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Tuesday, October 07, 2014

Robert Fisk echoes C.I.

Did you catch this from Robert Fisk:

Is there a “Plan B” in Barack Obama’s brain? Or in David Cameron’s, for that matter? I mean, we’re vaguely told that air strikes against the ferocious “Islamic State” may go on for “a long time”. But how long is “long”? Are we just going to go on killing Arabs and bombing and bombing and bombing until, well, until we go on bombing? What happens if our Kurdish and non-existent “moderate” Syrian fighters – described by Vice-President Joe Biden last week as largely “shopkeepers” – don’t overthrow the monstrous “Islamic State”? Then I suppose we are going to bomb and bomb and bomb again. As a Lebanese colleague of mine asked in an article last week, what is Obama going to do next? Has he thought of that?

After Alan Henning’s beheading, the gorge rises at the thought of even discussing such things. But distance sometimes creates distorting mirrors, none so more than when it involves the distance between the Middle East and Washington, London, Paris and, I suppose, Canberra. In Beirut, I’ve been surveying the Arab television and press – and it’s interesting to see the gulf that divides what the Arabs see and hear, and what the West sees and hears. The gruesome detail is essential here to understand how Arabs have already grown used to jihadi barbarity. They have seen full video clips of the execution of Iraqis – if shot in the back of the head, they have come to realise, a victim’s blood pours from the front of his face – and they have seen video clips of Syrian soldiers not only beheaded but their heads then barbecued and carried through villages on sticks.

Nice of Fisk to finally catch up with C.I.

How many weeks has she been referring to the 'plan' and noting it wasn't a plan?

Maybe I should applaud Fisk for finally catching up?

Except that this has been going on since August and only now is Fisk able to weakly offer a critique.

This was at the heart of the problem at Third this weekend.

Do we call out these assholes or not?

Fisk wasn't one of the ones.

But are we supposed to be glad that Fisk is finally (weakly) offering a critique?

Or are we right to expect more from him?

This issue was the focus of a roundtable that we didn't run at Third in the end. Instead, it's in the community newsletters.

My own feeling?

Weak is weak.

I don't give you passes for weak.

Dallas and the following worked on Third:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's K itchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.

And this is what got published:

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

Monday, October 6, 2014. Chaos and violence continue, Barack's spent over a billion tax payer dollars on his bombing 'plan' in two months alone, the 'plan' faces more criticism, a bombing kills civilians in hit, the Pentagon insists they know of no civilian deaths, the Islamic State takes another city, the Pentagon insists the problem is not the taking of the city but the media coverage it has received, and much more.

It is now months since US President Barack Obama sent the first wave of 'advisors' into Iraq to determine what was needed. The 'advisors' were US military in one form or another.

So is it really that surprising that what Barack's so-called 'plan' ended up being was a military action?

Barack has repeatedly (and rightly) insisted that what Iraq needs is a political solution, that only such a solution will provide stability and ease the tensions at the root of Iraq's multiple crises; however, his 'advisors' sent in to determine how to address the crises were not experts in politics or diplomacy.

Had they been, Barack might have had some sort of political aspect for his 'plan.'

Cokie Roberts and Steven V. Roberts (Bemidji Pioneer) note in their syndicated column:

The president has set out two clear principles. The first is to “degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL,” the extreme jihadist movement also known as ISIS and Islamic State that now occupies large swaths of Iraq and Syria. The second is to accomplish that goal without deploying American combat troops.
“As your commander in chief,” he told soldiers based in Tampa, Fla., “I will not commit you and the rest of our armed forces to fighting another ground war in Iraq.”
But what if those two principles are not compatible? What if the resources Obama is prepared to commit — American airpower and advisers, working with local military assets — are not sufficient to accomplish the mission of crippling ISIL? Then what?

Then what indeed?

Yesterday, Barack added to the military 'plan' of endless bombing by putting US Apache helicopters into the mix. Mitchell Prothero (McClatchy Newspapers) explains:

The United States escalated its involvement yesterday, sending helicopters into combat against targets west of Baghdad — the first time low-flying Army aircraft have engaged in President Obama’s new campaign in Iraq, despite promises it would not include “boots on the ground.”
Until yesterday, U.S. airstrikes in Iraq had involved Air Force and Navy jets and drones. The use of the low, slow-flying helicopters also suggests the security situation in Iraq’s Anbar province is deteriorating. Last week, the Islamic State terrorists overran numerous Iraqi bases and towns.

Dan Lamothe (Washington Post) explains, "Using Apaches introduces considerably more risk to the U.S. troops involved, however. While fighter jets and bombers might have to contend with mechanical malfunctions, they can operate in Iraq unimpeded by rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons that can be used to target low-flying aircraft. Helicopters have been shot down over Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia in the last 25 years." And an Iraqi helicopter was shot down days ago by the Islamic State, "AP reports the Islamic State 'shot down an Iraqi military attack helicopter' near Baiji on Friday. NINA adds both pilots were killed in the crash."

Of the helicopters, RT observes, "Their use in aggressive bombing of areas controlled by Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) could signal mission creep for the US military, which US President Barack Obama has said will not take part in ground-force operations." Jason Ditz (Antiwar.com) points out, "The eventuality of such a shootdown is likely to mean US ground troops sent on rescue missions to try to recover the downed pilots. This could end up being the pretext for launching a ground operation against ISIS, and such an incident seems only a matter of time." Ben Farmer (Irish Independent) echoes that point, "Though they are known for their formidable battlefield firepower, they are also more vulnerable to ground fire than the attack jets and bombers that have so far led the air campaign."

Of the air campaign, right-wing Kimberly Kagan and her husband Frederick (Foreign Policy) are unhappy with the level of war Barack is providing and they want ground troops and they want them now:

The U.S. has hit about 334 mostly tactical targets in both Syria and Iraq in the intervening 50-odd days. To put that number in perspective, the 76-day air campaign that toppled the Taliban in 2001 dropped 17,500 munitions on Afghanistan. Those bombs directly aided the advance of thousands of Afghan fighters supported by U.S. special operators capable both of advising them and of identifying and designating targets to hit. There are no U.S. special operators on the ground in Iraq or Syria, no pre-planned or prepared advance of Iraqi security forces, and no allies on the ground in Syria. This is not an air campaign.

It's also not a 'plan' but you probably have to be concerned about Iraq, and not getting sexually aroused by the killing, to notice that.

Barack's plan is getting attention today -- for so many reasons. Reasons like the bombing in Hit which has resulted in 42 people being injured and 24 killed.

اعلام الربيع العراقي @IraqiSpringMC ·

#الانبار:
مقتل(24)مدنيا، وإصابة 42 آخرين بجروح -في حصيلة أولية-؛ جراء قيام الطيران باستهداف سوق شعبي وسط قضاء هيت.
. 

What you can see above with your own eyes and what medical sources in Hit report isn't good enough for the US military command. Nabih Bulos and Patrick J. McDonnell (Los Angeles Times) quote CENTCOM spokesperson Major Curtis J. Kellogg insisting, "We have seen the media reports alleging civilian casualties in Hit, Iraq. However, based on our current assessment, we believe them to be false and have seen no evidence to corroborate these claims. I can assure you that prior to any mission, every precaution is taken to ensure we do not harm civilians or civilian facilities. However, we take all such reports seriously and look into them further." By all means, look further at the photo and maybe take some time to speak with the local hospital. You know Kellogg is just hoping there's no serious media interest -- like last week when US bombings in Mosul resulted in the deaths of 4 Iraqi civilians. He's hoping there's no interest and, if that's the case, in a week or so you can expect CENTCOM to quietly release a minor statement acknowledging the 'regrettable' deaths and pretending that such deaths happen in spite of Barack's 'plan' as opposed to because of Barack's 'plan.'

The 'plan' is a failure. The decision to send in US helicopters is an acknowledgment of that. But it doesn't alter the 'plan,' it only feeds into the worst parts of the 'plan' and the overall failure of the 'plan.'

Lyse Doucet (BBC News) points out, "Depending on how you calculate the percentages, IS fighters still hold anywhere from a quarter to a third of Iraqi territory. Hundreds of Western and Iraqi air strikes since 8 August have not fundamentally altered the new map although many say it would look even worse if the aerial campaign had not been unleashed."

It's been two months and the White House still can't admit that the 'plan' is a failure.

Instead, the answer is to add more US forces hoping that can somehow fix a failing plan.

No.

It's not going to.

Political leaders make this mistake repeatedly and the result in loss of lives.

Instead of having the courage to admit they've made a mistake, they grow stubborn and throw more lives onto the battle. It's not their lives so they're not too concerned. They're more concerned about their own egos. So the 'answer' becomes send more and more troops in and pretend that the 'plan' itself is sound.

And that's always what's behind 'mission creep' -- another reality few wish to be honest about.

The 'double down' is never about 'saving' a supposed victim but instead about attempting to salvage their own reputation.

At what cost?

For starters, Lolita C. Baldor (AP) reports the Pentagon has announced the US war against the Islamic State has resulted in US war planes having "dropped roughly 185 munitions, including 47 cruise missiles" and that at least $1.1 billion had been spent so far.

That's a lot of money spent on a failing 'plan.' Xinhua reports:

The Islamic State (IS) militants captured three neighborhoods in the predominantly Kurdish city of Kobane in northern Syria on Monday, the oppositional Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
The IS attacks on the neighborhoods of Kani Araban, Industrial City, and Maqtala al-Jadeeda in the eastern part of Kobane came after the terrorist group's intense clashes with the Kurdish militants of the People's Protection Unites, or YPG, according to the Observatory.

And the US government's response to this latest setback -- humiliating setback? To claim that this is an issue inflated by local media. Holly Yan, Michael Pearson and Ingrid Formanek (CNN) note:

And the Pentagon, the [unnamed "senior military"] official said, believes there's a media outcry about the situation in Kobani because reporters are there. Many other towns have fallen to ISIS without TV crews present, the official said.

Oh, it's the fact that "TV crews [were] present," that's the problem -- not that Kobani was taken. In other words, if an Iraqi city falls in the forest when no one is around, it doesn't make a sound.

In a similarly stupid vein, the White House and administration officials have argued that the problems include a poorly trained military -- this despite all the years and billions the US spent training the military.

The military problems might not be an issue if, for example, the US government hadn't demanded the military be purged of Ba'athists back in 2003 and the years that followed. It might also not be a problem if former prime minister and forever thug of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki hadn't brought Shi'ite death squads into the Iraqi military (Tim Arango broke that story in the fall of 2013). But, as Mustafa Habib (Niqash) reports, those are hardly the only problems with the Iraqi military:

The Iraqi army is suffering badly from what locals describe as the “astronaut phenomenon”. That is, soldiers who pay money to superior officers so they can leave the world of the military and stay out of danger, far from the battle field. This means that sometimes when a general sends a battalion to fight, only half the soldiers are there. And recently, with attacks by extremists, this phenomenon has been getting worse.

Last week a confidential meeting was hosted by Iraq’s Parliamentary committee on security and defence and one of the guests was Rasheed Flaih, the Lieutenant General who is in charge of the Iraqi army’s operations in the province of Anbar.

At the September 27 meeting the military men and politicians discussed the ever-increasing absence of soldiers from their units in the province.

“Participants in the meeting discussed the number of different sieges of the Iraqi army in the Anbar area and how many soldiers were being killed by members of the terrorist organisation, the Islamic State,” one of those who attended the meeting told NIQASH on condition of anonymity.

“Also discussed was the fact that there had been an increase in the number of Iraqi soldiers who were leaving areas where they could expect to see action – such as the provinces Anbar, Salahaddin and Diyala. This means that there are fewer than expected soldiers on the battlefields,” the source said.

The stupidity of the White House never fails to stun. Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has taken public many criticisms that he made in real time privately to the administration. They can't deny these charges, so the administration has tried to attack Leon. I know Leon and I like him. I also know and like Vice President Joe Biden. But . . .

I don't think Joe's ever said anything as idiotic as what Jason Ditz quotes him as saying:

Vice President Joe Biden was quick to criticize Panetta, although not on the content of his hawkish comments. Rather, Biden said it was “inappropriate” for Panetta to criticize Obama at all, on anything, until after 2016, and that he should “at least give the guy a chance to get out of office.”

A friend was joking over the weekend that "Uncle Joe" should run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination with the slogan Free Flow Joe to note that Joe lacks any filter or self-censorship.

And he's said many dumb things but to insist that Leon or anyone is unable to criticize Barack for two more years is so deeply stupid and so deeply offensive that Joe, who doesn't have a real shot at the presidential nomination, should go ahead now and announce he won't be seeking it.

I like John Kerry and I supported his 2004 run. When he had an incident that was just too destructive, I noted here he should give up plans to seek a second run in 2008. Joe's remarks are the same type of offensive. You really can't come back from that. It doesn't go away and it undermines you at every step.

That's far from Joe's only problem remarks of late. As Alsumaria reported, Joe spent the weekend working the phones with the UAE and Turkey after he publicly declared that the two governments supported terrorism.

The White House fails repeatedly at diplomacy. Today, at the US State Dept press briefing, spokesperson Jen Psaki attempted to focus on diplomatic efforts in Iraq:

Over the weekend, General Allen and Ambassador McGurk traveled to Erbil where they met with Kurdistan Regional Prime Minister Barzani, other senior KRG officials, provincial leaders, and tribal sheiks. Noting important recent victories by joint Sunni-Shiite tribal fighters and with Peshmerga forces – excuse me -- and Arab tribes joining to retake the vital border crossing at Rabia. General Allen and Ambassador McGurk conveyed our strong support for all Iraqis coming together as a national front to defeat ISIL, including through the formation of integrated national guard units that would work in concert with a restructured Iraqi army.
General Allen and Ambassador McGurk confirmed that the United States and other international partners are prepared to support these security reforms in a manner consistent with Iraq’s constitution, sovereignty, and independence. They also discussed the urgent need for the coalition to support the humanitarian crisis in Iraq, which is a critical line of effort in the comprehensive campaign to degrade and defeat ISIL.

In their meetings with KRG officials, General Allen and Ambassador McGurk affirmed the historic relationship with the Kurdistan region of Iraq and its people and underscored our full commitment to that relationship.

I don't have a great deal of confidence in those efforts but I could be wrong -- and I hope I am. We'll close with the October 3rd press conference Allen held in Baghdad (and we'll pick up on that tomorrow).

AMBASSADOR JONES: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the American Embassy. It is great to see you here. So, welcome to the Embassy, it is great to have you here.

My name is Stuart Jones. I had the honor yesterday of presenting my credentials to His Excellency, the President of the Republic of Iraq. And so I am now very pleased to be here to replace my good friend and colleague, Steve Beecroft. And, on this, my third day of work, it is also a great honor to present to you my good friend and colleague, General John Allen, who, as you know, is the President's special envoy to building the coalition against Daeesh.

So, General Allen has been here now since yesterday. He is here with Deputy Special Envoy Ambassador Brett McGurk, who, as you all know, is also no stranger to Iraq. And so, I will just ask General Allen to make a few brief remarks, and then he will take a couple questions. Thank you.

GENERAL ALLEN: Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Mesah Al-Kheir, and it is a pleasure to be back in Iraq, and see so many familiar faces. And I would like to, in advance of this moment, wish all of you a very hearty Eid Mubarak. I want to thank the great team here at the embassy here in Baghdad for the support that has been rendered to my team, to assist me in having access to so many of the leaders and the individuals within the Iraqi Government. And I particularly appreciate Ambassador Jones's welcome to our team, and to the hospitality that he has shown here, as we have arrived in Baghdad.

This is the first of many trips that I anticipate making to the region. And it was important that the first trip that we took to the region would be to Baghdad, particularly in my new capacity as a Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL.

That Ambassador McGurk and I have come to Iraq for our first international trip speaks volumes about the importance that we place on our partnership with Iraq as we go forward with the intent, ultimately, to degrade and to defeat ISIL over time.

Now, before I read out our meetings thus far, let me first say that the United States strongly condemns the terrorist attacks across Iraq this week that took scores of innocent lives, including women and children. This kind of wanton violence against innocents, especially during the holy period of Eid, underscores ISIL’s utter absence of respect for the sanctity of human life.

From January forward, the U.S. has focused on strengthening the Iraqi Security Forces, because that is the desire and the request of the Government of Iraq, and because enabling partners to take on this fight is a critical part of the strategy to defeat ISIL.

Ambassador McGurk and I met last night with Prime Minister Abadi and National Security Adviser Al-Fayad, where I conveyed the strong, ongoing U.S. support for Iraq in our shared fight against ISIL. And we are continuing to meet with a broad range of actors from across the Iraqi political and military spheres.

As President Obama said in New York during the United Nations General Assembly, Prime Minister Abadi has committed his government to addressing the issues that led to past failures in the security ranks, and has already been replacing commanders and reaching out to all of Iraq’s diverse communities. The United States, like Prime Minister Abadi, believes in a vision of an inclusive Iraq, in which Sunni, Shia, Kurds are all able to come together to peacefully iron out their differences to achieve prosperity and peace for all Iraqis. All Iraqis. We have great respect for the Prime Minister’s vision of the necessary reforms, and strongly support his efforts to reach out to Iraq’s neighbors and to work with them on this shared challenge of degrading and defeating ISIL.

In all of our meetings, I am emphasizing our strong support for Iraqi sovereignty and territorial integrity. And we are committed to working in close support of Iraq regaining territory that ISIL has currently taken over, and making sure that the new government is able to control its territory once ISIL is pushed back.

President Obama and Prime Minister Abadi have been clear: We must build Iraqi capacity to take on the fight. That is why the U.S. will not send combat troops to Iraq, but instead continue our support for Iraqi security forces through military advisers, training, and capacity building. The fight will not be easy, and there will be an ebb and flow on the battlefield as time goes on, particularly as Iraqi leaders appoint new commanders,

reconfigure their formations on the ground, and restore the capacity of their forces. This will take time and will require patience.

To that end, we also discussed how the international coalition can help bring to life Prime Minister Abadi’s vision for an integrated National Guard program. We have appreciated the opportunity here in Baghdad to hear about the Iraqi Government’s work with the provincial and tribal leaders as this plan moves forward from concept to reality, and we applaud this broad-based conversation amongst the Iraqis. The U.S. and some of our international coalition partners will continue to work closely to support that vision, as well.

While naturally the military piece of this is very important, and in all our meetings we are discussing coalition contributions, we also put emphasis on the other lines of effort for the strategy, not just the military support, which obviously gets a lot of attention today, but we also talk about the stopping of the flow of foreign fighters, cutting off ISIL revenue and access to financing, providing humanitarian assistance, and, very importantly, fighting ISIL’s messaging, the idea of ISIL.

And I would like to talk a bit more about that last portion, that last of the five components, because it is something that goes right to the heart of how ISIL will eventually be defeated. As President Obama said before the UN General Assembly a few weeks ago, “The ideology of ISIL will wilt and die if it is consistently exposed and confronted and refuted in the light of day.” So we strongly encourage and we support those voices here in Iraq and in the region articulating what ISIL is, which is an un-

Islamic terrorist entity, spreading a message of hate, undertaking violence and nihilism.

But it is incumbent on all of us in this fight against ISIL to work together, and to offer an alternative vision for the future. ISIL turns frustrated young people into potential agents of terror. To resist ISIL’s lure, these young people have to believe in a different future, one of inclusivity, one of tolerance, and one of economic hope. That is why the United States so strongly supports Prime Minister Abadi’s continued outreach to all Iraqis, and his efforts to build an inclusive Iraq that offers hope and promise for all Iraqis, for all your people.

As President Obama and Secretary Kerry have said, this is ultimately a fight that the Iraqi people will have to win. We cannot win it for you. And it will take time. A single round of airstrikes will not defeat the enemy. That is why we are going after ISIL not just in the battle space, but we are attacking ISIL in the financial space and in the information space, as well.

We can and we will stand shoulder to shoulder with Iraq in this fight. You have suffered greatly at ISIL’s hands. We are here to help you fight back, and to make sure that, once ISIL is defeated, it can never regroup and terrorize the Iraqi people again.

Shukran Jazeelan. With that, I will be happy to take a couple of questions.

MODERATOR: Questions?

QUESTION: (Via translator) There is this impression, General, that the American (inaudible) environment is not that effective right now, and they are ignoring many of the leads that are given to them by the informant and by the Iraqi Government. Do you think that there is a different way to do this? My first question.

Second question is regarding the headquarters of this international coalition. Don't you think that the headquarters should be in Iraq? But we heard a few days ago that it is going to be in Kuwait. Don't you think that would reduce its efficiency, if it was away from the field of operation?

GENERAL ALLEN: I will answer the second one first. I am not going to comment on the operational locations of the headquarters or the command and control. I know we are still building out the force, I know we are still consolidating the coalition. And so I think we need some more time, obviously, to determine where the final location of that will be. There will be, certainly, representatives of the headquarters that will be inside Iraq that will be located -- collocated with your security force leadership. And whether the overall headquarters is ultimately in Kuwait or Iraq, that is a decision that I am not a party to at this particular moment. But I know we will consider all of those locations.

With respect to the first point, I would dispute the contention that the airstrikes to this point have not been effective. In fact, many airstrikes have slowed the momentum or halted the momentum of ISIL as it has moved across the ground. Some of the airstrikes have supported, for example, the retaking of the Mosul Dam, the maintenance of Iraqi governmental support or Iraqi control of the Haditha Dam. Airstrikes have supported counter-attacks, local counter-attacks by Iraqi security forces.

But your point is a good one, and is one that we should continue to try to refine, and that is the information flow to our forces which conduct the airstrikes needs to be closely coordinated. We need to be talking to the Iraqi leadership and the sources of the information on targets, with the idea that we can be the most effective we possibly can be in applying the aerial fire power to support both the Iraqi people, but very importantly, the Iraqi security forces. And that is a process I think we will continually re-evaluate to ensure it is as efficient and as agile as it can be.

Thank you very much, a good question.

QUESTION: (Via translator) (Inaudible) you are the presidential envoy to the -- for the Coalition to Combat ISIS. Do you think that the international coalition intends to completely eliminate ISIS? This is my first question.

The second question, we have some information that (inaudible) is going to be supportive, as well, in training, in arms, and in some advanced weapons. Can you tell us a little bit about some of the advanced weapons that are going to be given to Iraq, and also the training that is going to be provided? Is it going to be provided to the elite forces only, or to the general Iraqi Army?

GENERAL ALLEN: Give me the first part of the question again, please.

QUESTION: (Via translator) Well, the first part is you are the presidential convoy to the Coalition to Combat ISIS. Do you think that the international coalition really intends to completely eliminate ISIS? This is the first question.

GENERAL ALLEN: That is a really important point. The defeat of ISIS, which is the intent, will occur in several ways. And I think it is useful to consider the environment in which ISIS operates.

The traditional environment that we consider is that ISIS operates in the physical space. It takes ground, it holds infrastructure, it dominates populations, it operates in the physical space. Defeating ISIS in the physical space will require a counter-offensive in which we will help to train those forces which will be part of that counter-offensive. We will help with the application of air power in support of those activities in the counter-offensive to liberate terrain, to liberate people.

Coming in right behind those military actions will be a strong humanitarian assistance, as well, to rescue the populations from the oppression of ISIS, to provide relief to the people that have suffered so much.

And the successful portion of the campaign, as it relates to Iraq, will be that, ISIS, as an identifiable organization, will cease to exist inside Iraq. That doesn't mean that every single member of ISIS has been eliminated. But the organization has ceased to exist. There are no safe havens, there is no capacity to challenge Iraqi security forces and, ultimately, to dominate the people. That is in the physical space.

But ISIS operates in several other spaces, as well. It operates in the financial space, and it generates a lot of revenue. And while the counter-attack against ISIS in the physical space is underway, there is going to be a very concerted international effort to attack ISIS in the financial space also, to try to deny it the revenue that it generates every single day that gives it the oxygen that it breathes to give it some effectiveness. And we want to choke off its finances, to choke off that oxygen, to cause it to begin to wilt from within.

Your point is even more important when you think about the other space in which it operates. It operates in the information space. And in some cases ISIS is much less effective in the physical space than it is terrorizing in the information space. And it achieves great effect in the information space. And we not only want to compete with ISIS in the information space, in the space of ideas, we want to contest that space. We want to deny that space to ISIS by a broad-based consensus of the participants in the coalition and, more broadly, the international community that what ISIS stands for is something that is so reprehensible and so odious, that the global community repudiates the very idea of ISIS.

So, as the physical attack is occurring, as the financial attack is occurring, we are attacking the very idea that gives life to ISIS as an ideology.

But it is broader than ISIS. It is more broadly-based than ISIS. It is about terrorism. It is about extremism. It is about attacking those issues, ultimately, that have given rise to ISIS. So that is a really important question, and I hope I have given you some thoughts in that regard.

The other piece of this is the training that will -- we will undertake. It is not just for the special operators, your special forces. And, by the way, your special forces are some of the best on the planet; they are very, very good. This is about restoring the capabilities of the Iraqi Army. And as we work closely with your government, and work closely with the Iraqi Army to determine the size of that army and its organization, there will be decisions that will be made on the means to move that army -- in other words, how it will be transported across a battle space, some of which will be in wheeled vehicles, some of which will be in armored vehicles -- and the weapons systems that will be made available to that Iraqi Army, that refurbished Iraqi Army, so it is a competent, capable, and credible combined-arms force.

Now, I can't go into the details with you on that, because decisions are still being made. But we are committed to doing that. And thank you for that question.

antiwar.com
jason ditz

the los angeles times
the new york times
tim arrango

Sunday, October 05, 2014

Idiot of the week

Worthless sack of s**t Robert Parry wins another Idiot of the Week.

It's really time for him to be put away in a mental institution to get the help he needs.

Puss&Boots Parry has written another column. He's a hoppin' mad about Syria. And he's made about what Barack's done.

So he writes a piece slamming columnist David Ignatius for what Barack did.

Nutless Parry can never hold Barack accountable.

He dreams of the day when Barack will take him and make him a concubine.

Until that day comes, he can wet dream, can't he?

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

Saturday, October 4, 2014. Chaos and violence continue, Barack's big 'plan' continues to show no results and we take an in depth look at US failure Chris Hill and his latest attempt at revisionary history.

Mitchell Prothero (McClatchy Newspapers) reports:

Islamic State militants have taken control of key cities in Iraq’s western province of Anbar and have begun to besiege one of the country’s largest military bases in a weeklong offensive that’s brought them within artillery range of Baghdad.
The Islamic State and its tribal allies have dominated Anbar since a surprise offensive last December, but this week’s push was particularly worrisome, because for the first time this year Islamist insurgents were reported to have become a major presence in Abu Ghraib, the last Anbar town on the outskirts of the capital.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/10/03/242105_islamic-state-reportedly-on-baghdads.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

How's US President Barack Obama's 'plan' for Iraq working out?

AP reports the Islamic State "shot down an Iraqi military attack helicopter" near Baiji on Friday. NINA adds both pilots were killed in the crash.

Again, how's that 'plan' of Barack's working out?

All Iraq News reports that Alan Hennin, a UK aid worker, has been shown beheaded in a video released by the Islamic State -- following their previous video releases of the beheadings of "two U.S. journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff and a British aid worker, David Haines."

We know the question, right? How's the 'plan' working out?

So let's move to something else.

And I have to start with a disclaimer: I'm not voting for Hillary Clinton if she runs for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination and, should she seek the nomination and receive it, I won't be voting for her in the general election. She lost my support for a number of reasons and that was obvious when she behaved like a rabid dog in her infamous 'what difference would it make' moment before Congress which encapsulated her tenure as Secretary of State, where she refused oversight and served four years without an Inspector General. John Kerry, by contrast, only had to be asked by a Congressional committee once, right after he became Secretary of State, and he promised they would have an IG by the end of the year and they had one a little over four months after he made that promise.

I know Hillary -- or I thought I did. I don't know that beastly creature who appeared before Congress, refused to take accountability and belittled the deaths of 4 Americans with 'what difference does it make.' As with her 1992 idiotic comments regarding baking cookies and offending Tammy Wynette, Hillary can't keep her damn feet out of her own mouth. She would make a lousy president for that reason alone. Her mouth always gets her in trouble. As an independent critic, she can say whatever she wants. As a member of the Senate, she only needs to please a plurality of voters in a state. As president, she would be a frightmare.

If you want to vote for her, that's your business. I'm not here to tell you who to vote for. I probably, as I did in 2012, will vote for every office but the president in 2016. I don't see anyone earning my vote -- I'd love to be surprised on that -- and I refuse to be part of the fear campaign. In 2004, when The Nation magazine couldn't stop heavy panting that it was the torture election and the whole world would end, and that women would be enslaved and blah blah blah blah. It was just too much. I don't live in fear and I don't cower.

You can vote however you want, it's your vote. You should use it as you feel comfortable -- and that might mean supporting Hillary or a GOP candidate or whomever or it might mean making the choice not to vote for any of them. Your vote belongs to you and you need to use it in a way that you are satisfied with.

In what follows, there will be some defense of Hillary and there will be some criticism. This is about what happened, it's not about swaying your vote. I don't care who you vote for. If I know you personally, my only care is that you're happy with your vote at the time of your vote.

I think we've been the biggest and most vocal critic from the left of Barack Obama. There will likely be favorable comments on Barack which follow in this. He's a War Hawk. I don't support him. In 2008, I didn't vote for him (first time I ever didn't vote for a Democrat for president) and instead went with a non-duopoly candidate.

If I was Salon ragazine, I wouldn't be focusing what we're about to.

Former US Ambassador to Iraq Chris Hill has told a pack of lies.

Those lies smear Hillary and Barack. If they were personally smeared -- Hillary or Barack said to be gay in Hill's efforts to court homophobia, for example -- I wouldn't waste time on the issue. But this is about Iraq and that's what we cover.

Chris Hill is responsible for what went wrong in Iraq and for where Iraq is today. He's not solely responsible. Barack's responsible, for example, for nominating him, for trusting him for far too long and for a few other things.

But Hill's nonsense at POLITICO -- where else does nonsense go -- oh, right, Salon! -- is nothing but lies and spin.

Hill betrayed Barack's nomination and trust by doing a half-assed job and repeatedly lying to the administration about what was taking place in Iraq.

Hill betrayed Barack. Not the other way around as Hill tries to paint it in his bad essay.

Hill insists that Hillary gave him no support when she was Secretary of State in 2009, she made one trip to Iraq and she left him alone and whine, whine, whine.

Hillary wasn't over Iraq.

She might have liked to have been but Barack wasn't going to put her over Iraq.

Two reasons were Samantha Power. She was Barack's advisor when he was in the Senate and she's had his ear ever since. Power did not want Hillary in the administration (she can spin that if she wants but she didn't want Hillary in the administration at all -- however, once the two had to work together, they did get along -- Hillary can win people over and Power saw that she had misjudged Hillary and could own that reality). That's reason one. Reason two, which Power used to ensure Hillary wasn't in charge of Iraq, was that Hillary supported the Iraq War at the start. Power said that judgment was fatal to moving forward in Iraq. (Power herself supported the illegal war -- a fact she's denied and one that the press, in 2008, was eager to help her bury.)

Power was personally against Hillary and Hillary had supported the war and was notorious for that support.

Those are two reason which carried weight with Barack.

Here's the third:

During my last visit to Iraq in January, I expressed my reservations about the ability of the Iraqi government, led by Prime Minister Maliki, to make the tough political decisions necessary for Iraq to resolve its sectarian divisions. Since my visit, Iraqi leaders have not met their own political benchmarks to share power, modify the de-Ba'athification laws, pass an oil law, schedule provincial elections, and amend their constitution. During his trip to Iraq last week, Senator Carl Levin, the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee on which I serve, confirmed that the Iraqi Government’s failures have reinforced the widely held view that the Maliki government is nonfunctional and cannot produce a political settlement, because it is too beholden to religious and sectarian leaders.
I share Senator Levin’s hope that the Iraqi parliament will replace Prime Minister Maliki with a less divisive and more unifying figure when it returns in a few weeks.

That statement was released by then-Senator Hillary Clinton in August of 2007.

I happen to agree with her -- and with Carl Levin.

I think history and events since certainly demonstrate how accurate her publicly expressed hope was -- that the Parliament would vote Nouri out of office -- it would have been a no-confidence vote (which was attempted in the spring of 2012 but blocked by the White House via Jalal Talabani).

But here's was the thing for Barack -- how could Hillary be Secretary of State and interact with Nouri?

She couldn't.

So she was not the lead on Iraq.

That's why she traveled, she had a lot of time to fill. Unlike her predecessor Condi Rice, Hillary was not a lead on Iraq.

She can rightly step away -- to some degree -- from the chaos in Iraq now because she was not a lead on this issue.

Nouri al-Maliki was notoriously paranoid. We explained that here and how the State Dept had documented it and some wanted to scoff but, years later, the WikiLeaks Iraq State Dept cables demonstrated we were right and the term "paranoid" is applied to Nouri in them.

Nouri could not have worked with Hillary in any form because of her statements. The White House knew that and addressed that.

For those late to the party, Nouri al-Maliki was only booted out as prime minister over the summer. His reign of terror ran from 2006 to 2014.

So for Chris Hill to lie and claim that Hillary wasn't there for him -- his snide remark about her ability to charm included -- is just a pack of lies. And he was not her nominee.

He was Barack's nominee.

Let's note another liar, CIA contractor Juan Cole. The day after Hillary issued her statement we noted above -- a week after Carl Levin made his (Carl's statement was a joint statement with Senator John Warner) -- Juan 'discovers' a rumor that there is a plot to topple Nouri. It turns out, Juan insists, Bully Boy Bush wants to get rid of Nouri.

These lies were then spread by venereal disease carrier Daily Kos which reposted Juan's 'proof' that Ayad Allawi was going to be the new pm because -- among other things -- Allawi penned a column for the Washington Post!

How sinsister!!!!

Juan just makes s**t up -- or maybe follows CIA orders, who knows.

But Bully Boy Bush was not walking away from Nouri and you can say, "Well, C.I., sure, we know that now but back then --"

Back then, we knew it too.

Hillary's statement that we quoted?

A response for Bully Boy Bush's praise of Nouri to the VFW just before she released her statement. Her statement was in response to Bully Boy Bush's comments.

From the White House transcript of that August 22, 2007 speech to the VFW:

Bully Boy Bush: Prime Minister Maliki is a good guy, a good man with a difficult job, and I support him. And it's not up to politicians in Washington, D.C. to say whether he will remain in his position -- that is up to the Iraqi people who now live in a democracy, and not a dictatorship. (Applause.) A free Iraq is not going to transform the Middle East overnight. But a free Iraq will be a massive defeat for al Qaeda, it will be an example that provides hope for millions throughout the Middle East, it will be a friend of the United States, and it's going to be an important ally in the ideological struggle of the 21st century. (Applause.)

The next day, at his (un)Informed Comment, Juan Cole was spreading lies that Bully Boy Bush was walking away from 'poor' Nouri. Cole hadn't read the speech and, as usual, didn't know a damn thing.

Back to Hill, Barack made a mistake in choosing Chris.

In his article, Chris wants to paint Barack as disengaged and uninformed.

On some topics, that is true of Barack and his presidency.

But no one was more disengaged from Iraq and uninformed than Chris Hill.

At the start of his presidency, Barack cared a great deal about Iraq because it was how he won the White House. He wrongly agreed to back Nouri in 2010 and that was based in part on Samantha Power insisting US forces would not be able to drawdown at the end of 2011 without the "stability" (the term she used) Nouri provided the country.

In 2010, Ayad al-Allawi won the elections.

Power felt Allawi as prime minister was a question mark and she noted his "populist leanings" (again, her term) and how this could be a problem for the US because Nouri had no desire to represent the Iraqi people and was more inclined to ignore the will of the Iraqi people. (Which does sum up his two terms as prime minister, on that Power was correct.)

Barack ultimately bears responsibility. He is president and he made the decision.

But would he have made it if he received accurate reports?

If the administration received accurate reports, I doubt even Samantha Power would have backed Nouri. I think she would have smelled the stench wafting off him and how damaging he could be to her image of "Never Again!" and argued that Barack shouldn't support him for a second term.

Chris Hill was unsuited for the job he was nominated to perform.

He did not speak Arabic. He had no knowledge of the Middle East and was an idiot when it came to Iraq.

We covered his confirmation hearing (see the March 25, 2009 snapshot and the March 26th snapshot ) and, despite weeks of briefing, he still didn't understand what was going on, what the issues were or what the facts were. (He also showed up at the confirmation hearing with his hair needing to be combed and a food stain on his shirt. Was he applying for night manager at Denny's or US Ambassador to Iraq?)

Though he didn't know anything about Iraq -- most evident by his failure to grasp the importance of Kirkuk but also present in his testifying under oath that Nouri was now paying Sawha (Nouri was not) -- he presumably did know how to make a promise and his promise to the Committee was that if they confirmed him, he would be in Iraq the next day.

His first lie.

People say a lot when they want the job
Lining up eager around the block
Promising, promising never to quit
Well it's a full time job to be a hypocrite
Maybe they remember that they've done it before
Practicing, with their dolls on the floor
The lie itself becoming the seed
The messy mascara, the future deed
The actor's bow, the junkie's need
They line up again just to wipe you clean
-- "People Say A Lot When They Want The Job," written by Carly Simon, first appears on her This Kind of Love

April 21st Chris was confirmed.

He didn't drag his tired ass to Baghdad until April 25th.

He broke his promise.

It registered here because if someone appears before a Congressional committee and gives their word, even uses the words "I promise, if confirmed," we pay attention to whether those are empty words or a promise kept.

Upon arriving, his chief concern was: Where is the press?

He wanted to be a media star. But the cherubic looks (never handsome or pretty) had faded due to age, balding and weight gain. So he'd have to attract media attention some other way.

Hill takes a swipe at Allawi in his essay, insisting Allawi was more interested in being on CNN than anything else. It's called "projection" -- Hill's projecting his own desires and aims on to others.

In that section, he also insists that, while he was in Iraq in 2010, Allawi was more interested in going on CNN and calling Nouri the new Saddam.

That's interesting.

It didn't happen while Chris was US Ambassador to Iraq.

But if Chris couldn't make s**t up, what would he do?

Tell the truth?

Oh, we're all laughing at that slim prospect.

While Hill struggled to get media attention -- he fared better with NPR where endless jawboning often passes for 'discussion' -- the media was interested in the top US commander in Iraq, Gen Ray Odierno. That was true the weekend Hill arrived and it remained true throughout.

While Chris went through a phase of wanting to be called "Christopher" and then "Mr. Hill" and then, when he wanted to be liked, "Call me, Chris," Odierno, the moment he was named top US commander in Iraq, stated publicly he was "Ray," not "Raymond."

Odierno was down-to-earth and plain spoken which made for good copy. He also looked like a man. Hill babbled and looked like a soft overgrown boy.

Those working under Chris saw nothing "soft," they saw a diva throwing tantrums -- and hurling objects in the office -- when his daily schedule failed to include the media. Explaining that the media wasn't interested led Chris to explode, then pout, then hide out in his office napping.

While Hill was napping, Odierno was working.

He was rightly suspicious of Nouri al-Maliki. He felt Nouri was harmful to Iraq.

Possibly because he wanted to get attention, Hill countered those observations by insisting Nouri was a real leader and a friend to America and blah blah blah.

Now maybe Chris believed those lines, he is and was deeply stupid. But it's very likely he took that position just to counter Odierno and in the hopes that it would garner him attention.

Hill's views fed into Samantha Powers' views (again, had Hill been honest, I seriously doubt Power would have thrown her name behind Nouri).

Barack now had both his most trusted advisor (Power) and his ambassador to Iraq insisting Nouri was the answer to all the problems.

And Ray Odierno began to be shut out by the administration.

He was informed he was not to speak to the media anymore because it disturbed the diva Chris Hill.

Worse than that was the White House blew off Odierno's input.

Months before the March 2010 elections, Odierno wanted the White House to deal with a possibility no one wanted to consider.

What, Odierno wanted to know, does the US government do if Nouri loses the election and refuses to step down?

Hill insisted that would never happen and it was a waste of time to even consider. That became the answer for the White House.

In March 2010, Iraq held elections and Nouri lost to Ayad Allawi. What followed was a political stalemate that led Iraq to set the world record (it has since been reset) for the longest time between an election and the formation of a government.

This was due to the fact that, although Nouri lost, Nouri refused to step down.

In other words, what Odierno tried to get the White House to prepare for, the very thing Hill insisted would never happen, was taking place.

In his essay, Hill ignores Odierno's pre-election warning and brings up a post-election comment Odierno made that Nouri was attempting a "rolling coup d'tat" and Hill says he was shocked by the comment that came out of nowhere. Hill is such a liar.

Much worse was taking place in Iraq and Hill was lying that everything was moving smoothly and a new government was only weeks away -- a lie he repeated monthly.

In fact, when he finally left August 13, 2010, Hill was still repeating these lies.

That day the late Anthony Shadid (New York Times) reported, "Hours before his departure from Baghdad, he said a power-sharing arrangement between the main winners in the March election was just weeks away."

August 13 to November 10?

That is "weeks."

In fact, it's around twelve weeks or three months away.

Hill never knew a damn thing. He lied or he babbled stupidity.

To his credit, Shadid noted in his report that Iraqi officials were not rushing to agree with Hill.

Shadid also pointed out, "Preparation for the election, the vote and the negotiations on a new government have dominated the tenure of Mr. Hill, who took over the American Embassy at a time when Iraq was less violent and more stable, but only in comparison to the anarchic months of 2006 and 2007."

Hill wasted everything was built up in Iraq.

He turned a blind eye to Nouri's abuses, rushed to throw his lost (and the US government's lot) in with Nouri.

He withheld any bad information about Nouri from President Barack Obama.

It was left to Odierno to bring reality into the picture and he met with then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to basically say Hill was shading the truth and misleading the administration.

Gates listened and evaluated and then took Odierno to meet with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She and Gates then met with Barack to discuss the newly discovered problem.

And that is why Hill was fired -- and he was asked to hand over his resignation -- as US Ambassador to Iraq.

Hill was a liar and served Nouri al-Maliki, not the US government, not the American people. The day he left Iraq, Alsumaria TV reported, "Hill explained that the political situation in Iraq is normal and doesn’t differ from any other country where the difference is slight between two winning parties."

He couldn't stop lying and since then all he's done is try to salvage his reputation with more lies.

Barack put Vice President Joe Biden over Iraq. Hill apparently did not like that. Nor did he like the fact that Joe was popular with a number of Iraqi politicians -- including then-President of Iraq Jalal Talabani, KRG President Massoud Barzani, Ayad Allawi and others.

Hill can't stop revealing his own bias such as when he types "Ayad Allawi’s Iraq National Party, or Iraqiyya, a party that was disproportionately Sunni, won 91 seats, while Maliki’s State of Law coalition had 89 seats." Disproportionately Sunni?

What was State of Law but approximately 97% Shi'ite?

Iraqiya, Allawi's party, was not sectarian -- it was inclusive and that included Shi'ites (like Allawi) and Sunnis (such as Tareq al-Hashemi, Saleh al-Mutlaq, Osama al-Nujaif and others). The success of Iraqiya was a testament to the Iraqi people and their desire for a united Iraqi identity and not one based on sect. Hill misses that today as he did in real time.

Barack deserves blame for the current state of Iraq. But for Hill to pretend he did not mislead Barack in his 'reports' from Iraq is a lie.

Samantha Power is a War Hawk. She's also someone who has sold herself to the public as being on the side of right and not might, as someone who will protect the innocents from genocides. She would not have ever risked her self-created reputation for Nouri had Hill not dismissed reports (of secret prisons) and insisted Nouri was willing to work with everyone and wanted inclusion and . . .

If he had told the truth, even a little of it, Power would have dropped her support for Nouri -- if only to protect her own image.

Without Power pressing on Nouri, Barack would have walked away from Nouri.

Following the start of Nouri's second term -- after Barack had personally phoned Ayad Allawi and made (false) promises to get Allawi to call off the Parliamentary boycott, Barack did walk away.

Whether that was smart or not we can discuss at another time.

But Barack did learn quickly, in part from the reports of new US Ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey, that Nouri was not as Hill had presented.

Barack cut Nouri out.

He made no efforts with Nouri leading Nouri to whine that Bully Boy Bush would call him and teleconference with him and do this and do that but Barack did nothing.

Barack did do something.

What had been perceived as indifference became recognized shunning when, following the 2012 elections, Nouri made a call to the White House to congratulate Barack and Barack refused to take the call.

Hill had it easier than any US Ambassador. When he arrived in Baghdad, violence was lower than during the ethnic cleansing. There was hope among the Iraqi people that the US troops would be leaving (due to the SOFA). The US Embassy in Baghdad was the largest US embassy in the world.

Hill had it better hitting the ground than any US Ambassador to Iraq since the start of the Iraq War -- anyone before or after Hill.

And he misjudged and misreported and played footsie with Nouri.

Nouri had already begun targeting Iraq's LGBT community when Hill was US Ambassador to Iraq.

It's so funny -- and hypocritical -- that the Denver Post refuses to point out that their now-local academic Hill was in Iraq when that started since the Denver Post was one of the few US newspapers -- and, in fact, the first -- to run an editorial decrying the targeting of Iraq's LGBT community.

Next time Hill wants to talk or write Iraq, people should be demanding not only honesty, but also that he answer for the targeting of Iraq's LGBT community.

The sick f**k should also be asked to explain this.

Remember that?

It's then-US Ambassador to Iraq Chris Hill in Baghdad at a Halloween party. Peter Van Buren posted the photo to his blog here and here.

The US Ambassador has gone as a Secret Agent and the little trollop whore next to him is the First Lady. She's a whore. Not Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The whore is the State Dept employee who thought it was funny to dress in the outfit the First Lady wore the day her husband was assassinated.

This is the US Embassy in Baghdad. With the head diplomat.

Hill is a disgrace for many reasons and that photo is just one of them. The death of president isn't funny. The assassination even less so. If talented comedians want to mine the terrain for humor, more power to them; however US government officials are not comedians -- no matter how many unintentional laughs they garner.

iraq
national iraqi news agency
all iraq news
mcclatchy newspapers
mitchell prothero

Friday, October 03, 2014

Rot in hell, David Corn

If you were reading online in 2003, you might have learned of Gary Webb. The journalist was noted a lot more as the Iraq War was starting. He had told the truth earlier, about how the Reagan administration was involved in the coke trade due to their relationship with the Contras.

It was an explosive story for the San Jose Mercury News in the 90s and it was probably the first indication of the power of the net because it was the internet that got the story out.

The CIA pushed back against Webb.

No one did more than CIA 'friend' David Corn. He's with Mother Jones now where his mouth is attached to Barack's scrotum. But back then he was at The Nation. And he trashed Gary Webb and lied about Gary Webb.

He was part of the group working to destroy Webb (who apparently took his own life).

Thomas Gaist (WSWS) reports:

An analysis written for the CIA's internal journal Studies in Intelligence, “Managing a Nightmare: CIA Public Affairs and the Drug Conspiracy Story,” attributed to Nicholas Dujmovic, reviews the efforts of the agency to contain a series of articles by journalist Gary Webb documenting relationships between the CIA and US-backed Contra rebels.
The article is part of a trove of CIA documents released on September 18 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
As shock troops in a US-backed war against the Nicaraguan government, the Contras carried out a reign of terror against Nicaragua's civilian population, killing tens of thousands. Support for the Contras by US intelligence was authorized by President Ronald Reagan, who instructed CIA head William Casey to “support and conduct … paramilitary operations” in Nicaragua in 1981.
The CIA began operations aimed at expanding the ranks of the Contra forces, which were recruited from elite military units of the Somoza regime and from layers of the peasantry. Arms shipments to the Contras were overseen by a secret cabal headed by Lt. Colonel Oliver North, despite a congressional prohibition.

It's time for David Corn and the other liars to be held accountable.

Do your part by not visiting Mother Jones' website. Don't reward an outlet that employees someone who does the bidding of the C
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, October 2, 2014. Chaos and violence continue, Australia is set to join in the bombing of Iraq, Leon Panetta tells some uncomfortable truths, Salon sends the lightest weight in their bordello out to 'argue' against Panetta, the administration finally wants to focus some on diplomatic efforts at a political solution in Iraq, and much more.

US President Barack Obama's Better Living Through Bombing 'plan' just officially got another partner.

Mark Di Stefano ‏@MarkDiStef 2h2 hours ago

BREAKING: Prime Minister Tony Abbott confirms Australia now joins air-strikes in Iraq @BuzzFeedNews

While Australia joins the UK and US in the bombings, , DPA reports that Germany's Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen declared today that her country will be sending an unspecified number of "military doctors" into northern Iraq.

The contrast between Germany's approach and Barack's is telling.

Let's move to this:

The deal never materialized. To this day, I believe that a small U.S. troop presence in Iraq could have effectively advised the Iraqi military on how to deal with al-Qaeda’s resurgence and the sectarian violence that has engulfed the country.
Over the following two and a half years, the situation in Iraq slowly deteriorated. Al-Maliki was responsible, as he exacerbated the deep sectarian issues polarizing his country. Meanwhile, with the conflict in Syria raging, an al-Qaeda offshoot—ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria—gained strength. Using Syria as its base, it began to move into Iraq in 2014, grabbing power in towns and villages across Iraq’s north, including Mosul and Tall ‘Afar. These were strategically important cities that U.S. forces had fought and died to secure.

That's from an excerpt of Leon Panetta and Jim Newton's Worthy Fight -- from an excerpt which Time magazine has published. (October 7th, Penguin Press publishes the book.) Panetta has served in the US army (where he rose to the rank of First Lieutenant), the US House of Representatives, as the Director of Office of Management and Budget during Bill Clinton's presidency, as the White House Chief of Staff during Bill's presidency, as the Director of the CIA during Barack Obama's presidency and finally as Secretary of Defense during Barack's presidency. As disclosed before, I know Leon and have known him for years.

The deal?

The deal Panetta's referring to.

Leaving thousands of US troops in Iraq after December 31, 2011.

Panetta explains he wanted it, others in Defense and State wanted and US President Barack Obama had an attitude if they put it together he was for it but he wasn't going to help them in any way.

The lackadaisical president?

Yes, that is Barack. What people who have left the administration attempt to figure out is Barack so tentative because he's afraid of making a mistake or is he just bored?

The American people thought -- those who voted for him -- that they had someone who would fight for them and then discovered he could rouse himself for the corporations -- who donated so often and so well to his campaigns -- but he had no stomach for fighting for the people.

The book -- yes, I've read it -- goes beyond Iraq -- and will be carried beyond Iraq -- to paint a portrait that the mainstream press has largely shielded the public from.

Which is why the whores of Salon come out swinging.

Like den mother Joan Walsh, the kids of Salon barely pass for half-wits.

Simon Maloy is the joke chosen to feed comfort food to Salon's uninformed readers.

Simon kicks off things with a factual inaccuracy -- what most would call a lie:

Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta caused quite a stir today when he wrote a piece for Time magazine laying blame for the current chaos in Iraq at the feet of the Obama administration.

That's it, that's the moron the whores of Salon send out?

Leon wrote a book -- co-wrote.

"Wrote a piece for Time"?

Time is excerpting the book.

How damn stupid is Simon Maloy?

And how the hell did even the gutter trash of Salon see fit to let this surface?

After insulting Republicans -- that's all Joan Walsh decaying and demented crew can handle -- Simon then wants to lie some more or just flaunt his damn stupidity -- and he's pretty damn stupid:

To sum up the situation: in late 2008, George W. Bush and Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki signed a security agreement stipulating that all U.S. troops would be withdrawn from the country by the end of 2011. Starting in 2010, the Obama administration began negotiating with the Iraqis to rejigger the agreement to allow a small residual force of American soldiers to remain behind. Those negotiations were ultimately unsuccessful. By October 2011 both sides had agreed that all troops would be gone by the end of that year, in accordance with the original security agreement.

Is that summing up?

Is it, really?

It's lying, that's for damn sure.

Then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta: Senator, as I pointed out in my testimony, what we seek with Iraq is a normal relationship now and that does involve continuing negotiations with them as to what their needs are. Uh, and I believe there will be continuing negotations. We're in negotiations now with regards to the size of the security office that will be there and so there will be -- There aren't zero troops that are going to be there. We'll have, you know, hundreds that will be present by virtue of that office assuming we can work out an agreement there. But I think that once we've completed the implementation of the security agreement that there will begin a series of negotiations about what exactly are additional areas where we can be of assistance? What level of trainers do they need? What can we do with regards to CT [Counter-Terrorism] operations? What will we do on exercises -- joint-exercises -- that work together?

"By October 2011 both sides had agreed that all troops would be gone by the end of that year, in accordance with the original security agreement," Simon scribbles.

Then why did Leon tell the Senate Armed Services Committee the sentences I just quoted above?

They're from the November 15, 2011 snapshot.

That snapshot is covering that day's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. [Community reporting on that hearing also includes the November 16, 2011 "Iraq snapshot," the November 17, 2011 "Iraq snapshot," by Ava in "Scott Brown questions Panetta and Dempsey (Ava)," by Wally with "The costs (Wally)," by Kat in "Who wanted what?" and by Third Estate Sunday Review in "Enduring bases, staging platforms, continued war" and "Gen Dempsey talks "10 enduring" US bases in Iraq."]

Both sides had not agreed by the end of October 2011, negotiations continued.

I'm real sorry that Simon and Salon are cheap, lying whores who never do the work required. You'd think if you'd signed on to whore and lie for Barack, you'd put a little more effort into lying convincingly.

Simon's a piece of trash.

He's aware of that hearing. In limited form.

He's basically cribbed Kat's report noted above.

He 'magically' notes the exchange she reported on, that she quoted.

But she did it back in November 2011.

And she also understands the context which has escaped a thief and liar like Simon who goes around grabbing the work of others but, having not been at the hearing or even went to the archives to watch the hearings, he doesn't understand the exchange at all.

Simon's a liar. He's a thief. He's a whore.

He couldn't work anywhere but Salon.

And that the left puts up with Salon because it tells pleasing lies about the White House?

Joan Walsh should have been escorted to a padded cell years ago.

Maybe when she was attacking Latinos and Latinas? She doesn't want you to know about that. She probably doesn't stand by that xenophobia now either.

But then she doesn't stand by anything. She recasts herself daily based on the shifting winds of popularity.

America needs reporting. It can take informed commentary as well. But this nonsense of partisan attack squads passing themselves off as journalists?

These people are whores. Whether they're whoring for Bully Boy Bush or whoring for Barack Obama, they're whores. They may tell you a pleasing lie -- a whore will say whatever it takes to turn a trick -- but they don't inform you, they don't make your life or anyone else's better.

Since February 2003, I have publicly spoken out against the Iraq War -- then it was the impending war, now it's the never-ending war. Since November 2004, I've been online here and, starting in January 2005, helping at Third.

I didn't pull punches or kiss as when Bully Boy Bush was running the illegal war and I don't now that it's Barack. My positions don't change because the White House flips parties or the House or whatever.

There is no consistency to Salon -- it's not the only bordello posing as a news or media outlet.

As someone who has thought about Iraq every day (and written about it every day) -- regardless of whether it's a 'hot topic' or not -- it bothers me tremendously when little whores bring their disease ridden bodies out in public and attempt to rewrite basic facts to benefit whatever politician they're having wet dreams over today.

Iraq matters.

It matters all by itself, without noting US losses (no one should have died in the illegal war).

It matters because it's not a thing, it's not an object.

It is a land where millions of people try to live -- in spite of the bombings by this faction or that faction or the US government or the British government or . . .

Salon and the other whores reduce Iraq to a political football, something they can attack Republicans with or improve Democrats' image with.

Iraq is not a political football.

It is the home to millions. It was the home to over a million Iraqis who died in this illegal war, this unprovoked attack on their country.

I don't have any respect for some cheap whore who wants to turn it into 'Barack was right!' or 'Bush was right!'

They have never suffered the way the Iraqi people have suffered and continue to suffer.

If you're so divorced from humanity that you can't recognize their suffering, at least have the brains to stop using them to prop up your political paper dolls.

14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi was gang-raped by US soldiers while her parents and five-year-old sister were murdered in the next room and then Abeer was murdered.

That 2006 War Crime? Salon gave it 9 mentions. Two of those were with regards to Brian De Palma's classic film Redacted. Only 1 of the 9 was a piece about Abeer. In the other 8, she's an aside.

That's how Salon 'covered' it. One brief report in 2006 and then name dropping her in 8 more articles -- briefly name dropping her.

We didn't ignore Abeer here. And we followed the Article 32 hearing on the War Crimes, we then followed the courts-martial on it and the civil criminal case against ringleader Steven Dale Green.

When Nouri al-Maliki was targeting Iraqi youth who were either gay or perceived as gay, we spent months covering it here.

Salon?

They had US politicians to whore for.

Over and over, as Iraqis suffered, Salon turned a blind eye. Now they want to act as experts on Iraq? A whore will tell you anything up until the point that the money changes hands.

Rebecca Kaplan (CBS News) reports -- reports -- on Panetta's remarks here.

Partisans have attacked Senator John McCain for his remarks about the agreement not reached with Iraq. They have called him a liar and worse. I've called him many things here (check the archives) and few of them nice but I have defended him from the claims that he's lied re: the agreement process. I don't like John McCain (I do like and know Cindy McCain), I would never vote for John McCain but, unlike Salon, I'm not interested in authoring political erotica. McCain was not lying and today he and Senator Lindsey Graham issued this statement:

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) today released the following comment on statements made this week by former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Ambassador Ryan Crocker confirming that the Obama Administration could have reached an agreement to leave residual forces in Iraq, but never made a full effort, despite being warned that failing to do so may lead to the situation we are in today in Iraq:
“The latest statements by two of the most respected national security officials to serve under President Obama definitively refute the falsehood that this Administration has told the American people for years about their efforts to leave a residual force in Iraq,” said Senators McCain and Graham. “As we have said all along, and as Secretary Panetta and Ambassador Crocker have now confirmed, the Obama Administration never made a full effort to leave a residual force in Iraq, despite being warned that failing to do so would risk exactly the scenario we’ve seen unfold today, with the emergence of terrorist safe-havens as Iraq slides back into chaos, threatening America’s national security.”
Below are Secretary Panetta’s book excerpt in TIME Magazine and Ambassador Crocker’s Defense One interview.

At some point, the whores will start the 'what difference does it make' and 'let's not rehash the past' arguments -- as they realize they have no ground to stand on, they'll shift to silencing the topic itself.

But what happened does matter and understanding it can help with what's happening currently in Iraq.

Barack keeps insisting he has a 'plan.' Like Bully Boy Bush, he doesn't. Like Bully Boy Bush, he's merely passing it on to the next occupant of the White House.

Jen Psaki, State Dept spokesperson, offered an overview of the 'plan' today that made more sense than anything anyone else in the administration has been able to offer:

Finally, as you may all have seen, Special President – Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL General John Allen and Deputy Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk arrived in Iraq today for intensive consultations with Iraqi Government officials and regional Iraqi leaders on how the United States can support Iraq in the fight against ISIL. That Special Envoy Allen went to Iraq for his first international trip in his new capacity speaks to the importance of – the United States places on coordination with and support for Iraq as we build this global coalition to degrade and defeat ISIL. General Allen and Ambassador McGurk’s discussions in Iraq and elsewhere will follow on the coalition-building efforts that President Obama and Secretary Kerry led at the NATO summit in Wales, during meetings in Jeddah and in Cairo, and most recently in New York at UNGA.
From Iraq, General Allen and Ambassador McGurk will travel on to Brussels for meetings with NATO and EU leadership, where the focus will be cracking down on ISIL’s foreign fighter pipeline and countering its financing streams. Then they will travel on to Amman for consultations with Jordanian officials and key regional players. From Amman they will travel to Cairo to meet with Egyptian Government officials and the Arab League ambassadors. Their conversations there will follow on President Obama’s recent meeting with President Sisi in New York and Secretary Kerry’s discussions during his last trip to Cairo. They will finally conclude their visit in Turkey, a key NATO ally, where they will meet with Turkish military and political leaders to discuss their potential contributions to the international coalition, including combating the threat from foreign fighters. In Turkey, they will also meet with Syrian opposition leaders, both affirming our continued support for their brave efforts in the fight against ISIL and continuing our ongoing dialogue about the best ways to support these efforts.

In conversations with General Allen and Ambassador McGurk – in these conversations they will have they will discuss coalition cooperation across the five lines of effort – not just military support for our partners, but also – with our partners, I should say, but also stopping foreign fighters, slashing ISIL’s access to financing, maximizing humanitarian assistance and protection for vulnerable victims of the conflict, and exposing ISIL’s extremist, nihilistic message for what it really is. There’s been lots of attention paid to the military component, as we’ve discussed in here, but this trip is about more than that. It’s about expanding this coalition and about building on the five lines of effort that they’re focused on. They will also finally return to the region later this month to meet with other key coalition partners as well, so this will be the first of a number of trips.

Let's hope the administration is finally going to work the diplomatic angle.

Psaki was speaking at today's State Dept press briefing.

She raised the issue of Iraq herself and did so before taking questions.

Maybe she felt she had to since all week long reporters at the briefings have ignored Iraq?

We'll note this from today's briefing:

QUESTION: When he will be arriving to Ankara, Ambassador McGurk and General Allen?

MS. PSAKI: Next week. But again, we’re still finalizing some specifics about the trip. So I think we’ll have more technical updates with each day about who’ll they be meeting with and what day they’ll arrive, et cetera.

QUESTION: Should we assume that each city one day? I mean, Iraq, Baghdad, Brussels, Amman, Cairo, and Ankara (inaudible)?

MS. PSAKI: About that, but some may spend more than one day. So again, I said the end of the trip is Turkey, so I would assume the end of next week.

QUESTION: And – but the meetings with the president, the prime minister, is there any --

MS. PSAKI: Again, as I just said, because we’re talking about a week and a half from now or near the end of next week, I think we’ll have more updates on specific meetings as we get a little bit closer, and as soon as we have that information, we’ll make it available.

QUESTION: So it’s almost one month that – when President Obama started to discuss this issue with the Turkish side since the Wales summit. So how do you see right now the – where we are in terms of the fight against the ISIL in terms of the contribution coming from Ankara?

MS. PSAKI: Well, I think, one, we welcome the Turkish parliament’s vote to authorize Turkish military action, as I mentioned. Turkey has – and their leaders – have indicated they want to play a more prominent role with the coalition. We welcome that. They’re an important counterterrorism partner, an important NATO ally, so we understand the sensitivity that they had for several weeks with – the country had with their diplomats, and now we’re ready to move forward. And they’ve indicated they want to be an active partner.

QUESTION: Do you believe that – are you on the same page with the Turkish leadership in terms of the priorities in this fight? I mean, ISIS is obviously the priority for U.S. side, but do you think that the Turks also are seeing ISIS as a priority while --

MS. PSAKI: I think Turkey, from all of our discussions with them, certainly understands the threat posed by ISIL. But I would point you to them for more on that particular question.

Brett McGurk Tweeted earlier today:

Brett McGurk @brett_mcgurk · 11h 10 hours ago

Great to be back in #Baghdad w/GEN John Allen. Our first stop in a tour of coalition capitals. First meeting tonight will be w/PM Abadi.

It's good to see the administration finally addressing the diplomatic angle. And hopefully it's not too late.

Diplomacy might have some impact -- it probably would have at an earlier date -- but the 'plan' itself remains a joke. Peter Certo (link goes to the Institute for Policy Studies) points out:

Obama says the plan is to hammer IS targets from the air while bolstering partners on the ground—including the Iraqi Army, Kurdish fighters in Iraq, and “moderate” Syrian rebel groups—in a bid to roll back the advance of IS throughout Iraq and Syria without putting U.S. “boots on the ground” (never mind those 1,600 troops and advisers that have already been sent to Iraq, along with a likely undisclosed number of special forces).
As my colleague Phyllis Bennis is fond of saying, you can’t bomb extremism out of existence. She’s right.
For one thing, bombs cause civilian casualties, which are inherently radicalizing. “The U.S. bombs do not fall on ‘extremism,’” Bennis has written of the strikes on IS’ capital in Syria. “They are falling on Raqqa, a 2,000 year-old Syrian city with a population of more than a quarter of a million people—men, women, and children who had no say in the takeover of their city by ISIS. The Pentagon is bombing targets like the post office and the governor’s compound, and the likelihood of large number of civilian casualties, as well as devastation of the ancient city, is almost certain.”
A protracted air campaign is likely to cause a raft of unintended consequences. In Yemen and Pakistan, for example—the targets of the vast majority of U.S. drone strikes on alleged al-Qaeda “militants”—civilian populations have grappled with severe trauma and stress from living under the constant hovering drones. Terrorist recruiters have repeatedly sought to exploit this trauma—especially among the thousands of Yemenis and Pakistanis who have lost innocent loved ones. The best that can be said of these years-long campaigns from a national security perspective is that they’re holding actions. Al-Qaeda has certainly not been destroyed in either country, and it’s entirely possible that the drones themselves are providing a continued rationale for the group’s survival. It’s unclear why the Obama administration seems to think it can effect a different outcome in the vastly more complicated theater of Iraq and Syria.
Then there’s the problem of what comes after the bombs. If IS falls back under the weight of U.S. airstrikes, who moves in to secure the territory on the ground?
In Iraq, there are a few possibilities at this stage: the Iraqi Army, one of a number of Shiite paramilitary groups, or, in the north, Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

We saw the limitations of the Iraqi Army most dramatically earlier this summer in Mosul, where, after firing scarcely a shot, some 30,000 Iraqi soldiers turned the city—and millions of dollars worth of U.S.-supplied military equipment—over to just 800 attacking IS soldiers. In the years leading up to its capture of the city, IS had freely operated a lucrative protection racket among Mosul’s private businesses and cut deals with corrupt local leaders and members of Iraq’s security forces. So despite the Iraqi Army’s heavy footprint in Mosul—including a burdensome and much loathed system of traffic checkpoints—IS had been consolidating power there long before formally taking over.

On the Iraqi forces, Ryan Crocker tells Bernard Gwertzman (Council on Foreign Relations):

If you look at it from former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s perspective, with Iraq’s history of military coups, his own coming of age as a member of a sectarian and persecuted political party, you are going to see an enemy behind every bush.
When he chose his commanders, he didn’t choose them on the basis of their leadership capability or their battlefield experience. It was loyalty. Could he be absolutely certain that they would never turn against him?

[Maliki] put individuals with no command ability [and who] were not a threat to him into command positions—when you look at what happened in June, it wasn’t the rank and file that broke first, it was the leadership. Division commanders suddenly decided they needed to be in Baghdad before they ever engaged with ISIS.

We'll close with an Iraq War veteran (still) being held in Mexico.

Image from Free USMC Sgt Andrew Tahmooressi Facebook page.

Iraq and American Veterans of America issued the following:

IAVA Urges Mexico to Release Imprisoned U.S. Marine

CONTACT: Gretchen Andersen (212) 982-9699 or press@iava.org

IAVA Urges Mexico to Release Imprisoned U.S. Marine

New vets stand by Jill Tahmooressi in her quest to free her son

New York, NY (Oct. 1, 2014) – Today, the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere heard testimony from Jill Tahmooressi on the imprisonment of her son, U.S. Marine Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi, who has been detained in Mexico since March. IAVA released the following statement from CEO and Founder Paul Rieckhoff:

“IAVA stands strongly with U.S. Marine Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi’s mother, Jill, in her relentless quest to have him freed from prison in Mexico. Ms. Tahmooressi’s articulate and strong appeal for her son – who has been wrongly imprisoned for mistakenly crossing into Mexico in March – not only pulls at the heartstrings; it angers all veterans who should be able to count on their government to have their backs when they return from active duty. Andrew is one of our own, and America should never leave one of our own behind.

“Andrew’s combat-related PTSD was acquired in defense of his country, and he needs to return to the United States immediately for treatment. We urge President Obama to intervene directly with Mexico, cut through the red tape, and get Sergeant Tahmooressi back on U.S. soil. America’s veterans have not forgotten him, and the President should not forget about him either. Andrew deserves to come home, get treatment, and have a chance to live a productive life.”

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (www.IAVA.org) is the nation's first and largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization representing veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and has nearly 300,000 Member Veterans and civilian supporters nationwide. Celebrating its 10th year anniversary, IAVA recently received the highest rating - four-stars - from Charity Navigator, America's largest charity evaluator.

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Tuesday, October 07, 2014

Robert Fisk echoes C.I.

Sunday, October 05, 2014

Idiot of the week

Friday, October 03, 2014

Rot in hell, David Corn

STATEMENT BY SENATORS McCAIN AND GRAHAM ON SECRETARY PANETTA AND AMBASSADOR CROCKER REFUTING ADMINISTRATION FALSEHOOD ON RESIDUAL FORCE IN IRAQ

IAVA Urges Mexico to Release Imprisoned U.S. Marine

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