Friday, July 12, 2013

Barry insists he thought the job was just posing

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

44% OF AMERICANS APPROVE OF THE 'JOB' BARRY O IS DOING WHILE 48% DISAPPROVE.


REACHED FOR COMMENT THIS MORNING, A SOBBING BARRY O INFORMED THESE REPORTERS, "ALL I EVER AGREED TO DO WAS WHAT I DID WHILE CAMPAIGNING, SMILE, WAIVE TO THE CAMERA, GO SHIRTLESS.  NOW THEY WANT TO GIVE ME ADDITIONAL JOB DUTIES!  I'M OVERTAXED AS IT IS!"

INDEED.




FROM THE TCI WIRE:



Monday April 5, 2010, WikiLeaks released  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."  February 28th, Bradley admitted he leaked to WikiLeaks.  And why.


Bradley Manning:   In attempting to conduct counter-terrorism or CT and counter-insurgency COIN operations we became obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists and not being suspicious of and avoiding cooperation with our Host Nation partners, and ignoring the second and third order effects of accomplishing short-term goals and missions. I believe that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information contained within the CIDNE-I and CIDNE-A tables this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as [missed word] as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan.
I also believed the detailed analysis of the data over a long period of time by different sectors of society might cause society to reevaluate the need or even the desire to even to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the effected environment everyday.


2010.  Not 2008.  Not 2007.  2010.  Barack's in office, that's one of the key reasons that date is important.  There's another there.  This is Thomas Gaist (WSWS) report on Monday's proceedings:

While Manning’s defense team made arguments Monday presenting his decision to leak classified documents as motivated by concern for the well-being of the United States, its military, and the Iraqi people, Lind’s ruling prevents the defense from basing their case on the defendant’s principled opposition to US policies.
On Monday, the defense called Lauren McNamara, a woman who corresponded with Manning during the period when he made the leaks. She testified that he was “concerned with saving the lives of families in foreign countries” and that he “considered human life to be valuable above all.” McNamara quoted from her correspondence with Manning, reading his statement that was “concerned about making sure that everyone, soldiers, marines, contractors, even the local nationals, get home to their families.”
US Army sergeant David Sadtler, who oversaw Manning’s intelligence work, testified that Manning was angered by the jailing of 15 Iraqi civilians, with US approval, for distributing written material criticizing the government. “He was upset at the situation,” Sadtler said. Previously, Manning stated before the court that the Iraqis involved had no ties to the armed resistance against the US occupation, and that their materials contained a “scholarly critique” of the current regime.


2010.  The Reuters video got attention. That was really it from our 'alternative' media in the US (The Nation, Democracy Now, etc.). 

The issue wasn't the video.  The video was from Bully Boy Bush's time in the White House.

What worried and bothered the White House was what Brad did that people might notice at any point.  They didn't notice (and I only noticed it yesterday after hearing for the third time this month from a White House friend that the Reuters video didn't really matter).  There were many Iraq revelations (and others but our focus is Iraq)  from Brad's leaks.  And we covered them here.  Unlike 'live blogger' Gregg Mitchell who had no interest until Julian Assange encountered legal problems.

Ned Parker is a journalist with the Los Angeles Times.  He's done great reporting in Iraq.  And it's that reporting that has a lot to do with 2010.  We've repeatedly asked, "Why did the administration back Nouri after Parker had repeatedly exposed Nouri's use of secret prisons?"

Brad angered the White House by ripping away the final veil.

2010.  In February 2010, Brad begins leaking to WikiLeaks in part because of fear of the way the Iraqi people are being treated, especially those whose only 'crime' is speaking out against Nouri.

But if Brad knows these things, then so does our US government.  Brad didn't share his notebook spiral of poetry with WikiLeaks, he shared government documents.

He began sharing government documents on Iraq in February 2010 and was clearly done sharing by May 2010 (at the end of May is when he was arrested).  This isn't minor, this goes to why he needs to be silenced.

Nouri didn't win re-election to a second term as prime minister.  A month after Brad began leaking, March 2010, is when Iraq holds parliamentary elections.  Nouri disputes the results so the intimidated IHEC (Independent High Electoral Commission) tosses a few votes he didn't earn his way in the recounts but can't toss enough his way to allow his State of Law to come in first.

Iraqiya came in first.  What followed was Nouri stomping his feet like a spoiled child and throwing a tantrum, refusing to step down and bringing the country to a political halt -- a political stalemate that lasted over eight months.  How did he get away with it?  The White House backed him.

The White House didn't back democracy, didn't back the Iraqi people, didn't back the Iraqi Constitution, it backed Nouri.

And we've decried that here in real time and since.  We've pointed out that Ned Parker was doing exposes on secret prisons Nouri was running and the torture taking place there.

(And credit to the Guardian who, by the summer of 2010 was also noting the White House involvement.  For the longest time, we were the only ones noting it.) 

But until repeated hints from a White House friend this month, I wasn't connecting Brad to this time period.

Brad's revelations are even more important than Ned Parker's excellent reporting.  Brad's revelations go to the fact that Barack and his underlings were not learning from the press of Nouri's corruption, of Nouri's targeting people because they criticized him.  They knew it from their own US government reports.

In 2006, we began noting here that the US State Dept was noting how paranoid Nouri was.  Brad's 2010 release included State Dept cables and that included Nouri and his paranoia.  There wasn't a great deal about Iraq in the WikiLeaks publications that surprised us in terms of Iraq because we'd already noted a number of things as they happened.  And that may be why the obvious escaped me or maybe just because I can be a real idiot sometimes.

But that is why the White House was furious about the leaks in terms of Iraq.


Let's again note John Barry's "'The Engame' Is A Well Researched, Highly Critical Look at U.S. Policy in Iraq" (Daily Beast):



Washington has little political and no military influence over these developments [in Iraq]. As Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor charge in their ambitious new history of the Iraq war, The Endgame, Obama's administration sacrificed political influence by failing in 2010 to insist that the results of Iraq’s first proper election be honored: "When the Obama administration acquiesced in the questionable judicial opinion that prevented Ayad Allawi's bloc, after it had won the most seats in 2010, from the first attempt at forming a new government, it undermined the prospects, however slim, for a compromise that might have led to a genuinely inclusive and cross-sectarian government."


The White House decision to back Nouri is why he could bring the country to a halt for over eight months after the elections and refuse to step down as prime minister.  It was Barack that ordered the US-brokered contract (The Erbil Agreement).  As the Constitution outlined things, Nouri couldn't be prime minister.  So the White House had to do something extra-Constitutional to go around it.  The Erbil Agreement is a contract among leaders of the various political blocs.  Nouri signed it as leader of State of Law and agreeing to various terms, conditions and concessions if he could have a second term.  The other leaders came up with their wish-list in exchange for giving Nouri a second term.

The US government knew the score.  That's what Brad's leaks make clear.  So they likely knew that Nouri would use The Erbil Agreement to get his second term and then trash it and refuse to honor it.  But while they likely knew that, they absolutely knew he was a tyrant.

And yet they backed him.

Let's go back to Thomas Gaist (WSWS):

While Manning’s defense team made arguments Monday presenting his decision to leak classified documents as motivated by concern for the well-being of the United States, its military, and the Iraqi people, Lind’s ruling prevents the defense from basing their case on the defendant’s principled opposition to US policies.
On Monday, the defense called Lauren McNamara, a woman who corresponded with Manning during the period when he made the leaks. She testified that he was “concerned with saving the lives of families in foreign countries” and that he “considered human life to be valuable above all.” McNamara quoted from her correspondence with Manning, reading his statement that was “concerned about making sure that everyone, soldiers, marines, contractors, even the local nationals, get home to their families.”
US Army sergeant David Sadtler, who oversaw Manning’s intelligence work, testified that Manning was angered by the jailing of 15 Iraqi civilians, with US approval, for distributing written material criticizing the government. “He was upset at the situation,” Sadtler said. Previously, Manning stated before the court that the Iraqis involved had no ties to the armed resistance against the US occupation, and that their materials contained a “scholarly critique” of the current regime.
Manning’s pre-trial statement shows that he was motivated by a growing consciousness of the criminal character of US foreign policy. In the statement, delivered to the military judge in February, the soldier asserted that his actions were intended to initiate a process of “worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms.”
Referring to politically motivated roundups carried out with full US support by the Iraqi regime, Manning said, “I knew that 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 Baghdad Federal Police and very likely tortured and not seen again for a very long time, if ever.”


 Brad knew that and so did the US government, so did the White House.  So what you have with the 2010 elections is no longer just a crime against democracy, it's a partnership in torture and abuse.  The White House was not surprised by how awful Nouri is, they knew more than anyone, more than Ned Parker, just what he was doing and that's in the documents that Brad released.

They overrode the will of the people to give a tyrant who tortures a second term and they did that not out of political naivete, they did it with their eyes wide open and fully aware of what a second term would mean for the Iraqi people.

Brad's Iraq revelations -- poorly covered in real time -- strip away the illusions and reveal a White House aware of how vindictive and cruel Nouri was, how torture was his immediate answer for everything, and despite this (or because of this) the White House backed Nouri al-Maliki for a second term when even the Iraqi people had rejected him.

This is the fraud who won the Nobel Peace Prize being exposed as a liar and Tricky Dick Nixon willing to destroy an entire people. No wonder Barack declared Brad guilty

Here's the Bradley Manning Support Network's transcript of Barack declaring Brad guilty:

Logan Price: [Shaking hand] Mr. President, why didn’t you talk about Bradley Manning?

Obama: Look, there are better ways and more appropriate ways to bring this up than interrupting and causing a scene…
LP: I understand. That’s why I am asking you now. I wasn’t singing or chanting and I want to know. I am really concerned because I think he is the most important whistle-blower of my generation. Why is he being prosecuted?
Obama: Well, what he did was irresponsible and risked the lives of service-members abroad… he did a lot of damage… [begin video] so people can have philosophical views on…
LP: But I haven’t seen any evidence of that, and how can you say that the leaks did more harm than good? What about their effect on the democratic revolutions in the Arab world? …and isn’t this going to help the war on terror?
Obama: No, no, no, but look, I can’t conduct diplomacy on an open source… That’s not how the world works. And if you’re in the military… And I have to abide by certain rules of classified information. If I were to release material I weren’t allowed to, I’d be breaking the law. We’re a nation of laws! We don’t let individuals make their own decisions about how the laws operate…No he’s being fine. He is being courteous and asking questions. [ This was because the Secret Service was tugging on my shirt sleeve by this point]
LP: But didn’t he have a responsibility to expose.. [war crimes]
Obama: He broke the law!
LP: Well, you can make the law harder to break, but what he did was tell us the truth.
Obama: What he did was he dumped…
LP: But Nixon tried to prosecute Daniel Ellsberg for the same thing and he is a … [hero]
Obama: No it isn’t the same thing…What Ellsberg released wasn’t classified in the same way.


As the transcript (or video) makes clear, Barack was becoming a little unhinged on the topic.  Why?  Because the leaks do more than anything else to reveal how little Barack cares about human rights, how little value he placed on the safety of the Iraqi people, how eager to get in bed with despots and tyrants he was.  This isn't 'change,' or a Nobel Peace Prize.  This is actually criminal behavior.  Interfering with a country's election and electoral process to ensure that the tyrant the people just deposed will not be leaving office.

October 22nd 2010, WikiLeaks published the Iraq War Logs.  They'd had them for months and it's a shame they weren't able to publish them before October 22nd.  The Erbil Agreement was already being negotiated and, November 10, 2010, would be finalized. From the November 11, 2010 snapshot:


Today the KRG website announces:

Baghdad, Iraq (KRP.org) - Iraq's political leaders yesterday agreed to hold the parliamentary session as scheduled on Thursday and to name an individual for the post of Speaker of the the parliament (Council of Representatives). The Speaker post will go to the Al-Iraqiya bloc, which is headed by former prime minister Ayad Allawi.
During the meeting, which was attended by the leaders of all the winning blocs at President Masoud Barzani's Baghdad headquarters, agreement was reached on two other points: to create a council for strategic policy and to address issues regarding national reconciliation.
President Barzani, who sponsored the three days' round of meetings, stated that today's agreement was a big achievement for Iraqis. He expressed optimism that the next government will be formed soon and that it will be inclusive and representative of all of Iraq's communities.

Martin Chulov (Guardian) reports one hiccup in the process today involved Ayad Allawi who US President Barack Obama phoned asking/pleading that he accept the deal because "his rejection of post would be a vote of no confidence". Ben Lando, Sam Dagher and Margaret Coker (Wall St. Journal) confirm the phone call via two sources and state Allawi will take the post -- newly created -- of chair of the National Council On Higher Policy: "Mr. Obama, in his phone call to Mr. Allawi on Thursday, promised to throw U.S. weight behind the process and guarantee that the council would retain meaningful and legal power, according to the two officials with knowledge of the phone call." 
What Brad revealed was the Barack Obama administration got into bed with a man they knew was a tyrant.  Even though the Iraqi people wanted him out of office, the White House fought to keep him.  And since they knew exactly how vindictive, paranoid and violent he was, that makes the US government culpable in the violence that's followed in Nouri's second term.  Brad's revelations destroyed their attempt to have plausible deniability on this issue.


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Thursday, July 11, 2013

Crazy Barry swears no one can beat his prices!

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


CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O HAS TO BE THE TACKIEST PRESIDENT OF ALL TIME AS HE HANGS PRICE TAGS FROM EVERYTHING.  THE LATEST?

HE PUT A PRICE TAG ON U.S. AMBASSADOR TO LONDON:

What’s the going rate for the US ambassadorship to London? Apparently around $2.3 million, judging by President Obama’s latest appointment to the Court of St. James’s, the most prestigious diplomatic posting in the world for a US official. This is the amount personally raised by Matthew Barzun, the chief fundraiser (finance chairman) for Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, which raked in $730 million in total. Mr Barzun, an internet businessman, was handpicked by the White House to be Obama’s representative in London, despite the fact he has no connection to modern-day Britain and his main qualification for the job appears to be that he has been an effective “bundler” for Barack Obama's two successful presidential election campaigns. His only diplomatic experience has been his recent stint as ambassador to Sweden, hardly a global powerhouse, itself a reward for his role in helping Obama win election in 2008.


REACHED FOR COMMENT, BARRY O TOLD THESE REPORTERS THAT SELLING POSTS WAS NO BIG DEAL AND "WORSE COMES TO WORSE, I'LL BE EDUCATING AMERICA ABOUT THE TEAPOT DOME SCANDAL."

FROM THE TCI WIRE:


AP reports today that the Pentagon is considering eliminating danger pay for many troops stationed around the world in order to save money.  The report notes, "Under the plans being discussed, troops would still receive the extra money if they serve in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen and in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. The U.S. does not have any military members now serving in Iran."

Moving over to Iraq War veteran Bradley Manning whose defense rested today. 

Monday April 5, 2010, WikiLeaks released  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."  February 28th, Bradley admitted he leaked to WikiLeaks.  And why.


Bradley Manning:   In attempting to conduct counter-terrorism or CT and counter-insurgency COIN operations we became obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists and not being suspicious of and avoiding cooperation with our Host Nation partners, and ignoring the second and third order effects of accomplishing short-term goals and missions. I believe that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information contained within the CIDNE-I and CIDNE-A tables this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as [missed word] as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan.
I also believed the detailed analysis of the data over a long period of time by different sectors of society might cause society to reevaluate the need or even the desire to even to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the effected environment everyday.


Had the US government shown the same concern, Bradley wouldn't have had to step up.  Instead, they gladly supported Nouri al-Maliki in torture and that's what Brad's exposures really prove.  This took place under Barack Obama's administration.  When the dots are connected, it's obvious what the White House has so feared for so long.


Thomas Gaist (WSWS) reports on Monday's proceedings:

While Manning’s defense team made arguments Monday presenting his decision to leak classified documents as motivated by concern for the well-being of the United States, its military, and the Iraqi people, Lind’s ruling prevents the defense from basing their case on the defendant’s principled opposition to US policies.
On Monday, the defense called Lauren McNamara, a woman who corresponded with Manning during the period when he made the leaks. She testified that he was “concerned with saving the lives of families in foreign countries” and that he “considered human life to be valuable above all.” McNamara quoted from her correspondence with Manning, reading his statement that was “concerned about making sure that everyone, soldiers, marines, contractors, even the local nationals, get home to their families.”
US Army sergeant David Sadtler, who oversaw Manning’s intelligence work, testified that Manning was angered by the jailing of 15 Iraqi civilians, with US approval, for distributing written material criticizing the government. “He was upset at the situation,” Sadtler said. Previously, Manning stated before the court that the Iraqis involved had no ties to the armed resistance against the US occupation, and that their materials contained a “scholarly critique” of the current regime.
Manning’s pre-trial statement shows that he was motivated by a growing consciousness of the criminal character of US foreign policy. In the statement, delivered to the military judge in February, the soldier asserted that his actions were intended to initiate a process of “worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms.”
Referring to politically motivated roundups carried out with full US support by the Iraqi regime, Manning said, “I knew that 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 Baghdad Federal Police and very likely tortured and not seen again for a very long time, if ever.”



As for today,   Xeni Jardin (BoingBoing) reports:

 

Manning has not, did not, and today told the court he will not testify in his court martial.
The defense rested its case today after having called a total of ten witnesses in the trial. The last was Yochai Benkler, a Harvard professor who is the author a widely-cited paper on the role WikiLeaks plays in what he terms "the networked fourth estate." In his testimony for the defense today, he described Wikileaks as having played a legitimate role in a new world of journalism; he argued that the government's characterization of the group as an Anti-American espionage front was inaccurate."   


Adam Klasfeld (Courthouse News)  explains, "The last witness to testify for the defense, Benkler is considered an academic authority in the evolution of media in the age of the Internet, and the most widely cited scholar on WikiLeaks."  Ian Simpson (Reuters) adds of Benkler's testimony:

 WikiLeaks is "a clear distinct component of what in the history of journalism we see as high points, where journalists are able to come in and say, 'Here's a system operating in a way that is obscure to the public and now we're able to shine the light,'" said Benkler, the co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.



Brad Knickerbocker (Christian Science Monitor) observes, "The essence of Pfc. Bradley Manning’s defense in his military court martial is that, yes, he released a trove of classified data to the controversial whistle-blower organization WikiLeaks, but that information did not seriously harm US national security – and it certainly did not aid the enemy in the war on terrorism."  RT notes, "The soldier’s court-martial is now recessed until next week, at which point government prosecutors plan to offer a rebuttal. Col. Denise Lind, the presiding military judge in the case, also is expected to weigh in next week on the defense’s recent request that the government acquit Pfc. Manning on four of the more than 20 counts he has been charged with, including aiding the enemy."


 Moving over to Iraq, today was also when UNAMI issued the following:

 SRSG Martin Kobler's message to the Iraqi people for the holy month of Ramadan
Baghdad, 10 July 2013 - As Muslims around the world are observing the holy month of Ramadan, I would like to wish a blessed and peaceful month to all Iraqis on behalf of the entire UN family in Iraq.
 Ramadan is a time of devotion and harmony, a time of charity and forgiveness.
 The country has been struck by an increasing number of attacks and great violence during the past weeks and months. May the spirit of Ramadan bring peace and the hope for a better future to all Iraqi communities.
Ramadan Mubarak!

One of the big  stories in Iraq since last week has been the Under-20 World Cup.  Marcus Ghristenson (Guardian) reports:

On the Saturday night, Ali Yaseen was part of the Iraq squad that stunned Chile to reach the last 16 of the Under-20 World Cup in Turkey. On Sunday morning his club back in Iraq, Karbala, announced that their coach, Mohammed Abbas al-Jabouri, had died from the injuries suffered in an attack by anti-terrorism police during a match the previous weekend.
Yaseen, 19, had taken his place on the bench for the game in the knowledge that his coach was in a coma and that seven of his team-mates had been injured in the attack, several of them critically. He knew, too, that if he had not been selected for the Under-20 World Cup, he would most probably have been playing in the match against Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya and could, quite possibly, have ended up in hospital with life-threatening injuries.


AP explains the results of today's match with this headline "Uruguay spoils Iraq's fairy tale run after penalties, joining France in U-20 World Cup final."  Kevin McCauley (SB Nation) reports:

Ali Adnan, an experienced senior international for Iraq, netted the opening goal with an absolutely stunning free kick, scoring his second goal of the tournament. It appeared that he would attempt to play an in-swinging cross on a free kick from the right flank, 30 yards from goal, but instead he opted to rip a bending shot towards the top corner at the near post. Uruguay keeper Guillermo De Amores actually saw and reacted to the shot well, but it was so well placed and it with so much power that he had no chance to make a save.
Uruguay had a number of good chances throughout the match, but struggled to make the most of them. Iraq goalkeeper Mohammed Hameed was erratic, but ultimately very effective and made a number of big saves and clearances. However, he wasn't able to keep a clean sheet. In the 87th minute, Felipe Avenatti won a header in a crowd and nodded down to Gonzalo Bueno, who finished from 12 yards to level the match and force extra time.

All Iraq News notes that Ali Adnan and Mohamed Hamid were injured when they crashed into one another and that the game "was suspended to transport the two Iraqi players for treatment, then they returned to the field."


 Eric Willemsen (AP) explains, "Streets and cafes in Baghdad and other cities were the scene of jubilant celebrations after the wins over Paraguay and South Korea, but the streets remained calm on Wednesday.  Iraq also drew a lot of Turkish fans, who switched allegiance after the host team lost in the first knockout round."  This was the first time in 12 years that Iraq had qualified for the semi-finals so despite today's outcome, this was a historic victory for them.  In addition to having to compete in the match, they also had to deal today with rumors that sought to disqualify the team.  Eric Williemsen (AP) reports that FIFA cleared them today of charges that any member of their team was 21 or older (which would make them too old to compete).


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Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Broccoli?

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

CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O JUST CAN'T MANAGE TO PULL OFF "ONE OF US" AND ALWAYS SEEMS LIKE THIS WEEK'S CRAZY ANOMALY ON FRINGE.

HE CONTINUED THE TREND THIS WEEK WHEN, ASKED BY A CHILD TO NAME HIS FAVORITE FOOD, BARRY O INSISTED IT WAS BROCCOLI.

BROCCOLI.

THE VEGETABLE MOST KIDS HAVE TO PRETEND ARE LITTLE TREES JUST TO GET THROUGH EATING THEM.

NEXT UP, BARRY O REVEALS HIS FAVORITE DRINKE: NEW COKE.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:



The useless Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen is thankfully heading out the door.   What a useless disappointment he became.  Appearing before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa this morning,  Bowen, in his usual pompous manner, insisted at one point, "There was no one in charge in Iraq specifically for the rebuilding program and when the Commission  Wartime Contracting on  Afghanistan held a hearing and called . . ."  Excuse me, you are over Iraq or Afghanistan?

That's right, Iraq.  So why don't you stick to the topic?

The reality is that they're closing down the SIGIR office when they should be extending it but if extending it means keeping Bowen there's no point in wasting any more money because Bowen has been useless. Why is the office needed?  Because the State Dept budget continues to include billions for Iraq.  The same State Dept that Bowen briefly called out in 2011 for its continued failure to provide his office with basic answers.  Then weak, meek Bowen fell silent.

It was time, on his final report, to deliver and instead he couldn't because he is a weak ass who speaks privately about so much but goes before Congress and plays dumb.  Instead of using his final appearance before the House to address Iraq, the stupid Bowen wanted to weigh in on Syria, Afghanistan and so many other topics.  He is a public servant and it's time to call out these public servants paid to do a job and failing to do it when appearing before Congress.  I don't give a damn what Bowen thinks is needed.  I don't give a damn about his hypothesis, speculation or conjecture.  He was paid to provide oversight on Iraq and he wanted to talk about everything except Iraq.

The Subcommittee Chair is Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the Ranking Member is Ted Deutch.  Appearing before the Subcommittee were Stuart Bowen and the Center for Complex Operations' John Herbst (who is also the former US Ambassador to the Ukraine and Uzbekistan). 

Subcommittee Chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen:  The stabilization and reconstruction operations in Iraq were, at the time, the largest such project of its kind that the United States Government ever undertook. But for all the good intentions, it was a program replete with challenges, overpromises, setbacks and shortcomings. Of course it had its share of accomplishments and successes as well, but at the end of the day when we look back at our approach to the rebuilding of Iraq we’re left with an overall sense that there were too many errors, that fraud was widespread and that here was an unnecessary amount of waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Not long into the Iraq conflict it became clear that our expectations for a limited post-conflict engagement gave way to the realities on the ground. Our mission would quickly have to shift from a short-term operation to a long-term, protracted rebuilding effort that would require large amounts of human and financial capital that we had neither the planning nor the capability to conduct. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction and his excellent team spent nine years and countless hours analyzing our efforts in Iraq in order to identify the challenges we faced, what we did wrong, where we succeeded, and most importantly: what happened to the $60 billion used to fund the rebuilding of Iraq. What was concluded painted a very grim picture of our inability to adequately plan, execute and oversee large scale stability and reconstruction operations. According to the Inspector General, as much as three to five billion dollars were wasted from the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction fund alone due to poor accountability, and as much as eight billion overall. Many projects in Iraq ran over budget and behind schedule because of a lack of oversight and lack of accountability, like the Basrah Children’s Hospital. According to the Inspector General’s reports, this hospital was supposed to cost $50 million, but ran to over $165 million and fell more than a year behind schedule. Another mismanaged project was the Fallujah Waste Water Treatment System. The IG found that the initial $30 million dollar project tripled in cost to nearly $100 million and only reached one-third of the homes originally planned. 


 From the Chair's opening remarks, there was much about Iraq to discuss.  However, Bowen was not interested in discussing Iraq. (He appeared to grow bored with his job in early 2012.)


When pressed to talk about Iraq, he got snippy and, at one point, insisted that a chief requirement for reconstruction in Iraq is to ensure that security exists before reconstruction and relief efforts are started.  Does anyone think that security exists in Iraq currently? 

Or how about his assertion that the plan was for the US to leave in September 2003 but then that changed.  Bowen is pulling opinions out of his ass and they're not opinions he was paid to develop.  That lie is laughable and that's how he wasted everyone's time repeatedly.

Ranking Member Ted Deutch:  It's been just over ten years since the United States went into Iraq under a false pretense of thwarting Weapons of Mass Destruction.  Nearly 4500 brave US soldiers were killed more than 3200 were wounded including thousands with critical brain and spinal injuries  and over 100,000 Iraqi civilians were killed.  And now I think there is an unfortunate perception that with so much upheaval in the region over the last two years, Iraq is no longer a priority.  Yet at a cost of two-trillion dollars and the high human toll, we will feel the effects of this war for many years.  The US has spent 60 billion dollars on reconstruction efforts that's an incredible amount of taxpayer dollars.


 Ranking Member Deutch deserves credit for that and for being aware of the ongoing diplomatic presence in Iraq.   US House Rep Mark Meadows deserves credit for being aware that the US military remains in Iraq.  If other members were aware of the realities Deutch and Meadows noted, they certainly didn't mention these realities in their own remarks.

After nine years of Bowen babbling on, don't you think he could have prepared for this hearing?  Don't the American people deserve accountability?  Bowen was riding his high horse about accountability.  But this was his final testimony after 9 years and he showed up unwilling or unable to note how much money his office recovered or how many people the work of his office led to convictions for.

Nine years and he had nothing to show for it but generic statements.  How very sad.


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Tuesday, July 09, 2013

He would surely choke on it

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


A JUDGE YESTERDAY STATED THAT SHE COULD NOT STOP THE FORCE-FEEDING OF THE PRISONERS AT THE GUANTANAMO CONCENTRATION CAMP BUT THAT CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O COULD.

SHE ACTUALLY COULD HAVE DONE MORE.

SHE COULD HAVE SENTENCED BARRY O TO BE FORCE-FED HIS OWN EGO.  THEN AGAIN, CONSIDERING HOW BIG HIS EGO IS, SUCH A PUNISHMENT COULD HAVE KILLED HIM.


FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Blessed Saint Barack removed all US troops from Iraq, praise be, Barack.  That's the lie, right? The damn media lie that so many whores pretending to be journalists repeat?  Well if Barack removed them all at the end of 2011, poor  Matthew Harless must have been forced to walk home from Iraq.  How else to explain his arrival home on July 4th?

The obvious way, Barack didn't remove all troops and at this late date you have to be an idiot in the news industry to pretend that he did.  Jed Gamber (WITI) has the video of Army Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Harless surprising his family by returning home last week -- they were surprised because they didn't know he was back and also because his original deployment required that he stay in Iraq another two months.  Barack did not remove all troops.  He got to tell that lie in the debates, he lies about it every damn day and the pathetic press in the United States lets him get away with it over and over, aids and abets him in the deception.  Not only did all not leave at the end of 2011, he's also begun sending more back in.  We'll go into that more later in the snapshot but considering how pervasive the lie has been that all US troops are out of Iraq, we'll open today with link to video of Harless' return.

A very dear friend called me today about a faux documentary.  He's an award winning investigative reporter of many years. I always say, "He does the hard job, not the herd job."  He's not running after the latest water cooler topic.  He's doing a job that really matters.  So he's upset about this piece of crap documentary -- radio documentary.  He calls it self-indulgent and notes that it is "all 'I' and 'me' and totally fact-free."  I say back, "Why am I picturing Kelly McEvers?"  He laughs and says it is Kelly.

What an embarrassment.

Heaven save us all from this crap put out by Transom.org "A Showcase & Workshop for New Public Radio."  If this is "New Public Radio," the big news is public radio has found a way to be even worse than it currently is.

"Diary of a Bad Year: A War Correspondent's Dilemma" ("by Kelly McEvers with Jay Allison") is not only indulgent -- self-indulgent to the extreme -- it's not only offensives and sexist (yes, it's very sexist though Kelly will claim talking about her daughter was about 'letting it all hang out' -- you're a reporter, it's not supposed to all hang out, buy some emotional spankx and keep those inner thoughts and feelings packed in tight), it's one damn lie after another.

At one point, after Kelly flees Syria (or Syria-adjacent)  for Yemen to avoid attending Anthony Shadid's funeral (she 'knows' he would want her to go cover Yemen), and after War Hawk Marie Colvin dies, as Kelly babbles on about "the tribe" and other nonsense that makes it sound like she's on a shroom trip because she didn't know anyone who could score her some peyote, she starts damning the news consumers, the entire world population, because Shadid and Colvin are dead and this hasn't made the people demand that Syria be addressed.

Someone slap Kelly to help her down from her high.

Syria doesn't need foreign troops.  That's my opinion and the opinion of many.  When NPR let Kelly report on Syria, they should have ensured that her goal was to report, not to start a war. 

NPR did allow Kelly to 'report' on Syria from Beruit (Lebanon).  Ava and I called it out repeatedly.  Such as here:



It's her reporting on Syria that's destroyed her reputation, as each day seems to find her filing yet another breathless report of the violence being witnessed in Syria, the outrageous violence, the deaths, the destruction . . . All of which she observes from Beirut. (That's in Lebanaon for those not familiar with the MidEast and, no, Lebanaon is not in Syria, it is its own country which, like Iraq, shares a border with Syria.)
Sometimes, after dispensing 'facts' on bombings and deaths and shootings, 'reporter' Kelly will add something like "the activists and witnesses and citizen journalists who we talk to on a regular basis" tell her this is what is taking place. Such a statement -- not always included -- will usually pass quickly. And no one will question whether her sources are one-sided (they certainly sound one-sided). Last week, when she was 'reporting' on rockets destroying a neighborhood and a hospital (unverifiable claims on her part) this exchange did take place:



INSKEEP: Now, Kelly, we should be clear: Few, if any, journalists are inside Homs, or in any of the contested areas in Syria. We're getting information from activists here. How confident are you of the picture that's emerging, of what's happening in Syria right now?

MCEVERS: It is so difficult to verify the numbers. And over the weekend, we saw that there were discrepancies about how many, exactly, had died in some of these government offensives. You had one activist group saying it was over 300. Another activist group saying no, it was only 60. And without being able to go there ourselves and verify it and see it with our own eyes, it's very difficult.


It's very difficult? We'd say it's impossible. And when the administration is pounding the war drums on Syria, we'd say the last thing the US needs is 'reporters' 'reporting' on something they can't verify with their own eyes. Speaking to people with vested interests and basing your report on that? Not only is that not objective journalism, it doesn't even rise to the level of news reporting. At best, it's a feature article -- a lighter category.
But nearly every day, there's Kelly on Morning Edition (or All Things Considered), breathless and insisting that violence is taking place all around her . . . Well, she watches some streams online from her echo chamber inner circle -- apparently while preparing meals based upon what she declared on Morning Edition last week. Is she doubling as a Sous-Chef at Chez Sami?





Ava and my critique above?  Published February 12, 2012.  A month and four days before Anthony Shadid died.  A month and ten days before Colvin died.  What's the title of that piece Ava and I wrote?  "No One Gets Out Alive."

Nothing that happened after we wrote that piece was surprising, nor should it have been surprising before we wrote it.

Here's reality: Anthony Shadid is not dead today because of an asthma attack.

Anthony Shadid is dead today because of his own actions which include bailing on the Iraqi people.  Yeah, I said it.  Going to Syria didn't mean he deserved to die.  But stop pretending that this was the sign of a great reporter.  No, it was the sign of a dabbler and he wasn't the only one.  Dropping coverage of what was taking place in Iraq in order to rush off to cover Syria and get a fresh war high. 

Apparently in need of more awards and not feeling Iraq would produce them, the former Washington Post journalist who had moved over (with his wife) to the New York Times and was assigned to cover Iraq decided to up and leave Iraq and go to Syria.

That's real sweet, isn't it?  How lucky he was that Iraq had ceased to have problems, right?

Oh, wait, Iraq was and is an ongoing tragedy, a world crime aided and abetted by an active press that wanted -- as Kelly let's slip that she wanted to with Syria -- to start a war.

What's really cute is listening to Kelly pour on the drama.  I love it when she's crying and pretending like she's talking to someone on the cell phone as she dictates her juvenile audio diary.  It's so perfectly stupid, so totally self-involved and the xenophobia still manages to waft over in that moment.

It's cute to listen to her babble on throughout the special, crying in her microphone about her "tribe" and her never grasping that she's an embarrassment and a racist.

See, British Marie is part of her tribe, American Anthony is part of her tribe, but what of the Iraqis?

From 2003 to 2009, the Committee To Protect Journalists notes that 117 Iraqi journalists died from violent attacks.  They're apparently not part of the 'tribe.'  Last April, Dahr Jamail (Al Jazeera) explained:


By 2010 Reporters Without Borders had recorded the deaths of 230 media professionals, 87 per cent of which were Iraqis.
The infamous day when [Tareq] Ayoub was killed along with the two Reuters' cameramen unfortunately became a warning of what was to come for journalists working in Iraq. As high as both the CPJ and Reporters Without Borders tallies are, another group, the Brussells Tribunal, closely tracked Iraqi media worker deaths in detail, and provides a detailed account of each death, concluding with the current total number of 382 journalist and media worker deaths when combining Iraqi and non-Iraqi. However, Iraq's impunity rate, or the degree to which perpetrators have escaped prosecution for killing journalists, is the worst in the world at 100 per cent. Even today, as Iraq has moved beyond the US conflict, both Iraqi and US governmental authorities have shown no interest in investigating these murders.


None of those murdered journalists are mentioned.  In a 'special' about reporting.  They don't get to be part of Kelly's 'tribe.'  It's called racism.  Most people today are smart enough not to use a derogatory word to signal their racism.  So what you're left with are their actions and their remarks.  Kelly repeatedly explains how important this death and that death and this tribe member and that tribe member is and was.  She can reach back years to include some.  But none of them are Iraqis.

February 8, 2011, Kelly reported (NPR's Morning Edition) on how Iraqi journalist Hadi al-Mahdi had been abducted from a Baghdad cafe by Nouri's forces (abducted along with other journalists) and tortured.  September 8, 2011, Hadi was assassinated in his home.  Assassinated by a person or persons smart enough to have turned off the neighborhood video camera that would have caught the assassin or assassins on tape.  Assassinated by a person whom Hadi trusted enough to let into his home and to serve tea to.  And Kelly was off with the so-called 'rebels' of The Free Syrian Army.

In all her time advocating on behalf of The Free Syrian Army and passing this advocacy off as 'reporting,' Kelly never managed to offer a realistic view of her charming buddies.  August 3, 2012, Hannah Allam and Austin Tice (McClatchy Newspapers) reported:

The issue of rebel conduct has come to the forefront this month largely because of a video posted online showing the aftermath of apparent executions of pro-Assad militiamen during the rebels’ capture of an intelligence center in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
A reporter for the Turkish newspaper Milliyet witnessed the incident Tuesday and confirmed in a first-person account the circumstances of the killings: More than a dozen men were captured alive and then summarily executed in what advocacy group Human Rights Watch called an apparent “war crime.”
The men “were forced into a building, then brought before a court of the Free Syrian Army on the back of a pickup truck, after which they were lined up and shot at lightning speed,” the Milliyet reporter wrote.
The incident doesn’t appear to be isolated, either. A McClatchy reporter traveling with a unit of the Free Syrian Army was told that rebels had captured about 45 Assad loyalists in fighting in Al Tal, north of Damascus. Asked later what had become of the prisoners, a rebel said eight had been executed, 25 had been released and the rest were being held in hopes of a future prisoner exchange.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/08/03/159888/accounts-of-syria-rebels-executing.html#.Udss5G2bKrt#storylink=cpy


Hey, remember the 'report' where Kelly cried on microphone for her 'dear friend' with The Free Syrian Army who had just died?  Kelly does a lot of whimpering, most of it ill or uninformed. 

No ethical boundary or fact has ever constrained Kelly from serving up her emotional outbursts passed off as reporting. 

She is paid to be objective and unbiased but her 'reporting' on Syria made clear that she was no such thing.  She was one-sided and it was always in favor of the 'poor' 'rebels.'  She admits she wanted US troops on the ground in Syria -- admits that in her little documentary.  NPR should be appalled by the documentary, McEvers should be ashamed of how far she will go in her attempt to sell a war, that's she's so quick to turn herself into a one-woman William Randolph Hearst. 

But the major problem is -- and remains -- that 'reporters' were allowed to leave Iraq.  The US press sold the illegal war.  They should never, ever be allowed to leave Iraq.  They should always have a ton of reporters present.  Instead, they're no better than a con artist at a bad used car lot.  They sold it, when it broke down, they didn't want to know.  They did just enough to get it going and off the lot and then they were focusing on other things.


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