The killer cupcake

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

 WHEN NOT RUNNING HIS DRONE WAR, KILLER BARRY O IS JUST ANOTHER ASPIRING D.C. SOCIALITE, DESPERATE TO BECOME THE HOSTESS WITH THE MOSTEST.

THIS WEEK HE INVITED 12 REPUBLICANS TO THE WHITE HOUSE TO TRY OUT HIS SOCIAL SKILLS AND HIS CLOSELY GUARDED RECIPE FOR COCONUT AND RASPBERRY FROU-FROU CUPCAKES.

WHEN THE LAMB AND LOBSTERS WERE MENTIONED BY THE PRESS BUT HIS PRIZED CUPCAKES WERE IGNORED, KILLER BARRY THROUGH A FIT, THREATENED TO SICK HIS DRONES ON THE PRESS AND SMASHED ONE OVERLY FROSTED CUPCAKE INTO THE FACE OF WHITE HOUSE PLUS-SIZE MODEL JAY CARNEY WHILE HISSING, "EAT IT, FAT BOY!  YOU'RE THE ONE WHO SAID THEY NEEDED MORE ICING!"

DESPERATE TO PERFECT HIS RECIPE AND, IN HIS WORDS, "BE D.C.'S BEST LITTLE HOSTESS SINCE THE TWINKEE!," BARRY O INVITED HOUSE REP. PAUL RYAN AND THEN BILL AND HILLARY CLINTON OVER, SERVING HIS PRIZED CUPCAKES EACH TIME.

BUT THE PRESS IS STILL CALLING THIS HIS "DINNER PARTY CHARM OFFENSIVE."

"IT'S CUPCAKE!" KILLER BARRY SNARLED, SHOVING MORE OF THEM DOWN JAY CARNEY'S MOUTH.  "MAKE THEM SAY CUPCAKE!"


FROM THE TCI WIRE:

 It is Friday.  Since December 21st, Friday has meant protests.  The protests are over a number of issues but the final straw was Nouri targeting another Sunni and member of Iraqiya.   Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) reported:


Iraq's Finance Minister Rafei al-Essawi said Thursday that "a militia force" raided his house, headquarters and ministry in Baghdad and kidnapped 150 people, and he holds the nation's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, responsible for their safety.  Members of the al-Essawi's staff and guards were among those kidnapped from the ministry Thursday, the finance minister said. He also said that his computers and documents were searched at his house and headquarters. He said the head of security was arrested Wednesday at a Baghdad checkpoint for unknown reasons and that now the compound has no security.

 

 

 The issues are numerous.  Layla Anwar (An Arab Woman Blues) has summed up the primary issues as follows:

- End of Sectarian Shia rule
- the re-writing of the Iraqi constitution (drafted by the Americans and Iranians)
- the end to arbitrary killings and detention, rape and torture of all detainees on basis of sect alone and their release
- the end of discriminatory policies in employment, education, etc based on sect
- the provision of government services to all
- the end of corruption
- no division between Shias and Sunnis, a one Islam for all Iraqi Muslims and a one Iraq for all Iraqis.

On the torture, Jane Arraf filed a report for Al Jazeera this week which included:

Amnesty International and other groups say much of the torture stems from an almost sole reliance on confessions to obtain convictions. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent in investigative training by the United States and other countries, cases rarely rely on forensic evidence. The use of secret informers, lack of legal representation, and widespread corruption also stack the deck against those accused.

In Aref's office, stacks of hand-written statements from prisoners tell the same stories that human rights groups say is prevalent among those facing terrorism charges.

"They began using my wife and children. They threatened to rape my wife in front of me if I didn't confess," read one statement. The prisoner said even after he was sentenced to death, his wife and young children were held for five months without any charges laid.

Another prisoner titles a statement signed on May, 27 2012 "after 1,825 days of injustice". He named the police officers allegedly involved in torturing him and asked, "Is there anybody who can support me and remove this injustice from me and my people?"

Fallujah, where anti-government protests started in December against the broad anti-terrorism law many are imprisoned under, has borne much of the brunt of mass arrests.  The law, known as Article 4, allows the death penalty for a wide range of offences broadly categorised as terrorism.

Article IV currently allows innocents to be arrested.  If you are the relative of a suspected terrorist, you can be arrested merely for that 'crime.'  This is why so many women are in Iraq prisons.  Protesters are calling for  Article IV to be abolished and some sympathetic members of Parliament are offering that it can be modified. 

Protesters might also be bothered to be living in an oil rich country that offers no jobs.  The Iraq Times notes Iraq is ranked the ninth worst country globally on unemployment and third in the Arab world.


Iraqis continue to march and rally in March.  And they continue to be targeted by prime minister and thug Nouri al-Maliki.   Kitabat reports Nouri's forces killed two more protesters.  The two protesters killed were in Mosul with four more left injured.   Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) counts only one dead but the article has other counting problems we'll get to it in a moment.  All Iraq News reports, "Two demonstrators were killed and three others injured" but notes a security source states the number may rise.  Dar Addustour also reports two dead and they note it was the federal police -- a point that AP seems unclear on -- that did the firing.  This was not local police, this was the federal police -- under Nouri's command because they're under the direct command of the Ministry of the Interior and, in a power grab, Nouri's refused to nominate anyone to be Minister of the Interior.  Patrick Cockburn (CounterPunch) notes of Nouri:


Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s response to all this has been to grab as much authority as he can, circumventing agreements that would parcel out power in a nominally fair way, that, in practice, paralyses the state machinery. The government in the Green Zone, the great fortress it inherited from the Americans, is not shy about its sectarian allegiance. Shia banners and posters of Imam Ali and Imam Hussein decorate checkpoints and block-houses in the Green Zone and much of the rest of Baghdad, including prisons and police stations.
Mr Maliki’s efforts to monopolise power – though less effective than his critics allege – have alienated powerful Shia individuals, parties and religious institutions. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the pre-eminent Shia religious leader of immense influence, whom the Americans at the height of their power found they could not defy, will no longer see the Prime Minister’s emissaries. The marji’iyyah – the small group of men at the top of the Shia religious hierarchy – have come to see the Prime Minister as a provoker of crises that discredit Shi’ism and may break up the country. Iran, the only other large Shia-controlled state, with strong but not overwhelming influence in Iraq, says privately that it is unhappy with Mr Maliki, but does not want a political explosion in the country while it is facing ever-mounting pressure over Syria, its other Arab ally, and its economy is buckling under the impact of sanctions.

The death toll increased as the day continued.   National Iraqi News Agency reports that the death toll increased to 3 and the number injured is five.  Protests continued after an another four were injured when Nouri's forces again fired, National Iraqi News Agency reports, but from the first attack, the death toll is now 3 and the number left injured is five.  In this video, a protester shows shells from the bullets fired on the protesters as ambulances are loaded.  Alsumaria notes that there were four ambulances and that the police were refusing to allow them to provide assistance and that the federal police -- Nouri's thugs -- attacked one of the paramedics who is described as having been "severely beaten." 

Responses to the attack?   Alsumaria reports cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr is calling for an investigation into this assault on the Iraqi people.  Al Mada reports that the Kurdistan Alliance is calling for an investigation and for the perpetrators to be punished.   All Iraq News notes that Mosul has been placed on curfew.   Ahmed al-Saddy's Facebook page carries the announcement that there will be a strike at the University of Mosul March 10th (Sunday) as a result of the attacks on the protesters.   Alsumaria reports the immediate reaction also includes Ezz al-Din al-Dawla resigning as Minister of Agriculture as a result of the killing of protesters in Mosul and he stated that the voices that sent him to Baghdad are not being represented by the government.  Last Friday another member of Nouri's Cabinet resigned:


Of all the protests across Iraq, Ramadi received the most attention due to a high profile speaker.  Alsumaria notes  Minister of Finance Rafie al-Issawi attended and, in his speech, resigned his office.  Hamdi Alkhshali (CNN) adds, "The finance minister resigned because the government has not met the demands of the demonstrators to end the marginalization, spokesman Aysar Ali told CNN."
Zaid Sabah (Bloomberg News) quotes al-Issawi telling the protesters, "I am with you, I am your son.  I will not return to this government."  Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) quote al-Issawi telling the crowd, "I am presenting my resignation in front of you. I do not care about a government that does not respect the Iraqi blood and its people." Sabah notes the protesters chanted back, "We are with you! We are with you!"
al-Issawi tells Reuters, "More than 70 days of demonstrations and this government hasn't fulfilled our people's demands.  It doesn't honor me to be part of a sectarian government.  I decided to stay with my people."  Alsumaria notes that Nouri al-Maliki has declared he will not accept the resignation until a legal and financial investigation is completed.


So now there are two resignations from Nouri's Cabient.  Will it make any difference?  Will it force him to take accountability for what happened or even to provide answers?  Not likely.  He's still not answered for the January 25th massacre and this brings us back to Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) who references the massacre and the five dead.  Five?  Five the day of.  As Human Rights Watch explained February 14th:

Iraqi authorities should complete promised investigations into the army killings of nine protesters in Fallujah on January 25, 2013, and make the results public. The authorities need to ensure that there will be independent investigations into the deaths, in addition to the promised inquiries by a parliamentary committee and the Defense Ministry, and that if there is evidence of unlawful killing, those responsible are prosecuted.'


Nouri never found answers, never pretended to.  He probably thinks he'll be able to escape blame on this one as well.

And it's not like warnings have been sounded about the way the federal police behaved in Mosul.   Let's drop back to Wednesday's snapshot:

NINA also notes that Nineveh Province Governor Atheel Nujaifi has "warned the security forces in Nineveh, specifically the Federal Police, which oversees the protection of Ahrar Square not to encroach upon the demonstrators."  He is calling out the continued targeting of protesters by Nouri's national force and the warrantless arrests of them.


That is only the most recent example of al-Nujaifi calling on Nouri's forces to stop harassing and harming the Mosul protesters.  Iraqi Spring MC notes that the people of Adahmiya faced teams of Nouri's forces who attempted to prevent them from protesting or even having  Friday morning prayers.  Kitabat adds that Nouri's forces have turned the city into a "huge prison" and that two mosques had to cancel the morning prayers as a result of the military siege the city is under.  Kitabat also notes that Friday prayers at Baghdad's Abu Hanifa mosque were also cancelled as a result of the military being sent to encircle the area.  Dar Addustour notes "hundreds of thousands" turned in Falluja and Ramadi and thousands in Kirkuk, Tikrit, Baghdad and Samarra.  AP notes that Falluja and Ramadi protesters again blocked the highway between Baghdad and Jordan.   Iraqi Spring MC Tweets about the security forces in Ramadi attempting to provoke the demonstrators and that Nouri's forces arrested 7 protesters in Falluja.

Bradley Manning is the US whistle blower who blew the whistle on what was actually going on in Iraq and Afghanistan behind the press spin and the carefully tested wording, he saw the counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism actions and was disgusted by how Iraqis were made to suffer.  In June, he is set to face a military court-martial.  He should be set free but US President Barack Obama would rather punish whistle blowers.  Naomi Spencer (WSWS) points out, "Organizations that orbit the Obama administration-- including the International Socialist Organization, which has published a handful of articles about the case -- have likewise avoided uttering the name of Manning’s oppressor: the Democratic administration of Barack Obama. The most recent report in the Socialist Worker, the ISO’s publication, was a reprint of a February 22 Belfast Telegraph op-ed which made no mention of Obama."  Nathan Fuller (Dissident Voice) goes over some of the information Bradley had access to:


On 2 March 2010, Bradley was ordered to investigate the Iraqi Federal Police’s detention of 15 individuals for distributing “anti-Iraqi literature.” He quickly realized that “none of the individuals had previous ties to anti-Iraqi actions or suspected terrorist militia groups.”
In fact, the literature these academics were distributing was “merely a scholarly critique” of the “corruption within the cabinet of [Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri] al-Maliki’s government and the financial impact of his corruption on the Iraqi people.”
Bradley brought this to the attention of his superiors, but they told him to “drop it” and help the Iraqi police find more of these dissidents to detain.

I knew if I continued to assist the Baghdad Federal Police in identifying the political opponents of Prime Minister al-Maliki, those people would be arrested and in the custody of the Special Unit of the Baghdad Federal Police and very likely tortured and not seen again for a very long time—if ever.
Instead of assisting the … Baghdad Federal Police, I decided to take the information and expose it to [WikiLeaks], before the upcoming 7 March 2010 election, hoping they could generate some immediate press on the issue and prevent this unit of the Federal Police from continuing to crack down on political opponents of al-Maliki.

WikiLeaks has yet to publish those files.

Nouri continues to use the police to target political enemies.  He has his forces follow protesters home from protests to document where they live, he has the forces videotape the protests, he intimidates and bullies because that's all he's ever had to offer and, somehow, this struck two administration -- Bush's and Barack's -- as leadership.

RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
"2 protesters shot dead in Mosul by Nouri's forces"
"Confronting counter-insurgency with silence?"
"Pasta with broccoli in the Kitchen"
"Wal-Green shoppers, heads up!"
"Mars"
"Whitney (Mark, RJ and Alex)"
"Joy Behar will leave The View"
"Whitney"
"tina fey can go f**k herself"
"the crook gets confirmed"
"Brett McGurk spits in Iraqi women's faces"
"Carl Levin not to seek re-election"
"Oz"
"Hugo"
"Nouri kills protesters"
"Whitney"
"Oz"
"What the US government did in Iraq"
"'Feminist' Naomi Wolf speaks"
"Look at how the New York Times lies still about Iraq"
"Nikita: Reunion"
"Barack and labor"
"The miser"
"THIS JUST IN! THE CHEAPO KILLER!"

The miser

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

AS HIS POLL NUMBERS CONTINUE TO DROP, KILLER BARRY O CAN'T STOP PLAYING GLORY HOG.  LAST NIGHT, HE HAD DINNER AT THE WHITE HOUSE WITH REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS AND INSISTED UPON STATING THAT THE WHITE HOUSE FOOTED THE BILL FOR THE MEAL; HOWEVER, DINERS SAID THAT WASN'T THE CASE.

THESE REPORTERS HAVE NOT YET BEEN ABLE TO THIRD SOURCE THE CLAIM THAT ALL DINERS WERE PRESENTED WITH BILLS AND THAT KILLER BARRY O EXPLODED WHEN HE FOUND OUT THE REFILLS OF SODA WEREN'T FREE.  "MICHELLE," HE ALLEGEDLY SNARLED, "WHAT ARE YOU A CAMEL?  AND YOU COULDN'T DRINK WATER?" AN ANGRY FIRST LADY IS SAID TO HAVE THROWN A BUCK-FIFTY AT HIM IN COINS AND STORMED AWAY FROM THE TABLE.

MEANWHILE WAR CRIMINAL AND ASPIRING PEDOPHILE (HE HAS ARGUED FOR CRUSHING LITTLE BOY'S TESTICLES) JOHN YOO SAYS BARRY O SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO USE HIS DRONES HOWEVER HE WANTS.  IN WHICH CASE, THE WHITE HOUSE SHOULD AIM THEM ALL AT YOO.

 FROM THE TCI WIRE:



The Guardian report being noted above is the one written by Mona Mahmood, Maggie O'Kane, Chavala Madlena and Teresa Smith and here's an excerpt



The allegations made by US and Iraqi witnesses in the Guardian/BBC documentary, implicate US advisers for the first time in the human rights abuses committed by the commandos. It is also the first time that Petraeus – who last November was forced to resign as director of the CIA after a sex scandal – has been linked through an adviser to this abuse.
Coffman reported to Petraeus and described himself in an interview with the US military newspaper Stars and Stripes as Petraeus's "eyes and ears out on the ground" in Iraq.


The report is getting plenty of coverage around the world.  For example, The Voice of Russia notes, "General David Petraeus, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and other high-ranking US colonels were linked to sectarian police commando units in Iraq that operated secret detention and torture centers to get information from insurgents, according a new 15-month investigation published by the Guardian and BBC Arabic."  Iran's Press TV notes this morning, "Sectarian commando units, operating under direct supervision of American Special Forces veterans, who were involved in the so-called US counter-insurgency efforts against opponents of some of the most brutal Washington-backed dictatorships in Central America, 'conducted some of the worst acts of torture during the US occupation and accelerated the country’s descent into full-scale civil war,' The Guardian reports Thursday." Gulf News explains, "One of the American figures implemented is Colonel James Steele, who was taked with organising Iraqi paramilitaries in an attempt to quell Sunni insurgency. Membership was drawn from Shiite militias like the Badr brigades, the former military arm of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which was tied to the clerical Al Hakim family.  A second official implicated in the investigation was Colonel James H Coffman, who worked alongside Steele in detention centres that were set up with millions of dollars of US funding."   Prensa Latina emphasizes, "Al Samari recalled a specific case in which a 14-year-old child was tied to one of the columns of a book store, with his head between the legs. His body was completely blue, due to the bruises out of the beating he was given, Samari said."  India's leading newspaper, The Hindu, runs a syndicated version of the Guardian article.  Turkey's Hurriyet covers it here. We could go on and on.

The story has the attention of the world's media . . . except in the United States.  As noted this morning, broadcast network TV watchers in the US weren't informed of the story by what passes for news programs in the country -- not on  CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, not on  ABC World News with Diane Sawyer, not on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams and not on PBS' The NewsHour.

But let's not pretend that it's just broadcast networks.  At The Nation's website, six articles are given heavy play at the top with and 22 more ones are played out on the site's 'front page.'   28 articles and not one is about the revelations of the Guardian's report.  The Progressive can't find time or space for it either.

A US blackout on the article appears to exist leaving many Americans unaware of what happened.  For instance, Richard Norton-Taylor (Guardian) offers today:


If there were any lingering doubts about whether the former US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, should be indicted before a criminal court, evidence that he asked a veteran of American dirty wars in central America to help set up vicious sectarian militias in Iraq should end them once and for all.
A Guardian investigation reports that Colonel James Steele, a special forces veteran, was nominated by Rumsfeld to help organise paramilitaries to quell a growing Sunni insurgency in Iraq. Steele reported directly to Rumsfeld. The paramilitary groups were drawn from Shia militia and set up detention centres where Iraqis were tortured.


If most Americans hear that there was a call to hold Rumsfeld accountable, they wouldn't know what this was over.  B-b-but surely Last Journalist Standing Amy Goodman devoted significant time to the issue, right?

Here is Goody's coverage in full:

The Guardian of London has revealed new details on the Bush administration’s support for sectarian militias in its bid to defeat the Iraqi resistance after the 2003 invasion. The Guardian reports a key U.S. Army colonel behind the effort, James Steele, had firsthand knowledge of brutal torture carried out by Iraqi surrogates but did nothing to stop it. Speaking to The Guardian, an Iraqi general said Steele was unfazed when the torture of a young prisoner interrupted his lunch.

Munthader al-Samari: "One of the detainees was screaming. By chance, James Steele was there outside washing his hands. He opened the door and saw the detainee. He was hanging by his legs upside down. James Steele didn’t react at all when he saw this man. It was just normal. He closed the door and came back to his seat in the advisers room."

Steele served as then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s liaison with Iraq’s Special Police Commandos. His stint in Iraq came 20 years after overseeing the U.S. special operations forces that trained government death squads in El Salvador.

That's the tenth out of twelve headlines.  Democracy Now! is an hour long and that's all Goody could spare,  There was a film to promote and other things passed off as 'news' on Goody's government-backed 'report.'

But remember, Goody cares about Bradley Manning --she says.  But she won't cover these revelations -- that Bradley's responsible for.    Deutsche Presse-Agentur points out:


The report said Steele was previously involved in El Salvador as head of a U.S. team of special military advisers that trained units of the Central American country's security forces in counterinsurgency.
The impact of the U.S. backing of the paramilitary forces was that it unleashed a sectarian militia that terrorized the Sunni community and helped stoke a civil war that claimed tens of thousands of lives.
The Guardian/BBC Arabic investigation was sparked by the release of classified U.S. military logs on the website WikiLeaks. Those documents, released by Private Bradley Manning, detailed hundreds of incidents where U.S. soldiers came across tortured detainees in a network of detention centers run by the police commandos across Iraq.

Bradley's court-martial is supposed to start in June.  Victoria A. Bronworth (The Advocate) weighs in noting:


What many legal scholars have questioned as Manning approaches the end of his third year in detention is why he was charged under the Espionage Act at all—a rarity in American jurisprudence. President Obama has revived the Espionage Act and has prosecuted more people under it than every other president combined since the 1917 law was enacted. Among those prosecuted by Obama was John Kiriakou, the former CIA agent who exposed water-boarding and other "enhanced interrogation" techniques.
President Obama, who pledged as a candidate to protect whistle blowers because they were both courageous and patriotic, has cracked down hard on whistle blowers. Manning in particular has suffered under Obama’s enforcement; he has been treated more like the enemy combatants in Guantanamo than an American citizen and soldier.
Manning has been denied many elements of due process throughout his detention and preparation for trial. During the period of solitary confinement even Red Cross International, which petitioned to check on his well-being, was denied access to him, as were several Democratic members of Congress who asked to see him. The documents related to his trial have been kept secret, even though they should be a matter of public record. Manning has been described as depressed and for a significant period of time was on suicide watch.
Except for the Nobel Peace Prize nomination, Manning seems to be a forgotten American hero.


The Washington Blade notes, "Pink News reported a group of Icelandic parliamentarians, the Pirates of the EU, members of the Swedish Pirate Party and a former Tunisian government minister nominated Bradley Manning."
As Betty pointed out last night, Barack could call off the hounds at any time and she also offered, "I really think if he got the Nobel Peace Prize this year it would put a lot of pressure on Barack to pardon him or drop the case altogether."   Brandon Muncy (Daily Athenaeum) explains what's going on this way:

Imagine spending more than 1,000 days and nights imprisoned, mostly in solitary confinement.

Imagine that most of the human contact you had was with the individuals who stripped you naked at night and did not return your clothes until the next morning.

Imagine you had not even been convicted of a crime, yet these were the conditions you faced every day and night for nearly three years while you awaited trial.

Imagine that the so-called "crimes" you committed were for simply telling people the truth about their government.

This has been the reality for Bradley Manning, the man who recently pleaded guilty to 10-22 criminal counts levied against him in the investigation of the WikiLeaks scandal, as he awaits his day in court, tentatively scheduled for June 2013.

Here's another imagine: Imagine you were the one who discovered the way the Iraqis were being treated -- after Saddam Hussein had been driven from power.  Imagine these were your words:



I felt we were risking so much for people who seemed unwilling to cooperate with us, leading to frustration and hatred on both sides. I began to become depressed at the situation we found ourselves mired in year after year. In attempting counterinsurgency operations, we became obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists.  I wanted the public to know that not everyone living in Iraq were targets to be neutralized.

Would you have stayed silent?  Or would you have leaked?

Those were Bradley's words last Thursday to the military court.  He wanted the public to know.  At what time is appreciation for that shown by supporters who will actually take the time to address the very offenses which took place in Iraq and so shocked Bradley that he would risk himself to get the word out on what had been done and was being done?

Mona Mahmood, Maggie O'Kane, Chavala Madlena, Teresa Smith, Ben Ferguson, Patrick Farrelly, Guy Grandjean, Josh Strauss, Roisin Glynn, Irene Basque, Marcus Morgan, Jake Zervudachi and Joshua Boswell (Guardian) note:


The investigation was sparked over a year ago by millions of classified US military documents dumped onto the internet and their mysterious references to US soldiers ordered to ignore torture. Private Bradley Manning, 25, is facing a 20-year sentence, accused of leaking military secrets.Steele's contribution was pivotal. He was the covert US figure behind the intelligence gathering of the new commando units. The aim: to halt a nascent Sunni insurgency in its tracks by extracting information from detainees.
It was a role made for Steele. The veteran had made his name in El Salvador almost 20 years earlier as head of a US group of special forces advisers who were training and funding the Salvadoran military to fight the FNLM guerrilla insurgency. These government units developed a fearsome international reputation for their death squad activities. Steele's own biography describes his work there as the "training of the best counterinsurgency force" in El Salvador.
Of his El Salvador experience in 1986, Steele told Dr Max Manwaring, the author of El Salvador at War: An Oral History: "When I arrived here there was a tendency to focus on technical indicators … but in an insurgency the focus has to be on human aspects. That means getting people to talk to you."
But the arming of one side of the conflict by the US hastened the country's descent into a civil war in which 75,000 people died and 1 million out of a population of 6 million became refugees.

RECOMMENDED:  "Iraq snapshot"
"US War Crimes get British attention but in the US?..."

"The War Crimes Bradley opposed"
"Bradley"
"One of the greats"
"Patriarch Sako"
"f**k lifetime and cnet"
"Valerie Harper"
"Joint-hearings on veterans affairs"
"Leia!"
"Body of Proof"
"Smash"
"Rand Paul stands up"
"THIS JUST IN! THE KILLER KING!"
"Who crowned him?"

Who crowned him?

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

KILLER BARRY O HAS TAKEN HIS DRONE WAR ALL OVER THE WORLD AND NOW, ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER REVEALS, KILLER BARRY HOPES TO BRING THAT WAR TO U.S. SOIL.

SOME HAVE CALLED IT "AN AFFRONT TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL PROCESS" BUT KILLER BARRY O DISAGREES.

"I WAS MADE KING IN 2008!" KILLER BARRY INSISTED TO THESE REPORTERS OVER THE PHONE THIS MORNING.  "I HAVE THE RIGHT TO DO WHATEVER I WANT!  IN ALL 57 STATES!"

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT.


FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Turning to the topic of counter-insurgency.  The 'tool' that targets native populations is really not called out on the left.  Either you get so-called lefties endorsing it or everyone wants to dummy up.  (Tom Hayden and David H. Price are two of the few on the left who have addressed it.)  War on a native people.  Today Mona Mahmood, Maggie O'Kane, Chavala Madlena and Teresa Smith (Guardian) report:



The allegations made by US and Iraqi witnesses in the Guardian/BBC documentary, implicate US advisers for the first time in the human rights abuses committed by the commandos. It is also the first time that Petraeus – who last November was forced to resign as director of the CIA after a sex scandal – has been linked through an adviser to this abuse.
Coffman reported to Petraeus and described himself in an interview with the US military newspaper Stars and Stripes as Petraeus's "eyes and ears out on the ground" in Iraq.


Yes, we're at the topic of counter-insurgency.  Will the usual cowards rush off to hide?  Probably.  Back in February of 2012, Paula Broadwell could be found hailing David Petraeus as "the King of COIN" -- "COIN" being counter-insurgency (link goes to Mark Silva's report for Bloomberg News and is text and video).  Paula should know, right?  She wrote a book about him and had an affair with him -- the affair that forced him to resign as CIA Director.  Before that happened, Petraeus came to fame as the top US commander in Iraq.  Though the press praised him hugely in real time, they never cared much about reporting reality.  In 2010, Robert Dreyfuss (Huffington Post) observed, "[. . .] Petraeus literally wrote the book -- namely, The U.S. Army/ Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.   If the COIN cult has a guru (whom all obey unquestioningly), it's Petraeus."  They didn't call out counterinsurgency.  That was apparently too much work for their tender hands.  Last November, Michael Cohen (Guardian) offered the typical 'criticism' from the left:

More than three years ago, I sat in an overflow room in Washington, DC's Willard Hotel listening to General David Petraeus explain (pdf) how the only solution for the failing war in Afghanistan was a "comprehensive counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy", modeled after the one that had allegedly achieved so much success in Iraq.
Petraeus's speech came at the annual meeting of the Center for New American Security, a DC-based thinktank that had become a locus of COIN thinking in DC. And Petraeus was at the peak of his power and acclaim – heralded by both Democrats and Republicans as the man responsible for saving the Iraq war.
The four-star general's in-depth powerpoint presentation (pdf), with its discussion of securing and serving the population, "understanding local circumstances" separating irreconcilables from reconcilables and living "among the people" was the apogee of COIN thinking, which dominated national security debates in Washington in 2008 and 2009. But, like Petraeus's career, COIN and its usefulness as a tool for US military planners now lies in tatters.
Please note, those three paragraphs represent the nonsense that has passed for a debate when it comes to counterinsurgency: Is it working?  Heaven forbid we should ever question the wisdom or ethics of using it to begin with.  COIN cheerleaders like former journalist Thomas E. Ricks would love to get in a back and forth or success or failure, they just don't want to have the larger conversation where counter-insurgency itself -- war on a native people -- is addressed.

NYU Professor Nicholas Mirzoeff  is among the few in the current era to question counter-insurgency.  He's noted that what counter-insurgency has done is produce a war culture, a culture where war itself is seen as natural and cultural.  These and other points can be found in his article [PDF format warning] "War is Culture: Global Counterinsurgency, Visuality, and the Petraeus Doctrine:"

Counterinsurgency has become a digitally mediated version of imperialists techniques to produce legitimacy.  Its success in the United States is unquestioned: who  in public life is against counterinsurgency, even if they oppose the war in Iraq or invasions elsewhere?  War is culture.

When counter-insurgency 'succeeds', Mirzoeff argues, "war will have rendered a culture in its own image, that it preaches the importance of "the preservation of life, determined by foreign policy interests.  Counterinsurgency now actively imagines itself as a medical practice: 'With good intelligence, counterinsurgents are like surgeons cutting out cancerous tissue while keeping other vital organs intact' (US, Dept. of the Army 1-126).

While some, like Sarah Sewell, insist that counter-insurgency is culturally sensitive, it's not.  It's culturally hierarchical with the built-in assumption that the Americans are so much wiser and so much more advanced and, yes, valuable than the native population that US counter-insurgency is being used upon.  (That's also known as cultural chauvinism.)  The people doing the 'surgery' are doing 'surgery' and 'treatment' based upon what they themselves value.  And what Iraqi society values and what the US military values are completely different things.  Which gets to Mirzoeff's point about what counter-insurgency leads to -- a culture in its own image.  That's one of the reasons Iraq doesn't function today.  It was not set up as Iraqis would have set it up themselves.  It was forced onto the Iraqi population with US 'advisors' determining what were the needed goals and desires of Iraqi society.

Counter-insurgency comes about because of the success of insurgency -- in Cuba, in Vietnam and elsewhere.  It's a bad response to guerrilla actions -- it's overblown and overspent and, at its very core, outright pathetic.  But what happened in Cuba and Vietnam, for example, created envy among the US War Hawks who were convinced they could co-opt it with a 'response.'  They can't.  What they try to do is to demonize local leaders who may hold sway. 

Counter-insurgency always turns ugly because the people who support are ugly.  Petraeus might have started out a decent person, I have no idea.  But he practiced counter-insurgency and that it led to torture and abuse by his underlings is no surprise.  At its heart, counter-insurgency is "I know best and I will convince you through any means or I will rid the society of you."  That's not a peaceful approach, that's not embracing approach.  That approach says, "You will do as I do or I will eradicate you."  When that is your operating principle, you have so little respect for humanity that you're well on your way to utilizing torture.

As Howard B. Radest points out, in Bioethics: Catastrophic Events in a Time of Terror, of the 'making' movements of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency, they "attempt the grandiose, seeing themselves as world forming and as world reforming.  Thus, the effort to convert the world to any single belief system like Islam or Christianity or communism, or to any unequivocal norm like a market economy.  The ideological move forecasts failure.  The world does not yield to our wishes and to our fears.  It is surely not finally controlled by us."

Sarah Sewer Sewell (who hates this piece Ava and I wrote about her, her roll dog Monty McFate, Charlie Rose and counter-insurgency back in 2007) would most likely insist that counter-insurgency is benign, if not benevolent.  It is neither.  The value judgments required to arrive at a plan are dangerous in and of themselves.  Equally true, it is not the warm fuzzy Sewell tries to pretend it is.  The Australian David Kilcullen -- who has worked counter-insurgency for Australia and the US -- is much more honest as pro counter-insurgency George Packer noted in his essay "Knowing the Enemy" (The New Yorker, December 18, 2006):

Kilcullen doesn't believe that an entirely "soft" counterinsurgency approach can work against such tactics.  In his view, winning hearts and minds is not a matter of making local people think like you -- as some American initiates to counterinsurgency whom I met in Iraq seemed to believe -- but of getting them to accept that supporting your side is in their interest, which requires an element of coercion.  Kilcullen met senior European officers with the NATO force in Afghanistan who seemed to be applying " a developmental model to counterinsurgency," hoping that gratitude for good work would bring the Afghans over to their side.  He told me, "In a counterinsurgency, the gratitude effect will last until the sun goes down and the insurgents show up and say, 'You're on our side, aren't you?  Otherwise, we're going to kill you.'  If one side is willing to apply lethal force to bring the population to its side and the other isn't, ultimately you're going to find yourself losing."

Again, they talk like it's all persuasion but when they get down to it, they're supporters of using force as they attempt to colonize.


As with Vietnam, the wars of this era -- Iraq and Afghanistan -- have found the US military using -- among others -- anthropologists.   Antonius C.G.M. Robben and Jeffrey A. Sluka address this in Ethnographic Fieldwork: An Anthropological Reader and this is from a piece Sluka wrote for The Reader:

Even more controversially, in 2006 the US Army initiated a new $60 million experimental counterinsurgency program called Human Terrain System (HTS) which began to "embed" anthropologists and other social scientists with combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan to help them gather ethnographic intelligence (referred to as "conducting research") and understand local cultures better.  The goal is to provide soldiers in the field with knowledge of the population and its culture in order to enhance operational effectiveness and reduce conflict between the military and the civilian population.  The HTS program has generated great controversy among anthropologists, most of whom view it as fundamentally unethical, inherently harmful to those studied, and an attempt to "weaponize" the discipline (Price 2006).  Many have criticized it as "mercenary anthropology" that exploits social science for political gain, warned that it will exacerbate the already considerable danger of anthropologists being viewed as intelligence agents or spies which nearly all anthropologists face in their fieldwork, and drawn a direct comparison with the infamous Phoenix Program and Project Camelot during the Vietnam War.
In October 2007, the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) formally opposed the program and denounced it as "an unacceptable application of anthropological expertise" which could lead to serious, ethical problems, disgrace to anthropology as an academic discipline, restriction of future research opportunities, and increased risk of harm to both researchers and research participants.  At the same time, "in response to concerns that such developments threaten the integrity of anthropology, " the Network of Concerned Anthropologists (NCA) was formed and launched a "pledge of nonparticipation in counterinsurgency" campaign, which more than 1,000 anthropologists signed in the first few months (NCA 2007).  Both the AAA and the NCA  assert that counterinsurgency work in general, but in this case especially the HTS program, violates several core elements of the AAA ethics code, and in 2009 the code was revised directly in response to these developments.

In the July 1, 1976 issue of The New Scientist, on page 3, "Repressive technology" appeared.  The author is Duncan Campbell (now with the Guardian newspaper).

Last week, about 350 military and diplomatic big-wigs were invited by the British Army to witness a mobility display of army equipment, including a variety of counterinsurgency vehicles suitable for troops equipped with CS gas launchers, batons and rubbert bullet guns.  Almost one quarter of the delegation invited represented countries where free elections, in the Western sense, are abnormal.  Only one of those, Yugoslavia, was not governed by some form of right wing junta.
"Riot control", as the Soweto incidents have shown, can often mean the brutal suppression of claims for human rights.  Yet the Royal Ordnance Factories of the Ministry of Defence, among many others at the Aldershot show, are actively promoting sales of CS gas an other items "to deal with riots expeditiously." 
Ethical standards are naturally noticeably absent among arms dealers.  But no-one who has developed the modern weapons of mass destruction would happily see them sold to support the aims of assorted tin-pot dictatorships.  The weapons of mass repression, though simpler and less dramatic, should not be bartered with less gravity.


In 1976, so well debated had counter-insurgency been that the three paragraphs could move briskly, could make the natural association of counter-insurgency with bullying and despotic regimes.  Duncan Campbell didn't have to do a set-up- or much at all.  Because the issue had been addressed.  It had been so well addressed and this unethical practice so universally loathed that we shared a common language on the topic at that time.  The hold-overs waited, knowing that a time would come when they could return and pimp these unethical and illegal practices.  1976, Sluka reminds us, is the year CUNY Professor June Nash explained that this relationship turned anthropologists into "the handmaiden of colonialism and imperialism."

How far backwards we've slid as we're now in an environment where we can only argue whether or not counter-insurgency is 'successful' and not whether it's unethical and criminal.   It is so criminal that its use in Iraq had a strong impact on one American:



I felt we were risking so much for people who seemed unwilling to cooperate with us, leading to frustration and hatred on both sides. I began to become depressed at the situation we found ourselves mired in year after year. In attempting counterinsurgency operations, we became obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists.  I wanted the public to know that not everyone living in Iraq were targets to be neutralized.

That's Bradley Manning speaking last Thursday to the military court.


Who?   Monday April 5, 2010, WikiLeaks released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7, 2010, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported in August 2010 that Manning had been charged -- "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." In March, 2011, David S. Cloud (Los Angeles Times) reported that the military has added 22 additional counts to the charges including one that could be seen as "aiding the enemy" which could result in the death penalty if convicted. The Article 32 hearing took place in December. At the start of this year, there was an Article 32 hearing and, February 3rd, it was announced that the government would be moving forward with a court-martial. Bradley has yet to enter a plea. The court-martial was supposed to begin before the November 2012 election but it was postponed until after the election so that Barack wouldn't have to run on a record of his actual actions.  Independent.ie adds, "A court martial is set to be held in June at Ford Meade in Maryland, with supporters treating him as a hero, but opponents describing him as a traitor."  Last Thursday, Bradley admitted he leaked to WikiLeaks.  And why. 

Recommended: "Iraq snapshot"
"Nouri's efforts to aid Syrian military called out"
"Media again misses the story (lack of oversight)"
"Monkeys are smarter"
"Screw corporate America"
"Subway"
"at 41, amy poehler needs to act her age"
"A little Benghazi info emerges"
"Interest killers"
"The Good Wife"
"Who tried to blackmail Whitney Houston?"
"Hugo Chavez"
"Barack's Drone War"
"Waffle Drone"
"THIS JUST IN! HE JUST WANTS TO EAT HIS WAFFLES!"

Waffle Drone

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

 KILLER BARRY O IS LOSING SUPPORT NOT JUST INTERNATIONALLY BUT ALSO DOMESTICALLY -- HIS NUMBERS ARE SO BAD DOMESTICALLY THAT THE TYPICAL RE-ELECTION 'HONEYMOON' IS SAID TO BE OVER.

SPEAKING TO THESE REPORTERS THIS MORNING AT THE INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF PANCAKES -- IHOP -- KILLER BARRY SEEMED BOTHERED BY MANY THINGS INCLUDING THAT THERE WAS NO NEAR BY WAFFLE HOUSE.

"I JUST WANT TO EAT MY WAFFLES!" HE LAMENTED REGULARLY THROUGHOUT THE INTERVIEW.

THE KILLER OF THE UNITED STATES EXPLAINED HE IS NOT GIVEN ENOUGH CREDIT FOR HIS ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND HE POINTED TO YEMEN AS A SOLID EXAMPLE WHERE "I HAVE LEFT A STRONG IMPRESSION ON CHILDREN."

HE ALSO DOES NOT UNDERSTAND WHY AMERICANS MIGHT BE BOTHERED BY HIS ADMINSTRATION'S CLAIM THAT HE CAN USE DRONES TO KILL IN THE UNITED STATES.

"IF I CAN'T KILL," HE WHINED, "WHERE'S THE FUN IN THE JOB?  TALKING TO ERIC BOEHNER AND NANCY PELOSI?  PUH-LEASE!!"


FROM THE TCI WIRE:



Senator Dean Heller:  We have 300,000 veterans in Nevada.  We have 10,000, right now, backlogged in the state of Nevada.  We're being told now by soldiers that they are to, once they get out of the service, these men and women, once they get out of the service to immediately file a claim because it's going to take a year-and-a-half to two years in order for that claim to be processed.  They're getting apology letters, three or four apology letters, before their claim actually gets filed.  Can't they just process the claim instead of sending them all of these apology letters?

Heller was speaking this morning at the joint-hearing of the House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.  Today, they were hearing from the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) which is headed by John E. Hamilton who was accompanied by Robert E. Wallace, William Bradshaw, Ray Kelley and Karen Nigara.  The Senate Committee Chair is Bernie Sanders, the House Committee Chair is Jeff Miller.  The joint-hearings are a way for the various veterans service organizations to outline veterans needs to the members of the House and Senate Committees.

Hamilton is a lively speaker.  He can motivate the listener to feel outrage or joy.  But sitting through the hearing this morning, I was reminded of how VFW officials keep telling me that they have a hard time getting veterans of today's wars to join the VFW, how they seem, to some vets, to be an older persons group.  One thing Hamilton could have worked on was women veterans.  Nearly every example was "he."  There was no example of "she."  There was "guys and gals."  But whether it was a medic or someone driving a truck, it was a "he" over and over.  When I think of someone driving a truck in either Iraq or Afghanistan -- someone with the US military -- my first thought is usually Kelly Dougherty because she's shared her experiences in so many forums.

You want to bring in younger veterans right now?  Work towards using inclusive language.  At one point, a woman, Karen Nigara, was able to speak.  I'm not including that because I was honestly embarrassed.  Nigara conducted herself professionally but the intro was like, "And it speaks too!"  And the 'we love our women veterans'?  Women want to be included.  They don't want to be patronized and the intro to Karen Nigara speaking seemed embarrassing.  As always, I discussed the hearing with as many veterans as possible after the hearing concluded.  I wasn't able to speak to any women present but two veterans under 30 did point out that intro as part of the problem the VFW has attracting women of today's wars.  Again, great speaker in so many ways but Hamilton could work on conclusion and also on introducing a woman in the same way he did a man about to speak.


Let's jump into an exchange after everyone's opening remarks were finally recited.


Chair Bernie Sanders:  Let me begin by asking a couple of questions.  One on budgetary issues and one on the unemployment situation.  As I mentioned in my opening remarks, there is a proposal floating around which would reconfigure how COLAs [Cost Of Living Adjustments] for Social Security beneficiaries and disabled veterans are calculated.  What that proposed change in the annual Cost Of Living Adjustments, COLAs, are calculated would mean that veterans who started receiving VA disability benefits at age 30 -- not uncommon -- would have their benefits reduced by $1,425 at age 45, $2341 at age 55 and $3231 at age 65 according to the Congressional Budget Office.  Commander Hamilton or anybody else at the table, could you describe for us the real world consequences that using this so-called Chained CPI would have on disabled veterans and surviving family members.

John E. Hamilton:  Senator, thank you for the question.  I think our disabled veterans have given enough.  They've given enough.  And obviously we're opposed to that, we remain opposed to that and-and we'll always be opposed to that.   Look, when people live on disability, live on that, it's an increased hardship for them.  And we'll continue to do so -- we'll be happy to talk -- our people and your people -- about why and how ever --

Chair Bernie Sanders:  But I think what you're saying is that you perceive the benefits now not being overly generous.  Is that right?

John E. Hamilton:  Absolutely right.  Absolutely correct.  Let me -- You know, there's a guy in here named Mike Ferguson, Senator, who's one of my heroes.  Mike was a young Marine, lost both his legs, both above the knee, okay?  You can never repay that young man for his service to this country enough.  1% keeps us free.  Take care of our heroes, take care of our brothers.

Chair Bernie Sanders:  And the only point I want to make is the theory behind this is that we have been "too generous" in cost of living increases [laughter] -- I know.  That's right.  People laugh.  That's the theory that's circulating around here and that's the theory we want to defeat, I think.  Second question, Mr. Commander, and that is, regarding employment, you touched on this issue, based on the feedback you receive from VFW members around the country, what recommendations do you have as we continue to work to provide service members and veterans the tools they need to successfully transition?  Can you comment on the employment situation?

John E. Hamilton:  Yes, sir, we will.  I think we need, obviously, a nation-wide hire-a-vet campaign.  Veterans are great employees. They're trained.  They're disciplined.  They know how -- They know how to stay on task and take care of things and stay on the mission.  And something else we do, we make the tax credits a little less red-tape so that the small business that can't afford to hire three CPAs and 2 attorneys to figure out how the hell to -- I'm not supposed to talk like that, I know -- but I do sometimes, I'm still a sergeant in the Marine Corps with tattoos.  But we got to make it simpler so that the average business can understand the law and get around the red-tape and do what they need to do to hire our people.  You know, it should be to put people back to work not to fill out forms and hire accountants.  My answer.

Chair Bernie Sanders:  Okay. Commander, thank you very much.  Chairman Miller?

Chair Jeff Miller:  Commander, the [VA] Secretary's testified and also talked to me in various meetings lately about meeting their goal of clearing the disability backlog by 2015.  They are absolutely convinced that they're going to be able to do that.  And I've asked the question of each organization: Do you think they're going to hit their goal of 90+ percent accuracy [and] 125-days-or-less by 2015.

John E. Hamilton:   Mr. Miller, you're a great friend of veterans and I appreciate what you do.  I do, from my heart. Floridian to Floridian, I believe in you.  But I want to tell you something, we've heard this and I hope that I'm wrong. I pray to God every day, I grab a knee and say to the Sergeant Major upstairs, let's get it right, let's take care of our heroes.  But I've been listening to this for 35 years, since I've been fighting for veterans' rights.   35 years I've heard this.  I hope we get it right, I hope we get it wrong.  That's why I say we need to take our time don't be in a hurry if we put it out, let's make it right.  Let's make it right.  Are we going to make it by 2015? I hope so.  I really don't know.

Chair Jeff Miller: I think -- I appreciate your comments too because there's a lot of faith being put in the VBMS system and they're saying that that's going to be the solution that's going to solve everything.  But if you don't have the proper personnel actually inputting information, doing what needs to be done, the right attitude, it's not going to get better.  And you know, I-I appreciate your saying that those that are in there that are not doing their job should move on to something else.

John E. Hamilton:  You betcha.  You know, absolutely.  Mr. Miller, I met with the President [Barack Obama] a few days ago and discussed with him that very issue again.  And I want to believe.  I want to believe.  But, having said that, if we can't come up with some kind of program to see  this VMBA, I pray it works, and if it doesn't put us in a path to where we're going and we don't see positive  -- positive change -- heading on to 2015 and doing the right thing exactly what you said, maybe it's time for some people over there in the ivory tower to find themselves another job, let's get somebody over there to do the job.  And I thank you for your comments.


The VFW is concerned about younger members joining.  That's good, that shows outreach efforts on their part.  When the Post-9/11 GI Assistance Bill was first going to go into effect, you may remember, we steered anyone it applied to towards the VFW based on the advice of a friend with another service organization.  The VFW offers many services.  We're including the next exchange mainly because Hamilton's talking about one such service that VFW provides.



US House Rep Beto O'Rourke: When you talked about the claims backlog and the VBA and the lack of accountability and the error rate.  And when you were asked about your estimate on our ability to fix this backlog within the promised time and you said that you'd been waiting for thirty-five years for this country to get it right.  I wondered if you or your membership or fellow panelists could talk about, if we're not getting these things right at the federal level, are there some local VAs, are there some states that are approaching these issues the right way that we can learn from here in Congress, in Washington, DC?  We heard testimony last week from a veteran who said that, in Pittsburgh, they're turning around a claim in thirty days.  We hear Ranking Member [Michael] Michaud talk about the way the system's organized in the Philippines.  There are some states that have been pioneers in work force transition and in hiring a vet.  Where can you point us where we're getting the culture right, where we're getting performance right and where we can apply those lessons to what we should be doing here on the national level?


John E. Hamilton: Sir, I'll let Bill or Bob talk to that but I want to say this, you look at Baltimore where they say the error rate was 40 to 60%.  In the real world, those cats would be looking for a job. Okay, so who . . . [applause]  Whoever alluded to the problems up there of we got to get it right or we got to train the people -- you talk about replacing folks -- in the real world, it just wouldn't happen.  So there are these places where things are better than others but overall?  Overall with the backlog and the error rate, it's unbelievable.  You know, we have to -- and, of course, something that we need to do as an organization, I'm talking to my comrades in the back -- we need to make certain somehow, we're trying desperately to get the word out to veterans: Don't file your own claims.  Listen, if I need open heart surgery, I understand what they do but I'm not going to cut my chest open, try to do it myself.  We've got professional people that know what they're doing.   So we've got to somehow get the word to those folks to come in here [VFW office]  because what happens is when they get an incomplete claim or something's filed, it's got to back again.  Sometimes, something's filed two or three times.  Now it's not a year, it's two or three years sometimes.  So we've got to do a better job -- We, the veterans community, the VFW, of making certain that we get the word to those people.  That's why this TAP program is so important, so when these people come out of the military, we can say, "Hey, here's what you get, here's what you ought to get and here's where it is."  We've got people to review those claims on both sides of the coast and they come back to make certain that they're correct.  Because the average guy or gal doesn't know you're getting 30%, you should have gotten 70.  Now the short answer -- that's the long answer to that -- but, Bob, is there something we need to say about location.


Robert E. Wallace:  Congressman, in all fairness to VA, to VBA, there was a conscious effort made by previous Congresses and previous administrations to change the health care system from a hospital system to outpatient.  Over the course of history, you can check the records, VBA was not funded as it should have been.  We have the finest, as John just said, he was in Puerto Rico, they push an electronic health record.  VBA never sophisticated and went with automation.  The last few years, four, five, six years, we've seen a push for that and they're playing catch-up ball.  It's very depressing to go into a regional office and see all those papers -- very, very depressing because each one of those paper files is some veteran that's waiting.  Are there things that are happening that are good?  Yes, there are.  Fully developed claims is starting to catch on and starting to work and those are the kind of claims that could get done in 30 days -- diabetes, boom, boom, boom.


The VFW can help you file claims, a VFW Service Officer is trained in benefits and claims and can assist you.  Hamilton mentioned the TAP program.  That program received a much needed overhaul via the work of the veterans committees in the previous Congress and specifically via Senator Patty Murray's VOW to Hire Heroes Act of 2011.  The Transition Assistance Program is helpful but if you're leaving the service, you can also speak with an expert at the VFW about BDD -- Benefits Delivery at Discharge.  The VFW offers many things including allowing veterans to interact with one another.  This also includes the local VFWs and, if you are a drinker but live in a 'dry' region where alcohol is not sold, the local VFW canteen is your best shot.  It's not just a group that goes before Congress.  It does go before Congress and does a lot of strong work there.  But not everyone's political (and some who leave the military, leave having heard enough lies and broken promises from politicians to be turned off politics for life), so it bears noting that the VFW has many social events and interactions.  On political, it bears noting that the VFW is very good at getting issues before Congress so, for example, if you're a young female veteran and you're feeling like female issues aren't being addressed within the VA framework, there's a reason for you to join, to help make your voice heard.  Lastly, being a member of the VFW does not mean you cannot be a member of another (or many other) veterans organizations. 


RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
"Matthew Weaver plays Joan and Melissa Rivers"
"Senator Murray calls for burial fairness for veter..."
"For a speech writer, he's rather prosaic"
"Curiosity's brain"
"Look who they chose"
"Bradley Manning"
"burning love"
"Menendez catches a break?"
"Do not pass up your chance to see Janis"
"Who tried to blackmail Whitney Houston?"
"The Good Wife"
"Guantanamo"
"Isaiah, Norman Solomon, Third"
"Look for the tells, he can't bluff!"
"THIS JUST IN! JOE BLOWS BARRY O'S POKER GAME!"

Look for the tells, he can't bluff!

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

KILLER BARRY O HAS NO POKER FACE.

IF HE HAD ONE BEFORE YESTERDAY, IT'S BEEN STRIPPED AWAY.

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN STATED REPEATEDLY YESTERDAY THAT BARRY O DOES NOT BLUFF.

REACHED FOR COMMENT, KILLER BARRY TOLD THESE REPORTERS THIS MORNING, "DAMN IT, JOE!  DAMN IT!  HE KNEW I WAS GOING ON CELEBRITY POKER SHOWDOWN NEXT MONTH!"

FROM THE TCI WIRE:


Yesterday at Third, we addressed the gross stupidity (or laid back lying) of Reuters which published stenography.  136 Iraqis died in Iraq last month said the Iraqi government ministries.  Reuters could have kept their own count but that would require work.  They could have compared the official count to Iraq Body Count but that would have required thought.  So they just spat out what they were handed and pretended that was reporting.


February 3rd, Sofia News Agency at least 30 dead.  February 4th, Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) reported 23 dead,  February 8, Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) reported at least 26 dead. February 16th, we noted 18 dead. February 17th, AP reported at least 37 dead.  February 28th, AP reported at least 22 dead.  Now forget that, for example, the 37 dead February 17th were just from Baghdad bombs and that, as Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) in real time, the actual death toll from violence that day was 52 and forget other big days of violence (February 16th, we noted 18 dead).  Just go with those figures: 30, 23, 26, 18, 37 and 22.  That's 138 deaths.  (Check my math always.)  From just *six* days.  And that's 2 deaths more than the official figures say.


Grasp that no major skill was required to reveal the ministry figures as fraudulent.  So is Reuters too dumb, too lazy, or are they in on the con?



Through Wednesday, February 27th, Iraq Body Count counts 316 deaths.  Which means, despite claims to the contrary there was no reduction in violence.  As we noted above, the Associated Press reported 22 dead on Feburary 28th.  Add 22 to 316 and you have 338.  The reality is when Iraq Body Count updates, it will probably have more than 22 deaths (they're not Baghdad-centric which is why they're able to report deaths across Iraq).  But let's say they just go with 22.  That would be 338.  As noted in the February 1st snapshot, IBC's toll for January was 341.

So we're talking a death toll that remained the same.  For the very slow -- which may include Reuters -- that would be 338 deaths over 28 days.  There were 31 days in January.  Even setting aside that IBC will probably list more than 22 deaths, it's the same basic number.

Other measures?  We can't use the AFP count.  Prashant Rao is out of Iraq currently and is apparently the only one who fills in the spreadsheet.  We can use AKE's figures via their own John Drake.


John Drake ‏@johnfdrake

At least 45 people were killed and 191 injured in #Iraq violence last week.

Expand

• Reply
• Retweet
• Favorite
• More

Feb 25 John Drake ‏@johnfdrake

At least 56 people were killed and 108 injured in #Iraq violence last week.

Expand

Feb 18 John Drake ‏@johnfdrake

At least 65 people were killed and 145 injured in #Iraq violence last week.

Expand

Feb 11 John Drake ‏@johnfdrake

At least 98 people were killed and 265 injured in #Iraq violence last week. #hpiraq10

Expand

Feb 5 John Drake ‏@johnfdrake

At least 54 people were killed and 141 injured in #Iraq violence last week.

Expand


So for that period of time, AKE's counting 318 deaths and 850 injured.

Does Reuters really want to stand with the Iraqi government and claim there were only 136 deaths took place?

Repeating, February saw no reduction in violence despite the government claims that Reuters echoed without skepticism, question or common sense.

Let's stay with bad press as the topic.  The New York Times headlines their piece "Massacre of Syrian Soldiers in Iraq Raises Risk of Widening Conflict."   Widening conflict?  Dahsiell Bennett (The Atlantic) toes that White House line as well:

As has been feared for months, violence from the Syrian civil war has spilled across the border into Iraq, threatening an already unstable balance of power in the neighboring country. A group of Syrian soliders were ambushed and killed inside Iraqi territory on Monday, raising concerns that the violent conflicts in both countries could somehow merge.


Reality, fighting is taking place in Syria.  Two sides, the Syrian military, the US-backed 'rebels.'  In this case, the Syrian military ran into Iraq.  It doesn't really matter whether it's the military or the so-called 'rebels.'  When you holler "Tag! You're it!" as you run to base, the other side's going to follow you.  In this case, they appear to have gotten sympathizers with the 'rebels' to attack.  It doesn't matter.


When you cross borders in the midst of the war, that's what can enlarge a battle field, not a massacre after you've crossed over.  Nouri's made the decision to back President Bashar Assad's government.  This morning, for example, Nouri (or his office) Tweets today about posting a new photo to his Facebook page -- a new photo of Bashar Assad. He's made the decision that Iraq will provide harbor.  When you do that, you expand the conflict.  The attack didn't expand it.  The attack is in response to Nouri expanding the conflict by providing a harbor for the Syrian military.

Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) quotes Nouri's 'adviser' Ali al-Mussawi stating, "From the beginning, we have warned that some militant groups want to move the conflict in Syria to Iraq."  al-Mussawi gets closer to reality when the AP quotes him, "We do not want more soldiers to cross our borders and we do not want to be part of the problem."  Then stop allowing fleeing sides in the combat to cross into your country.

RECOMMENDED:

• Iraq snapshot
• No matter what happens to Iraq, Nouri loves Bashar...
• They can advertise their wares but they can't cove...
• Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Keystone Barac...
• Hejira

• Truest statement of the week
• Truest statement of the week II
• A note to our readers
• Editorial: The Hacks Prolong The War
• Media: Epic Meltdown
• Media: The cracks in our foundation
• Books: Grow up, Sachi (Dona)
• Radio moment of the week
• Cindy Sheehan's Tour de Peace
• Senator Murray receives an honor
• Harriet Tubman and Working Women's Day Coalition
• Highlights

• Nouri's said to be holding 19 arrest warrants on p...
• I Hate The War

• 
  Cedric's Big Mix

  Lap dance for big oil

  2 days ago
• 
  The Daily Jot

  THIS JUST IN! SHAKE THAT ASS, BARRY!

  2 days ago