CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O CAN'T STOP WHINING.
JUST THE OTHER DAY HE WAS WHINING, TYPICAL STARLET, ABOUT HIS 'LOSS OF PRIVACY.' NOW, LIKE MANY A PERSON WANTING GREATER PRIVACY, HE ANNOUNCES HE'LL BE ON OPRAH MAY 2ND.
AMERICA HAS TIRED OF THE CELEBRITY IN CHIEF AND THE LATEST POLLING DEMONSTRATES THAT OBAMACARE STILL ISN'T POPULAR -- IN FACT, IT'S AT AN ALL TIME LOW. REMEMBER WHEN BARRY O AND OTHERS INSISTED THAT IF YOU JUST WAITED UNTIL AFTER IT PASSED, IT WOULD BE POPULAR?
IN OTHER NEWS, THE STARLET'S HALF-SISTER, TYPICAL WHITE PERSON THAT SHE IS, HAS DECIDED TO TAKE TO THE AIRWAVES. HAVING CALLED HER MOTHER EVERYTHING BUT A WHORE, WE DON'T DOUBT THAT SHE'S BARRY O'S SISTER. WE WOULD JUST REMIND HER THAT, ON THE MAINLAND, THE CAMPAIGN HID HER AWAY AND DID SO FOR GOOD REASON. AMONG THEM, SHE BLURS THE LINE FOR BARACK'S BASE. BUT THEN AGAIN, IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE A FIRST FAMILY HAD ANYONE AS TRASHY AS BILLY CARTER SO, MAYA SOETERO, COME ON DOWN! AND TELL US AGAIN HOW HAVING A WHITE MOTHER MADE YOU LOUD AND ALL THE OTHER INSULTING THINGS YOU TO LOVE TO SAY ABOUT YOUR DEAD MOTHER. MAYA'S NOT JUST TRASH, SHE'S JERRY SPRINGER TRASH!
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Yesterday the Defense Department issued the following, "The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation New Dawn. Sgt. Vorasack T. Xaysana, 30, of Westminster, Colo., died April 10 in Kirkuk, Iraq, of injuries sustained April 9 in a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, Fort Hood, Texas. For more information, the media may contact the Fort Hood public affairs at 254-287-9993 or 254-287-0106." He is the sixth US soldier to die in Iraq this month.
And for what? What is being accomplished? The Iraqi 'govermnet' remains in a state of paralysis. 2007 benchmarks were never, ever reached. Yet Robert Burns (AP) observes, "The U.S. wants to keep perhaps several thousand troops in Iraq, not to engage in combat but to guard against an unraveling of a still-fragile peace. This was made clear during Defense Secretary Robert Gates' visit Thursday and Friday in which he talked up the prospect of an extended U.S. stay." And should the SOFA not be extended? Tim Arango (New York Times) notes, "The State Department has worked up plans to double its size here in preparation for the scheduled military withdrawal. It intends to expand from about 8,000 civilians to more than 16,000 many of them private contractors, but Congress has not yet approved the money to pay for it." Why stay?
What justifies prolonging the illegal war? The wonderful human rights situation in Iraq? That little myth is (yet again) blown out of the water. Today Amnesty International issued the report [PDF format warning] "DAYS OF RAGE: PROTESTS AND REPRESSION IN IRAQ" which opens with the threat made to activist Fatima Ahmed February 25th to stop her from participating in that day's actions, "If you don't stop your political opposition activities we will kidnap you, rape you and videotape the rape." In February many Iraqi cities continued their 2010 protests. February 25th, the protests reached Baghdad. Every Friday since, protests have taken place in Baghdad (and across the country -- and they've been held on days other than Friday as well). The response from Nouri's government was to attack protesters, arrest them, assault journalists, impeded access to protest sites and more.
The report rightly notes that Iraqis were protesting in 2010 and that at least one person died in a June 19, 2010 protest in Basra "when police fired on astone-throwing demonstrators." This led to the resignation of the Minister of Electricity and, from the Minister of the Interior, "new regulations that make it extremely difficult to obtain official authorization to hold protest meetings or demonstrations." Though the report doesn't mention it, the resignation also came with the promise that the electricity issue would be addressed. It wasn't. (The Minister of Oil was also made the Minister of Electricity -- by Nouri. No, the Constitution does not allow Nouri to make such a move unilaterally.) The reports note that protests in 2011 built up to February 25th which was dubbed "The Day of Rage." From the report:
The various forces under the control of the authorities and political parties, including security guards, armed forces and security forces, responded from the start with excessive force, killing and injuring protesters, and with frequent arrests. The first fatalities were on 16 February in the eastern city of Kut in Wasit province, and on 17 February in Sulaimaniya in the Kurdistan region. Activists told Amnesty International that the ferocity of the crackdown following the "Days of Rage" led to a decline in the number of protests in subsequent weeks, although protests have continued.
On several occasions, however, protestors have used violence -- mainly by throwing stones at members of the security forces or public buildings, or on rare occasions by setting fire to public buildings. As a result, members of the security forces have been injured. On most such occasions, it appears that demonstrators only resorted to violence after security forces had used force against them, including sound bombs and live ammunition.
[. . .]
Amnesty International also found disturbing evidence of targeted attacks on political activists, torture and other ill-treatment of people arrested in connection with the protests, and attacks or threats against journalists, media outlets, government critics, academics and students.
Up to now, the Iraqi authorities in both Baghdad and Kurdistan region have sought to crack down on peaceful protestors. This must change. They should be cracking down on the use of excessive force and torture by their own largely unaccountable security forces, not on the right of people to peacefully protest. The Iraqi authorities should be upholding the rights to freedom of expression and peacefully assembly, including the right to protest, not trying to suppress them. It is high time to do so.
The Iraqi authorities have failed to respect their constitutional and international obligations to uphold the rights to freedom of assembly and expression.
By refusing to do so the authorities in Iraq violated the Constitution's Article 38 as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights' Article 21. The report notes protesters who were killed such as Mu'ataz Muwafaq Waissi and Salim Farooq. It also includes testimony from those who were tortured like activist Oday Alzaidy who was picked up by the army , transferred to another vehicle, "beaten and blindfolded," taken to another location where he was held for five days and tortured:
They came to me every day and they attacked me with beatings and gave me electric shocks. They told me to confess that I was sent by the Ba'ath party [the party led by former President Saddam Hussain, executed in December 2006]. When I denied this, they beat me even harder with batons and they shocked me with electric prods.
In the Kurdistan Region Government, the report explains "at least six people have died as a result of excessive force b the security forces during protests". As elsewhere in Iraq, KRG protesters have decried government services, corruption, the vast unemployment the lack of "respect for human rights and freedoms." The daily sit-ins in Sulaimaniay are noted (ongoing since February 17th). This is where security forces shot Rezhwan Ali in the head and the 15-year-old died. It's where teenager Surkew Zahid and 28-year-old Sherzad Taha died forllowing attacks by security forces.It's where Omed Jalal was shot dead by security forces (Jalal was not a protester, the 25-year-old was merely walking past the protest). Those are only some of the deaths which have taken place in the KRG protests. The capital has been largely free of protests and that's due to the government's clamp down on protests in Erbil by refusing to allow them access to the city's square -- even when denying access has meant the security forces violently responding to protesters. Torture of protesters has also taken place in the KRG. Sharwan Azad Faqi 'Abdallah shares:
At around 2.30pm as I had just finished a phone conversation with a friend, three men confronted me and asked me to give them the mobile. Other men arrived within seconds, including from behind, and then I received several punches on the head and different parts of the body. I fell to the ground, they kicked me for several minutes, but I managed to stand up. They put one handcuff on my right wrist and attached it to someone else's left wrist. But I managed with force to pull my arm away and the handcuff was broken. I ran away towards the Citadel but within seconds another group of security men in civilian clothes blocked my way and they started punching me and hitting me. There were now many security men surrounding me and kicking me. There was blood streaming from my nose and from left eye. My head was very painful.
They put me in a car . . . One security man told me I was one of the troublemakers. I was taken to the Asayish Gishti in Erbil. I was first asked to go to the bathroom to wash my face wash my face which was covered in blood. I was then interrogated in the evening and the person interrogating me kept asking about why I was in the park and kept accusing me of being a troublemaker. I was asked to sign a written testimony. When I said I needed to see what is on the paper he hit me hard. Then I signed the paper without reading it. I stayed there for two nights sharing a room with around 60 people. Then on the third day I was taken to a police station where I stayed for one night before I was released. I was not tortured in the Asayish Prison or in the police station."
That's but one example in the report. There are many more in the KRG who share stories and one of the most disturbing aspects -- something that sets it apart from the arrests/kidnappings of activists elsewhere in Iraq -- is how and when the forces appear. The report doesn't make this point, I am. Forces in the KRG show up as people are on the phone or have just finished a call. It would appear that beyond the physical abuse and intimidation, they're also violating privacy and monitoring phone calls.
Of the KRG, the report argues:
It appears clear that the two main political parties in the Kurdistan region have sought to mobilize their own security agencies and party militants to undermine and weaken the protest movement and are prepared to use extreme means, including excessive force, arbitrary arrests, torture and threats, to achieve their objective.
Throughout Iraq, the press has been under attack. Journalist Hadi al-Mehdi was eating lunch with collegaues (Hussam Sara'i, Ali Abdul Sada and Ali al-Mussawi) "when at least 15 soldiers stormed the [Baghdad] restaurant, beat him and his three friends with rifles and forced them into vehicles. He said that they were taken to a detention centre run by the 11th Army Division, later identified as the former building of the Defence Ministry, and interogated. He said he was frequently beaten during the interrogation, twice given electric shocks to his feet, and threatend with rape." The report also notes the attacks on journalistic institutions. Example:
Journalists covering the demonstrations have been attacked and injured by armed forces or security forces. Several have had their equipment and footage seized or destroyed and some have been detained. On 23 February in the morning, security forces raided the office of the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory in Baghdad confiscating IT equipment and its archive. The organization has been campaigning for media freedom in Iraq for several years, including protesting restrictions on media coverage of recent demonstrations in Iraq.
When you read about Iraqi forces torturing people, grasp that this comes back to their trainers. As World Can't Wait's Debra Sweet observed at the Left Forum last month, on the "Why We Resist" panel, "The way these occupations are maintained and justified is by terrorizing people through this torture, abuse. We know what happened at Abu Ghraib. One of the things we're going to talk about later today in our panel on WikiLeaks is the fact that the US not only knew about but trained the Iraqi military and police in abusing detainees. And that is still going on. So this is one of the effects of the war. So these issues are really important for the occupation." Torture and abuse continue in Iraq and the pattern for them includes the training forces received.
The report concludes calling for the following:
* Guarantee and uphold the right to peaceful protest, and protect protesters from excessive force by police or violence by others.
* Conduct full, thorough and transparent investigations into the killings and attacks on protesters and the assaults and threats made against journalists and others, make the results of the investigation public and bring perpetrators to justice.
* Ensure that security forces and other law enforcement officers act at all times in full conformity with the UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials and the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, by giving clear instructions that force may only beused when strictly necessary and only to the extent required for the performance of their duty, and that lethal force may only be used when strictly unavoidable in order to protect their lives or the lives of others.
* Publicly condemn torture and other ill-treatment, and ensure that these abusive stop.
* Conduct full, thorough and transparent investigations into all allegations of torture and other ill-treatment and bring perpetrators to justice.
* Provide victims of human rights violations with financial compensation and other forms of reparation that are appropriate and proportional to the gravity of the violation and the circumstances of the case.
It should be noted that Iraqi officials aren't opposed to all protests. Kelly McEvers (NPR's All Things Considered) reported yesterday on how Ahmed Chalabi is helping protesters . . . in Bahrain.
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"War Crimes and is the UN homophobic?"
"Chalabi loves protests . . . outside of Iraq"
"Carly Simon on the 2nd hour of The Diane Rehm Show Tuesday"
"His problems trying to lead"
"The latest problem for Michelle"
"stubborn people"
"The tag team"
"Classless Michell goes with Simpson"
"Aging"
"No Ordinary Family"
"Book recommendation: I'm Over All That"
"So much for a Monday"
"Little Princess in the White House"
"THIS JUST IN! HE'S SUCH A GIRL!"
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