Monday, February 9, 2009.  Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces multiple deaths, Patrick Leahy calls for a truth commission, Moqtada al-Sadr wants a recount, and more.   In the deadly hot spot that Mosul has become the US military loses multiple lives today.  M-NF announces: "Three U.S. Coalition Soldiers were killed, and another Soldier later died of wounds when a suicide vehicle borne improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle in Mosul, Iraq Feb. 9.  One interpreter was also injured in the attack and later died of wounds.  The names of the deceased are being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the U.S. Department of Defense."  This follows Saturday's announcement: "TIKRIT, Iraq -- A U.S. Soldier died as a result of a non-combat related injury near Balad Ruz, Iraq, Feb. 6. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense. The incident is under investigation."   It also comes on the heel of yesterday's announcement: "BAGHDAD -- A Multi-National Division–Baghdad Soldier died from a non-combat related incident Feb. 8. The Soldier's name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin. The incident is currently under investigation."  The announcements brings the number of US service members killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war to 4243. AP calls the Mosul attack "the deadliest single attack against U.S. troops since May 2, 2008" (and explains they're seeting the January 26 helicopter crashes aside since the military states no enemy fire was involved).  Peter Graff, Michael Christie and Tim Pearce (Reuters) add of Mosul, "Violence there remains high, though it has fallen in most of the country to the lowest level since the war began. U.S. and Iraqi officials had hoped that violence in Mosul might subside after provincial elections in January in which Sunni Arab parties won the largest share of the vote in surrounding Nineveh province."   (In their report, BBC states, "The US currently has around 147,000 troops based in Iraq.")  Ernesto Londono and Qais Mizher (Washington Post) inform, "U.S. and Iraqi officials said they planned to launch what would be the fourth crackdown in less than a year in the weeks after the Jan. 31 provincial election, during which Sunni Arabs gained control of the province from Kurds." Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newsapapers) reports that three Iraqis were also wounded in the bombing, two of which were police officers.   Meanwhile the press continues trying to grade like George W. Bush.  Just as he lied and shaded to hail 'success' on his benchmarks for Iraq, they do the same.  At the start of 2007, Bush stated that Iraq would meet the benchmark for provincial elections -- in ALL provinces -- by the end of that year.  They didn't.  They didn't meet it in 2008 and, despite the press hoopla, they didn't meet it this year.  Fourteen of Iraq's eighteen provinces have held elections.  The press, like Bush, is so eager to twist the truth and hail 'democracy' in Iraq that they regularly ignore all the violence that took place in the lead-up to the election and following it.   Reuters reported Saturday, "Gunmen kidnapped Talib al-Masoudi, who ran in Jan. 31 provincial elections as a candidate from the Shi'ite Fadhila party, from the Husseiniya neighbourhood in Kerbala, 80 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, police said."   A comprehensive look at the violence aimed at candidates would be disturbing so, day after day, tidbits on one incident after another are offered with no attempt to pool them together and note just how much violence has taken place.      Democracy requires checks and balances and Iraq has none but no one's supposed to notice that either.  There is no independent judiciary and the Parliament has become a bigger joke.  The Parliament has been without a speaker since December 23rd when they ousted Mahmoud al-Mashhadani. 49 days later, who is the Parliament's speaker? Still no one. AFP reported Sunday that there "are five candidates" but that Parliament remains "deadlocked."  KUNA reports today that attempts have failed again and that the issue will be raised next on Wednesday and: "The failure to elect a speaker will not allow parliament to debate or approve a new budget and oil law, deemed crucial to the reconstruction of the country."  That means that possibly Wednesday, 51 days after they decided to oust their Speaker, they may vote in a new one.  As noted in the January 12th snapshot, "Willam Brockman Bankhead was the Speaker of the US House of Representatives for over four years.  He died unexpectably of a heart attack on September 15, 1940. (For those unfamiliar with Bankhead, he was the father of Tallulah Bankhead.)  The following day, Sam Rayburn became Speaker of the House."  51 days.    Results are still not official in the laughable elections. Apparently counting ballots isn't the difficult thing, it's rigging the results that's creating the hold up.  Moqtada al-Sadr apparently didn't learn the only real lesson of the elections: Threaten violence to get your way the tallies. Which is why AP explains al-Sadr is appealing the results of the elections: "The allegations are among a chorus of questions raised by Shiite religious parties and Sunnis about the outcome of provincial elections, in which allies of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki won a sweeping victory." Tahir al-Kinani is quoted citing two sets of number: one from al-Sadr's observers in the provinces and the other from Iraq's laughable and discredited "electoral commission." "It's not our fault that some people couldn't vote because they are lazy, because they didn't bother to ask where they should vote." That's the 'electoral commission''s chief speaking. And al-Sadr should have taken a lesson from that. To widely documented problems that is Faraj al-Hadiari's response. To the thugs of Anbar's allegations that couldn't be proven and the thugs threats? al-Hadiari leaps into action and 'massages' the results. Because heaven forbid thugs aren't pleased with the results. Heaven forbid that while giving lip service to democracy, no one actually expects in Iraq.   Nawal Al Samarrai announced last week that she was resigning as Iraq's Minister of Women's Affairs noting that it was a for-show position that was drastically underfunded. AFP reports today that she has revealed "her budget was slashed from $7,500 (BD2,8282) to $1,500 (BD566) per month as part of this year's government spending cuts due to plunging oil prices." We'll get back to the reality of what the puppet government spends money on but first let's note that a country with over 25 million people (CIA estimate) and more females than males -- especially among the adult population -- really should be ashamed for spending only $7,500 -- forget for cutting it to $1,500. $7500 was never going to be enough for a monthly budget. The US military had nearly 100,000 "Awakenings" on the payroll (a huge number still remain on the payroll) and paid $300 a month. That was $300,000 a month being paid to thugs so they wouldn't attack the US military -- the infamous fork-over-your-lunch-money-in-the-playground 'strategy.' In other words, 35 Awakening members a month were making the same amount of money as the entire monthly budget for the Ministry of Women's Affairs. 35 men. In 'good' times, al-Maliki thought $7,500 was more than enough for a ministry (dealing with women) to have as a monthly budget. Now he's slashed it to $1,500. But not everything gets slashed. And not everything gets underfunded. Dropping back to the December 11th snapshot: October 31st, AP reported the puppet government in Baghdad's latest boo-hoo: Oil prices had dropped and their budget for 2009 had to be cut by $13 billion. The Guardian of London (via Iraq Directory) was writing that there was talk of raising production due to the drop from the expected $80 billion 2009 budget to the $67 billion budget. In 2008, they couldn't meet their spending targets and sat on a ton of money while infrastructure remained unrepaired and Iraqis suffered without electricity and potable water. This week they're on a spending spree. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency made several announcements yesterday [all links of announcements take you to PDF format]. DSCA announced: "On Dec. 9, the Dfense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of 36 AT-6B Texan II Aircraft as well as associated support. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $520 million." And they announced: "On Dec. 9, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of 400 M1126 STRYKER Infantry Carrier Vehicles as well as associated equipment. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $1.11 billion." And they announced: "On Dec. 9, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of 20 T-6A Texan aircraft, 20 Global Positioning Systems (GPS) as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $210 million." And they announced: "On Dec. 9, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of (20) 30-35 meter Coastal Patrol Boats and (3) 55-60 meter Offshore Support Vessels as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $1.010 billion." And they announced: "On Dec. 9, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of 140 M1A1 Abrams tanks modified and upgraded to the M1A1M Abrams configuration, 8 M88A2 Tank Recovery Vehicles, 64 M1151A1B1 Armored High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWV), 92 M1152 Shelter Carriers, 12 M577A2 Command Post Carriers, 16 M548A1 Tracked Logistics Behicles, 8 M113A2 Armored Ambulances, and 420 AN/VRC-92 Vehicular Receiver Transmitters as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised could be as high as $2.160 billion." And they announced: "On Dec. 9, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of 26 Bell Armed 407 Helicopters, 26 Rolls Royce 250-C-30 Engines, 26 M280 2.75-inch Launchers, 26 XM296 .50 Cal. Machine Guns with 500 Round Ammunition Box, 26 M299 HELLFIRE Guided Missile Launchers as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $366 million." And they announced: "On Dec. 9, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of (80,000) M16A4 5.56MM Rifles, (25,000) M4 5.56MM Carbines, (2,550) M203 40MM Grenade Launchers as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $148 million." And they announced: "On Dec. 9, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of (64) Deployable Rapid Assembly Shelters (DRASH), (1,500) 50 watt Very High Frequency (VHF) Base Station Radios, (6,000) VHF Tactical Handheld Radios, (100) VHF Fixed Retransmitters, (200) VHF Vehicular Radios, (30) VHF Maritime 50 watt Base Stations, (150) 150 watt High Frequency (HF) Base Station Radio Systems, (150) 20 watt HF Vehicular Radios, (30) 20 watt HF Manpack Radios, (50) 50 watt Very High Frequency/Ultra High Frequency (VHF/UHF) Ground to Air Radio Systems, (50) 150 watt VHF/UHF Ground to Air Radio Systems, (50) 5 watt Multiband Handheld Radio Systems as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $485 Million." That is over six billion dollars being committed "if all options are exercised" -- which is a little over 10% of their entire budget for 2009. There's always money to spend when it comes to weapons. And human life is always done on the cheap.            Sandy Sand (Digital Journal) explains, "Feeling frustrated and abandoned herself, Nawal al-Samarraie left her post as Iraq's minister for women's affairs after six months on the job due to severe cutbacks in her ministry's funding. Not counting staff salaries, her budget, which was meager to begin with, was slashed from $7,500 a month to $1,500."  Samarraie is quoted stating, "I reached to the point that I will never be able to help the women. The budget is very limited ... so what can I do?"  Kim Gamel (AP) reports: Al-Samarraie's resignation has cast a spotlight on the overwhelming problems facing Iraqi women, tens of thousands of them left poor or widowed by war. An untold number have lost their husbands or other male relatives to violence or detention since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, often leaving them alone with children and virtually no safety net or job opportunities.          Al-Samarraie claimed Iraq has 3 million widows, calling it "a full army of widows, most of them not educated." The figure, which she said came from a government survey, includes those who lost their husbands under Saddam Hussein's regime and was impossible to verify.           All Iraqis have undergone difficulties, but women face the additional danger of being sidelined in a male-dominated society. Widows in Iraq, for example, traditionally move in with their extended families, but many families find it increasingly difficult to care for them.             Other problems for women include homelessness, domestic violence and the random detention of women caught up in U.S.-Iraqi military sweeps. Sami Moubayed (Asia Times), apparently high off huffing the fumes emitting from Nouri al-Maliki's crotch, informs that Nawal al-Samarai didn't support the treaty masquerading as a Status Of Forces Agreement (smart move on her part) and insists her walkout has nothing to do with any apparent 'mythical' issues of funding but is part of a Sunni plot to bring his lover-boy Nouri al-Maliki down ("Her walkout puts the prime minister in a tight position, having already lost six Sadrists, three members of the secular Iraqi National List and six of the Iraqi Accordance Front, in addition to the Shi'ite party, al-Fadilah.").  Less giddy of 'forceful' Nouri and a little less conjecture might make Sami a real reporter some day.  IRN reports: "My office is inside the Green Zone with no affiliated offices in other provinces and not enough funds to hold conferences, invite experts for studies and implement development plans," Al-Samaraie said. "How can I work and serve women under such circumstances?"          Al-Samaraie said there was "an army" of uneducated women, widows, victims of domestic violence and female internally displaced persons in dire need of assistance.                "My resignation is a warning to the government and a protest against its inability to evaluate the needs of women," she said. Al-Samaraie's frustration is echoed by a group of women's rights activists led by prominent female member of parliament and women's activist Safia al-Suhail. "When we talk about the women of Iraq, we are talking about nearly 65 percent of the population. They need a national and comprehensive strategy to help them enjoy their legal, health and social rights," Al-Suhail said.   Over the weekend Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) offered a strange report ("U.S. Military Violated Security Agreement Twice in 2 Weeks, Iraqi Leaders say") that informed the US military shot dead "a 58-year-old man" in Kirkuk Friday without coordinating their mission with Iraqi authorities.  Rubin describes the shooting as "an American raid" and says an earlier incident was "when Americans soldiers fatally shot an Iraqi couple in their home near Kirkuk after the wife reached for a pisotl hidden under a mattress." She says this "was reported at the time" but only now are allegations surfacing that it was not coorinated with the Iraqi government.   The couple was shot dead January 24th (their daughter was wounded). From January 25th's "And the war drags on . . .:" In today's New York Times, Timothy Williams reports on a Saturday raid by US forces in Hawija in which a husband and wife were killed by US forces and their young daughter was wounded. The house raid, Williams reports, required helicopters and was done at two in the morning. For killing the wife, the official story is she reached for something and, later, a gun was allegedly found under a mattress. After he saw his wife slaughtered, the husband went after the US soldiers and was killed. Ahlam Dhia, the eight-year-old daughter, was shot by US soldiers for no official reason cited and she is quoted stating, "They killed my mother and father right in front of me. I was under the blanket. I heard my mom screaming, and I started to cry." Based on descriptions, Williams hypothesizes the soldiers were American Special Ops. It is interesting that when Iraq supposedly has control over their country, US forces -- not Iraqi forces or, for that matter, US forces and Iraqi forces -- are conducting house raids. Ned Parker and Saif Hameed (Los Angeles Times) report, "The chairman of the Hawija Council said the woman's husband, Dhia Hussein, had not been linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq, as the U.S. military claimed" and quote Hussein Ali Salih (the chair) stating, "I personally know Col. Dhia Hussein; he is one of the former army officers and he was trying to return to the new Iraqi army. He has no affiliations with any armed groups." NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro (All Things Considered -- link has video and text) reports: The U.S. military said the operation was conducted with and approved by Iraq's security forces, as stipulated by a security agreement that went into effect at the beginning of the year. But a senior Iraqi government spokesman said there were no Iraqi forces present and is calling for an investigation of the deaths. "The Americans were on foot," said Hussein Ali, the father of the man who was killed. "They threw percussion hand grenades at the door, then they started shooting. When I got inside the house, the Americans were gone. I found [my son and daughter-in-law] in the bedroom, dead beside each other. They shot my son at close range. His blood was all over the wall." Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) waits until paragraph eight to note that Iraqi officials say they did not approve the raid and that it wasn't an Iraqi operation. The first seven paragraphs are the US military's assertion (presented as fact) that the US military, with Iraqi forces and Iraqi approval, conducted the house raid. China's Xinhau cites an unnamed police source, "The source also said that local security forces were not informed about the raid and that the reasons behind the killings are unclear yet." It would appear the charge of lack of coordination was known some time ago.  In a further sign of non progress, a tourist was 'detained'.  Rubin teamed up with Stephen Farrell to report on Italian civilian Luca Marchio causing a commotion while visiting the Falluja police station . Marchio stated, "I am a tourist. I want to see the most important cities in the country. That is the reason why I am here now. I want to see and understand the reality because I have never been here before, and I think every country in the world must be seen." He couldn't see Falluja overnight as he was advised to leave town. He ended up being 'detained' ("for his own safety") and note that one "American marine working with the police suggested taking him to the city limits and dropping him where Falluja met the main highway." Note that is not what Americans do in other countries, especially ones where allegedly democracy is emerging. When an American makes such an insulting and dumb ass statement is indicates to everyone that even those countries with democracy do not value it. Should Marchio have gone to Iraq? It's not illegal. There is no travel ban to Iraq. On top of that, he entered the country using his passport and crossing through the border checkpoints. Could he have gotten killed? Unless he's the luckiest person on the face of the earth, he most likely would have. But that doesn't excuse American representatives from making anti-democratic and dumb ass statements in a foreign country when surrounded by foreign officials attempting to figure out what to do with someone. That marine disgraced his or her self and disgraced the US. When an American spits on democracy in Iraq, it has a huge effect and indicates to Iraqi officials that democracy is nothing but a bunch of empty words. As a private citizen, the marine could have done whatever they wished. As someone sent to Iraq by the US government, he or she needs to always remember that they help set the tone, that they send the cues and that Iraqis are watching them.   When not trashing democracy, some US troops do physical damage.  Marc Santora (New York Times) reports an eight-year-old girl was shot dead by US troops on Saturday: Jassim Hassan, a 25-year-old college student, described a scene of chaos and confusion. "I don't know how all of this happened and I can't remember a thing, because everything was so fast and sudden," he said.      After the short burst of gunfire, the 8-year-old girl, Sa'adiya Saddam, collapsed on the ground by her wailing mother, witnesses said.      Her brother, Hussein, also 8, said: "We didn't notice the Americans before the gun shooting started. My sister fell immediately, swimming in her own blood."   In some of today's reported violence . . .   Bombings?   Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newsapapers) reports a Baghdad mortar attack that left seven people injured, a Mosul roadside bombing that left two children injured, a Mosul mortar attack that claimed 3 lives and left seven people wounded and a Kirkuk roadside bombing that left one police officer wounded.    Shootings?   Reuters notes 1 taxi driver shot dead in Mosul last night.    Corpses?   Reuters notes the corpse of a "16 year-old teenage girl from the Yazidi religious minority" was discovered in Mosul.   Turning to the US, labor reporter David Bacon explores the state of unions in an essay at Monthly Review:   Unions in the rest of the world are not simply asking us whether we will stand with them against General Electric, General Motors, or Mitsubishi. They want to know: What is your stand about aggressive wars, military intervention and coups d'état? If we have nothing to say about these things, we will not have the trust and credibility we need to build new relationships of solidarity. U.S. corporations operating in countries like Mexico and El Salvador are, in some ways, opportunistic. They take advantage of an existing economic system, and make it function to produce profits. They exploit the difference in wages from country to country, and require concessions from governments for setting up factories. But what causes  the poverty in El Salvador that they exploit to their advantage? What drives a worker into a factory that, in the United States, we call a sweatshop? What role does U.S. policy play in creating that system of poverty? Unions need the kind of discussion in which workers try to answer these questions. Labor education is more than technical training in techniques for grievance handling and collective bargaining. It has to be about politics, in the broadest and most radical sense.  When unions don't work with their members to develop a framework to answer these questions they become ineffective in fighting about the issues of peace and war, globalization, and their consequences, such as immigration. When the AFL - CIO campaigned in Washington against the Central American Free Trade Agreement, labor lobbyists went up to Capitol Hill to mobilize pressure on Congress.  Some unions went to their local affiliates and asked members to make phone calls and write letters. But what was missing was education at the base. Had unions educated and mobilized their members against the Contra war in Nicaragua, and the counterinsurgency wars in El Salvador and Guatemala (and certainly many activists tried to do that), U.S. workers would have understood CAFTA much more clearly over a decade later. But because there's so little effort to create a conscious, educated union membership, it will be hard to get members to act when labor's Washington lobbyists need them to defeat new trade agreements, in the upcoming battles over the Colombian and South Korean FTAs. The root of this problem is a kind of American pragmatism that disparages education. We need to demand more from those who make the decisions and control the purse strings in our unions. David Bacon's latest book is  Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press).  In other US news, Feminist Wire Daily notes the Constitutional line of separation between church and state gets thinner and thinner:     President Obama announced late last week that he plans to maintain and expand President Bush's Office on Faith Based Initiatives. Obama has renamed the office the Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, has appointed 15 of the 25-person council, and has appointed Joshua DeBois, a Pentecostal who worked on Obama's campaign, as the head of the office, according to the Washington Post. A White House press release outlined four priorities for the office, including that "it will be one voice among several in the administration that will look at how we support women and children, address teenage pregnancy, and reduce the need for abortion." Though Obama has said that the office's goal "will not be to favor one religious group over another - or even religious groups over secular groups," his choices for the advisory panel are already drawing criticism. In relation to the priority regarding reproductive health care, former president of Catholics for Free Choice Frances Kissling wrote for RH Reality Check that "The only person on the Council who might have the slightest knowledge about these issues is the president of Big Brothers and Big Sisters, Judith Vredenburgh. Of the nine religious representatives on the Council, most are anti-abortion, from Jim Wallis and Joel Hunter to the emeritus president of the Southern Baptist Convention and of course, Father Larry Snyder, head of Catholic Charities. The rest have no public record on reproductive health issues, with the single exception of Rabbi David Saperstein, who is pro-choice." Women's rights organizations have been lobbying President Obama to reopen the White House Office on Women's Issues, but currently, women's issues continue to be covered by the Office of Public Liaison. Martha Burk, co-founder of the Center for Advancement of Public Policy, stated in the Huffington Post that "to accord this advisory panel so much power, while relegating women to the margins, speaks volumes....It's not too late for President Obama to change his mind and give the majority - women - a place at the table by re-opening the White House Office on Women's Issues."     Meanwhile US Senator Patrick Leahy wants a truth commission.  Speaking at Georgetown Univeristy today, Leahy delivered "Resotring Trust in the Justice System: The Senate Judiciary Committee's Agenda in the 111th Congress" (below is an excerpt, for full speech use the link):   We have succeeded over the last two years in revitalizing our Committee's oversight capabilities.  The periodic oversight hearings with the Attorney General, the FBI Director, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and others will continue.  The past can be prologue unless we set things right.  As to the best course of action for bringing a reckoning for the actions of the past eight years, there has been heated disagreement.  There are some who resist any effort to investigate the misdeeds of the recent past.  Indeed, some Republican Senators tried to extract a devil's bargain from the Attorney General nominee in exchange for their votes, a commitment that he would not prosecute for anything that happened on President Bush's watch.  That is a pledge no prosecutor should give, and Eric Holder did not, but because he did not, it accounts for many of the partisan votes against him.  There are others who say that, even if it takes all of the next eight years, divides this country, and distracts from the necessary priority of fixing the economy, we must prosecute Bush administration officials to lay down a marker.  Of course, the courts are already considering congressional subpoenas that have been issued and claims of privilege and legal immunities – and they will be for some time. There is another option that we might also consider, a middle ground.  A middle ground to find the truth.  We need to get to the bottom of what happened -- and why -- so we make sure it never happens again. One path to that goal would be a reconciliation process and truth commission.  We could develop and authorize a person or group of people universally recognized as fair minded, and without axes to grind.  Their straightforward mission would be to find the truth.  People would be invited to come forward and share their knowledge and experiences, not for purposes of constructing criminal indictments, but to assemble the facts.  If needed, such a process could involve subpoena powers, and even the authority to obtain immunity from prosecutions in order to get to the whole truth.  Congress has already granted immunity, over my objection, to those who facilitated warrantless wiretaps and those who conducted cruel interrogations.  It would be far better to use that authority to learn the truth.  During the past several years, this country has been divided as deeply as it has been at any time in our history since the Civil War.  It has made our government less productive and our society less civil.  President Obama is right that we cannot afford extreme partisanship and debilitating divisions.  In this week when we begin commemorating the Lincoln bicentennial, there is need, again, "to bind up the nation's wounds."  President Lincoln urged that course in his second inaugural address some seven score and four years ago.    Rather than vengeance, we need a fair-minded pursuit of what actually happened.  Sometimes the best way to move forward is getting to the truth, finding out what happened, so we can make sure it does not happen again.  When I came to the Senate, the Church Committee was working to expose the excesses of an earlier era.  Its work helped ensure that in years to come, we did not repeat the mistakes of the past.  We need to think about whether we have arrived at such a time, again. We need to come to a shared understanding of the failures of the recent past.  It is something to be considered.  It is something Professor Bernstein, for whom this lecture series is named, might have found worth studying.  We need to see whether there is interest in Congress and the new administration.  We would need to work through concerns about classified information and claims of executive privilege.  Most of all, we need to see whether the American people are ready to take this path. Edmund Burke said that law and arbitrary power are eternal enemies.  Arbitrary power is a powerful, corrosive force in a democracy.  Two years ago I described the scandals at the Bush-Cheney-Gonzales Justice Department as the worst since Watergate.  They were.  We are still digging out from the debris they left behind.  Now we face the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression while still contending with national security threats around the world.  This extraordinary time cries out for the American people to come together, as we did after 9/11, and as we have done before when we faced difficult challenges.   That is no more improbable than the truth that came to light and laid the foundation for reconciliation in South Africa, or in Greensboro, North Carolina; no more improbable than the founding of this Nation; and certainly no more improbable than the journey the people of this Nation took over the last year with a young man whose mother was from Kansas and whose father was from an African village half a world away.     In US political party news Kimberly Wilder (On The Wilder Side) has an announcement:   It is with some regret, and many mixed feelings that I am announcing my resignation from the Green Party. Some of the background reasons are a shift in personal focus. Though, I also feel great tension in belonging to a political organization which has made some decisions I do not like, and a political organization which I feel is less becoming less available to correction and input from individual members and/or grassroots ideas. I had already resigned from the GPNYS/NY State Committee several months ago. With my current resignation from the party, I mean: I am resigning my post as a representative to the GP-US National Committee. I am resigning my position as Co-Chair of the GP-US Diversity Committee, and that, next week, I will unenroll "Green Party" via the Board of Elections. I will re-enroll "blank" (a term in New York which is similar to terms in other states such as "unaligned", "independent", or "no party.") I totally reject the two party duopoly, so I would never consider joining the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party. And, at this time, I have not found a party that meets my various criteria and high ideals, including being for non-violence, against any war, and allowing for abundant and fair input from membership. I value my time in the Green Party. I will still think of the four pillars as a personal mantra: non-violence; grassroots democracy; social and economic justice; ecological wisdom. I have learned a lot from many wonderful, wise people, in the state and national party, some of whom are still in the party, but many of whom have left. I still have complete faith and respect for my local, the Green Party of Suffolk. And, it is because of their good work and my friends there, that I have the most regrets for leaving the party. I suppose having given so much of myself to the other levels, I can't feel as separate from the state/national internal bureaucracy shenanigans and mistakes as other greens can. Many of my friends and family members will remain in the Green Party. And, I will remain a publisher/contributor of "Onthewilderside" website, where my co-blogger is a loyal Green Party member and enrollee. My focus in my writing and in my activism will be more with non-partisan efforts at peace, anti-nuclear issues, and dismantling racism. I will continue to explore themes of ballot access and support for third party and independent ideals. (Though, I am feeling pretty fed up with politics.) Thank you for all your support of my Green Party efforts in the past. I hope that many of my green friends and colleagues will find other, mutual areas of interest to share with me. And, may the Green Party --but, more importantly, the green movement -- grow, reflect, evolve and prosper. Thank you, Kimberly Wilder North Babylon, Long Island, New York   Community note, Kat's "Kat's Korner: Tracy Chapman's truly amazing Our Bright Future" went up Sunday and her "Kat's Korner: Springsteen's serving up a dud" went up Saturday while Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Little Dicky Breaks It Down" went up Sunday.    iraq the new york times alissa j. rubin timothy williams ned parker saif hameed the los angeles times anthony shadid the washington post qais mizher ernesto londono npr all things considered lourdes garcia-navarro david bacon martha burk marc santora kimberly wilder kats korner the world today just nuts

Newday's Iraq brief "In the war: Iraq's minister for women, frustrated, quits" focuses on Nawal al-Samarrai resigning as the Minister of Women's Affairs due to it being a for-show position in a ministry that was underfunded all along ($7,500 a month) and even that pitiful amoung was cut (to $1,500). Sandy Sand's "Iraq's Women's Minister Quits: 'Army of Widows' Left in Need" (Digital Journal) also focuses on this issue:

Feeling frustrated and abandoned herself, Nawal al-Samarraie left her post as Iraq's minister for women's affairs after six months on the job due to severe cutbacks in her ministry’s funding. Not counting staff salaries, her budget, which was meager to begin with, was slashed from $7,500 a month to $1,500.
"I reached to the point that I will never be able to help the women," said al-Samarraie. "The budget is very limited ... so what can I do?"

I hope everyone is noticing how little coverage this resignation is receiving. It was breaking news on Friday (noted in the morning and in the snapshot) and yet who's covering it?


That was among the points of Third's "NYT goes tabloid" Sunday. A women resigns her post and expalins why and the press reaction is . . . silence. Let the Iraqi government declare a suspect is guilty of bombing and using women and using women who are rape victims and plotting their rapes and -- one lurid detail after another -- none of which can be verified -- and the press runs with it and makes it the driving story of that day out of Iraq. But very serious issues causing a minister to resign? They just don't care. And those serious issues effect women which, for any not paying attention in 2008, has been a pattern of not caring from the press. (One example? Hillary Clinton's proposals on breast cancer . . . covered by Ellen DeGeneres. No offense to Ellen, glad she was there. But the press ignored the proposals and then the few who did cover it did so only in a "Hillary said on Ellen . . ." manner.) Give them an individual women to cluck over and 'moralize' over and the press is in the hog heaven so many of the pigs long to one day reach. But point to systematic problems and issues that damage women's lives and the response is silence.

And there's no excuse of 'The wire services didn't pick up on it!' Kim Gamel has written a very strong AP article which most outlets are not carrying. From Gamel's "Iraqi women's minister resigns in protest:"

Al-Samarraie's resignation has cast a spotlight on the overwhelming problems facing Iraqi women, tens of thousands of them left poor or widowed by war.
An untold number have lost their husbands or other male relatives to violence or detention since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, often leaving them alone with children and virtually no safety net or job opportunities.
Al-Samarraie claimed Iraq has 3 million widows, calling it "a full army of widows, most of them not educated." The figure, which she said came from a government survey, includes those who lost their husbands under Saddam Hussein's regime and was impossible to verify.
All Iraqis have undergone difficulties, but women face the additional danger of being sidelined in a male-dominated society. Widows in Iraq, for example, traditionally move in with their extended families, but many families find it increasingly difficult to care for them.
Other problems for women include homelessness, domestic violence and the random detention of women caught up in U.S.-Iraqi military sweeps.


Sami Moubayed (Asia Times), apparently high off huffing the fumes emitting from Nouri al-Maliki's crotch, informs:

This weekend, yet another member resigned from the Maliki cabinet, Nawal al-Samarai, the minister of state for women's affairs. Her walkout puts the prime minister in a tight position, having already lost six Sadrists, three members of the secular Iraqi National List and six of the Iraqi Accordance Front, in addition to the Shi'ite party, al-Fadilah. Her argument was that since coming to office she had been unable to advance the interests of Iraqi women because of a lack of funds from the Baghdad government. "I have the privileges of a minister but I do not perform the duties of one," she said, and added that her powers were very limited.
Samarai, a member of the Sunni party, the Iraqi Accordance Front, was the only minister to veto signing the Security of Forces Agreement (SOFA) in the Iraqi cabinet in late 2008. The Accordance Front is angry with the prime minister, and so are heavyweight Sunni parties, who claim that Maliki's team rigged the provincial elections, the results of which were unofficially announced last Thursday. Election results, rather than being unable to deliver, are apparently what caused Samarai to resign, under orders from the Accordance Front.

For those who don't use the link, the resignation is very minor to Sami who drops it in late in his article after panting about Nouri doing something "forcefully" repeatedly. IRIN apparently either fanned themselves or was immune to the fumes Sami got high off. They note:

"My office is inside the Green Zone with no affiliated offices in other provinces and not enough funds to hold conferences, invite experts for studies and implement development plans," Al-Samaraie said. "How can I work and serve women under such circumstances?"
Al-Samaraie said there was "an army" of uneducated women, widows, victims of domestic violence and female internally displaced persons in dire need of assistance.
"My resignation is a warning to the government and a protest against its inability to evaluate the needs of women," she said. Al-Samaraie’s frustration is echoed by a group of women's rights activists led by prominent female member of parliament and women’s activist Safia al-Suhail. "When we talk about the women of Iraq, we are talking about nearly 65 percent of the population. They need a national and comprehensive strategy to help them enjoy their legal, health and social rights," Al-Suhail said.

Yesterday the KRG issued "President Barzani concludes visit to Kuwait, arrives in Qatar:"



Qatar -- (KRG.org) -- Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani is completing an official visit to Kuwait and Qatar as the Kurdistan Region continues to pursue mutually beneficial relationships with countries throughout the Middle East. President Barzani met with Kuwait's President Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jabir al-Sabah, Deputy Prime Minister Jabir Mubarek al-Hamad al-Sabah, and Crown Prince Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Jabir al-Sabah, as well as several Kuwaiti business people.
President Barzani discussed the relationship between Kuwait and Iraq and emphasised the expansion of investment and private sector opportunities in the Kurdistan Region. He welcomed Kuwaiti companies to explore commercial and investment ventures in the Region.
Mr Barzani also met several ambassadors from Arab countries to Kuwait, with whom he discussed political affairs.
He said, "From our own experience and the experience of many other people, a federal system is the best solution for Iraq."
President Barzani was received in Qatar by Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabir al-Thani. A number of Qatari ministers also attended the meeting.


And yesterday Iraq's Foreign Ministry issued the following:



8 February, 2009
Foreign Ministry Holds Farewell Ceremony for U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari held a lunch at the Foreign Ministry on Sunday, 8 \ 2 \ 2009 in honor of Ambassador Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq marking the end of his mission in Iraq
The minister praised in his farewell speech the efforts of Ambassador Crocker in supporting Iraq and his perseverance in assisting the Iraqis in the difficult circumstances and his significant contribution in supporting the efforts of the Iraqi government to achieve national reconciliation and restore security and stability in Iraq.
Minister Zebari wished Ambassador Crocker success in his career, and expressed the feelings of gratitude for what the ambassador presented to Iraq and the Iraqi people and the close relations between Iraq and the United States .
On this occasion the minister praised the efforts of Ambassador David Satterfield, adviser of Iraq's affairs in the State Department for role in promoting bilateral ties and wished him success in the future.
The farewell ceremony was attended by UN Secretary-General and ambassadors of the permanent members of UN, Ambassador of the European Union and a number of foreign ambassadors accredited in Iraq, Undersecretaries of the Foreign Ministry, and several ambassadors of the Ministry .

Bonnie reminds that Kat's "Kat's Korner: Tracy Chapman's truly amazing Our Bright Future" went up Sunday and her "Kat's Korner: Springsteen's serving up a dud" went up Saturday while Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Little Dicky Breaks It Down" went up Sunday.

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


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In today's New York Times, Marc Santora offers "Iraqis Say U.S. Patrol Killed Girl, 8, in Crowd." Saturday in Karbala, US troops (part of a convoy) fired into a crowd:

Jassim Hassan, a 25-year-old college student, described a scene of chaos and confusion. "I don't know how all of this happened and I can't remember a thing, because everything was so fast and sudden," he said.
After the short burst of gunfire, the 8-year-old girl, Sa'adiya Saddam, collapsed on the ground by her wailing mother, witnesses said.
Her brother, Hussein, also 8, said: "We didn't notice the Americans before the gun shooting started. My sister fell immediately, swimming in her own blood."

And that's really all the article has to offer on the incident so it quickly turns into a summary piece. The New York Times had no article in Sunday's paper filed from Iraq. Point? For a round up, Santora's forgetting two US military deaths, one announced Saturday, the other announced yesterday. The paper has reported neither. I don't believe al-Maliki's 'overture' to former Baathists who have left Iraq (and I doubt they do) but Santora's got time to bore us with his non-reporter embellishments on that topic and he can't cover the basics of 2 deaths announced over the weekend?

In other news, the Kurdistan Regional Government notes the AP report that begins, "The prime minister of Iraq's Kurdistan Region accused the Arab-dominated national government Saturday of trying to use troops to seize control of the disputed city of Kirkuk, escalating tensions between Iraqi Kurds and the Arab leadership in Baghdad."

Switching from news to nonsense (or worse -- and this isn't related in anyway to the KRG, to be clear):

That's when Christians began supporting a new rationale for killing Iraqis: that any Iraqi who resisted the U.S. invasion or occupation was a terrorist and, therefore, okay to kill. Since terrorists were bad people, the argument went, it was okay to support the killing of Iraqis who were resisting the invasion and occupation of their country.

That's the kind of garbage, above, that really has no business circulating among the left. And I thought the thing to do was to ignore it. The first e-mail to the public account on this garbage, Jacob G. Hornberger's "Christian Support for Killing Iraqis," resulted in me trashing it and moving on to the next e-mail. But five visitors have e-mailed the public account sure that this is he sort of thing we'd be interested in applauding. We're not.

First off, it's stupid. It's stupid and written by a stupid person. It attacks American Christians throughout and seems completely unaware that many Christians were against the illegal war. What you have is bigotry expressed by Jacob G. Hornberger and he thinks it's okay because he's aiming it at Christians. He knows -- or should -- that he couldn't get away with making broadstroke claims like these against Muslims. But he thinks it's acceptable to do so with Christians and apparently Information Clearing House agrees.

I'll give the visitors the benefit of the doubt and say that, seeing it at Information Clearing House, they thought this was (a) about Iraq and (b) some sort of left statement. Jacob Hornberger is not a leftist. He is a right winger. (Click here for information about his group from SourceWatch.) But that five thought it was something we'd be interested in means we need to publicly reject it. It is badly written just a piece of prose -- setting aside the 'facts' and point-of-view. It is badly written on a factual level since many, many American Christians rejected the illegal war and did so before it began.

Who knows what Hornberger's selling (Lyndon LaRouche?) but whatever it is, he thinks the way to get there is by expressing and encouraging bigotry against American Christians and that the best way to do so is to write a fact-free attack that distorts recent history.

There's enough stupid in the world, we're not interested in more of it. I'll give the visitors the benefit of the doubt and assume that they're young and aren't old enough to remember the actual start of the illegal war.

January 30, 2003, Alan Cooperman's "Bishop in Bush's Church in New Anti-War Ad" ran in the Washington Post:

The National Council of Churches will begin airing a television commercial today in which a bishop of the United Methodist Church, President Bush's denomination, says going to war against Iraq "violates God's law and the teachings of Jesus Christ."
The 30-second ad, scheduled to appear several times a day over the next week on the CNN and Fox cable networks in New York and Washington, is part of an accelerating television, radio and print media campaign by Win Without War, a coalition of organizations opposed to invading Iraq.
The choice of a Methodist bishop as a spokesman is intended to emphasize the opposition to war from America's mainstream churches and to convey that the peace movement is middle-of-the-road and patriotic, according to Win Without War's national director, former representative Tom Andrews (D-Maine).

The illegal war hits the six year mark in March. People who are now, for example, sixteen-years-old were only ten when it started. I'm not going to catigate young people for not knowing what went on when they were still children. But Hornberger is not a child. He either is highly ill informed or he intentionally lied. Stupid or a liar, we don't support his revisionary history used to express bigotry against Amercian Christians.

We cover Christians as needed. If Iraqi Christians are under attack, it'll be noted. We do not use any religious god or gods to make an argument or score a point here and we never have. We do not base our arguments on the belief in or disbelief of any god or gods. If an American religious leader reveals himself to be a fraud, we will be among the first to laugh at the hypocrisy. And maybe all of that has led someone to believe that we'd be interested in the garbage Hornberger has contributed? If so, let's be really clear that it's of no interest to this site today or tomorrow. And when we do offer broadsides (about every thirty seconds), we generally try to aim a little higher than the masses. They're not the leaders. If Hornberger's garbage were true (it's not), one would wonder why he aimed it at the average citizen of a country -- any country -- as opposed to reserving the vile for the leaders or system itself?

I personally believe in the separation of church and state -- putting me at odds with the current occupant of the oval office and the previous one -- and we've tried to construct arguments here without cloaking ourselves in religion or wrapping ourselves in the flag. I'm sure the ones I've put forward have failed many times; however, they have failed on their own terms and not because we attempted to pass for pious or whatever.

In terms of today? Who's the bigger idiot: Someone still supporting the illegal war (Christian or not) or someone who thinks they can rewrite history? I'd argue it's the latter. Hornberger really insults American readers when he writes that garbage because he obviously thinks he can get away with it meaning he thinks everyone -- except himself -- is stupid. Normally, we don't link to trash. We're linking this time and calling it out because it needs to be called out and I want to be sure that those interested in seeing how offensive it is can easily do so.

Re: Information Clearing House, I'm not interested in "morality." When that term appears here in some form (including "immorality"), it's from some excerpt. I use the term "ethical." As for Bryan Friesen's "Socialism Is Not a Dirty Word." I don't think I've seen more intellectually stunted garbage this year. Sarah Palin is not the problem. If Socialism is a dirty word to some (and it is a very dirty word to some people) it's because it is the unknown/other. And the problem is not what Sarah Palin or some Republican says, the problem is closet cases who want to hide behind whimpering "McCarthyism!" all these decades later. There is no reason for any American Socialist or Communist to be in the political closet today. And I honestly have no respect for any who are. I don't respect Republicans who pretend to be something else, I don't respect anyone who hides in a political closet. I think it's dishonest. McCarthyism ended sometime ago. Reality that no one likes to speak, some Socialists and Communists were in the closet before McCarthyism. They got off on being dishonest and manipulating. That's the only reason anyone remains in a political closet. Friesen would be better off worrying less about a Sarah Palin speech and more about why so many cowards hide in political closets? Freisen should also attempt to complete his education before (badly) writing about Socialism again. Journalism majors really are only able to write about what they see around them and political theory escapes Freisen. When you're using Robin Hood to illustrate a political theory, you're not simplifying for your intended audience, you're revealing how little you grasp political theory. Repeating, I have degrees in poli sci, political theory does not scare me. I do not endorse violence. I have friends who are Republican, Socialist, Communist, Green and apolitical as well as Democrat and I'm a Democrat. I do not have the time or the desire to hang with the politically closeted. I actually find them more appalling than advocates of violence because the latter is usually responding to something. Clothes are for wardrobes, not political idealogies.

And, thinking of one friend of many years who will complain to me about the above, I am not talking about the politically shy or private. For example, ____ is a TV actress who has political conversations with only a small number of people. There are many people who know her and think she's never had a political thought in her life as a result. Someone like that, choosing to keep their opinions private, is not "in the closet" as I'm using the phrase. "In the closet" refers to those who pose as Democrats (think of any number of Republicans, for example) in attempts to manipulate. There are people who genuinely are uncomfortable discussing politics and we'll call them politically shy. "In the closet" only refers to those who attempt to manipulate events or opinion by publicly self-representing one political ideology when they are something else.








Bonnie reminds that Kat's "Kat's Korner: Tracy Chapman's truly amazing Our Bright Future" went up Sunday and her "Kat's Korner: Springsteen's serving up a dud" went up Saturday while Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Little Dicky Breaks It Down" went up Sunday.

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

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Isaiah's latest The World Today Just Nuts "Little Dicky Breaks It Down." Little Dicky explains, "Hey everybody. I'm Little Dicky. I used to be a Republican so all Democrats should listen to me. Like you, I love Barack and hate that abortion is legal. A woman's place is in the kitchen or at a Mommy blog. Fear not America, Little Dicky is on the job. By 2012 I'll have the DNC looking like the GOP."




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Kat: Shortly after Bruce "The Twinkee" Springsteen was doing his ambiguous best to have the stardom that was denied throughout the seventies, Tracy Chapman emerged to demonstrate what it meant to be "talking 'bout a revolution."

While they're standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in the unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion
Don't you know
Talking 'bout a revolution
Sounds like a whisper
And finally the tables are starting to turn

On her self-titled debut, that was always my favorite song and clearly it's a favorite of Chapman's as well since the song starts playing every time you visit her website. She's got a lot to be proud of with that song and with that entire album. At a time when African-American performers were regularly being sidelined at the 'big event for change' concerts of the eighties, Chapman ended up a headliner on an Amnesty tour on the basis of that first album because it was just too brilliant to be denied.

It was also impossible to top as subsequent albums demonstrated and, worse yet, it appeared impossible to even match. That 1988 masterpiece included the huge hit "Fast Car" as well as many other masterpieces ("Baby Can I Hold You" and "For My Lover" being two examples). If she never did anything else in her career, she could point proudly to that album.



As 2008 drew to a close, twenty years later, Tracy ended up with another masterpiece on her hands. Our Bright Future was released in November and my big struggle with it is attempting to figure out whether Tracy did herself in with too many releases (thereby killing the enthusiasm) or whether sexism and racism are at play? I think it's a combination of all three but watching the usual drumbeats thump-thumping for Bruce Springsteen, the typical corporate rock marketing that they trot out with each Springsteen release, it's amazing to notice how low key the response to an actual album of art is.

Sweet and high
At the break of dawn
A simple tune that you can hum along to
I remember
There was a time
When I used to sing for you

That's the first track on her CD. As I explained at my website last week, I was driving to the next speaking engagement, Ava was in the front with me and C.I. was in the back teaching Wally the chords to a song that ended up being "Sing For You." Wally had them down and was putting it together when C.I. sang the lyrics and I went from "Where is the turn?" to "What is that song?" in about two seconds. When I was told it was Tracy Chapman, I was excited and then a little worried, a little depressed.

If you've purchased more than two Tracy albums in the last twenty years and counting, you probably understand that. You stop hoping this new album will be the one that matches the first. You start hoping that there are just some strong tracks on it. Unless Tracy has done "Sing For You" as some techno mix, I knew there would be one strong track. And the rest of the day, as we spoke to various groups about the illegal war, I kept thinking, "As soon as we're back at the hotel, I'm downloading that album."

Which I did. And though this is far from my first download, it was a sign of how eager and nervous I was that I seemed to forget everything. I was using Amazon and the message popped up saying the tracks were downloaded. I was so thrilled! That was so fast! Oh, wait, they have to switch over to Windows Media Player. Yeah, I knew that. I knew that and knew it could take three to five minutes. But I forgot because all I wanted was to hear the album and hear it right away! (Yes, this really is right away as anyone who's ever waited and waited for the street date of some release knows. I can remember attempting to bribe a guy at Tower to get Tango In The Night back in 1987 and, when he turned me down, contacting an old friend at a local paper and having a one night stand where, on the way out, I just happened to help myself to his review copy of Tango.)

"Sing For You" was the first song and what a beautiful song. If the album not only began with this song but also ended with it, if it was only one track, Tracy would have something to be proud of. I was tempted to play it again but wanted to hear the entire album right away.

"I Did It All" has a slow gallop tempo and right away you know it's going to be a story song just from the music. And they demonstrate a real talent for lyrics that we might not expect from Tracy. I think we all expect her to cut to bone and speak for us in first person when it comes to those life moments that leave us curled in a fetal position and we certainly expect her to provide us the fist-pumping anthems but her word play here is really something. "Smoked second-hand in crowded bars, With the A-list of B-list movie stars," she explains and it's not just a good song, it's a wonderful sequencing track because it puts the listener in a different place. Had it come near the middle or end of the track list, a first listen would have been more anxious but track two just puts you in the right place. It also sets the stage for "Save Us All" which could come off preachy with a different arrangement but especially benefits from following the story song. Tracy's taking a child's look at religion in this song. (Similar to a child's boast on the playground of their parent being better than someone else's.)

Three tracks in and she's got a winner of an album.

To my father what of your sons?
All of your children
Even the ones
Sent out to martyr
To face the gun
Precious bodies opposed to bombs

So opens track four and you may find yourself, like me, thinking, "And Bruce is off blubbering about some bandit in a diaper?" This is just a startling mature album with an immediacy that I find difficult to believe is going to age. Tracy's vocals are strong and sure throughout and she co-produced this album with Larry Klein (yes, Joni's ex-husband).

There are eleven tracks and I go track by track, I can tell you who played what instrument, I can talk about Tracy's acoustic guitar work or her vocals, I can talk about how every song is arranged perfectly -- not 'to perfection,' it has a clean sound, not a fussed over one -- and even explain to you how this album not only matches her debut but may even pull slightly ahead of it.
What I really should tell you is you want headphones for this CD, you want these shared observations to come to your ear and only your ear because the album's this amazing chat with a friend.

See, Tracy's never been so sure in her talent. There's a confidence that has you feeling so happy the way you do when a friend who, for example, has been dating a loser, putting her life on hold and just negating her own worth finally wakes up. You're not just bursting with pride for her, you're not just wanting to hug her, you're inspired by her bravery and art is bravery which is why Our Bright Future may in fact top Tracy Chapman.

There are also so many contradictions (planned ones such as the ending of "Think Of You" which negates much of the earlier boasts in the song) and it's the album of a woman who's lived some, the simplistic views of earlier years have faded. It's a grown up and delightful album, even a sexy one. (On the latter pay attention to her guitar playing and vocals on "A Theory.")

I hope if you bumped into Tracy on the street and asked her, "Are you becoming the woman you always wanted to be?" that she'd respond "Yes!" because that's how the album plays out. She's sounds like a woman comfortable and confident in her art.

The only real bad news is that "Spring" ends the album. It's probably the most delicate song of the eleven -- in arrangement and in vocal. And it's really beautiful. But while she's singing of waiting for spring, it will probably hit you quickly that -- live album aside -- you're going to be waiting two to three years before the next Tracy Chapman album. In the meantime, you've got Our Bright Future and it's truly amazing.

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Trenton Daniel and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report that a public trial has been scheduled for Iraqi journalist Muntathar al Zaidi who threw two shoes at George W. Bush on December 14th. The journalists note, " Zaidi was poulled to ground by another journalist and then pummeled into submission by bodyguards for Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki." Australia Network News states, "A judicial official has announced that Muntazer al-Zaidi will face the charge of assaulting a foreign leader and will appear at the Central Criminal Court." Ahmed Rasheed, Peter Graff and Louise Ireland (Reuters) add that an effort to have the charges reduced was lost on appeal according to Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar, spokesperson for the Iraqi Judiciary Council and, as a result, if convicted, Muntather could be sentenced to as many as fifteen years. Bush was hit by neither shoe. That's the 'freedom' Iraq is under.


They're just there to try and make the people free,
But the way that they're doing it, it don't seem like that to me.
Just more blood-letting and misery and tears
That this poor country's known for the last twenty years,
And the war drags on
.-- words and lyrics by Mick Softly (available on Donovan's Fairytale)

Last Sunday, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4237 and tonight? 4239. Today the US military announced: "BAGHDAD -- A Multi-National Division–Baghdad Soldier died from a non-combat related incident Feb. 8. The Soldier’s name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin. The incident is currently under investigation."
Just Foreign Policy's counter finally moves up and the current number is 1,311,696.

In some of the weekend's reported violence . . .

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing that claimed 2 lives and left eleven people injured, another Baghdad roadside bombing that injured two people, a third Baghdad roadside bombing that left five injured and a Mosul roadside bombing that wounded one person. Saturday McClatchy reported a Baghdad roadside bombing left two police officers wounded, two Diayala Province roadside bombings which claimed the lives of 1 Iraqi soldier and 1 Iraqi police officer, a Mosul grenade attack that wounded a police officer and, dropping back to Friday, a roadside bomb targeting Sheik Balasim Mohammed Yihya al Timimi "between Baladroz and Kanan towns" that left the sheik injured.

Shootings?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 2 people shot dead in Sinjar. Saturday McClatchy reported Iraqi police shot dead 3 people who were 'suspects' and a home invasion outside Baquba in which attorney Kanan Majeed was shot dead. Reuters noted 2 people shot dead in Tal Afar on Friday.

Corpses?

McClatchy noted Saturday 1 corpse discovered outside of Mosul.

That was far from the only violence and far from the only violence reported. For example, Reuters reported Saturday, "Gunmen kidnapped Talib al-Masoudi, who ran in Jan. 31 provincial elections as a candidate from the Shi'ite Fadhila party, from the Husseiniya neighbourhood in Kerbala, 80 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, police said." Oh those wonderful, glorious and 'democratic' elections. Whose results are still not official. Apparently counting ballots isn't the difficult thing, it's rigging the results that's creating the hold up.

Meanwhile Moqtada al-Sadr apparently didn't learn the only real lesson of the elections: Threaten violence to get your way the tallies. Which is why AP explains al-Sadr is appealing the results of the elections: "The allegations are among a chorus of questions raised by Shiite religious parties and Sunnis about the outcome of provincial elections, in which allies of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki won a sweeping victory." Tahir al-Kinani is quoted citing two sets of number: one from al-Sadr's observers in the provinces and the other from Iraq's laughable and discredited "electoral commission."

"It's not our fault that some people couldn't vote because they are lazy, because they didn't bother to ask where they should vote." That's the 'electoral commission''s chief speaking. And al-Sadr should have taken a lesson from that. To widely documented problems that is Faraj al-Hadiari's response. To the thugs of Anbar's allegations that couldn't be proven and the thugs threats? al-Hadiari leaps into action and 'massages' the results. Because heaven forbid thugs aren't pleased with the results. Heaven forbid that while giving lip service to democracy, no one actually expects in Iraq.

Democracy? That would require checks and balances. For that to work, you'd have to have a strong, independent judiciary in Iraq (yes, we are all laughing) and a strong legislative branch able to check al-Maliki's never ending power grab. Strong legislative branch? The Parliament has been without a speaker since December 23rd when they ousted Mahmoud al-Mashhadani. 48 days later, who is the Parliament's speaker? Still no one. AFP reports there "are five candidates" but that Parliament remains "deadlocked."

Before get to the other governmental news out of Iraq, we need to remember what's taken place recently. On Jan 22nd, AP reported that Bayan Jabr has told Iraqis that the drop in the price of oil means "hard days to come" and that they should be buying gold or putting money in the bank. Yes, that was hilarious advice. And indicated how out of touch the exile government was with the inhabitants of Iraq who have no option of 'summering' elsewhere. From the Janaury 7th snapshot:

At that time it was expected/estimated by the GAO that Iraq's oil revenues for 2008 would be somewhere between $73 billion and $86 billion (the oil prices dropped significantly after that hearing). Mariam Karouny (Reuters) reported Monday that "Iraq earned about $60 billion from average crude oil sales of 1.85 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2008, a top Iraqi oil official said on Monday." Qatar's Gulf Times gives the figure as $60.9 billion and notes this is a 49% increase from the oil revenues the country brought in for 2007.

The government had to make 'choices' and what got cut? Nawal Al Samarrai announced last week that she was resigning as Iraq's Minister of Women's Affairs noting that it was a for-show position that was drastically underfunded. AFP reports today that she has revealed "her budget was slashed from $7,500 (BD2,8282) to $1,500 (BD566) per month as part of this year's government spending cuts due to plunging oil prices." We'll get back to the reality of what the puppet government spends money on but first let's note that a country with over 25 million people (CIA estimate) and more females than males -- especially among the adult population -- really should be ashamed for spending only $7,500 -- forget for cutting it to $1,500. $7500 was never going to be enough for a monthly budget. The US military had nearly 100,000 "Awakenings" on the payroll (a huge number still remain on the payroll) and paid $300 a month. That was $300,000 a month being paid to thugs so they wouldn't attack the US military -- the infamous fork-over-your-lunch-money-in-the-playground 'strategy.' In other words, 35 Awakening members a month were making the same amount of money as the entire monthly budget for the Ministry of Women's Affairs. 35 men. That number is outrageous and offensive. If you've missed it, the KRG continues to highlight -- sometimes slyly, sometimes outright -- how their region at least makes a show (they may do more than that, but at least makes a show) out of having women involved in the government and in governmental function via their press releases. Iraq's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, their State Dept, may be the only ministry currently functioning and yet they earn no praise when time and again their appointments to other countries, the people they choose over and over to represent Iraq, are males. And when it's time to note a meeting with a woman from another country, they generally not only bill her as "Mrs." even if she bills herself as "Ms.," they also tend to spell her name wrong. There's a huge level of disrespect being shown towards women and other countries could address that indirectly -- it would be great if they did so directly, but they could do it indirectly -- by ensuring that women from their country are part of the diplomatic missions.

Let's be really clear that al-Maliki and his other religious freakazoids who think women have no rights -- and that's what al-Maliki thinks -- get away with their nonsense because they're not called on it. Bremer, Garner, go down the list. No one thought women were important enough to fight for. Since the start of the illegal war, when women achieved anything in Iraq, it was because Iraqi women took to the streets. They have regularly been undercut by foreign governments and by NGOs. Undercut? Try attacked by.

When every fall you know there will be a cholera outbreak because NO money is being spent to improve the water and sanitation systems, you know what the problem is. So shame on any NGO who attempts to attack women and blame the yearly cholera outbreak on them. That is exactly what happened in a Baghdad press conference last September. People like Dr. Naeema al-Gasseer are not helping anyone and they are a public menace to the women in Iraq. How dare she blame Iraqi women. How dare she scapegoat them.

Which country is going to step up to the plate and stop babying Iraq and stop assuming that women's rights are 'secondary issues' and that other issues can be 'fixed' and 'addressed' and that after all of that takes place, then they'll take up "the women's issue." In which country in the world has that ever happened? In which country have we ever seen a government declare, "We've worked on everything else. So now we can devote time and attention to 'the women's issue'."? It's never happened. Women have to demand their rights.

And the Iraqi women have. When everyone else has frequently been scared to take to the streets and march for their rights (post-invasion), Iraqi women have always marched. And they are undercut and betrayed by the international system that marks down their rights and treats them as if they are a side-oder and the rights of men are the main dish to be served immediately.

It is past time to see Iraqi women supported by the US, by England, by all the countries who just knew the 'right' thing to do was to start an illegal war. Just like they knew the 'right' thing to do was to take a secular nation and put religious thugs in charge. That decision was made because it was 'easiest' for the US. It wasn't 'easy' for Iraq. And that's the point regarding women's rights. They aren't add-ons, they aren't perks. If the society doesn't value the rights of all, the society's not a democracy.

Iraqi women would greatly benefit from other government's utilizing such indirect actions as ensuring that Iraq's (male) officials grasped that they would be dealing with women. British women, French women, Australian women, American women. And making sure women were present in the photo ops. al-Maliki's fundamentalist government is an attack on women. Something as simple as making the diplomatic envoy going to Iraq next week or next month a woman does send a message and, much more importantly, the message isn't to the thugs, it goes over them to the Iraqi people. They see it and they recognize it because Iraq, before the start of the illegal war, actually did have a government that recognized women's rights. Not to the degree that was in their Constitution, no. In practice, it wasn't at that level. But it was recognized. The US has 'succeeded' in turning Iraq into the Taliban's Afghanistan. The idea that they can now pretend that women's rights are a side-order and they can address it or not is ridiculous. The US government is directly responsible for the damage and destruction Iraqi women live with.

Remember the issue of money was not being ignored, we were just setting it aside for a moment. In 'good' times, al-Maliki thought $7,500 was more than enough for a ministry (dealing with women) to have as a monthly budget. Now he's slashed it to $1,500. But not everything gets slashed. And not everything gets underfunded. Dropping back to the December 11th snapshot:

October 31st, AP reported the puppet government in Baghdad's latest boo-hoo: Oil prices had dropped and their budget for 2009 had to be cut by $13 billion. The Guardian of London (via Iraq Directory) was writing that there was talk of raising production due to the drop from the expected $80 billion 2009 budget to the $67 billion budget. In 2008, they couldn't meet their spending targets and sat on a ton of money while infrastructure remained unrepaired and Iraqis suffered without electricity and potable water. This week they're on a spending spree. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency made several announcements yesterday [all links of announcements take you to PDF format]. DSCA announced: "On Dec. 9, the Dfense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of 36 AT-6B Texan II Aircraft as well as associated support. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $520 million." And they announced: "On Dec. 9, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of 400 M1126 STRYKER Infantry Carrier Vehicles as well as associated equipment. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $1.11 billion." And they announced: "On Dec. 9, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of 20 T-6A Texan aircraft, 20 Global Positioning Systems (GPS) as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $210 million." And they announced: "On Dec. 9, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of (20) 30-35 meter Coastal Patrol Boats and (3) 55-60 meter Offshore Support Vessels as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $1.010 billion." And they announced: "On Dec. 9, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of 140 M1A1 Abrams tanks modified and upgraded to the M1A1M Abrams configuration, 8 M88A2 Tank Recovery Vehicles, 64 M1151A1B1 Armored High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWV), 92 M1152 Shelter Carriers, 12 M577A2 Command Post Carriers, 16 M548A1 Tracked Logistics Behicles, 8 M113A2 Armored Ambulances, and 420 AN/VRC-92 Vehicular Receiver Transmitters as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised could be as high as $2.160 billion." And they announced: "On Dec. 9, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of 26 Bell Armed 407 Helicopters, 26 Rolls Royce 250-C-30 Engines, 26 M280 2.75-inch Launchers, 26 XM296 .50 Cal. Machine Guns with 500 Round Ammunition Box, 26 M299 HELLFIRE Guided Missile Launchers as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $366 million." And they announced: "On Dec. 9, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of (80,000) M16A4 5.56MM Rifles, (25,000) M4 5.56MM Carbines, (2,550) M203 40MM Grenade Launchers as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $148 million." And they announced: "On Dec. 9, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of (64) Deployable Rapid Assembly Shelters (DRASH), (1,500) 50 watt Very High Frequency (VHF) Base Station Radios, (6,000) VHF Tactical Handheld Radios, (100) VHF Fixed Retransmitters, (200) VHF Vehicular Radios, (30) VHF Maritime 50 watt Base Stations, (150) 150 watt High Frequency (HF) Base Station Radio Systems, (150) 20 watt HF Vehicular Radios, (30) 20 watt HF Manpack Radios, (50) 50 watt Very High Frequency/Ultra High Frequency (VHF/UHF) Ground to Air Radio Systems, (50) 150 watt VHF/UHF Ground to Air Radio Systems, (50) 5 watt Multiband Handheld Radio Systems as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $485 Million." That is over six billion dollars being committed "if all options are exercised" -- which is a little over 10% of their entire budget for 2009. There's always money to spend when it comes to weapons. And human life is always done on the cheap.


New content at Third:

Truest statement of the week
Truest statement of the week II
A note to our readers
Editorial: Barack backs off Iraq, the Cult showers him with love
TV: Three hours worth watching
NYT goes tabloid
US war resisters Andre Shepherd and Cliff Cornell
What Iraqi elections taught the world
Music roundtable
Michael Phelps Adult Swim
And one little piggie went wah-wah all the way home
Highlights

Brandon notes Thomas E. Ricks' "The Dissenter Who Changed the War" (Washington Post) on Ray Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq:

Sent back to Iraq in 2006 as second in command of U.S. forces, under orders to begin the withdrawal of American troops and shift fighting responsibilities to the Iraqis, Odierno found a situation that he recalled as "fairly desperate, frankly."
So that fall, he became the lone senior officer in the active-duty military to advocate a buildup of American troops in Iraq, a strategy rejected by the full chain of command above him, including Gen. George W. Casey Jr., then the top commander in Iraq and Odierno's immediate superior.
Communicating almost daily by phone with retired Gen. Jack Keane, an influential former Army vice chief of staff and his most important ally in Washington, Odierno launched a guerrilla campaign for a change in direction in Iraq, conducting his own strategic review and bypassing his superiors to talk through Keane to White House staff members and key figures in the military. It would prove one of the most audacious moves of the Iraq war, and one that eventually reversed almost every tenet of U.S. strategy.



Kat's "Kat's Korner: Tracy Chapman's truly amazing Our Bright Future" went up earlier today and her "Kat's Korner: Springsteen's serving up a dud" went up Saturday. And they're wonderful. Isaiah had planned to take the weekend off ("off" here, he did illustrations for today's El Spirito) but he's had a last minute idea so his latest comic will go up after this. For anyone wondering, there was no news article in today's New York Times. Pru notes this from Great Britain's Socialist Worker:

Obama’s economic plan won’t fix the crisis
Debates about protectionist policies miss the real problems of a deep recession, writes Sadie Robinson
Barack Obama’s plan to save the US economy has been caught up in a growing panic among world leaders over protectionism.
The $819 billion scheme was passed in the House of Representatives last week and will be debated in the Senate this week.
The key elements of the plan are widespread tax cuts and funding for infrastructure projects – which Obama claims will create millions of jobs and stimulate economic growth.
The plan also includes a clause that would require companies engaged in the infrastructure projects to use US steel and iron rather than import them – the so-called “Buy American” clause.
It is this that has led to a debate over protectionism.
Union leaders in the US have backed the Buy American clause. Leo Gerard, the international president of the United Steelworkers union, says that workers have to be “economic patriots” in response to the recession.
But neither Obama’s plan nor the clause address the fundamental causes of the crisis – declining profitability and overproduction.
The constant drive for profit lies behind the housing and debt bubbles that were allowed to build up. It also lies behind the increase in speculation and trading in debt that triggered the credit crunch. This has now developed into a full-blown recession.
Governments have responded with various bailouts. All have failed and the recession has deepened.
According to the Federal Reserve, the US government has allocated a whopping $7.8 trillion in various bailouts and stimulus packages since December 2007 – around $3.3 trillion of which has already been spent.
This does not include Obama’s latest scheme.
But even if banks do increase their lending – which is not guaranteed – this will not solve the problem, as businesses will only invest if they are confident they can make profits.
What’s more, the US cannot insulate itself from the global economy. Protecting some jobs in the US steel industry can have a negative impact on industry in other countries, which then impacts back on the US.
The growing recession in China, for example, has meant that the Chinese government is becoming more dependent on exports and is limiting imports to try to protect its own economy.
This has provoked fear in the US ruling class. Obama’s treasury secretary Timothy Geithner has accused China of manipulating its currency, keeping it low to encourage exports.
Protectionist measures have been used in the past to try to save jobs.
They failed. The British government tried to limit imports in 1931, especially in industries such as coal, iron, steel, shipbuilding and textiles.
In 1929 there were around 2.3 million workers employed in these industries. After eight years of protectionist policies this had fallen to 1.8 million.
The rate of unemployment in these industries was double the average for the country.
The key factor behind workers losing their jobs was not how many imports were allowed into the country but the fact that the system was in recession.
The steel industry in the US today is in trouble because there is less demand for steel.
There are fewer cars being produced because the market for them has dried up. The problem is not steel imports – it is the recession.
At the same time as Obama introduces the latest bailout, his government is looking at how to use the second half of the $750 billion bailout that was passed late last year. Part of this will try to tackle the problem of bad debts in the financial system.
Geithner has said he is considering creating a “bad bank” to buy up these toxic assets, which some have estimated could cost over $1 trillion.
Again, there is no guarantee that this would have an impact on lending. And it would mean the US government taking on these debts – raising questions of how they will be paid for.
Obama has brought in several positive measures in his short time in office. He has signed three executive orders that give workers and trade unions in federal government more power.
And his Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act makes it easier for workers to challenge pay discrimination.
These are all changes that should be welcomed.
But the question is – are any of them a solution to the crisis?
Unfortunately for the millions of Americans who are bearing the brunt of the recession, they are not.
© Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original.
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iraq
and the war drags on
donovan
ahmed rasheed
mcclatchy newspapers
hussein kadhim
trenton daniel
thomas e. ricks
the washington post
kats korner
the world today just nuts
the socialist worker
the third estate sunday review

Kat: Adam Sandler used to do a parody of Bruce Springsteen on Saturday Night Live, a parody of love. What happens when love is tossed out of the equation? And what happens when it's a self-parody? Those are questions that Bruce's new album, Working On a Dream, raises. Repeatedly.



Take the first track. Over what he hopes sound John Ford-ish but really is just the love theme to St. Elmo's Fire, Bruce babbles and wheezes through lyrics so embarrassing you're only boggled that he didn't toss in his favorite (and lame) phrase of "wee-wee hours." The phrase actually would have fit for a change since, if he's not sending himself up, he appears to be writing for the next Rugrats movie:


He was born a little baby on the Appalachian Trail
At six month he'd done three months in jail
He robbed a bank in his diapers
And his little bare baby feet
All he said was folks
My name is Outlaw Pete
I'm Outlaw Pete
Can you hear me?

Yes, Bruce, I can, though I wish I couldn't and you might wish that soon as well. At 59-years-old (he turns 60 later this year), I'm really not sure Bruce should be singing he's Outlaw Pete, a bank robber in diapers, unless he's thinking of some sort of TV ad tie-in with Depends adult diapers.

Bad lyrics and a rip-off of the love theme to St. Elmo's -- the mid-section of the song. Can it get worse? Yes. For example he can take the opening of the love theme to St. Elmo's (I'm really starting to fear Bruce last got out of the house in 1985) and use it for "Queen of the Supermarket."

The title tells you just how awful the song is going to be but still you don't fully believe it until he starts singing:

There's a wonderful world where all you desire
And everything you long for is at your finger tips
Where the bittersweet taste of life is at your lips
Where aisles and aisles of dreams await you
And the cool promise of ecstasy fills the air
At the end of each working day
She's waiting there
I'm in love with the queen of the supermarket

Uh, Bruce, I don't know where you shop but on good trips, baked goods fill the air of my supermarket and, on a bad trip, spoiled yogurt or some other milk product. Possibly before writing about a supermarket, you might try shopping in one? Just a thought, but one that might have prevented you from writing Rogers & Clark's follow up to "Wardrobe Of Love." Don't believe me? The Ishtar singing duo played by Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman offered up, "She said come look, there's a wardrobe of love in my eyes, take your time look around and see if there's something your size." Of course, the difference is, Beatty and Hoffman are playing bad songwriters and Bruce presumably wants to be a good one.

He's in love with the supermarket queen, you understand. So he takes his "groceries and I drift away . . . a dream awaits on aisle number two." Yeah, the song and the whole album bring to mind number two. As he drones on and on, you realize that he may be in love with the supermarket queen but he's never told her. In fact he "prays for the strength to tell her" he loves her. Not since Rick Springfield asked "How Do You Talk To Girls?" has a falser pose been struck. In case Bruce is truly being sincere, let me assist: Make her your backup singer. That's how you ended your first marriage and started your second, right?

"Tomorrow Never Knows" starts with a hackneyed title, a really bad finger-picking arrangement, Bruce trying to wheeze like Dylan (the Dylan who just allowed "Blowing In The Wind" to be used in TV commercials) and never has a thing to say deeper than the title. If you're begging for comparisons to Lennon & McCartney with your choice of song title, it's probably a good idea to have something actually worth saying.

When not borrowing from St. Elmo's Fire, Ishtar or the Beatles, Bruce apparently takes his inspiration from The Carol Burnett Show. How else to explain "Surprise, Surprise"? Yeah, I saw that skit where Carol, as Eunice, says "Surprise, surprise." She's very funny. Carol's a wonderful comedian. But is Bruce trying to make us laugh?

Well surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise
Yeah surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise
Well surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise
Come on open your eyes
And let your love shine down
Well surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise
Yeah surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise
Well surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise
Come on open your eyes
And let your love shine down.

That's how the song opens and if you're thinking, "Well, it has to get better," you haven't heard it. Hint, next two lines are, "Well today is your birthday, We've traveled so far, we too . . ." As Phyllis Diller would say, "That's a personal call." And boring to all the rest of us. There's a little life in "Last Carnival" if you enjoy it when professional singers can't reach a note and their voices crack. If that's your bag, by all means enjoy Crackling Brucie trying to sing "train" and "break" throughout the song.

He nods to Paul Simon's "One Trick Pony" in what can be seen as his sole attempt at confessional songwriting: "If you've ever seen a one trick pony, then you've seen me." That's "The Wrestler" and, in it, he asks, "Tell me friend, can you ask for anything more?" How 'bout an album with something other than mindless lyrics, musical rip-offs and a third grader's point-of-view?

Meanwhile, the title track is like a slowed down version of a Bruce-penned Donna Summer song. No, not "Cover Me." He wrote that for her, but I mean the one she recorded, "Protection." Double the speed of "Working On a Dream" and it's pretty much that. Doubling up the speed would allow him to be done singing "dree-um" a lot quicker and he might be able to hold the note he loses currently. Does no one have the guts to tell the 'Boss' when he sings flat? It shouldn't take anyone to tell him he missed the phrase so, since he rarely makes it to the "mm" of "dream," maybe they figured telling him he was flat wouldn't have made a difference either? As you listen to him wheeze his way through the simplest three note phrase and never complete it, you start to wonder if he has any breath control left? The whistle in "Working On a Dream" will only have you wondering more.

Mainly, you'll grasp this is the worst album of the year. It's the worst musically, vocally, lyrically. If they gave Golden Raspberries for music, Bruce would go home with every last one. He can't even write a song anymore. You grasp that when you listen to "What Love Can Do." This song that never seems to end (for 2:56, it sure seems a lot longer), has Bruce encountering a girlfriend or wife (presumably a woman) by telling her "the remedies you've taken are all in vain, let me show you what love can do." That's the first verse and start of the chorus.

What does a songwriter do? A real one allows the speaker to, indeed, "show you what love can do." Bruce never gets around to that. He offers a lot of rhyming lines about what's gone wrong in the woman's life, but he never gets around to showing her what love can do. I don't know if he's lost it for good or if it's temporary, but he shows up this go-round with about less than half the talent of the worst Springsteen impersonator.

I opened noting Adam Sandler's parody of Bruce and I'll close with a question that Bruce might have asked in better times, "Is a parody a parody if it don't get laughs, or is it something worse?"
----------
[Illustration by Betty's oldest son.]

bruce springsteen
working on a dream
st. elmo's fire
the carol burnette show
ishtar
the beatles
paul simon
kats korner
the common ills

Today the US military announced: "TIKRIT, Iraq -- A U.S. Soldier died as a result of a non-combat related injury near Balad Ruz, Iraq, Feb. 6. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense. The incident is under investigation." This is the first announced death for the month of February and brings the total number of US service members killed in Iraq to 4238.

In today's New York Times, Stephen Farrell and Alissa J. Rubin serve up "Italian Sightseer's Iraq Tour: Take Your Photos and Leave" about Luca Marchio causing a commotion while visiting the Falluja police station . Marchio states, "I am a toursit. I want to see the most important cities in the country. That is the reason why I am here now. I want to see and understand the reality because I have never been here before, and I think every country in the world must be seen." He can't see Falluja overnight as he was advised to leave town. He ended up being 'detained' ("for his own safety") and note that one "American marine working with the police suggested taking him to the city limits and dropping him where Falluja met the main highway." Note that is not what Americans do in other countries, especially ones where allegedly democracy is emerging. When an American makes such an insulting and dumb ass statement is indicates to everyone that even those countries with democracy do not value it. Should Marchio have gone to Iraq? It's not illegal. There is no travel ban to Iraq. On top of that, he entered the country using his passport and crossing through the border checkpoints. Could he have gotten killed? Unless he's the luckiest person on the face of the earth, he most likely would have. But that doesn't excuse American representatives from making anti-democratic and dumb ass statements in a foreign country when surrounded by foreign officials attempting to figure out what to do with someone. That marine disgraced his or her self and disgraced the US. When an American spits on democracy in Iraq, it has a huge effect and indicates to Iraqi officials that democracy is nothing but a bunch of empty words. As a private citizen, the marine could have done whatever they wished. As someone sent to Iraq by the US government, he or she needs to always remember that they help set the tone, that they send the cues and that Iraqis are watching them.

Military Families Speak Out is in the midst of DC action that continues through Monday:

Come to Washington February 6-9 to demand "The Change WE Need"
President Elect Obama opposed the war in Iraq before it started, calling it a "dumb war." But he and his advisors have also said that they plan to spread the return of combat troops from that "dumb war" out over sixteen months and to keep tens of thousands of other troops on the ground in Iraq indefinitely.
So from February 6-9, MFSO will be traveling to Washington to bring the new President and new Congress the message that it is long past time to bring all our troops home from Iraq. The four days of events will include:
* A teach-in featuring the voices of military families, veterans, and Iraqis, explaining the need for an immediate and complete end to the war in Iraq -- and the human impacts of continuing the occupation. Friday, February 6 from Noon - 3:00 p.m. at Mott House, 122 Maryland Avenue.
* A solemn procession from Arlington National Cemetary to the White House beginning at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, February 7. Meet at the front gate of the cemetery right outside the exit of the Arlington Metro stop. Please arrive early.
* A "Meet and Greet" and Legislative Briefing from 3:00 - 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 8 at the Mariott Metro Center.
* Lobbying members of Congress to end the war in Iraq. Meet in the cafeteria of the Rayburn House Office Building at 9:00 a.m. Monday, February 9.

Vic notes Darrell Bellaart's "War deserter's mom worries about death penalty" (Nanaimo Daily News):

Annie Nichols imagines the worst for her adopted son, U.S. Army deserter Cliff Cornell, when he turns himself in to the American government on Tuesday.
"They will probably court-martial him. What happens from there I don't know," Nichols said by telephone from Mountain Home, Ark. "It can be anything from 'you can go home' to life in federal prison. In wartime, it can be a death sentence."
Cornell, a quiet, unassuming man, has fallen into the unlikely role of firebrand in the divisive issue of whether deserters fit into Canada's longstanding tradition of harbouring conscientious objectors. Because they willingly signed up, some critics say deserters who avoid the battlefield are cowards.


The following community sites updated last night:


Cedric's Big Mix
The fear card
11 hours ago

The Daily Jot
THIS JUST IN! FEAR NOT HOPE!
11 hours ago

Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude
green party news
12 hours ago

Mikey Likes It!
Dennis Loo and this week's Dumb Ass pick
12 hours ago

SICKOFITRADLZ
The Cuban Five
12 hours ago

Thomas Friedman is a Great Man
Washington Week
12 hours ago

Trina's Kitchen
Sauerkraut and weinies in the Kitchen
12 hours ago

Ruth's Report
Iraq
12 hours ago

Oh Boy It Never Ends
The Cheap Detective
12 hours ago

Like Maria Said Paz
Striking in France, John Pilger
12 hours ago

Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills)
Kellogs, FDA, etc.
12 hours ago

Kat hopes to do two album reviews this month and ideally would like to have them completed this weekend (and posted here). She said to word it that way.

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

iraq
the new york times
alissa j. rubin
stephen farrell
cliff cornell

In this morning's New York Times, Alissa J. Rubin offers "U.S. Military Violated Security Agreement Twice in 2 Weeks, Iraqi Leaders say" and the most recent time, according to 'Iraqi leaders' was shooting "a 58-year-old man" yesterday in Kirkuk (from yesterday's snapshot, "Reuters reports, "U.S. and Iraqi security forces killed a civilian and arrested six suspected militants in raids on towns southwest of Kirkuk".). Rubin describes the shooting as "an American raid" and says the second incident is "when Americans soldiers fatally shot an Iraqi couple in their home near Kirkuk after the wife reached for a pisotl hidden under a mattress." She says this "was reported at the time" but only now are allegations surfacing that it was not coorinated with the Iraqi government.



Oh really? Is that to be the official story?



"The shooting was reported at the time, but the charges of failure to coordinate emerged on Friday . . ." Emerged on Friday?



The couple was shot dead January 24th (their daughter was wounded). From January 25th's "And the war drags on . . .:"



In today's New York Times, Timothy Williams reports on a Saturday raid by US forces in Hawija in which a husband and wife were killed by US forces and their young daughter was wounded. The house raid, Williams reports, required helicopters and was done at two in the morning. For killing the wife, the official story is she reached for something and, later, a gun was allegedly found under a mattress. After he saw his wife slaughtered, the husband went after the US soldiers and was killed. Ahlam Dhia, the eight-year-old daughter, was shot by US soldiers for no official reason cited and she is quoted stating, "They killed my mother and father right in front of me. I was under the blanket. I heard my mom screaming, and I started to cry." Based on descriptions, Williams hypothesizes the soldiers were American Special Ops. It is interesting that when Iraq supposedly has control over their country, US forces -- not Iraqi forces or, for that matter, US forces and Iraqi forces -- are conducting house raids. Ned Parker and Saif Hameed (Los Angeles Times) report, "The chairman of the Hawija Council said the woman's husband, Dhia Hussein, had not been linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq, as the U.S. military claimed" and quote Hussein Ali Salih (the chair) stating, "I personally know Col. Dhia Hussein; he is one of the former army officers and he was trying to return to the new Iraqi army. He has no affiliations with any armed groups." NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro (All Things Considered -- link has video and text) reports:

The U.S. military said the operation was conducted with and approved by Iraq's security forces, as stipulated by a security agreement that went into effect at the beginning of the year. But a senior Iraqi government spokesman said there were no Iraqi forces present and is calling for an investigation of the deaths.

"The Americans were on foot," said Hussein Ali, the father of the man who was killed. "They threw percussion hand grenades at the door, then they started shooting. When I got inside the house, the Americans were gone. I found [my son and daughter-in-law] in the bedroom, dead beside each other. They shot my son at close range. His blood was all over the wall."

Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) waits until paragraph eight to note that Iraqi officials say they did not approve the raid and that it wasn't an Iraqi operation. The first seven paragraphs are the US military's assertion (presented as fact) that the US military, with Iraqi forces and Iraqi approval, conducted the house raid. China's Xinhau cites an unnamed police source, "The source also said that local security forces were not informed about the raid and that the reasons behind the killings are unclear yet."



So the day after the shooting, you have at least Xinhau, NPR and McClatchy noting that the raids were not coordinated with the Iraqis and Rubin wants to say the charge emerged yesterday? That's not reality.



The 58-year-old man was a ministry employee with the government. His sixteen-year-old son Nihad Muhammed Hassan al-Bachary staes, "The American forces stormed into our house, and they handcuffed me, my two brothers and my uncle. When my father came out of his room, they opened fire on him point blank and then they stuffed his body in a large, black plastic bag."

Rubin then adds:



The soldiers who came in were directed by an American in a military unifiorm, the son said, but unlike most soldiers, he had a beard. The other armed men with him were wearing masks and Iraqi commando uniforms and speaking in "Kurdish and inaccurate Arabic," the son said. He said that his father was an Agriculture Ministry employee, and that several other family members were detained elsewhere in the village at the same time.

It keeps happening because it's not called out. And arriving tody to underscore that point is Samir Sumaida'ie's "The Promise In Iraq's Rebirth" (Washington Post column) which is fully of frothy nonsense like this:

Those who had descended upon Iraq to defeat the United States through terrorism, initially finding favor and support from the "rejectionists," have themselves been rejected by the Iraqi people. Their strategy to ignite a sectarian civil war has failed. And though they still pose a threat to security, those extremist Islamists were comprehensively and strategically defeated in a Muslim country, a development of profound significance.

Sumaida'ie is not only Iraq's US ambassador, he's also one of those exiles that really cashed in after the invasion. Since the invasion, he's held one cushy position after another. Don't you just love these "Men of Iraq" (and they're all men) who stand so bravely today . . . after cowering in exile for decades, after being too chicken s**t to stage their own attack on Iraq so they helped lie the US into an illegal war. They are as guilty as the Bully Boy and it's the real shame of Iraq that their puppet government is made up of so many damn cowards who chose to flee the country (like most, Sumaida'ie went to England) and live in exile for decades. But a foreign military goes in and topples Saddam Hussein and suddenly all the 'brave' chickens come home to roost.

Sumaida'ie is a pathetic liar and if you doubt that, grasp he has one less son today.

Why is that? In what was an illegal raid, the US military shot and killed his son.

But Sumaida'ie is happy to whore himself out (and if that seems especially harsh, you ought to hear his family that remains in England's remarks) for the US because they are the puppet masters and he wants to be a puppet.

One very real reason Iraq cannot expell the US is that there are no independent players, only exiles put in place by the US, exiles beholden to the US who have no problem staying silent as Iraqi's children are slaughtered because they have no problem staying silent when it's their own children. Sumaida'ie's son is never coming back but the coins they toss at him keep Sumaida'ie dancing. Dance, Fools, Dance. (That's the title of a very early Joan Crawford film and for those who have forgetten, June 27th of last year saw one of Nouri al-Maliki's own relatives killed by US Special Forces in a Karbala raid and yet the puppet continues dancing for his American masters.)

Military Families Speak Out is in the midst of DC action:

Come to Washington February 6-9 to demand "The Change WE Need"
President Elect Obama opposed the war in Iraq before it started, calling it a "dumb war." But he and his advisors have also said that they plan to spread the return of combat troops from that "dumb war" out over sixteen months and to keep tens of thousands of other troops on the ground in Iraq indefinitely.
So from February 6-9, MFSO will be traveling to Washington to bring the new President and new Congress the message that it is long past time to bring all our troops home from Iraq. The four days of events will include:
* A teach-in featuring the voices of military families, veterans, and Iraqis, explaining the need for an immediate and complete end to the war in Iraq -- and the human impacts of continuing the occupation. Friday, February 6 from Noon - 3:00 p.m. at Mott House, 122 Maryland Avenue.
* A solemn procession from Arlington National Cemetary to the White House beginning at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, February 7. Meet at the front gate of the cemetery right outside the exit of the Arlington Metro stop. Please arrive early.
* A "Meet and Greet" and Legislative Briefing from 3:00 - 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 8 at the Mariott Metro Center.
* Lobbying members of Congress to end the war in Iraq. Meet in the cafeteria of the Rayburn House Office Building at 9:00 a.m. Monday, February 9.

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

iraq

the new york times

alissa j. rubin
timothy williams

ned parker

saif hameed

the los angeles times

anthony shadid

the washington post

npr

all things considered

lourdes garcia-navarro
military families speak out

Friday, February 6, 2009.  Chaos and violence continue, Barack moves back his "immediately" pledge on Iraq, Military Families Speak Up launch their DC action, US war resister Cliff Cornell has returned to the US from Canada, the (partial) election results are sifted through, and more.   Jon Allen (People's Weekly World News) reports on a teach-in entitled "War's Real Impact: Our Voices" that a number of groups staged in Chicago:   Eugene Cherry joined the army at the age of 19 in the hopes of getting money for college. Despite being a good student, he found his options in his impoverished south side neighborhood limited. "I thought the military would be my ticket out, but I found an organization based on racism, sexism and misogyny" he testified before the assembled audience. Later he spoke of "[a] culture of violence and racism" that the military promotes within its ranks. These pressures proved to be too much for Sherry. He deserted for 16 months after being refused mental health support by the army. "I found myself fighting and oppressing a group of people in the name of the war on terror" concluded his remarks to the gathering.    The plight of women in the armed forces proved to be a recurring theme. Patricia McCann, a National Guardsman deployed in 2003, noted during her testimony that instances of sexual assault and sexual harassment within the armed forces have risen but court-martials for these crimes have declined. Another veteran (and current Chicago police officer), Lisa Zepeda, added that victims of assault have no outside authority they can report assaults to; a victim must go through her immediate superior within her unit.   Allen notes that US House Rep "Jan Schakowasky and several Chicago aldermen also took the floor and addressed the audeince.  Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. and Illinois Senator Roland Burris also sent staff members to reaffirm their support of bringing the troops home."   Military Families Speak Out  was among the organizations participating in the Chicago event and today they started a DC action that will run through Monday: Come to Washington February 6-9 to demand "The Change WE Need" President Elect Obama opposed the war in Iraq before it started, calling it a "dumb war." But he and his advisors have also said that they plan to spread the return of combat troops from that "dumb war" out over sixteen months and to keep tens of thousands of other troops on the ground in Iraq indefinitely. So from February 6-9, MFSO will be traveling to Washington to bring the new President and new Congress the message that it is long past time to bring all our troops home from Iraq. The four days of events will include: * A teach-in featuring the voices of military families, veterans, and Iraqis, explaining the need for an immediate and complete end to the war in Iraq -- and the human impacts of continuing the occupation. Friday, February 6 from Noon - 3:00 p.m. at Mott House, 122 Maryland Avenue. * A solemn procession from Arlington National Cemetary to the White House beginning at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, February 7. Meet at the front gate of the cemetery right outside the exit of the Arlington Metro stop. Please arrive early. * A "Meet and Greet" and Legislative Briefing from 3:00 - 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 8 at the Mariott Metro Center.      * Lobbying members of Congress to end the war in Iraq. Meet in the cafeteria of the Rayburn House Office Building at 9:00 a.m. Monday, February 9. The teach-in takes place this afternoon. Actions continue through Monday.   Meanwhile US war resister Andre Shepherd is seeking asylumn in Germany (we last noted Andre in  Wednesday's snapshot). Wednesday, he was making his case for asylum to Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. Andy Eckardt (NBC News) offers a strong report on Andre who explains, "When I enlisted in 2004 and later was sent to Iraq, I believed I was doing the right thing.  But then, like other comrades around me, I started questioning why we were there and what we were fighting for. . . . My job was harmless until I factored in the amount of death and destruction those helicopters caused to civilians every day.  The government made us believe we would be welcomed as heroes in Iraq, but we saw nothing but hostility from the Iraqis that came to work for us, they wanted to kill us."  Meanwhile James M. Brnaum's GI Rights Lawyer.com explained yesterday:     U.S. war resister Cliff Cornell surrendered himself to U.S. border police on Wednesday after being ordered to leave Canada. He was promptly arrested for being AWOL from the U.S. Army, and is now being held at the Whatcom County Jail in Bellingham, Washington, twenty miles south of the U.S.-Canada border.        Cornell's attorney and supporters expressed outrage at the arrest.           "Clifford Cornell came back to the United States so that he could voluntarily return to his old unit at Fort Stewart," stated attorney James Branum. "He stated this intention to the Border Patrol, both verbally and in writing, by way of a letter I drafted on his behalf. I am disappointed that the Border Patrol chose to arrest my client and place him into a county jail with general population prisoners. This should not have happened."          Cornell, 28, fled to Canada four years ago after his Army artillery unit was ordered to Iraq. But despite a popular outcry to provide sanctuary to soldiers who refuse to fight in illegal wars, Canada's Conservative government is pressing ahead with deportations. Cornell, an Arkansas native, had come to call British Columbia home. But he now faces a possible court martial and imprisonment in the United States.    "Cliff Cornell should not be going to jail," said Gerry Condon, director of Project Safe Haven, a war resister advocacy group. "He had the guts to follow his conscience and obey international law," continued Condon. "President Obama should grant amnesty to Cliff Cornell and all war resisters."     Cornell is the second Iraq War resister to be held in the Whatcom County Jail. He follows Robin Long, who was deported from Canada in July. Long is now serving a 15-month prison sentence at Miramar Naval Consolidated Brig near San Diego.            "We want Bellingham to be a Sanctuary City for war resisters," said Gene Marx of Veterans For Peace, "not a way station for war resisters being sent to prison." Bellingham is known for being a progressive city, having passed two anti-war resolutions through its city council.     A public vigil in support of Cliff Cornell will be held outside of the County jail on Thursday from 10 am -- 1pm, organized by the Whatcom Peace and Justice Center.     A legal defense fund for Cliff Cornell is being established by Courage To Resist, a war resister support group, at www.couragetoresist.org.          CONTACT:               Marie Marchand, Executive Director, Whatcom Peace & Justice Center (360) 734-0217 (office); (434) 249-5957 (cell), WhatcomPJC(at)fidalgo.net Gene Marx, Bellingham Veterans For Peace, Chapter 111, 253-653-4423 (cell) Gerry Condon, Project Safe Haven, 206-499-1220 (cell), projectsafehaven(at)hotmail.com              In an update, AP reports that Cliff is being allowed to travel "by bus to Georgia" and will "turn himself in Tuesday at the Army base near Savannah."   And, as Gerry Condon stated, Barack Obama should grant amnesty to all war resisters.  But the reality is Barack's not even in a rush to end the illegal war.   Staying with the White House, US vice president Joe Biden is headed to Germany.  Before he left the US today, he made some public remarks.  Edward Epstein (CQ) reports, "He listed the economic crisis and ongoing fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan as the most pressing issues.  Biden used a football analogy to describe the situation in Iraq, saying the United States is 'on the 20-yard-line' and 'driving toward the goal'." Jared Allen (The Hill) states the Biden "admitted that any victory is far from certain, and he reiterated that a victory through military means alone is unattainable."  AFP quotes him stating, "Our administration is going to have to be very deeply involved not only keeping the commitment that we've made drawing down our troops in an orderly fashion consistent with what we said."   McClatchy Newspapers' Nancy A. Youssef is convinced that Barack's decision to request a variety of options for 'withdrawal' from Iraq is "the first indication that the Obama administration may be willing to abandon a campaign promise of a 16-month withdrawal."  Or it may be Barack wanting to see all options, wanting to check if opinions ever see withdrawal possible (would you listen to someone's opinion if they didn't think the US could pull out in 16, 19 or even 23 months?).  Who knows.  But withdrawal' is not withdrawl. It is "combat" troops only. The White House unofficially says the number left behind would be approximately 70,000. That's not withdrawal.  Youssef reports, "Obama is likely to announce his strategy for Iraq by mid-March, a senior administration official told McClatchy."  That would be an indication of a broken promise and Youssef misses that point. At Hopey Changey "Three Facts about Barack Obama and Iraq" which includes this 'fact:' "Immediately upon taking office, Obama will give his Secretary of Defense and military commanders a new mission in Iraq; successfully ending the war.  The removal of our troops will be responsible and phased."    What did Barack promise? "Immediately upon taking office, Obama will give his Secretary of Defense and military commanders a new mission in Iraq: successfully ending the war. The removal of our troops will be responsible and phased." Mid-March? Mid-March is "immediately upon taking office"? Immediately upon taking office was when Barack was sworn in. That was last month. It's February. And a White House source is telling McClatchy it will be mid-March before anything's announced. Another case where "Barack kicks the can" and here he's promised "immediately upon taking office". (I have no idea who Nancy Youssef spoke to and this morning I'm being told that is not correct and that Barack will be making an announcement "this month" on Iraq. He may or he may not. But Youssef didn't make up that source. Even if an announcement is made this month, as two insisted this morning, the fact that some White House insider would tell Youssef it wouldn't be until mid-March goes to how unimportant Iraq is in the Obama White House. And "this month" would not be "immediately upon taking office".)     "Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's strong performance in Iraq's provincial elections was also a victory for American goals." No. al-Maliki wasn't a candidate. That's the lede to Sudarsan Raghavan and Ernesto Londono's Washington Post article and it's incorrect and they are not the only reporters/outlet to get it so wrong. Nouri al-Maliki was not a candidate in provincial elections. These, as Londono himself has explained, are the equivalent of state legislature elections in the US. Did anyone assert that victory for Republicans in (pick one of fifty states) in (pick 2001 through 2007) was a victory for George W. Bush? No. al-Maliki wanted to get some press and wanted to make the elections about him. He estimated a minimum of 70% of registered Iraqis would turn out. (51% did.) He thought this was going to be his big moment on the international scene. For a reporter, it is very tempting to make it about al-Maliki for a number of reasons. For example, making provincial elections about the prime minister frees you of having to . . . cover the actual candidates. And there were 440 winners -- none of whom were named "Nouri al-Maliki." It's so much easier to stamp "al-Maliki Victory" and be done with it. This afternoon Alissa J. Rubin (at the International Herald Tirbune) focuses on Yusef Majid al-Habboubi who "managed to defeat not only the religious parties who controlled the province of Karbala but also Maliki's preferred candidates by a 2-1 margin in one of the bigger surprises in the provincial elections last week." In the preliminatry vote, Rubin explains, it appears al-Habboubi has 17% of the vote over twice what "the next two closest parties" appeared to have received. This morning, Rubin's "Prime Ministers Party Wins in Iraqi Vote but Will Need to Form Coalitions" (New York Times) did a little better than the Post. The headline writer captures it and Rubin does as well for most of her article; however, sentences like the following trip her up: "In Baghdad, where Mr. Maliki ran a strongly nationalist campaign, he appeared to have had some success in winning votes from Sunnis, but in the Sunni-majority provinces to the north, his party's slate barely made a showing." He ran a strong nationalist campaign? And how many votes did he receive? What did he say in his victory speech? When will he be sworn in? Here's reality, if you're going to wrongly make the provincial elections about Nouri al-Maliki, you're going to have to judge the success or failure of al-Maliki and the reality is "his party's slate barely made a showing" in the north. The reality is that Iraq has 18 provinces -- three of which have scheduled votes for this spring -- and to claim al-Maliki has 'won' a national campaign is not only premature, it doesn't even jibe with the actual (preliminary) results. Raghavan and Londono tell you that the Dawa Party (al-Maliki's party) "won in nine provinces" -- with "an outright plurality" (NOT a majority) in Baghdad and Basra while it was a narrow win for Dawa "in the other seven provinces." Or, as Rubin puts it, "the party fell short of being able to operate without coalition-building." That's a win? 14 provinces held elections last Saturday and Dawa didn't squeak out a majority win in any province, it only got "an outright plurality" in two provinces and, to govern, they need to coalition-build with other parties. That's not a win. Not for al-Maliki -- who was not a candidate -- and certainly not for Dawa. What is troubling - - and what no one's pointed out -- is that we don't expect, for example, Barack Obama to head over to Oregon when they're electing their state legislature. We don't expect him to campaign for them or butt in. That al-Maliki was allowed to hit the road (attempting to buy votes) goes to how problematic the election actually was. Rubin writes, "Some politicians have voiced concerns in recent months that too much power was being concentrated in Mr. Maliki's hands, and the election results suggested that Iraqis were not ready to rally around a single leader." It's a shame the press never bothered to question why a prime minister was attempting to repeatedly inject himself into provincial elections? Rubin writes, "Except in areas where Sunnis were voting for the first time, the large, prominent parties with nationally known leaders won the most seats, showing the power of incumbency and the difficulties facing the newer secular parties." Well if you're going to make that observation, you might also question why the country's prime minister is interfering in provincial elections? These are not the equivalent of US Congressional elections (that would be Iraq's Parliament). That issue was never raised. But, no, it is not normal for the highest office holder in the country to try to inject her or himself into local elections. And it's not normal -- when the press is lauding 'democracy' -- for no one to question that injection. Another question to ask: Did al-Maliki's injection depress voter turnout? In the final paragraphs of Rubin's article she notes Anbar and quotes various complaints from Tamouz ("a nongovernment organization monitoring the elections"). She tells us that the Iraqi Islamic Party is Sunni. She tells us nothing about the make up of Tamouz. Tamouz is making accusations. Readers have a right to know who they are and the use of "nongovernment" will translate to some as 'from outside Iraq.' That's not reality. But we don't get a lot of reality in this morning's election coverage. Back to the Washington Post's article, the following should never happen: The Obama administration appeared as pleased at what did not happen on election day as it was about the results. "Any election where [there is] fairness and generally aboveboard practices, where the people get a chance to vote and they're not rioting in the streets and throwing bombs . . . is a good result," a senior administration official said in Washington. "We should celebrate that. So far, so good." There is no reason to grant anonymity for the above. If the 'celebrator' can't be named, his or her comment doesn't need to be included. When you start granting anonymity for prattle, you're degrading journalism standards.  James Kirkup (Telegraph of London) attempts to write up Moqtada al-Sadr's political death stating, "British officials see the political setback as the latest sign of Mr Sadr's diminished importance in southern Iraq."  Diminished importantce?  Rubin says al-Sadr "did surprisingly well, given that his movement decided to support them only two weeks before the elections."  BBC notes, "Finals results are not expected to be known for weeks."  What is known is that the violence continues with Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports,  "Abdulmajeed al Nuaimi, member of the incumbent provincial in Mosul" called the police about an unidentified object outside his home that turned out to be a roadside bomb. In other reported violence today . . .   Bombings?    Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing at a liquor store that left "material damages to the store," a Baghdad grenade tossed at a supermarket leaving "material damages to the store".   Shootings?   Reuters reports, "U.S. and Iraqi security forces killed a civilian and arrested six suspected militants in raids on towns southwest of Kirkuk".    Nawal Al Samarrai is making news in Iraq.  Alsumaria Iraqi Satellite Network reports she has resigned as the Minister of Women's Affairs due to the fact that her job is for-show and contains no real power to improve anything. Waleed Ibrahim, Michael Christie and Katie Nguyen report Reuters exclusive interview with al-Samarai: Iraq's minister of women's affairs resigned on Thursday in protest at a lack of resources to cope with "an army of widows, unemployed, oppressed and detained women" after years of sectarian warfare. Nawal al-Samarai said her status as a secretary of state and not a full minister reflected the low emphasis given by the government to the plight of women in Iraq, once one of the most progressive countries in the Middle East for women's rights. "This ministry with its current title cannot cope with the needs of Iraqi women," said Samarai, who was appointed in July. The Times of India adds, "Samarrai, who took office in July 2008 and had recently chaired two committees on improving the conditions of women and another on the breast cancer, said she would seek a position where she could actually help women."  wowOwow covers the story and notes, "She has not, however, heard back from the Prime Minister's office on whether they accept her resignation or will heed her calls and provide more social services for Iraq's women."   Meanwhile, Barbara Starr and Mike Mount (CNN) report, "The Army said 24 soldiers are believed to have committed suicide in January alone -- six times as many as killed themselves in January 2008, according to statistics released Thursday." Stephanie Gaskell (New York Daily News) observes, "In a rare move, the Army released monthly suicide data Thursday to highlight the growing problem. Last week, Army officials said its suicide rates were at their highest in nearly 30 years. Last year, 128 soldiers committed suicide and another 15 suspected cases are pending. Last month, Army officials believe that 24 soldiers killed themselves - compared with just four in January 2008."  Lizette Alvarez (New York Times) quotes Gen Peter Chiarelli stating, "Each of these losses is a personal tragedy that is felt throughout the Army family. The trend and trajectory seen in January further heightens the seriousness and urgency that all of us must have in preventing suicides." If you mean your words, do something. If not, stop boring us. The military's had more than enough time to notice the suicides and to do something about it. It's done nothing other than a few pamphlets and a 1-800 number. The change has to come from the top in the military because it is a top-down command. Chiarelli wants to change the culture? Great. Otherwise, it's just him using a tragedy to look sympathetic. And if that's harsh, it's harsh that so many suicides have repeatedly taken place and the military has ignored the problem. Or lied about it. It wasn't all that long ago CBS News was catching the VA lying about the number of suicides. CBS Evening News' Kimberly Dozier most recently reported on the suicides in December noting that 1st Sgt Jeff McKinney's family (rightly, my opinion) called him "a casualty of war" because he served, ended up wtih PTSD and did not receive the treatment he needed and he took his own life while serving..  His father, Charles, McKinney, told Dozier, "I think he felt like he couldn't send one more broken body home, one more person home."   Kimberly Dozier recently wrote about Iraq and Afhganistan for wowOwow. Throwing out a link for friends, Washington Unplugged is a new CBS News show.  It airs each Friday afternoon.  Haven't seen it?  It airs online only.  Face The Nation's Bob Schieffer is the anchor and I use anchor because it is news reports and, at the closing, Schieffer offers a commentary as he does on Face The Nation.  This week his comment is on Tom Daschle. Before that, Kent Conrad appears to make a fool out of himself.  Tom Daschle didn't report it to the IRS because he thought the driver and car were a "gift"?  Kent, learn the tax code.  Such a gift would have to be reported to the IRS.  Washington Unplugged streams live online Friday afternoons and archives are available seven days a week.   This week (tonight on most PBS stations) NOW on PBS offers: Is there a solution to the foreclosure mess that's destroying communities? Across the country, cities are in crisis because of the fallout from the mortgage mess -- property taxes are way down, and abandoned homes are bringing down property values, inviting crime, and draining government coffers. Neighborhoods are being destroyed. Yet the federal bailout money is not going directly to desperate communities and homeowners, but to local and national banks. This week, NOW investigates the innovative way some cities are fighting back. The city of Memphis, Tennessee is suing major national lenders and banks for deceptive and discriminatory lending practices in an effort to recoup the cost of the financial mess. Other cities suing lenders for their role in the mortgage mess include Baltimore, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Birmingham. With desperation climbing alongside debt, can the strategy help these blighted parts of America? Washington Week also begins airing tonight on most PBS stations and joining Gwen this installment is Ceci Connolly (Washington Post), Charles Babington (AP), Michael Duffy (Time magazine) and Jackie Calmes (New York Times). And on broadcast TV (CBS) Sunday, no 60 Minutes: Saving Flight 1549 Hero pilot Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and his flight crew together reveal for the first time the sights, sounds and physical sensations they experienced as they pulled off an incredible water landing last month, saving the lives of all 155 people aboard US Airways Flight 1549. Katie Couric reports. (This is an extra-length story. | Watch Video Coldplay The British rock group that has taken its place among the most popular bands in the world gives 60 Minutes a rare look inside its world that includes a candid interview with frontman Chris Martin. Steve Kroft reports. | Watch Video 60 Minutes, Sunday, Feb. 8 at 7 p.m. ET/PT. 60 Minutes Update Beckham Leaving The L.A. Galaxy? David Beckham wants to leave the Los Angeles Galaxy and stay with AC Milan after his loan to the Italian club is scheduled to end next month. The 33-year-old English midfielder announced his intentions Wednesday after playing in Milan's 2-2 exhibition tie at Glasgow Rangers. Beckham is about two years into a $32.5 million, five-year contract with Major League Soccer. In March 2008, CNN's Anderson Cooper profiled Beckham for 60 Minutes, discussing his widely publicized move to Los Angeles. | Video   iraq military families speak out andre shepherd andy eckardt jim branum mcclatchy newspapers nancy a. youssef alsumaria waleed ibrahim michael christie katie nguyen the washington post sudarsan raghavan ernesto londono the new york times alissa j. rubin barbara starr mike mount stephanie gaskell kimberly dozier 60 minutes cbs news pbs washington week now on pbs charles babington jackie calmes