Isaiah's latest The World Today Nuts "Photo-Op This!" Barack poses with a big smile while declaring, "Rush says 'photo-op' like it's a bad thing. I photo-op-ed my way into the presidency. Hey, before we bring Jon Corzine in here, can we get hair and makeup for a touch up. Should I take off my shirt again?" Isaiah archives his comics at The World Today Just Nuts.
The
promises were countless: Americans would have universal health care;
the US would take the lead on climate change; Wall Street and the banks
would be regulated with a cap put on salaries and bonuses paid to
executives; Guantanamo would be shut down by January 20010; most US
troops would be out of Iraq within 16 months; the strategy in
Afghanistan would be reviewed; the new administration would provide
transparency and accountability unlike the practice of systematic
secrecy from the Bush-era. The reality and results are quite
different: Americans will be lucky if they get a water-down version of
public option in the health care bill; the climate change bill is
unlikely to have a strong enough carbon tax; Wall Street and the banks
are doing well, getting ready to paid huge bonuses to executive while
Main Street is still in shamble from the recession; Guantanamo will not
be shut down by January 2010; Iraq is still volatile, and US troops are
likely to be there for at least 5 years; the president is still
pondering on workable solutions for the unsolvable puzzle that is
Afghanistan; some progress were made on the secrecy issue, but the
Patriot Act will be renewed and the President blocked the release of
torture documents involving the CIA.
That's from Kool-Aid drinker Gilbert Mercier's "One Year Later, What Is Left Of The Hope For Change?" (News Junkie Post)
who can identify the gulf between what was promised and what was
actually done but refuses to judge Barry O by his actions. I was on the
phone earlier tonight with a friend who was skewering the pathetic Ted
Rall who can't do a damn thing but whore for Barack. After saying
Barry's handsome and intelligent and blah, blah, blah, he finally
offers some wimpy little criticism.
Guess what? Intelligent?
There's never been any proof of that. (An intelligent attorney makes
partner before 40.) What does handsome have to do with anything? Some
of the ugliest and most unattractive people have made great leaders. In
the end, we don't care what your intentions were, we care what you did.
We care how it effected the lives of others in this country and around
the world. The porn blogger (you know the trash I'm talking about) can
take her ugly lined face and neck to CSPAN and yammer on about how she
can see into Barack's "heart" (apparently, she learned that trick while
staring into guy's anuses during her porn days) but at the grown up
table -- where the porn industry does not sit, so sorry -- we don't
play mind reader, we look at what was done and we look at the effects.
And we look at what was promised and what was delivered or not.
Gilbert
and all the other members of the Cult of St. Barack can offer a million
excuses but realitiey is nearly 200 Iraqis were reported dead last week
as were 4 US service members in Iraq. That's reality. And you can snort
lines of Kool-Aid all you want but it won't change that reality.
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 4351. Tonight? 4355.
Bombings?
Mohammed al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports
2 Ramadi suicide car bombings which claimed the lives of 2 drivers and
3 civilians (with seven people left injured), a Karbala sticky bombing
which left 4 people dead and fifteen wounded and a Babil market bombing
which claimed 9 lives and left thirty-eight injured. Reuters notes a Mussayab bicycle bombing which claimed 5 lives and left thirty-seven people wounded. Al Jazeera notes a Baghdad mortar attack which claimed 1 life.
Corpses?
Reuters notes 1 corpse discovered yesterday in Kirkuk.
Oliver August (Times of London) observes,
"Violence in Iraq has been reduced, as Western generals and politicians
are keen to point out, but it has not gone away. If anything, it has
become more deeply ingrained. [. . .] Were terrorists to disappear from
Iraq overnight, the country would still be stuck, possibly for decades,
with the culture of violence they fostered (building on the legacy of
Saddam Hussein, of course). " On Thursday's shooting at the police
station which made waves in yesterday's news cycle, click here for Marc Santora's New York Times report. Meanwhile KUNA reports
CIA asset and fromer Prime Minister of Iraq Iyad Allawi announced
yesterday that he was heading a new bloc/slate of candidates, Iraqi
National Movement (INM) which will have National Dialogue bloc's Saleh
al-Mutlak as General Secretary.
On the topic of the intended January national elections, Gabriel Gatehouse (BBC News) reported
yesterday, "Iraqi MPs have until Sunday to pass controversial
legislation or face postponing parliamentary elections set for 16
January. The poll is seen as crucial to the stability of the country,
and any delay would likely impact on the US plan for withdrawal." That
was yesterday. They had until Sunday? Sunday's come and gone in Iraq
and there was no passage of election legistlation.
There's
actually some Iraq coverage from western outlets and we'll pick up some
of it tomorrow but the point that needs to be underscored tonight is
that there is still no election law. The Parliament has still not
turned a bill into law on this issue. The elections were supposed to
take place in December. Shortly after Barack was elected president in
the United States, the elections in Iraq were pushed back to January
2010. All this time after that, still no law allowing for elections to
be held in January. That's the big news today.
Kat:
Carly Simon's newly released album is
entitled Never Been Gone after a track from 1979's Spy but it
just as easily could be entitled Passages or any other title that
connotes wisdom and maturity. If you're looking for a text equivalent to the
album, think Emily Dickinson's "Because I Could Not Stop For Death."
Over 12 tracks, Carly sings of life, loss and the always
ticking time. "The Right Thing To Do" (which Carly penned for 1973's No
Secrets) kicks off the collection and it's difficult not bring her infamous
ex into it and it's rather obvious Carly's brought him into it with an
arrangement that's a bit more tuneful than his recordings but does approximate
them. "Darling, I hold you in my arms forever, yes I do, And I'll love you more
than just a little bit," she sings as the song winds down. "For the rest of my
life," she adds. It can be read as "I refuse to let the bad of the relationship
destroy the memories of the good" (a theme of the second track) or as "I am the
widow and witness of our love affair."
From 1983's Hello Big
Man, "It Happens Everyday" follows, the break up song whose heart has
always been this passage:
But I don't regret that I loved
you How I loved you I will never
forget And in time I'll look back and
remember The boy that I knew when we first
met
That's true of it's first recording in 1983 and true of the
live version (on 1988's Greatest Hits Live) and true here. But whereas
it used to be an emotional peak, it's now more of matter of fact. There's a
lived in nature to the song. And as much as it's still about her, Carly's also
looking out at "girls getting out of the cabs with their suitcases" to go live
with a friend following a break up. In its latest incarnation, "It Happens Every
Day" resembles the voice in Frank Musker and Dominic King's "You Have To Hurt"
(from 1987's Coming Around Again) -- a song that was so perfect for
Carly it was hard to believe she didn't write it. She certainly lived it and
that's clear on track two.
On NBC's
Today Show last week, Carly declared she could remember where she
wrote every song on the album, where she was, what she was doing, what she wrote
it on. And, over the years, she's described "Never Been Gone" as a song she
wrote (with Jacob Brackman) following an unpleasant
experience."
I'm bound for the island The
tide is with me I think I can make it by
dawn Well, it's night on the ocean And
I'm going home And it feels like I've
never I've never been gone
Carly's voice is
out front on this version but it's a sing-along with multiple voices which gives
a bar room chantey feel and also finds the warmer portions of the song and eases
over the more dramatic parts. The unpleasant incident that was so key to the
song (as well as writing it) is of less importance as the song's recast as a
warm embrace of the known and familiar, of home.
Tori Amos has been known to break out
"Boys In The Trees" when performing live and it's easy to see why when you
listen to the 1978 original (from the Carly album of the same name): the
discovery of the sensual, the discovery of your own power. For this version,
Carly pretty much turns it into a duet with her daughter Sally Taylor and the rhythm supplied adds a
great deal -- starting out like someone sneaking in well after dark with a
tip-toe like quality and quickly moving to the pulsating. "And the silent
understanding passing down, From daughter to daughter" becomes more prominent in
this version and the song becomes more about the sisterhood.
"Let The
River Run" features a more legato arrangement with every note in the chords
being played individually which is a big step away from its rock roots. It also
allows Carly not to be singing from outside the river but from within -- and if
that escapes you, you haven't heard her new version. The songs you know have
been re-imagined, not just re-arranged or re-worked.
And sometimes, that
can be confusing. For example, I found track six -- Carly's most famous song --
a puzzler. I didn't get what was done to "You're So Vain" for the new guitar
figure during the bulk of the verses until C.I. pointed out it was basically the
first two notes from "walked in" ("You walked in, to the party . . .") and that
the musical opening of the original (the strutting bass line heard under her
whispered "son of a gun") was instead now being used for the bridge and the
third verse. I'm missing the alleged point of view change in the song (alleged
by one reviewer). If there's any change I can see, the singing only makes it
more about the vanity of the former lover. It remains a send up of a lover
("You're so vain, I bet you think this song is about you") but the ending with
some cowbell nonsense may get the point across that Carly was toying with the
man and not crucifying him for those who missed that the first go around. Did
someone say suspenders?
No secrets. None.
"You Belong To Me" (from
1978's Boys In The Trees and co-written with Michael McDonald) stands
out primarily for a stronger vocal. There's nothing wrong with the original
vocal, good enough to take the song into the top ten, but what once went was
sung as a couple-threatening event is now something a more robust sounding Carly
seems less shocked by and "you belong to me" becomes less of a plea and more of
a reminder.
Track eight is the first new song on the album, "No Freedom,"
a duet with Peter Calo and passed down wisdom -- with big drums -- as evidenced
by the opening, "Hey now, mama used to say, What's the use of spoiling a perfect
day, Does a flower compromise it's glory, Wondering if it's going to rain?" The
point of the song is in the chorus: "There ain't no freedom when you got a
worryin' mind."
From "daughter to daughter" came to mind during "That's
The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be." This version of the song Carly wrote
with Jacob Brackman (and her first solo hit single) is heavy on the fingered
chords in the mix. What I think of most when I listen to this version is several
recent interviews where Carly's expressed surprise that anyone would have this
played at their wedding. No, it's not a sentimental or sappy look. It remains a
song about grappling with your own identity and the risks of losing you in a
romantic merger. But it was an eyes-wide-open kind of statement, an
I-know-the-risk-but-I'll-take-it which spoke to so many of us back when it was
first released. The flutes on this -- as well as the string -- will be off
putting to some -- and possibly make them think of the scene where Jessica Lange
delivers food to a group of musicians practicing in Men Don't Leave.
I'm sure that wasn't the intention but Lange's character declares in that film,
"Heartbreak is life educating us" -- which could pretty much be the motto of
Carly's songwriting career and certainly of this album and, yes, of this
track.
Which makes it the perfect segue for "Coming Around Again"
(originally on 1988's album of the same title). The acoustic nature of so many
of the songs on the album will probably be most appreciated with this track. A
musical change (along with the lack of synths and drum machines) is that the
eighth note doing an octave leap to a quarter note figure that appears at the
end of some verses in the original runs throughout this version. The new
perspective -- throughout the album -- takes the near whispered verses and
provides them in normal voice while taking the chorus ("I know nothing stays the
same, But if you're willing to play the game, It's coming around again") into
more of a whisper.
What's the point of that? In the original, the daily
events (with their own daily trauma) couldn't be spoken of directly, they had to
be softened. Now they're matter of fact, just what it is. And turning the chorus
into the whisper makes it the secret, the wisdom she's choosing to share. This
song also features a wonderful addition to the original
lyrics:
The heartbeat went out of our
house The rhythm went out of our
romance But in life that happens And you
just have to remember to breathe And it
then It then will return Well if you
just remember to breathe After all I've been through
I waded on through If I can just
remember to breathe
"We can never, we can never know," is how
"Anticipation" now opens. The re-imagined classic may be the easiest for even
the casual listener to grasp the concept of the album: Examination. It's their
on the cover, with Carly holding the magnifying glass. What was a song she wrote
in the early seventies about waiting for Cat Stevens to arrive for their date is
now a song gathering the memories and the loved ones.
And
when the sun returns I will prefer to sing your haunting
melody You'll take the notes that harmonize
me And bring me back To
Hallelujah For the rest of my life.
That's
from the final track, "Songbird." Another new offering. And it continues the
benediction nature of the album. Maybe if a recent best-of hadn't been called
Reflections, this collection could have been? As with Emily Dickinson's poem,
this is reflection on all that comes before. She's gathered a thousand seemingly
unconnected strands for this album and made an incredibly strong and cohesive
artistic statement. This isn't a best-of or a greatest hits, this is an album in
every sense of the word. And the theme is a life lived and lessons learned and
how what we once indicated deepens in age (check out "Anticipation"). And, most
of all, how these moments are fleeting and time never stops for any of us
("these are the good old days").
Carly's released Never Been
Gone on her son Ben Taylor's
Iris Records and you can see Ben's
"Wicked Ways" video at the homepage of Iris Records. Like
Betty, I have tremendous fears that this might be Carly's recorded hug
goodbye. Hopefully, that won't be the case; however, if it should turn out to
be, it was a warm and gentle hug, a memorable one. And she's made the best album
of the year. I won't tease you until January 1st on my pick for the best album
of 2009. One listen to Never Been Gone and it should be
obvious.
I'll close by noting some other community members
thoughts on Carly's songs from last week:
As
Iraq reeled from last week’s twin bombings in Baghdad that killed more
than 150 people and injured 500, public anger turned against Nouri
al-Maliki, the prime minister. His government, which goes to the
polls in January, has benefited from security gains in the past two
years. The ruling party made strides in provincial elections last
February, but each new terrorist attack erodes its support. Recent
bombings claimed by Al-Qaeda have targeted government buildings in the
heart of the capital. Officials said the toll from last Sunday’s
attacks against the justice ministry and the provincial government came
to 153, but it was impossible to say how many were men, women or
children because so many bodies were unrecognisable. Families faced
desperate searches to find remains of their loved ones. Mohammed Haj
Abdallah spent five days looking for his daughter, Sana, and his
grandson. Ironically, Sana had gone to the provincial government
building to claim the pension of her husband who had been killed in an
earlier bombing.
The above is from Hala Jaber's "Iraqis blame prime minister Nouri al-Maliki for Baghdad bombings" (Times of
London). Last Sunday's bombings did nothing to encourage the passage of
an election law. There is still no movement on that. Supposedly the
issue will be taken up again on Sunday. Sunday bombings have resulted
in at least 61 announced arrests. In a new development today, Al Jazeera reports that a suspect is dead after having killed a police officer in the midst of an interrogation:
"One of our police officers was killed by a suspect involved in Sunday's bombings," the statement said. The
statement said that the incident occurred at 22:00 GMT on Thursday at
the Criminal Investigations Directorate in the capital. The man was
shot and died after being rushed to the hospital, but interior ministry
officials did not specify whether he had turned the gun on himself or
been shot by police. The announcement came shortly after the United
Nations confirmed a special envoy would be visiting Baghdad on the
following day to make preliminary findings on security after last
weekend's bombings and a similar attack against government offices in
August.
It's like a scene out of The Chase, isn't it? Which was an allegory for . . . In other reported violence . . .
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad sticky bombing which wounded six people and a Baghdad mortar attack which wounded nine people. Reuters notes
a Mosul car bombing which left five people injured, a Mosul grenade
explosion which left four people wounded (two were police officers) and
a Baghdad car bombing which claimed the life of 1 Justice Ministry
employee and three more people were injured.
ALERT:
Street Protests & Die-Ins on the evening President Obama announces
the plan to expand the occupation of Afghanistan. That's the night the
media will be looking for response from the people. Get signs and
banners ready, and make your gathering plans now. Whether Barack
Obama announces a troop increase to Afghanistan, or chooses the covert
operations & unmanned drone option to try to "win" in Afghanistan,
we should be in the streets opposing any escalation. The only
acceptable announcement to come from the administration would that
they're withdrawing combat troops, support troops, CIA drones, covert
operations, and all private contractors NOW.
Carly Simon's latest album is Never Been Gone and it was released Tuesday. Like Kat, I'll note Carly's Tweets:
War
has changed the Oregon Army National Guard, which has deployed troops
on 8,400 tours in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11. It turned the
state's emergency volunteers into combat veterans. And last month, a
Grant County jury considered how much war changed Jessie Bratcher. For
the first time in Oregon, and among the first cases nationwide,
post-traumatic stress from serving in Iraq was the defense for murder. Testimony
in the nine-day trial in Canyon City, three miles from the death scene,
revealed how years after a soldier deployed, the invisible wounds of
war led to the town's first murder trial since 1992. Bratcher was
raised by his grandfather Jerry Baughman in Prairie City. "He's my
grandson and my son both. I raised him from the time he was a little
boy. I don't ever use the word step. That step, it's a dirty word, so I
call him my real son." Since Bratcher was a boy, he worked,
splitting and stacking the wood that his granddad sawed. They hunted
together, "though he would rather I do the shooting," Baughman said.
"He didn't actually care for killing anything."
The above is from Julie Sullivan's "Trauma in Iraq leads to drama in Oregon" (The Oregonian)
about Iraq War veteran Jessie Bratcher who confronted the alleged
rapist of his fiancee and killed the man. Sullivan explores the crimes
and the trial and the verdict. Also exploring the issue of PTSD is
Damine Cave in "A Combat Role, and Anguish, Too" (New York Times):
For
Vivienne Pacquette, being a combat veteran with post-traumatic stress
disorder means avoiding phone calls to her sons, dinner out with her
husband and therapy sessions that make her talk about seeing the reds
and whites of her friends’ insides after a mortar attack in 2004. As
with other women in her position, hiding seems to make sense.
Post-traumatic stress disorder distorts personalities: some veterans
who have it fight in their sleep; others feel paranoid around children.
And as women return to a society unfamiliar with their wartime roles,
they often choose isolation over embarrassment. Many spend months or
years as virtual shut-ins, missing the camaraderie of Iraq or
Afghanistan, while racked with guilt over who they have become.
Rasha
Khalid, 24, was in the lobby of the Justice Ministry when the bomb
exploded. She has shrapnel lodged in her head, neck and breast. Ms
Khalid received plastic surgery within two days but will be visiting
more doctors. “I need this so I can forget,” she said. “People think
plastic surgery is for those who want to be special. But I just want to
be normal again.” The politics of plastic surgery can be treacherous
in Iraq. Political parties fighting an election are trying to win
favour by offering treatment abroad. Shia politicians send patients to
clinics in Iran free of charge. Sunni rivals offer the same in Jordan
and Syria. Wealthy patients travel to Britain and the US if they can
get a visa. Yet they may be better off staying at home. When it
comes to repairing bomb damage, Iraqi plastic surgeons have more
experience than most. Dr Wisam said: “The skills of Iraqi plastic
surgeons are vastly improved as a result of the violence. Some are
world experts now. No wonder, we sometimes get 300 patients a day. A
Western doctor might get that in a month.”
For many in the US, actions against the (ongoing) Iraq War have ended. For many. Not for all. Justin Juul (San Francisco Chronicle) reports on Justin Falcon and Robin Long and their new action:
Falcon and Long are both members of The San Francisco chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War
(IVAW), a national organization started by a group of Iraq War veterans
in July 2004 to give a voice to active duty service people and veterans
against the war. In four days they'll both be lip-syncing and dancing
alongside ten other veterans at Dance Mission Theater in a fundraiser for Dialogues Against Militarism, another anti-war organization that's sending a delegation to Israel to meet with young war resisters on November first. The
drag show is based in pure hard-nosed activism - Falcon and Long are
neither gay nor particularly inclined to dance and sing - but part of a
group of war veterans who travel the world, speaking in front of
students, protesters and government officials. Read More Here.
Community
websites updated Thursday, Friday and today (Wally & Cedric on the
latter). Due to the fact that Blogger/Blogspot remains screwed up, I'll
note all the posts at community sites that have gone up starting with
Thursday night:
PROTEST IN THE STREETS THE DAY AFTER AN ANNOUNCEMENT IS MADE TO SEND MORE TROOPS INTO AFGHANISTAN We
in the anti-war movement have been tirelessly and endlessly calling
upon the government to end the occupations. We want our troops out of
the middle east, and an end to the drone bombings that are killing
thousands of innocent civilians.
Friday,
October 30, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, the US military
announces more deaths, no movement on an election law, a new attack on
press freedoms in Iraq, nepotisim is an ugly thing, and more.
Today the US military announced:
"BAGHDAD -- A Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldier died, Oct. 30, of
non-combat related injuries sustained in a vehicle accident. The name
of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin
and release by the Department of Defense. The names of the service
members are announced through the U.S. Department of Defense Official Website
[. . .] The announcements are made on the Website no earlier than 24
hours after notification of the service member's primary next of kin.
The incident is under investigation." And they announced:
"CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE, Iraq -- A Soldier assigned to
Multi-National Division - South died of non-combat related injury
October 30. [. . .] The incident is under investigation." The
announcements bring the total number of US service members killed in
Iraq since the start of the illegal war to 4355.
On the second hour of today's The Diane Rehm Show, Iraq was addressed by guest host Frank Senso, NPR's Tom Gjelten, CNN's Elise Labott and McClatchy Newspapers' Jonathan Landay.
Frank
Senso: To Iraq now, and in a few minutes, to our phone calls, to bring
our audience into this and any other conversation that they may want to
have with respect to what's going on in the world. But in Iraq
discussions amidst ongoing, violence, intensifying violence in some
cases, about trying to fix the national election law because that is
what is looming large. Jonathan Landay, what's the landscape look like
right now?
Jonathan
S. Landay: Well they've tried for a third time to pass an election law
in time for the January elections and they've failed again. The issue
-- there are a number of issues, but the main issue has to do with the
city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq and uh a city that sits atop billions
of gallons of untapped oil. Uh, the issue has to do with the -- what
census is going to be used to register voters there. Now this is a city
that the Kurds -- now this is right now a predominately Kurdish city.
It was, the Kurds say, a predominately Kurdish city before the reign of
Saddam Hussein who ethically [ethnically] cleansed Kurds out of the
city and brought in Arabs. The issue is, do you -- since the fall of
Saddam Hussein, the Kurds have been restoring their majority in that
city and, indeed, other ethnic groups claim over uh restoring their
majority, bringing in more Kurds than there had been before. The Kurds
want voter registration to be based on the most recent census, I think
it was in fact, done this year. The Sunni Arabs and other ethnic groups
there -- the Turkomen for instance -- want the voter registration based
on the 2004 census and they have not been able to come to an agreement
on this and this has hung up the passage of this law and what it really
-- and what it really comes down to it appears is contol over that
massive amount of untapped petroleum.
Frank
Senso: And yet this-this-this dispute, this stand off over the election
law comes just after this Sunday terrible bombing in Baghdad, the worst
in two years killing more than 150, wounding hundreds more, severely
damaging three major government buildings now there's been an arrest
of some 50 odd security and there was some suggestion that this
intensifying violence might drive the politicians to nail down this
election law and drive those to some kind of political, if not
resolution, progress. Tom?
Tom
Gjelten: Well it seems, Frank, that the Iranians, I mean the Iraqis,
have become so inured to this kind of violence that just sort of
everything proceeds normally and that's true I think in both a good
sense and a bad sense. In a good sense, there has been this move
towards stability and peace in Iraq and Iraq's been filling more
confident about their future and they seem amazingly enough to have
taken this bombing in stride in a sense. I mean there have been other
bombings --
Frank Sesno: It's almost unimaginable, isn't it?
Tom
Gjelten: It's almost unaimaginable. But they have -- this is six years
that they've been through this and they seem to be able to cope with
these great tragedies. On the other hand, the negative side is that,
as you say, you know, you would -- you would hope that this would jolt
them into sort of some reality but, again, they become so used to this
that they just proceed with the same stalemate.
Frank Sesno: What's behind the uptick in violence, Elise?
Elise
Labott: Well, we saw -- first we saw an uptick in violence in August
and there were also some massive bombings at the Foreign Ministry, at
the Finance Ministry and this seemed to be kind of a way to sew
sectarian tensions once again and they thought that maybe this would
lead Iraq down the path it was in 2006, 2007 with major sectarian
tensions. Now what officials says is they think that these foreign
fighters are [or?] the real hard core al Qaeda in Iraq are trying just
at anything, they tried at religious targets, now they're just trying
at softer targets to kill a lot of people. They think maybe it can
effect the election in January. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been
running as the security candidate. He's the one that's bringing
stability to Iraq, he's the one that got US forces out of the city. The
question is now is this going to effect his standing as the security
candidate.
Jonathan
S. Landay: There may be also something else going on here. The more
instability, I think perhaps the insurgen -- whoever is behind these
bombings create, in their mind, it delays perhaps the departure of
American forces and what do you get from that? Well you get a delay or
perhaps problems coming up with additional American forces to send to
Afghanistan and there may very well be that thinking going on on the
part of those who are responsible for these massive bombings.
On the above. Jonathan S. Landay used the term census. That is incorrect. There has been no census. The issue, which McClatchy's Sarah Issa and Hannah Allem and which the New York Times' Timothy Williams
have outlines, is where the voting rolls for 2009 or the voting rolls
for 2004 will be used. There has been no census. "Census" is a
concrete term. And, in fact, a census in Kirkuk is mandated -- as is a
referendum -- by Iraq's 2005 Constitution. No census has been
conducted. This is not a minor issue and it goes to the dispute over
Kirkuk. "Census" was the wrong term to use. There is NO census thus
far.
That's (A). (B) Tom Gjelten. What the
___ was that? I'm reminded of when Goodtime Gals Linda Robinson and
Gwen Ifill decided to discuss Blackwater's September 17, 2007 slaughter
(see the October 8, 2007 snapshot)
-- a discussion noteable for its appalling ignorance and gross lack of
concern for human life. Gjelten can argue that some of his remarks
were intended to be about officials. But he can only argue that about
some of his remarks. And what exactly does he want Iraqis to do?
They're shell shocked and just because he hasn't reported on the
multitude of studies, THE MULTITUDE OF STUDIES, on the effects this
illegal war has had on Iraqi children doesn't mean the damage isn't
real and doesn't exist. So his happy talk bulls**t was embarrassing.
That was really a shameful moment for NPR. The 'good' and the 'bad' of
the bombings? How appalling. What made it worse for NPR was that it
wasn't a guest from, for example, NBC News. It was an NPR reporter.
That's shameful. The good and the bad of bombings? Pay attention,
Tommy.
Our children are surrounded by
violnce. Most of them are traumatized. I call them the silent victims.
Our Iraqi childeren are the silent vctims.
From
January to March of last year, the World Health Organization worked
with Iraqi psychiatrists on a series of studies on the mental health of
children in the cities of Baghdad, Mosul and Dohuk. (Watch the effects of war on children)
One
of the studies on primary-school-age children in Baghdad found that
nearly half of the 600 children surveyed had experienced a major
traumatic event since the war began. Just over one in every 10 suffered
from post-traumatic stress disorder, the study found.
Another
of the studies found that older children in Mosul suffered even worse.
Thirty percent of the 1,090 children surveyed showed signs of
post-traumatic stress disorder. Nearly all of those with PTSD symptoms,
92 percent, had not received any treatment, according to the study.
In
fact, the doctors aren't immune to the dangers of the conflict. Fifty
percent of Iraq's psychiatrists have fled the country or been killed
since the war began, said Dr. Naeema Al-Gasseer, the WHO's
representative for Iraq.
A month after CNN filed that report, NPR's Linda Wertheimer spoke with Dr. Mohammed al-Aboudi about the mental stress Iraqi children were under.
Now we can go through various reports and studies. We can enlarge and
look at other segments of the country's population. But the above
alone demonstrates how offensive Tom's statements are. The population
is shell shocked and the illegal war has caused that trauma. The
bombings that he thinks have good and bad are the same violence
responsible for creating the world's largest refugee crisis. And the
UN has already advised that Sunday's bombings will most likely results
in Syria and Jordan receiving some additional Iraqi refugees. I'm not
seeing any "good and bad" to the bombings. And Tom's statements were
inarticulate and offensive. Frank Senso did a fine job this week
filling in for Diane but had Diane been present, she probably would
have said something. She generally does when gas baggery replaces
discussion -- when human beings are removed from the issue, she
generally brings them back into the picture even if it means she has to
disagree with a guest. (She did that most recently with a guest gas
bagging -- and glorifying -- the drone strikes in Pakistan when she
made a point to note the civilian deaths the man was dismissing.)
Tom's statements were offensive and it's only more so because he works
for NPR. He declared that "you would hope that this would jolt them
into sort of some reality" -- Tom, we'd hope the reality of the
violence in Iraq and the fact that it is an inhabited country would
jolt you into some sort of reality but there's no evidence, as yet,
that it has.
Let's break that up for a moment to note this:
What
are the lessons of Iraq that I carry with me? The cultures are as
different as mountains and desert, and for outsiders, there is a
familiar struggle to see the place as it truly is, not as we might wish
it would be. Back in 2003, the Americans wanted to believe that an age
of brotherhood and integration, loosed by American military might, had
come to Iraq. Many Iraqis wanted to believe it, too. Thinking too much
about the depth of distrust, long latent between sects and ethnicities,
would mean acknowledging that a frenzy of violence waited in the wings.
They swept into the desert sands the centuries-long struggle of Sunnis
and Shiites for dominance in the fertile river basin between the Tigris
and Euphrates Rivers. It was as if officials thought that perhaps by
saying they were brothers, they would become them.
Back
to NPR, (C) Jonathan S. Landay and Elise Labott's speculation --
presented as such with Labott making clear she was referring to what
officials were stating. It's a shame that more time wasn't spent on
that. No one knows why the bombings are taking place (other than due
to the ongoing, illegal war). Could they be to influence the
elections? Possibly. Could they be to harm Nouri al-Maliki?
Possibly. But it's equally true that the message can be sent
throughout Iraq. The August 9th bombing just outside Mosul,
for example, was deadly (at least 35 dead) and it received huge
attention within Iraq and outside of it. Why target only Baghdad if
the issue is just the elections? It's not as if only residents of
Baghdad will be voting. Equally true is that there are other areas
that should be easier to attack than the region targeted on Sunday. So
why those targets?
We noted the arrests Nouri ordered in yesterday's snapshot. Heyetnet reports:
Puppet
government police forces arrested three people claimed to be wanted in
al Hadbaa area of eastern Mosul.
In
al Furat area of Baghdad, continous arrest and raid campaigns
perpetrated by government army forces led indiscriminate arrests of
dozens. Eyewitnesses said that aforementioned forces used sectarian and
irritating slogans beating civilians. During the arrest campaigns the
area was monitored by American occupation forces.
On
the other hand, government police and army forces arrested eight
civilians in various areas of Diyala Province.
In Basra, government police forces arrested 20 people in raid and search campaign alleged to be wanted.
In
Tuzkharmotu of Saladin Province, government police forces arrested
three civilians who were beaten, insulted and
irritated.
In
Latifiya of southern Baghdad, sectarian government army forces arrested
seven civilians in raid and search attacks.
Today Deng Shasha (Xinhua) reports
that Iraq's Sunni vice president (Iraq has two vice presidents -- one
Sunni, one Shia) Tariq al-Hashimi has "called on an evaluation of
running the security dossier after Sunday's bloody suicide bombings
that claimed the lives of 155 Iraqis." Meanwhile Prashant Rao (AFP) reports
that today saw many clerics using the sermons to call out "Iraqi
authorities" and quotes Sheikh Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalai stating, "With
insurgents having repeated the same bombings, with the same style and
in the same secure area, we have to review the security plan that has
been implemented in Baghdad" while Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani declared,
"I demand immediate and urgent checks for the reasons that led to teh
bombings." Nouri's government rsponse has been to attack Syria
(naturally) and to attack the press (ibid). On the latter, Azzaman reports
he has "banned movement by press vehicles with equipment to broadcast
live. [. . . ] The order has been issued by the military command of
Baghdad operations which specificially denies television broadcasters
the right of live coverage."
Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .
Reuters notes
1 corpse discovered in Mosul while 1 police officer -- who may or may
not have been part of the investigation into Sunday's bombings -- was
discovered dead (from a shooting) in his Baghdad office.
Violence
was kind-of, sort-of an issue yesterday in the US House Armed Services
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. The hearing was about
IEDs and the money spent on studying them. The Pentagon's James Schear
and Lt Gen Thomas Metz as well as the GAO's William Solis were the
witnesses, Vic Snyder is the Subcomittee Chair.
Subcommittee
Chair Vic Snyder: IEDs remain the number one cause of casulities to
coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although IEDs are not a new
threat, they have been used with unprecedented frequency in Iraq and
Afghanistan. While the decrease in successful attacks in Iraq is
encouraging, that success has not been replicated in Afghanistan which
has seen an increase in success in fatality attacks with our increase
in forces there. Since former CENTCOM commander General [John]
Abizaid called for a Manhattan Project like effort 5 years ago to
defeat IEDs, Congress has provided nearly $17 billion to DoD's efforts.
This effort has grown from a twelve-man army task force to the Jointed
IED Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO, which currently employs a staff of
about 3600 dedicated government, military and contract personnel.
Lt
Gen Thomas F. Metz declared, "What's really different in the two
theaters is that over time in Iraq, as we were experiencing 1500, 2500
IEDs a month -- and finding and clearing half of them, we were gaining
an enormous amount of forensics and biometrics information. We use that
in the COIC [Counter-IED Operations Integration Center] to our
advantage It is our asymetric advantage."
US House Rep Duncan Hunter noted a lack of mobilization. He referred to NPR's report
on IEDs this week and how, despite all the money being spent, it was
human beings noting, for example, "that corpse wasn't there yesterday"
and guessing that it appeared to hide an IED. He noted that Marines in
Afghanistan report they have only rarely seen predator drones and that
instead they rely on "hand held mine sweepers -- a version of which
people use on the beach to find coins." He also showed a child's
innocence or foolilshness as he lived in a world where only the
'guilty' were killed.
US House Rep
Duncan Hunter: This doesn't make me feel comfortable that we are truly
doing everything that we can right now. Once-once more, if Secretary
Gates said, "No more IEDs to be buried" -- I understand that there are
tons in Afghanistan and they can be turned on like that at any point in
time. But we could do that. We could stop IEDs from being buried if we
mobilize to do it. And -- and if we want to politically about this war
too -- it would fall off the map if nobody was dying. Iraq's not in the
paper anymore because nobody's dying. One reason is we've knocked off
IEDs, huge in 2007 and 2008, with [Gen William] Odum by killing over
3,000 IED placers. Project Odom with IEDS killed more people than every
single other person in Iraq put together -- with all the offensive
operations, Odom killed more and they were all bad guys -- not one
single civilian, they were all inputting IEDs.
"Not
one single civilian." Just "bad guys." Because a drone is judge and
jury. So if a drone says it's "bad guys" that's all the proof Duncan
Hunter needs. (And, to clarify, this is Duncan Hunter the younger, the
32-year-old elected to his father's seat. Still wet behind the ears
and with a child's wide-eyes, he needs correcting, not the blanket
approval Snyder gave him when Snyder followed Hunter. And someone
might have bothered to inform Hunter that, despite his claims that
"nobody's dying" in Iraq, Iraq saw at least 155 people die on Sunday
alone. "Nobody's dying"? That didn't require a correction? Did he
mean no US service members? If so, even that's wrong because there are
8 announced dead in Iraq so far this month -- granted 2 of them were
announced today so, at the time of the hearing, only 6 had been
announced. And it's a good thing to Duncan Hunter that the news media
walked away from Iraq? Really? (Hunter is a veteran of both the Iraq
and Afghanistan Wars, FYI.) Congress had time for that nonsense
yesterday. Not for anything important, but they had time for that.
Politicians
always clamor that we have to "support our troops" and take care of our
veterans first. The White House Web site quotes Obama's proclamation
that "we...owe our veterans the care they were promised and the
benefits that they have earned."
But
the VA's latest failure to deliver on educational benefits--coming just
a few years after the scandal of VA health care negligence at Walter
Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C.--leaves these lofty
assertions sounding like just another example of the politicians' empty
rhetoric.
And given
Obama's increasingly clear record of impressive speeches followed by
little action, some veterans are calling his administration "the
audacity of nope."
While the veterans at
the VA office in Chicago expressed relief at finally receiving their
first check, the bitterness persists. Bureaucratic red tape and
mismanagement always holds up money and benefits for veterans, but
there always seems to be an abundant supply of cash for bank bailouts,
the "cash for clunkers" program to help U.S. automakers, a failed
Olympic bid for the city of Chicago, or a bloated Pentagon
budget.
How is that
related? One damn hearing. That's all the Congress is going to hold on
that scandal? Really? One damn hearing. They fawned over VA
Secretary Eric Shinseki October 14th
-- even when he admitted that the VA knew before he became the
Secretary (and that he found out as soon as he became the Secretary)
that they wouldn't be able to implement the benefit checks in a timely
manner. They acted like smiling zombies. October 15th,
when he was present, they were suddenly concerned for their one and
only hearing thus far into the scandal. That's disgusting. That
effected so many veterans and it got so little attention from
Congress. Most importantly, it's still not 'fixed.' Read Martin
Smith's report. But Congress has other things to do and, point of
fact, the Senate held no hearings on the issue. Want to explain how
that happened?
Staying on the topic of veterans issues and dropping back to the October 21st snapshot:
Meanwhile Lauren DeFranco (WABC -- link has text and video) reports
Christal Wagenhauser gave birth to a two month premature daughter and
she and the family want Cpl [Keith] Wagenhouser -- currently stationed
in Iraq -- home to see the baby: "If the baby's condition deteriorates,
it would take Wagenhauser a week to get home. At that point, it would
be too late."
Jennifer Logan (CBS) reports
that Keith Wagenhauser was finally given time to visit his family and
arrived in New York yesterday and explains: "In an incubator adorned
with her father's military photo, Madison, born by life-saving
caesarean section, weighing just 2-pounds 11-ounces is being treated in
the neonatal intensive care unit of Stony Brook University Medical
Center. Initially, marine brass explained that emergency leave is
granted only in cases of imminent or actual death in their immediate
family and that Madison's condition was not sufficiently life
threatening enough to grant an exception." So while the military brass
did the right thing, what's the hold up with the US Congress when it
comes to the latest (known) threat to deport the spouse of a veteran?
Subha
Ravindhran: [. . .] Frances Barrios considers herself an American. She
grew up and went to high school here in Van Nuys but for the past 17
years, she's been living in this country illegally. Now she and her
husband, an Iraq War veteran, must deal with the consequences.
26-year-old Army Specialist Jack Barrios can barely talk about the time
he served in Iraq.
Jack Barrios: I'll skip that.
Subha Ravindhran: You don't want to talk about that.
Jack Barrios: Yeah.
Subha
Ravindhran: But what he can speak about is the battle his family is
going through now. His wife, 23-year-old Frances, is facing deporation
back to Guatemala -- a country she left when she was just
six-years-old.
Jack Barrios: I'm pretty sad and angry that we will get separated.
Subha
Ravindhran: Not only will three-year-old Matthew and one-year-old
Allanna be separated from their mother, but Jack will also lose his
main caretaker. Since he returned from Iraq in 2007, he's been
suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Frances Barrios: He was
an outgoing person, you could say. He used to like being outside with
his friends and just, you know, having a good time. When he came back,
like I said, he shut down. It wasn't him.
Subha Ravindhran: Their attorney Jessica Dominguez says the chances of keeping Frances here are slim.
Jessica
Dominguez: It's just mind boggling to try to understand that in a
situation like this, Mr. Barrios cannot be assured that his family is
going to stay together because immigration laws do not protect the
sanctity of his family at this point.
The
US government wants to deport her. (She's from Guatemala originally,
entered the US with her mother when she was just six-years-old.) As
offensive as that is -- and it's really offensive -- it's also
economically stupid because Jack suffers from PTSD. The US government
is going to provide him a caretaker who will do all that Frances
currently does? Really? Teresa Watanabe (Los Angeles Times) reported earlier this week:
But
as he undergoes counseling and swallows anti-depressants, the soldier
is fighting an even bigger battle: to keep his family from collapsing
as his wife, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, faces
deportation. His
wife, 23-year-old Frances, was illegally brought to the United States
by her mother at age 6, learned of her status in high school and
discovered just last year that removal proceedings have been started.
Her possible deportation has left Barrios in panic as he contemplates
life without her. The
Army reservist says his wife is the family's anchor, caring for their
year-old daughter and 3-year-old son and helping him battle his
post-traumatic stress. "She's
my everything," Barrios said as he sat glumly in the family's sparsely
furnished but tidy Van Nuys apartment. "Without her, I can't function.
It would be like taking away a part of my soul." Hundreds
of U.S. soldiers are facing the same trouble as they fight to legalize
their spouses' status, a difficult process that has affected their
military readiness, according to Margaret Stock, a lieutenant colonel
in the Army Reserves and an immigration attorney specializing in
military cases.
Dropping back to the October 21st snapshot, "In the US yesterday, a twenty-year-old Iraqi woman was run over along with her 43-year-old friend. James King (Phoenix News) reports
that police are looking for the twenty-year-old's father, Faleh Hassan
Almaleki, whom they supsect of running the two women down and that the
alleged motive is that the daughter was 'becoming too westernized.' Katie Fisher (ABC 15 -- link has text and video) reports
the 20-year-old woman is Noor Faleh Almaleki and her 43-year-old friend
is Amal Edan Khalaf and the friend is also the mother of the
twenty-year-old's boyfriend." CNN reports
he was arrested yesterday in Atlanta -- after he had gone to Mexico,
flown to London where British officials refuse him admittance in
England, and returned to the US. CNN states his daughter is still in
the hospital and "unresponsive" to treatment thus far. Sarah Netter (ABC News -- link has text and video) reports on the apparent attempted honor killing and notes that Noor's status as "life-threatening condition".
TV notes. NOW on PBSbegins
airing on many PBS stations tonight (check local listings for times and
for other dates if it doesn't air on your PBS station tonight):
Home
to a worldwide summit on climate change in early December, Denmark is
setting a global example in creating clean power, storing it, and using
it responsibly. Their reliance on wind power to produce electricity
without contributing to global warming is well known, but now they're
looking to drive the point home with electric cars. To do this, they've
partnered with social entrepreneur Shai Agassi and his company Better
Place. This week, NOW
investigates how the Danish government and Better Place are working
together to put electric cars into the hands of as many Danish families
as possible. The idea is still having trouble getting out of the garage
here in America, but Denmark could be an inspiration. Will so much green enthusiasm bring about a "Copenhagen Protocol"?
Washington Week
also begins airing tonight on many PBS stations and sitting around the
table with Gwen this week are Ceci Connolly (Washington Post), John
Dickerson (Slate and CBS News), Marilyn Serafini (National Journal) and
Nancy A. Youssef (McClatchy Newspapers). Meanwhile Bonnie Erbe
will sit down with Karen Czarnecki, Melinda Henneberger, Eleanor Holmes
Norton and Genevieve Wood to discuss the week's events on PBS' To The Contrary. Check local listings, on many stations, it begins airing tonight. And turning to broadcast TV, Sunday CBS' 60 Minutes offers:
H1N1 Vaccine Scott Pelley reports on the manufacture, distribution and safety of the H1N1 flu vaccine. | Watch Video
Yakuza How
does a foreigner jump the line in America for a life-saving liver
transplant? It might be because he is a high-ranking member of Japan's
mafia, known as the Yakuza, whose criminal influence is worldwide. Lara
Logan reports.
The Movie Pirates They
are the bane of Hollywood: criminals who copy films - sometimes before
the movies even reach the theater - and distribute them illegally on
the Internet, costing Hollywood billions in lost revenue. Lesley Stahl
reports.
A
defense contractor that supplied vehicle parts for the Iraqi army
sought reimbursements from the U.S. military far in excess of the cost
of the items, according to a new report by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. The contractor, Aecom Government Services,
charged $237 for a vehicle side mirror that was supposed to cost
$14.88, according to the report. The company also submitted invoices to
the U.S. military in Iraq
seeking reimbursements of $196.50 for a bag of 10 washers that was
supposed to cost $1.22, $10 for a fuse that should have cost 45 cents
and $210 for an inner tube that was supposed to cost $24.09.
The above is the opening to Walter Pincus' "Audit finds that Iraq contractor overcharged for repair parts" (Washington Post). Okay, so we know Pincus and James Glanz (New York Times) dig around and read reports. Here's the big question: What does the Commission on War Time Contracting
do? They tick time down really well. They run out the clock very good.
(There next 'hearing' is scheduled for November 2nd. We may or may not
attend.) They really do nothing and, more and more, it appears that's
exactly why they were created. Again, their next 'hearing' is November
2nd. They've really accomplished nothing thus far.
In that regard, they're a lot like the Iraqi government or 'government' which still can't pass an election law. In today's New York Times, Timothy Williams reports:
On
Thursday, the Iraqi Parliament failed again to approve a law to govern
national elections scheduled for January. The session was canceled for
lack of a quorum after Kurdish members boycotted it to protest a
proposal for voting rules in Kirkuk, a disputed province in northern
Iraq. Kirkuk, which sits atop billions of barrels of oil, is claimed by
Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens. Under
Saddam Hussein, many Kurds were driven out of the area and replaced by
Arabs, a process that was reversed after the United States invasion.
The proposal calls for combining the 2004 and 2009 voter registration
rolls, but the Kurds say Arabs would be overrepresented under this plan. The
election law issue was further complicated Thursday when Hamdia
al-Hussaini, a member of the Independent High Electoral Commission,
which oversees elections here, said the 2004 voter rolls were severely
flawed. Mrs. Hussaini said
election officials had sought to use 2004 registration information
during the 2005 parliamentary elections, but quickly determined that
the war had rendered the data useless.
But let's not
paint too bleak a picture. While failing to meet the deadline on the
election law, they've wasted everyone's time with other 'issues.' Oliver August (Times of London) reports:
The
Iraqi Government has banned alcohol in Baghdad’s heavily fortified
green zone, home to foreign embassies and some legendary drunken
parties in recent years. Sales
of drink are to be banned from Sunday, The Times has learnt, and Iraqi
military patrols are already confiscating booze wherever they find it.
"It is a new rule from the Prime Minister," said an Iraqi army officer
at a green zone checkpoint. "Alcohol cannot be sold or transported. If
you want to bring a gift for someone, get a Pepsi."
Nouri's
already banned cigarette smoking now booze. What a fun boy he must be.
Someone send him a copy of Grease and cue up Stockard Channing's "Look
At Me, I'm Sandra Dee." In more news of what they 'focus' on instead of
addressing what's needed, it's time to launch another verbal attack on
Syria. Alsumaria reports:
Accusations are pointed back against Syria on account of black Sunday bombings which reminds of gory Wednesday attacks. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hosheyar Zebari accused Syria of involvement in the attacks. Iraqi
Government has "very solid, concrete evidence" that the attack was
carried out by Baathist supporters of the former Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein, accusing Syria of harboring the perpetrators of some of the
most devastating attacks.
In
Baghdad, Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, perhaps preparing to run
on an anti-Kurd platform of his own in January's election, has
repeatedly criticized the idea of muhasasa and even questioned the
nature of federalism, declaring that a central authority was the most
important thing. An outraged
Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, accused
the Prime Minister of seeking to restore dictatorship. High emotions are like sparks in a tinderbox such as Ninewa, where some of the country's most violent Sunni extremists hide out. Driven
there from Anbar province to the south, and enjoying the more-or-less
open Syrian border, the extremists have proliferated.
TV notes. NOW on PBSbegins
airing on many PBS stations tonight (check local listings for times and
for other dates if it doesn't air on your PBS station tonight):
Home
to a worldwide summit on climate change in early December, Denmark is
setting a global example in creating clean power, storing it, and using
it responsibly. Their reliance on wind power to produce electricity
without contributing to global warming is well known, but now they're
looking to drive the point home with electric cars. To do this, they've
partnered with social entrepreneur Shai Agassi and his company Better
Place. This week, NOW
investigates how the Danish government and Better Place are working
together to put electric cars into the hands of as many Danish families
as possible. The idea is still having trouble getting out of the garage
here in America, but Denmark could be an inspiration. Will so much green enthusiasm bring about a "Copenhagen Protocol"?
Washington Week
also begins airing tonight on many PBS stations and sitting around the
table with Gwen this week are Ceci Connolly (Washington Post), John
Dickerson (Slate and CBS News), Marilyn Serafini (National Journal) and
Nancy A. Youssef (McClatchy Newspapers). Meanwhile Bonnie Erbe
will sit down with Karen Czarnecki, Melinda Henneberger, Eleanor Holmes
Norton and Genevieve Wood to discuss the week's events on PBS' To The Contrary. Check local listings, on many stations, it begins airing tonight. And turning to broadcast TV, Sunday CBS' 60 Minutes offers:
H1N1 Vaccine Scott Pelley reports on the manufacture, distribution and safety of the H1N1 flu vaccine. | Watch Video
Yakuza How
does a foreigner jump the line in America for a life-saving liver
transplant? It might be because he is a high-ranking member of Japan's
mafia, known as the Yakuza, whose criminal influence is worldwide. Lara
Logan reports.
The Movie Pirates They
are the bane of Hollywood: criminals who copy films - sometimes before
the movies even reach the theater - and distribute them illegally on
the Internet, costing Hollywood billions in lost revenue. Lesley Stahl
reports.
60 Minutes, this Sunday, Nov. 1, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
Radio notes. Today on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show,
Diane discusses domestic news and issues in the first hour with
panelists Dante Chinni (Christian Science Monitor), Chris Cillizza
(Washington Post) and Sheryl Gay Stolberg (New York Times). For the
second hour, Diane addresses international news and issues with
panelists Tom Gjelten (NPR), Elise Labott (CNN) and Jonathan S. Landay
(McClatchy Newspapers). The Diane Rehm Show begins airing on most NPR stations and streaming live online at 10:00 a.m. EST.
The heartbeat went out of our house The rhythm went out of our romance But in life that happens and you just have to remember to breathe . . .
That's from Carly Simon's "Coming Around Again" as redone on her latest album, Never Been Gone. Thursday she was on NPR's Talk Of The Nation
and discussed a variety of topics including singing with Lucy Simon in
the Simon Sisters and, more recently, on the phone. In terms of
revisiting ten of her classic songs for the new album, Carly observes,
"Yes, it was a very interesting kind of synergy between the old and the
new." To hear her segment with host Neal Conan click here and note NPR online has paired it up with her 2008 concert which you can also stream. Click here to watch Carly on Monday's Good Morning America (ABC). Carly Simon appeared on NBC's Today Show yesterday and performed "You Belong To Me."
Carly's new CD, Never Been Gone, will be released on October 27th, but you can download the entire album today!
Check
out our exclusive deals on some very special packages including Carly's
Heirloom Box and the reissue of Live From Martha's Vineyard DVD. Learn More!
Upcoming Promotions for Never Been Gone
Oct. 28
See the News page for a complete listing of appearances
and recent interviews.
Receive the latest breaking news by joining one of the following:
Many
military personnel who acquired post-traumatic stress disorder after
serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are being inappropriately discharged,
despite Pentagon assurances that proper policy is being followed. That's
the conclusion of Sens. Kit Bond of Missouri and Sam Brownback of
Kansas, both Republicans. The two recently sent a letter to President
Obama urging him to ensure returning veterans get the health care they
deserve. The two lawmakers
-- joined by Sens. Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat, and Chuck
Grassley of Iowa, a Republican -- reminded Obama that when he served in
the Senate, he, too, was concerned about this issue.
Meanwhile Lauren DeFranco (WABC -- link has text and video) reports
Christal Wagenhauser gave birth to a two month premature daughter and
she and the family want Cpl [Keith] Wagenhouser -- currently stationed
in Iraq -- home to see the baby: "If the baby's condition deteriorates,
it would take Wagenhauser a week to get home. At that point, it would
be too late."
Jennifer Logan (CBS) reports
that Keith Wagenhauser was finally given time to visit his family and
arrived in New York yesterday and explains: "In an incubator adorned
with her father's military photo, Madison, born by life-saving
caesarean section, weighing just 2-pounds 11-ounces is being treated in
the neonatal intensive care unit of Stony Brook University Medical
Center. Initially, marine brass explained that emergency leave is
granted only in cases of imminent or actual death in their immediate
family and that Madison's condition was not sufficiently life
threatening enough to grant an exception." So good for the military
brass for doing the right thing. Nothing announced yet from the
Congress regarding Frances Barrios (we noted
her earlier this week). She's the wife of Iraq War veteran Jack Barrios
and the mother of their two children. The US government wants to deport
her. (She's from Guatemala originally, entered the US with her mother
when she was just six-years-old.) As offensive as that is -- and it's
really offensive -- it's also economically stupid because Jack suffers
from PTSD. The US government is going to provide him a caretaker who
will do all that Frances currently does? Really? Teresa Watanabe (Los Angeles Times) reported earlier this week:
But
as he undergoes counseling and swallows anti-depressants, the soldier
is fighting an even bigger battle: to keep his family from collapsing
as his wife, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, faces
deportation. His wife,
23-year-old Frances, was illegally brought to the United States by her
mother at age 6, learned of her status in high school and discovered
just last year that removal proceedings have been started. Her possible
deportation has left Barrios in panic as he contemplates life without
her. The Army reservist says
his wife is the family's anchor, caring for their year-old daughter and
3-year-old son and helping him battle his post-traumatic stress. "She's
my everything," Barrios said as he sat glumly in the family's sparsely
furnished but tidy Van Nuys apartment. "Without her, I can't function.
It would be like taking away a part of my soul." Hundreds
of U.S. soldiers are facing the same trouble as they fight to legalize
their spouses' status, a difficult process that has affected their
military readiness, according to Margaret Stock, a lieutenant colonel
in the Army Reserves and an immigration attorney specializing in
military cases.
Yesterday Staff Sgt. Bradly Espinoza, who was killed in Iraq October 19th, was buried. Victor Castillo (Valley Central) reports
that among those paying their respects were Urbano Gonzalez and Casey
Ojeda -- the father and sister of Spc Alex Gonzalez who was killed in
Iraq and quotes Urbanao Gonzalez stating, "I'm here to support them
because, due to the fact my son past over there as well, I'm just here,
anybody that comes here that related to that. I'm all the way on their
side." Lynn Brezosky (San Antonio Express-News) reports,
"Family members sobbed quietly during the Mass and the ceremony that
followed at the new Rio Grande Valley State Veterans Cemetery in
Mission, where military officials presented them with a long list of
awards and decorations. Members of the Valley's Patriot Guard circled
the gathering with American flags held high. Taps was played and
soldiers fired rifle volleys." Martha L. Hernandez (The Monitor) quotes Felix Rodriguez (a veteran with Hildalgo County Veterans Service Office) stating, "To see his kids there, it breaks your soul."
Meanwhile, theSalt Lake Tribune reminds,
" Nov. 13 is the mailing date for the most-economical postage to
overseas military installations, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Mail
sent to overseas military addresses is charged at the lower
domestic-mail prices. For instance, the domestic price for Priority
Mail Large Flat Rate Box is $13.95, but for packages to APO/FPO
addresses, the price is reduced to $11.95." Kathleen E. Carey (Delaware County Daily Times) reports on military food from Basra. Tom Roeder (Colorado Springs Gazette) reports from Iraq on Fort Carson soldiers.
QUESTION:
Thank you. My name is (inaudible). I am from (inaudible). My question
is that the war in terrorism – there’s not been much progress after the
Obama Administration, you know, came in, because the Gitmo is still
there and your troops are still in Iraq, and, you know, you’re sending
48,000 more troops in Afghanistan. So it’s very hard to believe that
the U.S. policy in regards to Pakistan – the war on terrorism – is
going to be changed. But don’t you think that hampers the democracy,
because now the U.S. is forcing Pakistan to take actions which, on the
other hand, we might not be willing to take? (Applause.) SECRETARY
CLINTON: Well, really, the United States supports the decisions that
are made by Pakistan, and I think it was the Pakistan Government, the
democratically elected government, and the Pakistan military who
decided that it was intolerable for terrorist organizations to be
seizing large chunks of territory of your country. I mean, that’s a
decision for Pakistan to make. Because certainly, when President Obama
became president shortly after that – he hadn’t been in office very
long – it became clear that the terrorists were moving out of Swat into
Buner and people were alarmed in Pakistan. And I don’t know any
country that can stand by and look at a force of terrorists
intimidating people and taking over large parts of your territory,
particularly when that force is often guided by, directed by, and
funded by outside foreign influence. But that’s up to Pakistan. I mean,
if you want to see your territory shrink, that’s your choice. But I
don’t think that’s the right choice. In fact, I think that’s a very
self-destructive choice. So when the government and the military of
Pakistan said, look, we’ve tried to get along with these people, we
have signed agreements with them, we have said that we would tolerate a
certain level of autonomy, but they didn’t stop. They kept coming. The
bombs kept coming. The killings kept coming. The intimidation kept
going. How can you be the head of a country or a country’s military
and allow that to happen? That would be as though on our Canadian
border there were terrorists who were coming across the border and we
let them have Washington and then we let them have Montana and then we
said, well, you know, not very many people live in the Dakotas, they’re
not near Chicago or New York. You can’t do that. So I can tell you
how we would respond, exactly the same way as your government
responded. And we admire that. Because this is a fight that has to be
won. And you know here in Lahore you are not immune. No institution is
immune, not the military, not the intelligence service, not
universities, not even cricket teams. So how do you let that go on and
not respond? My late father used to have a saying which, when I was
a little girl, I never understood. He said, “You know, if you let the
nose of the camel in the tent, pretty soon you’re living with two
humps.” Well, that’s what was going on. Slowly but insidiously, you
were losing territory. And your government – the writ of government was
being undermined. No government, no country, especially a country like
Pakistan – born with the idea of independent and autonomy and
self-determination – can allow foreign influences that ally themselves
with those who would undermine the Pakistani way of life to be given
any space. So I think that your government and your military are doing
exactly the right thing for your country. (Applause.)
I
like Hillary, I know Hillary and I think she would have been an amazing
president. But that's not the issue. The issue is an ongoing illegal
war in Iraq that has not ended.
Hillary gave a nice response in
terms of goodwill. You'll notice she ignored the Iraq War. She needs to
be pressured on that issue because she's a member of the Cabinet. And
it's great that the points made could be made by someone in Pakistan.
Read the transcript and see how much about Pakistan's current issues
you know. You may know a great deal. But, as usual, other countries
know a lot more about the US than US citizens tend to know about them
(and include me in that). Hillary needs to be pressured like that in
the US.
And, hopefully, unlike the alleged 'left' in this
country, the Pakistan audience would have asked the same question of
Barack. But in this country, in the US, you have people on the 'left'
who rip Hillary apart as if she was the president. She's Secretary of
State. Anything you call her out on, you should be calling Barack out
on at least ten times over because he is the president.
Instead
he gets fussed over and people invent conspiracy theories of him being
blackmailed into doing things he doesn't want to do. We're not talking
about what the media dismissively snorts "pajama bloggers" at, we're
talking about one of the media's own, we're talking about Danny
Schechter, for example, who worked at ABC and at CNN. And he has
repeatedly stated that Barack's being blackmailed.
At some
point, if you want to live in the real world, you have to grow up. That
means goodbye to fairy tales and grasping that most people are not
heroes -- that even those who make it to heroic stature are only that
in some instances. Now their simplistic views of the world were in full
force in 2008 as they created Barack -- re-created him -- into the
political virgin as opposed to the Whore of Chicago (which is what he
was). And their simplistic view required that Princess Barack have an
evil queen out to murder him -- enter all their sick fantasies about
Hillary.
Princess Barack was a fairy tale.
Barack Obama
is a man who inhabits the Oval Office and holds the title of President
of the United States which allows him to do whatever he wants. The only
one he's answerable to is the people. (He's supposed to also be
answerable to Congress but they're too busy fawning.) He does what he
wants to do. And what he wants to do is keep screwing over the American
people. He wants to be Bush III. Thatmight not be how he vocalized it
if you asked him and caught him in an honest moment; however, that is
what his actions indicate.
And that is what you judge a person by: Their actions.
That
is confusing to the Cult of St. Barack because he had no actions to
judge by. He never accomplished a damn thing. He wasn't even a senior
partner in a law firm despite being a 'practicing' lawyer and over the
age of 40. How sad is that?
And he's not going to accomplish
anything that the country needs until demands are made on him. In
Pakistan, Hillary held a town hall and she was asked some tough
questions (some -- like Iraq -- she avoided, others she answered). I
have no doubts that she'd be treated similarly in the United States but
let's not kid that Barack would be. Never protested by CodeStink.
He's
gotten a pass. His whole life. And he's not going to work for the
American people as long as he gets a pass. He's not even going to end
the illegal war as long as he's given a pass. It's time for the
adult-children to take a long nap if they're unable to face reality.
There are three wars going on (Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan) and
there's no time for adults to waste babying themselves and lulling
themselves into a deep (political) sleep with a bunch of fairy tales.
It's over, I'm done writing songs about love There's a war going on So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove And I'm writing a song about war And it goes Na na na na na na na I hate the war Na na na na na na na I hate the war Na na na na na na na I hate the war Oh oh oh oh -- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)
Last Thursday, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4351. Tonight? 4353.
Thursday,
October 29, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, the US military
announces another death, the Iraqi refugee crisis continues, problems
with the public inquiry into the Iraq War the UK government plans to
hold, no election law passed by the Iraqi Parliament, and more.
Today the US military announced:
"JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq – A Soldier who was currently assigned to the
13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) died Wednesday of a non-combat
related injury at Camp Adder, Iraq. The name of the deceased is being
withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the
Department of Defense.The names of service members are announced
through the U.S. Department of Defense official website at http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/.
The announcements are made on the Web site no earlier than 24 hours
after notification of the service member's primary next of kin. The
incident is under investigation." The announcement brings the total
number of US service members killed in Iraq to 4353.
Meanwhile
Sunday's Baghdad bombings have pretty much erased the August Baghdad
bombings ("Bloody Wednesday," "Black Wednesday," "Gory Wednesday,"
"Iraq's 9-11," etc.). Press TV reports,
"Iraq has arrested some 60 security forces over the weekend twin
bombings which targeted government buildings in Baghdad, killing up to
153 people." The Sentinel states the 60 were compoes of "11 army officers and 50 security officials". Xinhua adds, "The
arrested were in charge of providing security for a downtown Baghdad
district which was hit by the deadly suicide attacks that targeted
government buildings, Major General Qassim Atta said." BBC News notes,
"The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse in Baghdad says it is not clear whether
those arrested are accused of negligence or collusion. However, he
added, it seems to confirm what many people have suspected - that the
security forces are susceptible to infiltration by insurgents or are
just not up to the job." Reuters reports
Qassim al-Moussawi, spokesperson for Baghdad security, "said that
officers, foot soldiers and police in areas where attacks happen would
be arrested in the future and placed under investigation." Jomana Karadsheh (CNN) adds,
Baghdad Governor "Abdul Razzaq said security forces made mistakes and
were negligent in their work, and he demanded a court-martial for those
who allowed explosive-laden vehicles to get through checkpoints."
Karadsheh also notes the number arrested is 61. Timothy Williams and Mohammed Hussein (New York Times) explain,
"The statement Thursday that announced the arrest order came from
Baghad Operations Command, which is responsible for security in the
capital and reports directly to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.
The statement did not offer any further details, so it remained unclear
whether the 61 security force members were suspected of having adied
those who carried out the attacks."
The
force of the blast threw Rawnaq against the wall of her office at the
Ministry of Justice. She instantly thought of her two children in the
day care center just two floors below. "I
rushed downstairs and found all the children under the rubble," says
Rawnaq, "My daughter Tabarak was standing near the stairs. My son
Hamoodi outside. Me and a colleague took them out, running. A police
car drove us to the hospital." Both
children were injured, 3-year-old Tabarak much more so than her
2-year-old brother. Severe head and back injuries have left the little
girl needing extensive surgery and unable to sleep due to unceasing
pain. She is also deeply afraid.
Back
in August, the day before Bloody Wednesday, Iraqi Thug and Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki was in Syria where he was demanding that
nearly 200 Iraqis be handed over to Iraq. It was all like a bad acid
flashback since Nouri spent years in Syria and the Syrians refused to
turn him over at the whims of Saddam Hussein. Nouri was grateful back
then, now he's just a raging drama queen. Bloody Wednesday came the
next day and Nouri immediately blamed the bombings on Syria. He and
his spokespeople and cabinet would sometimes say that it was former
Ba'athists in Syria. Sometimes. Mainly they would rail against
Syria. That hasn't ceased all this time later. Phil Sands (Le Monde) offers
today that "Syria is perhaps the only country in the Arab middle east
that can truly claim to be independent from the US, and Damascus
remains a thorn in the side of American regional ambitions. [. . .] In
the post-Saddam Hussein world, the Iraqi government is jealous of its
sovereignty, an independence that goes only as deep as the presence of
more than 100,000 American soldiers on Iraqi soil allows. There is
little sign a planned pull-out will be complete." Syria has a huge
number of Iraqi refugees and we'll turn now to the topic of Iraqi
refugees. Joseph A. Kechichian (Gulf News) explains:
According
to the International Organisation on Migration, there are still 1.6
million internally displaced Iraqis who cannot "return home". Many are
trying to survive "without work, their own home, schooling for
children, access to water, electricity and health care". These refugees
are Iraqi citizens who are not represented in government but whose
fates will probably determine whether the pool from which opposition
forces can recruit bombers will shrink. As it is widely recognised,
remnants of the Baath party or any number of the security services
created by the old regime are still active, even if Baghdad and its
allies continue to hearken to Al Qaida.
The United Nations' World Food Program has launched "a
pilot project in Damascus" in which food vouchers are distributed "in
the form of mobile phone text messages to Iraqi refugees. [. . .]
Around one thousand families are involved in the four-month pilot
phase, which will be extended if it is successful. The project has been
developed in cooperation with the Syrian government, enabling the
refugees to redeem their vouches in state-run stores in the Jaramana
and Sayeda Zeinab neighourhoods of Damascus. The mobile phone service
provider MTN has donated SIM cards for the project." Cassandra Vinograd (Wall St. Journal) reported
Tuesday, "In the WFP program, each family will receive one $22 voucher
per person every two months. After each transaction, families will
receive an updated balance, also sent by SMS to their mobile numbers --
free of charge. There are more than 1.2 million displaced Iraqis in
Syria, according to government figures. To date, about 130,000
regularly receive food assistance from WFP with complimentary food and
non-food assistance from the U.N.'s refugee agency." Though some have
criticized the WFP for targeting people with cell phones (under the
mistaken belief that refugees wouldn't have them), Richard Spencer (Telegraph of London) reports,
"The discovery that most of the 130,000 people to whom the organisation
provided food vouchers had mobile phones gave officials the idea for
the pilot scheme, to be targeted at 1,000 families in the first
instance." Laura MacInnis (Reuters) quotes
Emilia Casella, WFP spokesperson, stating, "They will be able to
exchange their electronic vouchers for rice, wheat, flour, lentils,
chickpeas, oil and canned fish, as well as cheese and eggs -- items
that cannot usually be included in conventional aid baskets." Saeed Ahmed (CNN) quotes
Casella stating, "It infuses some contribution to the communities,
because we're not giving food away. They have to go to the local shops
to buy it." Staying with Syria, the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees expects more Iraqi refugees to flee to Syria as a result
of Sunday's bombings. EU News Network states
UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic "told a delegation in Geneva earlier
this month that the United Nations recommended the resettlement of more
than 80,000 Iraqi refugees to other countries." Meanwhile UNHCR is building homes in Taza, Iraq following bombings there this sumemr which ledft many people homeless,
"Immediately after the blast, UNHCR field staff visited Taza to assess
the damage and to distribute emergency aid to the survivors. The team
found that about 160 houses, mostly made from mud bricks, had been
totally destroyed and some 400 damaged. As a result, around 3,500
people were left without shelter. The refugee agency immediately swung
into action, funding the reconstruction of 150 collapsed homes and the
renovation of 73 shops and two other buildings in Shorja Market. The
work was carried out by an Iraqi implementing partner as part of
UNHCR's emergency shelter programme which has helped rehabilitate some
10,000 conflict-damaged buildings for refugees and internally displaced
Iraqis and aims to double this figure in 2010." But in Syria, IRIN reports,
a significant number of Iraqis are attempting to win asylum "across the
Middle East to Europe and North America" and they note, "A year after
its launch, strikingly few Iraqis have taken up the UN's Voluntary Repatriation Programme.
Less than 300 families from Syria have returned to Iraq under the
programme, though the number claiming resettlement has grown rapidly."
The Chicago Tribune did a multi-article series at the start of the week on Iraqi refugees in the US. The paper noted of one group:
"Back home, they worked for the Americans, as translators, project
specialists and office managers. For that, they received death threats
from militants opposed to the U.S., and they ask to remain anonymous,
fearing retribution against relatives in Iraq." Then there's Layla Mousa
whose husband is in Jordan while she and their three children are in
Chicago where she struggles to make ends meet, find work (she's a hair
dresser) and rebuffs offers of payment for sex and states, "Now I want
to go back to Iraq, not even Jordan. America is just a lie." Layla
Mousa is among the Iraqi refugees who Ahlam Mahmoud attempts to asist
even though she herself is a refugee: "She didn't have it easy herself.
When she and her two children arrived in Chicago in 2008, she had only
the clothes she was wearing when she left Syria, where, she says, she
was imprisoned for refusing to spy on foreigners. The apartment they
got in Chicago had three beds, one plate, a fork, a spoon and two
knives." In Syria, Ahlam Mahmoud was also someone refugees turned to.
Using her own resourceful nature, she quickly began developing a
network of assistance and advice. Due to her connections, the Syrian
government attempted to force her to spy on other Iraqi refugees. She
refused and was thrown into prison. When the outcry and attention
became too much, the Syrian govenment ordered her released from prison
and she was quickly transported to the US. Also attempting to assist
other refugees is Fatima Hindi who became an Iraqi government official,
was then kidnapped and sought Egypt and then the US for safety along
with her three-year-old daughter Takwa. She states, "They kidnapped me
because of America. America couldn't protect me. When I first got here,
I cried on the street."
Today Nancy Eshelman (Patriot-News) reports
on Iraqi refugee Zina Alkubaisy who ended up in the United States with
her husband and their children following her husband's kidnapping:
"Alkubaisy began working the phones. She contacted people who knew
people and eventually learned what militant group had snatched her
husband. Her connections arranged to have him released the next day.
But a chilling phone call warned the couple they would not be so lucky
the next time. It would be in their best interest to leave the
country."
UNHCR
is concerned about the fact that some European states have begun
forcibly returning Iraqi originating from the region of Central Iraq
over the last few months. In our guidelines issued last April, we noted
that in view of the serious human rights violations and continuing
security incidents throughout Iraq, most predominantly in the central
governorates, asylum-seekers from these governorates should be
considered to be in need of international protection. UNHCR therefore
advises against involuntary returns to Iraq of persons originating from
Central Iraq until there is a substantial improvement in the security
and human rights situation in the country.
This
reminder comes after the UK attempted to forcibly return 44 Iraqi men
to Baghdad earlier this month. They were reportedly unsuccessful asylum
claimants held in immigration removal centres in the UK. Iraq only
accepted 10 who were allowed to leave the chartered aircraft in
Baghdad, and the remaining 34 were returned to the UK and placed in
immigration centres.
Other
European states have signed readmission agreements with Iraq for
voluntary and forced return. Denmark has forcibly returned 38 people
originating mainly from Central and Southern Iraq since signing its
agreement in May 2009. Sweden has undertaken some 250 forced returns
with an unspecified number of returnees originating from the five
central governorates of Iraq since signing an agreement in February
2008. UNHCR has also concerns about the safety and dignity of these
returns.
Concerning asylum-seekers
from the three northern governorates, as well as those from the
southern governorates and Al Anbar, UNHCR recommends that their
protection needs are assessed on an individual basis.
The second problem is a profound lack of understanding or respect for the rule of law at all levels of UKBA. Six Iraqis
were taken off the removals flight because they had managed to get in
touch with good lawyers. A high court judge was persuaded that the
flight might be unlawful because the route and destination were unknown
and Iraq is a highly unstable country, as the appalling recent bomb
attacks and interviews
with those who did return to Iraq vividly demonstrate. The flight was
no less unlawful for the other Iraqis yet UKBA went on regardless,
simply because the other Iraqis did not manage to get a lawyer. Some
may disagree with the refugee convention and human rights law, but they
are the law of the land and while they remain so they must be
respected.
But
like an unruly toddler, the Home Office believes that what matters is
whether they are caught, not what the rules are. Time and time again
the Home Office is found to be acting unlawfully: on prolonged unlawful
detention, secret policies, misleading the courts and failure to
respect court judgments in the last fortnight alone. Substantial
compensation is paid to some of the victims as a result. What UKBA
fails to appreciate is that there are many, many more victims whose
rights are violated but who never manage to secure the protection of
the rule of law.
Friday's snapshot noted that Christians in northern Iraq were under attack again and weighing whether or not to leave Kirkuk. Richard Spencer (Telegraph of London) noted
"Baghdad's dwindling Christian population. Even in the darkest days of
Saddam Hussein's rule, it was a thriving community. Now it is half
gone,d riven out by the casual lawlessness of the streets." Iraqi
Christians make up a significant number of external refugees. (It
should also be noted that Baghdad's Jewish community has been decimated
since the start of the illegal war.) While much attention was given to
the government buildings damaged and destroyed in Sunday's bombings, Adirenne S. Gaines (Charisma Magazine) reports that St. George's Church in Baghdad was also badly damaged. Though the issue wasn't important enough for the New York Times to put it in print, they did post a blog by Rod Nordland:
"Built in 1936 by the British military during their occupation of Iraq,
the church loast some of its famous stained-glass windows when the
United States military bombed a nearby building in 1992, and more were
destroyed during the invasion in 2003, leaving only three examples
remaining. They were mementos of British regiments stationed there.
Sunday the last three stained glass windows were blown out by suicide
bomb blasts that destroyed three Iraqi government buildings nearby,
according to the church's lay pastor, Faiz Georges." Episcopal Life notes the church has approximately 2,000 members.
WASHINGTON
-- Calling the plight of religious minorities in Iraq "a tragic
consequence" of the war there, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., today
introduced a Senate resolution calling on the U.S. government, Iraqi
government and United Nations Mission in Iraq to take steps to
alleviate the dangers facing these minority groups. Sens. Sam
Brownback, R-Kan., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., joined Levin in sponsoring
the sense of the Senate resolution. "While
violence has declined in Iraq overall, religious minorities continue to
be the targets of violence and intimidation," Levin said. "Members of
many minority groups who have fled other parts of the country have
settled in the north, only to find themselves living in some of the
most unstable and violent regions of Iraq. We strongly urge the Iraqi
government, the United Nations and the U.S. government to address this
crisis without delay." Of
approximately 1.4 million Christians of various denominations living in
Iraq in 2003, only 500,000 to 700,000 remain. Another minority group,
the Sabean Mandeans, has seen its population decline by more than 90
percent. Iraq's Jewish community, once one of the largest in the Arab
world, has almost ceased to exist. According
to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, members of
religious minorities "have experienced targeted intimidation and
violence, including killings, beatings, abductions, and rapes, forced
conversions, forced marriages, forced displacement from their homes and
businesses, and violent attacks on their houses of worship and
religious leaders." The U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees reported
that in 2008, there were an estimated 2.8 million internally displaced
persons living in Iraq. Of that 2.8 million, nearly two out of three
reported fleeing their home because of a direct threat to their lives,
and, of that number, almost nine out of ten said they were targeted
because of their ethnic or religious identity. The
resolution introduced by the senators addresses the tragedy in several
ways. It states the sense of the Senate that the fate of Iraqi
religious minorities is a matter of grave concern and calls on the U.S.
government and the United Nations to urge Iraq's government to increase
security at places of worship, particularly where members of religious
minorities are known to face risks. The resolution calls for the
integration of regional and religious minorities into the Iraqi
security forces, and for those minority members to be stationed within
their own communities. The resolution calls on the Iraqi government to
ensure that minority citizens can participate in upcoming elections,
and to enforce its constitution, which guarantees "the administrative,
political, cultural, and educational rights" of minorities. Finally, it
urges a series of steps to ensure that development aid and other forms
of support flow to minority communities in Iraq.
Iraq
is the source of more external refugees than any other country
currently; however, Iraq does have refugees in its own country
including the Palestinians who are trapped on borders and largely
ignored by the global community as they live lives as prisoners, unable
to leave Iraq and unable to leave the tented, border communities
they've been exiled to since the start of the illegal war. In addition
to the Palestinians, there are the Iranian refugees of the MEK.
Welcomed into Iraq by Saddam Hussein decades ago, they've called Iraq
home for some time. The Iranian government doesn't care for them so
you know Nouri's going to jump when that government snaps. Until 2009,
the US was protecting the MEK who reside in Camp Ashraf. Nouri gave
the US government repeated assurances that he would respect the
refugees. Then, on July 28th, he launched an assault on Camp Ashraf.
The
situation came to a head July 28, when some 2,000 Iraqi forces stormed
Ashraf, and to add insult to injury, used American Humvees and weapons
to do so, while the Americans stood by and watched. The attack left 11
dead and 500 injured - and the Iraqis took 36 Ashraf residents as
hostages. I was one of them.
At
first, we were held outside Ashraf. During the first days of captivity
we were severely beaten, and went through physical and psychological
torture. Some of us who were run over by Humvees and hit by bullets
were in excruciating pain.
Then,
we were transferred to the local prison in the city of Khalis. From
there, they took us to an Iraqi military intelligence detention center
and finally to the prison at al-Muthana airfield.The goal was to break
us down. But we refused to give in.
In
protestof the raid and being taken hostage, we went to a hunger strike
and refused food for weeks, and we prayed for deliverance. We had no
idea what was happening or why we were being held. And we had no idea
of the support we were getting around the world.
The government
or 'government' out of Baghdad can't help the refugees or their own
people. They can't even pass an election law apparently. "If it
doesn't make a deal before this weekend, Iraq will run out of time to
organize an election before Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's term
expires," Renee Montagne observed on today's Morning Edition (NPR).
Renee Montagne: What, Quil, is at stake with the delay of this election law?
Quil
Lawrence: Well, as you say, the Iraqi prime minister and his
government's term run out on January 31st so the election commission
here has said they need 90 days to organize a legitimate poll and
Parliament is deadlocked on over a dozen or so complicated issues
regarding the election. They may vote on it today. If the elections are
delayed or if they are rushed, there's a risk that Iraq's government
could be deemed illegitimate and then a whole Pandora's Box of problems
can open up -- issues of legitimacy of the government, maybe even a
crisis like we've seen in Afghanistan. One big question is whether the
US has done enough to push it through, especially since their plan to
pull out 70,000 troops by August can't really start until the elections
are done.
Renee
Montagne: Well six years on the ground in Baghdad, hasn't the American
embassy there worked up a fair amount of what you might call
institutional knowledge regarding Iraqi politics?
Quil
Lawrence: Well the problem is it took the Obama administration four
months to get an ambassador confirmed and out here and that's taken
that ambassador another couple of months to assemble a new political
team. So he's got a good number of people with expertise in the region
-- a good number of Arabic speakers -- but they've never been to Iraq
before, many of them. So before they can have much influence, they need
to learn who the players are and build these personal relationships
with them and that could take months and years.
Renee Montagne: Although haven't American diplomats been, in a sense, pressing the flesh at the Parliament.
Quil
Lawrence: There's been as many as six of them at a time over at the
Parliament but it's sometimes curious who they're meeting with or not
meeting with on the Iraqi side. And like I said, they're just getting
up to speed so it's possible they could walk right past a very
important Iraqi politician in the halls of Parliament and not even know
him by face.
Okay, on the above. On pulling out
troops (which is the draw-down, not the "withdrawal" as so many outlets
keep insisting -- confusing the two in a way that even the White House
doesn't) and how it can't start until after the election?
Yesterday,
the KRG swore in their prime minister's cabinet. Yesterday. Elections
were held in July. In December 2005, Iraq last held the national
elections. Nouri comes along in April as the US-installed prime
minister (after the US rejected the Iraqis first choice). In May, he
announces his cabinet. Point? The counting of the votes, the verifying
and assorted other issues mean the elections are not 'over' in January
even if held then. As for a vote happening as early as today, CNN reports
that as well but notes, "The Kurdish bloc in the Iraqi parliament
intends to boycott the vote on a proposed election law if the oil-rich
province of Kirkuk is banned from voting in next year's national
elections, two Kurdish lawmakers say." Mu Xuequan (Xinhua) reports
that "the Iraqi parliamentary legal committee again failed to reach a
compromise over Kirkuk issue, and decided to delay Thursday's
parliament session to Sunday, an official in the parliament told
Xinhua." This, Xuequan reports, despite efforts today by US Ambassador
to Iraq Chris Hill and the top US commander in Iraq Gen Ray Odierno to
"urge" Iraqi politicians to pass a law.
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports an
armed attack on a Mosul police checkpoint which left 3 police officers
dead and an armed clash in Mosul in which one person was injured.
Today is the 2413 day of the Iraq War. Jake Armstrong (Pasadena Weekly) notes that and other facts -- and he notes Iraq facts each week, by the way, in his "The Count."
As
the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war announces its first public
hearings, serious concerns about censorship and secrecy are beginning
to arise. Some of those who are thinking about giving evidence are
wondering how free they will be to do so and whether the evidence they
present will ever see the light of day.
Tony
Blair's upcoming appearance at the Inquiry has taken centre stage, with
his actions on Iraq threatening his bid to become the first EU
president. While Blair won't face prosecution in this Inquiry for
launching the war, witnesses fear they might be prosecuted for talking
about it.
Other political
factors also play a role in the timing of the hearings, which will open
on 24 November. Sir John Chilcot said that the Inquiry intends to stop
these hearings during the general election campaign, expected in the
spring. It appears that the move is intended to limit the possibility
for highly charged appearances or new disclosures to influence voters.
This should not be a consideration for the Inquiry, which is supposedly
independent of government.
Chilcot
has also suggested that the Inquiry's report, which is not expected
until at least the end of next year, might not be published in full but
might include a secret annexe dealing with intelligence matters.
Meanwhile in Malaysia tomorrow and Saturday, Meena L. Ramadas (Sun Daily) reports,
a tribunal, the War Criminal Conference and Exhibition, will be held
which will hear from "a Sudanese reporter and a Briton who were
detained without trial in Guantanamo Bay" "in an effort to bring Iraq
war perpetrators to justice." Tun Mahathir bin Mohamad (Malaysia's
prime minister from 1981 to 2003) will be the keynote speaker and he
states, "International institutions and the courts established by the
United Nations charter have done nothing in dealing with war crimes.
Even the powerful nations like the United States and the United Kingdom
have done nothing."
War is big business.Tom Fowler (Houston Chronicle) reports
that with KBR getting less work in Iraq, it "reported a 14 percent drop
in third-quarter profit". KBR insists it did professional work. Few
not currently working for KBR who've seen their work in Iraq make the
same assertions. KBR's shoddy work may be responsible for multiple
deaths of US citizens -- death by shower. On the topic of death by
shower, Jeremy Scahill's "Pentagon Investigation Iraq Electrocution Death" (The Nation) reports:
The
Department of Defense has confirmed that the US Army Criminal
Investigation Command has launched a formal investigation into the electrocution death of 25-year-old Adam Hermanson,
a US Air Force veteran-turned private security contractor who died in a
shower at the compound of his employer, Triple Canopy, at Camp Olympia
inside Baghdad's Green Zone on September 1, 2009. The State
Department's Regional Security Office is also
investigating. The
DoD appears to be placing responsibility for the deadly incident
squarely on Triple Canopy. "As part of the terms and conditions of the
JCC-I/A contract, Triple Canopy is solely responsible for providing
billeting, showers, latrines and other life support activities to its
employees at Camp Olympia," according to Under Secretary of Defense
Ashton B. Carter. Hermanson is the nineteenth US soldier or contractor
to die from electrocution in Iraq since 2003.
KBR
denies having anything to do with the wiring which, if true, would mean
they weren't responsible for the above shock . . . just approximately
230 other ones.
The heartbeat went out of our house The rhythm went out of our romance But in life that happens and you just have to remember to breathe . . .
That's from Carly Simon's "Coming Around Again" as redone on her latest album, Never Been Gone. Today she was on NPR's Talk Of The Nation and
discussed a variety of topics including singing with Lucy Simon in the
Simon Sisters and recently on the phone. In terms of revisiting ten of
her classic songs for the new album, Carly observes, "Yes, it was a
very interesting kind of synergy between the old and the new." To hear her segment with host Neal Conan click here and note NPR online has paired it up with her 2008 concert which you can also stream. Click here to watch Carly on Monday's Good Morning America (ABC). Carly Simon appeared on NBC's Today Show yesterday and performed "You Belong To Me."
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