SICKOFITRADLZ

Monday, March 6, 2017

Walking away from the no-choice duopoly

That's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Everyone gets a car!"

Chris Hedges notes:

Trump’s popularity increased the more the establishment condemned him. This would have sent a profound and disturbing message to anyone not as clueless as our liberal elites. They did not get it. They thought they could trot out Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Hollywood celebrities and get the rubes to fall for their routine one more time. They thought the country would again obey.
The liberal class, by embracing neoliberalism and refusing to challenge the imperial wars, empowered the economic and political structures that destroyed our democracy and gave rise to Trump. Multiculturalism, when it means, to use the words of Cornel West, nothing more than having a president who is a “black mascot for Wall Street,” betrays the disenfranchised and endows the ruling elites with a false progressivism, a false humanism and a false inclusiveness.
Hillary and Bill Clinton, Joe Biden and the current Democratic Party leadership designed and built the massive system of imprisonment, essentially ended welfare, expanded our wars and pushed through NAFTA. They destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of poor and working-class families and are responsible for the mounds of corpses in the Middle East. Yet these liberal elites speak as if they are champions of racial and economic justice. They appear in choreographed pseudo-events to demonstrate a faux compassion. Now they have been exposed as fakes.
A genuine populism, one defined and often articulated by Bernie Sanders, could sweep the Democratic Party back into power. Regulating Wall Street, publicly financing campaigns, forgiving student debt, demanding universal health care, bailing out homeowners victimized by the banks, ending the wars in the Middle East, instituting a jobs program to repair our decaying infrastructure, dismantling the prison system, restoring the rule of law on the streets of our cities, making college education free and protecting programs such as Social Security would see election victory after election victory.

I agree with that and agree with similar comments made in "Roundtable."

Jess: I'd agree. Take an idiot like Alyssa Milano, she promotes The White Helmets because she's too stupid to realize they're a propaganda front. She promotes that, her every day is about anti-Trump Tweets. I suppose it plays to the politically stupid but what she fails to grasp is that the Democrats (a) are not an answer as the last decades have demonstrated and that (b) many of us live far beyond the two party duopoly.

Jim: Especially in the current environment where Democrats do nothing but harp on Russia. Is that their answer to the economy? Is that what's going to win over voters? It's paranoia and it sounds nutty.
Ty: Let's talk about issues. Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek talking about the foreclosures on American farms, that's an issue. Jane Fonda talking about rape and abuse? That's an issue. Susan Sarandon speaking out against the Iraq War? That's an issue.
Jess: And issues matter. Let's use your last example, Susan Sarandon. She got attacked viciously for speaking out against the Iraq War. And that could go to the point about getting attacked because you have power. That said, I think even some of the people who attacked her back then respect her now. She spoke about something that mattered. It was a real issue. She showed integrity.
Dona: Whining about Hillary Clinton losing does not show integrity. She's a War Hawk and a liar. The party needed a better candidate and should have gone with Bernie over her. Hillary lost because she's a loser with endless baggage. People seemed to think that we had no choice and we would just vote for her regardless.

C.I.: On that, I don't think they get your generation at all.

Ava: I would agree with that. We're the generation who grew up with gay as not shocking. We're the generation that grew up with war is wrong. And we grew up with people like Susan Sarandon drawin lines -- rightly, that's not an insult to her. So this idea that we'll just do as we're told and vote for who we're told to? I'm sorry, we're not scared little bunnies who grew up in the shadow of McCarthy and nuclear war. We're not brainwashed. That's what they don't get about their Russia bulls**t. It works well for the elderly like Nancy Pelosi. But they can't grasp that our entire lives has not been about hating 'the other.'

C.I.: And the campaign for Hillary, let's be honest, wasn't about promises to voters, it was about creating 'the other.' She was too self-involved to realize she needed to appeal to voters.

Jim: Exactly. There was no campaign. There was no effort to appeal. It was all about crooked Hillary is owed this and Donald Trump is evil. That was the whole slogan.

Ty: And we're the generation that can't be scared into being good little sheep.

Dona: They don't get it. They really don't. They think they're the only show in town even though we've had decades of people dropping out of the voting process because they don't believe in it.

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

Monday, March 6, 2017. Chaos and violence continue, The Mosul Slog continues, Kenneth Roth sees joy where others see anguish, and much more.

It's day 140 of The Mosul Slog. For any who missed it, the 'big success' of the weekend was taking control of a bridge.

‏Verified account @AJENews

US-backed Iraqi forces announce capture of Mosul's al Hurriya bridge in a new push to drive out ISIL fighters aje.io/t4yh

1 reply11 retweets8 likes

'Success.'

Or that's what some are desperate to claim and/or see.

Reality?

‏ @IraqDailyUpdate

Tens of Thousands Displaced as Iraqi Forces Near Mosul City Center - NBCNews.com

0 replies0 retweets0 likes

The refugees are increasing.

As we noted at THIRD in "Editorial: The Mosul refugee problem is whose fault?," the Iraqi government feels this is the fault of the United Nations.

Above is a photo of Jassem Mohammed Al Jaff, the Minister of Displacement and Migration. And he's blaming the United Nations for the refugee crisis. As his title indicates, he's actually the person who should be planning for refugees.

Maybe that's why he's blaming the United Nations?

What explains what people see?

It's a question worth asking when you examine two Tweets.

Here's Human Rights Watch's Ken Roth:

‏Verified account @KenRoth

Tears of joy and relief as man with daughter escapes ISIS-contolled part of Mosul, Iraq. bit.ly/2mqCcbq

7:38 PM - 5 Mar 2017

12 replies213 retweets246 likes

Here's the same photo Tweeted by someone who doesn't have Ken Roth's complicated recent history of whoring.

‏ @Amina_Semlali

This is Iraq.

A father & daughter screaming in despair, while fleeing fighting in Mosu.

5:49 PM - 5 Mar 2017

4 replies50 retweets58 likes

Does Ken want to stand by that joy claim?

Because no one else is seeing it.

Maybe you're confused by the photo. Here's a closer take of the photo.

‏ @BehzadMoezi

40,000 displaced from Mosul as Iraqi forces near old city ara.tv/mqxht via @AlArabiya_Eng

12:34 AM - 6 Mar 2017

0 replies1 retweet1 like

Those are not tears of joy.

As we've repeatedly said for months now, Roth is allowing politics to cloud his judgments.

He's the only one seeing tears of joy in that photo.

What he should be seeing is shame in his own reflection.

He's gone around the bend, completely nuts, his Twitter feed is as out of control as US President Donald Trump's Twitter feed.

The photo was taken by REUTERS' Goran Tomasevic and is one of at least four photos of the father and daughter that Tomasevic took. In no caption to these photos has REUETERS claimed tears of joy. Only Ken Roth sees that.

While he goes full on nuts, Human Rights Watch issues an alert which includes:

“While politicians in Baghdad are discussing reconciliation efforts in Iraq, the state’s own forces are undermining those efforts by destroying homes and forcing families into a detention camp,” said Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “These families, accused of wrongdoing by association, are in many cases themselves victims of ISIS abuses and should be protected by government forces, not targeted for retribution.”

Benjamin Hall (FOX NEWS) spoke with Iraqi Vice President Ayad Allawi:

“America has lost a lot of potential friends here in the region. … and this is something that the new administration has to address.”
Obama’s principal error, says Allawi, was his disengagement from a country and a region which desperately needed U.S. support. At a time when Iraq couldn’t stand on its own, Obama left -- leaving a vacuum for Iran to fill. Iran’s new influence, he says, is behind much of the bloodshed.

“When our American friends left Iraq in 2011 they never laid down the issues that would strengthen the Iraqis to face the challenges ahead -- their sudden withdrawal in 2011 without the necessary preparation left us many problems to face.

To be clear, FOX NEWS is confused about Allawi. Both on air and in their write up, they have the wrong time period for when Allawi was prime minister. From June of 2004 to May of 2005 was when Ayad Allawi was prime minister.

Benjamin Hall: In 2010, he won the election, he had more seats, but the Obama administration pressured him to hand over power to the Maliki government -- the Iranian-backed Maliki government. He says that that was the turning point, that was when things changed. Yes, I think he probably could have been a unifier. He talked openly about working with Sunni and Shia and Kurds and we know how the Maliki government ended up being very close to Iran, very sectarian. And so he says -- and I tend to agree with him -- that was the turning point in the country.

And Ayad Allawi is correct.

It's a shame that this turning point took place with the western press ignoring it.

But that's what they did. Especially in the United States, where the corporate press defined their mission as selling Barack Obama.

If a journalist managed to get the truth in print, it was in a book. And then, though they might have been media darlings when Bully Boy Bush occupied the White House, in the days of The Cult of St. Barack, flesh peddlers like Charlie Rose couldn't find their numbers suddenly.

The FOX NEWS report is actually disappointing.

Was Ayad Allawi that circumspect or was a decision made not to really go into details?

Allawi wasn't just pressured by then-Vice President Joe Biden to concede. There's also the issue of The Erbil Agreement -- the US-brokered contract. Barack personally called Allawi to get him to return to the Parliament and gave his promise that The Erbil Agreement would be honored.

It wasn't.

And Barack didn't do a damn thing but act like he'd never heard of The Erbil Agreement.

Unlike FOX NEWS, we covered all of that in real time, as it happened.

New content at THIRD:

iraq

Friday, March 3, 2017

Retire Ellen DeGeneres

Ellen really needs to retire.

She's looking bad.

"Hagged out" is the term I keep hearing.

And this is from fellow lesbians.

She seems tense and forced and rumors abound that she's not very nice anymore.

Could be true.

People tend to get an inflated view of themselves.

But Ellen is a Civil Rights pioneer.

And she needs to remember that.

There are certain things she has to do.

That includes not embracing War Criminals.

‏Verified account @matthewstoller

"I love your whole family." Ellen to George W. Bush.

39 replies110 retweets164 likes

There really is no come back from this.

People will indulge her and pretend otherwise.

But she's truly crossed the line.

Bully Boy Bush is a War Criminal.

And Ellen's "love" for him and his family is appalling.

She clearly loves power now.

She used to identify with the targeted.

But today she can't even think about the millions of Iraqis dead or the thousands of American servicemembers.

That she would even have him on her show goes to bad taste.

Ellen needs to retire.

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

Friday, March 3, 2017. Chaos and violence, Congress goes rah-rah for forever war on Iraq, laments that Donald Trump may be harming the chances for a permanent US military presence in Iraq, and much more.

Senator Bob Corker: Just based on the people you talk with, you get no sense that there's not a longer term commitment, do you? Every US official I'm talking to understands what you just said about the fact that we've got to be there for some time. You get no sense of that from anyone you talk with do you, to the contrary?

Hardin Lang: No, sir. I guess the question is the need to actually sequence and start the negotiations as soon as possible, while we're still at this moment of high level leverage.

Senator Bob Corker: I think -- I think they understand what needs to be left behind. I think those conversations are underway and I get, uh, no sense, for what it's worth, that there's anyone that wishes to have another 2011 type activity [the US military drawdown]. I would just like to ask, are you'll getting any different signals from anyone?

Michael Knights: So it's true that there is a new understanding and willingness to continue the mission including with the coalition partners as well as US.

Senator Bob Corker: Yeah, no question.

Corker is the Chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Senator Ben Cardin is the Ranking Member. On Tuesday, the Committee held a hearing on Iraq and the two witnesses were The Washington Institute's Michael Knights and the Center for American Progress' Hardin Long. And there you have the tiny range of dialogue from the slightly right-wing Knights to the center-right Long and the organizations they represent.

No where in the hearing were you going to get common sense.

Taken for granted was that, because billions had been spent, more billions must be spent.

And they only mentioned the money -- the four -- they didn't mention the lives lost.

The Iraq War, which hits the 14 year mark later this month, must not end.

Not only was that the only position the Committee elected to express, no one was even allowed to question that premise.

If you're an idiot who, at this late date, blames the Iraq War solely on Republicans, let's note a few of the disgusting remarks by Ranking Member Ben Cardin, a Democrat.

Ranking Member Ben Cardin: There's no question we've made a great investment in Iraq and it's in our national security interest to make sure that Iraq becomes a stable country, does not become an Iranian-client state which is one of the fears I think many of us have. We don't want to see the type of collapse we saw in the Iraqi Security Forces that we saw in 2014 so it does require the attention of the United States and our coalition partners in order to give Iraq a chance for uh a national government to represent all of its people and a security force that can maintain the security in the region. So I want to point out a couple of challenges we have and then see whether you think we should be doing. One challenge is whether we will get the Iraqi cooperation on the maintaining of our troops or a military presence in their country. There is political considerations here. When the president's executive order named Iraq as one of the countries we would not accept refugees that makes it difficult for the Iraqi government to work with the United States on the continued military presence. Or when statements are made about taking the Iraqi oil, that certainly is not conducive to the type of political support that we need from the Iraqi government.

Oh, you grand standing bitch.

As a member of the House in 2002, you represent the people and vote against the Iraq War.

You join the Senate (2006) and you can't stop supporting it.

Ben is an embarrassment.

So is the US Congress as a whole.

Whatever happened to the Out of Iraq Caucus in the House?

Whatever happened to US House Rep Barbara Lee decrying the Iraq War?

At least Lynn Woolsey can say she's no longer in Congress.

But others can't make the same claim.

John Lewis, Charles Rangel, Jan Schakowsky, Maxine Waters, (again) Barbara Lee, Keith Ellison, Sheila Jackson Lee . . .

It's a huge list.

Even now with Jim Moran out of office, for example, or Tammy Baldwin now a US Senator.

Where is the sanity?

The discussion in Congress currently is even more narrow than it was from 2003 to 2006.

Nothing ever gets solved but how they thunder on today as though they have answers, as though they are the solution.

They are not the solution.

They are never the solution.

Let's just use one example.

Chair Bob Corker: So let me ask you this. The Kurds are obviously moving towards independence. We spent a great deal of time with them [on the recent visit to Iraq]. I know they're not quite as strident with their conversations with [Iraq's Prime Minister Hayder al-] Abadi but they're strident when they come see us here and certainly very strident in Kurdistan. Give us a sense of the impact of that should they move, uhm, to uh-uh further cause themselves to be independent from-from Baghdad.

Michael Knights: So, at the moment, the discussion in Kurdistan around independence, I think, has a very economic flavor. There's an understanding that, if relations with Baghdad break down, the Kurds would lose access to a number of-of economic aid supports. They would also potentially have more complicates access to international security assistance and that they might well face greater legal challenges at exporting their oil. I don't detect inside the Kurdish leadership a near term ambition to push quickly for independence -- more to kind of negotiate a kind of amicable divorce over a period of five to ten years with the Baghdad government.

Chair Bob Corker: You want to say anything to that?

Hardin Long: No, I would only add that at the moment when one spends time in Kurdistan you get the feeling that there's a tremendous amount of internal house cleaning that needs to be done. There's a lot of political friction and difficulties between the different Kurdish parties. And much of the economic state building program in Kurdistan is on hold.

Chair Bob Corker: Mmm-hmm.

Hardin Long: So in terms of Kurdistan becoming a viable state anytime in the immediate future, again, there seems to be a separation from the rhetoric that we hear from the Kurds and then the closed door conversations about what they really think is in the realm of the possible.

Chair Bob Corker: I think the fact that they'd have to ship their oil through Turkey and could well become a sub-state of Turkey if they're not careful obviously causes concern. And so to have a non amicable relationship with Iraq would be very much not in their interest.

It is 2017.

Two weeks away from the start of this never-ending war that began in 2003.

And US politicians are still dickering around about the fate of Kurdistan?

It's the northern region, it's semi-autonomous.

The fate of the KRG should have been resolved back in 2007.

The Iraqi Constitution declared that (Article 140).

The US State Dept has never supported it while, on every other issue, insisting that 'the law' must be respected.

It's in the Iraqi Constitution.

It needs to be implemented.

But why has that not happened?

Because of the conversation we transcribed above.

Oh, no, Turkey might have a greater say . . .

It's not about peace. It's about control of the oil.

And Ben can have a fit in Congress all he wants playing the elderly drama queen.

Reality: If US President Donald Trump's remarks meant that the Iraqi government would not allow a permanent US military presence in Iraq? That would be a good thing.

Reality: His remarks don't matter. The US installed the Iraqi government, it can't survive without US troops. That's why Barack was able to get the Memo of Understanding -- that no one wants to report on despite the fact that it continues to govern the US military presence in Iraq. He got that after the SOFA expired.

And Nouri al-Maliki did not say "no" to renewing the SOFA, he said no to the what he saw as the limited number of US troops Barack was offering (that would have protected Nouri's government). Nouri did want a few thousands, he wanted at least 15,000.

That was the breaking point.

And we should also note that over five years ago, the RAND Corporation was noting that the unresolved issue of Kirkuk was one of the great fault lines in any future of Iraq.

But no one pays attention until they're forced to.

When things 'calm down' in Iraq, they'll be forced to.

Chair Bob Corker: Let me ask you, the PMF. One of you mentioned those that are aligned with Iran. Certainly, they should not be a part. Look, most of them are aligned with Iran so? I mean there's a law that's been passed relative to the popular mobilization forces. It looks like they're going to be a part of the security infrastructure there. They are very much aligned with Iran -- most of them. There are a few that aren't, as you alluded to Mr. Lang [Long], but I mean this is a fact of life there. I'm just wondering. Uhm - uh, I don't see this not being a fact of life and are you guys sensing there's something, some different outcome, that may occur with the PMF other than them being part of the security infrastructure there?

Hardin Long: I think the real danger at this stage would be if you see the PMF -- or elements of the PMF, particularly the 3 or 4 large ones that are backed by Iran -- the extent to which they remain outside of the ISF [Iraqi Security Forces] -- and I think that there probably is a degree of intention inside of them to do so -- that becomes a danger point. And then, for us, it's the danger of the investment that we make in the Iraqi Security Forces going forward to serve as a balance against that that becomes crucial.

Michael Knights: I know that the PMF are very splintered, they're very difficult to consolidate under one electoral banner or under one common control arrangement. So splintering them down to their irreconcilable elements like Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq versus other elements related to the [Shrine?] militias -- and even Bard, there's always a potential that a group like Badr which is the largest PMF entity could be mainstreamed over time and could be broken down into subcomponents with a clever policy. Also anywhere where the Iraqi Security Forces is present, they're able to effectively counter-balance the PMF presence. In a place like Basra for instance where there has been no major Iraqi army since 2013, we see true breakdown and true militia control.

War Crimes don't get discussed.

Apparently, it would 'sully' the halls of Congress.

Instead we fret that the ones carrying out War Crimes are 'too close' to Iran.

It's all a big dog and pony show and it's all depressing and disgusting.

However, Congress isn't the only place for whoring.

There's always THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Judith Miller, at her worst, wasn't as bad as Rukmini Callimachi, a War Hawk who's now covering Iraq and can't stop slobbering over the Iraqi military -- I've been told that Rukmini has seen War Crimes carried out as she has been embedded and has not reported those -- that comes from two journalists in Iraq.

She's a whore.

If you doubt it, read this . . .

‏Verified account @rcallimachi

Sometime I feel embarrassed by the extent of Iraqi hospitality. Here's the spread we were treated to after knocking on this commander's door 

34 replies245 retweets913 likes

They feed you?

They feed you and you whore a little more?

You're supposed to be detached from your subjects.

Not Rukmini. She's the ultimate embed.

Oh, and day 137 of The Mosul Slog. Yes, it continues.

The following community sites -- plus Cindy Sheehan and the House Veterans Affairs Committee -- updated: