People have asked in recent weeks: Why have we been criticizing emerging “progressive” media? (Olbermann and Maddow, to cite two examples.) Easy! We’ve criticized emerging progressive media because progressive media matters! On balance, the mainstream press corps has been a disaster for years; the conservative press is a loud, screaming joke. If the public will ever get the chance to benefit from trustworthy media, that opportunity will most likely have to come from emerging “progressive” entities.
As Americans—as progressives, as liberals, as centrists, as Democrats, as responsible conservatives—we can’t afford to let these new entities adopt the broken cultural practices which have driven so much of our existing press corps over the past twenty years.
And yet, everywhere we look, we see emerging progressive entities which seem to be aping Sean Hannity. In the ened, they come down “on your side.” But they treat you like fools in the process.
In our view, this is unacceptable as a basic moral matter. You simply can’t build a progressive politics by letting a bunch of upper-class kids disinform average people. Beyond that, we suspect this approach is extremely foolish as a matter of basic politics. Conservative bull-roar worked well for years for a basic reason: Because the mainstream press was frequently willing to pimp it. (Al Gore said he invented the Internet!) But unless our society fully collapses, the mainstream press will likely be an upper-class institution for decades to come. It’s unlikely this group will ever want to recite gong-show tales from the left. Silly tales have worked well—for the other side. Unless society collapses, they won’t likely work well for us.
Neither will dick jokes. Neither will superior skill at denigrating other folks’ motives.
And yet, we get the feeling that many “progressives” want to ape the conduct of talk-show conservatives. As we watch and read our “progressive” media, we find ourselves getting the same half-truths we’ve gotten from the mainstream and the right. We find we have to fact-check everything; when we do, the facts routinely aren’t there. This is a deeply annoying experience. And so, to emerging progressive journalists, we offer this bit of advice: Try telling the truth.
That's Bob Somerby. He goes on to explore another issue and misses the boat completely. To clarify, he goes on to critique Rachel Maddow and his criticism is pretty much accurate but he doesn't know why she'd go to town defending War Hawk Tammy Duckworth. Why?
Bob's truly late to the party.
There's not a person in this community that doesn't know why and how come.
But Bob honestly thinks Rachel sprung from the head of Keith Olbermann in 2007 as opposed to having done some of the most appalling radio gas baggery (with Tammy Duckworth at times, Bob) for years and years.
Rachel whores is out, it's all she can do. And there's only one group she really foams at the mouth to defend. I fear we may have to paint Bob a picture.
As for qualifications, Tammy Duckworth isn't qualified for anything.
She's a War Hawk who stole a Dem nomination that should have gone to a progressive. Rachel whored for Tammy then too. So Tammy stole it and went on to . . . lose. Because she's a LOSER. Because she'll always be a LOSER and America will always lose when it gets on Team Tammy.
Having failed at that, Barack and Rahm's hand picked Queen of the Day was installed by Barack buddy Blagojevich into an appointed position. Now Barack and Rahm are installing her into another appointment. She's never been qualified for anything. Except promoting war and pallying around with Rachel.
Last night's theme post topic was poetry and be sure to check everyone out but especially Cedric, Rebecca and Wally who really hit hard on a little liar who runs Tennesse Zombie Bimbos. That is the worst site in the world. And you can go to any Black message board that deals with politics and just type the real title of that site and you will get an eyeful. We loathe that site in my community, it's beyond a whiter shade of pale, it's albino. Here are the community posts:
Cedric's Big Mix
Covering up for sexaul assailants
9 hours ago
The Daily Jot
THIS JUST IN! WHAT AN IDIOT!
9 hours ago
Thomas Friedman is a Great Man
Adelaide Crapsey
9 hours ago
Mikey Likes It!
Philip Dacey
9 hours ago
Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude
egalia's a tennessee bimbo zombie
9 hours ago
SICKOFITRADLZ
Jane Cooper
9 hours ago
Ruth's Report
On The Snake
9 hours ago
Oh Boy It Never Ends
Martha Collins
9 hours ago
Like Maria Said Paz
Ogden Nash, Larry Jones
9 hours ago
Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills)
Sylvia Plath
9 hours ago
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Wednesday April 15, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, the US taxpayer foots the bill for what exactly, provincial councils in disarray, and more.
Starting with costs, last week Barack asked for more money from Congress. On Saturday, Julian E. Barnes (Los Angeles Times) revealed that Barack's request "would mean the Iraq war will have cost taxpayers a total of about $694 billion. By comparison, the Vietnam War cost $686 billion in inflated-adjusted dollars and World War II cost $4.1 trillion, according to a Congressional Research Service study completed last year." Last night, Mike noted Kenneth Theisen (World Can't Wait) on how Barack's claiming that "Nearly 95 percent of these funds will be used to support our men and women in uniform as they help the people of Iraq to take responsibility for their own future". Citing AP, Philip Sherwell (Telegraph of London) offered the following breakdown of Barack's $83.4 billion request: "The request would fund an average force level in Iraq of 140,000 US troops, finance Mr Obama's initiatve to boost troop levels in Afghanistan to more than 60,000 from the current 39,000 and provide $2.2 billion to accelerate the Pentagon's plans to increase the overall size of the US military . . . Mr Obama also requested $350 million in new funding to upgrade security along the US-Mexico border and to combat narcoterrorists, along with another $400 million in counterinsurgency aid to Pakistan." Julian E. Barnes broke it down as inclduing "$75.8 billion for military operations. An additional $7.1 billion will go to diplomatic efforts and foreign aid, including $1.6 billion for Afghanistan, $1.4 billion for Pakistan and $700 million for Iraq." Mary Beth Sheridan and Scott Wilson (Washington Post) offer a breakdown here. Deidre Walsh (CNN) observes, "About $75 billion of the latest request would pay for military operations, including $9.8 billion for body armor and protective vehicles and $11.6 billion to replace worn-out equipment. The rest would go to diplomatic programs and development aid -- including $1.6 billion for Afghanistan, $1.4 billion for Pakistan and $700 million for Iraq." Walsh lists $800 million going "to support U.N. peacekeeping missions in Africa" and another $800 million to the Palestinian Authority. And, by the way, Walsh cites 142,000 US service members on the ground in Iraq. "By the way" because so many outlets have been following the request of the White House -- but not the Defense Dept -- when first rule of a free press is that you don't take orders from any governmental body. But a free press doesn't reprint "nearly 95%" without pointing out that either Barack needs a math tutor or he's lying yet again.
A lot of money's being given away by the US to other countries and, thank goodness, the US economic crisis is over. Oh, it's not? No, it isn't. Carolyn Lochhead (San Francisco Chronicle) quoted US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stating, "In the coming weeks, Congress will carefully review the president's request and will engage in a dialogue with the Administration on appropriate benchmarks to measure the success of our investments."
Lochhead quoted US House Rep Lynn Woolsey explaining, "As proposed, this funding will do two things -- it will prolong our occupation of Iraq through at least the end of 2011 and it will deepend and expand our military presence in Afghanistan indefinitely. I cannot support either of these scenarios. Instead of attempting to find military solutions to the problems we face in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Obama must fundamentally change the mission in both countries to focus on promoting reconciliation, economic development, humanitarian aid, and regional diplomatic efforts." Woolsey is correct. And the Congress can refuse to fund the illegal war at any moment. If they did, the troops would have to come home. That's not, "The troops would have to come home after Congress funded the departure." The money is already there at the Pentagon to cover the costs of withdrawing all US forces out of Iraq. But Barack's Big Giveaway (which will work for him about like it did for Oprah in prime time, translation, no one wants to see it) is also highly revealing.
Yes, he's a War Hawk. Anyone paying attention during the Democratic Party primaries should have known that. Well, not "anyone." Professional idiots like Tom Hayden, Crazed Johnny Nichols (remember how he just knew that Barack lying on NAFTA was a 'Hillary plot' and he went to Canada to prove that and bragged on air to Amy Goodman that he'd be writing about that . . . but never did because his crackpot theories didn't pan out even though he allowed them to poison the dialogue), Laura Flanders and all the beggar trash that can't get real jobs were fooled because they wanted to be. But in the real world, most of us could figure it out. For example, today Kenneth J. Moynihan (Worcester Telegram) reminds why US House Rep Jim McGovern supported Hillary Clinton: "During the 2008 presidential election campaign it came as no surprise to observers of the Worcester political scene that U.S. Rep James P. McGovern should declare his support for Sen. Hillary Clinton. The congressman is a friend of Hillary and Bill, and he supported Sen. Clinton for many reasons. However, when asked about his choice, he usually began with the same words, 'She will end the war.' . . . The congressman never flinched from the position that people wanting to vote against the war should vote for Clinton." And they damn well should have if they were voting in the Democratic Party primary because she would have. I believe that, I know Hillary and have known her since 1992. But those saying "your opinion" are right except for one thing: The 'anti-war' movement would never have laid down for Hillary. Also true, as we pointed out repeatedly at Third beginning in 2007, Hillary couldn't give the imperialists and industrialists in this country the wars they wanted in Africa. Barack was required for that. So voting for Barack was always voting for war and for more war. And it's become obvious that Bully Boy Bush was replaced by Bully Boy Barack and that Obama will provide the third Bush term.
But still there's this idiotic notion that Barack's 'smarter'. Who knows what that's based on because it's certainly not based on academic proof -- he refused to release his college transcripts. It's not based on his alleged speaking abilities -- he stumbles and stammers and uh-uh-uh-uh his way through everything sounding like a buffoon. But he demonstrates that he is as stupid -- if not more -- than George W. Bush with his plans of how to spend the tax payers' monies. Like Bush, he's not really able to conceptualize.
Iraq is sending ambassadors around the world. Find the women. You won't. Pelosi says we need to measure the success. Let's measure it. Women are worse off and gays and lesbians are under constant assault. And yet Iraq needs the US -- or rather, the puppet government the US installed needs the US in order to stay in control. And Nouri does not want to touch the money he's stockpiled. That is why the Iraqi people suffer economically. This isn't Bangladesh or any other country dubbed "third world." Iraq has huge oil reserves. There's no reason in the world any Iraqi should ever go hungry. But they do because puppet Nouri really doesn't give a damn about them. Yesterday, NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro (All Things Considered) reported, "Iraq is now cash-strapped due to the recent downturn in oil prices. As a result of the drop in revenue, a government hiring freeze has been put in place, including with the country's largest employer: the Ministry of Interior. The agency has recruited hundreds of thousands of police officers in recent years to help restore a measure of stability to the war-torn country. As long as the price of oil stays low, the Interior Ministry simply cannot afford to hire more people." Garcia-Navarro notes that unemployment is said to be at 18% according to the United Nations. [50% to 70% according to Dahr Jamail.] She also reported, "Despite America's own economic troubles, the US is spending $1.2 billion this year to supplement the Iraqi Interior Ministry budget." $1.2 billion?
You can buy a lot of things with $1.2 billion and when your a country giving that amount to another country, you can buy a lot of freedoms. The Iraq War has pushed Iraq closer to Iran and, no, that was never one of the anticipated 'wins' of the illegal war. The two countries were pushed together in part because the US installed Shi'ite fundamentalist thugs so it's no surprise that they would be close with their counterparts in Iran. (al-Maliki, of course, fled Iraq -- the US only installs exiled cowards -- and took up residence in Iran for many of his cowering years before the US invasion allowed him to return to Iraq.) They have many, many things in common and they will strengthen their ties as al-Maliki and his thug underlings remake Iraq into the fundamentalist state they desire. The US could have stopped that at any time as the occupying power. They could have made it clear that human rights abuses will not take place by rounding up the killers of Iraqi gays and lesbians. But that would have gone counter to the get-it-done-quick motives that led the US to install a strong-man as prime minister.
Maybe Lynn Woolsey will find other brave members of Congress to stand with her and reject even more money for illegal war. But barring that, Pelosi needs to live up to what she most recently stated. She needs to ensure that the Congress evaluate what is going on in Iraq and any more money given the puppet government for 'humanitarian' reasons needs to have real benchmarks such as, "X number of women will be ambassadors." Not in a year, not in two years. Nothing like Bush's benchmarks that were never reached. Immediate results. No results, the 'humanitarian' money is immediately cut off. As US House Rep Jared Polis stated, "The United States should not tolerate human rights violations of any kind, especially by a government that Americans spend billions of taxpayer dollars each year supporting." Why is the US funding the Ministry of the Interior -- a thug department -- which hires homophobes who go out and express their homophobia when they're supposed to be protecting ALL Iraqis? That's not what 'humanitarian' money does. Allegedly, the money is spent to improve lives. So let's see some real effort by the Congress to ensure that this indeed happens. Iraq was not Iran before the US invasion. Bully Boy's actions pushed Iraq closer to Iran and, for all his alleged 'smartness,' there's no indication that Barack knows any better.
Iraq is a disaster, it is a US-made disaster. No more money should be thrown to the puppet government but those foolish enough to continue tossing it should be ensuring that every dollar spent pulls Iraq away from the fundamentalist nation that al-Maliki's attempted to build. At Foreign Policy, Marc Lynch noted, "The crackdown on the Awakenings has regional implications as well, particularly with the ever-skeptical Saudis who have generally supported the Awakenings movements. The Arab press has taken careful note of their reversal of fortunes, which Adel al-Bayati in al-Quds al-Arabi calls Maliki's coup against the Awakenings. Tareq al-Homayed, editor of the Saudi daily al-Sharq al-Awsat (which usually reflects official Saudi thinking), complains bitterly today that recent events have made his warnings from last August about the coming betrayal of the Awakenings come true. The Awakenings were not bearing arms against the Iraqi state, argues Homayed, but rather were protecting the Iraqi state against al-Qaeda and assisting its stabilization ahead of the American withdrawal. But, he warns, narrow, sectarian perspectives in Baghdad are winning out over the Iraqi national interest with potentially devastating consequences." Marc Lynch shouldn't be alone in pointing that out, the White House should have already figured that out. (Figured it out? They should have anticipated it.) There's nothing to indicate that they have or that they've made adjustments. Or demands and, again, when you're the country handing over $1.2 billion, you can make a lot of demands. While the puppet government attempts to appear cash-strapped, AFP reports reality, "Iraq has signed a contract with British engineering and construction company Foster Wheeler to build the country's largest-ever oil refinery, an Iraqi official said on Wednesday." Meanwhile Pakistan's Daily Times reports "Iraqi authorities are currently holding about 26,200 people in detention, including 782 minors and 422 women, Human Rights Minister Wejdan Mikhail said on Wednesday." The paper notes US forces are currently holding 12,800 Iraqi prisoners.
Returning to the topic of Sahwa (also known as "Awakening" Councils and "Sons of Iraq"), Geoff Ziezulewicz (Stars and Strips) files a report today indicating the US is still paying some and focuses on Fadhil. That's the neighborhood of Baghdad where Nouri's crackdown on Sahwa led to a stand off between Sahwa members on one side and Iraqi and US forces on the other. Ziezulewicz reports, "The fact that Fadhil remains up for grabs makes continued support of the Iraqi government's efforts that much more critical, said Lt. Col. David Buckingham, commander of the cavalry regiment, part of the 82nd Airborne." The fact that Nouri al-Maliki has not put more on the payroll, found jobs for more Sahwa goes to the fact that he's taking US dollars from US tax payers and getting to do with it whatever the heck he wants. It's past time for real Congressional oversight. Elsewhere in the article, Ziezulewicz also notes, "While the U.S. military has trumpeted Iraqi forces taking the lead since the U.S.-Iraq security agreement went into effect Jan. 1, Iraqi troops were largely absent or showed up late to some missions last week." Meanwhile Nouri's mouthpiece on the presidency council, Shi'ite vice president Adel Abdul Mehdi was in Paris today. Alsumaria reports he insisted that Sahwas were "secretly plotting . . . terrorists attacks in Iraq."
Nouri's attacking the press. The New York Times always knows how to kiss butt (what, you thought CNN was the only one just because Eason Jordan confessed to it?). Which explains Alissa J. Rubin's report today which takes the work of the Foreign Ministry and attempts to call the puppet government a success as a result. While the Foreign Ministry does deserve praise for some of their abilities to function, they are not representative of the puppet government nor of Iraq's population. Rubin may note 40 other countries have ambassadors from Baghdad but she forgets to note how none are women. This is just a kiss-their-ass piece to ensure that the Times remains on good terms with the puppet government. (Nouri is highly upset with reports about his attacks on Sahwa.)
There is no functioning government. For example, who is heading Iraq's Parliament? Answer: No one. They still have no speaker. So this is really an insult to the readers, this attempt to play, "Look at this functioning government!" As noted in the January 12th snapshot:Willam Brockman Bankhead was the Speaker of the US House of Representatives for over four years. He died unexpectably of a heart attack on September 15, 1940. (For those unfamiliar with Bankhead, he was the father of Tallulah Bankhead.) The following day, Sam Rayburn became Speaker of the House. The following day. December 23rd, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani was forced out of the Speakership of the Iraqi Parliament. The week prior he had stated he was resigning. He attempted to take that back but a large number wanted him gone as Speaker and had wanted him gone for some time with repeated public efforts to oust him. It is now January 12th and they have still not appointed a new Speaker. And they still have no speaker. It's April 15th. William Bankhead dies in office and he's replaced the next day. Iraq's Parliament runs off Mahmoud al-Mashhadani December 23rd and they still have no replacement, all this time later. Or as Alsumaria noted Saturday, "Parliament Speaker issue awaits solution." Further indications of the dysfunction and disarray comes from Liz Sly and Caesar Ahmed (Los Angeles Times) who report that the provincial councils still aren't moving along. Januray 31st 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces held provincial elections. The results were finally certified and officially announced in March. And yet . . . Sly and Ahmed explain there have been "walkouts, boycoots and street protests, highlighting continued sectarian divisions and the frictions that prevail even between those factions that are reconciled to the political process. On Tuesday, all factions in Shiite Muslim-majority Wasit province boycotted the latest meeting called to choose a governor after street protests were held the previous day against the leading contender." Corinee Reilly and Ali Abbas (McClatchy Newspapers) report that a boycott is taking place in Nineveh Province as well where "Kurds vowed not to return until the Arabs hand over two of the council's top three leadership positions." Alsumaria explains that the Yazidi majority from the Sinjar District of Nineveh are calling for their district to become "an independent governorate that is part of Kurdistan, in protest to the fact that a Sunni list took all main administrative positions in the provincial council."
Meanwhile Caroline Alexander and Ryan Finn (Bloomberg News) report that a Kirkuk car bombing resulted in 10 dead and twenty-two wounded and that "[m]any of the casualties were police protecting an oil installation, President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan said on its Arabic-language Web site." BBC notes 11 dead and that the death toll is expected to rise. Mustapha Mahmoud and Sherko Raouf (Reuters) add, "The casualties were piled into a police truck, and police travelling with the dead and wounded fired into the air to clear traffic on the road ahead, a Reuters witness said." And they quote
eye witness Othman Sharif asking, "What did I do to deserve this? I was going home from work in a taxi . . . there was a huge blast and I fell unconscious. I didn't wake up until I was in hospital covered in bandages." In other violence, Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report a Baghdad sticky bombing left two people injured and a Baghdad roadside bombing left two people injured.
Yesterdy at Foreign Policy, Thomas E. Ricks noted one-time CIA asset Ahmed Chalabi has ben making the press rounds and is stating that George W. Bush is "[a] man with very little skill and knowledge" (the better to manipulate him, Wolf Chalabi?) and is claiming that Iran and the US had a deal to topple Iraq. (In the interview he also cites "Israelis," use the link.) Thomas E. Ricks is the author of the bestseller The Gamble.
Turning to Germany. BBC reports that US Master Sgt John Hatley was found guilty today by a military jury ("eight officers and NCOs) in the murder of four Iraqi prisoners and BBC adds of Hatley and other US service members, "When they found four Iraqi men not far from a cache of weapons, including sniper rifles, just a week after one of their own sergeants had been shot and killed, they took the law into their own hands, says the BBC's Kevin Connolly in Washington. With no real evidence against them the detainees should have been released, our correspondent says. Instead they were bound, blindfolded and summarily killed. It is thought their bodies were dumped in a canal but they have never been found." Seth Robson (Stars and Stripes) explains, "Sgt. 1st Class Joseph P. Mayo, 27, was sentenced to 35 years' confinement after he admitted in court last month to shooting one of the detainees. At a court-martial in February, Sgt. Michael Leahy Jr., 28, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole for shooting two of the detainees. Both Mayo and Leahy told the court this week that Hatley also shot detainees."
In other legal news, Robert Wilonsky (Dallas Observer) explains, "On September 14, 26-year-old Army Sgt. Wesley Durbin of Hurst was killed at a small patrol base south of Baghdad when he and another soldier, 24-year-old Staff Sgt. Darris Dawson of Florida, were gunned down by a fellow soldier. As The Dallas Morning News noted in September, Durbin was a former Marine who enlisted after graduating Dallas Lutheran School and fought in Iraq, only to enlist in the Army later -- because, said his wife, 'He was a soldier from the time he woke up to the time he went to bed'." Wilonsky noted that US Army Sgt Joseph Bozicevich is accused of murdering Wesley Durbin and Darris Dawson. UPI notes that "Durbin and Dawson allegedly were shot while counseling Bozicevich for what the squad leaders considered was his poor performance". Frenchi Jones (Coastal Courier) reports that the court-martial heard more testimony today and that none of the witnesses had testimony similar to Staff Sgt John Dresel's Tuesday:
Bozicevich: Mother [expletive], I am going to kill you.
Darris Dawson: Why? Stop. Please don't shoot.
Jones adds, "According to Dresel, the person on the ground lay three or four feet from the figure. At first, he said, he didn't know if the two figures were enemies or allied troops. Suddenly, there was more fire. The man with the gun discharged two shots into the body, the muzzle flash from the weapon lit up the night, revealing the shooter's identity." Dresel.
In non-Iraq news, Women's Voices, Women's Votes announces:
Together with the other groups - in what WVWV has identified as the Rising American Electorate - African-Americans, Hispanics, non-whites, and young people (52% of the population)- unmarried women dramatically increased their voter participation and changed America's leadership and direction. Now, recently released statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau further explain why unmarried women are the decisive demographic in this country and the cutting-edge of the Rising American Electorate. Unmarried women are the largest fastest growing demographic group. At a time when voter participation slightly declined among all adult Americans, unmarried women registered and voted in significantly greater numbers than ever before. In fact, unmarried women's growing participation was essential to the increase in voting by young people, non-whites, African-Americans and Hispanics. They are the consistent outperformers of the 2008 turnout. Much remains to be done before unmarried women participate in our democracy in proportion to their growing numbers, and advance the issues that address their needs, including employment, fair pay, universal health coverage, and increased investments in child care, public education, college opportunity, and career training. But, together we have made great progress. These facts from the Census Population Survey analysis of the voting-eligible population show how much we have achieved - and how far we still have to go. (The Census Bureau statistics represent "real numbers" and are more accurate than last year's exit polls, which understated the voter participation of unmarried women.)
Finally, independent journalist David Bacon, whose latest book is Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press), covers the Employee Free Choice Act in "Why workers need the Employee Free Choice Act" (San Francisco Chronicle):Unions are good for workers. Today, median weekly pay for union members is $886, compared to $691 for nonunion workers. Moving cargo on the Oakland waterfront pays three times what stocking shelves does at Wal-Mart because longshore workers have had a union contract since 1934.In 1936, Congress recognized the value of unions and passed the National Labor Relations Act, setting up a legal system in which private sector, nonfarm workers could join unions and bargain. The preamble declares the law's purpose: "encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and ... protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing."Today, however, the law is virtually unable to fulfill its intended function. Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, has proposed commonsense measures to restore its effectiveness in the Employee Free Choice Act. Employers are mounting a hysterical campaign against it, even calling it "bolshevism," and claiming to be protectors of their workers' rights. We need a reality check about what really happens when workers try to organize.
iraq
the los angeles timesjulian e. barnes
deidra walshcarolyn lochheadthe san francisco chronicle
nprall things consideredlourdes garcia-navarro
thomas e. ricks
mcclatchy newspaperscorinne reillyali abbasthe los angeles timescaesar ahmedliz sly
the new york timesalissa j. rubin
david bacon
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Adelaide Crapsey
Okay, we have a theme night posting. Tonight's theme is poetry and I scoured C.I.'s poetry bookshelves and judged a book by a cover.
A mistake and a win.
A mistake because from the blue tinted photo of the woman in the huge hat on the cover, I thought Adelaide Crapsey was Black. I was wrong on that. But what a wonderful poet. The book is entitled The Complete Poems & Collected Letters of Adelaide Crapsey and it was edited by Susan Sutton Smith.
Adelaide is dead and she died before any of us were born (unless you are 95 or older). This is from Wikipedia:
Adelaide Crapsey (September 9, 1878–October 8, 1914), was an American poet. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she was raised in Rochester, New York, daughter of Episcopal priest Algernon Sidney Crapsey, who had been transferred from New York City to Rochester, and Adelaide T. Crapsey.
She attended public school in Rochester, and then Kemper Hall, an Episcopal girls' preparatory school in Kenosha, Wisconsin, before entering Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, where she was class poet for three years and editor-in-chief of the Vassarion in 1901, the year she graduated. [1]
That same year her sister Emily died, and Adelaide delayed starting her teaching career for a year. In 1902 she took a position at Kemper Hall, where she taught until 1904. She then spent a year at the School of Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome and taught for two years at Smith College in Northhampton, Massachusetts.
Crapsey was in poor health starting in 1908, following her eldest brother's death in May 1907, and her father's trial for heresy in 1906, after which he was dismissed from the ministry. In 1911, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis, but she withheld the news from her family and continued to teach at Smith until she collapsed in the summer of 1913. She then moved to a private cure cottage in Saranac Lake, New York, where she stayed for a year. In August, 1914, Crapsey returned to Rochester, where she died on October 8, 1914, at the age of 36. [1]
In the years before her death, she wrote much of the verse on which her reputation rests. Her interest in rhythm and meter led her to create a variation on the cinquain (or quintain), a 5-line form of 22 syllables influenced by the Japanese haiku and tanka. Her cinquain has a generally iambic meter and consists of 2 syllables in the first and last lines and 4, 6 and 8 syllables in the middle three lines, as shown in the poem Niagara[2]. Adelaide Crapsey also formulated the established epigram into a new form of couplet[3], a poem of two rhyming lines of ten syllables with an integral title. An example of this grammatical poem is her 'On Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees'.
So that's really interesting. And since they're praising "On Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees," let's not that.
"On Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees"
Is is as plainly in our living shown,
By slant and twist, which way the wind hath blown?
This one is one of my favorites, "To an Unfaithful Lover:"
What words
Are left thee then
Who hast squandered on thy
Forgetfullness eternity's
I love?
Ouch. I love that one.
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Tuesday, April 14, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, Amnesty International issues a report on the KRG that is frightening (including a woman whose husband dumps her and she might get to stay on and see her children if she's able to be the household servant),
an Iraqi cartoonist talks about the lack of freedom, Col Gary Volesky tells the press the US may disregard that whole out of Iraq cities on June 30th issue, and more.
Starting with the attacks on Iraq's LGBT community to note some of the press the issue has received. Neal Broverman (The Advocate) covered it noting US House Rep Jared Polis' visit to Iraq and his calling "on U.S. and Iraqi officials to launch an investigation into a spate of recent murders of gay men in Iraq." He quotes Polis stating, "The United States should not tolerate human rights violations of any kind, especially by a government that Americans spend billions of taxpayer dollars each year supporting." Jessica Green (UK's Pink News) covers the story here and quotes Amnesty International's Niall Couper stating, "The gay community in Iraq deserves protection and that means their leaders need to stand up for them. Amnesty International is calling on Nouri al-Maliki to condemn all attacks on members of the gay community, publicly, unreservedly and in the strongest terms possible."
Staying with the human rights organization, today Amnesty International released a report [PDF format warning] entitled "Hope and Fear: Human Rights In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq." The report is 46 pages of text exploring the KRG
The Kurdistan Region of Iraq, unlike the rest of the country, has generally been stable since the 2003 US-led invasion. It has witnessed growing prosperity and an expansion of civil society, including the establishment of numerous non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in the promotion and protection of human rights. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has made progress in the field of human rights. In mid-2008 it released hundreds of political detainees, many of whom had been held for years without charge or trial. It hasimproved Iraqi legislation; the Press Law of September 2008, for example, expanded freedom of expression, and amendments to the Personal Status Law passed in October 2008 strengthened women's rights. The authorities have also established several bodies to monitor and prevent violence against women, including specialized police directorates and shelters. Platforms have been established to foster dialogue between the authorities, particularly the Ministry of Human Rights, and civil society organizations on human rights concerns, including violence against women. Despite these positive and encouraging steps, however, serious human rights violations persist and still need to be addressed. In particular, urgent action by the government is required to ensure that the KRG's internal security service, the Asayish, is made fully accountable under the law and in practice, to investigate allegations of torture, enforced disappearances and other serious human rights violations by the Asayish and other security and intelligence forces. As well, more needs to be done to end violence and discrimination against women, building on the progress achieved so far, and to enhance the standing in society and life choices available to women and girls. Thirdly, the KRG must take steps toprotect and promote the right to freedom of expression, including media freedom, taking into account the vital role of the media in informing the public and acting as a public watchdog. It is these three areas which form the focus of this report. Since 2000, thousands of people have been detained arbitrarily and held without charge or trial in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, in some cases for more than seven years. The vast majority were suspected members or supporters of local Islamist organizations, including both armed groups and legal political parties that do not use or advocate violence as part of their political platform. Some were tortured or otherwise ill-treated in detention. Invariably, detentions were carried out by members of the Asayish, without producing an arrest warrant, and those detained were then denied access to legal representation or the opportunity to challenge their continuing detention before a court of law or an independent judicial body, throughout their incarceration. Some detainees were subjected to enforced disappearance, including some whose fate and whereabouts have yet to be disclosed -- typically, following their arrest by the Asayish or the intelligence services of the two main Kurdish parties, their families were unaware of their fate and whereabouts and were unable to obtain information about them, or confirmation of their detention from the authorities. Dozens of other prisoners, meanwhile, are under sentence of death having been convicted in unfair trials. Despite welcome government efforts to address "honour crimes" and other violence against women, it is clear from comparing survey data on violence against women with the number of police recorded cases of violence against women that the vast majority of such incidents remain unreported. Even when women have been killed or survived a killing attempt, many perpetrators have not been brought to justice -- often because investigations have failed to identify the perpetrators or because suspects remain at large. Freedom of expression continues to be severely curtailed in practice, despite the recent abolition of imprisonment for publishing offences. Journalists have been arrested and sometimes beaten, particularly when publishing articles criticizing government policies or highlighting alleged corruption and nepotism within the government and the dominant political parties. Again, the hand of the seemingly all powerful and unaccountable Asayish and other security agencies is alleged to be behind a number of these attacks. One journalist was killed in July 2008 in suspicious circumstances. This report details a wide range of human rights violations committed in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in recent years. In particular, it sheds light on violations such as arbitrary and prolonged detention without charge or trial, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill treatment, the death penalty, unfair trials, discrimination and violence against women, and attacks on freedom of expression. It includes case studies to illustrate these abuses. The report also puts forward numerous recommendations which, if implemented, would go a longway towards reducing such violations. Much of the information contained in this report is the outcome of a fact-finding visit conducted by Amnesty International in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq from 23 May to 8 June 2008, the first such visit by Amnesty International for several years. Amnesty International submitted its findings, in the form of two memoranda on human rights concerns, to the KRG in August 2008 and sought its response. The responses received in communications from the KRG Ministry of Human Rights at the end of 2008 are reflected in this report.
The reports notes the issues of difference between the KRG and Nouri al-Maliki's Baghdad government including oil-rick Kirkuk (which both want) "and certain towns and villages in the governorates of Diyala, al-Ta'mim and Ninawa (Mosul)". They note the 2005 Consitution required a December 2007 referendum was supposed to be held to determine the fate of Kirkuk but it has still not taken place. The report explains, "The Iraqi central government and the KRG have also had major disagreements about control of oil revenues and oil exploration. After months of negotiation and amendment in various committees, a national oil and gas draft law is now reported to have been submitted to the Iraqi Council of Represenatiaves for approval. However, an oil and gas law has already been introduced in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the KRG has issued oil and gas exploration contracts" for some time now leading to more tensions between Baghdad and Kirkuk.
The peshmerga is the KRG security force that is most often covered in the press. In addition there is "the official security agence" for the KRG, Asayish. Due to intra-ministry conflicts within the KRG, Asayish was taken out of ministry control and placed under the president -- president of the KRG (Masoud Barzani) not president of Iraq (Kurdish Jalal Talabani). Conflicts still remain between the two dominant political parties of the region (KDP and PUK) so "there are still two separate Asayish entities" and each party controls their own intelligence agency with the KDP having the Parastin and the PUK having the Dezgay Zanyari. In addition, the agency spoils are divied up as well: Jalal's son, Pavel Talabani, heads the Dezgay Zanyair and Masoud's son, Masrour Barzani. Not only is nepotism practiced, there is no accountability. Each city and town has an Asayish prison. The imprisonments have been arbitray and often taken place without either charges being pressed or trials being held. Responding to Amnesty's earlier concerns, "the KRG Ministry of Human Rights informed Amnesty International on 19 October 2008 that the authorities had released more than 3,000 detainees from the detention centres of the security forces during 2007 and the first half of 2008." Despite this, when Amnesty toured "the Kurdistan Region in May - June 2008, hundreds of detainees were still being held without charge or trial, most of whom had spent years in prison." Of those Amnesty were told had been released, it turns out many of the releases can be considered "conditional" and prisoners are "required to report to the nearest Asayish office every week." Despite having prisons in every city and town, the imprisoned are often held in secret prisons. Prisoners are regularly denied contact with attorneys and with their families. Reports of torture are common.
The study then turns to the disappeared and specifically notes some of them. 33-year-old Badran Mostafa Mahmoud had been praying at a mosque when he was seized, never to be seen again. 35-year-old Hedayat 'Aziz Ahmad Karim was seized Feb. 10, 2007 (apparently by Dezgay Zanyari forces) and he has not been seen since (one person states he saw Hedayat in a prison). 41-year-old Wahed Hussain Amin worked at a water treatment plant and is the father of four children. He was taken outside his home June 28, 2006 (by Asayish) and has not been heard from since. 33-year-old Farhang Ahmad 'Aziz was taken outside his home August 27, 2003 and not been seen since. 31-year-old Hoshyar Saleh Hama 'Aref was taken from his home September 10, 2003 (by Asayish). His family was twice allowed to visit him in prison, once in March 2004 and again in October of the same year but not since then and they cannot find out his current location or any information. Karim Ahmad Mahmoud disappeared after being taken outside his house May 15, 2000. 'Abd al-Jabbar Qadir Hassan was taken by Asayish on September 1, 2001 and has not been since.
Those who are imprisoned and are not disappeared share gruesome details. Aras 'Omar Faqih Farah was held in Erbil at an Asayish prison from 2004 through 2008 and was tortured with "electric shocks on different parts of the body, especially his back, and left naked while exposed to extreme heat in the summer and extreme cold in the winter. Najat 'Abdel-Karim Hamad was impsioned by Parastin at Salahuddin from 2004 to 2007, then transfered to Asayish prison until spring 2008. He was tortued so badly he was left with a broken rib and hearing loss. One who remains impisoned is Srood Mukarram Fatih Mohammed who is a journalist with al-Sumarriya:
He told Amnesty International that he was arrested on 17 April 2007 from his home in Erbil by around 20 people who were armed and wearing uniforms. The men searched the house, arrested him without an arrest warrant, and confiscated some books, CDs and a computer. They blindfolded him and forced him into the boot of one of the cars. For 53 days the familly did not know his fate and whereabouts. Eventually, his mother received information that he was being hled at the Asayish prison in Erbil and then was able to visit him, although Asayish guards watched throughout and remained within earshot.
Srood Mukarram Faith Mohammad was brought before an investigation judge two months after his arrest, by which time he had "confessed," under torture, that he was a member of a terrorist group. During his first two months in detention, he said, he was kept blindfolded in solitary confinement, beaten with a cable on different parts of the body and threatened that his wife would be detained and raped by guards in front of him. The family engaged a lawyer at the beginning of of 2008 but he was prevented from visiting Srood Mukarram Fatih Mohammad on several occasions. Srood Mukarram Faith Mohammad was charged with having contacts with terrorists and the case was sent to Erbil Criminal Court; however, the court is reported to have returned the dossier to the investigative judge on three separate occasions on the grounds that the information was not complete. Srood Mukarram Fatih Mohammad is said to be still detained in Erbil.
If you make it through all of that and actually get a hearing, expect new problems. You may learn you're going a trial less than an hour before you do. Don't worry though, the court appointed attorney will have just enough time to shake your hand in the courtroom as you meet before the trial starts, just enough. And the courtroom? It may be a real courtroom but, more likely, you may get to 'enjoy' the maze of 'secret' courtrooms.
The report then moves to the issue of violence against women. Hey, remember when 'reporter' Kevin Peraino (Newsweek) was telling us all about the groovy new trend, the must have for all Kurdish teen girls of burn scars? (Yes, Kevin Peraino is such an extreme idiot that he actually wrote a report -- "Why Are Kurdish Women Dying of Burns?" -- where he floated his theory that setting yourself on fire was the 'in' thing to do and highly popular.) Over a 12 months period (July 2007 to June 2008) Amnesty found 102 women and girls listed as "killed" by "official records". The actual number is probably much higher and the official records do not note which are "honor" killings. The report notes, "In addition to the 102, a further 262 women and children died or were severely injured in the same period due to intentional burning, including suicides. Some women were reported to have been burned to disguise a killing." 23-year-old Cilan Muhammad Amin was murdered at the age of 23 (March 8, 2008), apparently because her brother thought she had a 'secret relationship'. After which her sister and her sister's husband set Cilan's corpse on fire in an attempt to hide the fact that she'd been strangled. From the report:In May and June 2008 Amnesty International delegates interviewed 16 women and girls staying in shelters and 16 women and girls held in detention centres in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. This random sample included 20 interviewees who were or had been married. Of these, 12 said that they had been forced to marry, including six who were aged under 15 years when they were married. According to the Iraqi Personal Status Law, forced marriages (Article 9) and marriages of girls younger than 15 are illegal, but they continue to be conducted in private or religious ceremonies without those responsible being held to account.
Five of the 12 interviewees who had never been married were subjected to or at risk of violence because they had insisted to choose their partner. Some women reported that they had been raped, includinga 22-year-old woman who expected to be married to her rapist as his second wife in a settlement that also involved the rapist's daughter being married to one of her relatives. The Iraqi Penal Code supports such practice by excusing a rapist from punishment if he marries the victim (Article 398).
Six of the interviewed women reported that violence they had experienced or feared was related to allegations of adultery. Whilst the Iraqi Penal Code crminializes adultry by both husbands and wives (Article 377) such legislation has a disproportionate impact on women. For example, it may be used to harass women or to enable their husbands to evade responsibility for their children.
A 27-year-old mother of three children told Amnesty International that her father had forced her to marry an older man when she was just 13. Years later, she said, her husband falsely accused her of adultery because he wanted to divorce her and evade responsibility for supporting her. She was being detained in Erbil because of her husband's accusations. She said she had received only minimal education as a child and, alone, could not support herself and her children. She now hoped that her husband would allow her to return to the family home to live as her husband's "servant", if this was waht he required, so that she could at least be with her children.
And women who are the victims of violence repeatedly find what women elsewhere in the world do: We're far more likely to be killed by a 'loved' one than by a stranger. Women who have reported violence and attempted to 'move on' are stabbed to death by family members, murdered by their ex-husbands . . . The report is alarming but equally alarming is how much that is the case around the world and not just in the KRG. Attorneys attempting to help women soon find themselves receiving death threats.
We'll come back to the report in a bit but let's stay with the topic of Iraqi women and this is women in all of Iraq, not just the KRG. Rania Abouzeid (Time magazine) reports that a 2008 US State Dept report ("Trafficking in Persons Report") shamed Nouri al-Maliki's government and forced it to take some (limited) action including a proposed law which would hand out "tough penalties, including life imprisonment and a fine not exceeding 25 million dinars ($21,000) for traffickers if the victim 'is under 15, or a female, or has special needs.' The same punishment applies if the crime was committed by kidnapping or force, or if the criminal 'is a direct or distant relative or the victim's caretaker or husband or wife,' a tacit acknowledgment that victims are often tarfficked by people they know." Rania Abouzeid files another report exploring the victims. Atoor was a 15-year-old widow. Her husband was a police officer (19-years-old) who was killed in the violence that now characterizes Iraq: "After the obligatory four-month mourning period dictated by Islamic Shari'a law, Atoor's mother and two brothers made it clear that they intended to sell her to a brothel close to their home in western Baghdad, just as they had sold her older twin sisters. Frightened, she told a friend in the police force to raid her home and the nearby brothel. His unit did, and Atoor spent the next two years in prison. She was not charged with anything, but that's how long it took for her to come before a judge and be released." We're including that especially because from time to time, male US correspondents feel the need to repeat the lie that no one's ever heard of any brothels in Baghdad. They have always been in Baghdad, under Saddam's rule and after, they are not a myth and some of the US male correspondents playing dumb know that for a fact because they've visited them -- especially those males 'reporting' from Iraq in 2003 and 2004. In terms of selling them outright, Abouzeid explains that 20-year-old Iraqi women "are too old to fetch a good price" and that eleven and twelve-year-old girls can be "sold for as much as $30,000".
Back to ay Amnesty International's "Hope and Fear: Human Rights In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq." The final section is entitled "Attacks On Freedom Of Expression" and it catalogues a variety of abuses and attacks on the press by the government. In the KRG (as is true throughout Iraq), the bulk of the media outlets are owned by a political party and "the majority of media outlets follow the official line and avoid criticizing the KRG, the Asayish, the intelligence agencies and the two main political parties." Those who do not follow that unwritten law suffer. Kamal Said Qadir was imprisoned for reporting on "corruption and nepotism in the KRG." Mohammed Siyassi Ashkani imprisoned for allegedly "spying for another political party" (he was released after nearly six months and he was never charged with anything). Nabaz Goran "reported that a senior official in the KDP had insulted the Kurdish population of Iraq during a speech" and was beaten.Naseh 'Abd al-Rahim Rashid Amin reported critically of the peshmerga, told by Asayish to apologize in print, he refused and "was arrested and charged with defamation under Article 433 of the Penal Code (criminalizing defamation)," sentence to a 10 day imprisonment, his attorney successfuly won an appeal but the Asayish first beat him and then dumped his body. Aso Jamal Mukhtar beaten for writing critically of the government and then fired from the paper he worked for. Rezgar Raza Chouchani reported on the peshmerge and was imprisoned for six days and then banned from reporting. Souran Mama Hama reported on the PUK and KDP's corruption and nepotism and was shot dead. Marwan Tufiq imprisoned for insulting a martyr (you'd think a genuine martyr would have greater problems to address). Shwan Dawdi imprisoned for reporting on courthouse issues. Dr. 'Adil Hussain, imprisoned for reporting on sex "from a medical perspective."
Caroline Alexander (Bloomberg News) covers the report and notes, "Authorities have failed to significantly curb the powers of the security forces, or Asayish, Amnesty said. They have also failed to rein in the security arms of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which form the Kurdistan Regional Government, according to the report." BBC News adds, "The report, based on research conducted in 2008, said the number of detainees held without charge or trial had dropped from thousands to hundreds, but some had been held as long as nine years. It describes cases where individuals have 'disappeared' and detainees have been beaten and given electric shocks while in custody." Shamal Aqrawi, Missy Ryan and Giles Elgood (Reuters) observe, "Iraq is a dangerous country for journalists -- at least 135 have been killed in the line of duty since 2003 -- but Kurdistan is seen as especially closed to criticism of the state."
Amensty's compiling attacks on the press comes as Rod Nordland (NYT for Boston Globe) reports, "The Iraqi military put local journalists on notice on yesterday that their organizations could be shut down for misquoting officials, while the Iraqi government accused the news media of deliberately seeking to promote sectarian strife." For the Times, Nordland teamed up with Sam Dagher and they traced some of the recent assaults on the press. The two note that Salman Abed, the cartoonist whose illustrations were seized last week (see yesterday's snapshot) is calling for an apology and states, "What happened was an offense to freedom. We want to build a new country on liberal and democratic foundations."
xxx
Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report a series of Baquba house bombings -- of homes belonging to internal refugees who "had recently returned" and three people were wounded in the bombings.
Shootings?
Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report Monday a police officer was shot dead and another wounded in a Diyala Province raid, Monday in Sulaimaniyah 2 women and 1 man were wounded as police fired "randomly" and "Two civilians were wounded in two incidents that may have involved U.S. troops in Sulaimaniyah on Monday midnight."
Today at the Pentagon, a press teleconfrence was held with US Col Gary Volesky in Iraq. AFP's Daphne Benoit asked if, due to recent violence, he was "still confident that you're going to be able to leave the city by end of June as planned? And are you concerned it might actually worsen the situation?" He replied: "The 30 June date -- that's -- that's out there. We are conducting an assessment right now with our Iraqi counterparts to determine what the way ahead is for security in Mosul. And based on that assessment, a decision will be made what we will do on 30 June. If the Iraqi government believes we should stay in Mosul to continue the securiy progress, we'll support our Iraqi counterparts past 30 June and continue to build on the momentum that we've got here." Stars & Stripes' Jeff Schogol asked when this assessment would be completed and Volesky didn't have a timeline but "I know that I'm collecting the data right now". NBC's Courtney Kube returned to this topic clarifying that Volesky was stating that it's possible "US combat soldiers will stay in Mosul after June 30th" and Volesky responded, "If the Iraqi government wants us to stay, we will stay. And that's correct." Kube followed up with, "What's your understanding of what that would mean for the status of forces? Would there have to be some kind of a change in the status of forces agreement that went into effect several months ago? Or is that because the Iraqis are asking -- would be asking the U.S. to stay -- does it fall within the guidelines that were established?" Volesky begged off stating that was "way above my level". Volosky's remarks echo those of the top US commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno (see yesterday's snapshot for the most recent example) and of Nouri al-Maliki. Kube's question regarding the security agreement was what's called the Status Of Forces Agreement. It 'requires' that US troops retreat from Iraqi cities no later than June 30th of this year. It also 'requires' all US troops to depart Iraq by the end of 2011. If the cities 'requirement' can be so easily tossed aside, it underscores how easily it can all be changed.
While the US is not leaving Iraq, US service members are being shipping there. In the US, AP reports West Virginia's National Guard is sending 50 Guard members to Iraq (their farewell ceremony is this morning) and the Dunn Daily Record reports a farewell ceremony in Fayetteville, North Carolina for approximately 4,000 National Gaurd members (30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team brigade). One not deploying Barbara Barrett (McClatchy Newspapers) reports "Army Sgt. 1st Class Chad Stephens, who earned a Silver Star for valor during a Baqubah firefight in 2004, isn't going back this time" due to a PTSD diagnosis.Fort Bliss will be sending troops to Iraq but one scheduled to depart will not. Lilliam Irizarry (Prensa Asociada) reports police authorities and military investigators said yesterday that US Army Spc Nokware Rosado Munoz took his own life (hanging) following arguments with his wife, Dalises Rosado. Nokware had already served two years in Iraq and reportedly did not wish to do another tour but was scheduled to report to Fort Bliss this week for the redeployment. Edilberto Rivera Santiago, director of the Division of Homicides, states, "They had a discussion, were having problems because he had been activated again."
Finally, independent journalist Sheila Casey explores Barack's Justice Dept and change, here's the opening:
Many of my friends, even fairly well informed people, fell for Obama's charm and vague promises and collapsed in tears on election night, believing that we would now get "change" and now had reason to "hope." It is understandable to want a Daddy figure to come swooping in out of no where to rescue us, but unfortunately there was never any good reason to believe that Obama was that person.
One can settle into a movie theatre and be swept away to a land of make-believe: ancient Japan, 19th century Wyoming, or a gritty story of inner city Baltimore. We silently exult when the hero escapes the bad guy and weep when he dies at the end in his lover's arms. But we won't be shocked when we see him alive and well at the Oscars, for we know it was just theatre. We know that if we saw him dancing with joy or sneering with contempt on the silver screen, it wasn't that he was really feeling those emotions. He was acting.
Film makers use trained actors, costume designers, set designers, makeup and hair stylists, lighting designers, music composers, cinematographers and script writers to create a world that seems real, but is 100% a fantasy.
So why is it that people who well understand the power of theatre have such a hard time believing that political campaigns use the same techniques to convey a false sense of reality? Or a false expectation of "hope" and "change?"
iraqamnesty international
rania abouzeidtime magazine
the new york timesrod nordlandsam dagher
caroline alexanderbloomberg newsbbc news
lilliam irizarrybarbara barrettmcclatchy newspapers
A mistake and a win.
A mistake because from the blue tinted photo of the woman in the huge hat on the cover, I thought Adelaide Crapsey was Black. I was wrong on that. But what a wonderful poet. The book is entitled The Complete Poems & Collected Letters of Adelaide Crapsey and it was edited by Susan Sutton Smith.
Adelaide is dead and she died before any of us were born (unless you are 95 or older). This is from Wikipedia:
Adelaide Crapsey (September 9, 1878–October 8, 1914), was an American poet. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she was raised in Rochester, New York, daughter of Episcopal priest Algernon Sidney Crapsey, who had been transferred from New York City to Rochester, and Adelaide T. Crapsey.
She attended public school in Rochester, and then Kemper Hall, an Episcopal girls' preparatory school in Kenosha, Wisconsin, before entering Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, where she was class poet for three years and editor-in-chief of the Vassarion in 1901, the year she graduated. [1]
That same year her sister Emily died, and Adelaide delayed starting her teaching career for a year. In 1902 she took a position at Kemper Hall, where she taught until 1904. She then spent a year at the School of Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome and taught for two years at Smith College in Northhampton, Massachusetts.
Crapsey was in poor health starting in 1908, following her eldest brother's death in May 1907, and her father's trial for heresy in 1906, after which he was dismissed from the ministry. In 1911, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis, but she withheld the news from her family and continued to teach at Smith until she collapsed in the summer of 1913. She then moved to a private cure cottage in Saranac Lake, New York, where she stayed for a year. In August, 1914, Crapsey returned to Rochester, where she died on October 8, 1914, at the age of 36. [1]
In the years before her death, she wrote much of the verse on which her reputation rests. Her interest in rhythm and meter led her to create a variation on the cinquain (or quintain), a 5-line form of 22 syllables influenced by the Japanese haiku and tanka. Her cinquain has a generally iambic meter and consists of 2 syllables in the first and last lines and 4, 6 and 8 syllables in the middle three lines, as shown in the poem Niagara[2]. Adelaide Crapsey also formulated the established epigram into a new form of couplet[3], a poem of two rhyming lines of ten syllables with an integral title. An example of this grammatical poem is her 'On Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees'.
So that's really interesting. And since they're praising "On Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees," let's not that.
"On Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees"
Is is as plainly in our living shown,
By slant and twist, which way the wind hath blown?
This one is one of my favorites, "To an Unfaithful Lover:"
What words
Are left thee then
Who hast squandered on thy
Forgetfullness eternity's
I love?
Ouch. I love that one.
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Tuesday, April 14, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, Amnesty International issues a report on the KRG that is frightening (including a woman whose husband dumps her and she might get to stay on and see her children if she's able to be the household servant),
an Iraqi cartoonist talks about the lack of freedom, Col Gary Volesky tells the press the US may disregard that whole out of Iraq cities on June 30th issue, and more.
Starting with the attacks on Iraq's LGBT community to note some of the press the issue has received. Neal Broverman (The Advocate) covered it noting US House Rep Jared Polis' visit to Iraq and his calling "on U.S. and Iraqi officials to launch an investigation into a spate of recent murders of gay men in Iraq." He quotes Polis stating, "The United States should not tolerate human rights violations of any kind, especially by a government that Americans spend billions of taxpayer dollars each year supporting." Jessica Green (UK's Pink News) covers the story here and quotes Amnesty International's Niall Couper stating, "The gay community in Iraq deserves protection and that means their leaders need to stand up for them. Amnesty International is calling on Nouri al-Maliki to condemn all attacks on members of the gay community, publicly, unreservedly and in the strongest terms possible."
Staying with the human rights organization, today Amnesty International released a report [PDF format warning] entitled "Hope and Fear: Human Rights In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq." The report is 46 pages of text exploring the KRG
The Kurdistan Region of Iraq, unlike the rest of the country, has generally been stable since the 2003 US-led invasion. It has witnessed growing prosperity and an expansion of civil society, including the establishment of numerous non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in the promotion and protection of human rights. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has made progress in the field of human rights. In mid-2008 it released hundreds of political detainees, many of whom had been held for years without charge or trial. It hasimproved Iraqi legislation; the Press Law of September 2008, for example, expanded freedom of expression, and amendments to the Personal Status Law passed in October 2008 strengthened women's rights. The authorities have also established several bodies to monitor and prevent violence against women, including specialized police directorates and shelters. Platforms have been established to foster dialogue between the authorities, particularly the Ministry of Human Rights, and civil society organizations on human rights concerns, including violence against women. Despite these positive and encouraging steps, however, serious human rights violations persist and still need to be addressed. In particular, urgent action by the government is required to ensure that the KRG's internal security service, the Asayish, is made fully accountable under the law and in practice, to investigate allegations of torture, enforced disappearances and other serious human rights violations by the Asayish and other security and intelligence forces. As well, more needs to be done to end violence and discrimination against women, building on the progress achieved so far, and to enhance the standing in society and life choices available to women and girls. Thirdly, the KRG must take steps toprotect and promote the right to freedom of expression, including media freedom, taking into account the vital role of the media in informing the public and acting as a public watchdog. It is these three areas which form the focus of this report. Since 2000, thousands of people have been detained arbitrarily and held without charge or trial in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, in some cases for more than seven years. The vast majority were suspected members or supporters of local Islamist organizations, including both armed groups and legal political parties that do not use or advocate violence as part of their political platform. Some were tortured or otherwise ill-treated in detention. Invariably, detentions were carried out by members of the Asayish, without producing an arrest warrant, and those detained were then denied access to legal representation or the opportunity to challenge their continuing detention before a court of law or an independent judicial body, throughout their incarceration. Some detainees were subjected to enforced disappearance, including some whose fate and whereabouts have yet to be disclosed -- typically, following their arrest by the Asayish or the intelligence services of the two main Kurdish parties, their families were unaware of their fate and whereabouts and were unable to obtain information about them, or confirmation of their detention from the authorities. Dozens of other prisoners, meanwhile, are under sentence of death having been convicted in unfair trials. Despite welcome government efforts to address "honour crimes" and other violence against women, it is clear from comparing survey data on violence against women with the number of police recorded cases of violence against women that the vast majority of such incidents remain unreported. Even when women have been killed or survived a killing attempt, many perpetrators have not been brought to justice -- often because investigations have failed to identify the perpetrators or because suspects remain at large. Freedom of expression continues to be severely curtailed in practice, despite the recent abolition of imprisonment for publishing offences. Journalists have been arrested and sometimes beaten, particularly when publishing articles criticizing government policies or highlighting alleged corruption and nepotism within the government and the dominant political parties. Again, the hand of the seemingly all powerful and unaccountable Asayish and other security agencies is alleged to be behind a number of these attacks. One journalist was killed in July 2008 in suspicious circumstances. This report details a wide range of human rights violations committed in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in recent years. In particular, it sheds light on violations such as arbitrary and prolonged detention without charge or trial, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill treatment, the death penalty, unfair trials, discrimination and violence against women, and attacks on freedom of expression. It includes case studies to illustrate these abuses. The report also puts forward numerous recommendations which, if implemented, would go a longway towards reducing such violations. Much of the information contained in this report is the outcome of a fact-finding visit conducted by Amnesty International in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq from 23 May to 8 June 2008, the first such visit by Amnesty International for several years. Amnesty International submitted its findings, in the form of two memoranda on human rights concerns, to the KRG in August 2008 and sought its response. The responses received in communications from the KRG Ministry of Human Rights at the end of 2008 are reflected in this report.
The reports notes the issues of difference between the KRG and Nouri al-Maliki's Baghdad government including oil-rick Kirkuk (which both want) "and certain towns and villages in the governorates of Diyala, al-Ta'mim and Ninawa (Mosul)". They note the 2005 Consitution required a December 2007 referendum was supposed to be held to determine the fate of Kirkuk but it has still not taken place. The report explains, "The Iraqi central government and the KRG have also had major disagreements about control of oil revenues and oil exploration. After months of negotiation and amendment in various committees, a national oil and gas draft law is now reported to have been submitted to the Iraqi Council of Represenatiaves for approval. However, an oil and gas law has already been introduced in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the KRG has issued oil and gas exploration contracts" for some time now leading to more tensions between Baghdad and Kirkuk.
The peshmerga is the KRG security force that is most often covered in the press. In addition there is "the official security agence" for the KRG, Asayish. Due to intra-ministry conflicts within the KRG, Asayish was taken out of ministry control and placed under the president -- president of the KRG (Masoud Barzani) not president of Iraq (Kurdish Jalal Talabani). Conflicts still remain between the two dominant political parties of the region (KDP and PUK) so "there are still two separate Asayish entities" and each party controls their own intelligence agency with the KDP having the Parastin and the PUK having the Dezgay Zanyari. In addition, the agency spoils are divied up as well: Jalal's son, Pavel Talabani, heads the Dezgay Zanyair and Masoud's son, Masrour Barzani. Not only is nepotism practiced, there is no accountability. Each city and town has an Asayish prison. The imprisonments have been arbitray and often taken place without either charges being pressed or trials being held. Responding to Amnesty's earlier concerns, "the KRG Ministry of Human Rights informed Amnesty International on 19 October 2008 that the authorities had released more than 3,000 detainees from the detention centres of the security forces during 2007 and the first half of 2008." Despite this, when Amnesty toured "the Kurdistan Region in May - June 2008, hundreds of detainees were still being held without charge or trial, most of whom had spent years in prison." Of those Amnesty were told had been released, it turns out many of the releases can be considered "conditional" and prisoners are "required to report to the nearest Asayish office every week." Despite having prisons in every city and town, the imprisoned are often held in secret prisons. Prisoners are regularly denied contact with attorneys and with their families. Reports of torture are common.
The study then turns to the disappeared and specifically notes some of them. 33-year-old Badran Mostafa Mahmoud had been praying at a mosque when he was seized, never to be seen again. 35-year-old Hedayat 'Aziz Ahmad Karim was seized Feb. 10, 2007 (apparently by Dezgay Zanyari forces) and he has not been seen since (one person states he saw Hedayat in a prison). 41-year-old Wahed Hussain Amin worked at a water treatment plant and is the father of four children. He was taken outside his home June 28, 2006 (by Asayish) and has not been heard from since. 33-year-old Farhang Ahmad 'Aziz was taken outside his home August 27, 2003 and not been seen since. 31-year-old Hoshyar Saleh Hama 'Aref was taken from his home September 10, 2003 (by Asayish). His family was twice allowed to visit him in prison, once in March 2004 and again in October of the same year but not since then and they cannot find out his current location or any information. Karim Ahmad Mahmoud disappeared after being taken outside his house May 15, 2000. 'Abd al-Jabbar Qadir Hassan was taken by Asayish on September 1, 2001 and has not been since.
Those who are imprisoned and are not disappeared share gruesome details. Aras 'Omar Faqih Farah was held in Erbil at an Asayish prison from 2004 through 2008 and was tortured with "electric shocks on different parts of the body, especially his back, and left naked while exposed to extreme heat in the summer and extreme cold in the winter. Najat 'Abdel-Karim Hamad was impsioned by Parastin at Salahuddin from 2004 to 2007, then transfered to Asayish prison until spring 2008. He was tortued so badly he was left with a broken rib and hearing loss. One who remains impisoned is Srood Mukarram Fatih Mohammed who is a journalist with al-Sumarriya:
He told Amnesty International that he was arrested on 17 April 2007 from his home in Erbil by around 20 people who were armed and wearing uniforms. The men searched the house, arrested him without an arrest warrant, and confiscated some books, CDs and a computer. They blindfolded him and forced him into the boot of one of the cars. For 53 days the familly did not know his fate and whereabouts. Eventually, his mother received information that he was being hled at the Asayish prison in Erbil and then was able to visit him, although Asayish guards watched throughout and remained within earshot.
Srood Mukarram Faith Mohammad was brought before an investigation judge two months after his arrest, by which time he had "confessed," under torture, that he was a member of a terrorist group. During his first two months in detention, he said, he was kept blindfolded in solitary confinement, beaten with a cable on different parts of the body and threatened that his wife would be detained and raped by guards in front of him. The family engaged a lawyer at the beginning of of 2008 but he was prevented from visiting Srood Mukarram Fatih Mohammad on several occasions. Srood Mukarram Faith Mohammad was charged with having contacts with terrorists and the case was sent to Erbil Criminal Court; however, the court is reported to have returned the dossier to the investigative judge on three separate occasions on the grounds that the information was not complete. Srood Mukarram Fatih Mohammad is said to be still detained in Erbil.
If you make it through all of that and actually get a hearing, expect new problems. You may learn you're going a trial less than an hour before you do. Don't worry though, the court appointed attorney will have just enough time to shake your hand in the courtroom as you meet before the trial starts, just enough. And the courtroom? It may be a real courtroom but, more likely, you may get to 'enjoy' the maze of 'secret' courtrooms.
The report then moves to the issue of violence against women. Hey, remember when 'reporter' Kevin Peraino (Newsweek) was telling us all about the groovy new trend, the must have for all Kurdish teen girls of burn scars? (Yes, Kevin Peraino is such an extreme idiot that he actually wrote a report -- "Why Are Kurdish Women Dying of Burns?" -- where he floated his theory that setting yourself on fire was the 'in' thing to do and highly popular.) Over a 12 months period (July 2007 to June 2008) Amnesty found 102 women and girls listed as "killed" by "official records". The actual number is probably much higher and the official records do not note which are "honor" killings. The report notes, "In addition to the 102, a further 262 women and children died or were severely injured in the same period due to intentional burning, including suicides. Some women were reported to have been burned to disguise a killing." 23-year-old Cilan Muhammad Amin was murdered at the age of 23 (March 8, 2008), apparently because her brother thought she had a 'secret relationship'. After which her sister and her sister's husband set Cilan's corpse on fire in an attempt to hide the fact that she'd been strangled. From the report:In May and June 2008 Amnesty International delegates interviewed 16 women and girls staying in shelters and 16 women and girls held in detention centres in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. This random sample included 20 interviewees who were or had been married. Of these, 12 said that they had been forced to marry, including six who were aged under 15 years when they were married. According to the Iraqi Personal Status Law, forced marriages (Article 9) and marriages of girls younger than 15 are illegal, but they continue to be conducted in private or religious ceremonies without those responsible being held to account.
Five of the 12 interviewees who had never been married were subjected to or at risk of violence because they had insisted to choose their partner. Some women reported that they had been raped, includinga 22-year-old woman who expected to be married to her rapist as his second wife in a settlement that also involved the rapist's daughter being married to one of her relatives. The Iraqi Penal Code supports such practice by excusing a rapist from punishment if he marries the victim (Article 398).
Six of the interviewed women reported that violence they had experienced or feared was related to allegations of adultery. Whilst the Iraqi Penal Code crminializes adultry by both husbands and wives (Article 377) such legislation has a disproportionate impact on women. For example, it may be used to harass women or to enable their husbands to evade responsibility for their children.
A 27-year-old mother of three children told Amnesty International that her father had forced her to marry an older man when she was just 13. Years later, she said, her husband falsely accused her of adultery because he wanted to divorce her and evade responsibility for supporting her. She was being detained in Erbil because of her husband's accusations. She said she had received only minimal education as a child and, alone, could not support herself and her children. She now hoped that her husband would allow her to return to the family home to live as her husband's "servant", if this was waht he required, so that she could at least be with her children.
And women who are the victims of violence repeatedly find what women elsewhere in the world do: We're far more likely to be killed by a 'loved' one than by a stranger. Women who have reported violence and attempted to 'move on' are stabbed to death by family members, murdered by their ex-husbands . . . The report is alarming but equally alarming is how much that is the case around the world and not just in the KRG. Attorneys attempting to help women soon find themselves receiving death threats.
We'll come back to the report in a bit but let's stay with the topic of Iraqi women and this is women in all of Iraq, not just the KRG. Rania Abouzeid (Time magazine) reports that a 2008 US State Dept report ("Trafficking in Persons Report") shamed Nouri al-Maliki's government and forced it to take some (limited) action including a proposed law which would hand out "tough penalties, including life imprisonment and a fine not exceeding 25 million dinars ($21,000) for traffickers if the victim 'is under 15, or a female, or has special needs.' The same punishment applies if the crime was committed by kidnapping or force, or if the criminal 'is a direct or distant relative or the victim's caretaker or husband or wife,' a tacit acknowledgment that victims are often tarfficked by people they know." Rania Abouzeid files another report exploring the victims. Atoor was a 15-year-old widow. Her husband was a police officer (19-years-old) who was killed in the violence that now characterizes Iraq: "After the obligatory four-month mourning period dictated by Islamic Shari'a law, Atoor's mother and two brothers made it clear that they intended to sell her to a brothel close to their home in western Baghdad, just as they had sold her older twin sisters. Frightened, she told a friend in the police force to raid her home and the nearby brothel. His unit did, and Atoor spent the next two years in prison. She was not charged with anything, but that's how long it took for her to come before a judge and be released." We're including that especially because from time to time, male US correspondents feel the need to repeat the lie that no one's ever heard of any brothels in Baghdad. They have always been in Baghdad, under Saddam's rule and after, they are not a myth and some of the US male correspondents playing dumb know that for a fact because they've visited them -- especially those males 'reporting' from Iraq in 2003 and 2004. In terms of selling them outright, Abouzeid explains that 20-year-old Iraqi women "are too old to fetch a good price" and that eleven and twelve-year-old girls can be "sold for as much as $30,000".
Back to ay Amnesty International's "Hope and Fear: Human Rights In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq." The final section is entitled "Attacks On Freedom Of Expression" and it catalogues a variety of abuses and attacks on the press by the government. In the KRG (as is true throughout Iraq), the bulk of the media outlets are owned by a political party and "the majority of media outlets follow the official line and avoid criticizing the KRG, the Asayish, the intelligence agencies and the two main political parties." Those who do not follow that unwritten law suffer. Kamal Said Qadir was imprisoned for reporting on "corruption and nepotism in the KRG." Mohammed Siyassi Ashkani imprisoned for allegedly "spying for another political party" (he was released after nearly six months and he was never charged with anything). Nabaz Goran "reported that a senior official in the KDP had insulted the Kurdish population of Iraq during a speech" and was beaten.Naseh 'Abd al-Rahim Rashid Amin reported critically of the peshmerga, told by Asayish to apologize in print, he refused and "was arrested and charged with defamation under Article 433 of the Penal Code (criminalizing defamation)," sentence to a 10 day imprisonment, his attorney successfuly won an appeal but the Asayish first beat him and then dumped his body. Aso Jamal Mukhtar beaten for writing critically of the government and then fired from the paper he worked for. Rezgar Raza Chouchani reported on the peshmerge and was imprisoned for six days and then banned from reporting. Souran Mama Hama reported on the PUK and KDP's corruption and nepotism and was shot dead. Marwan Tufiq imprisoned for insulting a martyr (you'd think a genuine martyr would have greater problems to address). Shwan Dawdi imprisoned for reporting on courthouse issues. Dr. 'Adil Hussain, imprisoned for reporting on sex "from a medical perspective."
Caroline Alexander (Bloomberg News) covers the report and notes, "Authorities have failed to significantly curb the powers of the security forces, or Asayish, Amnesty said. They have also failed to rein in the security arms of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which form the Kurdistan Regional Government, according to the report." BBC News adds, "The report, based on research conducted in 2008, said the number of detainees held without charge or trial had dropped from thousands to hundreds, but some had been held as long as nine years. It describes cases where individuals have 'disappeared' and detainees have been beaten and given electric shocks while in custody." Shamal Aqrawi, Missy Ryan and Giles Elgood (Reuters) observe, "Iraq is a dangerous country for journalists -- at least 135 have been killed in the line of duty since 2003 -- but Kurdistan is seen as especially closed to criticism of the state."
Amensty's compiling attacks on the press comes as Rod Nordland (NYT for Boston Globe) reports, "The Iraqi military put local journalists on notice on yesterday that their organizations could be shut down for misquoting officials, while the Iraqi government accused the news media of deliberately seeking to promote sectarian strife." For the Times, Nordland teamed up with Sam Dagher and they traced some of the recent assaults on the press. The two note that Salman Abed, the cartoonist whose illustrations were seized last week (see yesterday's snapshot) is calling for an apology and states, "What happened was an offense to freedom. We want to build a new country on liberal and democratic foundations."
xxx
Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report a series of Baquba house bombings -- of homes belonging to internal refugees who "had recently returned" and three people were wounded in the bombings.
Shootings?
Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report Monday a police officer was shot dead and another wounded in a Diyala Province raid, Monday in Sulaimaniyah 2 women and 1 man were wounded as police fired "randomly" and "Two civilians were wounded in two incidents that may have involved U.S. troops in Sulaimaniyah on Monday midnight."
Today at the Pentagon, a press teleconfrence was held with US Col Gary Volesky in Iraq. AFP's Daphne Benoit asked if, due to recent violence, he was "still confident that you're going to be able to leave the city by end of June as planned? And are you concerned it might actually worsen the situation?" He replied: "The 30 June date -- that's -- that's out there. We are conducting an assessment right now with our Iraqi counterparts to determine what the way ahead is for security in Mosul. And based on that assessment, a decision will be made what we will do on 30 June. If the Iraqi government believes we should stay in Mosul to continue the securiy progress, we'll support our Iraqi counterparts past 30 June and continue to build on the momentum that we've got here." Stars & Stripes' Jeff Schogol asked when this assessment would be completed and Volesky didn't have a timeline but "I know that I'm collecting the data right now". NBC's Courtney Kube returned to this topic clarifying that Volesky was stating that it's possible "US combat soldiers will stay in Mosul after June 30th" and Volesky responded, "If the Iraqi government wants us to stay, we will stay. And that's correct." Kube followed up with, "What's your understanding of what that would mean for the status of forces? Would there have to be some kind of a change in the status of forces agreement that went into effect several months ago? Or is that because the Iraqis are asking -- would be asking the U.S. to stay -- does it fall within the guidelines that were established?" Volesky begged off stating that was "way above my level". Volosky's remarks echo those of the top US commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno (see yesterday's snapshot for the most recent example) and of Nouri al-Maliki. Kube's question regarding the security agreement was what's called the Status Of Forces Agreement. It 'requires' that US troops retreat from Iraqi cities no later than June 30th of this year. It also 'requires' all US troops to depart Iraq by the end of 2011. If the cities 'requirement' can be so easily tossed aside, it underscores how easily it can all be changed.
While the US is not leaving Iraq, US service members are being shipping there. In the US, AP reports West Virginia's National Guard is sending 50 Guard members to Iraq (their farewell ceremony is this morning) and the Dunn Daily Record reports a farewell ceremony in Fayetteville, North Carolina for approximately 4,000 National Gaurd members (30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team brigade). One not deploying Barbara Barrett (McClatchy Newspapers) reports "Army Sgt. 1st Class Chad Stephens, who earned a Silver Star for valor during a Baqubah firefight in 2004, isn't going back this time" due to a PTSD diagnosis.Fort Bliss will be sending troops to Iraq but one scheduled to depart will not. Lilliam Irizarry (Prensa Asociada) reports police authorities and military investigators said yesterday that US Army Spc Nokware Rosado Munoz took his own life (hanging) following arguments with his wife, Dalises Rosado. Nokware had already served two years in Iraq and reportedly did not wish to do another tour but was scheduled to report to Fort Bliss this week for the redeployment. Edilberto Rivera Santiago, director of the Division of Homicides, states, "They had a discussion, were having problems because he had been activated again."
Finally, independent journalist Sheila Casey explores Barack's Justice Dept and change, here's the opening:
Many of my friends, even fairly well informed people, fell for Obama's charm and vague promises and collapsed in tears on election night, believing that we would now get "change" and now had reason to "hope." It is understandable to want a Daddy figure to come swooping in out of no where to rescue us, but unfortunately there was never any good reason to believe that Obama was that person.
One can settle into a movie theatre and be swept away to a land of make-believe: ancient Japan, 19th century Wyoming, or a gritty story of inner city Baltimore. We silently exult when the hero escapes the bad guy and weep when he dies at the end in his lover's arms. But we won't be shocked when we see him alive and well at the Oscars, for we know it was just theatre. We know that if we saw him dancing with joy or sneering with contempt on the silver screen, it wasn't that he was really feeling those emotions. He was acting.
Film makers use trained actors, costume designers, set designers, makeup and hair stylists, lighting designers, music composers, cinematographers and script writers to create a world that seems real, but is 100% a fantasy.
So why is it that people who well understand the power of theatre have such a hard time believing that political campaigns use the same techniques to convey a false sense of reality? Or a false expectation of "hope" and "change?"
iraqamnesty international
rania abouzeidtime magazine
the new york timesrod nordlandsam dagher
caroline alexanderbloomberg newsbbc news
lilliam irizarrybarbara barrettmcclatchy newspapers
Monday, April 13, 2009
Isaiah, Hillary Is 44, more
That's Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Brotherly Embarrassment" and it's hilarious. It's also, sadly, true. Barack's brother was arrested in November for attempting to sexually assault a 13-year-old girl. Why are we only now finding out about that? It's April.
Typical.
An e-mail asked an interesting question: What does my father think when the phone bill comes in at their place?
My folks live in Georgia. My home is there as well. I'm in California due to a job promotion and transfer. I'm here for a year and I've shared how when the kids or I call, my father has a worry fit about the long distance.
Gail rightly figured they had to call sometime. They do. My mother calls at least three times a week. So doesn't the bill convince him?
My father doesn't do the bills. My mother sits down at the kitchen table once a month with her huge, bulky, 1970s calculator, stamps, envelopes, etc. and goes through the bills and writes the checks.
I e-mailed Gail back Friday and told her I'd write about this tonight and explained my mother takes care of the bills. Gail wrote back to ask what about my mother showing my father the bill?
I thought I had the answer but I called to make sure. Mom: "Betty, he wouldn't believe me if I showed it to him. You know your father, he'd accuse me of having done up a fake bill on the computer and start going on about how you can do anything on a computer these days."
That's what I had assumed.
Okay, this is from Hillary Is 44:
As many know this April 15th there will be nationwide “tea parties” to protest Obama policies. A preemptive disinformation and counter programming strike was launched by Obama supporters and self-described Obama “dupes” under the banner of “A New Way Forward“. These Obama “dupes” and cheerleaders got themselves a website and proceeded to make chatter.
We wanted to know how massive these mostly PINO Big Blogs would organize their massive April 11 protests and we set out to find out. Our research project left us paralyzed with laughter. Riverdaughter has the funny details about the Saturday boobery:
I hoped I wasn’t too late for the speeches, the burning efigies, the crowds “marching and shouting slogans”, as they say in NPR speak. I hurried to Union Square from the subway station looking for the throng. Alas, I didn’t find a throng. I found a little crowd. Well, crowd wasn’t exactly the word. Group is more like it. A small group. My heart sank. Here was one of the most important issues of the day, the debate over whether the banks should be nationalized, and it was going largely unprotested.
We can’t say we are surprised by the sparse attendance at the Big Blog sponsored chicanery. Bill Greider, once respected, has declared himself “duped” by his own wishful thinking. Other leaders of these hapless “demonstrations” of weakness are those from “NothingLeft” like David Sirota as well as embarrassments like Joe Trippi. “Pump and dump” Jerome Armstrong, still protected by sulphur Big Blogs in his refusal to explain his SEC “entanglements”, also pumped the April 11 demonstration of weakness.
These hapless promoters of Saturday’s dud demonstrations need to learn the lessons of this weekend’s pirate escapades - the lessons the pirates learned at the bullet point of the U.S. Navy. The lesson is that the only way to fight Obama is to fight him with both fists, not with wimpy threats.
I actually had an e-mail asking me to promote that protest. I blew it off. Same as I did Closet Communists for Peace and Justice As Long As Barry Approves' April 4th nonsense.
I'm not interested in breaking bread with the Cult of Obama. I'm not interested in working for issues with them. They have proven themselves completely untrustworthy.
I don't trust them. I won't promote them.
They lied, smeared, attacked and tried to destroy everyone who wouldn't get on board with their Christ-child. I know everyone has horror stories. Some day I may offer some of my own. I wonder, for example, where his 'caring' 'diverse' Cult got the notion that they could call me the n-word for refusing to support the Liar?
I have no idea but that's why I never bought into the 'he will heal us and it's a great moment' -- his own supporters were hissing the n-word at me.
Equally true is that, unlike Barack, I'm Black. He's mixed. Bi-racial.
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Monday, April 13, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces deaths, the 5 US soldiers killed in Iraq Friday return to the US, Nouri goes after the press, Iraq's LGBT community remains targeted, Barack's half-brother makes the news, and more.
Today the US military announced: "A Coalition forces Soldier died of injuries sustained during an explosively formed projectile attack on a convoy five kilomenters south of Karbalah, Iraq April 13 at approximately 7:40 a.m. The Soldier's name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the department of Defense. The incident is currently under investigtion." Yesterday the US military announced: "One U.S. Coalition Soldier died of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated in Salah-ad Din Province, April 12. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense." The total number of US service members killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war is 4273. Friday 5 US soldiers were announced dead. Cindy Sheehan (Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox) observed, "Today five US soldiers were killed in Iraq and we won't ever know for sure how many Iraqis were killed. The families of the US soldiers will never have a 'normal' Easter again. All of their days will be filled with pain and longing, but holidays, birthdays and other anniversaries will be especially hard. My heart is breaking for the awful and pointless spiral of grief that these families are just embarking upon. Some may not yet know that it was their son, father, brother, uncle, or friend that was murdered today. I saw the report of Casey's death on the news at least five hours before the Army notified us." (Cindy's guest on the audio Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox this week are James Martinez discussing the finacial crisis, housing and more and Annie Garrison on the Blue Angels use of San Francisco to boost recruitment. That episode is posted online already.) It was Good Friday in 2004 when Cindy and her family met her son Casey Sheehan at the airport for the last time. Sunday the 5 US soldiers killed on Friday arrived at Dover Air Force Base. Jeff Montgomery (Delaware's News Journal) observes, "It was the heaviest loss of American lives in Iraq in 13 months, and the largest number of casualties returned to America in full sight of the public since the Defense Department opened the process to news coverage last week, after a 18-year blackout."
The Defense Dept identified the five as: "Staff Sgt. Gary L. Woods Jr., 24, of Lebanon Junction, Ky., Staff Sgt. Bryan E. Hall, 32, of Elk Grove, Calif., Sgt. Edward W. Forrest Jr., 25, of St. Louis, Mo., Cpl. Jason G. Pautsch, 20, of Davenport, Iowa, and PV2 Bryce E. Gautier, 22, of Cypress, Calif." Sheryl Edelen (Courier-Journal) reports on Gary L. Woods Jr., "Woods' father, Gary Woods St., said that his son, who went by his middle name, Lee, was a talented musician who sang and played the trombone, drums, piano and guitar while a student at Bullitt Central High School. He was also a member of the school's football team. But after finding satisifation in ROTC classes, his son entered the military after high school, he said." Bob White (Lebanon Junction News Enterprise) adds, "Woods is surived by his parents, siblings and a wife, Christie, his father said." Tony Bizjak (Sacramento Bee) reports on Bryan Edward Hall, "Hall, 32, had served in the military for 14 years and had been deployed in Iraq since September. . . . Hall had received three Army commendation medals, according to military records, as well as several Army achievement, good conduct and war on terrorism medals." Dave Marquis (Sacramento's News10.net) quotes Debbie Lords, who is a neighbor of the Bryan Edward Hall's parents, stating, "I don't know what I'm thinking. I just really feel for John and Betty right now. It was their oldest son, their oldest child." Paul Hampel (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) reports on Edward Forrest Jr., "Forrest was based at Fort Carson in Colorado and lived near the base with his wife and two sons, ages 2 and one month. Forrest was a 2003 graduate of Rockwood Summit High School. He was on his third tour of duty in Iraq." His sister Melissa Forrest-Pliner tells Hampel, "I asked him not to re-enlist. I told him I didn't want him to be a hero. I just wanted him to be my brother." South County Times adds, "In high school, Sgt. Forrest, known as 'Eddie,' was a long distance runner on the track team, and was also on the wrestling team" and quotes his coach Rolland Garrison stating, "He was a very enthusiastic member of the track and field program here at Rockwood Summit. He was a very good kid with a great smile." Molly Hottle (Des Monies Register) reports on Jason Graham Pautsch, "David Pautsch was informed of his son's death Friday night, just 12 hours after the two had spoken on the phone. 'He believed n what he was doing,' David Pautsch said. 'This is what he wanted to do'." Nicole Murphy (WAQD, link has text and video) spoke with David Pautsch who explained the call he received, "'On behalf of the Secretary of the Army I just want to let you know, give our condolences and notify you that your son was killed in Mosul." Pautsch continues, "You're stunned and you're shocked and you find it hard to believe that it could actually be happening but then it seeps and that's when the emotions hit." Pautsch goes on to explain that he believes his son was protecting the US from the "terrorists" in Iraq and he also shares, "I'm thrilled for Jason that he's in heaven." Eugene W. Fields (Orange County Register) reports on Bryce E. Gautier, "Gauier, a medic, joined the Army in January of 2008 and had been in Iraq since January of this year, according to Army documents. He received the National Defense Service Medal, the Army Service Ribbon and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. Gautier graduated in 2005 from Rancho Alamitos High in Garden Grove, according to school district spokesman Alan Trudell." Tom Roeder and Maria St. Louis-Sanchez (Colorado Springs Gazette) note Gauier's MySpace page and add, "His sense of humor is evident from a posting on the site, which Gautier last updated three days before his death. 'Winners make the rules, losers just follow them,' Gautier wrote. 'In the Army now.' Gautier's brother, Even, left a simple eulogy on his Web page: 'My brother Bryce was one of the American soldiers killed in the suicide bombing in Iraq this morning. I love you bro. I will miss you'."
In 'liberated' Iraq, gays and lesbians continue to be targeted for death. The Denver Post editorialized on the topic yesterday and opened with:
The U.S. State Department must not stand idly by if the Iraqi government fails to protect basic human rights, even if the persecution stems from traditional cultural or religious beliefs. We applaud Colorado Congressman Jared Polis for his efforts last week to shine the spotlight on the killings of homosexuals in Iraq, and to press the State Department to demand accountability from the Iraqi government. The first openly gay man to be elected to the House, Polis has been investigating the treatment of gays in Iraq for several months, according to The Post's Michael Riley. His research led to the discovery of a transgender Iraqi man who told the congressman he had been arrested, beaten and raped by security forces with Iraq's Ministry of Interior. Human-rights groups have passed information to Polis that claims another man was beaten into confessing he belonged to a gay-rights group and that the man had been sentenced to execution by an Iraqi court.
US House Rep Polis has made his letter to Patricia A. Butenis (Charge d'Affaires ad interim of the US State Dept) [PDF formart warning] here:
Dear Ms. Butenis:
Over the past week, I have become aware of egregious human rights violations against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Iraqis being carried out by Iraqi government officials from the Ministry of the Interior called "Magaweer al-Dakhilya." The information I received was derived from two separate testimonials of gay and transgender Iraqi men that were detained, tortured and sentenced to death for being members of an allegedly forbidden organization in Iraq called Iraqi LGBT. One of these invidividuals was able to escape, while the other was subsequently executed by Iraqi Ministry of Interior Security Forces.
While I do not know if these executions are being sanctioned at the highest levels of the Iraqi government, it is nonetheless distrubing that government officials and state-funded security forces are involved in the torturing and execution of LGBT Iraqis.
Even more disturbing was that the United States government appears to be largely unaware that the executions of gay and transgender Iraqis have been able to occur in Iraq given the enormous American presence. After reaching out to State Department officials in Washington, I was disappointed by their unwillingness to seriously consider these allegations and examine the evidence given to our office by international human rights watchdog organizations.
I urge you to use every channel at your disposal to properly and promptly invetigate these grave human rights violations. Please know that I will continue to monitor this situation and hope to be of assistance in this investigation."
At his Congressional website, Polis is quoted stating, "The United States should not tolerate human rights violations of nay kind, especially by a government that Americans spend billions of taxpayer dollars each year supporting. Hopefully my trip and letters to US and Iraqi officials will help bring international attention and investigation to this terrible situation and bring an end to any such offenses."
Last week, we noted the US State Dept and the United Nations have been silent on these and other attacks on the LGBT community in Iraq. The issue gets some attention today. BBC News explains Amnesty International states Nouri al-Maliki's government "must do more to protect" the LGBT community 'in the wak of a reported spate of killings of gay young men" and that they are pressing for "urgent and concerted action." Nigel Morris (Independent of London) explains that no arrests have been made in the recent murders -- he says six, it was seven -- and quotes Ali Hili stating, "Since mid-December we've been getting lots of reports about mass arrests and raids on houses, cafes, barbers shops." Mass arrests? It sounds like round-ups and those were common in Hilter's Germany where the LGBT community was targeted along with the Jewish community. (Iraq's Jewish community has been so targeted and so under assault that it barely exists at present.) Hili continues, "Most of the people who are arrested are found dead, with signs of torture and burns. We believe a war has been launched by the Iraqi Government and its establishment against gay people." As noted in the April 8th snapshot, the United Nations Secretary General issues statements all the time, condemning attacks in Iraq, but there has never been a statement from him on condemning the assaults on Iraq's LGBT community. And since the number reported continues to be in error, we'll drop back to the April 6th snapshot to again note:
In other violence noted over the weekend, Wisam Mohammed and Khalid al-Ansary (Reuters) reported Saturday that gays are being targeted in Baghdad, with four corpses discovered March 25th and 2 gay men murdered Thursday 'after clerics urged a crackdown'." Sunday Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) reported the two were first "disowned" (by their homophobic and hateful families) and "The shootings came after a tribal meeting was held and the members decided to go after the victims." Tawfeeq reports the other were also disowned (and gives the date of their deaths as March 26th) and states a cafe in Sadr City was torched when it was said to be an LGBT hangout in Baghdad. The Dallas Morning News wrote a brief on the topic and UPI summarized Tawfeeq's report. AFP reported Sunday that the two corpses discovered Thursday "had pieces of paper attached on which was written the word 'Pervert" and that the two men were aged sixteen and eighteen and had also had "their arms and legs broken". In addition, AFP reports another man presumed to be gay was found on Friday -- which would bring the toll to seven -- and this follows Sheikh Jassem al-Muatairi's 'inspiring' sermon denouncing "new private practices by some men who dress like women, who are effeminate. I call on families to prevent their children from following such a lifestyle."
Seven. Not six. Tomorrow the San Francisco Board of Supervisors meets and among the items on the agenda are a motion "Condemning the persecution and murders of Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Iraqi Citizens": "Resolution calling on the US Department of State to use all diplomatic channels to work with the Iraqi Government to stop the persecution of Iraqi Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) citizens and immediately stop the murders of Iraqi LGBT citizens." If that takes place (and it should), the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will be the first governing body elected by any group of people to condemn the killings and assaults.
Lee Woodruff is the author of Perfectly Imperfect: A Life in Progress. wowOwow has an excerpt of the book which is out next week:
When my husband was blown up by a roadside bomb in Iraq, shattering my world, it was my sisters who stepped into the void, along with some of my dearest girlfriends. They began the business of filling my shoes while I sat by an ICU bed, praying for signs of life. They lined up food deliveries, kept the curious from the door, organized rides for our kids and paid our bills. They understood the business of ministering.
"This sucks," my one sister said. "You guys don't deserve this." She knew she could tell it like it was. There was no room for sugarcoating, and I didn't want any sunshine blowing up my backside. The reality was grim.
Months later, it was my turn in the hospital, when doctors found a potentially cancerous tumor lurking in my abdomen. I turned to my other sister. "I want to be you," I said simply as I lay in my bed with the catheter, too weak to move.
Lee Woodruff's husband is ABC News' Bob Woodruff who was reporting from Iraq when he and Doug Vogt were injured in a roadside bombing January 29, 2006. The Bob Woodruff Foundation focuses on the physical and psychological wounds of war. While Bob Woodruff survived, Reporters Without Borders counts 223 journalists as having died in the Iraq War. (They actually break that does to media assistants -- we don't. The 'assistants' have long been doing reporting -- as would happen in any war zone but is especially true of the Iraq War.) The two most recent journalists known to have been killed in Iraq are Haidar Hashim Suhail and Suhaib Adnan of Al-Baghdadia TV who were killed March 10th in an Anbar Province bombing. So many reporters, Iraq and foreign, have been wounded and given their lives attempting to report from that country and it's not at all appreciated by thug-meister Nouri al-Maliki. Alsumaria reports:The Iraqi Government decision to detain back prisoners released by US Forces is subject to a political and security hassle. Baghdad Operations spokesman Brigadier Qassem Ata affirmed that the Command has ordered checkpoints to arrest all freed detainees recently released by US Forces. Ata told Al Hayat Newspaper that the operations command has distributed names and photos of released detainees on all checkpoints to detain them after they were involved in recent bombings in Baghdad. He noted that keeping those detainees out of prison will deteriorate the security situation and will threaten stability after US Forces withdraw from the cities to their bases at the end of June. Asked about the possibility of delaying US withdrawal after latest security incidents, Ata said the US military did not notify us about such intentions."The Times" British Newspaper expected yesterday to delay US Forces withdrawal from Iraqi volatile cities. The Newspaper quoted a US Army General as saying that insecurities in Mosul and Baaquba might force US Military to extend their military operations in those cities beyond June 30. This topic is one that upsets Nouri al-Maliki's thug government. Robert H. Reid (AP) reports the thug government is attempting to close a TV station (Al-Sharqiya) and a newspaper (Al-Hayat) over reports that al-Maliki's thugs are arresting the prisoners as the US releases them. Reid explains Nouri's government is bothered by the press explaining that arrests of Sahwa ("Awakening" Council members, "Sons of Iraq") might have been politically motivated. Yesterday Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) reported on the 12 killed Saturday in the suicide bombing attack in Iskandariyah as they attempted to collect their long overdue pay checks. Rubin explores the continued attacks on the Sahwa and the tensions in the Sunni community as a result. Rubin observes that for all the speculation over the very visible attacks (including arrests), the tensions were always there between the Sahwa movement (Sunni) and the US installed government in Baghdad which is dominated by Shi'ites (and by Iraqis who willingly went into exile and only returned to Iraq after the US invaded). Rubin notes the 27-day imprisonment of Sheik Maher Sarhan Abbas who was arrested "in secret and came to light when The New York Times by chance contacted someone who had seen him in jail." While the US continues to see Abbas as someone to be trusted and while his "Shiite neighbors trusted him" as well, Nouri's foces burst into his home on March 15th, "just after midnight, heavily armed men flung deafening smoke grenades into his home in Hawr Jab, a small village on Baghdad's southern outskirts, his family said. They burst into the bedroom where Sheik Maher and his wife were watching television as their 3-year-old daughter slept in a small bed next to them." Along with Nouri's goons, US forces were present and it's suspceted that they "were probably from a Special Operations unit". The latest hypothesis among "Awakenings" is that their Sunni enemies are telling lies to the Shi'ite government which, loathing the "Awakenings," uses any excuse to arrest them. Rubin includes this:A senior American official in Iraq was also skeptical of the motives for the arrests. "Why is the government doing this?" said the official, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the news media. "Every time we said to the government, 'You have to let this guy go,' they do it, which they wouldn't if they thought he was really dangerous," the American said. "I think they have their hand in the sectarian cookie jar."
Sudarsan Raghavan (Washington Post) reports on the continued tensions as well as the tensions regardding the Kurds. Of Baghdad, he notes:
Today, the city of oatmeal-colored minarets that straddles the Tigris River feels like a military base, with streets tangled by blast walls and checkpoints.
Backed by U.S. troops and advisers, Iraq's mostly Shiite national police and army control the city. They coexist uneasily with the local Sunni police force and the Sons of Iraq -- former Sunni insurgents who turned against the militant group al-Qaeda in Iraq and allied with the U.S. military.
Neither the local police nor the Sons of Iraq are allowed to protect the shrine, which is guarded by an array of mostly Shiite units sent by the central government.
"I don't believe that any people or city feel comfortable when they have an army from outside. The traditions from their areas are different than ours," said Sheik Mudher al-Naisani, a Sunni tribal leader. "That's right, this is one country. But it is better for Iraq that each serve in their own areas."
While most Iraqis believe that al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgents planted the bombs, many Sunni leaders here place the blame on the national police and U.S. troops who were guarding the shrine. Members of Iraq's national police force have committed some of the most horrendous sectarian crimes since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion; to this day there are widespread suspicions of infiltration by Shiite militias.
"It was a conspiracy," said Hussen, the Sunni council leader.
Are Sunnis who believe that right or wrong? It doesn't matter because they believe it. And that's a 2006 event and nothing was ever done to ease the tensions. These tensions do not go away, they do not vanish. They may get worked through by the parties involved but an outside power (the US in this case) can never impose anything because it doesn't last. The US has backed, armed and supported the Shi'ites thereby setting the stage for any bloodbaths that follow a US withdrawal. If those bloodbaths come (and they are likely), the withdrawal will not be responsible for them. The culprit will be all the years the US spent propping up a puppet government. Without the propping up, Nouri (or whomever) would have had to have made peace with the Sunnis long ago. They're too big of a population group for a leader to blow off and expect to remain in power unless the only reason the leader remains in power (as is the case with Nouri) is because a foreign government that installed him continued to prop him up. Barack's not promising withdrawal, he's promising a draw down. But at some point in the future the US will withdraw from Iraq. When that happens, any violence that follows is not because of the withdrawal, it is because of everything that came before. And, sidebar, Sudarsan Raghavan's done a wonderful job reporting in the above story; however, he's also done a wonderful job writing it -- so much so that it recalls the best of Rajiv Chandrasekaran.
In the summer of 2006, al-Maliki listed his 'plan' amidst the crackdown on Baghdad and it included attacks on the press. When the January 31st provincial elections took place in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces, al-Maliki attempted to strong arm the press and force them into signing agreements which would allow them to be punished and penalized if al-Maliki was displeased. His latest attacks on the press and freedoms are nothing news and part of a thug pattern which includes yesterday's news:In Iraq today, a committee in Parliament offered a rebuke of the police. Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) reports the committee was offended that the police raided an art show and seized an illustration "lampooning Iraq's prime minister." No word on whether or not he was in 'Muslim garb' and doing a fist bump. (For those who didn't catch that, it was a reference to the faux outrage over a New Yorker cartoon cover that demonstrated there's more than a little bit of Denmark in the US.)
On the topic of art, US Foreign Service Officer Aaron Snip (US State Dept's DIPNOTE) writes of rushing to pull off preparation for an important 2006 visit:
Part of my job as Public Diplomacy Officer is to share U.S. culture and values with Iraqis, but it's also to support Iraqi efforts to preserve their own culture. We asked the women to bring in examples of their work, and we hung their paintings along the walls of the meeting hall. Very few of the women had had formal art training. Painting was a hobby for all, a creative outlet for some, and an escape for others. Their artwork spanned the spectrum of their life's experiences. Some paintings were colorful and bright, while others were dark and depressing. All documented the lives of women in Muthanna. We chatted with the women about doing a larger gallery showing. Would they be interested in holding a multi-city art exhibition if I could get the funding? They were thrilled with the idea. What began as a meeting with a stoic group of Iraqi women with canvases in hand, ended in a beehive of excitement with ideas flowing freely. Here was a demographic that seldom had the chance to speak out. Their art resonated with me deeply, and I was committed to finding a way to help these women tell their stories. I went back to my office that evening and immediately began to work on a proposal. In no time at all, my proposal was approved (who says the Federal Government moves at a glacial pace?), and I was busy working with an NGO to purchase art supplies and canvases for each of the exhibit participants. The artists would paint submissions for an exhibit that would show in Muthanna's three largest cities, Samawa, Rumaytha, and Khider, sometime in the spring. For the artists, it would be the first time most of them had ever displayed their art publicly. One woman told us that she had painted for years, but feared no one would ever see her work. Another woman, considerably older and pointing to a young woman next to her, proclaimed, "I am here for my daughter-in-law! I told my son, 'he must support her dreams!' So I am here to make sure she has a chance!"
For more, you can refer to Aaron Snipe's second blog post. Meanwhile, Iraq was once a book lover's paradise. Corinne Reilly (McClatchy Newspapers) reports, "The widespread looting that followed the invasion destroyed library collections across Iraq. Booksellers and publishing housing closed as violence spread, and the priorities of many Iraqis shifted from reading and learning to staying alive and finding ways out of the country. In 2007, a series of explosions ripped through Baghdad's Mutanabi Street, shutting down the book market known for decades as Iraq's most popular gathering place for intellectuals and bibliophiles. Many of its shops and cafes have only recently reopened." By the way, returning to the topic of the press, Russell Crowe is outstanding in State of Play and, while discussing the film, Mary Riddell (Telegraph of London) addresses the global problems newspapers are facing -- as opposed to the fairy tales the New York Times served up this morning. (Ben Affleck is also amazing in the film as is Robin Wright Penn. And Helen Mirren is in State of Play. Translation, Helen Mirren is wonderful as always.)
Turning to some of today's other reported violence (we started with some of today's violence) . . .
Bombings?
Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report a Baghdad grenade attack which wounded four people and they drop back to Saturday night to note a Balad sticky bombing which claimed the lives of 2 Sahwa members
Shootings?
Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report Turkoman Abdulraham Aziz was shot dead outside his home Sunday while another person was shot dead in Mosul last night. Reuters notes 1 person shot dead in Kirkuk today and, dropping back to Sunday, a Mosul home invasion in which 1 person was shot dead.
Corpses?
Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report a police captatin was kidnapped in Anbar Province Saturday and his corpse was discovered yesterday.
Yesterday the top US commander in Iraq, Gen Ray Odierno, appeared on CNN and was interviewed by John King (link has text and video). He discussed the treaty masquerading as a Status Of Forces Agreement which supposedly binds the US to leave all Iraqi cities by the end of this June and to leave the country by the end of 2011. Despite that alleged 'binding' agreement, Odierno stated US troops might not leave Iraqi cities at the end of June ("If we believe that we'll need troops to maintain a presence in some of the cities, we'll recommend that, but, ultimately, it will the decision of Prime Minister Maliki"), however , "As you ask me today, I believe it's a 10 -- that we will be gone by 2011." He believes. Not "It's a 10, we will be gone in 2011." Believes. Odierno's not staking his reputation on anyone else's promise and he has always worded very carefully on this topic. Jonathan D. Salant (Bloomberg News) puts it this way, "Odierno said he expects to meet the 2011 deadline. There are 142,000 U.S. troops in Iraq." Deborah Solomon (Wall St. Journal) summarizes it as follows, "The top U.S. general in Iraq said the U.S. is on track to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by August 2010 but could adjust the pace over the next 18 months depending on the stability of the country."
In other news, Abo Obama -- aka Samson Obama -- is in the news and, strangely, while everyone else with a criminal arrest record gets stuck with their birth name, reports continue to call him "Samson Obama." Considering that he gave a phony name at his arrest, maybe they should all stick to his birth name: Abo Obama. He is the half-brother of Barack and they have been photographed together and Barack has written of him. wowOwow reports, "Various news outlets report that British officials denied the U.S. president's half-brother Samson Obama a visa because he was accused of sexual assault last November. And, during that incident, Mr. Obama gave police a false name. He was not arrested or charged for that crime. His fingerprints and other data were stored in a national database and the president's estranged half-brother -- the men have not spoken in 20 years, according to the White House -- went back home to Kenya." Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Brotherly Embarrassment" covered this last night. For the record, it was sexual assault at underage girls with the youngest being a 13-year-old. He is over 40 himself. Strangely, all the reports -- and they're linked in Isaiah's comic -- somehow avoid mentioning his age. I can't remember a time when someone with an arrest record made the news and the press refused to list his age or, for that matter, his birth name. The arrest took place in November, either in the last stages of Barack's campaign or after the election -- the press won't tell us that either. In January, he was enroute to the US -- for the inauguration -- and the UK refused to let him in. No word on whether he made it into the US or not. And let me plub Kat's "Kat's Korner: The LOtUSFLOW3R Blooms ... and rocks" which is her review of Prince's new album LOtUSFLOW3R.
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cindy sheehanthe denver postmichael rileybbc newsnigel morrisalsumaria
the new york timesalissa j. rubinthe washington postsudarsan raghavan
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