The Common Ills


Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Iraq snapshot

Iraq snapshot

Tuesday, April 14, 2009.  Chaos and violence continue, Amnesty International issues a report on the KRG that is frightening (including a woman whose husband dumps her and she might get to stay on and see her children if she's able to be the household servant),
an Iraqi cartoonist talks about the lack of freedom, Col Gary Volesky tells the press the US may disregard that whole out of Iraq cities on June 30th issue, and more.
 
Starting with the attacks on Iraq's LGBT community to note some of the press the issue has received.  Neal Broverman (The Advocate) covered it noting US House Rep Jared Polis' visit to Iraq and his calling "on U.S. and Iraqi officials to launch an investigation into a spate of recent murders of gay men in Iraq."  He quotes Polis stating, "The United States should not tolerate human rights violations of any kind, especially by a government that Americans spend billions of taxpayer dollars each year supporting."  Jessica Green (UK's Pink News) covers the story here and quotes Amnesty International's Niall Couper stating, "The gay community in Iraq deserves protection and that means their leaders need to stand up for them.  Amnesty International is calling on Nouri al-Maliki to condemn all attacks on members of the gay community, publicly, unreservedly and in the strongest terms possible."
 
Staying with the human rights organization, today Amnesty International released a report [PDF format warning] entitled "Hope and Fear: Human Rights In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq." The report is 46 pages of text exploring the KRG
 
The Kurdistan Region of Iraq, unlike the rest of the country, has generally been stable since the 2003 US-led invasion. It has witnessed growing prosperity and an expansion of civil society, including the establishment of numerous non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in the promotion and protection of human rights. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has made progress in the field of human rights. In mid-2008 it released hundreds of political detainees, many of whom had been held for years without charge or trial. It has
improved Iraqi legislation; the Press Law of September 2008, for example, expanded freedom of expression, and amendments to the Personal Status Law passed in October 2008 strengthened women's rights. The authorities have also established several bodies to monitor and prevent violence against women, including specialized police directorates and shelters.       
Platforms have been established to foster dialogue between the authorities, particularly the Ministry of Human Rights, and civil society organizations on human rights concerns, including violence against women.        
Despite these positive and encouraging steps, however, serious human rights violations persist and still need to be addressed. In particular, urgent action by the government is required to ensure that the KRG's internal security service, the Asayish, is made fully accountable under the law and in practice, to investigate allegations of torture, enforced disappearances and other serious human rights violations by the Asayish and other security and intelligence forces. As well, more needs to be done to end violence and discrimination against women, building on the progress achieved so far, and to enhance the standing in society and life choices available to women and girls. Thirdly, the KRG must take steps to
protect and promote the right to freedom of expression, including media freedom, taking into account the vital role of the media in informing the public and acting as a public watchdog.  
It is these three areas which form the focus of this report.          
Since 2000, thousands of people have been detained arbitrarily and held without charge or trial in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, in some cases for more than seven years. The vast majority were suspected members or supporters of local Islamist organizations, including both armed groups and legal political parties that do not use or advocate violence as part of their political platform. Some were tortured or otherwise ill-treated in detention.          
Invariably, detentions were carried out by members of the Asayish, without producing an arrest warrant, and those detained were then denied access to legal representation or the opportunity to challenge their continuing detention before a court of law or an independent judicial body, throughout their incarceration. Some detainees were subjected to enforced disappearance, including some whose fate and whereabouts have yet to be disclosed -- typically, following their arrest by the Asayish or the intelligence services of the two main Kurdish parties, their families were unaware of their fate and whereabouts and were unable to obtain information about them, or confirmation of their detention from the authorities.      
Dozens of other prisoners, meanwhile, are under sentence of death having been convicted in unfair trials.            
Despite welcome government efforts to address "honour crimes" and other violence against women, it is clear from comparing survey data on violence against women with the number of police recorded cases of violence against women that the vast majority of such incidents remain unreported. Even when women have been killed or survived a killing attempt, many perpetrators have not been brought to justice -- often because investigations have failed to identify the perpetrators or because suspects remain at large.           
Freedom of expression continues to be severely curtailed in practice, despite the recent abolition of imprisonment for publishing offences. Journalists have been arrested and sometimes beaten, particularly when publishing articles criticizing government policies or highlighting alleged corruption and nepotism within the government and the dominant political parties. Again, the hand of the seemingly all powerful and unaccountable Asayish and other security agencies is alleged to be behind a number of these attacks. One journalist was killed in July 2008 in suspicious circumstances.            
This report details a wide range of human rights violations committed in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in recent years. In particular, it sheds light on violations such as arbitrary and prolonged detention without charge or trial, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill treatment, the death penalty, unfair trials, discrimination and violence against women, and attacks on freedom of expression. It includes case studies to illustrate these abuses. The report also puts forward numerous recommendations which, if implemented, would go a long
way towards reducing such violations.           
Much of the information contained in this report is the outcome of a fact-finding visit conducted by Amnesty International in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq from 23 May to 8 June 2008, the first such visit by Amnesty International for several years. Amnesty International submitted its findings, in the form of two memoranda on human rights concerns, to the KRG in August 2008 and sought its response. The responses received in communications from the KRG Ministry of Human Rights at the end of 2008 are reflected in this report.       
 
The reports notes the issues of difference between the KRG and Nouri al-Maliki's Baghdad government including oil-rick Kirkuk (which both want) "and certain towns and villages in the governorates of Diyala, al-Ta'mim and Ninawa (Mosul)".  They note the 2005 Consitution required a December 2007 referendum was supposed to be held to determine the fate of Kirkuk but it has still not taken place.  The report explains, "The Iraqi central government and the KRG have also had major disagreements about control of oil revenues and oil exploration.  After months of negotiation and amendment in various committees, a national oil and gas draft law is now reported to have been submitted to the Iraqi Council of Represenatiaves for approval.  However, an oil and gas law has already been introduced in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the KRG has issued oil and gas exploration contracts" for some time now leading to more tensions  between Baghdad and Kirkuk.  
 
The peshmerga is the KRG security force that is most often covered in the press.  In addition there is "the official security agence" for the KRG, Asayish.  Due to intra-ministry conflicts within the KRG, Asayish was taken out of ministry control and placed under the president -- president of the KRG (Masoud Barzani) not president of Iraq (Kurdish Jalal Talabani). Conflicts still remain between the two dominant political parties of the region (KDP and PUK) so "there are still two separate Asayish entities" and each party controls their own intelligence agency with the KDP having the Parastin and the PUK having the Dezgay Zanyari.  In addition, the agency spoils are divied up as well: Jalal's son, Pavel Talabani, heads the Dezgay Zanyair and Masoud's son, Masrour Barzani.  Not only is nepotism practiced, there is no accountability.  Each city and town has an Asayish prison.  The imprisonments have been arbitray and often taken place without either charges being pressed or trials being held.  Responding to Amnesty's earlier concerns, "the KRG Ministry of Human Rights informed Amnesty International on 19 October 2008 that the authorities had released more than 3,000 detainees from the detention centres of the security forces during 2007 and the first half of 2008." Despite this, when Amnesty toured "the Kurdistan Region in May - June 2008, hundreds of detainees were still being held without charge or trial, most of whom had spent years in prison."  Of those Amnesty were told had been released, it turns out many of the releases can be considered "conditional" and prisoners are "required to report to the nearest Asayish office every week."  Despite having prisons in every city and town, the imprisoned are often held in secret prisons.  Prisoners are regularly denied contact with attorneys and with their families.  Reports of torture are common.
 
The study then turns to the disappeared and specifically notes some of them.  33-year-old Badran Mostafa Mahmoud had been praying at a mosque when he was seized, never to be seen again.  35-year-old Hedayat 'Aziz Ahmad Karim was seized Feb. 10, 2007 (apparently by Dezgay Zanyari forces) and he has not been seen since (one person states he saw Hedayat in a prison).  41-year-old Wahed Hussain Amin worked at a water treatment plant and is the father of four children.  He was taken outside his home June 28, 2006 (by Asayish) and has not been heard from since.  33-year-old Farhang Ahmad 'Aziz was taken outside his home August 27, 2003 and not been seen since.  31-year-old Hoshyar Saleh Hama 'Aref was taken from his home September 10, 2003 (by Asayish).  His family was twice allowed to visit him in prison, once in March 2004 and again in October of the same year but not since then and they cannot find out his current location or any information.  Karim Ahmad Mahmoud disappeared after being taken outside his house May 15, 2000. 'Abd al-Jabbar Qadir Hassan was taken by Asayish on September 1, 2001 and has not been since.
 
Those who are imprisoned and are not disappeared share gruesome details.  Aras 'Omar Faqih Farah was held in Erbil at an Asayish prison from 2004 through 2008 and was tortured with "electric shocks on different parts of the body, especially his back, and left naked while exposed to extreme heat in the summer and extreme cold in the winter.  Najat 'Abdel-Karim Hamad was impsioned by Parastin at Salahuddin from 2004 to 2007, then transfered to Asayish prison until spring 2008.  He was tortued so badly he was left with a broken rib and hearing loss. One who remains impisoned is Srood Mukarram Fatih Mohammed who is a journalist with al-Sumarriya:
 
He told Amnesty International that he was arrested on 17 April 2007 from his home in Erbil by around 20 people who were armed and wearing uniforms.  The men searched the house, arrested him without an arrest warrant, and confiscated some books, CDs and a computer.  They blindfolded him and forced him into the boot of one of the cars.  For 53 days the familly did not know his fate and whereabouts.  Eventually, his mother received information that he was being hled at the Asayish prison in Erbil and then was able to visit him, although Asayish guards watched throughout and remained within earshot.    
Srood Mukarram Faith Mohammad was brought before an investigation judge two months after his arrest, by which time he had "confessed," under torture, that he was a member of a terrorist group.  During his first two months in detention, he said, he was kept blindfolded in solitary confinement, beaten with a cable on different parts of the body and threatened that his wife would be detained and raped by guards in front of him.  The family engaged a lawyer at the beginning of of 2008 but he was prevented from visiting Srood Mukarram Fatih Mohammad on several occasions.  Srood Mukarram Faith Mohammad was charged with having contacts with terrorists and the case was sent to Erbil Criminal Court; however, the court is reported to have returned the dossier to the investigative judge on three separate occasions on the grounds that the information was not complete.  Srood Mukarram Fatih Mohammad is said to be still detained in Erbil.
 
If you make it through all of that and actually get a hearing, expect new problems.  You may learn you're going a trial less than an hour before you do.  Don't worry though, the court appointed attorney will have just enough time to shake your hand in the courtroom as you meet before the trial starts, just enough.  And the courtroom?  It may be a real courtroom but, more likely, you may get to 'enjoy' the maze of 'secret' courtrooms.
 
The report then moves to the issue of violence against women.  Hey, remember when 'reporter' Kevin Peraino (Newsweek) was telling us all about the groovy new trend, the must have for all Kurdish teen girls of burn scars?  (Yes, Kevin Peraino is such an extreme idiot that he actually wrote a report -- "Why Are Kurdish Women Dying of Burns?" -- where he floated his theory that setting yourself on fire was the 'in' thing to do and highly popular.)  Over a 12 months period (July 2007 to June 2008) Amnesty found 102 women and girls listed as "killed" by "official records".  The actual number is probably much higher and the official records do not note which are "honor" killings.  The report notes, "In addition to the 102, a further 262 women and children died or were severely injured in the same period due to intentional burning, including suicides.  Some women were reported to have been burned to disguise a killing."  23-year-old Cilan Muhammad Amin was murdered at the age of 23 (March 8, 2008), apparently because her brother thought she had a 'secret relationship'.  After which her sister and her sister's husband set Cilan's corpse on fire in an attempt to hide the fact that she'd been strangled.  From the report:

In May and June 2008 Amnesty International delegates interviewed 16 women and girls staying in shelters and 16 women and girls held in detention centres in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.  This random sample included 20 interviewees who were or had been married.  Of these, 12 said that they had been forced to marry, including six who were aged under 15 years when they were married.  According to the Iraqi Personal Status Law, forced marriages (Article 9) and marriages of girls younger than 15 are illegal, but they continue to be conducted in private or religious ceremonies without those responsible being held to account.   
Five of the 12 interviewees who had never been married were subjected to or at risk of violence because they had insisted to choose their partner.  Some women reported that they had been raped, includinga 22-year-old woman who expected to be married to her rapist as his second wife in a settlement that also involved the rapist's daughter being married to one of her relatives.  The Iraqi Penal Code supports such practice by excusing a rapist from punishment if he marries the victim (Article 398).
Six of the interviewed women reported that violence they had experienced or feared was related to allegations of adultery.  Whilst the Iraqi Penal Code crminializes adultry by both husbands and wives (Article 377) such legislation has a disproportionate impact on women.  For example, it may be used to harass women or to enable their husbands to evade responsibility for their children.  
A 27-year-old mother of three children told Amnesty International that her father had forced her to marry an older man when she was just 13.  Years later, she said, her husband falsely accused her of adultery because he wanted to divorce her and evade responsibility for supporting her.  She was being detained in Erbil because of her husband's accusations.  She said she had received only minimal education as a child and, alone, could not support herself and her children.  She now hoped that her husband would allow her to return to the family home to live as her husband's "servant", if this was waht he required, so that she could at least be with her children. 
 
And women who are the victims of violence repeatedly find what women elsewhere in the world do: We're far more likely to be killed by a 'loved' one than by a stranger.  Women who have reported violence and attempted to 'move on' are stabbed to death by family members, murdered by their ex-husbands . . .  The report is alarming but equally alarming is how much that is the case around the world and not just in the KRG.  Attorneys attempting to help women soon find themselves receiving death threats. 
 
We'll come back to the report in a bit but let's stay with the topic of Iraqi women and this is women in all of Iraq, not just the KRG.   Rania Abouzeid (Time magazine) reports that a 2008 US State Dept report ("Trafficking in Persons Report") shamed Nouri al-Maliki's government and forced it to take some (limited) action including a proposed law which would hand out "tough penalties, including life imprisonment and a fine not exceeding 25 million dinars ($21,000) for traffickers if the victim 'is under 15, or a female, or has special needs.'  The same punishment applies if the crime was committed by kidnapping or force, or if the criminal 'is a direct or distant relative or the victim's caretaker or husband or wife,' a tacit acknowledgment that victims are often tarfficked by people they know." Rania Abouzeid files another report exploring the victims.  Atoor was a 15-year-old widow.  Her husband was a police officer (19-years-old) who was killed in the violence that now characterizes Iraq: "After the obligatory four-month mourning period dictated by Islamic Shari'a law, Atoor's mother and two brothers made it clear that they intended to sell her to a brothel close to their home in western Baghdad, just as they had sold her older twin sisters. Frightened, she told a friend in the police force to raid her home and the nearby brothel. His unit did, and Atoor spent the next two years in prison. She was not charged with anything, but that's how long it took for her to come before a judge and be released."  We're including that especially because from time to time, male US correspondents feel the need to repeat the lie that no one's ever heard of any brothels in Baghdad.  They have always been in Baghdad, under Saddam's rule and after, they are not a myth and some of the US male correspondents playing dumb know that for a fact because they've visited them -- especially those males 'reporting' from Iraq in 2003 and 2004.  In terms of selling them outright, Abouzeid explains that 20-year-old Iraqi women "are too old to fetch a good price" and that eleven and twelve-year-old girls can be "sold for as much as $30,000".
 
Back to ay Amnesty International's  "Hope and Fear: Human Rights In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq."  The final section is entitled "Attacks On Freedom Of Expression" and it catalogues a variety of abuses and attacks on the press by the government.  In the KRG (as is true throughout Iraq), the bulk of the media outlets are owned by a political party and "the majority of media outlets follow the official line and avoid criticizing the KRG, the Asayish, the intelligence agencies and the two main political parties."  Those who do not follow that unwritten law suffer.  Kamal Said Qadir was imprisoned for reporting on "corruption and nepotism in the KRG." Mohammed Siyassi Ashkani imprisoned for allegedly "spying for another political party" (he was released after nearly six months and he was never charged with anything).  Nabaz Goran "reported that a senior official in the KDP had insulted the Kurdish population of Iraq during a speech" and was beaten.Naseh 'Abd al-Rahim Rashid Amin reported critically of the peshmerga, told by Asayish to apologize in print, he refused and "was arrested and charged with defamation under Article 433 of the Penal Code (criminalizing defamation)," sentence to a 10 day imprisonment, his attorney successfuly won an appeal but the Asayish first beat him and then dumped his body.  Aso Jamal Mukhtar beaten for writing critically of the government and then fired from the paper he worked for.  Rezgar Raza Chouchani reported on the peshmerge and was imprisoned for six days and then banned from reporting.  Souran Mama Hama reported on the PUK and KDP's corruption and nepotism and was shot dead.  Marwan Tufiq imprisoned for insulting a martyr (you'd think a genuine martyr would have greater problems to address).  Shwan Dawdi imprisoned for reporting on courthouse issues. Dr. 'Adil Hussain, imprisoned for reporting on sex "from a medical perspective."
 
Caroline Alexander (Bloomberg News) covers the report and notes, "Authorities have failed to significantly curb the powers of the security forces, or Asayish, Amnesty said. They have also failed to rein in the security arms of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which form the Kurdistan Regional Government, according to the report." BBC News adds, "The report, based on research conducted in 2008, said the number of detainees held without charge or trial had dropped from thousands to hundreds, but some had been held as long as nine years. It describes cases where individuals have 'disappeared' and detainees have been beaten and given electric shocks while in custody." Shamal Aqrawi, Missy Ryan and Giles Elgood (Reuters) observe, "Iraq is a dangerous country for journalists -- at least 135 have been killed in the line of duty since 2003 -- but Kurdistan is seen as especially closed to criticism of the state."
 
Amensty's compiling attacks on the press  comes as Rod Nordland (NYT for Boston Globe) reports, "The Iraqi military put local journalists on notice on yesterday that their organizations could be shut down for misquoting officials, while the Iraqi government accused the news media of deliberately seeking to promote sectarian strife." For the Times, Nordland teamed up with Sam Dagher and they traced some of the recent assaults on the press.  The two note that Salman Abed, the cartoonist whose illustrations were seized last week (see yesterday's snapshot) is calling for an apology and states, "What happened was an offense to freedom.  We want to build a new country on liberal and democratic foundations."    
xxx
 
Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report a series of Baquba house bombings -- of homes belonging to internal refugees who "had recently returned" and three people were wounded in the bombings.
 
Shootings? 
 
Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report Monday a police officer was shot dead and another wounded in a Diyala Province raid, Monday in Sulaimaniyah 2 women and 1 man were wounded as police fired "randomly" and "Two civilians were wounded in two incidents that may have involved U.S. troops in Sulaimaniyah on Monday midnight."
 
Today at the Pentagon, a press teleconfrence was held with US Col Gary Volesky in Iraq.  AFP's Daphne Benoit asked if, due to recent violence, he was "still confident that you're going to be able to leave the city by end of June as planned?  And are you concerned it might actually worsen the situation?"  He replied: "The 30 June date -- that's -- that's out there.  We are conducting an assessment right now with our Iraqi counterparts to determine what the way ahead is for security in Mosul.  And based on that assessment, a decision will be made what we will do on 30 June.  If the Iraqi government believes we should stay in Mosul to continue the securiy progress, we'll support our Iraqi counterparts past 30 June and continue to build on the momentum that we've got here."  Stars & Stripes' Jeff Schogol asked when this assessment would be completed and Volesky didn't have a timeline but "I know that I'm collecting the data right now".  NBC's Courtney Kube returned to this topic clarifying that Volesky was stating that it's possible "US combat soldiers will stay in Mosul after June 30th" and Volesky responded, "If the Iraqi government wants us to stay, we will stay.  And that's correct." Kube followed up with, "What's your understanding of what that would mean for the status of forces?  Would there have to be some kind of a change in the status of forces agreement that went into effect several months ago? Or is that  because the Iraqis are asking -- would be asking the U.S. to stay -- does it fall within the guidelines that were established?"  Volesky begged off stating that was "way above my level".  Volosky's remarks echo those of the top US commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno (see yesterday's snapshot for the most recent example) and of Nouri al-Maliki.  Kube's question regarding the security agreement was what's called the Status Of Forces Agreement.  It 'requires' that US troops retreat from Iraqi cities no later than June 30th of this year.  It also 'requires' all US troops to depart Iraq by the end of 2011.  If the cities 'requirement' can be so easily tossed aside, it underscores how easily it can all be changed.
 
While the US is not leaving Iraq, US service members are being shipping there. In the US, AP reports West Virginia's National Guard is sending 50 Guard members to Iraq (their farewell ceremony is this morning) and the Dunn Daily Record reports a farewell ceremony in Fayetteville, North Carolina for approximately 4,000 National Gaurd members (30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team brigade). One not deploying Barbara Barrett (McClatchy Newspapers) reports "Army Sgt. 1st Class Chad Stephens, who earned a Silver Star for valor during a Baqubah firefight in 2004, isn't going back this time" due to a PTSD diagnosis.

Fort Bliss will be sending troops to Iraq but one scheduled to depart will not. Lilliam Irizarry (Prensa Asociada) reports police authorities and military investigators said yesterday that US Army Spc Nokware Rosado Munoz took his own life (hanging) following arguments with his wife, Dalises Rosado. Nokware had already served two years in Iraq and reportedly did not wish to do another tour but was scheduled to report to Fort Bliss this week for the redeployment. Edilberto Rivera Santiago, director of the Division of Homicides, states, "They had a discussion, were having problems because he had been activated again."
 
Finally, independent journalist Sheila Casey explores Barack's Justice Dept and change, here's the opening:
 

Many of my friends, even fairly well informed people, fell for Obama's charm and vague promises and collapsed in tears on election night, believing that we would now get "change" and now had reason to "hope." It is understandable to want a Daddy figure to come swooping in out of no where to rescue us, but unfortunately there was never any good reason to believe that Obama was that person.   

One can settle into a movie theatre and be swept away to a land of make-believe:  ancient Japan, 19th century Wyoming, or a gritty story of inner city Baltimore.  We silently exult when the hero escapes the bad guy and weep when he dies at the end in his lover's arms.  But we won't be shocked when we see him alive and well at the Oscars, for we know it was just theatre. We know that if we saw him dancing with joy or sneering with contempt on the silver screen, it wasn't that he was really feeling those emotions.  He was acting.    

Film makers use trained actors, costume designers, set designers, makeup and hair stylists, lighting designers, music composers, cinematographers and script writers to create a world that seems real, but is 100% a fantasy.    

So why is it that people who well understand the power of theatre have such a hard time believing that political campaigns use the same techniques to convey a false sense of reality?  Or a false expectation of "hope" and "change?"    

 

Posted at 02:57 pm by thecommonills
 

Amnesty International calls out human rights abuses in the KRG

Amnesty International calls out human rights abuses in the KRG

Today Amnesty International released a report [PDF format warning] entitled "Hope and Fear: Human Rights In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq." The report is 46 pages of text which ends with the following recommendations regarding the press:

Amnesty International is calling on the KRG to:
􀂄 Respect and protect the right to freedom of expression, including media freedom, in conformity with Iraq’s obligations under international law;
􀂄 End the practice of detaining journalists for exercising legitimately their right to freedom of expression and put an end to other forms of illegitimate official interference in the free operation of the media, such as threats against journalists;
􀂄 Publicly condemn physical attacks, acts of intimidation, threats and other crimes carried out against journalists and other media workers. Ensure that all such acts are promptly, thoroughly and impartially investigated and that those responsible are brought to justice;
􀂄 Investigate the murder of journalist Souran Mama Hama and ensure that those responsible for his death are brought to justice in a fair trial without resort to the death penalty;
􀂄 Suspend all articles in legislation, especially in the Iraqi Penal Code, which criminalize defamation against public officials, and repeal criminal defamation laws replacing them with civil legislation.

Pages 42 through 46 address attacks on press freedom. The report covers a wide range of abuses. Amnesty's press release notes:


During a fact-finding mission to the Kurdistan Region in 2008, Amnesty International researchers found many cases of people arrested and arbitrarily detained by Asayish (security) officials, including some who were tortured and others who were forcibly disappeared and whose fate and whereabouts remain unknown.
Torture methods include electric shocks to different parts of the body; beatings with fists, cables and metal or wooden batons; suspension by the wrists or ankles; beating on the soles of the feet (falaqa); sleep deprivation and kicking.
Amnesty International has called on the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to hold those responsible for human rights violations to account.
"The Kurdistan Region has been spared the bloodletting and violence that continues to wrack the rest of Iraq and the KRG has made some important human rights advances," said Malcolm Smart, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme. "Yet real problems - arbitrary detention and torture, attacks on journalists and freedom of expression, and violence against women - remain and need urgently to be addressed by the government."

Caroline Alexander (Bloomberg News) covers the report and notes, "Authorities have failed to significantly curb the powers of the security forces, or Asayish, Amnesty said. They have also failed to rein in the security arms of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which form the Kurdistan Regional Government, according to the report." BBC News adds, "The report, based on research conducted in 2008, said the number of detainees held without charge or trial had dropped from thousands to hundreds, but some had been held as long as nine years. It describes cases where individuals have 'disappeared' and detainees have been beaten and given electric shocks while in custody."

Along with covering attacks on press freedom, women, arbitrary imprisonment, the report also covers torture, disappearances and the judicial system. The report's introduction explains:


The Kurdistan Region of Iraq,1 unlike the rest of the country, has generally been stable since the 2003 US-led invasion. It has witnessed growing prosperity and an expansion of civil society, including the establishment of numerous non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in the promotion and protection of human rights. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has made progress in the field of human rights. In mid-2008 it released hundreds of political detainees, many of whom had been held for years without charge or trial. It has
improved Iraqi legislation; the Press Law of September 2008, for example, expanded freedom of expression, and amendments to the Personal Status Law passed in October 2008 strengthened women's rights. The authorities have also established several bodies to monitor and prevent violence against women, including specialized police directorates and shelters.
Platforms have been established to foster dialogue between the authorities, particularly the Ministry of Human Rights, and civil society organizations on human rights concerns, including violence against women.
Despite these positive and encouraging steps, however, serious human rights violations persist and still need to be addressed. In particular, urgent action by the government is required to ensure that the KRG’s internal security service, the Asayish, is made fully accountable under the law and in practice, to investigate allegations of torture, enforced disappearances and other serious human rights violations by the Asayish and other security and intelligence forces. As well, more needs to be done to end violence and discrimination against women, building on the progress achieved so far, and to enhance the standing in society and life choices available to women and girls. Thirdly, the KRG must take steps to
protect and promote the right to freedom of expression, including media freedom, taking into account the vital role of the media in informing the public and acting as a public watchdog.
It is these three areas which form the focus of this report.
Since 2000, thousands of people have been detained arbitrarily and held without charge or trial in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, in some cases for more than seven years. The vast majority were suspected members or supporters of local Islamist organizations, including both armed groups and legal political parties that do not use or advocate violence as part of their political platform. Some were tortured or otherwise ill-treated in detention.
Invariably, detentions were carried out by members of the Asayish , without producing an arrest warrant, and those detained were then denied access to legal representation or the opportunity to challenge their continuing detention before a court of law or an independent judicial body, throughout their incarceration. Some detainees were subjected to enforced disappearance, including some whose fate and whereabouts have yet to be disclosed -- typically, following their arrest by the Asayish or the intelligence services of the two main Kurdish parties, their families were unaware of their fate and whereabouts and were unable to obtain information about them, or confirmation of their detention from the authorities.
Dozens of other prisoners, meanwhile, are under sentence of death having been convicted in unfair trials.
Despite welcome government efforts to address "honour crimes" and other violence against women, it is clear from comparing survey data on violence against women with the number of police recorded cases of violence against women that the vast majority of such incidents remain unreported. Even when women have been killed or survived a killing attempt, many perpetrators have not been brought to justice -- often because investigations have failed to identify the perpetrators or because suspects remain at large.
Freedom of expression continues to be severely curtailed in practice, despite the recent abolition of imprisonment for publishing offences. Journalists have been arrested and sometimes beaten, particularly when publishing articles criticizing government policies or highlighting alleged corruption and nepotism within the government and the dominant political parties. Again, the hand of the seemingly all powerful and unaccountable Asayish and other security agencies is alleged to be behind a number of these attacks. One journalist was killed in July 2008 in suspicious circumstances.
This report details a wide range of human rights violations committed in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in recent years. In particular, it sheds light on violations such as arbitrary and prolonged detention without charge or trial, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill treatment, the death penalty, unfair trials, discrimination and violence against women, and attacks on freedom of expression. It includes case studies to illustrate these abuses. The report also puts forward numerous recommendations which, if implemented, would go a long
way towards reducing such violations.
Much of the information contained in this report is the outcome of a fact-finding visit conducted by Amnesty International in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq from 23 May to 8 June 2008, the first such visit by Amnesty International for several years. Amnesty International submitted its findings, in the form of two memoranda on human rights concerns, to the KRG in August 2008 and sought its response. The responses received in communications from the KRG Ministry of Human Rights at the end of 2008 are reflected in this report.



Meanwhile AP reports West Virginia's National Guard is sending 50 Guard members to Iraq (their farewell ceremony is this morning) and the Dunn Daily Record reports a farewell ceremony in Fayetteville, North Carolina for approximately 4,000 National Gaurd members (30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team brigade). One not deploying Barbara Barrett (McClatchy Newspapers) reports "Army Sgt. 1st Class Chad Stephens, who earned a Silver Star for valor during a Baqubah firefight in 2004, isn’t going back this time" due to a PTSD diagnosis.

Fort Bliss will be sending troops to Iraq but one scheduled to depart will not. Lilliam Irizarry (Prensa Asociada) reports police authorities and military investigators said yesterday that US Army Spc Nokware Rosado Munoz took his own life (hanging) following arguments with his wife, Dalises Rosado. Nokware had already served two years in Iraq and reportedly did not wish to do another tour but was scheduled to report to Fort Bliss this week for the redeployment. Edilberto Rivera Santiago, director of the Division of Homicides, states, "They had a discussion, were having problems because he had been activated again." Here's an excerpt of Lilliam Irizarry's report:

Las autoridades policiales y militares investigan el lunes el suicidio de un militar tras una discusión con su esposa sobre su regreso a Medio Oriente.
Nokware Rosado Muñoz, de 28 años, se privó de la vida en una cabaña de un motel en Toa Baja donde presuntamente había discutido con su esposa, Dalises Rosado, quien se quejaba de que la dejaría de nuevo sola debido al servicio militar.
Rosado Muñoz ya había estado en Irak dos años y debía regresar a su base en Fort Bliss en Texas esta misma semana, según el teniente Edilberto Rivera Santiago, director de la División de Homicidios de Bayamón.
"Ellos tuvieron una discusión, estaban teniendo problemas porque él había sido activado de nuevo", expresó Rivera Santiago.
El agente Félix Santiago, encargado de investigaciones criminales del Ejército estadounidense en Puerto Rico, confirmó que investigan el suicidio.



Corinne Reilly (McClatchy Newspapers) and Ernesto Londono (Washington Post) have reports on Iraq this morning; however, we aren't keen on SITE and are aware that when someone lies to the press about their identity, the press is never supposed to take them at their word again (we don't highlight Rita or her crazy ass group). We may pick through either or both reports for the snapshot but aren't interested in the anti-Arab SITE or its translations.


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













Posted at 06:44 am by thecommonills
 

Human trafficking in Iraq

Human trafficking in Iraq

Sunday the US military announced: "One U.S. Coalition Soldier died of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated in Salah-ad Din Province, April 12. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense." The Dept of Defense identifies the soldier as US Army Spc Michael J. Anaya of Crestview, Florida. In "UPDATE: Panhandle soldier killed in Iraq explosion" (Panama City's News Herald), Wendy Victoria reports the family was enroute to Dover Air Force Base and notes:

Michael Anaya was a young man who loved fishing, cooking on the grill and fighting for his country.
"He knew the risk, and he said that's what he loved and that's what his life was meant for," said Katie Rowe, who is engaged to his older brother, Carmelo Jr. "He has, ever since he was 5 years old, known that's what he wanted to do."
Rowe said some family members would return Wednesday, but Mike's father would stay to fly back with his son's body Thursday. He will be buried locally.

The illegal war passed the six year mark last month and 'liberation' and 'democracy' have yet to appear on the horizon. "Will Iraq Crack Down on Sex Trafficking?" wonders Rania Abouzeid (Time magazine):

Ravaged by rights groups and upbraided by the U.S. for failing to take measures against human trafficking, the Iraqi government has been quietly working on a draft law to tackle the scourge. Baghdad was prodded into action late last year, after the release of the U.S. State Department's "Trafficking in Persons Report," according to Human Rights Minister Wijdan Mikhail Salim. "Let's say it was a tough report about the situation in Iraq, and in so many cases it was right," she says.
The report was damning. Baghdad, it concluded, "offers no protection services to victims of trafficking, reported no efforts to prevent trafficking in persons and does not acknowledge trafficking to be a problem in the country." As a TIME.com story detailed, trafficking in Iraq is a shadowy underworld where nefarious female pimps hold sway and impoverished mothers sell their teenage daughters on the sex market. (See pictures of a women's prison in Baghdad.)
The situation is slowly changing. The draft law, a copy of which was obtained by TIME, imposes tough penalties, including life imprisonment and a fine not exceeding 25 million dinars ($21,000) for traffickers if the victim "is under 15, or a female, or has special needs." The same punishment applies if the crime was committed by kidnapping or force, or if the criminal "is a direct or distant relative or the victim's caretaker or husband or wife," a tacit acknowledgment that victims are often trafficked by people they know.

On the same topic, Rania Abouzeid offers "Iraq's Unspeakable Crime: Mothers Pimping Daughters:"

Nobody knows exactly how many Iraqi women and children have been sold into sexual slavery since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. There is no official number because of the shadowy nature of the business. Baghdad-based activists like Hinda and others estimate it to be in the tens of thousands. Still, it remains a hidden crime, one that the 2008 U.S. State Department's Trafficking in Persons report says the Iraqi government is not combating. Baghdad, the report says, "offers no protection services to victims of trafficking, reported no efforts to prevent trafficking in persons and does not acknowledge trafficking to be a problem in the country."
While sexual violence has accompanied warfare for millenniums and insecurity always provides opportunities for criminal elements to profit, what is happening in Iraq today reveals how far a once progressive country (relative to its neighbors) has regressed on the issue of women's rights and how ferociously the seams of a traditional Arab society that values female virginity have been ripped apart. Baghdad's Minister of Women's Affairs, Nawal al-Samarraie, resigned last month in protest of the lack of resources provided to her by the government. "The ministry is just an empty post," she told TIME. "Why do I come to the office every day if I don't have any resources?" Yet even al-Samarraie doesn't think sex-trafficking is an issue. "It's limited," she said, adding that she believed the girls involved choose to engage in prostitution.
That's a view that infuriates activists like Yanar Mohammed, who heads the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq. "Let me take her to the nightclubs of Damascus and show her [trafficked] women by the thousands," she says. To date, the government has not prosecuted any traffickers. And for the past year it has prevented groups like Mohammed's from visiting women's prisons, where they have previously identified victims, many of whom are jailed for acts committed as a result of being trafficked, such as prostitution or possessing forged documents.

Problems also exist in northern Iraq, in the Kurdistan Regional Government. A new report by Amnesty International, which we'll go into in the next entry) documents problems and offers the following recommendations:

RECOMMENDATIONS
Amend the law:
􀂄 Review all legislation that discriminates against women, in particular provisions of the Penal Code and Personal Status Law, and abolish or amend any provisions which discriminate, directly or in their impact, against women;
􀂄 Take effective measures to eliminate all violent acts against women, including by banning female genital mutilation and prosecuting those who order or commit such abuse;
􀂄 Take effective measures to ban early marriage and forced marriage, including by reviewing and implementing relevant legislation.
Empower women:
􀂄 Take steps to improve education for girls, including by ensuring that all girls receive primary education and by working to ensure that girls and boys are able to access secondary education on an equal basis;
􀂄 Support and promote the economic independence of women, including by increasing employment opportunities for women.
Improve protection measures:
􀂄 Ensure that all officials in contact with or aware of women at risk of violence are able and willing to take effective, appropriate and urgent protection measures, including measures that would allow the appropriate and timely implementation of civil protection orders -- based on a judicial decision -- banning a man who threatens to harm a woman from having contact with her;
􀂄 Provide appropriate financial and other support for the running or the establishment of shelters and other facilities run by NGOs or the authorities for women at risk of violence, in consultation with women’s rights advocates and shelter managers;
􀂄 Ensure regular review of protection and security measures at all institutions – in particular shelters - where women at risk of violence reside, in consultation with women's rights organizations, shelter managers and others;
􀂄 Ensure that written standard procedures exist for institutions, including shelters, detention centres, police stations and hospitals, that frequently release women into a potentially unsafe environment; such procedures, drawn up in consultation with women’s rights organizations, should stipulate a range of safety measures, including ensuring that a woman is fully informed about the risks and identifying a responsible body for establishing local back-up systems for protection of a returned woman and regular and appropriate follow-up contact with her;
􀂄 Create opportunities for a safe and empowering living environment for women in need of protection for an indefinite period within and outside shelters, including by providing qualification and job opportunities;
􀂄 Provide or support protection mechanisms for women human rights defenders in consultation with women’s rights organizations.
HOPE AND FEAR
Human rights in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq
Index: MDE 14/006/2009 Amnesty International April 2009
41
Investigate and prosecute:
􀂄 Ensure prompt, effective, independent, impartial and thorough investigations into all reported cases of violence against women, including by conducting separate interviews with all relevant witnesses and conducting all necessary forensic tests;
􀂄 Ensure the availability of suitably trained staff, including female staff, for investigating cases of violence against women;
􀂄 Ensure gender-sensitivity and safety when taking testimony of survivors of violence and witnesses;
􀂄 Ensure protection of witnesses testifying at court;
􀂄 Ensure that where there is sufficient admissible evidence, suspects of violent acts against women are detained and charged, having due regard to their human rights, and that all appropriate efforts are made to apprehend suspects who remain at large;
􀂄 Ensure that all who, after a fair trial, are found to have committed violence against women are given sentences commensurate with the gravity of the crime, but without use of the death penalty.
Train officials in gender issues:
􀂄 Provide training in gender issues for all elements of the criminal justice system -- including police officers, forensic medical examiners, prosecutors and judges -- in order to fully equip officials and members of the judiciary to deal with women’s complaints with appropriate sensitivity and competence;
􀂄 Ensure that training in gender issues is made available to officials throughout the area under the administration of the KRG and take steps, as soon as possible, to ensure that there are police officers who have been trained in gender issues in all police stations, including those in rural areas;
􀂄 Ensure the establishment of an effective, independent complaints mechanism into all allegations of police and government officials failing to carry out their legal duty to protect women and prevent violence when clearly required to do so; those failing such legal duty should be subject to disciplinary or penal sanctions.
Improve preventive measures:
􀂄 Support and engage directly in public awareness-raising about crimes of violence against women, using new as well as existing approaches, in consultation and collaboration with women’s rights organizations;
􀂄 Compile systematically and maintain comprehensive data on incidents of violence against women, in collaboration with women’s rights organizations and other NGOs, academics and others; and ensure that the information obtained from data collection and analysis is made publicly available and is used to refine official policies and procedures to address violence against women.




Don't expect any of the above to get much attention from Panhandle Media. They've yet to cover the assaults on Iraq's LGBT community. They do have time for 'experts' and bulls**t topics like the Queen of Beggar Media Amy Goodman who wants us to understand why pirates are pirates. Yes, that is a pressing issue . . . in the 1400s. Our calendars show 2009 and anyone who doesn't grasp why pirates exist is more lost than Amy's worthless Kenyan expert who, in a typical moment of 'expertise,' responds to a question with "uh - uh -uh - I don't remember right now". The quality of Beggar Media continues to slide. Speaking of the crackpot whores of beggar media, a few visitors (with an apparent sense of humor one hopes) have e-mailed Patrick Cockburn's latest loony garbage. We're not interested. A close reading will reveal why. Patrick is in love with Nouri al-Maliki. His hatred for America (which is fine, I'm not offended by it, he can feel whatever he wants) is so intense that he's built Nouri up to his uber god or at least his sex god. Well lots of luck with those fantasies on your many lonely nights, Paddy. However, you can't write about a crackdown on Sahwa and never mention Nouri in the entire article . . . unless you've styled yourself the Eva Braun to his Adolph. Amy Goodman's just America's shame, Patrick Cockburn is an international embarrassment.

While they waste everyone's time and give journalism an ugly name, Rod Nordland and Sam Dagher (New York Times) offer "Iraqi General Filing Suit to Close Newspaper and TV Channel Over Alleged Misquotes" which explores the assaults on press freedom in Iraq including the latest attempt to shut down a newspaper and television station: "[Major General Qassim] Atta's suit seeks to shut down the two organizations for 'publishing false reports,' his office said. Al Hayat published a correction on its Web site, saying the newspaper had confused General Atta's remarks with those of an unnamed source." They review Iraq's shaky history of press freedom and they also cover the attack on the arts:

In another development on Monday, an Iraqi cartoonist demanded an apology from the police in the Shiite holy city of Karbala for having confiscated two satirical drawings of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and other government officials.
"What happened was an offense to freedom," the cartoonist, Salman Abed, said in a telephone interview. "We want to build a new country on liberal and democratic foundations."

The cartoon is reproduced online but a better example of it can be found in the print version of the article in today's New York Times.

Mia highlights Chris Hedges' "Israel's Racist in Chief" (Information Clearing House):

It was unthinkable, when I was based as a correspondent in Jerusalem two decades ago, that an Israeli politician who openly advocated ethnically cleansing the Palestinians from Israeli-controlled territory, as well as forcing Arabs in Israel to take loyalty oaths or be forcibly relocated to the West Bank, could sit on the Cabinet. The racist tirades of Jewish proto-fascists like Meir Kahane stood outside the law, were vigorously condemned by most Israelis and were prosecuted accordingly. Kahane's repugnant Kach Party, labeled by the United States, Canada and the European Union as a terrorist organization, was outlawed by the Israeli government in 1988 for inciting racism.
Israel has changed. And the racist virus spread by Kahane, whose thugs were charged with the murders and beatings of dozens of unarmed Palestinians and whose members held rallies in Jerusalem where they chanted "Death to Arabs!" has returned to Israel in the figure of Israel's powerful new foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman. Lieberman openly calls for an araberrein Israel-an Israel free of Arabs.
There has been a steady decline from the days of the socialist Labor Party, which founded Israel in 1948 and held within its ranks many leaders, such as Yitzhak Rabin, who were serious about peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians. The moral squalor of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and Lieberman reflects the country's degeneration. Labor, like Israel, is a shell of its old self. Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu Party, with 15 seats in the Knesset, is likely to bring down the Netanyahu government the moment his power base is robust enough to move him into the prime minister's office. He is the new face of the Jewish state.
Lieberman, a former nightclub bouncer who was a member of the Kach Party, has the personal and political habits of the Islamic goons he opposes. He was found guilty in 2001 of beating a 12-year-old boy and fined by an Israeli court. He is being investigated for multimillion-dollar fraud and money laundering and is rumored to have close ties with the Russian mafia. He lives, in defiance of international law, in the Jewish settlement of Nokdim on occupied Palestinian land.


The following community sites updated last night:


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the new york times
rod nordland
sam dagher





thomas friedman is a great man






oh boy it never ends

Posted at 06:41 am by thecommonills
 

Monday, April 13, 2009
Iraq snapshot

Iraq snapshot

Monday, April 13, 2009.  Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces deaths, the 5 US soldiers killed in Iraq Friday return to the US, Nouri goes after the press, Iraq's LGBT community remains targeted, Barack's half-brother makes the news, and more.
 
 
Today the US military announced: "A Coalition forces Soldier died of injuries sustained during an explosively formed projectile attack on a convoy five kilomenters south of Karbalah, Iraq April 13 at approximately 7:40 a.m.  The Soldier's name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the department of Defense.  The incident is currently under investigtion."  Yesterday the US military announced: "One U.S. Coalition Soldier died of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated in Salah-ad Din Province, April 12. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense." The total number of US service members killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war is 4273. Friday 5 US soldiers were announced dead.  Cindy Sheehan (Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox) observed, "Today five US soldiers were killed in Iraq and we won't ever know for sure how many Iraqis were killed.  The families of the US soldiers will never have a 'normal' Easter again.  All of their days will be filled with pain and longing, but holidays, birthdays and other anniversaries will be especially hard.  My heart is breaking for the awful and pointless spiral of grief that these families are just embarking upon.  Some may not yet know that it was their son, father, brother, uncle, or friend that was murdered today.  I saw the report of Casey's death on the news at least five hours before the Army notified us."  (Cindy's guest on the audio Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox this week are James Martinez discussing the finacial crisis, housing and more and Annie Garrison on the Blue Angels use of San Francisco to boost recruitment.  That episode is posted online already.)  It was Good Friday in 2004 when Cindy and her family met her son Casey Sheehan at the airport for the last time.  Sunday the 5 US soldiers killed on Friday arrived at Dover Air Force Base.  Jeff Montgomery (Delaware's News Journal) observes, "It was the heaviest loss of American lives in Iraq in 13 months, and the largest number of casualties returned to America in full sight of the public since the Defense Department opened the process to news coverage last week, after a 18-year blackout."
 
The Defense Dept identified the five as: "Staff Sgt. Gary L. Woods Jr., 24, of Lebanon Junction, Ky., Staff Sgt. Bryan E. Hall, 32, of Elk Grove, Calif., Sgt. Edward W. Forrest Jr., 25, of St. Louis, Mo., Cpl. Jason G. Pautsch, 20, of Davenport, Iowa, and PV2 Bryce E. Gautier, 22, of Cypress, Calif."  Sheryl Edelen (Courier-Journal) reports on Gary L. Woods Jr., "Woods' father, Gary Woods St., said that his son, who went by his middle name, Lee, was a talented musician who sang and played the trombone, drums, piano and guitar while a student at Bullitt Central High School.  He was also a member of the school's football team.  But after finding satisifation in ROTC classes, his son entered the military after high school, he said."  Bob White (Lebanon Junction News Enterprise) adds, "Woods is surived by his parents, siblings and a wife, Christie, his father said."  Tony Bizjak (Sacramento Bee) reports on Bryan Edward Hall, "Hall, 32, had served in the military for 14 years and had been deployed in Iraq since September. . . . Hall had received three Army commendation medals, according to military records, as well as several Army achievement, good conduct and war on terrorism medals."  Dave Marquis (Sacramento's News10.net) quotes Debbie Lords, who is a neighbor of the Bryan Edward Hall's parents, stating, "I don't know what I'm thinking.  I just really feel for John and Betty right now.  It was their oldest son, their oldest child." Paul Hampel (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) reports on Edward Forrest Jr., "Forrest was based at Fort Carson in Colorado and lived near the base with his wife and two sons, ages 2 and one month.  Forrest was a 2003 graduate of Rockwood Summit High School.  He was on his third tour of duty in Iraq."  His sister Melissa Forrest-Pliner tells Hampel, "I asked him not to re-enlist.  I told him I didn't want him to be a hero.  I just wanted him to be my brother."  South County Times adds, "In high school, Sgt. Forrest, known as 'Eddie,' was a long distance runner on the track team, and was also on the wrestling team" and quotes his coach Rolland Garrison stating, "He was a very enthusiastic member of the track and field program here at Rockwood Summit.  He was a very good kid with a great smile."  Molly Hottle (Des Monies Register) reports on Jason Graham Pautsch, "David Pautsch was informed of his son's death Friday night, just 12 hours after the two had spoken on the phone. 'He believed n what he was doing,' David Pautsch said. 'This is what he wanted to do'." Nicole Murphy (WAQD, link has text and video) spoke with David Pautsch who explained the call he received, "'On behalf of the Secretary of the Army I just want to let you know, give our condolences and notify you that your son was killed in Mosul."  Pautsch continues, "You're stunned and you're shocked and you find it hard to believe that it could actually be happening but then it seeps and that's when the emotions hit."  Pautsch goes on to explain that he believes his son was protecting the US from the "terrorists" in Iraq and he also shares, "I'm thrilled for Jason that he's in heaven."  Eugene W. Fields (Orange County Register) reports on Bryce E. Gautier, "Gauier, a medic, joined the Army in January of 2008 and had been in Iraq since January of this year, according to Army documents.  He received the National Defense Service Medal, the Army Service Ribbon and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal.  Gautier graduated in 2005 from Rancho Alamitos High in Garden Grove, according to school district spokesman Alan Trudell." Tom Roeder and Maria St. Louis-Sanchez (Colorado Springs Gazette) note Gauier's MySpace page and add, "His sense of humor is evident from a posting on the site, which Gautier last updated three days before his death. 'Winners make the rules, losers just follow them,' Gautier wrote. 'In the Army now.' Gautier's brother, Even, left a simple eulogy on his Web page: 'My brother Bryce was one of the American soldiers killed in the suicide bombing in Iraq this morning.  I love you bro. I will miss you'."
 
In 'liberated' Iraq, gays and lesbians continue to be targeted for death.  The Denver Post editorialized on the topic yesterday and opened with:
 
The U.S. State Department must not stand idly by if the Iraqi government fails to protect basic human rights, even if the persecution stems from traditional cultural or religious beliefs.        
We applaud Colorado Congressman Jared Polis for his efforts last week to shine the spotlight on the killings of homosexuals in Iraq, and to press the State Department to demand accountability from the Iraqi government.           
The first openly gay man to be elected to the House, Polis has been investigating the treatment of gays in Iraq for several months, according to The Post's Michael Riley. His research led to the discovery of a transgender Iraqi man who told the congressman he had been arrested, beaten and raped by security forces with Iraq's Ministry of Interior.           
Human-rights groups have passed information to Polis that claims another man was beaten into confessing he belonged to a gay-rights group and that the man had been sentenced to execution by an Iraqi court.         
 
US House Rep Polis has made his letter to Patricia A. Butenis (Charge d'Affaires ad interim of the US State Dept) [PDF formart warning] here:
 
Dear Ms. Butenis:
Over the past week, I have become aware of egregious human rights violations against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Iraqis being carried out by Iraqi government officials from the Ministry of the Interior called "Magaweer al-Dakhilya."   
The information I received was derived from two separate testimonials of gay and transgender Iraqi men that were detained, tortured and sentenced to death for being members of an allegedly forbidden organization in Iraq called Iraqi LGBT.  One of these invidividuals was able to escape, while the other was subsequently executed by Iraqi Ministry of Interior Security Forces.   
While I do not know if these executions are being sanctioned at the highest levels of the Iraqi government, it is nonetheless distrubing that government officials and state-funded security forces are involved in the torturing and execution of LGBT Iraqis. 
Even more disturbing was that the United States government appears to be largely unaware that the executions of gay and transgender Iraqis have been able to occur in Iraq given the enormous American presence.  After reaching out to State Department officials in Washington, I was disappointed by their unwillingness to seriously consider these allegations and examine the evidence given to our office by international human rights watchdog organizations.  
I urge you to use every channel at your disposal to properly and promptly invetigate these grave human rights violations.  Please know that I will continue to monitor this situation and hope to be of assistance in this investigation."
 
At his Congressional website, Polis is quoted stating, "The United States should not tolerate human rights violations of nay kind, especially by a government that Americans spend billions of taxpayer dollars each year supporting.  Hopefully my trip and letters to US and Iraqi officials will help bring international attention and investigation to this terrible situation and bring an end to any such offenses."  
 
Last week, we noted the US State Dept and the United Nations have been silent on these and other attacks on the LGBT community in Iraq. The issue gets some attention today. BBC News explains Amnesty International states Nouri al-Maliki's government "must do more to protect" the LGBT community 'in the wak of a reported spate of killings of gay young men" and that they are pressing for "urgent and concerted action."  Nigel Morris  (Independent of London) explains that no arrests have been made in the recent murders -- he says six, it was seven -- and quotes Ali Hili stating, "Since mid-December we've been getting lots of reports about mass arrests and raids on houses, cafes, barbers shops."  Mass arrests?  It sounds like round-ups and those were common in Hilter's Germany where the LGBT community was targeted along with the Jewish community.  (Iraq's Jewish community has been so targeted and so under assault that it barely exists at present.)  Hili continues, "Most of the people who are arrested are found dead, with signs of torture and burns.  We believe a war has been launched by the Iraqi Government and its establishment against gay people."  As noted in the April 8th snapshot, the United Nations Secretary General issues statements all the time, condemning attacks in Iraq, but there has never been a statement from him on condemning the assaults on Iraq's LGBT community. And since the number reported continues to be in error, we'll drop back to the April 6th snapshot to again note:
 
In other violence noted over the weekend, Wisam Mohammed and Khalid al-Ansary (Reuters) reported Saturday that gays are being targeted in Baghdad, with four corpses discovered March 25th and 2 gay men murdered Thursday 'after clerics urged a crackdown'." Sunday Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) reported the two were first "disowned" (by their homophobic and hateful families) and "The shootings came after a tribal meeting was held and the members decided to go after the victims." Tawfeeq reports the other were also disowned (and gives the date of their deaths as March 26th) and states a cafe in Sadr City was torched when it was said to be an LGBT hangout in Baghdad. The Dallas Morning News wrote a brief on the topic and UPI summarized Tawfeeq's report. AFP reported Sunday that the two corpses discovered Thursday "had pieces of paper attached on which was written the word 'Pervert" and that the two men were aged sixteen and eighteen and had also had "their arms and legs broken". In addition, AFP reports another man presumed to be gay was found on Friday -- which would bring the toll to seven -- and this follows Sheikh Jassem al-Muatairi's 'inspiring' sermon denouncing "new private practices by some men who dress like women, who are effeminate. I call on families to prevent their children from following such a lifestyle."
 
Seven.  Not six. Tomorrow the San Francisco Board of Supervisors meets and among the items on the agenda are a motion "Condemning the persecution and murders of Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Iraqi Citizens": "Resolution calling on the US Department of State to use all diplomatic channels to work with the Iraqi Government to stop the persecution of Iraqi Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) citizens and immediately stop the murders of Iraqi LGBT citizens." If that takes place (and it should), the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will be the first governing body elected by any group of people to condemn the killings and assaults.

 
 
When my husband was blown up by a roadside bomb in Iraq, shattering my world, it was my sisters who stepped into the void, along with some of my dearest girlfriends. They began the business of filling my shoes while I sat by an ICU bed, praying for signs of life. They lined up food deliveries, kept the curious from the door, organized rides for our kids and paid our bills. They understood the business of ministering.   
"This sucks," my one sister said. "You guys don't deserve this." She knew she could tell it like it was. There was no room for sugarcoating, and I didn't want any sunshine blowing up my backside. The reality was grim.  
Months later, it was my turn in the hospital, when doctors found a potentially cancerous tumor lurking in my abdomen. I turned to my other sister. "I want to be you," I said simply as I lay in my bed with the catheter, too weak to move.  
 
Lee Woodruff's husband is ABC News' Bob Woodruff who was reporting from Iraq when he and Doug Vogt were injured in a roadside bombing January 29, 2006.  The Bob Woodruff Foundation focuses on the physical and psychological wounds of war.  While Bob Woodruff survived, Reporters Without Borders counts 223 journalists as having died in the Iraq War.  (They actually break that does to media assistants -- we don't.  The 'assistants' have long been doing reporting -- as would happen in any war zone but is especially true of the Iraq War.)  The two most recent journalists known to have been killed in Iraq are Haidar Hashim Suhail and Suhaib Adnan of Al-Baghdadia TV who were killed March 10th in an Anbar Province bombing.  So many reporters, Iraq and foreign, have been wounded and given their lives attempting to report from that country and it's not at all appreciated by thug-meister Nouri al-Maliki.   Alsumaria reports:

The Iraqi Government decision to detain back prisoners released by US Forces is subject to a political and security hassle. Baghdad Operations spokesman Brigadier Qassem Ata affirmed that the Command has ordered checkpoints to arrest all freed detainees recently released by US Forces.    
Ata told Al Hayat Newspaper that the operations command has distributed names and photos of released detainees on all checkpoints to detain them after they were involved in recent bombings in Baghdad.       
He noted that keeping those detainees out of prison will deteriorate the security situation and will threaten stability after US Forces withdraw from the cities to their bases at the end of June.       
Asked about the possibility of delaying US withdrawal after latest security incidents, Ata said the US military did not notify us about such intentions.
"The Times" British Newspaper expected yesterday to delay US Forces withdrawal from Iraqi volatile cities. The Newspaper quoted a US Army General as saying that insecurities in Mosul and Baaquba might force US Military to extend their military operations in those cities beyond June 30.          

This topic is one that upsets Nouri al-Maliki's thug government. Robert H. Reid (AP) reports the thug government is attempting to close a TV station (Al-Sharqiya) and a newspaper (Al-Hayat) over reports that al-Maliki's thugs are arresting the prisoners as the US releases them.  Reid explains Nouri's government is bothered by the press explaining that arrests of Sahwa ("Awakening" Council members, "Sons of Iraq") might have been politically motivated.  Yesterday Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) reported on the 12 killed Saturday in the suicide bombing attack in Iskandariyah as they attempted to collect their long overdue pay checks. Rubin explores the continued attacks on the Sahwa and the tensions in the Sunni community as a result. Rubin observes that for all the speculation over the very visible attacks (including arrests), the tensions were always there between the Sahwa movement (Sunni) and the US installed government in Baghdad which is dominated by Shi'ites (and by Iraqis who willingly went into exile and only returned to Iraq after the US invaded). Rubin notes the 27-day imprisonment of Sheik Maher Sarhan Abbas who was arrested "in secret and came to light when The New York Times by chance contacted someone who had seen him in jail." While the US continues to see Abbas as someone to be trusted and while his "Shiite neighbors trusted him" as well, Nouri's foces burst into his home on March 15th, "just after midnight, heavily armed men flung deafening smoke grenades into his home in Hawr Jab, a small village on Baghdad's southern outskirts, his family said. They burst into the bedroom where Sheik Maher and his wife were watching television as their 3-year-old daughter slept in a small bed next to them." Along with Nouri's goons, US forces were present and it's suspceted that they "were probably from a Special Operations unit". The latest hypothesis among "Awakenings" is that their Sunni enemies are telling lies to the Shi'ite government which, loathing the "Awakenings," uses any excuse to arrest them. Rubin includes this:


A senior American official in Iraq was also skeptical of the motives for the arrests. "Why is the government doing this?" said the official, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the news media.        
"Every time we said to the government, 'You have to let this guy go,' they do it, which they wouldn't if they thought he was really dangerous," the American said. "I think they have their hand in the sectarian cookie jar."     
 
 
Sudarsan Raghavan (Washington Post) reports on the continued tensions as well as the tensions regardding the Kurds.  Of Baghdad, he notes:
 
Today, the city of oatmeal-colored minarets that straddles the Tigris River feels like a military base, with streets tangled by blast walls and checkpoints.  
Backed by U.S. troops and advisers, Iraq's mostly Shiite national police and army control the city. They coexist uneasily with the local Sunni police force and the Sons of Iraq -- former Sunni insurgents who turned against the militant group al-Qaeda in Iraq and allied with the U.S. military.  
Neither the local police nor the Sons of Iraq are allowed to protect the shrine, which is guarded by an array of mostly Shiite units sent by the central government.  
"I don't believe that any people or city feel comfortable when they have an army from outside. The traditions from their areas are different than ours," said Sheik Mudher al-Naisani, a Sunni tribal leader. "That's right, this is one country. But it is better for Iraq that each serve in their own areas."  
While most Iraqis believe that al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgents planted the bombs, many Sunni leaders here place the blame on the national police and U.S. troops who were guarding the shrine. Members of Iraq's national police force have committed some of the most horrendous sectarian crimes since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion; to this day there are widespread suspicions of infiltration by Shiite militias.  
"It was a conspiracy," said Hussen, the Sunni council leader.
 
Are Sunnis who believe that right or wrong?  It doesn't matter because they believe it.  And that's a 2006 event and nothing was ever done to ease the tensions.  These tensions do not go away, they do not vanish.  They may get worked through by the parties involved but an outside power (the US in this case) can never impose anything because it doesn't last.  The US has backed, armed and supported the Shi'ites thereby setting the stage for any bloodbaths that follow a US withdrawal.  If those bloodbaths come (and they are likely), the withdrawal will not be responsible for them.  The culprit will be all the years the US spent propping up a puppet government.  Without the propping up, Nouri (or whomever) would have had to have made peace with the Sunnis long ago.  They're too big of a population group for a leader to blow off and expect to remain in power unless the only reason the leader remains in power (as is the case with Nouri) is because a foreign government that installed him continued to prop him up.  Barack's not promising withdrawal, he's promising a draw down.  But at some point in the future the US will withdraw from Iraq.  When that happens, any violence that follows is not because of the withdrawal, it is because of everything that came before. And, sidebar, Sudarsan Raghavan's done a wonderful job reporting in the above story; however, he's also done a wonderful job writing it -- so much so that it recalls the best of Rajiv Chandrasekaran.
 
 
In the summer of 2006, al-Maliki listed his 'plan' amidst the crackdown on Baghdad and it included attacks on the press. When the January 31st provincial elections took place in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces, al-Maliki attempted to strong arm the press and force them into signing agreements which would allow them to be punished and penalized if al-Maliki was displeased. His latest attacks on the press and freedoms are nothing news and part of a thug pattern which includes yesterday's news:

In Iraq today, a committee in Parliament offered a rebuke of the police. Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) reports the committee was offended that the police raided an art show and seized an illustration "lampooning Iraq's prime minister." No word on whether or not he was in 'Muslim garb' and doing a fist bump. (For those who didn't catch that, it was a reference to the faux outrage over a New Yorker cartoon cover that demonstrated there's more than a little bit of Denmark in the US.)
 
On the topic of art, US Foreign Service Officer Aaron Snip (US State Dept's DIPNOTE) writes of rushing to pull off preparation for an important 2006 visit:
 
Part of my job as Public Diplomacy Officer is to share U.S. culture and values with Iraqis, but it's also to support Iraqi efforts to preserve their own culture. We asked the women to bring in examples of their work, and we hung their paintings along the walls of the meeting hall. Very few of the women had had formal art training. Painting was a hobby for all, a creative outlet for some, and an escape for others. Their artwork spanned the spectrum of their life's experiences. Some paintings were colorful and bright, while others were dark and depressing. All documented the lives of women in Muthanna. 
We chatted with the women about doing a larger gallery showing. Would they be interested in holding a multi-city art exhibition if I could get the funding? They were thrilled with the idea. What began as a meeting with a stoic group of Iraqi women with canvases in hand, ended in a beehive of excitement with ideas flowing freely. Here was a demographic that seldom had the chance to speak out. Their art resonated with me deeply, and I was committed to finding a way to help these women tell their stories. 
I went back to my office that evening and immediately began to work on a proposal. In no time at all, my proposal was approved (who says the Federal Government moves at a glacial pace?), and I was busy working with an NGO to purchase art supplies and canvases for each of the exhibit participants. The artists would paint submissions for an exhibit that would show in Muthanna's three largest cities, Samawa, Rumaytha, and Khider, sometime in the spring. For the artists, it would be the first time most of them had ever displayed their art publicly. One woman told us that she had painted for years, but feared no one would ever see her work. Another woman, considerably older and pointing to a young woman next to her, proclaimed, "I am here for my daughter-in-law! I told my son, 'he must support her dreams!' So I am here to make sure she has a chance!"
 
For more, you can refer to Aaron Snipe's second blog post.  Meanwhile, Iraq was once a book lover's paradise.  Corinne Reilly (McClatchy Newspapers) reports, "The widespread looting that followed the invasion destroyed library collections across Iraq. Booksellers and publishing housing closed as violence spread, and the priorities of many Iraqis shifted from reading and learning to staying alive and finding ways out of the country. In 2007, a series of explosions ripped through Baghdad's Mutanabi Street, shutting down the book market known for decades as Iraq's most popular gathering place for intellectuals and bibliophiles. Many of its shops and cafes have only recently reopened."  By the way, returning to the topic of the press, Russell Crowe is outstanding in State of Play and, while discussing the film, Mary Riddell (Telegraph of London) addresses the global problems newspapers are facing -- as opposed to the fairy tales the New York Times served up this morning. (Ben Affleck is also amazing in the film as is Robin Wright Penn.  And Helen Mirren is in State of Play. Translation, Helen Mirren is wonderful as always.)
 
Turning to some of today's other reported violence (we started with some of today's violence) . . .
 
Bombings?
 
Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report a Baghdad grenade attack which wounded four people and they drop back to Saturday night to note a Balad sticky bombing which claimed the lives of 2 Sahwa members
 
 
Shootings?
 
Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report Turkoman Abdulraham Aziz was shot dead outside his home Sunday while another person was shot dead in Mosul last night. Reuters notes 1 person shot dead in Kirkuk today and, dropping back to Sunday, a Mosul home invasion in which 1 person was shot dead.
 
Corpses?
 
Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report a police captatin was kidnapped in Anbar Province Saturday and his corpse was discovered yesterday.
 
Yesterday the top US commander in Iraq, Gen Ray Odierno, appeared on CNN and was interviewed by John King (link has text and video). He discussed the treaty masquerading as a Status Of Forces Agreement which supposedly binds the US to leave all Iraqi cities by the end of this June and to leave the country by the end of 2011. Despite that alleged 'binding' agreement, Odierno stated US troops might not leave Iraqi cities at the end of June ("If we believe that we'll need troops to maintain a presence in some of the cities, we'll recommend that, but, ultimately, it will the decision of Prime Minister Maliki"), however , "As you ask me today, I believe it's a 10 -- that we will be gone by 2011." He believes. Not "It's a 10, we will be gone in 2011." Believes. Odierno's not staking his reputation on anyone else's promise and he has always worded very carefully on this topic. Jonathan D. Salant (Bloomberg News) puts it this way, "Odierno said he expects to meet the 2011 deadline. There are 142,000 U.S. troops in Iraq." Deborah Solomon (Wall St. Journal) summarizes it as follows, "The top U.S. general in Iraq said the U.S. is on track to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by August 2010 but could adjust the pace over the next 18 months depending on the stability of the country."

In other news, Abo Obama -- aka Samson Obama -- is in the news and, strangely, while everyone else with a criminal arrest record gets stuck with their birth name, reports continue to call him "Samson Obama."  Considering that he gave a phony name at his arrest, maybe they should all stick to his birth name: Abo Obama.  He is the half-brother of Barack and they have been photographed together and Barack has written of him.  wowOwow reports, "Various news outlets report that British officials denied the U.S. president's half-brother Samson Obama a visa because he was accused of sexual assault last November. And, during that incident, Mr. Obama gave police a false name. He was not arrested or charged for that crime. His fingerprints and other data were stored in a national database and the president's estranged half-brother -- the men have not spoken in 20 years, according to the White House -- went back home to Kenya."  Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Brotherly Embarrassment" covered this last night.  For the record, it was sexual assault at underage girls with the youngest being a 13-year-old.  He is over 40 himself.  Strangely, all the reports -- and they're linked in Isaiah's comic -- somehow avoid mentioning his age.  I can't remember a time when someone with an arrest record made the news and the press refused to list his age or, for that matter, his birth name.  The arrest took place in November, either in the last stages of Barack's campaign or after the election -- the press won't tell us that either.  In January, he was enroute to the US -- for the inauguration -- and the UK refused to let him in.  No word on whether he made it into the US or not. And let me plub Kat's "Kat's Korner: The LOtUSFLOW3R Blooms ... and rocks" which is her review of Prince's new album LOtUSFLOW3R.
 

Posted at 03:51 pm by thecommonills
 

Iraq's LGBT community

Iraq's LGBT community

The U.S. State Department must not stand idly by if the Iraqi government fails to protect basic human rights, even if the persecution stems from traditional cultural or religious beliefs.
We applaud Colorado Congressman Jared Polis for his efforts last week to shine the spotlight on the killings of homosexuals in Iraq, and to press the State Department to demand accountability from the Iraqi government.
The first openly gay man to be elected to the House, Polis has been investigating the treatment of gays in Iraq for several months, according to The Post's Michael Riley. His research led to the discovery of a transgender Iraqi man who told the congressman he had been arrested, beaten and raped by security forces with Iraq's Ministry of Interior.
Human-rights groups have passed information to Polis that claims another man was beaten into confessing he belonged to a gay-rights group and that the man had been sentenced to execution by an Iraqi court.

The above is the opening to the Denver Post's Sunday editorial "Killing of gay Iraqis shouldn't be ignored: We applaud Rep. Jared Polis for his efforts last week to shine the spotlight on the killings of homosexuals in Iraq." For more on the issue, you can see this snapshot, this entry and the roundtable Friday night ["Roundtable on Iraq," "Roundtabling Iraq," "the roundtable," "Iraq," "Iraq in the Kitchen," "Roundtable on Iraq," "Talking Iraq," "Iraq," "Talking Iraq roundtable" and "Iraq roundtable"] -- from the roundtable, we'll note Wally's comments -- actually we'll note an entire section. Ava and I typed this up (and took the notes during the roundtable) but were tired and I'm reading over this section this morning and it's fresh and new to me:

Betty: I wanted to talk about Iraq's LGBT population. In the April 2nd snapshot, C.I. noted the reports that they were being executed. No one followed that story this week until we found out, see yesterday's snapshot, that US House Rep Jared Polis went to Iraq and was given information about a gay man sentenced to death for being gay. Why isn't anyone writing about this? Michael Riley (Denver Post) was covering it but I'm not even sure if he grasped all of what he was reporting and, if he did grasp it, I think he intentionally downplayed it. Maybe because he thought if he didn't downplay it, it might be seen as too explosive for print. But read his article. A member of the US Congress has been given information that states a gay man is going to be put to execution because he is gay. The Congress member finds the information and documentation so convincing that he raises the issue on his Iraq trip. I'd say this is pretty big news.

Cedric: I'd agree with you Betty and I'd argue that if all the people writing last week about the executions hadn't been doing that. and that includes C.I. doing the why-are-we-silent writing, we wouldn't have gotten Timothy Williams and Tareq Maher's "Iraq's Newly Open Gays Face Scorn and Murder" in the New York Times this week. That's really the strongest article on this subject that paper has published. And, speculating, I'm wondering is it that the paper previously didn't care about the issue, thought readers didn't care about the issue, thought it wasn't among the important issues or what?

Mike: Well when they can write that stupid article on the Humvee dealership in Iraq then if it's that the paper didn't think LGBT was an "important issue," that's saying a lot. And none of it good about the paper.

Ruth: I honestly think that there is a 'queasy' aspect to it -- I am talking about among the press. It happens far too often, an issue involving an attack on the LGBT community in any country, even our own, never gets the kind of attention it deserves. Never. I think a large portion of the press, especially above the reporters' level, are uncomfortable with LGBT issues and the LGBT community.

Ava: Well, in terms of the New York Times, they have a shameful history on AIDS in the eighties and I would argue that's because of the "queasy" aspect Ruth's talking about. They didn't see gays and lesbians as 'real human beings' so when a disease that wasknown as the "gay cancer" struck, they didn't want to devote the kind of attention they would have if the same disease had targeted red-headed-four-year-old boys, for example.

Mike: I don't want to dominate the roundtable but if I can make another point, and I'll try to be quick, homophobia is out there and it's not going away. It might get reduced, but it's not going away any time soon. And if we're not willing to combat it, then I don't know what's going to happen. I am eager about one thing that's coming up.

Marcia: I agree with you, Mike, but I want to also say how important it is that someone like Mike says that and not just me. I'm a lesbian. It's important that I speak out. But Mike's a straight man and it's really important that he speak out as well. I think the gay community is something like one in ten. The LGBT community needs to speak up but we also need support from the straight community. In terms of what Mike's talking about coming up, I agree. And I'm excited about it as well. It's something we're going to be doing at Third. A regular feature. But I would agree there's a silence and, like Ruth, I would have to say it's because it makes some straight people uncomfortable.

Betty: If I can say one more thing on this topic, I'd just like to point out that gays are being targeted in Iraq. By the clergy, by the police and apparently by their state government. And the fact that so many -- including Liar Barack -- have taken to tossing around terms like "democracy" at a time when homophobia is expressed with criminal intent is appalling. And it's disgusting to see US leaders hail a country where homophobia and homophobic murders are condoned by the governemtn. It's disgusting.

Wally: Well the silence goes beyond the press and it also includes our own State Dept which has never condemened the murders. It didn't condemn under the homophobe Colin Powell, it didn't condemn then under Condi Rice and it's not condemning them under Hillary Clinton. Now I happen to like Hillary and, as most people reading this will know, from something like January through the primary in Puerto Rico, I was on the road campaigning for her. I ended up taking off the semester to do that. I believed in her campaign that much. She's being silent. Now I could be an Obot and say, "She needs more time to speak! She needs to get comfortable!" I could offer a million excuses but the reality is she has not spoken out against it and that's not right, and there's no excuse for it, and I'm embarrassed and ashamed for Hillary. And I'll tell you one more thing, I'd be talking about that like her if she was president. Because I don't believe in hero worship. Unlike the Cult of St. Barack, I don't offer excuses. And I believe Hillary would make a great president. But I believe that because I think she's smart. So when someone that smart and that wise doesn't speak out against the murders, it is appalling and I will call out. I will repeat, Hillary Clinton, I am ashamed and embarrassed by your silence. I am fully aware that there are issues that are policy and that come above Hillary. That would include the Israel situtation, for example. There she's merely executing policy. However, in terms of this issue, in terms of condemning any murders in any country -- I'm talking warfare, supposed or otherwise -- she has the power, due to the office she holds, to issue a state condemning the murders. She hasn't done it. I'm appalled. Shame on you, Hillary, you know better. And Kat I knew Betty's topic, Rebecca, which is why we were holding off on talking.

Kat: Right. And it is an important topic but just to back up a second, I agree with Wally and if Hillary had gotten the nomination, she would be president, we all know that, we all know she got more votes than Barack in the primaries and we all know she would have done better than he did in the general. But if she was president, we wouldn't be playing fan club to Hillary. We'd be doing what Wally just did right now. And Wally gave his all to getting the word out on Hillary. He dropped out of college because he took some weeks off and ended up deciding that it was more important that he campaign for her. The original plan was just to campaign for her for a few weeks, he ended up dropping out to campaign for her. And he still believes she would make a wonderful president but that didn't prevent him from calling her out on her silence and doing so strongly. And if she were president and going back on her word to withdraw one brigade a month from Iraq, we'd all be calling her out. The Obots aren't politically educated or smart. They needed a crush, an empty vessel upon which they could impose their dreams of love and romance. It and they are disgusting. Now in terms of the LGBT community in Iraq, I don't want to hear any garbage about Muslim religion or any of that other s**t. We don't use "Muslim religion" or "Muslim culture" to hide behind murdering Jews or Christians. Murder's wrong. That's not open to debate. That the US has installed a regime in Iraq which thinks it's okay to murder gays and lesbians -- and even if the government is not executing them, they are turning a blind eye to their murders -- explains how sick and perverted this illegal war really was. And to be clear "Muslim religion" or "Muslim culture," gays and lesbians still were in Iraq. They are Iraqis. And they had acceptance before the illegal war. They are a part of Muslim culture whether fundamentalists want to accept it or not. And they are a part of Iraq and they should have been protected.

I loved Wally's comments and told him that after the roundtable Friday night but I really love them reading over it and I'm going to make it a truest -- there will be three at Third now -- retroactively. I don't think anyone will have a problem with that. I'll probably include Kat's remarks because I think they are pertinent to the calling out Wally's doing. Last week, we noted the US State Dept and the United Nations have been silent on these and other attacks on the LGBT community in Iraq. The issue gets some attention today. BBC News offers "Fears over Iraq gay killing spate:"

The Iraqi government must do more to protect homosexuals in the wake of a reported spate of killings of gay young men, Amnesty International has urged.
In the last few weeks, 25 boys and men are reported to have been killed in Baghdad because they were, or were perceived to be, gay, Amnesty said.
In a letter to Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, the rights organisation called for "urgent and concerted action".
It also criticised the government's failure to condemn the killings.

Nigel Morris' "Iraqi leaders attacked over spate of homophobic murders" (Independent of London) explains Amnesty hasn't yet released the letter to al-Maliki and he notes:

The bodies of four gay men, each bearing a sign with the Arabic word for "pervert" on their chests, were discovered in Sadr City three weeks ago. Following the discovery of another two corpses six days later, an unnamed official in the city told Reuters: "They were sexual deviants. Their tribes killed them to restore their family honour."
No arrests have been made. Ali Hili, the London spokesman for Iraqi LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) said it had received reports of at least 63 killings in the last four months. He told The Independent: "Since mid-December we've been getting lots of reports about mass arrests and raids on houses, cafes, barbers shops." He claimed police and the Ministry of the Interior were behind some of the murders.
"Most of the people who are arrested are found dead, with signs of torture and burns. We believe a war has been launched by the Iraqi Government and its establishment against gay people."
Mr Hili said homosexuals in the country were forced to live in hiding for fear of abduction and death. Some had managed to escape to the west, with another 20 preparing to flee Iraq.
He said: "It's impossible to be gay and out ... It's the most difficult thing to be in Iraq. People visit each other's houses, they meet in places where it's safe ... for the most effeminate cases, we advise them not to go out at all."

The Telegraph of London covers the issue here. Meanwhile Alsumaria reports:

The Iraqi Government decision to detain back prisoners released by US Forces is subject to a political and security hassle. Baghdad Operations spokesman Brigadier Qassem Ata affirmed that the Command has ordered checkpoints to arrest all freed detainees recently released by US Forces.
Ata told Al Hayat Newspaper that the operations command has distributed names and photos of released detainees on all checkpoints to detain them after they were involved in recent bombings in Baghdad.
He noted that keeping those detainees out of prison will deteriorate the security situation and will threaten stability after US Forces withdraw from the cities to their bases at the end of June.
Asked about the possibility of delaying US withdrawal after latest security incidents, Ata said the US military did not notify us about such intentions.
"The Times" British Newspaper expected yesterday to delay US Forces withdrawal from Iraqi volatile cities. The Newspaper quoted a US Army General as saying that insecurities in Mosul and Baaquba might force US Military to extend their military operations in those cities beyond June 30.

This topic is one that upsets Nouri al-Maliki's thug government. Qassim Abdul-Zahra (AP) reports the thug government is attempting to close a TV station (Al-Sharqiya) and a newspaper (Al-Hayat) over reports that al-Maliki's thugs are arresting the prisoners as the US releases them. In the summer of 2006, al-Maliki listed his 'plan' amidst the crackdown on Baghdad and it included attacks on the press. When the January 31st provincial elections took place in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces, al-Maliki attempted to strong arm the press and force them into signing agreements which would allow them to be punished and penalized if al-Maliki was displeased. His attacks on the press and freedoms are nothing news and part of a thug pattern which includes yesterday's news:

In Iraq today, a committee in Parliament offered a rebuke of the police. Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) reports the committee was offended that the police raided an art show and seized an illustration "lampooning Iraq's prime minister." No word on whether or not he was in 'Muslim garb' and doing a fist bump. (For those who didn't catch that, it was a reference to the faux outrage over a New Yorker cartoon cover that demonstrated there's more than a little bit of Denmark in the US.)

Germany's DPA reports Mosul saw "hundreds of Kurds" protest today as they demanded to be included in the Kurdistan Regional Government. Unrelated in terms of Mosul but the KRG notes:

Fact sheets about the Kurdistan Region

Some essential fact sheets about the Kurdistan Region. Please click the links below to view, download and save the files in PDF format.

The Kurdistan Region in brief

About the Kurdistan Regional Government

Travelling to the Kurdistan Region
A guide to flights, hotels, communications, currency, national holidays, places of interest and specialist travel agencies.

Doing business in the Kurdistan Region
An overview of direct investment, chambers of commerce, company registration, trade missions, visas, and trade shows.

See also
Economy and business

Natural resources: Oil & gas

Kurdistan Region Investment Law

Kurdistan Region Oil and Gas Law

Travel information

Investment guide, The Kurdistan Region: Invest in the Future





Noam Chomsky is on Democracy Now! this morning. It's the interview that aired two Friday's ago on WBAI during the fundraising. The one that had many saying, "Wow, what bravery . . . after the election." Expect a lot more of that now that it's easy to criticize. In fairness to Noam, he didn't endorse Barack. Howard Zinn would like everyone to remember (that cares about politics) that he did not endorse Barack. Of course, he did endorse Barack. He endorsed him and then the outrage was so loud and so clear, he turned around and endorsed Ralph. Or pretended to. Speaking to SewerNet March 19th (we don't link to sites that may be sexual predators and why else would they e-mail various people in attempts to gather information on a 14-year-old boy?), he was asked about his endorsement of Barack and he replied:

Endorsed Obama? (Laughs.) Yes -- I endorsed Obama, I wanted him to win. I wanted Bush and Cheney out of there. I wanted change -- and the truth is I didn't have much choice. It was Bush or Obama. I chose Obama.

So now he's a Barack endorser yet again. I don't need to hear from Coward Zinn's Defense. I'm not Jim, I won't be nice. Coward went on to 'host' a Barack ball in DC and then realized how shameful and embarrassing that was so he and his defense decided not to attend. When called on it, at Third, the defense railed that Coward and he weren't participating. Yes, you were. You allowed your names to be used as sponsors -- allowed it even after you decided not to attend. You were hosting that ball and so was Coward Zinn. It's not our fault that he chose 2008 to remove his spine. It's not our fault that he chose 2008 to sell out his integrity and his life's work.

Again, Noam should have said what's broadcast today on Democracy Now! back in 2008. But, to his credit, he didn't endorse Barack (he endorsed Cynthia McKinney) and he didn't schill for Barack and he certainly didn't host an inauguration party for Barack.

Noam could have spoken out more (and loudly) but he didn't disgrace himself. He's off on his assessment of Palin and his remarks about learning about 'parts of America' ("flyover country" -- he says using an apparent GOP term) via right-wing talk radio is rather sad. Noam's not able to mix with the people? Did he puchase Neverland from Michael Jackson? In terms of populist anger and what might happen, that was noted here long ago and we didn't have to distort Sarah Palin (intentionally or not) in order to do so.

On populist rage, here's an example of it, from ETAN:

Tax Day Protests Against the War Economy and Paying for War

For Immediate Release

Contact: Ruth Benn, Coordinator
National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC)
Brooklyn, New York
800-269-7464 (718-768-3420) or nwtrcc@nwtrcc.org


Brooklyn, NY ­ On Wednesday, April 15, at post offices, federal buildings, and public squares around the country, last minute taxpayers and passers by will be met with signs demanding “Taxes for Peace Not War!” Handouts will explain what the government tries to obscure: the obscene amount of U.S. tax dollars being spent on war at the expense of jobs, infrastructure, human needs programs­even a healthy economy.

“It is often believed that wars and military spending increases are good for the economy. In fact, most economic models show that military spending diverts resources from productive uses, such as consumption and investment, and ultimately slows economic growth and reduces employment,” according to economist Dean Baker in a 2007 study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

The Obama administration’s promises to end the war in Iraq­eventually­but leaving 50,000 “advisers” in the country sounds more like continued occupation of a sovereign country. The expansion of war in Afghanistan and into Pakistan brings daily reports of more civilian deaths piled onto the thousands already killed by U.S. actions in the region. Obama’s 2010 budget includes further increases for the Pentagon, which is already funded at levels higher than any time since World War II­hardly an indication that the U.S. is on the road to peace.

Tax day protesters hope to bring attention to the connection between wasteful war spending and the budget crises of states, cities, and towns that are slashing essential programs.

Conscientious objectors to paying for war will be among those making a visible protest on tax day. “Haven’t Paid Federal Taxes Since 1998” is a sign carried by Lincoln Rice in Milwaukee. Don Schrader of Albuquerque carries his “I Refuse to Pay Federal Income Tax for War” sign wherever he goes. Many of these war tax resisters keep their income low to avoid federal taxes; others pay their tax due to charities rather than the IRS, despite the potential consequences. On tax day Boston activists will be among the groups publicly presenting grants from redirected tax dollars to peace, justice, and humanitarian groups.

Similar events will take place around the country. See the listing below, collected by National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, or on the internet at http://www.nwtrcc.org/taxday2009.htm.

The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC), founded in 1982, is a coalition of local, regional and national groups providing information and support to people who are conscientious objectors to paying taxes for war. NWTRCC initiated the War Tax Boycottin 2008, which includes a list of public war tax refusers at wartaxboycott.org.

-- 30 –

War tax resisters are available for interviews. Please contact NWTRCC if you need contacts in your area.

LIST OF TAX DAY ACTIONS FOR WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15, 2009

List in formation. Updated at http://www.nwtrcc.org/taxday2009.htm.

CALIFORNIA
Bay Area – Northern California War Tax Resistance, http://www.nowartax.org. April 14, 7 - 8 pm: In front of Herbst Theater, where Amy Goodman will be speaking about “Standing Up to the Madness” to help show attendees one way they can stand up. April 15: 6 - 9 am at Glen Park BART, where we will attract the early morning media, and then educate the commuter foot traffic with our display and hand-outs. April 15th, 11 am – 1 pm, at Civic Center Plaza, where we’ll join the “Tea Party” protesters against government waste and pork, while reminding them that the worst examples are found in the military budget. 4 - 6 pm at Balboa Park BART, showing off our new federal spending banner and educating taxpayers about government spending priorities

COLORADO
Colorado Springs – Citizens for Peace in Space. Leafleting with tax pie charts and other information at the Post Office. Time TBA.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Washington – Washington Area War Tax Resistance. Vigil and leafleting at IRS headquarters, 1111 Constitution NW. Noon.

KANSAS
Newton – Heartland Peace Tax Fund. Articles, survey with collection of testimonies from Mennonite war tax resisters, mailings with income tax pie chart, and more.

KENTUCKY
Louisville ­ Fellowship of Reconciliation-Louisville chapter. (502) 458-8056 or . Leafleting and penny poll at corner of Fifth & Market. Noon.

INDIANA
South Bend – Michiana War Tax Refusers. (574) 289-2126, Peter Smith or http://www.michianapeacejustice.org. Vigil and leafleting at the Main Post Office. 5 pm–9 pm.

IOWA
Dubuque–Citizens’ Tax Moratorium. (563) 583-2586. Vigil and leafleting downtown at Federal Building, 6th and Locust. 5:30 pm–7:30 pm. (Also every Monday, 5:30 pm–6:30 pm.)

MAINE
Across the State – Maine War Tax Resistance Resource Center and other groups. (207) 525-7776. Leafleting with flyers about war taxes, budget priorities, and related issues at post offices and busy places. Before or on April 15.
Bangor: Jane Livingston, 947-4117, or Gerald Oleson, 947-2970
Belfast: Larry Dansinger, 525-7776
Bath/Brunswick: Mary Beth Sullivan, 443-9502
Ellsworth: Frank Donnelly, 461-5080
Farmington: Eileen Liddy, 645-4755
Kennebunk: Jamilla El Shafei
Portland: Peace Action Maine, 772-0680 or Bill Slavick, 773-6562
Damariscotta: Suzanne Hedrick, 563-7041

MASSACHUSETTS
Boston - New England War Tax Resistance, (781) 237-4690 or Larry Rosenwald. A festive event including presentation of grants from redirected tax dollars to three Peace and Justice groups. Outside the South Postal Annex near South Station. 8:30 PM

Greenfield - Pioneer Valley War Tax Refusers, Email or (413) 774-2640. Picket with leaflets and placards along Main St., urging non-payment of Federal Income tax.. Printed matter will be offered at a sidewalk table by the Food Co-op, with the hope of opening a friendly exchange of views on this vital concern. 9 am until noon.

MISSOURI
St. Louis - St. Louis Covenant Community of War Tax Resisters, (314) 725-5303 . Actions in collaboration with Women in Black, WILPF, the Instead of War Coalition. Tuesday, April 14: 11:30 am Gather and vigil in the Delmar Loop Plaza (6635 Delmar). Noon, process and leaflet through a restaurant district with the pie chart and the leaflet that the U.S. Committee to End the Israeli Occupation on taxes and U.S. military aid to Israel. 12:30 Procession ends at Sen. Claire McCaskill Office's (5850 Delmar). Vigil in front of the office till 1 pm and then turn in tax resistance letters to the Senator's staff.

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Across the State – New Hampshire Peace Action or Ginny Schneider. The call is out for people to set up tables with penny polls, educational materials, a petition to deliver to members of Congress, and a bookmark to give out in towns across the state at schools, post offices and town squares.

NEW YORK
New York City – NYC War Resisters League, NYC People’s Life Fund, and the Rude Mechanical Orchestra. (718) 768-7306 or http://www.warresisters.org. Meet and leaflet at Manhattan IRS office,110W. 44th Street, at 4 pm, then at 5:30 pm march to main post office at 8th Ave. and 34th St. for vigil, leafleting, redirection ceremony.

New City - Rockland Coalition for Peace & Justice, http://www.rocklandaction.org . Annual Tax Day vigil on the steps of the Rockland County courthouse. 11:30 am - 12:30 pm.

NORTH CAROLINA
Asheville – Ashville Area War Tax Resistance. 828-242-5610. Banners and flyer distribution in front of the downtown public library, visible throughout town from the Library to the Federal Building to the Post Office on Coxe Avenue. 3-5 pm, followed by potluck and discussion with Veterans for Peace and War Resisters League.

OREGON
Eugene ­ Community Action of Lane County. (541) 485-1755. Penny poll and literature distribution at downtown Eugene post office.

Portland – Oregon Community for War Tax Resistance/WRL. (503) 238-0605. April 11: redirection of tax dollars at the public library. April 15: Holding “Burma Shave” signs on the local bridges during morning rush hours

PENNSYLVANIA
Bethlehem – LEPOCO. (610) 691-8730 or http://www.lepoco.org. Contact the office to get leaflets and connect with others for leafleting at area post offices.

Newtown, Bucks County - Coalition for Peace Action and Penn Action. http://www.cfpabuxmont.org, http://www.pennaction.org or 215-380-6804. Tax Day Vigil Silver Lake Park next to Lockheed Martin, Route 413 bypass in Newtown, Bucks County, PA. Invest our Tax Dollars in a Peace Economy! NOT in Lockheed Martin. 4:30-5:30 pm. More protests at Lockheed Martin April 23, http://www.brandywinepeace.com.

VERMONT
Burlington – Bread and Roses Committee. (802) 355-2977. Leafleting at Post Office.

WASHINGTON
Olympia - Olympia Movement for Justice & Peace, http://www.omjp.org, Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation, http://www.olyfor.org. Annual protest vigil against the self-destructive madness of paying for U.S. wars, occupations, and continued imperialism around the globe. Main Post Office at 9th & Jefferson. 10 am into the evening.

Seattle ­ NACC. (206) 547-0952, http://seanacc.org. Leafleting at several post offices from 4 to 5 pm (and other times).

WISCONSIN
Milwaukee – Milwaukee War Tax Resistance and Casa Maria Catholic Worker. Lincoln Rice or 414-344-5745. Hold signs and pass our leaflets on at Milwaukee's main post office located at 345 W St. Paul Ave. 5 pm–6 pm.


Bonnie reminds that Kat's "Kat's Korner: The LOtUSFLOW3R Blooms ... and rocks" and Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Brotherly Embarrassment."

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


















thomas friedman is a great man






oh boy it never ends

Posted at 06:44 am by thecommonills
 

Washington Post front pages Iraq, NYT whines

Washington Post front pages Iraq, NYT whines

Fifteen feet tall, half a mile long, the walls wind like a concrete ribbon through the heart of this scarred holy city, the cradle of Iraq's sectarian war. Shiite pilgrims flow alongside them toward the shattered al-Askari mosque, a symbol of a resuscitating Iraq. Shiite national security forces -- and not a single local Sunni policeman -- patrol the area.
On the other side of the walls, shops lie shuttered; alleys are blanketed by silence. Padlocked red doors, built into the partition, prevent Shiite visitors from mixing with the city's mostly Sunni citizens. Here, Mohammed al-Saeed, a Sunni shopkeeper, fumes.
"This wall is a sectarian wall," he said. "They don't trust us."

Though the New York Times can't file a thing in the print version of today's paper (national edition) from Iraq, the Washington Post features Sudarsan Raghavan's "An Iraqi City Divided by Walls, by Sect, By Bitterness" on the front page. That's the opening to Raghavan's article and we'll discuss it in today's snapshot. Consider it the must-read today and you can pair it with Alissa J. Rubin offers "Arrests of a Council's Members Deepens the Bitterness of Sunnis in Iraq" (New York Times) from yesterday.

R.M. Schneiderman's "Commander Says U.S. Still on Schedule to Leave Iraq" is the closet thing to Iraq filed by the New York Times today and it doesn't make the paper. RM pulled pajama duty and reports on the Sunday morning chat and chews -- apparently to provide some of that 'journalism excellence' the paper of little to no record can't shut up about in today's business pages. As much as RM's 'report' is junk so is the garbage in the business pages about state-of-the-press.

The Associated Press, how it works, where its revenues come from, is all lost on the New York Times this morning and it's hard to believe Docker Boy David Carr and all the rest are so stupid (but maybe they are) as they serve up half-baked revisionary garbage in which the only problem for newspapers or the AP was in being late to the party. For the New York Times, any article on the lack of newsprint being the first and last stop should include the names: Jayson Blair and Judith Miller. Among many, many others.

But keep pretending the problem is everyone else, kids. Pretend you didn't market an illegal war and see it blow up in your faces. Pretend you do actual reporting. It's good to know the paper's staff can keep pretending . . . even if the public can't.

If people don't trust you, they won't pay for your services. And why should they trust you as you and every other outlet refused to call out the lie of "sandstorm" and "dust storm" last week?

Best of all is seeing the New York Times' pampered Docker Boys play the victim (it's like a newsprint version of Dislcosure, Fatal Attraction or any other Michael Douglas film) at the same time that the paper is threatening to shut down the Boston Globe. Let's all pretend they're not doing that. (Yes, the business section mentions that but refuses to explore that NYT is responsible. The Docker Boys couldn't be on their high horses about what 'victims' they were while also holding NYT accountable. Their days on the unemployment line will come.)


An article by James Glanz made the New York Times' edition on Saturday. I didn't see it in the national edition (not the one I purchased in Boston before we left Saturday morning, nor the one delivered to the house). "Contractor Must Pay in Iraq Fraud, Court Rules" addressed the Fourth Circuit's decision that if Custer Battles committed fraud (this was fraud committed on the US tax payers, fraud with their money, a point Glanz can't come out and admit), the argument that "We weren't in the US, we were in Iraq" is not a protection from liability.

In non-progress news, Alsumaria reported Saturday: "A number of Iraqi lawmakers affirmed that the Parliament Presidency has switched from the legal framework to the political framework mainly after the Federal Court delayed decision regarding the legitimacy of Accordance Front candidate Iyad Al Samirrai to head the Parliament.
Iraqi politicians affirmed that the Council will decide about this issue the first week after resuming sessions pointing out to the possibility of agreeing on Al Samirrai as Parliament Speaker."

Bonnie reminds that Kat's "Kat's Korner: The LOtUSFLOW3R Blooms ... and rocks" and Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Brotherly Embarrassment."

Iraq's Foreign Ministry notes:


Foreign Minister Visits Italian Embassy to Offer Condolence

Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari visited Italian Embassy in Baghdad on the 8th. Apr .2009 to offer condolences on behalf of the Iraqi Government and his name to the people and Government of Italy and to the families of the victims of the region L'Aquila which struck by the earthquake and hoping patience and speedy recovery for the injured.

Minister Zebari was received by Mr. Maurizio Milan , the Italian Ambassador in Baghdad and Embassy staff members who expressed their appreciation for his Excellency's condolence on this painful incident.

The condolences ceremony was attended by Dr. Soroud Najeeb Director of Minister's Office, Ambassador Hussain Moala'a Head of Europe Department and Mr. Tahseen Enna, Chief of Protocol Department in the Ministry.



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



the new york times
alissa j. rubin


the washington post
sudarsan raghavan


Posted at 06:40 am by thecommonills
 

Sunday, April 12, 2009
Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Brotherly Embarrassment"

Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Brotherly Embarrassment""

Brotherly Embarrassment

Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Brotherly Embarrassment." Michelle Obama grins, applauds and declares, "And people thought my brother would be the embarrassment." Abo Obama waves and declares, "Hey everybody, it's me, Abo Obama, also called Samson. I'm 41 years old and last November while my brother was running for US president, I was busted trying to assault a 13 year old girl in England. Now the UK won't let me back in but good news, American girls, I can still get into the US."






Posted at 09:25 pm by thecommonills
 

And the war drags on . . .

And the war drags on . . .

In today's New York Times, Alissa J. Rubin offers "Arrests of a Council's Members Deepens the Bitterness of Sunnis in Iraq" about the "Awakening" Councils, Sahwa or "Sons of Iraq." Using the 13 killed yesterday (the death toll rose to 13) in the suicide bombing attack in Iskandariyah
as the starting point, Rubin explores the continued attacks on the Sahwa and the tensions in the Sunni community as a result. Rubin observes that for all the speculation over the very visible attacks (including arrests), the tensions were always there between the Sahwa movement (Sunni) and the US installed government in Baghdad which is dominated by Shi'ites (and by Iraqis who willingly went into exile and only returned to Iraq after the US invaded). Rubin notes the 27-day imprisonment of Sheik Maher Sarhan Abbas who was arrested "in secret and came to light when The New York Times by chance contacted someone who had seen him in jail." While the US continues to see Abbas as someone to be trusted and while his "Shiite neighbors trusted him" as well, Nouri's foces burst into his home on March 15th, "just after midnight, heavily armed men flung deafening smoke grenades into his home in Hawr Jab, a small village on Baghdad’s southern outskirts, his family said. They burst into the bedroom where Sheik Maher and his wife were watching television as their 3-year-old daughter slept in a small bed next to them." Along with Nouri's goons, US forces were present and it's suspceted that they "were probably from a Special Operations unit". The latest hypothesis among "Awakenings" is that their Sunni enemies are telling lies to the Shi'ite government which, loathing the "Awakenings," uses any excuse to arrest them. Rubin includes this:


A senior American official in Iraq was also skeptical of the motives for the arrests. "Why is the government doing this?" said the official, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the news media.
"Every time we said to the government, 'You have to let this guy go,' they do it, which they wouldn't if they thought he was really dangerous," the American said. "I think they have their hand in the sectarian cookie jar."

Corinne Reilly and Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) report on yesterdya's bombing and note that it followed a week of violence, "On Monday a series of seven explosions killed dozens in Baghdad. Back-to-back bombings Tuesday and Wednesday in the capital’s Kadhemiyah district killed at least 15. And on Friday at least seven people, including five American soldiers, died in a massive suicide attack in the northern city of Mosul."

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 4266 and tonight? 4272. Today the US military announced: "One U.S. Coalition Soldier died of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated in Salah-ad Din Province, April 12. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense." As we noted last Sunday of the US death toll, "Sort of a slap upside the face to all the 'reporters' writing their 'deaths have trended down' stories on April 1st and April 2nd. They know who they are and, thing is, so do we." Today UPI notes that 9 US service members have died in Iraq already this month.

In some of today's reported violence . . .


Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing which left seven people wounded, a Baghdad roadside bombing which wounded four US soldiers, a Mosul roadside bombing which injured "two police officers" and, dropping back to Saturday, a Baghdad roadside bombing which wounded two police officers.


Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 police officer shot dead in Mosul last night.

In Iraq today, a committee in Parliament offered a rebuke of the police. Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) reports the committee was offended that the police raided an art show and seized an illustration "lampooning Iraq's prime minister." No word on whether or not he was in 'Muslim garb' and doing a fist bump. (For those who didn't catch that, it was a reference to the faux outrage over a New Yorker cartoon cover that demonstrated there's more than a little bit of Denmark in the US.) Meanwhile the top US commander in Iraq, Gen Ray Odierno, appeared on CNN today and was interviewed by John King (link has text and video). He discussed the treaty masquerading as a Status Of Forces Agreement which supposedly binds the US to leave all Iraqi cities by the end of this June and to leave the country by the end of 2011. Despite that alleged 'binding' agreement, Odierno stated US troops might not leave Iraqi cities at the end of June ("If we believe that we'll need troops to maintain a presence in some of the cities, we'll recommend that, but, ultimately, it will the decision of Prime Minister Maliki"), however , "As you ask me today, I believe it's a 10 -- that we will be gone by 2011." He believes. Not "It's a 10, we will be gone in 2011." Believes. Odierno's not staking his reputation on anyone else's promise and he has always worded very carefully on this topic. Jonathan D. Salant (Bloomberg News) puts it this way, "Odierno said he expects to meet the 2011 deadline. There are 142,000 U.S. troops in Iraq." Deborah Solomon (Wall St. Journal) summarizes it as follows, "The top U.S. general in Iraq said the U.S. is on track to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by August 2010 but could adjust the pace over the next 18 months depending on the stability of the country." Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) interviews Baghdad Christians about their security. Andrew Wolfson (Journal-Courier) does the roll out for Steven D. Green's defense ("I got problems!") and we'll skip that and instead note the War Crimes:

Three months later, according to court records, Green and three comrades, buzzed on black-market Iraqi, slipped away from their post near Yusufiyah, cut through a security fence and marched through a field a few hundred yards to a home they knew from patrols.
There, as Pfc. Jesse Spielman stood guard, Spcs. Paul Cortez and James Barker took turns raping 14-year-old Abeer Kassem Al-Janabi, while Green, in a bedroom next door, allegedly executed the girl's mother, father and 6-year-old sister.
Abeer screamed in terror. as she was sexually assaulted and heard her family members being shot one by one, according to Army and court records. Then Green allegedly raped Abeer and shot her in the head, those same records show.
To destroy evidence of the rape, Spielman and the other soldiers burned Abeer's body, reducing its upper half to ashes. Then they tossed one of the murder weapons -- an AK-47 the family owned -- into a canal and returned to their checkpoint, where they burned their own bloody clothes and threw some chicken wings on the grill for dinner.
The slayings triggered international outrage after the U.S. soldiers' involvement was made known.


New content at Third:

Truest statement of the week
Truest statement of the week II
A note to our readers
Editorial: No time and no interest is the message
TV: Women and sitcoms
White House caught in another lie
"Take it up with Barack"
Ty's Corner
Lt. Muthana Shaad's Gay Boy Chronicles
Movie roundtable
And the Katrina goes to . . .
Acceptance
ETAN
Highlights

Kat's "Kat's Korner: The LOtUSFLOW3R Blooms ... and rocks" went up this morning and Isaiah's latest goes up after this. Pru notes Simon Assaf's "US plans in danger as Iraq deal falls apart" (Great Britain's Socialist Worker):

One of the central planks of the US strategy to pacify Iraq has begun to unravel – just as it prepares to draw down its troops from the country.
The US and its allies in the Iraqi government have turned on the "Awakening Councils" – around 90,000 former resistance fighters who switched sides at the height of the insurgency.
These militias, also known as the "Sons of Iraq", had turned their guns on other resistance groups in return for a US promise to pull out of Sunni Muslim areas.
The deal marked the end of the insurgency in western Iraq and parts of the capital of Baghdad. Those fighters who refused to accept the deal were labelled as "Al Qaida" and killed.
In return, the councils were given effective control over Sunni neighbourhoods and paid a monthly wage.
They were also given a pledge that they could hold onto their weapons to keep a check on Shia Muslim death squads that had been attacking the resistance.
The US was then able to declare a victory of sorts and set a date for transferring its troops to Afghanistan.
Stopped
But late last year the US stopped its payments of wages and promised the Iraqi government – run by parties linked to the death squads – would pay the bill.
Further promises were made offering to incorporate the council fighters into Iraq’s security forces.
But the Iraqi government has reneged on the deal and began arresting or killing off key council leaders.
This sparked a brief uprising in March after Iraqi security forces seized the head of the Awakening Council in the Fadhil neighbourhood of Baghdad.
In a sign of frustration, the US commander for Baghdad said, "These men had broken faith with their fellow Sons of Iraq, the Iraqi people and us."
The growing discontent among the Awakening Councils has been marked by a return of roadside bombs targeting US troops and a string of bomb attacks against Shia areas.
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the new york times
alissa j. rubin










laith hammoudi
hussein kadhim


Posted at 09:23 pm by thecommonills
 

Kat's Korner: The LOtUSFLOW3R Blooms . . . and rocks

Kat's Korner: The LOtUSFLOW3R Blooms . . . and rocks

Kat: "Kat! Kat!" Betty's oldest son was calling to me as we got back from the airport Saturday. "You've got to review an album! You've got to!"

Okay, okay, I will. Seriously, I didn't care if it was a Disney Kid's album, when someone's that excited about an album, it probably needs to be reviewed. It wasn't a Disney Kid, it was Prince. Yeah, I panned Prince's last album, but I was eager to hear this one, mainly because of the excitement factor.

Prince LOtUSFLOW3R

"Can I play you my favorite song?" he was asking but already cueing up the CD player so no answer was needed. "This is a great song, it's probably the best thing he's ever written. It's about clovers." As the chords came on, I recognized it. You probably will immediately as well:

I don't hardly know her
But I think I could love her
I hope she walks over
Cause I've been waiting to show her
Crimson and clover
Over and over . . .

Tommy James and the Shondells hit with it back in the sixties, Joan Jett in the eighties. Prince has woven in "Wild Thing" and a bit of "Foxy Lady." But, thing is, it really does sound like one of the best thing Prince's ever written. "4Ever" is the track that's immediately after and it finds Prince doing some of best guitar work and best songwriting work. That's lyrically and musically but a caveat: On the chorus, you'll note Prince's jazz chords. This may be the beginning of his jazz phase, the one Joni ran through in the late seventies.

The album opens with an instrumental entitled "From The Lotus" which owes a lot to jazz and closes with ". . . Back 2 The Lotus" which is basically an instrumental (Prince talks over it) that sounds like someone attempting to inject Jimi Hendrix into jazz and then, at two-minutes and twenty-seconds, a bit of Thin Lizzy with a return of Jimi about twenty seconds later. Of the two, I prefer the album closer.

If you're not grasping my caveat, not only did you not live through Don Juan's Reckless Daughter and Mingus, you haven't heard "Love Like Jazz" which sounds like the Burt Bacharach and Hal David classic "You'll Never Get To Heaven (if You Break My Heart)" as smoothed over by a band whom things "elevator music" is the ultimate compliment. It ends with a throb sound which goes into "77 Beverly Park" for several measures before your apparently supposed to picture yourself at your favorite Mexican food eatery with Prince going table to table as he strums on his guitar. "Wall of Berlin" finds Prince remembering most people purchase a Prince album because of his vocals. What's he singing about? I have no idea. If you can figure it out, good for you.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. For the bulk of the new album, LOtUSFLOW3R, he appears to be either attempt to reconsider Donovan (I'm a huge Donovan fan) or on who knows what but get me some pronto because it's got to be good. "$" is an example there and it's one of the best tracks on the album. "How many times do you look for happy and never see the rich folks there? But if the dee jay really dropped the needle all the truth players just don't care?" No idea. "Everybody's dancing" he snaps throughout and they should be.

"Dreamer" finds him rocking out as does the second track "Boom" and they are probably the ones that will make longterm fans happiest. Prince hasn't rocked out like this on an album in sometime. Of the two, I prefer the guitar work on "Dreamer" but, overall, find "Boom" to be stronger. ("Dreamer" finds him lyrically attempting something similar to the Temptations classic "Ball of Confusion"). Betty's son prefers "Dreamer" and was rocking out on an electric guitar while it played. As he and Prince wound down, I said I'd review it and he started telling me it was one of three discs. I'm sure he saw my grimace, the involuntary shudder. Three discs?

Prince managed to serve up a disc worth listening to and now I was about to tempt fate by expecting he had the goods for another or two more? Fortunately the third disc is is Bria Valente's Elixer and I could rule it out as not being Prince's disc. That left MPLSOUND.

"(There'll Never B) Another Like Me" is Prince in a boastful mood and with enough energy to back it up. That's not always the case and boasts from a lethargic pose convince no one, but Prince's got enough fire on this track that you believe him and believe that's a bad thing. It's strong enough to make you wish it was 1985 all over again and every radio station your turned to was playing either Prince or, more likely, the latest Prince wanna be. "Chocolate Box" follows up and I'm starting to wonder if this might actually be the better of the two discs?

By the time "Dance 4 Me" (and it's musical allusions to his "Erotic City") starts blasting, it's obvious this is the stronger disc. And, remember, LOtUSFLOW3R was no piker. But this one leaves out the jazz flirtations and the instrumentals to just rock out. It's like Prince's done wandering the desert and has returned to the world. He tosses out "U're Gonna C Me" next and it's been so very, very long since Prince has done a ballad worth listening to. For me, you probably have to drop back to "The Greatest Romance Ever Sold" (1999's RAVE un2 the joy fantastic) but it's quickly followed by "Here" which not only contains some of Prince's most passionate singing, it also comes closer to carrying off the syncopation "Love Like Jazz" can't. The ballads are so strong, it's as if Prince's returning to the studio after a smoke break during the recording of Sign of the Times.

"Valentina" works as a rock song and paean to Salma Hayeck and has some wonderful syncopation going on. It's over so quickly and it's so good that it really doesn't feel like it last 3:57. "Better With Time" follows and reminds that no one can croon like Prince when he wants to. "Ol' School Company" has a bedrock groove on which Prince offers some of his most pointed lyrics including: "Everybody talking bout hard time like they just started yesterday, People I know they been struggling -- at least it seems that way, Fat cats on Wall St. they got a bailout while somebody else got to wait, 700 billion but my old neighborhood nothing changed but the date." This gives way to the album closer "No More Candy 4 U" which finds Prince in a hard driving move that recalls Fats Domino. All in all, an amazing disc.

The three disc package is currently available only at Target where its price is $11.98. I have no time to listen to Bria Valente and write a review that's going up on Sunday so I'll point out the obvious: Prince has called the shots for a lot of women. Some, like Sheila E., had talent on their own. But listen to The Glamorous Life with headphones and you'll notice Prince singing every note as though he had laid down a guide track that someone accidentally mixed in. Then there were the ones who had no real talent such as Apollonia 6 and Prince took over completely in the studio. I have no idea whether Bria Valente has talent or not but even if she's Apollonia 6, they still managed to produce "Blue Limousine" and "Sex Shooter" under Prince's guidance. You've got 21 tracks by Prince for $11.98, Bria could be as untalented as Keith's girlfriend in that episode of The Partridge Family and it wouldn't matter, you've already gotten your money's worth. And then some. If you're interested in downloading the album, you can check this Prince site and if you'd like to get the album on disc(s) and do not have a Target in your area (or don't feel like visiting one), click here for Target's webpage for the three-disc set (note, the page says 28 tracks on the three discs, I count 31 tracks on the discs in my hands).








thomas friedman is a great man


Posted at 09:18 pm by thecommonills
 

Saturday, April 11, 2009
Bob Gates channels Dick Cheney

Bob Gates channels Dick Cheney

In "Is Gates channeling Cheney on Iraq with 'last gasp' remark?" (McClatchy Newspapers), Nancy A. Youssef notes US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' Tuesday interview by Judy Woodruff on The NewsHour (PBS) and his "last gasp" assertion ("I think what we're seeing is al Qaeda trying sort of as a last gasp to try and reverse the progress that's been made through these attacks"). Youssef notes how similar it is to Dick Cheney's 2005 assertion that "recent resurgence of violence in Baghdad was 'a last gasp' of Islamic extremists." Despite Gates' claim, Youssef reveals, many "top U.S. military and intelligence officals worry that escalating tensions could threaten the administration's plans to draw down American forces in Iraq." Youssef notes an unnamded "top administration official:"

The official, who insisted on anonymity because of the consequences of publicly criticizing a cabinet officer, said that contrary to what Gates said, most U.S. intelligence and military officials are afraid that ethnic and sectarian violence in Iraq could explode again because, the official said: "All sides are just waiting for us to leave to finish settling scores."

Youssef's source is backed by today's events. Al Jazeera reports that as Turkey's Foreign Minister, Besir Atalya, visited Baghdad in the never ending discussions on how Turkey and Iraq will address the group they've both identified as a terrroist group, the PKK, 2 Turkish troops and 7 PKK fighters were killed in an armed clash on the border of Iraq and Turkey.


Laith Hammoudi and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report a bomber killed himself as well as 9 other people with thirty-one left wounded in Iskandariyah in what is seen as an attack on either the Iraqi military or Sahwa or both. Habib al-Zubaidy, Sami al-Jumaily, Ahmed Rasheed, Michael Christie and Richard Meares (Reuters) report the death toll has risen to 12 (and that hospitals are reporting the death toll is 13) and that Sahwa had been lined up "to collect overdue pay cheques at an Iraqi army post" and they note:


Delays in paying the Sahwas, known as "Awakening Councils," have also contributed to tensions.
"The death toll from the suicide attack has risen to 12 killed and 32 wounded," said police colonel Ali al-Zahawi, head of Iskandariya police.
"The Sahwa men were preparing to enter the military post to receive their salaries when a suicide bomber managed to blow himself up among them...," Zahawi had told Reuters earlier.


The following community sites updated last night with a roundtable:



Cedric's Big Mix
Iraq roundtabling
23 hours ago

The Daily Jot
ROUNDTABLE
23 hours ago

Thomas Friedman is a Great Man
Roundtable on Iraq
23 hours ago

Mikey Likes It!
Roundtabling Iraq
23 hours ago

Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude
the roundtable
23 hours ago

SICKOFITRADLZ
Iraq
23 hours ago

Trina's Kitchen
Iraq in the Kitchen
23 hours ago

Ruth's Report
Roundtable on Iraq
23 hours ago

Oh Boy It Never Ends
Talking Iraq
23 hours ago

Like Maria Said Paz
Iraq
23 hours ago

Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills)
Talking Iraq roundtable
23 hours ago

The Common Ills
Iraq roundtable
23 hours ago

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

mcclatchy newspapers

hussein kadhim
laith hammoudi

pbs
the newshour



thomas friedman is a great man






oh boy it never ends

Posted at 08:14 pm by thecommonills
 


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