Like Maria Said Paz

Wednesday, August 04, 2021

Free speech takes place where?

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Scary and Repugnant Ana Kasparian" went up early Sunday morning.

Greg Piper writers for the news site Just The News and recently decided to share a story from The College Fix, where he was previously an editor. The story included the line “Vaccines are not safe for everyone.” That line appears to have prompted Twitter to suspend his account despite the fact that some people have medical exemptions from the vaccine due to the high risk posed by preexisting medical conditions. Indeed, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that some people cannot take the vaccine for medical reasons. The latest censorship controversy is reminiscent of the suspension of writer Alex Berenson after he posted the public results of a Pfizer vaccine trial.

The CDC repeatedly has stressed that “All states provide medical exemptions.” CDC website also states that “all states and the District of Columbia allow a medical exemption. A medical exemption is allowed when a child has a medical condition that prevents them from receiving a vaccine.”

This is a standard question for all vaccines. The CDC has a site titled “Who Should Not Get Vaccinated with these Vaccines” that stresses “because of age, health conditions, or other factors, some people should not get certain vaccines or should wait before getting them.”

This is insanity. We don't let the phone company dictate the use of their lines and punish people for talking about this or that. Conversations are allowed to take place. If Twitter and Facebook find that too difficult to grasp, they need to go away.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Wednesday, August 4, 2021. The AUMF is back in the news, the Senate pretends to do its job, are Iraq's militias terrorists or gangsters, and much more.

Is Congress going to actually do something and repeal the 2002 AUMF that was cited as the permission to go to war on Iraq? Congress, do something -- sounds like a good opening to a joke, right? Supposedly, the Senate is on the verge of saving the day, but let's all be skeptical.

?This is not the end of our military engagement in Iraq," the State Dept's Wendy Sherman declared at yesterday's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, "as our consultations with the Iraqi government has highlighted. The progress of our Iraqi partners in their capabilities will allow for the full transition later this year of US and coalition forces to a mission that is focused on training, enabling and advisory tasks."

So nothing's changed. But no one wanted to go there. Certainly not Senator Cory Booker whose question she was responding to. It was as though the baby needed changing and everyone in the room was averting their eyes because no one wanted to do the needed but dirty task. That's why they're elected to office, those sort of tasks. But they don't have the backbone or the honesty to tell the truth or to demand real answers from witnesses.

Combat missions are ending!!!! Againa!!!! Mission Accomplished!!!! Again. We are only there to train!!!! Again. When the can stand on their own, we leave!!!! Again.

If, after 18 years of training, the Iraqi forces still can't 'stand on their own,' when do you think that they finally will?

To be fair, there's no buy-in. Why would you risk your life to fight for a country that doesn't represent you? Why would anyone be surprised of this reality? Did no one hear Mohammed Ali' speak as to why he would not serve in Vietnam? When you don't feel your country represents you . . .

And thses days, there's also the fact that the mafia has infiltrated the security forces in Iraq.

At any rate, Lee Camp could say, last week, what the senators refused to say yesterday.

Four other times, as Lee Camp notes, we've been told the combat mission is over.

They keep lying but they keep getting away with the ie because we're too damn stupid to call the lie out -- or too busy. Is that it, THE PROGRESSIVE, THE NATION, IN THESE TIMES, etc? Oh, WSWS, don't forget those lovelies. Too damn busy doing nothing. They can't stop doing nothing. Plenty of nothing.

Jamie McIntyre (WASHINGTON EXAMINER) reports this morning:

This morning, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will consider S.J.Res.10 to repeal the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force against Iraq. The full committee markup comes one day after testimony from the Biden administration that the 2002 AUMF, which was based in part on flawed intelligence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, was no longer necessary.

“I want to state clearly that the Biden-Harris administration believes the 2002 authorization for use of military force against Iraq has outlived its usefulness and should be repealed,” said Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. “And the administration has made clear that we have no ongoing military activities that rely solely on the 2002 AUMF.”

“The fact is the 2002 AUMF is no longer necessary to protect the American people from terrorism, to respond to attacks on our personnel or facilities, or to ensure the safety and security of our people,” Sherman testified. “The president has other tools available to achieve these objectives.”

Andrew Desiderio (POLITICO) offers, "In many ways, the Senate — which has routinely spurned similar AUMF repeal efforts in the past — will be catching up with public opinion, which has long turned against America's seemingly endless involvement in Middle East wars, especially as the U.S. prepares to mark the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks."

They'll repeal it or they won't. At the end of the day, it won't make that much of a difference. The AUMF really wasn't the fig leaf for the war they wanted that they always pretended it was. There was no attack on the US. The most basic principle for a just war. They overturned norms and conventions and they lied -- yes, the Congress lied. They were as guilty as the Bully Boy Bush White House in starting the illegal war. And as guilty for not stopping it.

Even this week, they can't be honest about what's going on in Iraq and they lie to the American people that something is changing with the US mission in Iraq. No, it's semantics. That's all it is. And we've all seen them do this before if we were paying attention.

Even Dick Cheney's former aid John Hannah can admit the truth at FOREIGN POLICY:

A big deal? Not really. The fact is that the vast majority of the 2,500 U.S. service members in Iraq have been in noncombat roles for more than a year. Consider this headline from a July 2020 U.S. military press release: “Coalition Task Force-Iraq transitions to Military Advisor Group.” Sound familiar?

Last Monday’s announcement of a so-called withdrawal was more about semantics than policy. It was an exercise in political theater aimed at helping Kadhimi appease elements in Iraq that are opposed to the U.S. presence—above all, powerful Iranian-backed Shiite militias and their supporters among Iraqis, who will be voting in national elections in October.

Yes, we also pretend that Mustafa al-Kahdimi is a great prime minister and butt into Iraq's affairs to ensure he gets a second term. Biden's in the White House! When he was 'just' the Vice President, he overturned the Iraqi people's vote. That was 2010 when the US orchestrated The Erbil Agreement -- a legal contract Patrick Cockburning still has never found time to write about, all these years later. Well if Cockburny couldn't protect US empire, do you really think there would be a place for him inthe US? No. He'd probably be barred from entering and sent back home. Does he point to his brother and sister-in-law and promise that, like them, he'll do limited hangout 'reporting'? Nothing that really ever challenges but is full of faux roar and pretense?

That whole family has made a career out of fakery which is why it's so surprising that Olivia is such a bad actress. (Not surprisingly, bad actress Olivia -- despite multiple chances -- was never able to nail down acting and never became the star she so wanted to be. Oh well, maybe her legacy will be as the answer to a trivia question in an online game?)

Joe overturned the 2010 election results (giving Nouri al-Maliki a second term and leading to the rise of ISIS). Moqtada's not really out of the elections, Moqtada al-Sadr, Shi'ite cleric and one time movement leader. One of his tribe explained in an e-mail that no one is very excited about the elections and, in fact, they're all waiting to see what Joe Biden plans to do this go round if he doesn't like the results? (Those under Moqtada, like the e-mailer, will be seeking office despite Moqtada's statements.)

(If you're surprised by the contact from Moqtada's campaign, don't be. They've long e-mailed and it's a rare election cycle that they don't ask for some campaign material to be posted here. We always do as we do for any campaign.)

Nancy Ezzeddine and Erwin van Veen (WAR ON THE ROCKS) offers this morning:

Who calls the shots in Iraq — the government or the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF)? Some observers think it is the latter, especially in light of recent events. On May 26, 2021, Iraqi police arrested Qassem Musleh — the commander of the PMF in Anbar province — in connection with the assassination of a prominent Iraqi activist. Immediately after, PMF militias circulated videos purportedly showing their fighters driving heavily armed trucks around Baghdad’s “Green Zone” in a show of force designed to compel Musleh’s release. When he was set free two weeks later, some analysts interpreted it as another exhibit of state weakness vis-à-vis the PMF, an umbrella organization of mostly Shiite, pro-Iran paramilitary groups that have fought the Islamic State.

In reality, the PMF has some pronounced weaknesses and faces growing challenges. Instead of viewing Musleh’s arrest and release as a victory for the PMF in a trial of strength against the Iraqi state, what actually occurred was a scramble by different PMF elements to maintain a united front against the prime minister when faced with the detention of one of their own. During Musleh’s two weeks in custody, it became clear that the PMF — which was incorporated into the Iraqi armed forces in 2016 — is more divided and weaker than it used to be, even though the shared interests of its main armed factions keep it afloat.

Simona Foltyn (POLITICO) serves up a lengthy article supposedly about the Iraqi militias but it only reveals gross ignorance:

The PMF were formed in 2014, and initially saw success fighting the Islamic State alongside U.S. and coalition forces. But following the territorial defeat of ISIS in 2017, the simmering differences between Iranian-backed militias and U.S. forces began to boil over.

We're grabbing that at random.

That's not based on reality. That's not based upon what happened.

There was a little whore -- well, there have been many, I know -- but once upon a time, there was a little whore who wanted to make a name for herself so she lied and stretched the truth and instead of her career ending, she ended up where, boys and girls?

That's right, THE NEW YORK TIMES>

And while many wrongly praised her (Glenn Greenwald, I am looking at you but you were far from alone), we called her out from the start of her Iraq 'coverage.' We were the only ones noting that the whore was embedded with the militia. We were the only ones noting that the whore was eating meals with the militia's family, was being provided shelter by the militias, etc.

Her glowing reports -- as an unbiased 'reporter' -- on the militias shaped a lot of thinking on what took place.

They may have battled ISIS, yes, but they also terrorized the people supposedly being rescued.

The whore forgot to include that. She forgot to include so much. She did steal from the Iraqi people to do a 'report' (as laughable as everything else she ever did) that people found to be a dramatic podcast -- drama is easy to supply when you dispense with facts. And when you dispense with facts, your podcast gets retracted -- just like happened with CALIPHATE.

Finally exposed, the whore continued to be employed by the paper of no record. And while the country appears to have caught on finally that she was a whore, the damage she did remains. And you can see it when the militias are presented as a positive force in 2014.

If they were so positive, please explain to me the actions that then-President Barack Obama repeatedly took to curtail their actions and their involvement.

When you're ready to explain that, maybe you won't be such a damn whore. Until then you're just another Rukmini Callimachi serving up half and halfs, hand jobs, you name it. Doing anything but actual reporting. (But Rukmini will always have those bad reports she filed and she'll always have the memories -- especially of the militia member she is said to have had sex with -- a detail I'm told that she never informed NYT higher ups about.)

At Brookings, Ranj Alaaldin writes:

Iraq faces a potential moment of reckoning that could mirror the events that unfolded just seven years ago when ISIS seized a third of the country. The U.S. remains integral to the painstaking campaign to combat ISIS, which has ramped up attacks in recent months. The group is co-opting, extorting, and coercing communities to establish the infrastructure that allowed it to seize large swathes of territory in 2014. Without continued U.S. military support, the jihadis may revive their so-called caliphate.
The necessity of defeating ISIS cannot be overstated, but one of the more understated enablers of the group’s preeminence is the continued dominance of Shiite militia groups tied to Iran. They directly undermine the government by attacking its security forces, while also enabling ISIS through the casualties they inflict on the Iraqi population. Responsible for killing more than 600 Iraqis tied to the protest movement, for wounding thousands, and routinely assassinating or kidnapping activists, Iranian proxy groups are turning Iraq into a republic of fear.
They hold the state hostage through the barrel of the gun while enjoying constitutional legitimacy as members of the Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF), which has access to a federal budget worth at least $2 billion. They also exploit the religious legitimacy that was bestowed upon the PMF by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in 2014, when the organization was formed to fill the void left by the collapse of the army. Since then, those groups that were aligned with Ayatollah Sistani and not tied to Iran have left the PMF, out of protest against their human rights atrocities and abuse of power.
Seventy-seven percent of Iraqis, including 76% in Shiite areas, are skeptical that forthcoming elections, scheduled for October, will deliver accountability and justice because of the control Iran-aligned militias have over the political environment. The despair is such that there are growing calls for a boycott, which could produce a re-run of the 2018 elections that were tainted by fraud and saw a coalition led by Iran-aligned groups finish second on its electoral debut. Since then, the Iraqi state has been in a state of crisis not seen since ISIS seized Mosul. Tens of thousands have protested against Iranian proxy groups to no avail and at great human cost.

That's an excerpt and may not accurately represent his piece. I'm honestly not getting his point. And I'm sure that's my lacking. But I'm reading it and waiting for the moment where they are terrorists. Now I consider them organized crime and would advocate, were they in the US, for the FBI going after them. But they are part of the government -- a move we opposed loudly here for years before they were finally made part of the Iraqi forces.

I absolutely agree that they terrorize the Iraqi people -- that was what we first objected to in Rukmini's whoring -- where she tried to pretend that they were beloved by the 'rescued.' (The 'rescued' are still waiting, all these years later, for any sort of efforts to help them rebuild.)

But they are part of the government now. They aren't responsive to the government. Though legally under the control of the prime minister, they rebuke him.

But they are part of the government. So maybe I'm using a poli sci definition of the term "terrorist" and Ranj is using some other definition.

They are a problem and that I think we do see eye to eye on. They do harm and terrorize the Iraqi people. But for me, they're more like organized crime that has infiltrated the Iraqi government.

Staying on the Iraqi government but moving to another problematic area, the United Nations issued the following yesterday:

While acknowledging legal changes against torture, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said that “the authorities need to effectively implement the provisions written in the law in each and every detention centre”.

“If not, they remain a dead letter”.

Shocks and beatings

Covering 1 July 2019 to 30 April this year, the report is based on interviews conducted with 235 detainees, along with prison staff, judges, lawyers and detainees’ families.

“I experienced the worst days of my life”, one prisoner told UN staff who helped draw up the report. “As soon as I arrived, the officers beat me using metal pipes. The following days, they used two exposed electricity wires to electrocute me”.

Another detainee said that “they cuffed my hands behind my back and hanged my handcuffs from a hook on a chain from the ceiling…they didn’t really ask me questions, they just kept shouting to confess”.

The report, Human Rights in the Administration of Justice in Iraq: legal conditions and procedural safeguards to prevent torture, states that legal procedures designed to bring interrogations and detention under judicial control within 24 hours of the initial arrest, are not respected; and access to a lawyer is systematically delayed until after security forces interrogate suspects.

“Eradicating torture will be one of the most effective tools to start to build public trust in the State’s ability to deliver justice and uphold the principle of fairness”, Ms Bachelet said. “However, when the authorities themselves break the law, it has the opposite effect”.

Lack of trust

The report also raises concerns that the authorities ignore signs of torture; complaints procedures appear to be neither fair or effective; and an apparent lack of accountability for these failures.

“The fact that many detainees choose not to report such treatment due to lack of trust, or fear of reprisals, indicates their lack of trust in the system”, said the UN Human Rights Chief.

“This needs to be addressed”, she added, pointing out that “specific recommendations on how to tackle this scourge” are included in the report. “The UN is ready to help the Iraqi Government in this endeavour”.

Recommendation

The authors recommend the adoption of a comprehensive Anti-Torture Law and national action plan – fully in line with international human rights law, particularly the UN Convention against Torture.

Upon arrival at detention centres, detainees do not procedurally receive medical examinations and often face significant delays before being granted permission to make a phone call, according to the report.

Moreover, official detention site locations remain opaque, said the report.

Aiding terrorist propaganda

“Effective prevention and prosecution of torture and other forms of ill-treatment would counter the narratives of terrorist groups and reduce their ability to exploit such practices to justify their own acts of violence”, said Ms. Bachelet.

“The prevention of torture in reality, and not just on paper, would contribute to peace and stability in the long-term, and is therefore in the State’s interest as well as the victims”, she concluded.

For more, see Louisa Loveluck's (WASHINGTON POST) report that we noted in yesterday's snapshot. MEMO covers the report as well:

The United Nations Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights yesterday accused the Iraqi government of "torturing" detainees held in the country's prisons and detention centres, Anadolu reported.

In a publication entitled 'Human Rights in the Administration of Justice in Iraq' which covers the period from 1 July 2019 to 30 April 2021, UNAMI said it had collected testimonies from 235 detainees, prison staff, judges, lawyers and the families of detainees.

"More than half of all the detainees interviewed by UNAMI/OHCHR for this report provided credible and reliable accounts of torture," it said, adding that the observations are consistent with patterns and trends previously documented in UN reports of torture in Iraq, including the Kurdistan region.

"Although the Iraqi legal framework explicitly criminalises torture and sets out the key legal conditions and procedural safeguards aimed at its prevention, respect for these provisions is lacking," it said.

According to the report, one of the prisoners, a UN staff member who helped prepare the report, said: "I lived the worst days of my life. As soon as I got to the prison they beat me with metal pipes. In the following days, they used two exposed power cords and electrocuted me."

The following sites updated:

A legal case asks a very interesting question

Jonathan Turley notes a case that raises a very interesting point:

George Mason University law professor Todd Zywicki is objecting to the school’s mandatory vaccine policy for faculty and students as a condition to returning to campus. Zywicki is raising an issue that is largely being ignored by the Administration and the media in the push for mandatory vaccine rules by private companies: the millions with natural antibodies to the virus. Zywicki recovered from the virus and says that blood tests confirm that he has antibodies. Given that test, he does not want to expose himself to an unnecessary vaccine given the risk (albeit low) of complications or a negative reaction.

Zywicki has taught at George Mason since 1998 and is being represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance. The case could represent an important challenge. The Biden Administration has openly called on private companies to enforce an effective vaccine passport system. However, George Mason is a public institution. Even though it might be able to secure review under the low rational basis test, Zywicki and his supporting experts are saying that there is no rational basis to require him to be vaccinated against a virus that he already has antibodies to combat.

Zywicki has relied on a letter from his physician who advised him not to get a vaccine. He also has a joint statement from Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford and Martin Kulldorff of Harvard, saying that it makes no sense to require him to get vaccinated when he shows such natural antibodies. They note that “the existing clinical literature overwhelmingly indicates that the protection afforded to the individual and community from natural immunity is as effective and durable as the efficacy levels of the most effective vaccines to date.”

His case highlights a glaring issue in the failure of the Administration and private businesses to distinguish between unvaccinated individuals and individuals who are unvaccinated but with antibodies. I have not been able to find a clear answer on why people like Zywicki cannot show test on antibodies rather than proof of vaccinations. Studies indicate that recovered victims show the same level of antibodies. It seems like the issue should be antibodies whether produced naturally or through vaccinations. At a minimum, it is worth discussing.

I agree, I do not understand why, if someone has the antibodies in their bloodstream already, they would also be required to take an immunization. I also do not understand why it is taking a legal challenge to get this issue discussed.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, August 3, 2021. LaVena Johnon's murder remains covered up all these years later and the United Nations notes the reality of Mustafa's Iraq: No real justice system and lots of torture.

Starting with LaVena Johnson who was most likely murdered while serving in Iraq. It's strange, isn't it?, that what would pass for evidence in most trials was dismissed and ignored by the US military which ruled the death a suicide. The parents have always felt differently and they are most likely right. Andrea Cavallier (NBC NEWS) reports:

Army Private LaVena Johnson called home every day while she was deployed in Iraq. Her last conversation with her parents was on July 17, 2005. She excitedly told them she would probably be able to come home for Christmas.

“She told us not to decorate the tree until she got home,” LaVena’s mother, Linda Johnson, told Dateline. “We said we’d wait for her, of course. She was so happy to be coming home.”

But she would never make it home.

It was around 7 a.m. on the morning of July 19, 2005, when the doorbell rang at the Johnson home in Florissant, Missouri.

“There was a soldier on our front porch,” Linda told Dateline. “He told us LaVena was dead. And he said, well, he said she had killed herself.”

In April of 2009, Cindy Sheehan spoke with Sara Rich (peace activist, activist to end assault and mother of Suzanne Swift) and with retired State Dept diplomat Ann wright on CINDY SHEEHAN'S SOAPBOX.

Sara Rich: Well I've always been a human rights activist -- even before she [her daughter Suzanne Swift] joined the military. And when she joined the military she was told by the recruiter that she -- if she signed up for five years, that she wouldn't be deployed to a combat zone.

Cindy Sheehan: Right.

Sara Rich: And basically she was sent to a combat zone. Neither of us had any idea about military sexual assault or that there was a term called military sexual trauma -- MST -- or anything about command rape. Suzanne was more than just harassed, she was actually raped by her commanding officer in Iraq and we didn't understand quite what was going on but it was she was harassed by one of her commanding officers, raped by another and then harassed by another. So it was three different men, all who had direct authority over her in a combat zone because she did see combat. It wasn't that she was stationed somewhere safe. She was shot at, she was doing combat patrol. She was the driver of a Humvee doing combat patrol in Karbala '04 - '05. And the whole time she was there I kept thinking this isn't right, something's wrong, what can I do and then finally when she got out of Iraq I said "Now can we say something? Can we do something?" Because she was too scared for me to say something while she was in Iraq because you know we have cases like LaVena Johnson.

Cindy: Absolutely

Sara Rich: Where, you know, women speak out and they're murdered. So she was too scared to say anything and finally she was being redeployed to Iraq for a second time and her PTSD and Military Sexual Trauma just exploded and she went AWOL instead of returning which was a huge turning point in our whole family. She refused to go back. She went AWOL. We got an attorney and a psychologist and that's when we finally started coming out about the sexual assault and the rape and all of the trauma that she experienced while in Iraq because up until that point it was just too raw for her to talk about. So she was seeing a psychologist, we had an attorney, we were trying to work with the army to get her so that she could turn herself in and get the help she needed but nobody would work with us so finally the AWOL Apprehension Team called their good buddies down here in Eugene [Oregon] at Eugene police department and they sent people to our home at ten-thirty on a Sunday night and took her in handcuffs. You know here we have this -- by then she's how old was she about 22 by then. A 22-year-old who had been raped, who had Combat Trauma and they put her in handcuffs and threw her in jail.

Cindy Sheehan: She had been raped, she had been the victim of a crime actually while she was stationed in another profound crime -- a crime against humanity, an international crime, the occupation of Iraq. Were her assaulters, were her rapists and harassers, were they hauled off in handcuffs at any time?

Sara Rich: No. [. . .] They just stripped her of her rank and sent her to prison.

Cindy Sheehan: And ultimately nothing has happened to the people who raped her?

Sara Rich: No. No. The one, the man who raped her, his wife ended up calling us about a year ago saying she was divorcing him. I always called him the molester because his name is Mark Lester

Cindy Sheehan: Uh-huh

Sara Rich: And she told me that he had been hired as a police officer in Kent, Washington and so I put a blast to my friends saying, you know, call the mayor, call the police chief and by the end of the week he was fired.

Cindy Sheehan: Well at least he had a little bit of accountability but you know there was Mark Lester that raped Suzanne but actually the entire system raped Suzanne.

Sara Rich: You better believe it.

Cindy Sheehan: And this is an absolute tragedy. I have read statistics where at least 30% of females are sexually harassed or raped in the military and of course that's probably a much higher number and we read and are still hearing about cases where female soldiers have died of dehydration in Iraq because they don't drink water because they don't want to get up to use the latrine in the middle of the night because they don't want to be raped so here Suzanne was in a war zone battling the resistance -- the Iraqi resistance -- but she also had to battle her own, her fellow soldiers -- her colleagues. You know, to me, if this isn't a reason to not join the military, I don't know what could be the reason. So thank you, Sara, we'll come back to you in a second. Ann, Sara talked about the case of LaVena Johnson and I know you have worked with the family and you know about the case. Can you tell my listeners about the case of LaVena Johnson?

Ann Wright: Sure I -- I will tell them about it. Let me just mention though that on the statistics on sexual harassment well over 90% of the women who are in the military say that they have been sexually harassed. Sexual assault and rape, the crimes of sexual assault and rape, that's where one-in-three soldiers, service members, are saying that they have been sexually assaulted or raped while they've been in the military and these are figures, statistics, that are given by the Veterans Administration

Cindy Sheehan: So but sexual harassment -- sexual harassment is almost 100%?

Ann Wright: That's right. That's right. Yes, it is. The case of LaVena Johnson, a young woman, twenty-one-years-old who had -- or pardon me, nineteen-years-old. Nineteen-years-old who had gone to Iraq. Within two weeks of her having been there, she ended up being found in a tent, a burning tent, she had been shot in the head and uh when her parents uh were notified of her uh death uhm they were told she was dead of a noncombat related incident. [. . .] 104 have been killed in Iraq and 43 have been killed in what they call noncombat related incidents and of that 43, there are 15 of them that when you look at the cases you think, "Mmm, there's something really strange." And one of them is LaVena Johnson who was found shot in a tent. When her body came back to her home in Missouri and they had the body at the funeral home, her mom and dad touched their daughter's body. The mother tried to rub her [LaVena's} hand and the gloves the military had put on her hands would not move and they looked at the gloves and they had been glued on. And so they went to the mortuary guy and said, "What's going on here? We want to see why these things were glued on." And when they cut those off they saw that her hand had been burned and indeed her whole body, one side of her body, had been burned. So how was this noncombat related incident? Why was she burned? Well over a period of two and a half years as the family kept begging the military for information -- first to get the autopsy, then, later on, to try to find documents about the death. Try to get information that is held by the military but they won't give it to the families unless you file a Freedom of Information Act on it. Well ultimately, after two and a half years they finally got the CD that contained the photographs of her body as her body was undressed in Iraq before it was shipped back to the United States and the -- the body showed that she had been beaten in the face that her nose had been broken, that there were -- the father says that it appears that there were bite marks on her body, that one of her arms had been distended and dislocated that there were -- that her vaginal area looked as though she had been sexually assaulted and then a caustic acid poured in her genital area. So, um, the Johnson family has been demanding that the US military review thsi case. That they do not believe that um, well, the military has said that she committed suicide. that on one killed her, that she commited suicide. With all of those injuries, she committed suicide. So I've been assisting the family to try to get a hearing before the army to make the army reopen that case. And we've gone to Congress to try to get Congress men and women involved in this and it's a real slow process of making the army reopen cases. You know, the Pat Tillman case, here after three Congressional hearings on his death in Afghanistan we now know that he was shot by friendly fire, he was shot in the head, it looks like he was assassinated and yet after three Congressional hearings, the parents of Pat Tillman don't know who among that small unit that Pat Tilman was a part of, who killed Pat Tillman and why? So for a family like LaVena Johnson's who have no political pull, there daughter was not an NFL star, she was just one of hundreds of thousands of young men and women who decide to join the military and then terrible things happen to them. The family is still pushing very, very hard on the military to try to get more answers on what happened to their daughter. But one thing for sure, they do not believe that she comitted suicide nor do I.

[. . .]

Sara Rich: It's interesting when I -- when I found out about LaVena's case, it just sent absolute shivers up my spine, thinking this is what would have happened to my daughter if she had told about what was going on to her to her superior officers in Iraq. This is what would have happened, she would have been murdered, they would have said it was a suicide. Their birthdays are very close to each other, there a few years apart, but their birthdays are within a couple of days of each other. And it just, it made me feel so -- so thankful for my -- that my daughter was -- you know, still with us.

Cindy Sheehan: Right.

Sara Rich: LaVena is not. And it made me feel the Johnsons and I have a real heart connection. They're very protective of Suzanne and I think about LaVena every day. It's just, we have a very deep, very deep connection about that. And when Ann and the Johnsons and I were going to Congress men and Congress women and senators, trying to talk to them about reopening LaVena's case and showing them that it was not a suicide, it was a murder, they were treated in a way that just infuriated me. I mean here they have a fallen soldier who is obviously raped and murdered and they were seeing -- taken to these little teeny rooms with junior staffers and weren't even given the respect and care that we as military parents of combat veterans should be absolutely demanding from people that say that they run our country.

Failed by the US military, failed by the US Congress. Remember that the next time someone hops a high horse and tries to pretend they care about eliminating assault. Or when they pretend that crimes can be left to military 'justice.'

From the June 5, 2008 snapshot:

May 22nd we noted Lavena Johnson who died while serving Iraq and whose parents do not buy the official 'explanation' of Lavena's death. As KMOV reported (link has text and video) last year, "Lavena was apparently abused" and it was impossible for her to have used the gun she's said to have killed herself with. Veterans For Peace notes "After viewing the black and white copies of crime scene photos, viewing multiple bruises on her body, and speaking to different military personnel as they prepared for her burial, her father and uncles realized that LeVena had been murdered. Eight days before her twenthieth birthday, LaVena was beaten, raped, set on fire, shot, and left in a contractor's tent in Iraq. Her family has been fighting for justice for LaVena for over two years now." They are asking you to help Dr. John Johnson (LaVena's father) find out what really happened to his daughter in Iraq by calling 202.225.2876 which is Ike Skelton's number, Skelton is the chair of the House Armed Service Committee. This will be picked up tomorrow and be a regular part of the snapshots.

The very people that sent LaVena to Iraq failed her. They did not protect her in life and they did not protect her in death. They were happy to send her to Iraq with lies and they were happy to send her body home with lies.

There are many other women who died in the military and it was not suicide despite the military classifying the deaths as suicide. From December 3, 2009:

We'll note this from yesterday's snapshot:

In the US, Colleen Murphy searches for answers to her daughter's death. Staff Sgt Amy Tirador was serving in Iraq when she was killed at the start of last month, shot in the back of her head. Russell Goldman (ABC News) reports Murphy has many questions including, "How could this have happened on a secure American base? I don't know why they can't rule some things out. This can't be a suicide. But there are so many probabilities and prospects and guessing games. They've given me no hints, and I can't stop thinking about all the different scenarios. Am I aggravated? Absolutely. Thursday will be a month. I want the truth. I will be patient and I will wait. But I want the truth."

Lavena Johnson was murdered in Iraq. It was not a suicide and the military's suicide 'finding' does not hold up. That finding should have resulted in Congressional hearings. Just as Lavena Johnson was not a suicide it is not likely Amy Tirador would commit suicide by shooting herself in the back of the head.

Amy Tirador, LaVena Johnson and many more. Their deaths are hidden, their murders are covered up with the false classification "suicide."

From NBC's report:

While Dr. Johnson has fought for answers in his daughter’s death for 16 years, it has slowed this year due to his recent hospitalization.

But his wife told Dateline that he refuses to give up and continues to fight. While in the hospital, he never misses a chance to tell someone, a nurse, a doctor, about LaVena.

“After a 16-year-long nightmare, now we’re going through this,” Linda said. “Her death has really taken a toll on her father.”

They are hoping someone will come forward with information that will push the CID to reopen the investigation.

Dr. Johnson spoke about his daughter at Protect Our Defenders.

Two weeks ago, INTERSEXUAL MEDIA offered this report.

In other news, Louisa Loveluck (WASHINGTON POST) reports this morning:

Iraqi authorities are routinely denying prisoners of their rights from the point of arrest through prosecution, according to the United Nations, leaving tens of thousands vulnerable to violence and other forms of abuse while in custody.

The report, released Tuesday by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, details a labyrinth of unfairness with detainees often denied due process at every turn. Confessions frequently come through torture. Few detainees see a lawyer until they appear in court. In some cases, they do not even know which authority is holding them.

Four years after the U.S.-backed defeat of the Islamic State group here, more than 40,000 prisoners are packed across prisons in Iraq’s federal and Kurdish regions. Judicial records and court visits suggest that roughly half were arrested on terrorism charges, then tried in a system that affords little effort to weight specific evidence against them.

The U.N. report is based on 235 interviews with current or former detainees, as well as discussions with prison staff, judges, lawyers, families of the detainees and other relevant parties.

At least half the detainees said that they had been tortured during interrogations aimed at eliciting some form of confession. Human rights groups have criticized the practice, saying that detainees frequently end up agreeing to sign documentation saying they have committed crimes that they had no part in.

Remember the above the next time someone shows up pimping current prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi as a success and someone who deserves a second term.

Winding down. An e-mail asks that we address Glenn Greenwald. Here's the Tweet:

Robin D'Angelo said today that

@SethMacFarlane

-- now the Moral Conscience of our Nation -- has long used the excuse of comedy to justify and spread his white racism to millions of Americans with "Family Guy." See the next tweet as she explains how his racism infected many.

I don't know Robin D'Angelo or her work. I don't have time to study it. But, first off, yes, Seth's work is racist. And Glenn wouldn't know that because he's part of the frat boy mentality. He was in a pass with a certain crowd of men and adopted their mindsets. That's always at the heart of any problem I have with Glenn. I know his kind very well. The beta gay who wishes he were an alpha. So he poses and struts. And refuses to note anything that might be seen as weakness, instead laugh at the jokes at the expense of people of color, of women . . .

ADDED -- all in bold added at 1:25 pm EST due to an e-mail from someone close to Glenn. Beta? Yes. He refuses to break with the pack. A true alpha would. What Glenn can do in his professional life, he can't do in his personal. And that's a real shame for someone with two beautiful children -- children who would easily be mocked and made fun of FAMILY GUY. I haven't called for FAMILY GUY to be banned -- nor would I -- but I'm not going to pretend it's not a racist program -- sexist as well. To ignore the racism is to be an idiot. In the early days, they flaunted it constantly. Back then, it was 'funny,' for example, that Brian was a racist. The show repeatedly punches down, not up. If Glenn can't admit that, he's either not very observant or not very honest. It would be great if he could, as an exercise, try putting himself in the place of any of the groups mocked -- African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, all women -- and see if he could get how offensive the show can actually be.

I would've thought that, by now, as he grew older, he'd have aged out of it. He hasn't. FAMILY GUY is a very racist show and that goes beyond the refusal to hire people of color for voice work. Time and again the fact that Peter is challenged is used as a cover to get in very racist jokes. It's reflective of what a certain mindset of some White men in terms of what they think about people of color. Is it a funny show, it's a derivative show (thanks, Seth, for turning our years of critiques into an episode -- it was the best episode of the show but still not a great episode) but it's not really a stand out. (AMERICAN DAD is consistently a better show than FAMILY GUY.)

Instead of rushing to attack Robin, maybe Glenn could take a moment to consider the actual episodes and the things that are said and done with regards to people of color on the show.

Seth's an embarrassment who can't get a live action hit to save his ass and who imploded as a host on the Academy Awards. He's also not very bright. Glenn reTweeted this from Seth:

Tucker Carlson’s latest opinion piece once again makes me wish Family Guy was on any other network. Look, Fox, we both know this marriage isn’t working anymore. The sex is only once a year, I don’t get along with your mother, and well… I’ve been having an affair with NBC.

3:27 PM · Aug 1, 2021

Tucker Carlson is on FOX NEWS. FOX and FOX NEWS are no longer linked. ABC owns former 20th CENTURY FOX in all its variations. Rupert Murdoch and his family continue with FOX NEWS, they sold the entertainment division to ABC-DISNEY.

And Seth knows that. But he also know that he could get more money from another network so instead of being honest, he lies in Tweets to try to create some sort of uproar that might force a renegotiation of his current contract or even a cancellation.

He probably thinks, "Hey, David Chappelle got COMEDY CENTRAL to give him more money." Yes, Seth, he did. But David is a genius talent. You're not. And you never have been. David's an artist. On a good day, Seth's a crowd pleaser. On a good day.

Okay, let's do THIRD. Last night, Ava and I posted our piece "TV: Xenophobia and racism alive and thriving thanks to PBS and Norman Lear." We had warned, before we wrote it, that we considered it timely and if we were going to write it, it would need to be posted no later than Monday. When we wrote it, we worked forever on it and that did not just include pulling out my journals and going through letters Marlon Brando wrote me. We struggled over many things that could have been included. Whoopi Goldberg shouldn't have been included in the documentary but she's a Norman Lear groupie and a partisan so they make room for her and let her lie. She goes on and on about EGOT as though she did something. She says of herself and Rita, "when we . . ." No. No. No. Rita had won The Emmy, The Grammy, The Tony and the Academy Award by the mid-70s. Whoopi doesn't become an EGOT until the '00s. And this notion that everyone's angling for it, based on what? That bad episode of 30 ROCK that Whoopi appeared in? Where she calls someone "colored man"? Whoopi's a liar. Lies are told about Rita and the EGOT all the time. Her Emmy for THE MUPPETS is often called a daytime Emmy. No, it was not. THE MUPPETS? A syndicated show and it was in competition in the primetime Emmys. Equally true, Rita won a Grammy in the 60s but no one ever notes that. WEST SIDE STORY won the Grammy for Best Soundtrack Album: Original Cast in 1962. Rita was part of that film. Some would argue we're splitting hairs and maybe we are. That's why we pulled that section and the EGOT section and many more sections that dealt with reality as opposed to the nonsense offered in a film that was supposed to be about Rita Moreno but had Rita take a back seat so that they could make a partisan push instead. And to glorify Norman Lear as well. ONE DAY AT A TIME, the reboot, was a show that should have had more seasons, yes. It was not, however, on the level of WEST SIDE STORY yet it takes up just as much time in the documentary -- because Norman produced ONE DAY AT A TIME and he produced the 'documentary.' It was an amusing sitcom. Let's stop pretending it was on the level of a classic. We praised the show, Ava and I, at THIRD and stand by that praise but this was not one of the huge accomplishments in Rita's career and yet it was treated as such while many other moments were ignored. Her real life was ignored pretty much throughout. We noted the documentary never details why her mother divorced her father or the impact of that in the 1930s (he had a series of affairs, that's why he divorced her mother). They don't deal with her young life in the US -- including, when she couldn't speak English, being taken to an infectious-disease war of a NYC hospital with no idea what was going on.

They ignore everything. They might try to argue, "We were trying to get to her career." Okay, well her career beginning include a lengthy hitch on a radio program but that's not noted. Her career includes making her Broadway debut at the age of 13 but the documentary doesn't tell you that.

It has no time for Rita because it keeps working back to its agenda (if Norman Lear wants to make a documentary on Brett Kavanaugh, he should do so and stop trying to use Rita to sneak one in).

After writing it, we pruned and pruned and spent easily ten hours on this.

And the deal was it would be posted Sunday -- with other items -- and if not we would post our piece on Monday. They have various pieces. Monday evening, Jim asked us to do another piece. On Jimmy Dore. We were half-way through writing it (it's noting the stupidity of the attacks on Jimmy and the attackers in their glass houses) when we looked at each other and said "No." We'll do it for next edition. Finish the piece. But, no, we're not spending Monday night writing another piece. I was exhausted Sunday night. That's why I stopped posting here. I just fell on the bed around eight or so and put on music. I was too tired to move. And now, on Monday, we're going through it all again?

Sorry, no.

The well is dry.

As for why we didn't post the other pieces that were finished? The editorial was not done. So what was the point in posting the other pieces. They can all go up next week and, as a result, maybe THE THIRD ESTATE SUNDAY REVIEW will actually once again publish on a Sunday?

The following sites updated:

Saturday, July 31, 2021

Marlon Bradno, Rita Moreno and C.I.

We're not posting our final pieces for the week yet. Jim asked us to hold up so we could focus energy on THIRD and people said yes.

I said yes just because I'm not big on posting here anyway. I'm tired and tired of being online, sorry.

But C.I. posted "Bernie Sanders' Former Press Sec Reacts To His Krystal Ball Interview" which is 'just' a video post. But she included the following note:

[C.I. note: Ava and I are working on our piece for THIRD, which will deal with, among other things that very bad, piece of crap 'documentary' allegedly about Rita Moreno. Norman Lear, who produced it with a heavy hand, may not need to die but he certainly needs to retire or be forced to retire. His garbage and his xenophobia and racism is well known to anyone who's not a reactionary liberal -- anyone on the left who actually calls out real racism -- which, yes, does include Archie Bunker -- a damaging portrayal that did -- as CBS' own internal studies demonstrated -- promote racism -- a fact that White America wants to pretend did not take place despite Black periodicals documenting this throughout the original lifetime of ALL IN THE FAMILY.. My point here is that I'm juggling on both -- Ava and I are doing are rough point outline and I'm also going to the journals -- my journals -- for specific bits and pieces to include -- I'm sure I'll include a thing or two from conversations I had with Marlon Brando because I'm particularly pissed at the way Brando comes off in the documentary. So with all this juggling, I may not get stuff up here promptly. I will try to get something up every hour to every 90 minutes before I do the Iraq post to end the night and I believe Isaiah also has a comic -- if so, it will also go up at the end of the night.]

I love that note. :D

I love it because it shows you why Ava and C.I. are still doing these pieces. They hate being online even more than I do. But if they're online, they're going to be online for a reason, they're going to right wrongs, they're going to tell truths. I know, I'm at C.I.'s, that Jane Fonda probably won't be pleased because Jane's going to get included as well -- and she's going to be called out -- but tough s**t.

Also, when C.I. goes to her journals -- nearly as famous to people who know her as Anais Nin's journals -- she's really pissed. Her memory is solid. As I've noted before, Rebecca and I dubbed her "Memorac" back in college -- after the computer in the film DESK SET with Katharine Hepburn. If she's going to the journals, she's really pissed and she's looking for letters from Marlon and for notes on her conversations with Marlon.

The documentary -- I watched it with them (Ava and C.I.) -- is garbage. Norman Lear garbage that tries to pass off partisan politics while pretending to be about Rita Moreno.

It is not about Rita Moreno -- whom both Ava and C.I. know. It's using Rita to push a partisan agenda.

How disgusting. What a betrayal of an artist of Rita's stature.

Anyway, C.I. looked a the time, muttered "s**t" and rushed to post to THE COMMON ILLS and she was asking Ava and me, "Should I add a note in case I miss the next hourly post? Again?"

That note, I just loved it. It may be the best thing that's gone online this week -- even if it was just dashed off by C.I.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Friday, July 30, 2021. Hobby Lobby rips off the people of the world and largely gets away with it, Nancy Pelosi goes on a rant that backs up anti-choicers around the country, and much more.

Brigit Katz (SMITHSONIAN) types:

In 2014, the craft retailer Hobby Lobby purchased a rare cuneiform tablet inscribed with a portion of the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest known works of literature. The artifact was acquired for display at the Museum of the Bible, a Washington, D.C. institution funded by the family of Hobby Lobby founder David Green. But this week, reports Jordan Freiman for CBS News, the Department of Justice (DOJ) ordered the tablet’s forfeiture on the grounds that it was illegally imported into the United States and sold to Hobby Lobby under false pretenses.

Known as the “Gilgamesh Dream Tablet,” the artifact is inscribed in the Akkadian language and details a dream sequence from the ancient epic, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). It is around 3,500 years old and originated in modern-day Iraq.

The artifact’s forfeiture is part of a sweeping effort to return around 17,000 archaeological objects looted during the decades of instability spurred by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, reports AFP. Over 36 hours in April 2003, some 15,000 treasures were stolen from the Iraq Museum in Baghdad alone.

Did Hobby Lobby pay Katz to write in such a passive voice?

What's next? Would she report that Robert Aaron Long had decided to go to prison? Hobby Lobby was the target of multiple investigations by the US Justice Dept. The courts have found against them.

Call them what they are: Criminals.

Stop pretending. Gilgamesh Dream Tablet? They knew what they were doing. They didn't think Bobby Joe Gilgamesh looked in the family attic and found a memento he took to ANQITUE ROAD SHOW and then decided to sell. They purchased the time for $1.6 million dollars, don't pretend for a second that they didn't do research. They were warned internally that the purchase would be illegal. They went ahead with it.

They are criminals. They chose to be part of theft. They got caught and now we get people spinning for them. There should be outrage. Want to talk about cancel culture? That's what should be canceleld: Hobby Lobby.

If you're shopping there, face it, you are promoting theft, you are promoting pillaging, you are in favor of privatizing history.

Guy Frank spent 20 years in prison -- he was only released last April -- for stealing two shirts. But Hobby Lobby steals treasures from the world, and not only do they get to walk free but the rag for The Smithsonian Museum wants to play no-big-deal?

Fair Wayne Bryant is serving a life sentence in prison. For killing someone? No, for stealing hedge clippers.

But Hobby Lobby -- a habitual offender, by the way -- is caught (repeatedly) in the theft of antiquities and there's no jail time?

The United States Attorney's Office of the Eastern District of New York (which falls under the US Justice Dept) issued a statement this week which included:

The government’s investigation showed that in 2003, a U.S. antiquities dealer (the “Antiquities Dealer”) purchased the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet, encrusted with dirt and unreadable, from a family member of a coin dealer in London. The Antiquities Dealer and a U.S. cuneiform expert shipped the tablet into the United States by international post without declaring formal entry. After the tablet was imported and cleaned, experts in cuneiform recognized it as bearing a portion of the Gilgamesh epic in which the protagonist describes his dreams to his mother. The protagonist’s mother interprets the dreams as foretelling the arrival of a new friend. She tells her son, “You will see him and your heart will laugh.” The names of the hero, Gilgamesh, and the character who becomes his friend, Enkidu, are replaced in this tablet with the names of deities Sin and Ea. The tablet measures approximately 6-inches by 5-inches and is written in the Akkadian language.

As alleged in the government’s amended complaint, in 2007, the Antiquities Dealer sold the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet with a false provenance letter that stated the tablet had been inside a box of miscellaneous ancient bronze fragments purchased in an auction in 1981. This false letter traveled with the tablet as it was sold several times in different countries, and a later owner provided the letter to the Auction House in London. In 2014, the Auction House sold the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet to Hobby Lobby in a private sale and an Auction House employee carried it on a flight from London to the United States and then transferred it to New York. Hobby Lobby consented to the tablet’s forfeiture based on the tablet’s illegal importations into the United States in 2003 and 2014.

The government’s case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Sylvia Shweder and Trial Attorney Ann Brickley of the Department of Justice’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section (MLARS).

Does money buy the thieves a pass? It shouldn't. There needs to be jail time. This was theft from the people of the world.

And the tablet is only one of 17,000 objects that they're being forced to return.

David Green should be behind bars. And let's note that he's a thief and a cheap thief at that. Green wouldn't do the transaction in New York and had it moved to Oklahoma. Why? To avoid paying sales tax.

If you're shopping at Hobby Lobby, you're part of the problem. It's amazing that in the 'cancel culture' period, Hobby Lobby skates. Clearly, the legal system is not going to punish Green.

Richard Wolf Tweets:

Many ancient relics stolen from Iraq, etc. ended up in Hobby Lobby corp's DC Museum of the Bible. Hobby Lobby fined $ millions. Did their Bible lack the "thou shalt not steal" part?

Gilgamesh tablet: US authorities take ownership of artefact

The Gilgamesh Dream Tablet was imported illegally into the US before being bought by Hobby Lobby.

bc.com

11:30 AM · Jul 29, 2021

Jack Gahteaux offers:

Never forget that Hobby Lobby was paying Islamic rebels in Iraq, including ISIS, for looted cultural artifacts while those factions were actively engaged in killing Americans. Hobby Lobby was partially funding terrorists so they could add to their religious collections.

10:36 PM · Jul 29, 2021

Meanwhile, the COVID 19 pandemic continues across the globe. In Iraq, a new variant may be emerging. Dr. John Campbell discusses this and other COVID developments with Dr Raghad Alsuhail in the video below.

Earlier this week, the International Crisis Group published a report on The October Revolution movement. "Iraq's Tishreen Uprising: From Barricades to Ballot Box." This is from the executive summary:

In October 2019, mass demonstrations engulfed Baghdad and southern Iraq as citizens protested widespread corruption, unemployment and poor public services. The Tishreen (October) uprising, driven by youth, became the largest and longest-lasting social movement since 2003. State security forces and paramilitary groups harshly suppressed peaceful dissent on numerous occasions, leaving some 600 protesters dead and over 20,000 injured in the first six months. The turmoil forced Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi to resign; in May 2020, ex-intelligence chief Mustafa al-Kadhimi took his place. But despite Kadhimi’s declared tolerance for peaceful protest, his tenure has been marked by continuous repression, often carried out by groups tied to the state, acting autonomously. Violence could escalate ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for October 2021. The Kadhimi government should take steps to ensure that the elections will be safe and fair. It should also pursue accountability for state-affiliated armed actors responsible for causing deaths and injuries during the protests.

Besides its scale, four main features of the 2019-2020 protest wave stand out. First, while Iraq’s post-2003 governments have used force to quell anti-government unrest since 2011, the reaction has never been so severe as it was on this occasion. The post-2003 political system’s legitimacy crisis that fuelled protests in the past was compounded when state coercive institutions joined forces with paramilitary groups following the war with the Islamic State (ISIS), which ended in 2017. From that moment on, paramilitaries linked to the al-Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) began to converge – but only partially – with state security institutions, especially the interior ministry, while engaging in predatory economic behaviour. Their presence helped precipitate the brutal response to protests, while shielding the perpetrators from accountability, as no one could be sure who was swinging the club or who had given the order.

Secondly, the Tishreen uprising exposed an unusual, though not unprecedented, intra-Shiite rift. Whereas earlier post-2003 violence in Iraq had primarily pitted Sunnis against Shiites, Arabs against Kurds or the state against insurgents, these confrontations arrayed a Shiite Islamist-led state apparatus against the predominantly Shiite population in Baghdad and the south. It also involved Shiite political parties, paramilitaries and other armed groups that have long been at odds, especially the followers of Muqtada al-Sadr and others under the banner of the Hashd, some elements of which enjoy material support from Iran.

Thirdly, outside players exacerbated the standoff between protesters and security forces, with Iran choosing the side of the government and the Hashd, and the U.S. rhetorically backing the protesters, or at least their right to peaceful protest. Iran had a dual stake in the survival of both the political system that the protesters wished to see change and the Hashd paramilitary groups, having invested heavily in both. Many activists expressed anti-Iran sentiments, which fuelled the notion in government and Hashd circles that the U.S. was behind the unrest.

Fourthly, Iraq’s political class underestimated the conviction of the young people animating the growing mass movement, a formidable and autonomous political force that to a great extent refused to negotiate a way out of the crisis. In past protests, street activists have usually had links to either the Sadrist movement or the Iraqi Communist Party. By contrast, the Tishreen uprising evolved as a leaderless, youth-driven grassroots movement, at times joined and at other times opposed by the Sadrists. The authorities could not co-opt the protesters or reach a settlement with them.

By October 2020, however, the combination of repression and partial concessions, on top of assembly restrictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, had broken the protesters’ resolve, without addressing their main grievances. Since that time, Iraq’s ruling elites have fallen back on business as usual. Government promises to deliver justice for killed protesters remain largely unfulfilled, while legislators have resisted proposed reforms, including with respect to key aspects of electoral legislation. More generally, the government, along with its paramilitary tentacles, has done little to address its deep post-2003 legitimacy deficit.

Yet despite protest fatigue, the country has not returned to the status quo ante, certainly not from the street activists’ perspective. Demonstrations have continued sporadically in southern provinces as the country heads into legislative elections in October. As recently as 25 May, activists gathered in Baghdad and the south calling for accountability for their slain peers. A new eruption of protests – and both pre-emptive and retaliatory violence – could be a matter of time.

The next major test of Iraq’s shaky order is the approaching parliamentary elections in October, which must be perceived by Iraqis as relatively free and fair so as to stand any hope of restoring public confidence in the state and opening politics to wider participation. The government should consider deploying security forces drawn from the military, which command greater trust among the population than interior ministry units, in southern governorates, which have seen the most violence. This step could help limit threats against candidates’ campaigns and encourage voter turnout. In May, the UN Security Council adopted an important resolution that supports an extensive international observation mandate for Iraq’s elections, which should be supplemented with local observers. Iraq’s external partners should keep up pressure on the government to bring state-affiliated perpetrators of abuses during the protests to justice.

In the medium term, a newly elected government and parliament should formulate a comprehensive reform plan that speaks to the protest movement’s principal demands, with a priority on security sector reform, including training of riot police and streamlining of command and control within – and between – the interior ministry and the Hashd. These measures will reduce the risk of another violent crackdown if protests erupt again, as they most likely will as long as basic grievances remain unaddressed.

I'm not a fan or supporter of ICG. In the early days of this site, up to 2009, I regularly ignored what they sent to the the public account because I do see them as a tool of empire. Back then, you had many others way to cover Iraq without noting them. These days? Really no. I haven't read the report yet. I didn't even read the executive summary posted above, it's copied from the e-mail they sent to the public account. (common_ills@yahoo.com) I'll read it this weekend and if there's anything in there worth highlighting, we'll note it next week. If there's anything I disagree with? I won't be surprised. And probably will ignore it and move on to other topics.

Never had a problem beating up on Brookings. They make it so easy and have throughout the Iraq War. "We're non-partisan!" Then the 'expert' on Iraq leaves and goes to a right-wing 'think'-tank. They want a video noted but, people, I can't highlight your video if I can't embed it. I'll note the webpage for the video which also contains a transcript. If you want to know how DC looks at the meet-up this week between US President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, check it out.

We'll note these comments by Ranj Alaaldin who isn't as hideous as many they've had in the past (Brookings, take the compliment, it won't get better, no matter how many e-mails you send):

ALAALDIN: So if you ask Iraqi observers, the wider Iraqi population, although there’s a number of crises that the country is currently hit with – I would say, interconnected crises – whether that’s the threat from militia groups tied to Iran, whether it’s ISIS, wider geopolitical crises and tumult, or U.S.-Iran tensions, most of them will actually point towards the economic crisis in the country, and that’s I would say, near existential crisis for Iraq.

And Prime Minister Kadhimi came into office with two objectives really, with two expectations being in place: the first is to hold early elections, and the hope is that the elections will enable some political reforms and bring into office, bring into state institutions moderate actors who do want to push Iraq towards recovery, who do want to install, implement a culture of accountability; and secondly, to address the economic crisis in the country.

Now, the economic crisis, in particular, has been devastating and could become an existential crisis as a result of the decline in oil prices, because of the pandemic. 70% of the Iraqi budget goes towards paying civil servants and the Iraqi state can simply no longer afford that public sector payroll. So, it’s got a population of more than 30 million, expected to reach around 50 million in a decade, with around 60% of Iraqis under 24, and alongside that, 700,000 required jobs every year. And this is a country, bear in mind, that lacks infrastructure, sustainable governance, and most certainly lacks a private sector that can meet the demands and needs of its population. So that crisis, although it doesn’t receive as much attention, and doesn’t occupy, let’s say, headlines as much as it should, is still there in the background. It still hasn’t been addressed.

Although there are some genuine efforts, I would say, to be fair to the government, to actually address that. There is a blueprint of sorts, known as the White Paper. Well, it came into place actually almost months after Kadhimi came into office. It’s a rather ambitious blueprint, because although conceptually and theoretically, you can have all the right principles, mechanisms, and ideas in place, its execution is made a little more difficult if not impossible precisely because of those interconnected crises that I refer to, not least the security environment, the security conditions.

So in a way, Prime Minister Kadhimi, as somebody who is a transitional prime minister, is something of a compromise candidate, has some breathing room amongst the wider Iraqi public, and for them, I would go as far as saying he could be the least worst option as it stands. Because the alternative could be far worse. It could be a militant individual or prime minister tied to Iran, which has been possible in the past, which could become a reality in the future, in the very near future. And the alternative could be a repeat of what unfolded under the previous prime minister, which is effectively carte blanche for Iran-aligned militias to conduct a full-scale campaign of oppression against protesters and the wider public.

That isn’t to say that patience will not run out, and I think we’re now reaching a point where the elections could make or break his prospects of securing another term. There could be a boycott of those elections because of the intensified campaign to assassinate activists and civilians by Iran-aligned militias, and that boycott will help them very much – that’s Iran and it’s proxies – because they’ve already got an established and entrenched support base that follows, let’s say, more the personalities within those groups. And they’ll be loyal regardless of whether the wider Iraqi public boycotts the elections. And if that boycott happens, the moderates that will suffer, and I would say it’s also Prime Minister Kadhimi that will ultimately suffer and fail to get a second term in office.

Now we're moving to the US and the hideous Nancy Pelosi. The Speaker of the House made cringe worthy comments. Jimmy Dore takes it on below.

He's making some good points. But his points are exactly why we need more voices on the left. Jimmy's voice is a strong one and we're lucky to have it. He notes he doesn't have kids in school but he pays taxes for it.

Again, great argument, great point.

But why do I have to comment on it? I saw the remarks yesterday afternoon and knew I'd have to comment.

Why?

I know Nnncy. Have for years. Hypocrite. Hypocrite who just popularized an argument she once swore she was against.

Anybody else get what everyone's missing?

That's why we need more voices.

Abortion.

We can't have federally funded abortions because some might oppose the procedure. Time and again, and not just with abortion, women's reproductive services are gutted in what is covered because someone might object.

She's popularizing the argument against funding women's reproductive rights, their health rights. She should be condemned for those remarks.

If feminists were included at the table, points like this might get made.

And, to clarify, our calls for wider representation and inclusion on left programs? That's not for me. Newbies seem unaware of that and think I'm angling for an appearance on some podcast. I do not do interviews as C.I. That's been the policy all along. I'm not going on any programs as C.I. I have no interest. My arguments are that the conversation is reduced and restricted when we are not inclusive.

On Jimmy's argument, we need to correct. "Young people." Who are these young people with student loan debt? In our community, we've got Gen X-ers saddled with student loan debt. Nancy presented it as parents and Jimmy bought into that. Under Bill Clinton, universities really started cleaning up with huge fees for their questionable services. You don't just have people in their 20s facing student debt right now in the US at this moment. You have those in their 30s and those in their 40s. You probably have people in their 50s and their 60s.

And remember, it was Joe Biden who made people unable to discharge that debt. Declare bankruptcy? It won't get you out of any federal student loans. And that's Joe Biden's work in the US Senate.

We're going to wind down. Below is noting Eleanor Smeal's birthday which is today -- it came in yesterday:

Tomorrow is Ellie Smeal’s birthday, Common Ills, and we’d like to include you in the birthday wishes we are pulling together for her.

Naturally, we couldn’t think of a better birthday present for Ellie, than the gift of The Equal Rights Amendment.

As you probably know, Ellie and the entire Feminist Majority team are laser focused on building a massive campaign to secure gender equality by ensuring the ERA is at long last, placed in the U.S. Constitution.

You can help ensure that “equality of rights shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex” with a gift toward our ongoing efforts to keep the pressure on.

Will you pitch in right now?

Let’s go big for this — it will make Ellie so proud.

For Equality,

Kathy Spillar and Dolores Huerta

The following sites updated: