Monday, April 26, 2021

Jimmy Dore on the K-Hive and how much are we spending on the military around the world?

First up, Jimmy Dore:

The K-Hive has always been a joke. Note this:

Total global military expenditure rose to $1981 billion last year, an increase of 2.6 per cent in real terms from 2019, according to new data published today by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The five biggest spenders in 2020, which together accounted for 62 per cent of global military expenditure, were the United States, China, India, Russia and the United Kingdom. Military spending by China grew for the 26th consecutive year.

Military expenditure increases in the first year of the pandemic

The 2.6 per cent increase in world military spending came in a year when global gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 4.4 per cent (October 2020 projection by the International Monetary Fund), largely due to the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, military spending as a share of GDP—the military burden—reached a global average of 2.4 per cent in 2020, up from 2.2 per cent in 2019. This was the biggest year-on-year rise in the military burden since the global financial and economic crisis in 2009.

Even though military spending rose globally, some countries explicitly reallocated part of their planned military spending to pandemic response, such as Chile and South Korea. Several others, including Brazil and Russia, spent considerably less than their initial military budgets for 2020.

‘We can say with some certainty that the pandemic did not have a significant impact on global military spending in 2020,’ said Dr Diego Lopes da Silva, Researcher with the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Programme. ‘It remains to be seen whether countries will maintain this level of military spending through a second year of the pandemic.’

Strong increase in US military spending continues in 2020

In 2020 US military expenditure reached an estimated $778 billion, representing an increase of 4.4 per cent over 2019. As the world’s largest military spender, the USA accounted for 39 per cent of total military expenditure in 2020. This was the third consecutive year of growth in US military spending, following seven years of continuous reductions.

‘The recent increases in US military spending can be primarily attributed to heavy investment in research and development, and several long-term projects such as modernizing the US nuclear arsenal and large-scale arms procurement,’ said Alexandra Marksteiner, a researcher with SIPRI’s Arms and Military Expenditure Programme. ‘This reflects growing concerns over perceived threats from strategic competitors such as China and Russia, as well as the Trump administration’s drive to bolster what it saw as a depleted US military.’

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

Monday, April 26, 2021. Nearly 200 Iraqis dead or wounded as a result of corruption and greed as officials ignored the need for security protocols at a hospital.

Saturday saw an explosion at Ibn al-Khatib Hospital in Baghdad. BBC NEWS reports, "Reports say an accident had caused an oxygen tank to explode, sparking the blaze. Videos on social media show firefighters scrambling to extinguish the flames as people flee the building." Outlets -- including THE CONVERSATION -- note that at least 82 have died with another 110 injured. Those two numbers, by the way, are the official numbers published by the Iraqi government. The death toll could rise. Last night and early this morning, the published death toll was 23. AP Tweets:

Anxious relatives are searching for those missing after a blaze set off by an exploding oxygen cylinder killed 82 in a Baghdad coronavirus ward. The blaze described by a nurse as "volcanoes of fire" swept through the hospital's ICU unit. By @samya_kullab

Iraq Interior Ministry: 82 killed in Baghdad hospital fire

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s Interior Ministry said Sunday that 82 people died and 110 were injured in a catastrophic fire that broke out in a Baghdad hospita

DEEP TECH Tweets:

Baghdad: ICU ward catches fire, 82 patients dead, 110 injured

Baghdad: ICU ward catches fire, 82 patients dead, 110 injured

AFP observes, "Iraq's hospitals have been worn down by decades of conflict and poor investment, with shortages in medicines and hospital beds."

CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq speaks with an eye witness:

Murtadha Riyadh's grandmother and aunt were both on the hospital's second floor ICU ward when the fire erupted.

He was nearby picking up medicine for his grandmother when he suddenly heard explosions, he told CNN. "I ran back to the hospital. I called them to check on them. They told me, 'Don't come up, we are being evacuated,' but they could not make it."

"I rushed to the first floor (of the hospital) to help but I could not, I was suffocating. Then fire broke out," Riyadh said.

Minutes later health workers and neighborhood volunteers started carrying out charred bodies.

Samya Kullab (AP) also incorporates an eye witness:

Nurse Maher Ahmed was called to the scene late Saturday to help evacuate patients.

“I could not have imagined it would be a massive blaze like that,” he said. The flames overwhelmed the hospital’s second floor isolation hall within three to four minutes of the oxygen cylinder exploding, he said. “Volcanoes of fire.”

Also speaking to eye witnesses? ALSUMARIA TV.

On Sunday, Pope Francis expressed his prayers for the victims and survivors. The Martin Luther King Jr. Center Tweeted:

Tragedy in Baghdad. We are praying for the families and communities mourning loved ones who died in this hospital fire.

At least 82 killed in massive Baghdad hospital fire, ministry says

At least 82 people died in a hospital fire Saturday night in Iraq's capital city of Baghdad, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said Sunday

KURDISTAN 24 Tweets:

People light candles in front of Erbil Citadel in the Kurdistan Region in solidarity with the victims of the deadly Ibn al-Khatib hospital fire in Baghdad.

Safin Hamed / AFP - April 25, 2021

12:21 AM · Apr 26, 2021

Condolences were express by many countries and many leaders, ASHARQ AL-AWSAT reports:

Saudi Arabia said on Sunday it was deeply saddened over a fire that broke out at a hospital in the Iraqi capital, leaving more than 80 people dead.

“The Kingdom expressed its sincere condolences and sympathy to the families of the victims, and to Iraq, the leadership, government and people,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

THE TEHRAN TIMES notes, "Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh on Sunday expressed his deepest condolences to Iraq, especially the families of the victims of the fire at the Ibn Khatib hospital in Baghdad." THE TIMES OF OMAN reports Oman's Sultan Haitham bin Tarik Al Said "has sent a cable of condolences to President Dr Barham Salih of the Republic of Iraq on victims of the fire that broke out in Ibn Al Khatib Hospital in Baghdad. In the cable, His Majesty the Sultan expressed his sincere condolences and sympathy to President Dr Barham Salih, families of the victims, and the Iraqi brotherly people." Halgurd Sherwani (KURDISTAN 24) notes the reaction from the Kurdish Regional Government with Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani statting that the KRG intends to "offer all the necessary assistance for the victims of the blast, particularly medical aid and receiving the injured ones." ANHA notes Mazloum Abdi, who leads the US-backed militia or terrorist group the Syrin Democratic Forces, weighed in:

The Commander-in-Chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) expressed his solidarity with Iraq in the "tragedy of Ibn Al-Khatib Hospital" in Baghdad and offered condolences to the families of the victims.

Commenting on the fire incident of the "Ibn Al-Khatib" hospital in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, which has claimed more than 82 deaths and 110 injuries so far, the SDF's Commander-in-Chief, tweeted: "We have received with great sadness and sorrow the news. The painful tragedy at Ibn Al-Khatib Hospital in Baghdad. We are in solidarity with Iraq in this ordeal. Condolences, patience and solace to the families of the martyrs, and we wish the wounded a speedy recovery."

The White House issued a statement from National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan:

We mourn the loss of life in the fire at Ibn al-Khatib hospital in Baghdad. We are in touch with Iraqi officials and have offered assistance. Our strategic partnership with Iraq is first and foremost a partnership between our two peoples. We are prepared to support the Government of Iraq and its people at this tragic moment.

The hospital treats COVID patients and one would assume that they would be a more secure facility as a result. While an oxygen cannister may have exploded that doesn't allow for 'accidents' when the hsopital was not equipped with the basics such as a fire sprinkler system. As political theorist Judith N. Shklar noted in THE FACES OF INJUSTICE, there is a difference between a tragedy and an injustice -- an injustice could have been prevented. The number of deaths could have been prevented had basic safety guidelines been in place at the hospital.

THE WASHIGTON POST's Liz Sly Tweets:

Q: What do the Baghdad hospital fire (82 dead) & the Beirut port explosion (215 dead) have in common?
A: They were caused by criminal levels of neglect, corruption & mismanagement. The hospital had no sprinklers or fire hoses & a flammable ceiling.

Baghdad Hospital Fire Kills at Least 82, Many of Them Covid Patients

A blast caused by an exploding oxygen cylinder swept through a hospital that lacked smoke detectors and spread partly because of flammable false ceili

Jean Shaoul (WSWS) explains:

On Sunday, amid fears that riots would break out, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi held an emergency meeting at the headquarters of the Baghdad Operations Command, which coordinates Iraqi security forces. He declared three days of mourning after ordering an investigation into the fire and later firing several hospital officials and suspending the health minister pending investigations. However, Kadhimi’s pledge to carry out an inquiry and bring those responsible to justice are just empty words. The Iraqi people are still waiting for his promised investigation into those responsible for the deaths of more than 600 protesters in October 2019 to be named, let alone tried and punished.

Kadhimi is sitting atop a social powder keg, and he knows it. Unemployment, already high before the pandemic, has worsened, with at least 36 percent of the people and almost 50 percent of young people officially reported as unemployed. The average 18 year old has had just 6.2 years of schooling, although only four years in terms of actual educational achievement due to the disastrous state of the country’s education system, once one of the best in the Arab world. Some 3.2 million school-aged children are out of school. In conflict-affected areas, almost all school-aged children are missing out on an education.

Basic services, such as a regular electricity supply in the world’s third largest oil exporter and clean water, are a chimera. Poverty rates are soaring, with 16 million people living below the poverty line, as food prices soar. Cooking oil has risen to 2,500 dinars a bottle, up from 1,500 dinars, while imported foodstuffs have become more expensive because of the recent currency devaluation.

THESPUZZ Tweets:

Iraqis Blame Mismanagement, Corruption For Baghdad Hospital Fire

Iraqis Blame Mismanagement, Corruption For Baghdad Hospital Fire - TheSpuzz

Baghdad:

THE CONVERSATION offers lengthy analysis which includes:

However, probably the biggest cause of the recent hospital tragedy is widespread corruption. It has emptied state coffers and crippled investment in important public infrastructure like hospitals.

Iraq is one of the most resource rich countries in the world, producing billions of dollars of oil each year. But, especially since 2003, much of this wealth has been siphoned out of the public pocket.

However, the state has been too weak to properly prosecute corruption, and for ordinary people this has affected everything from education to electricity provision, health services to not having potable water in your home.

This has relevant flow-on effects. Fire safety in a hospital is under resourced and comes very low on the list of problems to solve. You get hospitals with insufficient capacity to deal not only with COVID but an unexpected event like a fire. There may be insufficient training or systems in place to reduce fire risk or cope when one occurs. It’s not as though one instance of corruption caused this horrible fire but it’s easy to see how the broader problems of corruption can allow a situation like this to happen.

The United Nations News Center notes:

Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert offered her deepest condolences to the families of the scores of people who lost their lives during a blaze that erupted at the Ibn Khatib hospital on Saturday night and wished the 100-plus injured a full and speedy recovery.

According to reports, the accident was caused by the explosion of an oxygen tank.

Iraq's Civil Defence said that by the early hours of Sunday morning the fire was under control.

Media reports said that the government's human rights commission issued a statement calling the incident “a crime against patients exhausted by Covid-19”.

And emergency service officials said that many patients died when they were taken off oxygen machines to be evacuated, while others were suffocated by smoke, according to news sources.

Future disasters must be stemmed before they start, Ms. Hennis-Plasschaert  said, calling for “stronger protection measures to ensure that such a disaster cannot reoccur”.

Meanwhile, the UN continues to provide critical support to Iraq's health sector amid the pandemic and surging infections and stands ready to further assist the health authorities in combating the disease. 

On Sunday morning, Twitter was awash with concern over the tragic accident, including the UN Children’s Fund, which tweeted: “UNICEF extends its deepest condolences and sympathy to the families of those who lost their lives and those injured due to the fire that occurred at Ibn Al-Khatib Hospital in Baghdad”.

MEMO reports;

In the aftermath of a deadly fire which took the lives of over 80 COVID-19 patients, Iraq's health minister and the governor of Baghdad have both been suspended, Anadolu Agency reported.

At a special Sunday Cabinet session, Health Minister Hassan Al-Tamimi and Baghdad Governor Muhammad Jaber were suspended and referred for investigations, said a statement by Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi's media office.

It added that a commission chaired by Interior Minister Othman Al-Ghanimi was set up to investigate the deadly fire at Ibn Al-Khatib hospital and hold those responsible accountable.

Again, there is a difference between a tragedy and an injustice.. AFP's reporting may be the strongest when it comes to backing up that this was an injustice:

“It’s mismanagement that killed these people,” the doctor added, who, on condition of anonymity, angrily listed the hospital’s many shortcomings.

“Managers walk around smoking in the hospital where oxygen cylinders are stored,” he said. “Even in intensive care, there are always two or three friends or relatives at a patient’s bedside.”

And, he added, “this doesn’t just happen at Ibn al-Khatib, it’s like this in all the public hospitals.”

“When equipment breaks down, our director tells us not to report it,” said a nurse, in another hospital in Baghdad. “He says it would give a bad image of his establishment, but in reality, we have nothing that works.”

These institutions — which until the 1980s were the pride of Iraq, known across the Arab world for its free, high quality public health services — are now seen as an embarrassment by many.

This was an injustice. Enough care was not taken for the patients to be safe. The Iraqi people grasp that. Dilan Sirwan (RUDAW) explains:

The tragedy sparked outrage on social media and the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights (IHCHR) called for the dismissal of the minister of health, Hassan al-Tamimi.

“We ask the prime minister to dismiss the minister of health and his agents and to refer them to investigation,” read a statement from IHCHR, calling for Kadhimi to personally run the health ministry “with an advisory team of Iraqi medical universities and colleges to manage this vital ministry in this difficult situation.”

On Sunday afternoon, Kadhimi’s office announced he had suspended Health Minister Tamimi, Baghdad Governor Mohammad Jabir al-Atta, and the health director, Abdel Ghani al-Saadi, in Baghdad’s Rasafa district where Ibn Khatib hospital is located.

The three officials are under investigation and Kadhimi has demanded results within five days.

And the same outlet, Sura Ali and Yasmine Mosimann report:

Protests erupted in several Iraqi cities on Sunday evening in response to a massive hospital fire in Baghdad the previous night that many see as a result of the state’s corruption and mismanagement.

Demonstrations took place in the provinces of Baghdad, Dhi Qar, Wasit, Babil, Karbala, Najaf, Muthanna and Basra in solidarity with the victims of the fire that ripped through Ibn al-Khatib Hospital on Saturday night. The incident, which has killed at least 82 people and injured another 110, has been widely blamed on the facility’s storage of oxygen cylinders.

"What happened yesterday was a massacre, and it can happen in any hospital in any governorate in Iraq due to the dilapidated health system, so corrupt local governments must be dismissed first,” Najaf activist Saif al-Mansoori told Rudaw English on Sunday.

Saturday, April 24, 2021

Jimmy Dore, Noam Chomsky The Whore and much more

First up, here's Jimmy Dore.

Noam Chomsky is a liar and a whore. He's gong to be outed. C.I. almost did earlier tonight when she wrote "The Kurds." She was noting what was coming down the road and she pointed out in a sentence she ended up pulling before it published just how disgusting Noam was and went on to offer that maybe it was time for a hashtag similar to #MeToo focusing on Noam?

She then read it to Elaine and I and we were all for it but she ended up pulling it. She said, in the end, she'd given Noam the chance to be honest and hoped he would before he died.

I don't think he will though.

And I also don't think C.I. will hold her tongue much longer. Noam is trash and he's f**king fraud. You can find that out at any community site. C.I. holds her tongue at THE COMMON ILLS but we all know what Noam did to her. And some day the world will as well. I don't see Noam getting honest.

He's trash and he's a fraud. He's a tool of empire who is there to release just a little tiny bit of pressure. He is in cohorts with the empire. He's hideous and he's a fraud. And he's hidden from his fanboys his ties to the US government.

Trash. Fraud. He can't die soon enough. I say that not only because C.I. will tell what Noam refuses to when Noam dies. I also say that because Noam is spending his days lying and distracting.

Idiot of the week? Now and forever Noam Chomsky and the fanboys who worship Noam The False God.

Okay, guess what's on HBO MAX? SUPERMAN AND LOIS. Basically, all DC content will apparently end up on HBO MAX. They already had DOOM and TITANS and numerous cartoons of Wonder Woman and Superman and others. They've got the DC-WARNER BROTHERS movies like the original SUPERMAN from the 70s as well as MAN OF STEEL and the others and AQUAMAN and JUSTICE LEAGUE, etc.

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

Friday, April 23, 2021. The media and how it sells hate and people who defocus.

First, is Rachel Maddow the new Bill O'Reilly?

A question well worth pondering.

There are many things not worth pondering.

There are three topics that keep coming in supposedly related to Iraq. We haven't covered them!!!! We have failed!!!!

Is that what I'm supposed to say?

We've never covered everything. There's never been that kind of time, to begin with.

There's also a thing known as common sense and I'd argue it's more important than book smarts or pretty much anything -- common sense.

Right now, as in the clip above, people want to take on fake news. As Winona Ryder says to Ethan Hawke in REALITY BITES, where were you?

For the last years, where were you? Long before Rachel Maddow had celebrity and late night, broadcast network TV appearances, the left had a lot of trouble -- a lot of trouble with liars.

There was Amy Goodman repeatedly. She pretends she's appalled by what happened to African-American youths and talks to mothers of the children involved but . . . she doesn't listen. Not to the mothers. She had a lie she wants to pimp so even though a mother of one of the children states to her, on camera, and even though Amy broadcasts that interview, Amy continues with her damn lie basically saying, "I know you live here, I know your child is one of the African-American children being targeted, but I am a White woman from NYC and so I know damn well better than you." Heaven save us from the saviors.

There were other lies she pimped. A number of lefty media, for example, ran with the death of a Muslim woman in California. They hate Iraq in that town, they hate Iraqis. We saw a little bitch boy from Pacifica play that lie out with Amy on the air.

No, they don't hate Iraqis there. We'd mentioned the story once in passing -- noting that things were as clear cut some were trying to say and that the most obvious killer of the woman wasn't some American youths but her own husband. We threw out that flare. But for two weeks Amy Goodman hit on that bulls**t topic over and over.

You know when she was no longer interested in the dead woman? The day the police arrested the husband.

She never touched on it again. She'd done multiple episodes on the (non)topic and had even included in that bad syndicated column that I believe all outlets have now dropped. But she was no longer interested when the husband was arrested.

When she couldn't falsely cry hate crime, when it was 'just' another woman killed by her husband, it wasn't a story to cover for Amy or the bitchboi from PACIFICA whom I never trusted and I know no one at KPFA ever trusdetect ted KPFA listeners knew he was full of s**t in 2006 when he showed up on Kris Welch's program to try to sell the Iraq War and insist it was going well -- this as the American people were turning on it.

Common sense will help you many times from making a fool of yourself. Amy Goodman and Rachel Maddow have no common sense.

I do have some. And I will use it to determine what we use our time on here.

I don't know if you drive-bys read your e-mails, the ones you write this site, or not. But I'm real good at contextual context, among other things, and I'm real good about seeing intent in writing (it's why I can't take John Grisham's novels, for example).

Of the twenty-five e-mails that came in Thursday and Friday about an Iraqi child, I don't detect any real interest in the child. I don't detect any sympathy for him.

The story some drive-bys keep e-mailing about broke over two weeks ago in the Israeli media.

I didn't think it was a story then and I don't now.

A child was born with mutation, birth defect, challenge, whatever you want to call it.

Do we link it to the toxic environment and chemicals?

That would make it of interest here. But no outlet did. They offered a perv interest in a story about a newborn having three penises.

I saw drooling in the e-mails, I didn't see compassion.

I'm not interested in perving on a child or turning them into a freak show. This was a bottom feeder, exploitive story and we didn't cover it.

The second big topic?

I don't know, reading those e-mails, I honestly have to wonder: What did domestic discipline ever do to you?

Did you not get off? You couldn't jerk it to completion? Or maybe you had your own domestic discipline circle and this sub was more popular than you so now you want to get back at him?

Since Glenn Greenwald's first column about Russia-gate this year (he's covered the topic for many years), e-mails have come in regarding a male sub who is in a domestic relationship with a female dom. He runs a site (does she?) and I know this because his 'fans' keep e-mailing this site about it. He promoted Russia-gate. And then they show me how.

I'm so sick of it. I'm so sick of the petty.

He runs a domestic discipline site -- that's where one partner (or one in a two person relationship) has the ability/task to discipline.

That is his topic. That is what the people who comment are supposed to write about. From time to time, apparently, they veered off into politics. Imagine that, someone veering off topic in an online discussion -- shocking! (That was sarcasm.)

I've read a lot of these e-mails. I even visited the site to make sure that Russia-gate was not a major topic there. It wasn't. It was a passing topic.

It never seemed like a story of interest to me to begin with -- even before I visited to make sure this wasn't a major purveyor of lies to the American people. The only thing I found was that one of the women e-mailing this site's public e-mail account was a woman who repeatedly lashed out on this topic when she brought it up. At one point, she was even told to drop it. She didn't.

Aren't subs supposed to follow orders? Maybe she was looking to be disciplined for being rowdy and disruptive? If so, she's really stupid because why would you go to a site run by a male sub and populated with male and female subs expecting to get discipline?

Stupid.

And it's stupid to get upset with someone who is not presenting as a political expert (I'm referring to the male sub whose site it was) and who is siting 'news' coverage when he responds to bratty female sub who keeps bringing up the topic.

A lot of people were lied to and tricked by 'reports' from the news media about Russia-gate. The news media is responsible for that. And if someone wants to write something about how pervasive the lies from the news media were -- they even spread into a domestic discipline site -- that would be of interest and value. But just thinking that we need to shame the sub -- for his opinions or for his lifestyle -- is nonsense.

I'm not going to shame anyone for a consensual relationship between adults. If you're capable of being honest, we're all just struggling to get through the day. If someone or something makes your day a little better and it's consensual, more please and power to you.

I've noted one of the people who kept pushing this as an important issue to be covered -- noted it in the paragraph above -- and at least she just thinks the guy who runs the site is an idiot. There's a man who keeps e-mailing about it (Martha says she's read 16 e-mails from him about this) and wants to share how "disgusting" and "perverted" the man is.

Then why are you going to his site? Does it turn you on, mister?

There are many things I'm not interested in and I don't visit sites about the topic. There are also many things I am interested in but don't have time to visit sites about those topics. I was hoping, for example, since Vice President Kamala Harris has been raising the topic of water wars to finally be able to write about that here. Since this site started, I wanted to write about that topic. I remember when Danny Schechter was promoting his Iraq film, we spent three hours discussing water rights issues. The rights issue, as a legal issue, has long interested me and yet there's never been time to write about it here.

Oh, look, a digression!!! See, it does happen all the time -- certainly does here.

Back to the offended man, if you think the website and the guy's lifestyle are disgusting and offensive, don't go the website. I don't get that. I don't waste my time on things that I don't like. I have some food allergies, for example, and I don't look up recipes that involve those ingredients. Why would I? So why are you visiting a site that you claim to be opposed to?

Either because you're not really opposed to it or you don't have a life.

You'd do better to figure out why you keep visiting that site then to repeatedly tell me to call the sub running that website out.

When I visited, I did not like the site. I was streaming through threads, scanning them quickly, to make sure this wasn't a site where they repeatedly pimped Russia-gate. One of the male subs was discussing a woman repeatedly, his former dom. That's why I didn't like the site. It was obvious, from his first comment, that the woman would be passing.

I did not react to his comments with, "Oh, what a disgusting relationship!" I reacted with watering eyes and a lump in my throat because it was obvious that if I had to keep going through these discussions at that website I was going to read that the woman had passed. And she did. And it was very sad to me because she was clearly the love of his life.

I don't know why you would want to lash out at someone like that guy who had lost someone he loved deeply. I don't know why, if you found the life captured at that site so offensive, that you would repeatedly visit the website.

I don't like the Iraq War. I know why I cover it: I live in the United States and my government lied to start a war, the press lied to get it started (they wanted media consolidation -- that's a topic few are ever willing to address when noting that the press sold the Iraq War, it is an illegal war that has destroyed the country of Iraq and turned it into a land of orphans and widows.

Equally true, many in the US look the other way. Especially people who grand standed on it once when Bully Boy Bush occupied the White House. I never used the Iraq War to promote myself or to make money. But a lot of people did -- a lot of people on the left.

Where are they? Where are they now?

At some point, I'll be among them. I don't see doing this site much longer. I am tired and I am tired of being online. I will gladly cop to the fact that I used being very sick this week to avoid getting online and that when I was online I was more likely to be reading e-mails than posting content here. But for as long as I've been able to, I have tried to call attention to the ongoing war and to do so in some way that was different.

We covered Russia-gate from the beginning here and called it out from the beginning.

A lot of people trace it to the 2016 election. No, it predates that. It really went public, in Barack's second term, when Ed Snowden was unable to leave Russia and trapped at that airport.

The better term for Russia-gate was always Russia-hate.

Our government and our media stirred up hate in many people -- that's what they're so very good at.

Sura Ali (RUDAW) reports:

The Iraqi government is considering other options for displaced families who cannot return to their home areas because of security problems, as Baghdad continues its push to shut down camps.

The migration ministry has suggested to some families they consider moving to other areas of the country if they can’t go home, the Minister of Migration and Displacement, Evan Faeq Jabro, said in an interview with state TV on Thursday.

Al-Jada in Nineveh province is one of just two camps still open in Iraq, outside of the Kurdistan Region. Security concerns are preventing families living in al-Jada from going home, Jabro said. The camp mainly houses families with suspected links to the Islamic State group (ISIS).

Displaced people from Jurf al-Sakhar in Babil province are also unable to return home. The town was evacuated during the war against ISIS and security forces and Shiite militias are preventing their return, citing dangers from mines planted by ISIS. Sunni lawmakers have accused the militias of trying to change the demography of the area.

The minister did not give details of what other areas these families could go to.

The Iraqi government also wants Iraqis sheltering in the Kurdistan Region to return home. There are about 39,000 Iraqi families living in Kurdistan Region camps, according to Jabro.

Since October of last year, we have covered how the Iraqi government plans to 'end' the displacement crisis by . . . shutting down the camps. That's not curing anything and it doesn't help anyone.

Common sense can go a long way. Common sense would tell you that shutting down camps while people are in need is not an answer. Common sense would tell you a lot.

Caitlin Johnstone observes:

Exactly zero percent of the world’s worst criminals are in prison. Imperialists. War profiteers. Ecocide profiteers. The very worst of thieves are financial elites. The system isn’t designed to protect us from society’s worst, it’s designed to protect society’s worst from us.

❖

I don’t write much about the specific individuals who drive the oligarchic empire because individuals are not the problem, the system is. Right-wing conspiracy analysts prefer to focus on specific corrupt elites because they like to think if you just got rid of them, capitalism would work fine. And it just wouldn’t. If you rounded up and executed all the sociopathic ruling elites today but left our current systems intact they’d just be replaced tomorrow. A competition-based model where war, corruption, oppression and exploitation remain profitable guarantees this.

A lot of right-wing conspiracy analysis today ultimately boils down to “These bastards are ruining the capitalism!” But capitalism is already ruined, and ruinous. As long as it’s profitable to destroy each other and our ecosystem, the ruin will continue. That’s the real problem. Making it about individuals feeds into the false impression that the individuals are the problem, and absolves us of our collective responsibility to move out of our competition-based model to one in which we collaborate with each other and our ecosystem to create a healthy world.

As long as we have systems in which it’s advantageous to be sociopathic enough to do whatever it takes to get ahead, we will find ourselves ruled by sociopaths. The names and faces on those sociopaths are ultimately irrelevant. They’re a symptom of the underlying disease.

❖

It’s the mass media’s job to normalize war and abnormalize peace. It’s our job to do the exact opposite.

Thursday, April 22, 2021

THE GOLDBERGS

Here's Jimmy Dore.

Now TV. I like THE GOLDBERGS. It's a funny show. And losing George Segal would make this a difficult season all by itself.

But this nonsense of breaking up Jeff and Erica? I'm tired of it. It's probably only been two episodes but it feels like the whole season. Lanie and Barry? That was nonsense. That was two actors cast in roles playing them. It was no great loss when Lanie left the show. Barry's new girlfriend (Jeff's sister)? Won't be a loss if she leaves.

But Jeff and Erica have had a real chemistry -- the only couple on the show that has besides Bev and Murray. And they make the show better, Jeff and Erica. There was never a classic episode of THE GOLDBERGS until Jeff and Erica were dating and Jeff got a look at what eating out means for The Goldbergs -- the staff is repeatedly harassed, Bev's going to pull out the calculator, the wait staff is going to cry, etc. That was the first classic episode of the show. There were good episodes of the show before that but not classic ones. After Erica and Jeff are a couple, it's one classic after another including their break up (camping with Barry and his girlfriend). I love the episode where Erica and Jeff are at his parents, for example. They're just great episodes because the two have chemistry -- and that's the chemistry that makes you believe that they're a couple and that's the kind of chemistry that makes them a good comedy team.

This week's episode was funny and classic level -- Jeff went on THE DATING GAME, Murray bought Bev a beach house. But ending it the way they did with Erica apparently taking Barry's advice to walk away from Jeff and the narration that said you had to move forward? Not good.

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

Wednesday, April 21, 2021. Pro-war SLATE pretends to be interested in how the Iraq War started, Amnesty International issues a report on executions throughout the world while Reporters Without Borders looks at the global threats to journalists, and much more

On SLATE's SLOW BURN podcast today, the question is why did "Americans" believe noted liar and exile Ahmed Chalabi?

What a load of crap. And it just gets worse from the very beginning as you're lied to that Bully Boy Bush didn't want it but "was influenced by people in his administration."

No one's responsible, right? That's the argument the pro-war SLATE made. Makes? Made? I mean, I remember the garbage they offered in real time. I remember the crap they forced down the throats of the American people. So for them to show up all these years later and offer this garbage is not just disgusting, it's unethical.

They don't want answers, they're not pursuing answers.

They are part of the p.r. effort to removes the crimes of War Criminal Bully Boy Bush. It's an ongoing process to try to clean the blood from his hands.

BUSINESS INSIDER, for example, Tweeted:

George W. Bush said he's troubled by 'the capacity of people to spread all kind of untruth'

George W. Bush said he's troubled by 'the capacity of people to spread all kind of untruth'

Former President George Bush said that he avoids Twitter, Facebook, and "any of that stuff" in an interview with the "Today" show

You can't have a serious discussion about 'fake news' include Bully Boy Bush as someone with an 'educated' opinion worth sharing. As Sarah Abdallah noted, "Iraq’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction have just entered the chat." Glenn Greenwald Tweets:

George WMD Bush has about as much credibility to denounce the spread of disinformation as CNN's media reporters, NBC's disinformation unit, and NYT's tech team do. It's like the Sackler family lamenting the rise of addiction.

If SLATE really wanted to know how "Americans" came to depend upon on Ahmed Chalabi, they'd have to first get honest that "Americans" didn't. The average American, to this day, will stare at you blankly f you your bring up Dexy.

Government officials and representatives knew who he was, cavorted with him, had the press amplify him. The press.

If we want to get honest, that's where you start.

Oh, look, it's Ahmed Chalabi being pleasured by Dexter Filkins who worked for THE NEW YORK TIMES in 2006 -- illustration we did at THIRD for "Go down, Dexy."

You want to know why Ahmed Chalabi was trusted? Because the US government pimped him and the US press promoted him.

That reality is absent from SLATE's alleged 'inquiry.'

Big surprise.

They'd rather attack "Americans" for what the press and the government did. They just lie and lie again and never take responsibility or accountability.

And don't blame just corporate media or just the right-wing. MOTHER JONES elected to hire a writer to bring attention to their website. There were a ton of bloggers who were against the war. So what did the faux left MOTHER JONES do? They hired pro-Iraq War blogger Kevin Drum.

SLATE continues the lack of accountability with their nonsense podcast that clears anyone of responsibility.

The CIA?

They gave Chalabi $4 million. That was the American people's money. They gave it to Chalabi.

B-b-b-but don't blame the CIA, SLATE wants you to know, because the CIA "didn't think they were financing a revolution, they mostly wanted him to produce anti Saddam propaganda to build opposition to the regime." That sounds like they were deliberately sewing conflict -- which was what they were doing. And, no, their hands aren't clean.

At one point, the closest they come to accountability, SLATE offers a lengthy sentence about two US senators: John McCain and Joe Lieberman.

McCain is dead. Lieberman's been out of the Senate since January 0f 2013.

This site didn't have positive things to say about either of the two. But we also didn't mistake two sitting senators as the secret power behind the US press and the White House.

Talk about looney conspiracy theories.

No one gets blamed. Instead of trophies, SLATE gives everyone a participation card -- get out of jail free card.

The Iraq War hit the 18 year mark last month. All this time later, liars still can't get honest and would rather blame "Americans" for the ongoing and illegal war than those who had actual power and an institution that had an epic failure.

On the failures of the press -- the ongoing failures -- let's note two reports. First, Ryan Girdusky (MEDIAITE):

The now-discredited report that Russia offered bounties to Afghan militants to kill American soldiers was an October surprise — released in June. The story, originated in The New York Times and leaked by the intelligence community, was more proof in the eyes of an eager media that Trump failed to safeguard Americans from Putin. After spending four years portraying Trump at best as a useful stooge and at worst a willing accomplice of the Kremlin, The Times article was fodder for Democrats and used against the 45th president ad nauseam throughout the election cycle.

From the rearview window, this looks to many people as another example of the media using anonymous sources to peddle fake news to attack Trump. While that could be considered valid, it’s more important to realize that this is another example of sources within the intelligence community using the media to promote war.

The story broke just as the Trump administration finalized plans to cut the number of troops in Afghanistan by nearly 50 percent, the lowest level since the beginning of that conflict in 2001. Trump’s plan to dial back America’s military footprint around the world was nearly universally opposed by the intelligence community, the military-industrial complex, but most importantly, the media.

While the American public, especially Republicans, view the media as left-wing, they’re more of an institution that supports consensus, including being pro-war.

Read the article in full and grasp that it's information and approach is what SLATE wants to pretend it was doing with that awful podcast.

And let's pair Ryan's piece with Glenn Greenwald (SUBSTACK):

It was crucial for liberal sectors of the media to invent and disseminate a harrowing lie about how Officer Brian Sicknick died. That is because he is the only one they could claim was killed by pro-Trump protesters at the January 6 riot at the Capitol.

So The New York Times on January 8 published an emotionally gut-wrenching but complete fiction that never had any evidence — that Officer Sicknick's skull was savagely bashed in with a fire extinguisher by a pro-Trump mob until he died — and, just like the now-discredited Russian bounty story also unveiled by that same paper, cable outlets and other media platforms repeated this lie over and over in the most emotionally manipulative way possible. Just watch a part of what they did and how:

As I detailed over and over when examining this story, there were so many reasons to doubt this storyline from the start. Nobody on the record claimed it happened. The autopsy found no blunt trauma to the head. Sicknick's own family kept urging the press to stop spreading this story because he called them the night of January 6 and told them he was fine — obviously inconsistent with the media's claim that he died by having his skull bashed in — and his own mother kept saying that she believed he died of a stroke.

But the gruesome story of Sicknick's “murder” was too valuable to allow any questioning. It was weaponized over and over to depict the pro-Trump mob not as just violent but barbaric and murderous, because if Sicknick weren't murdered by them, then nobody was (without Sicknick, the only ones killed were four pro-Trump supporters: two who died of a heart attack, one from an amphetamine overdose, and the other, Ashli Babbitt, who was shot point blank in the neck by Capitol Police despite being unarmed). So crucial was this fairy tale about Sicknick that it made its way into the official record of President Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate, and they had Joe Biden himself recite from the script, even as clear facts mounted proving it was untrue.

By the way, one person was killed in the DC riot -- Ashli Babbitt. She was unarmed. The police officer who shot her wasn't. If THIRD ever posts this week (I'm too sick -- cold -- to worry about it all that much), Ava and I addressed that reality in "types." Ashli was shot dead. The press didn't glom on that death -- until they wanted to paint her as sleaze because, after all, justice doesn't apply to sleaze, right? We all know that 27th Amendment to the Constitution, right? "Should you hold opinions that are different than the majority of people, we reserve the right to nullify you and to strip you of any expectations of fairness or justice." We are so damn barbaric as a society. That's the reality. And we're encouraged to be by the press which is doing nothing -- day in and day out -- but getting people to root in the Colosseum for the death and destruction of others. It's really sick and goes to just how little civilization has actually progressed.

Let's stay with reality and quote Sam Stanton (SACREMENTO BEE):

In a major blow to federal prosecutors, a federal judge in Sacramento ruled Wednesday that Omar Ameen may not be extradited back to Iraq to face trial in the 2014 murder of an Iraqi police officer.

The decision came in a 30-page order by U.S. Magistrate Judge Edmund F. Brennan, who labeled parts of the government’s arguments “dubious” and said they call for “some degree of skepticism.”

Ameen’s federal defenders had waged a two-year battle to stop their client from being extradited, arguing that he was in Turkey with his family when the officer, Ihsan Abdulhafiz Jasim, was killed in Iraq.

Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article250841694.html#storylink=cpy

Ben Taub Tweets:

Judge Brennan has declined to certify Omar Ameen's extradition, and ordered his release!

Here's my story on how the U.S. gov falsely maligned him as an ISIS member and sought to extradite him to Iraq for a murder that he couldn't possibly have committed.

The Fight to Save an Innocent Refugee from Almost Certain Death

Omar Ameen came to the U.S. to escape the violence in Iraq. Now he’s accused of being a member of an ISIS hit squad

We note the above for numerous reasons. One is that we were talking last week about the Afghanistan War and how the government of Afghanistan was asked by the US government to hand over Osama bin Laden in the fall of 2001 and the Afghanistan government asked for solid reasons and proof and were rebuffed. In fact, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell told them that the way it would work was, they would hand over bin Laden and then the US government would provide supporting evidence.

No, that's not how it works on the international stage. The Iraqi government wants Omar Ameen deported. They make the request, they supply what they argue is solid evidence and then the US government looks at the request. Justice Edmund F. Brennan found the evidence supplied lacking and shot the request down.

Were Bully Boy Bush in charge of Iraq right now, the Iraqi government might 'respond' by bombing this country and continue to destroy it for the next 20 or so years.

We have a legal system in place. Instead of utilizing that system, time and again the post-9/11 way has been to refuse to take accountability for mistakes and errors and to instead slam and shame the legal groundwork that exists in this country and insist instead upon new and draconian laws that undermine the very roots of democracy.

It's not a minor point.

Nor is the fact that attacking peaceful protesters is wrong but the Iraqi government continues to do so and there's little effort at this point to call the government out. Every now and then, we'll hear that no one has been brought to justice for the injuring and murdering of protesters but that's about it. Otherwise, it's treated as normal. How not normal is it?

Iraq's going to be sending wounded protesters elsewhere for medical treatment. Sura Ali (RUDAW) reports:

Dhi Qar Governor Ahmed al-Khafaji has said the Ministry of Oil has allocated money to send protesters wounded in clashes in the city of Nasiriyah for treatment overseas, state media reported on Wednesday.

A statement from Khafaji's media office said that the governor discussed the subject with Iraq’s Minister of Oil Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar, along with other issues such as creating job opportunities for graduates holding sit-ins in front of oil companies in the Dhi Qar provincial capital.

"It was approved to allocate a sum of money to send people injured in the protests for treatment outside Iraq," the statement said.

Amnesty International, meanwhile, has issued a new report that are some are spinning as 'progress' for Iraq. Per the report, there were 483 executions carried out by governments in 2020 -- China is left out of the count with Amnesty noting that "the death penalty" there "is a state secret." The Middle East and North Africa were reponsible for 437 of the 483 executions.

The report notes:

The rate of executions is even more disturbing given that the death penalty in MENA is regularly applied after trials that do not meet international fair trial standards. People in MENA continued to be executed or sentenced to death in 2020 for acts that should not be criminalized and other offences that do not meet the threshold of most serious crimes, meaning intentional killings, as required by international law.

At least 23 of the 107 people executed in Egypt were sentenced to death in cases relating to political violence, after grossly unfair trials marred by forced “confessions” and other serious human rights violations, including torture and enforced disappearances. Executions in Egypt shot up drastically following a security incident involving death row prisoners in the notorious al-Aqrab prison in September.

Amnesty notes that Iraq had 27 more people sentenced to execution in 2020 with executions carried out on 45 people. They also note that "Iran, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabi accounted for 88% of known global executions in 2020."

Amnesty's report is only one global report issued this week. Khazan Jangiz (RUDAW) notes:

Iraq ranks 18 from the bottom of a list of countries classified by their freedom of the press, with dangers having reportedly “grown” for journalists since the October 2019 anti-government protests.

Lives of journalists in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region are at “risk” in protest coverage and corruption investigations, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in its annual World Press Freedom report, published on Tuesday.

Journalists are at the risk of being “harassed, abducted, physically attacked or even killed by unidentified militias” in Iraq and “the state’s powerlessness increases the dangers and makes it impossible to determine whether what the many militias are doing suits the government, whether the government has given them the go-ahead, or whether it has no control over the situation,” RSF said.

RSF has previously reported that four journalists were killed in Iraq while covering protests in 2020. Three were killed with gunshots to their heads and one trying to flee from clashes between security forces and protesters. RSF in the new report said murdering journalists goes “unpunished” due to lack of, or futile investigations.

The report evaluates press freedom in 180 countries, in which Iraq ranks 163 on the index, with the Middle East generally accused of undermining “the already beleaguered media freedom” which might “leave lasting scars on the media landscape,” says RSF, pointing to an “increased authoritarianism” in response to the situation of public health, economy and politics.

This is the Iraq section of the Reporters Without Borders report:

IRAQ (down six at 162nd)

After the protests, authorities are now focusing on coronavirus coverage

The worsening conditions for journalists in Iraq since protests erupted in 2019 has put the country among those coloured black in the Index’s world map, which signifies “very serious”.

Five journalists have been killed in just four months. The various militias at large in the country constantly threaten the lives of journalists in an effort to prevent them covering the protests, repeating the allegations and also demonstrating the same ferocity as the police, who use live ammunition.

The Iraqi government itself plays a full part in obstructing journalists. At least 10 news organizations have been suspended for covering the demonstrations in a manner deemed unfavourable by the authorities. Since the start of the health crisis, the authorities have been focusing on reports about the Covid-19 pandemic. The Communications and Media Commission (CMC) decided to suspend the news agency Reuters for publishing a story that quoted three unidentified doctors as saying they had been ordered not to talk to the media about the crisis. The autonomous region of Kurdistan is also in the firing line. The health ministry ordered the closure of the television channel NRT after it broadcast a report that the authorities had deliberately overestimated the number of people infected in order to discourage people from demonstrating.

The following sites updated: