Cedric's Big Mix: 2010-10-24

Saturday, October 30, 2010

You just have to know where to look for it

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

ALLEGED COMEDIAN JON STEWART HELD A RALLY TO "RESTORE SANITY" IN THE U.S. -- A RALLY THAT LOOKED SUSPICIOUSLY LIKE THE CORPORATE FUNDED RALLIES IN "MEET JOHN DOE."

BUT, AS DEMONSTRATED IN CONNECTICUT TODAY, THE U.S. HAS NO SANITY PROBLEM: CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O WAS YET AGAIN HECKLED!

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Earlier this week on Antiwar Radio (Wednesday), Scott Horton interviewed journalist and historian Gareth Porter. We'll note this at the very end of the interview.

Gareth Porter: The one thing that I would underline that I was shakiest on was the belief that the SOFA, the agreement that was reached in November of 2008, was something that could be expected -- could be counted on to stick. I'm no longer confident that that's the case.

Scott Horton: Wow. Well now, talk about opening a can of worms up. What you're saying is that the war will start again because Moqtada al-Sadr isn't backing down on that? You're just saying the Pentagon is going to insist on staying?

Gareth Porter: I'm saying, I'm saying that I'm not at all confident the US troops are going to get out. That's right. I think there's a grave danger that we're going to get stuck there.

Scott Horton: Which means fighting against the government we just spent all this time installing. But you know --

Gareth Porter: Well I don't know. Maybe we're going to be fighting Kurds, maybe we're going to be fighting Turks? You know, who knows? Who knows who we'll be fighting? But I do think -- I have very good reason to believe that this is a serious danger at this point. That the Obama administration is going to try to pull another "Oh yeah, we're pulling all of our combat troops out, see? These are not combat troops. Nothing to see here move on."

Gen George Casey is Chief of Staff of the Army and he gave a speech earlier this week. What's interesting is the way the army elected to write it up. Here's the opening paragraph from the army's press release (that they would call a "news article"):

Soldiers can look forward to increased time at home station when the Army has all but completely pulled out of Iraq, leaving a larger pool of units free to do rotations in Afghanistan. But those rotations will continue for a some time, said the Army's top Soldier.

"Can look forward to" casts this sometime in the near future and, according to the army's press release, at that point the US will not be out of Iraq, it will have "all but completely pulled out of Iraq". It's an interesting word choice. Especially coming on the heels of the US State Dept's acknowledgment that the White House is "open" to extending the SOFA and keeping 50,000 US troops in Iraq beyond 2011. From Monday's snapshot:

Today Robert Dreyfuss (The Nation) reports that former US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker spoke last week to the National Council on US - Arab Relations and " that when the dust clears in the formation of a new government in Iraq that Baghdad would come to the United States to ask for an extension of the US military presence beyond the end of 2011. By that date, according to the accord signed in 2008 by the Bush administration, all US troops are to leave Iraq. But Crocker said that it is 'quite likely that the Iraqi government is going to ask for an extension of our deployed presence'." (He also expressed that Nouri would remaing prime minister. Why? The US government backed Nouri as the 'continuing' prime minister after Nouri promised he's allow the US military to remain in Iraq past 2011.) Today at the US State Dept, spokesperson Philip J. Crowley was asked about Crocker's remarks. He responded, "Well, we have a Status of Forces Agreement and a strategic framework. The Status of Forces Agreement expires at the end of next year, and we are working towards complete fulfillment of that Status of Forces Agreement, which would include the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of next year. The nature of our partnership beyond next year will have to be negotiated. On the civilian side, we are committed to Iraq over the long term. We will have civilians there continuing to work with the government on a range of areas – economic development, rule of law, civil society, and so forth. But to the extent that Iraq desires to have an ongoing military-to-military relationship with the United States in the future, that would have to be negotiated. And that would be something that I would expect a new government to consider. [. . .] Should Iraq wish to continue the kind of military partnership that we currently have with Iraq, we're open to have that discussion."

During the Antiwar Radio interview, Gareth Porter discussed the WikiLeaks release and the "Report Shows Drones Strikes Based on Scant Evidence" (IPS via Information Clearing House) -- which is his reporting on the leaks. Last Friday, WikiLeaks released 391,832 US military documents on the Iraq War. The documents -- US military field reports -- reveal torture and abuse and the ignoring of both. They reveal ongoing policies passed from the Bush administration onto the Obama one. They reveal that both administrations ignored and ignore international laws and conventions on torture. They reveal a much higher civilian death toll than was ever admitted to.

On the topic of WikiLeaks, a correction for yesterday when I was grossly wrong. A friend was the first to reach me and say, "Was it a joke?" No, I honestly thought ZNet was published (and I thought it had its servers) in Canada. I was wrong, 100% wrong, completely wrong. (See today's snapshot.) My mistake. No one else's. I will be wrong many times again as I was in the snapshot today. I'll include this in tomorrow's snapshot to correct my error. My apologies for my error. We were noting ZNet because they stood alone among independent media in actually covering the WikiLeaks release. They are an American publication (again, I was wrong) and this is some of their WikiLeaks coverage:

WikiLeaks / Iraq War Logs

Julian Assange: Under Siege
Chatterjee/Rosen/Leigh: Contractors
Danny Schechter: Pentagon War
Glenn Greenwald: Nixonian Henchmen
Robert Fisk: The Shaming of America
Juan Cole: WikiLeaks & Iraq Gov.
Patrick Cockburn: Death Squads
Assange: Explaining the Logs
Assange: Defending the Logs
Josh Stieber: Responding to the Leak
Daniel Ellsberg: Logs Released

There are many ways that the documents can be covered. Ian Alln (intelNews.org) covers the CIA angle and how the US documents can be used to chart the CIA's role in the ongoing war. Sitting down with McClatchy Newspaprs' Sahar Issa, The Real News Network's Paul Jay addressed the civilian death toll.

JAY: So let's talk a little bit about WikiLeaks. There are various pieces of the documents that jumped out, but the one a lot of people have been talking about is the numbers of civilian deaths, over 100,000. How have Iraqis reacted to all of this?

ISSA: Iraqis know this. Iraqis know that they have lost hundreds of thousands.

JAY: So people think the number is low.

"To the disgust of many, both Iraq's new leaders and the world as a whole lent a deaf ear to such crimes, shutting their eyes to accounts of atrocities and refusing to investigate reports of intimidation, abuse and killings," Salah Hemeid (Al-Ahram Weekly) observes, noting, as Issa does, what Iraqis knew and what the media and governments didn't want discussed. "However, by giving a fuller picture of the US legacy in Iraq through its leaking of secret American military documents detailing torture, summary execution and war crimes, Wikileaks has both done truth a great service and has proved, once again, that truth is the first casualty of war." Watching America translates an editorial on the topic from Spain's El Pais:

The new leaks from WikiLeaks furnish conclusive proof concerning the cesspool of a war like Iraq, undertaken for motives increasingly seen to have been foolish in the extreme and carried out with a brutality that was in complete contradiction to the propagation of democracy invoked by Bush and his Azorean colleagues* as a justification for war. If the strongest argument against the invasion was that democracy could not be imposed on another country by force of arms, the new leaks from WikiLeaks make it necessary to add a corollary which, until now, might have seemed obvious: even less by means of torture, rape or indiscriminate slaughter of civilians. An end, such as democracy, does not justify such execrable means.

Allan Gerson (Huffington Post) probes another area of the released documents:

For example, the WikiLeaks documents released last week made clear, said the Vice President of the European Parliament, Dr. Alejo Vidal Quadras, that the Obama Administration knew that Iran was rapidly "gaining control of Iraq at many levels" even while it overruled objections not to turn over to Iraqi forces control of Camp Ashraf, an enclave 40km. north of Baghdad where approximately 3500 Iranian dissidents are quartered. Hundreds of parliamentarians in the US, Europe and the Middle East had pointed out that transfer to Iraqi control might lead to mass executions were the Camp Ashraf dissidents forcefully repatriated to Iran by Iraqi leaders anxious to placate Iran.

Nevertheless, the Obama Administration turned Camp Ashraf over to Iraqi forces without ever revealing a material fact: that the rush for "engagement" with Iran was bought at the price of psychological torture of Camp Ashraf's residents, repeated forays, and shooting sprees that killed and maimed hundreds of dissidents. Despite the outrage voiced in many quarters, the intimidation, coercion and atrocities have only been put on hold, in abeyance, ready to be resurrected in full at a more propitious moment. To rectify the situation and avert another tragedy, the US should resume protecting Ashraf or at least ensure that a UN monitoring team is stationed there.

Countless American citizens and their representatives in Congress acquiesced to "engagement" with Iran on false premises. The Obama Administration's readiness to turn a blind eye to the fate of Camp Ashraf's 3500 residents is now public information, in large measure through the release of the WikiLeaks documents. As the price of "engagement" with Iran has been revealed, it is up to the American populace and its representatives in Congress to determine if they are willing to acquiesce in the politics of appeasement -- not least, through the abandonment of Iran's most stalwart opponents.

Steve Fake (Foreign Policy In Focus) dissects the ways in which information that threatens the power-structure is attacked including:

The other tactic employed by opinion shapers, coming to the foreground in light of the extensive redactions of the Iraq documents, is to smear the messenger. The reader of the American press cannot help but be struck by one thought while reading the various reports discussing Assange's reputed authoritarianism and psychological health, the molestation charges he faces, and the factional strife at WikiLeaks: the allegations are of virtually no public policy significance. They amount to scarcely more than gossip fodder.

One attacker has been Miss Susan Hayward of 2010, John F. Burns. And we addressed him at length last night. And while it may seem hard to top a man who co-writes a 2014 word article and then requires 1287 to defend it, the New York Times found some others ready to 'play.' For the record, my kids are out of school (they're adults now) but had they come home with the 'lesson' 'plan' that Shannon Doyne and Holly Epstein Ojalova pen for the New York Times, those two 'teachers' would not be employed at the school anymore. I'd start by noting that neither appears to have majored in education (they're English majors -- English majors -- at last, a group even drama majors can laugh at). Were they emergency certified or did they have a waiver because they're training -- such as it is -- does not qualify them for the subect (the release of government documents) or for preparing a lesson plan or unit. They're not qualified. (Holly has an MA in English lit education. No, it's not the same thing but a friend at the paper insisted that be noted.)

Then there's the crap they churned out. As a parent, I was never bothered if a side of an argument is presented . . . provided more than one side was presented. There's only one side presented in Shannon and Holly's bad lesson: Government right.

These two . . . women would have been out of jobs, I'm not joking. Teachers are expected to be fair and there is nothing fair about what Shannon and Holly designed. Here's there basics:

* have kids brainstorm documents a government might keep on war

* have them focus on the Pentagon, DoD, CIA, etc.

And on it goes. As you scan through, you may wonder when they take the position of human rights attorneys, of peace activists, of a soldier struggling with the issues, etc.? The answer is never. They are asked to think about "What percentage of the documents do you think could pose a threat if they fell into an enemy's hands? What could happen if these documents were made public?" When do they get asked to think about the public's right to know? NEVER. When do they get asked to think about open government and how it is needed in a democracy? NEVER.

The exercises put the students -- intentionally -- into roles at DoD, the CIA and the Pentagon. That's intentional not accidental. I would not tolerate this S**T if my child brought it home. It would offend my politics, yes, but it would offend me most of all for being so damn one-sided and for my children being held hostage to some illegimate and unqualifed teacher's doctrine.

The exercise insists students 'learn' of Julian Assange -- late in the lesson plan -- by reading the hit-job John F. Burns co-wrote. Why? What is the purpose of that? It's not about Julian Assange.

Look at the questions the children will address:

How many secret documents about the war in Iraq did WikiLeaks release? The war in Afghanistan?
Why are some of Mr. Assange's comrades abandoning him?
Who is Daniel Ellsberg, and why does he consider Julian Assange a "kindred spirit"?
Why did Mr. Assange initially go to Sweden, and why did he flee shortly thereafter?
How does Mr. Assange describe the United States in regard to democracy? Do you agree or disagree?

Look at questions two, four and five and explain to me what an American child 'learning' about Julian from the smear piece by Burnsie isn't going to be likely to side against Julian? These questions are chosen to plant the seeds of distrust in and hostility towards Julian. They are the education equivalent of push-polling. They show a motive on the part of the design and that -- along with the lack of educational training -- would ensure that the teachers would be hitting the road and looking for employment in another field (judging by the piece they wrote, they'd probably inquire as to whether there were any openings for torturers at Guantanamo).

And then the point of the lesson:

Is WikiLeaks heroic or villainous for releasing these documents? (Alternatively, you might temper such a stark question by softening the wording slightly, like so: "Is WikiLeaks a force for good or an instigator of trouble?")

Where are the questions about the government? Where are the questions about the actions in the paper themselves? They've created quite a little fact-free world where there are no values and are no ethics there is just an excercise that has them pretend (over and over) that they are the government, briefly 'informs' them of a one Whistleblower via an attack piece, pays a passing nod to Daniel Ellsberg (the lesson plan contains no real unit on Daniel) and then wants to ask for a judgment that will be cast in good or evil.

This isn't teaching, this indoctrination. Should your children's school use it, raise bloody hell. No school should use this crap. It's one-sided and the educational equivalent of smut. The New York Times should be ashamed of themselves. While they regularly pull their stunts on readers, now they want to contaminate the minds of children?

Thursday, October 28, 2010

He lost his what?

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O CONTINUES HIS MAD DASH ACROSS THE COUNTRY, SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS AND POSING FOR PICTURES.

BUT THE REVIEWS ARE NOT VERY GOOD.

AND THESE REPORTERS CORNERED PLUS-SIZE MODEL AND WHITE HOUSE BRIEFER ROBERT GIBBS AT A BOB'S BIG BOY WHERE HE WAS HAVING SIX OF THE CLASSIC BIG BOYS (DOUBLE DECKER HAMBURGERS). AS WE RECOUNTED BARRY O'S CONTINUING PROBLEMS CONNECTING WITH THE PUBLIC, ROBERT GIBBS CHEWED FURIOUSLY, THEN STRUCK HIS FOREHEAD AND EXCLAIMED, "MY GOD! WHAT IF RAHM EMANUEL WAS BARRY'S KARL ROVE!"

INDEED.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Meanwhile, the Guardian examines worldwide media action with Martin Chulov covering Baghdad:

Iraq's media continues to probe two key themes from the WikiLeaks disclosures. Newspapers and television networks have focused heavily on the claim that prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, directed a counter-terrorism unit answerable only to him, which targeted predominantly Sunni areas. They have also examined disclosures that the numbers of civilian deaths throughout the eight-year war are 15,000 higher than previously stated.

The Iraqi News Network was typical of the tone: "The WikiLeaks documents revealed very important secrets," it said. "But the most painful among them are not those that focus on the occupier, but those that reveal what the Iraqi forces, Iraqi government and politicians did against their citizens. Those leaders who returned to remove Iraq from oppression toppled the dictator but then carried out acts that were worse than Saddam himself.

"If these documents make the US apologise to Iraqis, they should compel Mr Maliki to leave the political arena altogether and apologise to everyone."

The revelations have led to an uncomfortable week for Maliki, who has been battling to cobble together a coalition government that would allow him to lead the country for a second term. Members of Maliki's coalition have taken to the airwaves in an attempt to defuse fears that the leaked documents would make it harder for him to win cross-sectarian support.

March 7th, Iraq concluded Parliamentary elections. The Guardian's editorial board noted in August, "These elections were hailed prematurely by Mr Obama as a success, but everything that has happened since has surely doused that optimism in a cold shower of reality." 163 seats are needed to form the executive government (prime minister and council of ministers). When no single slate wins 163 seats (or possibly higher -- 163 is the number today but the Parliament added seats this election and, in four more years, they may add more which could increase the number of seats needed to form the executive government), power-sharing coalitions must be formed with other slates, parties and/or individual candidates. (Eight Parliament seats were awarded, for example, to minority candidates who represent various religious minorities in Iraq.) Ayad Allawi is the head of Iraqiya which won 91 seats in the Parliament making it the biggest seat holder. Second place went to State Of Law which Nouri al-Maliki, the current prime minister, heads. They won 89 seats. Nouri made a big show of lodging complaints and issuing allegations to distract and delay the certification of the initial results while he formed a power-sharing coalition with third place winner Iraqi National Alliance -- this coalition still does not give them 163 seats. They are claiming they have the right to form the government. In 2005, Iraq took four months and seven days to pick a prime minister. It's seven months and twenty-one days and still counting.

Sunday Richard Spencer (Telegraph of London) reported that Nouri insisted the release of the documents was politically motivated in an attempt to undercut him -- it's been a while since Nouri's trotted his vast paranoia across the world stage but longterm observers will remember it. Spencer noted that "part of the success he has claimed in bringing down the level of violence since he came to power has rested on his projection of a 'strongman' image. He has fought militias, including the Sadrists to whom he is now allied, and formed special security units to target suspected insurgents." Iraqiya points to the documents of proof that Nouri is a despot and Iraqiya spokesperson Maysoun al-Damluji is quoted stating, "Maliki wants to have all powers in his hands. Putting all the security powers in the hands of one person who is the general commander of the armed forces has led to these abuses and torture practices in Iraqi prisons." Iraqiya is calling for an investigation.
On Sunday's Weekend Edition (NPR, link has text and audio), Kelly McEvers reported, "The documents also detail wrongdoing by units that claimed they were directly connected to current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. During the sectarian fighting the gripped Iraq from 2006 to 2008, it was widely believed that death squads sponsored by Maliki's Shiite-dominated government carried out killings against Sunnis. In a statement Maliki's office said there's nothing wrong with maintaining special counterterrorism forces, and the documents don't prove anything."

Maher Chmayteli and Nayla Razzouk (Bloomberg News) reported that Allawi is calling out the "oil and natural gas development contracts" Nouri has handed out on the grounds that Nouri's cabinet is outgoing and that, therefore, the contracts are illegal. Nouri's term expired some time ago. He's not supposed to be running anything. The US refused to allow the UN to set up a caretaker government while the election issues were resolved which is why Nouri's remained in his post. Not only is his term up, so is his cabinet. He doesn't even have a full cabinet at present and, in fact, the posts of Ministry of Oil and Ministry of Electricity -- two posts -- are being filled by one person -- without the approval of Parliament which also isn't supposed to take place. All cabinet posts are supposed to be approved by Parliament. Iraqiys presents numerous reasons for the contracts being illegal including Nouri signing off on them "with no reference to current laws such as Law 97 of 1967, which requires the consent of the Iraqi Parliament in the absence of a Federal Oil and Gas Law." Reuters adds, "Some lawmakers say the contracts all need to be approved by parliament, a view opposed by the oil ministry." But it forgets to weigh in on who's right? According to the Constitution, Parliament's approval is needed.

Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor via McClatchy) reports, "Iraqi thirsting for vengeance as much as justice welcomed the death sentence Tuesday of one of Saddam Hussein's best-known officials, Tariq Aziz. Hugh (Corrente) takes issue witha recent New York Times article by Jack Healy:

First, the article's author Jack Healy says that Aziz was "sentenced to death by an Iraqi court on Tuesday, convicted of crimes against members of rival Shiite political parties." Now to me this sounds like Healy is indicating that Aziz is himself Shia. He's not. He's Chaldean Christian. Alternately, Healy could be saying that Aziz was sentenced for crimes against various Shiite groups who are now at odds with each other. However, this too is false. Aziz was sentenced to death for crimes against members of only one Shiite group, Maliki's Dawa party.

And therein lies the story that the Times does not tell. Maliki himself along with most of the Dawa leadership fled to Iran in 1979. The following year about six months before the outbreak of the Iraq-Iran war, Dawa party members tried to assassinate Aziz. 1980 was also the year in which Maliki was sentenced in absentia to death by the Saddam regime. Maliki has scores to settle and he is settling them.

Unrelated except it's also Corrente, Libbyliberal has a piece on Ethan McCord sharing what he experienced in Iraq. Today Iraq continued to experience violence with Reuters reporting a Basra sticky bombing injuring one person, a Baghdad sticky bombing claiming the life of a police officer, a second Baghdad sticky bombing injuring a police brigadier general, a third Baghad sticky bombing which injured an employee of the Ministry of Housing and Construction, a Mosul suicide car bomber who took his own life as well as that of 1 police officer and left eight more people injured and, dropping back to last night, a Baghdad bombing which claimed 1 life and left two more people injured.

Going back to WikiLeaks, Mark Feldstein offers a historical comparison at American Journalism Review (and "Anderson" is Jack Anderson):

To be sure, the parallels should not be overstated. Anderson's documents totaled just a fraction of the tens of thousands of records posted on the Internet by WikiLeaks, whose Web site instantly makes its files available to anyone on the globe with the click of a mouse. In addition, Anderson was a seasoned reporter who took more care to disguise the identities of informants and to gather valuable corroborating information from interviews in the field.

Still, pioneers like Anderson and Assange are rarely respected in their own time by their establishment competitors. Just as the founder of WikiLeaks has been dismissed as a hacker/activist, so Anderson was "not a journalist," another columnist declared back in the day, but "a sewer pipe" whose reporting "goes beyond disloyalty; it sails close to the windward edge of treason." Such contempt was reciprocated by Anderson and Assange, who disparaged the press as mere stenographers for those in power.

He is the new Richard Nixon

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O ENTERED RICHARD NIXON TERRITORY YESTERDAY AS HE WENT ON A COMEDY SHOW IN AN ATTEMPT TO GET OUT THE VOTE.

OF COURSE, LAUGH-IN HAD A BIG AUDIENCE AND WASN'T A FADING SHOW ON BASIC CABLE AND, OF COURSE, GOLDIE AND THE GANG DIDN'T WHORE UP TO TRICKY DICK THE WAY OLD MAN JON STEWART DID.

BUT WATCHING BARRY READ FROM HIS SCRIPTED REMARKS AND THE NEARLY ELDERLY JON STEWART -- GRAY IS NOT JUST HIS COLOR THESE DAYS, IT'S HIS SKIN TONE AS WELL -- SUCK UP AND GUFFAW AND THINK HE WAS CUTE?

IT BROUGHT TO MIND THE MOMENT IN ANNIE HALL WHEN WOODY ALLEN'S WATCHING THE MIDDLE AGED COMEDIAN WHO THINKS HE'S CUTE BUT WOODY'S ALVY JUST FINDS HIM "MINCING" AND ANNOYING.

SUCK A LITTLE HARDER, JON.

AND THEN SWALLOW.

REMEMBER TO ACT ENTHUSIASTIC, YOU'RE GETTING PAID.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Today the Christian Science Monitor's editorial board weighs in on Iraq noting that "many experts predict Iraq will soon ask Mr. Obama to extend the time for US forces to stay, not only to protect the nation's fledgling democracy but to help Iraq survive as a nation in a hostile neighborhood. Iraq is far behind the schedule set in the 2008 security pact with the United States to bolster its military and police. Its ability to defend its borders and its oil fields -- both of which are critical to US interests -- is years away. And there is much doubt in Washington about the US State Department's ability to take over the American military's role in managing key security aspects of Iraq, such as Kurdish-Arab friction or forming new police forces." The editorial appears to be advocating for a continued US military presence in Iraq so it's a little strange that they don't attempt to bolster their editorial by noting what went down at the State Dept press briefing on Monday. From Monday's snapshot:

The Christian Science Monitor's editorial board argues that Barack needs to prepare Congress for the possibility of an extended military stay in Iraq for, among other reasons, the money that would be required. With Joseph Stiglitz, Linda J. Bilmes has long been charting the financial costs of the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War. At The Daily Beast today, she writes:

Already, we've spent more than $1 trillion in Iraq, not counting the $700 billion consumed each year by the Pentagon budget. And spending in Iraq and Afghanistan now comes to more than $3 billion weekly, making the wars a major reason for record-level budget deficits.

Two years ago, Joseph Stiglitz and I published TheThreeTrillion Dollar War in which we estimated that the budgetary and economic costs of the war would reach $3 trillion.

Taking new numbers into account, however, we not believe that our initial estimate was far too conservative -- the costs of the wars will reach between $4 trillion and $6 trillion.

Turning now to the WikiLeaks revelations or, as John F. Burns believes, The John F. Burns Story. I believe the theme song is Joni Mitchell's "Roses Blue" or at least the line "Inside your own self-pity, there you swim." Though some people focus on the torture revelations, for Big Boned John, it's all about him. Yesterday we were noting his appearance on The Takeaway and Rebecca covered it even more in depth. John F. Burns whine and whined about the suffering . . . he'd been through. Apparently unable to afford therapy, he also showed up on PRI's To The Point yesterday. He repeated how hard life was for him because people leave comments on his New York Times' article and he gets e-mails and mean bloggers and whine, whine. But he had a new whine: Academia is attacking him! Academia is unreasonable. A lot of these e-mails he's getting, their e-mail address ends with "edu" and, in fact, some are from Harvard!!!!! Stephen Walt, who is a professor at Harvard and who was on the broadcast, offered, "To suggest that it's a group of academics who have it in for him is not useful."

Late Friday, WikiLeaks released 391,832 US military documents on the Iraq War. The documents -- US military field reports -- reveal torture and abuse and the ignoring of both. They reveal ongoing policies passed from the Bush administration onto the Obama one. They reveal that both administrations ignored and ignore international laws and conventions on torture. They reveal a much higher civilian death toll than was ever admitted to. There are many more revelations to be found in the documents. The World Socialist Web Site editorializes:

The US-led conquest of Iraq stands as one of the most barbaric war crimes of the modern era. Writing in April 2003, one month after the invasion, the World Socialist Web Site noted that during the buildup to World War II "it was common to speak of the Nazis' 'rape of Czechoslovakia,' or 'rape of Poland." What characterized Germany's modus operandi in these countries was the use of overwhelming military force and the complete elimination of their governments and all civic institutions, followed by the takeover of their economies for the benefit of German capitalism. It is high time that what the US is doing is called by its real name. A criminal regime in Washington is carrying out the rape of Iraq." (See, "The rape of Iraq")

The devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people has only intensified over the past seven-and-a-half years. The US has engaged in sociocide -- the systematic destruction of an entire civilization. In addition to the hundreds of thousands killed, millions more have been turned into refugees. There has been a staggering growth of disease, infant mortality and malnutrition. The US military has destroyed the country's infrastructure, leaving an economy in ruins, with an unemployment rate of 70 percent.

To the horror of the world's population, the Iraqi people have been made to suffer an unimaginable tragedy at the hands of the most powerful military force on the planet. And for what? To establish US domination over the oil-rich and geostrategically critical country.

Every major institution in the United States is complicit in this crime. In the face of broad popular opposition within the US, both Democrats and Republicans authorized the war and have supported it ever since, expending hundreds of billions of dollars in the process. The American people have sought repeatedly to end the war through elections, only to be confronted with the fact that the war continues regardless of which corporate-controlled party is in office.

Obama, elected as a result of popular hostility to Bush and the Republicans and their policies of war and handouts to the rich, has continued the same policies. Running as a critic of the Iraq War, he now praises the US military occupiers as "liberators."

Gil Hoffman (Jerusalem Post) reports, "National Union MK Michael Ben-Ari urged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday to investigate actions by the American military in Iraq that may constitute war crimes as alleged by the WikiLeaks website." Hoffman quotes from Ben-Ari's letter, "The latest revelation of US military documents regarding the war in Iraq detailing torture, summary executions, rape and war crimes by US and US lead security forces in Iraq, paint a terrifying portrait of US abuse and contempt of international treaties. [. . .] That the Pentagon is looking to cover up these crimes from the world shows the US government has much more to hide." BBC News notes that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, calls for the US and Iraq to conduct an investigation and quotes her stating, "The US and Iraqi authorities should take necessary measures to investigate all allegations made in these reports and to bring to justice those responsible for unlawful killings, summary executions, torture and other serious human rights abuses," she said in a statement." AFP adds, "Pillay, based in Geneva, said the United States and Iraq should investigate all allegations in the Wikileak documents and 'bring to justice those responsible for unlawful killings, summary executions, torture and other serious human rights abuses.' She said documents released by the whistleblowing website added to her concerns that serious human rights breaches had occurred in Iraq, including 'summary executions of a large number of civilians and torture and ill-treatment of detainees'."

Tom Eley (WSWS) reports on the contractor revelations and notes:

The mercenaries, some of whom earn more than $500 per day, are accountable to no one. Soon after the US invasion of Iraq, Paul Bremer issued "Order No. 17," giving security firm employees total immunity from Iraqi laws. Nor has any US court punished the contractors, even for known instances of murder. They are also not under the jurisdiction of the US military, freeing them from the court martial and even the often-flouted rules of engagement laid out in the US Army Field Manual.

WikiLeaks documents analyzed by Al Jazeera, the Arab-language media service, reveal at least 14 previously unknown cases in which employees of the most infamous private security firm, Blackwater International, fired on civilians. These attacks resulted in 10 confirmed deaths and seven serious injuries.

Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, is most notorious for a 2007 attack it carried out in Baghdad's crowded Nissour Square, killing 17 civilians and seriously wounding 18 more. Five Blackwater mercenaries were charged with murder, but a US judge ruled the prosecution had engaged in misconduct and threw the case out.

"With all the attention focused on WikiLeaks' most recent release -- a trove of documents that paints a bleak picture of the war in Iraq," notes Razzaq al-Saiedi (Global Post), "it's easy to forget that the Iraq of today still has no government." al-Saiedi reminds that Sunday Iraq's Supreme Court ordered Parliament to reconvene and hold sessions. At present, they've only held one session since the election -- they took roll, took their oaths and adjounred -- all in less than 20 minutes..

Alsumaria TV is covering the latest developments. They report, "During his meeting with Kurdistan leader Massoud Barazani in Arbil, head of Al Iraqiya List Iyad Allawi cautioned that the government formation has grew into a serious and critical issue." And that: "Iraqi National Alliance announced after a meeting held at the house of Ibrahim Al Jaafari that it will send a delegation to take part in the meeting between the political blocs expected to be held on Wednesday in order to activate the initiative of the head of Kurdistan region Massoud Barazani who called for dialogue between the different political parties."

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

He's just not mature enough

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O CONTINUES TO MAKE CLEAR THAT HE HOLDS HIS NOSE IN THE AIR AT AMERICA AND NOTIONS OF DEMOCRACY.

MONDAY THE SNOBBY LITTLE BITCH DELCARED THAT REPUBLICANS CAN "COME FOR THE RIDE, BUT THEY GOTTA SIT IN THE BACK." HE THOUGHT HE WAS BEING CUTE BUT EVERYONE ONLY FOUND HIM BITCHY.

AND OLD.

IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH THESE REPORTERS, BARRY O DECLARED THAT HE IS CONSIDERING SOME ''FRESHENING UP" SURGERY BECAUSE "DAMN IT, I NEED TO BE PRETTIER. AMERICA EXPECTS IT OF ME."

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Turning now to The Whoring Of America. The WikiLeaks release is huge, it is a story that is far reaching. But take a moment to look around. The MSM? Diane Rehm's covered it, Larry King, Good Morning America, The NewsHour, the three commerical broadcast evening news programs, the New York Times, etc, have covered it. Who's whoring? Our so-called left. The Progressive? Matty Rothschild did one audio on it this week -- finally. Can't write about it. Can't be bothered with that. But those little 60 second spots he does twice a week? He did one on WikiLeaks. Oh, how he must have tired himself. He can write -- and has repeatedly -- since the release but he's focused on elections. We'll come back to elections in a moment. Baby Cum Pants Amitabh Pal. The little liar, you may remember, made such a whorish judgment, his ass honestly should have been canned. 'Examing' the landscape after England elected their new prime minister, Pal said the Iraq War didn't do in Labour and that England was "keen to forget" the Iraq War. Rebecca called the lying bag of s**t out here. Rebecca and I both knew better because we had access to Labour's polling throughout the lead up to the election (and Rebecca went to London to help with the p.r.). Baby Cum Pants Pal wanted to forget. As we saw after Baby Cum Pants made his ridiculous statements, the fight for prime minister came down to where did you stand on Iraq. One brother triumphed over another (Ed Miliband over David -- I know both Miliband brothers) as a result of where they stood on Iraq. Not only that, Iraq's continued importance in England was addressed last Friday on The Diane Rehm Show:

James Kitfield: Diane, can I just make a point? I just came back from London, working on this story. The-the fact is Britain no longer wants to be that ally to us. You know the Iraq War has really soured them on being America's, you know, ally of first resort. It's an aftermath, blowback from the Iraq War.

Baby Cum Pants has never, ever issued an apology or correction. Though he can't write about WikiLeaks, Baby Cum Pants showed up at The Progressive yesterday to cup and fondle Bob Herbert. Why, oh, why didn't Herbert get more attention? He means media attention and, as usual, Baby Cum Pants doesn't know what he's talking about. While jerking off to Herbert, he fails to grasp that African-Americans in any staff position on a TV public affairs show tend to object to Herbert as a guest. Why? They know how he leap frogged from the New York Daily News to the New York Times (on the backs of young African-American males whom he portrayed as criminals in one of NYC's most sensationalistic crimes, Herbert tried and covicted them in his columns -- history has proven him wrong). So if you want to know why you're hero doesn't get more attention, Baby Cum Pants, you need to know what your hero did. When his name is raised, African-American staffers will regularly recommend Clarence Page, Colbert King, William Raspberry and a host of others. Your ignorance is not an excuse, Baby Cum Pants.

Friday we were calling out Bob Herbert's dreadful on campus speech. In it, you may remember, Herbert had the nerve to blame the American people for not focusing on the Iraq War when the media is the one not focusing -- like Pal, the media wants to "forget" -- and when Herbert's grandstanding was undercut by the fact that you had to drop back 15 columns to find Herbert even writing about the wars (he wrote about Afghanistan in a column published on the day Barack gave his big nothing August 31st speech). In addition, he wrote about Afghanistan August 17th, and then again June 26th . . . No, that's not regularly for a person with a twice-a-week column. And you have to go way, way back to find a column by him on the Iraq War. Baby Cum Pants is waxing on Herbert's dreadful speech with claims of it being anti-war and political. It wasn't. It was The Best Years Of Our Lives. It was let Bob Herbert hide behind wounded veterans and pretend to be brave. It is impossible to believe that any sane American -- regardless of right or left or inbetween or don't care about politics -- takes joy or gladness in the wounded of US service members. It's not a political issue. It's something everyone can agree on. And that was the basis of Herbert bad and non-brave speech. It was not "an eloquent anti-war oration" and that anyone at The Progressive wants to whore it as such goes a long way to explaining why that tepid magazine just gets more and more deadly dull. Pal wrote about his sexual desire but he didn't have time for WikiLeaks.

Over at The Nation, they've posted a video of Jerry Scahill talking about WikiLeaks . . . on MSNBC. Did Jerry write about WikiLeaks for The Nation? Woops! No, he didn't. In fact, other than Greg Mitchell's slight and sleight dispatches (newly fashioned as the Liz Smith of the faux political set by The Nation magazine), the only writing on WikiLeaks was to allow an Iranian dissident on the US payroll to distort a field report (we addressed that Saturday and I'm being very kind and not putting it into a snapshot). Greg contributes his free-form prose stylings which include 5 'sentences' in his most recent dispatch on WikiLeaks if by sentences you mean words tossed together (if you mean subject-verb-direct object, they don't pass muster but Greg's discovered ellipses in his gossip maven phase). Now it's not that The Nation has stopped posted online. They just have more 'important' things to talk about. Plugging Katrina vanden Heuvel's media appearances, for example or what Matty Damon wants for his birthday (besides a hit film which continues to elude him), ESPN, Juan Williams, Ziggy Marley and pot, and always and always elections.

Point of fact, we're now back to elections, people not in Nevada are not strongly invested in Nevada's Senate election. People not in Delaware? The same. Political junkies devoted to races, a small section of the public, may need their fix, but that's really not what The Nation or The Progressive is supposed to be about. The coverage is bulls**t and instantly disposable after next Tuesday. They've wasted everyone's time in attempts to up the vote for the Democratic Party. That's whoring. And America can't afford it. The Progressive has served up a whopping sixty seconds on WikiLeaks. Except for Gushing Greg's Breathless Bulletins and outsourcing a report to an Iranian dissident, The Nation can't even claim to have done that.

Oh all around the marketplace

The buzzing of the flies

The buzzing and the stinging

Divinely barren

And wickedly wise

The killer nails are ringing

Enter the multitudes

In Exxon blue

In radiation rose

Tragedy

Now you tell me

Who you gonna get to do the dirty work

When all the slaves are free?

Who're you gonna get

Who you gonna get to do the dirty work

When all the slaves are free?

-- "Passion Play," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her Night Ride Home

What of In These Times? You mean In These Turn Out The Vote For The Democratic Party Times? This magazine is so far from its roots that its eventual demise will be no cause for sadness. All they're doing is whoring. The left and so-called left outlets are whoring for the Democratic Party with fan club bulletings while ignoring WikiLeaks' revelations. It tells you a great deal about how the nation's been dumbed down and about The Whoring of America. Once upon a time, these same outlets liked to hector the MSM and pretend they were better than the MSM. Their own actions have demonstrated that they're not in the MSM because they couldn't hold down a job there. Their hilarious excuse for their lack of Iraq coverage has been "it's too violent" blah, blah, blah. Here they have to do nothing but sit at their computers and read over documents -- and judging by their ass size, they're very good at sitting at their computers -- but even that's too much for them. Anything more than gossip is apparently too much for them.

They've shamed themselves and those who refuse to call them out are endorsing The Whoring of America. Mid-term elections are Tuesday -- many Americans that will vote have already voted -- most Americans are interested in their own races if they are interested at all. But each day we can count on our so-called 'independent' 'news' outlets to ignore WikiLeaks but churn out more get-out-the-vote pieces. It's shameful and whores need to come with a sell-by-date. Forced retirement would cut a lot of this crap out.

Amy Goodman's done her whoring in headlines thus far this week and made time for WikiLeaks on Monday and on Tuesday. If she had any real guts, WikiLeaks would be a story -- not a headline -- every day on Democracy Now! this week. I doubt she has the fortitude to do that. (I could be wrong -- and would love to be.) Today she spoke with WikiLeaks' Julian Assange (link has text, audio and video). Excerpt:

Julian Assange: Well, these documents cover the periods of 2004 to the beginning of 2010. It is the most accurate description of a war to have ever been released. Within them, we can see 285,000 casualties. That's added up, report by report. That's each casualty, where it happened, when it happened, and who was involved, according to internal US military reporting. Now, looking at particular groups of casualties, we can see, for example, over 600 civilians killed at checkpoint killings, including thirty children, previously -- mostly previously unreported, that three-quarters of those killed at checkpoint killings, according to the United States military itself, were civilians, and only one-quarter, according to the US military internal reporting, were insurgents. We see 284 reports covering torture or other forms of prisoner abuse by coalition forces, covering 300 different people. We see over a thousand reports of torture and other prisoner abuse by the Iraqi state itself, many or most of those receiving no meaningful investigation. I heard in your introduction that the Pentagon claims that the Iraqi government is responsible for this, but in international law, it is the person or government or organization that has effective control that is responsible. And certainly, before the technical legal handover from the Coalition Provisional Authority to the Iraqi government, it is clear that the United States and other coalition forces were the effective, legally responsible group for those. We see in the United Kingdom, Phil Shiner and his group Public Interest Lawyers, Amnesty International, and in New York, Human Rights Watch, calling for investigation and, in some cases, lawsuits against coalition forces for wrongful death. There's other aspects, as well. We can see the involvement of Iran in Iraq with various forms of support given to Shia groups. We can see the corruption present in the Maliki government, including what appears to be a special forces -- Iraqi special forces -- squad personally responsible to Maliki and not tasked by the Iraqi army itself that has been going around and strong-arming and possibly assassinating opponents.

Meanwhile Gareth Porter (Antiwar.com) reports what the New York Times 'forgot' (got wrong) about Iran and its connections to Iraq:

Petraeus's spokesman, Gen. Kevin Bergner, later accused Iran of having directed the Karbala attack though it control of networks of "Special Groups" armed and trained by Iran. Petraeus maintained consistently that Iran was backing "rogue" units that had left the Mahdi Army.

The WikiLeaks documents show, however, that Petraeus and his command in Iraq were well aware that al-Dulaimi was a Mahdi Army commander in charge of secret operations. The Petraeus "Special Groups" line was aimed at hiding the fact that the U.S. command was determined to destroy as much of the Mahdi Army as possible by claiming that it was actually attacking rogue Shi'ite militias.

The New York Times story on Iran-related WikiLeaks documents by Michael Gordon, which portrays the documents as reconfirming the Petraeus line on Iran-backed "Special Groups," highlighted the intelligence report on Dulaimi but omitted the central fact that it clearly identifies him as a Mahdi Army commander.

The evidence also indicates that the Mahdi Army Karbala operation was done with the full knowledge of the Maliki government.

Barry O finds less support

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

AS IF DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES TURNING ON CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O AND CALLING HIM OUT WASN'T BAD ENOUGH, HIS LATEST ATTEMPT TO COPY HILLARY CLINTON HAS BACKFIRED IN HIS FACE.

HOMOPHOBE IN CHIEF BARRY O IS NOT BEING ALLOWED TO SKIRT THE ISSUE OF HIS HOMOPHOBIA.

DAYS AFTER HILLARY TAPES AN AFFIRMING MESSAGE TO GAY YOUTH, BARRY O ATTEMPTS TO COPY HER. AND WHILE SOME WHORES LIKE AMY GOODMAN FINGER THEMSELVES FURIOUSLY AND 'FORGET' TO MENTION ALL OF HIS RECENT 'PROBLEMS' WITH THE LGBT COMMUNITY OR THE FACT THAT HE'S YET AGAIN COPYING HILLARY CLINTON'S LEAD AFTER SHE'S APPLAUDED FOR IT.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Today Robert Dreyfuss (The Nation) reports that former US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker spoke last week to the National Council on US - Arab Relations and " that when the dust clears in the formation of a new government in Iraq that Baghdad would come to the United States to ask for an extension of the US military presence beyond the end of 2011. By that date, according to the accord signed in 2008 by the Bush administration, all US troops are to leave Iraq. But Crocker said that it is 'quite likely that the Iraqi government is going to ask for an extension of our deployed presence'." (He also expressed that Nouri would remaing prime minister. Why? The US government backed Nouri as the 'continuing' prime minister after Nouri promised he's allow the US military to remain in Iraq past 2011.) Today at the US State Dept, spokesperson Philip J. Crowley was asked about Crocker's remarks. He responded, "Well, we have a Status of Forces Agreement and a strategic framework. The Status of Forces Agreement expires at the end of next year, and we are working towards complete fulfillment of that Status of Forces Agreement, which would include the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of next year. The nature of our partnership beyond next year will have to be negotiated. On the civilian side, we are committed to Iraq over the long term. We will have civilians there continuing to work with the government on a range of areas – economic development, rule of law, civil society, and so forth. But to the extent that Iraq desires to have an ongoing military-to-military relationship with the United States in the future, that would have to be negotiated. And that would be something that I would expect a new government to consider. [. . .] Should Iraq wish to continue the kind of military partnership that we currently have with Iraq, we're open to have that discussion."

We are? Barack didn't end the war. (Even if some losers and whores 'moved on' from the Iraq War.) Crowley's the spokesperson for the US State Dept. And while the Cult of St. Barack humps their mattresses every night still believing rainbows shoot out of Barack's ass, the US State Dept just admitted that a continued military presence in Iraq is a something that they're "open" to discussing. End the war in Iraq? It's not looking that way.

Late Friday, WikiLeaks released 391,832 US military documents on the Iraq War. Tomorrow on The Diane Rehm Show (airs on most NPR stations and begins streaming live online at 10:00 a.m. EST), Diane will devote the first hour to a discussion on the WikiLeaks revelations (and her second hour will find her joined by Juan Williams to discuss his NPR career and firing). The Defense Dept response to the revelations was predictable. Jason Ditz (Antiwar.com) reports, "Pentagon officials are, as always, struggling to find a common ground between downplaying the crimes revealed in nearly 400,000 new classified documents released yesterday by WikiLeaks while insisting that their revelation is a grave affront." Saturday in London, WikiLeaks held a press conference and legendary Pentagon Papers whistle blower Daniel Ellsberg provided the perspective.

Daniel Ellsberg: The threat being made by the Pentagon, as we read over the last few days, of warning newsmen to stand away from this material, to refuse to receive it and, if they do receive it, to return it seems absurd on its face. We're not dealing with the 7,000 pieces of paper, top secret pieces of paper, that comprised the Pentagon Papers. The Pentagon did make a demand to the New York Times that they return that pile of paper to the -- to the Pentagon. The Times refused until -- in fact, never did return it. And refused to stop the presses until a court order came down. But with cyber material, it's all over the world right now and in several papers right now, the demand seems absurd. I understand the reason for those words because they echo the words first used against me, the legal words of 18 USC 793, paragraphs D and E which for the first time used the so-called espionage act as if it were a kind of official secrets act that you have in Britain which simply criminalizes the release of any classified material to any unauthorized person. We don't have such a law. And the irony now is that President Obama in making these clear threats of applying this law to anybody who deals with this information including not only the journalists but the words apply to the people who read it and don't return it to the proper authorities actually. President Obama's threats are not entirely without credibility here because he has started as many prosecutions for leaks as all previous presidents put together. It's a small number. It's three. The last one is Bradley Manning. [C.I. note: The other two are Shamai Kedem Leibowitz of the FBI and Thomas Drake of the NSA.] That's small because we don't have an official secrets act. And prior to Bush and Obama, presidents took it for granted that any application of the espionage act was likely to be overthrown as unconstitutional in our First Amendment by the Supreme Court but we're now facing a different Supreme Court. And, after 9-11, Obama is making a new experiment on this issue which will really change the relationship of the press to sources very radically. As it is, any source, with or without this change in the law, who gave this kind of material -- 400,000 pages of documents, 800,000 pages of documents -- to WikiLeaks would have to know that they were facing a risk of being where Bradley Manning is right now, in prison, accused of these things. And we don't know, I don't know, who the source is. If the president should prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it is Bradley Manning, we can give him his unreserved admiration from us and thanks for what he did. But whomever did it, in fact, acted very appropriately in the course of deadly, stalemated war and which has one characteristic, by the way, in Iraq which isn't going to come out clearly in these 400,000 pages or in the discussion. And that is that the origins of war were clearly in the form of lying to the publics of Britain and America in order to carry on a clearly illegal crime against the peace, a war of aggression. So all of these civilian casualties are killed in a war of aggression. We won't have to say also the non-civilian casualties reported here are in the role of fighting against foreign occupiers, invaders, by the standards of the world, the question is raised very much whether their death by the invader is not also to be counted among the murders?

You can view portions of the press conference at World Can't Wait and Press TV's YouTube channel. And you can stream it in full at CSpan. At the press conference, Public Interest Lawyers' Phil Shiner states the documents indicate that US and UK forces looked the other way on torture which is a violation of international law and that the two had "a very clear legal responsibility". UN Special Rappoteur called on Barack to launch an investigation into whether or not the Us was complicit in torture. Tara Kelly (Time magazine) reports on the press conference here. Aged sexist and one-time journalist Thomas E. Ricks (Foreign Policy) parrots his think-tank's line of nothing-to-see-here while explaining that, in a recent dining experiment, mayo did not make his favorite spread taste better. Before he was bought and paid for by the Defense Industry, he worked for the Washington Post. So did Ellen Knickmeyer. At The Daily Beast, journalist Ellen Knickmeyer explains that February 22, 2006, there was a slaugher in Baghdad ("We watched hundreds of black-clad religious militiamen, waving their AK 47s in the air and calling for revenge, in what would be the start to a campaign of sectarian killing and tortue") and that the corpses piled "over the next two days" with well over 1,000 processed and more waiting:

Here's the thing, though: According to then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top commanders, it never happened. These killings, these dead, did not exist. According to them, reporters like myself were lying.

"The country is not awash in sectarian violence," the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey said, on talk show after talk show, making the rounds to tell the American home-front not to worry. Civil war? "I don't see it happening, certainly anytime in the near term," he said, as he denied the surge in sectarian violence.

[. . .]

Thanks to WikiLeaks, though, I now know the extent to which top American leaders lied, knowingly, to the American public, to American troops, and to the world, as the Iraq mission exploded.

Nothing to see says Tom Ricks, Ellen Knickmeyer points out that journalists "were under attack" for reporting the truth. Apparently Thomas E. Ricks never encountered that problem. How very strange -- or how very telling. WikiLeaks release is filled with new information. Angus Stickler's "US Apache guns down surrendering insurgents" (The Bureau of Investigative Journalism) reports that on a February 22, 2007 assault when insurgents outside Baghdad attempted to surrender, a US helicopter crew radioed that attempt but was given orders to kill the insurgents because "Lawyer stated they cannot surrender to aircraft." That is a War Crime. Military officials giving the orders should be court-martialed and drummed out of the US military with no benefits. War Criminals don't get to be on the public dole for years and years to come. Not only should those officials making that call and giving that order be court-martialed, this incident is documented. All military brass who saw this report should be immediately court-martialed for their refusal to live up to the code of conduct they swear to uphold and to instead cover up for War Crimes. Stickler also reports:

President Barack Obama's government handed over thousands of detainees to the Iraqi authorities, despite knowing there were hundreds of reports of alleged torture in Iraqi government facilities.
Washington was warned by the United Nations and many human rights organisations that torture was widespread in Iraqi detention centres. But the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can reveal the US's own troops informed their commanders of more than 1,300 claims of torture by Iraqi Security forces between 2005 and 2009.

The Times of London notes, "Files seen by The Sunday Times also provide first-hand accounts of underground bunkers operated by insurgents that contained cattle prods, whips and even a chainsaw. The mutilated bodies of victims were regularly found dumped at the roadside or on wasteland. Accounts from detention centres operated by Iraqi police and the army tell of suspects being whipped with cables, chains, wires and pistols." The Telegraph of London publishes an overview they dub "key findings" while Debra Sweet (World Can't Wait) offers key themes:

Key themes in the Iraq War Logs show:

Abuse, rape, torture, murder of detainees: Hundreds of incidents of abuse and torture of prisoners by Iraqis security services, up to and including rape and murder. These are so egregious that the UN is calling for further investigation.

Civilians are dying in greatest numbers: Rumsfeld always said "we don't do numbers" on civilian deaths. Iraq War reveals that they kept some numbers. The US & allies killed civilians much more frequently than thos they identified in the Log as "insurgents." Still, we'll never know the total.

Hundreds of civilians killed at checkpoints: Robert Fisk says, "Out of the 832 deaths recorded at checkpoints in Iraq between 2004 and 2009, analysis by the Bureau of Investigative Jounalism suggests 681 were civilians. Fifty families were shot at and 30 children killed. Only 120 insurgents were killed in checkpoints incidents."

Private contractors non-uniformed, unsupervised, wreak havoc: Blackwater (now Xe) and the thousands of civilian "security" operatives got away with murder, over and over again. And there are even more contractors in Afghanistan now than the larger troop force Obama sent in.

Along with turning prisoners over when you know the group you're handing to them practice torture (which would be a violation of international law), Raphael G. Satter and Paisley Dodds (AP) report that the documents reveal that US interrogators would be questioning Iraqis with fresh wounds -- which would mean they were emerging from torture, which would mean the US was deliberately sending some to be tortured to 'soften' them up -- which is also illegal under the treaties and conventions the United States signed off on. Both of these issues, the reporters point out, happen despite Barack's claim that the US will "eschew torture".

"THIS JUST IN! NO TIME FOR WORK!"
"It beats working"

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