When Bully Met Barry . . .

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

AS KILLER BARRY O PREPARES TO RUB NOSES LATER TODAY WITH WAR CRIMINAL BULLY BOY BUSH, HE'S SUDDENLY TALKING ABOUT HIS DAUGHTERS, TELLING SOME STUPID STORY ABOUT TATTOOS DESPITE 'LEAVE MY DAUGHTERS ALONE!' 

 HE TOSSES IT OUT THERE BECAUSE HE'S FAILED, AFTER FIVE YEARS, TO FIX THE ECONOMY, HE'S FAILED AT EVERYTHING.

THE LAUGHABLE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE COMMITTEE GAVE AL GORE A PEACE PRIZE FOR A REALLY BAD MOVIE AND GAVE KILLER BARRY ONE FOR REPLACING BULLY BOY BUSH.  TODAY KILLER BARRY PISSES ON HIS PALS AT NOBEL BY RUBBING NOSES AND GRABBING ASS WITH BULLY BOY BUSH.

REACHED FOR COMMENT BY THESE REPORTERS, BARRY O SAID, "I'M FEELING FRISKY! MAYBE WE'LL GET A ROOM!"




FROM THE TCI WIRE:



Sometime when we have reached the end
With the velvet hill in the small of our backs
And our hands are clutching the sand
Will our blood become a part of the river
All of the rivers are givers to the ocean
According to plan, according to man
There's a chance peace will come
In your life please buy one
-- "Peace Will Come (According to Plan)," written by Melanie, first appears on her Leftover Wine


Fed up with empty promises?  Tired of the change that never came?  Cindy Sheehan's not just talking about a better world, she's doing her part to create one with the  Tour De Peace.  Over the weekend, she noted:


I will continue this rolling vigil for peace and justice, whether I ride alone, or not; but it would be much better for me, and the children of the world, if this cause for peace and justice got as much support as the one we held in Crawford, TX received, wouldn't it?  It would show our government and the terrorized people of the world that people in the US do oppose what the Empire is about.


The Tour De Peace finds her bicycling to DC.  Today, she's finishing up in Arizona.  Tomorrow she starts riding through New Mexico.  Tomorrow evening, in Babe Ruth Park (Gallup, New Mexico) Cindy Sheehan's Tour De Peace will have a gathering at 6:00 pm.  Hank Woji will be performing.  Details here.


This week's broadcast of Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox includes her discussing the ride for peace with Abby Martin (RT's Breaking The Set).  Excerpt.
 

Cindy Sheehan:  We're trying to call attention to whistle-blowers, to the war economy, to the money spent on war.  We're trying to call attention to the fact that there are War Crimes happening right now -- the previous administration committed War Crimes and crimes against humanity and the current administration is protecting those War Criminals while they're persecuting whistle-blowers and other social justice and peace activists also.  And so, I'm upset with Obama, I'm upset with the empire as usual.  But I'm more frustrated with the movement -- or the lack of movement in the movement.  So DC is an important place, but we want to organize across the country.  We want to rally people together to say that these wars are still happening, Obama has expanded Africa to the 35 or 36 countries where US troops are or drones are, and it's just pitiful the lack of response to it.  


You can show your opposition to the war economy of empire and hang out with Cindy tomorrow in Babe Ruth Park. 


In Iraq?  Today did not bring the peace -- or even just a minor ease of tensions -- that so many no doubt hoped for.   Tim Arango (New York Times) reports, "In what appeared to be a new phase in an intensifying conflict that has raised fears of greater bloodshed and a wider sectarian war, Iraqi soldiers opened fire from helicopters on Sunni gunmen hiding in a northern village on Wednesday, officials said."  Those are weaponized helicopters that were supplied by the United States.  National Iraqi News Agency cites with Kurdistan Alliance MP Ashwaq al-Jaf who states that the helicopters attacked Sulaiman Bek (Salahuddin Province) and that, "Kifri Hospital shortly received dozens of injured in Sulaiman Bek, after some villages were bombed by aircraft of Iraqi army."

Violence today was massive.  All Iraq News notes a Tuz Khurmato car bombing claimed the lives of 3 people and left eleven injured, an armed clash in Tuz Khurmato claimed the lives of 4 members of the Iraqi military and 7 rebels, an armed attack on the Salam Bek left 6 police officers dead, a Tikrit bombing left 3 Iraqi soldiers dead and a fourth injured, a Baghdad car bombing claimed 1 life and left nine more people injured, an armed attack in Mosul left 1 Iraqi soldier dead, and a Tarmiya car bombing claimed 3 lives and left eight injured.  NINA adds that 1 police officer and 3 of his bodyguards were shot dead in Tikrit (with another member of the police left injured), an attack in Falluja left three police members injured, a second attack in Falluja on a police patrol car left two officers injured, 2 rebels who attacked a Mosul army checkpoint were shot dead, when Nouri's thugs in Baiji attempted to attack the ongoing, peaceful sit-in they were greeted by armed rebels with 19 people being left dead or injured (on "both sides"), and an armed clash in Tikrit left 1 police officer and 7 rebels dead.


We're saying "rebels" and that's what they are now.  The media allowed the US government to intimidate them on terminology at the start of the war.  These are rebels.  If you're not getting that, let's drop over to Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN):

On Wednesday, Sulaiman Pek was completely under control of militants, Ali Hashim, a member of the Salaheddin provincial council, told CNN.

Iraqi security forces withdrew from the town to prevent more bloodshed there, he said. Most of the gunmen are residents of the town, Hashim added.

 So the city's controlled by it's own "residents."  That's a rebellion.  Last night, Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) offered, "The unrest led two Sunni officials to resign from the government and risked pushing the country's Sunni provinces into an open revolt against Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, a Shiite. The situation looked to be the gravest moment for Iraq since the last U.S. combat troops left in December 2011."   That was a very good but what has taken place since that call, on the ground in Iraq, is not a revolt, actions across Iraq are too widespread for a revolt.  That makes it a rebellion as anyone who studied political science (that includes me) damn well knows.

Saying "unknown assailants" and "gunmen" may have made some sense at one time.  We've used the first term here repeatedly.  But that's not what's being described today.  Nouri would love those terms to be used because they're vague and they can be twisted to include 'foreigners.'

Sulaiman Pek is under the control of its local residents who rebelled against Nouri's forces -- rebelled against the forces and dispersed them.  Those are rebels, that's a rebellion.  It may be short-lived and gone by the end of the week or it may last for a longer period of time (might become a civil war) but terms do matter and the terms were defined long, long ago before Bully Boy Bush ever entered office and the press ever decided to take orders from him.  The worst of the press, Dan Rather, isn't even an anchor anymore, thank heavens.  September 17, 2001, 'brave' Dan declared on David Letterman's CBS talk show of Bully Boy Bush, "He makes the deicisions, and you know, it's just one American, wherever he wants me to line up, just tell me where, and he'll make the call."

 Dan Rather is a coward and was always a coward.  Every now and then someone will note something in an e-mail that Dan's done, something 'brave.'  Not interested.   If you're in the news industry, you'd be smart not to do what Dan did and that includes being a cowardly toady convinced that if you kept your mouth shut and let others (like Mary Mapes) take the fall, the network would stand by you.  When you're reporting is challenged, CNN, CBS and the rest don't look at it in terms of journalism if the challenge is coming from the government, they look at it under a completely different standard -- and no journalist will ever win on those grounds.  It's probably set-up that way, in fact.  April Oliver and others learned it at CNN.  Dan Rather still can't learn it despite being fired and suing (and losing to) CBS.

Terms are terms and they exist for a reason.  It does matter what you call something.  What took place today was a rebellion.

Using the wrong terms distorts reality and confuses on events.  That's what happens in the report by Mu Xuequan (Xinhua) on Sulaiman Bek, "The clashes occurred when Iraqi security forces backed by helicopters stormed the town in the early morning hours, after dozens of militants seized the town late Tuesday night." Residents seized their own town?  No, they asserted their rights as citizens.  Then Nouri's forces came in shooting.


Why were they there to begin with? Salahuddin may not be independent but that's not their fault.  They took the measures and Nouri illegally and unconstitutionally ignored them.  Let's drop back to December 13, 2011:

 

Thursday, October 27th, Salahuddin Province's council voted to go semi-autonomous.  The next step would be a referendum (that Nouri al-Maliki's government out of Baghdad would have to pay for) and, were the popular vote to back up the council and were the rules followed (always a big if with Nouri as prime minister), Baghdad would control only 14 provinces (of the 18).  Friday, October 28th, residents of Anbar Province took to the streets advocating for their province to follow Salahuddin's lead.  When Nouri finally issued a public statement on Salahuddin's move, what did he do?  Play the B-card. Ahmed Rasheed (Reuters) quoted a statement from Nouri declaring, "The Baath Party aims to use Salahuddin as a safe haven for Baathists and this will not happen thanks to the awareness of people in the province. Federalism is a constitutional issue and Salahuddin provincial council has no right to decide this issue."  Yesterday Aswat al-Iraq reported, "Iraqi Parliament Speaker Usama Nujaifi today charged the Cabinet with violating the constitution by rejecting requests to refer Salahal-Din Province's request to declare itself a region to the Election Commission."  How could Nouri be violating the Constitution?  Back in October,  Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) explained, "In actual fact, article 119 of the Iraqi constitution requires only that a referendum be held in a province following a request for regional status by one-third of the members of the provincial council, or one-tenth of the population." From the Iraqi Constitution:


Article 119:
One or more governorates shall have the right to organize into a region based on a request to be voted on in a referendum submitted in one of the following two methods:
First: A request by one-third of the council members of each governorate intending to form a region.
Second: A request by one-tenth of the voters in each of the governorates intending to form a region.

Per the Constitution, Salahuddin Province has already met step one. And met it back in October.  Nouri's refusal to follow the next step is what puts him in violation of the Constitution.


The Kurdish Globe summarized these events as:

The provincial council of Salahadin last October unanimously supported making the province an autonomous region after the dismissal of faculty members from the University of Tikrit and mass arrests in Salahaddin province. Last October, the Baghdad Ministry of Higher Education dismissed 140 faculty members from the University of Tikrit in Salahaddin Province. The ministry pointed out that "it was simply following the parliamentary directive on "de-Baathification." Later, Iraqi security forces started an operation in the central and southern provinces, arresting former members of the Baath Party and accusing them of plotting a coup against Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government after the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops at the end of this year.
 


So what you've got is Nouri attacking a province that declared its independence in October of 2011 and you've got him attacking it with helicopters shooting blindly on the area -- displacing families -- because residents are in control of a city?

Who's in control of Nouri because someone needs to yank the leash.


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