Tuesday, February 19, 2013

We got the drone base

Tuesday.  Thanks for all the kind e-mails regarding "Talking Iraq" last night.  A lot of you were surprised that C.I. went into the non-Iraq question so much.  She told me I could ask anything when I suggested that 1 non-Iraq question could increase interest in the piece.  So I talked to Elaine and she said, "First off, you want to surprise her so don't hint or ask about it before you're in the interview."  C.I. knows Shirley MacLaine and I knew, from Elaine, that she knew about the problems between Shirley and her daughter.  (That's really why she and Ava ended their 2011 review the way they did.)  So I thought that was the question to ask.

And judging by the e-mails, a lot of you enjoyed her response so I guess I picked right.


Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Serial Cheaters" went up last night.

serial cheaters

I noted it went up but I did not post in yesterday's post.  How come? Because I was waiting for today's regular post.

Alright, this is from Chris Cole at Global Research:
This week the New York Times reported that the US is planning to establish a new base for its drones in north-west Africa.  While the base is to be used initially to fly unarmed surveillance drones, according to the article the US does not rule out the possibility of using the base to launch drone strikes in the future.  One day after the NYT piece,Reuters reported the base would be established in Niger.  According to ”a senior government source” says Reuters, ”the U.S. ambassador to Niger, Bisa Williams, made the request at a meeting on Monday with President Mahamadou Issoufou, who immediately accepted it.”
Mali will no-doubt be one of the initial targets of the US drones, bordering as it does on Niger.  The deployment of French surveillance drones in Mali was reported last October and there has been speculation that British drones could be deployed as part of Britain’s military support to French forces in Mali, however the British Defence Minister, Philip Hammond said recently that he had decided against sending drones as they are needed in Afghanistan.
While drones have mainly been used in South Asia, unmanned drone have flown in African skies for many years.

I believe we were saying this would happen back in 2008.  I believe we were pointing out that if Hillary got the nomination, no way Africa would agree to anything like the above.  But if Son of Kenya got the nomination . . .

It reminds me of Protocol, the very funny Goldie Hawn film.  When someone -- Ed Beagley Jr.? -- says at the White House press conference that they got the base -- he lets it slip.  And I'm going to combine that with one of my favorite Goldie moments from Private Benjamin, after Yale (Albert Brooks) dies and she's crying and going through the gifts and she holds up one and says, "We got a toaster!"  :D 

Okay, Third.  Here's who worked on the latest edition:



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),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.


And here's what we came up with:


 So that's it for tonight.

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


 
Tuesday, February 19, 2013.  Chaos and violence continue, Rachel Maddow hosts a xenophobic special 'about' Iraq, we explain how Maddow and others help Lawrence Wilkerson lie for Colin Powell, a fan of Maddow's special expresses what appears to be intent to kill Bush (that would qualify as a threat), Iraqis continue to protest, Nouri tries to intimidate tribal leaders supporting the protests, the VA still hasn't fixed the payment issues with regards to the Post-9/11 GI Bill, and more.


Last night, MSNBC aired Rachel Maddow's awful special entitled Hubris and based on the over six-year-old book of the same title written by David Corn and Michael Isikoff.  As noted here yesterday, the 'documentary' wasn't at all interested in anything other than Bully Boy Bush Lied.  What effect did this have?  That's what makes the lie matter.  A person making a real documentary would grasp that.  Hubris wasn't a documentary.  It failed to show the consequences and the consequences are what the illegal war did to the Iraqi people.  Yesterday, we contrasted the garbage Maddow offered with an actual documentary about Vietnam after US forces had left:

You can hear some of it in An Introduction To The Enemy, the documentary film Jane Fonda made with director Haskell Wexler and with Tom Hayden.  (Click here for a video of Haskell Wexler discussing his films and the politics around them.)

The Pacifica Radio Archives has an interview, conducted by Paul McIsaac,  with Jane about the documentary.


Jane Fonda:  Well Tom and I felt -- and Haskell Wexler -- and the other people in the organization, the Indochina Peace Campaign, we all share the feeling that it's becoming possible now, even though the war continues in South Vietnam, but it is becoming possible to start to deal with the Vietnamese as people.  It wasn't so easy when there were American troops there, POWs there, but now these people who have been viewed as victims or the enemy for so long must begin to be addressed as human beings.  They are very eager to open up human relations with American people.


In contrast, Hubris celebrates xenophobia.  What has happened to the Iraqis?  Who cares? MSNBC doesn't.  The Iraq War was a tragedy -- for all from the countries who participated but most of all for the Iraqi people.

Hubris is xenophobia, it's reducing the people whose lives were most effected to bit players in order to navel gaze and celebrity watch.  It's as offensive as the initial war coverage was.

Remember the criticism?  We see the missiles launch but we don't see the targets hit.

That is Hubris.  And it's also hubris.


To watch MSNBC's awful special was to be left with the impression that the worst thing in the world was that Daddy lied to small children because small children need to believe Daddy never lies.  It was not an anti-war special, it wasn't even an anti-Iraq War special in reality.  There was no interest in the people who had been most effected and the term for that is xenophobia. That's not a minor point, that's key to understanding the crap that MSNBC threw on the air last night.  David Swanson (War Is A Crime) hints at it in his review:

 Hubris is the wrong word for what took the United States into war with Iraq.  The forces at work were greed, lust for power, and sadistic vengeance.  The word "hubris" suggests the tragic downfall of the guilty party.  But the war on Iraq did not destroy the United States; it destroyed Iraq.  It damaged the United States, to be sure, but in a manner hardly worthy of mention in comparison to the sociocide committed against Iraq. 
Hubris, the film, provides a reprehensibly ludicrous underestimation of Iraqi deaths, and only after listing U.S. casualties.

And where were the Iraqi people on camera?  Well they weren't on camera. They were rendered faceless.  They weren't talking heads because, apparently, the fact that a US leader would lie was not something shocking to the Iraqi people.

If xenophobia is your fetish, you can click here to stream the awful special.  You'll see Colin The Blot Powell's work-wife Lawrence Wilkerson gab a lot.  And that's the most damning thing about the special and about the people writing about it and those whoring for Larry Wilkerson.

What MSNBC (and others -- Democracy Now!, Consortium News) have done is allow a liar to lie repeatedly.  Author, activist and media analyst Norman Solomon writes about when he confronted Wilkerson on some of his lies and Wilkerson immediately shifted from we-did-not-lie-we-did-not-know to why-didn't-you-call-me-why-didn't-you-try-to-meet-with-me.

That's ridiculous.  Rachel Maddow's had Larry Wilkerson on how many times now?  The two of been together so often, you'd think they were planning a family.  But where's Greg Thielmann? Where's Houston Wood?

Last night on MSNBC, Maddow again presented the revisionary lies that Colin Powell was tricked.  But, too bad for Rachel, CBS News was on this story long before she was. Click here for Rebecca Leung (CBS News) writing up the report of Scott Pelley's October 2003 report for 60 Minutes II on how Colin Powell was advised about the inaccuracies but Powell included them.  So much for Wilkerson's oft repeated lie that his wet dream Colin just didn't know the truth.  (Do not e-mail this site and say, "It's 2009."  We have noted before that about two years ago, CBS revamped their site.  When that happened, dates went wrong.  Ignore the date.  If you don't trust my memory -- fine by me -- click here for Common Dreams' repost -- in October 2003 -- of the CBS notice about that report by Pelley.  You can also click here, at CBS News, for the original date on Rebecca Leung's report.)

The audience reaction was intense to the original airing of the report and K. Jordan Chadwick, in her response, asked, "Please do not let this story die."  But Rachel Maddow and MSNBC have spent years now killing this story.  Rewriting history to make Colin Powell look innocent.

Here's an exchange from the program:

PELLEY: If the secretary took the information that his own intelligence bureau had developed and turned it on its head, which is what you're saying, to what end?

MR. THIELMANN: I can only assume he was doing it to loyally support the president of the United States and build the strongest possible case for arguing that there was no alternative to the use of military force.


Powell lied.  Powell knowing lied and it was established in 2003 by 60 Minutes II.  Rachel Maddow lied Monday night and she, Consortium News, Democracy Now and all the other outlets that have allowed Lawrence Wilkerson to repeatedly lie to their audiences -- those outlets are guilty of abetting a War Criminal.  Think about that before you applaud Rachel's latest garbage.  It wasn't just know, it was widely known.  And CBS may have vanished the program, but we can thank Jon Corzine right now.  The day after it originally aired?  October 16, 2003, then-Senator Jon Corzine entered the full transcript of the report into the Congressional record. 

It's there, it's part of the record and it refutes every damn lie Lawrence Wilkerson's been telling since 2006.  It rebukes the Rachel Maddows, the Amy Goodmans, the Ray McGoverns and all the other sad liars who have shilled for Lawrence Wilkerson in the last seven years.  Shame on them all.

And for those who think maybe Greg Thielmann no longer speaks about this topic?  It would be a very sudden clamp-down.  At the end of last month, Harry Shearer (Le Show -- link is audio and transcript) was interviewing Thielman.  Excerpt.

HARRY SHEARER:  All right. Let me just review something he said. This is on Meet the Press, January 13th of this year.

 COLIN POWELL:  We were basing all of our actions on a National Intelligence Estimate that the Congress asked for. It was provided to the Congress by the CIA. And all of us in the Bush administration at that time accepted the judgment of our 16 intelligence communities. I presented it to the UN. We subsequently found out that a lot of that information was not accurate, and that is very unfortunate, but that’s the way it unfolded… The president had more than sufficient basis to believe that there were weapons of mass destruction that were a danger to the world, and the possibility of those weapons going to terrorists, and so he undertook military action. I think that was the correct thing to do and it was well supported by the intelligence.

 HARRY SHEARER:  Is that an accurate statement?

 GREG THIELMANN:  I’m very sorry to hear him put it that way, because I had a lot of respect for Colin Powell as Secretary of State. I felt honored working for him as Secretary of State.   One of the things that I particularly dislike about what he just said was, in the fall of 2002 there was a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi WMD. On the most important assessment in that estimate concerning the Iraqi nuclear weapons program – and there was a nuclear weapons program prior to the first Gulf war, but 15 agencies in that estimate said that Iraq had reconstituted the nuclear program, which had been dormant and had ended after the first Gulf war. One agency, Colin Powell’s own agency, the intelligence bureau of the State Department, said that the evidence did not support that conclusion. That is, that the evidence showed that Iraq had not reconstituted its nuclear weapons program.  And of all the various assessments about chemical weapons, about biological weapons, about missiles, that was the most critical assessment. And the State Department not only dissented, as the State Department would sometimes do, with an asterisk and a one-liner, it was basically a dissent with the entire judgment requiring a lot of words and was on the front page of the executive summary of the estimate. It was on the one-pager that went to the president of the United States. And that should raise alarm bells, not because the State Department intelligence bureau is always right, although I would argue that INR, which is its acronym, INR was more often right than not when we dissented from the majority, but that Colin Powell in particular, who knew or should have known from our memoranda and from his conversations with the head of our bureau the reasons, the detailed reasons why the evidence was not sound behind that conclusion.

Powell lied and Wilkerson been allowed to lie repeatedly over and over.  Greg Thielmann is not anti-Powell.  Read the transcript or listen to the show.  I am anti-Powell because I have a low tolerance for War Criminals. 

MSNBC wanted to sanitize Powell.  They were more interested in piling on the hate at the feet of Bully Boy Bush and because Lawrence Wilkerson will join in on that, they'll gladly let him lie. 


What comes from that?  In one instance, a sicko believes he can break the law.   Raw Story does a write-up that  toes the Maddow line.  The result?




RetiredVet David Emghee • an hour ago


That is a stupid question, apparently you have no idea how the Military and Politics work. The General is ORDERED to follow ORDERS, period, not a fairy tale but FACT. Unlike the COWARDLY, PIKES that never serve or understand whats it takes to serve (they are to busy STEALING and Lying), just because you retire you DO NOT hang up all those years of Discip0line, you FOLLOW ORDERS, that is why a lot of retires get in trouble with flash backs you DO NOT QUESTION a ORDER. One small note Mr. Powell can PROVE his Military Service, but the WAR CRIMINAL and TRAITOR to this day has NOT produced papers to show he served HONORABLY, just a small footnote.
As for the descenders of Mr Powell, I will defend this man to the Death, and with GREAT Joy and Jubilation put a BULLET in the head of the COWARD and TRAITOR bush, is that clear enough. The WAR CRIMINAL and TRAITOR ordered this man to LIE, and the PUKE, GUTLESS, SPINELESS, Noise Media did NOTHING because they wanted Access and to have a beer with these WAR CRIMINALS and TRAITORS.



To be clear, the "RetiredVet" is the one commenting.  He's responding to "David Emghee."  The words above are not the words of "David Emghee."

RetiredVet means "dissenters" -- those not feeling Powell was a lovely -- and he explains that he will defend Powell with his dying breath -- get the feeling someone's mainlining MSNBC? -- and then he goes on to say of "TRAITOR bush,"  "The WAR CRIMINAL and TRAITOR ordered this man to LIE" -- no, silly fool.  You're an idiot and someone facing questioning from the feds.  Bully Boy Bush could tell someone to do something but he can't order the Cabinet to do a damn thing.  Elliot Richardson was the Attorney General of the US when then-President Richard Nixon 'ordered' him to fire Archibald Cox as Special Prosecutor on the Watergate investigation.  Did Richardson do it?  No.  He resigned.  As Secretary of State, Powell was a civilian.  More importantly for RetiredVet, writing that you will "with GREAT Joy and Jubilation put a BULLET in the head of the COWARD and Traitor bush"?  That's a threat and will most like be investigated as such.  You aired your ignorance throughout your comment but you also aired a threat. 

I can't stand Bully Boy Bush.  I have no desire to kill him.  He has made his own hell and will live in it. 

There's probably no hope for RetiredVet -- look at his other comments which include wishing that "four or five people walk in to Congress both National and Random States with semi automatic weapons and unlimited magazines and a few drums, then OPEN UP and slaughter every Congressional Leader, WOW, what an exciting NOISE Day that would be."  You have to wonder about Raw Story -- why in the world would they allow these kind of comments to be posted? 

There may be more disturbing (or more threats) from him in the comments, you can click here if you're interested.  I don't choose to wallow in his sickness.

But this is the simplistic rage that Maddow's special encourages.  Maybe if it had focused even just a little on the Iraqi people, RetiredVet would be obsessing over how to help them and not over his desire to kill Bully Boy Bush?  So, to recap, Maddow's special was xenophobic and dishonest.


She couldn't be bothered with the ongoing protests in Iraq. But whether she cares or not, they're on what's said to be day 61 of the non-stop protests making up the Iraqi Spring. 

"When we give up hope that the government can reform itself, we will call for toppling it," Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha tells Adam Schreck (AP) today.  "If this government does not disband itself, we will head to Baghdad and stage protests in the streets and paralyze the government's work until it falls apart."  The Sheikh is located in Anbar Province and, as the Iraqi Spring MC (link is video) reports,  judges and attorneys in Anbar Province were on strike today in support of the protesters.


As noted yesterday,  "Alsumaria reports Nineveh Province Governor Atheel al-Nujaifi is accusing the security forces of terrorizing preachers and religious scholars.  Al Mada adds that the Tigris Operation Command has been interrogating them and tribal leaders, warning them of arrests should they continue to participate in the ongoing rallies that have been going on in Iraq for sixty days now.  The Tigris Operation Command are also now following protesters after protests to their homes in an effort to intimidate them."  The show of support in Anbar Province is especially encouraging in the face of efforts to peel off support for the protesters.  Rend al-Rahim (Guardian) lies about the protests, " the demonstrations have escalated and metastasized. Having begun with demands for reforms, better services, release of prisoners, and repeal of anti-Ba'ath lustration laws, anger has now overflowed and demonstrators across the Sunni region openly demand the resignation of the prime minister, accusing him of sectarian discrimination and repressing Sunnis."

In fairness, maybe she didn't lie -- maybe she's that damn stupid.  I don't understand why someone like Rend al-Rahim Francke is even published by the Guardian.  She's not just a hack, she's not just Ahmed Chalabi's cousin, she's not just an American citizen (since 1987), she's someone who spent the 90s and the early '00s lobbying the US government repeatedly to go to war on Iraq.  How do we see this American citizen as a voice worth listening to?  Well we don't.  But we have standards, the Guardian apparently has none.

The call for Nouri to resign goes back to December.  It's usually represented -- by leaders -- as he needs to make changes demanded or he needs to resign.  Participants in the marches usually are more direct and say that he needs to resign.  Rend al-Rahim Frnacke is either very stupid (I'm not surprised) or she's a liar (ibid). 


Sunday, Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) reported 52 dead and 141 injured from violence.  Alsumaria noted that the protesters in Diyala Province began a Mosul blood donation campaign Monday for the injured from the Baghdad bombings.  Sahwa leader Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha announced the blood drive.



 Through Sunday, Iraq Body Count counts 233 people killed from violence in Iraq so far this month. All Iraq News notes 4 bombs today in Mahmoudiya (no reported injuries or deaths),  1 person shot dead in Baghdad, and a northwest Baghdad bombing has left three people injured.  Alsumaria reports that 1 military officer, his wife and their son were shot dead on the streets of Mosul., and a Kirkuk attack late Monday night using bombs and rockets left two people injured.


In addition to the ongoing protests, there is also a labor strike.  The Iraq Times notes that Southern Oil Company workers in Basra have been carrying banners and chanting slogans as they protest Southern Oil Company's management and journalists are being ordered not to cover the story while protesters are being followed by police.  Alsumaria adds there have been earlier demonstrations but the current one has been going on since last week  and that the workers are calling for monies owed them since 2010 (365 billion dinars), for the training, health care for workers suffering from the uranium contamination in the oil fields due to the war,  and development program to be reactivated and for the company to do as it promised and build houses on land the government gave them several years ago.  They also note that unidentified "civilians" are trying to prevent coverage and asking the police to instruct reporters that they are not allowed to cover the protests.

The first thing about the demands?  That's a lot of money owed.  365 billion dinars comes to $313,574,285.23 in US currency.  So over 300 million in US dollars.

Second thing that should raise eyebrows?  The uranium contamination. Though the article doesn't go into it, other reports have detailed some of what is happening.  Last December, Alexander Smoltcyk (Der Spiegel) reported on the Basra birth defects:

It sounds at first as if the old man were drunk. Or perhaps as though he had been reading Greek myths. But Askar Bin Said doesn't read anything, especially not books, and there is no alcohol in Basra. In fact, he says, he saw the creatures he describes with his own eyes: "Some had only one eye in the forehead. Or two heads. One had a tail like a skinned lamb. Another one looked like a perfectly normal child, but with a monkey's face. Or the girl whose legs had grown together, half fish, half human."The babies Askar Bin Said describes were brought to him. He washed them and wrapped them in shrouds, and then he buried them in the dry soil, littered with bits of plastic and can lids, of his own cemetery, which has been in his family for five generations. It's a cemetery only for children. Though they are small, the graves are crowded so tightly together that they are almost on top of one another. They look as if someone had overturned toy wheelbarrows full of cement and then scratched the names and dates of death into it before it hardened. In many cases, there isn't even room for the birth date. But it doesn't really matter, because in most cases the two dates are the same.
There are several thousand graves in the cemetery, and another five to 10 are added every day. The large number of graves is certainly conspicuous, says Bin Said. But, he adds, there "really isn't an explanation" for why there are so many dead and deformed newborn babies in Basra.
Others, though, do have an idea why. According to a study published in September in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, a professional journal based in the southwestern German city of Heidelberg, there was a sevenfold increase in the number of birth defects in Basra between 1994 and 2003. Of 1,000 live births, 23 had birth defects.



US Labor Against the War carries the statement the workers released last Wednesday:



"Let us unite to defend our rights, and cripple the corrupt at the Southern Oil Company

Dear brothers, you all realize that our struggle with company management is significant, and you have seen how it confronts us at any time we raise our voices to demand our rights, it does that with procrastination and punishments.
 You have participated in previous protests and achieved part of your demands, but unfortunately the company management always goes back to its usual trend and denies those rights.
 We at the Oil workers' rights defense committee, in which most Oil workers are represented, have decided to organize a worker's demonstration on Wednesday the 13th February, 2013 at 9 am before the Southern Oil Company HQ office, to resume our re-stress our demands, we call everyone to focus on the essential demands and not bring up partial demands that do not represent the oil workers' rights.
 The committee also announces that this demonstration has nothing to do with other demonstrations that are taking place in other parts of Iraq, and we warn the politicians not to use it for their political agendas.

The demonstration is to protest against corruption, and to demand our following rights:
 1- To pay the accumulated interests since 2010 that are equal to 365 Billion Iraqi Dinar. We are concerned that with this prevailing corruption, those interests will be misused.
2-  Demanding the construction of houses on the pieces land (at Al Toba and Al Nakhaila districts) that were distributed to workers 8 years ago, and to be built by Investment companies,  without charging the workers any down payments. We also demand the distribution of pieces of land at Al Tannuma district to the eligible company employees.
 3- Demanding an immediate cancellation all resolutions that restrict union work and to  issue a fair labor legislation.
 4- To provide medical treatment to workers at the oil field, that were battle fields at some time and that are polluted with radioactive uranium, especially South and North Rumaila fields, in special hospitals. And cover all medical charges by the foreign companies. And to conduct regular inspections on those hospitals.
 5- To ban announcing the special hospital of oil workers to private investment, and to limit its services specifically to oil workers and their families, just as the goal was when this hospital was first opened.
 6- Raising the maximum ceiling level of the financial bonus to oil workers in general, from 1 Million up to 4 Million Iraqi Dinars.
 7- To process the promotions of work category scales (that has been frozen on fourth level/ stage 11) for the last 6 years.
 8- To reveal the details of the new bonus that has been recently approved by the Ministry of Oil, and to announce the equation in which its calculated.
 9- To re-activate the overtime shift allowances, and those for the official holidays and hazard, that were considered, previously.
 10- To activate the training and development unit through including the company's staff in workshops and training program, especially the ones that are relevant to their job title, also to recognize the workshops that are conducted at field sites. "


The Oil workers' rights defense committee
12 February, 2013




 All Iraq News adds that MP Susan Saad, in her capacity as a member of Parliaments Oil and Energy Committee, states that she will form a committee to investigate this and called on the oil company to honor their promises with an emphasis in her statement on the money owed to the workers.


Now, as promised in Friday's snapshot, we're finally covering a Thursday hearing. 

US House Rep Mark Takano:  I'm a new member of Congress so I'm having to get my arms around this issue.  Ms. Perez, can you tell me more about the students who've experienced homelessness and just how, related to the late payments, whether they're problems with the claims?  I don't that I'll be able to get a firm picture of that for myself.

Hayleigh Perez:  As was stated by the SVA, some of these claims are-are backlogged so far that these students are not getting their payments on time.  They're not able to pay their rent or their childcare.  And some students have had to withdraw from school because of not having this housing allowance or this book stipend.  And, in my case, my payment was delayed 8 weeks and I know that there's several student veterans out there that are experiencing much further backlog.  And if they're not being as pro-active, they're not even able to find out the status because there's nowhere to verify the status of your claim.  My claim was lost in, I guess, the old system.  And it wasn't until I finally reached a certain person on the phone that she was able to see that I had even turned in the paperwork.  So it was almost like my claim was in limbo.  Had I not reached her and somehow she had the ability to access my file in another system, my claim would still be sitting stagnant as others claims are.

To repeat, that was Thursday.  I know it may seem like Thursday in 2009 or Thursday in early 2010 when the VA swore the problems were fixed and would no longer be happening.  But it was Thursday last week.

It was the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity.  Bill Flores is the Chair, the Ranking Member is Mark Takano.  Appearing before the Subcommittee were two panels.  The first panel was made up of Student Veterans of America's Michael Dakduk,  Humboldt State University's Veterans Program Administrator Kim Hall (who is also with National Association of Veterans Program Administrators) and Students Veterans Advocacy Group's Hayleigh Perez. 

In a perfect world, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin and John Boozman would still be serving as Chair and Ranking Member of this Subcommittee.  I'm not trying to be rude and I'm not going to single anyone out, but the ignorance on this issue from members of the Subcommittee was appalling.  I'm not referring to Mark Takano.  Smartest thing anyone -- including me, I do this all the time -- can do is say you don't know when you don't know.  But there were members of this Subcommittee who had no clue but proceeded as though they did.  They will find their footing, I have no doubt.  But veterans really can't afford for the House or Senate veterans committees to study up on this issue at length.  Everyone needs to be up to speed on this or they need to find another committee to serve on.


This issue became a huge media problem for VA and resulted in VA Secretary Eric Shineski appearing before the House Veterans Affairs Committee October 14, 2009 where he admitted that he knew the problem of veterans not getting payment on time shortly after he assumed the post of VA Secretary.

Eric Shinseki: A plan was written, very quickly put together, uh, very short timelines, I'm looking at the certifcates of elegibility uh being processed on 1 May and  enrollments 6 July, checks having to flow through August.  A very compressed timeframe. And in order to do that, we essentially began as I arrived in January, uh, putting together the  plan -- reviewing the plan that was there and trying to validate it. I'll be frank, when I arrived, uh, there were a number of people telling me this was simply not executable. It wasn't going to happen. Three August was going to be here before we could have everything in place. Uh, to the credit of the folks in uh VA, I, uh, I consulted an outside consultant, brought in an independent view, same kind of assessment.  'Unless you do some big things here, this is not possible.' 

That's where the problem should have been addressed and Congress should have been immediately informed.  Shinseki failed to do so and tried to do a quick fix that obviously did not work or you wouldn't have had the nightmare of fall 2009 for student veterans.

The Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity addressed this nightmare October 16, 2009 and US House Rep Harry Teague may have done the best job questioning the VA.  Here's an excerpt.

US House Rep Harry Teague: You know we've had a problem with some contradictory information coming out.  You know when the checks didn't go out the first of the month, well then we issued the letter that they would be cut on Friday the second. And then there was also some letters sent out that if, like in places like New Mexico, it's 320 miles to the only hospital and the only facility in the state that they would be going to some of the larger universities around and handing the checks out.  That didn't happen.  At the same time, they got a website up where they could go to but we didn't get that information to people.  So I was just wondering if we're streamlining our communications within our office there so that we don't continually jerk the veterans around and have some of them misinformed.
Keith Wilson: I understand your concerns, Congressman. And we-we have, I believe, we have a better process in place to make sure that we are communicating more effectively on that. The issues that we are dealing with was trying to get -- make sure we had something out the gate and-and informed our student population prior to 10-1 [October 1st] -- around the 10-1 time frame. The 10-1 was important because most folks were at that point where they were due their first housing allowance payments. .We thought it was important to get something up as soon as possible. We were dealing -- and continued to deal -- at the time of that press release, with some technical issues concerning how we get to the other locations beyond our 57 regional offices. We very early on wanted a desire to spread this out as much as possible. We felt that the most effective way of doing this was leveraging technology.  Taking into account that we've got technology students at thousands of locations across the country. We felt the most effective way of uh getting those folk that weren't within distance of a regional office was to allow technology and so that was the driver for our decision on the follow up --
US House Rep Harry Teague: Yes and I agree with that and I think that the webpage is working good. It's just that during that week prior to that, when I was at New Mexico State University, they were expecting someone to be there with the checks and then, on Friday when there's not, that's when we find out about the webpage.


Teague is no longer in the US Congress.  From the January 21, 2010 snapshot (three years ago!):

Chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: Some of those in attendance may recall that our first hearing of 2009 was on the implementation of the post-9/11 GI Bill.  This was followed up by supplemental hearings that sought to ensure VA's progress on the short and long-term information technology solutions. I hope that it is clear to our panelists before us today that by making this our first hearing of 2010, we demonstrate the continued importance of the subject at hand.  I'm sure my colleagues will agree that the current delays in processing education claims are simply unacceptable. A number of my colleagues not on this committee  have spoken to me directly or have written to me documenting experiences of student veterans that they represent who have suffered some of the consequences of  the delays in processing these claims.  While the administration, I know, shares my concerns regarding these shortcomings,more has to be done. However, the blame doesn't rest solely with the VA. The processing of a single claim requires multiple steps involving multiple parties and computer systems, all of which must work in-sync with one another in order for a veteran to receive his or her benefits in a timely manner. These computer difficulties demonstrate the need for a fully-functional long-term solution.


Any of the Reps serving on the Subcommittee in 2009 and 2010 would be able to stress that this is the same problem.  It's the same problem that's supposed to have been fixed.  That the VA swore they would fix.  Not in a few years, immediately.  They were on this, this would be fixed.  It was a question of a semester, not of years.

The problem hasn't been fixed.  If Stephanie Herseth Sandlin or any other member from the Committee back then wanted to run for Congress in 2014, one of their campaign points could be, "The VA told us they'd fixed this, that it was fixed.  Send me back to Congress to hold them accountable for their lie."

And goodness did they lie.  I don't think the VA's Roger Baker should be allowed to appear before the House or Senate Veterans Affairs Committee again without the Reps and Senators being each given a barrel of rotten eggs and tomatoes that they could hurl at Baker each time he tries to spin the ongoing failure of the VA -- and of him in particular, he's the IT expert -- to do the job they swore three years ago was not a problem and already fixed.  

These lies are insulting and they're damaging to the veterans today.  It is appalling that the issue has still not been fixed -- despite all the promises -- and that a Secretary of the VA can remain in their post with no accountability at all.  These are the sort of things that should get you fired.

That all this time later, even the hotline cannot be answered is disgusting and it's also frightening because there are so many service members in the next months and year who will be returning to civilian lives and many will be attempting to further their education.  If the system is overwhelmed now -- and Michael Dakduk's testimony Thursday made very clear that even the hotline is a problem -- then what's it going to be like in 2014?

In her opening remarks, Hayleigh Perez noted journalist Aaron Glantz' book The War Comes Home and we'll mention that because it's a book very much worth reading and also because I don't believe Glantz is aware that his book was mentioned -- and quoted -- in Congress last week.  (Perez:  "On page 212, Glantz states, 'Members of Congress and bureaucrats at the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs may not be attacking our veterans with mortars and IEDs but they are literally killing them with indifference'.")

From the hearing last week:

Chair Bill Flores: Question number one is how does the inability of a school certifying official being able to access and view a veterans remaining entitlements make it difficult for school certifying officials being able to counsel a student as required by the Principles of Excellence required by the President's Executive Order?  Ms. Hall, this is probably for you, but I'll take answers from any of you.

Kim Hall:  Sir, you know to begin with, when you're -- when you're working with a student, especially with the Principles of Excellence, it's in the best interests of both parties to be able to sit down and look at the big picture, look at the longterm objective beginning from when they start school, all the way through their career.  And while you're doing that, there's a lot of financially planning involved. The only way to be able to look at the budget that the student has versus the money that they have coming in is based on their entitlement, their GI bill.  So the calculation from-from the monthly amount all the way down to the day that they're going to get that last payment is reflected in that entitlement figure.  And so it's very important that, at the beginning, not just the remaining entitlement but all of the eligibility for that student, the amount of money they may be getting in a stipend or versus their status of enrollment at the university becomes all important data in calculating those budgets, those finances, and ultimately, you know, the time they start to the end of their degree.

Chair Bill Flores: Okay, thank you.  Since I have time, I'm going to ask another question -- and this can be for any of you or all three of you, if you'd like.  What has been your experience in terms of the complaints you're receiving from your members and your constituents by student veterans about the GI Bill processing?  What sort of changes have you seen over the last semester or prior semesters compared to this semester now that this system has been rolled out?

Michael Dakduk: Well, Mr. Chairman, I want to acknowledge that since the system has been rolled out that there has been an increase in the processing of GI Bill claims so that should be acknowledged.  But I would also say that at the beginning of the semesters, that's when we see an influx of delays. and that's when we receive most of our complaints at Student Veterans of America. So we have a concern when we talk about troops returning home from Afghanistan and the Dept of Defense estimate over the next five years that one million troops will remove the uniform and make the transition into civilian society.  Many of them are going to use this Post-9-11 GI Bill.  So we want to make sure that the Dept of Veterans Affairs is ready to handle that influx of military veterans on college campuses.  At the beginning of semesters is when we see a high number of delays.

Chair Bill Flores: To kind of go back to the original question, if you look at where we are now versus prior semesters, have you seen a change?  Sounds like you've got this cycle where at the beginning of each semester where your complaints are higher.  Do you -- Is the trend downward or what?  What do your constituents tells you?

Michael Dakduk:  I would definitely say that since the implementation of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, the trend is downward.  I will acknowledge that.  But it's still an issue.  And it's a real issue at the beginning of terms.

Chair Bill Flores: Okay.

Michael Dakduk:  And I would just like to acknowledge one thing, Mr. Chairman, the issue is that because we can't see the status of our GI Bill claims and our housing allowance comes on the tail end of each month, we don't know if you're waiting six weeks or eight weeks to pay your bills.  Institutions of higher learning have been pretty supportive when it comes to supporting veterans with their tuitions and fees but landlords are not as supportive when it comes to paying your rent.

Chair Bill Flores: Ms. Hall, any comments?


Kim Hall: Absolutely.  The tuition and fee process is, as I stated earlier with the overpayment situation, is in a crisis mode -- it's what I'd say at this point.  Institutions have extended a courtesy out to allow veterans to continue attending school as we wait for the VA payments to arrive for tuition fees.  We have no way of knowing at the beginning of the term -- or even until we actually receive a payment -- of how much we're going to get for that student's tuition fees and oftentimes it results in underpayments and over payments and, by that time, the student is most definitely involved.  And if there's not a complaint, there should be at that point because the schools are trying to accommodate the VA's payments as they're coming and we're ending up
with all kinds of overpayments.

Chair Bill Flores: Okay, just kind of a one word answer: Better, worse or the same?

Kim Hall: You know, in terms of the tuition fees, it's definitely worse.  You know -- The students don't see it at the very begin because we're deferring out the tuition fees.

Chair Bill Flores: Okay.  Ms. Perez?  Better, worse, the same?

Hayleigh Perez:  Mr. Chairman, I would say it's the same.

Chair Bill Flores:  Okay.

Hayleigh Perez: The veterans that are reaching out to our organization, the ones who are suffering extreme delays  -- it's having huge detrimental effects on their personal lives and they're not able to be successful in their studies.



Thursday saw another hearing.  I did attend that.  Why cover it?  Someone we noted lied in his first appearance before Congress now happens to agree that Iraq is a horrible mess.  So?  When he first testifed, again, we noted he wasn't trustworthy and that we weren't going to waste time on him.  Just because he finally tells one truth doesn't mean we rush to cover him.  Equally true, that hearing got a ton of attention, especially when contrasted with the lack of attention to the House Subcommittee hearing we're finally covering now received.





























aaron glantz
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Monday, February 18, 2013

Talking Iraq

Monday.  President's Day.  And we're going to talk Iraq.  This is an Iraq conversation I had with C.I. tonight.

Okay, first question is what's going on with Moqtada al-Sadr in Iraq?  You've written about how he has matured and presents himself as a leader more and more.  Eli Sugarman and Omar al-Nidawi have an article about Moqtada for Foreign Policy, about the maturity and the leadership and they don't seem to buy the notion of a change and feel he's faking.

C.I.:  I have no idea if he's faking or not.  I believe I've noted that in the past when I've written about the  issue -- that I have no way to determine whether he's faking or not.  I go by his words and his actions.  If someone has a keyhole view into the inner Moqtada, they should certainly use it, but I don't.

There's a Sadr MP that writes though.

C.I.: He's written for years now, e-mailed the site.  He didn't feel Moqtada was getting his proper due from me.  Like anyone who writes with a complaint, I do think about it.  And I did think about all the e-mails.  Because he's written regularly for years now.  He's very loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr and we should all be so lucky to have someone that loyal to us but it didn't change my opinion of Moqtada.  And when he returns to Iraq in 2010, check the archives, I'm not praising him.  I'm actually mocking him more than ever.  And I think he made himself a joke.  I think he did so through most of 2011.  But there was a change.  He's showing more maturity than any other Shi'ite political leader at present.

Give us an example.

C.I.: Okay, here's one that didn't get play in the US, thankfully.  At The Common Ills, I called out Nouri's State of Law for their attacks on Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi last week.  al-Nujaifi is a Sunni and a member of Iraqiya  -- Nouri's big rival in elections.  al-Nujaifi was in Qatar and gave an interview.  There were not great remarks about Nouri in that interview, to put it mildly.  But State of Law began screaming and hissing treason and it was just so ridiculous.  There are real problems in Iraq.  What a politician says in an interview -- whether you agree with what's said or what's not -- really isn't an issue.  Moqtada?  They tried to trap him, State of Law.  Hoping to drive a wedge between Iraqiya and Moqtada.  Instead, Moqtada's slate issued a statement that basically went, 'Why should we respond to something someone else said in an interview?'  And that was mature.  The Iraqi people are tired of not seeing any improvement in their lives and they're also tired of the bickering politicians.  State of Law was trying to cast it into a Sunni versus Shi'ite issue and thought they had cornered Moqtada so he'd have to make a statement.  He made one but he didn't play into their game.  It was very smart on Moqtada al-Sadr's part.

Should Moqtada be the new leader of Iraq?

C.I.: That's for Iraqis to decide.  Unfortunately, in March 2010, they voted, they made a decision and it wasn't Nouri.  But the White House backed Nouri and that's how he has a second term now.  He was not the choice of the people and to give him a second term, the votes and the Constitution had to be ignored.

They got around it with the Erbil Agreement, right?

C.I.: Right.  The US went to the Kurds and other blocs with the argument, "Look, it's eight months since the election, Nouri's refusing to step down, he can probably go another eight months at least, if you want to see Iraq move forward, if you want the members of Parliament to be seated, why don't you just sign this contract giving him a second term and then he'll give you what you want. Come on, be the bigger person, for the good of Iraq, let's move things forward."

And that argument sadly worked.

C.I.: It very sadly worked.  Nouri trashed the agreement immediately.  The US refused to back it despite promising the blocs that it was binding and that they would back it.

If Nouri had been the people's choice?

C.I.: Then he'd be the people's choice.  But he wasn't and he's as illegitimate as Bully Boy Bush was when the Supreme Court gave him the White House in 2000.

Different question.  Today was not a usual day for you and what was that like?  Usually, it's get out of bed, run or work out, then log onto the computer and do two entries at The Common Ills, then off to speak or off to a Congressional hearing, etc., etc.

C.I.: I woke up at five -- in my own bed, how great was that -- worked out for two hours -- stair master and treadmill -- hopped in the pool, swam for a bit, ate some breakfast while reading 3 books and four screenplays --

You're a speed reader.

C.I.: I am a speed reader.

Wally talks about how you all were visiting a friend at a TV network when a Supreme Court decision came down and how everyone was drafted into going over it.  And you were done with the majority opinion and the dissents while everyone else was about half-way through one.

C.I.: I am a speed reader.

So what happened after you read today?

C.I.:  Returned calls on the screenplay and on two books -- I read one book for enjoyment, the other two are being put out by a friend's publishing company and he wanted feedback on the books and --

And the feedback?

C.I.: One needs to clarify a basic point in the first three pages.  The other's not ready to publish and needs a major revision.  And I could very well be wrong on both but friends who ask for input know that I give honest input.  So then I went through the phone messages and turned on a phone -- I'd let the service pick up the landlines and had all the cells turned off -- and quickly returned calls.  On the twelth call, a friend with NBC had the MSNBC special that was airing later and so I popped over to his place to watch it.

And then wrote "A tale of two Huffingtons?"

C.I.:  And then wrote "A tale of two Huffingtons?"

I had just finished reading that about 30 minutes before the special started.  I wasn't planning on watching it but it sounded like a train wreck.  So we watched about 40 minutes until Elaine said --

C.I.: Turn it off, I can't stand the xenophobia.

That's almost it word for word.

C.I.: Elaine and I have been friends for decades.  And the special was very xenophobic which is something she's going to pick up on immediately.

I have one wild card question.  Since this is about Iraq, I asked for the right to ask a question about any non-Iraq topic and you'd answer it and I'm choosing, as I'm sure you know, based on something that I hope will pull more eyeballs to this discussion on Iraq.  So here's the question, Shirley MacLaine's daughter --

C.I.: You can ask any question but please don't mention the name of the book.

Okay.  Shirley MacLaine's daughter has a book out about her.  It's not a nice book.  I want your thoughts on it because you know Shirley very well and also because two years ago -- two years! -- back in April 2011, you and Ava reviewed Shirley's latest book and that piece ended with : "By contrast, Shirley offers restraint.  And the two things she doesn't mention in her book? Brother Warren Beatty or daughter Sachi Parker."  That's sort of interesting in light of the tell-all.

C.I.: Shirley's book, I'm Over All Of That and Other Confessions, was a great book.  But read it today and see if you don't feel that there's a subtext regarding a child who doesn't want to hear.  That stood out to us two years ago.   Sachi is Shirley's daughter. The daughter of a 78-year-old woman.  Why publish now?  It would have made a bigger splash if it were published immediately after Shirley passed away.  It also wouldn't have inflicted cruelty.  And I believe the book is cruel and hurtful -- I haven't read it, I've tried to avoid it.  My one question to people who were reading it was, "Is she still whining about college?"  Yes, she is.  Shirley wouldn't pay for college.  Why?  Who cares?  I went off to college, Elaine was there, she knows this story, and thought I'd be taking classes.  But I was very vocal on what my major would be and my parents didn't apparently believe me.  As the start of the semester approached and they were unable to convince me to change my major, they announced that they wouldn't pay for it if I didn't change my major.  I didn't change my major.  I got a scholarship and grants and I worked multiple jobs.  My parents had money.  They wanted me to major in one thing, I wasn't interested in it.  Their money, they can do what they want with it.  I've never thought, "Oh, they're evil!"  It wasn't my money.  When I learned what had happened my immediate focus was on securing funds, once I'd done that, I was too busy to moan or whine.  Life was what it was.  I don't blame them to this day.  I think my college experience was much more educational because I did have to work and take classes those first years.  So my point here is Shirley stated she didn't want to raise a Hollywood brat.  She stated that repeatedly throughout the years.  When Sachi wanted to go to college, Shirley thought it was a good idea and hoped Sachi could pull it off.  Instead, Sachi gave up because Mommy wouldn't pay the bills.  She could have taken out loans if she didn't qualify for scholarships or grants.  She also has an uncle she could have asked for money if she was just desperate for a hand out.  Sachi got the mother she got.  Shirley's very famous and Shirley believes that life is its own teacher.  But Sachi felt that because of who her mother was, she should get this and that and everything else.  If Sachi were my daughter, I would've paid for her college.  I have no problem with that and had no problem with my own children and college.  But I'm not the mother she got.  For a grown woman, and Sachi's in her 50s now, not to understand her mother and her mother's outlook on life is rather sad.  The book itself?  From what I'm told, she's attempting to ridicule Shirley.  That's not smart.

I read the book.

C.I.: Poor you.

One section anyway.  She writes that her mother tried to get her a job as her daughter in a film but then worked overtime to make sure she didn't get the job.  And she finds this out later from a friend of her mother's who explains that this is how Shirley is and she screwed Marion Ross out of an Academy Award nomination for Evening Star by having Marion's big scene killed.

C.I.: I can't speak to a role Sachi was up for because I don't know anything about that.  In terms of Marion Ross, she had a showy scene that was cut because it took the film into a different direction.  Would she have won an Academy Award?  Or even been nominated?  I can't see how.  Marion Ross' biggest weakness has always been her voice.  In a dramatic scene, especially, it's all over the map.  She's someone who seriously needed vocal training.  I don't see a push for a Ross nomination.  And what year are we talking?  Evening Star was 1996, I believe.  If that's correct, the nominees for Best Supporting Actress?  There was no room for Marion Ross.  Juliette Binoche had to be nominated both for her performance and for the reception to The English Patient.  Joan Allen reached new heights with The Crucible.  Lauren Bacall was simply amazing in The Mirror Has Two Faces.  Ditto Barbara Hershey and The Portrait Of A Lady .  Marianne Jean-Baptiste was the glue holding Secrets and Lies together.  I don't see how any of those actresses falls off the nominee list for Marion Ross overplaying a maid in what was a really bad TV movie that was wrongly shown on the big screen.  And that's the other thing, that film was so awful that no one was going to be nominated.  The minute you recast the role of Patsy, you destroy any connection the two films might have.  Aurora ends Terms of Endearment having grown, she's different than she was at the start of the film.  So the Aurora you encounter in the sequel should be different.  She wasn't.  That was a huge mistake as well.  Even if the script needed her to be the same, it should have allowed Aurora to have the knowledge that what she was doing was wrong -- or what was the point of Emma dying?  But once you put a new actress on the screen as Patsy, no.  That's not going to be accepted.  Especially not a British actress who's doing a very broad caricature of a woman from Texas.   It was poorly written and badly directed.  The only reason to watch was Shirley and Jack Nicholson.  Oh, sorry one more thing, before someone says, "Well she got a Golden Globe nomination!"  Yes, Marion Ross did.  But the Golden Globes are a joke and always have been.  More to the point, to include Marion Ross, they had to list six nominees.  The Academy only has five -- as did the Globes the year before they nominated Ross and the year after.  It would appear she had a helper. But with that scene or without she would not have been nominated.  Her voice is ridiculous and always has been.  You only have to catch her on Sally Field's Brothers and Sisters to grasp just how untrained that voice is and how unaware Ross is as an actress.  She should stick to TV sitcoms.  By toning down her voice somewhat for That 70s Show, she almost provided a different performance than what she always does.

Okay, thank you for that.  So you don't like the book.

C.I.: I've heard of it, I haven't read it.

And you think, if the book needed to be written, it should have been published after Shirley MacLaine passed away.

C.I.: Yes.  It would have made more money that way too.  A month after Shirley's dead?  You're going to have various clip jobs rushed out.  And for Sachi, the daughter, to have a book out then?  It would have sold like crazy.  Instead, this one's not doing so well.  The reason to publish it now?  Clearly Sachi wants a fight with her mother.  To clear the air?  Maybe.  To say f you in public?  Maybe.  I don't know why she did it but it wasn't smart.  It wasn't smart for family reasons and it wasn't smart for financial reasons.  Shirley would probably add it wasn't smart for karma reasons.  Does it hurt Shirley?  On a personal level, yes, that's her daughter cashing in on her -- and let's be clear that Sachi could have written a book that had nothing to do with her mother.  But if, for example, she wanted to write about the oceans or a novel, she probably wouldn't have been paired with a someone who was a professional writer with over 20 years of experience and credits.  I'm reminded of Patti Davis.  I never cared for her and avoided her at all costs.  People would insist that she was great and she didn't like her parents too!  That actually didn't endear her to me.  I loathed Ronald Reagan.  I wasn't that crazy about Nancy.  But that Patti would tell these awful, horrible stories about her mother?  I didn't find it funny.  It actually played out like she was jealous of Mommy.  I wasn't at all surprised that, later in life, she recanted her past.  She was lucky because her mother was still alive.  I don't know that Shirley will be alive when Sachi grasps the pain she's inflicted.  In part because Sachi's never struck me as all that bright.  The short story is, Sachi always wanted attention and now she's finally getting it. She'll claim it's for something she did.  It's not. It's for being Shirley's daughter and it's for letting a man write the book she didn't have the talent to write herself.  So at the end of the day, Shirley's famous for all the things she's done, writing books, activism, being an acclaimed and award winning actress, her dancing, her singing, etc.  And Sachi?  She's known because Shirley is her mother.


Thank you.  What is the big thing in Iraq right now to watch?

C.I.: Nouri doesn't like the protests.  He used the military to keep Anbar citizens out of Baghdad last week.  He's using the military now in Diyala Province to spy on the protesters.  He's also trying to intimidate tribal leaders in Anbar and Diyala.  So one thing to watch for is how that impacts -- if it does -- the ongoing protests.

Monday was day sixty.

C.I.: That's what's been reported.  I haven't added up the days myself.  We're getting closer to February 25th which is an important day in modern Iraq so I would say watch the protests -- especially on Friday -- and see what happens there.

Okay, thank you.   Jim wanted me to mention that there's a huge response to the piece you and Ava just wrote for Third "TV: First Among All Whiners"  and I'll note that Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Serial Cheaters" went up tonight.






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Saturday, February 16, 2013

Some movie talk

Saturday.  I got up this morning all excited to stream and write.  I was going to catch the latest Nikita.  There was none.  I'm so tired of the stop and stop, you know?  The CW destroys their own ratings with that crap.  'Oh, let's watch Nikita!  What? It's not on?  Okay, let's find something else.  Oh, this is really good show.  Let's watch it from now on.'  For example, CBS shows the same line up every Friday night.

Okay, movies.  Zero Dark Thirty is  a great film that a bunch of pigs decided to tear apart because women threaten them.  So the impotent railed against Kathryn Bigelow's film without ever seeing it.  Michael White (Bloomberg News) talks about how these liars acted:

 Then the U.K.’s Guardian published an article accusing Bigelow, the only woman to win an Oscar for directing, of justifying torture. On Dec. 19, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, joined by John McCain and Carl Levin, asked Sony Pictures to consider “correcting” the suggestion torture helped the CIA find bin Laden because it was inaccurate.
The senators also asked the CIA about what officials told the filmmakers about interrogation tactics used during the administration of President George W. Bush. Feinstein and Levin declined to comment. McCain didn’t respond to requests.
Hollywood activists piled on. Asner, a former president of the Screen Actors Guild, told the New York Times he wanted to “condemn” the movie and said he and Martin Sheen planned to sign a letter by Clennon, who appeared in the TV series “thirtysomething,” urging voters to choose another movie.
Sheen later backed away, saying he opposed torture but didn’t want to attack Bigelow’s right to make the film her way. He and Asner didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“Its hopes for best picture seem to be, well, zero,” said Tom O’Neil, founder and editor of the GoldDerby.com. “The movie was unfairly blamed for showing us something we didn’t want to see, which was our nation misbehaving.”

That Guardian article was written by full time prick Glenn Greenwald -- who hadn't seen the film when he launched his written attack on it.  As Ava and C.I. pointed out Sunday:



It would help if people discussing the film would see it.  There's a lie that Ammar gives up information after he's water boarded.  How that lie got started, who knows?  But David Denby certainly popularized it in his review for The New Yorker, "Yet, in attempting to show, in a mainstream movie, the reprehensibility of torture, and what was done in our name, the filmmakers seem to have conflated events, and in this they have generated a sore controversy: the chairs of two Senate committees have said that the information used to find bin Laden was not uncovered through waterboarding." And because The New Yorker no longer has functioning fact checkers, it first appeared in a 'report' by Dexter I-Lied-About-Falluja-And-Let-The-US-military-vet-my-copy Filkins:  "Bigelow maintains that everything in the film is based on first-hand accounts, but the waterboarding scene, which is likely to stir up controversy, appears to have strayed from real life.  According to several official sources, including Dianne Feinstein, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the identity of bin Laden’s courier, whose trail led the C.I.A. to the hideout in Pakistan, was not discovered through waterboarding."
People have repeatedly latched onto the lie in slamming the film.  You can't get through a comment thread on any article about the film without somebody bringing that up.  But in the film itself, the water boarding does not produce a name.   How do you miss that?   In fact, in the shooting script, the scene's end is described as, "Dan and Maya exit.  They've learned nothing."



The whores like Glenn Greenwald lied.   And people believed them.  They whored and that needs to be known because if they'd lie about a movie, what won't they lie about?

Zero Dark Thirty is a great film and Glenn Greenwald is a trashy piece of filth that won't be remembered in ten years.

Here's the well made up Glenn Greenwald (does anyone wear more make up than Glenn when they go on TV?).



  1. 24 Dec
    I didn't "plug" it - I noted it - but what's sexist about what he wrote?
    Details


What's sexist about what he wrote?  He is the sexist Michael Woolf and Woolf is an old piece of man flap that should have been cut off long ago.  Here he is attacking the film Zero Dark Thirty:

 Also, it's a bit copy-cat. It's Homeland without the character quirks. ("OK… picture this… Homeland… but the girl isn't nuts – just super-focused. What about that?" is something like how the screenwriter, Mark Boal, must have pitched it.)


"The girl"?  Does Glenny think, like Bret Easton Ellis, that he gets a pass because he's gay?

Sucking a cock doesn't make Glenn an honorary woman and there's no pass for sexism.

In this instance, the extent to which we might naturally believe the story line – CIA girl alone against the world doing nothing for 10 years but, against the wishes of her superiors, searching for Osama – would be minimal.


Did Glenn suck off Michael Wolff?  Did Michael suck off Glenn?

Why else would he be endorsing the bad writing of Wolff?  We're all aware that Wolff's long been criticized for making s**t up and calling it reporting -- slammed for his lies by Brill's Content, by The New Republic, by the Columbia Journalism Review.

I hope Glenn and Michael 69-ed because otherwise, Glenn Glenn ended up a bigger idiot than usual and didn't even get some sex out of it.  Michael Wolff infamously attacked Maureen Dowd's writing as bad because (he felt) she couldn't get a man.

Michael Wolff also has a habit of sleeping with young interns while he was still married -- interns his daughter's age.

Screw 'em all.

And if you're a James Bond fan, remember Skyfall just came out on video.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
 
Friday, February 15, 2013.  Chaos and violence continue, protests take place in Iraq (including Baghdad), one American media outlet explores Iraq, today was the 10th anniversary of the global protests, and more.

Your Call airs on the Bay Area's public radio station KALW Monday through Friday (ten to eleven in the morning Pacific Time).  Today host Rose Aguilar and the program offered something you rarely hear on American radio today: a discussion of Iraq.  The guests were Kael Alford and Thorne Anderson.

Rose Aguilar:  It's been almost ten years since the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. In fact today marks the 10th anniversary of the historic global protests against the war that took place all over the world.  In 2003, today's guests photo journalist Kael Alford and Thorne Anderson took photos of Iraqi citizens outside of the confines of the US military's embedded journalist program.  Their goal was to find out how the war was effecting ordinary people.  Their photos are on display at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.  The description on a photo taken in Baghdad at a hospital on April 9, 2003 says, "A pool of blood is left on the floor of the lobby of the Saddam Medical Center after a man died on a makeshift operating table.  Located near the front lines, the hospital was overlowing with patients."  Another photo taken in Najaf on August 21, 2004 shows a man holding his crying son.  The description reads, "On the wrecked outskirts of the old city, a father tries to cross the front lines with his terrified child signaling to snipers to hold their fire.  Father and son crossed safely."   Thorne Anderson began his work in Iraq in October 2002 photographing the impact of UN sanctions on Iraqis.  He spent ten months of the last two years -- actually, that's not right.  He was last in Iraq in 2004.  While covering the war from Baghdad, he was arrested by Iraqi intelligence and expelled from the country.  He returned from Iraq as soon as the borders opened at the end of the war and has covered the occupation resistance movements.  He's also worked in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Israel and Palestine.  He's taught photo journalism at the American University in Bulgaria and his photographs regularly appear in major American and international newspapers and magazines.  And Thorne joins us here in the studio.  [. . .] We're also joined by Kael Alfred, a freelance photo journalist who was based in Baghdad during the US invasion in 2003.  She was last in Iraq in 2011.  Her work focuses on the growing culture of resistance, religion and the grassroots movements developing since the invasion.  She has worked extensively covering southeast Europe and the Middle East for many major US and European magazines.  She's currently working on a longterm project about the environmental degradation of the landscape and culture of the Gulf Coast.
At the top of each Friday show, Your Call always asks their guests to note reporting that they found valuable and noteworthy that week. 


Kael Alfred:  Well this isn't specifically -- It's not journalism but it's reporting done by Human Rights Watch.  They just -- every year they publish this world report based on what happened in the last year.  And as I was researching and preparing to speak to audiences about Iraq, I came across their report which goes into some depth about what's happened in Iraq in the last year.  And, although I was there in 2011, it's nice to see -- or,  it's not sort of nice, but it's confirmed in this report what I saw in Iraq in 2011 which is that the leadership of Iraq is, and I'm quoting the report here, sort of the intro to the report, "is using draconian measures against opposition politicians, detainees, demonstrators and journalists -- effectively squeezing the space for independent civil society and political freedoms in Iraq."  Human Rights Watch said this today in their world report -- this was just published at the end of January.  And so it's -- There just isn't a huge amount of reporting coming out of Iraq these days by western media because budgets are shrinking.  There are a lot of conflicts happening all over the world and our attention shifts elsewhere. And, you know, we were just speaking about this before the show, how tens years on, the anniversary of this war, we don't really know what's happening in Iraq, we don't know what it looks like.

Rose Aguilar:  Right. I remember on MSNBC, one of the hosts said, "President Obama has announced that the war is over, the troops are leaving."  Sort of 'end of story.' 

Kael Alford: Right.

Rose Aguilar:  So you went there last year.  Just talk about when you go, where do you go and what do you set out to do?  What did you find this time around?

Kael Alford:  Well I-I had a short period of time to work there.  I only had a few weeks.  And actually my time was even shortened by my having to get my visa through.  So I had this window to work and I decided that what I would -- The best way to catch up with what had happened since I was there last would be to take the photographs I had made and revisit as many of the people as I could in these photograph -- people I had met in the past and reported on in the past.  So I searched systematically, went searching for these people, and it was like detective work because the country was so up-ended in the last years that I didn't know where to find anyone, they weren't living in the same neighborhoods, they certainly didn't have the same phone numbers --

Rose Aguilar:  And these are the people you have gotten to know over the years?

Kael Alford:  Right.  The people who I met in 2003 and 2004.  And, you know, I hadn't really kept in close contact with them, it was really difficult, many of them don't speak English or don't write English and I don't speak or read Arabic.  So when I went back, I found these people and just sort of asked them what's happened in the last eight years since I was here last?  How is your life?  What are your concerns?  And almost universally, people's lives had gotten much, much harder.  The situation was violent.  It was very divided.  People couldn't live safely in the places they'd lived before. The Sunni people I'd met, many of them felt confined to specific neighborhoods.  There really was this ethnic divide, this ethnic cleansing, that targeted mostly Sunnis -- who are in the minority now -- were the subject of that.  So Sunni people were really living in much more cloistered circumstances than they'd lived before -- if I could even find them at all.   And-and there's one woman.  Her name is Karimah.  She and her family, I'd spent time at their house a lot in 2003 and 2004 and she's a widow and her husband was killed in the Iran - Iraq War.  She has a large number of kids.  And I went to visit her and her son, her oldest son, Aalee had been picked up at a cafe in a raid.  And there were these Iraqi security forces who were looking for members of the Sadr militia.  They picked him up, detained him, didn't charge him with anything really and interrogated him, extracting a confession from him and then proceeded to sort of keep him in prison until the family sold everything they had and could buy him out of prison basically.  And that speaks to the state of the Iraqi judicial system today.  It's a confession-based sort of system and people are frequently detained and not charged with anything until people can just buy them out.  And that's included in this Human Rights Watch report.  So it's really, the biggest concerns for the people who are coming up from this new very sort of corrupt  and ineffective Iraqi government, in their words, in the way they described it and also the infrastructure was just a mess.

Rose Aguilar:  Tell us more about that because we've done -- over the years we've done a lot of shows about the infrastructure.  And I remember when we used to have a series Open Line To Iraq and we'd bring Iraqis on on a regular basis and the first question was do you have electricity, do you have water and it was so sporadic.

Kael Alford:  So sporadic.  I mean, the grid supplies maybe six hours of power a day -- the national grid.  And otherwise, there are these neighborhood generators that are either privately owned by one wealthy person in the neighborhood that sells energy to everybody else -- produces it and sells it to everybody else at whatever price they decide to set.  At least when I was there, they were talking about regulating this generator system but it wasn't happening yet when I was there.  And then sometimes a neighborhood would go in together and buy a generator and they can be more of a grassroots, sort of democratic use of the generator.  And these are the very large generators, like the size of shipping containers that would sit every few blocks and were constantly running and spewing fumes -- they run on petroleum and they smell terrible and they're loud.  And then people would have a little generator at their house if they were wealthy enough to have their own generator that they would run when both those other systems weren't working.

Thorne Anderson:  You know, it's important to note, we're not talking about an earthquake or some kind of natural disaster.  What we're talking about here is just a disaster of massive corruption because there have been billions and billions of dollars that have been poured in for the rebuilding of Iraq's infrastructure and that has not been realized.  That money has gone into Iraq but it hasn't gone into the infrastructure.

Kael Alford:  That's a good point.

Thorne Anderson:  So we're not talking about a national disaster here.  We're talking about a really poorly managed transition of huge amounts of money.

The exhibit is entitled to "Eye Level in Iraq" and the exhibit continues to June 16, 2013 at the de Young Museum.  Kenneth Baker (San Francisco Chronicle) reviews the exhibit today observing:

Looking at these images, visitors who opposed the man-made human catastrophe of Operation Iraqi Freedom before or after it began will experience again some of the nauseating helplessness they felt a decade ago at government deceit, lawlessness and ideology-driven aggression.
The exhibition leaves it to viewers to connect the discredited neocon foreign policy with draconian provisions of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act and with the killer drones now fatally realizing abroad the nightmare concept of the world as a battlefield. A picture such as one Alford took in Zafrania a month after the invasion suggests the peril she must have faced daily from enraged Iraqis certain of her foreignness but not of her relationship to the calamity engulfing them.
No less chilling is a shot she took from behind on the same day of an insurgent peering from an alley, a loaded rocket launcher on his shoulder. Was he aware of her presence? What preceded and followed from the image we see?

The Your Call discussion is a great one and hopefully we'll return to it next week.  I'll also note that Thorne Anderson is an associate professor at the University of North Texas (Denton, Texas).  And quickly, on the topic of photography, AFP's Prashant Rao Tweeted:

10 hrs
REMINDER - has begun publishing its 'Iraq War - 10 Years On' series of photographs. Have a look:
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Moving to Iraq.  Last Friday saw the largest turnout in the ongoing protests which now span three months (December, January and February).   Each week, the numbers grow, but last week was a huge leap forward in participation.  (I'm basing that call on media coverage, on social media photos, on reports from Iraqi community members by e-mail and two that I spoke with on the phone as well.) Nouri's forces infamously attacked the protesters in Falluja on January 26th., killing at least nine (Human Rights Watch noted that 2 more of the wounded had died) with dozens left injured.  And this resulted in public condemnation -- though not from the US government where the pathetic response from the State Dept was to have Icky Vicky Neocon Nuland, Dick Cheney's former Deputy Advisor on National Security, insist that both sides should not resort to violence.  (Number of protesters killed by Nouri's forces: at least 9.  Number of forces killed at protests: Zero.)  But while Victoria and the administration coddled, stroked and fondled their puppet Nouri al-Maliki, prime minister and chief thug of Iraq, others were appalled.  The United Nations and the British government were among the most publicly vocal.  Nouri knows the world is watching and that's, for now, prevented another assault on the protesters.

With the huge increase in participants and with Nouri refusing to meet the demands -- which have been the same demands for months now and which are also pretty much the exact same demands that the protesters were making in February 2011 (demands Nouri swore he would meet if given 100 days -- he didn't meet them, he didn't care, he lied to stall for time and to try to stop the protests) -- the protesters decided maybe a stronger presence was needed in the capital.   From Saturday:

 Kitabat reports that yesterday some protesters in Anbar Province announced their intent to march to Baghdad next Friday.  All Iraq News notes National Alliance MP Qasim al-Araji is calling out the plan to stage a sit-in in Baghdad.  The Ministry of Interior (run by Nouri al-Maliki since he never nominated anyone to head it) had its own announcement.  Alsumaria reports that today it was declared their intent to crack down on any protest -- anywhere in the country -- that they felt was a threat or lacked a permit.  Al Mada notes that the spokesperson for the Anbar protests, Sayad Lafi, states that the protesters have written Baghdad seeking permission to pray in the city on Friday and return the same day. 


And Nouri's response?  From Tuesday's snapshot:

In the failed state of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki is refusing to allow Iraqis from the west to enter their own country's capital.  We noted this development yesterday morning and in yesterday's snapshot.  The non-Iraqi press continues to ignore it with only one except[ion]: Jane Arraf (see yesterday's snapshots for her Tweets) who reports for Al Jazeera, the Christian Science Monitor and PRI.  Today, she Tweets.


  1. 6h
    Back in this evening, anti-aircraft batteries along the river, roadblocks, rumors of a Thursday curfew. That is some scary protest.
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Alsumaria reports that there will be a ban on 'roaming' in Baghdad starting Thursday and that "security reasons" are being cited for the curfew that kicks off at midnight tonight and for the refusal to allow 'outsiders' into Baghdad. Dar Addustour adds that security forces have been put on "high alert" and that there is pressure on various mosques in Baghdad not to call for demonstrations on Friday while i.d.s continue to be checked and people from western Iraq are being refused access to Baghdad.  The Iraq Times notes that two military brigades are being used to stop cars attempting to enter Baghdad.


Why is he allowed to use the military to prevent Iraqis from entering the capital?  Whether you agree with his call or not -- I don't -- why is he repeatedly allowed to use the military on the Iraqi people?  The military is supposed to protect from external threats.  Nouri also controls the police.  Why does he keep using the military?  Juntas use militaries to control the people.  Thugs and dictators use militaries to control the people.   It it any surprise that the Los Angeles Times' Ned Parker made this discovery:


Feb 13
Most striking thing in Anbar last week was how many young Sunni males are afraid to come to Baghdad because they fear the security forces.
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Following the Falluja massacre last month, Nouri was forced to pull the military out of Falluja by the provincial council which demanded he stop using the military to police the people.  Baghdad's not in Anbar so the Anbar council has no power.  But why is he allowed repeatedly to use the military on the Iraqi people?  The Associated Press' Adam Schreck Tweeted this morning:


  1. 12 hrs
    Sunnis stage big protests again, but stop short of traveling to . Govt shut roads just in case:
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Nouri may have prevented western Iraqis from entering Baghdad but he didn't prevent protests. Not even in Baghdad, where, All Iraq News notes protests took place and that banners were unfurled demanding the government respond to the demands and do so promptly.  Al Mada reports his preventing Iraqis from entering their own capital was criticized in multiple provinces on Friday.  Mosul's Sheikh Badr al-Din al-Hayali is quoted declaring, "Baghdad is not the property of the of rulers of armed forces gathered in the city and around it."  Baghdad belongs to the Iraqi people.  Anbar spokesperson Said Lafi told Al Mada that the protesters would scream loud to awaken Iraq from its slumber.  NPR's Kelly McEvers Tweets on the Baghdad protest:

  2. 15 hrs
    Demo underway at Abu Hanifa. Pretty chill and small so far.
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  3. 17 hrs
    Inside Abu Hanifa. Prayers underway. Very quiet up til now. Adhamiya on lock-freaking-down
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Abu Hafina is a Sunni mosque in Bahgdad.  AFP reports, "Thousands of people in Sunni-majority areas of Iraq called on Friday for the government's fall amid a spike in violence that has accompanied a political stalemate two months before provincial polls."  Shafaq News pointed out yesterday, "Demonstrations and sit-ins still continue in Iraq in protest against Maliki's policies, as the sit-in in Ramadi had entered its 56 day.  Maliki's government is witnessing recently protests in several areas, including Anbar, Fallujah, Kirkuk, Samarra, Mosul and a number of neighborhoods in Baghdad to demand reforms and cancel laws that prohibit some from participating in the political process, as well as cancelling Article 4 of Anti-Terrorism Act and release detainees especially women detainees and achieve balance in the institutions of the state."

Yesterday Kitabat reported that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has stated that the choice for the government is to reform or resign.  That's rather basic.  Alsumaria notes "tens of thousands"  turned out today in Ramadi calling for the detainees to be released and for an end to marginalization and exclusion.  Alsumaria notes that thousands continue protesting in Kirkuk.  The protesters are making their demands and criticizng Nouri's for show commission that has so far accomplished nothing.   Hawija Mohammed al-Jubouri tells Alsumaria that over 20,000 protesters showed up in Haija and that the calls included for Iraqis to be able to go into Baghdad -- a reference to Nouri's refusal all week to allow western Iraqis into Baghdad -- using the military to prevent them from entering their own capital.  AP explains it this way, "Protestors had hoped to move their demonstrations from predominantly Sunni provinces to Baghdad on Friday, but they backed off that plan after the government rejected their request and imposed tough security measures. Government security forces blocked roads leading from Sunni-dominated provinces and sealed off all Sunni neighborhoods."

Al Jazeera, the Christian Science Monitor and PRI's Jane Arraf Tweeted on the protests:



15 hrs
In protest central , cleric makes clear these are Sunni protests, says Iranians have more freedom in Baghdad than they do.
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15 hrs
sheikh to more than 100,000 protestors - we are exiles in our own country. Other protests in warn they will come to Baghdad.
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True or false, I have no idea, but there is a rumor in Iraqi social media this evening that there will be a raid in Ramadi early Saturday morning -- this alleged raid is an effort to end the protests.  Again, that's the big talk on Iraqi social media right now, I have no idea whether it's true or false.
But I do know that Nouri's refusal to listen to the protesters is why the protests continue.  Nouri's refusal to govern -- let alone govern fairly -- is why the violence continues today.  Alsumaria reports one person was injured in a Baquba arm,ed attack, a Baquba car bombing has left four people injured (one an Iraqi solider), and an Al Zeera roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 Iraqi soldier and left another injured (Al Zeera is a village to the south of Mosul).  All Iraq News adds that 1 police officer was shot dead in Baghdad and a Muqdadiyah suicide car bomber has left at least eleven people injured.


Today is the tenth anniversary of a historic day around the world.  At the Guardian, Patrick Barkham reports:

For some, 15 February 2003 will go down in history as the final moment that Britons demonstrated a touching faith in parliamentary democracy.
Henna Malik, a sixth-former at the time, painted her face with the Stop the War logo and took the train to Waterloo with her friends. She believed the millions chanting "George Bush, terrorist" would persuade their MPs to vote against the war. "It was incredibly empowering at the time," she says. When most MPs and the government ignored this will of the people, Malik became a revolutionary socialist; now she does not support any political party but is training to be a human rights lawyer. "In retrospect we didn't stop the war so I became quite disillusioned but it did shape my political beliefs and how I felt I fit within society," she says.
It was an epic day of protest by people who didn't usually do that sort of thing. "There were nuns. Toddlers. Women barristers. The Eton George Orwell Society. Archaeologists Against War. Walthamstow Catholic Church, the Swaffham Women's Choir and Notts County Supporters Say Make Love Not War (And a Home Win against Bristol would be Nice). They won 2-0, by the way," as Euan Ferguson memorably noted in the Observer the next day. As night fell, Jesse Jackson and Charles Kennedy made rousing speeches and Ms Dynamite sung in Hyde Park.



Channel 4 News provides a video report which includes the reflections of four protesters.  We'll do an excerpt noting Sarah Jewell and Henna Malik:

Sarah Jewell (Occupy Activist) : There was a genuine feeling of unease in the west and certainly in Britain and in London.  Communities that I were a part of, we had a sense for a long time that something was going to happen.

 Henna Malik (Trainee Lawyer):  I mean Iraq was a humongous issue.  It was everywhere.  It permeated every aspect of society. You couldn't walk down the street without seeing an Iraq War poster -- an anti-Iraq War poster.

 [. . .]

 Henna Malik (Trainee Lawyer):   I remember standing behind the student banner surrounded by tens of thousands of students all chanting in unison.  It was incredible.  It was absolutely incredible.  I had my face painted with the Stop the War logo on it.  I was surrounded by a lot of my friends and a lot of other students.

 Sarah Jewell (Occupy Activist) :   [. . .] because we were stuck at Gallow Street for so long, we started singing.  And we were singing quite traditional, quite 1960s protest songs that people could join in on.  We were singing, "Step-by-step the longest march, can be won, single stones will form an arch [the American Miner's Association Song].  Rich, poor, old, young, right-wing, left-wing, no wing, everybody was on that march.

We noted Laurie Penny's  "Ten years ago we marched against the Iraq War and I learned a lesson in betrayal" (New Statesman) earlier this week.  For some reason, former Marxist Tim Stanley (Telegraph of London) feels the need to hurl insults at Penny but he really comes off looking like a fool:

Never mind that school children should be in school (that includes a 16-year old Laurie Penny). [. . .]  “What changed in 2003 was that millions of ordinary citizens around the world finally understood that the game was rigged, because only a few weeks after that march Nato went to war anyway.” No, Laurie, Nato didn’t lead in the invasion of Iraq and 2003 wasn’t the first time that a protest failed. The Peasant’s Revolt? The Vietnam War? Perhaps it was a history lesson that Penny missed the day she went to London.

Laurie Penny went to London on February 15, 2003.  If I was a pompous ass like Tim Stanley, I don't believe I'd be lecturing Laurie Penny.  But maybe a pompous ass gets off on the world laughing at him?  Tim, if that's what gives you an orgasm, prepare to moan.  Your idiotic assault on Laurie and how she missed school that day?  February 15th was chosen precisely because it was a Saturday and most people would not be at work or at school. Do you get that, Tim Stanley?  You've mocked Laurie and chided her but you're the big idiot because the sarcastic point of your bad column is that she should have been in school that day learning and the reality is there was no school that day. 


Other coverage of the world protests ten years ago?  Ishaan Tharoor (Time magazine), Philip Maughan (New Statesman), Ned Simons (Huffington Post UK), these letters to the Guardian newspaper, Philip Kane (Socialist Resistance), Symon Hill (Ekklesia), Ben Quinn (Christian Science Monitor),  Dan Hodges (Telegraph of London), Rabble's "F15: Assessing the legacy of the largest protest in world history," Press TV's "Why was the biggest protest in world history ignored?," and "The Feb. 15 Call for Global Protests for Democracy, Solidarity and Justice" (War Is A Crime).

We're nearly out of space. 

Michael Dakduk: Well, Mr. Chairman, I want to acknowledge that since the system has been rolled out that there has been an increase in the processing of GI Bill claims so that should be acknowledged.  But I would also say that at the beginning of the semesters, that's when we see an influx of delays. and that's when we receive most of our complaints at Student Veterans of America. So we have a concern when we talk about troops returning home from Afghanistan and the Dept of Defense estimate over the next five years one million troops will remove the uniform and make the transition into civilian society.  Many of them are going to use this Post-9-11 GI Bill.  So we want to make sure that the Dept of Veterans Affairs is ready to handle that influx of military veterans on college campuses.  At the beginning of semesters is when we see a high number of delays.
That's Student Veterans of America's Michael Dakduk testifying to Congress yesterday.  We'll cover it next week, there's no space tonight to do it justice.  We'll close with this on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee:




Committee on Veterans’ Affairs
United States Senate
113th Congress, First Session
Hearing Schedule
Tuesday, February 26, 2013 2:00 p.m. 345 Cannon HOB (House Side)
Joint Hearing on the legislative presentation of Disabled American Veterans (DAV)
Thursday, February 28, 2013 10:00 a.m. SD-G50
Joint Hearing on the legislative presentation of Military Officers Association of America, Retired Enlisted Association, Non Commissioned Officers Association, Blinded Veterans Association, Military Order of the Purple Heart, Wounded Warrior Project, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, American Ex-Prisoners of War
Heather L Vachon
Chief Clerk
Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs
SR-412 Russell Senate Office Building
202-224-3923

























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