10/11/2017

all the lives lost

  12 hours ago
Honoring US Army Sgt. Pamela Osbourne, 38 from Hollywood, Florida, KIA (October 11, 2004) in Baghdad, Iraq, when two rockets hit her camp.
13 replies68 retweets92 likes
 
 
 



and last week saw the death of u.s. service member alex missildine in iraq.

when is enough finally enough?

the iraq war has been allowed to meander on.

it should have never been started.

but now it appears it will never end.

(and, yes, over a million iraqis have been killed in the war.  i'm not denying that.  i'm focusing on u.s. service members for this post.)

let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'


Tuesday, October 10, 2017.  IAVA moves into political advocacy, the number of displaced in Iraq vastly increases, where is ISIS, and much more.



Let's start with stupidity.

  Oct 8
Hey . This poll of 8,000 people who actually served in the military? 62% say players can protest
69 replies1,115 retweets2,462 likes






Who said that?

Roland Martin?

Who?

Oh, right.  He used to be at CNN.  But his homophobic attacks resulted in CNN kicking him to the curb.  (Tom, why do you keep this trash on your show?  You will answer for it -- you and I both know it.)  Roland can't be on CNN because he's a homophobe.

But when did Roland serve?

Oh, right, never.

IAVA did release what Roland's talking about.

We haven't highlighted it here because several IAVA members feel the sample size was too small and IAVA has heard from members who disagree with the press release issued.

More to the point, Roland's misses many points, IAVA represents only one generation of veterans.

Certainly the American Legion, to name but one example, would have a more varied group of veterans -- veterans from the current wars as well as Vietnam, Korea, WWII, etc.

The size and the results of the poll are being questioned by IAVA members -- questioned and criticized -- so we've avoided that poll.  But Roland's so stupid, he seems to think that the only veterans in the world are the ones who've fought in the ongoing Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

Maybe Roland should be less worried about what underwear David Beckham wears and more worried about how so many of us always saw his homophobia as a way for him to hide in his own closet?

As for IAVA, the poll was a mistake.

They had already issued a statement that was respectful to everyone.

That should have been the end of it.

They are not an 'activist' organization in the way that Iraq Veterans Against The War were.

Stepping into this, and away from veterans' issues, hurts them.

Again, members of IAVA are upset -- some who feel they aren't represented in the poll results, some who feel IAVA should not have done a poll on this.

There are many veterans issues and now instead of shining a spotlight on that, IAVA is caught in an issue they have no business in.

More than any other veterans group, they need to focus on legislation.

That's because they're members are veterans who've returned home recently -- as opposed to the VFW, for example, whose members include many who have been veterans for several decades.

This is a distraction for IAVA.  This is upsetting their membership.

The statement issued was respectful and allowed everyone some comfort.

That wasn't good enough and now there is a feeling that activists have hijacked IAVA for political purposes.

Roland doesn't grasp that -- nor do idiots like Roland who just want to grab anything they can and turn it into a political football.



IAVA is supposed to focus on veterans issues.

As one member said to me on Sunday, "So I guess next I can ask for the poll on whether or not we should leave Iraq, the one they've refused to do because we're not an 'advocacy group'."

I guess he's right.




  51 minutes ago
Moscow accuses US of reducing air strikes on IS in Iraq to allow jihadists to enter Syria and fight the Assad regime
4 replies30 retweets13 likes






The US Defense Dept regularly announces strikes on Iraq.  It does that on a daily basis.

Excuse me, it did that on a daily basis.

It's last announcement was October 8th when it noted.

Oct. 7 Strikes in Iraq
On Oct. 7, coalition military forces conducted 10 strikes consisting of 16 engagements against ISIS targets in Iraq:
-- Near Qaim, two strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed a headquarters and a vehicle.
-- Near Bashir, a strike destroyed an ISIS tactical vehicle.
-- Near Hit, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed a tunnel system.
-- Near Rawa, four strikes destroyed an ISIS headquarters, a vehicle-borne IED and a weapons cache.
-- Near Tuz, a strike destroyed four ISIS-held buildings.
-- Near Huwija, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit.
Yesterday's Strikes in Iraq
Coalition military forces conducted seven strikes consisting of seven engagements against ISIS targets in Iraq yesterday:
-- Near Qaim, three strikes engaged two ISIS tactical units and destroyed a vehicle.
-- Near Huwija, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit.

-- Near Rawa, three strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed three staging areas, a headquarters and a vehicle.



Is this what no strikes look like?


I doubt they feel like no strikes to the Iraqis on the ground.




  23 hours ago
Where have all the IS fighters gone? Hundreds are believed to have fled the city of Hawija, after it was recaptured by the Iraqi army


1:37 / 1:37
46 replies187 retweets237 likes






Were ISIS members allowed to escape?  Probably.  The same thing happened with the Mosul operation -- why should the Hawija operation be different?  They went to Syria, remember?  Some publicity on this noted the ones traveling by bus.



  9 minutes ago
UN says 5.4 million displaced from Iraq since 2014






That is deeply disturbing.

Mainly because the corporate media in the US has avoided it.

Grasp that by 2010, Iraq was already the place for the greatest displacement since 1949 in the Middle East.

And now we learn that the last three years has seen further displacement, the displacement of over five million more people.


  11 hours ago
UN concerned for safety of more than five million displaced in northern
4 retweets3 likes






  Oct 8
Press Release: The UN remains deeply concerned for the safety of civilian populations. Link:
 and 
11 retweets9 likes







Turning to the topic of the KRG . . .

  18 hours ago
Iraqi VP Al-Nujayfi says "Masoud Barzani agreed on suspending referendum in return of lifting sanctions on KRI"
6 replies11 retweets13 likes





As we've noted repeatedly, the vote took place, Barzani can now do whatever he wants.

He's achieved with the vote, taken the KRG further than anyone else.

New content at THIRD:



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    iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq Iraq
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    10/09/2017

    good for lizz winstead

    good for lizz winstead.

    'the washington examiner' reports:

    Comedian and liberal activist Lizz Winstead joined MSNBC’s Katy Tur on Monday to discuss the fallout from last week’s New York Times exposé on decades of harassment claims against a Hollywood titan. The conversation soon shifted to Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton’s muted responses.
    “President Obama, Hillary Clinton, silent so far,” Ms. Tur said. “How do you feel about the selective outrage? ‘I can be outraged about Donald Trump last year, but not outraged about this.’”

     “I feel it happens a lot with women’s issues and I feel really disappointed in both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton,” said Ms. Winstead, the chief creative officer at Lady Parts Justice. “If you took money from this person, because this person had really good progressive goals that were in line with the politics, great. When you find out that this person is a monster, especially a monster towards women, why wouldn’t you denounce it?”


    she's exactly right.

    on issues like this, it's amazing how many people who should speak out will not.

    if this were, for example, racism, we'd be having a serious conversation.

    but it's a predator who preyed on women and so a lot of people feel it's not 'important' and they can ignore it.


    let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'


    Monday, October 9, 2017.  Some try to sneak back into the conversation after 8 years of silence.


      Oct 7
    “Condi Rice you have blood of Iraqi on your hands!” Congress has blood on their hands. Stop it!


    What does Condi Rice have to do withYemen?

    Nothing really.

    But the photo is from the days when CODESTINK at least tried to do something and not from the eight long years when Barack Obama was president and CODESTINK called for war on Afghanistan to be lengthened and refused to hold Barack or the wars he oversaw accountable.



    CODESTINK was hardly the only poser in the last eight years.


    IN THESE TIMES spent the Barack years doing nothing as well -- unless you think calling a TV show glorifying a serial killer a "feminist" TV show (a male led and dominated TV show glorifying a serial killer) as doing something.


    Now they want to sneak in and act like they were there all along fighting the good fight and served up a ridiculous article last week.


    They kick things off with Phyllis Bennis sporting a major case of foundation envy as she tries to piggy back on everything but antiwar.

    Phyllis, you may remember, was troubled to get facts on Iraq right even when she still spoke like she was an expert on Iraq.

    The Barack years were not kind to Phyllis as not only did she continue to embarrass herself with non-stop silence but her organization began featuring a blogger who praised the US bombings of Iraq and spoke of the precision strikes.

    For those new to the issue, the peace movement never bought into the lie of 'precision' strikes -- at least not until Phyllis' group did in the Barack years.

    A lot of people who sat on their asses for eight years seem to think they can show back up and act like they're leaders.

    Leaders don't silence themselves for eight years.

    Nor do they get in bed with a War Hawk like Barack who spends every day of his two terms overseeing wars.

    Iraq was ignored by the likes of Phyllis Bennis.

    But that didn't mean the troubles stopped for Iraq.

    AFP notes:

    Iraq's central government on Monday unleashed a legal barrage against Kurdish officials and sought to seize key businesses in a fresh bid to tighten the screws over a disputed independence referendum.
    The latest moves come exactly two weeks after an overwhelming majority of voters in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region backed independence in a non-binding ballot slammed as illegal by Baghdad.
    The central authorities have already severed ties between Kurdistan and the outside world by cutting international air links to the region, while neighbouring Turkey and Iran have threatened to close their borders to oil exports.
    Now, in a new round of attempts to ratchet up pressure, Baghdad's National Security Council announced that a probe has been launched into Kurdistan's lucrative oil revenues and officials in the region who might have illegally monopolised the market.



    Saturday, ALSUMARIA reported that KRG President Massoud Barzani met with Iraqi vice presidents Ayad al-Allawi and Osama al-Nujaifi regarding the sanctions the Baghdad-based government has imposed since the independence vote.  Philip Issa (AP) reports that Sunday saw the Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament Salim Jabouri met with Barzani.

    iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq Iraq





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