Thursday, February 09, 2017

Cornered Corrine

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

CORRINE BROWN, FORMER MEMBER OF CONGRESS, DENIES THE FEDERAL CHARGES AGAINST HER EVEN THOUGH HER FORMER AIDE HAS TURNED ON HER AND PLEADED GUILTY TO THEIR PAY-TO-PLAY SCAM.

REACHED FOR COMMENT, MS. BROWN DENIED THE CHARGES TO THESE REPORTERS.

OR WE THINK SHE DID.

"AH-BA-BOO-BAH-SUBA-SAW!"

THIS IS WHAT MS. BROWN DECLARED WAVING HER HANDS WILDLY WHILE HER WIG BOBBED TOO AND FRO.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:


ALL IRAQ NEWS carries the story that Moqtada al-Sadr is discussing teaming with Ayaad al-Allawi for a political slate in the upcoming elections.

Moqtada is one of the most powerful Shi'ite politicians.  His only real challenger to the title is probably Ammar al-Hakim.

Ayaad al-Alawi is a Shi'ite as well.

He proved his political strength in the 2010 election when he devised an integrated political slate, Iraqiya, which won the 2010 elections and which would have led to Ayaad being prime minister were it not for then-US President Barack Obama overturning the election results with The Erbil Agreement.
(For those keeping track, when the US government interfered with that election, Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.)

A teaming of Moqtada and Allawi is not all the strange.

Nouri al-Maliki sees both as political enemies.  (Nouri was prime minister from 2006 through 2014 and wants to be prime minister again.)

And the two were part of a coalition attempting to get a no confidence vote against Nouri in 2011.  (Then-US Vice President Joe Biden pressured then-Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to stop the process.)


If they do form a political slate, it would not be surprising if they attempted to bring in Ammar and others they had worked with in 2011 as well.



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Wednesday, February 08, 2017

Mommy to the rescue?

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

NEPOTISM ONLY WORKS WHILE YOUR GO-TO HAS POWER.



POOR MARC MEZINVINSKY HAD TO SHUTTER HIS DOORS WHEN MOMMY-IN-LAW CRANKY CLINTON DIDN'T BECOME PRESIDENT.

AND YOU WONDER WHY CHELSEA CLINTON IS TRYING TO GET POLITICAL?

REACHED FOR COMMENT, BABY CHELSEA TOOK THE SUCKER OUT OF HER MOUTH AND EXPLAINED, "WITH THE CLINTON FOUNDATION PROBLEMS, I CAN'T USE IT AS MY PERSONAL ATM.  NOW MY HUSBAND'S BUSINESS HAS COLLAPSED.  IT WAS OBVIOUS FROM MY TIME WITH NBC THAT I HAD NO SKILLS, TALENT OR BRAINS.  IN FACT, TOM BROKAW TOLD MY MOMMY THAT.  SHE SAID, 'GOOD.  WE'LL SEND HER INTO POLITICS.' I'M JUST GLAD TO KNOW I MIGHT BE QUALIFIED FOR SOMETHING.  IS IT NAP TIME YET?"


FROM THE TCI WIRE:


The media failure never ends.

Link to headline article




What is the purpose of this trash?

It's supposed to be journalism.

But it fails at every test.

Michael Gregory seems unaware that when 'reporting' for REUTERS it is his job to provide context.

If it's just a non-stop feed, it's not reporting.

The so-called Iraqi forces are yet again breaking the law but you'd never know that to read Michael Gregory's so-called report.

They are leaving the bodies of members of the Islamic State in the streets -- so dogs will eat the corpses, one helpfully explains.


In the long and useless article, Gregory finds time for this, "But a man who approached said the bodies should be buried because that is everyone's right."

And that's the closest to context Gregory ever gets.

It is everyone's right.

It is also -- a point Gregory fails to inform the readers -- the law.


From the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent:





Rule 115. Disposal of the Dead
Rule 115. The dead must be disposed of in a respectful manner and their graves respected and properly maintained.
Summary
State practice establishes this rule as a norm of customary international law applicable in both international and non-international armed conflicts.
International armed conflicts
The obligation to dispose of the dead respectfully was first codified in the 1929 Geneva Conventions.[1]  It is now dealt with in detail in the 1949 Geneva Conventions.[2] Many military manuals specify that the dead must be disposed of decently.[3]  This obligation is set forth in the legislation of most, if not all, States.[4]  It was upheld in 2002 by Israel’s High Court in the Jenin (Mortal Remains) case.[5] The above-mentioned treaty provisions also require that graves be respected and properly maintained. Additional Protocol I adds that the parties must conclude agreements to protect and maintain gravesites permanently.[6]  The requirement to respect and maintain gravesites is also laid down in numerous military manuals.[7] 
Non-international armed conflicts
The obligation to dispose of the dead decently in non-international armed conflicts is set forth in Additional Protocol II.[8]  In addition, this rule is contained in other instruments pertaining also to non-international armed conflicts.[9] A number of military manuals which are applicable in or have been applied in non-international armed conflicts specify that the dead must be disposed of decently.[10]  The legislation of most, if not all, States requires respect for this rule.[11]  It may be said that this rule reflects a general principle of law requiring respect for the dead and their graves.No official contrary practice was found with respect to either international or non-international armed conflicts. A reported case of the disrespectful disposal of dead civilians in Papua New Guinea was condemned by the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions.[12] 
It is also likely that further detailed rules supporting the requirement of decent disposal of the dead and respect and proper maintenance of their gravesites are contained in domestic legislation.
Interpretation
The Geneva Conventions specify that the dead must be buried, if possible, according to the rites of the religion to which they belonged and that they may only be cremated in exceptional circumstances, namely because of imperative reasons of hygiene, on account of the religion of the deceased or in accordance with the express wish of the deceased.[13]  The Geneva Conventions furthermore require that, in principle, burial should be in individual graves. Collective graves may only be used when circumstances do not permit the use of individual graves or, in case of burial of prisoners of war or civilian internees, because unavoidable circumstances require the use of collective graves.[14]  Lastly, the Geneva Conventions require that graves be grouped according to nationality if possible.[15]  These requirements are also set forth in numerous military manuals.[16] It is likely that some of these requirements also apply in non-international armed conflicts on the basis of national law. In 1995, for example, Colombia’s Council of State held that the deceased must be buried individually subject to all the requirements of the law, and not in mass graves.[17] 



It is a violation of the law.

In all the rah rah quotes (see the article) about how wonderful leaving bodies in the streets as a lesson is, Gregory never notes the law.

His job is to provide context.

The law is context.

When people complain that they were treated unfairly under the law, they are complaining because laws exist so that we ideally are all treated uniformly.  Mob mentality is not the law.  Vengeance is not the law.

What is taking place in Mosul right now is not the law.

It is yet another violation of the law.

And it shames not only the Iraqi military but the government that has allowed these travesties to take place.

The government of Iraq was put in place by an occupying power (the United States government).

It has failed to represent the Iraqi people which is why the Islamic State was able to get a hold in Iraq to begin with.

Now it fails to follow even the most basic recognized international laws.

And for Michael Gregory and REUTERS, that's not a story.

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    "THIS JUST IN! HOLY BROCK!"




  • Tuesday, February 07, 2017

    More bad news for con artist Brock

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

    MAYBE NEXT TIME DON'T FUND DAVID BROCK'S MAKE OVER?

    1. Mimicking Breitbart is the kind of obviously awful idea that only a slug like Brock would come up with (and get idiot rich people to fund)
    2. David Brock is an avowed, unrepentant, smear-job propagandist: this deal was always exceedingly unlikely to work out


    TRASH REMAINS TRASH NO MATTER WHAT KIND OF BAG YOU PUT IT IN.


    FROM THE TCI WIRE:


    Meanwhile, an unnamed Iraqi military officer tells WORLD BULLETING NEWS that 5 civilians have been executed by the Islamic State today in Mosul.

    Yes, The Mosul Slog continues.

    In June of 2014, the Islamic State seized Mosul.

    Late last year, the Iraqi government suddenly grew interested in liberating or 'liberating' the city.

    112 days ago, the operation to liberate Mosul began.

    All they've accomplished in 112 days is clearing eastern Mosul.  (Though that is already in question.)


    Patrick Cockburn (THE LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS) offers:


    The offensive against Mosul, the biggest city still held by Islamic State, began on 17 October when Iraqi army troops, with the support of US-led air power, entered the city’s eastern districts. Expectations of a quick victory were soon disappointed when Iraqi soldiers began to suffer heavy casualties as small but highly mobile IS units of half a dozen fighters moved from house to house through hidden tunnels or holes cut in the walls to set up sniper positions, plant booby traps and bury IEDs. Local people whose houses were taken over say that the snipers were Chechens or Afghans who talked in broken Arabic. These fighters were supported by local IS men who also helped hide the suicide bombers who were to drive vehicles packed with explosives. There were 632 vehicle bombs during the first six weeks of the offensive. An IS squad would use a house until it had been pinpointed by Iraqi government forces and was about to be destroyed by heavy weapons or US-led airstrikes. Before the counterattack came they would move on to another house. IS has traditionally favoured fluid tactics, with each squad or detachment acting independently and with limited top-down control. Adapted to an urban environment, this approach allows small groups of fighters to harass much larger forces, by swiftly retreating and then infiltrating captured neighbourhoods so they have to be retaken again and again.
    The Iraqi and US governments had every reason to play down the fact that they had failed to take Mosul and had instead been sucked into the biggest battle fought in Iraq and Syria since the US invasion in 2003. It was only in the second week of January that Iraqi special forces reached the River Tigris after ferocious fighting: with the support of US planes, helicopters, artillery and intelligence they had finally taken control of Mosul University, which had served as an IS headquarters for the eastern part of the city, along with the area’s 450,000 inhabitants. But reaching the Tigris was far from being the end of the fight. On 13 January, IS blew up the five bridges spanning the river. The city’s western part is a much greater challenge: home to 750,000 people, many of whom are thought to be sympathetic to IS, it’s a larger, poorer and older area, with closely packed streets that are easy to defend. Only the aid agencies, coping with the heavy civilian casualties and the prospects of a fight to the death by IS, appreciated the scale of what was happening: on 11 January, the UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Iraq, Lise Grande, said the city was ‘witnessing one of the largest urban military operations since the Second World War’. She warned that the intensity of the fighting was such that 47 per cent of those treated for gunshot wounds were civilians, far more than in other sieges of which the UN had experience. The nearest parallel to what is happening in Mosul would be the siege of Sarajevo between 1992 and 1995, in which 10,000 people were killed, or the siege of Grozny in 1994-95, in which an estimated 5500 civilians died. But the loss of life in Mosul could be much heavier than in either of those cities because it is defended by a movement which will not negotiate or surrender and kills anybody who shows any sign of wavering. IS believes death in battle is the supreme expression of Islamic faith, which fits in well with a doomed last stand.


    Figures for wounded civilians in Mosul over the last three months may well exceed those for East Aleppo over the same period. This is partly because ten times as many people have been caught up in the fighting in Mosul, whose population according to the UN is 1.2 million; 116,000 civilians were evacuated from East Aleppo. Of that number, 2126 sick and war-wounded were evacuated to hospitals, according to the WHO. Casualties in the Mosul campaign are difficult to establish, partly because the Iraqi government and the US have been at pains to avoid giving figures. Officials in Baghdad angrily denounced the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq when it announced that 1959 Iraqi soldiers, police, Kurdish Peshmerga and their paramilitary allies had been killed in November alone. The UN was forced to agree not to release information about Iraq’s military casualties in future, but US officers confirmed that some units in the 10,000-strong Golden Division – a US-trained elite force within the Iraqi army whose soldiers get higher pay – had suffered 50 per cent casualties by the end of the year. The Iraqi government was equally silent about the number of civilian casualties and emphasised its own great restraint in the use of artillery and airpower. But the doctors in Iraqi Kurdistan treating injured people fleeing from Mosul were less reticent: they complained that they were being overwhelmed. On 30 December, the Kurdish health minister, Rekawt Hama Rasheed, said his hospitals had received 13,500 injured Iraqi troops and civilians and were running out of medicines. The extent of civilian losses hasn’t ebbed since: the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Iraq said that over two weeks at the turn of the year, some 1500 Iraqis from Mosul suffering from trauma injuries had reached Kurdish hospitals, mostly from frontline areas and ‘with most of these injuries occurring just after the fighting intensified at the end of December’. These numbers only give a rough idea of the real losses: they don’t include the dead, or the wounded in western Mosul who didn’t want to leave – or couldn’t, because they were being used as human shields by IS. The UN says that many people were shot by IS fighters as they tried to escape.



    Fazel Hawramy (AL-MONITOR) adds:

    Many in Mosul have lost everything, including their vehicles and homes in airstrikes, suicide car bombs or during the fighting. People who spoke to Al-Monitor said they hope the government will take responsibility for providing services and compensation so the residents can rebuild their lives. Mosul used to be the center for trade and industry in northern Iraq, and with its close proximity to Syria and Turkey, its economy could revive fast.
    Peace in Mosul is crucial if Abadi wants to see stability in Iraq. Since the 2003 invasion, Mosul has been the strategic center of gravity for terrorist groups and it’s been in a state of rebellion. Until now, by and large the Iraqi security forces and in particular the CTS have treated the people in east Mosul with dignity and respect. However, in recent days, videos have surfaced on the internet that show individuals accused of collaboration with IS being killed on the spot. Other videos show children and adults accused of IS ties or membership being tortured and humiliated. Abadi has ordered a field investigation.
    Mosul residents say that peace is possible in Mosul if the government continues its commitment to prevent sectarianism, provide services and increase transparency in a city where the government and corruption have gone hand in hand for years. But for now, while more than 750,000 people are under siege in west Mosul and await a bloody battle to be liberated, people in the east have different priorities. When asked about the three things the government can do for the residents right now, Abu Salim replied, "[Provide] water, electricity and kerosene."



    Liberating Mosul was supposedly about helping the people of Mosul.

    The city was taken by the Islamic State in June of 2017.


    But the people of Mosul continue to be victimized.

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