Saturday, November 25, 2023

The Wallflowers, Anne Hathaway, Doo-Doo DeSantis


That's the Wallflowers with "Three Marlenas."  I love The Wallflowers.  Had them on my mind today.


Easy day.  We watched GET SMART on HBO right now. It's weird to see The Rock with hair.  Anne Hathaway is great in it.  I wish that they had made a sequel.  I'm not a big Steve Carrell film but I did think he was really good in that film.  I like Anne Hathaway and this is one of my favorite films that she's in.


Here are my ten favorite Hathaway films -- in no particular order:


1) GET SMART

2) THE HEAT

3) BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN 

4) THE WITCHES

5) INTERSTELLAR 

6) PASSENGERS

7) RACHEL GETTING MARRIED

8) THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

9) VALENTINE'S DAY

10) OCEAN'S 8


Ok, news.  Doo-Doo Ron Ron DeSantis got more bad news today.  THRIFTY GUARDIAN reports:


A courtroom settlement over withheld COVID-19 data has dealt a severe blow to Ron DeSantis’s campaign image as a freedom warrior who kept Florida open during the deadliest days of the pandemic.

It’s a critical juncture for the Florida governor, whose bid for the Republican presidential nomination has been grappling with financial woes and plummeting poll numbers in early primary states. 

To regain the support of hardline Republicans, DeSantis has positioned himself as a champion of “medical freedom” and openly defied federal health guidance by discouraging Floridians from receiving new COVID-19 booster shots.

This settlement concludes a two-year legal battle initiated in June 2021, when the Florida health department abruptly ceased daily updates of COVID cases, deaths, and vaccinations on its online dashboard. 

The legal standoff involved a coalition of Democrats, open government advocates, and media outlets.

[. . .]

“Twenty-three thousand Floridians died during the Delta surge, and not only did the DeSantis administration restrict information on Covid during that time, they repeatedly downplayed the severity of the outbreak to fit their political narrative and help DeSantis run for president.

That decision cost lives,” stated Carlos Guillermo Smith, a Democratic former state congressman who initiated the lawsuit.


Here's another THRIFTY GUARDIAN report on Doo-Doo:

Recently, one Florida school district removed the Bible briefly over explicit content allegations. Here’s the full story.

This move came as a response to Florida’s HB 1069, an extension of the controversial “Don’t Say Gay” law lead by Governor DeSantis. 


That's what happens when you put hateful morons like Doo-Doo DeSantis in charge.  Let it be a lesson.

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


Friday, November 24, 2023.  The pause passed off as a 'cease-fire' has already seen Israeli forces kill two Palestinians as the assault on Gaza continues, US President Joe Biden is upsetting the government of Iraq with his ordered assault on their military forces, and much more.

Scott Newman, Daniel Estrin and Brian Mann (NPR) report, "A four-day [pause] between Israel and Hamas in Gaza went into effect early Friday. The temporary truce sets the stage for the first exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners in the nearly seven-week conflict."  The pause has not stopped the violence.  CBS NEWS reports, "CBS News producer Marwan al-Ghoul saw Israeli forces open fire Friday on Palestinians who decided to risk heading back to their homes in northern Gaza despite leaflets dropped by the IDF warning them against it. Al-Ghoul said thousands of displaced civilians left the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis to head back north, but when they reached a crossover point in central Gaza, they encountered a line of Israeli tanks and were fired on by Israeli forces."  And, no, these weren't 'warning' shots.  AFP adds, "Israeli troops fatally shot two Palestinians and wounded 11 others as they headed toward the main combat zone in northern Gaza despite warnings by the Israeli army to stay put.  An Associated Press journalist saw the two bodies and the wounded as they arrived at a hospital in the town of Deir al-Balah in the southern half of Gaza."  CNN notes, " A journalist told CNN that Israeli tanks were seen and gunfire could be heard on Salah Al-Din street."

Cease-fire?  It was never a cease-fire, it is a pause.  And if that's not clear, the two Palestinians shot dead by Israeli forces this morning prove there has been no cease-fire.

 
Yes, the assault on Gaza continues.

 CNN explains, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."  NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza."  The slaughter continues.  It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service.  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide."  ABC NEWS notes, "In the neighboring Gaza Strip, at least 14,854 people have been killed and 36,000 have been injured, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry."  In addition to the dead and the injured, there are the missing.  AP notes, "About 4,000 people are reported missing."  And the area itself?  Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells."


 

The rhetoric of ‘humanitarian pause’ is illustrative of a media disinformation campaign designed to affirm certain attitudes and stigmatize others. For instance, the Israeli pledge to resume the war after this brief interlude of relative calm rarely includes critical comments on the sinister nature of this commitment to reengage Hamas by recourse to genocidal warfare. In contrast, when released hostages report humane treatment by their captors this is either belittled or altogether ignored, whereas if released Palestinian prisoners were to make analogous comments about how they enjoyed Israeli prisons their words would be highlighted. We can only imagine the harsh response of Western media outlets to Russia’s participation in a comparable pause in the Ukraine War, dismissing any humanitarian pretensions by Moscow as cynical state propaganda.

Unless properly addressed the whole provenance of ‘humanitarian pause’ is misunderstood. Remember that Israel’s political leaders went ahead with such an alternative only when it was made clear that Israel had no intention of converting the pause into a longer-range ceasefire, to be followed by ‘day after’ negotiations as to the viability of continuing occupation and a new agreement as to governance arrangements for Hamas. Rather than sustaining their nationalist cult by dismissing Hamas as ‘terrorists’ the security of Israel might be enhanced by treating Hamas as a legitimate political entity, which although guilty of violations of international law, is far less guilty than Israel if a fair evaluation is made, and some account is taken of Hamas’ long-term ceasefire diplomacy is considered as a preferable security alternative.

In retrospect, I understand better the rationale behind this apparently genuine Hamas efforts, which I received first-hand evidence of due to extended conversations with Hamas leaders living in Doha and Cairo while I was UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories a decade ago. Israel could not take seriously what appeared to be beneficial from its security perspective of such Hamas initiatives or the 2002 Arab Peace Proposal issued in Mecca. Both Hamas and the Arab proposal conditioned peace on withdrawal from the Occupied Territory of the West Bank, which has long been in the gun sights of the settler wing of the Zionist Project, and consistently given priority over Israeli security by its leaders, long before Netanyahu’s Coalition made this unmistakably clear when it took over in January of 2023. Israel never accepted the internationally presumed notion that a Palestinian state would include the West Bank and have its capital in East Jerusalem.

It is this unwillingness to take account of the master/slave structure of prolonged occupation that gives a specious plausibility to both sides’ narratives embodying the delusion that Israel and Occupied Palestine are formally and existentially equal. Such narratives equate, or invert, the Hamas attack with the Israeli genocidal onslaught that followed, regarding the former as ‘barbaric’ while the latter is generally sympathetically described as Israel’s reasonable and necessary entitlement to defend itself. Variations of such themes are integral to the apologetics of former US mediating officials such as Dennis Roth or liberal Zionist casuists such as Thomas Friedman.


The efforts to control the narrative have failed.  In the US, for example, those under 50 tend to grasp the realities and the younger in adulthood you go, the greater the percentage.  Yet people continue to attempt to censor and practice thought control.  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) reports on one such attempt:

The Nation this week published a piece about Israel's genocidal war on the Gaza Strip that the Harvard Law Review commissioned from a Palestinian scholar but then refused to run after several days of internal debate, a nearly six-hour meeting, and a board vote.

The essay—"The Ongoing Nakba: Towards a Legal Framework for Palestine," by Rabea Eghbariah, a human rights attorney and doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School—begins: "Genocide is a crime. It is a legal framework. It is unfolding in Gaza. And yet, the inertia of legal academia, especially in the United States, has been chilling."

The controversy over Eghbariah's own piece helps prove his point. In an email to Eghbariah and Harvard Law Review president Apsara Iyer, online chair Tascha Shahriari-Parsa, one of the editors who commissioned the blog article, called the bid to kill it an "unprecedented decision" by the academic journal's leadership.

The Interceptreported on that email and others from those involved:

"As online chairs, we have always had full discretion to solicit pieces for publication," Shahriari-Parsa wrote, informing Eghbariah that his piece would not be published despite following the agreed-upon procedure for blog essays. Shahriari-Parsa wrote that concerns had arisen about staffers being offended or harassed, but "a deliberate decision to censor your voice out of fear of backlash would be contrary to the values of academic freedom and uplifting marginalized voices in legal academia that our institution stands for."

Both Shahriari-Parsa and the other top online editor, Sabrina Ochoa, told The Intercept that they had never seen a piece face this level of scrutiny at the Law Review. Shahriari-Parsa could find no previous examples of other pieces pulled from publication after going through the standard editorial process.

In a statement, the Harvard Law Review said that it "has rigorous editorial processes governing how it solicits, evaluates, and determines when and whether to publish a piece. An intrinsic feature of these internal processes is the confidentiality of our 104 editors' perspectives and deliberations. Last week, the full body met and deliberated over whether to publish a particular blog piece that had been solicited by two editors. A substantial majority voted not to proceed with publication."

According to The Nation, 63% of editors who participated in the anonymous vote opposed publication.

"At a time when the Law Review was facing a public intimidation and harassment campaign, the journal's leadership intervened to stop publication," 25 editors said in a statement shared with The Nation and The Intercept. "The body of editors—none of whom are Palestinian—voted to sustain that decision."

"We are unaware of any other solicited piece that has been revoked by the Law Review in this way," they added. "This unprecedented decision threatens academic freedom and perpetuates the suppression of Palestinian voices. We dissent."

Eghbariah wrote in an email to an editor: "This is discrimination. Let's not dance around it—this is also outright censorship. It is dangerous and alarming."

It is also part of a broader trend identified by more than 1,700 lawyers and law students. In a letter to the American Bar Association last week, they noted "increasing instances of discrimination and censorship faced by Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, South Asian, Black, Indigenous, immigrant, and other communities within law schools, universities, law firms, and other corporate entities, particularly due to their expression of support for the Palestinian people." 




In a post on X, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus welcomed the start of the humanitarian pause and the entry of aid into Gaza, calling it a “step in the right direction”.

“But much more is needed,” he warned.

“We continue to call for a sustainable ceasefire to end further civilian suffering.”



Around the world, protests have taken place with people demanding a cease-fire -- not a pause, a cease-fire.  The world has said "enough."  The world has said a cease-fire is a must.  AP notes, "Thousands of people led by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel marched along Havana’s iconic boardwalk Thursday in a show of solidarity with the Palestinian people and demanding an end to the war between Israel and Hamas."  WSWS adds, "In Germany, too, many thousands are defying the pro-Israel stance of the Social Democrat-led Federal Government and Bundestag (parliament), to participate in pro-Palestine demonstrations. In Berlin, a demonstration of more than 5,000, including whole families with children, moved from the main train station to the Großer Stern on Saturday afternoon."  And they note, "High school students across the city of Melbourne went on strike Thursday against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. A crowd of students, estimated at over 1,000, gathered outside Flinders Street Station in the city centre. This marked the first of other planned school strikes around Australia this week, including today in Sydney, Adelaide and Wollongong."  Australia's ABC NEWS notes:

Pro-Palestinian rallies have been going on for weeks across the country. The protests are dominated by young people.

That's not a surprise for Associate Professor Tanya Notley, who leads the Advancing Media Literacy research program at Western Sydney University.

"Young people who are really highly engaged with news are also more likely to be taking a range of civic actions in their communities, and on the issues that matter to them," the media academic said.



THE DAILY SABAH notes, "Outcry in Türkiye has been one of the most intense among global protests against Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, which is now in its seventh week, data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) showed."  They protested in NYC at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Joe Gill (MIDDLE EAST EYE) explains:

Once again, it is our western governments that have endorsed and supported Israel’s war of annihilation. And like the invasion of Iraq 20 years before, millions have taken to the streets to protest against a war launched in their name.

Gaza is also a war of narratives, of governments against their people, with western corporate media attempting to hold a line in favour of Israel’s legitimacy while millions in western countries are increasingly seeing the scales fall from their eyes.

Last week, a group of 50 people drove onto the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge during the morning rush hour and stopped their cars, throwing their car keys into the bay and blocking traffic for hours. “Fifteen protesters covered themselves in shrouds and laid down in front of vehicles to represent dead bodies in Gaza,” the New York Times reported. 

Meanwhile, in Washington State on 7 November, hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators rallied at the Port of Tacoma to block a military supply vessel they believe was carrying weapons from the United States to Israel. 

“We want a ceasefire now. We want people to stop getting murdered now. We want a real examination and action on US foreign policy and US funding to Israel,” said Wassim Hage, community outreach coordinator with the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, an organiser of the Tacoma rally.

Other groups have blocked ports to prevent weapons shipments being loaded onto ships for Israel, in California, Belgium, Australia, and at a BAE arms factory in Kent, UK. This kind of direct action protest to block weapons shipments is spreading.

As our political elites give carte blanche support to Israel’s total war on the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinians, global protests, including direct actions and sit-ins at major rail terminals from New York to London, are sweeping European and American cities.


Again, the world is demanding a true cease-fire; not a four day "pause" passed off as a cease-fire.  Jordan Shilton (WSWS) writes:


The brief lull in Israel’s savage onslaught on the defenceless civilian population of Gaza scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m. local time Thursday is widely being presented as a “ceasefire,” or at least a “humanitarian pause.”

Assuming the agreement is fulfilled, which is by no means assured, it will amount to little more than an operational pause in Israel’s military offensive to ethnically cleanse Gaza by carrying out a genocide against the Palestinian people.

The terms of the agreement, mediated by Qatar and the United States, include the release by Hamas of 50 women and children among the approximately 240 Israelis captured by Hamas fighters during the October 7 incursion into Israel. In return, Israel will release 150 Palestinian detainees, halt fighting in the Gaza Strip for four days, and permit 200 trucks carrying aid to enter the enclave each day. The number of Palestinian detainees being released is minuscule compared to the over 10,000 Palestinians held in detention by Israel under the most brutal conditions, including routine torture.

The agreement remains highly unstable, illustrated by the announcement late Wednesday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser that the release of the first hostages would be delayed by up to 24 hours and only take place Friday. During the four-day pause, Israel will refrain from operating aircraft and drones over southern Gaza, but in the north they will only do so during a short window between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. each day.

All Israeli ground forces will remain in place, ready to resume battle at a moment’s notice. As Netanyahu put it at a press conference Wednesday evening, “When the pause is done, we resume the war. It may be that we are forced to do so much earlier.” He also rejected any suggestion that the pause applied to Israel’s northern border, where the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have been striking Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. Underlining the point, War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz told the same press conference, “What’s happening now in northern Gaza can also happen in southern Lebanon and Beirut.”

  
The US government is not listening to its citizens.  And it appears to be offended by protests in other countries.  Iraq, especially in Baghdad, has seen one protest after another against the assault on Gaza.  They have rightly tied in the occupation of Gaza to the occupation they experience from the US -- the US government recently gave 'independent' Iraq the permission to do a gas deal with Iran.  

US President Joe Biden has put all US forces in the Middle East at risk, painted a target on their backs, by refusing to support the Palestinian people.  We've noted that repeatedly.  We've noted that the attacks in Syria and Iraq on US forces, over fifty such since the assault on Gaza began, are not by "Iranian-backed militias."  We've explained repeatedly that these attacks are carried by Iraqi forces.



Now let's move over to AP and their distortion of reality, "The U.S. on Friday imposed sanctions on six people affiliated with the Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Kataeb Hezbollah, which is accused of being behind a spate of recent attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria following the October 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel."  Oh, look, they name a group!  They don't identify it correctly, but they name it.

For years, we opposed the notion of folding militias into the Iraqi forces because of their history of abuses.  But the Iraqi leaders decided to go for it.  Kateb Hezbollah is a part of the government force, the official military.  Opening sentence of their WIKIPEDIA entry, "Kata'ib Hezbollah (Arabic: كتائب حزب الله, lit. 'Battalions of the Party of God')[36] -- or the Hezbollah Brigades -- is a radical Iraqi Shiite paramilitary group which is part of the Popular Mobilization Forces, staffing the 45th, 46th, and 47th Brigades.[37]"

Again, we spent years here calling out the notion of merging the militias with the Iraqi military.  And for years, it didn't happen.  But the CIA's long choice for prime minister, Hayder al-Abadi, became prime minister in 2014 and, at the end of 2016, he did what Nouri al-Maliki had been unable to, made the militias part of the Iraqi army.

Stop pretending this is a renegade.  It's a part of the Iraqi military.  

And though the US is condemning its actions (as a radical renegade) there's no outcry in the Iraqi press over the attacks.  They have the blessing on the Iraqi government, of the Iraqi people.  Like most people around the world, the Iraqis are appalled by the slaughter taking place in Gaza.


On Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, the US government attacked Iraqi forces.  Not "militias linked to Iran."  They are Iraqi forces and that didn't start yesterday.  

Guess what?  The US government did not scare off Iraqi forces.  No, they've attacked the US military sites multiple times since Wednesday.





Now I've said Joe painted the target on the backs of US service members.  And he has but, let's be clear, the US media has assisted him.  They continue to lie and pretend that these attacks come from Iran.  No.  Stop lying.


The United States has conducted two retaliatory airstrikes against Iraqi militias this week after ballistic missile attacks against America’s Al Asad Air Base, the latest in a troubling tit-for-tat between the U.S. and Iran-backed militias in the region that was triggered by the Israel-Hamas conflict.

CENTCOM appears to believe that the status quo of attack and reprisal with Iraqi militias is sustainable. There’s an assumption that Washington, Iran, and Iraq’s militias understand each other’s red lines. However, this assumption comes with a lot of risks.

The potential for one-upmanship between various Shi’a militias, each trying to prove they’re more hostile toward Americans than the others, is a concerning possibility. A deadly attack on U.S. troops could prompt the Biden administration to respond more forcefully, especially in an election year. What is the administration’s plan to manage escalation and prevent a larger regional war (with heavy U.S. involvement) if this were to occur?

While the timing and scale of the war in Gaza may have been unpredictable, it was always evident that the presence of scattered U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria posed a risk of escalating the U.S. into greater conflict in such an unpredictable region. That’s why I’ve long argued for rethinking America’s military posture in Iraq, including in new research this year exploring how Washington could conduct a phased withdrawal of troops and successfully recalibrate our approach to the country and region.

It is true that the presence of U.S. military advisors in Iraq helps maintain cohesion and a working relationship between competing factions of Iraq’s military. U.S. troops also offer critical capabilities in the fight to contain ISIS. But it is time for Washington to consider whether these benefits are outweighed by the risk of malign actors using U.S. troops to provoke a wider conflict – either intentionally or inadvertently.

While the risks of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq are apparent, the overall utility of their presence is unclear (particularly in deterring attacks on themselves). With each new day comes a fresh opportunity for crisis. It’s past time Washington grappled with the true costs and benefits of our military presence.


I've reposted that in full to be fair because that think tank is far to the right of me.  That's their opinion and in their words.  Again, It's not a 'militia.'  It is part of the Iraqi military forces.  But grasp that even the people at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft grasp what the US press keeps ignoring.

Still not getting it?

Why don't we turn to the Iraqi press. Amr Salem (IRAQI NEWS) reports:

The Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fuad Hussein, confirmed on Wednesday that the recent US escalation is dangerous and violates the sovereignty of Iraq.

Hussein’s statements took place during his meeting with the US Ambassador to Iraq, Alina Romanowski, according to a statement cited by the Iraqi News Agency (INA).

The Iraqi Foreign Minister conveyed the government’s disapproval of the recent US strikes against sites belonging to the Popular Mobilization Forces in the Babylon governorate’s Jurf Al-Nasr, without the Iraqi government’s knowledge.

Earlier on Wednesday, the spokesperson of the Iraqi government, Basem Al-Awadi, mentioned in a statement that the Iraqi government considers the recent escalation a dangerous step involving an unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty.

At least five people were killed in the early hours of Wednesday after PMF sites southwest of Baghdad were targeted by air strikes carried out by US forces.


The US press -- and US think tanks -- can lie all they want but the reality is that on Wednesday, the US government physically attacked the Iraqi military.  And that's not just how the Iraqis see it -- which would be bad enough -- that's how it actually is.  Tom O'Connor (NEWSWEEK) notes, "Iraq, considered by the United States to be a regional security partner, has strongly condemned President Joe Biden's decision to conduct airstrikes against militias accused of attacking U.S. forces in the country, warning that a cycle of unrest threatens to destabilize the nation."  Julian Benocha (RUDAW) reports:


The Iraqi government said it “vehemently condemns” the US airstrikes on Iran-backed Iraqi militia positions in Jurf al-Nasr on Wednesday as a “blatant violation of sovereignty” as the strikes took place without government knowledge.

“We vehemently condemn the attack on Jurf al-Nasr, executed without the knowledge of Iraqi government agencies. This action is a blatant violation of sovereignty and an attempt to destabilize the security situation,” Basem al-Awadi, spokesperson for the Iraqi government, said in a statement. 

The statement came hours after US warplanes struck pro-Iran fighters in Jurf al-Nasr (formerly Jurf al-Sakhar) in northern Babil province, around 60 kilometers southwest of Baghdad. Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi) confirmed to AFP that the strikes left eight fighters dead. 

Wednesday’s strike came hours after the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced its first retaliatory strike targeting Iran-backed groups in Iraq since the start of the attacks on American personnel in Iraq and Syria over Washington’s support for Israel in its war against Gaza. The first retaliatory strike resulted in “several enemy casualties,” according to CENTCOM. 

“The Iraqi government is solely dedicated to enforcing the law and holding violators accountable, a prerogative exclusively within its purview. No party or foreign agency has the right to assume this role, as it contradicts Iraqi constitutional sovereignty and international law,” the government statement said, labeling the recent escalations as “a dangerous development.” 

He further criticized the US-led global coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS) for steering away from its intended mission of supporting Iraqi armed forces in the fight against the jihadist group. 

“The recent incident represents a clear violation of the coalition’s mission to combat   [Arabic acronym for ISIS] on Iraqi soil,” the statement added. 


It would be bad enough if the American government was falling blindly into these actions but that's not the case.  Multiple people at the US State Dept have lodged complaints about the US government's position on Gaza and warned that it harming the opinion of the US in the Middle East.  Joe has ignored those warnings when they've reached him.  

His blind-support of the Israeli government is bad enough for what's happening to the Palestinians but he's now also threatening whatever stability the US had imposed on Iraq with its continued occupation.  He's putting US service members at risk and he's risking destabilizing Iraq.

This is the time when people need to get real and tell him reality not just agree with him.  That's for the good of the Palestinians and for the good of human rights but also good for the United States.

In case we're not getting how fragile things are starting to get in Iraq, let me pull this from last night's entry:



Iraq?  As we focus on the assault on Gaza, we mention Iraq, we do not focus on it.  Cilia e-mailed asking if there was anything I felt we missed re: Iraq?


Yeah, Speaker of the House Mohammed al-Halbousi was removed from his post.  By the country's Supreme Court.  He was removed from office over an accusation that he forged the signature of MP Laith al-Dulaimi.  The court removed al-Dulaimi from office as well.


The story we didn't have time for.  I read over the Iraqi Constitution and there's nothing in there that gives the Federal Court the power to remove any MP from office.  The Council of Representatives has the power to remove one of its members.  But the Court has no say in that at all.  They can't even arrest for a felony (in Iraq, forgery is a felony) without the permission of the Council of Representatives.


They've created a power for themselves that does not exist.


By removing both the accuser and the accused (al-Dulaimi and al-Halbousi), they've also made clear that they didn't determine guilt in the matter.  Now they would have had to have had permission to do that from the Council.  That's in the Constitution.  So removing both the accuser and the accused?  That makes no sense.  One was telling the truth, one wasn't.  I have no idea which.


But the Supreme Court has no power to remove a member from the Council -- Speaker or otherwise.  This should could cause an outcry in Iraq for that reason.  It should also alarm legal observers around the world. 


The Supreme Court in Iraq now believes it can remove any member of Parliament.  And no one got convicted, by the way.  Grasp that as well.  So anytime the Court doesn't like a member of Parliament or that members politics, it's now claiming it can remove the member.  That is not how the government and its checks and balances are structured in the country's Constitution.




The following sites updated:


 

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