In a Stevie Nicks mood so that's her song "The Dealer."
Lucy Hughes-Hallett.
Since at least 2004, C.I. has noted her book CLEOPATRA: HISTORIES, DREAMS AND DISTORTIONS at THE COMMON ILLS.
I finally got around to reading the book and here's why you should too.
Media? Our media is subjective and focused on the trivial but past media was never as true as it presented itself either.
Hughes-Hallett uses Cleopatra to examine how we portray a 'basic story' -- something we supposedly all agreed on. She demonstrates that's not the case at all. Each group reinvents Cleopatra for their time.
It's a historical book but don't let that put you off if you're not big on history. It's a lively read. She works in, for example, the filming of Elizabeth Taylor's CLEOPATRA.
What you will take away from the book is just how uncertain 'facts' (interpretations) actually are.
This is a great book and a page turner. You will not be bored on any page of this book.
I would argue that you need to read this book and you need to read it because it explains how 'end of story' never really happens.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Friday, August 19, 2018.
So about the moon and her sisters
How dare he take them prisoner
Well, if she had flung out her heart against him
Then in all of her wisdom
Oh, well that was a mystery
That was when the dream took her prisoner
And she knew the dream was over
But the nightmare was not over
Somewhere in her ancient ways
She walks through the night
And then she tries to get through the day
Some will never know
Or share any kind of dream
Some might argue that it's finally over but as Stevie Nicks sings, "The nightmare is not over."
Because one thing has finally concluded, it does not mean that the next step is nearly complete. The recounts. Iraq completed the recounts and finally released the totals. If you've forgotten, the US was among those having a hissy fit over the results of the May 12th election. Also having fits? The sore losers.
May 12th, Iraq held parliamentary elections. May 12th. And the hissy fits and foot stamping and crying has been going on ever since from sore losers. For three months, forming a government had to be put off. And what were the new results?
MIDDLE EAST MONITOR notes:
The manual recount of votes cast in Iraq's May elections has been completed, with cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's alliance retaining all 54 of the seats it won.
With Sadr's Sairoon Alliance confirmed as winners of the legistlative election, a government can now be formed, almost three months after the polls.
Allegations of fraud prompted the recount, but the only change that came from it was an extra seat for the Conquest Alliance of pro-Iranian former paramilitary fighters, which remains in second place. There are 329 seats in Iraq's Council of Representatives.
AFP adds, "Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's bloc remains in third with just 42 seats."
So about the moon and her sisters
How dare he take them prisoner
Well, if she had flung out her heart against him
Then in all of her wisdom
Oh, well that was a mystery
That was when the dream took her prisoner
And she knew the dream was over
But the nightmare was not over
Somewhere in her ancient ways
She walks through the night
And then she tries to get through the day
Some will never know
Or share any kind of dream
Some might argue that it's finally over but as Stevie Nicks sings, "The nightmare is not over."
Because one thing has finally concluded, it does not mean that the next step is nearly complete. The recounts. Iraq completed the recounts and finally released the totals. If you've forgotten, the US was among those having a hissy fit over the results of the May 12th election. Also having fits? The sore losers.
May 12th, Iraq held parliamentary elections. May 12th. And the hissy fits and foot stamping and crying has been going on ever since from sore losers. For three months, forming a government had to be put off. And what were the new results?
MIDDLE EAST MONITOR notes:
The manual recount of votes cast in Iraq's May elections has been completed, with cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's alliance retaining all 54 of the seats it won.
With Sadr's Sairoon Alliance confirmed as winners of the legistlative election, a government can now be formed, almost three months after the polls.
Allegations of fraud prompted the recount, but the only change that came from it was an extra seat for the Conquest Alliance of pro-Iranian former paramilitary fighters, which remains in second place. There are 329 seats in Iraq's Council of Representatives.
AFP adds, "Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's bloc remains in third with just 42 seats."
Breaking: #Iraqi #IHEC announce #iraqielections results after the end of manual re-counting of forged boxes, not big change compared to preliminary results, the interesting thing Communist Party leader Raed Fahmi took a seat in new parliament
Three months wasted. No real change in the votes. Hayder al-Abadi remains a loser. A choice that the Iraqi people didn't not want imposed upon them again. Second place? That's a rejection. Third place for a sitting prime minister? That's "get your ass out of the country." It's a message the low turnout also sent.
SRSG Kubiš to #UNSC: The historic low voter turnout witnessed during the 12 May parliamentary elections (some 60% of eligible voters did not participate) had already delivered a strong message of dissatisfaction with the current state of management of public affairs.
Still Brett McGurk, the US special envoy, has spent time in Baghdad and Erbil trying to sell (impose) Hayder for a second term. He bribed and bought a second term for Nouri al-Maliki in 2010.
In the long ago past, before Brett's receding hairline or the increasing bald spot at the back of his head, On The Make McGurk could fly a little lower on the radar. These days, people just aren't interested in protecting his efforts.
So when his efforts to get the September elections in the KRG postponed come to light and he tries to distort reality, people push back.
You might not have said “postpone the elections” but you’re indirectly saying so. “Taking into circumstances in the Region and Iraq.” That means postpone. Kurdish democracy needs to be taken seriously and cannot be sacrificed for Iraq’s false processes/elections.
As the MSNBC hypocrites and their fan base continue to scream 'meddling by a foreign country!' over the 2016 elections, it's really amazing that the US government is yet again attempting to impose a prime minister on Iraq and dictate a host of other issues.
The Iraqi people rejected Nouri al-Maliki and that didn't matter to the US government. Barack Obama just dispatched Brett to help negotiate a legal contract (The Erbil Agreement) that went around the Iraqi people, nullified their votes and gave Nouri a second term.
The US government hopes it can do something similar today with the hated Hayder.
Why is he so despised?
For oh, so many reason.
Maha El Dahan and Raya Jalabi (REUTERS) reported at the end of last month:
Nineveh’s farmers say for
them time is running out. In interviews, a dozen farmers and grain
traders said government wheat production forecasts for 2018 were
hopelessly optimistic. Some farmers said they were considering leaving
the land. Others have joined local militias to get a regular wage.
“If
farmers are pushed to look for another way of life, all the choices
will basically be bad, whether it is smuggling, turning to extremism and
militancy or migration,” said Fadel al-Zubi, the Iraq representative of
the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), based in
Baghdad.
Drought could
be mitigated by irrigation but, critics say, Iraq’s political leaders
are too consumed by infighting to pay attention to the needs of farmers
in places like Nineveh. Zainab al-Taaey, a member of the outgoing
parliament’s Committee on Agriculture, Water and Resources, said the
Ministry of Water Resources was not doing enough to tackle water
shortages. The ministry responded that it was working to clean up the
water supply in Nineveh and dig wells to help farmers.And it's not just crops.
And it's not just crops and livestock that are suffering.
Right now, in Basra, the temperature is 115 degrees Fahrenheit.
And along with water shortages? There are the electricity shortages. The people are suffering. Government corruption and inaction has ensured that. There's also the issue of the lack of jobs. All of this and more has prompted ongoing protests which are now over a month old and at least 14 protesters have been killed since Hayder decided the way to address concerns was to turn the Iraqi military loose on the Iraqi people.
New protests witnessed in #Baghdad, other provinces across #Iraq iraq.trendolizer.com/2018/08/new-pr…
The needs of the people of Iraq are being ignored by their so-called representatives. And that's pretty much the story around the world. It's certainly the story in the United States where the American people's needs go unmet. There's no money for this or that program, politicians repeatedly insist. But, ever notice, there's always money for war. Dave Lindorff (COUNTERPUNCH) explains:
Democrats in the US Senate showed themselves to be just another war party this week, with 40 of their number out of 47 voting to pass a record $717-billion military budget for FY 2019. Only seven Democrats (Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, D-MA, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, D-OR, Kamala Harris, D-CA, Dick Durbin, D-IL, and Kirstin Gillibrand, D-NY) and independent Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with the Democratic Party, voted against the bill (Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who also caucuses with the Democrats, neutralized Sanders’ vote by voting for the measure).
For those who may have hoped that perhaps the growing number of self-described “democratic socialist” candidartes running for seats in Congress might call out this war-mongering by the Democratic Party establishment, there was just silence.
Sen. Sanders, to be sure, said he would vote against the bill, but he didn’t say he was doing that because he thought it was an outrageous amount of money to spend on war and preparations for war. In fact, he prefaced his opposition by saying, “I support a strong US military.” Rather, as he always does, Sanders decried the “waste, fraud and mismanagement” in the Pentagon budget, instead of the reality that virtually the entire budget, representing two-thirds of all federal discretionary spending, is a waste.
The sad truth is that when it comes to Democratic candidates running openly wearing a “democratic socialist” label, including Sanders, the standard-bearer for this newly popular identity, there is a sort of fraud being perpetrated on the public. Most such candidates, including Sanders, simply won’t talk about US imperialism, hegemonism and about the need to slash the grossly outsized US military budget, which surpasses the budgets of nations with the next ten largest militaries.
The following community sites -- plus Jody Watley, PACIFICA EVENING NEWS and DISSIDENT VOICE -- updated:
Diane Keaton
47 minutes ago
Thomas Friedman attacks the country
47 minutes ago
Robert Redford retires finally
8 hours ago
Thursday nights this fall
9 hours ago
India: The State of Independence
10 hours ago
The aging tart Alyssa Milano
14 hours ago
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Thursday, August 9, 2018. As the US government attempts to install
Hayder al-Abadi for a second term as prime minister, is Hayder's little
world falling apart?
XINHUA reports:
Four Iraqi soldiers were killed and five others injured in an overnight attack by Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq's central province of Salahudin, a provincial security source said on Thursday.
Fierce clashes erupted late on Wednesday night when IS militants attacked an army outpost in the rugged area of Mteibijah near Salahudin's eastern provincial border with neighboring Diyala province, Major Alaa al-Saadi, from Diyala Operations Command, told Xinhua.
Early in the morning, reinforcement troops arrived to the area and began an operation to hunt down the attackers who fled the scene under the dark, Saadi said.
So much for Hayder al-Abadi's defeat of ISIS. He thought he could run for re-election that (false) claim and that the Iraqi people would rush to vote for him. That is not how it turned out. He came in third. Third. The sitting prime minister came in third. He did not end corruption. He did not end ISIS. He did not do anything.
Elections were May 12th and Iraq has still not formed a government. Behind the scenes, the US, via Special Envoy Brett McGurk, is up to its usual tricks.
Elijah J Magnier offers:
On the US sanctions, yesterday some tried to claim Hayder was 'outraged.' No. A puppet doesn't show outrage. REUTERS summed up his meek response correctly.
He's hoping for a second term as prime minister that the US government is trying to get for him. The voters don't want him. He's not going to bite the hand that feeds him.
XINHUA reports:
Four Iraqi soldiers were killed and five others injured in an overnight attack by Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq's central province of Salahudin, a provincial security source said on Thursday.
Fierce clashes erupted late on Wednesday night when IS militants attacked an army outpost in the rugged area of Mteibijah near Salahudin's eastern provincial border with neighboring Diyala province, Major Alaa al-Saadi, from Diyala Operations Command, told Xinhua.
Early in the morning, reinforcement troops arrived to the area and began an operation to hunt down the attackers who fled the scene under the dark, Saadi said.
So much for Hayder al-Abadi's defeat of ISIS. He thought he could run for re-election that (false) claim and that the Iraqi people would rush to vote for him. That is not how it turned out. He came in third. Third. The sitting prime minister came in third. He did not end corruption. He did not end ISIS. He did not do anything.
Elections were May 12th and Iraq has still not formed a government. Behind the scenes, the US, via Special Envoy Brett McGurk, is up to its usual tricks.
Elijah J Magnier offers:
Iraq paid $100 million of Iranian
debts but is faced with the US sanctions on Iran. Iraq, under Abadi,
would like to abide by the US measures. Sources in the office of the
Prime Minister said “the US is trying to substitute the Iranian supply
of electricity by putting pressure on two main neighbouring countries
(Saudi Arabia and Kuwait) to support Iraq with its basic needs and
inviting them to offer their structural capabilities to Abadi offering
electricity in exchange of oil. The aim is to push Iran away and limit
its influence in Mesopotamia”.
Indeed, US Ambassadors based in
the Middle East and the US special presidential envoy to Iraq Brett
McGurk are doing their best to convince Gulf countries of the necessity
to support Haidar Abadi and Moqtada al-Sadr and promote these so they
can gain power in the new government selected, and stand against Iran
and its allies in Iraq. They are asking neighbouring countries (rather
than Iran) to provide Iraq with electricity so that the Iranian economy
does not benefit.
“US envoy Brett McGurk visited us
in Baghdad and asked us to support Moqtada and Abadi in one coalition
to re-elect the actual prime minister. We told him that Moqtada al-Sadr
is unpredictable and can’t be considered reliable. Your (US) policy in
Iraq has never been successful and your choices are not in our interest”
said the highest two political Sunni authorities in Iraq visited by the
US envoy. Ambassador McGurk, said the sources, apparently didn’t like
this unexpected answer: if Iraqi leaders don’t abide by the US’s”
recommendations”, he threatened reprisals.
“We told Ambassador Brett that if
he is threatening us he will receive no collaboration from our side and
will create a negative outcome for all”, said the sources. And the
Sunni are not the only ones refusing to support Moqtada and Abadi. The
US envoy visited Kurdistan and received similar answers from the Kurdish
leaders.
The US is also calling upon Shia
party leaders, especially Sayyed Ammar al-Hakim, who seems the most
docile of all those contacted, and shows himself very willing to
collaborate.
It seems the chances of Haidar
Abadi of renewing his mandate for another four years are becoming
slimmer by the minute. Iran and its allies, or perhaps the anti-US
parties in Iraq among Shia, Sunni and Kurds, are prevailing. There was a
time when both Iran and the US agreed on the same candidate, the actual
Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi. Today, the US has declared economic war
on Iran to cripple its capabilities, affecting the Iranian people and
its local currency. The embargo will seriously begin in August and will
intensify in November.
On the US sanctions, yesterday some tried to claim Hayder was 'outraged.' No. A puppet doesn't show outrage. REUTERS summed up his meek response correctly.
He's hoping for a second term as prime minister that the US government is trying to get for him. The voters don't want him. He's not going to bite the hand that feeds him.
And people try to tell me that #Iraq is not an American occupied land? #Pathetic and #Lame | Iraq | al-Abadi Disagrees With U.S. Sanctions Reimposed on Iran But Will Abide With c0z.me/l/V58xCEdyC0D via @purewilayah
Poor Hayder al-Abadi. He seemed such a shoe-in to the US government.
Despite coming in third in May’s election, Abadi was seen as having a good chance of keeping his seat. Now, other names are being tossed around including a member of his own party. A serious miscalculation by the US.
Having done nothing for years, he suddenly develops a whimsical interest in fighting corruption in July. Two for show moves did nothing to enhance his reputation, so this month, he tries another move.
BREAKING: Al-Hadath reporter: #Iraq|i PM Abadi dismisses number of managers at Ministry of Electricity
Mina Aldroubi (THE NATIONAL) reports:
Iraq is investigating over 5,000 cases of corruption, many of which involve or implicate senior government officials.
Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi
said late on Tuesday night that the Integrity Commission, a government
body tasked with fighting corruption, is currently investigating the
thousands of cases involving ministers and high ranking officials.
The premier referred several ministers to the commission to investigate allegations of fraud in government education contracts.
Lack of good governance and
transparency has been at the heart of the country's problems, with
international bodies ranking Iraq on lists of failing states.
Iraq is ranked 169 of 180 states
for corruption states in Transparency International’s corruption
perception index, with the lowest being the most corrupt.
Mr Al Abadi vowed that his
government will “use all available tools to hold to account all those
who engage in corrupt practices.”
After his term is over, after protests take to the streets in July, Hayder finally finds corruption? For four years he was prime minister and did nothing about corruption. Now, as he tries desperately to hold onto to his post, he's suddenly interested in corruption?
#Iraq: PM Haider al-Abadi refers three former ministers to the Commission of Integrity for 2011 bad school contracts. Nice. But here is the scandal: keep reading please...(1)
The three former ministers in question are not part of any strong political bloc now — making this act a classic cheap shot. (2)
If PM Abadi is really interested in going after bad school contracts & deliberate destruction of #Iraq’s K-12, he should go after his fellow-Dawa Party Mr. Khodail al-Khozaei. (3)
Also, does PM Abadi think Iraqis, particularly the protestors, are fools enough to fall for this appearance of being anti-corruption? Why not go after his own corrupt ministers, who failed to keep their contract with Iraqis in the past 4 years? (4)
PM Abadi personally protected his incompetent Minister of Electricity form a parliamentary questioning that would’ve exposed the horrors in the ministry & give Iraqis a chance of a better replacement. All subsequent MoE failure is equally on PM Abadi. (5)
PM Abadi is still sitting on dozens of bigger & more significant corruption cases, in services, foreign relations, security, etc., which are hanging fruits. He just lacks the courage & transparency to expose people with clout. (6)
Why not go after the current & previous Trade Ministers, who failed to provide good-faith supply food ration to Iraqis & expose the bad contracts, the poor quality items (sometimes are illegal to export even y #Iraq’s lax standards)? (7)
Why not go after the current Minister of Transportation, on whose watch Iraqi pilots engage in fist-fights 30,000ft in the sky, exposing lives to danger? Not to mention, of course the sorry state of ports, airports, etc., where corruption is rampant? (8)
Why not go after his government’s cumbersome bureaucracy, which runs Iraq in the same way it was run during the Ottoman Empire? It’s so bad that millions of $$$ are legally & illegally extorted from Iraqis going to govt offices: local & federal. (9)
Why not go after bad defense contracts, where $billions were squandered, while Iraqi security firces are still under-equipped, poorly trained & not well-led? (10)
Why not go after the outrageous grab of public land & state-owned property, which was taken by parties, influential politicians & other big fish: mostly illegally, or legalized by laughable means? (11)
Why not go after leading politicians & other big fish in Islamist parties who continue to destroy #Iraq per-college education to draft people to go to the schools they own? Or maybe he can go after their private universities which grant degrees, but no education. (12)
Why not go after people in all levels of govt positions with forged degrees or no degrees? Or maybe go after the MoHE&SR which approves sub-standard/no-standard degrees from universities owned by politicians or their friends? (13)
Why not go after families, close to him & his party, who filled top positions in all top govt agencies, mostly with no qualifications, pushing qualified Iraqis away? (14)
Why not go after the auction of $$ which is a legalized way for well-connected individuals & financiers to make profit at the expense of Iraqis? (15)
The Iraqi people didn't buy his for-show measures last month and it's doubtful they'll fall for it now. Jason Ditz (ANTIWAR.COM) observes, "But the longer the protests go, and the longer Abadi fails to offer reforms, the less palatable he’s going to end up being for the eventual coalition government. While there is no obvious consensus alternative to Abadi yet, coalition leaders are likely to find that the domestic costs of keeping Abadi in the post outweigh any foreign policy benefits."
Rumors swirl that Hayder's being shut out by his own political party.
If true, Dawaa [Maliki + Abadi wings] has reunited under one banner & made alliance with PMU lead candidate Hadi Al-Ameri to push Sadr out of the game. Maybe the latter's 40 recently published requirements for new PM didn't please many. #Iraq #IraqElections2018
#Iraq: Sudden Cracks in Abadi Alliance Bolster Ameri’s Chances of Becoming PM aawsat.com/node/1356636
Justin Raimondo (ANTIWAR.COM) has an important new column and we're going to close with this excerpt from it:
If you’re paying attention, you’ve probably already heard about the banning from Twitter of anti-interventionist author and former US diplomat Peter van Buren, a whistleblower whose book on the Iraq war exposed the lies at the heart of that devilish enterprise. When van Buren tweeted that his tenure at the State Department required him to lie to reporters, and that the paladins of the Fourth Estate were all too ready to passively record these lies as truth, the Twitter brouhaha took on seismic proportions. Several journalists were involved, attacking van Buren for showing them up, and one – Jonathan M. Katz, supposedly a New York Times writer – reported van Buren to the Twitter Authorities for allegedly threatening “violence.” Van Buren did no such thing: it was a mere pretext to get him banned. And ban him they did – for life. His account was scrubbed: years of informative tweets were erased.
There were two other casualties in this little Twitter war: our very own Scott Horton, who joined the fray and was suspended for using the “b-word,” and Daniel MacAdams, the director of the Ron Paul Institute, whose “crime” was retweeting Scott’s contribution to the discussion.
This occurred in tandem with the purge of Alex Jones from Facebook, YouTube, and Apple platforms – an obviously coordinated effort undertaken to make an example of the infamous performance artist masquerading as a conspiracy theorist.
All this wasn’t good enough for Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut), who demanded to know if the plan was to only take down “one web site.” No doubt he has a whole list of sites he’d like to take down. Even more ominously, it was revealed that a direct threat had been made to these companies by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia), who sent out a memo listing all the ways the government could crack down on Big Data if they refuse to go along with cleansing the internet of “divisive” material.
So much for the “libertarian” argument that these companies and the platforms they run are “private,” and not connected in any way to the governmental Leviathan. This is the kneejerk response of outlets like Reason magazine, but it’s simply not a valid position to take. The Communications Decency Act immunizes these companies against any torts that may arise from activities conducted on their platforms: they can’t be sued or prosecuted for defamation, libel, or indeed for any criminal activity that is generated by these Internet domains. That’s because they claim to be mere “carriers,” like the old phone company, and therefore they can’t be held responsible for conversations, postings, or other online materials that involve illegal or otherwise dubious actors.
On the other hand, content-providers like Fox News, CNN, and Antiwar.com are not so privileged: this site, for example, can be sued or held legally responsible by the authorities for any illegal activities supposedly generated on or by Antiwar.com.
The following community sites updated:
TINY HOUSE HUNTING
8 hours ago
Rawanda
9 hours ago
Let's dust the crime scene
9 hours ago
Sarah Jeong is a racist
9 hours ago
