PUMA gnaws at its own tail

Betty, please!

That's the thrust of about seventeen e-mails. That's a huge number for me to get in one day and it's all on the same issue. Yeah, I'll tackle it.

C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" yesterday contained reporting. C.I. continues to be the only one online that I'm aware of who actually reports on Congressional hearings. Almost always (as with yesterday) because C.I. was present. But there are friends (interns and Congress members) who can ask and have received coverage for asking. In that case, C.I. will get a rough idea of the hearing, call Congressional staffers and ask for the low down and write something up. When Congress is in session, you can count on some reporting from C.I. And you can count on it being more in-depth than what the MSM usually offers.

So yesterday C.I. reported on the subcommittee hearing about sexual assault in the military and did an amazing job (she covers that hearing again today in the snapshot and notes she will cover some more of it in tomorrow's snapshot).

People are appalled that the hearings were ignored. (Stars & Stripes and Talk Radio Network filed stories and that's all. Yes, C.I. topped both with yesterday's report alone.) Now the online world was supposed to offer us something.

What has it offered?

In-depth analaysis? Not seeing it. (C.I. does that as well such as today when crunching numbers for Iraqis and registered voters.) I'm seeing a lot of gas bags who want to be bad columnists in the MSM and seeing people who have even less to offer than that.

And what else?

Not real damn much.

Last night, everyone with a community site (except Third) posted and did so to be sure that the snapshot was out there because that was an important hearing (and because we all thought C.I. did an amazing job covering it). And the theme topic was changed at the last minute because we wanted to have a really interesting one that could hopefully pick up some non-readers as well as our usual readers.

Six community members took that further. They went around to various sites trying to get attention to the hearing.

There were a few feminist boards and a few blogs (which I name in the roundtable we did tonight) picked up on them.

Now the six community members (all women) did not try for male approval or attention. They went to blogs and message boards associated with women.

And guess what? PUMA is a bunch of bulls**t idiots. They say they care about women but they don't.

Let's just get that straight. We had one of the PUMA leaders writing about "illegal immigrants" this week. Did you catch that? The left doesn't make that mistake.

The left today uses "undocumented worker" but "illegal immigrant" is a slur. But there was PUMA Idiot using "illegal immigrant" and writing this screed against Latinos.

That's so very typical of the White, White world of PUMA.

The PUMAs refused to allow comments noting the hearing to be posted at their bad blogs. Hey, Honkey Lei, I'm talking about your damn ass.

Yeah, Honkey, I'm calling your White poup-poup ass out. I can name a lot more.

But she was far from alone and the best were the angry little PUMA-meisters who e-mailed angry little mails after they got confronted on their crap.

Pretending to care about women and refusing to even acknowledge a hearing about sexual assaults on women?

No, PUMA doesn't give a damn about women.

I have no problem walking away from those people. They are not welcoming to Blacks (as I noted before) and they really write the most conservative b.s. in the world and seem surprised if you call them on it. I'm talking about No Quarter which always had a wide spectrum of views. I'm talking about the "We're not Republicans! We are PUMAs! And we are PUMAs because we support women!"

I have permission from Gina and Krista to note the following. It's an advance peak at the roundrobin tomorrow. We did the roundtable for it tonight. I mentioned this and Rebecca right away said, "I got those e-mails too" (e-mails from members complaining about PUMA). So we talked about it and expected C.I. would pull her usual which was to find a nice way to say it didn't matter.

Instead?

"You know ___ and ____ have ripped me off so much in the last ten months, I'm really surprised they didn't just make another effort to do so by taking the transcriptions and passing it off as something they happened to catch."

That's the first sentence of what Gina bills as C.I.'s "explosive remarks." (She said to put that in so it would be a teaser for tomorrow's roundrobin.)

And Ava rips apart a number of the trash in PUMA who e-mail asking for links all the time and who then want to act like they don't know The Common Ills ("especially while they're ripping off C.I."). As the conversation progressed more and more, C.I. halted it and I have permission to note that as well.

Yesterday's snapshot? C.I. mentions how NARAL and NOW are being called out online. C.I. says something like "all over the net." And provides no links. Why? C.I. knew about it from the e-mail report Shirley gave before the snapshot was dictated yesterday. Various PUMAs were e-mailing to get links. And? C.I. didn't give out any links.

That's how it's going to be from now on. They really do not seem to be about the women and when they're even deleting comments about the hearing on sexual assualt, they need to try fooling someone else into believing that they are feminists.

I've had it with them all. There may be a few good ones in the bunch but they've repeatedly demonstrated that they're not about equality for all and now they're making it clear they're not even about women's rights.

And let me be really clear that I may call out the trash that attacked immigrants. She'd be right at home sitting across from Rush Limbaugh. I saw that garbage and thought I'd write about that tonight but then went into my e-mails this afternoon and changed the planned topic.

They've refused to police themselves. They're real damn fond of declaring "We're not Party Unity My Ass" and whimpering that people need to stop saying that. But they fail to police themselves. Violet Socks is one exception but I don't really consider her part of PUMA. I consider her more of a truth teller. But these women who emerge suddenly in 2008 and want us to believe they care, they really care? Their actions are making it clear that they don't -- they really don't.


"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Thursday, January 29, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, provincial elections loom, 3 candidates in them are shot dead today, US House Rep Loretta Sanchez shocks the military by asking about accountability, and more.

Laura Watterson: I'll just start off. This is very difficult. I don't usually come out of my bedroom so coming all the way to DC is a little, well, freaking me out. But however uncomfortable I may be, I think it is more important that I be here instead of worrying about my own problems because this really needs to be done. [. . .]
When I entered the Air Force, I seriously considered making it a career for myself. I wanted to travel and I wanted to have a stable life and career. After I was assaulted, I no longer trusted anyone on base and my career was no longer an option for me. Because of my MST and PTSD that resulted from it, I was forced to move in with my mother at the age of thirty because I could not take care of myself, keep a job or feel safe even in my own apartment. I lived on cereal and microwaveable dinners so I did not end up causing a fire because I forgot that I was cooking something. I was so depressed that I actually quit smoking because the task of actually picking up a cigarette and lighting it was just too much. Of course, my doctors were happy about that but . . .
I had crying fits that were so powerful I could not even get my head off of wherever it landed because of exhaustion. One time my head landed in my shoe. And it would leave me hoarse for three days from crying so hard. I have gained over sixty pounds and I would go into violent rages. One time I ransacked the house to find every present I had ever given my mother, smashed them to bits and dumped them on her bed. I would swear at her and throw things at her as if I had Tourette Syndrome. Any attempt at communication with me, I would just flip her off. This behavior was . . . I had never treated my mother like this before. I didn't understand why this was happening and it ruined my self-esteem that much further.
I have missed most family functions since being in the Air Force because I am unable to be around many people -- especially people who are asking a lot of personal questions like "Oh, how is life? What are you up to? What are you doing?" That kind of brings the family celebration down a little. It has been only recently that I would even leave my bedroom. I used to have very good credit. And I was very proud of that. Because of not being able to pay my bills because I could not keep a job -- just recently I had an attempt to have my wages garnished. I was too afraid to wear anything at all 'inviting'. I.e. I would wear men's clothing, usually in all black and several sizes too big. I didn't want anyone to find me approachable. I'm afraid of being assaulted again. I used to have my hair and make up and nails match every day, no matter what I was wearing, for years. Now, with the exception of today, I would only wear chapstick and stick my hair up in a bun. And I rarely, if ever, painted my nails. I don't have the energy to look good due to depression. I have had meltdowns in the super market because if I saw someone -- especially if it was a man -- I knew they were stalking me and I would run from the grocery store.
My marriage to a man who I am still friends with ended due to my PTSD symptoms. I didn't realize why I was acting the way I was and neither did he. Nonetheless, it ruined our marriage. That's probably the hardest part [crying], excuse me.
I began . . . I began therapy at the VA because I had lost everything as a result. I began to see patterns and realized that I needed to get my life back. I realize that there are many other people who need to be helped to get back on track as well and that is also why I am a Veteran Advocate myself -- out of my bedroom and out of my own pocket.
Part of my wellness is testifying today, forcing me to get out and do things that are challenging because they're more important. I'll leave here today but hopefully my message will not leave. If I had a caring SARC representative I believe I would not have ended up in the mess that I have ended up in. I was never given a representative when I called to have some assistance. No one came. It got to the point that I called the 15th Air Force Commander who was in charge of the entire western half of the United States and whose name was also in all of the sexual assault booklets, leaflets and --
Since basic training, we'd all been taught the same thing. I trusted in that. I also trusted because I had friends before I went in, "Aren't you afraid after the sexual harassment, the whole Tail-hook thing?" I was like, "No. With all this media why would they -- they must be really careful about it now."
The 15th Air Force Commander said, "Well why don't you just keep this on base, have them take care of it?" They wouldn't. I reported it as I was supposed to -- to my supervisor, as well as his. They said it would be taken care of and I trusted that.
Two weeks later, I was at work and everyone was asked to stand up because there was going to be a pinning-on ceremony.
That pinning-on ceremony was for the man who assaulted me to now outrank me and become a supervisor. He was rewarded.
This was when I got very angry. After fighting and calling everyone I could possibly think of, my commander finally called me into his office with my supervisor who assaulted me here [call this Point A], the guy who assaulted me [Point B], my chair [Point C -- so they are seated right next to each other] and his supervisor [Point D]. So I was not even close to my supervisor, the one who should be protecting me or making me feel safe.
I was told by my commander that I needed to understand that, "Different people have different personal bubbles. For example, when you go to England, sometimes when you meet people over there and you shake their hand, they like to hold on to your hand while they're speaking and, as Americans, because we don't do that, it's uncomfortable for us." And that is how he told me that I needed to get over what had happened.
That is when I became --
I started drinking obscene amounts. Again, not knowing anything about PTSD, I started having, you know, yelling at my husband over the stupidest things and having absolute fits of rage. And, again, this is not me.
After this meeting I had with my commander, my SARC, or whatever he was called at the time, offered me therapy. I asked if it was going to be someone on base or if it was going to be civilian? He told me it was going to be from someone on base and from the treatment that I had gotten so far to try and help me there was no way I was going to trust another military member to tell them how I felt and what was going on. So when I refused help, they had me sign a waiver saying that because I refused treatment I was not going to be eligible for any VA treatment or benefits. I, of course, did not realize that that was a load of malarkey until several years later when I had to go to the VA because I couldn't handle my own life.
I was also told that punishment of my perpetrator was not my business. I think that is -- I don't know for sure what the real rule is about that now, but it is definitely the business because I trusted them in the first place to take care of it and promoting him two weeks later is not promoting it -- sorry, fixing it.
All of the evidence that had been in my files about this was sanitized. This is a normal and way too often thing that happens with files. Things that are important that would have some thing to do with a claim are taken out of your files so, when you request them, over half of your file is no longer there. So trying to fight the VA to get benefits is next to impossible because there's no proof any more -- even if you reported it to the on base police, even if you reported it to anybody who would listen, like I did, nothing. This, again, makes us trust the government even less.
I would be afraid even when the phone rang. That could make me cry. A few months ago, I was at a friend's house and her washing machine turned on and I had a panic attack from that. I don't know why. I have panic attacks all the time for the oddest reasons, I'm sure. As I get further in my treatment I will figure out why certain things trigger me.
I believe that there are some good SARCs but not enough. The SARCs need to be on top of their game. The victim is not going to seek out help. They're going to do what I did. They're going to stay in their room and drink. They're not going to trust anybody else to go help them. I also believe that a SARC should not be a dependent of a military member because the way that they would run their case may be far too influenced by their fear that if they go against the way the command is saying things should be done, that it could be detrimental to their spouse's career.
Excuse me just a second.
The SARC also needs to be able to have complete confidentiality. The things that a victim says and does with their SARC needs to be completely confidential. It is maybe a month or two ago that a victim's SARC was subpoenaed to testify against their own victim. And of course, they had no choice.
Just like you're doing now, let the MST victims be involved in the training of SARC personnel. They know how it feels, they know what needs to be changed. And commanders also need to be accountable when it comes to the rapist.
We have plenty of rules that are not worth the paper that they are printed on. For example, if somebody has done a sexual assault it is supposed to stay in their record, they are supposed to sign up as -- on the -- I'm sorry, I'm blanking on the name but whatever the civilian thing is that a sex offender has to register under, that's a rule. I've had very little -- in fact, I don't think I've ever seen that done now that I'm even doing advocacy work for people who are still in. The next base they [assailants] go to, that file does not follow them so the next command does not know it. They are put in the same situation and they know they can get away with it. I do not believe a lot of the rumors and the little two-bit ideas that most people have about "Well, it's the alcohol, well, women shouldn't be in the military, well, well, well." I believe it is due to the consistent and rewarded attitudes of misogyny. Thinking that women -- and also men -- there's plenty of men that I've worked with who have been sexually assaulted as well. They need to be able to be safe, feel like they have been taken care of and when you find out that a person who has sexually assaulted you did it at the last base, where is the safety?
I felt like I was entering the band of the brothers as their sister. I was then an outcast. Alone. And challenged on everything I did.
There is also the Troops to Teachers Act.
so when the person who sexually assaulted a member, when they get out of the Air Force, or any Coast Guard or whatever, so they get to go be [. . .] teachers and their file does not follow them because they have not registered as a sex offender. So they get to be in schools with children as a sex offender.

That's Laura Watterson's testimony to the Military Personnel Subcommittee yesterday, chaired by US House Rep Susan Davis. The subcommittee is part of the US House Armed Services Committee and watch the military reaction in the following exchange when US House Rep Loretta Sanchez proposes an accountability measure.

US House Rep Loretta Sanchez: Thank you, Madame Chair and thank you to all the panel for being here. I have just one question because in the 12 years that I have been on this committee and in the Congress, we've had this problem and I believe it is a major problem. When we are a volunteer force in particular and when we are looking at 50% of Americans being women and the fact that we need to draw the talents from that pool just as we do from the men. And I believe women should be in the military. And that this problem is continuing to happen and has for so many years . . . drives me crazy. We were able to pass, as you know, a new UCMJ section that dealt with this and I hear back from the prosecutors that they love using this new law, that they are more effectively using it to get the prosecutions that they need. But you know I've always said that there are three things that we need to do. One, change the culture. Two, change the law so that we do prosecute and we can prosecute. And three, work well with those who, the victims who have had this happen and make sure that they don't lose their lives. So let's go back to the first one: Change the culture. Because this shouldn't be happening at all. I've zero tolerance for this. And it seems to me that no matter what we try, no matter how many rules we put on and how many administrative issues and everything, it all comes down to how the top is handling this. How the commander handles this, where ever it is, whether it's Iraq or the Air Force Academy or whether it's a base in Camp Pendleton in California or where ever it might be, that it's really about how the chain of command deals with this. And they don't seem to deal with this very well. And so my question is to Ms. Watterson who so bravely came forward today and I thank you for that because I, believe it or not, I personally know how difficult it is. Uhm. It's been my contention that the only way we're going to make the command understand how important this issue is is that it's actually a section on every promotion that they receive. That in order for them to be promoted, they have to deal with, "What did you do about this? How much of this has happened under you? How come you were ineffective about this?" And that they don't get promoted if they don't take this seriously. Now that runs counter to so many people who say "Oh, we're just care about making fighting machines." Ms. Watterson, do you think that if these people in command that you go to thought that if they didn't handle this correctly or didn't make an attempt to handle it, if they thought they would lose their ability to be promoted, that they might have taken this more seriously for you?

Laura Watterson: Yeah, that sounds like an excellent idea. That way they're held accountable.

Loretta Sanchez: Because they're not held accountable. This is not an accountability issue for the people in uniform. Some do it well. Some don't do it very well. Some say, "Oh, the handshake was just a little too long." Or, "Take care of it yourself." Or, "You're a big girl." And these are all things that I have heard from so many women who have been put in this spot. So do you think that that would make a difference if they thought that they wouldn't get promoted if they just told you to handle it yourself?

Laura Watterson: I think that would be a great incentive. I think that part of it should also be interview or contact with whoever the victim was and ask them how they were treated and if they think that everything was done fairly?

US House Rep Loretta Sanchez: Now that would be part of it. I mean, the way that we would judge whether this person, whomever was actully in command, took care of it would be that there would be some input from those that had suffered the acts and had been treated one way or the other by this person. What about the rest of you? What do you think? Because you probably come across some commanders who really care about this thing and really do something right away about it and you probably come across people who sort of move the pieces on the checker board around. What do you'll think? Captain?

Capt Daniel Katka: Well, ma'am, in the ten seconds we have, you know, a culture change, I would love to be able to see genuine. Disingenuous, uhm, using people as ranks, and things like that, perhaps would promote disingenous culture change. Rather than real cultural change. Completely my opinion. But I understand where you're going and in a criteria issue, what would you put in that promotion? What would be, you know, the criteria for that promotoin, the statistics -- if statistics are up, is that good on the commander? Or is that bad on the commander? So there are a lot of questions that I just immediately have that we probably don't have time, maybe, to get into.
US House Rep Loretta Sanchez: Thank you. Chief?

Sgt 1st Class Michael Horwath: I agree ma'am that if it were done right it would be an effective way of pushing the program forward.

US House Rep Loretta Sanchez: That is would not or would be?

Sgt 1st Class Michael Horwath: That is would.

US House Rep Loretta Sanchez: That it would.

Sgt 1st Class Michael Horwath: But again that would be a threat. That's my opinion

US House Rep Loretta Sanchez: I'm just asking your opinion. It's not threats. It's sort of like this is important to us for you to be graded on. I mean when you go to a class in college, you, if you're a smart student, you understand what the professor wants and what they're going to grade you on. And you tend to work on those issues that are going to get you the A if you care about the grade.

Sgt 1st Class Michael Horwath: I can see it being effective. [. . .] I can see that a soldier may look on that as being more important if they see it officially in their paperwork, yes.

US House Rep Loretta Sanchez: Thank you. Chief?.

US House Rep: Susan Davis: Thank you, Ms. Sanchez. [To Chief McKennie] Can you respond really quickly?

Chief Petty Officer Tonya D. McKennie: I can. I believe that it would be effective but it would also take training as well in combination with that. So that it would be genuine and effective.

US House Rep Loretta Sanchez: Thank you. Thank you, Madame Chair.

The idea that adding a grading measure to performance evaluation -- one grading measure -- is cause for a freak out goes to the problem with the culture. Grading measures are added all the time. What caused the freak out was that a military culture that refuses to take assaults seriously might be graded on their response. As if supervision wasn't already needed? Sanchez was 100% correct, it's not a threat. It's a criteria. And commanders are supposed to be responsible supervisors so they should be graded on how they are handling -- or not handling -- sexual assault complaints. We covered the hearing yesterday and will cover some more of it tomorrow. Kat offered some of her observations of the hearing here. [She also covered last night's theme of rumors as did Mike's "Barney, Debra Sweet," Rebecca's "rod stewart," Marcia's "Porn Star ON-J," "Eddie Murphy," Trina's "The cross dressing J. Edgar Hoover," Ruth's "Liberace," Stan's "Wonder Years rocker," Elaine's "Paul is dead" and Kat's "When I tried to smoke a banana." -- You just mentioned Kat! Yes, and she says it will be easier for people to copy and paste the theme posts if I toss her in there. Cedric's "How to make the economy worse" and Wally's "THIS JUST IN! FIX THE ECONOMY BY CUTTING JOBS!" continued there humorous joint-posts.]


From sexual assault to all kinds of assault including domestic abuse, on the prime time special yesterday of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, Couric filed a report on spousal abuse in the military noting that "more than 25,000 spouses and domestic partners have been attacked over the past decade. Nearly 90 spouses have died." Among those she spoke with was Jessacia Patton about Patton's husband Lenny McIntire. Below is a transcript to the online bonus footage of their interview:


Katie Couric: He went to Iraq, came back. How had he changed once he came back?

Jessacia Patton: He hardly ever slept. He was awake all the time. Didn't want to be at home. Didn't want to be around me, Bella [their daughter], couldn't take the crying, didn't like the noise we made when we ate. He was always out at bars. I'd come home from work and he'd have girls over at the apartment. And -- and, just never wanted to be around us. Always was always about the [Army] Rangers and I just didn't take into that life. I didn't -- I grew up in Washington, around Fort Lewis, I had my own friends. And that made it really hard too, the fact that I didn't pay enough attention to him, I was paid too much attention to our infant daughter than him. That sparkle that he used to have, that I fell in love with was gone. He was just blank in the eyes and angry and mad all the time.

Katie Couric: When you were having problems initially when he first came home, did you contact anyone at the base or anyone with the US military?

Jessacia Patton: We went to the chapel and I talked to the chaplain --

Katie Couric: Together with your husband?

Jessacia Patton: Mmm-hmm. And then I went separately by myself. And if you're not there with your spouse, you don't get any help. They'll just push you off to someone else. "Well, we can't help you. But go to this service, they can help you." So then we go to another service. "Go to Family Advocate, they can help you." Somebody else can always help you. "Call LG, he can help you." And they "We can't help you but go here".

Katie Couric: So they gave you the run around?

Jessacia Patton: Mmm-hmm. I came home and she had a bloody lip and there's red blood all over her face and he'd just left her in her crib. I said, "What happened?" "Well the dogs jumped on her." "How did the dogs jump on her?" She doesn't even crawl, she just lays on the ground or is held.

Katie Couric: How old is she?

Jessacia Patton: Five months old. And he said, "Well the dogs must have done it."

Katie Couric: Four months later, he attacked again, but this time you were the victim.

Jessacia Patton: I'm glad my daughter wasn't. I'm not glad that it happened but I'm glad that Bella wasn't there because it could have been much worse.

Katie Couric: What happened?

Jessacia Patton: If I just could have run a little bit faster I might have made it but he tackled me out back and started kicking and hitting me and I started screaming for help but nobody came. And that's when he grabbed my face and slammed it into the ground and said that if I yelled again, he would kill me right there. Cause after the incident, I went to the chaplain and I'm crying and I need help and I don't know who to turn to and I went to the Rangers even though he's not in the battalion anymore and they're like, "Well we washed our hands of him." And I went to his battalion and nobody would help me out. Nobody -- and being a civilian, how do you deal with martial law? I don't know martial law. So I'm stuck in between --

Katie Couric: Or military law.

Jessacia Patton: Yeah. I'm just in that gray area.

Katie Couric: Well having been through what you've been through, what do you think is the major flaw in the way the US military, at least in your experience deals with domestic violence?

Jessacia Patton: I think that spouses don't get enough attention. When it's a soldier then soldiers get all the attention. But when a soldier beats his wife, the wife falls through the crack. They make it very impossible to get through the system and get anything done. You just get the run around. They need to listen to military wives. They need to have something -- some organization, some club something set up that a wife can go into and speak about this instead of just getting shrugged off because problems just get worse.

In the report last night, Couric explained that even though he later entered a guilty plea to child abuse, even though "he attacked and raped his wife," it was only when "threatened his fellow soldiers and went AWOL that the Army decided to press charges. Three weeks ago, he was sentenced to seven years in a military prison." This evening, CBS Evening News with Katie Couric tells Sgt James Pitts' story. On a related noted, David Morgan and Philip Barbara (Reuters) report that US Army suicides have increased eleven percent continuing the increase that has been evident "among active duty soldiers and reservists since 2004."

Turning to Iraq where provincial elections will be held in fourteen of the eighteen provinces this Saturday. Jafar Jani (Wall St. Journal's Baghdad Life) reports a reason for excitement in Iraq:

Many Iraqis are wishing the provincial elections would occur every few months, instead of every four years, because of the benefits they are receiving from the campaign season, from new construction projects to mobile phone cards and blankets given as gifts by political parties or candidates.

Early voting already began. Tina Susman (Los Angeles Times) notes that the early voters are "soldiers, police, prisoners and hospital patients". She notes that authoritieis are claiming 15 million people have register to vote. That figure may suggest voter fraud. The CIA's current (July 2008) estimate for the population is 28,221,180 Iraqis. That's an estimate and it's only remotely accurate if Iraq's had a baby boom in the midst of the illegal war (it may have). You have had the "brain drain" (the flight of the technocrats, medical profession, etc), you have had the refugee flight (which follows the "brain drain" -- follows it several years later). It also doesn't appear (short of an ongoing baby boom in Iraq) to acknowledge the approximately 1.5 million Iraqis killed since the start of the illegal war.But let's stick with 28 million while noting the figure is questionable. That would mean 13 million are not registered to vote. Since we know some adult Iraqis are refusing to take part in the process, that means the 13 million is made up more of than just the youth (defined here as "under legal voting age"). The 15 million figure seems rather high considering all the deaths during the illegal war, the brain drain, the refugee crisis, etc. (And note, the US State Dept estimates the population in Iraq to be 27,499,638 -- an estimate that still seems high.)Susman notes there are 440 council seats up for grabs with 14,467 people competing for those slots and that, unlike in 2005, Sunnis are expected to participate in this election at higher rates. Zaid Sabah (Washington Post) notes early voting also includes "residents forced from contested towns". Sabah informs that "three Kurdish provinces" intend to vote later this year and no one knows when Kirkuk will be allowed to vote. And al-Maliki continues trolling for votes in an election he's not a candidate in:The Dawa party of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose popularity has been bolstered by the decline in violence, is seeking to chip away at the power of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which controls four of the nine predominantly Shiite southern provinces. Followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric whose men have fought rival Shiites, the army and the U.S. military, are backing lists of nominally independent candidates."What makes us happy is the preparations we are seeing today -- a slap in the face of those who are betting that Iraqis will not go to the ballot boxes because they are despairing," Maliki said during a televised election rally in the southern city of Amarah.

Meanwhile Sam Dagher (New York Times) covers the topic too often ignored: Iraqi women.
Dagher reports women make up nearly 4,000 of the 14,400 candidates (vying for 440 seats) and that posters have been defaced with mud or beards drawn on, torn down and that a Baghdad home invasion yesterday targeted a female member of the Iraqi Islamic Party and she was murdered, shot "10 times in the chest". She's the second women known/thought to be killed as a result of the upcoming elections. Last month, Calwiz-Nahla Hussein of the Communist Party in Kirkuk was shot dead. Click here for UNAMI statement. The violence aimed at the candidates and political parties continued today. Wisam Mohammed (Reuters) reports, "Gunmen killed three Iraqi election candidates in separate incidents on Thursday, two days before Iraq holds provincial polls that will test the war-weary country's fragile democracy." Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports political candidate Omar Faruq al-Ani was shot dead not far from his Baghdad home and that candidate Hazim Salim Ahmed was shot dead Mosul today. Wisam Mohammed explains the third candidate shot dead today was Abbas Farhan. Al Jazeera adds, "The three, all from the Sunni Arab minority, were killed by assailants in separate incidents on Thursday."

On the upcoming elections, Dagher notes that women were supposed to be legally guaranteed a certain percentage of seats in the elections but that somehow disappeared when the law was rewritten and no one still can provide an explanation as to how that happened and that some Iraqi women see the quota system as worthless to begin with. Mahdiya Abed-Hassan al-Lami feels it is "manipulated by major political parties" in order "to marginalize women" by choosing women who are ineffective and will not challenge or question their male peers. She says, "If women are simply followers they cannot fulfill their roles properly." Dagher details how Liza Hido runs in secret ("private gatherings") due to threats when she served "on a municipal council". Law professor and women's rights advocate Bushra al-Obeidi tells Dagher that the system is fixed against women and the religious extremists control the game, "I assure you, they are against women. They are lying to us." Abigail Hauslohner (Time magazine) explains that the tensions between the provinces not voting and the central Iraq government is thought by "U.S. commanders" to be the 'hotspot' that "could produce one of the most dangerous flash points. U.S. officers in Diyala have spent weeks mediating between Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the Iraqi military over security arrangements for next week's provincial elecitons. The national army had planned to set up security checkpoints in northern Diyala, just as they will do all over the country on polling day. But the Kurds were furious. While ethnically mixed Diyala is under the jurisdiction of Baghdad, the province's northern section is predominantly Kurdish and falls along the fuzzy but increasingly agitated fault line that separates the Kurdish north from the rest of Iraq." Throughout the lead up to the provincial elections, the KRG president and Iraq's prime minister have publicly taken shots at one another despite the fact that the KRG provinces are not holding provincial elections at this time and al-Maliki is not running in the provincial elections.

In mercenary news, Ernesto Londono and Qais Mizher (Washington Post)report that Iraq's Interior Ministry told the US Embassy/Fortress in Iraq that Blackwater will not receive "a new operating license" in what the paper dubs "one of the boldest moves the [Iraqi] government has made since the Jan. 1 implementation of a security agreement". If you were or are a Blackwater employee, the reporters explain, and you "have not been accused of improper conduct," you can switch over to another mercenary company operating in Iraq. They quote the US State Dept spokesperson Noel Clay: "We will work with the government of Iraq and our contractors to address the implications of this decision in a way that minimizes any impact on safety and security of embassy Baghdad personnel." And they give Blackwater a chance to speak which is the usual Blackwater/KBR/et al dance of "We haven't heard this so we can't comment blah blah blah." Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) reminds, "Blackwater was accused of an improper use of force in a series of fatal incidents in Iraq, among them the killing of a bodyguard of Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi in 2006 in the heavily fortified Green Zone by an employee who was drunk and off duty." She also notes the September 16th slaughter of Iraqis by Blackwater. Monte Morin (Los Angeles Times) offers, "At the time, the Iraqi government demanded that Blackwater be banned, but backed down when the U.S. Embassy approved the firm's resumption of work activities."

In some of today's other reported violence . . .

Bombings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports two Diyala Province roadside bombings that resulted in eight Iraqi service members being injured

Shootings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 3 men were shot dead after being kidnapped outside of Baquba and 1 person shot dead in Kirkuk yesterday.
Meanwhile, the hapless insist, "There's Got To Be A Withdrawal The Morning After" being sworn in. But, as Peter Baker and Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) explain, maybe not. The reporters see Barack as "recommitted to ending the war in Iraq but not to his specific campaign pledge to pull out roughly one combat brigade a month for the first 16 months of his presidency." He's never pledged to end the illegal war. He did infer -- in statements at rallies -- that he would pull all US troops out of Iraq but his actual 'plan' was combat troops out of Iraq in 16 months leaving behind as many as 80,000 potentially (the White House unofficially says the number would be 70,000). That 'plan' was revealed as empty words by then-foreign policy advisor Samantha Power when speaking to the BBC in March 2008 and by Barack when speaking to CNN in June of last year. We'll note this section of the article:Among those consulted by the president was Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq, who has developed a plan that would move slower than Mr. Obama's campaign timetable, by pulling out two brigades over the next six months. In an interview in Iraq on Wednesday, General Odierno suggested that it might take the rest of the year to determine exactly when United States forces could be drawn down significantly."I believe that if we can get through the next year peacefully, with incidents about what they are today or better, I think we're getting close to enduring stability, which enables us to really reduce," General Odierno said as he inspected a polling center south of Baghdad in advance of provincial elections on Saturday.General Odierno said the period between this weekend's elections and the national elections to be held about a year from now would be critical to determining the future of Iraq. While some American forces could be withdrawn before then, he suggested that the bulk of any pullout would probably come after that.In other words, after nearly six years of illegal war, it's still too soon to judge whether or not the US can drawdown -- drawdown, not withdraw. No one's promised withdrawal -- Barack refused to pledge that, if elected, all US troops would be out of Iraq by the close of 2012.
We'll close with this from Refugees International:Relocation of Palestinian Refugees from Iraq to Sudan Moving ForwardWashington D.C. -- The new U.S. administration must join with othercountries and urgently resettle 3,000 Palestinian refugees from theSyrian-Iraqi border, Refugees International (RI) announced today. The UNRefugee Agency (UNHCR), the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)and Sudan will soon be relocating this population to pre-fabricatedhousing in Khartoum. As the three parties prepare to take the refugeesto Sudan, RI called for the U.S. and other resettlement countries toensure a voluntary, dignified process that allows this vulnerablepopulation to find a permanent, stable home."The Obama administration must step in and send a clear message to theworld that we are interested in helping displaced people find stablehomes," said Kristele Younes, Senior Advocate with RefugeesInternational. "The plan to send Palestinians trapped at theIraqi-Syrian border to Sudan is outrageous. The U.S. has finally startedresettlement processing for vulnerable, displaced people inside Iraq whohave not had the resources to flee their country. These Palestinians areamong the most vulnerable, and the U.S. should prioritize theirresettlement."Approximately 34,000 stateless Palestinians have lived in Iraq since2003. Since the beginning of U.S. military operations in Iraq, manysuffered persecution at the hands of the Iraqi government and otherarmed groups. More than 3,000 fled to the Syrian-Iraqi border, wherethey live in makeshift tents in the desert with limited access to basicservices. Syria refuses to allow them to enter its territory and only afew have been resettled, mostly to Sweden and Chile. Failure to act onthe part of the U.S. government and other resettlement countries ledUNHCR to sign a tripartite agreement with the PLO and the Government ofSudan that called for the relocation of this population to aneighborhood of Khartoum."The international community's failure to act and resettle thisextremely vulnerable population has led the United Nations to considerSudan as the only viable option for them," said Younes. "This is not adurable solution. Sudan will not provide them with a path to citizenshipand the Palestinians will be vulnerable to civil unrest and threats ofexpulsion."The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has established unique,discriminatory criteria to assess the vulnerability of Palestinians fromIraq for the purpose of resettlement to the U.S. Refugees Internationalurges President Obama to insist that the criteria be the same for Iraqisand Palestinians in Iraq, and to request that the U.S. StateDepartment's Refugee Bureau create a special category to process theapplications. Any process should be conducted without prejudice to thePalestinians' right to return to their homeland."While the U.S. resettled nearly 14,000 Iraqi refugees in 2008, only3,000 refugees have been allowed in for the first few months of the 2009fiscal year," Younes added. "Many Iraqis can never return home, but astable Iraq will only occur when displaced Iraqis find solutions totheir plight. The U.S. and its allies must continue to increase thenumber of Iraqis resettled, and should start with this group ofPalestinians."Refugees International is a Washington, DC-based organization thatadvocates to end refugee crises. In the last two years, the organizationhas conducted seven missions to the Middle East to identify the problemsfacing Iraqi refugees and internally displaced people in Iraq. InNovember 2008, a delegation of NGOs including Refugees Internationalconducted a field mission to Palestinian camps at the Syria-Iraq borderand released, "From Fast Death to Slow Death: Palestinian Refugees fromIraq Trapped on the Syria-Iraq Border."


iraqthe new york timessam dagher
alissa j. rubinpeter bakerthe washington postqais mizherernesto londono
zaid sabah
the los angeles timestina susmanrefugees international
cbs newsthe cbs evening news with katie courickatie couric
mcclatchy newspapersleila fadel
like maria said pazkats kornersex and politics and screeds and attitudethomas friedman is a great mantrinas kitchenthe daily jotcedrics big mixmikey likes itruths reportsickofitradlzoh boy it never ends

Eddie Murphy

Rumors is the theme post and I'm attempting to think up a post quickly.

Eddie Murphy could get on my nerves and then some but he was the only Black superstar we had in film at that time. He was the heir to Richard Pryor and we had no heir to Diana Ross for film. So I tried to ignore the rumors about him and cross dressers and transvestites but they were always out there.

This was long before his comeback via kiddy movies. So when he got caught with the transvestite and insisted it was a rainy night and he just happened to drive past the tranny district and, out of all the trannys on the corner that night, his heart went out to that one and he offered a ride . . .

It never made sense. It was damage control.

And the only thing that may have saved Murphy was he was no longer sexual.

His eyes have gone really bad. They've got a yellow to them that's really sad to see and he's lost his sharpness and style. That happened long before he started making the kiddie flicks and long before his buddy Arsenio was going on and on -- to Vanity Fair -- about how large Eddie's penis was.

Last month, at my old job, the news that Johnny Gil and Eddie Murphy apparently share a home in Los Angeles emerged as office gossip. I don't know if it's true or not but it's a sign of how unsusrprising it is at this point that no one bothered to deny it. No one expended any energy. It was no big deal.

If Eddie actually was gay (and he may not be), coming out could actually give him back his edge that he once had.

If not, we'll be stuck with more bad films that are only two notches above the garbage Tyler Perry makes.



"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Wednesday, January 28, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, Nouri tries to buy votes, the US Congress holds a hearing on sexual assault in the military, and more.


The woman with the long red hair and glasses spoke halting, "I didn't realize why I was acting the way I was and neither did he. It ruined our marriage." The woman is Laura Watterson and she was offering testimony to a US House Armed Services Committee hearing this morning. Sexually assaulted in 2001 and suffering from PTSD and MST (Military Sexual Trauma), she sought help and attempted to utilize policies already in place only to confront a system that ignored the policies, didn't care about her sexual assault and devoted 'help' time to silencing her. As much as the sexual assault traumatized her, the military 'response' was equally traumatizing. "I began therapy at the VA because I lost everything as a result," she explained. She had followed the rules ("I reported it as I was supposed to"), she was told by her supervisor and his supervisor "that it would be taken care of and I trusted that." But she was betrayed and there was more interest in silencing her than in holding the assailant accountable.

Laura Watterson: Part of my wellness is testifying today, forcing me to get out and do things that are challenging because they are more important. I'll leave here today but hopefully my message will not leave. If I had a caring SARC representative, I believe that I would not have ended up in the mess that I have ended up in.


The subcommittee was the Military Personnel Subcommittee and the hearing was entitled Sexual Assault in the Military: Victim Support and Advocacy. US House Rep Susan Davis is the chair of the committee. In her opening remarks, she noted, "Sexual assault is a complex problem where most, if not all, aspects are interrelated. Such a topic does not lend itself to a single hearing. As a result, we have chosen to hold multiple hearings on discrete topics so that members and witnesses can have in-depth discussions about various issues to build towards a comprehensive understanding of the problem. This will guide our deliberations on what can and should be done next. Today we will be focusing on victim advocacy and support. Our next hearing will look at current and planned Department of Defense programs to prevent sexual assault. I would like to say that we are encouraged by the level of commitment, resources, and expertise that the services are applying to prevention programs to educate service members and change cultural norms. Finally, we will hold a hearing to examine how sexual assaults are prosecuted by the military."

That maps out some of the subcommittee's tasks for the year. As part of that exploration, Davis had a question after all the witnesses had offered testimony. Along with Laura Watterson, witnesses on the first panel included the Air Forces' Capt Daniel Katka (Sexual Assault Response Coordinator), the Army's Sgt 1st Class Michael Horwatch (Sexual Assault Response Coordinator/Victim Advocate) and the Navy's Chief Petty Officer Tonya D. McKennie (Victims Advocate).


US Rep Susan Davis: Ms. Watterson, clearly the system did not keep you safe and I know you don't believe it keeps other members of the military safe today either. But the time that we are talking about, it was prior to some new policies that were put in place and, with the work that you've done and your advocacy, I wonder if you could speak to a few instances where you think perhaps the system would have served you better and in those cases when you don't think anything that has been done really would have made a difference. I think you alluded to some of that in your testimony but if you could go back and talk to us a little bit about that, that would be very helpful.

Laura Watterson: Well one big thing is the confidentiality so that the victims do feel safe and be able to tell them that, you know, I have insomnia, I'm throwing up all the time, I'm drinking a bottle of Jack Daniels at night, you know, all that kind of stuff. They need to feel safe that they can tell someone about that so that they can go get treatment and in my experience with working with active duty and also working with veterans recently there is a big problem with many many many bases and commanders who have tried to brush off what the mandates and the law are that have already been put in place. There's one commander in, for example, who treated me like I was an absolute idiot. He was completely cocky about the whole thing and I read off the mandates about this is what you're supposed to be doing for your troop and you're not doing it all. For example, I had one that was a male victim of MST [Military Sexual Trauma] and they were not protecting him as well. They were allowing people to walk by him and call him "f*g." They were allowing people to beat him up because they were saying that he was a f*g. He was being administered psychiatric drugs by his peers and not a medical professional, it was his peers and he was still in training he was -- it wasn't basic training but he hadn't gotten the training for his job, that's where he was. And it was it was disgusting and it has been I had to, I've had to call the IG and I asked these troops and things, "Have you talked to your IG yet?" "What's an IG?" Well have you talked to your SARC [Sexual Assault Response Coordinators] yet? "I don't think so." And a lot of the SARCs, they have the initial meet and how are you doing and then that's it. They don't call to check up and see how you're doing or let's make sure you get into the hospital and make sure your meds are correct -- basic -- [. . .] to take car of them, to make them feel like they have someone because most of them their families are very far away and especially in training they probably don't have any friends either. But that is a large thing. The SARC needs to be able to have enough power to fight the commander when the commanders are ignoring and basically mocking the system that is supposedly been put in place. That is a huge, huge problem.

US House Rep Susan Davis: Thank you. I'd like to actually turn to our folks here and see. Could you respond and help us with that as well because I think there is a big question of whether the SARC comes to a commander and says "Listen we've got a problem here" and nothing happens, what kind of authority do you have to follow up?

Capt Daniel Katka: Yes, ma'am. We report directly at my base we report directly -- and in the Air Force -- to the Vice Wing Commander, essentially the second on the base, which helps tremendously, by the way. So we are able to kind of go and interact with commanders. Of course not to tell them what they must do but recommend highly -- with the vice -- [with] their understanding that the vice wing commander is who we report to. So it helps us tremendously in advocating for the survivor and whatever his or her needs are.

Sgt 1st Class Michael Horwath: We're very similar, ma'am. We do a monthly sexual assault review board and we report everything involved in the program to the senior movement commander at whatever institution we are happen to be on for me that happens to be the division commander and it is reported up from there. [. . .]

US Rep Susan Davis: And quickly Chief McKennie, I'm out of time.

Chief Petty Officer Tonya McKennie: Well the Navy, where I'm affialited in San Diego, all our SARCs are civilian personnel so they are not normally subject to military intimidation.
They have free reign and a lot of leeaway in being able to deal with any commanding officers or military personnel. So in my experience, we do not have that problem.

Under questioning from US House Rep Loretta Sanchez, Katka defended the use of volunteers for Victims Advocates in the Air Force. As opposed to making it a paid position. He insisted it keeps the position filled with dedicated people. What clever little spin. Equally true is that a paid position is taken more seriously by everyone in the environment. Equally true is that an all volunteer force is addressing a serious and deeply embedded cultural crime (Sanchez noted at least 600 assaults had taken place in Iraq) with limited resources and those resources include limited training. Equally true is that when you refuse to create a paid position, when you refuse to create a real training program for those who do the job, the bulk of the volunteers are constantly treading water just to keep up and that undercuts any advancements that might be made. Of course, that could be the entire point of making the positions volunteer and not permanent, paid positions.

But don't worry, Kafta likes calling around looking for volunteers. So it's an unpaid position and it's one Katka is qualified to staff how?

Sorry to break it to Katka but he doesn't seem trained to staff and until the Air Force moves beyond the attitude that Victims Advocates are as 'disposable' as candy stripers, don't expect to see any improvement. Sanchez asked him, "Do you see that the volunteers, because this is based on volunteers, do you see that it's most women stepping forward to volunteer?"

"Yes," replied Katka, noting that as many 70s VAs are on his base and "we have about 15 that are men." "There is a challenge," Katka says, "I'll admit to you." Asked for how to make it better, Katka said he'd try but somehow never got around to doing that. Unless he thought his continuity binder -- his notebook -- was somehow the road to improvement.

Asked near the end to offer her evaluation of whether or not she saw any improvement, Laura Watterson replied:

To be honest, no. I've seen a lot of new mandates and a lot of new whatever but the fact is that the majoirty of what I've seen and dealt with and heard from other survivors is that nothing has changed. They are still using the McDowell check list to basically they can turn it around and make it look like the person is lying. And so someone who comes forward and wants to report it could be charged with conduct unbecoming, filing false charges and -- if either the victim or the rapist/assaulter is married -- they can be charged with adultry. That is a big reason why people do not come forward and other women will see what happens to one woman -- bascially getting their life torn apart because they went forward and asked for help. They get stalked by the friends of the perpretator, it's -- I don't see any change.

2008 demonstrated that nothing has been done. Maria Lauterbach was a Marine. She came forward to charge Cesar Armando Lauren with rape. The military did not take it seriously and they did not take Maria seriously. Maria was forced to continue to work with Cesar, her rapist, and his friends. She was not protected. She was not given help. She was pregnant from the rape. Possibly encouraged by the lack of response from the Marine command, Cesar took it further. He murdered Maria. He dug a hole in his back yard, shoved her corpse into the hole and attempted to burn her corpse.

Maria was missing for weeks and weeks. Her mother was attempting to get the Marines to do something, anything. She had to go to the Onslow County police to get any kind of help. While the Marines drug their feet for weeks as Maria was missing, Ed Brown's sheriff's dept, once on the case, was quickly able to narrow the suspects down to Cesar and quickly find Maria's corpse. Though Brown had conveyed to the Marines that Cesar was the chief suspect (conveyed it prior to the discovery of Maria's corpse), the Marines refused to place any conditions on Cesar such as refusing to allow him to leave the base. Cesar was able to slip away hours before Maria's corpse was uncovered and he made it to Mexico where he remains at present, still awaiting extradition. (Cesar has not been convicted of the crimes. One coming forward after he escaped was Cesar's wife who revealed Cesar told her he killed Maria.)

Maria's mother knew something was wrong right away. Her daughter was pregnant and due to give birth shortly. There was no reason for her to go missing. And if she truly was missing (and alive), she needed help right away due to her pregnancy. But the Marine command didn't care. They didn't believe Maria. And, besides, everybody liked Cesar, he was such a 'man'.

If you're wondering where the Marine command's public apology for their handling of the case is, keep wondering because there has yet to be accountability. Maria Lauterbach's mother, Mary Lauterbach, was present for today's hearings. Jessica Wehrman (Dayton Daily News) reports:

The Inspector General of the Defense Department has been asked to postpone an investigation into how the military handled the rape investigation of Vandalia Marine Maria Lauterbach until the man accused of raping and murdering her has been extradited and tried for her murder.
The decision was crushing for Mary Lauterbach, Maria's mother, who said she believes it will mean that many of those involved in Maria's rape investigation will never be held accountable. She said at least one of the people involved in the handling of Maria's case plans to retire within the year.
Maria Lauterbach, 20, and the body of her unborn son were found buried in Cesar Laurean's backyard on Jan. 11, 2008. Laurean fled to Mexico and has been charged in Lauterbach's murder. He is currently fighting extradition charges, and last November received permission to have his wife, Christina, visit him in Mexico.

We've only noted two of the panels for this morning's hearing and we could go into even more depth on those two and may if there's not other coverage on it to highlight tomorrow. Thus far, Talk Radio Network has filed a four paragraph report which opens with this:

"Women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq," Congresswoman Jane Harman (CA) reported to the congressional committee for Military Sexual Assault Victim Support and Response. The committee met Wednesday with military personnel to discuss how the Department of Defense can improve victim support and advocacy. Beginning the hearing was former marine Laura Waterson. Ms. Waterson was sexually assaulted by an officer in her unit in early 2001. Her testimony shed light on the meager and often time insulting support provided to her by the military following her report that she was sexually abused. Through out her often weepy eyed testimony Waterson described the extremely painful aftermath of her assault that ultimately to "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the end of her marriage, and extreme irrational behavior."

If you wonder why these sexual assaults happen, they happen because people don't take it seriously. They happen because when Congress devotes a full morning to the topic, the press apparently can't be bothered (the press was out for the hearing, they just haven't gotten any reports out yet) with the topic. They happen because the issue isn't take seriously. Barack going to jawbone with Republicans yesterday was treated as the most pressing and important news of the day. US House Rep Jane Harman declares, "Women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq" -- and how many will treat it as news?

Okay, Stars & Stripes has just filed. (Hopefully the first of many.) Leo Shane III reports:

When Laura Watterson told her commanders that a fellow airman had raped her, she expected the Air Force to investigate and punish the offender.
Instead, she said, he was promoted to be her supervisor and she was told to "get over it."
"They said in basic that I'd be taken care of [in the Air Force] and I trusted that," she told a House committee on Wednesday. "I thought I had joined a band of brothers as a sister. I became an outcast."
Watterson's testimony was part of the first of a series of hearings scheduled by the House Armed Services Committee on the military's sexual assault response.

Turning to Iraq, Peter Graff and Aseel Kami (Reuters) report that voting in Iraq's provincial elections (fourteen of the eighteen provinces are holding elections) officially begins Saturday but early voting has started for "soldiers, police, prisoners and displaced people". In an alleged 'analysis' of the upcoming vote, Leila Fadel (and the Institute for War and Peace Reporting?) offers this at McClatchy: "Men who once fought against the government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki and the American military are now among about 14,500 candidates who are competing for seats in the provincial assemblies. Even some who have no trust in the current government have put away their weapons and are trying their hands at democracy. If their votes don't produce the changes they seek, they say, they'll have no choice but to pick up their weapons again." Leila is, of course, a woman and McClatchy's Iraq branch is largely staffed with women. So it's cute that the only gender Fadel deems of interest is males. Strange because others have found a way to provide reports on female candidates and on female voters. Maybe the Institute for War and Peace Reporting overruled Leila? Or maybe she doesn't care? Regardless, it's very telling that an alleged analysis of an upcoming vote -- in a country where there are more women than men (Iraq has a huge number of widows) -- decides to ignore them.

Timothy Williams and Suadad al-Salhy (New York Times) explain that due to the Shi'ite pilgrimage in honor of Imam Hussein, it is feared some Shi'ites may miss out out on voting in the provincial elections. The provincial elections will be held in fourteen of Iraq's eighteen provinces, whether you are a pilgrim or an internally displaced Iraqi, you can only vote in your own province. Independent candidate Hakim al-Mayahi declares Shi'ites potentially voting in smaller numbers will make it more difficult for independent candidates to be elected. While it is true that the small number participating in polling have indicated a preference for non-sectarian candidaes, this is not an overwhelming presence and it doesn't necessarily mean a damn thing.What's being predicted is that candidates not alligned with extremists (Sunni or Shia) will fare better in this election cycle than they did in 2005. That may end up being the case but it may not and nothing is known at this point.To stick with the polling response -- and the sample size has not been encouraging (we're talking about real polling, not the random interviews that the Los Angeles Times did for a story this week -- and LAT didn't present that as a poll). But the segment that is saying, "I'm tired of the bickering between Shi'ites and Sunnis" or "a pox on both of them" may end up being not all that different from US citizens polled who state "I'm tired of ___" and then go on to vote the exact same way because while they're tired of Congress they generally make an exception for their own member of Congress.When you take the comments being made about some rejecting the religious extremists and put them in that light, it should cause a number of people to stop suggesting that indications (at best, indications) are facts of the final tally discovered before the election took place.So with all that in mind, if a Shi'ite pilgrimage is taking place and it may result in many Shia not being able to participate in voting, the most likely candidates to suffer would be Shia candidates. Not independents. And that likelihood is why, as the article explains, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is asking that people vote before leaving on their pilgrimage.Tina Susman and Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) examine the Communist Party and note there are 27 candidates running in Baghdad (there are 57 slots open on the provincial council) and that the Communist Party "won two seats on the council" in the 2005 elections, while Parliament has 275 seats with two of those held by Communists. Abdul Munim Jabber Hadi is quoted stating, "In the past five years, the people have begun to understand that these political parties failed to achieve what people were hoping for." Ernesto Londono (Washington Post) focuses on Nineveh Province, which has been a source of tension for some time and which has the city that's emerged in 2008 as the most violent in Iraq: Mosul. He notes the power struggles going on and how the boycott of the 2005 elections by Sunni Arabs led to over-representation on the council by Kurds ("The Kurds currently hold 31 of the 37 seats on the provincial counil, the equivalent of an American state legislature"). Londono explains, "Taking the reins of Nineveh's government would allow Arabs to appoint a governor and use their political power to roll back Kurdish expansion, which is being bitterly contested in villages across the 300-mile swath of disputed territories, as well as in Baghdad and in Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite Arab, and Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, have exchanged heated accusations in recent weeks, underscoring the intensity of a conflict that U.S. officials and Iraq experts have come to view as Iraq's most potentially destabilizing."

Nouri al-Maliki, puppet of the occupation. al-Maliki, who is not running for office, is attempting to make the 2009 election all about him. He's attempting to buy votes for his political party and promising the sun, stars and sky. He will, of course, fail to deliver. (As is his pattern.) Monday's snapshot included: "Waleed Ibrahim and Michael Christie (Reuters) report that puppet of the occupation, Nouri al-Maliki, declared that US [combat only] forces will be pulled quickly. They report he made this announcement to 'a crowd of supporters in the southern Iraqi city of Babel during a campaign rally ahead of Jan. 31 provincial elecitons' -- translation, a campaign promise by al-Maliki -- eager to pump up the number of seats held by his Dawa Party. And of course, if Barack had decided on that, he would let Nouri break the news, right? No need to inform the Pentagon or Joint Chiefs first. Just tell Nouri and let him tell the world." Yesterday's snapshot included this, "Monte Morin (Los Angeles Times) reports that Nouri al-Malik (of all people) has warned that no one should 'corrupt the elections by buying votes'." The puppet of the occupation is attempting to make the provincial elections all about him and he is attempting to buy votes. Today Campbell Robertson (New York Times) explains al-Maliki's latest spin: free land or cheap land for Iraqi journalists! Robertson explained the bribe came with another "admonition to journalists to focus on stories of progress and reconstruction".
Nouri tried to get reporters -- foreign and domestic -- to sign a contract and if they violated his 'feel-good-news' edict, they would be fined. Not only did he do that, he tried to pass it off as UNAMI's wishes. Those were never the wishes of UNAMI. He pushed that on a Friday (Kim Gamel of AP was the first to cover the contract) and it had fallen apart by the following Sunday (including the cover story that UNAMI wanted the contract). That is only one example in his long, long history of attacks on the press. A more recent example would of course be Muntadhar al-Zeidi -- the Iraqi journalist who was beaten and tortured for tossing two shoes. Muntadhar remains in prison and never doubt that's where al-Maliki would like to put all the press. The contract's only a surprise to those who weren't paying attention in July of 2006 when al-Maliki launched his first attack on the press or who didn't notice how much more violent al-Maliki's thugs were. It's when al-Maliki takes over that there's no pretense about physically going after journalists. Whether it's the photographer they insisted was an insurgent or aiming a gun at two reporters for the New York Times and pulling the trigger (the chamber was empty, it was a 'joke'). al-Maliki has fostered disrespect and loathing for the press because that's how he feels and those feelings festered when he was living in Syria and Iran where his rages against the press were fairly well known. Though largely confined to the press in Syria and Iran, he was also known to pop off about the press in the country he'd fled (Iraq) and how if he could control the press, he'd be as powerful as Saddam. Since being installed as the puppet, al-Maliki has attempted to do just that.Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .

Bombings?

Mohammed al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Mosul roadside bombing that claimed the life of 1 police officer and left another wounded and a second Mosul roadside bombing that injured three people.

Shootings?

Mohammed al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Maiyadah Al Baiati ("member of the Islamic party") was shot dead in Baghdad and 1 police officer was shot dead in Salahuddin Province and another was wounded.

In diplomatic news, the Associated Press explains, "Iraqi museums and sites suffered extensive damage and looting in the wake of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The National Museum of Baghdad, a treasure trove of artifacts from the Stone Age through the Babylonian, Assyrians and Islamic periods, fell victim to bands of armed thieves. Up to 7,000 pieces are still missing." yesterday's snapshot included:Yesterday, Iraq's Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, was in Athens, where he met with Greece's Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis (see photo below from Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and prepared for a day of talks on Tuesday to include meeting with the country's Prime Minister, Kostas Karamanlis as well as Dimitris Sioufas, the President of the country's Parliament. Renee Maltezou (Reuters) reports Greece has offered both "financial aid and expertise" to attempt to repair the damange done by the plundering of Iraqi antiquities at the start of the illegal war. Athens News Agency explains, "The establishment of a Greek Economic and Commercial Affairs Office in Iraq was decided on Tuesday during a meeting in Athens between foreign minister Dora Bakoyannis and her Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari, as well as Greece's assistance in the protection of Iraq's cultural heritage and erecting a statue of Alexander the Great in Gaugamela."
At the briefing following their meeting, Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis declared, "It is with great pleasure that I once again welcome Iraqi Foreign Minister Mr. Hoshyar Zebari to Athens. I am happy that we have the opportunity to host him in Greece once again. And this, of course, underscores and confirms the traditional relations of mutual trust and friendship between the Greek and Iraqi peoples. We had a very substantial discussion on a series of issues of bilateral and broader interest, as well as on developments in the Middle East, of course. Greece has supported Iraq with all its power on a political and economic level so as to stabilize the democracy and the country which has experienced such difficult times in recent years. As you know, we will be opening an trade office in Arbil. We jointly observed that our economic cooperation must be strengthened. At the same time, we agreed that we will intensify our cooperation in the cultural sector. As you know, Iraq's cultural heritage was hard hit by the destruction of ancient sites and artifacts, and Greece, with its particular sensitivity to this issue, will help with know how and financing to rebuild the museums of Iraq. My friend the Minister and I also agreed on the raising of a monument to Alexander the Great in Gavgamila, symbolizing precisely the interaction of cultures in this critical region. In closing, I think it is obvious, but I want to stress this, that Greece is firmly in favour of the unity, independence and territorial integrity of Iraq, and, of course, actively supports its efforts to win a future of stability and development." In other diplomatic news, Iraq has appointed their first ambassador to Syria in approximately thirty years. Waleed Ibrahim, Missy Ryan and Louise Ireland (Reuters) report Alaa al-Jawadi has been named to the post. It probably goes without saying but we'll say it: al-Jawadi is a man. Even their ambassadors to Western countries are males. It's becoming a real issue that goes beyond mispelling Dora Bakoyannis' last name but also referring to her as "Mrs." when the her own Foreign Ministry refers to her as "Ms."


In the US, Barack Obama has yet again tossed women under the bus. An economic 'stimulus' that is little more than dusted off FDR (we don't have the same work force we had in the 1930s, nor do we have the same jobs) and largely excludes women, just got a lot more anti-woman. Around the net, NOW, NARAL and assorted 'leaders' are being called out for their silence -- and they should be called out. A friend at Feminist Majority Foundation notes this from their Feminist Wire Daily:

A provision in the proposed economic stimulus package that would expand family planning coverage under Medicaid has drawn harsh criticism from Republicans and may be removed from the proposed stimulus package as early as today. President Barack Obama has reportedly told congressional Democrats to remove the provision and may offer this move as a concession to congressional Republicans in meetings today.The current version of the stimulus package (see PDF) would no longer require states to obtain federal permission to offer family planning services and contraceptives under Medicaid.Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi defended the inclusion of the family planning provision this weekend (see video) and said that, ultimately, "the family planning services reduce cost." Democrats argue that the provision is an investment that would save money long term and that it could create health care jobs and bolster state progams, according to .

You'll note that FWD does not attempt to blame any Republican in the minority, they note who is responsible for removing the funding: Barack. I have no problem giving Feminist Majority Foundation -- which owns and operates Ms. magazine and FWD -- credit when they earn it. While it's easy to read the above and say, "Well they just did their job," that alone would be enough. But if you've missed some of the calling out -- rightful calling out -- of the silence and the minimizations and the excuses, you're aware it would have been very easy for Feminist Majority Foundation to have run with the pack and stayed silent, declared it no-big-deal or invented a Republican to blame the whole thing on. They didn't. Credit when it's earned, Feminist Majority Foundation did call this one right and they did so publicly.

Lastly, the American Freedom Campaign explains:

While we may have a new president dedicated to reversing some of the worst abuses of the Bush administration, there is at least one unconstitutional executive power President Obama is trying to protect. Congress must take action to ensure that the power to sign international agreements related to military activities does not rest solely in the hands of the executive branch. Please take two minutes to tell your U.S. representative to co-sponsor a resolution declaring the recently signed U.S.-Iraq agreement merely advisory in nature unless it is submitted to Congress for approval. Just use the following link to take action: We cannot emphasize enough the importance of this issue. As things currently stand, the Bush administration deemed the U.S.-Iraq agreement a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), a type of agreement that has always been used to establish basic legal standards related to the presence of the U.S. military in another nation. SOFAs do not require congressional approval. But the U.S.-Iraq agreement goes well beyond the traditional boundaries of a SOFA, dictating how long the U.S. military will stay in Iraq (up to three years at a possible cost of $10 billion per month) and even giving Iraq a measure of control over U.S. troops. As the Obama administration seems satisfied with the current agreement, it may be tempting for members of Congress to leave well enough alone and move on to other matters. Part of the feeling, especially among Democrats, may be that the agreement is the best we are going to get at this point so there is no need to reopen the debate. But this misses the entire point. If nothing is done today, then President Romney, President Palin, or - god forbid - President Cheney may sign a far-reaching "SOFA" of their own with Iran in 2014 or 2018. That may seem far off in the distance now, but in the span of this nation's history, nine years is nothing. This agreement, if Congress is not included in the process, will set a strong precedent for future presidents to cite. They will be able to say that congressional approval is not required for these kinds of agreements and will point to 2009 as their justification. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) has introduced a resolution (H.Res. 72) expressing the sense of the House that the U.S.-Iraq agreement will be considered merely advisory in nature absent congressional approval. Such action is needed to force President Obama to seek approval from Congress. Please click on the following link to urge your U.S. representative to co-sponsor this critically important piece of legislation: Once you have sent your message, please forward this email widely to friends and family. In the alternative, you can use the "Tell-A-Friend" option on the AFC Web site that will appear after you have sent your message. Thank you so much for taking action. Steve Fox Campaign Director American Freedom Campaign Action Fund



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Monday chatty post

It is Monday and this will not be much of a post. I am mainly just posting because my father will check tomorrow morning.

It really is weird to be so far away from them. (They're in Georgia, I moved to California this month.) My house back home, it's four streets away from them and it feels so much further. My oldest son can ride his bike there. His brother had become old enough that he could as well but it was way too far for my youngest (my daughter). And that felt so far away and now we're across the country from one another.

My brother (I have one brother and the rest are all sisters) had the wanderlust. He's been everywhere and back several times over. (He's the one who collects music and I have his stored at my place. My cousin is staying in my house for the next 18 months while I'm in California.) He would be gone forever, come home and be ready to hit the road again in a few days. He's been in the military, he's done everything. (He's also been in bands and my oldest son gets his talent from my brother. My father would say, "From me!" No, Dad doesn't play the guitar or the bass.)

So it's weird to be all this way away from them.

I wish we'd had gotten my father a cell phone. We talked about that but knew he would have a problem working it at first.

He does not get that I can call him and not be running up my bill. I have free minutes on the cell phone. He'll let the kids talk but when I get on the phone, every few seconds he's saying, "You know you've been on the phone for ___."

My mother, not nearly as set in her ways (as she will tell you), has a cell phone and understands completely. But we have both tried to explain it to my father and he just does not get it. That's not griping. It's how he is and I have my quirks (and worse) so I'd be the last to judge.

The kids spoke to him tonight and were drawing pictures of their grandparents after. I've put some in an envelope, tossed a stamp on it and it will go out in tomorrow's mail. I'd love to take the time to do a lengthy letter but I won't have that time.

My daughter's too young to read and my mother sent her a letter.

A letter my daughter loves. I was looking at it Saturday and called my mother to ask, "How did you get this wonderful idea?" She said she mentioned to C.I. that she'd be writing the boys (which she does) but worried about writing her granddaughter. C.I. shared what she did with young children. The "letter" is clippings of photos. And you 'read' the photos.

My daughter was saying, "Granny's making cherry pie! Look, Mommy!" and pointing to the photo of the cherry pie. There was a photo of everyone having Sunday dinner and my daughter was pointing out the cherry pie pan was in the middle of the table and empty. "They ate it all up," she said. When she got on the phone with my mother Saturday, she said, "Granny, they loved your pie. They ate it all up!"

They've got a break in the spring and Kat, Ava, C.I. and Wally are going to drop them off with my grandparents and then pick them back up to fly back at the end of the week. I don't have time off until this summer or I'd be going out with them. But they need to see their grandparents. These 18 months will be the first time they've ever been away from them. Like I said earlier, my house is four blocks away from my parents.

Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Who Could Have Guessed" went up yesterday:



The kids love Isaiah's comic and are trying to get Kat to show them how to draw comics. (Fortunately for Kat, she's on the road during the week or they'd still be bothering her. She's a wonderful artist so they expect her to know how to do everything. Yesterday, they were painting old photographs with her. They were working on those for the community newsletters and probably at least one will be used by Third at some point.)

(And I do mean "painting old photographs." They had a series of old photographs and were painting over them.)



"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Monday, January 26, 2009. Chaos and violence continues, the US military announces multiple deaths, provincial elections loom, Nouri al-Maliki makes laughable statements (redundant or just expected?), and more.

This morning the US military announced: "TIKRIT, Iraq -- Four Coalition Soldiers died Jan. 26, when their aircraft crashed in Northern Iraq. The cause is unclear at this time and does not appear to be by enemy action. An investigation is ongoing. The names of the deceased are being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense." The announcement brings the total number of US service members killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war to 4236 with 15 for the month thus far. Ned Parker and Caesar Ahmed (Los Angeles Times) cited an unnamed Iraqi police source who states the aircraft was a helicopter and they note, "Initial reports from the U.S. military said two aircraft were involved, but later reports said it was only one aircaft that went down in the incident, which occured around 2:15 a.m." In a later update (1:23 p.m. EST), they note that it was two helicopters. Anthony Shadid (Washington Post) reminds, "The crash was the first since Nov. 15, when an OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter landed with difficulty after hitting wires in the northern city of Mosul. Two US pilots were killed. The worst crash of the conflict was in January 2005, when a U.S. Marine CH53E Super Stallion helicopter went down in western Iraq, killing 30 Marines and a Navy sailor." Sam Dagher (New York Times) adds, "At least 70 American helicopters have gone down since the war started in March 2003, according to military figures. Of those, 36 were confirmed to have been shot down." Jordan's Al Bawaba notes the US military refuses to say where the crash took place but it appears to have been outside Kirkuk based on unnamed sources: "One observer indicated that the crash report was very unusual, because if two Blackhawk helicopters were involved as the U.S. Military claims then they would have carried at the least eight crewmembers in both machines, but only four were reported . He suggested several possible explanations, including that the aircraft involved were actually attack helicopters, which carry only two crew each, that only one helicopter had crashed (which makes the claim of a mid-air collision highly unlikely), or that there was a far higher casualty list from the incident, which the Americans were deliberately hiding." Deborah Haynes (Times of London) locates the crash similiary, "An Iraqi police general responsible for Salahuddin province said two small helicopters had collided near the city of Kirkuk, 155 miles north of Baghdad."

Today's announcement follows two over the weekend. Saturday, the US military announced: " A Multi-National Division -- Center Soldier died of non-combat related causes in southern Iraq today." And [PDF format warning] they announced, "A 3rd Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) Soldier died as a result of non-combat related injuries Jan. 24." The Seattle Times identified the second death ["A 3rd Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) Soldier] as "24-year-old Sgt. Kyle J. Harrington" and notes he is survived by Faith, his wife, and by Joshua (their five-year-old son) and Kaylee (their two-year-old daughter).

On Sunday news of other Saturday violence emerged. Timothy Williams (New York Times) reported on a Saturday raid by US forces in Hawija in which a husband and wife were killed by US forces and their young daughter was wounded. The house raid, Williams explained, required helicopters and was done at two in the morning. For the killing of the wife (Fathiya Ali Ahmed), the official story is she reached for something and, later, a gun was allegedly found under a mattress. After he saw his wife slaughtered, the husband (Dhiya Hussein) went after the US soldiers and was killed. Ahlam Dhia, the eight-year-old daughter, was shot by US soldiers for no official reason cited and she is quoted stating, "They killed my mother and father right in front of me. I was under the blanket. I heard my mom screaming, and I started to cry." Based on descriptions, Williams hypothesized the soldiers were American Special Ops. It is interesting that when Iraq supposedly has control over their country, US forces -- not Iraqi forces or, for that matter, US forces and Iraqi forces -- are conducting house raids. Ned Parker and Saif Hameed (Los Angeles Times) reported, "The chairman of the Hawija Council said the woman's husband, Dhia Hussein, had not been linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq, as the U.S. military claimed" and quote Hussein Ali Salih (the chair) stating, "I personally know Col. Dhia Hussein; he is one of the former army officers and he was trying to return to the new Iraqi army. He has no affiliations with any armed groups." NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro (All Things Considered -- link has video and text) reports:The U.S. military said the operation was conducted with and approved by Iraq's security forces, as stipulated by a security agreement that went into effect at the beginning of the year. But a senior Iraqi government spokesman said there were no Iraqi forces present and is calling for an investigation of the deaths."The Americans were on foot," said Hussein Ali, the father of the man who was killed. "They threw percussion hand grenades at the door, then they started shooting. When I got inside the house, the Americans were gone. I found [my son and daughter-in-law] in the bedroom, dead beside each other. They shot my son at close range. His blood was all over the wall."McClatchy's Leila Fadel (and possible the Institute for War and Peace Reporting?) felt the above information could wait until paragraph eight and spent the first seven pagraphs repeating the US military's version in what can only be characterized as Blind Faith Typing. Were Judith Miller still working for the New York Times and had she filed the exact same report Fadel did, she'd be called out non-stop on through next month for that one report. Instead, the anger only emerges in Iraq. Anthony Shadid and Qais Mizher (Washington Post) explained, "In the angry aftermath, 40 cars carrying hundreds of people converged on the family's funeral later in the day, said Fadhil Najm, a neighbor. He said the mourners shouted, 'Death to America! Death to killers of women!' as they buried the bodies." The two also point out that the head of the province's police force, General Jamal Tahir Bakir, states "U.S. forces acted on their own in the raid." China's Xinhau cites an unnamed police source, "The source also said that local security forces were not informed about the raid and that the reasons behind the killings are unclear yet."

Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .

Bombings?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing that left six injured, a Baquba bicyle bombing that left five people injured (and the bicyclist shot dead by the police), a Mosul car bombing that left six injured and a Mosul roadside bombing that left three wounded.

Corpses?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 corpse discovered in Mosul.

Iraq Body Count lists 12 dead on Saturday and 14 on Friday. They don't have a number for Sunday or today yet. They are an undercount but they're also one of the few still covering Iraq. For example, Just Foreign Policy's counter estimates the number of Iraqis killed since the start of the illegal war to be 1,307,319. That's the number they offered last Sunday, and the Sunday before that. In other words, JFP wants you to believe that no Iraqs have died since January 4th. Or maybe it's just that counting the Iraqis killed only matters when a Republican is in the White House?

KUNA repots that the Interior Ministry has announced that "5000 servicewomen" have finished training "to work in female inspection posts in state ministires and bodies."

Meanwhile Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) examines the puppet of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki, noting the two attempts by Parliament to oust him: "The anger at Mr. Maliki from the political class is strong enough that he has twice narrowly missed being voted out of office, in December and in late 2007." Those are not the only attempts to get rid of him, just FYI. Rubin goes on to explain that al-Maliki is popular with some Iraqis and, even later, goes on to explain why: Doling out pennies. Hmmm. It's a shame no one ever noticed that al-Maliki was sitting on all that money. It's a shame no one has thought to call for an audit of it.al-Maliki's creation of his private guards, so similar to Saddam Hussein's actions, are noted as well. The US government backed Saddam and they've backed al-Maliki. Should the Iraqi people not have their way, it will be important to remember who created the puppet in forty years. His private guards are the Baghdad Brigade and the Counterterrorism Task Force which bypass everyone else and report only to him and have no supervision or transparency. A Kurdish MP, Mahmoud Othman, is quoted observing, "The country is being militarized. People think he has overreached."And for those who can't grasp why the US should have already left (should have never gone but is continuing to do damage), note this section:American military commanders privately defend Mr. Maliki, saying that he has had to exert control over security forces and that having forces loyal to him reduces the influence of Shiite and Kurdish militias that function within the security ministries. For those not aware, the US military -- or any military -- is not the person to judge what's best for democracy or democracy building. Democracy building is not a task a military should ever take on because it is beyond its scope and ability. The judgments being made by the US commanders? You damn well better believe they impact orders on down the chain and it's putting the US military into the position Joe Biden warned against in April, choosing sides in a civil war. He also declared, in that Senate hearing, "Just understand my frustration, we want to normalize a government that really doesn't exist."That paragraph in Rubin's article should alarm but it will just sail over most heads because there is so little interest in Iraq and there is such a meager knowledge base on what a military can and can't do and what democracy actually is.Biden warned that the US military was being put in the position of propping up one set of thugs. For those who doubt that's taking place, from Rubin's article:Other parties accuse these military forces [al-Maliki's two private guards] of detaining their members for political reasons. Ammar Wajih, a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party's political leadership, said the senior Sunni member of the provincial council in Diyala, Hussain al-Zubaidi, had been detained since November.Provincial elections are scheduled to be held in fourteen of Iraq's eighteen provinces on January 31st, five days from now. Rubin's reporting on how al-Maliki's tossing the pennies around in various areas in the hopes of increase support for his political party, Dawa. Over the weekend, Anthony Shadid (Washington Post) examined Al Anbar Province where various tribal leaders claim democracy has taken hold and where Dr. Sabah al-Ani replies, "If you believe in a stone, you can says it's God. We wanted technocrats and we were left with the tribes." Kimi Yoshino (Los Angeles Times) writes of a non-scientific poll the paper did (with a sample size of a little more than tweny) where the responses indicated "security takes a back seat to basic services, the economy and culture". She notes 14,8 million Iraqis have registered to vote. Monte Morin (LAT's Babylon & Beyond) explains that the weight of all the eleciton kits is 607 tons, while the ballots are 559 tons and the polling screens are 180 tons. The paper's Tina Susman examined some of the campaign materials and noted "In a country where few candidates have the means to produce glossy election literature, most simply splash letters across white sheets or poster paper and drape the signs between trees or signposts . . . Others use photographs or potraits of themselves . . ." Susman offers photos of various candidates including Nouri al-Maliki who actually is not running for a provincial council seat but is, as Rubin and others have noted, attempting to make this week's elections all about himself. AFP reports that Sunday found Nouri and KRG president Massoud Barzani trading swipes: "The two have been at odds over Maliki's plans to ammend the constitution to clear the way for a stronger central government in Baghdad at the expense of the powers of Barzani's administration based in the northern city of Erbil." Waleed Ibrahim and Michael Christie (Reuters) report that puppet of the occupation, Nouri al-Maliki, declared that US [combat only] forces will be pulled quickly. They report he made this announcement to "a crowd of supporters in the southern Iraqi city of Babel during a campaign rally ahead of Jan. 31 provincial elecitons" -- translation, a campaign promise by al-Maliki -- eager to pump up the number of seats held by his Dawa Party. And of course, if Barack had decided on that, he would let Nouri break the news, right? No need to inform the Pentagon or Joint Chiefs first. Just tell Nouri and let him tell the world.

Friday on PBS' Washington Week, Iraq was briefly discussed. As Ava and I noted, "ABC News Martha Raddatz explained to Gwen ('I didn't know') Ifill how Barack claimed he would 'meet with the Joint Chiefs and I think they were a little confused at the White House that that's not really who he would meet with right away, the Joint Chiefs, to talk about military advice. . . . That's not who he would meet with. He would meet with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He'd meet with his NSC advisor'." Radditz also noted she'd just returned from another trip to the Middle East but this time it did not include Iraq. (Remember ABC News has entered into an agreement with the BBC to air the BBC's Iraq reports.) This exchange was the key moment on Iraq:

Martha Raddatz: They laid out plans or started to lay out plans for the sixteen-month withdrawal, which President Obama says he wants, or the three-year withdrawal which is the Status Of Forces Agreement that the US has gone into with the Iraqis. And they talked about the risks with each of those. Ray Odierno, who is the general in charge of Iraqi forces, said, 'If you run out in sixteen months -- if you get out in sixteen months, there are risks. The security gains could go down the tube. If you wait three years, there are other risks because you can't get forces into Afghanistan as quickly.' So President Obama made no decisions. Again, he's going to meet with Joint Chiefs next week and probably will make a military decision. But also a key there is how many troops he leaves behind. That's something we're not talking about so much, he's not talking about so much. This residual force that could be 50, 60, 70,000 troops even if he withdraws -- Gwen Ifill: That's not exactly getting out of Iraq. Martha Raddatz: Not exactly getting out completely. That was the show's finest movement and, alone, made up for so much of the gas baggery Gwen usually dumbs down America with. More like that and you might have a show that actually informs. Pete Williams also deserves notice for telling the reality about Barack 'closing' of Guantanamo. It should be noted that Professor Patti objected to Barack's plan for Guantanamo as well, she and Bill Moyers just didn't feel they owed it to PBS viewers to explain what Barack was proposing. Gordon Lubold (Christian Science Monitor) reports the US "military has already been quietly moving materiel out of Iraq over the past 18 to 24 months, said a military official who requested anonymity" but it's the same Lubold who can't grasp the so-called SOFA so factor that in. He also wrongly estimates that as many as US troops could remain in Iraq after 'withdrawal.' (70,000 is the number the administration tosses around.) Barack's 'withdrawal' is a lot like his 'closing' Guantanamo. As Heart (Women's Space) observes, "Beacuse that's the sense I get reading what Obama has said -- that he wants to clean up our reputation quick, hoping everyone forgets the atrocities of the Bush Administration, so we can continue to fight a Democratic Administration version of the 'war on terror,' which seems to bear a striking resemblance to the one the Bush administration has been engaged in, to our national shame, for the last eight years." Mickey Z weighs in (at Dissident Voice):

So, the Pope of Hope announced his (purported) objective of closing the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba ("Gitmo") within one year and we're expected to herald this announcement as a drastic break from the past. But -- as some of the regulars on my blog instantly declared -- if President Obama were serious about hope and change, he'd close the prison tomorrow, apologize to the detainees, and offer them financial reparations. That could be promptly followed up with the immediate indictment of all government officials (including those in Obama's administration) responsible for supporting torture, secret prisons, extraordinary rendition, extrajudicial punishment, etc. And why not toss in the immediate closing of the US military base at Guantánamo Bay and the return of that land to Cuba? That, I submit, would be a minuscule first step upon which we could build.
Waiting a year to close a single prison is nothing to celebrate. Transferring those illegally detained humans is not change anyone can believe in. Public promises about not torturing have been heard before and even if we could trust such dubious assurances, why are we so goddamned appreciative when a US president merely declares his theoretical intention to think about adhering to fundamental international law?

Also calling the nonsense out is Tom Eley (WSWS):

On Thursday, President Barack Obama issued executive orders mandating the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in a year's time, requiring that Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and military personnel follow the Army Field Manual's prohibitions on torture, and closing secret CIA prisons overseas. While the media is portraying these orders as a repudiation of the detention and interrogation policies of the Bush administration, they actually change little. They essentially represent a public relations effort to refurbish the image of the United States abroad after years of torture and extralegal detentions and shield high-ranking American officials from potential criminal prosecution. In cowardly fashion, Obama staged his signing of the orders in a manner aimed at placating the political right and defenders of Guantanamo and torture and underscoring his intention to continue the Bush administration's "war on terror." He was flanked by 16 retired generals and admirals who have pushed for the closure of the prison camp in Cuba on the grounds that it impedes the prosecution of the global "war" and reiterated in his own remarks his determination to continue the basic political framework of the Bush administration's foreign policy.The continuation of the ideological pretext for wars of aggression and attacks on democratic rights ensures that the police state infrastructure erected under the Bush administration will remain intact. This is further reinforced by Obama's assurances that his administration will not investigate or prosecute those officials -- including Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales and others -- who were responsible for the policies of torture and illegal detention.


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the new york timestimothy williamsned parkersaif hameedthe los angeles timesanthony shadidthe washington postnprall things consideredlourdes garcia-navarro
alissa j. rubinmartha raddatzpbswashington week
caesar ahmed
kimi yoshinomonte morintina susmantom eley
mickey z.
gordon luboldwaleed ibrahimmichael christie
the third estate sunday review