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Thursday,
November 15, 2012. Chaos and violence continue, Nouri's State of Law
continues spreading rumors, Nouri's State of Law continues not to grasp
what a constitution is (let alone what it says), Moqtada sums up what
Nouri's attempts to end the ration card system really meant, and more.
Let's start with Benghazi because, like Elaine,
I'm getting real damn tired of Our Liar Of The Left. Today OLOFL calls
out CNN's Anderson Cooper and Erin Burnett, ABC's Jake Tapper, PBS'
Kwame Holman and others. Could they all be wrong?
Certainly. Anyone can be wrong. I'm wrong all the time. That's part of life.
I'm
also not concerned with 'tone' -- with one exception -- because you
should call people out in your own voice and not someone elses, we need
more voices hitting more notes not a choir of tenors all hitting the
same damn note. My exception? OLOFL's sexism is well known and I
did notice that Erin Burnett gets a special kind of attack different
from the men.
Today OLOTL accuses the
journalists of many things including "cherry picking." He's the one
who's cherry picking. Susan Rice went on television six days after the
September 11, 2012 attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi. She went on
multiple programs. Journalists have to condense. That is not the same
thing as "cherry picking." They're dealing with the totality of Susan
Rice's presentation.
Some try to argue she's
the messenger. Yes, I believe she was confirmed to be that. I believe
that's what an ambassador does. But the American people don't give a
damn if she was just the messenger or not. She went on television and
spoke about Benghazi. She was flat out wrong. Now if anyone wants to
argue that Susan Rice is incompetent, he might get some takers. But to
argue that she couldn't help it and blah blah blah? No. That ship
sailed a long time ago. She was going on every network Sunday morning.
CBS' Face The Nation, NBC's Meet The Press, ABC's This Week, CNN's State of the Union, Fox News Sunday
-- am I missing one? All links go to transcripts -- Fox News was smart
enough to put their video and transcript together. She presented the
same bad talking points over and over. Five live interviews that
morning? She should have known her facts before she gave the first one,
she should have known her facts and been up to date before the first
interview (which dismisses the claim that Saturday evening a new view
emerged and poor Susan Rice woke up Sunday morning, took out her curlers
and stepped in front of the camera). She used "spontaneous" in every
interview (Somerby attacks Anderson for noting "spontaneous"). Susan
Rice was the messenger because the State Dept wasn't going to lie.
Susan Rice shouldn't have been on TV. It should have been Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton or someone else at the State Dept, Vice President
Joe Biden, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, etc. Susan Rice?
Please. The US Ambassador to the United Nations?
That
was above her head. If she's stupid enough to think she can ace it,
then she's stupid enough to earn the blame for her idiotic statements
which -- even in the official White House timeline -- are now out of
date and wrong.
I've done press junkets. As I
go from interview to interview, I have someone telling me if any
information has changed and I'm revising my remarks to include that --
and that's the entertainment industry. Susan Rice should have known the
information that came in on Saturday before she spoke on Sunday. If no
one bothered to inform her, that's also on her because she should have
demanded it when she agreed to do the programs, "I need to know every
update that comes in between now and when I step on camera."
Is
that hard? Well so is life. And if you're going to go on TV to
speak about an attack that claimed the lives of 4 Americans (Sean Smith,
Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty and Chris Stevens) and speak on behalf of
the US government, your job is to be prepared.
She wasn't or she lied. She was incompetent or she lied.
Actually, she may have been incompetent and a liar.
I see this as a lie, ". . . what we understand to be the assessment at present" (Face The Nation,
similar words used on other programs). That's a lie. That's,
according to the White House, the assessment early Saturday afternoon as
she got a briefing. It wasn't Saturday evening's assessment. It
certainly wasn't Sunday morning's assessment.
Again,
if you're going on TV to do live interviews and you are representing
the US government, you need the most current information. She didn't do
the work required. Maybe she wasn't smart enough to know what work was
required? Maybe her personal time Saturday and Sunday was more
important to her? I have no idea. But she went on TV Sunday morning
and gave out-of-date information according to the White House's version
of events.
She should have cared a little less
about protecting the White House and a little more about serving the
American people. Barack Obama is not paying her, the American people
are. She works for the American people and she takes an oath to the
Constitution, not to a office, not to a person.
She
wants to be Secretary of State and Barack wants her to as well. If
nominated, she'll be jumping over Senator John Kerry which should raise
eyebrows considering her awful record in the last four years in terms of
public diplomacy. And that's the only record she has. Yet she's going
to be put in charge of the US State Dept which is in charge of Iraq?
This liar or incompetent or both is going to be put over the billions of
dollars the US is still pouring into Iraq? America needs someone
trustworthy in that position. Susan Rice is a joke to many American
people. She's not up to the job and she comes in as a joke. This is
how Barack Obama wants to waste his time post-election?
I
thought the second term was going to be about getting things done. I
thought this was the term Barack was going to get to work. So choosing
between a qualified nominee (John Kerry) who is an automatic approved by
the Senate nominee and between the unqualified Susan Rice who already
has senators opposed to her, Barack's going to waste America's time with
Susan Rice? (Because he's a senator, John Kerry's an automatic
confirmation. That's how it goes historically. The Senate rushes to
confirm its current and former colleagues.) So America's going to have
to suffer through weeks of drama because Barack can't stop fixating on
Susan Rice? And let's be clear that, if Rice had any integrity, she'd
look at the situation herself, realize what a liability she is and
announce she was not interested in the post.
The phrase the White House and its employees need to learn is "for the good of the country."
It's a phrase many leaders and officials should use. Take Nouri al-Maliki's Baghdad-based government which, according to Alsumaria News,
had to issue an announcement today that they are not holding any Saudi
royals nor planning to execute them. The message came via Minister of
Justice Hassan Shammari who also stated that the Suadi prisoners don't
necessarily give their real names when arrested in Iraq. How they are
then able to determine that no Saudi princes are in custody (the rumor
circulating had been that Iraq was gearing up to execute a Saudi prince)
is not addressed. Of course, Nouri's screwed up the country so bad
that it's not just rumors about foreigners but about Iraqis. Dar Addustour reports
that someone with the Supreme Judicial Council is stating this week
that the judiciary has issued arrest warranges for two Iraqiya members
of Parliament: Khalid al-Alwani and Adnan al-Janabi. Both rumors speak
to the distrust Nouri has sewn. Iraq's relations with its Arab
neighbors would seem terrible had Nouri not engaged in the lengthy
verbal attack on Turkey for most of 2012. Nouri's relations with
political rivals is always shaky but more so with members of Iraqiya
whom Nouri has repeatedly targeted.
Though the verdict isn't taken seriously
outside of Iraq (and Iran), al-Hashemi was convicted of terrorism and
he remains Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi because he's never been
removed from office. Even now, Nouri doesn't have the votes required
in the Parliament to remove him from office. The editorial board of the Saudi Gazette notes today:
Unfortunately
Maliki robbed his government of much Sunni support when he decided to
prosecute leading Sunni politician and vice-president Tariq Al-Hashemi
for running death squads.
Hashemi fled, perhaps significantly first to Kurdish Iraq and then abroad.
The Sunni leader has since been tried in his absence and sentenced to death.
In
Iraq, the political crisis has not ended. The March 2010 elections
were followed by Political Stalemate I as Nouri stomped his feet because
Iraqiya beat his own State of Law meaning someone from Iraqiya should
be prime minister-designate. But Nouri had the White House on his
side. So after eigh months of nothing happening, the political blocs
signed off on the US-negotiated contract entitled the Erbil Agreement.
Nouri used it to grab his second term and then refused to honor the
contract. Since the summer of 2011, Iraqiya, the Kurds and Moqtada
al-Sadr have been calling for the Erbil Agreement to be implemented.
This is Political Stalemate II which Nouri turned into a political
crisis when he began targeting Sunnis and/or members of Iraqiya.
All Iraq News reports
Moqtada al-Sadr issued a statement yesterday where he explained that
the effort to cancel the ration cards was an effort to control the
markets, that it was not about addressing corruption and that it was the
start of an attempt to rig the upcoming elections. That's a very
strong statement from Moqtada and part of the efforts to draw a line
between him and Nouri and to set him up to be the next prime minister.
It's the sort of leadership Jalal Talabani fails to exhibit repeatedly.
Background on the food-rations card system, from Monday's snapshot:
Last Tuesday,
Nouri's spokesperson Ali al-Dabbagh announced the cancellation of the
program. There was a huge pushback that grew and grew -- from
politicians, from clerics, from the people until Friday
when it really couldn't be ignored. The program has been in place since
1991 meaning that it is all over half of Iraqis know (Iraq has a very
young population, the median age has now risen to 21). It allowed Iraqis
to get basic staples such as flour sugar, rice, etc. As the clerics,
including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, noted, this move would hurt
the people who are already struggling economically. It was also an
idiotic political move to make. In April, provinicial elections will be
held. Nouri's already in campaign mode and this very unpopular move did
not help him there. The smartest thing politically would have been to
go into a full retreat on the proposal and announce that you had heard
the people, to flatter them and make it appear you listened.
Today Alsumaria reports
that the food program is not getting the axe. Instead, the people will
be able to decide if they would like to remain on the existing system or
receive cash. When you tell people they can remain on the ration card
system or they can get cash, when you tell that to people in a bad
economy with many bills, they will be tempted to go for the cash. The
ration card is the better system. But there are bills owed that have to
be paid and there is the hope in people that things have to get better.
So they will tell themselves that they can make it right now with the
cash and that, in a few months or a year, fate will provide and things
will be better. In the meantime, they've been moved off the progam and
the prices -- as Sistani, politicans and the people have noted -- will
sky rocket. So the money will be of little use to them then. Al Mada reports
that a poll found 69.5% of Iraqis surveyed felt that cancellation of
the ration cards would negatively effect their families' standard of
living and 81% opposed doing away with the ration cards. Hassan Latif al-Zubaidi (Niqash) reports: Various
reports from as far back as 2004 have concluded that scrapping the
ration card system would lead to lower living standards in Iraq in
general. There are a large number of food-insecure individuals in Iraq
-- early estimates range from between 11 and 16 percent of the
population -- and analysts have suggested that that number could double
or even triple should the ration card system be scrapped.
So
for the time being, the Iraqi government, haveing rescinded its earlier
decision to get rid of the system altogether, has decided that citizens
may now have a choice -- choose the ration card which allegedly
supplies around ICD12,000 worth of goods or a cash payout of IQD15,000
per month.
Of course there are no
guarantees that the cash will be used by the needy to buy the food they
need and there's obviously still plenty of room for social welfare fraud
and for corruption. Only one thing seems certain when it comes to the
ration card: with elections coming up in Iraq soon -- they're planned
for early 2013 -- it also seems highly unlikely there will be any
further major "improvements" made to the ration card system in the near
future. Shaeen Mufti (Rudaw) quotes
MP SHorsh Haji who serves on Iraq's Economic Committee in Parliament,
"Making decisions one day and revising them the next proves that the
government is without a plan and doesn't know what is best for the
people."
Following
the idiotic decision to cancel the program, Nouri made other
questionable decisions. For example, taking an axe to a contract with
another country. October 9th,
Nouri was strutting across the world stage as he inked a $4.2 billion
weapons deal with Russia. Then something happened 30 days later and the
status of the deal became in question. Was it all just buyer's remorse
over a big-ticket item? Saturday, Mohammed Tawfeeq and Joe Sterling (CNN) reported:
Iraq's
prime minister has canceled a recently signed arms deal with Russia
after "suspicions over corruption" surfaced, his spokesman told CNN on
Saturday.
Under the $4.2 billion deal forged last month, Russia would deliver attack helicopters and mobile air-defense systems to Iraq.
Amani Aziz (Al Mada) reported that there are senior Iraqi government officials who are involved with a brother of Russian President Vladimir Putin. All Iraq News noted there are calls for Nouri to step forward and clear his name. Al Rafidayn added
Nouri spokesperson Ali al-Moussawi announced that the deal is off.
New contracts may be needed, he said, because weapons are, but the deal
is off. AP hedged the bets going with language about the deal being "reconsidered" and in "turnaround." Reuters spent the day providing constant updates and in their third one they noted, " In
a confusing exchange, the announcement by Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki's office was immediately contradicted by the acting defence
minister who denied the corruption charges and said the Russian arms
deals were still valid." RIA Novosti reminded, "At
the time the deal was announced in October, the Russian press had
hailed it as the country's largest since 2006. Under the contract,
Moscow is to supply 30 Mil Mi-28NE night/all-weather capable attack helicopters, and 50 Pantsir-S1 gun-missile short-range air defense systems. "
On Monday, Al Mada reported today that Iraqiya is demanding Nouri provide a report to Parliament explaining the details of the weapons deal with Russia. Alsumaria reports today that Nouri is insisting that these "defensive" weapons are needed to protect Iraq. Also today, All Iraq News reports
State of Law MP Abudl Salam al-Maliki has accused Abdul Aziz Narowi,
Iraq's Ambassador to Russia, of working with the Russian Defense
Minister in the interest of the KRG and not Baghdad. There's a full-on
push to salvage Nouri's image after the mess that the $4.2 billion deal
between Russia and Iraq has become. They might need to worry also about
how the crumbling deal appears in Russia. Kitabat reports
that the Russian government is outraged over the accusations being made
which include that Russian President Vladimir Putin took bribes and
kickbacks.
Alsumaria also reports
that Basra Province has purchased 10 trained dogs for the Basra Police
Command. The dogs have been trained to sniff out bombs. This may
remind many of all the money Nouri wasted on bomb detecting 'techonlogy'
-- a wand that the US military ridiculed and that the British
government ended up outlawing. You hold the expensive stick and run in
place behind a car and it's 'activated.' But it doesn't do anything.
It was a con job. Instead of demanding a refund, Nouri chose to eat the
costs in an attempt to salvage his own reputation.
The Baghdad Trade Fair just concluded and it wasn't a boost for Nouri's image either. AFP reports: Excessive
red tape, rampant corruption, an unreliable judicial system and
still-inadequate security, as well as a poorly trained workforce and a
state-dominated economy all continue to plague Iraq, which completed its
biggest trade fair in 20 years last week to much domestic acclaim.The
various difficulties of doing business in Iraq cast doubt on efforts to
raise $1-trillion in investment income over the coming decade that
officials say is needed to rebuild its battered economy.
Maybe
Nouri thought he'd get a ribbon just for showing up? The last week of
March, Nouri oversaw the Arab League Summitt in Baghdad. It was a bust,
but damned if the press didn't try to play it as a success. From the March 30th snapshot:
Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor) wants you to know that, as Sly Stone once sang, everybody is a star, that we're all winners. Probably Charlotte Caffey and Jane Wiedlin were closer to the truth with, "We're all dreamers, we're all whores" ("This Town," first appears on the Go-Gos' Beauty and the Beat).
Journalists are supposed to be critical thinkers not advance men for
the company. The Arab League Summit was only a success if we're all
toddlers and everyone gets a trophy for showing up. Or if you're stupid
enough to think something's true just because a two-bit thug like Nouri al-Maliki says it is.
There are 22 countries in the Arab League. Hamza Hendawi and Lara Jakes (AP) put
the number of Arab League leaders who attended at 10 and they pointed
out that Qatar, Saudi Arabi, Morocco and Jordan were among those who
sent lower-level officials to the summit. Patrick Martin (Globe & Mail) explains
that Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Bin Jabr Al Thani (Prime Minister of Qatar)
declared on television that Qatar's "low level of representation" was
meant to send "a 'message' to Iraq' majority Shiites to stop what he
called the marginalization of its minority Sunnis." Yussef Hamza (The National) offers,
"Iraq has looked to the summit, the first it has hosted in a
generation, to signal its emergence from years of turmoil, American
occupation and isolation. It wanted the summit to herald its return to
the Arab fold. But the large number of absentees told a different
story." That's reality.
[. . .]
There are 22 countries in the Arab League. Hamza Hendawi and Lara Jakes (AP) put
the number of Arab League leaders who attended at 10 and they pointed
out that Qatar, Saudi Arabi, Morocco and Jordan were among those who
sent lower-level officials to the summit. Patrick Martin (Globe & Mail) explains
that Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Bin Jabr Al Thani (Prime Minister of Qatar)
declared on television that Qatar's "low level of representation" was
meant to send "a 'message' to Iraq' majority Shiites to stop what he
called the marginalization of its minority Sunnis." Yussef Hamza (The National) offers,
"Iraq has looked to the summit, the first it has hosted in a
generation, to signal its emergence from years of turmoil, American
occupation and isolation. It wanted the summit to herald its return to
the Arab fold. But the large number of absentees told a different
story." That's reality.
That's reality and AFP reported reality on the Baghdad Trade Fair.
Nouri's
a disaster and yet he wants a third term as prime minister. The
parliamentary elections planned for 2014 are supposed to determine that.
Members of Parliament are elected, the bloc with the most seats is
supposed to get first crack at forming a govenrment so the president
names someone from that bloc to be prime minister-designate and that
person then has 30 days to form a complete Cabinet or someone else is
named prime minister-designate. The 2014 election is supposed to
determine that. Supposed to. Iraq's had parliamentary elections twice
now -- 2005 and 2010. In both instances, the United States government
determined the outcome. First, the Bush administration installed Nouri
in 2006 (Ibrahim al-Jafaari was the choice of Parliament). Second, the
Barack administration gave second place Nouri a second term in 2010 via
an extra-Constitutional contract known as the Erbil Agreement. If
the White House plans to again pick the Iraqi prime minister in 2014,
could they let Iraq know now before money's spent printing ballots and
adding security to the various polling places? Al Mada notes
the efforts to pass a bill that would limit the prime minister post to
two terms only. Some reports have said there are 150 backers in
Parliament, some say 130. A simple majority is needed. That's
half-plus-one of the MPs (there are 325 members of Parliament). So
that's already very close to the target number. Press TV adds:
"Maliki's supporters also say that they will try to split support for
the term limit campaign by adjusting the law to include other posts such
as Kurdistan Regional Government president and parliament speaker." I
am sure that they did that say that. I don't doubt Press TV's
accuracy. Mainly because the members of State of Law repeatedly
demonstrate stupidity. It might help State of Law to read the
Iraqi Constitution at some point. Familiarizing themselves with
something they swear an oath to would be a good idea and it would also
help them look a little less stupid in public. The first clause of
Article 117 would probably be most helpful to State of Law at this point
along with the first and second clauses of Article 121. There is
nothing in the Constitution that gives the Baghdad-based government
the right to declare anything about the KRG president or prime
minister. State of Law MP Sami al-Askari has been talking trash about political rivals for the last few days. From Tuesday's snapshot: Yesterday, Alsumaria reported that State of Law MP Sami al-Askari is calling Iraqiya leader Ayad Allawi a failure and he told Alsumaria that the Kurds are playing up the Sunni - Shi'ite divide. Today Kurdistan Alliance MP and leader Muhsin al-Sadoun tells Alsumaria
that al-Askari's remarks are not helpful and that the suffering that
has taken place has been under Nouri al-Maliki's leadership as people
have increasingly lost confidence in the government's ability to provide
as a result of the vast corruption and the failure to provide
security. al-Askari hasn't stopped trashing politicians. Al Rafidayn reports
he went on Alsumaria television tonight and trashed Iraqiya's Osama
al-Nujaifi who is the Speaker of Parliament. He stated that al-Nujaifi
is indebted to the Kurds who pushed for him to be Speaker of Parliament,
implying that he does their bidding. Iraqiya came in first in the 2010
parliamentary elections. After Nouri refused to honor the Constitution
and give up the post of prime minister and Jalal was bound and
determined to remain prime minister, that only left one post for the
political bloc that got the most votes. Iraqiya was always going to get
the spot and al-Askari knows that, he's just attempting to inflame
tensions with his bitchy nature.It's so bad that finally, today, President Jalal Talabani speaks. Alsumaria reports
Jalal said he could no longer remain silent in light of all the
accusations al-Askari has been making. Talabani states that whether
al-Askari meant to or not, the statements drive a wedge and break the
bonds between the political blocs.
Finally, Alsumaria reports
that an armed attack in Sulaymaniyah Province left one person dead and
another injured, a Diyala Province roadside bombing left two people
injured and 18 people were arrested for 'terrorism' today as mass
arrests continued.
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