Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Tweet of the week

"Don't let one cloud obliterate the whole sky." ~Anais Nin


I've just started reading a short story collection called Winter of Artifice -- it's three novellas, I believe.

By Anais Nin.

I am really enjoying it.

And I love that quote.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 
Wednesday, August 31, 2016.  Chaos and violence continue, will the Kurds be deceived again, things continue to heat up for Hoshyar Zebari, what Huma Abedin's latest scandal says about Hillary's campaign, and much more.


Starting with US politics and a topic I planned to leave alone -- wrongly suspecting others would cover it.

Wrong.

Worse, a social worker thinks she knows something when she only reveals she knows nothing.

Vicki Tidwell Palmer's nonsense at HUFFINGTON POST (redundant?) is entitled "What No One Should Say To Huma Abedin About Anthony Weiner."

Vicki why don't you take your useless license and try to help children or something.  You were too lazy to go for the education required to become a psychologist or psychiatrist but you want to pretend like you are one.

And in the process, you want to trash the Constitution and free speech -- the First Amendment.

Vicki, no one needs you.

Congratulations on your 28 years of sobriety but, if you're looking for to-do projects, how about you start by cutting off those 'wisps' that look like sideburns -- and better yet, color them or stop coloring the rest of you hair.

In America, we have free speech and we don't need Vicki Sideburns telling us otherwise.

(Forgive her, she's had a very poor education.)

Huma matters.

She matters so much that I have to learn to spell her name.  Until a few minutes ago, I thought it was Humana -- like the insurance.  I tend to avert the eyes when people embarrass themselves in public.

Which is why her name's never been typed by me before.  (It's probably up here in a quote or a press release -- especially in 2008 when we posted every press release Hillary's campaign sent over.  Huma is a longterm friend and aid to Hillary Clinton.  She's one of the people closest to Hillary in the world.  Bill Clinton presided over Huma's marriage to Anthony Weiner.)

Let's just review quickly.

Golden boy of politics Anthony Weiner was so on the move at one point that an episode of 30 ROCK -- where they try out high def cameras -- had Alec Baldwin's Jack walk past the camera and the screen revealed he was Anthony Weiner.

He was on the rise and he destroyed himself.

He was sexting -- sending texts about sex to various women.

Some of the sexts included photos of his penis -- more on that in a moment.

Caught, he tried to claim someone had hacked his phone.

And inserted penis photos into it?  Or did Anthony just carry those around for conversation starters?

Forced to come clean, he was no longer in Congress.

But he had learned!  Lord Almighty, he had learned!  He would recover!  And there was Huma standing by him.



Anthony took a cold shower and was back running for mayor of NYC.

The changed man, ready to rebuild.

But, thing was, he was still sexting.

And when that got out, it destroyed his hopes.

Huma stayed with him.

(I know Hillary.  I don't know Huma.  We've nodded at one another and may have exchanged banalities at one dinner.  That would be it.  I'm not here to analyze or guess at Huma's reasons for staying.  I never spoke to Anthony, not even when he attempted to speak to me several times -- I don't like trash and he gave off that vibe -- I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that things went much further than sexting with many women.)

Huma's now left him.

He's had another sexting scandal.

News broke over the weekend.

While she's attempting to help get Hillary elected president and traveling with the candidate, Anthony was home with their son.

(I'm not questioning her decision to leave the child with the father.  Although from this scandal forward, I would.  Nor am I questioning her right to work.  Work was probably one of the few solaces she's had.  And she's actually very good at her job which is why she's been with Hillary so long and why Hillary trusts her.)

So Anthony's back to sexting.

And the thing that outraged America was he was doing it in his bed, his son crawled into bed (probably had a nightmare or something) an Anthony sees that as the perfect time to take a photo of his boxer brief clad boner (I believe they were boxer briefs, I don't want to see the photo again, I believe they were also blue) with his son right next to him -- his son right next to him in the photo.

He's using his son to sext with the woman.

It's beyond vile and proof positive that there is no redemption for Anthony Weiner in the near future.

Huma's announced the marriage is over.

Some are saying it's to spare Hillary a scandal or bigger scandal.

I don't believe Hillary had anything to do with it (I'm sure Hillary consoled Huma as a friend and supported whatever decision Huma made).

I don't believe many of us would want to continue any marriage if our spouse sexted with our child in the bed and in the photo.

That's the line Anthony Weiner crossed and it's on him.

Others can speak of this in any way they want -- this is America.

I'm trying to be very clear here on what I'm discussing and why.

This is embarrassing.

Glenn Greenwald -- of all people -- is trying to draw the veil and insisting this is private.

No.

You could argue (some would not) that Gary Hart playing around on Monkey Business and getting caught by the press staking him out was crossing a line.

You could argue that.

Some would.

Some wouldn't.

(As noted many times before, I know Gary Hart. I like Gary.)

But this isn't that.

Nor is this people peering into someone's bedroom windows.

The photo's out there.

That's because the woman Anthony sent it to was as apparently disgusted as everyone else now is.

This is not a private moment.

This is a top campaign aid whose marriage was rocky -- to put it mildly -- and public before the campaign began.

This is fair ground to cover.

No one broke into a doctor's office and stole medical files.

Not only is it fair ground, it's needed ground.

Because Huma's reaction is, I would argue, normal.

I would argue even the most forgiving person would have responded similar to Huma after the last sexting (due to the use of the child).

I'm not condemning her, I'm not making sport of her.

But this conversation needs to take place.

It has not been taking place.

The conversation is about marriage and humiliation.

Anyone can be humiliated in marriage -- and, honestly, who of us hasn't been at one point or another, in one way or another?  Even the best of marriages have those oh-how-could-you moments.

And I think in three or four years, Huma's probably going to help people navigate this terrain by speaking on it and probably sharing how she overcame it.

We don't have three or four years.

There's a campaign going on right now for president.

Hillary is married to the charismatic and, yes, still handsome Bill Clinton.

The same Bill who slept with Gennifer Flowers (admitted in the Paula Jones case).

The same Bill who had sex with Monica Lewinsky.

These were scandals during his presidency.  (His affair with Flowers took place before he became president.)

The same Bill who was accused by Juanita Broaddrick of rape (she stands by her charge and he has never publicly responded to it).

The same Bill accused of sexual harassment by Paula Jones (in a case that saw Bill lose the right to practice before the Supreme Court and led to a big money pay out for Jones).

There are assorted other women.

But this is what America endured while Bill was president from 1993 to 2000.

The House impeached him over lying about sex with Monica Lewinsky.  (The Senate did not remove him from office but censured him instead.)

Now we could be of the opinion, "Thank goodness that's in the past and over."

But now his wife wants to be president.

And, let's be honest, most are aware of the 2008 piece VANITY FAIR was working on outlining Bill's continued cheating.  (It was killed when it was decided she had no shot the nomination and outside friends called in favors with the magazine.  Graydon, don't make me go to my journals and pull out letters.  Just stay silent for once in your life.)

So Hillary wants to be president.

And Bill's sex life shocked many and led his presidency astray repeatedly during his terms as president.

His affairs are a valid question.

Specifically, she should answer questions about what she would do if elected president and Bill is caught in another affair flashed around the world.

She's making appearances the big thing in her latest campaign ad and what our allies and enemies might think about Donald Trump.

What might they think about a US president that gets cheated on?

She's the one talking international appearances and impressions.

Huma is humiliated today and I'm sorry for her.

I also know she didn't seek out that humiliation or expect it.

That's just what can happen when you're married to a cheater.

And it could easily happen to Hillary.

She needs to address it.

Can she be president if Bill has an affair that gets exposed by the press.

Will she need to hide from the public -- as she did at one lengthy point during the Monica scandal?

What is her game plan?

And, with the Clintons' history, why should anyone suspend disbelief and say, "Oh, it won't happen again."

She was publicly humiliated in the 90s and went into hiding as First Lady.

Now she wants to be president so she better have an answer to questions like this.


She probably won't.

It appears the Democratic Party response today is nothing but blame others.







"Iraqi Mistakes?" More like "American Mistakes Imposed Upon Our Puppet Government in Iraq"

 
 
 



Carlton's right: American mistakes.

Nouri al-Maliki "was discriminatory to Sunnis" -- no question.  But he was installed by the US government -- Bully Boy Bush -- in 2006 as prime minister.  He went on to lose the 2010 election to Ayad Allawi.

But he refused to leave office.

And eventually the White House decided to back him in that effort and brokered a legal contract (The Erbil Agreement) that provided Nouri with the second term that the voters had denied him.

America's mistakes.

The Iraqi people rejected him.

Barack Obama insisted Nouri get a second term.

The second term is where the persecution gets even worse and why the Islamic State gets a foothold in Iraq.


Iraqi politics are US politics . . .


Iraqi Finance Minister : an Iraqi corrupt politician transferred 6 billion $ to his private account outside Iraq.

 
 
 



That's Hoshyar Zebari.

No one loves Hoshyar more than Hillary Clinton -- if only she loved him enough to suggest he start The Zebari Foundation -- he could hide any millions in that.

Sunday, rumors appeared in the Iraqi press that Hoshyar's long reign might be coming to an end as a result of his corruption.

He's currently the Minister of Finance.  Prior to that he was the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Oh, and also the Minister of Women.  Don't forget that.  He participated in Nouri's sexist and anti-woman government.


Iraqi politics are US politics.


That was clear, yet again, Monday, at the US State Dept press briefing moderated by spokesperson John Kirby.



QUESTION: Okay. Today a high-level KRG delegation, led by the Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, visited Baghdad and met with the Iraqi prime minister.

MR KIRBY: Yeah.

QUESTION: What is the U.S. view on this? And did the U.S. play any role in trying to solve the problems between Erbil and Baghdad?

MR KIRBY: Well, we’re in routine discussions, as you know, with the leaders from both Erbil and Baghdad. The Secretary was in Iraq not long ago. He met with leaders from both sides, as you have rightly asked me about in the past. Certainly, Brett McGurk, whenever he’s in the region, makes it a point to talk to both sides.
We strongly encourage dialogue between Erbil and Baghdad to try to work out these internal Iraqi issues, and so we’re aware of this particular meeting and we’re very supportive of them having that kind of a discussion and that kind of conversation to try to work this out between them. Did we set it up? No. Are we supportive of the fact that they did meet? Absolutely, we are.

QUESTION: Did you get any advance notice about it? Did they tell you they were going to have this meeting?

MR KIRBY: I’m not aware. We can take that question for you and see if our embassy had any advance knowledge of it. I’m not aware that we did. But look, I mean, frankly, I’m not so sure that that’s all that important anyway. This – these issues are Iraqi issues. And sometimes I think we forget, because American forces were in Iraq for so long, that Iraq is a sovereign country and they should be working these issues out between them, themselves. And so, again, we – we’re pleased that this discussion happened. We’d like to see more and more of these kinds of conversations happening to try to resolve some of these differences, and we’re supportive of that. Whether we knew about it or not, again, I don’t know. Again, I also – not really sure how critically important that is that we did.

QUESTION: The prime minister met the ambassador as well – U.S. ambassador. Do you have a readout of his meeting?


MR KIRBY: I don’t. I don’t.


Suddenly, the US government is 'okay.'

This is where Kurds need to pay attention.

They're not being hectored by the State Dept -- for an unexpected change.

Victoria Nuland, Marie Harf, Jen Psaki . . .

One spokesperson after another for the State Dept calling them out in briefing after briefing.

Now a deal may be coming?

Get real.

They need the Kurds -- the Iraqi government and the White House.

They can't take Mosul without the Kurds.

(Mosul's been held by the Islamic State since June 2014 -- and POLITICO's already revealed that the 'liberation' is supposed to be Barack's October Surprise to help deliver the vote to Hillary.)

So there's lip service to the Kurds.

But nothing is in writing and nothing is going in writing.

When Mosul's 'liberated,' the so-called talks end as does the dream of a deal.


Iraq would support a proposal for OPEC to freeze oil output, prime minister says
 
 
 


It's about Mosul and it's about pulling back on oil.

If Kurds have learned anything by now, they will demand contracts in writing before they agree to anything.











Tuesday, August 30, 2016

The racist trying to make money off the Obamas

I have no interest in seeing Southside -- the film about Barack and Michelle.

Maybe you do?

Maybe you should rethink that.

Read this from THE DAILY MAIL:


The Magic Johnson theater in New York's Harlem neighborhood grossed more than any other site over the weekend.
'We’re very happy with the opening,' said Roadside co-president Howard Cohen. 
'We had sell-outs in many markets and the movie is playing to both an African-American audience and to arthouse audiences. The reviews have been better than anything we saw at Sundance and it will continue to play throughout the fall.' 


As an African-American, I find that comment racist.

I am more likely to go to the independent film theater than to a multi-plex.

I'm really not interested in most 'big' films.  If it's science fiction, I am.

Otherwise, I want to see a small picture that might be about real life.

Regardless of that, I find it very racist the way Howard Cohen looks at "an African-American audience" while he's trying to sell tickets to the story of Barack and Michelle.



Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Tuesday, August 30, 2016.  Chaos and violence continue, a wack job attacks REUTERS, militias recruit child soliders, and much more.




Chaos and violence continue -- though Luay al-Khatteeb insists otherwise.

In fact, his presence outside Iraq goes to the fact that chaos and violence continue because cowards like Luay-Luay -- the real s**t f**k all the other s**t f**kers are just imitating so won't the real Luay-Luay please go home, please go home -- never go back to their homeland until others make it safe.

Coward Luay-Luay waits for others to make Iraq safe so that then he can rush in with his Iraq Energy Institute which he founded -- or Luay Jawad did or which ever name he's going by at whichever moment.

Let's again note the second most popular episode of CHARLIE'S ANGELS, season one's "Consenting Adults" (written by Les Carter), Farrah Fawcett's Jill lays down some basic truth with Laurette Spang's Tracy.

Jill: Okay, let's both stop playing games.  For starters, you can drop the "Tracy."  It rhymes with Stacy and Macy all those other jive names hookers like to latch onto.


So Luay-Luay al-Khatteeb or Luay-Luay Jawad shows up at HUFFINGTON POST to yet again attack REUTERS:


Be that as it may, you would never know this from the Special Reports peddled by Reuter’s Ned Parker, which are often one sided, confused, and guilty of engaging in partial journalism based on a modus operandi defined by cherry picking of facts.


Luay-Luay doesn't cherry pick . . . he crack picks.

Digs in his own ass with his fingers and then waves them in the air to show the world what he 'found.'

Ned Parker's got a legacy of reporting on Iraq that stands.

It's goes back to the days of the Bully Boy Bush administration.

Luay-Luay?


He's got the kind of history public health guidelines require you share with all sex partners.


What has Luay-Luay in a tizzy this week?  Last week's report by Ned Parker and Jonathan S. Landay (REUTERS):






Shi’ite militias in Iraq detained, tortured and abused far more Sunni civilians during the American-backed capture of the town of Falluja in June than U.S. officials have publicly acknowledged, Reuters has found.More than 700 Sunni men and boys are still missing more than two months after the Islamic State stronghold fell. The abuses occurred despite U.S. efforts to restrict the militias' role in the operation, including threatening to withdraw American air support, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.
The U.S. efforts had little effect. Shi’ite militias did not pull back from Falluja, participated in looting there and now vow to defy any American effort to limit their role in coming operations against Islamic State.
All told, militia fighters killed at least 66 Sunni males and abused at least 1,500 others fleeing the Falluja area, according to interviews with more than 20 survivors, tribal leaders, Iraqi politicians and Western diplomats.
They said men were shot, beaten with rubber hoses and in several cases beheaded. Their accounts were supported by a Reuters review of an investigation by local Iraqi authorities and video testimony and photographs of survivors taken immediately after their release. 




That Shi'ite militias are committing War Crimes is no surprise.

Sectarian abuse by Iraq Shia militia was even worse than believed (meaning downright awful).




Unless you're a denier like Luay-Luay.

There's a reason he's no longer associated with Brookings, for example, but HUFFNPUFF won't worry about that or inform readers of that.

That the coward in exile glory thinks he can attack REUTERS is laughable.

That HUFFPUFF thinks his ravings are worth printing less so.

"Ignore the myths" proclaims Luay-Luay as he himself spreads the lies.


HUFFINGTON POST needs to stop printing his garbage.

He's now on record as a denier of the ongoing persecution of the Sunni people.


In the Arab world right now, that's bad enough.

But in ten or so years when the rest of the world is forced to admit this persecution took place, HUFFINGTON POST will look like Holocaust deniers.


It's really time that they, like Brookings, cut their ties with Luay-Luay.


And someone teach Luay-Luay how to read a byline -- Jonathan S. Landay co-wrote the piece he keeps slamming Ned Parker for.


If you've forgotten, Luay-Luay is a professional apologist for the Shi'ite militias.  When they began threatening Ned Parker on Iraqi state television, Luay-Luay found that hilarious.


Sort of like the way I find it hilarious that a coward like Luay-Luay thinks anyone should listen to him.


We've been calling out Luay-Luay here for years and we've never been wrong.

Sadly, wrong is all Luay-Luay's ever been.

And the only myth is his own that Iraq's on the road to healing.


How bad are the militias?

So bad that Jar Jar Blinks is back to talking Iraq.

That's right Raed Jarrar who told the world Barack Obama would end the Iraq War and then congratulated Barack on ending the Iraq War has had to put aside his erotic fan fiction (DOWN LOW AND DIRTY WITH BARRY -- soon to be rewritten into 50 SHADES OF OIL) and speak with Brian Becker about just how bad things are.


When was the last time we noted Jar Jar?

I think it was when Ava and I rightly slammed him in "Media: The Collapse of Indymedia and its Queen" which went up the last Sunday of 2013 and noted how useless he was as an expert or 'expert' on Iraq for Amy Goodman's increasingly bad talk show:




Jarrar left Iraq long ago physically and apparently mentally and emotionally.

For example, in December, Raed offered  22 Tweets and re-Tweets.  Exempting the ones promoting his appearance on Friday's Democracy Now!, how many Tweets or re-Tweets were about Iraq?

Only one.  And it was a re-Tweet.  Iraq's had a huge resurgence in violence in the last two years.  December's already at least the second most violent month (based on deaths) of the year.  But Raed never took the time to write a 160 characters or less Tweet on that.

If you go through his Tweets from September through November, you'll find no Tweet or re-Tweet on Iraq.

In fact, you have to drop back to May 1st to find the term "Iraq" on Raed's Twitter feed.  That's when he retreats about an attack on a US Iraq War veteran.

1145 people died from violence in Iraq in the month of July.  That is currently monthly total record (though December is not over yet).  Raed didn't Tweet about it.

In fact, you have to go back to March -- the 10th anniversary of the start of the illegal war -- to find Raed Tweeting about Iraq and then it's more about "pre-2003" than anything else.

Raed's nothing but a useless little bitch and he proves it all the time.

Over and over.

Raed's a blogger and he last blogged about Iraq December 15th . . .

2011.

Only Goody Whore would bring on the man who fled Iraq physically, emotionally and mentally as an expert.

It was so bad, it was embarrassing.

It was like sitting in an English Lit grad course where the topic was Edith Wharton and Raed's entire contribution was what he had gleaned from watching Martin Scorsese's film of The Age of Innocence.

It was Friday.  Protests in Iraq.

Never mentioned.

Even though the previous Sunday Nouri had threatened the protesters.

Even though he had attempted to attack them on Tuesday but a flurry of political meetings forced him to pull his forces out of Ramadi's sit-in sqaure.

Even though on the Friday Raed 'shared,' Nouri had already gone on Iraqi TV and announced that this had been the last Friday protest and that he would burn down the protest tents in Anbar.




'C.I., you and Ava thought the protests mattered.  There's no reason Raed Jarrar has to share your opinion.'


It was our opinion and, thing is, it was the correct critique.  As we would note in "TV: A week of putrid and puerile," the day after we wrote that piece, Nouri sent his forces into a protest camp resulting in the deaths of 17 civilians:


That was December 29th when we wrote that.

If you don't get how right we were to call them out for ignoring the protesters -- them being Amy Goodman, Raed Jarrar and WG Dunlop.  On December 27th, three laughable 'journalists' pretended they knew enough to discuss Iraq.

They didn't know one damn thing except how to whore.

The protests mattered and if you doubt that, let's go to Human Rights Watch, "Government security forces had withdrawn from Anbar province after provoking a tribal uprising when they raided a Sunni protest camp in Ramadi on December 30, killing 17 people."  This is the assault on Anbar.

Having screwed that up, Amy Goodman ignored Iraq for two months until last week when she did a really bad segment with Dahr Jamail.

She's never covered the ongoing assault on Anbar.  Darh's written an article about it now that he's joined Truthout. But Human Rights Watch, BRussells Tribunal and so many others have been covering it for weeks and weeks -- that would include this site.

And Goody Whore ignored the topic.  When she finally found 'time' for it, it first had to wait for I-Need-Attention-Benjamin.  CodeStink's Medea got into an altercation in Egypt.  This was news to Democracy Now?

We ask that because Goody Whore never noted Lara Logan's rape in Egypt but did bring on a whore -- we use the term intentionally -- who explained she herself was sexually assaulted but it was no big thing.  (Rebecca called the b.s. out in real time.)  Rape is "miniscule," that's a message the Goody Whore broadcasts and promotes but let con artist Medea claim she was roughed up in Egypt and it's time to spend over six minutes with Medea.

Iraq?

It got seven minutes.

Deaths, refugees, hospitals attacked and so much more is only worth one minute more than Medea's latest drama.

Not only that, the focus wasn't on the Anbar assault.

No, it had to compete with 2004 Anbar.


Approximately 630 words went to the ongoing and current crisis.

Approximately 520 words went to Anbar in 2004.

Does that really sound like Goody Whore addressed Iraq?

No, she didn't.  Like Cat Greenleaf with Oliver Stone, Goody Whore got real nervous when Dahr Jamail mentioned Barack and rushed to cut him off.



Am I wrong?


I am wrong all the time.


But overall, our record stands.

Unlike Luay-Luay, we have called things correctly repeatedly.


When the White House didn't want to face the truth about Nouri al-Maliki -- and even after it had but didn't want the American people to know -- we have told the truth on Nouri.

Before WikiLeaks revealed cables discussing the US government's view that Nouri was paranoid, we were already telling you -- years before -- about the CIA analysis that felt Nouri was the best candidate for prime minister of Iraq because his paranoia would make him easy to manipulate.

Luay Luay lies but if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt -- his 'truth' is skewed by his desire to make money off of Iraq.

Greed blinds him to realities like the fact that the militias are said to be recruiting child soldiers.  Human Rights Watch issues an alert which opens:

Iraqi government-backed militias have recruited children from at least one displaced persons camp in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq to fight against Islamic State forces. All security forces and armed groups should abide by international law and demobilize any fighters under age 18.
  Witnesses and relatives told Human Rights Watch that two tribal militias (Hashad al-Asha`ri) recruited as fighters at least seven children from the Debaga camp on August 14, 2016, and drove them to a town closer to Mosul, where Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) are preparing for an offensive to drive the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, from the city. The Hashad al-Asha`ri, made up of local Sunni fighters, are expected to play a key role in Mosul military operations, while the government may order the mainly Shia militias of the Popular Mobilization Forces to stay out of the Mosul fighting.
“The recruitment of children as fighters for the Mosul operation should be a warning sign for the Iraqi government,” said Bill Van Esveld, senior children’s rights researcher. “The government and its foreign allies need to take action now, or children are going to be fighting on both sides in Mosul.”
  Human Rights Watch has documented that ISIS has extensively recruited and deployed children in its forces.
Debaga camp, 40 kilometers south of Erbil, currently houses over 35,000 people displaced in the fighting between government forces and ISIS. Two people living in the camp since March told Human Rights Watch that at least two militia groups engaged in the fighting against ISIS are entirely made up of camp residents. They said that these two militias, commanded by Sheikh Nishwan al-Jabouri and by Maghdad al-Sabawy, the son of the recently deceased commander Fares al-Sabawy, have been recruiting from the camp for months. Their trucks have been arriving empty, and driving away filled with men, and in some cases, boys.

The two camp residents said that two very large trucks arrived in the evening of August 14 and took away about 250 new recruits, at least 7 of them under age 18, to join Sheikh al-Jabouri’s forces. Witnesses and other camp residents said that all the men and boys volunteered to join the militias. An aid worker who was on the road saw the two trucks heading to Hajj Ali, a town about 46 kilometers from Debaga and 7 kilometers from the front lines with ISIS. They contacted local aid workers in Hajj Ali, who confirmed that the group had arrived there, stayed for one night, and then went on to join a militia nearby.






Not only ISIS uses , Iraq militias also recruit children <18 .="" a="" class="twitter-timeline-link" data-expanded-url="http://bit.ly/2bNKGBi" demobilize="" dir="ltr" href="https://t.co/8fO0kJGQsl" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #1b95e0; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" them.="" title="http://bit.ly/2bNKGBi">bit.ly/2bNKGBi








The refugee crisis in Iraq is growing and that also doesn't convey the 'nothing but blue skies' Luay Luay would have you believe.


The crisis also includes more than just Iraqi refugees.


Borzou Daragahi Retweeted BuzzFeed News
More than 4,500,000 Syria refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan & Iraq
Borzou Daragahi added,






And all of these people in need struggle in a country that the US government drops bombs on daily -- every day since August of 2014.  Yesterday, the US Defense Dept announced:


Strikes in Iraq
Attack, bomber, fighter and ground attack aircraft conducted 13 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:

-- Near Bashir, a strike destroyed an ISIL checkpoint.

-- Near Haditha, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed a fighting position.

-- Near Mosul, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit, destroyed three vehicles and a mortar position.

-- Near Qayyarah, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit, destroyed a mortar system, a vehicle, five assembly areas, a supply cache, a front-end loader and denied access to terrain.

-- Near Ramadi, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit, a vehicle and a boat and damaged a fighting position.

-- Near Sultan Abdallah, a strike struck an ISIL security headquarters.


Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike.



Now to address something to try to stop the flood of e-mails.  Martha and Shirley informed me last night of the huge number of e-mails on Ava and my "TV: The reality that we're all responsible for this mess."

Of those objecting, the objection is that they themselves are in any way responsible for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump ending up the nominees.

Jim writes the headlines.  That said, it does represent our piece.  Ava and I were including ourselves in the "we" and that's why we use that.

We indict the lazy media ('news'), we indict the entertainment industry (Emmys for reality TV -- get serious, it's trash), we indict a wide range of groups (including the smut merchants like Gale Anne Hurd who've made fortunes in recent years promoting garbage of a world with no hope).

But, yes, We The People is in there as well.

If it doesn't apply to you, let it roll off.

In terms of the other e-mails on the article, a lot of you wish it was longer.

Seriously?

Have you read it?

It's way too long as it is.

But, yes, we can take some questions on it for next week and develop whatever you feel needs further discussion or an aspect you wants us to go into more.  (Please put "Question" in your e-mail subject heading and Martha and Shirley will route it to Ty who will probably moderate some sort of discussion piece for THIRD.)

I will deal right here with an issue Yazz raised that Martha passed on: There's no attempt at humor.


No.

There's not.

A) Jess is no longer with THIRD.  If he was, he would have stopped Jim.  We had no idea where Jim was headed when we all got together to write.  He was making statements about Ava and my "TV: Poor sports and strip teases" from the week before.  And then he told us the views.  We never, ever want to know that.  We don't want to repeat ourselves, we don't want to play the 'hits.'

But that number was so high that we really felt paralyzed.  I'm not joking.

So we wouldn't have been very funny to begin with.

B) But at one point we had a Caitlin Jenner joke and we toyed with putting it in.  But then we decided that joking would give a release and we didn't want it.  We wanted the piece to make you uncomfortable and we didn't want to kid.

So, yes, Yazz, there's no attempt at humor in it.  (Unless it's typos!)