Starting with a repost from Workers World:
Fast food workers fight back: We can’t survive on $7.25
Wendy’s strike in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Nov. 29.
Photo: Instagram/andalalucha
Revolutionary
thinkers wrote centuries ago that sometimes decades can go by and
nothing of note happens in the class struggle. Then, they observed, a
decade of developments can occur in just a blink of an eye.
That
is exactly what happened in the U.S. as over 200 fast food workers went
out on strike in New York City on Nov. 29. What made it even more
significant is that these walkouts followed hundreds of “Black Friday”
Walmart actions nationwide, along with major work stoppages at Los
Angeles Airport and California ports.
It was, indeed, an extraordinary week of class struggle in the U.S.
The
Nov. 29 walkout and union drive in NYC took place in industries that
were considered next to impossible to organize. But megacorporation
McDonald’s, as well as Taco Bell and Wendy’s, were some of the fast food
chains that experienced walkouts, which can only be described as
unprecedented and historic.
In fact the New York Times wrote that
it was the “biggest effort to unionize fast-food workers ever undertaken
in the United States.” (Nov. 29)
The effort was organized by a
coalition of community organizations with union support, including NY
Communities for Change, Service Employees UNITE NY as well as The Black
Institute.
Hundreds of workers and their supporters gathered at
Times Square at 6 a.m. Nov. 29 to demand better wages and conditions.
The Fast Food Forward website, one of the coalition members, posted the
main chant of the workers: “We can’t survive on $7.25!”
The
website describes conditions behind the campaign: “… people who work
hard should be able to afford basic necessities like groceries, rent,
childcare and transportation. While fast food corporations reap the
benefits of record profits, workers are barely getting by — many are
forced to be on public assistance despite having a job.”
Low
wages, coupled with irregularly assigned hours, keep working conditions
miserable. Fast food workers are justifiably fighting to get wages up to
$15 an hour.
Community support by labor, Occupy Wall Street and
progressive activists played a key role in the campaign. In fact, when
Wendy’s tried to fire one of the strikers in a Brooklyn restaurant, a
community delegation showed up right away. Supporters included New York
Councilmember Jumaane Williams, who urged customers to either leave the
restaurant or not come in at all in support of the striker. The tactic
worked; the worker was rehired on the spot as some of the customers left
the restaurant in solidarity.
This shows the strength of people power.
The
New York Times, in a Nov. 20 article titled “Skills don’t pay the
bills,” published an illuminating graphic with a picture of two
employers, one represented by a manufacturing building and the other a
McDonalds.
Lines went around the corner of workers applying for
jobs, not at the manufacturing factory but at the food factory. The
article stated, “Nearly six million factory jobs … have disappeared
since 2000. And while many of these jobs were lost to competition with
low-wage countries, even more vanished because of computer-driven
machinery that can do the work of 10 or, in some cases, 100 workers.”
The
article went on to say, “Hundreds of thousands of U.S. factories are
starving for skilled workers.” It referred to a study claiming that
nearly 80 percent of manufacturers have jobs they can’t fill. The
National Association of Manufacturers estimates there are “roughly
600,000 jobs available for whoever has the right set of advanced
skills.”
Why are these jobs hard to fill? The CEO of GenMet, a
Milwaukee metal-fabricating manufacturer, explained it best. He said he
would hire as many skilled workers as showed up at his door. Last year,
he received 1,051 applications and found only 25 people who were
qualified. He hired all of them, but supposedly soon had to fire 15.
Part of his “pickiness,” he says, comes from avoiding workers with
experience in a “union-type job.”
Indeed the starting pay is only
$10 an hour. Those with an associate degree can make $15, which can rise
to $18 after several years of good performance. Yet, the Times writes, a
new shift manager at a McDonald’s can earn around $14 an hour.
It must be pointed out that while they “can” earn $14 an hour, the workers who walked out on Nov. 29 show that most don’t.
The
National Employment Law Project reports that nearly 60 percent of the
jobs added since the recession have been these types of low-wage jobs,
particularly in retail sales and food preparation. Conditions at these
corporations are shameless, especially when you consider their profits.
McDonald’s
net income in the third quarter was a whopping $1.46 billion! Total
sales at McDonald’s were a staggering $7.15 billion in one year. (NY
Times, Oct. 19)
Walmart slipped to number two in this year’s
Fortune 500 after holding on to number one for two years in a row. Their
profits declined to an astounding $15.7 billion!
No wonder
Walmart and McDonald’s workers are walking out. The profits the workers
have made for these corporations is astounding, yet the workers still
have to apply for food stamps. If ever there was a case to expose the
contradictions of capitalism, this is THE one.
Tipping point or temporary upsurge?
This upsurge in the class struggle is taking few by surprise.
That
the specter of union organizing is haunting megaconglomerates like
McDonald’s and Walmart was inevitable. The capitalist system’s drive to
move industry toward more high technology with miserable low pay for the
workers; its voracious drive for ever more profits; the fact that war
no longer provides the economic panacea it used to; technology and
automation are creating downward pressure on wages; and an expanding
worldwide work force far outnumbers the shrinking pool of jobs — all
these factors have created the conditions that led to these walkouts.
Capitalism,
at a dead end, with fewer and fewer world markets in which to sell
commodities, is providing no way out for the working class.
In fact, this dying animal is increasing its attacks tenfold.
It
was inevitable that the work force that created the wealth for the
capitalist 1% would sooner or later rise up against these conditions.
The specter of organizing, of fighting back against the megacorporations
that compose the capitalist system is in its infancy, but it is getting
brighter. It remains to be seen where this will go.
This specter
also brilliantly illuminates that the conditions of exploitation between
the bosses and the workers are irreconcilable. Sooner or later,
somewhere the class struggle will burst asunder.
This is a time to
seize the moment. Class-conscious fighters and progressives of all
types should be on the front lines to express their unconditional
solidarity with low-wage workers and help them win. A union victory at
Walmart or McDonald’s would be a huge tipping point for the class
struggle.
Then the next step would be to abolish the capitalist
system altogether. Only that will assure a real victory for the workers
and the oppressed here and around the world.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World. Verbatim copying and
distribution is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this
notice is preserved.
That's the best article I've read on the strikes. I've been very disappointed with the coverage of the strikers from our so-called 'independent' media. This is the only coverage I've seen that offers what took place, ties it into the historical struggle and also provides strikers who look like people you know as opposed to cartoons (some of which might scare you). When I see that kind of bad coverage in corporate media, I'm not surprised. But when it makes it into 'independent' media as well?
That's frightening. So I hope you enjoy the Workers World report as much as I did.
"
Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Wednesday,
December 5, 2012. Chaos and violence continue, the standoff between
Baghdad and Erbil continues, Nouri wants his face adorning checkpoints,
news emerges of a lawsuit Nouri filed to slap down the Iraqi people,
Iraq's First Lady calls for honoring diversity, the US Congress
discusses Iraqi refugees, and more.
Chair
Patrick Meehan: From 2004 - 2007, the insurgency in Iraq produced
substantial civilian displacement and emigration from the country. In
response to the growing humanitarian crisis, Congress passed legislation
which gave Iraqis who helped the US government or military the
opportunity to receive special refugee status and resettlement in the
United States. While the motivation behind creating these special
immigrant categories were well intentioned, the fact remains that in May
2011, two Iraqi nationals who were given refugee status and resettled
in the US were arrested and accused by the FBI of plotting to send
weapons and money to al Qaeda in Iraq. One of the men arrested had
openly discussed his prior experience as an insurgent in Iraq and the
IED attacks he participated against US troops. The fingerprints of the
other Iraqi refugee who was charged were traced by the FBI to a
component of an unexploded IED that was recovered by US forces in
northern Iraq. In the wake of these arrests, DHS Secretary Janet
Napolitano and others have publicly acknowledged that
security screenings have been expanded to the more than 58,000 Iraqi
refugees who had already been settled in the United States.
US
House Rep Patrick Meehan was speaking at the House Homeland Security
Subccomittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence yesterday as they
explored the topic of refugees.
The
Iraq War created the largest refugee crisis in the Middle East since
1949. Millions were displaced within Iraq (internal refugees) and
millions were forced to leave the country (external refugee). There's a
mistaken impression that the United States government did something
wonderful. They didn't. The high water mark for Iraqi refugees being
admitted into the US was in the year Bully Boy Bush and Barack share.
Under President Barack Obama, the number has gone down each year.
Fiscal Year 2009 (October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009) saw 18,838
Iraqis admitted to the US. That number dropped to 9,388 in FY2011.
The 2012 Fiscal Year ended two months ago but the government has yet
to release figures for the full year. Through the end of March 2012,
the number of Iraqis admitted to the US stood at 2,501. And the number
12,000 was used by Homeland Security officials for FY2012 during
yesterday's hearing. In the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Senator
Barack Obama won a lot of support for promises on Iraqi refugees --
promises that were not kept.
Some may look at
the case of the two Iraqis Chair Meehan was referring to -- Waad Ramadan
Alwan and Mohanand Shareef Hammadi -- and think the low numbers count
as good news. That's a judgment call. If that's what you feel, you're
entitled to feel that way. I don't feel that way.
As
for the two men making it through the system with one being an obvious
mistake -- security concerns should have resulted in his being kicked
out of the program. The fact that he wasn't goes to information
sharing and not to the program itself. As Ranking Member Janice Han
pointed out, "In 2005, Alwan's finger print was found on a roadside bomb
in Iraq. This information was in a Department of Defense data base
that was not checked during his background investigation when he applied
to the refugees admissions program. This illustrates that we still
have failed to close the remaining information sharing gaps that
continue to persist since the September 11th terrorist attacks." So the
issue in one of the cases was a failure to utilize information the
government already had access to.
Two people
isn't enough to alarm me. That's me. For others, that number may be
way too high. Regardless of where you fall on that spectrum, it is a
serious issue and we'll go into what was said about it during the
hearing.
Appearing before the Subcommittee
were the State Dept's Director of the Refugee Admissions Office Lawrence
Bartlett, Homeland Security's Chief in the Refugee Affairs Division
Barbara Strack and Homeland Security's Deputy Undersecretary for
Analysis Dawn Scalici. The hearing covered many aspects. I sat
through it for the issue of Iraqi refugees and that's what we'll focus
on.
From Barbara Strack and Dawn Scalici's prepared (written) statement:
USCIS
officers conduct refugee status interviews for applicants from more
than 60 countries each year, though the vast majority of these
applicants are currently Iraqi, Bhutanese and Burmese nationals.
Refugee processing operations in the Middle East are primarily focused
on Iraqi nationals with interviews taking place in Lebanon, Turkey,
Jordan and Egypt as well as in-country processing of Iraqi nationals in
Baghdad. Operations in Damascus, Syria, previously a large refugee
processing site, have been suspended since March 2011. In FY2012, over
12,000 Iraqi refugees were admitted to the United States, and since
2007, over 71,000 Iraqi nationals have been resettled, many of whom have
ties to the United States through work or family.
Strack
testified that the Iraqi program was modified as it went along,
fine-tuned, and that it is now the standard for all refugees (age 14 to
65, Scalici explained) attempting to enter the US regardless of their
nationality -- this is the standard across the board whether you're
attempting to become a refugee from Eastern Europe or from Iraq. And
prior to that?
Dawn Scalici: [. . .]
what we have done as an interagency process is to go back and do
retroactive checks on those individuals that were earlier admitted to
the United States and any relevant information that comes to light is
then shared with releveant intelligence community or law enforcement
agencies as appropriate. One other thing I think I would mention as
well, not only do we have analysts who are looking at all the relevant
intelligence and data at the time that an applicant originally puts
forward their application, we review it again before that applicant
actually enters the United States in case any derogatory information has
arisen in the intervening time. So we do believe, again, this
interagency process drawing on more intelligence and data than we ever
did before as well as the recurring and retroactive checks has greatly
enhanced our ability to identify individuals of concern.
Now we're going to an exchange on the same topic.
Ranking
Member Janice Hahn: How did we miss that initial information? And could
you speak to what are we doing? I hear vague comments about information
sharing but we know that is key as we move forward that was one of the
one lessons we learned from 9-11. So what, without divulging any
classified information, how did we miss that information the first time
around and what can you tell us that will give us some confidence that
we really are able to look at all the data available out there to make
responsible decisions as we move forward in this refugee program?
Dawn
Scalici: Well for those two individuals of concern that we've been
talking about, at the time that they made their original application to
enter the refugee program in the United States both their biographic and
biometric information that we had available on them at the time and
that were used in the screening processes came in clean. So we did not
have any derogatory information on those two individuals that we used as
part of the screening effort when they entered the United States. And
the finger print clearance came through as well from DoD, FBI as well as
DHS --
Ranking Member Janice Hahn: Even though their finger prints were found to have been on a roadside bomb?
Dawn
Scalici: That's what we have learned in the aftermath. I would have to
refer to DoD and FBI for any specific information on that but again all
the biographic and biometric information as well as the biometric
checks that were performed at the time did come back clean. But since
that time, as I think we've noted, we've actually enhanced the program
and the security checks. We now draw upon a greater wealth of
intelligence and data holdings on individuals seeking application to the
refugee program which greatly enhances our ability to identify
derogatory compared to earlier.
Janice
Hahn: Anyone else want to comment on that? [The other two witnesses
didn't.] So other than the recent Iraqi refugee case, have there been --
We're
cutting Hahn there because our focus is Iraq and she goes on to
expand. We're not including the witness responses because they had no
other cases.
But before someone e-mails to
tell me there may be another terrorist case . . . Yes, there was a
bombing of a Social Securtiy building last Friday in Casa Grande,
Arizona. The suspect is a man the media has identified as
Iraqi-American (Abdullatif Aldosary). When did he come to the US?
Reports differ with some saying before 2008 and some saying 1998. If
he were found guilty -- and currently he has the presumption of
innocence -- and he entered the US before Fiscal Year 2007 (so before
September 30, 2006), he predates the screening system that was being
discussed. If he were found guilty and he was admitted to the US after
October 1, 2006, he would have been admitted under the system that was
being discussed. That doesn't mean that, if guilty, he necessarily had
any indicators that should have been caught in the screening.
Though
lumped together, there are actually two groups of Iraqis who can work
through the current system. There are the refugees who are threatened
and there are also the Iraqis who worked with US forces or US-approved
missions.
Chair Chair Patrick
Meehan: Ms. Strack, Ms. Scalici, could you, identify if you will --
we're talking about those who are eligible for consideration. There has
been the identification of an emphasis on those who have participated
in assisting United States efforts -- either in the military,
intelligence, otherwise non-governmental organizations -- who then put
themselves into some peril. What is the distinction between those who
are humanitarain versus those who have performed to the benefit of our
interests and are therefore being given some consideration because of
the exposure that may result from that service?
Barbara
Strack: It's a -- The programs work in several ways to address both
humanitarian concerns and those who worked side-by-side, employed
directly by the US or with US affiliated organizations, NGOs or media
organizations. The SIV program that we've talked about is often
conflated with the refugee program but it's actually distinct so --
Chair Patrick Meehan: Could you explain that for me please? What an SIV stands for --
Barbara Strack: I'm sorry --
Chair Patrick Meehan: -- because we've seen this before and I want to see how that's different from the other program?
Barbara
Strack: Yes, sir. It stands for Special Immigrant Visa program. And
so unlike the refugee program, the fundamental focus of the refugee
program is on whether someone has been persecuted, have they been
persecuted in the past or do they have a well founded fear of
persecution in the future based on a protected category: Race, religion,
nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social
group. The SIV program traditionally is -- Special Immigrant Visa -- is
really based on service with the United States. And this is something
Mr. Bartlett is a little bit more of an expert on. But Congress
legislated familiar a program -- Special Immigrant Visas -- to say that
those who've worked for the United States government in -- there are
actually three sub-categories within the Special Immigrant Visa
program. Initially, it was small: If you were a translator with the
military. But it expanded beyond that to include embassy
employees. And really, for them, it's the fact that their service with
the United States that makes them eligible. And when they come to the
United States, its' -- both our agencies -- it is handled through a
different bueractric stream, They don't come as a refugee. They come
as a lawful, permanent resident. So when they arrive, they get a green
card based on their service. Now there are some individuals who may be
eligble to apply for both programs, they may have worked with the US
embassy or the US military so they're eligible to apply for an SIV but
they may very well be able to articulate a refugee claim because --
because of that service -- they have also faced persecution. So we work
-- we work on the refugee side of the program. But individuals may
choose which of those two avenues is better for them, which they think
operates more quickly depending on whether they're in Iraq or somewhere
else --
Chair
Patrick Meehan: Well that's an interesting question. Do they operate
on a parallel track or is there some preference given to somebody
who has served as an interpreter for our troops that are, you know, out
in the midst of the mountains in Afghanistan? Do they get a preference
or is there not any difference?
Barbara
Strack: I can tell you that they do operate on a parallel track so an
individual -- an individual who is eligible -- has the opportunity to
file for an SIV and, again, that would be filed with the State
Department. And, in the refugee program, having worked with the United
States or a US affiliated organization is one of the criteria that can
help you get access to the program but it is not the sole criteria.
It
was an informative hearing. And while the State Dept has yet to
release a complete figure for FY2012, again, the number used in the
hearing was 12,000 and "over 12,000."
Ekhlas Zaky: My name is Ekhlas Zaky. I'm from Mosul. I was born in '72. Married with five kids.
Mustafa: Mustafa. I'm from Mosul.
Ekhlas Zaky: You're in second year.
Mustafa: I'm in second year.
Tuhama: My name is Tuhama. From Mosul. Second year.
Ekhlas
Zaky: Ibrahim doesn't speak. Our main reason for leaving Iraq was the
children. I'm sure the war is to blame for my children's illness. The
doctors talked about the chemicals that had been dropped on Iraq. They
said that they affect the kidneys and the heart. So the chemicals
affected Tuhama's kidneys. It's a rare disease. Provision of medical
treatment was unreliable. Most often Tuhama's fits would happen at
night. Getting her to hospital was very difficult. The closest hospital
was surrounded by military forces. So my husband and I had to risk our
lives to get her there. Otherwise she would have died in front of our
eyes. Ibrahim is unable to speak. And he can't see out of one eye.
One day he was with me at the market. A truck drove in, loaded with
melons. It drove past and then exploded. Of course Ibrahim is just a
child. The explosion terrified him. He kept screaming and crying.
Afterwards, he wouldn't talk so I took him to see the sheiks. They said
that the shock had caused him not to speak. Many doctors advised us to
seek medical treatment abroad. There, medicine is more advanced and
equipment is more modern. The doctors said the children would benefit.
Even if they found good reason to deny me and my husband resettlement
what about the fate of the children?
Refugees
are people in need. As Barbara Strack pointed out in yesterday's
hearing, "Bad actors will try to take advantage of any admission program
to the United States -- whether its visa programs or refugee
programs." Part of the job Strack and others do is determining who
meets the criteria and who doesn't. In many ways, the criteria is a
failure. One example: Iraq's LGBT community is at risk because they
have been repeatedly targeted throughout the war. The Ministry of the
Interior targeted them this year alone with 'teach-ins' at schools where
they demonized and, yes, justified killing LGBTs. But Iraq's LGBT
community does readily make one of the five categories for refugee
status. They are a targeted group. Another example of the criteria?
In Iraq, "nationality" -- one of the five at risk categories the US
government recognizes -- really isn't an issue. Religious sect? Yeah.
Nationality, not really. (Palestinian Iraqis would be one notable
exception but the international community has been more than happy to
leave them in refugee camps on the outskirts of Iraq for years now.) At
Iraqi Refugee Stories, you can learn about the many reasons Iraqis seek asylum. And, as
Catholic Relief Services notes,
making it out of Iraq doesn't mean problems all vanish since "a
majority of Iraqi refugees cannot legally work and lack access to basic
health, social services and education. As a result many Iraqi refugees
are destitute. They have depleted all of their savings after several
years in exile. Many suffer from debilitating illnesses, such as
diabetes, hypertension, kidney problems and cancer with limited or not
access to health care."
Approximately
3.3 million Iraqis, including 750,000 children, were "exterminated" by
economic sanctions and/or illegal wars conducted by the U.S. and Great
Britain between 1990 and 2012, an eminent international legal authority
says.
The slaughter fits the classic
definition of Genocide Convention Article II of, "Deliberately
inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part," says Francis Boyle,
professor of international law at the University of Illinois, Champaign,
and who in 1991 filed a class-action complaint with the UN against
President George H.W. Bush.
Boyle explained the basics at The International Conference on War-affected Children at Kuala Lampur in Malaysia last month (
click here
for the speech in full), "The United States and the United Kingdom
obstinately insisted that the genocidal economic sanctions imposed
against Iraq remain in place until after the conclusion of the
internationally illegal Gulf War II of aggression perpetrated by the
Bush Junior administration and the Tony Blair government against Iraq in
March of 2003. Then, on 22 May 2003 the United States and the United
Kingdom procured U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483 lifting these
genocidal economic sanctions; yet not with a view to easing the over
decade-long suffering of the Iraqi people and children. But rather so as
to better facilitate the U.S./U.K. unsupervised looting and plundering
of the Iraqi economy and oil fields in violation of the international
laws of war as well as to the grave detriment of the Iraqi people and
their children."
In Iraq, it's difficult to
keep track of the many crises plaguing the country. The latest one
revolves around the disputed areas. Having refused to obey the
Constitution he took an oath to uphold, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
has refused to implement Article 140 which addresses how to resolve the
disputes (census and referendum). Having refused to follow the
Constitution for six years, Nouri decided this was the year to send his
forces (Tigris Operation Command) into the disputed areas. The Kurds
sees this as Nouri's attempt to take over the regions. The Peshmerga
(elite Kurdish forces) and Nouri's forces are now in a standoff.
Observers and Iraqi politicians fear the outbreak of war if tensions are
not eased quickly. By the way, the Tigris forces? The unit heads were
not approved by Parliament in violation of the Constitution.
Critics
say Maliki is concentrating power in his office (the office of the
prime minister) and his advisers are running "a government inside a
government", bypassing ministers and parliament. In his role as
commander in chief, he appoints generals as heads of military units
without the approval of parliament. The officers, critics say, are all
loyal to him. He has created at least one intelligence service,
dominated by his clan and party members, and taken two military units -
the anti-terrorism unit and the Baghdad brigade - under his direct
command. At the same time he has inflated the size of the ministry of
national security that is run by one of his allies.
Does that not describe everything?
Thing is though, the Guardian ran Ghait Abdul-Ahad's article April 29, 2009.
Yeah,
Nouri's completely predictable and completely out of control. And this
has been obvious for years now to anyone paying attention.
Last
week, the Baghdad generals and the Peshmerga leaders met and came up
with a 14-point agreement that would ease the situation but Nouri
rejected the agreement and tensions have only increased. The
Kurdish Globe today carries an Al-Monitor article on the crisis:
The
president of the Kurdistan region, Massoud Barzani, has said that the
formation of the Tigris Operations Command (TOC) is illegal,
unconstitutional and provocative. In an interview with Azzaman to be
published in the paper?s Iraqi, Arab and international editions, Barzani
said that the policy of gradual takeover and establishing facts on the
ground in disputed areas is rejected. He said that the best options for
the Kurds and for all Iraqis is to reach an agreement, to return to the
constitution and to solve the differences through dialogue.
Barzani
stressed that Baghdad does not belong to one person, one party or one
group. He said that the Kurds are willing to assume all results and
consequences, but that they cannot accept a new dictatorship.
Alsumaria reports
that a delegation from the Kurdish Regional Government, headed by
former Preisdent Barham Salih, has arrived in Baghdad and been met with
Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi. al-Nujaifi has just returned
from the KRG.
Alsumaria notes
that he met with KRG Presidnet Massoud Barzani yesterday to discuss the
continued tensions and what has become an armed standoff between
Nouri's forces and the Peshmerga.
All Iraq News notes that al-Nuajifi is hoping to meet with Nouri.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani arrived in Baghdad yesterday.
Al Mada notes
that he held meetings to address the crisis including one with Islamic
Supreme Council of Iraq leader Ammar al-Hakim. On the topic of
Talabani, a news flash scrawling across the screen of Alsumaria's live
feed this morning notes that Nouri's office is denying rumors that Nouri
is cutting the salaries for the guards protecting Talabani.
New Europe reports that the European Union's Foreign Affairs Committee is calling for a stronger European Union presence in Iraq. The
Iraq Times adds that British and US officials are working to de-escalate the situation. Others calling for calm?
Al-Monitor provides a translation of an Al-Hayat article which includes:
The supreme authority Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani
called on the central government to "be patient and stay away from
bloody conflicts." For his part, Ayatollah Hussein al-Sadr mentioned
previous fatwas issued by senior authorities that prohibited fighting
the Kurds.
[. . .]
In
a statement yesterday [Dec. 4], Sistani called on Maliki to "be patient
and refrain from pushing Iraqis into any bloody conflict, which would
only harm the people."
Furthermore,
Ayatollah Hussein Ismail al-Sadr said in a statement yesterday that the
authorities are "committed to the fatwa of Ayatollah Mohsen al-Hakim and
his uncle the martyr Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr prohibiting fighting the
Kurds. The fatwa was issued during the 1960s." He emphasized his
commitment to "put in place efforts to bridge the gap between the two
parties and adopt dialogue under the governorship of the constitution,
the principles of brotherhood and the long record of struggle that
weighed down the oppressed.
All Iraq News notes
that Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani declared today his thanks to
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and the other religious clerics for the
supervision they have provided throughout the current crisis.
The
concerns come as a new wrinkle emerges. Nouri is a paranoid tyrant and
that was known well before the end of his first term in 2010. But some
'reporters' have repeatedly felt the need to say that Nouri's not that
bad because, goodness, Saddam Hussein has statues and pictures of
himself posted throughout Iraq and Nouri's done nothing like that. Take
a loook at the photo to
this Iraq Times report
-- see the standing photo of Nouri? The article explains that Nouri
issued orders Sunday that his image must be displayed at all
checkpoints.
Meanwhile Chief Justice Medhat al-Mahmoud is
considered a Ba'athist by many Iraqis. It's not even 'whispered'
anymore. And possibly he's in the bag for Nouri for that reason?
Regardless, Nouri does control the Baghdad judiciary and the
Iraq Times reports
that al-Mahmoud has issued an order to all the judges under him that
they will not execute an arrest warrant for Nouri. Strange isn't it,
Nouri claims that arrest warrants have to be executed. Remember his
claim publicly that he didn't want to execute the one on Vice President
Tareq al-Hashemi, that he was forced to do so? But when its an arrest
warrant for Nouri, it gets buried. The judiciary jumps for Nouri. A
few weeks ago, Nouri attempted to end the food-rations card system and
his spokesperson announced,
November 6th,
that it was over. It wasn't over because it's too popular. The Iraqi
people wouldn't stand for it nor would the politicians (except for those
in Nouri's State of Law). So Nouri had to back down. Moqtada al-Sadr
was one of the leaders on that issue.
But
he and Moqtada tangled weeks before that as well. It happened when
Nouri said there was no oil surplus money that could become dividends
for the Iraqi people and Moqtada al-Sadr expressed doubt and
disapproval.
All Iraq News explained in October
that Moqtada and his poltical bloc have not let the matter die or just
resorted to words, they're actively working with the Minister of Finance
Rafie al-Issawi and the Minister of Planning Ali Shukri to find oil
money that can go to the Iraqi people with plans to set aside 25% of
future revenues for that. Moqtada and his bloc continued working on the
issue and had the people's support. In November,
All Iraq News reported
that a delegation from the Sadr bloc met with Minister of
Finance Rafie al-Issawi to discuss this issue and find out what the
progess was on it and to announce that they will continue to stay
focused on this and ensure that the country and its children benefit
from the oil.
While Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc was fighting for the people and doing so in the open, Nouri was doing something else.
Alsumaria reports
that MP Bahaa al-Araji of the Sadr bloc held a press conference today
outside Parliament to reveal that Nouri al-Maliki filed a lawsuit to
dismiss the budget item on sharing the oil suprlus with the citizens
from the year's budget. The court -- no surprise, it's not a real
court -- ruled in Nouri's favor. Only now, after the ruling, do they
find out what Nouri was doing behind everyone's back.
Violence
never gets buried, it's always right there on the surface with Iraqis
unable to escape it and Nouri unable/unwilling to provide security.
Alsumaria reports 1 soldier was shot dead in Kirkuk today by unknown assailants in a passing car.
All Iraq News notes a Baquba car bomb and a second bomb went off together claiming 2 lives and leaving ten people injured. In addition,
All Iraq News reports that Zia Ahmed Shehab, the brother of the Governor of Salahuddin Province, was kidnapped today in Tikrit.
In
other news, Hero Ibrahim Ahmed has grabbed some headlines. Among
other things, she is over the charity Kurdistan Save the Children. Like
many notable Iraqis, her family has a long history of involvement in
Iraqi politics and in being persecuted. Novelist Ibrahim Ahmad was her
father. He was also a judge and one of the first chairs of the
Kurdistan Democratic Party (the first after it changed its name).
Moving up the political chain in Iraq has always meant creating
enemies. He would end up in Abu Ghraib prison for two years. He would
go on to become an editor of a newspaper and, more importantly to the
political situation, the voice of the KDP following it's split into two
parties -- the other, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, would be headed
by Mustafa Barzani. Today the PUK is headed by Massoud Barzani who is
also the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government. He is the
son of the late Mustafa Barzani. Mustafa's grandson is KRG Prime
Minister Nechirvan Barzani.
And if those links and connections
alone make Hero Ibrahim Ahmed's story one of the basic histories of
Iraq, let's note that she's also the First Lady of Iraq, she's married
to President Jalal Talabani. She's also begun a new project aimed at
celebrating the rich diversity in Iraq.
Al Mada reports
that she initated yesterday Kirkuk for Social Awareness, a program to
ensure that diversity and nationality is protected in Kirkuk. One
aspect of the program, she explained to government officials in Kirkuk
yesterday, is the creation of a song that will bring in all the
languages spoken by the people of Iraq and recognize the diversity. She
stressed that this would include the Mandaeans whose language, UNESCO
has warned, is in danger of vanishing. The Mandaeans numbered a little
over 50,000 in Iraq prior to the start of the war in 2003. Some
estimates now put their number as low as 5,000. Many fled to Jordan
and Syria during the ethnic cleansing years of roughly 2006 through
2008. They have a special issue regarding immigration in that it is a
water-based religion (for baptisms) and they prefer natural bodies of
water for their ceremonies. In 2009,
David Grant (AP) reported on a community in Detroit.
In the US, the House Veterans Affairs Committee which released the following:
WASHINGTON,
D.C. -- Today, Rep. Jeff Miller, Chairman of the House Committee on
Veterans' Affairs, issued the following statement on the appointment of
Rep. Michael Michaud as the Ranking Member of the Committee:
"I
heartily congratulate Mike on becoming the Ranking Member of the
Committee. Mike has been an invaluable member and colleague, serving in
a variety of positions over the past 10 years, including most recently
as the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Health.
"Mike
has been a vocal advocate for America's veterans and their families,
and has been instrumental in the passage of several pieces of major
legislation to uphold benefits earned through service to our nation.
Mike has also been a leader, ensuring the Department of Veterans Affairs
provides the best healthcare available. I look forward to working with
Mike to address the major issues facing our veterans today, and
ensuring the bipartisanship of the Committee continues in the 113th
Congress."
The 113th Full Committee is expected to be announced in the next two weeks.
Last week, the
ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of four service members in an attempt to remedy the inequality in the current military system:
The
Defense Department's longstanding policy barring women from thousands
of ground combat positions was challenged today in a federal lawsuit by
four servicewomen and the Service Women's Action Network.
The
plaintiffs are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the
ACLU of Northern California and the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson
LLP.
The four servicemembers have all done
tours in Iraq or Afghanistan -- some deploying multiple times --where
they served in combat or led female troops who went on missions with
combat infantrymen. Their careers and opportunities have been limited by
a policy that does not grant them the same recognition for their
service as their male counterparts. The combat exclusion policy also
makes it harder for them to do their jobs.
Women
have been killed on the battlefield, and many more have been wounded in
the course of their service. Take plaintiff Army Staff Sergeant
Jennifer Hunt, who was awarded the Purple Heart, was wounded after
serving in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. While women have an equal
opportunity of being hurt or killed, the policy limits their ability to
receive equal, integrated training and to advance in the ranks. Because
their combat experience often is unofficial or outside of their official
career field, it doesn't count in the same way for promotions resulting
in a "brass ceiling" that keeps our military leadership overwhelmingly
male.
The Constitution forbids the
government from imposing a blanket ban on women's participation,
especially where the rule is outdated and doesn't accurately capture how
war is being waged today. Now, after a decade of armed service abroad,
our servicewomen are demanding the opportunity to compete for official
assignment to the combat jobs they've been doing for years.
Ann
tracks this gender imbalance at her site all the time and, Sunday, we
explained how it happens -- it happens when Tell Me More airs a segment
entitled "Women Fire Back At Working Dads" where there are two male
guests and only one woman (and the woman's actually a listener comment
left on the NPR answering line). It happens when Don Gonyea decides
he's going to 'explore' a female US Senator and decides that it's
perfectly natural to go to 3 men and no women, and to pretend like it's
perfectly natural to air two of those men insulting her but not backing
up the insults. That's the mind-set that repeatedly allows NPR
programming to feature more female guests than male guests over and over
every day of the year.
And the reason I'm working that in is because Women's Media Center has an article we need to note, Rachel Larris' "
A Closer Look: Who's Writing Nine Newspapers' Presidential Election Coverage."
That went up in August. I only learned of it Monday night when I was
speaking with a WMC friend who mentioned the Third piece and said that
they were doing stuff like that at WMC and I said, "Let me know when it
goes up and I'll link to it." It went up at the end of August. As I
explained, I avoid WMC for about six months every four years and there's
fault because -- my opinion -- they fall to their knees swooning
over the Democratic Party. (If you're late to the party, I am a
Democrat. I don't tell anyone else how to vote. If you're voting
you're an adult and you should be able to figure it out yourself. I
did not vote in the presidential race this year -- no candidate running
earned my vote.) Life is too short, I don't need to be upset by that
so I completely avoid the website during that time period. It's
happened two presidential election cycles so when 2012 rolled around --
and when 2016 rolls around -- I won't be visiting that site. Now maybe
that will change and I hope it does. Women are a varied group, even
women on the left. And we've been told what to do for so long that
telling us who to vote for these days is not 'sweetened' by the fact
that the attempted marching order is coming from a woman. We'll note
the WMC article at Third on Sunday. It's
an important article
and it's the kind we need. NPR wouldn't be able to get away with
bringing so few women on were it not for the fact that they know
feminists will see them as a 'friend' and refuse to call them out.
Equality isn't something that we should wait on. Women have been told
to wait for centuries. Good for WMC for tracking the gender imbalance.
Good for Rachel Larris for writing such a strong article. Hopefully,
you caught it in real time. If you missed it,
please make a point to check it out.
Kirk H. Sowell 
Derek Brower 
James 