Friday, August 07, 2015

Iraq on Twitter

Aug 5
‘ airstrikes won’t defeat , only kill civilians’ – anti-war group


Aug 5
‘ airstrikes won’t defeat , only kill civilians’ – anti-war group


89 retweets 30 favorites



Before you get too excited, the antiwar group?

Naturally, it's in England.

In the US, we have no peace leaders, clearly.



"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Thursday, August 6, 2015.  Chaos and violence continue, 7 US troops have died in Barack's year-long actions against the Islamic State in Iraq, Iraq is a big topic in today's GOP Presidential debate, and more.




Today, Fox News hosted the Republican Party's presidential nominees debate from Cleveland (Facebook partnered with Fox News for the debate).  The top ten contenders for the party's 2016 presidential nomination gathered on stage.

The top ten contenders, as Fox News announced ahead of time, were:



 Real estate magnate Donald Trump; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson; Texas Sen. Ted Cruz; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio; Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. 

Those ten made it onto the stage.  They are not the only candidates competing for the Republican party's nomination.  Fox News also noted:


 But former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and several others will not be on the prime-time, 9 p.m. ET stage. The seven who did not make the top 10 will be invited to a separate 5 p.m. ET debate. Aside from Perry and Santorum, this includes Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal; former HP head Carly Fiorina; South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham; former New York Gov. George Pataki; and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore.



Fox News hosts Megyn Kelly, Brett Baier and Chris Wallace were the moderators for the debate.
Yahoo offers Gideon Yago, Leslie Sanchez, Matt Bai and Jon Ward analyzing the debate.  Fox News offers "voter reaction" here.  (Both links are video.)

Baltimore Sun media critic (and National Press Club award winner this year, Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism-print) David Zurawik critiqued the debate in terms of, among other things, the performance of the moderators and offered:



Kelly versus Trump was a matchup many tuned in to see. Kelly’s persona is built in part on her ability to take down self-important, sexist, windbag men. Trump is all three of those things and then some.
“Mr. Trump,” Kelly said, “you’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals. Your Twitter account …”
“Only Rosie O’Donnell,” he said interrupting Kelly.
“No, it wasn’t,” Kelly said as the audience applauded and whistled at Trump’s line.
Once the applause died down, Kelly, sounding like an attorney on cross examination, resumed by saying, “For the record, it went well beyond Rosie O’Donnell.”
“Yes, I’m sure it did,” Trump said dismissively. 

“Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women. You once told a contestant on ‘Celebrity Apprentice,’ it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of someone we should elect as president?”



Iraq came up frequently during the debate and some of the remarks received actual media attention.

Some.


Ben Brody (Bloomberg News) notes: Senator Lindsey Graham maintained that the answer for Iraq was to send US troops into Iraq (and into Syria) to defeat the Islamic State and that he did not believe there were partners in the region who could help with this, "These mythical Arab armies that my friends talk about that are going to protect us don't exist.  If I am president of the United States, we're going to send soldiers back to Iraq, back to Syria, to keep us from being attacked here and keep soldiers in Afghanistan because we must."

For any questioning where Graham stands on the issue, The Daily Caller offers video from the debate of Graham insisting, "We need more ground forces in Iraq."


Lauren Barbato (Bustle) notes that Jeb "Bush called the Iraq War a mistake" and stated, "I wouldn't have gone in."  This was in direct contrast to his spring remarks that he would have done the same thing his brother did.  After making those remarks -- red meat to Republicans who would be voting in the primaries -- he came under intense criticism and the campaign attempted to have surrogates attempt the what-he-meant-was before he finally disowned his earlier statements.

Barbato feels he was making "a calculated" response today in an attempt to appeal to Americans.  He may have been.  Or he may have just been trying to avoid a media beating.

A little over half of Americans feel the Iraq War was a mistake.  That's in the general population.  That number drops when you are polling adults who identify themselves as Republicans.


Dylan Matthews (Vox) explains Donald Trump insisted he'd opposed the Iraq War and done so since July 2004:

"In July of 2004, I came out strongly against the war with Iraq because it was going to destabilize the Middle East. I am the only one on this stage who knew that and had the vision to say it. And that's exactly what happened. The region became totally destabliized.

Of course, the Iraq invasion began on March 19, 2003 — more than a year before the denunciation Trump is bragging about. That's still earlier than most of his fellow GOP candidates, but it's a bit much to brag about one's "vision" in saying that something was going to be a disaster after it had already happened.



From the debate, we'll note the following exchanges on Iraq:
BAIER: Senator Paul, you recently blamed the rise of ISIS on Republican hawks. You later said that that statement, you could have said it better. But, the statement went on, and you said, quote, "Everything they've talked about in foreign policy, they've been wrong for the last 20 years."
Why are you so quick to blame your own party?

 PAUL: First of all, only ISIS is responsible for the terrorism. Only ISIS is responsible for the depravity. But, we do have to examine, how are we going to defeat ISIS?
I've got a proposal. I'm the leading voice in America for not arming the allies of ISIS.

 (APPLAUSE)

 PAUL: I've been fighting amidst a lot of opposition from both Hillary Clinton, as well as some Republicans who wanted to send arms to the allies of ISIS. ISIS rides around in a billion dollars worth of U.S. Humvees. It's a disgrace. We've got to stop -- we shouldn't fund our enemies, for goodness sakes.


 PAUL: So, we didn't create ISIS -- ISIS created themselves, but we will stop them, and one of the ways we stop them is by not funding them, and not arming them.
[. . .]

 KELLY: Well, I want to move on, because I have -- we're gonna get to you, governor, but I -- I really wanna get to a Facebook questioner. His name is Alex Chalgren, and he has the following question:

 (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

 QUESTION: My question is, how would the candidates stop the treacherous actions of ISIS -- ISIL and its growing influence in the U.S., if they were to become president?

 (END VIDEO CLIP) 

 KELLY: Senator Cruz, I wanna talk to you about this, because many of the Facebook users and -- and -- the -- the folks on Facebook wanted the candidates to speak to ISIS tonight.
You asked the chairman of the joint chiefs a question: "What would it take to destroy ISIS in 90 days?" He told you "IISIS will only be truly destroyed once they are rejected by the populations in which they hide." And then you accused him of pushing Medicaid for the Iraqis.
How would you destroy ISIS in 90 days?
CRUZ: Megyn, we need a commander in chief that speaks the truth. We will not defeat radical Islamic terrorism so long as we have a president unwilling to utter the words, "radical Islamic terrorism".
(APPLAUSE)
When I asked General Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs, what would be required militarily to destroy ISIS, he said there is no military solution. We need to change the conditions on the ground so that young men are not in poverty and susceptible to radicalization. That, with all due respect, is nonsense.

 It's the same answer the State Department gave that we need to give them jobs. What we need is a commander in chief that makes -- clear, if you join ISIS, if you wage jihad on America, then you are signing your death warrant.
KELLY: You don't see it as...

 (APPLAUSE)
KELLY: ...an ideological problem -- an ideological problem in addition to a military one?
(APPLAUSE)
CRUZ: Megyn, of course it's an ideological problem, that's one of the reasons I introduce the Expatriate Terrorist Act in the Senate that said if any American travels to the Middle East and joining ISIS, that he or she forfeits their citizenship so they don't use a passport to come back and wage jihad on Americans.
(APPLAUSE)
CRUZ: Yes, it is ideological, and let me contrast President Obama, who at the prayer breakfast, essentially acted as an apologist. He said, "Well, gosh, the crusades, the inquisitions--"
We need a president that shows the courage that Egypt's President al-Sisi, a Muslim, when he called out the radical Islamic terrorists who are threatening the world.
(APPLAUSE)
KELLY: Governor Bush, for days on end in this campaign, you struggled to answer a question about whether knowing what we know now...
BUSH: ...I remember...
KELLY: ...we would've invaded Iraq...
BUSH: ...I remember, Megyn.
(LAUGHTER)
KELLY: I remember it too, and ISIS, of course, is now thriving there.
You finally said, "No."
To the families of those who died in that war who say they liberated and deposed a ruthless dictator, how do you look at them now and say that your brothers war was a mistake?
BUSH: Knowing what we know now, with faulty intelligence, and not having security be the first priority when -- when we invaded, it was a mistake. I wouldn't have gone in, however, for the people that did lose their lives, and the families that suffer because of it -- I know this full well because as governor of the state of Florida, I called every one of them. Every one of them that I could find to tell them that I was praying for them, that I cared about them, and it was really hard to do.
And, every one of them said that their child did not die in vain, or their wife, of their husband did not die in vain.
So, why it was difficult for me to do it was based on that. Here's the lesson that we should take from this, which relates to this whole subject, Barack Obama became president, and he abandoned Iraq. He left, and when he left Al Qaida was done for. ISIS was created because of the void that we left, and that void now exists as a caliphate the size of Indiana.
To honor the people that died, we need to -- we need to --- stop the -- Iran agreement, for sure, because the Iranian mullahs have their blood on their hands, and we need to take out ISIS with every tool at our disposal.
(APPLAUSE)
KELLY: Governor Walker, in February you said that we needed to gain partners in the Arab world. Which Arab country not already in the U.S. led coalition has potential to be our greatest partner?
WALKER: What about then (ph), we need to focus on the ones we have. You look at Egypt, probably the best relationship we've had in Israel, at least in my lifetime, incredibly important.
You look at the Saudis -- in fact, earlier this year, I met with Saudi leaders, and leaders from the United Arab Emirates, and I asked them what's the greatest challenge in the world today? Set aside the Iran deal. They said it's the disengagement of America. We are leading from behind under the Obama-Clinton doctrine -- America's a great country. We need to stand up and start leading again, and we need to have allies, not just in Israel, but throughout the Persian Gulf.

 [. . .]
KELLY: Well, I want to move on, because I have -- we're gonna get to you, governor, but I -- I really wanna get to a Facebook questioner. His name is Alex Chalgren, and he has the following question:

 (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

 QUESTION: My question is, how would the candidates stop the treacherous actions of ISIS -- ISIL and its growing influence in the U.S., if they were to become president?

 (END VIDEO CLIP) 

 KELLY: Senator Cruz, I wanna talk to you about this, because many of the Facebook users and -- and -- the -- the folks on Facebook wanted the candidates to speak to ISIS tonight.
You asked the chairman of the joint chiefs a question: "What would it take to destroy ISIS in 90 days?" He told you "IISIS will only be truly destroyed once they are rejected by the populations in which they hide." And then you accused him of pushing Medicaid for the Iraqis.
How would you destroy ISIS in 90 days?
CRUZ: Megyn, we need a commander in chief that speaks the truth. We will not defeat radical Islamic terrorism so long as we have a president unwilling to utter the words, "radical Islamic terrorism".
(APPLAUSE)
When I asked General Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs, what would be required militarily to destroy ISIS, he said there is no military solution. We need to change the conditions on the ground so that young men are not in poverty and susceptible to radicalization. That, with all due respect, is nonsense.

 It's the same answer the State Department gave that we need to give them jobs. What we need is a commander in chief that makes -- clear, if you join ISIS, if you wage jihad on America, then you are signing your death warrant.
KELLY: You don't see it as...
(APPLAUSE)
KELLY: ...an ideological problem -- an ideological problem in addition to a military one?
(APPLAUSE)
CRUZ: Megyn, of course it's an ideological problem, that's one of the reasons I introduce the Expatriate Terrorist Act in the Senate that said if any American travels to the Middle East and joining ISIS, that he or she forfeits their citizenship so they don't use a passport to come back and wage jihad on Americans.
(APPLAUSE)
CRUZ: Yes, it is ideological, and let me contrast President Obama, who at the prayer breakfast, essentially acted as an apologist. He said, "Well, gosh, the crusades, the inquisitions--"
We need a president that shows the courage that Egypt's President al-Sisi, a Muslim, when he called out the radical Islamic terrorists who are threatening the world.
(APPLAUSE)
KELLY: Governor Bush, for days on end in this campaign, you struggled to answer a question about whether knowing what we know now...
BUSH: ...I remember...
KELLY: ...we would've invaded Iraq...
BUSH: ...I remember, Megyn.
(LAUGHTER)
KELLY: I remember it too, and ISIS, of course, is now thriving there.
You finally said, "No."
To the families of those who died in that war who say they liberated and deposed a ruthless dictator, how do you look at them now and say that your brothers war was a mistake?
BUSH: Knowing what we know now, with faulty intelligence, and not having security be the first priority when -- when we invaded, it was a mistake. I wouldn't have gone in, however, for the people that did lose their lives, and the families that suffer because of it -- I know this full well because as governor of the state of Florida, I called every one of them. Every one of them that I could find to tell them that I was praying for them, that I cared about them, and it was really hard to do.

 And, every one of them said that their child did not die in vain, or their wife, of their husband did not die in vain.

 So, why it was difficult for me to do it was based on that. Here's the lesson that we should take from this, which relates to this whole subject, Barack Obama became president, and he abandoned Iraq. He left, and when he left Al Qaida was done for. ISIS was created because of the void that we left, and that void now exists as a caliphate the size of Indiana.

 To honor the people that died, we need to -- we need to --- stop the -- Iran agreement, for sure, because the Iranian mullahs have their blood on their hands, and we need to take out ISIS with every tool at our disposal.

 (APPLAUSE)
KELLY: Governor Walker, in February you said that we needed to gain partners in the Arab world. Which Arab country not already in the U.S. led coalition has potential to be our greatest partner?

 WALKER: What about then (ph), we need to focus on the ones we have. You look at Egypt, probably the best relationship we've had in Israel, at least in my lifetime, incredibly important.

You look at the Saudis -- in fact, earlier this year, I met with Saudi leaders, and leaders from the United Arab Emirates, and I asked them what's the greatest challenge in the world today? Set aside the Iran deal. They said it's the disengagement of America. We are leading from behind under the Obama-Clinton doctrine -- America's a great country. We need to stand up and start leading again, and we need to have allies, not just in Israel, but throughout the Persian Gulf.




Though Iraq came up frequently in the debate, it was a topic ignored by State Dept spokesperson Mark Toner and those attending the State Dept press briefing today.

With US President Barack Obama spending billions on Iraq -- largely just on bombing Iraq -- it's amazing that the State Dept -- or the reporters covering it -- would ignore Iraq.

But ignoring Iraq is how the current crises came about, remember?


I don't have a lot of respect for the Republicans on stage today because they  ignored the gross betrayal of the Iraqi people by Barack.

Nouri al-Maliki's second term led to the current problems.  We've documented that at length here and done so in real time.

But Nouri didn't win the 2010 election.

And until politicians are ready to point that out, US politicians, and that Barack used a legal contract (The Erbil Agreement) to overturn the votes of the Iraqi people and the Iraqi Constitution, I don't really have a lot of use for them -- and certainly no trust for them.

Supporting Iraqiya was supporting a new Iraq.

Barack chose to strip Iraqiya of its victory and back thug Nouri.

This isn't a minor point.


Nor is Barack's decision to bomb Iraq daily or the year-plus of sending US troops into Iraq minor points.

Leo Shane (Military Times) explains today, "About 3,500 U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq, and seven have lost their lives in connection to the new military operations there."

Is anybody else registering those deaths?

Is anyone else even noting them?

On the topic of deaths, Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts 62 violent deaths across Iraq today.



ADDED: The following community sites updated:

  • The Daily Jot
    THIS JUST IN! HE'LL ALWAYS HAVE DAYTONA IN MARCH!
    3 hours ago
  • Cedric's Big Mix
    The memories
    3 hours ago
  • Ruth's Report
    Unfit
    4 hours ago
  • SICKOFITRADLZ
    Transphobes are such idiots
    4 hours ago
  • Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills)
    Say it, sister
    11 hours ago
  • Mikey Likes It!
    Turkey keeps bombing
    19 hours ago

  • Like Maria Said Paz
    Hillary loves Brett
    19 hours ago 








    • Posted by at

    Thursday, August 06, 2015

    Hillary loves Brett

    Though no one's ever needed to hear from him to begin with, sex addict Brett McGurk can't stop Tweeting.




  • 5 hours ago
    Welcome important reform initiatives from PM Abadi to de-centralize authorities to governors and provinces.
    Cabinet today took a major step towards decentralization by approving the amended provincial powers law
    6 retweets 3 favorites


    • Important reforms?

    There have been none.

    US Puppet Haider al-Abadi has continued Nouri's policies -- including cracking down on night clubs -- and he's continued the divisions in Iraq.

    But Brett brags for the puppet.

    Hillary loves Brett, of course.

    Brett cheated on his wife.

    When you have no self-respect, you find that 'cute.'


    As Hillary did.


    "Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
    Wednesday, August 6, 2015.  Chaos and violence continue, Barack invokes the Iraq War to sell his Iran deal, and much more.



    Dripping with desperation, US President Barack Obama attempted to sell his proposed deal with Iraq today.

    Instead of explaining what was in the deal and how this would be good for the United States and the world, Barack elected to traffic in fear and bitchery.

    The Hindu reports:

     President Barack Obama warned Congress that rejecting the nuclear agreement with Iran would be the worst mistake since the invasion of Iraq and would lead to "another war" in the Middle East.


    Fear and lies, it was 2002 all over again.

    Agree with me, he insisted, or there will be war.

    Trust me, he argued, and that what I say is true because, after all, I just said it.

    He didn't prove anything and basic fact checks of his statements tended to expose one lie after another.

    For example, David Swanson's analysis of the speech includes:



    “This deal is not just the best choice among alternatives—this is the strongest non-proliferation agreement ever.” —President Obama
    Except, of course, for the Nonproliferation Treaty! if its parties were to comply with it. (I'm looking at you, President Obama.)
    The President's tweets -- tweeted by someone other than the President of course -- came during a speech he gave at American University, from which a transcript will likely be posted on the White House website.
    Obama, in truth, has zero evidence of Iran pursuing a nuclear weapon. Zero. None. The claim that he halted a nuclear weapons program in Iran is outrageous -- as crazy as Dick Cheney's claim that Iraq had nuclear weapons.
    Obama might claim he was only suggesting he'd halted a nuclear ENERGY program, but the reader who would put that interpretation on his statement, and combine it with an understanding that Iran's program has been exclusively for energy, has got to be rare, given the propaganda being pushed by Obama, his supporters, and his opponents.

    Remarkably, neither the advocates of war, nor the momentary fans of diplomacy, will point out that Iran has never threatened the United States and has no nuclear weapons program.



    Yes, it was 2002 all over again as Barack, like Bully Boy Bush before him, used the threat of wars to try to push through what he wanted.  Fear mongering.  FITS News observes:
    “I know it’s easy to play on people’s fears, to magnify threats … but none of these arguments hold up,” Obama said during an address at American University.
    Really?  All we know is Iran’s ruler – Hassan Rouhani – referred to the deal Obama negotiated as an “answered prayer.”  That can’t be good.
    More to the point: In the same speech Obama blasted critics for “playing on people’s fears,” he engaged in … wait for it … the exact same fearmongering.
    “Let’s not mince words,” Obama said.  “The choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy or some form of war.  Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not three months from now, but soon.”
     

    It was Bully Boy Bush who helped hardened divisions in the United States with 'you're either with us or against us' nonsense which failed to recognize that people could have honest disagreements.

    Barack was supposed to usher in change.

    He was going to do so much for the public dialogue.

    He would be able to do this, you may remember, because he was not of the baby boom.  (He actually is by a baby boomer by most definitions of the generation.)

    He would be able to bridge the divide, dismiss the "Tom Hayden Democrats," and allow for better dialogue.

    That was the argument.

    Didn't hold up, but that was the argument.


    Kevin Liptak (CNN) points out, "He declared that lawmakers risk damaging American credibility if they vote to scuttle the deal and equated them with those who pushed for war with Iraq -- and with the mullahs in Iran."


    So if you opposed the deal, you are in league with the mullahs?

    And the Legion of Doom as well?

    Why not include them because this speech was the most idiotic political speech since Lois Griffin ran for mayor of Quahog on Family Guy (and, using Brian's advice, Lois decided to repeatedly invoke 9/11) and gave speeches while seeking the office and after being elected.

    Attempting to persuade citizens to support a tax hike, Lois declares at one point, "We have intelligence that suggests that Hitler is plotting with -- with the Legion of Doom to assassinate Jesus using the lake as a base."

    That assertion would have fit right in with the ones Barack made today.

    Meanwhile, Barack worked overtime to use Iraq to justify his deal with Iran.

    Dan De Luce and John Hudson (Foreign Policy) note:

    Obama’s use of the Iraq War as a political cudgel against opponents of the deal carries clear risks for the president. Obama has consistently taken public credit for bringing the long and deeply unpopular Iraq War to what he has called a responsible end, but the Iraqi Army disintegrated last year in the face of the Islamic State, and the militants have conquered vast swaths of the country. Many critics — including prominent Democrats and an array of current and retired senior military commanders — say that Obama’s rush to withdraw American forces helped pave the way for the rise of the Islamic State.
    In recent months, Obama has been forced to send roughly 3,000 U.S. troops to train Iraqi forces and tribal fighters to take on the militant group. The Pentagon has also spent almost one full year bombing Islamic State targets in both Iraq and Syria.



    Barack's sudden concern over those who supported the Iraq War has never resulted in a litmus test for his own Cabinet.  Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and many others who supported the Iraq War have been offered posts by Barack but those who opposed the war -- US House Rep Maxine Waters, Dennis Kuccinich, etc -- have not been offered Cabinet posts.


    On the Republican side, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham supported the Iraq War.  Today, the two issued the following joint-statement:

    Aug 05 2015

    Washington, D.C. ­– U.S. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) today released the following statement President Obama’s remarks on the Iran nuclear agreement at American University in Washington, DC:
    “President Obama's speech today is just another example of his reliance on endless strawmen to divert attention from his failed policies. It is particularly galling to hear the President try to defend his nuclear agreement with Iran by claiming that its critics also supported the war in Iraq. Having presided over the collapse of our hard-won gains in Iraq, the rise of the most threatening terrorist army in the world, the most devastating civil war and humanitarian catastrophe in generations in Syria, the spread of conflict and radicalism across the Middle East and much of Africa, a failed reset with Russia, and escalating cyber attacks and other acts of aggression for which our adversaries pay no price, the President should not throw stones from his glass house.
    “In addition to jousting with strawmen, the President also repeated his reliance on false choices. No one believes that military force can or should solve all problems. No one believes that diplomacy, including diplomacy with adversaries, is tantamount to weakness. What we object to is the President's lack of realism – his ideological belief that diplomacy is good and force is bad, which has repeatedly resulted either in failed deals or bad deals. The alternative to this deal was never war; it was greater pressure on Iran and insistence on a better agreement.
    “President Obama’s deal with Iran empowers one of our chief antagonists and the world’s most radical Islamist regime with a pathway to the bomb, missiles to deliver it, money to pay for it, and the means to acquire a new military arsenal. Instead of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, this agreement would lock it in place. Instead of weakening this radical regime, a regime with American blood on its hand, this agreement would make Iran stronger. Before the deal, Iran was able to destabilize Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. After this deal, Iran’s power in the region will only be enhanced as it ultimately becomes a member of the nuclear club. A more powerful Iran with a bomb in the Ayatollah’s hands is a direct threat to the United States and an existential threat to our allies in Israel.
    “President Obama clearly does not understand the Middle East and has made one blunder after another. He was wrong when he ignored sound military advice to leave a residual force in Iraq. He was wrong when he turned down the advice of his national security team when they urged him to help Free Syrian Army fighters when it could have made a difference. He was wrong when he failed to enforce his own red lines against Bashar Assad. He was wrong when he declared ISIL a ‘JV team.’ He was wrong when he built a presidential campaign around a message of ‘Bin Laden is dead and al Qaeda is decimated.’ And he is wrong about this deal with Iran.
    “Those of us who have warned President Obama about his past mistakes are warning him again about the consequences of this deal with Iran. We hope the American people realize this deal should be rejected and will weigh in to have their voice heard.”
    ###




    The press was full on whore mode as evidenced by crap like that churned out by Margaret Talev and Toluse Olorunnipa:

     Obama rode to the White House in 2008 on his early, vocal and mostly lonely opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. More than a decade later, he says the fight over the Iran deal is with the same group of neoconservative politicians and commentators who beat the drum for war over diplomacy to meet what turned out to be a non-existent threat in Iraq.



    I will never understand the mentality of a dirty whore who, all these years later, still wants to whore on this topic.



    Barack gave a speech to a tiny group of people in 2002 where he was against going to war in Iraq.  And then he dropped that opposition.  I know it for a fact because as Elaine and I have noted for years now (before he got into the White House) we were face to face with him when he was running for the US Senate, sold on him by friends, ready to write checks for the maximum donations legally permitted when, during our face time, he insisted that the US military was in Iraq now so opposition no longer mattered.  He was for the war now.  We did not donate, we did not stick around.  We immediately walked out on the fake ass Barack and his fake ass supporters.


    Margaret Talev once reported for Knight Ridder.  Today she's just a dirty whore -- one of many.



    Let's drop back to the January 9, 2008 snapshot when Socialist Matthew Rothschild, then still posing as a Democrat publicly, felt the need to lash out at Bill Clinton for rightly noting that Barack's Iraq reputation was a "fairy tale:"

     


    It is a "fairy tale."  We've used that term and many others to describe the lies about 'anti-war' Bambi.  The New York Times?  I believe we last noted Bambi telling them he didn't know how he would have voted in the January 4th snapshot: " Obama tells Monica Davey (New York Times, July 26, 2004) he doesn't know how he would have voted if he'd been in the Senate.  Two years later, he's telling David Remnick (The New Yorker) he doesn't know how he would have voted."  


    Davey:
                         
    He opposed the war in Iraq, and spoke against it during a rally in Chicago in the fall of 2002. He said then that he saw no evidence that Iraq had unconventional weapons that posed a threat, or of any link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
    In a recent interview, he declined to criticize Senators Kerry and Edwards for voting to authorize the war, although he said he would not have done the same based on the information he had at the time.


    "But, I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports," Mr. Obama said. "What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made."        


    "What would I have done?"

    "I don't know."


    Speaking to Remnick:


     I think what people might point to is our different assessments of the war in Iraq, although I’m always careful to say that I was not in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought it was such a bad idea was that I didn’t have the benefit of U.S. intelligence. And, for those who did, it might have led to a different set of choices. So that might be something that sort of is obvious. But, again, we were in different circumstances at that time: I was running for the U.S. Senate, she had to take a vote, and casting votes is always a difficult test. 


    Didn't know what he would have done then.

    But today whores like Margaret let him pretend to have been opposed to the Iraq War and steady and consistent in that opposition.

    It's a lie.

    Unlike Margaret and her peers, Barry Grey (WSWS) can offer truths about 'peace' king Barack:

    The president touted his supposed anti-war credentials, citing his opposition to the Iraq invasion, which he used to appeal to anti-war and anti-Bush sentiment in his 2008 election campaign. He did not bother to square this pretense with his record in office—continuing the Iraq bloodbath for another two years after coming to power, massively expanding the war in Afghanistan, organizing the war for regime-change that left Libya in a permanent state of chaos, and orchestrating a catastrophic civil war for regime-change in Syria.
    Over the past year, he has launched a new war in Iraq, initiated the bombing of Syria and backed a murderous war by Saudi Arabia in Yemen. Just days before his speech at American University, he backed the carving out of a “buffer zone” in Syria by Turkish forces and sanctioned US air strikes against Syrian government forces in support of US-funded and trained mercenaries operating in the country.



    Barack's latest wave of war on Iraq means more US troops sent into Iraq.  Amanda Dolasinski (Fayetteville Observer) reports today:


    The Pentagon announced Wednesday about 1,250 soldiers from Fort Drum, New York, will rotate to Iraq to back the U.S. intervention against the Islamic State.
    The soldiers, from 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, will deploy in support of Operation Inherent Resolve.

    "These are routine rotations to replace personnel that are already there," Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said in a briefing on Wednesday.


    But he had the nerve to hide behind Iraq today?


    The point of today's speech?  Raf Sanchez (Telegraph of London) explains, "The speech is part of an all-out White House lobbying effort to convince Democratic members of Congress to support the deal in a vote in September."


    Will the awful speech help?


    Who knows.

    But Kevin Liptak (CNN) wades in and offers:
    The unanswered question is whether that framing -- viewed even by some supporters of the deal as overly simplistic -- will be effective in swaying enough votes in Congress to, at a minimum, sustain a veto on any measure objecting to the accord.
    "I don't think that aids the cause," Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats and came out in favor of the deal Wednesday, said of Obama's "common cause" language. "In fact, I think there are Republicans that are really thinking hard about this agreement. I was talking to one this afternoon. And I don't think it helps."



    Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts 119 violent deaths across Iraq today.



    More on Iraq today?

    Why?

    Barack has allowed Iran to drown out Iraq repeatedly.

    Grasp that.

    Nothing can be done with regards to this or that in Iraq because (a) Iran consumes all the White House's time and attention and (b) and this deal was supposed to have been wrapped up in March continues to eat all up all the oxygen in the room.



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    Cry baby Gerry Connolly

    Gerry Connolly is such a wuss.

    If you missed it, silly Gerry, member of Congress, is whining that Hillary shouldn't have to answer where she stands on the TPA trade deal.

    He's been so embarrassing since Barack became president.

    He's whined in hearings that he was being criticized.

    He's cried that his life is so hard.

    He's cried that his wife was sick.

    He's done everything but focus on issues.



    "Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
    Tuesday, August 4, 2015.  Chaos and violence continue, the Yazidis carry out their revenge attacks to do their part to continue the circle of violence, Tony Blair's War Crimes gather attention, Haider al-Abadi appears to be just another Nouri by another name, and much more.




    Worldwide, he may have been so minor that he's seen as Bully Boy Bush's lapdog but in England, he remains a focal point, rallying cry and all around nuisance.  War Hawk Tony Blair's crimes are not forgotten or buried.  The Telegraph of London explains:


     Labour leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn has suggested that Tony Blair could be made to stand trial for war crimes over the invasion of Iraq.
    The veteran left winger said the 2003 conflict was an "illegal war" and that the individuals who "made the decisions that went with it" should face justice. 


    The remarks were made during an interview with BBC's Newsnight.  ITV notes this of the interview:

    Asked whether Blair should be tried for war crimes, Corbyn said: "If he's committed a war crime, yes. Everyone who's committed a war crime should be.
    "I think it was an illegal war, I'm confident about that, indeed (former UN secretary general) Kofi Annan confirmed it was an illegal war, and therefore he has to explain to that."
    Pressed on whether he personally wanted to see Blair put on trial, Corbyn said: "I want to see all those that committed war crimes tried for it, and those that made the decisions that went with it."


    Corbyn is far from alone in terming Tony Blair a War Criminal.  And the Iraq War has attached itself to Tony Blair in a way that rarely happens.  Henry Kissinger is haunted by his crimes and basically fenced in, unable to travel freely throughout the world for fear of being arrested.  This appears to be the fate that awaits Blair at a minimum.

    But there are those who believe and/or hope that Blair will stand trial for his War Crimes.  Jeremy Corbyn's words will give them some encouragement and validation.  Of the interview, Nicholas Watt (Guardian) adds:

     Corbyn said he expects the eventual publication of the Chilcot report will force Blair to explain his discussions with President Bush in the runup to the war.
    He said: “The Chilcot report is going to come out sometime. I hope it comes out soon. I think there are some decisions Tony Blair has got to confess or tell us what actually happened. What happened in Crawford, Texas, in 2002 in his private meetings with George [W] Bush. Why has the Chilcot report still not come out because – apparently there is still debate about the release of information on one side or the other of the Atlantic. At that point Tony Blair and the others that have made the decisions are then going to have to deal with the consequences of it.”



    He hopes it comes out soon?

    Not a smart move to count on the Chilcot report.  The Iraq Inquiry stopped holding hearings in 2011. The report was supposed to have come out long ago.

    Instead, four years later and still no report.

    Four years later and nothing.

    Patrick Wintour (Guardian) reports:

     An impatient David Cameron will demand Sir John Chilcot names the date by which his report into the British invasion of Iraq will be ready for publication.
    The prime minister is expected to tell Chilcot he wants to see the report as soon as possible. “Right now I want a timetable,” he told journalists.


    Cameron, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, points out that he cannot force the independent body that is the Iraq Inquiry to release the report but he can ask for a date for when the body will release the report and thereby create a timetable.


    Dropping back to the Tuesday, July 21st snapshot:

     
    Alsumaria offers video of a Baghdad protest that took place on Monday as people gathered to demand the release of artist Namir Abdel Hussein who was arrested in a sweep that included the security forces arresting over 700 hotel workers when the hotels were stormed.
    Why were they stormed?
    The Shi'ite militias are again in charge, that's why.
    And they don't like a Baghdad night life.
    This happened repeatedly under Nouri -- and it was illegal then.
    Now it's happening under Haider al-Abadi.
    But let's keep pretending he's representing some form of change and a new direction for Iraq.    The Ministry of the Interior, Monday night, announced that they had released the artist as well as the hotel workers. 

    Friday, Mushreq Abbas (Al-Monitor) covered the subject:
    Despite official declarations such as that of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi July 20, the attacks and violations have not stopped. Before storming the nightclubs, a military force raided the Union of Writers Club in Baghdad June 19 and attacked a group of writers on accusations of alcohol consumption.
    On July 25, an unidentified military force stormed a family restaurant in central Baghdad and attacked patrons.
    The rule of former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (2006-2014) witnessed an array of similar attacks that targeted the same type of sites as well as liquor stores. These places are currently confined to the Karrada district of central Baghdad by the constant attacks against them elsewhere and amid the spread of a religious tide in the rest of the capital’s districts.
    Some of these attacks have turned deadly. In July 2014, armed militias carried out a terrifying massacre, killing about 30 women in a residential apartment in Zayouna district in eastern Baghdad that they claimed were showing "immoral behavior."
    In the latest incident, as in all of the previous ones, the Interior Ministry formed a committee under Abadi's direction to investigate the issue, but no investigations have been announced, and the ministry has not produced any perpetrator of an attack on public freedoms for prosecution, implying some sort of solidarity with the perpetrators.
    Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry claimed that bars and nightclubs are under constant attack because they were never granted official licenses to conduct business.
    Such licenses are usually granted by the Iraqi Ministry of Tourism, which, ever since the change of the political system in Iraq after the US occupation in 2003, has granted no official licenses to sell alcohol or open establishments dedicated to alcohol use. Iraq's Law No. 6 of 2001 regulates these places and was preceded by Law No. 82 of 1994.

     
    Nothing's really changed in Iraq.
    Haider al-Abadi replacing Nouri al-Maliki was supposed to mean change.
    But there's been no change.
    For example, today, Al Arabiya News reports:


     Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Affairs, Bahaa al-Aaraji, said the former government of Nouri al-Maliki has wasted around $1 trillion of public funds.
    “The former government (of Maliki) has wasted around $1 trillion. $800 billion came from Iraq’s oil budget since 2004 till 2014 while $200 billion came from donations and aid,” Aaraji told reporters on Friday according to a report by Asharq al-Awsat.


    Nouri is a thug.  And he needs to be held accountable for all the money he fleeced.

    But it's doubtful he will be.

    Despite receiving applause for supposedly attempting to address corruption, new prime minister Haider al-Abadi has done damn little.

    Address it?  He can't even answer a basic question.

    This was obvious last April when Der Spiegel's Susanne Koelbl interviewed him:


     SPIEGEL: Iraq is at war, but it is not the only crisis affecting the country. Many residents of Baghdad use the word "thieves" when they talk about your politicians. How corrupt is your government?


    Al-Abadi: We have problems and the way I am dealing with them is to start by admitting them. Corruption is a huge issue. It has to do with the society, which has changed -- both during the times of Saddam Hussein's regime and after. Also, the sanctions had an adverse effect on society in nurturing this culture of corruption. During the 1960s or 1970s, bribery was very rare in Iraq. The number of government employees was very small and usually they were the elite. But then they incorporated millions of people into the government -- not to better run the state, but to control the people. We are in the process of implementing a number of processes and procedures that aim to curb the extent of corruption.


    SPIEGEL: One of your first actions after you took office was to close the office of your predecessor's son, who is said to have provided huge government contracts to people who were ready to pay the most for them. Young college graduates claim they had to pay officials $10,000 to $20,000 in order to obtain government jobs. Why should Iraqis have any faith in this government?
    Al-Abadi: We need to flip the system. Four years ago, the government tried to stop the corruption at the Passport Office, where people pay $400 to $500 just to get their passport issued. Every day they were arresting so many people and it did not have much of an effect. But if you ease the procedure, for instance making the document available online, it puts an end to it altogether. I don't want to fill our prisons with people who ask for petty cash while we are facing this major terrorist threat to the country. I want to keep these prisons for the actual criminals who are killing people or for people who are stealing vast amounts of money from the people. I want to change how we run the government in Iraq.


    Did you notice it?  Serious talk.

    Until the interviewer notes Ahmed al-Maliki, Nouri's son.

    He never comments on that: "One of your first actions after you took office was to close the office of your predecessor's son, who is said to have provided huge government contracts to people who were ready to pay the most for them."

    He just sidesteps it, ignores it.  He's asked "how corrupt is your government" and responds directly without any offence.  But he can't answer about Ahmed al-Maliki?

    Let's stop pretending anything's changed with regards to Haider.
     

    There's a lot of pretending going on.

    For example, at The Conversation, Tyler Fisher, Muslih Mustafa, Nahro Zagros want to note a year since Mount Sinjar, when Yazidis were trapped on the mountain and being attacked, the incident that led Barack to start bombing Iraq.  The three write:

     The crisis in Sinjar is subsiding, and the Peshmerga have gradually retaken some of the areas that IS had overrun. But the atrocities are still a relentless daily reality for thousands of Yazidis still in captivity, for those in precarious refugee camps and for their relatives abroad, bereaved or longing to be reunited.

    Several thousand remain in the mountains, cut off from humanitarian aid – and the threat of annihilation has not abated.


    Credit to the three for not pretending all Yazidis were rescued.

    How sad that Barack's actions last August have still not paid off.

    But there's another detail and Mitchell Prothero was noting it in his Here & Now interview yesterday.

    Sinjar itself?

    Still under Islamic State control all these months (12) later.

    Twelve months after Barack began bombing Iraq and nothing has changed.

    Sinjar remains occupied, Yazidis remain trapped.
    Some do.
    Some practice vengeance. 
    Khales Joumah (Niqash) covers this under-reported aspect of the story:


    A combination of airstrikes and ground action by a number of different forces has seen the Islamic State, or IS, group expelled from parts of the territory. And supposedly those areas would now be safe enough for the residents to return to, if they were alive and able to. However, as is happening in other areas of the country where the IS group's activities only deepened existing enmities between different ethnic and religious groups, there are acts of revenge occurring and extrajudicial “justice” being meted out.
    Yazidis who lived in the area say that their Arab neighbours didn’t help them when the IS fighters arrived and, in fact, in some cases, collaborated with them. The Iraqi Kurdish military have been faced with similar accusations and criticised for using the security crisis for their own ends – that is, claiming more land in northern Iraq under the guise of protecting locals.
    As a result the situation in the Sinjar area is extremely confused. The upshot of the IS group's murder, kidnapping, abduction and destruction is more murder, kidnapping, abduction and destruction.
    “All the houses in our village look as though a violent earthquake destroyed them,” says Ahmad Ali, who is originally from the Arab village of Sibaya, north of Sinjar mountain.
    In January the 34-year-old fled the village along with 14 members of his family because Yazidis attacked them.
    Amnesty International reported at the time that the Yazidi militia “killed 21 civilians, half of them elderly men and women and children, in what appear to have been execution-style killings, and injured several others, including three children. The gunmen also abducted some 40 residents, 17 of whom are still missing and feared dead”.
    Ali now lives near the Rabia district and in a telephone interview he told NIQASH that he recently watched acts of vengeful destruction with binoculars.
    “In the space of a week, bulldozers, protected by the Yazidi militia, demolished all the village houses, including the school, the health clinic and the mosque,” Ali reports. “Then they went to a nearby village called Sayer. There are other villages that will have the same fate,” he concluded.
    Nothing changed -- even the cycle of revenge remains the same.


    Yet today's big news?


    BBC reports:

    The RAF Tornado mission against Islamic State militants in Iraq is to be extended by an extra year, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has said.
    The jets - due to be disbanded last March - are to be kept in service until "at least" March 2017 to continue air strikes, he said on a visit to Iraq.


    No real success to point to from August 2014 to the present but the plan or 'plan' is to continue this through at least March 2017.

    Anyone going to have the guts to ask: Why?

    Bill Van Auken (WSWS) reminds:


    It was only a year ago that Obama told the American public that he was ordering air strikes in Iraq and sending in a small contingent of Special Operations troops for the sole purpose of rescuing the Yazidis, a small religious community in northern Iraq, from a supposedly imminent massacre at the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
    This Sunni Islamist militia had overrun roughly a third of Iraq the previous month, routing US-trained Iraqi troops that fled in disarray. This debacle was the product of the past US interventions, which had killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and left behind a shattered society divided along sectarian lines.
    ISIS itself bore the stamp “Made in the USA,” having enjoyed the backing of the CIA and Washington’s principal regional allies, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, in the war for regime change in Syria. It was also strengthened by the 2011 US-NATO war to topple and murder Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. That neocolonial enterprise relied upon similar Al Qaeda-linked Islamist militias, many of whose members—along with huge stocks of captured Libyan weapons—were funneled into Syria.

    The fate of the Yazidis has long been forgotten. Subsequent attempts were made to sell the new war as an existential struggle against terrorism—that is, against the very terrorists the US had been supporting in Libya and Syria—exploiting the fate of captive Americans beheaded by ISIS.



    A year, billions spnet, so many killed and nothing to show for it.

    Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts 37 violent deaths across Iraq today.










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