AS CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O CONTINUES TO DELAY ON BOMBING HIMSELF (SEE "Barry O delays bombing self, cites public opinion" AND "THIS JUST IN! BARRY O DELAYS BOMBING OF SELF!"), U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY MAKES CLEAR THAT HE HAS HAD ENOUGH OF BARRY O'S DILLY-DALLY-ING.
REFERRING TO A SEPTEMBER 13TH INCIDENT INVOLVING BARRY O AND THE AMIR OF KUWAIT (HIS HIGHNESS SHAYKH SABAH AL-AHMAD AL-JABER AL SABAH) IN WHICH GAS WAS PASSED, KERRY DECLARED TODAY, "SO THERE YOU HAVE IT. GAS WAS PASSED. GAS WAS USED."
THE SEPTEMBER 13TH INCIDENT ATTRACTED MINIMAL ATTENTION IN REAL TIME BECAUSE IT WAS SAID THEN THAT FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA HAD ACTUALLY BEEN THE ONE WHO FARTED. NOT WANTING TO EMBARRASS HER, THE PRESS HAD LOOKED THE OTHER WAY UNTIL THE AMIR OF KUWAIT BEGAN SPEAKING.
"IT SMELLED LIKE BOILED EGGS, I TELL YOU," SAID THE AMIR. "I WAS GASPING FOR AIR AND I NOTED IN HORROR THAT OBAMA WAS LAUGHING. I ALSO NOTED THAT HIS WIFE WAS ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE ROOM. SO IT STRUCK ME AS UNLIKELY THAT SHE HAD FARTED EVEN THOUGH OBAMA KEPT INSISTING IT WAS HER. WHEN I PRESSED HIM ON IT, HE TRIED TO BLAME BO BUT NO WHITE HOUSE DOG WAS AROUND."
ONCE THE AMIR WENT PUBLIC WITH HIS ACCUSATION, SECRETARY KERRY AND U.S. SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN BEGAN DEMANDING ACTION -- THAT BARRY O CONDUCT AN ATTACK ON HIMSELF.
SPEAKING AT THE UNITED NATIONS TODAY, KERRY TRIED TO CONVEY THE GRAVITY OF THE SITUATION, "IMAGINE BEING DOWNWIND OF THAT. AND WHAT IF IT IS IN WINTER, WHICH IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER? IT MIGHT BE SO COLD THAT OPENING A WINDOW IS NOT FEASABLE. THE U.S. MUST ACT. I HAVE SEEN BARRY O EAT BEANS WITH EVERY MEAL!"
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
All of these words whispered in my ear
Tell a story that I cannot bear to hear
Just cause I said it, it don't mean that I meant it
People say crazy things
Just cause I said it, don't mean that I meant it
Just cause you heard it
Rumor has it
-- "Rumor Has It," written by Adele and Ryan Tedder, first appears on Adele's 21
Rumor has it on Arabic Facebook sites (and other social media) today that Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has passed away. Last December, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani suffered a stroke. The incident took place late on December 17th (see the December 18th snapshot) and resulted in Jalal being admitted to Baghdad's Medical Center Hospital. Thursday, December 20th, he was moved to Germany. He remains in Germany currently. All Iraq News reports his political party, the Kurdistan Patriotic Union, has issued a denial: "The reports that were posted via some Facebook pages regarding the death of Talabani are totally groundless."
Iraq has three security ministries. One person should head each one. But Nouri never nominated people to head the ministries. Back in July 2012, Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) observed, "Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has struggled to forge a lasting power-sharing agreement and has yet to fill key Cabinet positions, including the ministers of defense, interior and national security, while his backers have also shown signs of wobbling support."
The Iraqi Constitution explains how someone becomes prime minister. First, the Iraqi president names a prime minister-designate. That person then has 30 days to put together a cabinet. Putting together a cabinet includes nominating the people, getting Parliament to agree on the people (vote their consent). The only way someone moves from prime minister-designate to prime minister is via the Cabinet. This does not mean a partial Cabinet. The reason for this clause is that this is supposed to demonstrate that the person can work with the Parliament, provide leadership and, where needed, make the needed compromise. An Iraqi who was part of drafting the 2005 Constitution e-mailed that "the entire purpose [of this process] was to prevent a Maliki type from becoming prime minister. His failures in his second term can be traced to his failure [as prime minister designate] to work with the parliament."
How did Nouri move from prime minister-designate to prime minister when he failed the only task for the position? Failure to name a Cabinet (in full) in 30 days means the Iraqi president is supposed to name another person to be prime minister-designate.
Nouri was able to ignore the Constitution in 2010 because his being named prime minister-designate ignored the Constitution as well. The prime minister-designate is supposed to come from the political party or political slate that won the most votes. Nouri's State of Law came in second to Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya. Allawi should have been named prime minister-designate.
Nouri at first screamed for a recount. When that didn't change the outcome signficantly, he dug in his heels and refused to relinquish his position. For eight months, he refused to step down. Having the backing of the United States allowed him to do that. They should have eased him out.
They actually should have listened to Gen Ray Odierno who was the top US commander in Iraq at the time. Before the March 2010 elections, Odierno was saying Nouri might not come in first (a prospect the press refused to entertain) and Odierno was saying that Nouri might refuse to step down. But the idiot Chris Hill, apparently half-baked on who knows what, insisted that wasn't going to happen and went around Odierno to the White House which chose to believe Hill and not Odierno. History has demonstrated the lousy US Ambassador to Iraq to be an idiot and Odierno to be someone with keen observational skills.
The White House didn't just cover for Nouri to keep him in power for eight months after the elections, they also pushed and prodded the leaders of the various political blocs to sign off on a contract known as The Erbil Agreement. This contract circumvented the Iraqi Constitution to give Nouri a second term (illegally give him a second term). Since The Erbil Agreement gave him a second term, Nouri was not required to meet the 30-day rule for naming a Cabinet.
And the effects of that illegal maneuver by the US government can be immediately seen in the increased violence today.
"We are new to democracy, as a country, we are new to that." We'll come back to that quote. Right now, let's look at some of today's violence.
National Iraqi News Agency reports 1 Mosul shop owner was shot dead in his store, a roadside bombing near Tikrit claimed 1 life and left another person injured. and an Iraqi army officer was shot dead outside Rashad. EFE reports, "Nine people were killed and 30 others injured Thursday in a bombing at a market west of Baghdad, Iraqi police told Efe. The attack took place in Abu Ghraib, home of the notorious prison." Fu Peng (Xinhua) focuses on another bombing, "Also, at least two civilians were killed and 30 wounded when a truck bomb detonated near a house of a police officer in Imam Ahmed district in the city of Tuz-Khurmato, some 180 km north of Baghdad, a local police source anonymously told Xinhua. The huge blast left some 15 nearby houses and several private cars damaged, the source said." All Iraq News notes that the corpses of 10 young adults (ages "17 to 25") were discovered in Baghdad (all were shot dead). EFE adds the ten were all men. AFP provides this context, "Summary executions were commonplace at the height of the Sunni-Shiite conflict when many thousands of people were killed in cold blood. But this was the first time in several years that such a large number of bodies had been found in one place." Found? Reuters reports "unusual vehicle traffic" to and from an abandoned building caught the attention of children who entered them empty building and found the corpses "inside one of its rooms" according to a police source. Fang Yang (Xinhua) also notes a police source for the information that the corpses "were blindfolded and handcuffed with bullet holes in the heads." That's 24 reported dead and 61 reported injured.
But that wasn't all the violence. NINA reports:
Police source told NINA that gunmen opened fire, using guns with silencers, at a shop owner in Ishaqi district, south of Tikrit, killing him instantly, for cooperating with security forces.
He added that 3 improvised explosive devices went off near the body of the deceased, when people and security forces gathered, killing 5 persons and wounding 18 others.
He added that 3 improvised explosive devices went off near the body of the deceased, when people and security forces gathered, killing 5 persons and wounding 18 others.
Killed for cooperating with security forces? And on the same day the Ministry of the Interior was attempting to spin cooperation. Today Deputy Interior Minister Adnan al-Assadi told Al-Shorfa that Iraq's tips line was a huge success. He insisted that there "terrorism-related notifications has increased by 40% in comparison to the figure from August." Wow. Nearly double. Can al-Assadi do math? Some people -- and at one point a talking Barbie doll -- found math to be hard. I certainly don't consider myself to be a math expert. But if I'm reading an article about how helpful these phone call-ins are and how their number has basically doubled and then you tell me that these tips have helped you "arrest 28 suspects," even I can see something wrong with that picture. And that's before you factor in that 28 suspects arrested is not even a large daily number -- mass arrests account for twice that on a slow day in Iraq of late. And let's not forget that Nouri used yesterday's weekly address to sell the Iraqi equivalent of NYC's "If you see something, say something." If you've had a 40% increase, you use your weekly address to thank people for that, not to beg them to call your hotline.
And in that classic story, you find what continues to fuel the violence in Iraq. Nouri's answer has repeatedly been mass arrests which have imprisoned many innocents. This only further destabilizes the country. And, as this takes place, the idiot Nouri doesn't even have, all these years later, ministers to head the security ministries.
Through yesterday, Iraq Body Count puts the number of violent deaths in the country so far this month at 651. And UNAMI issued the following yesterday:
Baghdad, 18 September 2013 - The Deputy Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General (DSRSG) for Iraq, Mr. Gyorgy Busztin, expressed extreme concern about sectarian based displacement after recent worrying reports about forcible expulsion of Al Saadoun tribal communities from Dhi-Qar and Shabak communities from Ninewa, along with killings of members of Sunni community in Basra. كوردی
"The use of violence and intimidation against communities by illegal armed groups forcing them to flee their homes is unacceptable and a clear violation of basic human rights," DSRSG Busztin said, stressing that this worrying trend may pose grave risks for Iraq's social cohesion and may be disruptive to the ongoing efforts for national reconciliation.
The UN Envoy called on the Iraqi authorities to protect communities from attack, ensuring their safety, security, and right to a peaceful life free of intimidation.
The Kurdish Globe reminds the UN's death toll for last month was 800 Iraqis killed and that 5,000 have been killed so far this year. And yet what Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) reported back in July 2012 is still true today, "Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has struggled to forge a lasting power-sharing agreement and has yet to fill key Cabinet positions, including the ministers of defense, interior and national security, while his backers have also shown signs of wobbling support."
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