Pregnant with their third child, Timothy and Dawn Mosher never thought they would seek an abortion. But five months into Dawn's pregnancy, doctors diagnosed the fetus with an extreme and irreparable spinal cord defect called spina bifida. This devastating condition would have subjected the Moshers' child to a brief life filled with incredible pain and, ultimately, a premature death. After careful thought, the Moshers made the excruciating choice to have an abortion in order to spare their child from such a fate.
Timothy Mosher was compelled to publicly share his family's story this past spring when Nebraska lawmakers seized on flimsy claims about fetal pain in order to ban almost all abortions at or after the 20th week of pregnancy—making it impossible for a woman in the Moshers' situation to obtain a safe abortion. If anyone could attest to the "raw edges of human existence" that prompt women to seek abortions, as so eloquently described by former Justice Harry Blackmun in the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, it would be the Moshers. "We couldn't force our little girl to live in constant pain and suffering before dying a pre-mature death," Mosher told a legislative panel.
But Nebraska lawmakers were unmoved by either Mosher's testimony or sound arguments by the Center and other reproductive rights advocates, who warned them that the law flouts long-established constitutional precedent and endangers women's health. On April 13, Nebraska's legislature and governor approved the measure, the most extreme abortion law in recent U.S. history, agreeing only to delay its effective date until October. The Center is now exploring legal options for challenging the ban.
Until now, a dividing line between legal and illegal abortions was determined by the ability of the fetus to survive outside the womb, usually at around 24 weeks. The Supreme Court has repeatedly made it clear that states cannot ban abortion for any reason before that time, and that the exact point at which a fetus is viable must be determined by a physician using his or her medical judgment. By replacing viability with fetal pain—even though there is no credible evidence that a fetus may feel pain at 20 weeks—Nebraska created new grounds for the government to interfere in a woman's life and cut off her access to abortion. And by seeking to challenge Roe v. Wade before the Supreme Court, the new law threatens to redraw the line for women across the country, threatening their basic right to decide what is best for them and their families.
that's from 'nebrask takes aim at roe' (center for reproductive rights) and that's an important mailing.
all the crap fair sends me? not important at all.
for example, they're promoting their magazine extra! - which isn't really a magazine - and they note the 6 articles in the new issue.
uh, why is only 1 by a woman?
seems to me fair loves to hector others.
but apparently doesn't think that they need to be held to the standard they hold others too.
1 of the articles is written by the idiot jim naureckas.
he's an ass.
he went whining to c.i. about something i wrote here.
don't you hate those little b**ches?
i write it and i post it here and he goes whining to c.i. about what i wrote.
what a b**ch.
and then, of course, he goes and passes jess' e-mail on to the nation magazine.
which was so typical. especially since he was passing on to c.i. (c.i. didn't know this) e-mails from ____ that had been sent to jim naureckas.
i like clearing the air, don't you?
let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Thursday, July 8, 2010. Chaos and violence continue, the targeting of pilgrims continues, the stalemate continues, England has a partner in shame (Australia -- which is also deporting Iraqi refugees), the United Nations releases a new report on Iraq, US House Rep Charlie Rangel calls for a draft, did the US Justice Dept refuse to prosecute theft of over $100,000 in US tax payer monies, and more.
In Iraq this week, the big target has been pilgrims. Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) explained Tuesday that the pilgrimage is "to commemorate the martyrdom of Iman Musa al Kathim on July 8." Pilgrims were targeted on Tuesday, on Wednesday and today. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reports, "On Thursday, more than 4 million people had gathered in the city to commemorate the death of the revered Shiite figure Imam Moussa al-Kadhim. Pilgrims had walked from all across the country to reach the Shiite shrine, despite attacks in the previous days. The attackers hit as tens of thousands of security forces patrolled the streets and most roads were blocked to allow pedestrians." Jomana Karadsheh (CNN) explains, "Security measures included using vehicles to transport pilgrims; thousands of deployed troops; security cameras in and around the shrine; aerial surveillance; and 500 personnel to combat the threat of female suicide bombers." Timothy Williams and Omar al-Jawoshy (New York Times) reported this morning, "Less than a day after a suicide bomber killed more than 50 people in a crowd of Shiite pilgrims at a police checkpoint in Baghdad, more explosions struck worshipers on Thursday, killing seven and wounding about 60 despite intensive efforts by Iraqi security forces to foil such attacks." Sahar Issa counts the pilgrims death toll (by Thursday afternoon) for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to be 68 with 449 wounded. Scott Peterson and Sahar Issa (Christian Science Monitor) note, "Regardless of the death toll, pilgrims were defiant as they completed their march on Thursday and headed back home." And they quote a woman named Hussein stating, "It is like a treasure. I am not the loser by going on this pilgrimage. I am the winner. Security forces can secure the streets. They cannot cleanse intentions and hearts." Nizar Latif (UAE's National Newspaper) offers details that others haven't reported:
While the huge pilgrimages undertaken by Iraq's Shiite community are a reflection of powerful religious sentiment, the significance of poverty is a commonly overlooked factor in the willingness of so many to endure gruelling hardships and to face the bombers. Hospitality tents, paid for by wealthy businessmen, political parties or foundations, line the roads used by pilgrims, who come from as far away as Basra, 550 km south of the capital. Meals are provided free of charge to the walkers, and sometimes cash handouts or food supplies are given to the needy.
It is a massive incentive for the likes of Abu Abdullah. Unemployed and painfully thin -- like his sons -- he said he was unable to provide for his family and used the opportunity of religious celebrations for a practical purpose -- to eat. "At home, we have little food," he said. "When we walk, we get better meals than I could dream of getting; there is rice and meat and vegetables and Pepsi in the tents, we can eat three times a day."
Turning to today's actual numbers, Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing claimed 3 lives and left twenty-one injured, a second one which claimed 4 lives and left twenty injured, a Baghdad car bombing wounded ten people, a Baghdad roadside bombing claimed 2 lives and wounded twenty, a Baquba roadside bombing wounded three people and Ramadi house bombings which claimed 3 lives and left four wounded (the homes belonged to police officers). Reuters adds that 5 pilgrims were shot dead in Baghdad and a Kirkuk sticky bombing claimed 1 life and left another person wounded.
Today the United Nations condemned the attacks on pilgrims:
Ad Melkert, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Iraq, described the attacks as "horrific crimes committed against defenceless civilians who were practicing their faith."
The formation of a broad-based government will be the most effective response in the face of insurgents who are aiming at destabilizing the country, added Mr. Melkert, who is also head of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).
Gabriel Gatehouse (BBC News) offers this opinion, "By targeting Shia pilgrims, it seems clear that the bombers are intent on reigniting that sectarian violence which nearly tore the country apart." [For video of Gatehouse on the bombings, click here and scroll down.] Liam Stack (Christian Science Monitor) offers another opinion, "The attacks highlight fears that insurgents may try to take advantage of Iraq's political uncertainty to destabilize the country, four months after elections in March failed to produce a government and just weeks before a US troop drawdown is set to begin." Usama Redha and Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) stick to context, "Since 2003, Shiite religious festivals have been marred by bombing attacks. This year's ceremonies for Imam Musa Kadhim were no different."
March 7th, Iraq concluded Parliamentary elections. Three months and two days later, still no government. 163 seats are needed to form the executive government (prime minister and council of ministers). When no single slate wins 163 seats (or possibly higher -- 163 is the number today but the Parliament added seats this election and, in four more years, they may add more which could increase the number of seats needed to form the executive government), power-sharing coalitions must be formed with other slates, parties and/or individual candidates. (Eight Parliament seats were awarded, for example, to minority candidates who represent various religious minorities in Iraq.) Ayad Allawi is the head of Iraqiya which won 91 seats in the Parliament making it the biggest seat holder. Second place went to State Of Law which Nouri al-Maliki, the current prime minister, heads. They won 89 seats. Nouri made a big show of lodging complaints and issuing allegations to distract and delay the certification of the initial results while he formed a power-sharing coalition with third place winner Iraqi National Alliance -- this coalition still does not give them 163 seats. They are claiming they have the right to form the government. It's four months and one day and, in 2005, Iraq took four months and seven days to pick a prime minister. If Iraq's the 'success' so many want the world to believe, then surely it will take less time this go round, right?
US Vice President Joe Biden just wrapped up a three-day visit to Iraq (Saturday, Sunday and Monday -- see Tuesday's snapshot for details) and the outreach didn't stop there. Alsumaria TV reports that he and Kurdistan President Massoud Barazani spoke on the phone yesterday about "a number of issues" and that he also spoke with Iraq President Jalal Talabani over the phone Wednesday: "Biden praised the application of President Talabani seeking to reach agreement over the next government and enhance the political process and democracy in the country."
Meanwhile theUnited Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) issued their latest [PDF format warning] "Human Rights Report" covering Iraq from July 31st through December 2009. In the 26 page report, even the most casual reader will see, there is no 'success' in Iraq. In Iraq, all but the thugs elevated by the US government to 'rulers' are targeted regularly. Pick the targeted segment you follow most closely and, chances are, the report's covered it. For example, "Situation of Women" covers many, many issues but we'll zoom in on this, "During a visit to a female detention centre in Dahunk on 3 August, UNAMI observed that nine women were being detained there for their 'own safety'. The authorities argued that detention was the only safe solution due to threats on grounds of family honour. According to the investigating judge, the women may be released with a written guarantee for their safety from a male family member. The likelihood of such a guarantee is remote, as many of them are facing threat to life from their families for honour-related issues." It further notes that 'new Iraq' has many laws on the books unfair to women and that, "The laws are inherently discriminatory as men may effectively by exonerated from punishment for crimes such as murder and assault. They criminalise adultery committed by women while granting to men broad exemptions from punishment for the same act."
The report provides a breakdown on the 2009 Parliament Committees. Guess which committee had the most female members? Human Rights. Eight women serve on that comittee (five men also serve). On the Women's Committee, the seven members are all women. Which committees do women serve the least on? Security and Defence and Oil & Gas. No woman sits on those committees. After that, the worst is, no surprise, the Legal Committee and the Finance Committee (one women serves on each committee).
The targeting of the disabled and challenged continues. Among the things noted in the report is: "Structures have been established to support the disabled community, for example, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs runs various programmes for the disabled community, including a modest monthly stipend to approximately 50,000 disabled Iraqis. ICR operates at least 12 physical rehabilitation centres but accessibility is an issue due to security reasons and lack of transporation."
On refugees, UNHCR estimaed that there were 2,764,111 internally displaced refugees. But moving to external refugees, Paige Taylor (The Australian) reports that the Australiang government "'has sent an an Afgan and an Iraqi asylum-seeker home for the first time in five years,' Immigration Minister Chris Evans revealed yesterday." This move puts Australia on the same level as England (among others) which elected to force people out of England in some perverse 'response' to World Refugee Day. And it makes a mockery out of the speech Evans delivered on World Refugee Day in 2008:
The Australian Government works closely with UNHCR on a number of fronts to promote and support the protection rights of refugees. So it is only appropriate that today we stand under the same banner of 'Refugee Protection'.
This is a perfect theme for World Refugee Day, but it inevitably leads us to ask: how is Australia's role in providing refugee protection understood? What does it mean to average Australians?
It is no secret that under the previous government, the issue of refugee protection was the subject of a deeply divisive debate. Australia's international reputation was tarnished by the way the previous government sought to demonise refugees for its own domestic political purposes. This is unfortunate, since it overshadowed some of the positive work on refugee protection that continued during those years.
The Rudd Labor Government brings a different approach to refugee and humanitarian issues.
In fairness to Rudd, it should be noted that Julia Gillard is Australia's new prime minister and that it was feared she would attempt to use the immigration issue (specifically 'crackdown' on immigration) to drive up support within Australia. Peter Boyle (Green Left) reports:
What a difference a month and a change of leadership makes. In late May this year Julia Gillard said that Liberal-National opposition leader Tony Abbott's call for a return to the "Pacific solution" on refugees was just a "slogan not a solution" but now she's PM (with the blessing of mining giants BHP, Rio Tinto and Xstrata), it has once again become a "solution".
In a July 6 speech to the Lowy Institute Gillard announced that her government was pursuing a regional agreement for offshore processing of "unauthorised arrivals".
Turning to England where the Iraq Inquiry held no public hearing today but did release a statement:
The Iraq Inquiry has now heard from 35 witnesses in private. This means that by the end of the this round of public hearings, the Inquiry will have heard from more than 140 witnesses. Sir John Chilcot made clear at the start of the Inquiry that whilst the Committee is determined to hold as many of its proceedings in public as possible, there were circumstances where a private hearing would be necessary. These were laid out in the Inquiry's protocols.
Iraq Inquiry Chairman Sir John Chilcot, said:
"These hearings have given the Inquiry valuable evidence which could have not be heard in public session without damaging national security or international relations. They have supplemented the Inquiry's understanding as it takes forward its public work."
Some witnesses gave evidence in private because the evidence concerned matters which, if revealed in public, could damage national security or other vital national interests. In some cases, sessions took place in private because of the personal circumstances of the witnesses, either because of the organisations for whom they worked, or because they were relatively junior officials at the time that they served in Iraq or were giving evidence as part of a group with other people who were junior officials at the time.
The statement goes on to list the names of those offering private testimony. BBC News counts 35 names on the list and notes, "They include two former heads of the Secret Intelligence Service M16 -- Sir Richard Dearlove and Sir John Scarlett. Former UK ambassador David Manning and UK special representative to Iraq Sir Jeremy Greenstock have given evidence in both public and private." Iraq Inquiry Digest's Chris Ames writes a column for the Guardian on the news of the secrety testimony:
A few new transcripts involving junior officials will be published, but most of what we really need to know will remain secret.
Are the old excuses of national security and international relations being used to hide personal and national embarrassment?
Like most people, I have always accepted that at least some of the Iraq inquiry would have to take place in secret session, if the inquiry is to find out all of what happened and, hopefully, tell us about it. It's a necessary trade-off and we have to trust that when Sir John Chilcot says that as much as possible will take place in public, he really means as much as possible. But, as Tory MP Andrew Tyrie has noted, the inquiry doesn't entirely command public confidence. The trouble is that even the inquiry and the government can't agree about what really needs to be secret, so how can the rest of us have confidence?
Turning to the US where the Justice Dept issued a press release on US Maj Charles Sublett who has copped a plea "to making false statements to a federal agency" and, as you read through, ask the obvious (the obvious isn't dealt with in the press release):WASHINGTON - U.S. Army Major Charles E. Sublett, 46, of Huntsville, Ala., pleaded guilty today in federal court in Memphis, Tenn., to making false statements to a federal agency, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division. Sublett was charged in an indictment, returned by a federal grand jury on Jan. 5, 2010, following his arrest in Huntsville. According to the indictment, Sublett smuggled more than $100,000 in currency, concealed in a shipping package, into the United States from Iraq in January 2005. According to the indictment, Sublett was deployed to Balad Regional Contracting Center on Logistical Support Area (LSA) Anaconda in Iraq from August 2004 through February 2005. LSA Anaconda is a U.S. military installation that was established in 2003 to support U.S. military operations in Iraq. According to the indictment, Sublett served as a contracting officer while deployed to LSA Anaconda. As a contracting officer, Sublett was responsible for, among other things, evaluating and supervising contracts with companies that provide goods and services to the U.S. Army. Sublett admitted that, on Jan. 11, 2005, he sent a package from Balad, Iraq, to Killeen, Texas, which was seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Memphis. Sublett admitted that, on the international air waybill, he falsely described the contents of the package as books, papers, a jewelry box and clothes with a total declared customs value of $140 when, in fact, Sublett knew the package contained $107,900 in U.S. currency and 17,120,000 in Iraqi dinar. Sublett also admitted that he failed to file a currency or monetary instruments transaction report (CMIR) as required by federal law when transporting currency in amounts of more than $10,000 into or out of the United States. During the plea hearing, Sublett admitted to making false claims to investigators regarding his attempt to bring the currency into the United States in an effort to impede their investigation.The maximum penalty for making false statements to a government agency is five years in prison, and a $250,000 fine, to be followed by a term of up to three years of supervised release. Sublett is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 8, 2010. As part of the plea agreement, Sublett also consented to the forfeiture of the $107,900 and the 17,120,000 Iraqi dinar that he concealed in the package. This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Daniel A. Petalas and Justin V. Shur of the Criminal Division's Public Integrity Section. This case is being investigated by Army Criminal Investigation Command; Defense Criminal Investigative Service; the FBI; Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigation; the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction; and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The package contained $107,900 US dollars (in addition to Iraqi dinars)? Where did the money come from? Why isn't that in the press release. Why is he being allowed to cop a plea to a minor charge when most likely we're dealing with theft/embezzlement of US government money?Lawrence Buser (Commercial Appeal) reports, "There was no allegation that the money was stolen and prosecutors would not say why the case took five years to be indicted." Where'd the money come from? The major was someone over supply contracts in Iraq.Are these CERP funds? For those late to the party, DoD Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble described Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP) to the Commission on Wartime Contracting (CWC) on February 2, 2009:CERP funds are appropriated through the DoD and allocted through each major command's sector of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Up to $500,000 can be allocated to individual CERP projects, and CERP beneficiaries often receive payments in cash. We have also identified occasions where soldiers with limited contracting experience were responsible for administering CERP funds. In some instances, there appeared to be scant, if any, oversight of the manner in which funds were expended. Complicating matters further is the fact that payment of bribes and gratuities to government officials is a common business practice in some Southwest Asia nations. Taken in combination, these factors result in an environment conducive to bribery and corruption.
CERP was an issue during the September 10, 2008 House Armed Services Committee hearing (and see this entry by Mike). This is Committe Chair Ike Skelton's exchange with DoD's Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Eric S. Edelman:
Skelton: The issue raises two serious questions of course. Number one is they have a lot of money of their own. And number two the choice of the type of projects that are being paid for. I would like to ask Mr. Secretary if our committee could receive a list of expenditures of $100,000 or more within the last year. Could you do that for us at your convience please?
Edelman: We'll work with our colleagues in the controller's office and - and . . . to try and get you --
Skelton: That would be very helpful.Was the list provided?Who is providing oversight?Shouldn't be the Dept of Justice via charges and plea bargains.How did someone over contracts end up with $179,000 dollars -- sequentially numbered, one-hundred dollar bills, by the way? How did he end up with that money? Does it matter that Adrian Sainz (AP) reports, "According to the indictment, the disbursement office where he worked provided payment in sequentially numbered $100 bills."
So let's put it together. The guilty tried to hide $179,000 dollars from the US government. The same government he was working for, by the way. He attempted to send it to the US and not be detected doing this. His $179,000 was in sequentially numbered one-hundred dollar bills and his office "provided payment in sequentially numbered $100 bills." Anyone seeing a problem and wondering why the Justice Dept didn't attempt to go for theft or embezzlement?
He may get two years or just one behind bars. But, in the real world, Deshawn Lamont Thomas is in trouble "for robbing and beating former NFL player Javon Walker," AP informs us but, more to the point, Thomas "was sentenced in April in Las Vegas in another case to five years in Nevada prison for the theft of a tourist's designer watch." Stealing a watch -- a designer watch -- resulted in five years prison -- state prison. Stealing over $100,000 of US tax payer money gets you what?And here's a better question: Where's his court-martial?He's an officer. A US major. He's supposed to be upholding certain standards and he's not, he's clearly not. Think of the way the military brass has gone after war resisters. Think of the way they tried to subvert the US Constitution in order to go after Lt Ehren Watada. But theft of over $100,000 and the man's still a US major? Not "a former US major today entered a plea . . ." War resisters are routinely stripped of any benefits by the military brass. So why hasn't Maj Charles Sublett been stripped of his rank, his benefits and been given dishonorable discharge?
Or does the code of conduct only to apply to those with a conscience?
In other news, Jack Phillips (Epoch Times) reports, "Representative Charles Rangel said no more tax dollars should be spent on 'hunkering down in Iraq and Afghanistan' and if the people in the United States really support the conflicts, then Congress should be willing to set up a draft." John Del Signore (Gothamist) reports Rangel made his position public yesterday outside a Time Square recruiting station. US House Rep Charlie Rangel's office released the following statment by Rangel:
In Congress, we will soon be voting to provide additional funding to support wars in the Middle East that seem to have no end. Going on eight years, the war in Afghanistan is the nation's longest military conflict, shifting from Iraq to Afghanistan where it all started after Nine-eleven.
I strongly support President Obama's policies, particularly his historic initiative to expand health care coverage to millions of Americans, an effort which I helped design and move to passage in Congress. The President's economic stimulus not only saved the country from a total collapse into a depression, it created and saved millions of jobs and started the beginnings of a recovery. Nearly $300 million has been funneled by the program into my Congressional district alone.
The oil spill in the Gulf, which the President has handled as well as anyone could, has highlighted our need for a new energy policy, as pointed out earlier by President Obama. It also points up the nation's vulnerability with respect to alternative petroleum sources, including those in the Middle East.
I cannot challenge the President's handling of the war in Iraq, where he was left with few options after inheriting the conflict from the previous administration. I support his intentions to withdraw, but I'd like to see it happen sooner. In my view, no additional tax dollars should be appropriated for hunkering down in Iraq and Afghanistan, where taxpayers have already spent over $1 trillion. From here on, all expenditures should be for one purpose: to safely bring our brave and exhausted troops home.
In the two Middle East conflicts, more than 5,400 of our young men and women have been killed, over 4,400 in Iraq, and 1,000 in Afghanistan, where monthly casualties are climbing fast. Troop shortages have caused multiple deployments, up to six tours. Incidences of head injuries, PTSD and suicides have increased dramatically.
Again in this war, troops recruited from the lower income groups, from the large urban communities and economically depressed small towns, are carrying the heaviest burden of service. Financial incentives to enlist have reached as much as $40,000 which, combined with the economic recession, has made for record recruiting results.
While the longest in our history, the Iraq and Afghan wars are far from the bloodiest. In Vietnam, 58,000 of our sons and daughters were slaughtered in in a months less time. Maybe that's why the television cameras long ago left the battlefields of Afghanistan and Americans stopped caring about the war. Not bloody enough.
For those 5,400 families who've lost loved ones, this war is as painful as any of the others that came before it. And I believe every family would feel that way if one of its sons or daughters were at risk -- or subject to be in harm's way.
Whether in Afghanistan, or any future conflict, the test is whether Congress -- in supporting a war policy --is willing to require all eligible residents of this great country to make a contribution -- to put their own children at risk.
In other words, in order to fulfill one's moral responsibility to this democracy, anyone who supports this, or any war, should also support a compulsory military draft.
iraq
mcclatchy newspaperssahar issa
the washington postleila fadel
the new york times timothy williams omar al-jawoshy bbc news gabriel gatehouse cnn jomana karadsheh
the los angeles timesned parkerusama redha
the national newspapernizar latifthe epoch times jack phillips
iraq inquiry
iraq inquiry digestchris ames
7/08/2010
7/07/2010
gloria steinem needs to retire already
reader mindy e-mailed this from los angeles times' blog:
Gloria Steinem, an icon of the women’s movement, has criticized Sarah Palin for trying to brand herself as a feminist.
In an interview with @katiecouric, Steinem argued that a woman who chooses not to have an abortion can call herself a feminist, but “you can't be a feminist who says other women can't have an abortion."
mindy wanted to know my thoughts.
okay.
how about 'retire from public life, gloria steinem.'
i'm clear on the issue. if you don't support abortion rights, you're not a feminist.
i've always been clear on that.
go back to 2005 at this site.
but while i've been that way glo and the gals haven't. until palin emerges.
guess what, it should have been a litmus test.
you refused to make it 1 until sarah palin shows up.
i really think it's past time that gloria stopped doing the media tours (she embarrassed herself on colbert's show just a 2nd ago).
i really think it's time she go off to a cabin and write a serious book and allow herself to be praised and embraced.
instead, she gets involved in the most minor things and repeatedly degrades her own legacy.
some 1 needs to tell her, 'gloria, it's time to get off the stage.'
and she's not helped when she sounds like she's losing her grip and dementia's setting in. nor are those moments helped by the likes of media bistro going 'zing!' because they're not 'zing' moments, they are embarrassments. from media bistro:
"We're free to call ourselves whatever we wish, but I think her calling herself a feminist has mostly to do with how many votes Hillary Clinton got in the presidential race," said Steinem. Zing!
zing? what votes did hillary get in the presidential race?
write-ins?
what the hell is gloria talking about?
hillary didn't run in a presidential race.
barack did.
hillary ran in a democratic primary against other democrats to see who would get the nomination of the party for president.
i wish it had been hillary, but it wasn't.
so, no, gloria, she didn't get votes in a presidential race.
and i'm really starting to think you've got some mental issues creeping in.
again, you need to step off the public stage.
you've had your day and then some.
it's time to go.
and if that seems harsh, imagine if glo & the gals had agreed with me publicly years ago about how you couldn't be anti-choice and a feminist. but they didn't. they wanted to big tent it. and only now that sarah palin's seen as some almighty threat do they want to say, 'wait, let's change the rules!'
too damn late for them.
and 'too damn late' is becoming the story of gloria's life. again, she needs to retire.
and since she refuses to, let me give her a little more advice. talk about things that matter or shut up.
sarah palin doesn't mean a damn thing in the scheme of things.
the continued iraq war does.
i remember glo grandstanding on that issue.
glo, the illegal war continues.
where the hell are you?
she's worthless. she's a coward. they called her a racist and she backed down. she fell for this old tactic in the book, 1 she should have known would be deployed. gloria can't lead. that's reality. she needs to go bye-bye.
and these are my opinions and not c.i.'s. that should go without saying but some little girl posing as a feminist will be on the phone with c.i. tomorrow saying 'how dare rebecca say that! how dare you let her!' these are my words and my thoughts.
let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Wednesday, July 7, 2010. Chaos and violence continues, on the fourth month anniversary of the Parliamentary elections the political stalemate continues, 49 pilgrims are killed in violence (178 wounded), 3 US service members died in Iraq last Friday (not just two as announced), the Iraq Inquiry hears from a witness who states former prime minister Tony Blair practiced revisionary history in his testimony ("I also felt, at the time of Mr Blair's testimony to you, that he was seeking to cast a retrospectively benign light on a series of very bad decisions taken about the legality of the attack on Iraq"), a former member of the US Congress enters a guilty plea in a federal court, and more.
Today is the 7th of July which makes today exactly four months since elections took place. March 7th, Iraq concluded Parliamentary elections. Three months and two days later, still no government. 163 seats are needed to form the executive government (prime minister and council of ministers). When no single slate wins 163 seats (or possibly higher -- 163 is the number today but the Parliament added seats this election and, in four more years, they may add more which could increase the number of seats needed to form the executive government), power-sharing coalitions must be formed with other slates, parties and/or individual candidates. (Eight Parliament seats were awarded, for example, to minority candidates who represent various religious minorities in Iraq.) Ayad Allawi is the head of Iraqiya which won 91 seats in the Parliament making it the biggest seat holder. Second place went to State Of Law which Nouri al-Maliki, the current prime minister, heads. They won 89 seats. Nouri made a big show of lodging complaints and issuing allegations to distract and delay the certification of the initial results while he formed a power-sharing coalition with third place winner Iraqi National Alliance -- this coalition still does not give them 163 seats. They are claiming they have the right to form the government.
Four months later and no prime minister. Four months later and Parliament's only met once -- and then they met for less than 20 minutes. Is that normal? For 'modern' and 'democratic' Iraq, is that normal. We have 2005 as a model so let's walk through. December 15, 2005 was Iraq's previous Parliamentary election. April 22, Nouri al-Maliki became prime minister designate. Four months and seven days later.
And let's remember things were a lot worse in Iraq then. (Violence has never gone away and today demonstrated that yet again.) For example, from the April 26, 2006 snapshot, "The Associated Press notes that '[m]ore than 100 Iraqi civilians or police have been killed . . . since [Jawad] al-Maliki was tapped as Iraq's prime minister designate on Saturday . . .'" From Saturday to the following Wednesday. But a prime minister designate could be named. Not only that, grasp that Nouri wasn't first pick. The first pick was Ibrahim al-Jaafair. But the US nixed that.
Today, it's four months since the election and the political stalemate continues. Lourdes Garcia-Navarro (NPR) reports, "It has been four months since the parliamentary elections, and the parties are still bickering over who gets to form a government. Electricity is terrible, the phone networks don't work, and most basic services like water and sewage are patchy at best. Iraq is constantly indexed as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people remain displaced. And there is still violence, every single day. About 4,400 American service members have given their lives in Iraq. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died. Both Iraqis and Americans are still being killed, though in vastly reduced numbers." And the response to that from the US military? Snippy e-mails from US Maj Gen Stephen Lanza insisting that the correspondents are providing negative coverage. Is anyone wondering why the US didn't just change the Constitution and let Bush do is own third term if that's all Barack Obama was going to provide?
Is there a reason that USF (formerly MNF) can't get its act together. It doesn't have a lot of tasks. They don't do patrols, they just issue press releases. That apparently is too much work for them or else they're deliberately trying to distort the body count. From Friday's snapshot:Today the US military announced: "BAGHDAD – Two U.S. Soldiers have died in unrelated non-combat incidents. The names of the deceased are being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense. The names of service members are announced through the U.S. Department of Defense official website at http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/. The announcements are made on the Web site no earlier than 24 hours after notification of the service member's primary next of kin. The incidents are under investigation." If that's not the most s**t poor announcement USF/MNF has ever made, I don't know what is. When did the two die? Where did the two die? Why are those details not being supplied? Does anyone supervise these press releases? The announcement brings the total number of US service members killed in the Iraq War to 4411. "S**t poor" was actually too mild. The above press release -- the only one issued Friday by USF and none have been issued since on any military deaths -- tells us two US soldiers died in Iraq Friday. Simple enough?Yeah, except there were three. From Monday's entry: "Friday the US military announced two more deaths. The News & Observer notes that one of those deaths was Maryland's 19-year-old Spc Morganne McBeth who joined the military in 2008 and was deployed to Iraq August 17th." That's one of the two deaths announced. Yesterday's entry included: "Friday, 2 US service members died in Iraq. One was Maryland's 19-year-old Spc Morganne McBeth, the other was Sgt Johnny W. Lumpkin who 'died July 2 in Balad, Iraq from injuries he sustained in an incident the day before in Taji, Iraq.' Meredith Armstrong (WRBL, link has text and video) notes that the Columbus soldier is survived by parents Jan and Wayne Lumpkin, a wife (July 4th would have been the couple's ninth wedding anniversary) and three children."Follow that?Two deaths announced on Friday, two fallen identified. Except it's three. The Shreveport Times reports that Sgt Jordan E. Tuttle also died Friday ("in Baghdad of injuries suffered in a non-combat related incident"). Is there a reason that the military can't get it right? Is there a reason that a division charged with nothing more than issuing press release can't do their damn job? Or is that they're being told not to?You might think with deaths down compared to previous years, their jobs would be eaiser. But they seem to have a real problem these days doing the jobs that the US tax payers foot the bill for.Spc Morganne McBeth, Sgt Johnny W. Lumpkin and Sgt Jordan E. Tuttle died on Friday in Iraq. It shouldn't be that difficult in this day and age for the US military to announce that there were 3 deaths. All USF does is announce deaths (and issue happy spin). The Defense Dept is the one who identifies the fallen. All they have to do is issue an announcement of a death. Why is so hard for them? This has been repeated issue for USF all year long. You might think at some point Congress would ask one of the many generals parading before it what the deal is.4412 is the current number of US service members killed in the Iraq War -- at least that's the current number as far as we know.
Staying with violence, yesterday at least 6 pilgrims were reported dead and 37 wounded. Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) explained the pilgrimage is "to commemorate the martyrdom of Iman Musa al Kathim on July 8." It continued today -- both the pilgrimage and the violence. Scott Peterson (Christian Science Monitor) notes 28 dead today from a suicide bomber and sixty-three more injured. Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) supplies the details explaining a bomber took his/her own life in Adhamiyah and 38 pilgrims (eight-one injured) and that a Baghdad sticky bombing claimed the life of police Maj Abdulrahman Sabeeh, a Baghdad roadside bombing wounded three Iraqi soldiers, a Baghdad suicide bomber took his/her own life and that of 1 police officer (two civilians injured and two soldiers injured), two Baghdad roadside bombings claimed the lives of 5 pilgrims (thirty-five more wounded) and another Baghdad roadside bombing wounded six pilgrims, another Baghdad roadside bombing claimed 6 lives and left forty-five wounded, and two other Baghdad roadside bombings injured eleven. Timothy Williams and Omar al-Jawoshy (New York Times) report, "Shiite pilgrims are frequent targets of Sunni insurgent groups, and this year Iraqi security forces ordered several major roads and bridges closed and banned bicycles and motorcycles in the capital to try to safeguard the marchers. Some 200,000 security force members had been assigned to patrol streets, check cars and search pilgrims at they walked along streets to the shrine." Note that the pilgrimage has not ended, it continues tomorrow. Mu Xuequan (Xinhua) explains, "About 1 million pilgrims from many parts of Baghdad and other provinces are expected to gather near the Imam Mussa al-Kadhim shrine in Baghdad's northern district of Kadhmiyah for the annual commemoration of the death of the seventh of the most sacred 12 Shiite Imams." BBC News offers a photo essay on the pilgrimage. And what do the pilgrims talk about? Scott Peterson (Christian Science Monitor) reports:
But conversation along the pilgrims' path has centered on how bickering between Iraq's politicians since the March 7 election has damaged expectations, and raised fears of greater insecurity.
"It's the daily talk of the people: politicians and forming a government. Every day," says Mr. Jassim, sitting on the floor of the tent, as volunteers offered him cold packets of juice, bottles of water, and a plastic dish of rice with orange-brown sauce.
Ned Parker and Nadeem Hamid (Los Angeles Times) add an attack on a Falluja police checkpoint left 2 police officers dead.
The war the world never wanted (as evidenced by the massive protests before the start of the illegal war), the illegal war that was sold on lies, continues. And so do the lies. Press flacks with bars on their shoulders hassle the press, an Oval Office Occupant rushes to assure the people that things are better than before and the corner has been turned. All the Dems once in congress who scorned and sneered at "success" in Iraq now, from the White House, promote the laughable claim that there is "success" in Iraq.
If the people were confused by all the smoke and mirrors, it would not be at all surprising. However, yesterday Rasmussen Reports released results from a poll (plus/minus 3%) where Americans were asked whether or not they believed that the US military endedcombat operations at the end of August? 33% of respondents -- snorting hope,apparently -- say yes. 59% -- that would be a clear majority -- say no. They werealso asked how history will view the Iraq War. 36% say as a failure, 33% say as asuccess and 31% just don't know. The 33% figure took a hard hit from March when41% were saying the illegal war would be seen as "a success." This isn't surprising because, as Thomas E. Ricks has long pointed out, the military does not have a pacifist wing. And Saturday Tim Arango (New York Times) explained US combat missions in Iraq will not be ending in August. He spoke with a group of US soldiers in Mosul currently "hunting terrorists and covertly watching an Iraqi checkpoint staffed by police officers whom the soldiers say they do not trust." Arango explains that combat missions ("hunting insurgents, joint raids between Iraqi security forces and United States Special Forces to kill or arrest militants") will be renamed "stability operations." Michael Gordon (of the Times) attempted to point out to then-candidate Barack Obama that these were indeed combat missions. But apparently pretty didn't come with brains. The International Herald Tribune featured an important letter Tuesday:Former President George W. Bush sent U.S. troops streaming into Afghanistan supposedly in "hot pursuit" of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. It didn't take long, however, for him to recast the war as a much more general fight for the forces of good. Then Iraq caught his eye, and he lost interest in either winning the Afghan war or ending it via diplomacy. Unfortunately, that left the U.S. military stuck there. Even more unfortunately, the Democrats haven't found the fortitude to fight for an end to the increasingly pointless conflict. Already there are hints that President Barack Obama's much-touted 2011 withdrawal date may slip. If that happens we can forget about withdrawal before January 2013; after all, there'll be an election to consider. And by 2013, who knows what other reasons will have been found by Mr. Obama, or by his successor, to stay. If America's political leadership won't find a way to end the fighting, the children and grandchildren of today's U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan may be serving there as well. Eric B. Lipps, New York
In related news, Lara Jakes (AP) interviewed the top US commander in Iraq, Gen Ray Odierno, yesterday and, "Gen. Ray Odierno brought up the possibility of a U.N. forceduring an interview with The Associated Press. He observed that there is no immediate end in sight to the yearslong dispute between Arabs and Kurds, who have managed an uneasy political dance under American supervision since the fall of Saddam Hussein."
Meanwhile the Latin American Herald Tribune reports that Spain's Supreme Court was reopening the case in which US troops killed journalist Jose Couso, a cameraman for Telecino, April 8, 2003 when they fired on Bagdhad's Palestine Hotel. Also killed in the attack on civilians was Reuters journalist Taras Protsyuk. Three journalists were wounded in the attack. From Joel Campagna and Rhonda Roumani's "Permission to Fire?" (Committee to Protect Journalists):A Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) investigation into the incident--based on interviews with about a dozen reporters who were at the scene, including two embedded journalists who monitored the military radio traffic before and after the shelling occurred--suggests that attack on the journalists, while not deliberate, was avoidable. CPJ has learned that Pentagon officials, as well as commanders on the ground in Baghdad, knew that the Palestine Hotel was full of international journalists and were intent on not hitting it.
In London, the Iraq Inquiry continues. Today they heard from the UK Ambassador toIran from 2003 to 2006 Richard Dalton and the UK Ambassador to Iran from 2006to 2009 Geoffrey Adams (link goes to transcript and video options). Chris Ames (Iraq Inquiry Digest) emphasizes Dalton's exchange with Committee Member Martin Gilbert who brings up Tony Blair's testimony to the Inquiry earlier this year claiming Iran was supporting al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Dalton replied, "From what I saw of his evidence, I thought he very much exaggerated this factor." Richard Norton-Taylor (Guardian) also emphasizes this section of the testimony. We'll emphasize another point.
As the hearing wound down, Committee Member Lawrence Freedman had a few questions and used part of his time to clarify the relationship between Iran and Iraq and truth and Tony Blair's remarks.
Committee Member Lawrence Freedman: Can I just ask a final question to you, Sir Richard? After we had Tony Blair giving evidence here, you were quoted in the Daily Telegraph to the effect that he had been misreading Iran. Now, part of this was, looking back at it, about actions that might be taken in the future against Iran because of its nuclear programme. But I would just like your view as to whether you felt he was misreading Iran in terms of the role that Iran played in the development of instability within Iraq, and whether this is retrospective or whether you were concerned at the time that he was misreading the role of Iran.
Ambassador Richard Dalton: I think I have already answered that question at different points in my evidence so far, to recall what I think I said, I did believe at the time, particularly in 2003, that there was a misreading of Iran as inevitably hostile to the success of the coalition mission to replace Saddam with an Iraqi regime that would be democratic. Secondly, I felt that, at the time that the -- legitimate criticism and justified criticisim of Iran was sometimes used with too broad a brush; in other words, much more of the coalition difficulties were attributed to Iran than was the case, and I pointed out, for example, in some of my reporting that -- reporting that it would be very helpful if we could have more chapter and verse. If we were so sure of our case, then why weren't we showing captured intercepts or Iranian funds, given the sources at our disposal to counter subversion generally? There were several occasion on which we did present evidence of shoulder-launched missiles or IED technology that we felt originated in Iran and sought explanations, but those opportunities that we had weren't, I thought at the time, commensurate with the scale of our outrage at what Iran was doing. I also felt, at the time of Mr Blair's testimony to you, that he was seeking to cast a retrospectively benign light on a series of very bad decisions taken about the legality of the attack on Iraq by saying it was not only right to do it, but that we might have to do it again -- we, the UK, might have to do it again -- and I felt strongly then, and I do now, that a military adventure against Iran pre-emptively, supposedly against its nuclear programmes would be illegal in the absence of an imminent and real threat to any country from Iran and that no such nuclear threat exists at present, and that it was not a sufficient answer to the doubts about the way in which the decisions in 2003 had been taken to simply say that it is a dangerous world, other countries are dangerous and an action might be conceivable in future against those countries.
Committee Member Lawrence Freedman: So your concern was in all three of the areas that I mentioned?
Ambassador Richard Dalton: Yes.
Flying over to the other area ruled by Queen Elizabeth II, Canada. War resisters best chance currently is the court system. The legislative body's upper house is not inclined to vote into being a law in support of war resisters and all of Canada's laws are signed off on by the Queen of England who has already seen British soldiers prosecuted for refusing to take part in the illegal war. Jeremy Hinzman is the first war resister seeking asylum in Canada to go public. His efforts would spread the word and concept of war resistance to others. Philip Ling (Canwest News Service) reports, "In a unanimous decision Tuesday by the three-judge panel, the court ruled that an immigration officer's decision rejecting Jeremy Hinzman's application for permanent residence in Canada was 'significantly flawed and therefore unreasonable'." His attorney, Alyssa Manning argued convincingly that the immigration officer had refused to consider Jeremy's reasons for opposition to the Iraq War. Wendy Gillis (Toronto Star) explains, "That means officials must another look at Hinzman's application to remain in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds."
Moving over to the US, the Kansas City office of the FBI released the following today:
Former Congressman Pleads Guilty to Obstructing Justice, Acting as Unregistered Foreign AgentIARA Fundraiser Also Pleads Guilty to Conspiring with Former Congressman, Others
KANSAS CITY, MO -- A former congressman and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations pleaded guilty in federal court today to obstruction of justice and to acting as an unregistered foreign agent related to his work for an Islamic charity with ties to international terrorism, announced Beth Phillips, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri.
Mark Deli Siljander, 59, of Great Falls, Va., pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Nanette K. Laughrey to one charge contained in an Oct. 21, 2008, federal indictment, and an additional charge filed today, involving his work for the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA) of Columbia, Mo. Siljander was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan and was a U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations General Assembly.
Co-defendant Abdel Azim El-Siddig, of Chicago, Ill., a former IARA fundraiser, also pleaded guilty today to conspiring with Siljander and others to hire Siljander to lobby for IARA's removal from a Senate Finance Committee list of charities suspected of having terrorist ties, while concealing this advocacy and not registering with the proper authorities.
"A former congressman engaged in illegal lobbying for a charity suspected of funding international terrorism. He then used his own charities to hide the payments for his criminal activities," U.S. Attorney Phillips said. "Siljander repeatedly lied to FBI agents and prosecutors investigating serious crimes related to national security. With today's guilty pleas, all of the defendants in this case have admitted their guilt and will be held accountable for their actions."
Siljander operated a Washington, D.C., consulting business called Global Strategies, Inc. IARA was an Islamic charity in Columbia, Mo., that served as the U.S. office of an international organization headquartered in Khartoum, Sudan. IARA was closed in October 2004, after being identified by the U.S. Treasury Department as a specially designated global terrorist organization, for the support its international offices provided to Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the Taliban. The executive director of IARA, co-defendant Mubarak Hamed, 53, of Columbia, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Sudan, has pleaded guilty in connection with this case.
According to today's plea agreements, between March and May 2004, Hamed and El-Siddig hired Siljander to lobby for IARA's removal from a U.S. Senate Finance Committee list of charities suspected of funding international terrorism, and its reinstatement as an approved government contractor. IARA lost its status as an approved government contractor in 1999, when the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) terminated grants for two relief projects in Mali, Africa. USAID informed the organization that the grants were not in the national security interest of the United States.
Siljander, El-Siddig, and Hamed each knew that IARA was part of a large international organization controlled by its headquarters in Khartoum, Sudan, and agreed with each other to conceal Siljander's efforts on IARA's behalf. In order to do so, Siljander instructed El-Siddig and Hamed to transfer $75,000 of IARA's funds to him by funnelling them through non-profit entities. El-Siddig carried at least three checks issued to Siljander's charities from Chicago to Washington, D.C., and gave them to Siljander.
In exchange for the payments, during the Summer of 2004, Siljander acted as an agent for IARA by contacting persons at the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, USAID, the Department of Justice and the Department of the Army, in an effort to have IARA removed from the USAID list of debarred entities, and to remove IARA from the Senate Finance Committee's list of charities suspected of funding terrorism. Federal law requires anyone who serves as an agent of a foreign entity, including an organization, to register with the U.S. Attorney General.
In pleading guilty, Siljander admitted that in two separate interviews he repeatedly lied to FBI agents and prosecutors acting on behalf of a federal grand jury. Siljander obstructed justice by falsely denying that he was hired to advocate for IARA, and by falsely claiming that the payments from IARA were charitable donations intended to assist him in writing a book about bridging the gap between Islam and Christianity.
Under federal statutes, Siljander is subject to a sentence of up to 15 years in federal prison without parole, plus a fine of up to $500,000. El-Siddig is subject to a sentence of up to five years in federal prison without parole, plus a fine of up to $250,000. Sentencing hearings will be scheduled after the completion of presentence investigations by the U.S. Probation Office.
Siljander and El-Siddig were the final defendants facing trial next week in Kansas City, Mo.
Hamed pleaded guilty on June 25, 2010, to conspiring to illegally transfer more than $1 million to Iraq in violation of federal sanctions, and to obstructing the administration of the laws governing tax-exempt charities. Hamed used IARA to solicit charitable contributions throughout the United States, taking in between $1 million and $3 million in contributions annually from 1991 to 2003, and then illegally transferred funds to Iraq, with the assistance of a Jordanian identified by the U.S. Treasury Department as a specially designated global terrorist. Hamed also impaired and impeded the administration of the Internal Revenue laws by misusing IARA's tax-exempt status, providing false information to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and lying to federal agents.
Co-defendant Ali Mohamed Bagegni, 56, a native of Libya who is a naturalized U.S. citizen and former resident of Columbia, pleaded guilty on April 6, 2010, to his role in the conspiracy. Bagegni was a member of the board of directors of IARA.
Co-defendant Ahmad Mustafa, 57, of Columbia, a citizen of Iraq and a lawful permanent resident alien, pleaded guilty on Dec. 17, 2009, to illegally transferring funds to Iraq in violation of federal sanctions. Mustafa worked as a fund-raiser for IARA and traveled throughout the United States soliciting charitable contributions. Further, in 1999, 2000, and 2001, at Hamed's behest, Mustafa traveled to Iraq on IARA business. In 2001, he visited Iraq for several weeks and met with numerous officials to discuss the process of opening an IARA office in Iraq. Among the officials with whom Mustafa met was Hushyar Zibari, who was at the time a leader in the Patriotic Democratic Party of Kurdistan and is currently the foreign minister of Iraq. Mustafa also looked to find a building suitable for an IARA office in the Kurdish provinces of Iraq.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Anthony P. Gonzalez, Steven M. Mohlhenrich, Dan Stewart and Brian Casey from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Missouri, and Trial Attorney Paul G. Casey from the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The case was investigated by the FBI, IRS-Criminal Investigation, and U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of the Inspector General.
Mark Siljander served in the US Congress from 1981 to 1987. He is a Republican and firmly against abortion rights, equal rights and basically any rights other than, apparently, the rights of foreign agents on US soil. Ronald Reagan made him a represenative to the UN (alternative representative) in 1987 (a one-year term).
Lastly, Francis A. Boyle is a professor of law and an international human rights expert. He is also the attorney for the Mothers of Srebrenica and Podrinja and, on their behalf, releases this statement:
The Dutch National Team will be playing for the World Cup upon the fifteenth anniversary of the genocidal massacre at Srebrenica for which the Dutch National Government is jointly and severally responsible under international law. Furthermore, for the past 15 years the Dutch National Government has lied about, covered up, whitewashed, and stonewalled the fact that it cooperated in the massacre of 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, also rendering the Dutch National Government an Accessory After the Fact to the "genocide" at Srebrenica, as determined by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the so-called World Court.. For these reasons, the Mothers of Srebrenica and Podrinja call upon all people of good faith and good will around the World, especially those at the World Cup Stadium in South Africa, to publicly root against the Dutch National Team in sympathy with the Victims at Srebrenica.
We will not rest until Justice is done!
iraq
nprlourdes garcia-navarro
the shreveport times
the associated presslara jakes
the latin american herald tribunethe committee to protect journalistsjoel campagnarhonda roumani
the new york timestim arango
mcclatchy newspaperssahar issa
iraq inquiry
iraq inquiry digestchris ames
xinhuamu xuequan
the international herald tribune
Gloria Steinem, an icon of the women’s movement, has criticized Sarah Palin for trying to brand herself as a feminist.
In an interview with @katiecouric, Steinem argued that a woman who chooses not to have an abortion can call herself a feminist, but “you can't be a feminist who says other women can't have an abortion."
mindy wanted to know my thoughts.
okay.
how about 'retire from public life, gloria steinem.'
i'm clear on the issue. if you don't support abortion rights, you're not a feminist.
i've always been clear on that.
go back to 2005 at this site.
but while i've been that way glo and the gals haven't. until palin emerges.
guess what, it should have been a litmus test.
you refused to make it 1 until sarah palin shows up.
i really think it's past time that gloria stopped doing the media tours (she embarrassed herself on colbert's show just a 2nd ago).
i really think it's time she go off to a cabin and write a serious book and allow herself to be praised and embraced.
instead, she gets involved in the most minor things and repeatedly degrades her own legacy.
some 1 needs to tell her, 'gloria, it's time to get off the stage.'
and she's not helped when she sounds like she's losing her grip and dementia's setting in. nor are those moments helped by the likes of media bistro going 'zing!' because they're not 'zing' moments, they are embarrassments. from media bistro:
"We're free to call ourselves whatever we wish, but I think her calling herself a feminist has mostly to do with how many votes Hillary Clinton got in the presidential race," said Steinem. Zing!
zing? what votes did hillary get in the presidential race?
write-ins?
what the hell is gloria talking about?
hillary didn't run in a presidential race.
barack did.
hillary ran in a democratic primary against other democrats to see who would get the nomination of the party for president.
i wish it had been hillary, but it wasn't.
so, no, gloria, she didn't get votes in a presidential race.
and i'm really starting to think you've got some mental issues creeping in.
again, you need to step off the public stage.
you've had your day and then some.
it's time to go.
and if that seems harsh, imagine if glo & the gals had agreed with me publicly years ago about how you couldn't be anti-choice and a feminist. but they didn't. they wanted to big tent it. and only now that sarah palin's seen as some almighty threat do they want to say, 'wait, let's change the rules!'
too damn late for them.
and 'too damn late' is becoming the story of gloria's life. again, she needs to retire.
and since she refuses to, let me give her a little more advice. talk about things that matter or shut up.
sarah palin doesn't mean a damn thing in the scheme of things.
the continued iraq war does.
i remember glo grandstanding on that issue.
glo, the illegal war continues.
where the hell are you?
she's worthless. she's a coward. they called her a racist and she backed down. she fell for this old tactic in the book, 1 she should have known would be deployed. gloria can't lead. that's reality. she needs to go bye-bye.
and these are my opinions and not c.i.'s. that should go without saying but some little girl posing as a feminist will be on the phone with c.i. tomorrow saying 'how dare rebecca say that! how dare you let her!' these are my words and my thoughts.
let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Wednesday, July 7, 2010. Chaos and violence continues, on the fourth month anniversary of the Parliamentary elections the political stalemate continues, 49 pilgrims are killed in violence (178 wounded), 3 US service members died in Iraq last Friday (not just two as announced), the Iraq Inquiry hears from a witness who states former prime minister Tony Blair practiced revisionary history in his testimony ("I also felt, at the time of Mr Blair's testimony to you, that he was seeking to cast a retrospectively benign light on a series of very bad decisions taken about the legality of the attack on Iraq"), a former member of the US Congress enters a guilty plea in a federal court, and more.
Today is the 7th of July which makes today exactly four months since elections took place. March 7th, Iraq concluded Parliamentary elections. Three months and two days later, still no government. 163 seats are needed to form the executive government (prime minister and council of ministers). When no single slate wins 163 seats (or possibly higher -- 163 is the number today but the Parliament added seats this election and, in four more years, they may add more which could increase the number of seats needed to form the executive government), power-sharing coalitions must be formed with other slates, parties and/or individual candidates. (Eight Parliament seats were awarded, for example, to minority candidates who represent various religious minorities in Iraq.) Ayad Allawi is the head of Iraqiya which won 91 seats in the Parliament making it the biggest seat holder. Second place went to State Of Law which Nouri al-Maliki, the current prime minister, heads. They won 89 seats. Nouri made a big show of lodging complaints and issuing allegations to distract and delay the certification of the initial results while he formed a power-sharing coalition with third place winner Iraqi National Alliance -- this coalition still does not give them 163 seats. They are claiming they have the right to form the government.
Four months later and no prime minister. Four months later and Parliament's only met once -- and then they met for less than 20 minutes. Is that normal? For 'modern' and 'democratic' Iraq, is that normal. We have 2005 as a model so let's walk through. December 15, 2005 was Iraq's previous Parliamentary election. April 22, Nouri al-Maliki became prime minister designate. Four months and seven days later.
And let's remember things were a lot worse in Iraq then. (Violence has never gone away and today demonstrated that yet again.) For example, from the April 26, 2006 snapshot, "The Associated Press notes that '[m]ore than 100 Iraqi civilians or police have been killed . . . since [Jawad] al-Maliki was tapped as Iraq's prime minister designate on Saturday . . .'" From Saturday to the following Wednesday. But a prime minister designate could be named. Not only that, grasp that Nouri wasn't first pick. The first pick was Ibrahim al-Jaafair. But the US nixed that.
Today, it's four months since the election and the political stalemate continues. Lourdes Garcia-Navarro (NPR) reports, "It has been four months since the parliamentary elections, and the parties are still bickering over who gets to form a government. Electricity is terrible, the phone networks don't work, and most basic services like water and sewage are patchy at best. Iraq is constantly indexed as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people remain displaced. And there is still violence, every single day. About 4,400 American service members have given their lives in Iraq. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died. Both Iraqis and Americans are still being killed, though in vastly reduced numbers." And the response to that from the US military? Snippy e-mails from US Maj Gen Stephen Lanza insisting that the correspondents are providing negative coverage. Is anyone wondering why the US didn't just change the Constitution and let Bush do is own third term if that's all Barack Obama was going to provide?
Is there a reason that USF (formerly MNF) can't get its act together. It doesn't have a lot of tasks. They don't do patrols, they just issue press releases. That apparently is too much work for them or else they're deliberately trying to distort the body count. From Friday's snapshot:Today the US military announced: "BAGHDAD – Two U.S. Soldiers have died in unrelated non-combat incidents. The names of the deceased are being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense. The names of service members are announced through the U.S. Department of Defense official website at http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/. The announcements are made on the Web site no earlier than 24 hours after notification of the service member's primary next of kin. The incidents are under investigation." If that's not the most s**t poor announcement USF/MNF has ever made, I don't know what is. When did the two die? Where did the two die? Why are those details not being supplied? Does anyone supervise these press releases? The announcement brings the total number of US service members killed in the Iraq War to 4411. "S**t poor" was actually too mild. The above press release -- the only one issued Friday by USF and none have been issued since on any military deaths -- tells us two US soldiers died in Iraq Friday. Simple enough?Yeah, except there were three. From Monday's entry: "Friday the US military announced two more deaths. The News & Observer notes that one of those deaths was Maryland's 19-year-old Spc Morganne McBeth who joined the military in 2008 and was deployed to Iraq August 17th." That's one of the two deaths announced. Yesterday's entry included: "Friday, 2 US service members died in Iraq. One was Maryland's 19-year-old Spc Morganne McBeth, the other was Sgt Johnny W. Lumpkin who 'died July 2 in Balad, Iraq from injuries he sustained in an incident the day before in Taji, Iraq.' Meredith Armstrong (WRBL, link has text and video) notes that the Columbus soldier is survived by parents Jan and Wayne Lumpkin, a wife (July 4th would have been the couple's ninth wedding anniversary) and three children."Follow that?Two deaths announced on Friday, two fallen identified. Except it's three. The Shreveport Times reports that Sgt Jordan E. Tuttle also died Friday ("in Baghdad of injuries suffered in a non-combat related incident"). Is there a reason that the military can't get it right? Is there a reason that a division charged with nothing more than issuing press release can't do their damn job? Or is that they're being told not to?You might think with deaths down compared to previous years, their jobs would be eaiser. But they seem to have a real problem these days doing the jobs that the US tax payers foot the bill for.Spc Morganne McBeth, Sgt Johnny W. Lumpkin and Sgt Jordan E. Tuttle died on Friday in Iraq. It shouldn't be that difficult in this day and age for the US military to announce that there were 3 deaths. All USF does is announce deaths (and issue happy spin). The Defense Dept is the one who identifies the fallen. All they have to do is issue an announcement of a death. Why is so hard for them? This has been repeated issue for USF all year long. You might think at some point Congress would ask one of the many generals parading before it what the deal is.4412 is the current number of US service members killed in the Iraq War -- at least that's the current number as far as we know.
Staying with violence, yesterday at least 6 pilgrims were reported dead and 37 wounded. Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) explained the pilgrimage is "to commemorate the martyrdom of Iman Musa al Kathim on July 8." It continued today -- both the pilgrimage and the violence. Scott Peterson (Christian Science Monitor) notes 28 dead today from a suicide bomber and sixty-three more injured. Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) supplies the details explaining a bomber took his/her own life in Adhamiyah and 38 pilgrims (eight-one injured) and that a Baghdad sticky bombing claimed the life of police Maj Abdulrahman Sabeeh, a Baghdad roadside bombing wounded three Iraqi soldiers, a Baghdad suicide bomber took his/her own life and that of 1 police officer (two civilians injured and two soldiers injured), two Baghdad roadside bombings claimed the lives of 5 pilgrims (thirty-five more wounded) and another Baghdad roadside bombing wounded six pilgrims, another Baghdad roadside bombing claimed 6 lives and left forty-five wounded, and two other Baghdad roadside bombings injured eleven. Timothy Williams and Omar al-Jawoshy (New York Times) report, "Shiite pilgrims are frequent targets of Sunni insurgent groups, and this year Iraqi security forces ordered several major roads and bridges closed and banned bicycles and motorcycles in the capital to try to safeguard the marchers. Some 200,000 security force members had been assigned to patrol streets, check cars and search pilgrims at they walked along streets to the shrine." Note that the pilgrimage has not ended, it continues tomorrow. Mu Xuequan (Xinhua) explains, "About 1 million pilgrims from many parts of Baghdad and other provinces are expected to gather near the Imam Mussa al-Kadhim shrine in Baghdad's northern district of Kadhmiyah for the annual commemoration of the death of the seventh of the most sacred 12 Shiite Imams." BBC News offers a photo essay on the pilgrimage. And what do the pilgrims talk about? Scott Peterson (Christian Science Monitor) reports:
But conversation along the pilgrims' path has centered on how bickering between Iraq's politicians since the March 7 election has damaged expectations, and raised fears of greater insecurity.
"It's the daily talk of the people: politicians and forming a government. Every day," says Mr. Jassim, sitting on the floor of the tent, as volunteers offered him cold packets of juice, bottles of water, and a plastic dish of rice with orange-brown sauce.
Ned Parker and Nadeem Hamid (Los Angeles Times) add an attack on a Falluja police checkpoint left 2 police officers dead.
The war the world never wanted (as evidenced by the massive protests before the start of the illegal war), the illegal war that was sold on lies, continues. And so do the lies. Press flacks with bars on their shoulders hassle the press, an Oval Office Occupant rushes to assure the people that things are better than before and the corner has been turned. All the Dems once in congress who scorned and sneered at "success" in Iraq now, from the White House, promote the laughable claim that there is "success" in Iraq.
If the people were confused by all the smoke and mirrors, it would not be at all surprising. However, yesterday Rasmussen Reports released results from a poll (plus/minus 3%) where Americans were asked whether or not they believed that the US military endedcombat operations at the end of August? 33% of respondents -- snorting hope,apparently -- say yes. 59% -- that would be a clear majority -- say no. They werealso asked how history will view the Iraq War. 36% say as a failure, 33% say as asuccess and 31% just don't know. The 33% figure took a hard hit from March when41% were saying the illegal war would be seen as "a success." This isn't surprising because, as Thomas E. Ricks has long pointed out, the military does not have a pacifist wing. And Saturday Tim Arango (New York Times) explained US combat missions in Iraq will not be ending in August. He spoke with a group of US soldiers in Mosul currently "hunting terrorists and covertly watching an Iraqi checkpoint staffed by police officers whom the soldiers say they do not trust." Arango explains that combat missions ("hunting insurgents, joint raids between Iraqi security forces and United States Special Forces to kill or arrest militants") will be renamed "stability operations." Michael Gordon (of the Times) attempted to point out to then-candidate Barack Obama that these were indeed combat missions. But apparently pretty didn't come with brains. The International Herald Tribune featured an important letter Tuesday:Former President George W. Bush sent U.S. troops streaming into Afghanistan supposedly in "hot pursuit" of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. It didn't take long, however, for him to recast the war as a much more general fight for the forces of good. Then Iraq caught his eye, and he lost interest in either winning the Afghan war or ending it via diplomacy. Unfortunately, that left the U.S. military stuck there. Even more unfortunately, the Democrats haven't found the fortitude to fight for an end to the increasingly pointless conflict. Already there are hints that President Barack Obama's much-touted 2011 withdrawal date may slip. If that happens we can forget about withdrawal before January 2013; after all, there'll be an election to consider. And by 2013, who knows what other reasons will have been found by Mr. Obama, or by his successor, to stay. If America's political leadership won't find a way to end the fighting, the children and grandchildren of today's U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan may be serving there as well. Eric B. Lipps, New York
In related news, Lara Jakes (AP) interviewed the top US commander in Iraq, Gen Ray Odierno, yesterday and, "Gen. Ray Odierno brought up the possibility of a U.N. forceduring an interview with The Associated Press. He observed that there is no immediate end in sight to the yearslong dispute between Arabs and Kurds, who have managed an uneasy political dance under American supervision since the fall of Saddam Hussein."
Meanwhile the Latin American Herald Tribune reports that Spain's Supreme Court was reopening the case in which US troops killed journalist Jose Couso, a cameraman for Telecino, April 8, 2003 when they fired on Bagdhad's Palestine Hotel. Also killed in the attack on civilians was Reuters journalist Taras Protsyuk. Three journalists were wounded in the attack. From Joel Campagna and Rhonda Roumani's "Permission to Fire?" (Committee to Protect Journalists):A Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) investigation into the incident--based on interviews with about a dozen reporters who were at the scene, including two embedded journalists who monitored the military radio traffic before and after the shelling occurred--suggests that attack on the journalists, while not deliberate, was avoidable. CPJ has learned that Pentagon officials, as well as commanders on the ground in Baghdad, knew that the Palestine Hotel was full of international journalists and were intent on not hitting it.
In London, the Iraq Inquiry continues. Today they heard from the UK Ambassador toIran from 2003 to 2006 Richard Dalton and the UK Ambassador to Iran from 2006to 2009 Geoffrey Adams (link goes to transcript and video options). Chris Ames (Iraq Inquiry Digest) emphasizes Dalton's exchange with Committee Member Martin Gilbert who brings up Tony Blair's testimony to the Inquiry earlier this year claiming Iran was supporting al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Dalton replied, "From what I saw of his evidence, I thought he very much exaggerated this factor." Richard Norton-Taylor (Guardian) also emphasizes this section of the testimony. We'll emphasize another point.
As the hearing wound down, Committee Member Lawrence Freedman had a few questions and used part of his time to clarify the relationship between Iran and Iraq and truth and Tony Blair's remarks.
Committee Member Lawrence Freedman: Can I just ask a final question to you, Sir Richard? After we had Tony Blair giving evidence here, you were quoted in the Daily Telegraph to the effect that he had been misreading Iran. Now, part of this was, looking back at it, about actions that might be taken in the future against Iran because of its nuclear programme. But I would just like your view as to whether you felt he was misreading Iran in terms of the role that Iran played in the development of instability within Iraq, and whether this is retrospective or whether you were concerned at the time that he was misreading the role of Iran.
Ambassador Richard Dalton: I think I have already answered that question at different points in my evidence so far, to recall what I think I said, I did believe at the time, particularly in 2003, that there was a misreading of Iran as inevitably hostile to the success of the coalition mission to replace Saddam with an Iraqi regime that would be democratic. Secondly, I felt that, at the time that the -- legitimate criticism and justified criticisim of Iran was sometimes used with too broad a brush; in other words, much more of the coalition difficulties were attributed to Iran than was the case, and I pointed out, for example, in some of my reporting that -- reporting that it would be very helpful if we could have more chapter and verse. If we were so sure of our case, then why weren't we showing captured intercepts or Iranian funds, given the sources at our disposal to counter subversion generally? There were several occasion on which we did present evidence of shoulder-launched missiles or IED technology that we felt originated in Iran and sought explanations, but those opportunities that we had weren't, I thought at the time, commensurate with the scale of our outrage at what Iran was doing. I also felt, at the time of Mr Blair's testimony to you, that he was seeking to cast a retrospectively benign light on a series of very bad decisions taken about the legality of the attack on Iraq by saying it was not only right to do it, but that we might have to do it again -- we, the UK, might have to do it again -- and I felt strongly then, and I do now, that a military adventure against Iran pre-emptively, supposedly against its nuclear programmes would be illegal in the absence of an imminent and real threat to any country from Iran and that no such nuclear threat exists at present, and that it was not a sufficient answer to the doubts about the way in which the decisions in 2003 had been taken to simply say that it is a dangerous world, other countries are dangerous and an action might be conceivable in future against those countries.
Committee Member Lawrence Freedman: So your concern was in all three of the areas that I mentioned?
Ambassador Richard Dalton: Yes.
Flying over to the other area ruled by Queen Elizabeth II, Canada. War resisters best chance currently is the court system. The legislative body's upper house is not inclined to vote into being a law in support of war resisters and all of Canada's laws are signed off on by the Queen of England who has already seen British soldiers prosecuted for refusing to take part in the illegal war. Jeremy Hinzman is the first war resister seeking asylum in Canada to go public. His efforts would spread the word and concept of war resistance to others. Philip Ling (Canwest News Service) reports, "In a unanimous decision Tuesday by the three-judge panel, the court ruled that an immigration officer's decision rejecting Jeremy Hinzman's application for permanent residence in Canada was 'significantly flawed and therefore unreasonable'." His attorney, Alyssa Manning argued convincingly that the immigration officer had refused to consider Jeremy's reasons for opposition to the Iraq War. Wendy Gillis (Toronto Star) explains, "That means officials must another look at Hinzman's application to remain in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds."
Moving over to the US, the Kansas City office of the FBI released the following today:
Former Congressman Pleads Guilty to Obstructing Justice, Acting as Unregistered Foreign AgentIARA Fundraiser Also Pleads Guilty to Conspiring with Former Congressman, Others
KANSAS CITY, MO -- A former congressman and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations pleaded guilty in federal court today to obstruction of justice and to acting as an unregistered foreign agent related to his work for an Islamic charity with ties to international terrorism, announced Beth Phillips, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri.
Mark Deli Siljander, 59, of Great Falls, Va., pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Nanette K. Laughrey to one charge contained in an Oct. 21, 2008, federal indictment, and an additional charge filed today, involving his work for the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA) of Columbia, Mo. Siljander was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan and was a U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations General Assembly.
Co-defendant Abdel Azim El-Siddig, of Chicago, Ill., a former IARA fundraiser, also pleaded guilty today to conspiring with Siljander and others to hire Siljander to lobby for IARA's removal from a Senate Finance Committee list of charities suspected of having terrorist ties, while concealing this advocacy and not registering with the proper authorities.
"A former congressman engaged in illegal lobbying for a charity suspected of funding international terrorism. He then used his own charities to hide the payments for his criminal activities," U.S. Attorney Phillips said. "Siljander repeatedly lied to FBI agents and prosecutors investigating serious crimes related to national security. With today's guilty pleas, all of the defendants in this case have admitted their guilt and will be held accountable for their actions."
Siljander operated a Washington, D.C., consulting business called Global Strategies, Inc. IARA was an Islamic charity in Columbia, Mo., that served as the U.S. office of an international organization headquartered in Khartoum, Sudan. IARA was closed in October 2004, after being identified by the U.S. Treasury Department as a specially designated global terrorist organization, for the support its international offices provided to Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the Taliban. The executive director of IARA, co-defendant Mubarak Hamed, 53, of Columbia, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Sudan, has pleaded guilty in connection with this case.
According to today's plea agreements, between March and May 2004, Hamed and El-Siddig hired Siljander to lobby for IARA's removal from a U.S. Senate Finance Committee list of charities suspected of funding international terrorism, and its reinstatement as an approved government contractor. IARA lost its status as an approved government contractor in 1999, when the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) terminated grants for two relief projects in Mali, Africa. USAID informed the organization that the grants were not in the national security interest of the United States.
Siljander, El-Siddig, and Hamed each knew that IARA was part of a large international organization controlled by its headquarters in Khartoum, Sudan, and agreed with each other to conceal Siljander's efforts on IARA's behalf. In order to do so, Siljander instructed El-Siddig and Hamed to transfer $75,000 of IARA's funds to him by funnelling them through non-profit entities. El-Siddig carried at least three checks issued to Siljander's charities from Chicago to Washington, D.C., and gave them to Siljander.
In exchange for the payments, during the Summer of 2004, Siljander acted as an agent for IARA by contacting persons at the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, USAID, the Department of Justice and the Department of the Army, in an effort to have IARA removed from the USAID list of debarred entities, and to remove IARA from the Senate Finance Committee's list of charities suspected of funding terrorism. Federal law requires anyone who serves as an agent of a foreign entity, including an organization, to register with the U.S. Attorney General.
In pleading guilty, Siljander admitted that in two separate interviews he repeatedly lied to FBI agents and prosecutors acting on behalf of a federal grand jury. Siljander obstructed justice by falsely denying that he was hired to advocate for IARA, and by falsely claiming that the payments from IARA were charitable donations intended to assist him in writing a book about bridging the gap between Islam and Christianity.
Under federal statutes, Siljander is subject to a sentence of up to 15 years in federal prison without parole, plus a fine of up to $500,000. El-Siddig is subject to a sentence of up to five years in federal prison without parole, plus a fine of up to $250,000. Sentencing hearings will be scheduled after the completion of presentence investigations by the U.S. Probation Office.
Siljander and El-Siddig were the final defendants facing trial next week in Kansas City, Mo.
Hamed pleaded guilty on June 25, 2010, to conspiring to illegally transfer more than $1 million to Iraq in violation of federal sanctions, and to obstructing the administration of the laws governing tax-exempt charities. Hamed used IARA to solicit charitable contributions throughout the United States, taking in between $1 million and $3 million in contributions annually from 1991 to 2003, and then illegally transferred funds to Iraq, with the assistance of a Jordanian identified by the U.S. Treasury Department as a specially designated global terrorist. Hamed also impaired and impeded the administration of the Internal Revenue laws by misusing IARA's tax-exempt status, providing false information to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and lying to federal agents.
Co-defendant Ali Mohamed Bagegni, 56, a native of Libya who is a naturalized U.S. citizen and former resident of Columbia, pleaded guilty on April 6, 2010, to his role in the conspiracy. Bagegni was a member of the board of directors of IARA.
Co-defendant Ahmad Mustafa, 57, of Columbia, a citizen of Iraq and a lawful permanent resident alien, pleaded guilty on Dec. 17, 2009, to illegally transferring funds to Iraq in violation of federal sanctions. Mustafa worked as a fund-raiser for IARA and traveled throughout the United States soliciting charitable contributions. Further, in 1999, 2000, and 2001, at Hamed's behest, Mustafa traveled to Iraq on IARA business. In 2001, he visited Iraq for several weeks and met with numerous officials to discuss the process of opening an IARA office in Iraq. Among the officials with whom Mustafa met was Hushyar Zibari, who was at the time a leader in the Patriotic Democratic Party of Kurdistan and is currently the foreign minister of Iraq. Mustafa also looked to find a building suitable for an IARA office in the Kurdish provinces of Iraq.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Anthony P. Gonzalez, Steven M. Mohlhenrich, Dan Stewart and Brian Casey from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Missouri, and Trial Attorney Paul G. Casey from the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The case was investigated by the FBI, IRS-Criminal Investigation, and U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of the Inspector General.
Mark Siljander served in the US Congress from 1981 to 1987. He is a Republican and firmly against abortion rights, equal rights and basically any rights other than, apparently, the rights of foreign agents on US soil. Ronald Reagan made him a represenative to the UN (alternative representative) in 1987 (a one-year term).
Lastly, Francis A. Boyle is a professor of law and an international human rights expert. He is also the attorney for the Mothers of Srebrenica and Podrinja and, on their behalf, releases this statement:
The Dutch National Team will be playing for the World Cup upon the fifteenth anniversary of the genocidal massacre at Srebrenica for which the Dutch National Government is jointly and severally responsible under international law. Furthermore, for the past 15 years the Dutch National Government has lied about, covered up, whitewashed, and stonewalled the fact that it cooperated in the massacre of 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, also rendering the Dutch National Government an Accessory After the Fact to the "genocide" at Srebrenica, as determined by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the so-called World Court.. For these reasons, the Mothers of Srebrenica and Podrinja call upon all people of good faith and good will around the World, especially those at the World Cup Stadium in South Africa, to publicly root against the Dutch National Team in sympathy with the Victims at Srebrenica.
We will not rest until Justice is done!
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7/06/2010
vacation from the vacation
Truest statement of the week
Truest statment of the week II
A note to our readers
Editorial: Hypocrisy is not a left value
TV: Persons Unknown, Plots Pretty Standard
The Sharon Smith Roundtable
The new neighborhood
The Private Dick and the Flatulent Woman
She writes letters
The meteor shower
The Cult of St Barack
The end
Highlights
this 1 probably took the longest ever. but a lot of what we came up with argues that the time was well spent.
the snapshot today made me laugh. i'm very familiar with the clare short story having heard it a few times from c.i. and then when i was in london working on the election a while back, i heard it from 2 labour mps (1 a former mp, 1 a current). it is a funny story.
i'm glad c.i. included it because it's funny and because it does demonstrate a number of things if you're paying attention. including ...
you'll have to read it.
how much is every 1 else writing tonight.
supposedly - being drained by the sun and vacation booze - we're all barely writing.
but i can just see them drafting mini-essays while i turn in my easy post. i would not be at all surprised.
but we'll see. mainly because i'm too tired to care. i may need a vacation from the vacation.
let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot :'
Tuesday, July 6, 2010. Chaos and violence continue, the Iraq Inquiry continues in London with a focus on the family of the deceased, Bradley Manning is charged (though not convicted -- except by some in the press), 6 pilgrims are killed in Baghdad with at least 37 wounded (the pilgrimage continues through the week), Joe Biden visits Iraq over the weekend, and more.
Monday April 5th, WikiLeaks released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7th, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Philip Shenon (Daily Beast) reported last month that the US government is attempting to track down WikiLeaks' Julian Assange. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reports Manning has been charged today and that includes "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." These are charges. An Article 32 hearing will be held to determine the strength of the charges. If the case proceeds, it would then move to a court martial. Manning has not spoken to the press. That's an important point and one to remember when the suspect's 'confessions' are bandied about. What crazy ass wipe Adrian Lamo calls truth is certainly open to interpretation and reporters would do well to stop treating what Lamo has supplied them with as fact. Meaning those transcripts of IM-ing may or may not be Manning and when the press -- check out the Guardian's Chris McGreal -- presents those as factual, they are not doing the job of the press. They may be doing the prosecution's job -- which would be the US government's job -- but they are not doing the press' job. Those transcripts may indeed be legitimate. If so, the government will introduce them into evidence and the defense will not dispute them. But a number of reporters are telling you what Manning thought and they don't even know that Manning was the leak. Repeating, Manning hasn't spoken to the press. All they have is a little snitch named Adrian. Sometimes snitches tell the truth, sometimes they don't. In the meantime, Manning's not being 'tried in the media,' he's being 'convicted in the media.' That is not the American justice system. Steven Lee Myers (New York Times) reports on the charges and gets it right. Those confused as to what reporting actually is can refer to his work because he outlines what is known and what isn't. And that's not a slap at Fadel. She also demonstrates how you report. In her case, she ignores the unverified claims and assertions made by Lamo. That's the approach we've taken here. If it is introduced as evidence, we'll deal with it but if Lamo's all we have to go by, we're not wasting our time on it or spitting on the American legal system by using it to mind read. Mannings facing very serious charges (repeating, no guilt has yet been established) and you'd think that people would be very careful about what they claimed Manning has done or has written or has said. Manning has not spoken to the press, Manning has not issued any statement to the press.
There's confusion as to how many charges Manning is facing. The military counts two (as Fadel's article reports) but there are 12 specifications. Mike Gogulski (Help Bradley Manning) has posted the press release and Mike analyzes the charges here. WikiLeaks has not revealed the identify of the person who passed the information to them. At their Twitter feed they note:
If the charges against Manning are true, he will be the Daniel Ellsberg of our times. about 4 hours ago via bitly
In London, the Iraq Inquiry continue. Yesterday the Inquiry headed by John Chilcot heard from Sally Keeble about civilian efforts in Iraq during the early stages of the Iraq War (link goes to video and text options). The thurst of her testimony is Clare Short's lying. I don't believe Keeble. In 2001, in London, I emerged from the ladies' room to be greeted with, "Are you okay?" My response, "I've been trapped in there with Clare Short for 20 minutes." Everyone at the table, including one Miliband brother, laughed knowingly. I know Clare distantly and it stays distant by choice. I'm not a fan of Clare's (nor she of me). But one thing she is and has always been is straightforward. If she makes mistakes, she'll take her lumps and then some. I don't hate her but our personalities do not mesh and never have. (And never will.) However, if she says something happened, it happened. Keeble's testimony blames Clare for the disorder in Iraq, blames Clare's resignation for forcing her (Keeble) to stay on (lest people think she too was resigning for 'political' reasons) and lists various 'projects' that Clare allegedly erred by not backing. Including a 6 million (apparently pounds and not dollars) port project that, to be honest, I don't think anyone would have backed that early into the war. That's a huge sum of money that lower-level Keeble wanted committed. When all of this was allegedly going on, Keeble did not raise objections. She not only waited until Claire was gone to complain, she waited until she (Keeble) had left the department of International Development herself. If there were huge glaring errors taking place, it was Keeble's job to report them in real time. When she finally did make her assertions, they were looked into by Tony Blair's government. Blair had no reason to protect Clair -- who'd walked out on his cabinet -- but the investigation resulted in a conclusion that the charges were unfounded. I don't know Keeble and have no way of knowing whether she was lying or honestly believes her account for whatever reason. But Clare -- and I'm no fan of Clare's -- is known to take her share of the blame pie and then some. I was hoping Chris Ames (Iraq Inquiry Digest) would cover Keeble's testimony but he didn't so I'm stating the above and, with that, we're done with Keeble.
Today the Chilcot Inquiry heard from Andy Bearpark (Director Operations and Infrastructure in the Coalition Provisional Authority, 2003 to 2004), Martin Howard (Director General Operational Policy, Ministry of Defence, 2004 to 2007), and MP Bob Ainsworth (Minister of State for the Armed Forces, 2007 to 2009, Secretary of State for Defence, 2009) (link goes to transcript and video options). Of the three, we'll zoom in on Bob Ainsworth's testimony. He testified that the issue most presented to him by British troops "was the issues of rest and recuperation" on "the welfare package" -- benefits to the families.
MP Bob Ainsworth: I think you have got to look at the individual instances, because I think that there are some provisions that are absolutely ideal for the provision, you know, through the regimental system, but then there are others where that's not -- I mean, when you have a bereaved family -- I mean, we had to do, I think, considerable work to try to make sure that -- I mean, we simply weren't getting it right, to tell you the truth, and there was a need for, you know, improvement there. Again and again, we were letting people down, I think. [. . . leaping ahead over ten minutes] I saw working with the charities and the agencies as a tour, to help us fill in some of those gaps and fill them in appropriately. So, for instance, in the area of dealing with and helping the bereaved, I don't think that that was some of the improvement that we made we could ever have made on our own, and we certainly couldn't have put in a system that would have helped on our own. So we had to have the help and advice of the Legion, the War Widows' Association. We uwed thos organisations to do analyses of how we actually treated people and get some of the complaints back. We organised a forum. It was somewhere off Pall Mall -- I can't remember exactly where the venue was now -- and we used those organisations to do it, where we brought in people who had been bereaved, who were only to happy to help us because one of the main motivations of bereaved families is often to make sure that you learn lessons from the loss, you know, of their loved ones. But we used them to, you know to, pick up all the challenges that we got and try to improve the service. Now, as a result of that, we then got the British Legion to actually run a service for us, which -- I can't remember the title of it now, but it is like a Citizens' Advice Bureau for -- you know, for bereaved families. Now, we could never do that as MoD [Ministry of Defence]. I don't think we could ever establish the trust with the individuals. You needed that kind of bit of independence, that bit of, you know, arm's length, that getting the British Legion to do it for you gives you. So you know, we then employed them to run some of the improvements that flowed from some of the analyses that we had done of where we were not doing a perfect job.
[. . .]
Committee Member Usha Prashar: I want to look at the question of the MoD dealing with the families because one of the issues that has been raised with us is the MoD's attitude towards families and, in view of the families of the service personnel killed in Iraq, they say that the MoD's attitude is either dismissive or overly defensive. To what extent do you think this criticism is justified and were you aware of that view?
MP Bob Ainsworth: People deal with bereavement in different ways and I have met lots of bereaved families. In some cases, almost no matter what you do, you know, you cannot, you know, make things better; anger is a part of bereavement. You just have to accept that and try not to make the situation worse. But there were areas that we were not getting right.
Committee Member Usha Prashar: Such as?
MP Bob Ainsworth: Well, the way that we communicated with people, sometimes we would appoint a visiting officer to a particular family and that visiting officer would get deployed and then they would wind up with another person, having just got used to the person they were supposed to have as liaison. There are some horror stories when you dig into, you know, how people have actually been, you know, dealt with at an individual level and, I mean, you can never fully mitigate -- in a big organisation, you can never fully mitigate those things, and that is why we organised this event with the War Widows and with the -- the War Widows' Association and with the Royal British Legion to try to pick the brains of those who had had to deal with us, you know, to expose our own failings and then to put systems in place that would, to some degree, pick them up better.
Committee Member Usha Prashar: But what priority did you personally give to dealing with families of those killed in Iraq? What did you personally do? Was that a personal priority?
MP Bob Ainsworth: Improving the system was a personal priority. I had to meet a lot of families, some of them on more than one occasion, and it was important that you did. I know that Des Browne did, and he did it when he was Secretary of State almost systematically. It was important that you didn't just take what you were being told through the system, but you actually got ground truth, and you can't do that all the time and people don't want to do that. There are lots of people who have lost their loved ones who, the last thing they want to do is talk to the Secretary of State for Defence or the armed forces minister. You know, they have got other things, you know that -- in dealing with their bereavement, there are other things that are more important to them, but by doing that from time to time, you did get, you know, a personal handle on, you know, the way some of these systems potentially could be improved.
The answers or 'answers' never got any clearer. From death to life, Lourdes Garcia-Navarro (NPR's Morning Edition -- link has text and audio) reports from Hannah Allam's Baghdad baby shower. The McClatchy correspondent joins Deborah Haynes (Times of London) and Nada Bakri (New York Times) in reporting on the Iraq War from Iraq while pregnant. Garcia-Navarro notes, "Since the war started, dozens of women have been sent to cover this conflict. It's been our choice, but for many of us, home and family have had to be parked at the blast wall gates." Leila Fadel (Washington Post), Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor) and Liz Sly (Los Angeles Times) are mentioned in the report (they attended the shower and, of course, cover Iraq). Other women reporting from Iraq for US outlets have included Alissa J. Rubin, Ellen Knickmeyer, Nancy A. Youssef, Deborah Amos (author of Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile, and Upheaval in the Middle East), Cara Buckley, Martha Raddatz, Kimberly Dozier, Sabrina Tavernise, Jill Carroll, Anna Badkhen, Gina Chon, Louise Roug, Tina Susman, Alexandra Zavis, Alice Fordham, Kim Gamel, Katarina Kratovac, Rebecca Santana and, of course, the Iraqi women who are part of McClatchy's Baghdad Bureau. Have included. That is not a complete list. (And it's off the top of my head so anyone forgotten was by accident and not a sleight -- except one -- the most famous Iraq 'reporter' whom I'm really not in the mood to include, the former Ms. NYT for those still waking up, helped sell the war.) Everyone listed has their strengths and a unique quality that set their reports aside from others (male and female) reporting from the region. Women have long covered wars. The Iraq War demonstrated that only more so. Lourdes' report aired this morning -- certain fact checkers might want to check their facts before falsely claiming -- as one has -- that the report aired over weekend. The Iraqi women working for McClatchy include correspondent Sahar Issa (who balances work and family in a war zone) and we'll transition on over to violence her country saw today.
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing which injured two pilgrims, a Baghdad mortar attack which claimed the life of 1 pilgrim and left nine more injured, a Baghdad roadside bombing which injured three pilgrims, another which injured five, another which claimed the lives of 2 and left five wounded, another which injured four, another which injured one and two more Baghdad mortar attacks which claimed the lives of 3 pilgrims and left eight wounded. Issa explains the pilgrimage is "to commemorate the martyrdom of Iman Musa al Kathim on July 8." Reuters adds 2 women were shot dead in Mosul and Tikrit was the locale for an assassination attempt on Iraiya member Qutaiba Ibrahim al-Jouburi.
Over the weekend, US Vice President Joe Biden was back in Iraq, for his fourth visit since being sworn in as Vice President. Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) reported, "Vice President Joe Biden, the White House point man on Iraq policy, arrived in Baghdad on Saturday for meetings with the two front-runners in slow-moving negotiations to lead the Iraqi government as U.S. troops pull out." AP noted a hesitancy among US officials and elected politicians to visit Iraq since the elections and offers that this might signal a change. In Iraq, the political stalemate continues.March 7th, Iraq concluded Parliamentary elections. Three months and two days later, still no government. 163 seats are needed to form the executive government (prime minister and council of ministers). When no single slate wins 163 seats (or possibly higher -- 163 is the number today but the Parliament added seats this election and, in four more years, they may add more which could increase the number of seats needed to form the executive government), power-sharing coalitions must be formed with other slates, parties and/or individual candidates. (Eight Parliament seats were awarded, for example, to minority candidates who represent various religious minorities in Iraq.) Ayad Allawi is the head of Iraqiya which won 91 seats in the Parliament making it the biggest seat holder. Second place went to State Of Law which Nouri al-Maliki, the current prime minister, heads. They won 89 seats. Nouri made a big show of lodging complaints and issuing allegations to distract and delay the certification of the initial results while he formed a power-sharing coalition with third place winner Iraqi National Alliance -- this coalition still does not give them 163 seats. They are claiming they have the right to form the government.
Sunday Biden met with Ayad Allawi and Nouri al-Maliki. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported of the first visit, "During the 1 1/2 -hour session, Biden emphasized the U.S. commitment to a 'long-term strategic' relationship with Iraq, said Maysoon al-Damluji, a member of the bloc who attended the meeting. Biden was accompanied by U.S. Ambassador Christopher R. Hill and Gen. Ray Odierno, the top military commander in Iraq, as well as other officials from the U.S. Embassy. At the end of the meeting, Allawi and Biden spoke privately for 15 minutes." Counting his trips as a US Senator, Tim Arango (New York Times) noted this is Biden's 17th trip to Iraq since the start of the Iraq War and reports of the second meeting, "Mr. Biden's motorcade then snaked through the Green Zone to the home of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who lives in a neighborhood of waterways known as Little Venice. Afterward, a member of Mr. Maliki's political party, Khalid al-Assadi, said in a statement that the 'process of forming a government is going on quietly'." The Los Angeles Times' Top of the Ticket blog posts the speech Biden gave today. Kelly McEvers (NPR's All Things Considered -- link has text and audio) filed from Baghdad on Monday: Vice President JOE BIDEN: The United States is committed we're committed to cement that relationship through economic, political and diplomatic cooperation, not just by the use of arms.
MCEVERS: Analysts here say this may be what the American people want to hear, but not necessarily what the Iraqis want to hear. On one hand, the radical Islamists, both Shiite and Sunni, want the U.S. military all the way out of Iraq. Others say American soldiers should stay, to protect people against the radicals and to ensure that whoever takes power does not become another dictator. Abdulhalek Zengela is a Kurdish member of parliament. He says Biden was his usual frank self with Iraqi leaders and that's the way the Americans should remain.
Lu Hui (Xinhua) reported on Biden's visit with President Jalal Talabani on Monday and Hui notes that both Nouri and Allawi issued statements following their meetings -- statements which sought to make it appear they had the edge and nod from Biden. Caroline Alexander (Bloomberg News) notes, "In a statement e-mailed from his office in Baghdad today, Talabani described Biden as 'a friend' and said they had discussed ways of 'finding a solution'." Michael Jansen (Irish Times) offers an indepth overview and notes "the post-election political process, as laid down in the constitution, has stalled. parliament, which was convened on June 14th for deputies to take the oath of office and remains in open session because it was unable to elect a speaker on that date. On July 14th, parliament is meant to name a president or three-man presidential council. But these posts cannot be filled until the shape of the new government is decided."
On The NewsHour (PBS -- link has text, video and audio options) Judy Woodruff spoke with the Christian Science Monitor's Jane Arraf and we'll note this section on the continued stalemate:JUDY WOODRUFF: Are the sticking points related to the sectarian groups, the Shia, the Sunni, the Kurds, or is it more than that?
JANE ARRAF: It is related to that, in a sense. But, more than that, a lot of this, so much of it, in fact, is related to personality, the personality of the prime minister, who has been prime minister for four years and wants to hang on that post, the prime minister of Ayad Allawi, another strong leader, a strong man, as Iraqis see him. A lot of it really is about individuals. It's not so much about issues, which is what Iraqis think it should be. This is a country where it's the beginning of summer, 110, 120 degrees, six hours of electricity a day, no jobs, and people here really feel that politicians should put their own interests aside for a second and just get on with it and form a government and do something.
Alsumaria TV (which correctly notes that Biden was on a three-day visit) explains suggestions were made during the trip: "An official speaking on condition of anonymity pointed out however to two proposals. The first stipulates to divide Premiership term between Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki and head of Al Iraqiya List Iyad Allawi, two years each. The second proposal calls to amend Prime Minister's authorities in favor of Iraqi President which recalls the statements of US Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill."
Biden's not the only US official who visited Iraq over the weekend, Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham. Xinhua reports the three senators met with Nouri today and he told them that the pace of the process was being increased. From the article: "Talking about what were achieved by his government in security and other fields, Maliki said the victory is difficult, but maintaining it is much harder." Students of history might want to remember South Vietnam's claims (and economy -- which was semi-functioning at that point) during the US occupation and how, when US forces left, the puppet regime imploded. The same may be in store for Iraq's puppet government if history is an indicator. Biden is due to meet with Nouri and Allawi tomorrow.
In other news, Timothy Williams (New York Times) reported Saturday that Falluja -- hit twice in 2004 by the US military -- will not be getting the "citywide sewage treatment system" the US government promised and which American tax payers footed the bill for: "Now, after more than six years of work, $104 million spent, and without having connected a single house, American reconstruction officials have decided to leave the system unfinished, though they portray it as a success." Williams goes on to document how that abandoned project is not an isolated occurrence. Hamza Hendawi (AP) reports on the one growth industry of the illegal war: widowhood. Women such as Hameeda Ayed, now the sole provider for herself and her three children who qualifies for approximately $166 a month in assistance from the Baghdad government or 'government' but not only is she not receiving the money, she's no longer trying for it. Because? Because the process exists to stymie and thwart those who might seek assistance. As has become very obvious (me, not AP) in the last years, the 'assistance' is a concept Nouri wants the West to believe he's provided; however, no meaningful assistance is provided for Iraq's over 1 million widows (government figure provided to AP by Nahdah Hameed). Hamza summarizes to AP, "Our life has been turned into misery and desperation. This is what we got from occupation and the dreams of democracy: orphans, widows, homeless, displaced and fugitives." Those still catching up on the weekend's news should refer to Stephen Farrell's post at the New York Times' blog.
On the latest Inside Iraq (Al Jazeera, began airing Friday), the electricity issue was addressed, how Iraqis suffer without it, how it has not improved through all the years of the Iraq War Iraq's Minister of Planning Ali Baban and joined Jasim Azawi
Jasim Azawi: Ali Baban, I would like to start with you. Before I ask you a question, there is one thing right from the start, right from the outset I would like to make very clear and that is regarding the recently resigned Minister of Electricity [Kareem Waheed], nobody has alleged and nobody has ever proved that corruption -- personal corruption -- has indicted him or has tarnished his reputation. That's from the very beginning. But we take it very seriously, any allegation of people's reputation. And even the number, the $17 billion everybody's throwing around that the minister got in those years. That number is also false according to him and according to figures published that during those four years his ministry received just a little bit over $6 billion -- more than 2 and 1/2 have been spent correctly and the rest is in letter of credit awaiting suppliers to fulfill their committment. Having said that Ali Baban, explain to me in a short manner why, after seven years, Iraqis are still suffering from a lack of electricity.
Ali Baban: Really, I agree with you about your idea and what you mentioned about the minister himself. I think it is very necessary to confirm that the minister is an efficient man and he is a professional man that nobody accuse him of corruption but really the problem is very complicated and it is related to many factors -- political factor, administrative factor, economics factor, the clashes and the antagonism between political group impede our plan to improve the electricity in Iraq. I want to say that. And I want to say to the people that we should face this problem seriously and it is not a challenge for one year or two year, I think we would take time to deal with destroyed -- arranged our network and we should spend a lot of money to solve this problem. Our arranged electricity program really was a subject for destruction because of the wars and siege and the blockage which Iraq was subject for in the last 20 years.
Jasim Azawi: Sami Ramadani, listen to the minister. This is a warning, this is an omen. Those Iraqis who think they are going to get the electricity to pre-1990 or to 1991, they are mistaken according to Ali Baban, it's going to take many many years.
Sami Ramadani: Yes and Maliki confirmed that as well a few days ago after the demonstrations. I think this is an endemic problem. And I myself doubt if the current set-up can supply smoothly electricity to the bulk of the population for many, many years to come. And I think the problems that the Minister alluded to are much deeper than even appearing on the surface. In fact, I think the electricity problem is a very good symbol of the entire political problems of Iraq and the way the sucessive governments since the occupation of Iraq have handled people's essential services. And electricity is one of them. Perhaps one of the most important because it effects people's health, daily lives, schools, education. Electricity, especially in the cities, is one of the backbone infrastructure facilities that the population depend on. And the failure to suppy electricity to the population is symptomatic of the setup that followed the occupation. And I think that one of the reasons -- not every reason, we will come to the other reasons -- one of the reasons is that I think the Iraqi electricity industry -- like much of the services in Iraq -- are being primed for privataziation. This is an agenda that the occupation had at the top of its priorities: Too privatize as much as they could of Iraq's wealth, industries. To open the doors for those who would reap the profits from Iraq and its resources.
And we return to England for the close. Tomorrow there's a demonstration in London:
Tomorrow morning the decision will be announced on the 'discretion test' case from the Supreme Court.This is otherwise known as the Home Office policy of telling LGBT asylum seekers to 'go home and be discreet'. See our report on UKLGIG's groundbreaking research for more.The policy has been described by some as the Anne Frank principle."It would have been no defence to a claim that Anne Frank faced well-founded fear of persecution in 1942 to say that she was safe in a comfortable attic," Lord Justice Pill agreed in the court of appeal last year. "Refugee status cannot be denied by expecting a person to conceal aspects of identity or suppress behaviour the person should be allowed to express," he added.Movement for Justice - who marched for LGBT asylum at London Pride - will be holding a demonstration tomorrow, Wednesday 7 July at 9am at The Supreme Court (Parliament Square, London SW1P 3BD, opposite the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben).
[. . .]
Visit our website, LGBT asylum news (formally Save Medhi Kazemi)http://www.medhikazemi.comTwitter http://twitter.com/ LGBTAsylumNewsIf you want to be removed from our mailing list, please let us know.Sign the petition for Iraqi LGBT http://www.gopetition.com/ petitions/iraqi-lgbt-need- your-help/sign.html
iraq
the washington postleila fadel
the new york timessteven lee myers
nprmorning editionlourdes garcia-navarro
the los angeles timesned parkerxinhua
tim arango
mu xuequanlu huithe irish timesmichael jansen
alsumaria tv
pbsthe newshourjudy woodruffthe christian science monitorjane arraf
the associated presshamza hendawi
al jazeera
inside iraqjasim azawi
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