurgency led by the fundamentalist group ISIL. The president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region has also said Maliki should bow out. Sistani’s entry into the fray will make it hard for Maliki to stay on as caretaker leader as he has since a parliamentary election in April. 

Matt Brown (Australia's ABC) covers the latest here.

As violence continues out of Iraq, today's big news is what developed in yesterday's news cycle.  From yesterday's snapshot:

Today's big news?  The Peshmerga, elite Kurdish forces, entered Kirkuk this month to provide protection.  Aslumaria reports KRG President Massoud Barzani declares that action is a form of Article 140 and the issue of who has the right to Kirkuk -- the KRG or the central government out of Baghdad -- has been decided with this action.  Of Article 140,  Chelsea J. Carter, Arwa Damon and Raja Razek (CNN) maintain, "However, the vote never took place because of instability in most of the disputed areas."
That's spin, that's not reality.
First, it wasn't just a vote.  It was a census and a referendum.
Second, in October of 2010, Nouri was backing holding a census in Kirkuk at the start of December 2010. He only dropped that idea after The Erbil Agreement gave him a second term as prime minister.  Shortly after that happened, he announced the census was being put 'on hold.' And, no, he did not give violence as a reason.


This remains the big news in Iraq with Al Jazeera noting today:

Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting from Erbil, said Barzani's statement was expected to put more strain on the Baghdad government.
"The Kurds see themselves in a position of strength, and say the Iraqi government's pullout forced Peshmerga forces to fill the security vacuum," she said.
Kurdish forces stepped in when federal government forces withdrew in the face of a Sunni rebel offensive led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) earlier this month.

Barzani's remarks continue to be the big news.  And they were made on Thursday.  Karwan Salihi (Kirkuk Now) notes, "Barzani visited Kirkuk while Kirkuk’s governor NajmAldin Kareem was in Turkey. The new minister of the Peshmarga Mustafa Said KadirBarzani did not go with the president to Kirkuk."

Avi Asher-Schapiro (National Geographic) explains:

The seeds of the conflict can be found in the unique predicament of the region's estimated 30 million to 35 million Kurds, the world's largest ethno-linguistic group without a state of their own. Kurds are a traditionally nomadic people from the crossroads of Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Persia, united by a common mother tongue—a group of Iranian languages known as Kurdish—and a shared history of life on the margins of the greater regional empires in western Asia.
Though most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, they have no affinity with the ISIS-led Sunni insurgency, and there are Christian, Jewish, and Shiite Kurdish minorities. As a multi-religious community, they are united by a historical connection to Kurdistan. "The Kurds are one of the oldest ethnic groups in the entire region—and they consider Kurdistan to be their homeland," says Christian Sinclair, president of the Kurdish Studies Association and assistant director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona.


We'll note World Can't Wait is on the ball:

Day of / Day After Protests When the US Starts Bombing Iraq

IN THE EVENT of U.S. bombing of Iraq, choose the best protest location in your city/town, and call on people to go there at 5:00 pm the day of the attack, or, in the case of an evening attack, the next day at 5:00 pm.
Post your event on Facebook.
Post your event at worldcantwait.net.


The following community sites updated:




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


     
     















     










































    I Hate The War



    Pompous Marie Harf, State Dept spokesperson, is mocked in Arab media and she brings it on herself.  Maybe her blunt -- and, at times, insipid remarks are better than the ease with which Jen Psaki or Victoria Nuland or Philip Crowley or Sean McCormack or . . .

    From the June 24th State Dept press briefing:

    QUESTION: One way to interpret taking into account the new realities on the ground would be taking into account the Peshmerga’s seizure of Kirkuk. Does the U.S. Government believe that Kirkuk and its oil reserves now belong to the Kurdish Regional Government?


    MS. HARF: Well, look, our position on the export or sale of oil inside Iraq, anywhere inside Iraq, is the – has to happen with the appropriate approval of the federal Iraqi Government, that it is, indeed, owned by the Iraqi Government. Obviously, there are – we talked about this in here – whether the – when other people, including the Kurds, have tried to export it absent that approval, and we’ve said, obviously, we don’t support that. But look, the situation on the ground is fluid. Many people, including the Security Council, have called on Baghdad and Erbil to reach an accord on oil – on all pending subjects, including energy.


    QUESTION: But that’s been happening for 11 years. I mean – but they’ve been – there have been calls for that for 11 years. It has --


    MS. HARF: I’m aware of the history.


    QUESTION: It hasn’t happened, and the change on the ground that one would guess the Kurdish leader is talking about is a big one, which is that they now hold what they regard as their historic capital and its oil reserves. And so it sounds like your answer is, no, it doesn’t belong to the KRG, it belongs to a federal Iraqi state for as long as there is one. Is that fair?



    MS. HARF: It’s that our position hasn’t changed.

    No more pretty.  Little pretense that sides aren't and weren't chosen.

    Repeatedly, the State Dept has insisted they weren't taking sides on the oil issue and more gifted speakers have been able to walk the line so that there was the possibility that State wasn't choosing sides.  Their actions made clear they were backing Nouri but their words gave the indication that maybe that wasn't the case and actions were accidental or the product of chaos and not a plan that State was following.

    Then Marie Harf clomps into the room and makes clear, it is an anti-Kurd position and that it always has been.

    But a hiccup, this week, a hiccup.

    A legal victory for the Kurds.  The KRG notes:

    On 23rd June 2014, the Court convened a special meeting to address the Minister’s request and, after examining the reasoning behind his request, the Court decided unanimously to reject the request of the Minister “for being contrary to the applicable legal contexts in Iraq.”
    It is worth noting here that the Minister’s claims were based on his own interpretation of constitutional provisions to claim that the oil and gas affairs fall within the exclusive powers of the federal government. In so claiming, the Minister was relying on the centralized laws enacted prior to 2003, thus ignoring the fact that current constitutional provisions do not incorporate any oil and gas matters within Article 110, which defines the  exclusive powers of the federal government.

    With this Court decision, the Kurdistan Regional Government has another important clarification of its acquired rights as stated in the Constitution.  The Court ruling was taken by a unanimous decision of all its members, and it explicitly rejected the request made by the Minister. Such a decision by the highest court in the land is binding on the Minister and cannot be challenged in any way.

    This is a clear victory for justice and for upholding KRG’s rights, despite the Iraqi Federal Oil Ministry‘s interferences and unjustifiable interventions. This decision clearly demonstrates that the Federal Oil ministry and its marketing arm (SOMO) will also fail on all their reckless efforts on the international level.

      This judicial decision by the Supreme Federal Court must be respected, and now we call upon the Federal Oil Ministry, SOMO and all their helpers to abandon their illegal and unconstitutional interventions to prevent oil exports from the Kurdistan Region. They must also cease sending intimidating and threatening letters or making false claims to prospective traders and buyers of oil exported legally by the Kurdistan Regional Government for the benefit of the people of Kurdistan and Iraq.

    And that decision came down before Marie's latest flapping of the gums on this issue.

    Marie and State should have been aware of the verdict.

    They should also be aware that their active support and embrace of Nouri -- which was never backed by the law as they tried to claim -- looks even more repugnant and ill thought.

    The Kurds are not only an oppressed people, they've been the ones to attempt to work with the US government for decades -- even though the US government has repeatedly turned on them.  What a slap in the face the US government has repeatedly delivered to the Kurds over the oil issue.

    Nouri's failure to pass an oil law is the US government's failure since he's repeatedly promised to pass one since 2006 and now, 8 years later, there's still no oil and gas law.

    Marie and State should be pressed now, with a legal verdict being delivered, on where they stand? And why this verdict is not supposed to change anything?



    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.













    IAVA Calls on President to Meet with Vets and Leaders of the VSO Community

    Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America issued the following:



    CONTACT: Gretchen Andersen (212) 982-9699 or press@iava.org

    New York, NY (June 27, 2014) – As Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Acting Secretary Sloan Gibson and Deputy Chief of Staff Rob Nabors plan to update President Obama on the VA scandal this afternoon, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) urges the President to meet with Veteran Service Organizations to discuss restoring confidence within the VA. Earlier this week, the VA came under fire after the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) sent a report detailing systemic problems of veterans care to the White House.  

    Gibson was named Acting Secretary nearly four weeks ago after Eric Shinseki resigned following reports of wrongdoing and mismanagement at several VA hospitals and clinics across the country. 

    In early June, IAVA unveiled a “Marshall Plan” for veterans: eight steps the Obama Administration and Congress can take now to restore confidence in the VA. Among the steps are recommendations from IAVA’s 2014 Policy Agenda. IAVA urges Congress and the President to enact all of the recommendations from the plan. 

    “For nearly a month the President has been publicly silent on this growing controversy,” said IAVA CEO and Founder Paul Rieckhoff. “Especially on PTSD Awareness Day, it is even more urgent that the Administration lead on enacting real change into the VA. This is not a one-man solution. The President needs to hear firsthand from leaders within the VSO community and meet with vets outside the Beltway to hear the challenges our community is facing. A well-informed leadership is key to rectifying the egregious corruption plaguing the VA. We hope to work with the Administration to help lay the path forward for a 21st Century VA our veterans deserve.”  


    Note to media: Please contact press@IAVA.org to schedule an interview with IAVA leadership.
    Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (www.IAVA.org) is the nation's first and largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization representing veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and has more than 270,000 Member Veterans and civilian supporters nationwide. Celebrating its 10th year anniversary, IAVA recently received the highest rating - four-stars - from Charity Navigator, America's largest charity evaluator.




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    No intervention in Iraq (Sara Flounders)

    This is a repost from Workers World:



    No intervention in Iraq

    By on June 25, 2014

    Washington promotes deadly divisions

    Thirty-five years of U.S. subversion, intervention and then direct occupation of Iraq are the primary cause of the violent sectarian divisions now pulling that country apart.


    Any further U.S. intervention will have even more disastrous consequences for the population as a whole and the entire region. This may well be Washington’s plan.


    Since the Iranian Revolution, the U.S., through Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other absolute monarchies in the Persian Gulf, has exacerbated religious and national differences in Iraq to destabilize the entire region. It has funded and supported the most extreme sectarian organizations to divide Sunni and Shia Muslim Iraqis and Kurdish and Arab Iraqis. Divide and conquer has been a consistent option through six U.S. presidents, Republicans and Democrats.


    President Barack Obama’s announcement on June 19 that he was sending 300 U.S. Army Special Forces into Iraq shows the continued danger to the entire region.


    Obama promised there would be no U.S. boots on the ground — ignoring the 1,500 troops already there. He said he was just sending “advisors,” plus additional troops to guard the largest U.S. embassy in the world.


    But he added that the U.S. “will be prepared to take targeted and precise military action if and when we conclude that the situation on the ground requires it.” (National Journal, June 19) Six U.S. warships are in the Persian Gulf and 5,000 U.S. soldiers are just across the border in Kuwait. A total of 30,000 U.S. troops are in the region to back up the real possibility of military action.


    In a June 18 White House press conference, Obama said the U.S. is acting because “obviously issues like energy and global energy markets continue to be important.” Control over oil is the real reason for decades of divisive U.S. policy.


    U.S. role in Iran-Iraq war


    In 1979 the repressive and corrupt U.S.-supported Pahlavi monarchy in Iran, which had ruled for 25 years, was overthrown by a popular revolutionary upsurge that the U.S. was powerless to prevent or reverse. It shook the entire region. Wall Street and its client states were deeply concerned for their future as anti-imperialist sentiment swept the Muslim world.


    National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski publicly urged Iraq to use the opportunity to attack Iran and take back the Shatt-al-Arab waterway. This conflict was posed as a Sunni-Shiite struggle.


    The U.S. arranged for massive loans to Iraq from client states such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. U.S., British, French and German firms collaborated in helping Iraq. Iraq took the bait and attacked Iran.


    Before this, ever since the 1959 overthrow of its British-installed monarchy, Iraq had been outside Western imperialist control. With Soviet assistance, it had developed a modern infrastructure, advanced full and free education, a free health care system, and a nationalized oil industry to pay for it all. It was a secular state with a rich mosaic of religious and national cultures.


    From 1980 to 1988 the two major powers of the region were tied up in an exhausting and destructive conflict against each other. The U.S. found ways to send arms to both — openly to Iraq and in secret to Iran, as the Iran-Contra scandal confirmed.


    The most cynical description of U.S. strategy in this war came from former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who said: “I hope they both kill each other” and “Too bad they can’t both lose.” Over 1 million soldiers died in the war.


    When both countries were exhausted, they finally reached a ceasefire. Iraq was now tied to the West and the Gulf monarchies through an unpayable debt of $80 billion.


    Iraq found itself almost immediately a target of U.S. imperialism. Disarray in the Soviet Union in 1990 whetted the appetite of Wall Street to regain total control over Middle East oil resources.


    Suddenly Kuwait demanded immediate repayment of war loans. Through slant drilling, it tapped into Iraqi oil fields. Overproduction of oil created a glut; oil prices dropped so low that Iraq was in crisis.


    Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, appeared to have U.S. approval and blessing, as revealed in a taped conversation on July 25 between Saddam Hussein and U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie. But it was a setup. The Pentagon immediately froze Iraqi funds and rammed a resolution imposing an international economic blockade on Iraq through the U.N. Security Council. The Pentagon began a massive military mobilization. The U.S. war on Iraq started Jan. 16, 1991.


    ‘Desert Storm’


    In 42 days of relentless destruction, with a bombing attack once every 30 seconds, U.S. aircraft destroyed 90 percent of Iraq’s power plants and communications. Most damaging was the destruction of the water system. Water pumping stations, storage dams, hydroelectric power stations and sanitation, sewage, drainage and irrigation systems were destroyed. Cluster bombs, napalm and thousands of tons of radioactive and toxic depleted uranium rounds were used.


    Iraq’s agriculture — food processing, warehousing, distributing, fertilizer and pesticide facilities — was systematically destroyed. Hospitals, clinics and pharmaceutical factories were targeted. All major cement plants were destroyed, along with Iraq’s oil refineries, pipelines and storage tanks.


    At the end of the bombing campaign, then-President George H.W. Bush tried to unleash a sectarian war. Bush called on the Kurdish population in the north and the Shiite Muslim population in the south to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s government.


    The U.S. military imposed a no-fly zone on both regions, and a U.S.-protected Kurdish Autonomous Republic was established, dividing Iraq.


    Sanctions imposed on all imports and exports from 1990 to 2003 then killed more than 1.5 million people, or 10 times as many as had died in the U.S. bombing. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, asked about the half million Iraqi children who died of starvation and disease due to sanctions, said in a televised interview in 1996: “We think the price is worth it.”


    2003 U.S. invasion


    But the U.S. ability to enforce the sanctions waned. So in 2003, using the completely fabricated charge that Iraq was producing “weapons of mass destruction,” the Pentagon launched “shock and awe,” a bombing campaign that far exceeded the 1991 destruction.


    After the bombing, more than 200,000 U.S. and NATO forces rolled into a destroyed Iraq.
    From the first day of occupation, the U.S. promoted Iraqi organizations founded on religion, ethnicity, nationality or sect while outlawing political parties, especially the secular Ba’ath Party.


    Sectarianism was brought to Iraq by the U.S. This was a foreign concept for a population that had been religiously and ethnically mixed for hundreds of years.


    Under the U.S. occupation every ID card, checkpoint and neighborhood was divided by sect. Funds, resources, food and government positions were allocated by sect. Meanwhile, intelligence networks and thousands of secret operatives carried out horrendous crimes aimed at keeping sectarian fires burning.


    As resistance to the brutal U.S. occupation gained momentum across Iraq, sectarian militias were established. U.S. administrators employed the “Salvador option” in Iraq to divide the national resistance.

    This was a form of organized mass terror the U.S. used in Central America, especially in El Salvador and Guatemala, against revolutionary movements in the 1980s.


    John Negroponte, who had implemented the murderous U.S. policy in Central America, was named ambassador to Iraq. Sectarian death squads were created to divide Iraq along sectarian lines. Kissinger’s formula of “Let them kill each other” became a guiding policy.


    U.S. supports religious militias


    More recently, Negroponte’s top aide in Iraq, Robert S. Ford, was named U.S. Ambassador to Syria, just two months before the armed insurgency and orchestrated destabilization began there.


    The Saudi and Kuwaiti monarchists funded reactionary mercenaries and religiously based militias like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Both Turkey and Jordan provided secure bases, while Israel provided medical care and safe havens in the Golan Heights — territory seized from Syria — for this well-funded army. ISIS weapons overwhelmingly came from the Pentagon, but the process of acquisition was covert.


    This same sectarianism has been sustained by Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, who came to power in 2006 under the U.S.-led occupation. Maliki’s corruption and repression have earned him hatred throughout Iraq. But the U.S. may be interested in dumping the Maliki government because it made deals with Iran —  much to the frustration of the imperialists who put him in office to serve Wall Street’s interests. Washington is far more concerned about Iran’s growing influence in Iraq than they are about ISIS seizure of cities.


    The greatest crime in Washington’s eyes was the Maliki government’s refusal to sign a 2011 agreement that would leave thousands of U.S. troops in place. The sentiment in Iraq against the occupation was so great that even the U.S.-vetted Iraqi Parliament refused to accept this insult. Official U.S. troops had to depart, but covert operatives remained to subvert social cohesion.


    Now, as the ISIS militia have captured key cities with little or no resistance from the Iraqi Army, there is growing speculation that the central government may collapse. There is controversy, however, as to whether ISIS or other Iraqi elements — tribal, Baathist — are the major force behind the uprising.


    As demonstrated years ago in the Iran-Iraq war, the U.S. is not against arming both sides of a conflict — one side openly, the other through covert operations. At the same time U.S. politicians piously call for peace, unity and reconciliation. This destabilization policy is so well understood that it has a name: “constructive chaos.”


    Anti-imperialist unity the only solution


    Baghdad still has up to 1 million Kurds. Approximately 20 percent of Basra’s population in southern Iraq is Sunni. Samarra, a mostly Sunni city north of Baghdad, is home to two sacred Shia shrines. Every tribe and town in Iraq contains Sunnis and Shia.


    A three-way national breakup of Iraq, so often discussed by U.S. think tanks and policy makers, means continuing chaos and a permanent state of war in which only the oil companies, the arms suppliers and the warlords prevail.


    Wall Street has no interest in strong, unified states, whether secular, Sunni or Shia. The imperialists want an all-out Sunni-Shia civil war that would spread and weaken Iraq, Syria and Iran.
    Opposing every form of U.S. intervention is the only way forward.



    Sara Flounders is co-director of the International Action Center and has contributed to four books on Iraq. She has traveled to Iraq and Syria and helped coordinate major anti-war demonstrations in the U.S.












    Articles copyright 1995-2014 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.











    The Supreme Federal Court Rules Against Iraqi Minister of Oil's Request to Prevent KRG Oil Exports

    I know Marie Harf, State Dept spokesperson, isn't a smart person but maybe she should do a little research before she starts barking from the podium?  In other words, advantage Kurds.  The Kurdistan Regional Government issued the following:

    Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq (MNR.KRG.org) - Immediately after the KRG’s first export shipment on the United Leadership vessel in Ceyhan Terminal, the Iraqi Federal Oil Minister (the “Minister”) submitted a formal request to the Federal Supreme Court in Baghdad, (the “Court”) asking the Court to rule against the KRG Ministry of Natural Resources and prevent it exporting oil out of the Kurdistan Region.


    On 23rd June 2014, the Court convened a special meeting to address the Minister’s request and, after examining the reasoning behind his request, the Court decided unanimously to reject the request of the Minister “for being contrary to the applicable legal contexts in Iraq.”


    It is worth noting here that the Minister’s claims were based on his own interpretation of constitutional provisions to claim that the oil and gas affairs fall within the exclusive powers of the federal government. In so claiming, the Minister was relying on the centralized laws enacted prior to 2003, thus ignoring the fact that current constitutional provisions do not incorporate any oil and gas matters within Article 110, which defines the  exclusive powers of the federal government.

    With this Court decision, the Kurdistan Regional Government has another important clarification of its acquired rights as stated in the Constitution.  The Court ruling was taken by a unanimous decision of all its members, and it explicitly rejected the request made by the Minister. Such a decision by the highest court in the land is binding on the Minister and cannot be challenged in any way.


    This is a clear victory for justice and for upholding KRG’s rights, despite the Iraqi Federal Oil Ministry‘s interferences and unjustifiable interventions. This decision clearly demonstrates that the Federal Oil ministry and its marketing arm (SOMO) will also fail on all their reckless efforts on the international level.


    This judicial decision by the Supreme Federal Court must be respected, and now we call upon the Federal Oil Ministry, SOMO and all their helpers to abandon their illegal and unconstitutional interventions to prevent oil exports from the Kurdistan Region. They must also cease sending intimidating and threatening letters or making false claims to prospective traders and buyers of oil exported legally by the Kurdistan Regional Government for the benefit of the people of Kurdistan and Iraq.


    Please click here to see the decision (PDF, Arabic)





     

    The Secret of Change-Making (David DeGraw)

    David DeGraw notes the following:


    Friends,

    I’m embracing the power of vulnerability and humility...





    I had an intense realization, an epiphany that hit my mind in bright shooting lights… It didn’t happen in a quick lightening bolt flash, all at once, more like a Roman candle going off in the distance, just over the horizon, exploding in sloooow motion… you know how everything slows down when something intense is happening, when one moment feels eternal.


    It was a profoundly personal revelation, but it revealed a secret that you may find helpful to you in your journey…

    Three things have driven all of my successes: being deeply aligned with the zeitgeist, pumping out consistent content and taking bold action. The key to it all, all three of these things have to be happening in harmony.

    I used to edit and analyze news. I developed a feed, sort and file system that allowed me to scan through hundreds of news reports daily. This gave me an intensely in-depth understanding of what was unfolding and emerging throughout the world. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I became so aligned with the zeitgeist that I developed a strong intuitive sense of where mass consciousness was heading. You get so deep into it, you can read the tea leaves and flow one step ahead of it.


    In the process of aligning with the zeitgeist, I began posting excerpts from the most informative information I found and started putting out email newsletters. They became popular enough for me to make a decent living off of it. However, I then felt an overwhelming sense that there was way too much unnecessary suffering in the world. When you get a deep understanding of social, economic and political issues, man oh man, you can see how truly horrifyingly corrupt and injust the system is, by design. At that point, I instinctively started making crystalline sense out of it and wrote bold calls to action, which began my journey into activism… Anonymous, 99%, Occupy and… B.O.O.M…

    I was thrown on top of a wave of transformation and was riding the zeitgeist. Holy shit, nothing was ever the same after that. Everyone I ever wanted to meet, I got to not only meet them but also have developed strong and meaningful relationships with the people who actually lived up to the hype surrounding them. Endless interview requests from all over the world poured in. Opportunities to do everything from reality TV to consult for the very corporations I rallied against were coming in from every direction. I had no interest in “selling out,” so I turned down everything, other than a handful of interviews that I did with people I had respect for. In mainstream media, the only interviews I agreed to do were with Dylan Ratigan, who, at the time, was the only person on television that was actually reporting on the issues that mattered most, and he is a close friend.


    Anyhow, all of that attention and energy flowing at me took me off my game and made me retreat into being a very private and behind the scenes person. I stopped analyzing the news and pushing out content on a consistent basis. I began a painstaking process of developing a long-term strategy around rebooting community centers into transformation hubs and developing a decentralized global network of sustainable autonomous zones. It’s a plan that I firmly believe in, but it is incredibly ambitious and demands a ton of change-making momentum to get it going. So, I then recently reverted back to activism and began organizing a Worldwide Wave of Action. The campaign is ongoing and has been incredibly successful on many levels. Alas, it is yet to deliver that breakthrough zeitgeist splitting energy force that can crack open mass consciousness again and actually evolve society and achieve the urgently needed change that eluded us last time.
    Ok, I’m fully aware that people will think that the last sentence reeks of absurdly ambitious, naïve to even entertain the thought of doing such a thing rhetoric. While I can understand that reaction, because that’s what we are propagandized to think, I’m still in touch with the zeitgeist enough to know that it is going to happen. It’s just a matter of when, exactly, it will happen. The Worldwide Wave of Action gave me another deep view into what is emerging globally, and it is nothing less than an unprecedented global uprising. The forces of centralization and consolidated power are collapsing on all fronts. The decentralized evolution is already well underway.


    Unfortunately, time is not on our side. The old paradigm is collapsing in spectacular fashion and taking down the overwhelming majority of humanity and the planet with it. The longer it takes for the new paradigm to blossom, the harder it will be to overcome the damage already done. Every millisecond of my day, every fragmented thought in my head, every strand of my mutating DNA is dedicated to this most grandiose calling. As much as I may want to, in times of weakness and frustration, I can’t shake or deny this ever-evolving mission.


    Getting back to the revelation and realization I had, I now understand that I have to get back to what I was doing, what worked in the first place: get deep inside the zeitgeist and pump out consistent content. From there, bold mass consciousness shifting actions will organically occur.


    To be as efficient and effective as possible, I need to have a steady baseline income flow while doing this. As much as I want to operate outside the old paradigm’s financial system, I have a family to take care of. I don’t want to turn to advertisements or force people to pay for subscriptions to see content. So, once again, I’m going back to what worked in the first place. 


    I’m requesting voluntary monthly subscriptions. The more support you give, the more time I can dedicate to analyzing the news and pumping out quality content. If you think the content that I put out is of value to your life, if you want to be part of the next phase of this journey, please show some love and support by subscribing here.


    I’m sure there are some of you that are sick and tired of appeals for financial support. I hear that! I am as well. Every day my email inbox is filled with them. I do not enjoy asking for support. The entire process feels humiliating on an ego level. However, in the grand scheme of things, if that’s what is required to fulfill the mission, you get over it and you do it.


    I’m embracing the power of vulnerability and humility!


    Time to align and thrive. Let’s do this!


    Enjoy your weekend,


    David










    Friday, June 27, 2014

    Iraq snapshot

    Friday, June 27, 2014.  Chaos and violence continue, Nouri whines about buying "US jets," militarized drones are reported over Iraq, Hillary can't stop lying about Iraq, we call out Michael Ratner's suggestion of forced deportation of those who got it wrong on Iraq, and much more.


    Today's big news?  The Peshmerga, elite Kurdish forces, entered Kirkuk this month to provide protection.  Aslumaria reports KRG President Massoud Barzani declares that action is a form of Article 140 and the issue of who has the right to Kirkuk -- the KRG or the central government out of Baghdad -- has been decided with this action.  Of Article 140,  Chelsea J. Carter, Arwa Damon and Raja Razek (CNN) maintain, "However, the vote never took place because of instability in most of the disputed areas."

    That's spin, that's not reality.

    First, it wasn't just a vote.  It was a census and a referendum.

    Second, in October of 2010, Nouri was backing holding a census in Kirkuk at the start of December 2010.  He only dropped that idea after The Erbil Agreement gave him a second term as prime minister.  Shortly after that happened, he announced the census was being put 'on hold.'  And, no, he did not give violence as a reason.


    Dropping back to the July 26, 2011 snapshot for more on this issue:


    Of greater interest to us (and something's no one's reported on) is the RAND Corporation's  report entitled "Managing Arab-Kurd Tensions in Northern Iraq After the Withdrawal of U.S. Troops."  The 22-page report, authored by Larry Hanauer, Jeffrey Martini and Omar al-Shahery, markets "CBMs" -- "confidence-building measures" -- while arguing this is the answer.  If it strikes you as dangerously simplistic and requiring the the Kurdish region exist in a vacuum where nothing else happens, you may have read the already read the report.  CBMs may strike some as what the US military was engaged in after the Iraqi forces from the central government and the Kurdish peshmerga were constantly at one another's throats and the US military entered into a patrol program with the two where they acted as buffer or marriage counselor.  (And the report admits CBMs are based on that.)  Sunday Prashant Rao (AFP) reported US Col Michael Bowers has announced that, on August 1st, the US military will no longer be patrolling in northern Iraq with the Kurdish forces and forces controlled by Baghdad. That took years.  And had outside actors.  The authors acknowledge:

    Continuing to contain Arab-Kurd tensions will require a neutral third-party arbitrator that can facilitate local CMBs, push for national-level negotiations, and prevent armed conflict between Iraqi and Kurdish troops.  While U.S. civilian entities could help implement CMBs and mediate political talks, the continued presence of U.S. military forces within the disputed internal boundaries would be the most effective way to prevent violent conflict between Arabs and Kurds.


    The issue should have been resolved long ago.  Equally true, Nouri took an oath to uphold the Constitution in 2006.  The Constitution said a census and referendum had to be held by the end of 2007.  Nouri blew it off. In 2010, when his State of Law lost the elections, he refused to step down as prime minister and the US-brokered Erbil Agreement gave him a second term.  The Kurds insisted that the contract include Nouri's promise that he would implement Article 140.  He never did.

    As tensions increase between Nouri and the Kurds, the editorial board of the Times of India looks at what it would mean for other nations if Iraq split into three self-governing sections (Shi'ite, Kurd and Sunni) and they conclude, "With Iraq's blundering PM Nouri al-Maliki refusing to accede to a national unity government, the US and Iran should work together to stabilise the region and deal with new sovereign entities that may emerge."  AP reports Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has called on Iraq's political blocs to decide on a prime minister-designate before Tuesday's expected session of Parliament.


    RT reports, "Jets from Russia and Belarus will hopefully make a key difference in the fight against ISIS in Iraq, the country’s Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said. He expressed regrets over Iraq's contract with the US, saying their jets are taking too long to arrive."

    Yes, thug Nouri is complaining that he's been hampered in the tools he needs to attack the Iraqi people. The delay, for those who've forgotten, was to avoid allowing a despot to use them before the parliamentary elections.  All Iraq News notes Nouri declares it a mistake to have "just bought US jets."  A mistake by whom?

    Alsumaria reports the UK has announced they will not participate militarily in Iraq.  Unlikey the US which clearly does not fear angry voters the way the UK does.  Today, UPI reports:

    Pentagon spokesman Col. Steven Warren said, of the 500 American military personnel in Iraq, "Some of them are conducting an advise and assist mission, some are manning the joint operations center, some of them are part of the [Office of Security Cooperation] and yet others are Marines that are part of a [fleet anti-terrorism security team] platoon."
     All Iraq News notes only 180 of the 500 are 'advisors' so 120 are still en route to make up Barack's 300 'advisors.'

    Meanwhile, is Nouri lying about drones or is US President Barack Obama?

    Weaponized drone aren't being used in Iraq, we're told by Barack.  However, Duraid Salman (Alsumaria) reported this morning weaponized drones are being flown in Iraq.  And, no, it's not the Russians.  Salman reports they are US drones and sources it to Iraqi officials including MP Abbas al-Bayati who sat on the Defense and Security Committee.  Chelsea J. Carter, Arwa Damon and Raja Razek (CNN) report, "A U.S. official confirmed to CNN that armed American drones started flying over Baghdad in the previous 24 hours to provide additional protection for 180 U.S. military advisers in the area. Until now, U.S. officials had said all drone reconnaissance flights over Iraq were unarmed."

     On this week's Law and Disorder Radio,  an hour long program that airs Monday mornings at 9:00 a.m. EST on WBAI and around the country throughout the week, hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Michael S. Smith and Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights) topics addressed include Julian Assange and, it looked like, drones in Iraq. But that apparently would have required too much work so instead a host chose to make an argument that will make anyone's skin crawl if they remember the Palmer raids and the attacks on Socialists in the early part of the 20th century.



    Heidi Boghosian: Michael Ratner, at the time that we're taping this show, it looks as though the US might be considering drone attacks on Iraq.

    Michael Ratner:  It's hard to believe this country sometimes.  I mean, it's impossible.  Michael and I are the same age, you're a little younger, Heidi -- I don't know, a lot younger.  What are you, thirty now? 

    [Laughter.]

    Michael Ratner:  But in any case, not to make fun of this, but Michael and I have been basically fighting against war since we were kids.  I mean, WWII was one thing -- of course, they could have done something by not arming the Germans.  But then we had the Korean War.  Then we had Vietnam.  I mean a lot of other stuff.  Then we have Central American wars.  Then we had the Iraq War -- first number one then number two Iraq War.  And, of course, that's the one that you could argue brought us to where we are now.  Where we had a war that was utterly supported by the press, the [New York] Times, the media, by all these people -- from people like Anne Marie Slaughter who supported it and now regrets it, George Packer "New Yorker liberal" now regrets it, all these people who our friend Tony Judt, the writer from the UK called "Bush's useful idiots."  So you have all of these Bush's useful idiots who supported the overthrow of Saddam Hussein -- which is about all the stability Iraq has probably seen in a hundred years -- and now, they basically -- the Biblical expression is "sew the wind and reap the whirlwind."  So now we're reaping the whirlwind.  And one of the things that we talk about here is how do these people who gave us the illegal war in Iraq and supported it -- including Tom Friedman, our wonderful guy at the New York Times -- all of these people, Bush's useful idiots, how are they put in newspapers, how are they put on TV to tell us again that we have to go to war with Iraq?  Or with Syria?  Or with name your country in the Middle East. I mean these people should be drummed out of the country.  They should [. . .]

    We stop there.

    That's quite enough.


    And those words he said?  That's how we lose. That's how we on the left lose.  Thomas Friedman is a bad writer -- more prone to cornball than Dan Rather.  Forever in search of a cab driver he can mold a column around -- preferably one who repeats what Friedman wants to hear. Anne Marie is a War Hawk and we've long called her out here -- even when she was in Barack's administration.

    But I've never said Anne Marie or Friedman needed to be "drummed out of the country."

    And it's disgusting that Michael Ratner, of the Center for Constitutional Rights -- Constitutional Rights -- thinks being wrong about a war means you "should be drummed out of the country."

    I took a stand February 2003 on the impending war.  I was opposed to it, I spoke out against it.  I never waivered on that.

    But, newsflash, I could have been wrong.  History backed me up.  Reality had my back.

    But I could have been wrong.

    If I had been wrong, did that mean I "should be drummed out of the country"?

    What in the world are we coming to on the left?

    Anne Marie and Friedman were not in the Bully Boy Bush administration.  As far as we know, the two of them were not plotting the war and choosing the spin.  They chose a side.

    Those two, and others like them, always choose war.

    And at some point, they'll be right, those are the odds.  (Or if not right -- I don't believe in war -- they'll have the majority of the US population agreeing with them.)

    When that time rolls around, I really don't want to hear people screaming that those of us against the war "should be drummed out of the country."

    That is an outrageous statement to come from the left.

    'You can't yell fire in a crowded theater!'

    That Supreme Court decision had nothing to do with a fire or a movie theater or a Broadway theater.

    It's from Oliver Wendell Holmes' outrageous opinion in Schenck v. United States.  That 1919 case was about free speech.  Specifically it was about brave people -- like Eugene V. Debs (who would spend two years in prison) -- speaking out against the WWI draft.  Holmes was notorious for distracting in his decisions.  A number of people love him to this day because we're really kind of stupid  and tend to praise things we know nothing of instead of just saying, "I've never read one of his legal opinions."   Holmes clearly has no lasting positive impact -- he found rights for property that didn't exist while suppressing the rights of the people.  But what's really going to harm him is that he repeatedly degraded his arguments by making them straw man arguments.

    Again, fire and a theater had nothing to do with urging people to resist the draft.

    But because he was such a mental midget, he couldn't craft an opinion on the issues.  He would have said he was using 'metaphors.'  No, he was not.  He was unable to argue the points of the case in his opinions so he created straw men arguments.

    Michael Ratner is a smart person who made a very offensive statement.

    That statement justifies the Palmer Raids and every bit of ugly that attacked Socialists in that time period.

    Michael's a Socialist so that really wasn't his intent.

    But if he's going to criticize people for opinions, he needs to think before he speaks.

    Michael can be one of the strongest and one of the smartest people on the left.  He is 100 times more intelligent than I could ever hope to become.

    But what was said was stupid and dangerous.

    This urge to hate and demonize is something we need to be aware of.  We should never, ever on the left allow those impulses to run over the basic principles of speech and freedom we believe in.

    Anne Marie Slaughter got it wrong.  I'm not surprised.

    I've mocked her repeatedly here.  And, unlike Michael Ratner, that includes when Barack was attacking Libya.  To be clear, Michael called that action illegal as it was.  But there was no time to take on the cheerleaders for those actions.  I can remember being on a campus with an earbud in one ear and a cellphone in another and saying to a friend, "F**k, is there one NPR program that's not going to trout out Anne this week?"  Because she was on every damn one.

    And that's the problem.

    It's not, "Shut up, Anne!"

    She's an American citizen living in what's supposed to still be a democracy.  She can speak as much as she wants and should.  She can write as much as she wants and should.

    Where there's a problem is when the media doesn't play fair.  They shut out voices all the time.  The ridiculous and non-left Bill Maher is applauded by stupid idiots on the left who never seem to notice that Glen Ford, for example, isn't shy about opinions.  Why isn't Glen Ford, a genuine voice of the left, ever invited on Maher's programs?

    I don't like whiners.

    I define a whiner as someone who abdicates their own power while complaining about others.

    Michael Ratner, you co-host an hour long weekly program heard across the country.  What voices who got it right on Iraq have you featured this month?

    Last week, Michael gave  fiery and passionate remarks which I applaud.  This week he offered another commentary.

    But it's whining, Michael.

    You have the power to book whomever you want on the show.  There are hundreds of people who got it right in real time, book them.  (I've noted this before but to be clear, I do not do press as C.I.  I am very standoffish to the press these days in my real life though I will do favors for friends.  But I do not do press as C.I.)  You can book these people.  You can bring on Janeane Garofalo, Tim Robbins, Debra Sweet, Alice Walker and so many others.  Yes, the start was so long ago that we've lost too many of those voices -- Norman Mailer, Howard Zinn, etc. -- but there are millions still around.  February 2003 saw the largest global protest against a war ever.  Those people are not in hiding.

    To Michael's credit, he, Heidi, Michael Smith and Dahlia Hashad booked them in real time when it mattered.  But obviously he thinks it still matters today.  I happen to support him on that.  So book these people.

    Because if you don't use your own power, your just whining.  You're not protesting, you're not standing up, you're whining.

    Ava and I called out Rachel Maddow for this nonsense in "TV: That awful Rachel BadFoul:"


    Watching Rachel Maddow last week, between grimaces and shielding our eyes, we caught something else.
    Rachel wants X voices shut out.
    It's so unfair, she insists, that those who were right aren't on these shows, so unfair!!!!
    But she's got an hour show on MSNBC Monday through Friday.
    What guest did she have on last week who got it right?
    She had on Condi Rice's former speech writer -- a fact she refused to inform her audience of.
    That's rather strange, isn't it?
    She's arguing Condi shouldn't be allowed on programs because she was wrong.  But she had the woman who wrote Condi's speeches on Monday's program -- the only guest on Monday's program -- and she never told the audience, "My guest here?  She used to write Condi's speeches."
    Instead, she just identified Elise Jordan as Michael Hastings' widow.
    Tuesday, she had Carne Ross on.
    Here's how she misled her viewers, "He`s a former British diplomat who resigned over the war in Iraq."
    Wow.
    He's a regular Ann Wright!
    Remember Ann Wright?  State Department diplomat, retired army colonel, who resigned March 19, 2003 over the Iraq War.
    Yeah, Ann did that.  Good for Carne for doing the same.
    What day in 2003 did he resign now?
    What's that?
    He didn't resign in March of 2003?  Well the next month then.
    No?
    Well when?
    A year later.
    Strange.




    You can add Peter Hart and FAIR to the list of whiners.  FAIR has a 30 minute weekly radio show (they also try TV but only Peter Hart can pull off TV -- you have to have magnetism to succeed on TV).  It's called CounterSpin.

    While they have addressed Iraq this week and last week, they didn't have on anyone who got it right.  A young writer who really hasn't spent his career even focusing on Iraq -- check Common Dreams' archives.  And they had on a veteran of the Iraq War.

    Hillary Clinton, in her new book, says people can change their minds.  She's right.  They can.  Ross Caputi did.  He can tell you all about his transformation on Iraq.  While Hillary can't which is why she looks insincere at best and, as Marcia noted, there is no excuse for her needing 2013 to 'wake up' to marriage equality.  Gay men and lesbians consistently supported her and it is a slap in the face for her to claim that some indescribable epiphany came to her last year.

    But Ross did have a transformation and he can describe it and good for him.

    That said, he's not someone who was right before the war started.  Tareq Ali was.  As Betty asked in a different context, "Where the hell is Norman Solomon?" Why didn't CounterSpin feature a whole show of voices who got it right before the war started?

    They can whine, they just lack Ross' ability to transform and make something meaningful out of their lives.

    They want a different media?  Then they need to show it is possible with their own resources.

    But they don't and they won't.

    They won't put on the people who were right but they will waste our time whining that the MSM doesn't put on the people who were right.

    Diane Rehm can bring Phyllis Bennis onto her NPR program this month -- Phyllis is one of the ones who got it right -- but CounterSpin, The Rachel Maddow Show and Law & Disorder Radio can't. And they can't bring anyone -- not one person -- who got it right onto their shows.  But they want to slam others?

    And I'm sorry to call Michael Ratner out.  I waited several days to get into my most calm place to do so because Michael does great work and is someone who is loved by everyone who knows him because he's a good guy.

    But what he said was outrageous.  He doesn't need to be crucified for it.  He doesn't need to step away from the microphone.  But from someone on our side, the left, to say that people should be run out of the country for their opinions and/or advocacy?

    Emma Goldman was run out of the country.  She was urging men not to register for the draft.  She was thrown in prison for that and then deported out of the country (to Russia).  That was so wrong and went completely the fabric of democracy.  We should never, ever say someone needs to leave the country because of their opinion or advocacy.


    We mentioned Hillary, let's stay with Hillary Clinton because she appeared on The NewsHour (PBS -- link is video, text and audio) this week.


    GWEN IFILL: I want to start by talking about Iraq. There’s much debate now about what the would-haves and the could-haves and the should-haves. If we had left a residual force on the ground as some critics are now saying, do you think we’d be seeing the collapse we’re seeing today?

    HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: I think it’s impossible to answer that question. Certainly when President Obama had to make the decision about what to do, he was deciding based on what the Bush administration had already determined, because they were the ones who said troops have to be out by the end of 2011. And I was part of the discussions where we were putting together proposals for the Iraqi government to consider about a residual force that would be there to help train, to provide intelligence and generally support services.
    Unfortunately as we all know now, the Maliki government was not willing to do what was necessary for us to be able to do that. So the problems that we’re seeing in Iraq, I would argue are primarily political, but they are of course manifest in this very dangerous extremist group being able to gain ground and hold it. That is only possible in my opinion because the Sunnis, who had partnered with the United States and even with Maliki to drive out Al Qaeda in Iraq, feel as though they have been isolated and excluded. So I think it’s, it’s difficult to say if we had kept a residual force even for a year or two, or three, that we would have had the ability to control what Maliki did, and I think his behavior, his sectarianism, his purging of Sunni leaders, the way he stopped paying the Sunni awakening soldiers and so much else contributed to where we are today.

    GWEN IFILL: So Maliki has to go for this to work itself out?

    HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Well, I think it’s highly unlikely that he will embrace the kind of inclusivity that is required, but it’s up to the Iraqis to decide who they want to lead them, but of course their decision affects whether, and to what extent, we should be involved  to trying to help them.




    Hillary's misleading:

    I think it’s impossible to answer that question. Certainly when President Obama had to make the decision about what to do, he was deciding based on what the Bush administration had already determined, because they were the ones who said troops have to be out by the end of 2011. And I was part of the discussions where we were putting together proposals for the Iraqi government to consider about a residual force that would be there to help train, to provide intelligence and generally support services.

    Barack was deciding based on what Bully Boy Bush had already determined?

    I'm sick of that  lie.

    But before we get to what no one ever talks about regarding the SOFA, Hillary's lying through her teeth.  She reveals in the next sentence.  There were negotiations for a new SOFA stop blaming it on Bush.

    I hate Bully Boy Bush.  I dislike Barack but I will use the "p" word there -- President Barack Obama.  I will not do the same for Bully Boy Bush.

    So I'm really the last person to defend him.

    But I'm sick of all the damn lies.

    Barack broke a campaign promise before he was ever sworn in.  He decided to break it within hours of the election.  That's why it was pulled from his campaign website.  The only time, briefly, that anyone ever noted it.  That was back in November 2008.

    Bully Boy Bush got the SOFA pushed through.

    And did so with Barack's blessing.

    That's the detail no one wants to get honest and I'm just sick of all the damn lies.

    Hillary Clinton, campaigning for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, declared any SOFA would have to be approved by the Senate -- citing thhe Constitution for why.  Which meant?  Barack immediately said, "Me too!"  Biden had already staked out that ground as the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

    The Bully Boy Bush administration met with Barack's transition team to discuss the SOFA.  Not only did Barack like it (and like that someone else would be on the hook for it and not him) but he gave his word that he would not call for the SOFA to be approved by the Senate.

    He hadn't even been sworn in and already he was breaking campaign promises.

    And, yes, the SOFA was a treaty and should have had US Senate approval.  It mattered to him when he was a senator but it didn't when he became president.

    Let's repeat that: It mattered to Barack when he was a senator but it didn't when he became president.  That just about sums up his two terms thus far, doesn't it?

    And while we're noting lies, this was a crafty little report by PBS which ignored an American imprisoned in Mexico by making the focus "overseas."





    Image from Free USMC Sgt Andrew Tahmooressi Facebook pageThe VFW issued the following:


    VFW CALLS FOR BOYCOTT UNTIL MEXICO RELEASES U.S. MARINE

    VFW calls for nationwide boycott of Mexican products and travel until Marine is release


    WASHINGTON — The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States is calling for a nationwide boycott of Mexican products and travel until Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi is released from a Mexican jail.
    “This combat Marine has been languishing away since he was arrested March 31 for allegedly crossing the border accidentally with three personal firearms that were legally registered in the States but not in Mexico,” said VFW National Commander William A. Thien. “It was a mistake, but so is the Mexican government’s reluctance to release him unharmed back to the U.S.”
    As America’s oldest and largest major combat veterans’ organization, the VFW wants to apply economic pressure to the Mexican government because Tahmooressi’s arrest and captivity is mirroring that of former Marine Jon Hammer, who was arrested for carrying an antique shotgun across the border in August 2012, despite having proper American paperwork. He wasn’t released until four months later.
    Thien said the VFW tried the politically polite route by twice asking President Obama to contact Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, but a phone call specifically about the Marine sergeant never took place. Now that Tahmooressi is approaching his third full month in jail, the VFW national commander said it’s time to take the gloves off.
    "This is about politics, and if my government won’t do anything, then I guess we need to let the power of the purse take over. No products, no travel, a total boycott … then maybe a dialogue will start.”




    Turning to violence.  All Iraq News reports violence has forced 400 Christian families to flee Mosul.
     Alsumaria reports 3 young Shabak were kidnapped in Nineveh Province, a mortar attack on a village east of Baquba left 6 civilians dead and two more injured, a Diyala Province battle left 1 rebel dead and two security forces injured, a Samarra mortar attack left 2 security forces dead and seventeen more injured, security forces killed 15 suspects in Latifiya, the corpses of 2 young men were discovered dumped in Kirkuk, and, dropping back to late last night, a Samarra mortar attack left 1 Iraqi soldier dead and eight more injured.  Chelsea J. Carter, Arwa Damon and Raja Razek (CNN) report, "Human Rights Watch said two mass graves believed to contain the bodies of Iraqi soldiers, police and civilians killed by the Sunni ISIS fighters and their militant allies have been discovered in Hussein's hometown of Tikrit."  It's left to Reuters to report that Iraqi forces killed 69 prisoners they were transferring and blamed it on Sunni militants.  Reuters notes, "The deaths in Hilla came less than a week after the killing of 52 prisoners in Baquba, a regional capital north of Baghdad."

    Iraq and violence came up in today's State Dept press briefing moderated by spokesperson Marie Harf:


    QUESTION: At least two Indian nurses were beheaded by the ISIL and they were serving (inaudible) and the sick and needy in hospitals and around the country. And at least 40 Indians are still being held, and if Indian Government has asked any help from the U.S. or what’s --

    MS. HARF: Let me check on that. I don’t know the answer to that. Obviously, both of the incidents you just mentioned really underscore the brutality of ISIL. This is a group that al-Qaida has even deemed to be too brutal for it, which I think is saying something.
    So clearly we know there’s huge challenges here. I can check on that specifically.

    QUESTION: Marie, on Iraq, this has – we haven’t asked this for a while – but are you aware, since Vienna, I mean – yeah, Vienna and Deputy Secretary Burns’s meeting with the Iranians on the Iraq issue. Are you aware if there have been any more contacts?

    MS. HARF: I am not. But let me double-check. I am not, but --

    QUESTION: The reason I ask is because the Pentagon now says that, yes, it is flying drones --

    MS. HARF: Okay.

    QUESTION: -- and the Iranians are also flying drones. And I’m just wondering what the mechanism is to prevent these drones from flying into each other.

    MS. HARF: I am happy to check and see if there is anything we can share on that.

    QUESTION: Okay. I would be --

    QUESTION: Any coordination with the Iranians?

    MS. HARF: No. None.

    QUESTION: Right. But in terms of contacts in Baghdad and --

    MS. HARF: I’m happy to check. Not to my knowledge, but I’m happy to check.

    QUESTION: All right.

    QUESTION: Different topic?

    MS. HARF: Yeah.


    QUESTION: On Iraq?

    MS. HARF: Uh-huh. Okay.

    QUESTION: Just follow-up on hostages. There are still eight hostages – Turkish hostages in Mosul as well. Do you have any update on that?

    MS. HARF: I don’t have any update on those as well.

    QUESTION: And on Kurdistan region, last couple of days both the Israel officials and today Turkish spokesman – administration spokesman – again talk about the independence of the Kurdistan region. And they would support or – it’s inevitable. Do you have any change of analysis on the Kurdistan?

    MS. HARF: No change of policy here. We’ve said that a unified Iraq is the strongest Iraq, and have said that an inclusive government that includes Sunni, Shia, and Kurds needs to be formed as soon as possible to help deal with this crisis.

    QUESTION: It looks like ISIL’s forces are gaining some more momentum around the borders. Do you have any assessment on the --


    MS. HARF: We don’t have a detailed battleground assessment to share. Obviously, the threat from ISIL is very serious and we know that it’s very challenging on the ground. We know that units are trying to fight back, but that’s why we’re trying to provide more assistance to help them do that.







     
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