Thursday, March 11, 2021

Jimmy Dore, Chris Agee, THE CREW

 First up, Jimmy Dore.



You really need to stream that clip.  Jimmy's addressing how the corporate media rips apart the left and why.  How it goes after anyone who ever tries to build a coalition among the people.  It's a great clip.


You know who I really miss online?  Justin Raimondo.  He passed away some time ago but I still miss the weekly column.  He made hard calls.  Most of the time, I agreed with him.  When I didn't agree, I could still get where he was coming from.  I don't see anyone -- at ANTIWAR.COM or elsewhere -- willing to commit to covering war except for C.I. of THE COMMON ILLS.  We need more strong voices.  We have troops in some many countries and yet so many just check out on the topic.  I used to read IN THESE TIMES but they don't give  a damn about the wars.  Every other month we might get a column about a war and that's about it.  It really is appalling.


Lisa told me she thought I was crazy regarding THE CREW on NETFLIX but she watched it and really liked it.  I think most people would, it's a very funny show.  In her e-mail, she also noted the flooding in Hawaii.  We've got a house sitter while we're on the mainland.  I feel for everyone back home that is suffering or worrying.  I can't wait to get back but after we're done at C.I.'s, we're going back to Big Mass to see my family.  So we're really not sure when we'll be back in Hawaii.  


I was at NETFLIX today and saw MARVEL AGENTS OF SHIELD.  I used to watch that show constantly.  I scrolled through the various episodes but didn't feel an urge to rewatch. I might at some point, but that's a show that forever screwed up and screwed over the audience.  Coulson should have been ditched in season one.


This is from Chris Agee (COVERT ACTION):

On May 9, 1981, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism was debating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (S. 391). Their goal: criminalize the unauthorized identification of U.S. intelligence agents.

Then-Senator Joe Biden rose to his feet to denounce my father, Philip Agee, the CIA whistleblower whose 1975 book, Inside the Company, identified some 250 officers, front companies and foreign agents working for the United States.

Biden stated: “I do not think anybody has any doubt about Mr. Agee. We should lock him away in my opinion.”[1]

Agee had become public enemy #1 after publication of his book. He also became the victim of a disinformation and harassment campaign that forced him to live on the run for the rest of his life.[2]

Co-sponsored by segregationist Strom Thurmond (R-SC), the Intelligence Identities Protection Act mandated a $50,000 fine and ten years’ imprisonment for those who had access to classified information and publicly identified covert agents.

CIA Deputy Director Frank Carlucci acknowledged on NBC in July 1979 that the CIA had drafted the legislation, which Floyd Abrams, the most eminent First Amendment lawyer in the U.S., considered unconstitutional.[3]

At the sixth annual meeting of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers in 1981, Carlucci bragged that “we’ve managed to pursue a very aggressive strategy on the Hill; that strategy has paid dividends.”[4] 

The Intelligence Identities Protection Act was signed into law in June 1982 at a ceremony at CIA headquarters, in which President Ronald Reagan praised CIA employees as “heroes engaged in a grim twilight struggle.”[5]

The law was part of a wave of post-Watergate legislation that aimed to reaffirm the authority of the CIA following the 1975 Church Committee hearings, which had exposed the CIA’s involvement in foreign assassinations, illegal drug testing on unwitting suspects and illegal surveillance.

CIA veterans James “Jesus” Angleton and Ray Cline had set up two new pro-intelligence foundations in the late 1970s which pledged support for a restoration of the CIA’s effectiveness while lamenting the damage done by revelations and criticism.[6]


Keep reading beyond the excerpt to find out what a hack Joe Biden has always been.

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



Wednesday, March 10, 2021.  As Pope Francis talks about humanity and opposes war and weapons, US Catholic Nancy Pelosi charts her own 'religious' journey.  And we address some e-mail topics.


Qassim Abdul-Zahra (AP) reports, "Separately, a grenade was tossed near the Imam Bridge in Baghdad on Monday which killed one woman and wounded 11 pilgrims. No one immediately took responsibility. The bridge is located on the Tigris River, which connects the predominately Sunni Adhamiya area to Kadhimiya, which is mostly Shiite."  Ali Jawad (ANADOLU AGENCY) explains the pilgrimage, "On every 25th of Rajab of the Islamic calendar, tens of thousands of Shia pilgrims mark the death of Imam al-Kadhim, the seventh imam according to the Shia community.  On Wednesday, the number of Shia arrivals to Al-Kadhimiya is expected to reach a peak amid tight security measures imposed by joint forces from the army and police. The rituals include walking from different areas of Baghdad and some nearby provinces toward the Al-Kadhimiya area in northern Baghdad, where the shrine of Imam Al-Kadhim is located."  Of the Iman, ABNA offers:


Imam Musa Al-Kathem was reared under the care of his father, Imam Jaafar As-Sadeq (peace be upon him). He lived with his father for twenty years, and during these years he learned in his father’s seminary of jurisprudence and science. As a young child, he was the most prominent among his siblings.

The Political Circumstances during his Imamate
After the death of his father, the phase of Imam Musa Al-Kathem's Imamate was marked by the rise of the Abbasid Caliphate. The Abbasid authority had become established and strengthened, and the Imam assumed leadership in very difficult and tough circumstances because the Abbasid Caliph, Al-Mansur, was very oppressive.

What made matters harder was that the brother of the Imam, Abdullah Al-Aftah, falsely claimed that he was the Imam. Some people followed Abdullah, and they were later known as the faction of “Al-Fatahiya”. There was another group known as the Ismailites who believed that Ismail, the eldest son of Imam Jaafar As-Sadeq (peace be upon him), was the rightful Imam –even though Ismail had died while Imam Jaafar As-Sadeq (peace be upon him) was still alive. At first, the Abbasids were in doubt as to the true identity of the appointed Imam and thus they were heedless of Imam Musa Al-Kathem (peace be upon him). They were not able to ascertain who the true Imam was in order to persecute or assassinate him. This granted Imam Musa Al-Kathem (peace be upon him) a greater chance to fulfill the role God entrusted him with.


We'll note this Tweet:


Name Imam Musa Title : Al-Kazim Date of Death : 25th Rajab 183 AH, at the age of 55 years old. Cause of Death: Murdered by poisoning by Harroun Al-Rasheed Al-Abbassi. Buried : In Baghdad, Iraq by his son The Eighth Imam Ali AI-Reza #شہادت_امام_موسیٰ_کاظمؑ
Image
7:49 AM · Mar 9, 2021


The pilgrimage follows another religious event in Iraq, the historical visit of Pope Francis.  Fri Benedict Mayaki (VATICAN NEWS) reports on the Pope's remarks this morning in Rome:



“The Iraqi people have the right to live in peace; they have the right to rediscover the dignity that belongs to them,” Pope Francis stated.

Recalling the country’s religious and cultural roots which are thousands of years old, the Holy Father noted that Mesopotamia is the cradle of civilization.

Historically, he added, Baghdad is a city of primary importance, "hosting for centuries the richest library in the world."

“And what destroyed it? War!” the Pope lamented.

War, he explained, “is always the monster that transforms itself with the change of epochs and continues to devour humanity.”

“But the response to war is not another war, the response to weapons is not other weapons... The response is fraternity,” Pope Francis affirmed.

This, he insisted, is the "challenge not only for Iraq but for many regions in conflict and, ultimately, for the whole world.”


Philip Pullela (REUTERS) also covers the remarks:

On Sunday the 84-year-old pope saw ruins of homes and churches in the northern city of Mosul that was occupied by Islamic State from 2014 to 2017.

"And I asked myself (during the trip), 'who sold the weapons to the terrorists?, who sells weapons to terrorists today who are carrying out massacres elsewhere, for example, in Africa?,'" he said, departing from his prepared address.

"It is a question that I would like someone to answer."

Francis has said in the past that weapons manufacturers and traffickers would have to answer to God one day.



And this was Tweeted from Pope Francis' official Twitter account:


The response to war is not another war. The response to weapons is not other weapons. The response is fraternity. This is the challenge not only for Iraq. It is the challenge for many regions in conflict and, ultimately, for the entire world. #Peace #GeneralAudience
6:30 AM · Mar 10, 2021



US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is Catholic as is US President Joe Biden.  This is not a historic moment.  When JFK was president, the Speaker of the House was John W. McCormack who was also Catholic.  Unlike Nancy Pelosi, McCormack oversaw the passage of needed programs for the We The People -- including LBJ's Great Society programs.  Instead, Nancy overseas the passage of pork that enriches the already well off while failing to do anything substantive for We The People.  She has declared that the so-called COVID relief package still not passed will most likely be the last one Congress entertains.  And in that bill, that one time bill in her mind, the American people are worth?  $1400 provided they qualify to begin with.  $1400.  


That's with Democrats controlling the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.  $1400.


Donald Trump, as president, oversaw $1800 (first $1200 and then $600).  Despite Joe promising $2000 checks in January, the Democrats are only going to deliver $1400 -- and that's if you qualify.  In the midst of pandemic, when other nations were offering UBIs, the government never thought enough of their bosses to give them the relief they needed.  And, of course, 'Catholic' Nancy and Joe oppose Medicare For All.  Both will soon be gone from this world due to their advanced age and one wonders what they believe awaits them after death?  I can't see how the religion that they practice gives them belief in any eternal peace.  Maybe they're amassing so much wealth on earth because they're hoping their survivors can use that money to buy them out or purgatory?


Or maybe Nancy's just planning on rotting in hell?  Or maybe she's not very good when it comes to picturing the future?


At the start of last month, Christiana Zhao (NEWSWEEK) reported, "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday said that Joe Biden's stimulus package, which includes a third relief check of $1,400 to eligible Americans, will be passed by Congress 'before the end of February'."


Nancy, wrong once, wrong always.  


But, hey, she doesn't have to worry about monthly bills so what does she care if the American people are struggling with rent, electricity and other items.  Didn't they plan better use of that previous $1800?  Weren't they able to stretch that $1800 out of a full 12 months?  She has no idea of what the average working class person has to struggle with.  Maybe Congress should be forced to live a few months on minimum wage each year.  Might teach them compassion -- if they're capable of learning.



The Pope's visit to Iraq came ahead of the 18th anniversary of the start of the ongoing Iraq War.  The US-led invasion began this month back in 2003.  18 years later and US troops are still on the ground in Iraq.  Why?  Darren Beattie Tweets one possible reason:


A dark, but real reason why we keep troops in Iraq ---we keep them there precisely to get bombed. They are there for the purpose of being bombed (allegedly by Iranian proxies) for whenever we feel the need to escalate tensions and need a pretext That's how it works
11:15 AM · Mar 8, 2021


Moving over to issues non-community members are raising in the e-mails.  

Taylor Lorenz? I have no idea why I'm being asked to weigh in. She's a journalist whose work I've never read. She states that she is being threatened. Glenn Greenwald and Michael Tracey do not believe this to be true. Are they the reason I'm being asked to weigh in?

I think Michael Tracey is toxic and have stated that before. You can Google when we called him out for going to town on Kamala Harris in a manner he never went to town on with a man. It was excessive -- to put it mildly -- and goes to his dislike of women. That doesn't mean he's wrong in this situation. Doesn't mean he's right. Glenn has sexism that he doesn't see. But it's there. Doesn't mean he's wrong on Taylor Lorenz.

The only thing I have to say on this topic -- that doesn't interest me in the least -- is that Taylor needs to stop playing Christopher Columbus. 


Oh, no, mean things were said!!!!


Threats? I've written of them here -- we posted the FBI thing on the side of the site because of it. That was more than one person but, yes, it was one of Bob Somerby's roll dogs. Not everyone can call up someone at the FBI. I can. Presumably Taylor can as well. If she feels she's being threatened, that's the way to go. But, again, she doesn't need to play Christopher Columbus and pretend she's discovered a new world. Digby of HULLABALOO, Delilah Boyd, Betty and many others have already dealt with what she says she's dealing with. In the words of Stevie Nicks, "Who in the world do you think that you are fooling? Well I've already done everything that you are doing" ("Two Kinds Of Love" written by Stevie, Rupert Hine and Rick Nowels, first appears on Stevie's THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR). I would hope Taylor is a feminist. If she is, she should be familiar with the term "reinventing the wheel." We get stuck reinventing the wheel when we are unaware of what came before. Women being abused and threatened online didn't start in 2019, Taylor. If she wants to use her platform, she might try calling out institutions and not individuals. In 2008, for example, we called out CBS NEWS and helped effect change. In 2008, CBS NEWS posted their policy on comments and rightly would not allow racist comments. Barack Obama was running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination at that time. CBS NEWS would, however, allow sexist comments. Hillary Clinton was running for the same nomination that year. At first, CBS NEWS tried to look the other way and would justify it in one-on-one conversations. It took many moths but they finally altered their posted policy. It's a real shame that a great site, INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE, has a new posted policy but sexism is not anything that their policy rejects. Maybe Taylor could do a report on that?

Or maybe she could do a piece on many of the homophobic remarks her supporters are making against openly gay Glenn Greenwald? Glenn's not going to call attention to that -- he'll 'toughen' it out. But I don't support homophobia and I will call it out. To be clear, a joke about teen slang and how young Glenn's husband is misses the point (better wording could have helped the joke land) but it is not a threat and it is not abuse. Others go beyond jokes -- failed or landed -- and are homophobic. I see Taylor's included on these Tweets and have to wonder why she never calls them out?

Glenn and Michael could be right. Taylor could be right. Believe it or not, all three could be right.  Equally true, those  charging sexism at Glenn over this -- or even at Michael -- could be wrong in this instance.  I've spent about as much time on this topic as I plan to.  That's (a) because she's made it about herself, (b) there are solid allegations -- made by Glenn and Michael and others -- that this is not about threats but about silencing criticism and (c) her Tweets reveal that she's not a very caring person.


The most ludicrous one was when she realized how entitled she was coming off (she went to a Swiss boarding school) and she attempted to enlarge the landscape asking for support for women and for all people of color.  What about LGBTQs who are not people of color?  What about -- go down the list.  She made it about herself.  Criticized for coming off entitled, she attempted to be expansive but only came across more obtuse.  If the issue truly mattered to her, she'd be saying no threats to anyone.  She's not doing that. She's acting and her performance does not convince me.  


   

Iraq. I've got e-mails about how I ignored Tara Reade all last week. I am on record stating that I believe Tara Reade. I am on record stating that Iraq and Tara Reade are the reasons I could not vote for Joe Biden. (I voted for Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker.) I do not know Tara. I have never corresponded with Tara. I have never spoken to her. You may follow her every move but I do not.

Iraq was a big story last week and this week And it didn't matter to most Americans. We did a roundtable with 7 community members in Iraq for POLLY'S BREW focusing on an issue one member had already raised in an e-mail. The western media -- especially the US media -- was putting out coverage that was insulting and hurtful to some Iraqis. No one wanted to deal with that. Not in the US. The Iraqis in the roundtable spoke of how the US media looked down on them, portrayed them as ignorant and as savages, felt they weren't worthy of a visit from Pope Francis, felt that though the US could hold various events and campaign in the midst of the pandemic, the Iraqi people were too backward to grasp how to act at an event held during the pandemic, etc. This was a very big issue to them and this became a very big issue here. We noted the complaints in one e-mail, we noted the events that actually took place. It may not have mattered one bit to you -- I hope that's not the case -- but it was an issue to Iraqis we spoke to.

Related, yesterday, I noted Jeff Mackler and his idiotic column. This led to drive-bys (drive-bys, Taylor, are not threats, they're word projectiles hurled over the internet). It's so wrong, I'm told over and over, and I'm so evil!!!! I may very well be evil. I've never made the case for myself being a good person. But it wasn't wrong.

In January of 2020, then-US President Donald Trump killed a vile person. Being a vile person doesn't mean Donald had the right to kill the man and we never argued that Donald had that right (we don't believe he had that right). But what followed was a bunch of crap from the usual group of knee-jerk idiots. That vile man targeted Iraq's LGBTQ community -- or are you unaware of when boys and men suspected of being gay had their anuses glued shut? -- and he targeted Sunnis and he targeted . . . Your arrival late to the party does not excuse your glorification of a vile person. Some of you insist that it is anti-Shi'ite to call him out. You feel that way because you're an uninformed idiot and I don't feel the need to pretty that up. Yes, the people who turned out -- on orders from Moqtada al-Sadr -- to parade in the person's honor were Shi'ites. Guess what, the protest that began in the fall of 2019? Predominately Shi'ite. They started that protest without Moqtada. Moqtada tried to glom on the protest because it was a powerful group. They wouldn't let him order them around (he was opposed to, among other things, men and women protesting together). He then denounced them. He was surprised that many international observers saw him as weak. He only looked weaker when he immediately tried to disown his denouncing. He was back and forth and erratic and the protesters didn't give a damn what he had to say. He is part of a corrupt system and they are protesting corruption. Again, this a predominantly Shi'ite group, these protesters.

It this is news to you at this late date, don't know what to tell you. Here's some more news for you: Moqtada's cult members that paraded to honor the vile person in January of 2020? They attacked protesters in the fall of 2020 in Baghdad. They continue to attack protesters in Nasariyah. These are the goons that saluted the vile person.

Jeff Mackler shows up with no knowledge and steals the ongoing protests from the actual protesters and turns them over to eh paraders of January 2020. No, that's not accurate and it's not fair to the Iraqi protesters who have risked so much. He wanted to make political points but was too stupid to do the research required so he distorted the ongoing protests -- which were not related to the vile person. In fact, the paraders for the vile person attacked the protesters on that Saturday in Baghdad. The two groups do not overlap. It was a distortion and it shouldn't have been published. I loved Alexander Cockburn but COUNTERPUNCH -- then and now -- prints a lot of useless garbage that is factually incorrect.

My obligation and loyalty at this site is not to Mackler. It's not to Dr. Margaret Flowers (who I do respect). It's to the Iraqi people. Enough people in the US walked away from them long ago. I'm not going to allow anyone to lie about them or distort them without calling it out. They have suffered enough. They have endured enough. If Mackler has some points he wants to make about Iran (or, knowing his history, some glorification of the government of Iran), have at it. But don't use the Iraqi people to do so. It's a real shame that they have protested for months and months and no one wants to portray that accurately or give them the credit for their actions.  It's flat out offensive that Mackler wants to take their hard work and credit it to those who have physically attacked the protesters.  


The protests continue with MEMO reporting yesterday:


Hundreds of Iraqis demonstrated in Al-Muthanna governorate again, on Monday, to demand the dismissal of Governor Ahmed Judeh from his post, while protesting against the poor level of services and mismanagement.

The demonstrators chanted slogans calling on Governor Judeh to "prevent bloodshed and resign from his post."

Authorities in Al-Muthanna governorate did not issue any official statement regarding the popular protests until 14:00 (GMT).

After Babylon, Al-Diwaniyah (south), Wasit (central), and Dhi Qar (southeast), Al-Muthanna was the fifth Iraqi governorate in which demonstrators have demanded the dismissal of the governor due to widespread corruption and official failure to serve the people's interests.



As for Tara Reade, I don't know the details.  I have, since learning of yesterday's e-mails, become aware that Michelle Goldberg had made another insulting and dishonest remark about Tara Reade.  That is in keeping with Michelle Goldberg.


Michelle claims Tara destroyed #MeToo.  Like Rose McGowan, I consider that to be pure nonsense.  It was people like Michelle that destroyed MeToo's power.


Michelle is writing about Andrew Cuomo.  I've resisted writing about that here.  We have posted videos of the allegations against him.  I know Andrew.  I am not in New York, I don't live there.  It is up to the people of New York to decide what happens next.  He holds statewide office.  If he held national office or represented my location, I would probably weigh in.  On Gavin Newsom, I had planned to write of him before I ended up in the hospital.  What I was going to say there is that I do not support a recall.  That's about it.





New content at THIRD:





The following sites updated:




Ruth's "Children are still in cages" also went up but is not showing on the links yet.




Posted by at

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Jimmy Dore and Max Blumenthal

First up, Jimmy Dore.



The Fraud Squad really needs to grasp that we see through them.  Their empty words are not winning over anyone but the already deluded.  Those with a functioning brain watch them mouth empty words and never use the power they have to effect change.  They're worthless.


Let me give a heads up that new content went up at THIRD:



Be sure to check out the superhero roundtable.  Which Jim needs to fix.  Ava and C.I. took notes and typed up the transcript but Jim copied and pasted illustrations in and the links -- but he has everyone in the community listed for the roundtable and not everyone participated.  


Be sure to read the KINDLE UNLIMITED piece to learn more about KU -- Dona and Elaine both make some good observations that the rest of us hadn't caught yet.  


On the TV piece, I couldn't get through DEBRIS.  I turned that show off after five minutes.  But I do like THE CREW on NETFLIX -- it is a funny show.


Be sure to check out Max Blumenthal's piece at INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE, this is the opening:


The Joseph Biden administration has named Richard Nephew as its deputy Iran envoy. As the former principal deputy coordinator of sanctions policy for Barack Obama’s State Department, Nephew took personal credit for depriving Iranians of food, sabotaging their automobile industry, and driving up unemployment rates.

Nephew has described the destruction of Iran’s economy as “a tremendous success,” and lamented during a visit to Russia that food was still plentiful in the country’s capital despite mounting US sanctions.

Nephew’s appointment to a senior diplomatic post suggests that rather than immediately returning to the JCPOA nuclear deal, the Biden administration will finesse sanctions illegally imposed by Trump to pressure Iran into an onerous, reworked agreement that Tehran is unlikely to join.

After coordinating Obama’s sanctions regime against Iran, Nephew left the administration for a position at the energy industry-funded Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. There, he published a book outlining in blunt terms how he honed the craft of economic warfare and applied it against Iran.

Entitled “The Art of Sanctions: A View From The Field,” the book’s cover image features two Caucasian hands drawing a rope for a noose, presumably to strangle some insufficiently pliant Global South government. Its contents read like a list of criminal confessions, detailing in chillingly clinical terms how the sanctions Nephew conceived from inside an air-conditioned office in Washington immiserated average Iranians.

With his candor, Nephew has shattered the official US rhetoric about “targeted sanctions” that exclusively punish “bad actors” and their business cronies while leaving civilian populations unharmed.


Another important thing I want to note, from Monday's Iraq snapshot:


Congress last gave itself a raise in 2009 which may seem like caring on their part -- that was the same year that they last raised minimum wage.  However, while Congress raised minimum wage in 2009 to $7.25 an hour, it raised its own salary to, per REUTERS, $174,000 -- a 2.8% increase for them.  2009 is also when minimum wage last rose for hourly workers in the US -- from $6.55 an hour to $7.25 an hour.  


From 1997 to 2007, the hourly minimum wage had been set by the government at $5.15 an hour.  Yet, during that same time, the salaries of members of Congress grew dramatically.  In 1997, per the US Senate, $133,600 was the yearly pay.  Regular increases (1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2009) led them to the $174,000.  Grasp that -- Congress gave itself raises nearly every year from 1997 through 2007 while refusing to raise minimum wage.


My mom emphasized that and I wanted to as well.  Those are facts we need to know.


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


Tuesday, March 9, 2021.  The Iraqi Parliament enacts a new law, COUNTERPUNCH publishes an elderly idiot who mistakes a weekend parade for a wave of protests that have been taking place in Iraq for nearly a year and a half now, and the Pope's visit continues to receive attention.



 

Pope Francis wrapped up his historic trip to Iraq and returned to Rome on Monday.  



He was the first pope to ever visit Iraq.  THE CONVERSATION notes:

Pope Francis’s historic trip to Iraq, including visits to the war-torn north, has been deeply significant. It is one that needs to be seen in the context of peace rather than politics.

The pope, as a de facto religious “father” recognised around the world, offers consolation for all people, not just Christians. His visit brought the triple significance of hope, courage and peace to those in need.



For his part, the Secretary-General of the Higher Committee, Judge Mohamed Abdelsalam, stressed that the Pope’s presence in Iraq brought to light the religious and cultural diversity in Iraq and the region. It also showed how this diversity could be a way for achieving peace and cohesion among communities.

He further highlighted that the visit carried a powerful message that the whole world should support victims of war and extremism and not abandon them under any circumstances.

Judge Abdelsalam also said the Higher Committee will prepare a study on the results of the Pope’s visit, and will depend on it in its future plans and programs, to the benefit of all Iraqis.




The visit that Pope Francis paid to Iraq “will leave a great impact on … our country,” said Cardinal Louis Raphael I Sako, head of the Chaldean Catholic Church. Sako accompanied the pope throughout the March 5-8 visit, which went off without a hitch despite security worries and a second wave of coronavirus cases in the country.

The 84-year-old pontiff covered more than 1,400 km inside Iraq, bringing encouragement to its diminished Christian community and extending a hand to Shiite Muslims by meeting top cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani.

Sako told Vatican Radio: “The mentality here is changing in terms of respect for others, the elimination of violence and fundamentalism.”

He added: “Iraqis are moderate by nature. They have been influenced by a fundamentalism coming from outside our country. I am sure that they will return to their good nature.”



Alice Fordham covered the Pope's visit for NPR.  On Monday's MORNING EDITION, she reflected on the trip:


[Scott] DETROW: So how was Pope Francis received last night in Erbil?

FORDHAM: There was a lot of joyous energy there, from the moment the pope first flew over the stadium in a helicopter to the drive around he did in an open-top vehicle, waving at people as he passed. And I think, speaking to people, they were quite overwhelmed that the pope had visited Iraq.

SAASANE HASAN: (Non-English language spoken).

FORDHAM: So this man I spoke to, Saasane Hasan (ph), said he never expected the pope would visit. And he was more moved than he thought he would be to be there at that moment. And he said he thought Francis was a brave man to come to Iraq despite safety concerns that deter other people. And a lot of people in that stadium have been through hard times. Many Christians were displaced here to Erbil when militants from ISIS took the nearby city of Mosul and Christian villages. And the pope in his homily spoke to their future.






In flight to Rome, the Pope held a press conference.  CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY posts the full conference and we'll note these two exchanges:

Matteo Bruni: Thank you. The next question comes from Sylwia Wysocka of the Polish press.

Sylwia Wysocka (Polish Press Agency): Holy Father, in these very difficult 12 months your activity has been very limited. Yesterday you had the first direct and very close contact with the people in Qaraqosh: What did you feel? And then, in your opinion, now, with the current health system, can the general audiences with people, with faithful, recommence as before?

Pope Francis: I feel different when I am away from the people in the audiences. I would like to restart the general audiences again as soon as possible. Hopefully the conditions will be right. I will follow the norms of the authorities in this. They are in charge and they have the grace of God to help us in this. They are responsible for setting the rules, whether we like them or not. They are responsible and they have to be so.

Now I have started again with the Angelus in the square, with the distances it can be done. There is the proposal of small general audiences, but I have not decided until the development of the situation becomes clear. After these months of imprisonment, I really felt a bit imprisoned, this is, for me, living again.

Living again because it is touching the Church, touching the holy people of God, touching all peoples. A priest becomes a priest to serve, to serve the people of God, not for careerism, right? Not for the money.

This morning in the Mass there was [the Scripture reading about] the healing of Naaman the Syrian and it said that Naaman wanted to give gifts after he had been healed. But he refused... but the prophet Elisha refused them. And the Bible continues: the prophet Elisha’s assistant, when they had left, settled the prophet well and running he followed Naaman and asked for gifts for him. And God said, “the leprosy that Naaman had will cling to you.” I am afraid that we, men and women of the Church, especially we priests, do not have this gratuitous closeness to the people of God which is what saves us.

And to be like Naaman’s servant, to help, but then going back [for the gifts.] I am afraid of that leprosy. And the only one who saves us from the leprosy of greed, of pride, is the holy people of God, like what God spoke about with David, “I have taken you out of the flock, do not forget the flock.” That of which Paul spoke to Timothy: “Remember your mother and grandmother who nursed you in the faith.” Do not lose your belonging to the people of God to become a privileged caste of consecrated, clerics, anything.

This is why contact with the people saves us, helps us. We give the Eucharist, preaching, our function to the people of God, but they give us belonging. Let us not forget this belonging to the people of God. Then begin again like this.

I met in Iraq, in Qaraqosh... I did not imagine the ruins of Mosul, I did not imagine. Really. Yes, I may have seen things, I may have read the book, but this touches, it is touching.

What touched me the most was the testimony of a mother in Qaraqosh. A priest who truly knows poverty, service, penance; and a woman who lost her son in the first bombings by ISIS gave her testimony. She said one word: forgiveness. I was moved. A mother who says: I forgive, I ask forgiveness for them.

I was reminded of my trip to Colombia, of that meeting in Villavicencio where so many people, women above all, mothers and brides, spoke about their experience of the murder of their children and husbands. They said, “I forgive, I forgive.” But this word we have lost. We know how to insult big time. We know how to condemn in a big way. Me first, we know it well. But to forgive, to forgive one’s enemies. This is the pure Gospel. This is what touched me the most in Qaraqosh. 



[. . .]


Matteo Bruni: The last is by Catherine Marciano from the French press, from the Agence France-Presse.

Catherine Marciano (AFP): Your Holiness, I wanted to know what you felt in the helicopter seeing the destroyed city of Mosul and praying on the ruins of a church. Since it is Women's Day, I would like to ask a little question about women... You have supported the women in Qaraqosh with very nice words, but what do you think about the fact that a Muslim woman in love cannot marry a Christian without being discarded by her family or even worse. But the first question was about Mosul. Thank you, Your Holiness.

Pope Francis: I said what I felt in Mosul a little bit en passant. When I stopped in front of the destroyed church, I had no words, I had no words... beyond belief, beyond belief. Not just the church, even the other destroyed churches. Even a destroyed mosque, you can see that [the perpetrators] did not agree with the people. Not to believe our human cruelty, no. At this moment I do not want to say the word, “it begins again,” but let’s look at Africa. With our experience of Mosul, and these people who destroy everything, enmity is created and the so-called Islamic State begins to act. This is a bad thing, very bad, and before moving on to the other question --  A question that came to my mind in the church was this: “But who sells weapons to these destroyers? Because they do not make weapons at home. Yes, they will make some bombs, but who sells the weapons, who is responsible? I would at least ask that those who sell the weapons have the sincerity to say: we sell weapons. They don’t say it. It’s ugly.

Women... women are braver than men. But even today women are humiliated. Let’s go to the extreme: one of you showed me the list of prices for women. [Ed. prepared by ISIS for selling Christian and Yazidi women.] I couldn’t believe it: if the woman is like this, she costs this much... to sell her... Women are sold, women are enslaved. Even in the center of Rome, the work against trafficking is an everyday job.

During the Jubilee, I went to visit one of the many houses of the Opera Don Benzi: Ransomed girls, one with her ear cut off because she had not brought the right money that day, and the other brought from Bratislava in the trunk of a car, a slave, kidnapped. This happens among us, the educated. Human trafficking. In these countries, some, especially in parts of Africa, there is mutilation as a ritual that must be done. Women are still slaves, and we have to fight, struggle, for the dignity of women. They are the ones who carry history forward. This is not an exaggeration: Women carry history forward and it’s not a compliment because today is Women's Day. Even slavery is like this, the rejection of women... Just think, there are places where there is the debate regarding whether repudiation of a wife should be given in writing or only orally. Not even the right to have the act of repudiation! This is happening today, but to keep us from straying, think of what happens in the center of Rome, of the girls who are kidnapped and are exploited. I think I have said everything about this. I wish you a good end to your trip and I ask you to pray for me, I need it. Thank you.


Frederick Deknatel (WORLD POLITICS REVIEW offers:


“Mosul Welcomes You,” read banners across the city when Pope Francis visited Sunday, the last full day of his landmark trip to Iraq. Most of the banners covered crumbling buildings or hung on walls still pockmarked by bullets and artillery. The pope arrived in Mosul by helicopter, flying over the “the rubble of houses [that] stretched out like a vast quarry,” as The New York Times’ Jason Horowitz and Jane Arraf reported from what used to be Iraq’s second-largest city.

Pope Francis later rode in a golf cart to what is left of the Syriac Catholic al-Tahera Church, in the heart of the hugely damaged Old City, on the west bank of the Tigris River. The Islamic State had used the church as a makeshift courthouse after it overran Mosul in 2014. When U.S.-backed Iraqi forces finally retook the city in 2017, the al-Tahera Church, like other churches, mosques and shrines around it in the Old City, was in ruins. The Islamic State had destroyed many of them deliberately, including Mosul’s main landmark, the medieval Great Mosque of al-Nuri, with its signature tilting minaret, known locally as “al-Hadba,” or the hunchback. The Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had declared his “caliphate” from the mosque’s minbar in 2014, in a choreographed attempt at Islamic legitimacy; in 2017, the extremists blew the mosque up as U.S. and Iraqi forces closed in.

But much of the damage in Mosul’s Old City, where extremist fighters had holed up in alleyways and tightly packed buildings, was also the result of heavy aerial bombardment by the international coalition against the Islamic State—mainly, the U.S. Air Force. To drive the group out of Mosul, stretches of the city were flattened from above by American bombers and drones.

Nearly four years after Iraq declared that war over, Mosul is still in ruins. With his visit, then, and the images of him leading prayers against a backdrop of the city’s seemingly frozen devastation, Pope Francis has probably done more to spotlight the enormous challenges of reconstruction in Iraq than any other Western leader, and certainly any American official.

Most of the reporting on Pope Francis’ visit to Iraq—the first by any pontiff—has naturally focused on an itinerary full of messages of coexistence, reconciliation and forgiveness. That includes his meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in the 90-year-old cleric’s modest home in Najaf. As the highest religious authority in Iraq and a revered figure to Shiites around the world, Sistani holds enormous sway in the country, though he rarely hosts visitors or even appears in public. The pope’s trip, which had prompted some calls for a postponement or cancellation given the persistent security threats and rising risks of COVID-19 infections among the crowds of Iraqis that would see him, was also a major gesture of support for Iraq’s shrinking Christian population, which is now less than 300,000, down from 1.5 million when the U.S. invaded to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.

But it was in Mosul that another message of the pope’s visit came through, in the contrast of papal pageantry and urban destruction: reminding the world of what daily life still looks like for many Iraqis, especially those in Mosul. A city liberated from the Islamic State is still full of millions of tons of rubble, with more than half of its housing stock either damaged or destroyed. In the Old City, in particular, basic services are spotty, if they’ve even been restored since the Islamic State’s defeat. The list goes on.

While Washington may want to forget about its collateral damage, the Vatican and Baghdad just coordinated a very public appearance of the pope in Mosul that made clear what the costs of that war were. “Here in Mosul, the tragic consequences of war and hostility are all too evident,” the pope said during his prayer in the Old City. UNESCO is now leading a restoration of the al-Tahera Church, which it calls “a symbol of the diversity that has been the story of Mosul for centuries.” The United Arab Emirates is paying for it, and also financing the reconstruction of the al-Nuri Mosque—not the United States.


That viewpoint is one shared by many Iraqis.  For example, Sunday we noted:

Mosul, Rasha al-Aqeedi Tweets (with photos), is "Where the Iraqi government could not masquerade its failure, inefficiency, and corruption.  3 years later and Mosul's historic Old Town remains as it was.  The Pope sees it."


ISIS was expelled from Mosul in 2017.  Mosul remains in ruins.  The current prime minister attempts to use COVID as the reason for the delay but COVID did not emerge until February 2020.  There is no excuse for the inability to rebuild Mosul -- especially after various countries donated millions to the city's reconstruction.  




Pope Francis’ visit to Iraq this past weekend meant that, for a day or two at least, the Western media had to acknowledge the precarious situation facing Christians in the troubled nation — people who normally aren’t on their radar. These survivors of ISIS-led genocide in 2014 continue to suffer daily indignities: Even those Christians who haven’t lost their ancestral homes are officially second-class citizens. 

President Biden issued a statement on the “historic and welcome first for the country.” The pope’s visit to the city of Mosul – “a city that only a few years ago endured the depravity and intolerance of a group like ISIS” — was highlighted by the president as “a symbol of hope for the entire world.” Will Biden be inspired to make sure the United States helps those survivors of the ISIS-led genocide?

The Pope broke his year-long COVID-19 lockdown to remind us — if we even knew in the first place — that Iraq was largely emptied of Christians during the violent Islamic State reign from 2014 to 2017. There were once 1.5 million Christians in Iraq, mostly made up of Catholic Chaldeans and members of the ancient independent Assyrian Church. That number has been  reported to have shrunk to 250,000. Recent calculations suggest much fewer. At this rate, Christians in Iraq will simply disappear in our lifetimes. That is, unless those who remain are supported. 


"A symbol of hope for the entire world"?  A symbol that has never been rebuilt, that the millions pledged for rebuilding instead went into the hands of crooked officials.  


COUNTERPUNCH runs garbage by Jeff Mackler today -- no link to trash.  Mackler takes an ongoing protest, one that forced a prime minister in Iraq to resign, and turns it into something so much less, so much smaller and so much more suited to his own needs because, apparently, the Iraqi people are nothing more than props for Jeff Mackler to use in whatever politican stance he happens to take at this moment.

No, you idiot, the ongoing protests have nothing to do with a drone attack on a non-Iraqi you stupid, stupid fool.  Those protests began September 30, 2019 (though the MSM loves to say October 1, 2019 because they weren't paying attention).  These protests are against a non-responsive government and among the conditions fostering the protests?  Lack of potable water, lack of dependable electricity, lack of jobs, government corruption, etc.  

Jeff Mackler is a stupid idiot who fails to grasp when the protests started and why they started.  He's also fallen for the popular lie that the parades in Baghdad and one other city somehow represented the view of the Iraqi people.  It didn't even represent the view of the Shi'ite population in Iraq.  It was former leader Moqtada al-Sadr (who fell out of favor with the Iraqi protesters in February 2020) turning out his goon squad cult members.  That's all that was.  


Mackler uses Iraq as a prop which isn't suprising, we're speaking of an elderly man who has never achieved anything in his life because he forever spreads himself to thin.  If he wants to write about Iraq, he's going to need to learn about Iraq.  The garbage COUNTERPUNCH threw up of his today makes clear that he has a lot to learn.

It also reminds me of when Jason Leopold's Karl Rove Is Being Indicted! claims imploded, Alexander Cockburn hectored Leopold publicly and the outlets -- TRUTHOUT among them -- who had published Leopold forgetting that . . . his own COUNTERPUNCH had also published Jason Leopold.  In other words, Alex is dead (and missed) but COUNTERPUNCH will still publish any garbage without vetting it or giving it a second thought.



After a two year long impasse, the Iraqi Parliament enacted law recompensing Yazidi and other similarly stationed ethnic groups for the genocide and other crimes against humanity they suffered at the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. It is hard to imagine how any human being could be made whole after having suffered such inhumanity prosecuted against these people. The Iraqi Government does deserve praise for making a credible and genuine effort to afford them a promise of compensation and opportunities to earn a more promising and just future within their country and society in general.

Iraqi President Barham Salih tweeted the legislation, “is a victory for the victims [and] our daughters who have been subjected to the most heinous violations and crimes of ISIS genocide.”

The law provides recognition by the Iraqi Government of the genocide, which up until then was only officially so by the Kurdistan Regional Government in the North.

In August of 2014 ISIL attacked Sinjar district in Northwestern Iraq, resident to hundreds of thousands of Yazidis. Many who were able fled into the mountainous areas to escape the conflict only to consequently suffer exposure to elements, lack of food and water supplies, and the continual threat from homicide, abduction into sexual slavery, forced marriage, impression into military service, and other inhumane treatment by marauding terrorist forces. The first few days of the siege cost over three thousand civilian lives and beset their community with in too many cases years of humiliation, abuse and kidnappings.

The original draft of the legislation provided compensation for Yazidi women victimized by ISIL but after further deliberation on expanding the scope of benefits offered the bill was extended to other ethnic and religious groups, such as Turkmen, Shabak, and Christians of both sexes. 






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