Barack tries to rewrite history (again)

Tuesday. Christmas is Friday. I plan to do some sort of blogging every day this week through Friday. Yes, even on Christmas. I know C.I. will and I want to do my part too so if you can't find much online, feel free to drift by here throughout the week. I'm not going on vacation and will maintain my regular schedule.

From Politico:

For the second time in as many days, President Barack Obama distanced himself Tuesday from the liberal-backed proposal for a government-run health insurance option that is likely to be dropped from a final health care reform bill."I didn't campaign on the public option," Obama told The Washington Post, saying of the Senate's health legislation: "Every single criterion for reform I put forward is in this bill."

Okay, well what did he promise?

Barry O, via CNN, November 30, 2007:

On a day when both the Obama and Clinton camps were again trading fire over the issue of health care, Obama said he had “put forth a universal health care plan that will do more to cut the cost of health care than any other proposal in this race.
“Here’s the truth – if you can’t afford health insurance right now, you will when I’m president,” said Obama. “Anyone who tells you otherwise is more interested in scoring points than solving problems. And I’m in it because we’ve had enough of that.”

Here's what Barry O said in his 2008 DNC speech:

Now is the time to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American. If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don’t, you’ll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves. And as someone who watched my mother argue with insurance companies while she lay in bed dying of cancer, I will make certain those companies stop discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.

He used terms like "universal health care" and he knows what those terms mean. He used terms like "affordable" but that went out the window. Lower premiums if you already have health care? That went out the window.

Everything went out the window. Barack's a liar.

This is from Patrick O'Connor's "Next hurdle: Persuade public" at Politico which you can also listen to:

Congressional Democrats are poised to wrap up work on their health care bill in early 2010, but the battle over public opinion will persist for years.
The most recent health care polling paints a bleak picture for Democrats as they prepare for a historic vote in the Senate later this week. The national numbers show a growing majority of likely voters oppose their push to expand coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. The numbers are even worse in some critical battlegrounds.
But with support slipping in places like Little Rock, Ark., and Las Vegas, it’s worth asking: Do these people even know what’s in the bill?
The short answer is no. And Democrats hope changing the national conversation from general rhetoric to specific provisions will brighten the national mood.

They're dreaming. They're all a bunch of millionaires who don't know a damn thing about real people. I am working class. Here's what's going to matter: MANDATE.

You are forced to buy insurance.

If you're flat broke, you get some help from the government. If you're struggling to make it, you're on your own.

That's what matters and that's b.s. And you damn well better believe people aren't going to like that. That's issue number one.

I'm working class. Most of my family belongs to one union or another (AFL-CIO, police, etc.). And this idea that the health plans they have as a result of union's fighting for them are now going to mean higher taxes? Oh, no, that's not going to play. Barack's all on his own. The Democrats are going to find out just how hated one party can be. It won't be pretty.

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

Tuesday, December 22, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, four US Senators demand changes in a US general's order which criminalizes pregnancy (ABC World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer covers the latest developments of this story on this evening's broadcast), March Forward! explains their mission, the US Treasury issues a news release on Iraq, war resister Cliff Cornell's sentence is reduced and more.


Michael Prysner: . . . the way that we're going to end this war and the way that we're going to stop this atrocity that's happening -- the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians and thousands of soldiers -- which are no doubt going to increase as this war rages on -- is we need to build a movement, we need to build a mass, people's movement. Which is what we're doing. So I encourage everyone to pay attention to a national march on Washington, DC that's going to happen on March 20th. There's also going to be coinciding marches in Los Angeles and San Francisco. But a large organization of antiwar groups have come together. It was initiated by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition -- you can go to A.N.S.W.E.R.org for information about the march. But we're calling on everyone to be a part of this action. We want soldiers, we want veterans, we want military families and we want all people in the United States who are suffering because of these wars. We're in the middle of a Depression where every month, more and more jobs are being lost. There's this health care debate going on, we're seeing that there's people that are not going to have access to quality health care. Education -- tuition is skyrocketing. We need money so badly, most people, yet we're spending over $500 million dollars a day to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan. So if you're angry about this war which everyone should be, there is something you can do and that's become active in the movement. And the first thing you can do is become involved in the organizing for March 20th and of course participate in that demonstration as well. We need as many people as possible to send a message that the people are not in support of this war and we're going to fight until it's over.

Iraq War veteran Michael Prysner was explaining that on Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton and Charles Goyette. He and Iraq War veteran James Circello were on to discuss March Forward! "an affiliate of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition" composed of veterans and active-duty service members.

James Circello: Yeah. Well March Forward!'s position on the officer corps -- or we refer to them as the officer class -- it's pretty straight forward. The officers, they do little suffering in times of war. They merely put forth the line by Washington. And the enlisted members of the military -- who we view as workers -- are made to carry out these orders. They're made to follow these orders without question or you become slandered with the "unAmerican" and even jailed for-for disobeying orders that are obviously illegal. But our line is pretty simple in that the officer class, once they retire, they go straight into the Pentagon and right into the War Profiteers right across the street. And the enlisted were obviously cast out onto the street. There's a million homeless enlisted -- or veterans, I should say, on the street tonight and 2 million will be on the street homeless this year. So there's a real class struggle within the military and the enlisted soldiers are doing all the suffering, all the dying, all the killing, coming home with PTSD and missing limbs while the officers are celebrating and stacking their resumes for their future jobs.

Scott Horton: It's almost like all the commercials about "Be All That You Can Be" and 'once you get out, then you'll be guaranteed a great job,' all that's really true for the officers basically but they're selling that for the masses out there.

Michael Prysner: Right and it's interesting because if you look at the statistics, you're actually less likely to get hired if you're a veteran because it's somewhat of a liability for the employers. But just to clarify a little more about our view on the officer corps, you know, I-I, myself in my personal experience and this is an all too common story in Iraq and in Afghanistan and James had a similar experience and it's a story that you hear much too often where, for example, myself, officers join the military because they're trying to be successful in a career. Most people become enlisted soldiers because they're pushed in for economic reasons, because they need access to health care for their family, because they need, they want, a college education, because they want job training, because they want a place to live, things that all people need and deserve which, I think, are basic human rights. But that's what pushes most enlisted soldiers into the military. Officers join for a very different reason. And what results in that is officers generally do very little time in combat but what they do is they want their units to get attacked, they want to take fire. And I know myself, personally, I went on missions called -- which we called -- "Draw Fire" missions where there'd be an officer who knew that a certain vehicle had a ransom on it if the vehicle was destroyed so he knew that it was a target so he'd say, "Hey go get so-and-so and let's drive around town and see if we can get shot at?" This is because if his unit gets in combat or if he gets in combat, it's good for his career, it's good for his promotion. He'll get a bronze star and he'll get all of these things. So there's-there's many, many soldiers who have died, who have had life changing injuries, whose lives are destroyed because they had an officer who's going to do one tour in combat who wants to help his career and wants to move up in the ranks and people have died because of this.
Scott Horton: Well now, Michael -- that's Michael right?

Michael Prysner: Yes.

Scott Horton: Now, Michael, you're basically talking about the-the satire, Joseph Heller's satire Catch 22. You're telling me and you're telling my audience that that is truly and literally and really the operational incentive in a war like Iraq? For officers to get the people under them killed for points?

Michael Prysner: Yeah, there's something that is very frequent and it was something that was very frequent in the Vietnam war too and that's why there was such a massive GI rebellion against the officer corps in Vietnam as well. And, as James mentioned, it's very obvious to see the different interests that the officer corps has because there's a study -- two years ago there was a study released that showed there's over two thousand retired generals and colonels that now are employed by defense contractors. It's kind of the most common retirement path is either you're a lobbyist for defense contractors, you're sitting on corporate boards for defense contractors and oil companies while at the same time still being paid by the Pentagon as consultants. So all this team of generals right now that's telling us that we have to be in Afghanistan, that we can't leave. This team of generals, this team of officers, that's telling us that are people that are actually on the payroll of companies like Chevron, of some of the largest defense contractors in the world So we say that we have very different interests, the enlisted and the officers. It's very obvious what their interests are. So we think that we shouldn't be ordered into combat by officers that are trying to build their careers. We think that officers should be democratically elected by enlisted soldiers in their unit. And I think that's something that most enlisted soldiers.

[. . .]

James Circello: It takes a strong voice, and that is what March Forward! is trying to become, to tell the enlisted soldiers exactly what is happening. We all understand what is happening. There's-there's definitely dissent in the military ranks. Thousands of men and women have deserted the military in the last decade. The last time I checked, the statistic was upwards to 50,000 and that isn't shown. A lot of the times it's not a political stance. A lot of the time it's just that these soldiers miss their families, that they've been deployed four times and don't want to go back to a war zone. Or a lot of the time, it's that these soldiers are suffering through PTSD and no one is listening to them, no one the VA, the medical bases -- the medical stations on the bases, they won't diagnose them for fear that they won't be able to deploy them when the time comes. So soldiers have taken it upon themselves to stand up and to leave the military and a lot of the times they're quiet about it and March Forward! is calling for that in a wider scope for all soldiers that are being told to deploy to refuse that because Afghanistan and Iraq not only are they illegal and immoral but they're against our interests as workers in the United States.

Scott Horton: Alright everybody, I'm talking with James Circello and Mike Prysner, Michael Prysner, from March Forward! They're soldiers basically telling the rest of the soldiers to quit to refuse to participate in this -- well I call it madness, you call it what you want, anymore.


This morning a female service member e-mailed to be sure we all knew one of the worst parts of the "100% repulsive order" coming down from General Prude Anthony Cucolo. Backstory, yesterday's snapshot, over the weekend Cucolo couldn't stop giving interviews about his new order which punishes any women serving in northern Iraq for pregnancy -- married or unmarried, she's punished and that may include court-martial. Yes, women in the military are not allowed to have sex with other women unless they want to risk being drummed out of the military and now they better not have sex with men (unless they have their tubes tied because contraception is never 100% effective 100% of the time). But the female service member caught another detail of the order and steers us to Navy Seals Blog's post which notes: "If the pregnancy of a female soldier, however, was proven to be caused by a sexual assault, then the soldier will not be subjected to punishment."

If.

Do they train these generals in anything or just slap them on the back and say, "Strut around in pure ignorance"? Vic Lee (San Francisco's ABC, KGO-TV, link has text and video) reported yesterday on sexual assualts in the military -- someone might want to get a copy to General Know Nothing. Brave women like Swords to Plowshares' Tia Christopher shared their stories. Tia Christopher went to report it and the officer above her's response was whether or not this was a joke? It was no joke for Christopher who never saw justice but did receives "an early discharge with a personality disorder." Lee notes, "The National Institute of Justice says one in five women will be sexually assaulted. The ratio in the military, according to the Department of Defense is one in three or four women and a new Pentagon report says sexual assaults are increasing." And when a woman comes forward, watch the brass and 'justice' system bend over backwards to ignore the assualt. Suzanne Swift is only one example of a woman fighting back in this decade and being punished, only one example of a complete and utter failure for the military to discipline their own or to take the victims seriously.

So now in a culture that doesn't take sexual assaults seriously and then blames the victim, a woman who ends up pregnant faces even more harassment. Maria Lauterbach was raped while she was in the Marines. She identified her rapist, Cesar Laurean. The military refused to take her seriously. She was forced to continue to be around him. At what point does the US Marine Corps intend to take accountability and responsibility for their role in what happened? Maria disappeared. As the police searched for her and her family frantically worried, the Marines refused to inform the police about Cesar Laurean or even restrict him to base. Which is how Maria's murdered managed to escape to Mexico. (He is now back in US custody.) He murdered her. Then he set her body on fire. Then he told his wife. If a Marine is missing and she's accused a fellow Marine of rape, it stands to reason that command puts the accused under watch. But that's how little women mattered at Camp Lejeune. A Marine can go missing and the brass doesn't give a damn. A woman who has accused another service member of raping her and they don't give a damn. That's reality for a lot of women in the service.

But the general in Iraq doesn't live with reality. He fancies himself a king issuing orders. The heat's been on Cucolo including from the Senate. Rebecca Santana (AP) reports that he held another press conference today where he "appeared to back from the policy [. . .] saying the policy was to emphasize the problems created" by pregnancy and that no woman who got pregnant would be put in jail for "the offense." American Women Veterans charted the developments on their Twitter account:

The General clarifies: "I see absolutely no circumstance where I would punish a female soldier by court martial... http://bit.ly/6U8XuW about 6 hours ago from Facebook

Senate heat came from US Senators Barbara Boxer, Kirsten Gillibrand, Barbara Mikulski and Jeanne Shaheen who sent the following to the US Secretary of the Army today:

December 22, 2009

The Honorable John McHugh
Secretary of the Army
101 Army Pentagon
Washington, DC 20310-0101

Dear Secretary McHugh:

It has come to our attention that Major General Anthony Cucolo III -- the Commander of Multi-National Division-North, Iraq -- has implemented a stricter policy that criminalizes pregnancy for members of the United States Armed Forces under his command and for others "serving with, employed by, or accompanying" the military. While we fully understand and appreciate the demands facing both commanders and service members in Iraq, we believe this policy is deeply misguided and must be immediately rescinded.

Under the policy, it is possible to face punishment, including imprisonment, for "becoming pregnant, or impregnating a Soldier, while assigned to the Task Force Marne" Area of Operations. The policy even extends to married couples jointly serving in the warzone.

Although Major General Cucolo stated today that a pregnant soldier would not necessarily be punished by court-martialunder this policy, we believe the threat of criminal sanctions in the case of pregnancy goes far beyond what is needed to maintain good order and discipline. This policy could encourage female soldiers to delay seeking critical medical care with potentially serious consequences for mother and child.

This policy also undermines efforts to enhance benefits and services so that dual military couples can continue to serve. We can think of no greater deterrent to women contemplating a military career than the image of a pregnant woman being severely punished simply for conceiving a child. This defies comprehension.

As such, we urge you to immediately rescind this policy. Thank you for your prompt consideration of this most important request, and for your continued commitment to our men and women in uniform.

Sincerely,

Barbara Boxer
United States Senator

Jeanne Shaheen
United States Senator

Kirsten E. Gillibrand
United States Senator

Barbara A. Mikulski
United States Senator


On ABC World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer, Diane will be covering this story this evening. Meanwhile NOW president Terry O'Neill pronounces the order "ridiculous" and tells ABC News, "How dare any government say we're going to impose any kind of punishment on women for getting pregnant. This is not the 1800s."


On the subject of retired generals with 'new careers,' Ray Locker, Tom Vanden Brook and Ken Dilanian (USA Today) report on the 'mentor program' (easy money for generals who retire) and how you can be pulled off the tax payer dole for objecting to official policy publicly as happened to Gen Ricardo Sanchez (of Abu Ghraib War Crimes) and they note that the military currently pays "at least 158 senior mentors, about 80% of whom also have connections to various defense contractors." On the subject of war resistance, Courage to Resist reports war resister Cliff Cornell has seen his one year jail sentence reduced by 30 days. They note: "Clemency appeals (known as "1105 requests" in military justice terminology) are rarely granted. However, Courage to Resist continued to fund Cliff's post-conviction legal defense despite the odds. Our efforts, made possible by your donations, paid off for Cliff! We're still about $500 short of being able to pay Cliff's final legal bill. Although we have closed our separate fundraising page for Cliff, please donate at couragetoresist.org/donate. This is an important development as most define a felon as a person sentenced to one year or more imprisonment, so Cliff will no longer fit this definition. Hopefully this will make it easier for Cliff to find a job, and to eventually return to the community of Gabriola Island, Canada." In protest news, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke Friday at the University of Georgia's graduation ceremony and Russ Bynum (AP) reports protesters were outside carrying signs. Saturday, WCSI reports, he spoke at Indiana University's commencement ceremony and protesters turned out for that appearance as well.

Turning to the violence in Iraq . . .


Bombings?

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing which wounded two people. Reuters notes a Kirkuk bombing which injured three police officers and a Falluja car bombing which injured Abdul-Hadi al-Isran, a local politician. AFP reports 2 Shi'ites were shot dead outside "Baquba while leaving a mosque" and they note that the Falluja bombing which injured "the head of the town's city council" also injured police Capt Mohammed Shikhan. Reuters drops back to Monday to note a Baghdad car bombing which claimed 1 life.

Shootings?

Reuters notes 1 Iraqi soldier was shot dead in Mosul, another was shot dead in a Mosul home invasion (in which his brother was also injured) and dropping back to yesterday, 1 civilian was shot dead in Mosul.

McClatchy's Scott Fontaine is back in Iraq and he report (link has text and video) and he reports on the fears of Iraqi police offiers in Khandari including one who is now being targeted: "Al-Qaida in Iraq killed his mother, brother and uncle. The man started the habit of checking under his car each morning. One day last month, he discovered a magnetically attached bomb." (A longer version of Fontaine's article can be found at the Tacoma News Tribune).

Moving to the 'great mystery' of the invasion of Iraq by Iran and the seizing of the oil well. Once upon a time . . . Alsumaria reports, "Iraqi Foreign Minister Hosheyar Zebari affirmed that Al Fakka oil well crisis has been resolved with Iran." As usual, one idiot for a British publication can't grasp the facts. Now it can be argued that the facts are fluid regarding this item filled with you-invaded-no-we-didn't! but no one's a bigger idiot than ____ who writes like a paid lobbyist for Nouri al-Maliki. (No, I'm not referring to Patrick Cockburn. He writes out of love, not for money.) Reuters reports that Iran continues to insist the entire thing was a "misunderstanding" which may or may not be an upgrade from "it never happened!" Chicago Tribune, clipping furiously from wire services, insists that Iraq has defended and reclaimed the oil field. Of course, they also insist Shell's oil contract has to "be approved by Iraq's Cabinet" and that's not based on any law. The law is that it must be approved by Parliament. So don't take the Chicago Tribune too seriously (the whole world would be better off to follow that advice on every news item). Yee Kai Pin and Gavin Evans (Bloomberg News) note that oil has risen to $73 per barrel and that: "Prices had jumped after Iranian troops occupied an oil field in a disputed border region with Iraq. The troops withdrew from the al-Fakah well in the East Maysan field late Dec. 19 after an armed confrontation, Iraq's deputy minister of oil Abdul Kareem al-Luaibi said yesterday. Separately, Iraqi television cited government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh as saying Iranian soldiers remained in Iraqi territory. "

But the Iraq War is more than a story of oil, so much more. Let's check out the other dominant thread in the news cycle: Flow. Hustle and? Oops. No, we're back to oil. Alsumaria reports Abdul Karim Al Luaibi, Iraq's Deputy Minister of Oil, is saying the pipeline attacked Saturday will be back pumping today. Fang Yang (Xinua) explains Turkey says something different (the pipeline goes to a Turkish port), that country's Energy Ministry does not say pumping resumes today, it states that it will "resume within a week". They keep saying it had nothing to do with oil but it's all the media can report on.

In other news, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has issued a new report entitled "Global Restrictions on Religion" and Iraq finds itself among the top scorers when it comes to social hostilities. [Note: Do not e-mail saying, "Iraq is number one! You should have noted that." It's not. There are outlets reporting -- one example here -- that and they haven't read the study. Iraq is the first country listed under the "Very High" category; however, this note of caution is being ignored by some outlets: "The Pew Forum has not attached numerical rankings to the countries because there are numerous tie scores and the differences between the scores of countries that are close to each other on this table are not necessarily meaningful."] While scoring with other countries as "Very High" when it comes to Social restrictions, it makes the "High" list for government restrictions. Meanwhile AFP reports that the Iraqi military is on high "alert" according to the Minister of Defense, Mohammed al-Askari, who states, "We have put our forces on alert in Baghdad, the provinces of Kirkuk and Nineveh, including its capital Mosul, where our Christian brothers will be celebrating their holidays, because we have intelligence indicating they could be attacked during this period." Brothers? How typical of Nouri's flunkies to forget the women. Timothy Williams (New York Times) reports, "At churches in Baghdad this week, Christians are being asked for identification to determine if they have names that security force members recognize as Christian. Some churches around the northern city of Mosul are digging in, surrounding their buildings with giant earthen berms to prevent car bombers from getting too close." Chrismas Eve, Free Speech Radio News examines the costs to Iraqis of the Iraq War in a special half-hour broadcast.

Today the US Treasury Dept issued the following news release:



The U.S. Department of the Treasury today designated the Iraq-based insurgent group Jaysh Rijal al-Tariq al-Naqshabandi (JRTN) for threatening the peace and stabilization efforts in Iraq. JRTN has committed, directed, supported, or posed a significant risk of committing acts of violence against Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces and is being designated today pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13438, which targets insurgent and militia groups and their supporters. Today's designation freezes any assets that JRTN may have under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibits U.S. persons from conducting financial or commercial transactions with the entity. The U.S. Government has no information indicating any tie between JRTN and the Naqshabandi Sufi order of Islam.
"Today's designation is an important step in protecting Coalition troops, Iraqi Security Forces, and innocent Iraqis from insurgent groups like JRTN that use violence to undermine Iraq's progress toward a more democratic and prosperous future,"‪ said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey.‪
JRTN has conducted attacks against Coalition Forces in Iraq since April 2009, including the August RKG-3 (armor-penetrating grenade) attack against a Coalition Forces convoy in Hawijah, Iraq. Subsequently, a JRTN cell operating in Kirkuk, Iraq, fired rockets at the Kirkuk Regional Air Base in two separate attacks. As of mid-2009, JRTN planned to conduct attacks against Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces and intended to overthrow the Government of Iraq and reinstate Ba'ath Party rule. In mid-July, JRTN members were responsible for an improvised explosive device (IED) attack on Coalition Forces near an Iraqi police station in Salah ad Din Governorate, Iraq . Later that month, JRTN detonated an IED targeting Coalition Forces in Kirkuk and in August, conducted an indirect fire attack on Joint Security Station McHenry in Kirkuk.
In December 2008, a JRTN member operating in Kirkuk purchased three Katyusha rockets and an undetermined number of magnetic improvised explosive devices that were intended to be used in attacks against Kirkuk Regional Air Base, Iraqi police or Government of Iraq officials. JRTN's Abu Ghurayb Brigade also targeted Coalition Forces stationed at or around Baghdad International Airport .
Web postings made by JRTN further demonstrate that the group conducted attacks against Coalition Forces. In a statement on the al-Mindar Network's website in May 2009, JRTN claimed to have conducted three separate attacks against Coalition Forces, including a May attack that destroyed a U.S. Humvee in Anbar Province, Iraq; an April 2009 sniper attack against a U.S. soldier in al-Ta'mim Province, Iraq; and the destruction of a U.S. vehicle in Anbar Province in April. In a separate instance, in August, JRTN posted a video of a military vehicle being hit by powerful explosion to the JRTN website, www.alnakshabandia-army.com.

We'll close with this from Sherwood Ross' "Escalating War in Afghanistan Apt to Bring More Economic Woes" (YubaNet):

If Iraq war spending helped plunge the U.S. economy into its worst slump since the Depression, what does President Obama think his escalation of the Afghan war will do it?Besides forcing taxpayers to cough up fresh billions to enable the Pentagon to chase down a few hundred Taliban fighters, the Afghan war is liable to continue to inflate oil prices---and this means more than the ongoing swindle of motorists at the pump. Higher oil prices also slow the global economy, causing our trading partners to buy fewer Made-in-USA goods, thus reducing demand for our products and leading to layoffs. Spending money on war also siphons billions of dollars from truly productive uses.
"Today, no serious economist holds the view that war is good for the economy," write Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard government finance expert Linda Bilmes in their book "The Three Trillion Dollar War: the True Cost of The Iraq Conflict." Referring to Iraq, they write, "The question is not whether the economy has been weakened by the war. The question is only by how much." They note, "Oil prices started to soar just as the war began, and the longer it has dragged on, the higher prices have gone."


iraq
rebecca santana
alsumariaxinhuafang yangbloomberg newsyee kai pingavin evansafpreuters
mcclatchy newspapersscott fontaine
usa todayray lockerken dilaniantom vanden brook
courage to resist
the new york timestimothy williams
sherwood rosscliff cornell

Isaiah, Cynthia Nixon, Third, shoe thrower

Monday, Monday. !!!! And Christmas week! Pretty cool, huh? Tough week (politically) so we'll start with a grin. This is Isaiah The World Today Just Nuts "Super Model President"

Want to laugh some more? Muntazer al-Zaidi. The big whiner. If you missed it, he was speaking in public recently and someone threw a shoe at him. His brother (with him grinning) attacked the man, beat him. And al-Zaidi thought that was great. Now when he was attacked for tossing shoes at Bush . . . .

Fair's fair. You toss shoes at people, someone may toss 'em back. I had no problem with him tossing shoes at Bush. We all defended him in this community and then we backed off because, as C.I. pointed out, the family was very hostile to foreigners in their statement (wanted them to 'mind their own business'). Well the family's a piece of work and so is Muntazer. He's whining to Martin Chulov (Guardian) that he's not rich:

A year after the gesture that instantly gained him adulation throughout the Arab world, the Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at George Bush has complained that life since then has not lived up to expectations in one crucial respect – money.
In an interview with the Observer, Muntazer al-Zaidi said his only regret after spending nine months in prison – where he says he was repeatedly beaten by his jailers – was that he was still a relatively poor man.
"I blame the media because they said I would become rich for doing what I did, that I would become a multi-millionaire," al-Zaidi said from Switzerland, where he is receiving treatment for several health problems. "Though I thank them for their concern for me, all the promises about gifts I heard when I was in prison were just empty. The only gift I've got since my release is from Canadian television who made me their man of the year and gave me a pair of golden shoes."

What a cry baby. Did he think because he tossed some shoes he'd never have to work again? What a loser. Wah, wah. Geez, he makes George W. Bush look good. I'm not joking. Bush laughed it off. Dana what's her name, who was the spokesperson then, made it clear that the White House didn't see it as a big deal. But cry baby wants to be rich off of it.

Ann asked me if I'd mind highlighting something with Cynthia Nixon? Not at all. She's a good actress and speaks out for important things. This is from CNN:

CNN: You've been very outspoken in the past few years about LGBT issues and rights, but not as much about reproductive health. When did you start becoming vocal about being pro-choice?
Cynthia Nixon: I've been involved since I was 15, so we're talking almost 30 years now.
My mother had an illegal abortion pre-1973, and it's something that I would never want to face or want my daughter to be facing or any of her friends. Abortion is a right I feel must not go away, and I feel like people aren't mobilizing so much because it's so complicated and it's difficult to understand.
CNN: But some say that all the Stupak-Pitt amendment does is essentially hold up the current law that restricts federal funding from providing abortions.
Nixon: That's patently false. The new people coming in would be people making less than $88,000 a year in a family of four and would be getting their insurance in the form of tax credit. That credit is coming through the federal government.
[For] the majority of women who have health insurance now, abortion is covered as a complete given. Once these new people come in, we're looking at adding 36 million people to these tax credits, and they will not have abortion offered as an option on their health insurance. That's a really large chunk of people, but the thing is also how it will affect the marketplace. ...
They're saying you could buy [a rider] additionally, but for how much? It's going to be exorbitantly expensive, and it's not a thing people are going to do.
By the very nature of abortion, nobody intends to have one. Nobody intends to get pregnant by mistake, nobody intends to be raped, nobody intends to be [a victim of incest], and no one intends, in the course of a wanted pregnancy, to have a catastrophic event that requires an abortion.

Let's talk about Third now. Along with Dallas, the following worked on this weekend's 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),

Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,

Mike of Mikey Likes It!,

Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),

Trina of Trina's Kitchen,

Ruth of Ruth's Report,

Wally of The Daily Jot,

Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,

Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends

and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.

And what did we come up with?

Truest statement of the week

I'm in a different browser and can't do the "--" next to the title. It makes everything a link. So this was on Barack's BigBusinessGiveAway.

Truest statement of the week II

This is Cindy Sheehan who's already had the most truest of anyone this year.

A note to our readers

Jim breaks down the edition and offers kind words (for me). :D

Editorial: Women's rights thrown under the bus

This is a great editorial about how the Senate stabbed women in the back and how some people helped with the stabbing. In a related development, Martha Coakley's already disappointed me. She says she'd vote for it if she were in the Senate right now. What a load of crap. Won't be voting for Martha in the general election now.


TV: No way
Ava and C.I. do an amazing piece and it's already getting results. Great job. This is blistering, funny and everything else you can imagine.

Thank you, Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders is the only Socialist in the Senate. And now he's proven that Socialists can sell out just like any other politician. Congrats, Bernie. Piece of trash. You're supposed to know better, you asshole.


CODESTINK
This really is the worst organization around. And I will not pretend like they didn't try to sell the Afghanistan War. Scott Horton (the good one, not the idiot at Harper's) called them out on it. They're such little liars. I have no respect for them. Go away, Medea, just go away.

Biggest Lie of the Week
No, bloggers weren't holding back from endorsing Barack. What were you smoking?

Iraq
Our Iraq piece.

Come And Get These Memories
Jess found the comment. We think we'll do that once a week. Find one of the idiots and highlight them.

The Attack of the Drones
An illustration about Drone attacks on innocent civilians.

The murder of Kelly Kwalik
ETAN.

Highlights

Wally, Cedric, Rebecca, Ann, Betty, Kat, Stan, Marcia, Ruth, Elaine and I wrote this.

And that's what we ended up with.

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

Monday, December 21, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, the Iraqi oil contracts out of Baghdad are illegal, the US military declares pregnancy to be an 'offense' and one that can result in a court-martial, Tony Blair stares ever more into his looking glass, did Iran seize an oil field, March 20th is a national day of action, and more.


Starting in the US with the latest effort to spit on women. No, not the US Senate, the US military brass. Saturday, BBC World Service Radio offered a report from Iraq, where US General Anthony Cucolo yammered away about the new development for US service members: If you end up pregnant, you can be court-martialed. [Click here for BBC story online in text form.] Long gone are the days of "act of God." If you end up pregnant, married or not, and you're in Iraq, you can be court-martialed. For pregnancy. It's the US military's production of The Scarlet Letter. Cuculo and others claim the US military is in Iraq for 'freedom.' It's not the Iraqis freedom (they've been given nothing but chaos and violence) and it's certainly not America's freedom. Apparently it's Cuculo's freedom. His freedom to be an ASS in public.At some point, someone's going to grasp that women in the military are now sexless beings. They can't have sex with other women becuase of the military's ban on being openly gay. They can't have sex with men because they might end up pregnant. It's amazing that the same institution that does NOTHING to protect women in the ranks from rape, is more than happy to ensure that any consensual sex risks punishment. Paula Brooks (Lez Get Real) reports:A well place Pentagon source told LGR yesterday, that for Cucolo it is a pretty "black and white" issue... but added the Pentagon is also "watching this one pretty carefully," since this prohibition is "mine field" of legal, ethical and policy issues.... "Personally... Even though the JAG people have said this is legal... I think this one is probably going to come back to bite us in the ass at some point, if not legally, then in the form of some really terrible PR," said our source. "Here you really have issues that go to the core of personal integrity: reproductive rights," said Eugene Fidell, a professor of military law at Yale Law School in a Star and Stripes Article. There are also issues of enforcement, Fidell said. The woman is immediately suspect once the pregnancy comes to light, but unless she identifies her partner, the male could go unpunished despite bearing the same culpability under the order.

On CNN today (link has text and video), Melissa Long spoke with Eugene Fidell who played 'seer' which isn't his role. Don't "assume," don't pretend you know why the order has been made if you don't. You're brought on as a legal expert and you're not a columnist. You're there for your legal expertise. Stick to that, Fidell. In the text, not the clip, Fidell is stating that during Vietnam, something similar happened in that a female service member could be dishcharged if she became pregnant. (A) Discharge is not court-martial. (B) There were a much more limited number of women then and it would be interesting to know how many of them were married or unmarried? Most likely, the order Fidell's referring to applied only to unmarried women. You'll note he also doesn't say anything about what would happen to a man involved with that woman? That's an interesting omission on his part -- and it's an interesting turnaround by him over the weekend on this order. Sarah Netter (ABC News) reports on the issue and John Hutson is sure, sure it's legal. Really? Why? Because the general needs everyone? Well okay, here's what let's do, let's put in a stipulation that a heart attack or a stroke or any health condition brought on -- in part or in full -- by poor nutrition results in a court-martial. We won't do that though,will we? It's only when the health issue is pregnancy that men suddenly want to propose punishments and start legislating. Hutson does worry about abortion access for those overseas. Of course he does. If you're pregnant, you're going to be thinking about an abortion and, let's be real, one's going to be 'suggested' to you by some 'helpful' higher ranking military official. [For drive bys, I'm pro-choice and pro-abortion. I believe it's the woman's choice. That means I do not believe she's forced into an abortion she doesn't want. Especially by some technocrat with a few bars on their uniform threatening her with court-martial and telling her how bad it will be on the man involved unless she has an abortion. "We can go through all the paperwork and the court-martial, or you can have an abortion," might be one way it's 'suggested' to her.] Free Speech Radio News covers the news in today's broadcast.

Andrew Stelzer: A US commander in northern Iraq is being criticized for a new policy that states soldiers who become pregnant or the men who impregnante them could be court-martialed. The policy went into effect on November 4th but was written about in the Stars and Stripes newspaper this weekend. Until now, soldiers could be sent home if they became pregnant but there was no disciplinary action but under the new rule, designed to keep forces at full strength, any military or military-related civilian personnel could be sentenced to jail for being pregnant even if they are married.


Turning to the theft of Iraqi oil, on the most recent Inside Iraq (Al Jazeera -- which began airing Friday), Jasim al-Azzawi discussed the issue of Iraqi oil with Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain Ibrahim Saleh al-Shahristani and the country's previous Oil Minister Issam al-Chalabi.

Jasim al-Azzawi: Dr. al-Shahristani, with no oil law in place -- Parliament has not enacted that law -- why not wait until that law is enacted so that everything will be under the supervision and according to the law?

Hussain al-Shahristani: Well the new oil and gas law has not been legislated. But this does not mean that there are no prevailing laws in the country that govern this important sector of the country of the economy of Iraq and the current laws that have been used in the previous regime are still valid and until they are replaced by new legislation, those laws are still governing the sector. And all our contracts are based on those laws which authorizes the Minister of Oil, alone, to sign any oil deal with field development or any other sector. However, the Minister of Oil has taken it on itself that any unforseen developments for the oil field will be presented to the cabinet and once it is approved by the cabinet, which is the highest executive authority --

Jasim al-Azzawi: Before it goes to the cabinet and before -- since you mentioned existing laws and rules, most probably, you are referring to Law Number 97, issued in 1967. That particular law, Dr. al-Shahristani, stipulates that each contract needs to have a special law, needs to have a special authorization from Parliament. And, according to what I know, you did not go through Parliament, you did not seek a special permission or special authorization for whether the Rumala contract or the Memorandum of Understanding.

Hussain al-Shahristani: Yeah laws always are superceded by the Constitution. The current Iraqi Constitution that was voted by 80% of the Iraqi population is the surpeme law of the country and it is very clear in the Constitution that international agreements between the government of Iraq and foreign governments or treaties between Iraq and other countries that require legislation in the Parliament. Any commercial contract between an Iraqi public company and a foreign company -- as is the case with the oil contracts -- these are within the competency of the government and they do not require any new legislation so --

Jasim al-Azzawi: That being the case, sir, Dr. al-Shahristani, I'm not sure under which legislation you are operating then. Are you saying -- you just said that you were working under existing rules and regulations and I assume it is Law 97. When I challenge that, you say it's according to the Constitution. So which way is it?

Hussain al-Shahristani: Well-well, first of all, there is a number of law, it's not only one law that you refer to and the Constitution, I explained, is the supreme law. If any of the laws contradicts the Constitution, then the Constitution prevails. In the -- under the Constitution, if there is a need for a new law, then that law should be legislated. And that's what we have done. We have drafted a new hydro-carbon law. By the way, even in the new hydro-carbon law, there is no need for presenting any oil deal or contract for legislation to the Parliament. On the contrary, the new draft authorizes what is called a Federal Council for Oil & Gas to approve any contract. What we are doing now, we are presenting it to the full cabinet for approval. Whenever --

Jasim al-Azzawi: That being the case, let me take a case in question. The Rumala contract, the Rumala deal, was negotiated by your ministry and was referred to the cabinet, per regulations, and the cabinet in turn sent it to the legal committee, and that legal committee had sixty-five stipulations and question marks about this oil deal. It was referred back to the cabinet. The cabinet met for one day. And, to my knowledge, those sixty-five questions were never answered fully and, in one day, the cabinet just approved the Rumala contract.

Hussain al-Shahristani: No. First of all, a number of the questions that were raised were simply questions and the questions were appropriately answered and the Minister of Oil has sent a detailed answer on every specific question to the legal advisor of the prime minister and a number of these uuuuuh questions have been considered by the ministry. And, uhm, the contracts, the flow of contracts have been amended if we are convinced that this will make the contract, uh, more clear. As a matter of fact, none of these points that were raised had any legal or economic impact on the contract at all. Or technical. They were purely matter of wordings. In some cases. And matter of specificity.

We'll jump ahead to the other half of the show, when Jasim al-Azzawi spoke with Issam al-Chalabi.

Jasim al-Azzawi: Issam, how dangerous is it for Iraq to sign these contracts and Memorandum of Understanding with no oil law in place.

Issam al-Chalabi: With all due respect, Dr. al-Shahristani seems to be moving on a shaky ground. I think he had fallen in his answers to your question, had fallen in the conflict between the Constitution and the existing laws. The Constitution says that, the two Articles about the oil and gas ought to be explained and there will be separate law to be issued. Until then, in a very clear, separate Article, it says that all existing oils will remain valid. Hence Law 97 of 1967 is valid as he mentioned and he ought to abide by it. That means, yes, the Minister of Oil is authorized provided they go and seek endorsement from the existing legislative body which is the Parliament for each case.

Jasim al-Azzawi: So far they haven't done that. Is that a reflection on the lack of oversight by Iraqi Parliament about this huge and overreaching contracts?

Issam al-Chalabi: No, the Oil & Gas Committee and many Parliamentarians have sought that and they have asked him, they have subpeoned him, that they should look into the matter. In fact, one particular member had gone to the federal court. And you asked about the dangers of these new contracts, I do say that it is very possible that in the future these contracts could very well be under questioning and somebody could question the legitimacy of these contracts and maybe they would be required to be amended or maybe anulled.

Jasim al-Azzawi: We are only three months away from very crucial elections in Iraq and it is quite likely tremendous changes is going to happen in Iraq and the ministries, especially in the Ministry of Oil. Even the Prime Minister might not be in the saddle. Once again, will we see rising chorus for changing these contracts or even cancelling them now that Iraqi nationalism is rising again?

Issam al-Chalabi: Well nobody knows what's going to happen from the elections and who will form the new government but definitely I would say that there are a lot of question marks. There many people are questioning the legitimacy of these contracts. And why did he rush into it? Why didn't he wait until after the elections and go to the Parliament? And also why signing so many contracts?

Here's reality on the law. If you don't have a new law, you follow the existing law. For a moment, al-Shahristani grasped that. Then, under questioning, he began stating well he's also using the Constitution. The Constitution did not resolve the oil issue, did not contain any laws on the oil. That means Law 97 is the governing law. al-Shahristani wants credit (or wants to hide behind) the fact that he's doing something in a draft law -- a proposed law. A proposed law is not a law. If the Parliament wanted it to be a law, it would have been one long, long ago. Law 97 is the law. That's it. When a new law is passed by Parliament (or if one is) that becomes the law. For now, Law 97 is the law. Law 97 is not being followed. The contracts are invalid. If a new government comes into being (meaning Nouri's kicked out as prime minister) and they want to nullify the contract, they can. The law was not followed. If that happens, the countries can sue anyone (you can sue anyone) but the only real case they have is with al-Shahristani who broke the law and Nouri who looked the other way. Even with a new government, they may not choose to invalidate the contracts. But for the life of those contracts, they will always remain iffy and the companies will have little 'muscle' in any conflict because Iraq can always say, "The contracts were illegal, we're cancelling them."

And in case it's not clear, one more time, al-Shahristani (or any Oil Minister) cannot cobble together bits of a law with bits of bill (an unpassed law) and say, "I'm following the law." No. The law is the law. In this case, Law 97 is the law. Unless and until Parliament passes a new oil law, Law 97 is the law.

Meanwhile, UPI reports, "Multinational forces were called on to ramp up their patrols in northern Iraq to protect vital oil export arteries, a spokesman for the Iraqi Oil Ministry said." "Multinational forces"? What MNF? It's the US. The UK's 200 is not in the north. There are no multinational forces anymore. Everyone else has gone home. It's the US military patroling the 'vital oil exports'. AFP reports "the pipleine to the Turkish port of Ceyhan" was attacked and that exports have not resumed as a result of the damage. RTT notes, "This is the second attack this month on oil pipelines in northern Iraq."

On the subject of oil, let's try to play catch up since Friday when Iran seized an Iraqi oil field . . . or maybe it did that two weeks ago . . . or maybe it never did that. As we go through the reports, a hint, if you can't follow or make sense of it, don't fret, no one knows any more than they did on Friday. Timothy Williams and Sa'ad al_izzi (New York Times) reported Saturday, "The Iranian government said Saturday that an oil field that its troops occupied a day earlier was on its side of the border with Iraq, despite Iraqi claims to the contrary." RTT News reported that Iran continued to deny they seized an Iraqi oil field. Iran's Press TV reported Iran's official line that the coverage is overblown and an attempt to drive a wedge between Iran and Iraq while also noting that, "Iran and Iraq have decided to establish an arbitration commission to clear up the misunderstanding between the two countries over an oil well in the border region." Muhanad Mohammed,Suadad al-Salhy, Mohammed Abbas, Parisa Hafezi, Missy Ryan and Andrew Dobbie (Reuters) added, "The Iranian flag was flying over the disputed oil well in a remote desert area southeast of Baghdad early on Saturday and an Iranian military tent was pitched nearby." The Telegraph of London observed the reported skirmish has resulted in a higher price for oil and they add, "An official in Maysan, who asked to go unnamed, said the Iranian troops were still present at Fakka on Saturday, and that the local government would send a delegation out to the remote desert area on Sunday." Sunday Kadhim Ajrash and Zahraa Alkhalisi (Bloomberg News) reported Iraq's Deputy Minister of Oil, Abdul Kareemal-Luaibi, has declared that, following "an armed confrontation," the Iranians who allegedly took over an Iraqi oil field have left. Just when you can almost make sense of the latest claims, along comes Timothy Williams and Duraid Adnan (New York Times) explained that Iraq's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs is stating the Iranian troops left the oil field but not Iraq while reports out of Iran claim "that the soldiers had never crossed into Iraq." And if you're confused, grasp that you're supposed to be. On such a serious issue, no government sends out "deputy ministers" to speak. You only send out someone that low level -- on an issue of territorial integrity -- if you want to be able to reserve the right to deny any statements made. What really happened? Who knows? About the only thing that is known is that all the rumors did wonders for the price of oil.

Bombings?

Fang Yang (Xinhua) reports a Falluja car bombing which claimed the life of 1 police officer, a Baghdad roadside bombing which wounded two police officers, a second Baghdad roadside bombing which injured two people, a Baghdad sticky bombing which injured two people and "the Mayor of Tal Afar town in the northern province of Nineveh was killed toegher with his driver and his bodyguard when a suicide bomber struck their convoy in the town" also injuring seven other people. Sahra Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a third Baghdad roadside bombing which injured two people, two Baghdad sticky bombings (one was already reported on by Yang but 1 person has died from that one and 1 person died in the second one) and a Mosul explosion which injured two Iraqi soliders.

Shootings?

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 person shot dead in Mosul (assailants used silencers) and an attack on a Mosul police checkpoint in which 1 police officer was killed. Reuters adds 1 police officer was shot dead in Kirkuk and, dropping back to last night, 1 pesh merga was injured in a Kirkuk shooting.

The Iraq War continues. Ron Jacobs (at Dissident Voice) observes:

It's now December 2009. US forces forcibly occupy two nations -- Iraq and Afghanistan. While the US casualty figures in the former are relatively minimal nowadays, it was only a year or two ago that US military men and women were dying at the rate of one hundred a month. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the casualty figures are double what they were a year ago and tens of thousands more US soldiers and Marines are getting ready to deploy there (along with untold numbers of mercenaries). They have been told by their commander-in-chief that their cause is just. Once again, the protest is muted. The government in Afghanistan is a creation of Washington and would not exist without the foreign military presence there. It is also one of the most corrupt governments in the world. Women in Afghanistan suffer some of the worst human rights abuses in the world. Many of those abuses derive from the male supremacist interpretation of the Muslim religion by forces on all sides of the conflict. Many more of the abuses are the result of the ongoing conflict in that country. From displacement and hunger to death and maiming caused by US and resistance forces, the military conflict is probably the greatest violator of women's rights. Yet, the people of the United States have been told over and over again that one of the reasons for the US military presence in Afghanistan is to free the Afghan women.
So, why is there so little protest? Is it because many liberals and progressives who opposed the war in Iraq somehow see this misadventure in Afghanistan as righteous? Or do they believe that Barack Obama really does have a plan that will guarantee peace through the waging of war? If the latter is true, than these folks have truly succumbed to the wiles of imperial thought. There is no promise to end the war in any particular year, much less a specific date. If history tells us anything, the only way to stop a war is to make it difficult for the government waging it to continue to do so. This scenario will not occur within the walls of Congress. Nor will it take place inside the White House or the Pentagon. It can only occur in the streets of the United States. As long as the US government is convinced it has at least tacit support for its adventures overseas, it will continue them. As the recent escalation proves, it will not only continue them but will expand them.
Now, there are many folks who say they oppose the war but will argue that there is no point in mounting any protest against it. Their arguments will include the caveat that protests make no difference or that they will never reach the so-called regular people. I disagree. It seems to me that if the connection between the increasing failure of the government to fund essential services like schools, health care, infrastructure and even job creation can be connected to the ridiculously high cost of the wars and occupations, then the antiwar movement can reach the American people. Currently, it seems that there is a disconnect in most people's minds between the cutting of services and the ongoing wars and occupations. That disconnect must be terminated and the connections between the expanding price of imperial war and the decreasing quality of our services must be made. In addition, the profits of war must be exposed for what they are–theft of taxpayer's money by a small number of citizens. It is a theft on a scale so huge very few can even imagine it. It is also a theft that does not benefit the majority of the American people and certainly not most of the people of Iraq or Afghanistan in any meaningful way. Although they claim to be protecting us, the only thing these corporations and their uniformed cohorts are protecting is their bank accounts.
That does not have to continue. In fact, there is already an effort being organized by the National Assembly to End the Wars and Occupations to hold a massive antiwar protest on March 20, 2010 in Washington, DC and San Francisco.

The March 20th action is the one that A.N.S.W.E.R. and other groups are calling. Ava and I included the flier in our TV commentary this week and, as Jim noted, Ava and I intend to include it in our TV commentaries every Sunday until the march (March 20th). We're doing that to get the word out on it. Ron Jacobs and others are working to get the word out on it but it's really only if you get the word out on it that it matters. Talking about this one on one or in small groups matters much more than anything someone's going to read online. The action takes place March 20th. And if you don't get the word out on it, who will?

Wait, The Nation? The Progressive? Are you trying to make me laugh? Former British prime minister Tony Blair made shocking statements regarding the Iraq War this month and where's the coverage. Less than two weeks ago and where's the coverage. We've covered the remarks. The first time was December 12th, it was big in the Monday, December 14th Iraq snapshot and has been covered repeatedly since. Ivor Roberts (Independent of London) explains their importance:

IT is difficult to exaggerate the sense of shock but not awe some of us felt when hearing Tony Blair say last weekend that he would have gone ahead with the invasion of Iraq even if he'd known that the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) so trumpeted in the "dodgy dossier" didn't exist. He would, he said, simply have deployed different arguments to achieve the same result, the removal of Saddam Hussein. He deserved to go as he was a local menace and had gassed his own people. He was, moreover, uniquely evil. There are quite a few things wrong with these arguments. Firstly, it flies in the face of the primacy of international law. Without it we simply return to the law of the jungle, the rule of the most powerful, the world of the Melian dialogue recorded in Thucydides' Peloponnesian War where "the strong do what they can, while the weak suffer what they must". This may have been the neo-cons' nostrum but it is not the basis on which the United Nations was constructed, and it is not the basis on which I served as a diplomat for nearly 40 years.

Tony Blair, Dominic Ponsford (Press Gazette) reports, is blaming the United Kingdom media. Citing Blair's interview in the Sunday Times of London, Ponsford quotes Blair insisting, "We've got a problem with the UK media. They don't approach me in an objective way. Their first question is how to belittle what I'm doing, knock it down, write something bad about it. It's not right. It's not journalism. They don't get me and they've got a score to settle with me. But they are not going to settle it." John Arlidge (Times of London) has the portrait of St. Tony of the Fan Rags, persecuted, misunderstood, victimized, in which Tony insists, ""It's not true that nobody likes me! Reading the papers in Britain, you'd end up thinking I'd lost three elections rather than won them. There is a completely different atmosphere around me outside the country. People accept the work that you are doing, as it is. They don't see anything wrong with being successful financially and also doing good work." When you're insisting to the press that it's not true that no one likes you, you've got a huge image problem. And in Tony's case, he brought it on himself. "I love my life as it is!" insisted Tony to John Arlidge. Then why the non-stop whining, Tony? Credit where it's due, what our alleged 'independent' media can't cover, The Huffington Post does. From Ben Cohen's piece there:

While Blair has certainly done some good after his tenure in office, his obsession with is own popularity shows why the British public grew to hate him in the first place. Blair's immense narcissism and unwavering belief that anything he did must be right led the country into a series of catastrophic choices with profound repercussions.
Blair led Britain to war under false pretense in both Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which were not only illegal but strategically disastrous. He also deregulated the city and allowed the banks to determine economic policy that ended up in one of the worst crisis in British history.


Lastly, in the US, yesterday was a national holiday. Madamab (The Widdershins) explains that it was "National 'We Told You So' Day!" so be sure you celebrated:

Wasn't this bill supposed to be the big, signature accomplishment of the Messiah of HopeyChangeness' first term? Clearly, it isn't going to be the economy. His solution to epic unemployment is to throw trillions in taxpayer money to the banking industry. Oh, whoops -- I forgot. Mea culpa. The "stimulus" package contained 40% tax cuts too. Yeah, cause tax cuts like totally create jobs, man. And they also cut through your tin cans and tomatos without rusting! Teh awesome!
Surely, peace and diplomacy won't be Obama's legacy, despite (hilariously) having ALREADY won the Nobel Peace Prize. Iraq is slowly, painfully, grinding to a partial close per Dubya's schedule (which Obama hasn't changed), while Afghanistan is being "surged," also per a Bush-Cheney timetable. Meanwhile, mini-Gitmo is set to open near Chicago (perhaps Reszko will build it!), kangaroo courts are being convened per Obama's order (unless you think the 9/11 "mastermind" is really going to get a "fair trial" in New York City after Obama has declared him guilty), and torture is still on the table.

And because I'm too angry to write about what Madamab is referencing, I'll just refer to the piece we did at Third on the Senate spitting on women. From "Editorial: Women's rights thrown under the bus:"
The new president of NOW, Terry O'Neill, issued a statement yesterday which included, "The National Organization for Women is outraged that Senate leadership would cave in to Sen. Ben Nelson, offering a compromise that amounts to a Stupak-like ban on insurance coverage for abortion care. Right-wing ideologues like Nelson and the Catholic Bishops may not understand this, but abortion is health care. And health care reform is not true reform if it denies women coverage for the full range of reproductive health services. We call on all senators who consider themselves friends of women's rights to reject the Manager's Amendment, and if it remains, to defeat this cruelly over-compromised legislation." Good for Terry and good for NOW. Good for them for speaking out and good for them for drawing a line in the sand. They say if the amendment isn't pulled from the bill, senators should "defeat this cruelly over-compromised legislation." And they have urged you to, "Take Action NOW: Please call your senators immediately and urge them to oppose the Manager's Amendment in the Senate health care reform bill, which will effectively make abortion coverage unavailable in health insurance exchanges and, ultimately, in private insurance policies as well. If the Manager's Amendment passes, urge your senators to oppose the entire health reform bill."

iraq
al jazeera
inside iraq
jasim al-azzawi
the new york timestimothy williamssaad al-izzirtt newspress tvthe telegraph of londonreuters
bloomberg newskadhim ajrashzahraa alkhalisithe new york timestimothy williamsduraid adnan
lez get realpaula brooks
free speech radio news
ron jacobs
the independent of londonivor robertspress gazettedominic ponsfordthe times of londonjohn arlidge

Trojans, worms, KHS

Friday!!!! Weekend at last.

Warning: Don't go to CounterCurrents on your computer tonight or on the weekend. There's a worm or something. I was just there and I said, "Hey, it wants to download some protection." C.I. said, "STOP!" and rushed over. She said, "This isn't CounterCurrents" -- it wasn't. It was their address. It's been hijacked. And this 'protection'? C.I. says that's a worm or something that gets on your computer and eats through your memory and destroys everything.

I like CounterCurrents and will visit it again. But right now, stay away from it. They'll probably catch it Monday. If they don't and you visit, the hijacker will immediately try to download something to your computer. Ignore the message. If you click yes or no, it's going to load on your computer. Try clicking the "BACK" key in the left hand top corner. If you have to get rid of that message to get off the page, click on the "x" in the right hand corner of the message. If you say no or agree, it will automatically download the worm.

I was going to link to Danny Schechter but I see he is dogging on Keith Harmon Snow. Not going to play that game, Danny. It was really rude and I don't think Danny has any idea who Keith Harmon Snow is or that KHS has been covering the Congo for some time. This is from his "Belgian Paratroopers to Crush Rising Congo Rebellion?" from earlier this month:

Sources in Kinshasa report that in mid-November President Joseph Kabila secretly airlifted a battalion of Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) across Congo to put down the small rebellion. The operation involved multiple flights in November and was supported by the United Nations Observes Mission in Congo (MONUC) and the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). The RDF forces, moved to Congo from Rwanda exclusively for the operation, were uniformed as FARDC troops.¹

Pitched battles involving RDF occurred in past weeks on November 22-24 and November 26-28 in the Dongo region. Along with RDF regulars, MONUC troops from the supposed international ‘peacekeeping’ mission have been fighting alongside Tutsi Rwandan soldiers infiltrated by Rwanda, with the Kabila government’s support, into the national army, the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC).

Equateur Province achieved a relative peace by 2004 and the majority of United Nations Observers Mission to Congo (MONUC) troops pulled out by 2005. Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), the humanitarian organization that had worked in Equateur Province from 1992, disregarded their own reports about the state of the health emergency and mortality in Equateur and abandoned the population in 2006.²

On December 2, 2009 the remote strategic airport town of Libenge, near the Central African Republic, fell to the new rebellion, which is expanding and spreading with foreign backing. Towns in Equateur Province have been falling one by one to the rebellion, sending Kinshasa’s elites into a scramble on December 3 and President Kabila into a security panic.

Reading Danny's slam on KHS, I couldn't help but think it had something to do with C.I. who linked to a Congo article by Danny and made clear that he did not agree with someone Danny was slobbering over -- a CIA funded person, most likely. I know C.I. and Elaine pretty well by now (Elaine's my girlfriend) and they have their own language. And what C.I. wrote this week about that asshole that KHS has taken on? Perfectly consistent with the way C.I. or Elaine refer to CIA backed people. It doesn't surprise me that Danny would run with that asshole while sliming KHS. And it should be noted that the asshole Danny was praising is someone that's been called out by more than KHS or C.I. He's been called out repeatedly -- especially in the British press.

But I'll link to KHS. He earns the links because he doesn't rush to tag along. He always tries to cover what no one else will.

And here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Friday, December 18, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, Iran may have invaded Iraq and taken over an oil field, or it may not have, opinions continue to come in on the Iraq Inquiry, Iraqi Christians continue to be targeted, it's a bad week for Tom Hayden who finds little to clip and paste into his scrapbook, and more.

Today on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show -- after the unplanned bluegrass moment (for approximatly five minutes of the show "Some Morning Soon" is playing over the guests during today's show) -- Iraq was noted by Diane and her guests Youchi J. Dreazen (Wall St. Journal), Tom Gjelten (NPR) and Farah Stockman (Boston Globe)..

Diane Rehm: Youchi Dreazen of the Wall St. Journal and you're listening to The Diane Rehm Show and, Youchi, tell us about this software breach involving US drones in Iraq.

Youchi Dreazen: Yeah, what it is is that that the video feeds from the drones that are used and, frankly, from other aircraft as well but particularly the drones, the video feeds are not encrypted. Which means that if you're an insurgent nearby and you have a laptop and you have -- one of the programs you can use is called SkyGrabber which costs about $26 and you can download it off the web, you could then watch in real time and download and store the feeds of any Predator nearby which is significant for two reasons. One, the US often uses Predators over its own forces so that if there's a US operation, they have Predators overhead, so somebody who's watching that feed could be able to see our personnel. It's also significant because it shows somebody watching what we're looking for -- so Predators would be over a given highway, a given series of buildings, a lot of them are used along the Iraq-Iran border to try to cut down on weapon smuggling from Iran and this would show somebody watching those feeds theoretically what's being watched, when we're watching it, etc. What's somehow more surprising is that this has been known about for so long. It's been talked about in the Pentagon for so long and no one's done anything about it. This was an issue in Bosnia. And we reported today that in 2004 there was a concern about -- in 2004, it wasn't insurgents intercepting it, it was what if Russia and China basically use a James Cameron-style special effect so that somebody's watching a drone feed, they don't see anything and suddenly there's a tank? Or they do see something, but it's not actually there? So this has been known about, it's been discussed but no action's been taken --

Diane Rehm: Tom?

Youchi Dreazen: -- at least until now.

Tom Gjelten: Well, Diane, this is a really important story and we should point out that Youchi and his Wall St. Journal colleagues [Sibohan Gorman and August Cole] broke this story this week so, you know, credit where it's due. I think one of the complicating factors here is that ground troops, soldiers and marines are increasingly make use of use from drones and other-other aircraft. Now a lot of the time the troops on the ground don't have as high technology available to them, you know, as the drone operators do. So you have more simplified technology on the ground trying to make use of these feeds and the feeds are providing extremely important information to them to help chart their ground operations but the technology has to be to oversimplify it, it has to be simplified for the ground troops to make use of it. They may not have the decryption technology that is necessary so you can't have really highly encrypted signals coming from above if the soldiers and marines on the ground don't have the technology to decode it. That's one of the issues that complicates the solution of this problem.

Diane Rehm: So somebody got hold of this. What use was made of the information?

Youchi Dreazen: That's the open question. I mean, the way that this was discovered was a sort of interesting, cloak and dagger kind of case where US troops arrested a Shi'ite militant, took his laptop and started going through it and on the laptop found video files. Then, in July, arrested other militants elsewhere in Iraq, actually from another group as it turned out, went through their laptops and found an even wider array of drone video files so this is kind of interesting sort of spy versus spy, this power was discovered.The military continues to insist that no missions were compromised, nobody was hurt. In fairness, it's a hard thing to prove, one way or another, but that has been -- the military has been adament from the beginning till now that, yes, these were intercepted, yes, they could be used but they didn't see any evidence so far that they had been used.

Diane Rehm: How embarrassing is this, Tom?

Tom Gjelten: Well it is embarrassing and it's all the more embarrassing because it's coming at a time when this administration is really proposing a much broader uh use of these drone aircraft, the Predators in particular. I mean, yesterday -- between yesterday and today, there were ten drone strikes in Pakistan. Now I think that's the most in any two day period in a long, long time. And this fits into the broader counter-terrorism strategy that this administration is proposing for Pakistan and Afghanistan. So, you know, to-to-to highlight the vulnerability of this approach at the very time when you're really proposing an expansion of this approach is, as you say, embarrassing.

Diane Rehm: Farah?

Farah Stockman: It also just shows that these insurgents are a lot more technology savy than anybody ever imagined they would be and I think that's the -- that's the new world we're living in.

NPR sidebar: Today on NPR's Fresh Air Nellie McKay was a guest. Fresh Air is played on various NPR stations during the day and some NPR stations repeat that day's broadcast also at night and, in addition, the segment can be streamed online. Her new album is Normal As Blueberry Pie and this is a plug for Nellie because she stood up to all kinds of pressure in 2008 when she supported Ralph Nader. It took guts and, along with huge artistic talents, she has tremendous strength. Much more so than Ralph's 2000 'friends' who showed what cowards they really were. Excuse me, cowards and bullies since so many of them not only refused to stand with Ralph but actively tore down others who did. I voted for Ralph or Cynthia McKinney (I'm not saying which -- now or ever -- nor is Ava saying which she voted for). Either was a strong vote. This community endorsed Ralph. When Oklahoma members discovered they only had the choice of voting for War Hawk Barack or War Hawk John McCain, they went with with McCain because they knew there would be a strong push back on each of McCain's War Crimes as opposed to the limp response offerd by so much of the 'left' for Barack's. John R. MacArthur (Harper's magazine) notes the limp response from Frank Rich (a bad 'drama' 'critic' trying to masquerade as a 'thinker'), Hendrick Hertzberg, and others. We'll note his section on Tom-Tom Hayden:

Then there's Tom Hayden, the former radical and author of the Students for A Democratic Society's Port Huron Statement, who was a belligerent booster of Obama during last year's campaign. Hayden, too, is upset about Afghanistan, but not enough to cast aside his self-delusion about Obama. Claiming to speak for "the antiwar movement," he laments that the "costs in human lives and tax dollars are simply unsustainable" and, worse, that "Obama is squandering any hope for his progressive domestic agenda by this tragic escalation of the war."
Unsustainable? Tragic? There's no evidence that Obama and his chief of staff see any limit to their ability to print dollars, sell Treasury bonds and send working-class kids to die in distant lands. And what "progressive" agenda is Hayden talking about? So far, Obama's big domestic goals have been compulsory, government-subsidized insurance policies that will further enrich the private health-care business, huge increases in Pentagon spending and purely symbolic regulation of Wall Street.
While Obama was speaking to the unfortunate cadets, I couldn't help thinking of Richard Nixon and his "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War, a plan that entailed a long and pointless continuation of the fighting. Most liberals would agree that Nixon was a terrible president. Yet, for all his vicious mendacity, I think the sage of San Clemente had a bad conscience about the harm he did, about all he caused to die and be crippled.
Instead of shoring up Obama's image of goodness, liberals really should be asking, "Does the president have a conscience?" Because if he does, he's really no better than Nixon.

I always knew Tom-Tom would spend his faded years as Tricky Dick's mistress. Also noting Tom-Tom, is Glen Ford (Black Agenda Report -- link has text and audio) who explains Tommy and Bill Fletcher's organization "Progressives For Barack" has -- like Blackwater -- became an embarrassment so -- like Blackwater -- Tommy and Billy are trying for a clean slate by changing the organization's name to "Progressives For America":

The left-wing Obamites were the nastiest of all. They viciously libeled anyone that advanced a Left critique of their hero, calling them enemies of a new "people's movement," when in fact it was they who were shutting the movement down in favor of a fan club and cheering section for Obama. Amiri Baraka spit poison at all who failed to pledge allegiance to the Great Obama, calling us infantile ultra-leftists and just plain "rascals." Bill Fletcher and Tom Hayden stuck with Obama like little sorcerer's apprentices as the president methodically savaged virtually every item on the progressive agenda. What else could they do? To break with Obama would amount to an admission that they were wrong about the progressive "potential" of their candidate; that he had always been a thoroughly corporate politician who would lurch to the Right as soon as he took office; and that, by failing to criticize Obama early in the campaign, they were guaranteeing that he would disrespect and ignore Blacks and progressives, once in office.
Tom Hayden now declares it's finally "time to strip the Obama sticker" off his car. Well, whoopee. Back in the day, Hayden would have been expected to engage in some serious self-criticism for misleading so many people about Obama. The same goes for Bill Fletcher, who appeared on a Pacifica radio show last week sounding like he'd never been an Obama fan. Fletcher said it was inappropriate for the Nobel committee to award Obama the Peace Prize when the president had done nothing to cause a "fundamental shift" in U.S. foreign policy. You can't influence a president of the United States to do the right thing, Fletcher said, by giving him awards in hopes that he will earn them. But that's exactly what Fletcher and his fellow Obama fanatics tried to pull off when they endorsed candidate Obama on a wish and a prayer when there was no reason to believe he would undertake any "fundamental shift" in U.S. foreign or domestic policy. As a result, the Left played no role whatsoever in the 2008 election. They just blew kisses at Obama, hoping he'd kiss them back after the inauguration.

Actually, it was worse than that. Throughout 2008, Barack repeatedly HIT the left and the response was to get starry-eyed and sing, "He hit me and it felt like a kiss." Especially true of Tom Hayden who was repeatedly used by Barack as a public punching bag (not limited to but including the sneer at "Tom Hayden Democrats"). As we noted January 1, 2009: "That sort of behavior is a sickness. 2008 saw that sickness over and over as Barack repeatedly tossed population segments under the bus, repeatedly caved and sold out and was never, ever held accountable. But, hey!, he might have a liaison to the 'progressive' community! [. . .] Likewise, the Barack groupies will have to grow up at some point. Whether they do so in 2009 or after he's on his way out of office will determine whether the people force the change they need or spend the next years cheerleading blindly out of fear that they might hurt their Dream Lover. "

People need to get real. That includes grasping that a "draw-down" is what's promised in 2010, not a "withdrawal" from Iraq. Admiral Mike Mullens spoke of the "draw-down" today and yet notice all the sloppy so-called journalists calling it a "withdrawal." There is no talk of an Iraq withdrawal in 2010. The White House has been very clear that they plan a draw-down for 2010. Whether that will come to be, the world will have to wait and see. But a draw-down is not a withdrawal -- unless you're an ignorant fool.

A real demand for withdrawal -- not draw-down -- is in the news. Iraq's requesting that Iran withdraw. Caroline Alexander and Margot Habiby (Bloomberg News) report, "Iraq's National Security Council said today that Iran violated their shared border and Iraq's 'territorial integrity' and called on the Islamic republic to withdraw its forces from the region." Timothy Williams and Eric Schmitt (New York Times) add, "The Iraqi government said Friday that Iranian troops had crossed the border and occupied a portion of an oil field situated on disputed land between the two countries, but Iranian officials immediately and vehemently disputed the account." Dow Jones Newswires states they were told that by a Missan Oil Compnay official that "Iranian forces took hold of an Iraqi well in a disputed section of the border after opening fire against Iraqi oil workers"; however, the official tells Dow Jones this action took place "two weeks ago." Suadad al-Salhy, Missy Ryan and Ralph Boulton (Reuters) quote Ahmed Ali al-Khafaji, Deputy Interior Minister, stating, "At 3:30 this afternoon, 11 Iranian [soldiers] infiltrated the Iran-Iraq border and took control of the oil well. They raised the Iranian flag, and they are still there until this moment." Gulf Daily News adds, "Officials have summoned Tehran's envoy in Iraq to discuss the matter, he said. Iraqi officials said the soldiers crossed into Iraqi territory yesterday and raised the Iranian flag at Fakka." Mosab Jasim (Al Jazeera) states, "The Iraqi president called for an emergency session to discuss what they describe as a violation from Iran, but nothing came out of the meeting and whatever actions they are going to take are still not clear." The President of Iraq is Jalal Talabani. However, the report indicates Jasim was referring to Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. Hannah Allam (McClatchy Newspapers) offers this context, "Reports of the incident aggravated long-standing tensions between the countries, which fought a 1980-88 war that claimed as many as a million lives. Although Iraq's Shiite Muslim-led government and Shiite Iran have grown closer since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion ousted Iraq's Sunni Muslim dictator, Saddam Hussein, border issues remain thorny, with sporadic posturing from both sides." If it's been seized, what's been seized? Alice Fordham (Times of London) explains, "The well is one of several in the Fakka oil field, which was part of a group offered to foreign investors in June, but no contract was awarded." She also notes that Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani went on state television to insist, "Iraq will not give up its oil wealth" today. Adam Arnold (Sky News) offers US military reaction: "A spokesman for the US military confirmed the soldiers had taken control of the oil well but added it was in 'disputed territory' near the border and happened fairly frequently. 'There has been no violence related to this incident and we trust this will be resolved through peaceful diplomacy between the governments of Iraq and Iran,' he said." While that source is unnamed US Col Peter Newell is on the record offering Arnold context. What really happened? Who knows? It will slowly emerge over the weekend, most likely. What is known is that the talk/rumors/incident had one result. Nick Godt (MarketWatch) reports that the rumors led to an initial rise in the price of oil per barrel today.

On the subject of oil, there seems to be a lot of confusion regarding US interests. We'll leave out the partisans on the right (to avoid mocking anyone) and instead note that the same talking point Jim Jubak (MoneyShow) which is boiled down to: The US is shut out of Iraq oil money. (A number of right-wingers are expanding and stating, "See the war wasn't about oil." Oil was part of it, oil wasn't the only thing.) Jubak laments America's lack of success in winning Iraq oil fields and points to "Royal Dutch Shell" and its success. Excuse me? What's that supposed to mean? "Royal Dutch Shell"? We think the Dutch are the only ones raking it in at Shell? Check their board of directors. 14 members of the board, 5 are British, 1 is American (Lawrence Ricciardi). 'Foreign company'? In this day and age are we that stupid? It's not "nationals," it's multi-nationals today. Jubank also notes Total's success. Total bills itself as "the fifth largest publicly-traded integrated international oil and gas company in the world" -- international. And we're not even looking at major shareholders in these companies. Again, these are "multi-nationals." That's the key word and this silly nonsense that some on the right are offering is nonsense. WQhat is British Petroleum (another winning bid)? Those not in the know would think, "State owned company in the United Kingdom." Uh, no, kids. BP was privatized sometime ago. And it absorged Standard Oil and Amoco. US companies. It's an international congolomerate, a multi-national at this point. George David sits on BP's board. George David is an American citizen. I'm not sure whether the right-wingers are that stupid or if they think we are but this idea that the US is shut out from the oil fields demonstrates (at best) a highly simplistic view of today's economic playing field and (at worst) a desire to knowingly deceive the public.

In Iraqi political news, UPI reports that Ammar al-Hakim (head of the political party the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council) was in Damascus today meeting with Syrian President Bashar Asaad with al-Hakim expressin "his appreciation for Syria's support for Iraq as it emerges from years of war." The trip might be to make Ammar al-Hakim look more like a stately world player ahead of the elections and it may be to draw a line between himself and Nouri al-Maliki. It may be any number of things but it is hard not to read as al-Hakim thumbing his nose at Nouri since Nouri has repeatedly blamed Syria for the bi-monthly Baghdad bombings beginning in August. Iraqi elections may take place in March. US Staff Sgt Natalie Hedrick writes at the US Army website that, "With the Iraqi national elections approaching, U.S. Soldiers are preparing to support the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police while remaining in the background."

Turning to violence. Tuesday two Christian churches were targeted with bombs in Mosul. Asia News reports that since then Zeid Majid Youssef has been murdered in a Mosul drive-by and that 1 of the men who murdered him "got out of the car to make sure he was dead". They note, "Speaking with AsiaNews Mgr Louis Sako, archbishop of Kirkuk, had slammed what was happening as the national government and the local governatorate proved unable to stop events, and the city's various ethnic groups, Arab, Kurdish and Turkmen, with possible foreign involvement, blamed each other." Alice Fordham (Times of London) also reports on the recent cases of Iraqi Christians again being targeted:

Last week 100 Christian leaders and politicians of all religions held an emergency meeting just before fresh violence broke out in the northern city of Mosul, with attacks on churches and Christian schools. On Tuesday a baby was killed and 40 people, including schoolchildren, were injured in three simultaneous bombings. Two days ago a Christian man was shot dead as he travelled to work.
"It is terrible," said Fadi, 26, an electricity worker from Mosul who asked that his real name not be used. "Most of the Christians are staying at home, or when they go out they watch their backs." In late 2008, killings of Christians in Mosul by insurgent groups left 40 dead and 12,000 fleeing their homes. Fadi reeled off a string of recent, smaller-scale attacks against Christians, fearful that the same level of violence would return.

Bombings?

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) drops back to yesterday afternoon and night to report a Baghdad roadside bombing which left four people injured, a Baghdad car bombing which claimed 2 lives and left ten people wounded and a Baghdad roadside bombing which left three police officers wounded.

Shootings?

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports water department employee Mohammed Abdullah was shot dead in Sulaimaniyah today.

In London yesterday, the Iraq Inquiry concluded their public hearings for this year. They will resume public hearings next month. A number of commentators are weighing in on the Inquiry but before we get to that, we'll first note a section of yesterday's hearing. The committee, chaired by John Chilcot, heard from Jim Drummond, Martin Dinham and Stephen Pickford (link has video and transcript options).

Committee Member Martin Gilbert: I would like to turn to the question of funding and, of course, the United States was investing huge sums in the reconstruction of Iraq. The scale of the task as it appeared to you, it appeared to the UK, involved an attempt to drum up support from other donors, and this was led or went through the Madrid donors conference in October 2003. Can you explain to us -- both Mr Pickford and Mr Drummond really -- what were the obstacles to securing greater donor support for Iraq, and as a corollary to that, what impact did the then deteroiorating situation have on the attempt to obtain greater funds, greater support?

Jim Drummond: I think it had always been assumed that the World Bank and the UN would play a big role in the reconstruction of Iraq, and the UN and the World Bank did a joint needs assessment from July/August/September, so that a report was ready for the Madrid donors conference. It had a price tag on it of $55 billion, which is --

Stephen Pickford: I think the UN/World Bank one was 36 and then there was an extra 20 from the CPA, was my understanding.

Jim Drummond: All right. Anyway, a very large sum -- which they presented to the donors in Madrid. DFID and Hilary Benn in particular played a big role in trying to drum up support from the others. I think the fact that the World Bank and the UN had done this made it easier. This wasn't just a US/UK number coming up. It made it easier to get extra support. We were worried initially that we wouldn't be successful. In the end the pledges, I think, on the day added up to about $32 billion, and there were a few more that followed after that. So in terms of money put on the table, that was successful. The UK pledge was getting on for $1 billion, the US pledge was I think $18 billion. So that sort of gives you an idea of the scale of relative contribution. The security situation did play a very big part in how fast people could disperse. We ended up with relatively few donors with a presence in Iraq. As Stephen said, the World Bank and the UN -- the UN had local staff who were -- remained active, but the World Bank and the IMF essentially pulled out. There were relatively few donor experts from other countries and so the main contribution was -- in terms of expertise was certainly the US and the UK. That's quite a constraint actually, if you have got large numbers of countries pledging money but then not having any expertise on the ground to spend it. That was one of the reasons why we wanted to establish this trust fund mechanism managed by the World Bank and the UN. Just while I'm talking about that, I think yesterday you were told -- the day before -- by General Rollo that the UK contributed $300 million to a UN trust fund. The UN -- the UK contributed 30 million pounds to the UN trust fund and 40 million pounds to the World Bank trust fund.

Chair John Chilcot: Thank you for the correction.

So that's one section of the hearing yesterday. Reflecting on the Inquiry? Peter Biles (BBC) feels, "This will be remembered as the week when the Iraq Inquiry went 'private' for the first time since the public hearings began in November." He's referring to this week when the decision was made to redact Jeremy Greenstock's testimony. He states, "The committee chairman, Sir John Chilcot, had taken advantage of the one minute delay on the broadcast to prevent some of Sir Jeremy's words being revealed. Three lines on page 68 of the Iraq Inquiry's official transcript were subsequently blacked out." (We covered that in Tuesday's snapshot, FYI.) Meanwhile, Chilcot's lengthy self-note (see yesterday's snapshot) is the focus for Chris Ames (Guardian):

The inquiry's press chief doesn't want yesterday's statement by Chilcot, given at the end of the first batch of hearings, to be seen as a fightback against the very strong criticism it has endured. Fightbacks are seen as giving hostages to fortune and destined to backfire. But there has been a spin campaign this week, based on the line that the inquiry will be tougher when the big decision-makers appear in the second week of the New Year.
Chilcot made clear that Blair will appear in a public session, although he didn't rule out that the former prime minister would also have a secret session. But will the questioning be more rooted in documentary evidence, as Chilcot has promised? Can we expect, for example, to see Blair questioned about the memo written by his foreign policy adviser Sir David Manning, which allegedly records that in January 2003 he and George Bush had made up their minds to invade Iraq whatever the intelligence and whatever happened at the UN?

Trina hit on similar points last night noting "that John Chilcot feels challenged, feels his integrity (as well as that of the committee's) is being questioned." The New Statesman has a folder here for all their Iraq Inquiry coverage. [And John Lennon fans and friends (who isn't one?) click here for an excerpt of a 1968 interview.] Michael Savage (Belfast Telegraph) offers this evaluation of the public hearings held thus far by the Inquiry:One theme has emerged above all others. "This time, in contrast to previous inquiries, where it becomes essential, they are prepared to leave Blair in the firing line," said Brian Jones, a former Ministry of Defence intelligence analyst. It is not just disgruntled civil servants or under-resourced military chiefs hitting back, either. Even former advisers have left the inquiry ensuring that Mr Blair has more awkward questions to answer. While the former head of MI6, Sir John Scarlett, told the committee that Mr Blair had been made aware of last-minute intelligence that Saddam Hussein's weapons had been dismantled, his personal adviser also weighed in this week. Sir John Sawers, foreign affairs adviser to the former Prime Minister, said he did not share Mr Blair's confidence that invading had been the right decision. "Frankly, had we known the scale of the violence, it might well have led to second thoughts about the entire project," he said. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who served as a special representative in Baghdad, added that Mr Blair had told him to make improving the media image of the situation in Iraq a priority, and accused him of giving him an unrealistic target for training Iraqi police.
Frances Gibb (Times of London) notes concerns that the lack of lawyers on the committee could prevent a truthful picture from emerging in the Inquiry and quotes Shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve stating, "Having waited so long for an inquiry into Iraq, it is vital that we learn the whole truth. It is surprising that the inquiry is not benefiting from the probing questioning that an experienced lawyer would provide, particularly when it comes to taking evidence from the witnesses and experts involved"

Book notes. Yesterday, I noted: "Last month, AK Press released The Battle of the Story of The Battle Of Seattle by David Solnit and Rebecca Solnit. We did a book discussion about it at Third. It's a strong book and an important one. A good holiday present if you're looking for ideas. With Aimee Allison, David Solnit authored the must read and community favorite Army Of None. His sister Rebecca Solnit is known for her own numerous writings as well as for her work with Courage to Resist." December 8th, Ann noted the book and I should have included that. My apologies to Ann (who will say it's no big deal but I think it is).

TV notes. Friday on most PBS stations (check local listings), NOW on PBS asks: "Can a breakthrough health care innovation in Rwanda work in the U.S.?"In rural Rwanda, the simple and time-tested idea of medical house callsis not only improving the health of the community, but stimulating itseconomy as well. On Friday, December 18 at 8:30 pm (check locallistings), NOW travels to the village of Rwinkwavu to meet the Rwandandoctors, nurses and villagers who are teaming up with Boston-basedPartners in Health and the Rwandan government to deliver medicine andmedical counseling door-to-door. Would such an innovation work inAmerica? In the capital of Kigali, NOW's David Brancaccio sits down with RwandanPresident Paul Kagame to talk about international aid and Kagame'sultimate vision for a healthy, financially-independent Rwanda.
Washington Week begins airing on many PBS stations tonight (and throughout the weekend, check local listings) and joining Gwen are Charles Babington (AP), Ceci Connolly (Washington Post), John Dickerson (Slate) and Greg Ip (Economist). Meanwhile Bonnie Erbe will sit down with Nicole Kurokawa, Patricia Sosa, Genevieve Wood and controversial stand-up comic Kim Gandy (new book: It's Okay To Fail Women -- And Liberating Too! -- They're Just Icky Girls With Cooties) to discuss the week's events on PBS' To The Contrary. Check local listings, on many stations, it begins airing tonight. And turning to broadcast TV, Sunday CBS' 60 Minutes offers:

The Long RecessionScott Pelley returns to Wilmington, Ohio, to see how residents are coping a year after thousands of them lost their jobs when the town's largest employer shut down.
The PatriarchEcumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the leader of the 300 million-member Orthodox Christian Church, feels "crucified" living in Turkey under a government he says would like to see his nearly 2,000-year-old Patriarchate die out. Bob Simon reports. | Watch Video
Alec BaldwinMorley Safer profiles the versatile actor, who talks candidly about his career and his personal life - including his very public divorce and custody battle
60 Minutes, Sunday, Dec. 20, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.


We'll close with this from "Elaine Brower to Army Recruiters: 'We Will be Your Worst Nightmare'" (World Can't Wait): I was sitting there in the back office, and then stated "I would like you to know that I am a member of a national organization called 'Military Families Speak Out' and it has about 4,000 members who all have loved ones who are serving or served in Iraq and Afghanistan. We oppose the wars vehemently and are doing everything in our power to stop them." I thought they would choke on their food at that point. Then I proceeded to say, "Since I work right here, I, along with hundreds of my activist friends, will be your worst nightmare!" As you could hear a pin drop and confusion spread all over their faces, I continued. "I am so against what you are doing. You strategically placed this recruiting center so that kids who are either coming out of high school with nowhere to go, or those who graduate college in lots of debt and no jobs because of the economy are enticed to join the military." "You are taking full advantage of the bad economy and sending more of our youth off to die and kill for illegal, immoral and illegitimate wars. You should be ashamed of yourselves and I don't know how you sleep at night." I stood up, took a button off my handbag that I received while protesting at West Point. I said, "This button is for you." I slammed it on the desk. "I got it when I was protesting at West Point when Obama was giving his "escalation speech." It demands all troops home now, you can keep it as a reminder."

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