Thursday, April 15, 2021

Mars and Dinosaurs

I've covered Mars a lot since land rover Curiosity arrived on the planet. I've also written about Ingenuity the helicopter and Perseverance that latest land rover. If InSight has ever been noted here, that would be in a NASA press release because I've never written about InSight or quoted a story on the topic. Until now. Morgan McFall-Johnsen (SCIENCE ALERT) reports:

 
NASA's $800 million Mars lander is in an energy crisis.
InSight, which landed in a Martian plain called Elysium Planitia in 2018, has detected more than 500 Mars quakes, felt more than 10,000 dust devils pass by, and started to measure the planet's core.
But over the past few months, InSight has been fighting for its life as the red planet's unpredictable weather threatens to snuff out the robot.
Unlike other sites where NASA has sent rovers and landers – including the landing spot of the new Perseverance rover and its Mars helicopter – powerful gusts of wind have not been sweeping Elysium Planitia.
These winds, called "cleaning events," are needed to blow the red Martian dust off the solar panels of NASA's robots. Without their help, a thick layer of dust has accumulated on InSight, and it's struggling to absorb sunlight.

InSight's troubles are an issue on Mars. You may remember the land rover Opportunity which reported from Mars for over a decade. But in February of 2019, NASA announced its mission had ended. A dust storm on the planet in June of the year before had led to Opportunity no longer being able to communicate. They tried various ways from June of 2018 to February of 2019 to save the mission. None were successful. Hopefully, this will not be the case for InSight.

"Not the mama!"


Anybody remember that? Baby Sinclair on DiINOSAURS? It ran for four seasons on ABC. I thought of that and "Not the mama!" when I read Philip Guela's report for WSWS:

 
A multinational team recently announced a fossil dinosaur discovery in China that provides new evidence of advanced parental care among at least one group of the earth’s once dominant vertebrate animals. The fossil, dating to 70 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period, which ended with the mass dinosaur extinction, consists of the partially preserved remains of an oviraptorosaur, a feathered, theropod dinosaur lineage tangentially related to those that eventually gave rise to modern birds.
Of especial interest is that this animal appears to have been sitting on a brood of at least two dozen eggs. Examination of the embryos preserved in at least seven of the eggs confirmed that they belong to the same group as the adult, strongly implying that the latter was a parent sitting on a nest incubating its offspring.
The discovery, soon to be published in the journal Science Bulletin, was made in Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province, southern China. Shundong Bi, lead author of the report who is a researcher at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH) and professor at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, said in a press release, “Dinosaurs preserved on their nests are rare, and so are fossil embryos. This is the first time a non-avian dinosaur has been found sitting on a nest of eggs that preserve embryos, in a single spectacular specimen.”
According to the CMNH press release, the embryos were at a late stage of development, implying that the adult was actually sitting on the nest incubating the eggs, as is done by many modern birds, rather than that the eggs had been recently deposited to then be left to develop on their own (as is done by modern reptiles). The position of the fossil adult further implies that the nest was not simply being guarded, as is done by crocodiles.

I liked that story and I do try to highlight a WSWS science article when I come across one. We need a lot more science coverage in this country. I am glad that WSWS covers science. Last time ("Faux leaders"), I noted:

On Hannah-Jones, does WSWS not get how deep she is in Oregon? I only know because C.I. proposed a story at THIRD weeks ago. She, Ava and Ty had noted an Oregon paper praising her and attacking critics of Hannah-Jones as right-wing. She, Ava and Ty e-mailed the reporter asking her if she was aware of the WSWS's series of articles on the 1619 Project. She never replied back, the reporter, which led C.I. to make some calls and the 'objective' reporter failed to disclose her own relationship with Hannah-Jones. It must be nice to praise someone in a news article and never tell people that their critics aren't just right-wingers or that you know the person you're covering. It must be nice not to have do disclosures even though you're ethically required to do so.

Lou Ann e-mailed asking why we didn't write the article for THIRD?

I honestly don't remember. It could have been for any number of reasons. Time might have run out. Others might not have liked the idea. Others might have thought there was something more important.

I do know that Ava, C.I. and Ty wrote a very nice e-mail to the reporter -- I read it -- where they disputed the fact that it was the 'racist right-wing' who was questioning Hannah-Jones' work. They noted the series the WSWS had done and provided links to that coverage. They asked the reporter if she wasn't aware of that coverage and a few other things. After the reporter didn't reply -- they gave it a week -- C.I. began making calls and digging around and that's when she discovered the reporter -- who was writing about the upcoming speech (it was upcoming then, the ZOOM speech) was friends with Hannah-Jones and had herself pitched the story to her editor. So the reporter didn't just do a 'report' on her friend, she actually pitched it to her editor. And it was a one-sided and biased report.

A lot of ideas are pitched. THIRD's honestly become a nightmare. I don't mean that in a mean way but it used to be more organized and now it's not. Part is COVID which is depressing and dispiriting. Part of it is just being sick and tired. Part of it is it's so many people -- that means we discuss and debate a lot more. Take "Truest statement of the week." Back in the early days of the site, that was a five minute discussion tops. If it went longer than that, Dona would say, "Let's do two truests" or "we'll do three." Now just one of those -- and there are now two every week -- can take an hour minimum. But there are a lot of things going on.

None of us care for WSWS's 'insurrection' nonsense which is as loony tunes as when they 'reported' Boston being under martial law -- Trina lives in Boston and at that time so did Mike. It wasn't under martial law. Sometimes, they get a little too alarmist and a little too caught up in something. Their coverage of the DC riot last January has been deranged. I mention that because if the idea was shot down when C.I. proposed it, that's probably why.

 


"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

 Thursday, April 15, 2021.  Joe Biden speaks, will he deliver?


US President Joe Biden lied to the American people yet again in a speech broadcast last night.  Patrick Martin (WSWS) observes:


US President Joe Biden announced Wednesday afternoon that the remaining American troops in Afghanistan would begin pulling out on May 1 and that all of them would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021.

The choice of a final withdrawal date was intended to reinforce the longstanding lie by Washington that its invasion and occupation of Afghanistan were in response to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. In reality, the attack on Afghanistan was in preparation well before that date, and the invasion was aimed at accomplishing long-term strategic aims for American imperialism.The televised statement from the White House and the accompanying media buildup, however, could not dispel the atmosphere of futility and failure that surrounds the withdrawal—if, indeed, the final pullout takes place on schedule.

Biden reportedly rejected pleas by Pentagon and CIA officials that any pullout should be “conditions-based,” i.e., conditional on some sort of agreement between the Taliban insurgents and the Kabul puppet regime established by the United States. By one account, citing an unnamed “senior administration official,” Biden viewed such an approach as “a recipe for staying in Afghanistan forever.”

While warning the Taliban not to attack American forces or their NATO allies during the withdrawal period, Biden indicated that there were no circumstances in which he would reverse his decision. He only left open the threat that US military force could be employed against any possible terrorist threat to the United States, a warning that applies to virtually every country in the world.

While there are officially 2,500 US troops in Afghanistan and another 6,500 from other NATO countries, press reports indicate that the actual number of American soldiers is 3,500. This does not count thousands of other American personnel, from CIA agents to mercenaries to Special Forces paratroopers, who are likely to continue operations in that country as long as Washington feels it necessary to prop up the Kabul regime, which has no other base of support.

[. . .]

In his remarks Wednesday, Biden referred to the 2,300 American soldiers killed in Afghanistan, the tens of thousands of wounded and $2 trillion expended on 20 years of war. He made no reference whatsoever to the catastrophic impact on the Afghan people and on Afghanistan as a society, one of many destroyed by American imperialism over the past two decades, along with Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and large parts of northern Africa.

Similarly, there has been virtually no mention in the US media of the damage and the colossal loss of life inflicted by American forces. Instead, there were crocodile tears about the savagery of the Taliban and the likelihood of severe setbacks for women’s rights should the fundamentalist religious group come to power again in Kabul.

One of the most cynical efforts to portray Biden’s decision as a humanitarian and even progressive action came from David Sanger, the designated recipient of leaks from the CIA and Pentagon at the New York Times. He wrote that Biden was pulling out troops at least in part because “he wants the United States focused on a transformational economic and social agenda at home,” adding that in Biden’s view “the priorities are fighting poverty and racial inequities and increasing investment in broadband, semiconductors, artificial intelligence and 5G communications—not using the military to prop up the government of President Ashraf Ghani.” He concluded, “In the end, the argument that won the day is that the future of Kenosha is more important than defending Kabul.”

The resources squandered by American imperialism in Afghanistan will not go to rebuild deindustrialized cities in the Midwest, however. They will be redeployed against the major targets of Washington, in Russia and China.


The war on Afghanistan did not start because of 9/11.  The Taliban did not attack the United States on September 11, 2001.  They were asked to hand over Osama bin Laden and others in al Qaeda.  Their reply was they wanted to see some evidence of a connection to the crime.  That's really not uncommon.  When one country wants another country to hand someone over (think Julian Assange who continues to be persecuted by the US government), they present a case and some backing information that they believe justifies extradition.  The US government refused to provide any.  Bellicose and belligerent, the Bully Boy Bush regime conveyed through then-Secretary of State Collie The Blot Powell that they would provide their supporting evidence after -- after -- the extraditions took place.  Some will or have read that to mean that the US had no proof connecting Osama bin Laden to the 9/11 attack and that might be (FBI judgments in the early '00s would fuel that belief) but it also likely that the refusal to provide support for the demand was just the usual US government looking down on other countries and try to bully others into getting their way.


Joe connected it to 9/11 without explaining that the Taliban had stated they needed supporting evidence to do the deportation.  The refusal to deport is what led to the war on Afghanistan.


Like the Iraq War (and Iraq wars), the Afghanistan War accomplished nothing but death and destruction.  All these years later, there's still a non-functioning government in place, a corrupt government, an abusive government.  Again, just like Iraq.


At THE AMERICAN PROPSECT, Sarah Leah Whitson offers:


Thirty years ago, some classmates and I took a break from our studies at Harvard and set out on a self-appointed mission. We traveled to Iraq to investigate the true devastation caused by the U.S.-led coalition’s bombardment. Little did we know that the 1991 war would be remembered as a blip in America’s Iraq adventures, now merely called the First Gulf War, to be followed by decades of far greater devastation: 22 years of sanctions and air strikes, a Second Gulf War, military occupation, and what’s now just another one of our global endless wars.

Today, the country remains in shambles, and the Iraqi people are left holding the bag. Purveyors of American empire and Iraqi desperation never tire of offering up fresh justifications to give the U.S. just one more go at a fix. But it really is time for the U.S. to step aside, as it’s been promising to do for far too long. For those focused on the welfare of the people of Iraq, but still driven, despite the overwhelming evidence of three decades, to seek help from the U.S. government, it’s past time to come to terms with the reality that U.S. policies have never helped the Iraqi people.


[. . .]

And so again, our group returned to Iraq, just before the war in January 2003, this time in a bid to bring Nobel Peace Prize laureates Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter to the country to negotiate a last-ditch resolution to the conflict. We failed. Instead, Bush pursued the calamity of the U.S. war, with strong bipartisan support, as prominent Democrats fell over themselves to establish their war-hawk credentials: Then-Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, voted for the war, as did then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, with stacked-deck hearings lasting less than two days, engineered by then–Senate Foreign Relations Committee Director Tony Blinken. The war soon became laden with even creepier mission creep than the prior Iraq war: the overthrow of Hussein and calamitous dismantling of Iraqi government institutions, a two-year occupation replete with notorious torture prisons and military contractors run amok, and the installation of a hand-picked Shia-dominated, Iran-influenced government facing ever-emergent Sunni resistance militias. The war and the government system established by the U.S. solidified the notion of the country as split between Sunnis and Shias.

One corrupt and brutal sectarian administration after another tried to quash new uprisings by Iraqis aggrieved by their rule, particularly in the Sunni provinces, bolstered with what became permanent U.S. military forces providing “essential” military support for their survival. The U.S. spent tens of billions more on advisers to new Iraqi governments, providing advice on constitution drafting, governance, and reconstruction, even, of course, rebuilding the electrical plants we destroyed in 1991; estimates of the cost of the war and its aftermath run to $2 trillion. Much if not most of the money was spent in military aid to bolster Iraq’s security forces. Even after the formal “withdrawal” of U.S troops in 2011 under President Obama, over 5,000 defense contractors and 20,000 embassy and consulate personnel, all with diplomatic immunity, remained in the country to service over $10 billion in arms deals and “train and advise” Iraqi security forces. The U.S. also continued to determine fateful political outcomes for the country, most disastrously with then–Vice President Joe Biden tipping the scales to ensure Nouri Al-Maliki’s re-election as prime minister, despite warning bells that Maliki had become increasingly sectarian, violent, and authoritarian.

Sadly, the post-occupation Iraqi security forces emerged as unjust and brutal as their predecessors, as mountains of human rights reports attest. There was a time when an Iraqi or Kurdish security official would be embarrassed when confronted with evidence of torture, mass executions, massacres, burning of homes, and razing of villages, unfavorably comparing them to the tyrant under whom they themselves had suffered. But with time, the shame faded and only the repression remained. By 2013, following the Maliki government’s multiple massacres of Sunni protesters, I warned that a civil war was imminent.


Read in full.   Wonder why the US remains in Iraq.  


B-b-b-ut Joe said troops were coming out of Afghanistan!!!!


He says a lot of things  Donald Trump said some things from time to time.  He promised to end the Iraq War when campaigning in 2016.  But he didn't.  He did (finally) reduce the troop level a little.  Take a look at how we covered it -- with skepticism and noting it wasn't what was promised or what was needed.  


We didn't fall for Barack Obama's lies either.  


Joe's lies?  As Vice President, he was over Iraq.  Sarah's condensing a huge time period in her article because it's a huge time period to cover.  Most of the sentences in her essay could be developed into three to four paragraphs or even individual papers.  


But let's note two things Joe-related.


In 2010, Iraq held elections.  She notes Joe backed Nouri al-Maliki:


The U.S. also continued to determine fateful political outcomes for the country, most disastrously with then–Vice President Joe Biden tipping the scales to ensure Nouri Al-Maliki’s re-election as prime minister, despite warning bells that Maliki had become increasingly sectarian, violent, and authoritarian.


Again, that's 2010.  And Nouri's thuggish ways were already well known.  For years.  In fact, Joe Biden was in charge of Iraq because Nouri's ways were well known.


Huh?


Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State in 2010.  The drawdown (passed off as a "withdrawal") would see the State Dept put over Iraq -- DoD handed off to them.  But Joe would continue to be the one over Iraq.


Why?


Because in an open hearing in 2008 (April of 2008, we covered it) ,Hillary Clinton noted that Nouri was a thug.  She used the term "thug."  It was an accurate description.  But it was a very well covered hearing, the press was out in full force.  You had David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker spending the week appearing before various Congressional committees to resell the Iraq War.  They brought press attention.  Also bringing press attention?  Senators Hillary and Barack.  They were both running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.  So the press was out in full force.


Well -- not full force.  Spencer Ackerman had decided that 'reporting' meant lying for his candidate of choice (Barack) and refusing to cover Hillary in the hearing where she was so much stronger and more forceful than Barack who arrived late but got to jump ahead of the line because Chair John Kerry always thought Barack was cute and dreamy -- bromance?  More like brolust.  Spencer was watching the hearing via TV or internet and 'live blogging' it but he missed out on Hillary's 20-plus minutes and insisted he had lost his signal.  No, he'd lost his marbles and was reaching around in his briefs in desperation because Hillary outshined Barack in that hearing.  


So in that hearing, Hillary called Nouri a thug.  Which he is. She wasn't the only one to make that call.  Among the others making the call that week?  Then-Senator Barbara Boxer.  


Because of that moment, Hillary could not be over Iraq, not when Nouri was prime minister (2006 through 2014).  So Barack put Joe over Iraq.  


What few realized was that Joe called Nouri a thug as well.  But it was the least reported on hearing that week (we covered it).  The press was apparently exhausted from the weeks worth of House and Senate hearings on Iraq and they didn't even show for the hearing.  It was a good hearing and both Joe and Senator Russ Feingold made important points in it.  


Nouri lost the 2010 election.  It was a shock to many -- including a lying male reporter' on NPR who called the election for Nouri -- stated he won, not that he was calling it, but that Nouri won -- the day after the election when they didn't even have a third of the votes counted or figures released.


It shouldn't have been a shock.  Joe was tight with Chris Hill -- because idiots run in packs?  Chris was US Ambassador to Iraq at the time.  Ahead of the 2010 election, Chrissy had a hissy.  The press was covering Gen Ray Odierno and not Chrissy!!!!  Chrissy was a pompous ass who said nothing of news value whereas Odierno offered quotes that the press loved to run with.  Odierno also didn't put on airs.  In addition, he was accessible to the media (while Chrissy was famous for being unavailable during working hours because he was napping -- on the job, on the American taxpayers' dime).


So Chrissy whined to Joe and Joe ran to Barack and Ray Odiero was told not to be speaking to the press because Chrissy never got enough validation as a child and this was a trigger incident for him -- why, oh why, couldn't Iraq just be a safe space for Chrissy!


This pulled Ray out of the decision making he should have been in on.  Ahead of the elections, he saw that it was likely Nouri would lose the election (we did too) because bribing people with ice and water right before the elections really doesn't make up for the terror you have inflicted upon them with sectret prisons and torture centers.  Ray stated there was a good chance Nouri would lose and his fear was that Nouri would then refuse to step down.


Which, please remember, is exactly what happened.


He would have to be looped back into the conversation by Hillary and Secretary of Defense Bob Gates.  And Chrissy would leave Iraq before the year was out and leave in disgrace.

.  

Joe said troops out of Afghanistan!  


And he also said, in 2010, that the US would respect the will of the Iraqi people in the election.  But they didn't.  Nouri lost to Ayad Allawi.  And the democratic process should have been bye-bye Nouri.  But then Joe and others (including Samantha Power) decided that the US needed Nouri for 'stability' and because if he was in place, he would agree to troops remaining in Iraq, and because . . .


Votes didn't matter.  The Iraqi people didn't matter.  All that mattered was keeping Nouri in place.  


So Joe oversaw The Erbil Agreement.  This was a legal contract that the various political heads in Iraq signed off on.  It would give Nouri a second term -- something the voters didn't do.  In exchange, the contract gave the various political blocs things they wanted.


Joe put his stamp of approval on.  And it meant nothing -- Joe's word meant nothing.


Nouri used The Erbil Agreement to get his second term and then ignored it until a few months later his spokesperson announced the contract was illegal and Nouri would not be bound by it.  For any confused on the timeline, this is before Nouri's son gets involved in the corrupt Russia deal that requires Nouri turning on the same spokesperson and the spokesperson fleeing the country.


Now the day Nouri was named prime minister-designate -- over 8 months after the election -- Ayad Allawi walked out of the Parliament.  And guess who got on the phone with him?  


Barack Obama.


Most Americans don't even know the name Ayad Allawi.  But he was important enough for the president of the United States to call him.


On that phone call, Barack begged him to get his party back into the Parliament and swore that The Erbil Agreement had the full backing of the US government and would be implemented.


Iraqi leaders learned the hard way what the "full backing of the US government" means = nothing.


Not one damn thing.


Nouri refused to implement the provisions in the contract and the US government refused to pressure him to do so.


Joe said some words last night.  I'm not going to get overly excited.  I regularly shake my head hear at the Kurdish leaders who keep buying the US government's word and keep getting betrayed.  Not only has this happened throughout the ongoing Iraq War, referencing and quoting the Pike Report, we've traced that constant and intentional betrayal back to the administration of Richard Nixon.


Now if I castigate the Kurdish leaders for never learning, I damn well better learn.  And I have learned.  Words are very easy for the US government, action's a lot harder.


Kentucky's WAVE 3 offers the thoughts on local Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans on Joe's remarks.



 

New content at THIRD:







The following sites updated:




Posted by at

Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Faux leaders

From Saturday, Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Hunter Biden Crawls Out From Under His Rock"


hbiden

 




Please see Ann's "Crooks at the top" from yesterday. Picking up on that topic -- that BLM has many great members but, like all groups, it has some people at the top that are just crooked.


Trevon Austin (WSWS) reports:

 
Hannah Jones argues that the overriding social category in the world is race. But being paid $25,000 for a lecture she did not even physically attend is a “privilege” that separates her from the majority of African Americans in the United States, who are overwhelmingly members of the working class. What Hannah-Jones can make in one lecture is almost the same as a worker making $15 an hour takes home in a year after taxes.
In a related development, Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLM) co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors purchased four high-end properties in the US worth $3.2 million, according to a recent report in the New York Post. She was also seen with her spouse in the Bahamas, viewing property at an exclusive resort where celebrities such as Tiger Woods and Justin Timberlake own homes.
In 2016, Cullors married Janaya Khan, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto, and purchased a $510,000 home in a Los Angeles suburb. Two years later, Cullors purchased a four-bedroom home for $590,000 in southern Los Angeles. Last year, Cullors and her spouse acquired a “custom ranch” in Georgia featuring a private hangar and community runway for small airplanes.
In January, the pair got their hands on a $1.4 million homestead a short drive from Malibu, one of the most affluent communities in the US. The property was advertised as featuring bamboo floors and “soaring ceilings, skylights and plenty of windows” with canyon views. The 2,400-square-foot property includes a three-bedroom and two-bath main house and a separate one-bed/one-bath apartment for long-term guests.
Just three weeks ago, Samaria Rice and Lisa Simpson, respective mothers of Tamir Rice and Richard Rishner, accused Cullors of profiting from the deaths of their children and other black people murdered by police. The pair criticized BLM for raising over $90 million in 2020 but doing little to help families impacted by police violence.
Khan and Cullors created the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag in 2013 after George Zimmerman was acquitted for the killing of Trayvon Martin. Since then, BLM has promoted racialist politics and raised substantial sums of money from large corporations like Google, Amazon, and Facebook. After BLM’s 2020 financial report was released, Cullors was accused of misappropriating funds by grassroots members of her organization.
In response to the allegations, she claimed that there were misunderstandings about BLM’s finances and that the organization was “scraping for money” in the past few years. If BLM truly was low on funds, Cullors purchasing luxury properties certainly did not help.
The wealth and privilege of the leading proponents of racialism demonstrate the reactionary character of identity politics. It is entirely divorced from the real concerns and experiences of the working class. Fearful of a unified workers’ movement, the ruling class seeks to sow artificial racial divisions among workers through the promotion of identity politics. Additionally, middle class layers seeking a bigger slice of the pie see identity as a means of advancing their own wealth and social position.
The American ruling class is terrified of the growth of a working-class movement. The fight against police violence, racism, and poverty can only be waged through the building of a socialist movement, independent of the capitalist parties, that unifies workers on their common class interests.

On Hannah-Jones, does WSWS not get how deep she is in Oregon? I only know because C.I. proposed a story at THIRD weeks ago. She, Ava and Ty had noted an Oregon paper praising her and attacking critics of Hannah-Jones as right-wing. She, Ava and Ty e-mailed the reporter asking her if she was aware of the WSWS's series of articles on the 1619 Project. She never replied back, the reporter, which led C.I. to make some calls and the 'objective' reporter failed to disclose her own relationship with Hannah-Jones. It must be nice to praise someone in a news article and never tell people that their critics aren't just right-wingers or that you know the person you're covering. It must be nice not to have do disclosures even though you're ethically required to do so.


"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

 Wednesday, April 14, 2021.  An item in the news cycle means we walk through the possibilites.


What did or didn't happen in Iraq?  That's a news cycle any day but especially today due to claims regarding an alleged Israeli base in Iraq.  


Iran's MEHR NEWS AGENCY states:

A facility affiliated with the Israeli regime’s Mossad spy agency had been attacked by "unknown resistance forces" in the north of the country killing, Iraq's Sabereen News quoted sources late on Tuesday.

The Iraqi media said the attack resulted in the death and injury of a “number of Israeli forces,” dealing a “heavy blow” to the regime and its spy agency, Press TV reported.

The sources did not provide further details on the location of the attack and the extent of damage, however, Sabereen said, “Tomorrow, we’ll share some pictures of the operation.”


Russia's SPUTNIK offers:


Israel’s Mossad has long operated in nearby Iraq, including in a 1966 operation to steal a Soviet-built MiG-21 fighter jet for the United States and a plot in the 1970s to assassinate Iraqi nationalist leader Saddam Hussein with a bomb hidden inside a book.

According to unconfirmed reports, a safe house used by the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, has been attacked in northern Iraq.

"’Unknown resistance forces’ target Mossad safe house in Northern Iraq,” Sabereen News Telegram reported Wednesday morning, adding that several “Israeli spies were killed” and promising to soon share photos of the operation.

The report did not say the city where the safe house was located, and only identified its source as an announcement from “a security source.”


Iraq's ABNA states:



Iraq's Sabereen News, citing security sources, reported late on Tuesday that a facility affiliated with Israel’s Mossad spy agency had been attacked by "unknown resistance forces" in the north of the country.

The Iraqi media said the attack resulted in the death and injury of a “number of Israeli forces,” dealing a “heavy blow” to the regime and its spy agency.

The sources fell short of providing details on the location of the attack and the extent of damage, however, Sabereen said, “Tomorrow, we’ll share some pictures of the operation.”

Reacting to the incident, a high-ranking Iraqi military commander said in an interview with Russian TV network RT that they had not so far received any news about the attack.

Media outlets in northern Iraq have yet to comment on the attack.

The incident came hours after an Israeli ship was attacked in the Emirati port of Fujairah, causing damage but no casualties.

Israel’s Channel 12 quoted unnamed regime officials as blaming Iran for the ship attack.

The vessel, called the Hyperion and sailing under the Bahamas flag, was associated with the Israeli Ray Shipping company, the same company that owns a vessel hit by an explosion in the Sea of Oman in February.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hastily accused at the time Iran of attacking the ship, with Iran categorically rejecting the charge.

Israeli media said the Tuesday’s attack on Hyperion was likely carried out with either a missile or a drone. 



David Israel (JEWISH PRESS) notes outlets covering this:


Iran’s Fars News on Tuesday cited Iraqi sources that reported an attack on the “intelligence and special operations center of the Zionist regime (Mossad) in northern Iraq (حمله به مرکز جاسوسی موساد رژیم صهیونیستی در شمال عراق)”

Saberin News and Al-Alam Al-Maqawam Center reported on Tuesday night, quoting a security source, that an unidentified group had attacked the Mossad-owned center, killing or wounding several “Israeli forces.”


Seth J. Frantzman (JERUSALEM POST) offers:


Sources in northern Iraq have denied claims by Iranian Press TV that there was an attack on “Mossad agents.” Earlier in the evening, outlets in Iraq and those linked to Iran, including Press TV, reported that “Israel’s Mossad spy agency has come under attack in Iraq.” The report was based on a claim in Sabereen News.  

However, four separate knowledgeable sources all denied that there was an attack in northern Iraq. There is no accurate information about the location, one source said. None of the Kurdish news outlets in northern Iraq had reported the event or were knowledgeable about it as of Tuesday evening.  
The sensitive nature of the claims paired with the lack of detail left many skeptical as to whether an attack had taken place. Pro-Iran militias in Iraq have fired rockets over the last two years at US forces there. These rockets have even targeted Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq. In addition, the rocket attacks have killed contractors working with US-led coalition forces.


Iraq's NRT goes with:


Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Spokesperson Jotiar Adil on Wednesday (April 14) strongly denied a report from a media outlet affiliated with the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) regarding an attack on an alleged Mossad installation in the Kurdistan Region.

“A number of local media outlets have falsely reported that an Israeli intelligence agency base had been targeted in the Kurdistan Region, leading to the death and injury of some of its employees,” Adil said in a statement.

“We hereby affirm, as we have several times in the past, that this is far from true and that there is no Israeli intelligence agency present in the Kurdistan Region,” he added.

The report from Sabereen News was picked up by a number of Iranian outlets, while the Israeli press cast doubt on its veracity.


And Lazar Berman (TIMES OF ISRAEL) offers:


The Kurdistan Regional Government released an official statement Wednesday denying reports in pro-Iranian media that “unknown forces” had attacked a Mossad facility and killed Israelis in northern Iraq.

“We can confirm that news reports about an attack on an Israeli intelligence facility in the region are false,” the KRG statement said.   


So what did or did not happen?


At this point, it's really not clear.


The attack, without details, does seem a little out there and a bit of wish fulfilment for those who don't care for the Israeli government (and//or the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands).  Is it possible?  It's very possible.


Many spy agencies are in Iraq.  Besides the base the CIA has in Turkey on the edge of Iraq -- a deal Bully Boy Bush made with the government of Turkey many years ago -- the CIA remains on the ground in Iraq.  The CIA is a US spy agency (not the only one).  At one point, after the drawdown, the CIA's presence on the ground in Iraq was greater than the US' military presence.  The UK's MI6 remains active in Iraq -- this despite the disaster they had during the second term of Bully Boy Bush when they got caught -- with one of them getting arrested -- posing as Iraqis in order to carry out attacks that would then create tensions and outrage.  (The response from the UK to this?  Deny -- oh, and attack the facility that was holding the MI6 agent.)  The Israeli spy agency is the Mossad.  It is very likely that they spy in Iraq -- it's a given in fact.  Do they do so via outsourcing?  Very likely but they also have agents on the ground.


Do they have a base?


When they say a base was attacked, we're picturing a big facility.  It could be more like a cut-out and most likely would be.  Something that three to five people would be in and out, not like a military base.  Again, that's very likely.


If the Mossad was to set up a base in Iraq, the Kurdistan Region would be the best place for it because they could depend upon the most support in that region.  The Kurdish Regional Government and the Israeli government have strong ties.  (Israel was one of the few nations not to condem the non-binding referendum that the KRG held on autonomy.)  


So is an attack possible?


Yes.


But I'd be more concerned, if I was playing this out all the way, that, in fact, there was a base -- a cut-out facility -- and there was no attack.  Why?  Israel is now on record denying the attack, as is the KRG, how embarrassing if, days after this was denied, an attack was carried out allowing those in the region hostile to the government of Israel to say, "See, they lie.  They lie all the time."


Another potential concern?  


This could be a smoke-them-out move.  Meaning that the Iranian government -- and their spy agencies -- might think they know where the cut-out roughly is and may have initated claims and rumors to watch the area for movement to pinpoint the actual location.


And, then again, it might be there was no attack at all, it was a rumor that was accidentally started and spread quickly because it feeds into so much that is already known about the way spy agencies work and into the conflict that the government of Israel has with so many of their neighbors in the Middle East.


Changing topics, a friend at the Center for Constitutional Rights asked me to note this press release:


Contact: press@ccrjustice.org

Emergency Motion Says Ashley Diamond’s Allegations of Assault Prompted Retaliation by Prison Staff

April 9, 2021, Atlanta – Today, Ashley Diamond, a Black transgender woman who is currently suing the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC), asked a federal judge for an emergency order to protect her health and safety while in GDC custody. Since her re-incarceration in connection with a technical parole violation in October 2019, Ms. Diamond has been sexually assaulted and abused 16 times, including three times at the hands of GDC staff. She has also been denied life-saving gender-dysphoria care. Among other requests for relief, Ms. Diamond seeks a transfer to a women’s prison, where she will be safer. Ms. Diamond gained national recognition for her groundbreaking lawsuit against GDC six years ago. Rather than help her, in response to her efforts to be protected from sexual assault and receive adequate medical care for her gender dysphoria over the last year and a half, GDC has retaliated against her.  

“The message Georgia is sending trans people in custody is that our lives and existences simply do not matter,” said Ms. Diamond. “But I know better. Georgia’s actions toward me and other trans prisoners are a systemic abuse of power, authority, and moral decency.”

Shortly after Ms. Diamond filed a complaint under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) implicating wardens for their failure to fulfill their duties and protect her in several sexual assaults against her at Coastal State Prison, the facility where she is currently held, GDC officials initiated what attorneys call a “smear campaign aimed at frustrating Ms. Diamond’s legal advocacy, punishing her for her lawsuit, and diminishing her chances of early release” on parole by papering her with rule violations and disciplinary infractions that were either plainly false, manufactured, or based on minutiae not enforced against others. 

GDC went so far as to pressure another incarcerated person to lie about Ms. Diamond and accuse her of sexual assault; when he refused, he was held in prolonged solitary confinement and then transferred to a housing unit widely considered more violent than the one where he had been. Ms. Diamond’s records have also been altered to make her less safe and to manufacture a reason GDC can use to defend their failure to protect her by changing her security designation from victim to perpetrator. The effects of this intentional campaign of retaliation not only expose her to being placed among other incarcerated people who may pose a grave threat to her, but have hurt Ms. Diamond’s parole eligibility, postponing it from March 2021 until April 2022.

Attorneys say an emergency court order is absolutely necessary to protect Ms. Diamond’s health and safety and to halt the retaliation against her and others. Ms. Diamond and her attorneys have made numerous attempts to end the daily sexual victimization and get her transferred to a women’s facility. Her attorneys have sent nine notices to GDC officials, attempting to resolve her health and safety issues without resorting to legal action. Not only have those officials not responded to the letters, but they have retaliated against Ms. Diamond. The motion filed today criticizes GDC for its practice of holding transgender women in men’s facilities despite the safety risks — and despite formal, written GDC policies and federal law allowing transgender women to be placed in female facilities.

“It goes without saying that a men’s prison is no place for a woman,” said SPLC Senior Attorney Beth Littrell. “Yet, Georgia insists on keeping Ashley housed in men’s prisons where, as any woman would be, she is exposed to repeated sexual victimization and daily sexual harassment. It’s not only unconstitutional – it’s unconscionable.”

Meanwhile, as recently as last month, Ms. Diamond experienced two more instances of sexual abuse in custody while GDC continues to punish her rather than protect her. GDC has refused to move Ms. Diamond out of the dorm where she has been repeatedly assaulted. She faces daily sexual harassment and frequent sexual victimization. And, despite having taken feminizing hormones to treat her gender dysphoria for more than two decades (except during her last period of incarceration, when her treatment was denied by GDC), she continues to be denied access to gender dysphoria care in accordance with medical standards. The motion filed today details the physical and psychological impact of denying medical care to Ms. Diamond, including repeated suicide and self-castration attempts.

“Ashley Diamond is fighting for her own survival, while also fighting to change a unjust system that discriminates against transgender people and leaves them to perish. Advocacy like this takes tremendous courage. Ashley Diamond is one of the bravest people I know,” said Chinyere Ezie, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Attorneys say GDC’s actions are especially egregious because Ms. Diamond already sued the Georgia prison system several years ago for the very same mistreatment: placing her in men’s prisons where she was sexually assaulted nearly a dozen times (resulting in a diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) and denying her medical care for gender dysphoria, including necessary hormones. The motions filed today ask that GDC take immediate steps to protect Ms. Diamond from physical and sexual violence, transfer her to a women’s facility for the remainder of her time in custody, provide her with medically necessary treatment for gender dysphoria, and protect her and witnesses from further retaliation. 

“I know this retaliation is meant to break me. And I confess, at times it’s difficult to remain hopeful,” Ms. Diamond said. “But I refuse to believe there is simply no reward to the risks that I have taken to obtain justice. No one deserves to go through what I have — I will continue to stand up for myself and for my community until we can all be safe and free.”

More information about the case can be found here and here.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of all people. For more information, visit: www.splcenter.org. “SPLCenter” on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

The Center for Constitutional Rights works with communities under threat to fight for justice and liberation through litigation, advocacy, and strategic communications. Since 1966, the Center for Constitutional Rights has taken on oppressive systems of power, including structural racism, gender oppression, economic inequity, and governmental overreach. Learn more at ccrjustice.org.

 


The following sites -- plus Rebecca's "the palestinians" -- updated:





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Tuesday, April 13, 2021

Pink Moon and Spider Webs

This month, watch for the Pink Moon on April 27th. THE INDEPENDENT reports:

 
April’s full moon will be the biggest and brightest of the year, appearing as the first of only two supermoons in 2021.
The rare spectacle occurs when the moon is approaching its closest point to Earth in its orbit, with the next one taking place almost exactly one month later on 26 May.
This month’s supermoon will peak at 4.31am BST on 27 April, but will appear full in the sky to casual observers on each day either side.
April’s full moon is traditionally referred to as the Pink Moon by Native American tribes and colonial settlers to the US.

Jesse Emspak (SPACE.COM) explains:

 
Despite its moniker, the Pink Moon isn't actually pink. The name "Pink Moon" comes from the bloom of ground phlox, a pink flower common in North America, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac. It has also been called the Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon and the Fish Moon.
According to the Ontario Native Literacy Coalition, the Ojibwe peoples indigenous to North America called it the Sucker Moon after the common fish species known as suckerfish. This fish, also known as the remora, is one of the animals that the Ojibwe saw as a messenger between the spirit world and ours. In the same region, the Cree called April's full moon the Goose Moon, as April was the month when geese returned to the north after migrating south for the winter.
The Tlingit of the Pacific Northwest call the April full moon "X'eigaa Kayaaní Dís," meaning "Budding moon of plants and shrubs," according to the Tlingit Moon and Tide Teaching Resource published by the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.
In New Zealand, the Māori people had much different traditions for their April full moons, because in the Southern Hemisphere, April arrives in autumn. The Māori called the April moon "Paenga-whāwhā," describing the month as a time when "all straw is now stacked at the borders of the plantations," according to The Encyclopedia of New Zealand.
For the Jewish people, April 9 marks the beginning of the holiday of Passover (the 15th day of the lunar month of Nisan), which celebrates the escape from Egypt and has been popularized by films such as "The Ten Commandments" and Disney's "The Prince of Egypt."

From the Pink Moon to the world of spiders, Michelle Starr (SCIENCE ALERT) reports:

 
Spiders rely quite significantly on touch to sense the world around them. Their bodies and legs are covered in tiny hairs and slits that can distinguish between different kinds of vibrations.
Prey blundering into a web makes a very different vibrational clamor from another spider coming a-wooing, or the stirring of a breeze, for example. Each strand of a web produces a different tone.
A few years ago, scientists translated the three-dimensional structure of a spider's web into music, working with artist Tomás Saraceno to create an interactive musical instrument, titled Spider's Canvas. Now the team has refined and built on that previous work, and added an interactive virtual reality component to allow people to enter and interact with the web.
This research, the team says, will not only help them better understand the three-dimensional architecture of a spider's web, but may even help us learn the vibrational language of spiders.
"The spider lives in an environment of vibrating strings," said engineer Markus Buehler of MIT. "They don't see very well, so they sense their world through vibrations, which have different frequencies."

SCI TECH DAILY adds:

 
In other experiments, the researchers explored how the sound of a web changes as it’s exposed to different mechanical forces, such as stretching. “In the virtual reality environment, we can begin to pull the web apart, and when we do that, the tension of the strings and the sound they produce change. At some point, the strands break, and they make a snapping sound,” Buehler says.
The team is also interested in learning how to communicate with spiders in their own language. They recorded web vibrations produced when spiders performed different activities, such as building a web, communicating with other spiders or sending courtship signals. Although the frequencies sounded similar to the human ear, a machine learning algorithm correctly classified the sounds into the different activities. “Now we’re trying to generate synthetic signals to basically speak the language of the spider,” Buehler says. “If we expose them to certain patterns of rhythms or vibrations, can we affect what they do, and can we begin to communicate with them? Those are really exciting ideas.”


It really is fascinating. I need to look for a science podcast on YOUTUBE. I'm sure there are some good ones.

 


"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

 Tuesday, April 13, 2021.  A Twitter personality is targeted, FACEBOOK serves tyrants, the Yazidis continue to suffer and much more



Starting off with something too many people friended.  James Farrell (SILICON ANGLE) reports on FACEBOOK:


A new investigation accuses Facebook Inc. of allowing world leaders and politicians to use the platform to manipulate the public, despite being told about it by staff.

In a report by The Guardian today, the newspaper said it had seen internal documents that revealed how Facebook treated 30 cases across 25 countries in which politicians had surreptitiously used Facebook either to drum up support for themselves or to attack opponents.

“The investigation shows how Facebook has allowed major abuses of its platform in poor, small and non-western countries in order to prioritize addressing abuses that attract media attention or affect the U.S. and other wealthy countries,” said the report. It added that in the countries of Afghanistan, Iraq, Mongolia, Mexico, or in parts of Latin America, cases were either ignored or pushed to the back of the pile.


From FACEBOOK, let's move over to TWITTER.  Genevieve Leigh (WSWS):reports:


On April 8, two plainclothes police officers were dispatched by Capitol Police to the home of Ryan Wentz, an anti-war activist and producer for Soapbox, an online media company, over a tweet involving Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The police officers showed up outside Wentz’s home in Los Angeles on Friday. Wentz recounted the experience to the World Socialist Web Site: “I have a fence in front of my house. I saw these two heads bobbing up and down, and they were calling my name. I was waiting for food delivery and thought that’s what it was about.” After Wentz saw their badges and refused the officers’ request to have a discussion inside his home, they began questioning him about the alleged tweet.

“They said that they were here [at my house] on behalf of the Capitol Police because I had threatened to kill a sitting member of Congress in a tweet. They said that I had tagged the sitting member of Congress in the tweet.” Wentz says he never has and never would threaten anyone.

“Only after two minutes or so into the discussion did they say it was AOC.” Wentz then recalled that he had tweeted about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez the day before.

Ocasio-Cortez’s office has denied that the congresswoman or anyone in her office reported Wentz’s post.


[. . .]

Wentz tweeted shortly after the police “visit” to his home: “I felt scared, intimidated, and violated. [The police] knew my name and where I live. It was done on behalf of a congresswoman who advocates against police state tactics.”

The fact that either a tweet criticizing Ocasio-Cortez or a tweet in which Wentz was tagged but did not author could lead to police harassment at Wentz’s home has serious implications for the entire working class.

“I want her to publicly condemn this. If she is progressive, which I don’t think she really is, then there is no reason she would not condemn this police intimidation. I want her to condemn this as an egregious overreach.” Wentz continued, “But more than that. I want her to respond to the political content of the criticisms made. The issue of Palestine deserves more than a word salad of a response from someone branding themselves as a socialist.”

These developments come in the context of a series of political exposures by the World Socialist Web Site of Ocasio-Cortez’s defense of the Biden administration.

The WSWS article on Ocasio-Cortez’s interview with Democratic Left denouncing socialist opponents of Biden was read by more than one hundred thousand workers and young people. It created a political crisis within the Democratic Party as it exposed the fraudulent pretenses of the main representative of the “left-wing” of the Democrats.


Fake Ass AOC better grasp that reality is becoming obvious and more and more people are waking up and her little media created image of being someone who ever did a damn thing is falling apart.  She is a p.r. creation and that's all she is.  She does nothing in Congress and, again, that reality is becoming obvious.  


Her threadbare resume should have led people to question the narrative and the media push behind AOC from the very beginning.  As we said, and then a former US senator (Democrat) repeated on CNN, a glossy individual who hasn't really accomplished much of anything.  That remains the reality of AOC.  


Staying with the useless, Melvin A. Goodman  He's got another useless article at COUNTERPUNCH and you have to wonder why they insist upon runnig his garbage?  It's of little value, superficial and often factually wrong.  More to the point, if Melvin wants to write about something, maybe he coud write about his time in the CIA?  I can't imagne that if Alexander Cockburn were still alive, COUNTERPUNCH would be running all this propaganda from former CIA persons.  Another way he could be of value?  He could write about how John Hopkins University promoted the Iraq War.  But then he'd have to take on his employer and, as his writing makes clear, the only person Melvin attacks is the unfortunate who read his garbage.


Where are the Iraqi people in Melvin's writing?  No where to be found.  He writes like a trained imperialist because that's what he is and COUNTERPUNCH seriously needs to ask what offers of value because I see nothing.  


The Iraq War hit the 18th year mark last month and as long as outlets like COUNTERPUNCH continue to allow rats from the CIA to infest their website, I don't see that changing.  


At THE NEW ARAB, Ruba Ali al-Hassani offers:

It goes without saying that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a belligerent one, violating international law - both jus ad bellum and jus in bello. While justification of the war was rooted in disinformation as international inspectors testified, US-led forces relied on depleted uranium weapons and used white phosphorus indiscriminately.

Though neither the UN Security Council nor the international community supported this war, its architects were never held accountable. They cannot be tried in the International Criminal Court as they have not ratified the Rome Statute, nor will they be tried in other courts under Universal Jurisdiction because no one is willing to prosecute them.

In line with its imperialist origins, international law was designed to protect powerful countries and disempower others. Its enforcers effectively contributed to the murder of over half a million Iraqi children under a corrupt oil-for-food programme, and 25 years of crippling and inhumane sanctions. Instead of holding the powerful accountable, the practice of international law enabled injustice.

[. . .]

Consequently, Iraq has no legitimate transitional justice mechanisms that focus on restorative efforts towards peacebuilding. Instead, there is a culture of impunity where both state and non-state militarisation continuously violate civilians with no accountability.

The treatment of the Iraqi protest movement in October 2019, which has gained widespread public support proves the point. With over 700 protestors killed and dozens forcibly disappeared, this protest movement revealed the deep levels of impunity in government and militias invested in ruthlessly crushing it, and reveals the failure of the US-led state-building process.

The US-led invasion of Iraq was waged with impunity, so it should be of no surprise that impunity would be its legacy. When the architects and parties involved in the invasion were not held accountable for war crimes and were allowed to rebuild a state through belligerent intervention, they were not inclined to set up a system rooted in accountability and justice.

This is not to deny Iraqi agency and responsibility in state-and non-state sponsored crimes since 2003, but to examine the roots of the militarised system in place today. Due to this war, Iraqis today are fighting for their sovereignty and self-determination on several fronts: against terrorism, foreign-supported militias, and their own government.


Staying with analysis of the Iraq War, ALBAWABA reports:

The United States has been "systematically" destroying Iraq for 30 years, and seeks "nothing but destruction" in the West Asia region, says Bill Dores, a writer for Struggle/La Lucha and longtime antiwar activist

"There is no possible justification for a country to keep troops on the soil of another country against the wishes of its government and people," Dores told Press TV in an interview on Monday. "That's true in Iraq. That's true in Syria."

[. . .]

He further alluded to a quote from African American activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in regard to the US war on Vietnam.

"The same is true of Washington's endless war for plunder in the region they call the 'Middle East.' The United States should conform to the wishes of the Iraqi people and get all its troops out of their country immediately. It should end all overt and covert intervention in that part of the world that includes sanctions and arms to Israel," Dores concluded.


Here's the PRESS TV report referenced above.

In other news, the CBC reports on the continued struggles of the Yazidis in Iraq.




Also covering the story, Tahsin Qasim (RUDAW) reports:

Despite its liberation from the Islamic State (ISIS) four years ago,  only a handful of Yazidis have returned to the war-ravaged village of Siba Sheikh Khidhir.

Returnees have begun protesting the lack of basic services. 


[. . .]



"There is no water or electricity here. During the summer we are forced to take shelter in the ruined buildings just to escape the heat," said Shirin Khalal. 


Barack Obama began openly sending US troops back into Iraq to rescue the Yazidis, remember?  All this time later and they have nothing.  Melvin Goodman would probably applaud that -- the way he does the restoration of minor things in his column -- gifts from the empire -- but this is nothing to be proud of.  


The Iraq War is one long lie after another, falese promises that leave the Iraqi people suffering.



The following sites updated:



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