Tuesday. Tonight at 7:30, I could barely keep my eyes open. Does that give you an idea of how tired I've been today? :( By the way, check out Kat's "Carly Simon sues lying Starbucks" from last night. Really important thing. And really well written.
Okay, this is from Heath Druzin with Stars and Stripes (link has photos by Ben Blocker and also a video report):
Nearly two months after Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq, announced plans to establish trilateral patrols and checkpoints manned by U.S., Arab and Kurdish forces to relieve tension in areas claimed by both Arabs and Kurds, negotiations are moving slowly and communities in the region that would benefit from increased cooperation and trade continue to languish.
A swath of northern Iraq, including the oil-rich region surrounding the city of Kirkuk, is claimed by both Kurds and Arabs and both the central government and Kurdistan Regional Government have been trying to increase their influence by sending soldiers to the area. Several incidents have threatened to turn violent. Odierno’s plan for the trilateral patrols is intended to keep the peace and help resolve the long-simmering land dispute.
Remember, Odierno has said the Kurdish-Arab conflict is now the number one threat. Do you see any progress on that front? Me neither. But we're never supposed to expect progress, apparently, we're just supposed to be thrilled that US forces can be stationed on (and die on) foreign land apparently. Dying? And getting sick. And this is from Adam Lichtenheld and Ron Moore's "No Contractor Left Behind Part IV: Congress's Powerless Probe" (DC Bureau):
After a flurry of Pentagon contracting scandals involving KBR went unaddressed by Republican lawmakers under the Bush administration, Democrats ran on promises of “real and serious” oversight in their successful 2006 campaign to win back Congress.
But American soldiers poisoned by KBR in Iraq six years ago have found weak refuge on Capitol Hill. Democratic leaders have left the Qarmat Ali probe to a lone senator, Byron Dorgan (D-ND), and a largely powerless Congressional panel, the Democratic Policy Committee (DPC). Having traditionally operated as a partisan support forum, the DPC lacks the capabilities to ensure accountability for the sick veterans of Qarmat Ali—who have struggled to afford costly medical treatments while the company that endangered them continues to reap millions of dollars in windfall profits.
It was Sen. Dorgan, the DPC’s chairman, who first uncovered the Qarmat Ali incident and brought it to Congress last year. Since then, the Senate committee charged with direct oversight of the U.S. military—the powerful and highly influential Armed Services Committee—has largely stayed silent. When DCBureau called Armed Services chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), spokesman Bryan Thomas declined comment.
“I’ve tried to do as much as I can with the limited capacity I have,” Dorgan said. “It just begs for investigation.”
If you're wondering why KBR, et al haven't been brought to justice the answer is the bulk of the Democrats in Congress aren't serious about bringing them to justice. As for why that is? You tell me. Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Tuesday, October 13, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, the assault on Iraq's LGBT community garners some press attention, the refugee crisis continues, the British government prepares to force Iraqis out of England, the water crisis in Iraq creates even more refugees, Nouri can't pay his bills and more.
Today on New Hampshire Public Radio's Word of Mouth, Virginia Prescott spoke with Human Rights Watch's Scott Long and Matt McAllester about the targeting of Iraq's LGBT community. McAllester was noted in the October 6th snapshot on this issue, he's written "The Hunted" (New York Magazine) and he discussed the issue with Neal Conan on NPR's Talk of the Nation (here for audio and transcript links).
Virginia Prescott: Well Matt, what's it like to be a gay Iraqi in post-Saddam Baghdad?
Matt McAllester: Well earlier this year it was fatally dangerous potentially and many of them were indeed killed. What happened in 2003 when the invasion happened is that the center of-of power and fear in Iraq in many arenas of life but especially for gay Iraqis shifted from the State which, under Saddam Hussein, was never friendly to put it mildly towards gay people in Iraq. It wasn't actually illegal to be gay in Iraq. You very much kept a low profile if you could. And shifted from the State to the mosque and to the militia -- as did so much in Iraq. And so the power bases were less controlled and more violent and more dangerous.
Virginia Prescott: We mentioned the uptick earlier this year, pretty much focused in February, attacks against gay Iraqis and police harassment of gay men reached a fevered pitch in that time. You've mentioned homosexuality is still not illegal in Iraq, so what prompted this uptick in violence?
Matt McAllester: Well strangely and sort of paradoxically, the down-tick in violence generally prompted the uptick against gay people. What I mean by that is that American soldiers are much less visible to the Iraqi insurgency and militias so there's one target that's all but disappeared. The government of Iraq is much stronger and so this civil war between Sunni and Shia militias that was raging, that's also pretty much -- I wouldn't say "over," but it's not so much a factor. In the course of that last year, one of the main militias, the Shia militia, the Mahdi Army, which is headed by Moqtada al-Sadr, a very radical cleric with-with pretty much sidelined, politically and militarily and he seems to have, although there's no paper trail leading directly to his door, but it was clearly his guys that were doing this in the early part of this year, have decided that. he needed to increase his popularity by picking on the one population group in Iraq that no one likes. And they're-they're -- gays in Iraq are pretty much detested by every ethnic group, nationality, strata of society. So -- and so he thought this would cast his guys and himself as the moral arbiters of Iraq again.
Virginia Prescott: So it was -- it was a power grab mostly.
Matt McAllester: It was. And they -- gays in Iraq were used and manipulated in this way.
Virginia Prescott: Gay men and women looking to flee Iraq don't have many options. Homosexuality is illegal in most of the surrounding countries. The non-profit Human Rights Watch created an underground railroad to help gay Iraqis escape to safety. Joining us now is Scott Long. He's director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights program at Human Rights Watch. Scott, welcome to the program.
Scott Long: Thank you for having me.
Virginia Prescott: What inspired you to create this so-called underground railroad for gay Iraqis. This kind of direct action is a bit of a change for Human Rights Watch.
Scott Long: Well it was necessity really. I mean ordinarily when Human Rights Watch tries to do research on massive humanitarian violations, there are other groups that can provide direct support to people. But in this case, we're talking about folks in Iraq who have no one to defend them. The police won't protect them. Civil society is too weak to offer any effective assistance. They're basically alone and completely vulnerable to violence.
Virginia Prescott: There are, of course, Iraqi lesbians. Also not looked upon kindly but not being persecuted in the same way as gay men. Tell us a little bit more about the process here. How do you identify gay men looking to escape from Iraq?
Scott Long: Well basically we reached out to people through every means possible. Through the internet -- the internet has become a major social tool for men who want to preserve their anonymity and think they can preserve their safety. We reached out to personal contacts. And we just tried to evaluate the level of threat people were facing. But if people were, if people had been threatened directly, if there was reason to think their names were in the hands of the militia, we did everything we could to try to get them out.
Virginia Prescott: I know that you can't disclose the city that is now serving as a safe haven for gay Iraqis, but you have spent time there. Scott, how does it differ from Baghdad in terms of safety or openness for homosexuals?
Scott Long: Well there aren't militias roaming the streets with guns. That's the primary thing. But, as you've said, in all the surrounding countries there's still social prejudice and there's also criminal laws. In the last -- in the last six years, there have probably been more than two-and-a-half-million Iraqi displaced by the violence and of those people, the United States has accepted only about 20,000 as refugees. We're definitely hoping that the US will recognize that people aren't safe even when they flee to surrounding countries and that we have a responsibility to LGBT Iraqis to accept them to safety here as well as other categories of refugees.
Virginia Prescott: And that leads to another question. Matt McAllester, you spent time in this unnamed city as part of your reporting for New York Magazine. Many of the Iraqis living there hope to one day emigrate to the United States or Canada, Australia or Sweden but isn't it unlikely that they'd be accepted by Iraqi immigrant communities in those countries leaving them in a kind of state of limbo. .
Matt McAllester: You're -- you're absolutely right. The prejudice carries from Baghdad to-to Baltimore or where ever they end up. And that doesn't disappear. So they will be embraced, one hopes, by the mainstream gay communities in the United States or Sweden or Norway or Australia or where ever they end up. Some of them don't even want to meet other gay Iraqi refugees. They've been through such traumatic times there, there trust level is almost non-existent. And so they sort of want to disappear into society but I mean that's terribly difficult if your language skills aren't up to scratch initially and perhaps you don't have the work skills and you have -- and you are -- you can't even hang out, go to the cafes and drink tea and smoke shisa with your Iraqi friends.
Virginia Prescott: Many of them have returned to somewhat less dangerous parts of Iraq unhappy with how Human Rights Watch has helped them transition into their new lives as refugees. Matt, what's their complaint?
Matt McAllester: I think that it's terribly hard to be uprooted from your home.
and even if there are militias roaming the streets trying to kill you, it's terribly difficult to one week be living with your family -- albeit living a lie and a very scared lie -- and another
week to suddenly be sort of living in another city. And I think many of these guys have found that terribly difficult and understandably so. This is not specific to gay refugees, this is a thing I've seen happen in many countries -- refugees sort of leaving and moving back, albeit towards, back towards, danger --
Virginia Prescott: Scott. I'm sorry I have to interrupt because I want Scott, we have just thirty seconds for you to respond to that. How about you and other Human Rights Watch? What do you think?
Scott Long: Well it's not easy being a refugee. Being a refugee means being uprooted from everything you ever cared about. And that's, again, why I think it's really incumbent upon the United States and other countries that bear some responsibility for the violence in Iraq to start living up to their responsibilities by helping these folk make a new home.
Virginia Prescott: Scott, Matt, just one second please if you could, anything the Iraqi government could do to protect gay Iraqis or is it even on their radar?
Matt McAllester: They don't want to talk about it, to be perfectly honest. The ambassador in Washington gave me a written statement after -- after quite a long time of asking and it was impossible to get much more than that I'm afraid.
On the topic of Iraqi refugees, last week Human Rights Action and the Human Rights Institute at Georgetown Law Center issued [PDF format warning] a report entitled "Refugee Crisis in America: Iraqis And Their Resettlement Experience." It documented many obstacles for the small number of Iraqis granted asylum in the US. For example:
When researchers met Farrah, a former physical education teacher with a bachelor's degree, she said that all she and her elderly mother hope for is "enough help to get on [their] own two feet." After fleeing from Iraq to Syria in 2007, Farrah arrived in Detroit in June 2008 and has been trying unsuccessfuly to find a job and enroll at a community college to improve her employment prospects. "We don't want to depend on the government for everything," Farrah said; "we want a foundation to build our own future."
Unfortunately for Farrah, and other Iraqi refugees with whom researches spoke, the USRAP [US Refugee Admissions Program] does not devote enough attention to breaking down key barriers to employment for refugees. Employment services, provided by volags and state agencies, are seriously underfunded and unable to adequately help Iraqi refugees in their job search. Lack of transporation remains a significant barrier to securing and maintaining employment. English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, generally inadequate in both equality and duration, fail to help Iraqis build marketable language skills. In addition, the opportunity to pursue education and re-certification programs, prerequisites for many jobs, is either unavailable or eclipsed by more immediate needs. Given these barriers, it is not surprising that the vast majority of Iraqi refugees interviewed were unemployed despite expressing a strong desire to work.
The report notes that despite the Refugee Act calling for thirty-six months of assistance, most Iraqi refugees are receiving only eight months. On top of that, there are delays in terms of appointments with case workers. There is a thirty-day delay of initial payment after the paper work has been completed appropriately. Along with economic issues such as not providing enough funds to the refugees, the USRAP has a problem when it comes to planning. The report notes, "When the U.S. government announced in 2007 that tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees would soon be arriving in the United States, there was little doubt that Iraqis would seek to be placed in cities with large existing Iraqi and Arab communities like Detroit and San Diego. Even those working in overseas processing predicted as much." So why, when the refugees began arriving, was this a 'surprise'? One of the report's recommendations is for the new procedures to be developed by the lead agency which "outline a common, consistent strategy for the placement of individual refugees, taking into account the needs of each refugee, state and volag resources, and recent trends prior to a refugee's arrival."
Vincent T. Davis (San Antonio Express-News) reports on Iraqi Khalid Ali who had to leave Iraq after threats were made (he worked with CBS News in Iraq). Shortly after his family arrived in the US, his wife Sundas died of breast cancer. He is now raising the children by himself (the youngest is three-years-old) and attempting to find work. Davis reports, "There are moments away from his children when he sits and stares. He misses his wife. Ali relies on the words of the Quran, saying, 'God will enlighten and show the way.' He dreams of his children prospering in their new country, but first he has to help them deal with their loss. 'They miss the tender kindness of their mother,' Ali said. He hasn't told his two youngest girls their mother has died, he can't find the words to tell them the truth; after many hospital stays, the girls think she's still there."
In England, Owen Bowcott (Guardian) reports, "The UK Border Agency is preparing to send the first, mass deporation flight returning failed asylum seekers to Baghdad and southern Iraq, according to a refugee organisation that monitors expulsions." The group is the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees. They're calling for mass action tomorrow and they quote Iraqi refugee Yousuf stating, "Iraq's not safe for me. I am Shia'a and a Sunni group is after me. The same group has killed both my brothers and now they're after me. The government here won't let me work, and then they give me just [35 pounds] a week to live on, but I've got friends here and I'm safe. Why would they send me back?" Tomorrow in London, there will be a demonstration at 5:00 pm at Communications House: "The Stop Deportation network and the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees call upon all groups, organisations and individuals opposed to this brutal action by the UK government to stand with us in calling for all deportations to Iraq to be stopped. Join us on the first public demonstration against mass deportations to Iraq this Wednesday, at 5pm, at the local immigration reporting centre, where many deportees are first arrested without prior warning whilst signing on (Communications House, Old Street, London, EC1)."
Iraq isn't safe for anyone. Nouri strong-armed a man with the UN in Iraq into stating some parts were and, please note, that man is gone. But the damage he did continues. Iraq is not safe and no government should deport anyone back to Iraq.
Meanwhile Amnesty International's Turkish refugees affairs coordinator Volkan Gorendag speaks with Today's Zaman:
"There are almost 1 million Iraqi refugees in Syria, and they are able cope with it. Iran has a similar situation. Even in Iraq, there are almost 10,000 refugees there coming from Turkey. A country like Iraq, which has been devastated by war, is able to cope with this. Is Turkey less powerful then these countries?" he asks.
He says that if he had the power to change anything about refugees and asylum seekers in Turkey, he would start by passing a law on asylum and migration.
"There is no law in Turkey in this field. There are only some articles in various laws regarding the issue as well as many regulations. This makes the situation even more complex," he says.
When talking about the history of international regulations regarding refugees, Gorendag says he is saddened by the fact that Turkey was from the very beginning part of these debates but later chose to exclude itself from them.
"When the first international convention on refugees came on the agenda, Turkey was one of the countries which campaigned very hard for it from the beginning. It is one of the authors of the 1951 Refugee Convention. It addressed the topic of refugees because of events taking place in Europe. In 1967 geographical and temporal restrictions were removed, but Turkey kept them," he says.
Violence is among the drivers behind Iraq's refugee crisis -- the largest refugee crisis on the globe. Violence continued today in Iraq . . .
Laith Hammoudi and Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) report a Kirkuk roadside bombing claimed the lives of 2 Iraqi soldiers and left four more wounded, a Mosul roadside bombing left two women wounded, another wounded a guard and a third left a police officer injured. Reuters adds that a suicide bombing in Buhriz claimed the life of the bomber and 6 other people with ten more left injured.
Simon Assaf (Great Britian's Socialist Worker) reports on Iraq violence and notes, "The country continues to be plagued by power cuts, high unemployment and ethnic and sectarian conflicts. Now a severe drought has destroyed the agricultural sector." Natalia Antelava (BBC News) notes the MidEast water wars and how the dams Turkey has built have negatively impacted Syria and Iraq. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) today announced, "Over 100,000 people in northern Iraq have been forced to evacuate their homes since 2005 because of severe water shortages, a UNESCO study finds. Drought and excessive well pumping have drawn down aquifer levels in the region, causing a dramatic decline of water flow in ancient underground aqueducts, known in Iraq as karez, upon which hundreds of communities depend." UNESCO also identifies 36,000 more Iraqis who may flee their homes in the near future due to the current water shortages. Iran's Press TV reported Sunday, "Iranian ships have started delivering drinking water to Iraq, as a Turkish pledge seems to have had little effect in solving Baghdad's water shortage problem. Tehran has agreed to send 650 thousand liters of water to Iraq by ship two or three times a week to help resolve the water shortage problem in southern parts of the country, the Iranian Tabnak news website reported on Sunday." Iran is shipping for southern Iraq, UNESCO is zooming in on the crisis in the north, to be clear.
Meanwhile Lynne Minion (Brisbane Times) attempts to draw attention to Iraqis few bother to notice. She recounts her time working in Iraq:
And by day I would work with local journalists and edit an online publication that told stories about the conditions for Iraqis, not those of the Western occupying forces. And every now and again, a translator would come to my desk to say that a woman was waiting outside, that she wanted to speak to me.
In a place where many women can't talk to men about their personal struggles, they came to speak to the Australian woman journalist and they asked me to give them a voice.
They told me about the little girl who was dragged into a house and held down on the kitchen table where her clitoris was removed using a dirty knife, without anaesthetic. They told me about the woman who had burned herself alive to escape the shame of divorce, whose ex-husband had instructed her to make sure she did it out in the backyard. They spoke of women paying up to $US400 for backyard "hymen reconstructions" to protect them from honour killings. Meanwhile, the local women's rights campaigner, Ala Noori Talabani, would wear a bulletproof vest for protection.
So if the pen is mightier than the sword, could it help these women to have their experiences told to readers worldwide? Regardless of lofty intentions, can words achieve anything when the powerful won't hear?
This was no peacekeeping mission, after all. The occupying forces with their Humvees and heavy weaponry, whose soldiers were said to be there to liberate the population, did little to liberate the women, quite the contrary. In addition to the estimated 1 million killed since 2003, about 4.5 million Iraqis have fled their homes, while more than 1 million widows and 3 million orphans have been left behind. Desperate women now beg in the streets.
And what has Nouri al-Maliki done to help the refugee crisis? And what has he done to help Iraqi women? To help Iraq's LGBT community? What has Nouri done? Has he done anything? UPI and Official Wire report that he's "been systemattically amassing control of Iraq's intelligence and security services in the classic mold of Arab strongment." They go on to explain how Nouri's firing people he sees as rivals and controlling the National Security Ministry, how he's imposed a Baghdad curfew to allow for nightly mass arrests and he's "recruited tribal militias that are funded directly by his office." He is said to see Jawad al-Bolani, Minister of the Interior, as a political rival and some are saying "his next target will be Bolani, widely seen as a close U.S. ally." So Nouri's enriched himself. At least there is that. No comfort to anyone but Nouri but he's not just been sitting around slacking. Nouri likes to claim there's no money for public services. He likes to claim money is tight. The New York Times loves to enable and encourage his lies. Today , Timothy Williams informs, "The semiautonomous Kurdish region has reopened a rift with the central government after announcing that it had halted all petroleum exports from Kurdistan until Baghdad pays the international companies that are pumping oil in the region." That's cute. A rift? Reopened by the KRG?Baghdad's not paying the monies they are supposed to pay to the KRG. Grasp that. Grasp that the KRG is saying no more oil through Baghdad until they're paid. It's amazing the way the paper 'reports.' You can be sure that no US business that said "no" to another company or government due to non-payment would be accused of causing a 'rift.' Nouri's the new Saddam indeed. Just as CNN kissed his ass to remain in Iraq back then (as Eason revealed in that embarrassing NYT column sometime back), NYT kisses Nouri ass to remain in his good graces. Don't mistake what appears for reporting. Williams even goes so far to vouch for Nouri: "At the same time, the [Baghdad] government needs all the revenue it can get to pay for a host of pressing needs." A host of pressing needs? Millions on weaponry? That's not pressing. They're not needed, get real. Who's going to attack Iraq?The United States has done so twice. Who else?Iran? While they're so tight with Nouri? While they're apparently providing Nouri with a plane to travel in?They need all these costly weapons to protect them from whom?They don't need these weapons and Nouri has not, in his nearly three year reign, provided Iraqis with potable water or any other basic services that a functioning society has a right to expect. Maybe part of the reason Nouri keeps attacking Syria is because he needs to create an external threat in order to justify the spending? A meeting of Iraq and its neighbors continues for the second day in Egypt. Mu Xuequan (Xinhua) reports the 'big' thing on Iraq's agenda was again insisting they had evidence. Meanwhile Today's Zaman notes Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan begins a visit to Iraq on Thursday.
Nouri dug his own economic hole by throwing so much money at weapons. Strategy Page reminds, "Last year, Iraq ordered over $4 billion worth of of American weapons, mainly on the strength of high (over $100 a barrel) oil prices. The price of oil has since plummeted, and Iraq is seeking to get better payment terms. Many of the weapons ordered had to be paid for in advance, or on delivery. Now, many of these orders are at risk, because Iraq has a lousy credit score. Despite all that oil revenue, and a large chunk of global oil reserves, Iraq has very bad credit history with just about everyone. So the country cannot finance the huge weapons purchases. The U.S. weapons firms will not extend credit, and expect to be paid."
Ending with Sunday's DC rally. Democracy Now! is having some problem with the website currently. But this link should take you to their segment on Iraq War veteran Lt Dan Choi speaking at the equality rally Sunday. Choi is threatened with being drummed out of the military because he chose to tell. He chose not to live in a closet. In the segment, Amy Goodman and Sharif Abdel Koudous speak with Choi and they also play a segment of his Sunday speech. We'll note the speech:
Now, I know that there are many things that are worth fighting for, and I've fought for many of them, and I will tell you that some of those are very, very expensive. But of all those things that are worth fighting for, love is worth fighting for. Love is worth it. Love is worth it. Some of us have come from very far places to be here today. You've sacrificed a lot. But love is worth it. Some of us have just come out of the closet this year. Some of us are still in the closet. But I want to tell you that love is worth it. We've sacrificed so much. Some of us have been rejected by our families and our communities and our churches and our workplaces, but I will tell you that love is worth it. And many of us have been discharged from the service because we told the truth. But I know that love is worth it. We love our country, even when our country refuses to acknowledge our love. But we continue to defend it, and we continue to protect it, because love is worth it. Love is worth it. If you believe it, say it with me, "Love is worth it! Love is worth it! Love is worth it! Love is worth it!" Like so many others, I joined the military because my country beckoned me. "Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country." But when we're telling the truth about our love, our country slaps us in the face and orders us, "Don't ask," and orders us, "Don't tell." Well I am telling you that the era and the time for asking is over. I am not asking anymore. I am telling. I am telling! I am telling! Will you tell with me? Asking is over. We will tell, because in the face of injustice and the face of discrimination, patience is not a plan. In the face of discrimination, silence is not a strategy. My plan today and my plan tomorrow and my plan forever is to tell, is to tell. And we will tell. We will tell! We will tell!
iraqnew york magazinematt mcallesternprtalk of the nationneal conan
mcclatchy newspapers
sahar issa
laith hammoudi
simon assaf
the socialist worker
bbc newsnatalia antelava
timothy williamsthe new york timesxinhuamu xuequan
democracy now
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
John Walsh, Tom Eley, Barry Grey, Isaiah, Third
Monday, Monday. Start of the week. Oh, how much I prefer Fridays to Mondays. :D We need a joke. Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Prizes"
Ha ha ha! :D I love that. And this is John Walsh commenting on the prize at Dissident Voice:
Next year, literature: Obama for “The Audacity of Hope” — the greatest fiction ever.
Next year, economy: Obama — creating a new statistical metric for recovery.
Next year, peace: Bush/Cheney — based on Obama’s peace prize precedent.
Year after, peace: Netanyahu — the man behind Obama’s peace in the middle east.
But to this writer we witness the second repetition of history. The US Empire’s first great colonial war on the Asian mainland in the last half century was Truman’s Korean war. This was repeated as tragedy in Vietnam at the hands of the Best and Brightest, with Johnson and Kennedy in the lead. And now the Iraq/AfPak war comes at us from Bush and Obama and Congresses both Democrat and Republic. If Vietnam was tragedy, then certainly Iraq/AfPak is farce. There were no WMD in Iraq and everyone knew it. By the military’s own admission there are about 100 Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, so the US troops are not there because of Al-Qaeda – and everyone knows it.
Now the ultimate comedic turn comes with the award to Obama of the Nobel War Prize. Perhaps the antiwar movement needs to adjust its tone from pure outrage to ridicule. After all Obama and the elite running this country are without clothes as they parade before us as men of peace, puffed up with talk of fake health care reform and assuring us of economic recovery that provides no jobs. It would be hard to make this stuff up. And through our tears at the predicament we are in, we can at least ridicule these hypocritical murderers. They deserve to be seen clearly as the cruel and absurd hollow men that they are. They march before us unknowingly naked.
The Nobel is now the joke revealed -- it was always a joke and only now it's really public what a joke it is. I think we're also what sexists some on the left are. I've seen people propose someone who really deserved it and except for Cindy Sheehan who said it should have gone to Cynthia McKinney, I didn't see one person (man or woman) think of a woman who deserved it. (For the record, I'd give it to Cindy Sheehan.)
Okay, my grandfather asked me to note something, which I will, but I also passed it on to my mother and to Marcia to get it out there. (I love my grandfather.) This is from Tom Eley and Barry Grey at WSWS:
Obama, no less than Bush, represents the interests of the American financial aristocracy. Internationally, it increasingly employs military aggression in pursuit of its global economic and strategic aims in an attempt to offset the decline in its world economic position. At home, it turns to anti-democratic methods to defend an economic system that promotes staggering levels of inequality and growing social misery for broad masses of working people.
The ever more pronounced concentration of wealth at the very top of society and heightening of class tensions are ultimately incompatible with democratic procedures and methods of rule. The trampling of the Bill of Rights and habeas corpus is bound up with an awareness in ruling circles that their policies must give rise to social opposition. The police-state framework built up under Bush and Obama is a response by the ruling elite to a threat not from foreign terrorists, but from its main enemy—the American working class.
Okay, let's talk Third. Working on this edition were Dallas and the following:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.
And what did we come up with?
Truest statement of the week -- That's Caro. Ty and C.I. nominted her.
Truest statement of the week II -- And this is Tariq Ali nominted by C.I. and Elaine.
A note to our readers -- Jim breaks down the edition.
Editorial: It's not hurt feelings -- C.I. called last night and asked if I minded if a sentence was added to this and if Elaine minded? We didn't. I told C.I. not to worry about calling anyone else that no one would have a problem. As Jim explained in his note, they had a problem uploading new images to Flickr and C.I. was going to try at night. The illustration planned for this was a drawing and it did not load. So C.I. was trying to find an illustration that would work that we'd already uploaded to Flickr. C.I. found one of American Dad that would work but some words needed to be added to the editorial. I think it and the illustration make the editorial but I really love this editorial. I also love next week's planned one.
TV: The Good, the Barack and the Ugly -- Ava and C.I. explain why The Good Wife (CBS) is the best drama and they weigh in on Barack and the Nobel Prize and a SNL skit. This is really funny and Elaine keeps reading parts of it to me. She loves this one.
Getting the help you need -- Betty had an idea that was split into the editorial this week and next and that C.I. and Ava (and I think Jess) said should be backed up with a self-help piece. So that's this. I like it and think it's funny and think you can read it and take it straight or you can read it and take it as tongue in cheek.
Baby Comics -- We were overdue on a comic feature. In part because past attempts at writing one ended up in the trash. This time we got one we were comfortable posting.
Iraq -- Jim had told us C.I. would punch this up a little (on Sunday night) and C.I. really did. I was so disappointed in what we wrote in this. I was so glad when I read it today and saw how C.I. had pulled some other stuff in and made it stronger.
Roundtable -- How mad was Betty? Pretty ticked off and she's not going to pretend otherwise. Is C.I. mad at Rebecca? That question -- e-mailed by Leigh Ann -- confused me but I e-mailed her back and she said she thought C.I. might be mad at Rebecca for writing about Mackenzie Phillips. No, C.I. wasn't mad. I do think it was a mistake to ask the question Ty did. I wouldn't have. C.I. has avoided the topic and intended to avoid it. And C.I. did not mean a kiss off to Mackenzie Phillips. She meant, as she states, this isn't a topic she wants to talk about. Which was a clue, to me, that the question shouldn't have been asked. If some people weren't still calling Mackenzie Phillips a liar, C.I. might not have said anything. But, read it and this comes through, C.I. wasn't going to let Mackenzie Phillips be called a liar when she was telling the truth.
Halloween (Dona) -- Dona's Halloween piece. This is funny. She was tired. And didn't know what to write about. She asked us should she write about ___ or ___ and we were the ones saying, "Woah! Toys! You got toys at Halloween!" :D
Senator Byron Dorgan on shoddy contractors -- Dorgan press release.
Highlights -- Rebecca, Betty, Kat, Ruth, Marcia, Stan, Wally, Cedric, Ann, Elaine and I wrote this.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Monday, October 12, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, there is no election law in Iraq, the faux peace movement comes out in favor of US forces remaining in Afghanistan (just as they walked away from "Out Of Iraq Now!"), real peace activists weigh in on the Nobel Peace Prize and more.
Sunday Ramadi was rocked with violence. Mohammad al Dulaimy and Jamal Naji (McClatchy Newspapers) report, "First, they bombed a crowded parking lot outside the Anbar provincial government's headquarters. Seven minutes later, they detonated a car bomb aimed at the rescue workers. An hour later, a third bomb exploded outside the hospital where survivors were receiving treatment." The Los Angeles Times puts the death toll at 26 and McCatchy says over eighty were injured. Zhang Xiang (Xinhua) cites an unnamed Interior Ministry source stating 80% "of the wounded were policemen and 10 percent of the injured were in a critical condition". Uthman al-Mokhtar and Nada Bakri (Washington Post) explains, "Rumors spread through Ramadi and other parts of the province about who was behind the statacks. Some suggsted government officials were involved, part of the fallout from months of negotiations over creating alliances for Iraq's parliamentary elections in January." And with rumors come the denials. Timothy Williams (New York Times) quotes Anbar Province's Deputy Governor Hekmet Jassim Zeidan stating, "The police commanders are not doing their job the way it should be done. We have pointed out the mistakes and failures among the police, but no one has done anything to correct the problems." That was Sunday and we'll return to it later but we'll move over to today's violence right now.
Bombings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing which injured four people (one a police officer), a Baghdad sticky bombing which wounded five people (including "a high-ranking officer in the ministry of interior" whose car the bomb was attached to), a Diyala province bombing targeted "sons of the mayor of Abu Khamees" killing two and wounded a third (the "sons of the mayor" are also members of Sahwa, "Sons Of Iraq," "Awakenings"), a Buhruz roadside bombing which claimed the life of 1 construction worker and wounded two more and an Anbar Province home bombing (home "of one of the Sahwa leaders"). Reuters notes a Mosul home bombing which injured one woman and her four children, two Buhriz roadside bombings which claimed 3 lives and left three people injured (Reuters also notes the Buhriz roadside bombing Sahar Issa does -- there are three roadside bombings reported today in Buhuriz) and a tailor shop bombing in Mosul which injured one person.
Shootings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 construction worker shot dead in Mosul.
The Iraqi Diaspora is the topic of the most recent Inside Iraq (Al Jazeera) and host Jasim Azawi discussed it with Nidhal Garmo (For Victims of War and Poverty), Raed Jarrar (American Friends Service Committee) and Houzan Mahmoud (Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq).
Jasim Azawi: Nidhal, let me start with you. You are an Iraqi-American citizen. You are a pharmacist based in Detroit, Michigan. And for the past ten years, you have been involved in Iraq sending aid and money to Iraq. But since the invasion of 2003, you've been going to Iraq, taking surgical and medical equipment to Iraq. Exactly what draws you to Iraq? Is it your roots? Is it the desire to help? What is it?
Nidhal Garmo: It's a mixture of every good thing a human being can think. Years ago, I used to watch TV, especially Al Jazeera, and I used to get hurt when I see the African children are dying hungry, the people from Palestine are living this miserable life -- like refugees. I never thought that one day Iraq -- the safest, most beautiful country, my country, my family, all Iraqi people are my family -- would go through this ordeal so I decided to do something about it rather than watching the TV and crying every single day and night for them.
Jasim Azawi: I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands like you and one of them is Raed Jarrar. Raed, you are an architect, your masters thesis is in post-war reconstruction. In what way can you help Iraq, given your experience?
Raed Jarrar: I was in Iraq during the sanction years and during the invasion and I actually did do some reconstruction projects after the fall of Baghdad in 2003 based on community organizations and Iraqi efforts. Unfortunately all these attempts that I started and that many others started failed and could not continue because of the political and military situation in Iraq. Now my dissertation, I talked about how Iraq will go through three different phases of rebuilding. The first one is the immediate relief after the disaster and during the disaster that Iraq is going through and after that we will go to the reconstruction phase and after that it will allow us to reach to a development phase. Unfortunately six years into the occupation after the fall of Baghdad, we're still in the relief phase. The reconstruction phase did not start yet. So it is still very, very primitive and I think there are so many people with capacity to help rebuilding Iraq and initiate reconstruction campaign that would bring the country back to life. But they are marginalized, mostly outside the country and the ones inside the country cannot actually participate in a functioning campaign yet.
Jasim Azawi: Given what he said, Houzan, that reconstruction is still way off and you are involved with a human rights organization, is human rights a luxury for Iraqis right now? Is it too early to talk about it given that it is almost the bete noire of the Iraqi government? When you work in Iraq, are you watched by Iraqi government?
Houzan Mahmoud: Certainly. I mean, human rights is not a luxury. It's a basic rights for human beings to live with freedom and their rights be respected. I mean considering that people in Iraq have lived under dictatorship for thirty years followed by another six years of devastation war and occupation, these people deserve rights, they deserve freedom and they deserve a simple life with basic rights included. Of course when the Organization of Women's Freedom or any other organization tries to bring the violation of women's rights or children's rights or human rights into the attention and the authority of the international community, the Iraqi government don't like it because they think it's an exposition of their lack of governance of the country. And that's why the role of people like us who are involved in activism for human rights, for women's rights, for labor rights in Iraq is really vital because I think if a country -- if any given society, even if there's no war or any problems at all, if human rights is not respected, if women's rights is not recognized by the government than how can we talk about anything else really? So that's why I think human rights is fundamental. It's very, very detrimental for any other basically laws or rules in that country or that society.
Jasim Azawi: Nidhal, now that security is relatively better than in the past two years -- at least that's what the Iraqi government keeps telling us and US forces in Iraq. To what extent, security aside, are you facing bureaucracy, are you facing sectarian affiliation? For instance, say this medical equipment and surgical equipment you're bringing us, it should go to a certain part of Iraq, to a certain sect rather than given and distributed equally.
Nidhal Garmo: Any place that I can put my foot on it in Iraq, I would say 90% of Iraq is in need if it's not 100%. I will, if I'm able to do it, I will do it. Not any place that I specify. I look for the most needed areas and if I have the chance and a little bit of support from the government or the Ministries of Health, I'll do it. I have a chance to do it. There's nothing going to stop me from doing it. I'm not worried, I just believe I always hear from God.
Jasim Azawi: Do people tell you, Nidhal, that, "We are," for instance, "in northern Iraq, in the Chaldean Assyrian community, we need this and you are one of us, help us." You know that, "The Iraqi government can look after other people"?
Nidhal Garmo: Yes.
Jasim Azawi: Do you face that?
Nidhal Garmo: Oh, I hear that, I hear that not only from my own community, the Chaldean community, which been supportive a lot of me but not everybody -- Everybody wants to benefit their own people. That's something natural. But I've been facing some hardships, being Christian, Chaldean and with the situation with the war, it's not only hitting the Iraqi people, the problem is not only between Sunni and Shia and Christians and Muslims, it's also there in America. In Michigan, my own community, I hear it from people and I tell them, "Listen, the war doesn't know Muslim and Christian." When you go to a hospital, I'm taking medical and surgical supplies and medication. Anybody in need in any country, in any place, you need to help them. You want to help the poor? There are a lot of poor in Iraq. You want to help the sick? My God, I've been visiting hospitals and when you see a child that is dying of cancer, you're not going to look at his face or you ask his parents, "Where is he from?" He's Iraqi child that needs help. That will not stop me. And of course, this is part of hardships but if you are strong and you believe in God and you want to help people, you'll do it. You'll not worry about this kind of things because we need to educated people and help them. They've already been suffering in Iraq --
Jasim Azawi: Yes
Nidhal Garmo: So we are there for them. I don't discriminate and we are heading to the south very soon hopefully. They need us the most. Especially in Basra.
Jasim Azawi: We wish you the best, Nidhal, in all of your efforts but, Raed Jarrar, the history of Iraq and the United States is forever entwined because of the invasion of 2003. I'm almost reminded by the linkage between the United States and Vietnam. The two names have become synomous. In Washington, where you live, there is a powerful organization called AIPAC and that is the Jewish-Israeli lobby that promotes Israeli interests. Can we dream and can we think about one day the Iraqis will establish a powerful organization promoting Iraqi interests in the US?
Raed Jarrar: I mean, some people have been trying to do that. There are a number of Arab or Muslim pressure groups and some groups that try to promote Iraqi interests. I personally think that that is important, to have groups to promote dialogue between Iraq and the United States --
Jasim Azawi: But given the division among the Iraqi community, will that be, will that be possible?
Raed Jarrar: Yeah, it will be possible but not following the same model that AIPAC has been doing. I don't think -- as a US citizen as well, not just someone who was born in Iraq -- I don't want to create yet another group that leeches on the US and takes the United States' interests as second to -- as AIPAC has been doing. Through my work, I've been thinking about how the US can play more -- a smarter role in the region. To stop occupying and destroying nations like Iraq and to have better channels of dialogue. Now unfortunately, so far, the Iraqi community in the United States has not been organized enough to start a strong dialogue group. They're not united enough, unfortunately, to ask for ending the occuption. We still have a lot of different opinions within the Iraqi community in the US so it's more complicated than that. Where we stand now, I think that's too early to talk about. What we talk about now is the US should first stop its crimes, its occupation, its daily destruction of Iraq and then, once that done, we can talk about rosy future and the groups --
Jasim Azawi: Indeed you're right, Raed Jarrar, because the question of occupation versus liberation is still reverbarating not only in Iraq but across the world. But Houzan, let us talk about the future. In January there will be a Parliamentary election. In what ways Iraqis living abroad can help? Some people are volunteering as eleciton monitors. Given the fact that the election of 2005 and even before, it was not cordial, it was not Westminister type of election, was it?
Houzan Mahmoud: That;'s true. I mean the first election that was held it was held in a very terrible situation where there was absolutely no security and these political parties available there were even not known properly to the people in Iraq. I mean there was absolutely lack of security. Whereas considering that somehow the situation is calmed down now, there is a chance for people to know who to vote for and there's a chance for political parties and groups and organizations as well as individuals to put forward themselves basically to represent people's interest in the Iraqi Parliament and we -- in our organization -- we will be discussing soon, how to actually be part of the monitoring of this coming election by, as you said, to become a volunteer to monitor the elections. And I think people abroad, they can take positive steps and they can be part of something. It's really a matter of responsibility towards people in Iraq and towards the political processes there. I mean, I might not agree with every single political party or people who are on the list to be elected but then as individauls, as campaigners, as political groups, as people who are progressives and we want Iraqi people to have a better future, we are responsible, we feel like we have responsibility to do something.
And now we're back to Sunday's bombings in Ramadi. A number of people are arguing the violence is related to or wanting to impact upon 'planned' elections. No one in the press knows why the attacks are happening so it's all speculation. There is a pattern though for those who paid attention. (Not spoon feeding the lazy press here. See Hilda's Mix tomorrow morning, it's covered there.) Quil Lawrence (NPR's Morning Edition -- link has transcript and audio) grasps that there are no knowns at this point and, speaking with Steve Inskeep this morning, explained, "With all of these bombings there are questions in Iraq. There are still too many violent actors here to really be able to point a finger. In some ways it could have been one of the parties that wants to embarrass the current government and show that they aren't really delivering the security, which is the main plank of their campaign platform -- is that they've pacified Iraq. At the same time, there are a lot of people who have been released from detention as America has been transferring its custody of detainees to the Iraqis. A lot of people have been released. One police chief in Anbar told me that he thought the America prison camp in Camp Bucca in the south of the country was essentially a training camp for jihadis, and that some of them are now back on the streets in Anbar province." Telegraph of London insists, "A reinvigorated insurgency would pose a grave danger to the country's fragile stability as it prepares for crucial parliamentary elections early next year." Liz Sly (Los Angeles Times) adds that the bombings are being seen by some as an attempt to influence elections while the United Nations is saying that the 'scheduled' January 16th elections might "have to be delayed because of squabbling within Iraq's legislature over what kind of election law to adopt and the composition of the commission that will oversee the poll." Here's the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq's statement in full:Baghdad - 11 October 2009 - Today the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq, Ad Melkert expressed UNAMI's concerns that with 96 days before the election there remains no clarity on the election law. Mr. Melkert reiterated the United Nations' support for election preparations and promised continued technical advice to the IHEC in all the essential areas of its activities. He stated that "holding parliamentary elections on 16 January appears to be something that is strongly desired by the people of Iraq, will be a vital milestone for the Iraq's democratization process, and called for by the Iraq Constitution".UNAMI fully respects last week's parliamentary process and the desire of members of the Council of Representatives to question the IHEC Board of Commissioners. The SRSG suggests that a thorough evaluation of IHEC's performance in carrying out all electoral activities in Iraq since 2008 should be undertaken by the Council of Representatives once the results of the January 2010 elections have been officially announced. At this stage, however, UNAMI believes that significant changes to the institutional set-up in IHEC would severely disrupt the ongoing electoral preparations to the point that it would not be possible to hold credible elections until a considerably later date.UNAMI is optimistic that, with its continued and indeed expanded support, the IHEC should be able to deliver credible election results in January 2010 that will be broadly accepted by all political factions and the Iraqi voters. But to achieve this, preparations will need to be accelerated in a number of areas, and support is required from many parts of the Government. At the same time, the SRSG once again urges the Council of Representatives to clarify the legal framework for the elections in the coming week.
So now the elections might be on hold? For those who have forgotten, these elections were supposed to take place this December and have already been pushed back a month. That was among the excuses US President Barack Obama gave for breaking his campaign promise of US troops out of Iraq in 10 months. (He dropped it from 16 months to 10 months while speaking in Houston, Texas in February 2008.) And now elections might have to be put on hold? Wait, are elections even scheduled. Testifying to the US House Armed Services Committee September 30th, the top US commander in Iraq, Gen Ray Odierno, explained the upcoming (or 'upcoming') vote.
General Ray Odierno: I'll wal -- Congressman, I'll walk you through in general terms. First, the el - by the [Iraqi] Constitution, the election is supposed to occur no later than the 31st of January. Right now, it's scheduled for the 16th of January. Again, pending the passing of the election law.
That was September 30th. Tick-tock, tick-tock. It's twelve days later, where's the election law? Gina Chon (Wall St. Journal) reports, " Iraqi legislators face a Thursday deadline to approve an election law for January's parliamentary polls, while opposition grows against plans for a so-called closed-list ballot." That's 'progress'? Jim Muir (BBC News) reports on the sticky points of any election law, "They include differences over the minimum age for candidates and their educational qualifications, and over what constituency basis should be adopted. There are also concerns over arrangements for the disputed city of Kirkuk in the north and the question of whether electoral lists should be 'open' or 'closed'." Kirkuk? That issue was supposed to have been resolved long ago. The 2005 Iraqi Constitution dictated that there be a referendum on the matter. The 2007 White House benchmarks that Nouri al-Maliki signed off mandated that he resolve the issue as dictated by the Iraqi Constitution. These election will take place (at some point) in 2010 and Kirkuk's never been "resolved." 'Progress'? US forces have been kept on the ground in Iraq with the American people repeatedly lied to that the US forces were just there currently for peace, to give space for the (installed) government (of exiles) to conduct political business. They've done no such thing. There's been no movement. And this lie that US forces need to stay for political movement is as much a lie Bush's WMD assertions.
Barack and other War Hawks like to talk "safe withdrawal" and "responsible withdrawal." Bulls**t. Like there's anything "safe" or "responsible" in dropping bombs on people? In using drones? In using counter-insurgency? We expect that from the War Hawks. Expect it from I Need Attention Benjamin as well. Jodie Evans' personal maid already walked away from Iraq, long gone is the cry of "Out Of Iraq" now. Apparently Afghanistan isn't offering I Need Attention and CODESTINK enough opportunities for press. Scott Horton (Antiwar Radio) interviewed Medea Benjamin and was confused going into the interview due to a report quoting Medea in the Christian Sciene Monitor. Medea insists she was misquoted but goes on to repeat the same crap she claims was a misquote. Scott Horton's radio program and a transcript of it can be found here. In the excerpt below, you may have to repeatedly remind yourself that it is Medea Benjamin speaking and not George W. Bush.
Horton: What did they ever do to the United States?
Benjamin: Well see, if your perspective is just from the United States. My perspective is also from what they did to the women of Afghanistan. But if your perspective is truly from the United States, what people say is that if we allow the Taliban to take over Afghanistan then that will be a safe haven for Al Qaeda.
Horton: Yeah, but that's no different is it than the National Review saying, you know, Saddam Hussein was really bad to the people in Iraq. I think this is why all over Facebook today they're saying, "Ha, ha, and again, for those tuning in late, she did say, it's Medea Benjamin from Code Pink. She did say the Christian Science Monitor's reporting was not altogether accurate here. But all over Facebook they're saying, "Ha, ha, I guess she'll have to apologize to Condoleezza Rice now. And "Ha, ha, I guess this proves that obviously that McChrystal is right. If Code Pink and McChrystal both agree that the occupation has got to be better in order to quell the violence, then by golly we know it's right." Like when Bill Clinton and George Bush agree about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
Benjamin: Well I think it's just full of distortions, because what we say is we want a responsible pulling out of U.S. troops and we certainly are against what McChrystal is calling for. We're against sending in more troops, we're against troops being visibly present in the villages because we think their presence is more of a threat to people there and puts them at risk. And we want our troops to pull out. We just want to do it in a way that is not going to lead to a Taliban takeover that will put women back inside the home.
Let me be clear, concern for Afghan women? You should have raised the issue much earlier this year the way some of us with guts did, Medea. But you're a coward and you're a publicity whore. You're tired and you need to sit your ass down. US forces need to leave Iraq and to leave Afghanistan NOW. Not tomorrow, not a year from now, not three years from now. The US cannot fix either 'problem' and that's even if it wanted to; however, nothing in Afghanistan over the last eight year or in Iraq over the last six has indicated the US wants to fix one damn thing. (And regardless of 'desire,' it's not any foreign country's place to 'fix' another country.) The US put thugs in charge of both countries because thugs could intimidate the people and bring some form of 'stability' to the country. US policies in Iraq and Afghanistan have never, NEVER, concerned themselves with the people of either country. Stop the lying, stop the bulls**t. I'm not in the mood for liars. Thank you to Medea for not just being such a craven little whore but for being so publicly. We started calling out her and CODESTINK some time ago and of course those who check in on Iraq once every three months couldn't understand that. Listen to the Horton interview or read the transcript. Medea Benjamin and CODESTICK are officially trash now. They're not about ending any war, they are about providing cover for Barack Obama. They have made themselves clear. What was obvious to many of us some time ago is now transparent.
The woman who ensured the Green Party would not have a viable candidate in 2004 and would not have a real shot at being a third party is now doing her part to wreck the peace movement. Greens may have put up with her s**t but the peace movement won't. You take trash to the curb, you don't let it (mis)lead a movement. Medea and her ilk were allowed to turn the peace movement into an Elect Barack campaign and then, after Barack was elected, they went around lying that Iraq War was ending. The Iraq War has ended. Friday Elaine noted that AP's Jennifer Loven reported, "He said he would end the Iraq war. But he has been slow to bring the troops home and the real end of the U.S. military presence there won't come until at least 2012, and that's only if both the U.S. and Iraq stick to their current agreement about American troop withdrawals." Only if. And there's no indication that they will -- either side. But we do know that last week, Matthew D. LaPlante (Salt Lake Tribune) was reporting, "And some Utah units have been told to anticipate deployments to Iraq as far off as 2012." And we do know that the Iraq War continues to drag on.
In an attempt by a foreign government to bribe a US sitting president (one million dollars is a bribe -- whether Barack donates it to charity or keeps it), Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Debra Sweet (World Can't Wait) is calling for signatures and letters on the topic though she probably would have positioned herself better by remembering the Iraq War. Kenneth J. Theisen (also World Can't Wait) offers, "I've been around awhile so I am not easily shocked, but this did shock me at first. I have been writing about Obama for a few years and have followed his career in politics and could not imagine why he had been chosen. But as I was more fully awake it made perfect sense to me, given some of the past winners of the Prize. Past U.S. winners have included Teddy Roosevelt (1906), Woodrow Wilson (1919) and Henry Kissinger (1973) and Jimmy Carter (2002). These winners did much to advance U.S. imperialism, as Obama is trying so hard to do as President and Commander-in-Chief." Also at WCW, Cindy Sheehan declares, "The US Peace Movement was put on life support with the election of Democrats. I hope now that we have a president who is just a tool of the war machine AND a Nobel Peace Laureate that it hasn't put the final nail in the coffin of the Peace Movement." At her own site, Peace Mom Cindy Sheehan adds:
It's true, Obama did not begin the wars, but he is sending more troops to all theaters. That doesn't sound too peaceful to me. Torture, indefinite detention, "crippling sanctions," threats towards Venezuela and Iran; silent support of a military coup that overthrew a democratically elected President in Honduras and so on, ad nauseum, are all the "accomplishments" of this Nobel Laureate.
I was tear-gassed and chased down by US stormtroopers in Pittsburgh for wanting to express my opinion when the leaders of the G20 were assembled a couple of weeks ago. I saw those same imperial stormtroopers shoot children with rubber bullets or bean-bags filled with steel b.bs in the Empire's new game of, not protest suppression, but protester attack. Are these the actions of a country that is "led" by a Nobel Laureate?
It also comes to me that I chained myself to the White House fence last Monday and was arrested, along with 61 others, protesting the Laureate's war polices, as he met with his "War Council." Five hundred more of us were there. We were and still all are adamantly opposed to the war policies of The Laureate.
What does that make us candidates for?
The Bizzarro World Peace Prize?
The only "vision" that has come true today, is George Orwell's 1984: War is Peace; Ignorance is Strength and Freedom is Slavery.
the common illsthe third estate sunday reviewlike maria said pazkats kornersex and politics and screeds and attitudetrinas kitchenthe daily jotcedrics big mixmikey likes itthomas friedman is a great manruths reportsickofitradlzoh boy it never endsthe world today just nutsiraqiraq
iraq
raed jarrar
al jazeerainside iraqjasim al-azzawi
uthman al-mokhtarthe washington postnada bakri
mcclatchy newspapersmohammad al dulaimyjamal naji
timothy williamsthe new york times
the los angeles timesliz slycindy sheehan
xinhuazhang xiangthe wall street journalgina chon
bbc newsjim muir
nprmorning edition
quil lawrence
scott horton
Ha ha ha! :D I love that. And this is John Walsh commenting on the prize at Dissident Voice:
Next year, literature: Obama for “The Audacity of Hope” — the greatest fiction ever.
Next year, economy: Obama — creating a new statistical metric for recovery.
Next year, peace: Bush/Cheney — based on Obama’s peace prize precedent.
Year after, peace: Netanyahu — the man behind Obama’s peace in the middle east.
But to this writer we witness the second repetition of history. The US Empire’s first great colonial war on the Asian mainland in the last half century was Truman’s Korean war. This was repeated as tragedy in Vietnam at the hands of the Best and Brightest, with Johnson and Kennedy in the lead. And now the Iraq/AfPak war comes at us from Bush and Obama and Congresses both Democrat and Republic. If Vietnam was tragedy, then certainly Iraq/AfPak is farce. There were no WMD in Iraq and everyone knew it. By the military’s own admission there are about 100 Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, so the US troops are not there because of Al-Qaeda – and everyone knows it.
Now the ultimate comedic turn comes with the award to Obama of the Nobel War Prize. Perhaps the antiwar movement needs to adjust its tone from pure outrage to ridicule. After all Obama and the elite running this country are without clothes as they parade before us as men of peace, puffed up with talk of fake health care reform and assuring us of economic recovery that provides no jobs. It would be hard to make this stuff up. And through our tears at the predicament we are in, we can at least ridicule these hypocritical murderers. They deserve to be seen clearly as the cruel and absurd hollow men that they are. They march before us unknowingly naked.
The Nobel is now the joke revealed -- it was always a joke and only now it's really public what a joke it is. I think we're also what sexists some on the left are. I've seen people propose someone who really deserved it and except for Cindy Sheehan who said it should have gone to Cynthia McKinney, I didn't see one person (man or woman) think of a woman who deserved it. (For the record, I'd give it to Cindy Sheehan.)
Okay, my grandfather asked me to note something, which I will, but I also passed it on to my mother and to Marcia to get it out there. (I love my grandfather.) This is from Tom Eley and Barry Grey at WSWS:
Obama, no less than Bush, represents the interests of the American financial aristocracy. Internationally, it increasingly employs military aggression in pursuit of its global economic and strategic aims in an attempt to offset the decline in its world economic position. At home, it turns to anti-democratic methods to defend an economic system that promotes staggering levels of inequality and growing social misery for broad masses of working people.
The ever more pronounced concentration of wealth at the very top of society and heightening of class tensions are ultimately incompatible with democratic procedures and methods of rule. The trampling of the Bill of Rights and habeas corpus is bound up with an awareness in ruling circles that their policies must give rise to social opposition. The police-state framework built up under Bush and Obama is a response by the ruling elite to a threat not from foreign terrorists, but from its main enemy—the American working class.
Okay, let's talk Third. Working on this edition were Dallas and the following:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.
And what did we come up with?
Truest statement of the week -- That's Caro. Ty and C.I. nominted her.
Truest statement of the week II -- And this is Tariq Ali nominted by C.I. and Elaine.
A note to our readers -- Jim breaks down the edition.
Editorial: It's not hurt feelings -- C.I. called last night and asked if I minded if a sentence was added to this and if Elaine minded? We didn't. I told C.I. not to worry about calling anyone else that no one would have a problem. As Jim explained in his note, they had a problem uploading new images to Flickr and C.I. was going to try at night. The illustration planned for this was a drawing and it did not load. So C.I. was trying to find an illustration that would work that we'd already uploaded to Flickr. C.I. found one of American Dad that would work but some words needed to be added to the editorial. I think it and the illustration make the editorial but I really love this editorial. I also love next week's planned one.
TV: The Good, the Barack and the Ugly -- Ava and C.I. explain why The Good Wife (CBS) is the best drama and they weigh in on Barack and the Nobel Prize and a SNL skit. This is really funny and Elaine keeps reading parts of it to me. She loves this one.
Getting the help you need -- Betty had an idea that was split into the editorial this week and next and that C.I. and Ava (and I think Jess) said should be backed up with a self-help piece. So that's this. I like it and think it's funny and think you can read it and take it straight or you can read it and take it as tongue in cheek.
Baby Comics -- We were overdue on a comic feature. In part because past attempts at writing one ended up in the trash. This time we got one we were comfortable posting.
Iraq -- Jim had told us C.I. would punch this up a little (on Sunday night) and C.I. really did. I was so disappointed in what we wrote in this. I was so glad when I read it today and saw how C.I. had pulled some other stuff in and made it stronger.
Roundtable -- How mad was Betty? Pretty ticked off and she's not going to pretend otherwise. Is C.I. mad at Rebecca? That question -- e-mailed by Leigh Ann -- confused me but I e-mailed her back and she said she thought C.I. might be mad at Rebecca for writing about Mackenzie Phillips. No, C.I. wasn't mad. I do think it was a mistake to ask the question Ty did. I wouldn't have. C.I. has avoided the topic and intended to avoid it. And C.I. did not mean a kiss off to Mackenzie Phillips. She meant, as she states, this isn't a topic she wants to talk about. Which was a clue, to me, that the question shouldn't have been asked. If some people weren't still calling Mackenzie Phillips a liar, C.I. might not have said anything. But, read it and this comes through, C.I. wasn't going to let Mackenzie Phillips be called a liar when she was telling the truth.
Halloween (Dona) -- Dona's Halloween piece. This is funny. She was tired. And didn't know what to write about. She asked us should she write about ___ or ___ and we were the ones saying, "Woah! Toys! You got toys at Halloween!" :D
Senator Byron Dorgan on shoddy contractors -- Dorgan press release.
Highlights -- Rebecca, Betty, Kat, Ruth, Marcia, Stan, Wally, Cedric, Ann, Elaine and I wrote this.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Monday, October 12, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, there is no election law in Iraq, the faux peace movement comes out in favor of US forces remaining in Afghanistan (just as they walked away from "Out Of Iraq Now!"), real peace activists weigh in on the Nobel Peace Prize and more.
Sunday Ramadi was rocked with violence. Mohammad al Dulaimy and Jamal Naji (McClatchy Newspapers) report, "First, they bombed a crowded parking lot outside the Anbar provincial government's headquarters. Seven minutes later, they detonated a car bomb aimed at the rescue workers. An hour later, a third bomb exploded outside the hospital where survivors were receiving treatment." The Los Angeles Times puts the death toll at 26 and McCatchy says over eighty were injured. Zhang Xiang (Xinhua) cites an unnamed Interior Ministry source stating 80% "of the wounded were policemen and 10 percent of the injured were in a critical condition". Uthman al-Mokhtar and Nada Bakri (Washington Post) explains, "Rumors spread through Ramadi and other parts of the province about who was behind the statacks. Some suggsted government officials were involved, part of the fallout from months of negotiations over creating alliances for Iraq's parliamentary elections in January." And with rumors come the denials. Timothy Williams (New York Times) quotes Anbar Province's Deputy Governor Hekmet Jassim Zeidan stating, "The police commanders are not doing their job the way it should be done. We have pointed out the mistakes and failures among the police, but no one has done anything to correct the problems." That was Sunday and we'll return to it later but we'll move over to today's violence right now.
Bombings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing which injured four people (one a police officer), a Baghdad sticky bombing which wounded five people (including "a high-ranking officer in the ministry of interior" whose car the bomb was attached to), a Diyala province bombing targeted "sons of the mayor of Abu Khamees" killing two and wounded a third (the "sons of the mayor" are also members of Sahwa, "Sons Of Iraq," "Awakenings"), a Buhruz roadside bombing which claimed the life of 1 construction worker and wounded two more and an Anbar Province home bombing (home "of one of the Sahwa leaders"). Reuters notes a Mosul home bombing which injured one woman and her four children, two Buhriz roadside bombings which claimed 3 lives and left three people injured (Reuters also notes the Buhriz roadside bombing Sahar Issa does -- there are three roadside bombings reported today in Buhuriz) and a tailor shop bombing in Mosul which injured one person.
Shootings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 construction worker shot dead in Mosul.
The Iraqi Diaspora is the topic of the most recent Inside Iraq (Al Jazeera) and host Jasim Azawi discussed it with Nidhal Garmo (For Victims of War and Poverty), Raed Jarrar (American Friends Service Committee) and Houzan Mahmoud (Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq).
Jasim Azawi: Nidhal, let me start with you. You are an Iraqi-American citizen. You are a pharmacist based in Detroit, Michigan. And for the past ten years, you have been involved in Iraq sending aid and money to Iraq. But since the invasion of 2003, you've been going to Iraq, taking surgical and medical equipment to Iraq. Exactly what draws you to Iraq? Is it your roots? Is it the desire to help? What is it?
Nidhal Garmo: It's a mixture of every good thing a human being can think. Years ago, I used to watch TV, especially Al Jazeera, and I used to get hurt when I see the African children are dying hungry, the people from Palestine are living this miserable life -- like refugees. I never thought that one day Iraq -- the safest, most beautiful country, my country, my family, all Iraqi people are my family -- would go through this ordeal so I decided to do something about it rather than watching the TV and crying every single day and night for them.
Jasim Azawi: I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands like you and one of them is Raed Jarrar. Raed, you are an architect, your masters thesis is in post-war reconstruction. In what way can you help Iraq, given your experience?
Raed Jarrar: I was in Iraq during the sanction years and during the invasion and I actually did do some reconstruction projects after the fall of Baghdad in 2003 based on community organizations and Iraqi efforts. Unfortunately all these attempts that I started and that many others started failed and could not continue because of the political and military situation in Iraq. Now my dissertation, I talked about how Iraq will go through three different phases of rebuilding. The first one is the immediate relief after the disaster and during the disaster that Iraq is going through and after that we will go to the reconstruction phase and after that it will allow us to reach to a development phase. Unfortunately six years into the occupation after the fall of Baghdad, we're still in the relief phase. The reconstruction phase did not start yet. So it is still very, very primitive and I think there are so many people with capacity to help rebuilding Iraq and initiate reconstruction campaign that would bring the country back to life. But they are marginalized, mostly outside the country and the ones inside the country cannot actually participate in a functioning campaign yet.
Jasim Azawi: Given what he said, Houzan, that reconstruction is still way off and you are involved with a human rights organization, is human rights a luxury for Iraqis right now? Is it too early to talk about it given that it is almost the bete noire of the Iraqi government? When you work in Iraq, are you watched by Iraqi government?
Houzan Mahmoud: Certainly. I mean, human rights is not a luxury. It's a basic rights for human beings to live with freedom and their rights be respected. I mean considering that people in Iraq have lived under dictatorship for thirty years followed by another six years of devastation war and occupation, these people deserve rights, they deserve freedom and they deserve a simple life with basic rights included. Of course when the Organization of Women's Freedom or any other organization tries to bring the violation of women's rights or children's rights or human rights into the attention and the authority of the international community, the Iraqi government don't like it because they think it's an exposition of their lack of governance of the country. And that's why the role of people like us who are involved in activism for human rights, for women's rights, for labor rights in Iraq is really vital because I think if a country -- if any given society, even if there's no war or any problems at all, if human rights is not respected, if women's rights is not recognized by the government than how can we talk about anything else really? So that's why I think human rights is fundamental. It's very, very detrimental for any other basically laws or rules in that country or that society.
Jasim Azawi: Nidhal, now that security is relatively better than in the past two years -- at least that's what the Iraqi government keeps telling us and US forces in Iraq. To what extent, security aside, are you facing bureaucracy, are you facing sectarian affiliation? For instance, say this medical equipment and surgical equipment you're bringing us, it should go to a certain part of Iraq, to a certain sect rather than given and distributed equally.
Nidhal Garmo: Any place that I can put my foot on it in Iraq, I would say 90% of Iraq is in need if it's not 100%. I will, if I'm able to do it, I will do it. Not any place that I specify. I look for the most needed areas and if I have the chance and a little bit of support from the government or the Ministries of Health, I'll do it. I have a chance to do it. There's nothing going to stop me from doing it. I'm not worried, I just believe I always hear from God.
Jasim Azawi: Do people tell you, Nidhal, that, "We are," for instance, "in northern Iraq, in the Chaldean Assyrian community, we need this and you are one of us, help us." You know that, "The Iraqi government can look after other people"?
Nidhal Garmo: Yes.
Jasim Azawi: Do you face that?
Nidhal Garmo: Oh, I hear that, I hear that not only from my own community, the Chaldean community, which been supportive a lot of me but not everybody -- Everybody wants to benefit their own people. That's something natural. But I've been facing some hardships, being Christian, Chaldean and with the situation with the war, it's not only hitting the Iraqi people, the problem is not only between Sunni and Shia and Christians and Muslims, it's also there in America. In Michigan, my own community, I hear it from people and I tell them, "Listen, the war doesn't know Muslim and Christian." When you go to a hospital, I'm taking medical and surgical supplies and medication. Anybody in need in any country, in any place, you need to help them. You want to help the poor? There are a lot of poor in Iraq. You want to help the sick? My God, I've been visiting hospitals and when you see a child that is dying of cancer, you're not going to look at his face or you ask his parents, "Where is he from?" He's Iraqi child that needs help. That will not stop me. And of course, this is part of hardships but if you are strong and you believe in God and you want to help people, you'll do it. You'll not worry about this kind of things because we need to educated people and help them. They've already been suffering in Iraq --
Jasim Azawi: Yes
Nidhal Garmo: So we are there for them. I don't discriminate and we are heading to the south very soon hopefully. They need us the most. Especially in Basra.
Jasim Azawi: We wish you the best, Nidhal, in all of your efforts but, Raed Jarrar, the history of Iraq and the United States is forever entwined because of the invasion of 2003. I'm almost reminded by the linkage between the United States and Vietnam. The two names have become synomous. In Washington, where you live, there is a powerful organization called AIPAC and that is the Jewish-Israeli lobby that promotes Israeli interests. Can we dream and can we think about one day the Iraqis will establish a powerful organization promoting Iraqi interests in the US?
Raed Jarrar: I mean, some people have been trying to do that. There are a number of Arab or Muslim pressure groups and some groups that try to promote Iraqi interests. I personally think that that is important, to have groups to promote dialogue between Iraq and the United States --
Jasim Azawi: But given the division among the Iraqi community, will that be, will that be possible?
Raed Jarrar: Yeah, it will be possible but not following the same model that AIPAC has been doing. I don't think -- as a US citizen as well, not just someone who was born in Iraq -- I don't want to create yet another group that leeches on the US and takes the United States' interests as second to -- as AIPAC has been doing. Through my work, I've been thinking about how the US can play more -- a smarter role in the region. To stop occupying and destroying nations like Iraq and to have better channels of dialogue. Now unfortunately, so far, the Iraqi community in the United States has not been organized enough to start a strong dialogue group. They're not united enough, unfortunately, to ask for ending the occuption. We still have a lot of different opinions within the Iraqi community in the US so it's more complicated than that. Where we stand now, I think that's too early to talk about. What we talk about now is the US should first stop its crimes, its occupation, its daily destruction of Iraq and then, once that done, we can talk about rosy future and the groups --
Jasim Azawi: Indeed you're right, Raed Jarrar, because the question of occupation versus liberation is still reverbarating not only in Iraq but across the world. But Houzan, let us talk about the future. In January there will be a Parliamentary election. In what ways Iraqis living abroad can help? Some people are volunteering as eleciton monitors. Given the fact that the election of 2005 and even before, it was not cordial, it was not Westminister type of election, was it?
Houzan Mahmoud: That;'s true. I mean the first election that was held it was held in a very terrible situation where there was absolutely no security and these political parties available there were even not known properly to the people in Iraq. I mean there was absolutely lack of security. Whereas considering that somehow the situation is calmed down now, there is a chance for people to know who to vote for and there's a chance for political parties and groups and organizations as well as individuals to put forward themselves basically to represent people's interest in the Iraqi Parliament and we -- in our organization -- we will be discussing soon, how to actually be part of the monitoring of this coming election by, as you said, to become a volunteer to monitor the elections. And I think people abroad, they can take positive steps and they can be part of something. It's really a matter of responsibility towards people in Iraq and towards the political processes there. I mean, I might not agree with every single political party or people who are on the list to be elected but then as individauls, as campaigners, as political groups, as people who are progressives and we want Iraqi people to have a better future, we are responsible, we feel like we have responsibility to do something.
And now we're back to Sunday's bombings in Ramadi. A number of people are arguing the violence is related to or wanting to impact upon 'planned' elections. No one in the press knows why the attacks are happening so it's all speculation. There is a pattern though for those who paid attention. (Not spoon feeding the lazy press here. See Hilda's Mix tomorrow morning, it's covered there.) Quil Lawrence (NPR's Morning Edition -- link has transcript and audio) grasps that there are no knowns at this point and, speaking with Steve Inskeep this morning, explained, "With all of these bombings there are questions in Iraq. There are still too many violent actors here to really be able to point a finger. In some ways it could have been one of the parties that wants to embarrass the current government and show that they aren't really delivering the security, which is the main plank of their campaign platform -- is that they've pacified Iraq. At the same time, there are a lot of people who have been released from detention as America has been transferring its custody of detainees to the Iraqis. A lot of people have been released. One police chief in Anbar told me that he thought the America prison camp in Camp Bucca in the south of the country was essentially a training camp for jihadis, and that some of them are now back on the streets in Anbar province." Telegraph of London insists, "A reinvigorated insurgency would pose a grave danger to the country's fragile stability as it prepares for crucial parliamentary elections early next year." Liz Sly (Los Angeles Times) adds that the bombings are being seen by some as an attempt to influence elections while the United Nations is saying that the 'scheduled' January 16th elections might "have to be delayed because of squabbling within Iraq's legislature over what kind of election law to adopt and the composition of the commission that will oversee the poll." Here's the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq's statement in full:Baghdad - 11 October 2009 - Today the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq, Ad Melkert expressed UNAMI's concerns that with 96 days before the election there remains no clarity on the election law. Mr. Melkert reiterated the United Nations' support for election preparations and promised continued technical advice to the IHEC in all the essential areas of its activities. He stated that "holding parliamentary elections on 16 January appears to be something that is strongly desired by the people of Iraq, will be a vital milestone for the Iraq's democratization process, and called for by the Iraq Constitution".UNAMI fully respects last week's parliamentary process and the desire of members of the Council of Representatives to question the IHEC Board of Commissioners. The SRSG suggests that a thorough evaluation of IHEC's performance in carrying out all electoral activities in Iraq since 2008 should be undertaken by the Council of Representatives once the results of the January 2010 elections have been officially announced. At this stage, however, UNAMI believes that significant changes to the institutional set-up in IHEC would severely disrupt the ongoing electoral preparations to the point that it would not be possible to hold credible elections until a considerably later date.UNAMI is optimistic that, with its continued and indeed expanded support, the IHEC should be able to deliver credible election results in January 2010 that will be broadly accepted by all political factions and the Iraqi voters. But to achieve this, preparations will need to be accelerated in a number of areas, and support is required from many parts of the Government. At the same time, the SRSG once again urges the Council of Representatives to clarify the legal framework for the elections in the coming week.
So now the elections might be on hold? For those who have forgotten, these elections were supposed to take place this December and have already been pushed back a month. That was among the excuses US President Barack Obama gave for breaking his campaign promise of US troops out of Iraq in 10 months. (He dropped it from 16 months to 10 months while speaking in Houston, Texas in February 2008.) And now elections might have to be put on hold? Wait, are elections even scheduled. Testifying to the US House Armed Services Committee September 30th, the top US commander in Iraq, Gen Ray Odierno, explained the upcoming (or 'upcoming') vote.
General Ray Odierno: I'll wal -- Congressman, I'll walk you through in general terms. First, the el - by the [Iraqi] Constitution, the election is supposed to occur no later than the 31st of January. Right now, it's scheduled for the 16th of January. Again, pending the passing of the election law.
That was September 30th. Tick-tock, tick-tock. It's twelve days later, where's the election law? Gina Chon (Wall St. Journal) reports, " Iraqi legislators face a Thursday deadline to approve an election law for January's parliamentary polls, while opposition grows against plans for a so-called closed-list ballot." That's 'progress'? Jim Muir (BBC News) reports on the sticky points of any election law, "They include differences over the minimum age for candidates and their educational qualifications, and over what constituency basis should be adopted. There are also concerns over arrangements for the disputed city of Kirkuk in the north and the question of whether electoral lists should be 'open' or 'closed'." Kirkuk? That issue was supposed to have been resolved long ago. The 2005 Iraqi Constitution dictated that there be a referendum on the matter. The 2007 White House benchmarks that Nouri al-Maliki signed off mandated that he resolve the issue as dictated by the Iraqi Constitution. These election will take place (at some point) in 2010 and Kirkuk's never been "resolved." 'Progress'? US forces have been kept on the ground in Iraq with the American people repeatedly lied to that the US forces were just there currently for peace, to give space for the (installed) government (of exiles) to conduct political business. They've done no such thing. There's been no movement. And this lie that US forces need to stay for political movement is as much a lie Bush's WMD assertions.
Barack and other War Hawks like to talk "safe withdrawal" and "responsible withdrawal." Bulls**t. Like there's anything "safe" or "responsible" in dropping bombs on people? In using drones? In using counter-insurgency? We expect that from the War Hawks. Expect it from I Need Attention Benjamin as well. Jodie Evans' personal maid already walked away from Iraq, long gone is the cry of "Out Of Iraq" now. Apparently Afghanistan isn't offering I Need Attention and CODESTINK enough opportunities for press. Scott Horton (Antiwar Radio) interviewed Medea Benjamin and was confused going into the interview due to a report quoting Medea in the Christian Sciene Monitor. Medea insists she was misquoted but goes on to repeat the same crap she claims was a misquote. Scott Horton's radio program and a transcript of it can be found here. In the excerpt below, you may have to repeatedly remind yourself that it is Medea Benjamin speaking and not George W. Bush.
Horton: What did they ever do to the United States?
Benjamin: Well see, if your perspective is just from the United States. My perspective is also from what they did to the women of Afghanistan. But if your perspective is truly from the United States, what people say is that if we allow the Taliban to take over Afghanistan then that will be a safe haven for Al Qaeda.
Horton: Yeah, but that's no different is it than the National Review saying, you know, Saddam Hussein was really bad to the people in Iraq. I think this is why all over Facebook today they're saying, "Ha, ha, and again, for those tuning in late, she did say, it's Medea Benjamin from Code Pink. She did say the Christian Science Monitor's reporting was not altogether accurate here. But all over Facebook they're saying, "Ha, ha, I guess she'll have to apologize to Condoleezza Rice now. And "Ha, ha, I guess this proves that obviously that McChrystal is right. If Code Pink and McChrystal both agree that the occupation has got to be better in order to quell the violence, then by golly we know it's right." Like when Bill Clinton and George Bush agree about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
Benjamin: Well I think it's just full of distortions, because what we say is we want a responsible pulling out of U.S. troops and we certainly are against what McChrystal is calling for. We're against sending in more troops, we're against troops being visibly present in the villages because we think their presence is more of a threat to people there and puts them at risk. And we want our troops to pull out. We just want to do it in a way that is not going to lead to a Taliban takeover that will put women back inside the home.
Let me be clear, concern for Afghan women? You should have raised the issue much earlier this year the way some of us with guts did, Medea. But you're a coward and you're a publicity whore. You're tired and you need to sit your ass down. US forces need to leave Iraq and to leave Afghanistan NOW. Not tomorrow, not a year from now, not three years from now. The US cannot fix either 'problem' and that's even if it wanted to; however, nothing in Afghanistan over the last eight year or in Iraq over the last six has indicated the US wants to fix one damn thing. (And regardless of 'desire,' it's not any foreign country's place to 'fix' another country.) The US put thugs in charge of both countries because thugs could intimidate the people and bring some form of 'stability' to the country. US policies in Iraq and Afghanistan have never, NEVER, concerned themselves with the people of either country. Stop the lying, stop the bulls**t. I'm not in the mood for liars. Thank you to Medea for not just being such a craven little whore but for being so publicly. We started calling out her and CODESTINK some time ago and of course those who check in on Iraq once every three months couldn't understand that. Listen to the Horton interview or read the transcript. Medea Benjamin and CODESTICK are officially trash now. They're not about ending any war, they are about providing cover for Barack Obama. They have made themselves clear. What was obvious to many of us some time ago is now transparent.
The woman who ensured the Green Party would not have a viable candidate in 2004 and would not have a real shot at being a third party is now doing her part to wreck the peace movement. Greens may have put up with her s**t but the peace movement won't. You take trash to the curb, you don't let it (mis)lead a movement. Medea and her ilk were allowed to turn the peace movement into an Elect Barack campaign and then, after Barack was elected, they went around lying that Iraq War was ending. The Iraq War has ended. Friday Elaine noted that AP's Jennifer Loven reported, "He said he would end the Iraq war. But he has been slow to bring the troops home and the real end of the U.S. military presence there won't come until at least 2012, and that's only if both the U.S. and Iraq stick to their current agreement about American troop withdrawals." Only if. And there's no indication that they will -- either side. But we do know that last week, Matthew D. LaPlante (Salt Lake Tribune) was reporting, "And some Utah units have been told to anticipate deployments to Iraq as far off as 2012." And we do know that the Iraq War continues to drag on.
In an attempt by a foreign government to bribe a US sitting president (one million dollars is a bribe -- whether Barack donates it to charity or keeps it), Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Debra Sweet (World Can't Wait) is calling for signatures and letters on the topic though she probably would have positioned herself better by remembering the Iraq War. Kenneth J. Theisen (also World Can't Wait) offers, "I've been around awhile so I am not easily shocked, but this did shock me at first. I have been writing about Obama for a few years and have followed his career in politics and could not imagine why he had been chosen. But as I was more fully awake it made perfect sense to me, given some of the past winners of the Prize. Past U.S. winners have included Teddy Roosevelt (1906), Woodrow Wilson (1919) and Henry Kissinger (1973) and Jimmy Carter (2002). These winners did much to advance U.S. imperialism, as Obama is trying so hard to do as President and Commander-in-Chief." Also at WCW, Cindy Sheehan declares, "The US Peace Movement was put on life support with the election of Democrats. I hope now that we have a president who is just a tool of the war machine AND a Nobel Peace Laureate that it hasn't put the final nail in the coffin of the Peace Movement." At her own site, Peace Mom Cindy Sheehan adds:
It's true, Obama did not begin the wars, but he is sending more troops to all theaters. That doesn't sound too peaceful to me. Torture, indefinite detention, "crippling sanctions," threats towards Venezuela and Iran; silent support of a military coup that overthrew a democratically elected President in Honduras and so on, ad nauseum, are all the "accomplishments" of this Nobel Laureate.
I was tear-gassed and chased down by US stormtroopers in Pittsburgh for wanting to express my opinion when the leaders of the G20 were assembled a couple of weeks ago. I saw those same imperial stormtroopers shoot children with rubber bullets or bean-bags filled with steel b.bs in the Empire's new game of, not protest suppression, but protester attack. Are these the actions of a country that is "led" by a Nobel Laureate?
It also comes to me that I chained myself to the White House fence last Monday and was arrested, along with 61 others, protesting the Laureate's war polices, as he met with his "War Council." Five hundred more of us were there. We were and still all are adamantly opposed to the war policies of The Laureate.
What does that make us candidates for?
The Bizzarro World Peace Prize?
The only "vision" that has come true today, is George Orwell's 1984: War is Peace; Ignorance is Strength and Freedom is Slavery.
the common illsthe third estate sunday reviewlike maria said pazkats kornersex and politics and screeds and attitudetrinas kitchenthe daily jotcedrics big mixmikey likes itthomas friedman is a great manruths reportsickofitradlzoh boy it never endsthe world today just nutsiraqiraq
iraq
raed jarrar
al jazeerainside iraqjasim al-azzawi
uthman al-mokhtarthe washington postnada bakri
mcclatchy newspapersmohammad al dulaimyjamal naji
timothy williamsthe new york times
the los angeles timesliz slycindy sheehan
xinhuazhang xiangthe wall street journalgina chon
bbc newsjim muir
nprmorning edition
quil lawrence
scott horton
Friday, October 09, 2009
Medhi Hasan, Simon Assaf
Friday. Or as I like to think of it, Freaky Friday. The joke that is Nobel, that's how I think of it.
How much do I want to say on that?
Not a damn thing. Want some reality? This is from Mehdi Hasan's "Change we can’t believe in:"
On a cold February morning, less than three weeks after Barack Obama's inauguration as the 44th president of the United States, a lawyer from the department of justice stood up in a San Francisco courtroom to defend the government from accusations of torture. Five detainees, including the British resident Binyam Mohamed, had filed a suit against Jeppesen Dataplan Inc, a subsidiary of Boeing, for its alleged role in "extraordinary rendition", in which terrorism suspects are sent to third countries for detention, interrogation and - the plaintiffs claim - torture.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly criticised the Bush administration's treatment of detainees, its rendition policy and the use of the "state secrets" privilege to prevent classified information from being discussed in court. Writing in Foreign Affairs magazine in 2007, he had argued that building a "better, freer world . . . means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law".
But on that February morning, the government lawyer Douglas N Letter made the same "state secrets" argument for dismissing the case as the Bush administration had used in previous months. The legal position he was advancing on behalf of the government, Letter said, had been "thoroughly vetted with the appropriate officials within the new administration", and this was the "authorised" position.
As the prominent liberal blogger and lawyer Glenn Greenwald pointed out at the time, this was "the first real test of the authenticity of Obama's commitment to reverse the abuses of executive power over the last eight years". But Obama failed the test - and he did so not only in this instance, but in a number of similar court cases. Together, these cases suggest that his administration has no immediate or concrete plans to realise the hopes and dreams of liberals at home and abroad by rolling back the imperial overreach of the Bush era. On the contrary, in the field of counter-terrorism and on the issue of executive power as a whole, Obama has distressingly begun to resemble George W Bush.
Read the whole thing and grasp what a cheat today was. Then get ready to dig in. This is Simon Assaf's "Bloody toll of Afghan war causes splits in US:"
The occupation of Afghanistan is spiralling towards an ignoble defeat unless there is a “super surge” of troops—that is the warning from senior US and British generals.
It is a message that has not been welcomed in Washington or London.
General Stanley McChrystal, the new overall commander of occupation forces, wants to abandon Barack Obama’s “Af-Pak” strategy and retreat from large sections of Afghanistan.
The Af-Pak strategy involved a simultaneous push by Pakistani and Nato forces to clear insurgents from the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
McChrystal admits that this will not work.
He is demanding instead that the US and its Nato allies send in another 30,000 troops—on top of the 100,000 already in the country—in a desperate bid to secure major urban areas.
His call has found an echo among British generals.
General Sir David Richards warned of the “terrifying prospect” of defeat by the Taliban. He is pressing Gordon Brown for more troops and equipment.
Demands for more troops have triggered a huge split between the US military and the Obama administration.
Obama fears that McChrystal’s strategy will mean that the Pakistani Taliban will be able to retreat into Afghanistan in the same way as Afghan insurgents were able to set up safe havens in northern Pakistan.
Civilian
McChrystal also wants to flood the country with “civilian administrators” in an attempt to undo the damage created by Hamid Karzai, the corrupt Afghan president who was once a key US ally. But such a civilian force does not exist.
The split between the US administration and the military has been reinforced by one of the biggest single loss of lives suffered by US troops for a year.
Insurgents overran two US bases in the Nuristan Province, 30 miles from the border with Pakistan, in a bold attack last weekend.
Some 300 fighters stormed the bases in daylight, killing eight US troops, and taking 35 Afghan soldiers and policemen prisoner.
These attacks show that the insurgency’s fighting abilities and supply lines are strengthening.
According to the district governor, locals who were angry at a US airstrike on a nearby medical centre, came to the aid of the insurgents.
The Obama administration had banked on the Af-Pak strategy, pointing to the Pakistani army’s recent successful offensive against local insurgents.
The US was hoping that the next stage would be to close down Taliban bases in Pakistan’s Balochistan province—the headquarters of the Afghan Taliban.
This is now in doubt.
Pakistani insurgents set off a bomb in Islamabad on Monday near the heavily protected offices of the World Food Programme, killing five workers.
October has been the bloodiest month in the bloodiest year for the occupation.
An Afghan guard shot dead two US soldiers last week and wounded two others as they slept. In a separate incident an Afghan army patrol turned their guns on US troops, killing two. A roadside bomb killed another US soldier, and two trucks transporting fuel to Nato forces from the northern border with Tajikstan were set alight by the Taliban.
Support for Nato is falling away in some countries. The new Dutch government has recently announced that it will end its military presence next year.
According to press reports the US president is said to be furious over McChrystal publicly admitting that the occupation faces collapse.
One Obama advisor said, “People aren’t sure whether McChrystal is being naive or an upstart. To my mind he doesn’t seem ready for this Washington hardball and is just speaking his mind too plainly.”
But time is running out for the occupation forces.
The Taliban and other insurgent groups are now extending their influence over large sections of the country.
The demand for more troops is a reflection of that fact that there are not enough soldiers to keep the insurgency in check.
The following should be read alongside this article: » Anti-war movement builds for national demonstration
© Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original.
Share this story on:
Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon
If you found this article useful please help us maintain SW by » making a donation.
» comment on article » email article » printable version
Nothing peace to be found in the above. Grasp that. Grasp that prizes are fake and cheap. Grasp that reality and truth matter so much more. For some of that? Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Friday, October 9, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, news of the US continuing the Iraq War on into 2012, the war against women continues and Sahar Issa documents it, where is the 'progress,' the US fails to meet the admission numbers for Iraqi refugees predicted in August by the State Dept, the US Army releases suicide data, and more.
Let's deal with realities and the first that the Iraq War has no end-date at present. Despite spin and lies and assertions, there is no end-date. In fact, if the SOFA truly eneded the Iraq War -- as the popular narrative and press fools claim -- then Bush couldn't have skipped the Congress. There would be no debating that it was a treaty if ended a war. That's what treaties historically have done. But let's deal in what is known.
Matthew D. LaPlante (Salt Lake Tribune), reporting on new deployments to Iraq for Utah units and, almost as a whispered aside, drops this explosive word-bomb: "And some Utah units have been told to anticipate deployments to Iraq as far off as 2012." As far off as 2012?
B-b-b-but my TV told me the Iraq War ends most certainly as 2011 draws to a close! My TV said so!!! Imagine that. A press that lied a nation into war might also lull a nation into a false belief that the Iraq War was ending. For the record, the press tried that during Vietnam as well. You can't learn about it in Norman Solomon's books because he always misses that point and fails to grasp the conflict between stateside editors and reporters stationed in Vietnam. It would be shocking that Norman might not know that . . . unless you grasped he's lied that the Iraq War ends in 2011 along with so many other gas bags. The pledged delegate for Barack Obama gave it up for his crush and was left with nothing but a wet spot and sullied reputation. Norman you kind of picture right about now peeing on a stick and waiting to see what color it turns.
The Dept of Defense released a statement on October 8th. AC W (Gather) examines the release, "The first thing to note is that all four elements mentioned in the press release are COMBAT forces. The three brigade combat teams (the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team from the 3rd Infantry Division, the 2nd Brigade Combat Team from the 25th Infantry Division, and the 4th Brigade Combat Team from the 1st Cavalry Division) are just what their names say they are: brigade COMBAT teams. They are made up of COMBAT troops with weapons designed for COMBAT. The armored cavalry regiment, the 3rd ACR, is a combat unit with tanks and infantry troops. How will all COMBAT troops be out of Iraq by mid-next year if we are sending COMBAT troops to Iraq in mid-next year?"
Today, filing a rare report from Iraq, Marc Santora (New York Times) opens with, "There is no more visible sing that America is putting the Iraq war behind it . . ."
Is America putting Iraq behind it? That's not only factually incorrect, it's also highly insulting. Did we not hear yesterday from Russell Powell, an Iraq War veteran, explaining to the Senate about how exposure to Sodium Dichromate in Iraq has seriously destroyed his health? Is Russell Powell "putting the Iraq war behind" him?No, the New York Times wants to put the war behind it.Why? Because they sold the illegal war. Little liars -- and it went far beyond Judith Miller who, for the record, was woefully misguided but did not lie because she honestly thought there were WMDs in Iraq and that's why she commandeered that squadron while in Iraq to 'discover' the non-existent WMDs -- sold that illegal war. And it wasn't just the Times but it was the Times which never got accountable for their actions. There was the mini-culpa, the meaningless tiny item that might as well have been a blind item for all the weight it carried. And the promise of a later investigation into their errors. Where's that later coverage? Oh, right, they never did it.The New York Times would love to put the Iraq War behind it. First of all, it damanged their reputation in ways Jayson Blair can only dream of. Second of all, they can't sell a new war -- and, make no mistake, the New York Times always sells wars -- effectively while the Iraq War is still on people's minds. Look at the pushback the current administration is experiencing on their desire for war with Iran. What keeps getting brought up? Iraq. The lies that led to that war. So, yeah, the paper wants to put the Iraq War behind it. And the media at large does.But shame on all of them for pimping that when you have people suffering (including Iraqis but as John F-ing Burns explained so long ago, the paper's only concerned with Americans) and so many dead. Shame on them. It's not just that they lied to sell an illegal war, it's that they never owned the consequences of their decision to do so, let alone taken accountability.Marc Santora and the New York Times want to put the Iraq War behind them. How sweet for them. In the real world? William Cole (Honolulu Advertiser) notes that an estimated 4,300 members of the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team at Schofield Barracks has received orders to deploy to Iraq "in the summer of 2010." Gregg K. Kakesako (Honolulu Star-Bulletin) adds, "They are part of the three brigades and one armored cavalry regiment with 15,000 soldiers that the Pentagon said will be sent to Iraq next year." But don't worry, Marc Santora and the New York Times have put Iraq 'behind' them.Many Iraqi and American families don't have luxury of putting that (ongoing) illegal war behind them; however, the Times has never been known for having a sense of perspective. Among the many who won't be 'putting it behind them' so quickly will be Iraqi refugees. This week Human Rights Action and the Human Rights Institute at Georgetown Law Center issued [PDF format warning] a new report entitled "Refugee Crisis in America: Iraqis And Their Resettlement Experience." Behind them? "Across the United States, many resettled Iraqi refugees are wondering how, after fleeing persecution at home to seek refuge in a country that barely tolerated them, they have found themselves in 'the land of opportunity' with little hope of achieving a secure and decent life." Iraq is the MidEast refugee crisis with an estimated total of 4.7 million external and internal refugees (figure from the March 31st snapshot covering the Senate subcommittee hearing Senator Bob Casey Jr. chaired where the issue of the numbers was addressed at length). The report notes:
Under pressure from advocacy groups and increased reporting on the plight of Iraqi refugees, the United States ultimately began resettling more Iraqis. In the fall of 2007, Congress passed the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act, providing admission for Iraqis that worked for the United States or its contractors in Iraq, and allowing in-country processing for at-risk Iraqis. In 2008, the United States appointed two Senior Coordinators for Iraqi Refugees, one at the Department of State and one at the DHS, to strengthen the American humanitarian commitment to refugees with a particular emphasis on resettlement. In FY [Fiscal Year] 2008, the United States resettled 13,822 Iraqi refugees. As of August 31, 2009, the United States has resettled 16,965 Iraqi refugees in FY 2009, totaling over 33,000 since the 2003 war.
Fiscal Year 2009 is over. It ended with the month of September. So the study tells us that by August 31st, only 16,965 Iraqi refugees were granted resettlement into the US? Let's drop back to the August 19th snapshot and Eric Schwartz (Asst Sect of Population, Refugees and Migration) State Dept press conference. He asserted in that press conference, regarding Iraqi refugees being accepted by the US, "The numbers -- let me -- I think I may answer your next question. The numbers for fiscal year 2008, I think are on the order of about 13,000. I'm looking to my team here. And the numbers for fiscal year 2009 will get us -- will probably be up to about 20,000." Click here for transcript and video of the press conference. About 20,000? August 19th, he claimed that. In the last month of Fiscal Year 2009 (which would be September), did the US manage to resettle over 3,000 Iraqi refugees? Great . . . if they did. But it's highly unlikely. Following the November 2008 election, Sheri Fink (ProPublica) reported on the issue and noted, "A State Department official contacted by ProPublica said, 'We really do recognize a special responsibility.' The official said that resettling 17,000 Iraqi refugees in fiscal 2009 was a minimum target. 'We hope to bring in many more.' The U.S. will also be accepting Iraqis who worked for the US through special immigrant visas, a program [7] that resulted from legislation introduced by Senator Ted Kennedy (discussed [8] recently by Ambassador James Foley, the State Department's senior coordinator on Iraqi refugee issues)." They 'hope'd to bring in any more. 2009, when Americans learned the definition of "false hopes." So they most likely met the minimum target. What a proud, proud moment . . . for an under achiever.
The Georgetown study notes that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees created "11 resettlement elegibility criteria for Iraqi refugees" and that the US government signed off on them:
(1) Survivors of torture and violence, including sexual and gender based violence;
(2) Members of minority groups and persons targeted due to their ethnicity or sect;
(3) Women at risk in country of asylum;
(4) Unaccompanied or separate children;
(5) Dependents of refugees living in resettlement countries;
(6) Elderly refugees;
(7) Refugees with medical needs;
(8) High profile cases;
(9) Iraqis who fled due to their associations with U.S. or other foreign institutions;
(10) Stateless persons;
(11) Iraqis at risk of refoulement.
Despite the US government agreeing to these criteria, the study notes that "the USRAP [US Refugee Admissions Program] expects the most vulnerable refugees will find employment and become self-sufficient almost immediately. Thus, the United States offers resettlement to those refugees with particular vulnerabilities that can inhibit their ability to achieve self-sufficiency while expecting them to quickly become self-sufficient."
Today Avi Selk (Dallas Morning News) reports on the approximately 865 Iraqi refugees who are now in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas. Selk notes a study on Iraqis who have experienced torture and how they "and their family members" are very likely to have "suffered post-traumatic stress disorder". They're not seeking treatment for PTSD in part because they don't know what resources are out there for them. That's really a shameful comment on the government process for Iraqi refugees.
Chris Hill, US Ambassador to Iraq, thinks he's Ann Wilson's lover talking to the refugees: "'Come on home, girl,' he said with a smile, 'You don't have to love me yet, Let's get high awhile'" ("Magic Man" written by Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson and recorded by the Wilson sisters' band Heart). But Chris Hill is apparently the one who needs to try to understand, try to understand, try, try, try to understand. On the subject of repatriation, the report notes that "international humanitarian groups agree that Iraq is still not safe enough to allow return. And though some are returning, there is 'still no big flow back into Iraq.' The International Commission of the Red Cross informally estimates the flow at close to one percent of the total refugee propulation and believes that 'most come in to look and see if it's safe, if their property is still there, [and so], then quickly [go] back [to countries of asylum].' There are no credible reports of Iraqi refugees returning home in significant numbers."
Twenty families -- a small number -- were in the news this week for returning to Iraq. But they're not the refugees the report is talking about (or that were sold as part of the Myth of the Great Return). Chelsea J. Carter (AP) reported this week that the approximately 250 people were exiles . . . during Saddam Hussein's reign. They returned from Iran.
The external refugees of the current conflict settle in countries such as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The majority of the refugees in Jordan interviewed for Jordan's study want to move to the United States but "[w]hile the situation in Jordan is quite bad for many Iraqi refugees, the news of struggling friends and family in the United States is causing more and more Iraqi refugees to wonder whether choosing resettlement is really worth the risk."
Along with a lack of coordination among the government agencies helping refugees who arrive in the US, other issues include lack of vehicles and poor or no public transportation in the areas they are resettled in, difficulties with the maze of the DMV in order to get a driver's license and cash assistance being far too small. The study notes, "As it exists now, the totalk package of assistance to refugees amounts to between just seventeen to forty precent of the federal pvoerty line. Although a family of six may receive up to $2,500 in R&P assistance to cover living costs for the first ninety days, a single adult receives only $425, or less than $5 a day."
Those are only some of the problems facing Iraqi refugees resettling to the US. We'll go over more next week but we'll note the study's recommendations:
• Refugee resettlement should be decoupled from U.S. anti-poverty programs andtailored to the unique needs and experiences of refugees. Refugee assistance should be increased from eight to eighteen months, and programs designed to promote the long-term self-sufficiency and integration of refugees should be better funded. A stronger emphasis should be placed on the core barriers to self-sufficiency and integration, including lack of English language skills, lack of transportation, and lack of opportunities for education and recertification.
• Funding for employment and social services should be tailored to estimates ofincoming refugee arrivals and secondary migration, as well as the unique needs of these particular groups. Funding should not be based on the number of past refugee arrivals.
• All actors within the USRAP must improve planning and information sharingcapabilities. Planning should anticipate and prepare for the unique needs of eachrefugee group prior to arrival. In order to tailor services for refugees, actors musttake into account important information on refugees collected in the resettlementprocess, such as health status and professional background.
On today's NPR's The Diane Rehm Show, the last two minutes raised the issue of Iraq. Had it been a longer segment, Paul Richter's assertions might have been explored by the panel. Along with the Los Angeles Times' Richter, panelists includes Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) and Hisham Melhem (Al-Arabiya TV and An-Nahar) with Susan Page guest hosting.
Susan Page: We've seen the campaign start in Iraq for the election of a new Parliament. Any surprises there, Paul?
Paul Richter: Well there's an interesting alignment that's taking place there. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has been the dominant figure in Iraq for a couple of years obviously, he's put together a coalition that is largely Shia but includes some Sunnis, some Kurds and a few other -- a scattering of a few other small ethnic groups. That's lined up against another Shia coalition which is pretty much solidly Shia and has -- actually has some backing from Iran. And so the question is going to be which of the two coalitions is going to prevail in the elections? I think from the US standpoint, it would be better to have the Maliki coalition prevail because it is nationalist but it claims not to be sectarian. You know, the US goal obviously is to have power sharing.
Susan Page: So we'll see perhaps a debate on how secular the Iraqi government -- the next Iraqi government -- will be?
Karen DeYoung: Well, and I think that, so far at leas, from the American point of view, this is not all bad. You know Maliki was a compromise candidate to start with. He was nobody's first choice. He ended up being the choice several years ago that everyone could live with and the census that he's developed into a politician and is trying to gather these disparate groups.
So Iraq's holding elections in January. Hmm. Thing is, the elections were supposed to take place in December. Thing is, to hold elections at any time, certain things need to be done. Is everything in order for January elections in Iraq? Uh, no. Not at all. Mike noted Michael Jansen (Irish Times) report this week which explained, "DISAGREEMENT OVER Iraq's election law and a spike in violence threaten dissent and death ahead of the January parliamentary poll." September 30th, the top US commander in Iraq offered testimony to the US House Armed Services Committee. During the hearing, he was asked to explain the voting in Iraq.
General Ray Odierno: I'll wal -- Congressman, I'll walk you through in general terms. First, the el - by the [Iraqi] Constitution, the election is supposed to occur no later than the 31st of January. Right now, it's scheduled for the 16th of January. Again, pending the passing of the election law.
We'll stop on that point. "Pending the passing of the election law." If discussing 'progress' in Iraq on public radio, might be a good idea to know something about the election law. The same week Paul didn't appear to, his paper runs Saad Khalaf's "Hope survived one Iraq bombing, but not the second:"
Every day, I worry that someone will plant a bomb on my car or I will drive into a suicide attack on my way to work. The other night at a restaurant, a waiter dropped a cutting board and I jumped. One minute Iraq could be the best country in the world, and in the next minute it could be the worst. I don't know what to do do. All my thoughts are about leaving the country. If I stay here with my parents, there is a possibility that I will face another attack and die. If I leave Iraq, I will lose my job and my family but I will probably save my life.
Doesn't sound safe even with all the spin. The elections may or may not be held in January. That uncertainity remains the only consistent in Iraq. Vivienne Walt (Time magazine) notes this uncertainity and this lack of defined progress:
Among the key "benchmarks" for progress in Iraq set by President George W. Bush in January of 2007 was the passage of a new Iraqi oil law. But almost three years on, the controversial legislation setting terms for foreign investment in the country's oil sector, and for distributing its revenues, remains stalled in the legislature. And Iraqi politicians admit it's unlikely to pass before the current parliament is replaced following Iraq's general elections next January.
So we've had a serious complaint about NYT, a complaint about a LAT reporter (who's not really knowledgable on Iraq, hate to break it to you) and now we move to McClatchy where a friend this morning passed on an article and lamented it was presented as a blog post. And now you can find Nancy A. Youssef leaving a comment on the 'blog post' which does, at least, give Sahar Issa a byline. But someone should have looked at Sahar Issa's writing and said, "This isn't a blog post, this is an article." And it should have been run as such.
What's Sahar reporting on? Women in Iraq. Which is the subject of so few articles. She went to "The Crossed Swoards" symposium in Baghdad's Green Zone and heard a lot of patronizing comments about women and what they could and couldn't do. No surprise, Iraqi military women like Rasha Ahmed tell Sahar, "The problem is not the women themselves. Many are capable and willing. It's the men. They don't take us seriously as professionals. They don't even train us as they do other men -- 'What a waste, where will you practice fighting? In your homes? Ha ha ha.' That's their attitude." Rasha Ahmed also tells Sahar, "We are pioneers. We will pave the way for other women who wish to take this path. We may be a novel spectacle in our society today, but if we prevail, the next generation will not laugh when they see a woman in uniform." It's really appalling that Iraqi women have been dealt such a huge setback, such an overturning of their rights, due to the US government's desire to get 'stability' in Iraq by installing thugs. It's a shame that even when the US administration changed, women were still not important. The symbolic value, for example, of a qualified and capable woman in the post of US Ambassador to Iraq would have gone a long way towards helping Iraqi women. It's disgusting. And Rasha Ahmed's comments about the road she has to blaze? Inspiring. In the face of all the setbacks, it's women like Rasha who have to do the work and know they have to do the work and, most of all, grasp that it's not going to mean a great deal in their own lifetime but it's going to help the next generation. As Holly Near sings (and she wrote the song -- she wrote the song women live) in "Somebody's Jail" (from Show Up):
And I feel the witch in my veins I feel the mother in my shoe I feel the scream in my soul The blood as I sing the ancient blue They burned by the millions I still smell the fire in my grandma's hair The war against women rages on Beware of the fairytale Somebody's mama, somebody's daughter Somebody's jail
Holly Near has a new album she's done with emma's revolution, We Came to Sing! which Kat praised here. If you will download from iTunes or purchase or oder the CD, it's an amazing album worth having. (See Kat's review. This community only recommends those two options due to issues members had attempting to obtain the album.)
From the war against women to the daily violence . . .
Bombings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Baghdad grenade attack left three people wounded, a Mosul roadside bombing wounded three people, a Mosul roadside bombing wounded three people and a Falluja car bombing claimed 3 lives -- an Imam and two of his bodyguards. Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) adds it was Sunni cleric Jamal Humadi who was "known for denouncing insurgents in Iraq". Reuters notes a Tikrit car bombing last night which left six people injured.
Corpses?
Reuters notes 1 corpse discovered in Kirkuk.
Yesterday the US Dept of Defense issued the following:
The Army today released suicide data for the month of September. Among active-duty soldiers, there were seven potential suicides. One has been confirmed as a suicide, and six are pending determination of the manner of death. For August, the Army reported 11 potential suicides among active-duty soldiers. Since the release of that report, four have been confirmed as suicides and seven remain under investigation.
There were 117 reported active-duty Army suicides from January 2009 through September 2009. Of those, 81 have been confirmed, and 36 are pending determination of manner of death. For the same period in 2008, there were 103 suicides among active-duty soldiers.
During September 2009, among reserve component soldiers who were not on active duty, there were seven potential suicides. Among that same group, from January 2009 through September 2009, there were 35 confirmed suicides. Twenty-five potential suicides are currently under investigation to determine the manner of death. For the same period in 2008, there were 40 suicides among reserve soldiers who were not on active duty.
Over the past year, the Army has engaged in a sustained effort to reduce the rate of suicide within its ranks. This effort has included an Army-wide suicide prevention stand-down and chain teach for every soldier; the implementation of the Army Campaign Plan for Health Promotion, Risk Reduction and Suicide Prevention; the establishment of both a Suicide Prevention Task Force and Suicide Prevention Council; a long-term partnership with the National Institute of Mental Health to carry out the largest ever study of suicide and behavioral health among military personnel; and more than 160 specific improvements to Army suicide prevention policies, doctrine, training and resources.
"Whether it's additional resources, improved training or ensuring those in our Army community can readily identify the warning signs of suicidal behavior, all our efforts often come down to one soldier caring enough about another soldier to step in when they see something wrong, " said Brig. Gen. Colleen McGuire, Director, Army Suicide Prevention Task Force. "Soldiers will be willing to do that if they know help is available, if they believe there is no stigma attached to asking for that help, and if they are certain that Army leaders remain absolutely committed to the resiliency of our entire Army Family."
Soldiers and families in need of crisis assistance can contact Military OneSource or the Defense Center of Excellence (DCOE) for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury Outreach Center. Trained consultants are available from both organizations 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
The Military OneSource toll-free number for those residing in the continental U.S. is 1-800-342-9647, their Web site address is http://www.militaryonesource.com
Overseas personnel should refer to the Military OneSource Web site for dialing instructions for their specific location.
The DCOE Outreach Center can be contacted at 1-866-966-1020, via electronic mail at Resources@DCoEOutreach.org and at http://www.dcoe.health.mil .
The Army's most current suicide prevention information is located at http://www.armyg1.army.mil/hr/suicide/default.asp
Meanwhile Page Gardner, Women's Voices, Women Vote, notes the traditional decline from the number of voters in a general election to those in the mid-terms. They're focusing on the Rising American Electorate (RAE): "The RAE is comprised of Unmarried women (the largest portion), African Americans, Latinos, other people of color and Youths (18-29 yr olds). [. . .] WVWV is committed to keeping the RAE engaged in the democratic process and is at the forefront of analyzing who will turn out to vote in the 2010 midterm elections. To see our work on drop-off voters and the composition of the 2010 electorate, as well as state by state analyses, you can click here and here or visit www.wvwv.org."
Finally, Caro (MakeThemAccountable) observes:I no longer have any respect whatsoever for the Nobel committee. Obama is continuing TWO wars, with no end in sight.How that can be considered giving hope for peace is simply beyond me. Obama no more deserves this prize than George Bush.The man never has to do a damn thing for people to shower him with praise and gifts.
iraqthe salt lake tribunematthew d. laplante
nprthe diane rehm show
mcclatchy newspaperssahar issa
nancy a. youssef
william colethe honolulu advertiserthe honolulu star-bulletingregg k. kakesakothe new york timesmarc santora
the dallas morning newsreuterszhang pengfei
the los angeles timessaad khalaf
holly near
make them accountable
How much do I want to say on that?
Not a damn thing. Want some reality? This is from Mehdi Hasan's "Change we can’t believe in:"
On a cold February morning, less than three weeks after Barack Obama's inauguration as the 44th president of the United States, a lawyer from the department of justice stood up in a San Francisco courtroom to defend the government from accusations of torture. Five detainees, including the British resident Binyam Mohamed, had filed a suit against Jeppesen Dataplan Inc, a subsidiary of Boeing, for its alleged role in "extraordinary rendition", in which terrorism suspects are sent to third countries for detention, interrogation and - the plaintiffs claim - torture.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly criticised the Bush administration's treatment of detainees, its rendition policy and the use of the "state secrets" privilege to prevent classified information from being discussed in court. Writing in Foreign Affairs magazine in 2007, he had argued that building a "better, freer world . . . means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law".
But on that February morning, the government lawyer Douglas N Letter made the same "state secrets" argument for dismissing the case as the Bush administration had used in previous months. The legal position he was advancing on behalf of the government, Letter said, had been "thoroughly vetted with the appropriate officials within the new administration", and this was the "authorised" position.
As the prominent liberal blogger and lawyer Glenn Greenwald pointed out at the time, this was "the first real test of the authenticity of Obama's commitment to reverse the abuses of executive power over the last eight years". But Obama failed the test - and he did so not only in this instance, but in a number of similar court cases. Together, these cases suggest that his administration has no immediate or concrete plans to realise the hopes and dreams of liberals at home and abroad by rolling back the imperial overreach of the Bush era. On the contrary, in the field of counter-terrorism and on the issue of executive power as a whole, Obama has distressingly begun to resemble George W Bush.
Read the whole thing and grasp what a cheat today was. Then get ready to dig in. This is Simon Assaf's "Bloody toll of Afghan war causes splits in US:"
The occupation of Afghanistan is spiralling towards an ignoble defeat unless there is a “super surge” of troops—that is the warning from senior US and British generals.
It is a message that has not been welcomed in Washington or London.
General Stanley McChrystal, the new overall commander of occupation forces, wants to abandon Barack Obama’s “Af-Pak” strategy and retreat from large sections of Afghanistan.
The Af-Pak strategy involved a simultaneous push by Pakistani and Nato forces to clear insurgents from the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
McChrystal admits that this will not work.
He is demanding instead that the US and its Nato allies send in another 30,000 troops—on top of the 100,000 already in the country—in a desperate bid to secure major urban areas.
His call has found an echo among British generals.
General Sir David Richards warned of the “terrifying prospect” of defeat by the Taliban. He is pressing Gordon Brown for more troops and equipment.
Demands for more troops have triggered a huge split between the US military and the Obama administration.
Obama fears that McChrystal’s strategy will mean that the Pakistani Taliban will be able to retreat into Afghanistan in the same way as Afghan insurgents were able to set up safe havens in northern Pakistan.
Civilian
McChrystal also wants to flood the country with “civilian administrators” in an attempt to undo the damage created by Hamid Karzai, the corrupt Afghan president who was once a key US ally. But such a civilian force does not exist.
The split between the US administration and the military has been reinforced by one of the biggest single loss of lives suffered by US troops for a year.
Insurgents overran two US bases in the Nuristan Province, 30 miles from the border with Pakistan, in a bold attack last weekend.
Some 300 fighters stormed the bases in daylight, killing eight US troops, and taking 35 Afghan soldiers and policemen prisoner.
These attacks show that the insurgency’s fighting abilities and supply lines are strengthening.
According to the district governor, locals who were angry at a US airstrike on a nearby medical centre, came to the aid of the insurgents.
The Obama administration had banked on the Af-Pak strategy, pointing to the Pakistani army’s recent successful offensive against local insurgents.
The US was hoping that the next stage would be to close down Taliban bases in Pakistan’s Balochistan province—the headquarters of the Afghan Taliban.
This is now in doubt.
Pakistani insurgents set off a bomb in Islamabad on Monday near the heavily protected offices of the World Food Programme, killing five workers.
October has been the bloodiest month in the bloodiest year for the occupation.
An Afghan guard shot dead two US soldiers last week and wounded two others as they slept. In a separate incident an Afghan army patrol turned their guns on US troops, killing two. A roadside bomb killed another US soldier, and two trucks transporting fuel to Nato forces from the northern border with Tajikstan were set alight by the Taliban.
Support for Nato is falling away in some countries. The new Dutch government has recently announced that it will end its military presence next year.
According to press reports the US president is said to be furious over McChrystal publicly admitting that the occupation faces collapse.
One Obama advisor said, “People aren’t sure whether McChrystal is being naive or an upstart. To my mind he doesn’t seem ready for this Washington hardball and is just speaking his mind too plainly.”
But time is running out for the occupation forces.
The Taliban and other insurgent groups are now extending their influence over large sections of the country.
The demand for more troops is a reflection of that fact that there are not enough soldiers to keep the insurgency in check.
The following should be read alongside this article: » Anti-war movement builds for national demonstration
© Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original.
Share this story on:
Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon
If you found this article useful please help us maintain SW by » making a donation.
» comment on article » email article » printable version
Nothing peace to be found in the above. Grasp that. Grasp that prizes are fake and cheap. Grasp that reality and truth matter so much more. For some of that? Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Friday, October 9, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, news of the US continuing the Iraq War on into 2012, the war against women continues and Sahar Issa documents it, where is the 'progress,' the US fails to meet the admission numbers for Iraqi refugees predicted in August by the State Dept, the US Army releases suicide data, and more.
Let's deal with realities and the first that the Iraq War has no end-date at present. Despite spin and lies and assertions, there is no end-date. In fact, if the SOFA truly eneded the Iraq War -- as the popular narrative and press fools claim -- then Bush couldn't have skipped the Congress. There would be no debating that it was a treaty if ended a war. That's what treaties historically have done. But let's deal in what is known.
Matthew D. LaPlante (Salt Lake Tribune), reporting on new deployments to Iraq for Utah units and, almost as a whispered aside, drops this explosive word-bomb: "And some Utah units have been told to anticipate deployments to Iraq as far off as 2012." As far off as 2012?
B-b-b-but my TV told me the Iraq War ends most certainly as 2011 draws to a close! My TV said so!!! Imagine that. A press that lied a nation into war might also lull a nation into a false belief that the Iraq War was ending. For the record, the press tried that during Vietnam as well. You can't learn about it in Norman Solomon's books because he always misses that point and fails to grasp the conflict between stateside editors and reporters stationed in Vietnam. It would be shocking that Norman might not know that . . . unless you grasped he's lied that the Iraq War ends in 2011 along with so many other gas bags. The pledged delegate for Barack Obama gave it up for his crush and was left with nothing but a wet spot and sullied reputation. Norman you kind of picture right about now peeing on a stick and waiting to see what color it turns.
The Dept of Defense released a statement on October 8th. AC W (Gather) examines the release, "The first thing to note is that all four elements mentioned in the press release are COMBAT forces. The three brigade combat teams (the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team from the 3rd Infantry Division, the 2nd Brigade Combat Team from the 25th Infantry Division, and the 4th Brigade Combat Team from the 1st Cavalry Division) are just what their names say they are: brigade COMBAT teams. They are made up of COMBAT troops with weapons designed for COMBAT. The armored cavalry regiment, the 3rd ACR, is a combat unit with tanks and infantry troops. How will all COMBAT troops be out of Iraq by mid-next year if we are sending COMBAT troops to Iraq in mid-next year?"
Today, filing a rare report from Iraq, Marc Santora (New York Times) opens with, "There is no more visible sing that America is putting the Iraq war behind it . . ."
Is America putting Iraq behind it? That's not only factually incorrect, it's also highly insulting. Did we not hear yesterday from Russell Powell, an Iraq War veteran, explaining to the Senate about how exposure to Sodium Dichromate in Iraq has seriously destroyed his health? Is Russell Powell "putting the Iraq war behind" him?No, the New York Times wants to put the war behind it.Why? Because they sold the illegal war. Little liars -- and it went far beyond Judith Miller who, for the record, was woefully misguided but did not lie because she honestly thought there were WMDs in Iraq and that's why she commandeered that squadron while in Iraq to 'discover' the non-existent WMDs -- sold that illegal war. And it wasn't just the Times but it was the Times which never got accountable for their actions. There was the mini-culpa, the meaningless tiny item that might as well have been a blind item for all the weight it carried. And the promise of a later investigation into their errors. Where's that later coverage? Oh, right, they never did it.The New York Times would love to put the Iraq War behind it. First of all, it damanged their reputation in ways Jayson Blair can only dream of. Second of all, they can't sell a new war -- and, make no mistake, the New York Times always sells wars -- effectively while the Iraq War is still on people's minds. Look at the pushback the current administration is experiencing on their desire for war with Iran. What keeps getting brought up? Iraq. The lies that led to that war. So, yeah, the paper wants to put the Iraq War behind it. And the media at large does.But shame on all of them for pimping that when you have people suffering (including Iraqis but as John F-ing Burns explained so long ago, the paper's only concerned with Americans) and so many dead. Shame on them. It's not just that they lied to sell an illegal war, it's that they never owned the consequences of their decision to do so, let alone taken accountability.Marc Santora and the New York Times want to put the Iraq War behind them. How sweet for them. In the real world? William Cole (Honolulu Advertiser) notes that an estimated 4,300 members of the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team at Schofield Barracks has received orders to deploy to Iraq "in the summer of 2010." Gregg K. Kakesako (Honolulu Star-Bulletin) adds, "They are part of the three brigades and one armored cavalry regiment with 15,000 soldiers that the Pentagon said will be sent to Iraq next year." But don't worry, Marc Santora and the New York Times have put Iraq 'behind' them.Many Iraqi and American families don't have luxury of putting that (ongoing) illegal war behind them; however, the Times has never been known for having a sense of perspective. Among the many who won't be 'putting it behind them' so quickly will be Iraqi refugees. This week Human Rights Action and the Human Rights Institute at Georgetown Law Center issued [PDF format warning] a new report entitled "Refugee Crisis in America: Iraqis And Their Resettlement Experience." Behind them? "Across the United States, many resettled Iraqi refugees are wondering how, after fleeing persecution at home to seek refuge in a country that barely tolerated them, they have found themselves in 'the land of opportunity' with little hope of achieving a secure and decent life." Iraq is the MidEast refugee crisis with an estimated total of 4.7 million external and internal refugees (figure from the March 31st snapshot covering the Senate subcommittee hearing Senator Bob Casey Jr. chaired where the issue of the numbers was addressed at length). The report notes:
Under pressure from advocacy groups and increased reporting on the plight of Iraqi refugees, the United States ultimately began resettling more Iraqis. In the fall of 2007, Congress passed the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act, providing admission for Iraqis that worked for the United States or its contractors in Iraq, and allowing in-country processing for at-risk Iraqis. In 2008, the United States appointed two Senior Coordinators for Iraqi Refugees, one at the Department of State and one at the DHS, to strengthen the American humanitarian commitment to refugees with a particular emphasis on resettlement. In FY [Fiscal Year] 2008, the United States resettled 13,822 Iraqi refugees. As of August 31, 2009, the United States has resettled 16,965 Iraqi refugees in FY 2009, totaling over 33,000 since the 2003 war.
Fiscal Year 2009 is over. It ended with the month of September. So the study tells us that by August 31st, only 16,965 Iraqi refugees were granted resettlement into the US? Let's drop back to the August 19th snapshot and Eric Schwartz (Asst Sect of Population, Refugees and Migration) State Dept press conference. He asserted in that press conference, regarding Iraqi refugees being accepted by the US, "The numbers -- let me -- I think I may answer your next question. The numbers for fiscal year 2008, I think are on the order of about 13,000. I'm looking to my team here. And the numbers for fiscal year 2009 will get us -- will probably be up to about 20,000." Click here for transcript and video of the press conference. About 20,000? August 19th, he claimed that. In the last month of Fiscal Year 2009 (which would be September), did the US manage to resettle over 3,000 Iraqi refugees? Great . . . if they did. But it's highly unlikely. Following the November 2008 election, Sheri Fink (ProPublica) reported on the issue and noted, "A State Department official contacted by ProPublica said, 'We really do recognize a special responsibility.' The official said that resettling 17,000 Iraqi refugees in fiscal 2009 was a minimum target. 'We hope to bring in many more.' The U.S. will also be accepting Iraqis who worked for the US through special immigrant visas, a program [7] that resulted from legislation introduced by Senator Ted Kennedy (discussed [8] recently by Ambassador James Foley, the State Department's senior coordinator on Iraqi refugee issues)." They 'hope'd to bring in any more. 2009, when Americans learned the definition of "false hopes." So they most likely met the minimum target. What a proud, proud moment . . . for an under achiever.
The Georgetown study notes that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees created "11 resettlement elegibility criteria for Iraqi refugees" and that the US government signed off on them:
(1) Survivors of torture and violence, including sexual and gender based violence;
(2) Members of minority groups and persons targeted due to their ethnicity or sect;
(3) Women at risk in country of asylum;
(4) Unaccompanied or separate children;
(5) Dependents of refugees living in resettlement countries;
(6) Elderly refugees;
(7) Refugees with medical needs;
(8) High profile cases;
(9) Iraqis who fled due to their associations with U.S. or other foreign institutions;
(10) Stateless persons;
(11) Iraqis at risk of refoulement.
Despite the US government agreeing to these criteria, the study notes that "the USRAP [US Refugee Admissions Program] expects the most vulnerable refugees will find employment and become self-sufficient almost immediately. Thus, the United States offers resettlement to those refugees with particular vulnerabilities that can inhibit their ability to achieve self-sufficiency while expecting them to quickly become self-sufficient."
Today Avi Selk (Dallas Morning News) reports on the approximately 865 Iraqi refugees who are now in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas. Selk notes a study on Iraqis who have experienced torture and how they "and their family members" are very likely to have "suffered post-traumatic stress disorder". They're not seeking treatment for PTSD in part because they don't know what resources are out there for them. That's really a shameful comment on the government process for Iraqi refugees.
Chris Hill, US Ambassador to Iraq, thinks he's Ann Wilson's lover talking to the refugees: "'Come on home, girl,' he said with a smile, 'You don't have to love me yet, Let's get high awhile'" ("Magic Man" written by Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson and recorded by the Wilson sisters' band Heart). But Chris Hill is apparently the one who needs to try to understand, try to understand, try, try, try to understand. On the subject of repatriation, the report notes that "international humanitarian groups agree that Iraq is still not safe enough to allow return. And though some are returning, there is 'still no big flow back into Iraq.' The International Commission of the Red Cross informally estimates the flow at close to one percent of the total refugee propulation and believes that 'most come in to look and see if it's safe, if their property is still there, [and so], then quickly [go] back [to countries of asylum].' There are no credible reports of Iraqi refugees returning home in significant numbers."
Twenty families -- a small number -- were in the news this week for returning to Iraq. But they're not the refugees the report is talking about (or that were sold as part of the Myth of the Great Return). Chelsea J. Carter (AP) reported this week that the approximately 250 people were exiles . . . during Saddam Hussein's reign. They returned from Iran.
The external refugees of the current conflict settle in countries such as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The majority of the refugees in Jordan interviewed for Jordan's study want to move to the United States but "[w]hile the situation in Jordan is quite bad for many Iraqi refugees, the news of struggling friends and family in the United States is causing more and more Iraqi refugees to wonder whether choosing resettlement is really worth the risk."
Along with a lack of coordination among the government agencies helping refugees who arrive in the US, other issues include lack of vehicles and poor or no public transportation in the areas they are resettled in, difficulties with the maze of the DMV in order to get a driver's license and cash assistance being far too small. The study notes, "As it exists now, the totalk package of assistance to refugees amounts to between just seventeen to forty precent of the federal pvoerty line. Although a family of six may receive up to $2,500 in R&P assistance to cover living costs for the first ninety days, a single adult receives only $425, or less than $5 a day."
Those are only some of the problems facing Iraqi refugees resettling to the US. We'll go over more next week but we'll note the study's recommendations:
• Refugee resettlement should be decoupled from U.S. anti-poverty programs andtailored to the unique needs and experiences of refugees. Refugee assistance should be increased from eight to eighteen months, and programs designed to promote the long-term self-sufficiency and integration of refugees should be better funded. A stronger emphasis should be placed on the core barriers to self-sufficiency and integration, including lack of English language skills, lack of transportation, and lack of opportunities for education and recertification.
• Funding for employment and social services should be tailored to estimates ofincoming refugee arrivals and secondary migration, as well as the unique needs of these particular groups. Funding should not be based on the number of past refugee arrivals.
• All actors within the USRAP must improve planning and information sharingcapabilities. Planning should anticipate and prepare for the unique needs of eachrefugee group prior to arrival. In order to tailor services for refugees, actors musttake into account important information on refugees collected in the resettlementprocess, such as health status and professional background.
On today's NPR's The Diane Rehm Show, the last two minutes raised the issue of Iraq. Had it been a longer segment, Paul Richter's assertions might have been explored by the panel. Along with the Los Angeles Times' Richter, panelists includes Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) and Hisham Melhem (Al-Arabiya TV and An-Nahar) with Susan Page guest hosting.
Susan Page: We've seen the campaign start in Iraq for the election of a new Parliament. Any surprises there, Paul?
Paul Richter: Well there's an interesting alignment that's taking place there. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has been the dominant figure in Iraq for a couple of years obviously, he's put together a coalition that is largely Shia but includes some Sunnis, some Kurds and a few other -- a scattering of a few other small ethnic groups. That's lined up against another Shia coalition which is pretty much solidly Shia and has -- actually has some backing from Iran. And so the question is going to be which of the two coalitions is going to prevail in the elections? I think from the US standpoint, it would be better to have the Maliki coalition prevail because it is nationalist but it claims not to be sectarian. You know, the US goal obviously is to have power sharing.
Susan Page: So we'll see perhaps a debate on how secular the Iraqi government -- the next Iraqi government -- will be?
Karen DeYoung: Well, and I think that, so far at leas, from the American point of view, this is not all bad. You know Maliki was a compromise candidate to start with. He was nobody's first choice. He ended up being the choice several years ago that everyone could live with and the census that he's developed into a politician and is trying to gather these disparate groups.
So Iraq's holding elections in January. Hmm. Thing is, the elections were supposed to take place in December. Thing is, to hold elections at any time, certain things need to be done. Is everything in order for January elections in Iraq? Uh, no. Not at all. Mike noted Michael Jansen (Irish Times) report this week which explained, "DISAGREEMENT OVER Iraq's election law and a spike in violence threaten dissent and death ahead of the January parliamentary poll." September 30th, the top US commander in Iraq offered testimony to the US House Armed Services Committee. During the hearing, he was asked to explain the voting in Iraq.
General Ray Odierno: I'll wal -- Congressman, I'll walk you through in general terms. First, the el - by the [Iraqi] Constitution, the election is supposed to occur no later than the 31st of January. Right now, it's scheduled for the 16th of January. Again, pending the passing of the election law.
We'll stop on that point. "Pending the passing of the election law." If discussing 'progress' in Iraq on public radio, might be a good idea to know something about the election law. The same week Paul didn't appear to, his paper runs Saad Khalaf's "Hope survived one Iraq bombing, but not the second:"
Every day, I worry that someone will plant a bomb on my car or I will drive into a suicide attack on my way to work. The other night at a restaurant, a waiter dropped a cutting board and I jumped. One minute Iraq could be the best country in the world, and in the next minute it could be the worst. I don't know what to do do. All my thoughts are about leaving the country. If I stay here with my parents, there is a possibility that I will face another attack and die. If I leave Iraq, I will lose my job and my family but I will probably save my life.
Doesn't sound safe even with all the spin. The elections may or may not be held in January. That uncertainity remains the only consistent in Iraq. Vivienne Walt (Time magazine) notes this uncertainity and this lack of defined progress:
Among the key "benchmarks" for progress in Iraq set by President George W. Bush in January of 2007 was the passage of a new Iraqi oil law. But almost three years on, the controversial legislation setting terms for foreign investment in the country's oil sector, and for distributing its revenues, remains stalled in the legislature. And Iraqi politicians admit it's unlikely to pass before the current parliament is replaced following Iraq's general elections next January.
So we've had a serious complaint about NYT, a complaint about a LAT reporter (who's not really knowledgable on Iraq, hate to break it to you) and now we move to McClatchy where a friend this morning passed on an article and lamented it was presented as a blog post. And now you can find Nancy A. Youssef leaving a comment on the 'blog post' which does, at least, give Sahar Issa a byline. But someone should have looked at Sahar Issa's writing and said, "This isn't a blog post, this is an article." And it should have been run as such.
What's Sahar reporting on? Women in Iraq. Which is the subject of so few articles. She went to "The Crossed Swoards" symposium in Baghdad's Green Zone and heard a lot of patronizing comments about women and what they could and couldn't do. No surprise, Iraqi military women like Rasha Ahmed tell Sahar, "The problem is not the women themselves. Many are capable and willing. It's the men. They don't take us seriously as professionals. They don't even train us as they do other men -- 'What a waste, where will you practice fighting? In your homes? Ha ha ha.' That's their attitude." Rasha Ahmed also tells Sahar, "We are pioneers. We will pave the way for other women who wish to take this path. We may be a novel spectacle in our society today, but if we prevail, the next generation will not laugh when they see a woman in uniform." It's really appalling that Iraqi women have been dealt such a huge setback, such an overturning of their rights, due to the US government's desire to get 'stability' in Iraq by installing thugs. It's a shame that even when the US administration changed, women were still not important. The symbolic value, for example, of a qualified and capable woman in the post of US Ambassador to Iraq would have gone a long way towards helping Iraqi women. It's disgusting. And Rasha Ahmed's comments about the road she has to blaze? Inspiring. In the face of all the setbacks, it's women like Rasha who have to do the work and know they have to do the work and, most of all, grasp that it's not going to mean a great deal in their own lifetime but it's going to help the next generation. As Holly Near sings (and she wrote the song -- she wrote the song women live) in "Somebody's Jail" (from Show Up):
And I feel the witch in my veins I feel the mother in my shoe I feel the scream in my soul The blood as I sing the ancient blue They burned by the millions I still smell the fire in my grandma's hair The war against women rages on Beware of the fairytale Somebody's mama, somebody's daughter Somebody's jail
Holly Near has a new album she's done with emma's revolution, We Came to Sing! which Kat praised here. If you will download from iTunes or purchase or oder the CD, it's an amazing album worth having. (See Kat's review. This community only recommends those two options due to issues members had attempting to obtain the album.)
From the war against women to the daily violence . . .
Bombings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Baghdad grenade attack left three people wounded, a Mosul roadside bombing wounded three people, a Mosul roadside bombing wounded three people and a Falluja car bombing claimed 3 lives -- an Imam and two of his bodyguards. Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) adds it was Sunni cleric Jamal Humadi who was "known for denouncing insurgents in Iraq". Reuters notes a Tikrit car bombing last night which left six people injured.
Corpses?
Reuters notes 1 corpse discovered in Kirkuk.
Yesterday the US Dept of Defense issued the following:
The Army today released suicide data for the month of September. Among active-duty soldiers, there were seven potential suicides. One has been confirmed as a suicide, and six are pending determination of the manner of death. For August, the Army reported 11 potential suicides among active-duty soldiers. Since the release of that report, four have been confirmed as suicides and seven remain under investigation.
There were 117 reported active-duty Army suicides from January 2009 through September 2009. Of those, 81 have been confirmed, and 36 are pending determination of manner of death. For the same period in 2008, there were 103 suicides among active-duty soldiers.
During September 2009, among reserve component soldiers who were not on active duty, there were seven potential suicides. Among that same group, from January 2009 through September 2009, there were 35 confirmed suicides. Twenty-five potential suicides are currently under investigation to determine the manner of death. For the same period in 2008, there were 40 suicides among reserve soldiers who were not on active duty.
Over the past year, the Army has engaged in a sustained effort to reduce the rate of suicide within its ranks. This effort has included an Army-wide suicide prevention stand-down and chain teach for every soldier; the implementation of the Army Campaign Plan for Health Promotion, Risk Reduction and Suicide Prevention; the establishment of both a Suicide Prevention Task Force and Suicide Prevention Council; a long-term partnership with the National Institute of Mental Health to carry out the largest ever study of suicide and behavioral health among military personnel; and more than 160 specific improvements to Army suicide prevention policies, doctrine, training and resources.
"Whether it's additional resources, improved training or ensuring those in our Army community can readily identify the warning signs of suicidal behavior, all our efforts often come down to one soldier caring enough about another soldier to step in when they see something wrong, " said Brig. Gen. Colleen McGuire, Director, Army Suicide Prevention Task Force. "Soldiers will be willing to do that if they know help is available, if they believe there is no stigma attached to asking for that help, and if they are certain that Army leaders remain absolutely committed to the resiliency of our entire Army Family."
Soldiers and families in need of crisis assistance can contact Military OneSource or the Defense Center of Excellence (DCOE) for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury Outreach Center. Trained consultants are available from both organizations 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
The Military OneSource toll-free number for those residing in the continental U.S. is 1-800-342-9647, their Web site address is http://www.militaryonesource.com
Overseas personnel should refer to the Military OneSource Web site for dialing instructions for their specific location.
The DCOE Outreach Center can be contacted at 1-866-966-1020, via electronic mail at Resources@DCoEOutreach.org and at http://www.dcoe.health.mil .
The Army's most current suicide prevention information is located at http://www.armyg1.army.mil/hr/suicide/default.asp
Meanwhile Page Gardner, Women's Voices, Women Vote, notes the traditional decline from the number of voters in a general election to those in the mid-terms. They're focusing on the Rising American Electorate (RAE): "The RAE is comprised of Unmarried women (the largest portion), African Americans, Latinos, other people of color and Youths (18-29 yr olds). [. . .] WVWV is committed to keeping the RAE engaged in the democratic process and is at the forefront of analyzing who will turn out to vote in the 2010 midterm elections. To see our work on drop-off voters and the composition of the 2010 electorate, as well as state by state analyses, you can click here and here or visit www.wvwv.org."
Finally, Caro (MakeThemAccountable) observes:I no longer have any respect whatsoever for the Nobel committee. Obama is continuing TWO wars, with no end in sight.How that can be considered giving hope for peace is simply beyond me. Obama no more deserves this prize than George Bush.The man never has to do a damn thing for people to shower him with praise and gifts.
iraqthe salt lake tribunematthew d. laplante
nprthe diane rehm show
mcclatchy newspaperssahar issa
nancy a. youssef
william colethe honolulu advertiserthe honolulu star-bulletingregg k. kakesakothe new york timesmarc santora
the dallas morning newsreuterszhang pengfei
the los angeles timessaad khalaf
holly near
make them accountable
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)