Monday,
November 2, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, the US military
announces another death, no movement on passing an election law in
Iraq, KBR is costing US tax payer $193 as a result of their inability
to manage their workforce, the Pentagon isn't providing all the plans
for the draw-down to the GAO, and more.
8 US service members were announced dead in Iraq during the month of October. Today the US military announced
another death: "FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq -- A Multi-National
Corps -- Iraq Soldier died Nov. 2 of non-combat related injuries.
Release of the Soldier's identity is being with held pending
notification of the next of kin. The name of the deceased service
member will be announced through the U.S. Department of Defense Official Web site
[. . .] 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 currently under investigation." Maloy Moore (Los Angeles Times) reports
that the fallen was 20-year-old Lukas C. Hopper of Merced, California
who "is survived by his mother and father, Robin and Yancy Hopper, both
of Merced." The announcement brings to 4356 the number of US service members killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war. In other reported violence . . .
Violence
continues, actually increases, and Nouri al-Maliki maintains he is the
new strongman, the new Saddam to be trusted and should continue as
prime minister of Iraq. On Al Jazeera's latest Inside Iraq
(which began broadcasting Friday), the topic was Nouri al-Maliki and
the guests joining host Jasim Azzawi included head of Iraqi Nation
Party Mithal al-Alsui and US Dept Assistant Secretary of State for
Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs Michael Corbin.
Jasim
Azzawi: This murderous double explosion that happened in Iraq is quite
sophisticated. It has all the marks, perhaps, of foreign power and yet
it is domestically carried out. Today the Iraqi government arrested 60
security officers -- perhaps they were either in cahoot or negligent in
their duty how do you look at this double bombings?
Mithal
al-Alsui: Well, first of all, I have to say that when we talk about
total sections we talk about so complicated cases. This is one side but
of the other side we didn't feel that the government they do have any
kind of a platform or a vision how to deal with the terrorists or the
security in Iraq. More than that they just react and such news as you
are hearing, the government they are arresting or they are trying to
start an investigation of some officers. My opinion, this is just a
reaction, trying to cover the need of the new election in Iraq.
Jasim
Azzawi: Indeed you are right. Perhaps the arrest or the questioning of
the 60 officers might be a face saving formula. Mr. Corbin, today I was
struck by what the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said. He
said, "The US cannot wash its hand of the situation in Iraq. We expect
more engagement from the American forces. What does that mean in light
of the fact that SOFA stipulates American forces should go back to
their barracks by June 30th. Is the Iraqi government speaking with two
voices? al-Maliki says we don't want them and his foreign minister says
we need them back.
Michael
Corbin: First of all, I can't comment on what Hoshyar Zebari, the
Foreign Minister, said, Jasim. But what I can say first is that we
strongly condemn these horrific bombings conducted by people with no
respect for human life. The victims in this latest bombing were
children, were passerby on the street. We see no benefit that anyone
could claim by trying to claim victory by trying to conduct these kind
of attacks. We are in partnership with the government of Iraq. We are
working closely with the security forces, we're working closely with
Prime Minister Maliki to try and prevent this kind of attack. The
Iraqis have control of their cities since June 30. They have made
enormous strides. What you see here is terrorists who have tried every
means to cause havoc and destruction moving from first targeting
mosques and churches and minorities, then targeting innocent people in
market places to now targeting uh government buildings where normal
Iraqis work, where passersby are being targeted. We don't see any
strategy here by the insurgents, we see only bloody killing and we find
it despicable that anyone would seek to rush to claim credit for this
type of attack.
What a load of crap.
First off, if you'd done what Michael Corbin did in Syria, you might
shut your damn mouth and keep your head down real low. That's
(A). (B) He served under George W. Bush and now he wants to develop a
sense of righteous indignation? NOW? The bombings were part of the
ongoing Iraq War. The US government has attempted to label the Iraqis
taking part in this war as "terrorist" which is a bunch of crap, they
are people who feel they are defending their country. Micheal Corbin
-- of all people -- wants to lecture on innocents being killed.
The
US military killed innocents and the US government knew it was going to
happen because (a) they ordered it and (b) the whole damn world knew it
was going to happen. Which is how we get Elizabeth Piper (Reuters) reporting (March 2005)
on Jawdat Abd al-Kadhum whose 'crime' was driving and for that 'crime'
"he lost his leg to an American bullet." The US military likes to call
it "collateral damage." In March 2007, they were even bragging about new ammo which, they stated, would be helpful in "reducing collateral damage" in Iraq. There's the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad was attacked April 8, 2003 by . . . the US military
claiming the lives of journalists Taras Protsyuk and Jose Couso and
wounding three other journalists. On the same day -- on the same day
-- that the US military attacked the Baghdad bureau of Al Jazeera
killing journalist Tareq Ayyoub. Now we can go on and on -- as the
illegal war has -- but the point should have been made: Michael Corbin
needs to check that righteous indignation that he has oh-so recently
sprouted.
But spewing mock outrage allowed
him to avoid answering a direct question, didn't it? And wasn't that
the point? "I can't comment on what Hoshyar Zebari, the Foreign
Minister, said." Then why the hell are you on the show? For your
beauty? Don't make me laugh.
Jasim
Azzawi: But then again, Mr. Corbin, they are a symbol of the Iraqi
government and those terrorist attacks are meant to strike at the very
heart of the Iraqi symbol. We'll get to that point later on, but let me
get to Mithal. There are two theories, Mithal Alusi, the reasons behind
these suicide bombings. One is: To create chaos and embarrass the
Iraqi government. The other one is, which I would like you to comment
on, is that: It is meant to embarrass al-Maliki himself for abandoning
his erstwhile allies -- primarily the Iraqi National Alliance.
Mithal
al-Alsui: Well I must come back to the -- to the main point which I
really believe that even the United States of America with all of the
institutions they got, the terrorists, they succeed to attack America,
they succeed to attack many European states. But in general, what we
need here in Iraq, we need to start to build the Iraqi institution.
What we need here to start, to go out of the propaganda issues, what we
need here is to start to believe in our citizens and our nation and to
serve the people. We still action -- we still reaction in very naive
and simple ways and this is not the way to stop terrorists this is not
the way to stop --
Jasim
Azzawi: Are you saying the Iraqi government is failing to do the proper
things? Are you casting doubt on the -- on the whole structure of the
Iraqi government and its vision for the future?
Mithal
al-Alsui: For sure, Mr. Maliki government, it didn't succeed to provide
service. They didn't succeed to push the economy. They didn't succeed
to help in the oil industry. They didn't succeed to find any platform
or vision for the education, for the health sectors. They didn't
succeed in different ways so the security is part of the result of this
government and we are so sorry to hear it repeatedly from the American
side, "We are helping the Iraqi government and we are supporting the
Iraqi government." We are asking our American friends: You need to
support the Iraqi political process and the democratic process. We need
to support the Iraqi economy --
Jasim
Azzawi: Let me give a chance to Mr. Corbin to answer that. Go ahead,
your aid and your help is going in the wrong direction, that's what
he's saying.
Michael
Corbin: I agree with Mithal that we have to build institutions. I agree
that we have to help with education and health. But what we see is an
Iraqi government that is capable now of making decision. We're in
partnership with the Iraqi government. When the UN mandate ended at the
end of 2008, it was a significant step forward for Iraqi institutions.
Iraq now can deal with its neighbors. Iraq is in a position now where
we have a partnership on economic issues. Oil. We've had one bid round
for international oil companies to come into Iraq. We're preparing for
another. We see many elements where the Iraqi government and Iraqi
institutions such as the very Ministry of Justice which was targeted --
Despite Michael Corbin's inane mutterings, no 'progress' in Iraq. John Leland (New York Times) reported
in this morning's paper, "Meanwhile, Iraqi legislators again failed to
agree on laws governing the January elections, despite warnings that
further delay could prevent the vote from taking place on time.
Discussions in Parliament on Sunday instead focused on other
matters." To recap, prior to Barack Obama being elected US President,
Iraq 'intended' to hold national elections in December 2009. They then
pushed the elections back to January 2010 which Barack used to break
his campaign promise re: troop draw-down in Iraq (he called it
withdrawal and, in his speeches, rarely included "combat" which is a
meaningless qualifier anyway). All this year, they've anticipated the
elections being held in January 2010 and the deadline for passing
legislation was October 15th.
The day before that deadline, they decided to kick decisions back to
October 19th. And so it has gone, over and over. It is now November 2nd
and they have no election law.
Michele
Flournoy: Uh, let me start by saying, you know, the draw-down plan that
we have, is conditions based and it creates multiple decision points
for re-evaluating and, if necessary, changing our plans based on
developments on the ground. Although the government of Iraq's
self-imposed deadline of October 15th for passing the elections law has
passed, we judge that the COR [Council Of Representatives] still has
another week or two to come to some kind of an agreement on the
elections law before it will put the January date -- the early January
date -- in jeopardy in terms of the election commission's ability to
actually physically execute the, uh, the election. If a new law with
open lists is not passed, the fall back solution for them is to return
to the 2005 election law which is based on a closed list system. But
that could be used for upcoming elections, the COR would simply have to
vote on an election date. If that law is not passed in the next two
weeks, they will be looking at slipping the date to later in January
which would still be compliant with the [Iraqi] Constitution but would
be later than originally planned. In that instance, M-NF-I
[Multi-National Forces Iraq] would need to engage with the government
of Iraq to do some contingency planning on how to secure the elections
at a later date and that might well have-have implications.
Though she maintained Iraq could fall back on the 2005 election law, other bodies begged to differ. As Rod Nordland (New York Times) reported,
"Iraq's existing election law was declared unconstitutional by its
highest court, which said it needs to be replaced or amended."
Yesterday Gabriel Gatehouse (BBC News) reported,
"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." There was no passage and AFP reports
today that KRG President Massud Barzani and US Vice President Joe Biden
"pressed the need for a key election law to be passed". BBC News reports
the United Nations "had warned that it could not guarantee to endorse
the polls if the bill was not approved on Sunday" -- that was yesterday
and the bill was not approved. BBC points out that the 'sticky points'
are Kirkuk and the issue of open or closed lists. The latter will
determine whether voters vote for individual candidates and this is
something that many in Parliament are opposed to. Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor) reports
this afternoon that things remain at a standstill and quotes Iraqi MP
Hunain al-Qaddo stating, "If we don't manage to make any progress on
the electoral law, that will have a negative impact on the political
process and it will send a very bad signal to Iraq's enemies that the
political system isn't working. [. . .] I still have hopes but I think
if we don't manage to do something this week or next week, we really
have to look at postponing the election." Meanwhile Mohammed Jamjoom and Jormana Karadsheh (CNN) report
Kurdish MP Mahmoud Othman states that the US is pushing the "highest
levels of the Kurdish leadership" to go along with a plan for January
elections that would yet again set aside the issue of Kirkuk. In an
offensive statement issued last week, Chris Hill (US Ambassador to
Iraq) and Gen Ray Odierno (top US commander in Iraq) insisted that the
election law should be a 'one-time only' type deal and not apply to or
consider Article 140 of Iraq's Constitution. Article 140 is the one
that mandates the Kirkuk issue be resolved (via a referendum). That
was supposed to have taken place 2 years ago. It did not. Now let's
get back to offensive: In 2000, the US election was decided not by the
voters nor by the means outlined in the US Constitution. Instead the
US Supreme Court injected itself into the dispute and issued a
laughable ruling that was so perverted the Court insisted it was a
'one-time only' ruling and couldn't be cited as precedent in future
cases. That's what Hill and Odierno are now proposing. Regardless of
who gets or doesn't get Kirkuk, it's amazing how the US continues to
kick the can down the road over and over. This issue was supposed to
have been addressed no later than 2007. The US is again pushing for it
to be postponed. And the only time the KRG can get people to the table
on this issue is when they have the pressure of an upcoming election
which needs to be addressed.
Today
the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan met in DC
and heard from a number of witnesses including someone on the second
panel who mentioned Flournoy's October 21st testimony, Rear Adm Thomas
Traaen who declared, "As I'm sure you know, the testimony given by
Secretary [Michele] Flournoy, Mr. [Alan] Estevez, Vice Adm [James]
Winnefeld and, my boss, Lt Gen [Kathleen] Gainey on 21 October was well
received by the House Armed Services Committee. My testimony here will
draw heavily from their insightful remarks." Those remarks included
establishing that decisions on draw-down and going back in would be
made by events on the ground in Iraq. Yes, that is a clear
contradiction of the position Barack Obama presented as a candidate
when he was fond of saying the US military did everything they had been
tasked to do and did it well. And, yes, he was stealing from Hillary
Clinton back then and, yes, Hillary was attacked by CODESTINK and
others for those comments but they apparently sounded so much better
out of Barack's mouth thereby explaining the refusal to call him out.
So Barack's plan as outlined in that hearing was the same plan he
outlined to the New York Times, the one that left Michael
Gordon flabbergasted because Barack was saying that he was
'withdrawing' and at the same time saying he was going back in if
anything went wrong and playing definition games regarding the military
("trainers," etc.).
Also appearing on the
second panel was the GAO's William Solis who declared that the Pentagon
hasn't completed the plans for a draw-down. He stated that the Defense
Dept "has not fully defined or identified the contracted services it
will need to successfully complete the draw-down and support the
remaining US forces in Iraq." Solis explained that 128,700 US service
members were in Iraq as of the end of August "spread among 295 bases
throughout the country." Solis' opening, prepared remarks, can be found
[PDF format warning] here.
While the GAO was able to count the number of US service members in
Iraq, there was no count on the number of contractors leading Co-Chair
of the Commission, Michael Thibault to declare, "It is both peculiar
and troubling that eight years after the overthrow of the Taliban
regime in Afghanistan, and more than six years since the overthrow of
the Ba'athist regime in Iraq, we still don't know how many contractor
employees are working in the region. [. . .] How can contractors be
properly managed if we aren't sure how many there are, where they are
and what they are doing?"
Commissioner
Dov Zakheim: Yes, uh, first, Adm Traaen, I noticed on page three of
your testimony, uh, you said that there will be a proportionally larger
contractor presence. Now GAO has said that you haven't -- DoD, rather,
hasn't fully determined its need for contracted services so how are you
planning to oversee this? You're going to have more contractors, you
already have fewer CORs than you need right now, the proportions going
to go up. Could you walk me through your current plans and your
timetables and how you plan to address this issue?
Rear
Adm Thomas Traaen: Yes, sir. First of all, I think the proportionality
is prudent as we close forward operating bases and operating sites and
as the military either resets or re-postures in Afghanistan. The
proportionality issue is not surprising to me. Uh, I think that the
number of contractors -- in terms of measuring that to the plan -- is
moving down significantly faster than CENTCOM had originally planned
and so I think that getting out in front of it is the first part of the
plan. It's to make sure that we're removing capability where we don't
need it. Certainly, I think the CENTCOM plan is to be conditions based
and I think that there is a protocol that we would continue to move
forward in terms of making sure that there are some outliers -- for
example, the elections that are coming up in the January time frame,
counter-insurgency efforts that -- if we draw down too quickly -- we
could put that combatant commander in harms way of not being able to
produce his mission. I do believe that there is proper planning in
terms of the MNFI fusion cell that is tasked with fusing, synchronizing
and integrating this effort. And as the third point, I think having
MNFI and that fusion cell also combined with the Joint Logistics
Procurement Support Board that is the JCCIA and an MNFI established
board that will properly prioritize and coordinate those efforts as the
fourth point of light making sure that drawing down in accordance with
those priorities is the proper way to go, sir.
Commissioner
Dov Zakheim: Uhm, let me turn now to Mr. Thompson. Uhm, we know that
the target is a 32% contractor draw-down. I believe that's the number
that Adm Traaen has in his testimony. But looking at that
chart, I guess I'm thrown a little bit. Contractors have already
declined by seven -- nearly eighteen percent but not KBR. In fact, KBR
has declined by roughly half of that 18% number. In the previous
panel, and you may have been here when we discussed this, I noted that
if a service wasn't completely closed down, then any contractor --
well, not any -- some contractors, and I guess I should emphazise that,
not all would act this way. But some contractors would drag their feet
because service hasn't closed down, you don't pull the people out, you
keep charging. Could you explain to me why it is that KBR which has
been under so much scrutiny from GAO, from the IG, even from this
commission, is pulling it's people back at half the rate -- half the
rate -- of all other contractors.
Lee
Thompson: Number one, when we talk about consolidation, draw-down,
consolidation of bases, drawdown, those services that we provide under
LOGCAP [Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program] are still being
performed. There's a common mistake of rolling up all bases as a
single base. There's different sizes of bases. So you had the small
contingency operation locations and that which is a lower brigade size
which would be a contingency operation site. They move into our
services, the services we contracted for are still being provided.
There has been a reduction as that [chart] says, from when we started.
In fact, the number's around 50,000 today. So we've put a freeze on
them. They -- KBR -- cannot hire above a certain limit based on the
basis of the estimate that was negotiated this past August and
September. As we get the guidance from CI MNFI on what bases will
close, we'll descope and we'll start moving out contractors. We are
in fact doing those, we're looking at those critical skills. But
remember the major draw-down starts after the [Iraqi] elections. So we
are watching that and I'm depending upon our DCA[A -- Defense Contract
Audit Agency] folks that are doing the floor checks for us.
Commissioner
Dov Zakheim: So can you state with absolute certainty that KBR has
moved expiditiously and, for instance, has not moved people from one
location to another? Are you certain of that? Do you have that degree
of oversight and visibility? Given some of the things we heard earlier
from one of our Co-Chairman, Co-Chariman [Michael] Thibault about
issues arising with dining halls and certain things, are you absolutely
certain that KBR's getting people out as they should?
Lee
Thompson: I'm not going to sit here and say I'm absolutely certain but
I will tell you that we'll provide the oversight and look at those
places where we are closing to make sure that there's not excess
personnel there. And we will -- they have to get a blessing from us as
we move and we descope, we descope the property, if we close a base, we
look at the personnel where they're reallocating or realinging them to
so we're looking and we're scrutinizing that. And I depend on my folks
forward, the same two officers -- if you will -- that said they're
against or-or whatever Chairman Thibault had to say about what they
said overseas.
Commissioner
Dov Zakheim: Mr. Solis, could you comment on both of these points? One,
the adequacy of planning and, second, the degree of oversight of KBR
and the seeming discrephancy between KBR LOGCAP 3 and other draw-downs.
Willaim
Solis: Well I think in terms of the planning, I mentioned before in my
opening statement that there is -- there's a lot of things that are
going on with regards to the retrograde of equipment. One thing that we
haven't seen a whole lot of is planning, as I mentioned, for
determining the requirements, the oversight for the contracts that are
going to be coming onboard. And we still have a concern about that, we
still have seen exact plans. As I mentioned to you the GMASS [Global
Maintenance and Supply Services] contract in Kuwait ,which is a
major maintenance contract, which is necessary to move equipment out,
look at it, and get -- and then repair it and move it out to Kuwait or
whever it's going to go -- back to a unit, over to Afghanistan or
whatever -- they expect a major increase, as I mentioned, doubling the
size of their contract force to about 6,000 people. We have not seen
what kinds of plans are going to be put in place to increase the
contractor oversight there -- and that's not just there, I think it's
other contracts that we have seen as well. I think in terms of the
LOGCAP, we haven't really looked in terms of the numbers so I can't
really contra -- comment on that. But I think that these numbers are
going to flucuate, whether it's LOGCAP or some of these other major
contracts in terms as the draw-down proceeds and that's why
it's important to really understand what you're contract requirements
are going to be during this period.
The
first panel included April Stephenson who stated KBR's ineffective
managing of their workforce is costing tax payers "at least $193
million". Stevenson was testifying on behalf of the Defense Contract
Audit Agency. She explained KBR had not done the staff reductions and,
as a result and barring no major action on KBR's part, there staff
ratio in Iraq would, by August 2010, be 1 KBR employee for every 3.6 US
service members. That will probably be a detail noted by any who note
the hearing. But another detail -- the reason for the excerpt above --
is equally important: No plans.
The GAO -- like
the House Armed Services Committee -- is not seeing plans. Do they
exist? What's being discussed isn't 2011 or post-2011. What's being
discussed above is the draw-down that's supposedly going to begin
taking place as soon as Iraq holds national elections. Where are the
plans?
The inability to move foward on the
election bill (passing legislation) by the Iraqi government or
'government' is rightly being noted. What about the inability of the
Pentagon to provide plans for events that are supposed to be right
around the corner?
And what's up with
allowing KBR to drag it's feet there? Commission Charles Tiefer asked
if KBR had a written, detailed plan for their part in the
draw-down. Thompson declared, "I was over there a few weeks ago, a
month ago, and they provided me with a briefing. I think it was 25th,
26th of September." He continued, "Was there a written plan? We have
a normal, operational, 'how do I close a base' kind of plan that they
have signed up to early on." Who is providing oversight and how will
there be a draw-down starting supposedly in a few months if there are
no plans in writing? (No, a general "how do I close a base" is not a
written plan.) Commissioner Robert Henke attempted to get a "short,
succinct answer" on the KBR issue: "If the president announces on
February 27, 2009 the draw-down plan and we're on November 2nd, is it
possible that the contractor hasn't provided you any plan to adjust
staff accordingly?" What he received was a babble from Thompson that
contradicted and spun. Henke then attempted to get answers by going
bit by bit through a timeline and asking "How is that posssible?" In
Thompson's most honest response in the entire hearing he included "I
don't know" as part of his long-winded, run-the-clock-down response.
Friday's snapshot
had an error -- thank you to a Congressional staffer who informed me of
it. Duncan Hunter cited a project which was Task Force Odin not "Odum"
-- ODIN stands for Observe, Detect, Identify and Neutralize. It is not
and was not named after General William Odum as I wrongly stated. My
error and my apologies.
The
US military has finished erecting an advanced radar system in Iraq to
monitor the border with Iran, Syria and Turkey, a report
says. The radar
system will monitor aircraft and anti-air targets approaching from the
borders, several Arabic language news websites reported on Monday,
citing comments by unnamed Isareli sources. The
report posted on the Palestinian Maannews website said that the system
would transmit information to the Iraqi air force and some of its radar
would be connected to the control tower at the Baghdad International
Airport.
Which gives us a chance to relive
one of those 'great moments' in illegal war history. For those who've
forgotten or never knew about the US spying (the governments of England
and Australia joined in the spying as well) on the UN, refer to Martin
Bright, Ed Vulliamy and Peter Beaumont's "Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war" (Observer, March 2, 2003):
The
United States is conducting a secret 'dirty tricks' campaign against UN
Security Council delegations in New York as part of its battle to win
votes in favour of war against Iraq. Details
of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception
of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New
York, are revealed in a document leaked to The Observer. The
disclosures were made in a memorandum written by a top official at the
National Security Agency - the US body which intercepts communications
around the world - and circulated to both senior agents in his
organisation and to a friendly foreign intelligence agency asking for
its input. The
memo describes orders to staff at the agency, whose work is clouded in
secrecy, to step up its surveillance operations 'particularly directed
at... UN Security Council Members (minus US and GBR, of course)' to
provide up-to-the-minute intelligence for Bush officials on the voting
intentions of UN members regarding the issue of Iraq.
Meanwhile,
Iraqi legislators again failed to agree on laws governing the January
elections, despite warnings that further delay could prevent the vote
from taking place on time. Discussions in Parliament on Sunday instead
focused on other matters.
The above is from John Leland's "Scattering of Attacks in Iraq" in this morning's New York Times.
Let's recap. Prior to Barack Obama being elected US President, Iraq
'intended' to hold national elections in December 2009. They then
pushed the elections back to January 2010 which Barack used to break
his campaign promise re: troop draw-down in Iraq (he called it
withdrawal and, in his speeches, rarley included "combat" which is a
meaningless qualifier anyway). All this year, they've anticipated the
elections being held in January 2010 and the deadline for passing
legislation was October 15th.
The day before that deadline, they decided to kick decisions back to
October 19th. And so it has gone, over and over. It is now November 2nd
and they have no election law.
Michele
Flournoy: Uh, let me start by saying, you know, the draw-down plan that
we have, is conditions based and it creates multiple decision points
for re-evaluating and, if necessary, changing our plans based on
developments on the ground. Although the government of Iraq's
self-imposed deadline of October 15th for passing the elections law has
passed, we judge that the COR [Council Of Representatives] still has
another week or two to come to some kind of an agreement on the
elections law before it will put the January date -- the early January
date -- in jeopardy in terms of the election commission's ability to
actually physically execute the, uh, the election. If a new law with
open lists is not passed, the fall back solution for them is to return
to the 2005 election law which is based on a closed list system. But
that could be used for upcoming elections, the COR would simply have to
vote on an election date. If that law is not passed in the next two
weeks, they will be looking at slipping the date to later in January
which would still be compliant with the [Iraqi] Constitution but would
be later than originally planned. In that instance, M-NF-I
[Multi-National Forces Iraq] would need to engage with the government
of Iraq to do some contingency planning on how to secure the elections
at a later date and that might well have-have implications.
Though she maintained Iraq could fall back on the 2005 election law, other bodies begged to differ. As Rod Nordland (New York Times) reported,
"Iraq's existing election law was declared unconstitutional by its
highest court, which said it needs to be replaced or amended." AFP reports
today that KRG President Massud Barzani and US Vice President Joe Biden
"pressed the need for a keay election law to be passed". BBC News reports
the United Nations "had warned that it could not guarantee to endorse
the polls if the bill was not approved on Sunday" -- that was yesterday
and the bill was not approved. BBC points out that the 'sticky points'
are Kirkuk and the issue of open or closed lists. The latter will
determine whether voters vote for individual candidates and this is
something that many in Parliament are opposed to.
Despite the
fact that many members of Parliament are opposed to open lists, some
continue to present the only road block as being Kirkuk. Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace (no, Virginia, they're not really
about Peace) provides Marina Ottoway tells Rebecca Santana (AP),
"The problem is that we are getting to a crisis. They have been trying
for over a year to reach a compromise on Kirkuk." Over a year. That's a
mild way of pulling it. Kirkuk was supposed to have been resolved by
2007 and hasn't been. The 2005 Iraqi Constitution mandates that the
issue be resolved. Jason Ditz (Antiwar.com) observes,
"The deadlines for Iraq's January elections appear to continue to come
and go with little movement from the nation's parliament."
The
two wars the United States carried out years ago in its so-called
preemptive offensive and its not-so-successful post-war policies have
created a "volatile triangle" on the world map containing Iraq,
Afghanistan and Pakistan, analysts say. Iraq,
Afghanistan and its neighbor Pakistan, which are being bedeviled by
daily bombing attacks and conflicts, now substantially form a "volatile
triangle," Fu Mengzi, director of the Institute of American Studies
under the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, told
Xinhua. Yang Yi, a professor
and director of the strategic studies institute under the Chinese
People's Liberation Army National Defense University, also agrees to
the "triangle" concept.
Is the US spying on Iraq's
neighbors? You know it. (The US government spied on members of the UN,
remember.) But do they have a new system built for just that purpose?
Iran's Press TV reports:
The
US military has finished erecting an advanced radar system in Iraq to
monitor the border with Iran, Syria and Turkey, a report says. The
radar system will monitor aircraft and anti-air targets approaching
from the borders, several Arabic language news websites reported on
Monday, citing comments by unnamed Isareli sources. The
report posted on the Palestinian Maannews website said that the system
would transmit information to the Iraqi air force and some of its radar
would be connected to the control tower at the Baghdad International
Airport.
For those who've forgotten or never knew about
the US spying (the governments of England and Australia joined in the
spying as well) on the UN, refer to Martin Bright, Ed Vulliamy and
Peter Beaumont's "Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war" (Observer, March 2, 2003):
The
United States is conducting a secret 'dirty tricks' campaign against UN
Security Council delegations in New York as part of its battle to win
votes in favour of war against Iraq. Details
of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception
of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New
York, are revealed in a document leaked to The Observer. The
disclosures were made in a memorandum written by a top official at the
National Security Agency - the US body which intercepts communications
around the world - and circulated to both senior agents in his
organisation and to a friendly foreign intelligence agency asking for
its input. The memo
describes orders to staff at the agency, whose work is clouded in
secrecy, to step up its surveillance operations 'particularly directed
at... UN Security Council Members (minus US and GBR, of course)' to
provide up-to-the-minute intelligence for Bush officials on the voting
intentions of UN members regarding the issue of Iraq.
Even
though Barack Obama, the candidate, pledged to end "the practice of
shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off
countries," his FBI has been rendering kidnap victims to the U.S. The
practice is still kidnapping, however; and it's still illegal. Unlucky
victim No. 1 was Raymond Azar, 45, flown from Afghanistan to
Alexandria, Va., not to a foreign country. The construction manager for
Sima International, a Lebanese outfit that did work for the U.S.
military, Azar said he was tortured by his abductors. He might just as
well have been flow to Egypt under the Bushies. Interestingly,
Azar was never charged as a dangerous terrorist, only with conspiracy
to commit bribery for wiring $106,000 in kickbacks to a U.S. employee’s
bank account in hopes of getting $13 million in unpaid bills okayed. For
this comparatively trivial white collar crime, Azar’s lawyers said when
arrested he was stripped naked, hooded, and subjected to a body cavity
search. What’s more, according to an article by Scott Horton, writing
on "Common Dreams," Azar claims a federal agent showed Azar a photo of
his wife and four children and told him to confess or else he might
"never see them again." Azar confessed, and pled guilty to conspiracy
to commit bribery.
In the small print of the Iraq inquiry's
announcement that its public hearings will start on 24 November is the
news that any pre-election revelations will be decidedly limited.
First, the hearings will last as little as two months before taking a
lengthy break for a possible general election in March. More seriously,
but with little apparent complaint from the inquiry, the government has
backtracked on Gordon Brown's promise of openness. Sir
John Chilcot revealed earlier this month that the inquiry's public
hearings will halt during a general election campaign, presumably to
avoid political sensitivities. The inquiry now says that hearings will
run until 17 December, then from the week beginning 4 January until
"early February". Does Chilcot know something we don't -- or is he just
being very, very careful? The
inquiry has published three protocols for its hearings and the handling
of information, and is keen to stress the expectation that evidence
will be given in public. But it has left it to the Cabinet Office to
publish the protocol that governs the passing of information from the government to the inquiry and the subsequent publication of such information. On
both fronts, the contrast between what Brown promised in June is stark.
Astonishingly, the contradictions are apparent in the protocol itself.
It quotes Brown's letter to Chilcot in June: "As privy counsellors, you
will have unhindered access to government documents." That's a pretty
uncompromising commitment to full disclosure. But the new protocol says
that no information shall be withheld "with the exception of
information HMG holds which is covered by an existing duty of
confidentiality HMG has to a third party ..."
The above is from Chris Ames' "Sparing Tony Blair's blushes over Iraq" (Guardian).
In England, they were lied into war as well and Tony Blair (and Gordon
Brown) are very lucky that Bully Boy Bush was such a blustering
attention seeker or they could be seen as the 'leader' of the illegal
war (instead, Tony Blair is seen by the world as Bush's "poodle"). John
Howard, then-prime minsiter of Australia, was also one of the sellers
of the illegal war and, while still in power, he repeatedly stamped his
feet in public feeling he was not getting his proper due. You can view
that idiot (Howard) spinning for the BBC last week by clicking here.
Chris Ames also runs the Iraq Dossier website and from the hompage of the site:
The dossier was presented to the UK Parliament on 24 September 2002 by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair, who falsely claimed that it represented the disclosure of JIC assessments. Although it has never been admitted, it was always intended to be the centrepiece of an "information campaign" to make the case for war - "to prepare public opinion in the UK that it is necessary to take military action against Saddam Hussein". As the British Ambassador to the US had told the Bush administration earlier that year, the UK "backed regime change but the plan had to be clever". The plan
was to insist on the return of UN Inspectors to look for weapons of
mass destruction (WMD): "A refusal to admit UN inspectors, or their
admission and subsequent likely frustration, which resulted in an
appropriate finding by the Security Council could provide the
justification for military action."
The inspectors were
readmitted and suffered some minor obstruction but failed to find any
chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or any evidence that they were
being produced. In spite of this and even without "an appropriate
finding by the Security Council", the US and UK governments insisted on
invading Iraq to "disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction". It is inconceivable that Britain would have gone to war on the basis that Iraq "probably" had WMD.
But
when evidence of WMD was still not found, questions began to be asked
in the UK about the government's claims that its intelligence had "established beyond doubt" that Iraq possessed them. A BBC reporter quoted
an anonymous government source as revealing that the dossier had been
"sexed-up" by the government's spin doctors and in particular that an
already notorious claim that Iraq could launch WMD "within 45 minutes" had been inserted by them, in spite of the doubts of the intelligence community.
Meanwhile Jia-Rui Chong (Los Angeles Times) reports
on Iraq War veteran Peter Sinclair who returned "from war with a broken
body, suffering from back injuries and painful memories. Doctors,
nurses, psychologists and physical therapists treated him, but few were
able to help." Jia-Rui Chong details Peter Sinclair's efforts to get
help and treatment and concerns on the part of some that the VA was
less concerned with treating him and more concerned with "masking his
problems." From the article:
On
the night of June 11, 2008, after relaxing with Tracy in his Jacuzzi
with a glass of wine, Pete went to bed and never woke up. He was 40.
Toxicology tests determined the cause of death to be "acute morphine
intoxication," the manner of death accidental. Jen
was furious. She thought he was off morphine. She discovered that weeks
before his death, he had slipped in the shower and wrenched his back
again. The pain became
unmanageable. A VA doctor on June 9 had prescribed 30 milligrams of
morphine to be taken three times a day, and if the pain wasn't
relieved, the dosage could be increased to 60 milligrams. Pete was also
given a prescription for 30 milligrams of codeine to be taken as needed. Jen and Barbara wondered why Pete hadn't told them, but he was expert at hiding his pain. Barbara
remembered the lunch she had with her son on Mother's Day and the
family dinner when he had brought Tracy. He'd seemed jovial, more like
his old self. Tracy played
back the night he died. His heart had been racing when they went to
sleep, and when she asked him about it he said he was fine. After
consulting a toxicologist and medical textbooks, Jen came to the
conclusion that the VA had acted irresponsibly in prescribing the
latest dosage of morphine. She believed that because Pete had been off
the drug for at least a month, he would be especially sensitive to its
effect and should have received a lower dosage. She also knew from
medical records that Pete was frequently confused over how much
medication he was supposed to take. "You might as well have given him a gun," she said.
Violence in Iraq has been on the rise since February (and hadn't disappeared prior to that). Katie Baker (Newsweek) reports
that PFC Energy is predicting/warning that new targets may be
"international oil companies." Wherever the violence is aimed, people
are wounded and killed. Ernesto Londono (Washington Post) reported yesterday on the overworked Baghdad morgue:
The
central Baghdad morgue was built in the 1930s by the British. After the
2003 U.S.-led invasion, it was run, until relatively recently, by
Shiite militias. During 2006 and 2007, the peak years of sectarian
fighting between Sunnis and Shiites, scores of bodies were delivered
there daily. Many had been decapitated. Others were burned or tortured
beyond recognition. The intensity of sectarian hatred at the time made
it nearly impossible for Sunni families to visit the morgue. Thousands
were buried in unmarked graves, and morgue officials could do little
other than photograph corpses and try to keep track of burial places. "In 2006, we received 100, 150 bodies each day," Qasim said as he made his way from the mortuary to the DNA lab. The
crush of cases at the time kept the morgue's refrigerators packed.
Forensic experts were able to perform only perfunctory autopsies. Qasim
developed an ulcer. "We're dealing with people losing loved ones," he said. "You must not deal with these cases in an ordinary way."
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
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