BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL AID TABLE
FORGET THE COMBAT BOOTS, CRANKY CLINTON WEARS GRANDMA PANTIES!
REACHED FOR COMMENT TODAY BY THESE REPORTERS, CRANKY CONFIRMED WHAT THE PANTY LINES HAD LONG TOLD: SHE'S RETIRED FROM THE 'SPORT.'
"COMFORT AND JOY, BOYS, COMFORT AND JOY!" SHE EXCLAIMED BEFORE ADDING THAT CLOSING THE CHAPTER ON HER SEXUAL LIFE WAS "LIBERATING AND TIME SAVING. THESE DAYS, IT'S HAYNES FOR HER ALL THE WAY!"
ASKED IF SHE WAS OFFENDED BY THE QUESTION, CRANKY SNORTED AND POINTED OUT HER HUSBAND WAS ASKED IN AN MTV 'DEBATE' BACK IN 1992 THE ETERNAL PRESSING QUESTION OF "BOXERS OR BRIEFS?"
"FOR ME, ON A COLD DAY, IT'S BOTH!"
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Today, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi staged his latest attempt at taking (a part of) Anbar Province away from the Islamic State. As Sinan Salaheddin (AP) observes:
This is not the first time the Iraqi government has announced an operation to retake Anbar — where several key towns, including the provincial capital Ramadi, remain under IS control. In May, authorities announced an operation to retake Ramadi, but there has not been any major progress on the ground since then.
Dominic Evans (Reuters) explains, "The sprawling Sunni Muslim province extends hundreds of kilometers west of Baghdad. Many of the towns and cities that line the banks of the Euphrates, snaking down from the Syrian border, are Islamic State strongholds.Islamic State's capture of Ramadi two months ago marked the biggest defeat for the Baghdad government since the militants swept through the north of the country last June and declared a caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq straddling the border."
AP has also noted that the announcement was made on Iraqi TV by Yahya Rasool who is the spokesperson for the Joint Operations Command but that he failed to "clarify whether the U.S.-led international coalition is taking part, mentioning only government forces and allied Shiite and Sunni paramilitary troops." Failed to clarify or failed to credit?
Al Jazeera's Imran Khan offered:
We are hearing the province will be surrounded on three sides going up to the border with Syria. They have announced operations like this one in the past particularly in Ramadi when it was taken by ISIL forces in mid-May. And that's a battle that's still ongoing. It is likely that this operation will concentrate on the second city in Anbar province, Fallujah, and move further west. While this is going on, we have also heard coalition airstrikes have hit an ISIL media and radio station in Anbar province.
What are they fighting for in Iraq?
Freedom?
Or the ability to carry out their own killings?
Mitchell Prothero (McClatchy Newspapers) reports:
Iraqi officials have been candid that the brunt of the fighting about to engulf the city will be borne by an umbrella group of Shiite militia groups formed under the supervision of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the elite of Shiite Iran. That’s raised dire concerns from American advisers that these sectarian groups – overtly hostile to both Americans and Sunni Muslims – will break the already deeply frayed relationship between the Shiite government in Baghdad and the Sunni tribes that dominate the large swaths of Iraq currently under the Islamic State’s control.
The government claims that Sunni tribal fighters and local policemen from Anbar will join the militia-led assault. But many remain skeptical that Sunnis have joined in sufficient numbers to avoid the impression of a Shiite pogrom against Sunnis in Fallujah.
At the US State Dept press briefing today, spokesperson John Kirby spun wildly.
QUESTION: Slightly Iran-related. In relation to Fallujah, wondering if the United States detects any evidence of Iranian involvement or direction of Shiite militia trying to take back Fallujah?
MR KIRBY: I would point you to the Iraqi Government – this is an Iraqi-led operation – to speak to the participation of these Popular Mobilization Forces and certainly Tehran for the degree that they are or are not facilitating. I do think it’s important to remember a couple of things. This is an Iraqi-led operation, as it should be. And so we’re going to let them speak to the progress of it. And then on the Popular Mobilization Forces, and I mentioned this a week or so ago but I think it bears repeating: About 80 percent of these Popular Mobilization Forces, or Shia militia as they are otherwise known, are not at all connected to Tehran or the Iranian regime. They’re Iraqi citizens proud of their country and wanting to chip in and fight. And what we’ve said from the very beginning is that all the forces arrayed on the ground against ISIL in Iraq need to be under the command and control of the Iraqi Government. And that’s what we’ve seen with the vast majority of these Shia militiamen.
So I think it’s just important to keep a little context in here. When we talk about Shia militia fighting here or fighting there, there’s this automatic sort of connection drawn to Tehran, and that’s just not the case mathematically.
The assault on Anbar comes as the United Nations News Centre reports:
The ongoing conflict in Iraq continues to exact a “terrible” and deadly toll on the country’s civilians, particularly in the areas still under control by the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), according to a new report released today by the United Nations.
The report – a joint effort compiled by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) – notes that the situation facing civilians in ISIL-controlled territory remains dire with many of those perceived to be opposed to the extremist group’s ideology being murdered, often in “grim public spectacles.”
Members of ethnic and religious communities, for instance, continue to be persecuted with as many as 3,500 members of the Yezidi community remaining under ISIL captivity enduring physical and sexual violence.
Others, meanwhile, are apparently being persecuted based on their perceived sexual orientation. On 8 March, the report says, ISIL beheaded two individuals accused of homosexuality and a third for blasphemy in the Bab al-Toob area of Mosul.
[. . .]
Although the report widely focuses on the crimes perpetrated by ISIL extremists, it also documents violations committed by the Iraqi Security Forces and affiliated forces, including indiscriminate airstrikes and shelling as well as actions of reprisal against civilians.
Meanwhile Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts 90 violent deaths across Iraq today.
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