Monday, August 23, 2021

Jimmy Dore, Alan MacLeod

Starting with Jimmy Dore.



I'm glad Jimmy did that send up.  What Barack did was disgusting and would have been at any time.  But in the midst of a pandemic?  When hospitals are filled with COVID patients?  Rules for thee but not for me.


I haven't highlighted WSWS in a while and, if you don't understand, read my mom's "The embarrassing Barack and the embarrassing WSWS."  I agree with her 100%.  The birthday was bad for public policy and it was a message of greed and capitalism.  But WSWS took a pass on it.  How disgusting.  They refused to cover it because they always weak and cowardly when it comes to calling out Barack Obama.  And yet they have the nerve to  call out JACOBIN?  Clean your own house, WSWS, clean your own house.


Alan MacLeod (MINT PRESS NEWS) reports:


You have likely not heard of them, but Creative Associates International (CAI) is one of the largest and most powerful non-governmental organizations operating anywhere in the world. A pillar of soft U.S. power, the group has been an architect in privatizing the Iraqi education system, designed messenger apps meant to overthrow the government of Cuba, served as a front group for the infamous Blackwater mercenary force (now rebranded as Academi), and liaised with Contra death squads in Nicaragua. As such, it has functioned as “both as an instrument of foreign policy and as a manifestation of a broader imperial project,” in the words of Professor Kenneth Saltman of the University of Illinois, Chicago.

A G.O. posing as an N.G.O.

An ordinary person arriving at Creative Associates’ website — festooned as it is with images of smiling African children, Asian kids being taught how to read and happy Latino farmers harvesting their fields — would likely conclude that the outfit is some sort of progressive non-profit charity tirelessly working to empower vulnerable people around the world.

Yet subjecting the organization to a little more scrutiny, some red flags immediately begin to emerge. First is the indecipherable word-salad it uses when describing what it actually is in its “Us At A Glance” section. “Creative Associates International provides outstanding, on-the-ground development services and forges partnerships to deliver sustainable solutions to global challenges,” it says, as if this is any sort of answer to the question “Who are you?” Continuing, it boasts that “Creative is recognized for its ability to quickly adapt and excel in conflict and post-conflict environments” (emphasis added) — a statement that sounds worryingly like one private mercenary armies use to advertise their services.

In today’s world, the United States government does not use only overtly violent methods (wars, invasions, coups, training of domestic death squads, etc.) to achieve regime change; it also uses so-called “soft power” techniques — the training of leaders, education, economic coercion, etc. — to maintain a hegemonic grip on the world. And Creative Associates International is a crucial part of that system.

The company was founded in 1979 by M. Charito Kruvant, the scion of a wealthy landowning Bolivian family who fled the country after the progressive revolution there in 1952. Today, it has grown into a massive, for-profit behemoth working in at least 85 countries with a full-time staff of around a thousand (and countless more contractors). And while it is technically a private institution, the vast majority of its funding comes directly from Washington. Over the past 20 years, the government has given Creative Associates $1,998,138,515 in contracts, according to Tracey Eaton, a journalist who has studied the company’s activities in Cuba. Of this, USAID has supplied over $1.8 billion.


War makes big bucks for a lot of people.


Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"



 Monday, August 23, 2021.  More problems emerge in Iraq and, try not to notice, all are connected to the Turkish government's actions.


Today, the Norwegian Refugee Council issued the folowing:

       More than 12 million people in Syria and Iraq are losing access to water, food and electricity and urgent action is needed to combat a severe water crisis, 13 aid groups working in the region warn today.

Across the region, rising temperatures, record low levels of rainfall, and drought are depriving people of drinking and agricultural water. It is also disrupting electricity as dams run out of water, which in turn impacts the operations of essential infrastructure including health facilities. Higher temperatures caused by climate change increase the risks and severity of droughts.

More than five million people in Syria directly depend on the river. In Iraq, the loss of access to water from the river, and drought, threaten at least seven million people.  Some 400 square kilometres of agricultural land risk total drought. Two dams in northern Syria, serving three million people with electricity, face imminent closure. Communities in Hasakah, Aleppo, Raqqa and Deir ez Zour, including displaced people in camps, have witnessed a rise in outbreaks of water borne-diseases such as diarrhoea, since the reduction in water.

In Iraq, large swathes of farmland, fisheries, power production and drinking water sources have been depleted of water. In the Ninewa governorate, wheat production is expected to go down by 70 per cent because of the drought, while in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq production is expected to decrease by half. Some families in Anbar who have no access to river water are spending up to USD80 a month on water.

“The total collapse of water and food production for millions of Syrians and Iraqis is imminent,” said Carsten Hansen, Regional Director for the Norwegian Refugee Council. “With hundreds of thousands of Iraqis still displaced and many more still fleeing for their lives in Syria, the unfolding water crisis will soon become an unprecedented catastrophe pushing more into displacement.”

CARE’s Regional Director in the Middle East and North Africa, Nirvana Shawky, said: “The situation demands that authorities in the region and donor governments act swiftly to save lives in this latest crisis, that comes on top of conflict, COVID-19 and severe economic decline. In the longer term, beyond emergency food and water, they need to invest in sustainable solutions to the water crisis.”

The Danish Refugee Council’s Middle East Regional Director Gerry Garvey said: “This water crisis is bound to get worse. It is likely to increase conflict in an already destabilized region. There is no time to waste. We must find sustainable solutions that would guarantee water and food today and for future generations.”

In Al Sebat, 30 km away from Hasakah, residents have seen scores of villagers leaving to other areas, forced out by the drought.

“This year we have witnessed a wave of intense drought and as a result our lands did not produce any crops and we don’t have any sources of drinkable water either for us or for our animals,” said Abdallah, a tribal leader from Al Sebat. “It is infuriating to think that the current conditions will force us to leave the rural areas and that our lands will be left as ruins.”

Many farmers have spent their savings and gone into debt to keep their animals alive.

“Because of the drought I was unable to harvest any wheat,” said Hamid Ali from Baaj, one of the worst affected districts in Ninewa, Iraq. “Now I am overwhelmed with debt.”

Other aid groups joining today’s warning and call for emergency and flexible funding are: ACTED, Action Against Hunger, Mercy Corps, People in Need, Première Urgence Internationale, War Child, Help, Women Rehabilitation Organisation, VIYAN Organization, Al Rakeezeh Foundation for Relief and Development.

Notes for editors:

  • Photos and B-roll can be downloaded for free use and distribution.
  • Syria is currently facing the worst drought in seventy years while Iraq is facing the second driest season in 40 years due to record low rainfall according to the UN. 
  • In Turkey, major cities have suffered severe water shortages as the country’s largest reservoirs quickly became depleted at the end of last year.



The 'success' that is Iraq -- according to War Criminal Paul L. Bremer.


Post-government life as a ski bum apparently didn't work out for Paul so he returned with a column for THE WALL STREET JOURNAL that was filled with lies -- see "A War Criminal Returns."


The media's in a panic that the American people might catch on to reality so they're working overtime to hold on to US control of Iraq.  They're in panic mode as they cringe and gasp and cry about what's going on in Afghanistan -- refusing to tell you that this was always the way US military in Afghanistan was going to end.


Fearful Americans might catch on to reality, Paul shows up to insist that Iraq is a success.   And to prove that THE WALL STREET JOURNAL has no fact checkers and will print any garbage submitted to them.


On the water issue, Dilan Sirwan (RUDAW) reports:


An Iraqi delegation will visit Turkey early next month as water levels in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers have decreased by more than 50 percent, spokesperson for Iraq’s water ministry told state media on Sunday.

“This year is a water scarce one and there is a clear decrease in water levels in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, to a point that their water levels have dropped by more than 50 percent. That is in addition to a major drop in the water levels at Dukan, Darbandikhan, Sirwan, and Diyala dams,” spokesperson Ali Radhi told state media.

The Tigris and Euphrates both have their sources in Turkey and pass through Syria before joining together in Iraq and spilling into the Persian Gulf. They are important water resources for all three nations. 

“Many meetings have been held with the Turkish and Syrian sides on the water issue, and there is an expected visit of an Iraqi delegation to Turkey at the beginning of next month in order to continue talks on Iraq’s share of water and the situation of the Tigris and Euphrates,” said Radhi. 

He said Iraq is also preparing for a tripartite meeting with Turkey and Syria to discuss “the issue of sharing damage in the water scarcity period, completing the discussion on the joint protocol between Iraq and Turkey, and establishing a research team in Iraq” to study the issue.


Staying with that wonderful Turkish government, they're still killing civilians.  Yesterday, AFP reported, "Two civilians were killed on Sunday in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region by a Turkish army bombardment as forces battled the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels, local officials said."  Dilan Sirwan (RUDAW) notes, "A reported seven other civilians have been killed, several injured, and 20 villages emptied this year. "   Kamaran Osman Tweets:


Two Iraqi civilians, Ahmed Shakir and Yousif Aamir, have been killed in a Turkish bombardment in Iraqi Kurdistan. After two days of bombing by Turkish military forces, the bodies of the two men from Mosul were found in the Batifa sub-district. #TwitterKurds #Turkey
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1:09 PM · Aug 22, 2021



The crime 26-year-old Yousif Ammar and 40-year-old Ahmed Shukir carried out?  Yousif Musa (RUDAW) explains that "they visited the village of Bankie."


Well then, off with their heads, as the Queen of Hearts would say in ALICE IN WONDERLAND, right?


This is a genocide and it should have been stopped long ago.

Musa also notes, "A parliamentary report issued last year concluded that at least 504 villages have been emptied across the Kurdistan Region since 1992, and hundreds of people have been killed. In Duhok alone, 366 villages have been abandoned since 1998."


Again, this is a genocide.


 Last Tuesday, they bombed a clinic and killed civilians.  RUDAW informs that War criminal Recep Tayyip Erdogan, despot of Turkey, insisted yesterday that they did not bomb a clinic.  That's right and Erdogan's thugs didn't attack Americans on US soil either, right?  Oh, wrong.

 

Recep lies about attacking the clinic because that attack met the legal definition of a War Crime.  He knows that.  And he thinks if he rejects the term, cowed journalists won't use it and will continue to act as though it was an 'oopsie!' and not an actual War Crime that he can be -- and should be -- prosecuted for.





The following sites updated:


Here's C.I.'s "

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