Thursday, October 12, 2017

How long are we going to let the War Party lie to us?

  Oct 11
The front page in 2002. Congress authorizes Bush to use force against Iraq.
13 replies64 retweets55 likes
 
 
 



Can you believe it?

Loved C.I.'s "Bush's war?" because it was so on point.

Democrats signed on to the war.

They can lie and pretend otherwise now all they want.

But they did.

And when that vote went through Congress, the Dems controlled the Senate.

They let us down then.

The Iraq War is still going on -- we saw another US service member die this month.

Despite the Dems promise to end it in 2007 if we would only give them control of one house in the 2006 mid-terms.

They let us down.

They didn't end it.

And we gave them control of both houses and they didn't end it.

Two years later, we also gave them the control of the White House.

From the start of 2009 to the start of 2011, they controlled the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate.

And they still couldn't end the war.

Excuse me -- they still wouldn't end the war.

How long are we going to let the War Party lie to us?

That's the Dems and the Repubs.


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


Thursday, October 12, 2017.  How corrupt is Iraq's non-representative government?


Oil rich Iraq is ranked 78 out of 119 countries on the International Food Policy Research Institute's global hunger index.

The government of oil rich Iraq can't feed its people?

By gun and by bomb, the US-led coalition imposed on Iraq early on to do away with the rations program.  Though it still exists, they were able to get Iraq to lessen what they supplied families with.  Further cuts to the program, according to MPs in Parliament, will result from the payments Iraq has to make to the IMF for the loans (loans Grand Aytalollah Ali al-Sistani publicly opposed for this and other reasons of self-determination).


Last year, Matt Egan (CNN MONEY) reported:


Iraq is pumping more oil than ever before, even as ISIS-fueled chaos grips parts of the Middle Eastern country.
Iraq, which relies on oil to fund nearly its entire government, increased daily oil production to an all-time high of 4.5 million barrels in May, according to estimates from research firm JBC Energy.
That's up by 100,000 barrels a day from April and helps fill the void left by big outages in Nigeria and Canada. It's also about 2 million barrels a day more than what Iraq was pumping before the 2003 U.S. invasion.


Ruba Hasari (Middle East Institute) noted last year:



Since the beginning of 2016, Iraq has allocated about 236 million barrels of crude or some 30 percent of its total exports to end August for payments to IOCs.[1] Based on the average price Iraqi oil fetches on the market, those barrels were worth some $7.7 billion. The biggest chunk of this went to the payment of arrears to IOCs from 2015. For 2016, the Iraqi oil ministry budgeted total spending for all oilfields being developed by IOCs at $9.5 billion. This will help maintain output at close to its current levels, but not expand it significantly. Just how the I.M.F. expects Iraq to clear all arrears before the beginning of the program, and increase the spending to speed up the development of the oilfields to generate more revenue, while staying debt free, is a mystery.
The terms of the 11 contracts Iraq signed with IOCs since 2009 to develop its southern oil fields requires the ministry to pay back quarterly, in kind, all the cost incurred by the companies, in addition to a fee per barrel produced.
When the oil price was high, allocating the barrels was no issue. At $100 per barrel for the Brent benchmark, just 500,000 barrels of Iraqi export crude were enough to repay IOCs $1.5 billion/month. The remaining crude produced was enough to generate the revenues to satisfy Iraq’s budgetary needs. To keep payments at that rate when the oil price hit $30/barrel (or bbl), Iraq had to allocate more than three times that volume. This is more than 50 percent of its total oil exports that represent close to 90 percent of its budgeted revenues. Iraq had less oil to export and at a lower price, generating less and less revenues. Early this year, when Brent crossed the $30 bar, Iraqi crude fetched $22 and $23/bbl in January and February.




The CIA estimates the population of Iraq to be 38.1 million (no census has been done in Iraq since the US-led coalition overthrew then-President Saddam Hussein) and the Gross Domestic Product  in 2016 to have been $173 billion.

$173 billion.

38.1 million people.

Do you see the problem?

That's approximately $4 billion per person in Iraq.

But poverty increases each year in Iraq -- and the bombs and bullets have turned it into a nation of widows and orphans.

On the most recent Corruption Index, Transparency International ranked Iraq as the 166 least transparent countries out of 176 ranked.

Corruption continues to run rampant in Iraq.

That's why so many live in poverty.

That's why former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki entered office still struggling for money but his family now lives large and his spoiled son has homes all over the world with several sports cars parked at each home (Nouri got him government jobs and, no, the government jobs did not provide the salary for the life he leads).

The US-imposed politicians have stolen repeatedly from the people of Iraq.

It's one of the reasons Shi'ite cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr calls out the vast corruption and it's one of the reasons crowds turn out to protest the corruption.

But the people of Iraq don't really figure into the western media.

Instead, it's forever portrayals of that supposedly improved Iraqi military.

But talk to any of the US service members that were 'training and assisting' and you'll get a different report.

You'll hear that without the US-led bombings and without US-led coaching, the military remains a huge disappointment and still can't protect Iraq on their own.

The desertion rates remain high, you'll be told, and there's not a great push to accomplish much of anything (you'll hear that the Shi'ite militias -- now part of the official forces thanks to Prime Minister Hayder al-Abadi -- are eager to fight and don't need the prodding the Iraqi army does).



  48 minutes ago
: |i PM says "We will not use our army against our people or fight a war against our Kurdish citizens & others"
2 replies12 retweets13 likes
 
 
 



Of course, you won't.

The Kurdish Peshmerga is a stronger force.

If attacked, you give them all the more reason to fight.

The verbal attacks Hayder has already launched -- and the threats -- have only resulted in the drawing the Kurds closer in response to an external enemy.

It has been a huge mistake to react to the poll at all -- the Kurdish referendum.  It's not being implemented -- the results -- which were over 90% of Kurds want independence from Baghdad.  But the attack on the region and the government for doing what the people wanted -- a poll -- has been over the top and only hardened attitudes.

If Hayder wants to be a leader of all of Iraq, he sure doesn't know how to demonstrate it.

The following community sites -- plus Jody Watley -- updated:

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Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Stop the b.s. already

I'm sick of the hysteria and conspiracy regarding Russia.

Nothing has been proven and each allegation gets weaker once it is examined.


  Retweeted
  Oct 10
Of those $60,000 worth of Goggle ads at least $43,000 were, according to NYT, anti-Trump ads. Putin clicked the wrong button?
. running front page story about $60,000 worth of Google ads. Ads have no clear ties to Russian government and no clear agenda.
7 replies125 retweets128 likes
 
 
 




They keep pretending they've found something and they have nothing.

This should been ignored months ago.

There is no evidence.


Here's a Tweet from Margaret Kimberley:


  Oct 10
Notice that the statement doesn’t come directly from Hillary. Why from a spokesman?
Statement from Secretary Clinton on Harvey Weinstein:
3 replies7 retweets14 likes
 
 
 





Good question.


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


Wednesday, October 11, 2017.  Chaos and violence continue, Hayder al-Abadi bullies, the refugee crisis continues, and much more.


  22 minutes ago
On let us not forget girls like 2-year-old Bedoor, who was displaced by war in Iraq
42 retweets61 likes
 
 
 





She is one of many displaced by the ongoing Iraq War.






  Oct 8
“We just ran. We left everything behind." Over 13,000 remain displaced due to mil. ops (as of 8 Oct)
, ,  and 
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And, as noted in yesterday's snapshot, 5.4 million new internal refugees created just since 2014.

By the first years of the Iraq War, Iraq had already become the scene of the largest refugee crisis in the Middle East since 1949.  The crisis has continued in wave after wave.

As the Iraq War continues and mutates, Adam Linehan (TASK & PURPOSE) states:

For the second time in recent history, the winding down of U.S. military operations in the Middle East has allowed the Pentagon to ramp up the war in Afghanistan. While U.S.-backed forces fight to liberate the few remaining ISIS holdouts in Iraq and inch closer to victory over the terror group in Raqqa — its last major stronghold in the region — the coalition bombing campaign in Afghanistan is dramatically escalating. 


He might want to calm down a bit, we've seen what's taking place in Iraq right now a few times before.  Let's drop back to last week's House Armed Services Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee hearing to note this:


US House Rep Seth Moulton: First and foremost, I'm concerned that Iraqi security forces may be woefully unprepared to provide security to Iraqi civilians and ensure displaced persons can return to their homes without attack or fear of retribution.  Experts I have heard from here in Washington and in Iraq have expressed worries of insufficient hold forces and police compounded by the beleaguered state of Iraqi military units reeling from the toil of the brutal counter-ISIS campaign. Without sufficient local security arrangements, we cannot expect for Iraq to be stabilized, for civilians to return to normalcy and for communities to be defended against the emergence of a "ISIS 2.0" or other militant groups. Moreover, without capable and professional security forces, we risk seeing a repeat of the same sectarian tensions leading to Sunni embitterment that provided fertile ground for the growth of ISIS in the first place. Beyond the provisioning of civilian security, key gaps and problems remain to be addressed -- such as acute food insecurity, insufficient access to healthcare, destroyed infrastructure, degraded public services and utility, newly inflamed grievances among local communities and insufficient plans for government arrangements in many areas.


That is where things stand today.

There is no progress.

The US-installed government accomplishes nothing.

It does not represent the Iraqi people.

And he 'missions accomplished' turn out to be failures when examined closely.  Such is the case of 'liberated' Tal Afar.  Sam Kimball (MEE) reports:

Many former residents are not hopeful. Bassam Abdullah, 38, and his family fled Tal Afar ahead of the military operations and now live in Mosul.
His cousin, a municipal worker in Tal Afar who had fled two years earlier, was ordered by the authorities to return to the municipal offices, Abdullah says, and reopen them.
After four to five days in the city, Abdullah’s cousin told him: “The Hashd are burning some houses. They are burning Sunni homes. The Shia houses they leave alone.”
Abdullah says his cousin told him many houses in the city have been looted - houses which he believes belonged to Sunnis. “Tal Afar is now for the Shia. I have a little land in there. I think the [Hashd] authorities will oblige me to sell it to them.”


Again, nothing has changed.


Meanwhile, Mary Shepperson (GUARDIAN) writes of finding lentils in the Kurdistan region (and calls it the birth of inequality):


 The layer we’re excavating at the site dates to around 4,400 BC, according to our C14 samples, which places it near the end of a period called the Ubaid. In northern Mesopotamia the Ubaid covers about a thousand years (c.a. 5,300-4,300 BC) and it was a critical period of social transformation during which the foundations were laid for the birth of the first cities.
In the Ubaid period, people began more intensive, year-round cultivation, leading them to build larger, more permanent settlements. Unlike the preceding Halaf period society, which seems to have been essentially egalitarian with resources held communally, the late Ubaid period saw the introduction of significant competition and social stratification. Economic production became privatised, and authority – both religious and secular – appears to have been centralised.
[. . .]
Architecture changed in the Ubaid from semi-permanent, mostly circular structures to permanent, rectilinear buildings occupied by self-sufficient households. The ubiquitous structure of this new, more urban life was the tripartite house; a building with a large rectangular central space separating two suites of smaller rooms. It’s a tripartite house that we’re excavating at Gurga Chiya. The house sits on the south side of the settlement, off a broad, cobbled lane. Its walls are made of pisé – rammed earth – and after more than six thousand years they’re almost impossible to tell apart from the slightly less rammed earth surrounding them. Fortunately for me, as the excavator, the eastern half of the building is stuffed full of the house’s most unusual feature; a plague of carbonised lentils.
[. . .]
Lentils are one of the oldest crops to be cultivated by [humans]. They were part of the “Neolithic package”: a set of innovations in plant and animal exploitation which facilitated the shift from hunter-gathers to early farming. Most of these innovations, including lentil domestication, originated not too far from Gurga Chiya in the region of northern Iraq, south eastern Turkey and north eastern Syria. DNA analysis has shown that domesticated lentils are most closely related to the wild taxon Lens culinaris ssp. orientalis which originated in this area. The earliest clearly domesticated lentils were found at the site of Tepe Sabz in Iran and date to 5,500-5000 BCE; a thousand years older than our Gurga Chiya lentils.


Staying with the KRG, Prime Minister Masrour Barzani Tweets:


  16 hours ago
In my meeting today w/ German Amb to Iraq, Dr. Cyrill Nunn, I welcomed an intl initiative to back Erbil-Baghdad talks on an open agenda- mb.
 
15 replies68 retweets433 likes
 
 
 




The Kurdistan Regional Government issued the following:


Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq (cabinet.gov.krd) – Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani received German Ambassador to Iraq Cyril Nann and his accompanying delegation.

In the meeting both sides shed light on the latest political, humanitarian and post-referendum developments and agreed that tension and aggressive statements will not help resolve the issues and that dialogue and negotiations are the best way to address issues between Erbil and Baghdad. They also discussed Erbil- Berlin relations and best ways to further promote them.

Mr. Barzani thanked the German people and government for their humanitarian and military support to the Kurdistan Region. He also stated the reasons that pushed the Kurdistan Region to hold the independence referendum last month and emphasized that experiences with Baghdad proved that pre-referendum relationship with Baghdad was not functioning and that a new kind of relationship should be adopted.

Prime Minister Barzani reiterated KRG’s readiness to hold serious and unconditional dialogue with Baghdad and pointed out to the positive role the international community can play in the process.

Ambassador Nann said that Germany is following the developments in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq with interest, stressing that his country is ready to help and support the dialogue between Erbil and Baghdad. He also praised the role of the Kurdistan Peshmerga Forces in the fight against terror and commended the KRG and the people of Kurdistan for sheltering and helping a large number of internally displaced persons and refugees.


AFP notes:

An Iraqi court on Wednesday ordered the arrest of the chairwoman and two other members of the commission that organized last month's vote for Kurdish independence, a judicial official said.

The court in east Baghdad acted in response to a request from the National Security Council headed by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Supreme Judicial Council spokesman Abdel Sattar Bayraqdar told AFP.


Laughable.  RUDAW adds:

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has not ruled out Iraqi courts issuing an arrest warrant for Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani for holding the referendum despite the opposition of the federal government.
 

Iraq’s National Security Council, under the authority of Abadi, stated on Monday it had put together a “list of names” of “state employees within the Kurdistan Region” who stand accused of holding the referendum. It said they will take “legal measures” against them through the office of the public prosecutor.


You want to see even more war and rage in Iraq?

Have Hayder march his candy ass brigade through the KRG to arrest Massoud Barzani.

Hayder's little kids won't be able to leave the KRG alive.

He knows that.

So he taunts because he has no real power.

And as he issues yet another taunt, he just escalates tensions futher.

Nouri al-Maliki has less and less to worry about as he seeks to reclaim the post of prime minister -- it appears the best way to defeat Hayder is to just let him keep talking.


The following community sites updated:



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