Big Benghazi media news emerges

Erik Wemple (Washington Post) has a must read piece this evening and, if you do not believe me, here is a sample from it:

In a passionate post today, Bret Baier of Fox News hammers CBS News for waiting till Nov. 4 to post a bit of video quite relevant to all of this. In it, Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes” asks the president about Benghazi. The question was posed on Sept. 12, the same day of the Rose Garden address:

KROFT: Mr. President, this morning you went out of your way to avoid the use of the word terrorism in connection with the Libya Attack, do you believe that this was a terrorist attack?

OBAMA: Well it’s too early to know exactly how this came about, what group was involved, but obviously it was an attack on Americans. And we are going to be working with the Libyan government to make sure that we bring these folks to justice, one way or the other.

The president’s response packs it all: 1) Avoidance of the question; 2) refusal to use the term “terrorism”; 3) reliance on talking points about bringing people to justice. In other words, big news.
Had this clip embedded itself in the news cycle after the town-hall debate, the following would have happened:
1) CBS News would have reaped millions of page views;
2) Mitt Romney’s slip-up in the town-hall debate over this issue would no longer look like as a slip-up; it’d look like a quest for accountability;
3) Team Obama would have had to spend days responding to questions about the discrepancy between what he said in the town-hall debate and what he’d told Kroft; and




A number of you were e-mailing over the weekend asking why I was not noting Mr. Wemple before last week?  I honestly did not know of Mr. Wemple.  I had never heard his name.  The day I noted him last week for the first time was shortly after I became aware of him.  That was due to C.I. who suggested I look at his stuff.  C.I. first asked if I had a reason to avoid Mr. Wemple?  I said, "Who?"  And she filled me in and then said she had sent me a link but I did not have to note it.

I was glad she sent it to me.  Today's piece by Mr. Wemple?  I made a point to look to see if he had anything.  I am glad that a lot of you are saying you were not aware of him before last week either because I can only write off so much lack of knowledge and awareness to "senior moment."  I am also glad that a number of you e-mailed that you e-mailed the article to friends.  I hope you will do the same with his latest. 


In terms of blame for the failure to get the news out?

I will blame Steve Kroft who has a long history of catering to President Barack Obama and the White House.  I will also note that others with CBS News have done some strong work on the Benghazi attack.  But I do not forgive Mr. Kroft and I think it is outrageous that he, 60 Minutes and CBS News kept the public uninformed.  Intentionally.


This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for today:

Monday, November 5, 2012.  Chaos and violence continue, the US gears up for Tuesday's elections, the issue of the Kurds gets some serious attention, the political crisis continues, and more.       As last month drew to a close, the US Dept of Veterans Affairs announced that the home loan program which was created as part of the GI Bill of Rights back in 1944 had awarded its 20 millionth home loan.  The VA's Undersecretary For Benefits Allison Hickey declared, "The 20 millionth VA home loan is a major milestone and is a testament to VA's commitment to support and enhance the lives of Veterans, Servicemembers, their families and survivors.  As a result of their service and sacrifice, as a group, they prove to be disciplined, reliable, and honorable -- traits that are ideal for this kind of national investment."  The VA has a history page on the GI Bill of Rights of 1944 which opens:   It has been heralded as one of the most significant pieces of legislation ever produced by the federal government -- one that impacted the United States socially, economically and politically. But it almost never came to pass. The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 -- commonly known as the GI Bill of Rights -- nearly stalled in Congress as members of the House and Senate debated provisions of the controversial bill. Some shunned the idea of paying unemployed veterans $20 a week because they thought it diminished their incentive to look for work. Others questioned the concept of sending battle-hardened veterans to colleges and universities, a privilege then reserved for the rich. Despite their differences, all agreed something must be done to help veterans assimilate into civilian life. Much of the urgency stemmed from a desire to avoid the missteps following World War I, when discharged veterans got little more than a $60 allowance and a train ticket home.   Veterans of today's wars also have The Post 9/11 GI Bill. ("The Post-9/11 GI Bill provides financial support for education and housing to individuals with at least 90 days of aggregate service after September 10, 2001, or individuals discharged with a service-connected disability after 30 days. You must have received an honorable discharge to be eligible for the Post-9/11 GI Bill.")  Many of the leaders on the Post 9-11 GI BIll are no longer in the House -- the 2010 midterms saw a number of them lose their seats.  It's another election year.  Voting in the US is done on Tuesday.  IAVA's Paul Rieckhoff (Daily Beast) looks at what the Barack Obama and Mitt Romney campaigns have addressed or haven't addressed in their campaigns:   Eleven years ago in October, American military forces launched a war in Afghanistan that's still raging today. One would think that the war and the postwar care for the veterans that fought in Afghanistan and Iraq would be a crucial part of the 2012 presidential campaign, but that hasn't been the case. In stump speeches and campaign pit stops across the country, President Obama and Governor Romney have made cursory references to veterans' care and benefits, but offered little in the way of specifics. And in the debates, the candidates spent more time talking about Big Bird than they did vets' policy. ObamaCare versus "Obama Cares" and "Romnesia" are funny, but also a sad commentary on the state of our political discourse. The Main Streets in countless American towns and cities are pushed aside for carefully crafted PR zingers. But whoever wins on Tuesday, America's 2.5 million post-9/11 veterans -- more than 60,000 in Ohio alone -- will be looking to the president to address the education, housing, employment, and health-care challenges they face every day -- and to do so substantively, the same way they have tackled the fallout from Hurricane Sandy. Just because the war in Afghanistan will end someday doesn't mean it already has, nor does it mean that the effects of it are going away anytime soon. Quite the contrary, in fact.   I have friends in IAVA but I'm not a fan of Paul's.  That's long established here.  So hopefully when I now say that he has written a very important column, it means something if even one of his detractors, like myself,  praise it.    I can't praise Barack's lie that he ended the Iraq War, a lie he makes while also negotiating with Nouri al-Maliki to send more US troops back into Iraq.  As Tim Arango (New York Times) reported at the end of September, "Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on training missions.  At the request of the Iraqi government, according to General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with intelligence."    Kevin Gosztola (FireDogLake) notes:   Each paper praised Obama for ending the Iraq War. The Chicago Tribune suggested, "He set and stuck to a withdrawal schedule for U.S. troops in Iraq." Actually, in 2008, George W. Bush negotiated the withdrawal schedule. It also must be noted the Pentagon wanted to keep 10,000 to 20,000 troops in Iraq as "trainers" and "anti-terrorism forces. They lowered the figure to around 3,000. The Pentagon, along with the Obama administration pressed for immunity for any US troops that would remain in the country. That was met with opposition and, when immunity could not be ensured, the withdrawal officially began. The US presence did not completely end though. According to the State Department, 16,000 to 17,000 US personnel would remain in the country along with about 5,500 military contractors. The US occupation would also leave behind the world's largest embassy in Baghdad. How did Obama mark the end of the war? Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick in their book, The Untold History of the United States, gave it proper treatment: …Obama welcomed the troops home at Fort Bragg. But instead of honestly treating the Iraq War as the unmitigated disaster it had been for the United States, drawing some poignant lessons, and thanking those gathered for their sacrifice, Obama felt compelled to cloak the war's end in the kind of patriotic drivel that conjured up the powerfully haunting words of Rudyard Kipling, the erstwhile proponent of empire, who had convinced his son to enlist in the First World War, only to have him die his first day of combat. In his "Epitaphs of the War," Kipling wrote, "If any question why we died / Tell them, because our fathers lied." Obama's lies would sear just as deeply and painfully. "We're leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people," he told the troops, praising their "extraordinary achievement." The "most important lesson," he declared, was "about our national character…that there's nothing we Americans can't do when we stick together…And that why the United States military is the most respected institution in our land." He commended their willingness to sacrifice "so much for a people that you had never met," which, he insisted, was "part of what makes us special as Americans. Unlike the old empires, we don't make these sacrifices for territory or for resources. We do it because it's right. There can be no fuller expression of America's support for self-determination than our leaving Iraq to its people. That says something about who we are."…   Voices for Creative Nonviolence's Cathy Breen (OpEdNews) is on the ground in Iraq.  Does it sound like the war ended:     If anyone thinks that the war is over in Iraq, I have only to open my "At a Glance" calendar where I have tried to note the number of Iraqi casualties each day over the last nine plus years: deaths due to explosions, bombs, assassinations. Just a few randomly selected numbers from 2012 (these are the number of dead, the number of wounded is of course much greater). 63, 54, 78, 97, 28, 36, 105, 24, 41, 115 ... the list goes on and on. One of my hopes on this trip is to visit Iraqi families who have had to return from Syria. Having fled the violence in Iraq, they came to Syria where I met them as refugees. Now they are threatened once again, and there are no countries willing to take them. Many have returned to Iraq, and we are anxious to know how they are doing.     While some deserve praise, some don't.  Such as a spinner spinning online in an attempt to bully/trick people into voting for Barack.  First, you would have been ripped apart in an undergrad poli sci class for your gross ignorance -- forget an advanced class.  No, we don't have to vote.  Voting is a right in the United Staes.  So is owning a gun.  I don't own a gun.  Second,  Ralph Nader did work in 2000 regarding party building and ballot access.  After that?   He continued to do strong work on ballot access in terms of raising awareness.  As for helping to build the Green Party?  The reality that the Green Party was 'conflcited' (co-opted) is why he didn't run with them in 2004 or 2008.  Distortions of Nader only reveal your sublime ignorance.  In the future, stick to horse race 'coverage' because your tired little mind might be able to handle that.  As for the accusation that the Greens only show up at election time?  First,  isn't that the only time the Democrats and Republicans remember that there are voters out there?  Second, your ignorance of what takes places in the fifty states is exceeded only by your ego assuming you could absorb that information even if the media bothered to cover it.  The Michigan Green Party, to name but one state, never stops working.    From your computer screen, you may think you see the world.  But being aware of what's happening on the ground would require you traveling to many states -- something I've done repeatedly since the month before the Iraq War started.   Next topic on the elections: Barack Obama supporters better get outraged.  Republicans vote.  I'm sorry if that's upsetting news to anyone.  I've done every task in the world on campaigns during my lifetime and that includes getting out the vote on election day.  I've driven seniors to polls, you name it.  I live in a state that has gone Democratic in the last five elections.  We also are still voting -- due to the time difference -- when most states have stopped.  Regardless of what the prediction or, yes, 'call' is, Republcians still show up to vote in those last hours.  Many Democrats don't.  Point being, this nonsense of "Barack's going to win!"  It's hurting Barack and anyone who tells you otherwise doesn't live in the PST time zone which regularly sees how this sort of 'the winner's known' talk effects turnout.  It may hurt him just a little, it may hurt him a lot.  But you should be demanding that media stop saying he or anyone has won.   Democrats are more likely to be working class and they're more likely to have obstacles to voting.  You start saying that Barack's won, your hurting his turnout and you're hurting the Democratic Party turnout.  Not just in the PST states, but in all the states.  Encouraging people not to vote -- calling the election the day before the vote is encouraging people not to vote -- can also hurt Senate races, House races and state and municipal races.  People are busy enough as it is, don't give those who want to vote but are buy a reason not to.  (And I'd make this point if Mitt Romney were the one the press was saying would win Tuesday.  Although I'd be less concerned about turnout being depressed as a result because, again, Republicans vote regardless.  CBS could call it for Barack at 7:30 PM EST tomorrow and Republicans on the West Coast would still show up at the polls.)     Howard Kurtz (Daily Beast) observes a Barack defeat "will also be a crushing blow for the punditocracy that headed into Election Day filled with confidence that Obama had it in the bag." Liz Marlantes (Christian Science Monitor) tries to provide caution and that's appreciated but she also reveals a knowledge gap:   In addition, the growing prevalence of early voting has provided analysts with a more concrete metric – allowing prognosticators to base their assumptions not only on what polls suggest will happen on Election Day, but also on what early voting patterns suggest has already happened.     English lit is not poli sci.  Maybe people who didn't study poli sci shouldn't be presenting as 'experts.'  Liz's comment above? You have nothing to base a conclusion on.  The votes have not been counted.  Not even the early votes.  Not the mail-in votes.  Not the votes that will be cast on Tuesday.  You have nothing.  You don't have early prognostics.   You have polling which can be an indication.  Provided the pollsters are doing their job correctly and provided that people aren't pissed off at the pollsters.  Meaning when someone says, "I'm doing a poll . . .," respondents aren't thinking, "I hate that polling firm/outlet, I'm going to f**k with this man/woman and lie about my vote."   Predictions don't win elections, votes do.  Nate Silver and the rest have already destroyed whatever was left of campaign reporting because the coverage is even less about issues.  (In the film, Network, these worthless types were represented by the character Sybil the Soothsayer.  Remember when so many on the left couldn't stop citing Network and insisting we heed its cautionary tales?)   Now they're taking over the last hours of the election as well.  Supporters of the nonsense Nate does like to claim, "Well sports . . ."  Correct me if I'm wrong (and I may be, I don't follow sports) but predicting a winner in sports is based upon using their past performance in that season.  There has been no 'win' in a general election this year that you can base another one on.  Tomorrow is the contest.   I don't care who you vote for.  If you choose not to vote in a race or not to vote in all races because you make that decision, that's your choice and be happy with it.  (I will not be voting in the presidential race, no candidate earned my vote.  I will be voting in other races)  But I do care that whomever is elected is elected by the people and not by the media.  The media overwhelmingly wants Barack to win.  That's been obvious for some time.  But preening and strutting before an election may not bring about their desired result.      Trusting the media worked out real well in 2000, didn't it?  And it worked out real well with the Iraq War, too, right?  (Wrong in both cases.)  Do you really want to be a Quil Lawrence?  March 7, 2010, Iraq held parliamentary elections.  March 8th, Quil did what?  Before votes were counted, Quil was on NPR's Morning Edition telling Steve Inskeep that Nouri did "very well."  Maybe Barack will do "very well," too?  "Very well," when the ballots were actually counted and Quil Lawrence had left the region and moved on to another story, translated as: Nouri's State of Law came in second to Iraqiya.  Second place isn't winning in an election.       The political crisis continues in Iraq, not a surprise when the White House spat on the Iraqi Constitution and the will of the people to back second place Nouri over first place winner Iraqiya.  All Iraq News reports MP Mohammed Jaafar al-Sadr is calling  for Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to accelerate the resolution attempts.  But what can be done?  Saturday Ayad al-Tamimi (Al Mada) reported that negotiations had stalled as a result of disagreements with the National Alliance -- specifcially within the 'Reform Commission.'  To avoid a National Conference, Nouri stalled and road blocked and then finally, in late spring, insisted what was needed was a Reform Commission. That turned out to be a paper.  And all this time, Nouri and company have led people to believe that there was a paper.  Turns out the paper has yet to be written but there are 'intentions' to write it, al-Tamimi notes.  Yesterday, Wael Grace (Al Mada) reported a Kurdistan Alliance MP was stating State of Law (Nouri al-Maliki's political slate) was attempting to prevent a National Conference to resolve the political crisis.  That seems plausible since Nouri's been attempting to do that since Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi and Jalal Talabani first began calling for one nearly a year ago (December 21st). The Tigris Operation continues with no US coverage.  This is seen as yet another power grab by Nouri.  Nouri is sending in military under his command to disputed Kirkuk.  This has long been protected by the Peshmerga (Kurdish forces).  Nouri has refused to implement Article 140 of the Constitution (hold a census and referendum) on Kirkuk to resolve the dispute and his decision to send in security forces is seen as laying the ground work for his ignoring the Constitution and just declaring Kirkuk to be part of the Baghdad-based government and not part of the Kurdistan Regional Government.  (Kirkuk is oil rich.)    Alsumaria reports that the Salahuddin Province's Student Council has called for Nouri to cancel the operation.  Al Mada reports that Kurdistan Alliance MP Chuan Mohammed Taha has called out the operation and states that Nouri has gone beyond any powers listed in the Constitution.  The RAND Corporation's Larry Hanauer examines the Kirkuk issue here. The power grabs never stop with Nouri.  Last month, he fired the Governor of the Central Bank (despite not having the authority to do that) and declared him a criminal (thereby running him out of the country).   Sinan al-Shabibi had been the Governor of the Central Bank since 2003.  In fact, he's still listed as such on the Central Bank's website whic notes:   Awards Arabian Business Power 500 - Listed among The World's Most Influential Arabs, June 2012. Arabian Business Power 500 - Listed among The World's Most Influential Arabs, March 2011. The New Breed/Listed among the Time-CNN 25 Business Influentials, December 2004. Career Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq since 2003. Consultant on Trade, Debt and Finance to UNCTAD. Was until retirement a Senior economist at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Undertaken research on Financial flows, Economics of disarmament, Balance of Payments, External debt, Globalisation, and the Iraqi Economy. Managed projects for the implementation of policy, analytical and institutional aspects of debt management including the implementation of UNCTAD's Debt Management and Financial Analysis System (DMFAS) in several Arab countries. Familiar with the macroeconomic and operational aspects of the "Debt Sustainability Model (DSM)" of the World Bank, and with the HIPC initiative. Coordinated UNCTAD's work on OPEC financial flows to other developing countries resulting in the production of numerous reports on the subject. High-level contacts with Government Officials especially in the Arab region. Delivered numerous lectures and talks on the "Economic Prospects of the Iraqi Economy" in many international forums. Extensive travel experience in connection with work on debt management, OPEC Financial Flows and the work on the Iraqi economy.     How did such an applauded figure end up up charged with crimes?  Dropping back to October 21st, " In other scandals, Nouri fired Sinan al-Shabibi as Governor of the Central Bank (despite Article 103 of the Constitution making clear that he doesn't have that right -- Parliament does).  Since then a warrant's been put out for al-Shabibi who is said to be in Europe.  An unnamed MP tells Al Mada that Nouri fired al-Shabibi because the man refused to loan Nouri $63 billion that Nouri said was for the government's budget.  Al Mada notes that Moqtada al-Sadr is calling out Nouri's attempts to politicize the Central Bank and he also asks where is the reform that Nouri promised in early 2011?"  Shortly afterward,  Prashant Rao (AFP) reported, "The targeting of Iraq's well-respected central bank chief appears to be a move by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to consolidate power and sends a bad message to international investors, experts and diplomats say."  Long time Iraq observer Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group told Rao, "The Maliki government will claim it (the move against Shabibi) is part of long-standing efforts to root out corruption.  It looks more like a long-standing effort to gain control over independent institutions."     But that's really more what happened.  The how he ended up charged goes back further.  Back to the days when Nouri was having the then-head of Iraq's Electoral Commission arrested because he wanted to take over that independent body.  At the same time, he was attempting to take over Iraq's Central Bank, insisting it must come under his authority -- he targeted all the independent institutions in his attempted power grab.   Fear of the Arab Spring spreading into Iraq prevented Nouri from following up on that desire.  Now he's gone in the back door.  Mohammad Sabah (Al Mada) reports Nouri is accused of attempting to stack the Central bank with Dawa personnel in order to control it.  (Dawa is Nouri's political party, State of Law is his political slate.)     Violence continues in Iraq and is encouraged by Nouri's repeated targeting of political rivals and non-stop mass arrests.   All Iraq News reports a Baghdad car bombing near a mosque has resulted in 1 death and six people being left injured.  In an update, they note the death toll has risen to 3 with eight injured. Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) reports a Taji car bombing claimed 1 life and left seven people injured.     In addition, Alsumaria reports that Turkish war planes bombed erbil Sunday night  for approximately one hour, setting at least one section of a forest on fire.  Hurriyet Daily News adds that the latest attacks, beginning Saturday night, are taking place under the name "Panther Operation" and that Saturday's assault lasted two hours.  They are targeting the PKK.  Aaron Hess (International Socialist Review) described the PKK in 2008, "The PKK emerged in 1984 as a major force in response to Turkey's oppression of its Kurdish population. Since the late 1970s, Turkey has waged a relentless war of attrition that has killed tens of thousands of Kurds and driven millions from their homes. The Kurds are the world's largest stateless population -- whose main population concentration straddles Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria -- and have been the victims of imperialist wars and manipulation since the colonial period. While Turkey has granted limited rights to the Kurds in recent years in order to accommodate the European Union, which it seeks to join, even these are now at risk."   The root of the conflict? Dr. Aland Mizell explores it at Kurdish Aspect:     I am not arguing or asking Turkey to give the Kurds rights, but I am asking who gave Turkey or Islamists the right to deny Kurdish basic rights, such as birth rights to a right to life, a right to speak, a right to worship, and a right to a fair trial before a judge? If God has created the human race, skin color, languages, as well as tribes, and rights are natural, inalienable, God-given, and self-evident, then why do TUrkey and most Islamist countries deny the Kurds those rights? Today more than 40 million Kurds are denied basic rights not by Christians or Jews but by Muslim countries; yet, most Muslim countries consider Islam to be the only religion that administers true justice, tolerance, and peace on earth, and consider Christians, Jews, and devotees of other religions as unjust, intolerant, and cruel. But what about the more than 40 million Kurds who live in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria being denied their basic rights? Why are mroe than 683 Kurdish people participating in a hunger strike in Turkey and agreeing to die? They have been on a hunger strike for more than 53 days, and the days move them closer to death. Because they are like any other human being, demanding to live in dignity and because death for them is the last resort to voice their plight even though they cherish human life and liberty, but will the world listen as the Kurds show solidarity in their suffering? Will those who learn of their hunger strike pressure Turkey not to play the hypocrite when it comes to the Kurdish issue but to value human beings? Will they pressure Turkey to let the kurds decide how to live and who to worship, and let the Kurds, not Turks, Arabs, or Persians, decide their destiny?     At Huffington Post, Stanley Weiss makes the argument that now is the time for an independent Kurdistan:       It will not be easy, but the uncertainty and plasticity in the region today offers an opportunity to secure a Kurdish homeland and remedy the capricious map-making of the early 20th century. Iraq is threatening to split into the pre-Iraq Sunni, Shia and Kurdish divisions of the Ottoman Empire, with the Kurds semi-independent and the Iran-allied Shiites ruling the Sunnis. Iran's economy is in free-fall. Syria will soon have no central control and no choice. And while no country is eager to surrender a fifth of its population, Turkey would do well to get ahead of this issue -- ending the vicious, ongoing war with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), saving countless lives and positioning themselves to reap the benefits of a long-term strategic alliance to counterbalance Iranian influence. Not to mention, membership in the European Union will forever be out of reach for a Turkey at war with itself. For proof of what's possible, look no further than Iraqi Kurdistan, a pro-American, pro-Israel and semi-autonomous parliamentary democracy most Americans have never heard of. Nurtured by an American no-fly zone in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was established under the Iraqi Constitution in 2005, a stunning testament to the success of Muslim representative government. Of more than 4,800 American soldiers killed in the brutal battles for Iraq, not a single one has lost their life -- and no foreigner has been kidnapped -- within the borders of Iraqi Kurdistan. Boasting two international airports, a booming oil industry and a dawning respect for the rights of women, this 15,000 square-mile territory of nearly four million Kurds is the one part of President George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" that was actually accomplished. Building on this unanticipated success, the U.S. should rethink its previous opposition to an independent greater Kurdistan and recognize that the advantages of a friendly, democratic and strategically-positioned ally far outweigh the outdated assumption that the Kurds' national liberation would result in regional conflagration.       Lastly, Bill Corcoran writes at CORKSPHERE about Iraq and Afghanistan.  He's now planning/toying with walking away.  At the New York Times' At War, he writes:   The blog passed one million hits over a year ago. But something was happening: both the news media and the American public were suffering from "war fatigue." Interest in the blog was waning. Blog viewership dropped to under 200 hits a day, and even though I was posting fresh material on Facebook and Twitter, it became more and more obvious to me that the American public was no longer very interested in a conflict that, in the case of the Afghan war, had entered its 12th year. I'm a realist and I'm fully aware that after so many years it is hard for people to continue to care deeply about a conflict that doesn't seem to have any end goal or sense of mission. So a few weeks ago, I decided I would stop the blog after the election. (I'm leaving the door open just a bit to a last-minute change of heart.) If I do stop posting, however, I intend to keep it on the Internet as a historical reference for anyone interested in the Iraq and Afghan wars.      You can check out his site (I never knew about the site until a few minutes ago).  At some point, most will say "enough" (I would love to and am still weighing whether or not we'll do six more months).  I do agree that there is war fatigue.  I also think there are other issues at play.  (Including the lack of interest on the part of the US media which tends to make a number of people believe that the end credits rolled, the lights came up and it's all over.)  I'm sorry that he doesn't feel there's an audience (our audience has only increased in 2012 -- the increase has largely come from outside the US).  I'm sadder that he feels you do something based on numbers.  But mainly, I'm saddened by the fact that he's obviously put a great deal of time in trying to keep Iraq and Afghanistan in the national discourse and he feels his work didn't matter or doesn't now.   What he has done matters and, even if you were unaware of the site until this evening (like me), it being out there did and does make a difference.  Whether he continues with it or shuts it down, thank you, Bill Corcoran for focusing on something that actually mattered in a landscape that's otherwise so much fluff from sea to shining sea.     iraq npr morning edition quil lawrence steve inskeep all iraq news al mada ayad al-tamimi wael grace alsumaria hurriyet daily news aaron hess kurdish aspect

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mohammed tawfeeq

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Media problems

David Zurawik (Baltimore Sun) reports on a new study from Pew about the coverage of political candidates.  Guess who the worst offender is?

Did you guess MSNBC?  You are right.

Mr. Zurawik writes:

ON MSNBC, the ratio of negative to positive stories on GOP candidate Mitt Romney was 71 to 3.
That's not a news channel. That's a propaganda machine, and owner Comcast should probably change Phil Griffin's title from president to high minister of information, or something equally befitting the work of a party propaganist hack in a totalitarian regime. You wonder how mainstream news organizations allow their reporters and corrdespondents to appear in such a cauldron of bias.

Is that not appalling?  And it really explains a lot regarding the coursening of the discussion and the refusal to listen.

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for today:

Friday, November 2, 2012.  Chaos and violence continue, Nouri tries to stage a trade fair in Baghdad, the government of Turkey feels threatened by Kurds in the region, mass arrests continue, and more.     All Iraq News reports that US Ambassador to Iraq "Stephen Beecroft" (that's how he's billed -- maybe he's finally dropped the three names) is praising the Baghdad International Fair which just started.  Al Mada notes the fair started Thursday and that the first Baghdad International Fair was in 1957 though it wasn't called that until 1964.  Alsumaria notes this is the 39th Baghdad International Fair and that twenty countries are participating.  Yang Lina (Xinhua) quotes Nouri al-Maliki declaring,  "Iraq is now the investment opportunity in the region that everything here needs for reconstruction, particularly its infrastructure."    Everything you need here -- if what you need is no booze, if what you need is security forces who do not obey the law they're supposed to enforce.  In fact, here's a YouTube video of Nouri's forces executing someone on the spot.  Iraq, where there's so much corruption, you may not even notice the bombings. Baghdad, infamous for kidnapping and killing foreigners.  Or maybe you'll be like Peter Moore and just suffer for years in captivity without being killed.     Nouri attended the opening ceremony and then split.  If you were Nouri, you would too.  That's a pathetic showing.  And if you doubt it, consider the 8th Erbil International Fair was last month and had 23 countries participating.  Poor, inept Nouri, always living in the shadow of the KRG. Hurriyet notes that, despite sharing a border with Iraq, "not many Turkish firms attended the event."  It appears to be shaping up to be another Arab League Summit type event -- where people grade on the pity scale and say, "It's a success!  Regardless of the fact that it accomplished litte or even nothing, it's a success!"  Poor Nouri, between his threats against corporations and his authoritarian streak, there's little to attract international investors to Baghdad.        And it's going to be evident for a prolonged period because Dar Addustour notes it's a ten day event.  The KRG where there's, by comparison, safety.  Where religious zealots will not prevent your consumption of alcohol.  Where you aren't confined to a pen named the "Green Zone."  And the KRG already has a business image -- a strong one.  Businesses don't fear they're going to be ripped off.  Of course Nouri has given Baghdad a strong image as well -- as a contract-breaking center.  And the only thing worth less than a written contract with the Baghdad government is Nouri's word.       Moving over to violence, Alsumaria reports a roadside bombing just south of Mosul claimed the life of 1 contractor who was killed "on the spot" according to source with the police. Alsumaria also reports that in Salahuddin Province a student was shot.  All Iraq News notes that Turkish warplanes began bombing northern Iraq in the early morning hours today.  Today's Zaman adds that there are reports "that four Turkish F-16 jets struck the PKK targets in the region."  This is part of the ongoing struggle between the Turkish government and the PKK.    Aaron Hess (International Socialist Review) described the PKK in 2008, "The PKK emerged in 1984 as a major force in response to Turkey's oppression of its Kurdish population. Since the late 1970s, Turkey has waged a relentless war of attrition that has killed tens of thousands of Kurds and driven millions from their homes. The Kurds are the world's largest stateless population -- whose main population concentration straddles Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria -- and have been the victims of imperialist wars and manipulation since the colonial period. While Turkey has granted limited rights to the Kurds in recent years in order to accommodate the European Union, which it seeks to join, even these are now at risk."  Ofra Bengio (Minority-Opinion) offers this take today:   The signs are not hard to read.  Most dramatically, the traditionally marginalized Kurds of Syria have found new energy in the cauldron of the Syrian uprising and are now demanding a federal system in which they would gain significant autonomy in a post-Assad Syria.  The extremely restive Kurds of Turkey are pressing for what they call democratic autonomy.  The Kurds of Iran, typically unremarked upon in the media, are stirring beneath their blanket of obscurity.  But most important of all these are the Kurds of Iraq.  Iraq was the epicenter of the Kurds' great leap forward in the early 1990s: the establishment of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which is a euphemism for a de facto Kurdish state.  It is to the KRG experience that Iranian, Syrian and Turkish Kurds increasingly look for lessons and guidance, and rightly so.     This is an ongoing struggle throughout the region.  In Turkey, that gets resolved only by recognition and equality of the Kurds. The Kurds there have been denied inclusion and that's what's fueled the struggle.  It's what's led to a hunger strike.  Ivan Watson and Gul Tuysuz (CNN) report,  "Turkey's government announced Friday that at least 682 inmates were participating in a hunger strike in at least 67 prisons across the country, but it insisted that no protesters were in critical condition." Daren Butler (Reuters) explains, "Jailed Kurdish militans on hunger strike in Turkey may start to die within the next 10 days, Turkey's main medical association warend on Thursday, saying the prime minister's dismissal of the protest as a 'show' risked hardening their resolve."   Gareth Jenkins (Great Britain's Socialist Worker) reports:     Up to 200 people from Kurdish and Turkish organisations protested outside the Turkish embassy today, Friday. The protest marked the 52nd day since 63 Kurds in Turkish prisons started a hunger strike. They have been joined by 600 others. Some may be near death. Thousands of Kurds around Europe have gone on solidarity hunger strikes. Kurds make up roughly 30 per cent of the population in Turkey and have faced decades of repression. Thousands of Kurds, including MPs and mayors, are political prisoners. Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdish nationalist party, the PKK, has been held in prison since 1999. Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently dismissed the hunger strikes—but protests have broken the wall of silence. Mehmet Aksoy from the Kurdish Federation told Socialist Worker, "We want freedom for Öcalan, for there to be meaningful negotiations. And we want an end to the ban on using Kurdish in the law courts and in schools. "We want the cries of the hunger strikers to be heard. We are here today to call on the international community to pressure Turkey into meeting our demands as the only way to bring a just and honourable peace." © Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original.   The KRG (three provinces in Iraq) are the closest to a Kurdish homeland.  As such, the government of Turkey has long been threatened by it, afraid that the KRG would result in (louder) cries among Turkey's Kurdish population for a section of Turkey to set up a homeland.  UPI  notes, "Turkey will not condone a separate autonomous Kurdish government in Syria, similar to the one in Iraq, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said."  Hurriyet quotes Erdogan stating, "We cannot let playing of such a scenario [Kurdish autonomy] here [in Syria].  We told this to [KRG President Massoud] Barzani too.  We wanted him to know this."  Whether he heard it or not, Emirates News Agency reports, "His Highness General Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces has received Masoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq who is on current visit to the UAE."   The statements by Turkish government officials will not be surprising to the KRG nor will they be all that important to the KRG either.  There are a number of issues, however, that are important to the KRG.  For example, the Kurdistan Regional Government notes Glen Campbell's BBC World Service News report:     Iraqi Kurds in Britain have begun a campaign for the mass murder of their people in Iraq in the late-1980s to be formally recognised as genocide. At least 180,000 Kurds were killed by Saddam Hussein's forces.  The justice4genocide campaign says many more died in atrocities carried out by regimes from the 1960s onwards.  It is petitioning the UK government to declare the mass killing of Kurds as a genocide and press the European Union and United Nations to do the same.     Though not everyone may agree on genocide, there's this believe that everyone will agree on voting.    Al Mada reports that the United Nations is urging Iraqis to vote in the upcoming provincial elections scheduled for April 20th currently.  If UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Special Envoy to Iraq Martin Kobler really wants Iraqis to turn out for the provincial elections, he might try working on a slogan -- something like, "Vote in the provincial elections -- the only ones so far that the US government doesn't overrule." The US government did let the 2009 provincial elections -- both sets (the KRG did not hold them at the same time the other provinces -- minus Kirkuk -- did).  It was the Parliamentary elections of 2010 that they overruled because they wanted their pet Nouri al-Maliki to get a second term as prime minister after Nouri's State of Law came in second to Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya.  So they backed him on his eight month political stalemate and then they negotiated the Erbil Agreement guaranteeing him a second term as prime minister. That legal contract found the political blocs granting that concession to Nouri in exchange for Nouri making concessions to them.  Nouri got what he wanted (the second term) and then discarded the contract.  That created the current stalemate.  Now the second place Nouri that the US re-installed in 2010, wants to shut out Iraqiya by forming a majority-government.  Al Mada reports that a split if evident in Parliament over the move.  And Al Mada quotes State of Law MP Abdul Salam al-Maliki stating that the answer is a majority government and that anyone who disagrees with that is not a supporter of democracy.  It's as if State of Law got all the MPs who fell on their heads. And the UN continues to grade on the pity scale.  "Poor inept Nouri, but he managed . . ."  Reality, no one has to handhold the KRG to get them to plan their provincial elections.  Reality, the disputed Kirkuk Province?  That was supposed to have been decided by the end of 2007 -- per the Iraqi Constitution -- that's Article 140.  Nouri ignored that in his first term and he ignores it in his second and, guess what, Kirkuk won't be voting in the provincial elections.    But let's all pretend that 14 of the 18 provinces voting is amazing and flatter Nouri.   Why hasn't the United Nations publicly called otu the continued mass arrests which largerly target Sunnis in Iraq?   From yesterday's snapshot:   On violence, yesterday was the end of the month.  Iraq Body Count's counts 253 reported violent deaths in Iraq for the month of October.  Last month, their total was 356 which means a reduction of about 100 deaths.  AFP, forgetting fairy tales are for bedtime, notes the government total for October is 136.  AFP also forgets to note that there were over 550 reported mass arrests in Iraq in the month of October.  Nouri's round up largely focused on Sunnis. Today, Alsumaria reports that in Mosul alone, last month saw the arrest of 90 for 'terrorism.'  It really is amazing how US and European press ignore these ongoing mass arrests.  Already today Alsumaria is reporting a mass arrest of 9 people for 'terrorism.'         In the US,  April Baer (OPB -- link is text and audio) reports, "A federal jury in Portland has awarded $85 million  in damages to twelve former soldiers who were exposed to hazardous material while on duty with the Oregon Guard. The jury deliberated for two days on evidence presented in a three-and-a-half week trial."  Teresa Carson (Reuters) adds, "Each Guard soldier was awarded $850,000 in non-economic damages and another $6.25 million in punitive damages for 'reckless and outrageous indifference' to their health in the trial in U.S. District Court in Portland."  Mike Francis (Oregonian) quotes Jason Arnold stating, "It's a little bit of justice" and Aaron St. Clair stating, "We're not disposable.  People are not going to make money from our blood."      Veterans Day is approaching.  US House Rep Jeff Miller is also the Chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.   He has a column in the Pensacola News Journal which opens:     America has many great qualities, each of which makes us the greatest nation in the world. Few of these qualities are as vital, however, to America's success as the strength and determination of our war fighters. For more than 225 years, Americans have signed up, at great peril to themselves, to defend the ideals upon which this nation was founded. Once a year, on Veterans Day, all Americans turn their eyes to this group of heroes and honor their service to our nation. Nov. 11 is a special day. It is a reminder for us to always respect and pay tribute to our men and women in uniform who served. But in my opinion, and I know others agree, one day is not enough. Many veterans will tell you they signed up to serve expecting nothing in return. It is that type of selflessness that makes our veterans unique. We should mirror that selflessness and celebrate our veterans throughout the year.     Vietnam veteran and author (most recently, The Nostradamus Secret) Joseph Badal writes at his blog about Iraq War veterans Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods:   By now you have all heard about the actions of two brave men, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, on September 11, 2012, in Benghazi, Libya. Their actions while under fire to rescue other Americans were astounding. They could have delayed taking action, but didn't. They could have made excuses to not take action, but didn't. Even when they were ordered to "stand down," they didn't. They stepped up and did the right and courageous thing to save the lives of other Americans. But Glen and Tyrone were everyday people from everyday backgrounds, and all of that has been lost in the noise around who told whom to do what and when.     For how they died, we'll refer to the Chair of the House Oversight Committee:   Committee Chair Darrell Issa:  On September 11, 2012, four brave Americans serving their country were murdered by terrorists in Benghazi, Libya.  Tyrone Woods spent two decades as a Navy Seal serving multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Since 2010, he protected the American diplomatic personnel.  Tyrone leaves behind a widow and three children.   Glen Doherty, also a former Seal and an experienced paramedic, had served his country in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  His family and colleagues grieve today for his death.  Sean Smith, a communications specialist, joined the State Dept after six years in the United States Air Force.  Sean leaves behind a widow and two young children.  Ambassador Chris Stevens, a man I had known personally during his tours, US Ambassador to Libya, ventured into a volatile and dangerous situation as Libyans revolted against the long time Gaddafi regime.  He did so because he believed the people of Libya wanted and deserved the same things we have: freedom from tyranny.      That's US House Rep Darrell Issa speaking at the House Oversight Committee (he is the Chair of the Committee) on October 10th.  We covered the hearing in the October 10th and October 11th snapshots.  That Doherty and Woods were working for the CIA was not news if you were at the hearing.  That and the large number of injured CIA personnel were obvious at the hearing -- and why US House Rep Jason Chaffetz kept objecting and stating that certain things were classified.  Today, the media wants to treat it as news.   And not because they give a damn about Doherty and Woods but because they think it clears the administration.  One charge being tossed around (as 'fact' by some) is that the CIA was the target of the attack.  That's interesting.  You're saying Libyan terrorists knew that was a CIA outpost?  That's very interesting.  Equally interesting is the lie that Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty working for the CIA means the four deaths are a CIA problem or have nothing to do with the administration.  A US Ambassador is supposed to travel with a security detail.  This was the point Chaffetz was constrained to make in an open hearing but kept coming close to it.    If Chris Stevens were traveling to Benghazi to hear a briefing from the CIA and a Turkish asset, he was traveling.  The fact that the CIA was on end-point for the trip did not relieve the administration of the responsibility to provide Stevens with security while en route and one he arrived.    There are a lot of lies being told and once again it's not to help anyone except Barack Obama.  Americans have a right to know what happened.  At this point, they still don't.  And nothing 'emerging' today changes the larger story.     Douglas Sloan (Oxonian Globalist) observes, "On the same day that President Barack Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage, an openly homosexual American solider experienced his 714th  day of incarceration. He had not been convicted of any crime. Bradley Manning, the alleged Wikileaks informer, has been in custody since May 2010, and was in solitary confinement for nine months."  Bradley Manning, like Barack's kill-list, is a topic the faux left doesn't want to address in an election year.  Alexander Reed Kelly (TruthDig) notes of  Gary Dorrien's The Obama Question: A Progressive Perspective which is meant to churn out the vote for Barack: The chapter titled "Moral Empire and Liberal War," which serves to justify Obama's expansion of the American military establishment, is the most telling in terms of its omissions. According to a Google Books search, the name "Bradley Manning" appears nowhere in the section's 30 pages. Neither do the words "whistle-blower" or "rendition." "Surveillance" comes up once, and the unmanned drone war, which has claimed dozens of civilian lives in Pakistan since Obama took office, gets a passing mention in a single paragraph. But though whores might wish Bradley would just disappear, he remains and possibly the hatred being spewing by the faux left has to do with the fact that Bradley is the ghost that haunts them, the truth that mocks them. Monday April 5, 2010, WikiLeaks released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7, 2010, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported in August 2010 that Manning had been charged -- "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." In March, 2011, David S. Cloud (Los Angeles Times) reported that the military has added 22 additional counts to the charges including one that could be seen as "aiding the enemy" which could result in the death penalty if convicted. The Article 32 hearing took place in December.  At the start of this year, there was an Article 32 hearing and, February 3rd, it was announced that the government would be moving forward with a court-martial.  Bradley has yet to enter a plea and has neither affirmed that he is the leaker nor denied it.  The court-martial was supposed to begin this month has been postponed until after the election .  Douglas Sloan explains: Not only have Manning's reputation and credibility been attacked using his homosexuality, but his defence centres on the assertion that he struggled with gender identity issues. As a result of having to suppress his homosexuality due to the prevailing 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy, Manning's defence deems that he was not mentally fit to be given access to classified information, and as such the blame for the leak lies with his superiors. That homosexuality can be considered a defence in such a case seems to undermine both the work done by LGBT rights groups and the progress that the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' represents. To view it as a plea of homosexuality, however, is to misunderstand the issue at hand. Manning's defence is more one of aggravated mental disturbance than of sexuality, for all this aggravation was a consequence of his sexuality and the military's reaction to it. Questions must be asked of an institution that drove a man to such extremes that he would go for a weapons rack during a counselling session, send pictures of himself in women's dress to his commanding officer and potentially leak thousands of sensitive documents. Whether he was responsible for the leak or not, his situation hardly reflects well on the American military. Today is Bradley's 894th day imprisoned.  He has still not had a trial.  There are 365 days in a year.  Barack has imprisoned an American citizen for close to three years.  Barack has denied Bradly his Constitutional right to a fair and speedy trial. David E. Coombs and will be speaking December 3rd in DC.  This Day In WikiLeaks notes that and two other events: Bradley Manning's attorney David Coombs will be giving his first ever public presentation on December 3 at the All Souls Church Unitarian in Washington D.C. The presentation will give an overview of pending defence motions in U.S. v. PFC Manning, as well as other facts about the case. A rally will be held at Fort Meade on November 27, the first day of Bradley Manning's hearings related to his unlawful pretrial punishment. An Election Day demonstration will be held at the U.S. Embassy in London on November 6. Anthony Timmons of WISE Up Action will speak about Bradley Manning.         iraq al mada the socialist worker cnn ivan watson bbc news todays zaman dar addustour xinhua yang lina the oregonian mike francis

the oxonian globalist

douglas sloan

truthdig

alexander reed kelly

More Benghazi details

This is from Jake Tapper (ABC News):

As he left his Marine One helicopter Wednesday evening and walked to the residence of the White House, President Obama did not respond to a question shouted out by ABC News’s Mary Bruce about when he would begin to provide answers to the numerous questions building up about what exactly what went wrong in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012.
The president smiled and continued walking.
Perhaps he couldn’t hear the question over the din of the chopper’s blades, but either way the smile and wave – almost Reagan-esque in style – underline the apparent strategy the president specifically and his administration in general have seemed to adopt when it comes to the myriad inquiries about the decisions that led to the deaths of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens: they are deferring detailed answers to the investigation and – critics say –running out the clock until Election Day.
As of now, the White House has disclosed that President Obama was informed about the attack on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi at roughly 5pm by his National Security Adviser Tom Donilon as he was in a pre-scheduled meeting with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey. At that meeting, senior administration officials say, the President ordered that the U.S. begin moving military assets into the region to prepare for a range of contingencies.

Mr. Tapper notes claims that footage does not exist.  It is noted in passing.  I wish he would establish which footage the administration is claiming does not exist.  Footage does exist and if you have read C.I.'s reports on the House Oversight Committee hearing, you know that.  The State Department, Patrick Kennedy, confirmed that in the hearing and the video was discussed in the hearing in terms of it not being handed over to Congress despite Congress requesting it.

So footage does exist.

The Benghazi attack claimed the lives of Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, Sean Smith and Chris Stevens.


Harald Doornbos and Jenan Moussa (Foreign Policy) have traveled to Benghazi and explain what they found:


When we visited on Oct. 26 to prepare a story for Dubai based Al Aan TV, we found not only Stevens's personal copy of the Aug. 6 New Yorker, lying on remnants of the bed in the safe room where Stevens spent his final hours, but several ash-strewn documents beneath rubble in the looted Tactical Operations Center, one of the four main buildings of the partially destroyed compound. Some of the documents -- such as an email from Stevens to his political officer in Benghazi and a flight itinerary sent to Sean Smith, a U.S. diplomat slain in the attack -- are clearly marked as State Department correspondence. Others are unsigned printouts of messages to local and national Libyan authorities. The two unsigned draft letters are both dated Sept. 11 and express strong fears about the security situation at the compound on what would turn out to be a tragic day. They also indicate that Stevens and his team had officially requested additional security at the Benghazi compound for his visit -- and that they apparently did not feel it was being provided.
One letter, written on Sept. 11 and addressed to Mohamed Obeidi, the head of the Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs' office in Benghazi, reads:
"Finally, early this morning at 0643, September 11, 2012, one of our diligent guards made a troubling report. Near our main gate, a member of the police force was seen in the upper level of a building across from our compound. It is reported that this person was photographing the inside of the U.S. special mission and furthermore that this person was part of the police unit sent to protect the mission. The police car stationed where this event occurred was number 322."

Eli Lake (Daily Beast) has a really important report and it includes details about the State Department and a great deal more but here is what really stands out to me:


Representative Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of a House oversight subcommittee investigating the Benghazi attacks, told The Daily Beast that General Carter Ham, the outgoing U.S. commander of Africa Command, “told me directly that he had no directive to engage in the fight in Benghazi.” Spokesmen from Africa Command declined to comment for this story.
There is a story here and reporters need to be investigating.  Four Americans were killed in a terrorist attack.  The White House refuses to answer questions, after weeks of lying and blaming it on a YouTube video, and that is unacceptable.

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for today:

Thursday, November 1, 2012.  Chaos and violence continue, someone involved in the 2011 negotiations between the White House and Nouri to keep US troops in Iraq speaks, Nouri moves towards the majority-government, Jalal Talabani feels betrayed, the alleged Israeli spying devices on the US supplied F-16s continue to be covered by the Iraqi press, Tareq al-Hashemi gets a second death sentence, and more.

 

Starting with Munaf al-Saedi (Niqash) who explores a new Facebook campaign:

 

One young Baghdad woman has ambitious plans for Iraqi women's rights – and she has started a Facebook campaign to back them. She already has 10,000 online supporters. NIQASH asks Ruqaya Abdul-Ali how this will translate to action/

She's not even 20 years old but Baghdadi university student Ruqaya Abdul-Ali has started a wildly successful Facebook campaign. It is called "Revolution Against Patriarchal Society" and it's only three months old – and already Abdul-Ali has got almost 10,000 supporters involved.

Abdul-Ali says she aims to educate Iraqi women about their rights, to stop sexual harassment in Iraqi society and to get some of the country's most discriminatory legislation changed. NIQASH asked her exactly how she plans to achieve those grand plans.

NIQASH: Could you tell us exactly what you mean by a "Revolution Against Patriarchal Society"? 

Abdul-Ali: It is a revolution against tribal, patriarchal norms and the traditions that deprive women of their basic rights, ones that cause them to live like machines whose sole purpose is to give birth and to do household tasks. It is a revolution that will make women more aware of their rights and help them become more informed, introducing them to new ideas. The campaign is about encouraging women to read and to educate themselves.

 

NIQASH: Why are you doing this?

Abdul-Ali: I launched this campaign on Facebook because of the pressures being put on women as a result of the revival of tribal traditions in Iraq [following the 2003 US-led invasion that ended former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's regime]. There are also increasing levels of violence, discrimination and verbal and sexual harassment.

The phenomenon of early and underage marriage also seems to be becoming more widespread and this prevents women from getting an education, not to mention the societal impact this has on divorced and widowed women.

And I used Facebook because I wanted to remind Iraqi women of their rights. Many women both inside and outside Iraq have joined the Facebook page and that number has almost reached 10,000. Many of them are human rights activists.

 

 

Iraqi women suffer in a multitude of ways as a result not limited to the hardships involved of war turning your nation into a country of widows and orphans.  In 2005, Ghali Hassan (Global Research) explained how Iraqi women were being robbed of their rights:

 

Prior to the arrival of U.S. forces, Iraqi women were free to go wherever they wish and wear whatever they like. The 1970 Iraqi constitution, gave Iraqi women equity and liberty unmatched in the Muslim World. Since the U.S. invasion, Iraqi women's rights have fallen to the lowest level in Iraq's history. Under the new U.S.-crafted constitution, which will be put to referendum on the 15 October while the bloodbath mounts each day, women's rights will be oppressed and the role of women in Iraqi society will be curtailed and relegated to the caring for "children and the elderly".

Immediately after the invasion, the U.S. embarked on cultivating friendships with religious groups and clerics. The aim was the complete destruction of nationalist movements, including women's rights movements, and replacing them with expatriate religious fanatics and criminals piggybacked from Iran, the U.S. and Britain. In the mean time the U.S. moved to liquidate any Iraqi opposition or dissent to the Occupation.

 

 

Iraqi women were not helped by the exiles the US government put in charge of Iraq or by the unrest the US government encouraged in an attempt to intimidate, silence and control the people.  No one has been more damaging than Nouri al-Maliki.  This can be seen by women in his Cabinet.  In his first term as Prime Minister, Nawal al-Samarraie served as Minister of Women's Affairs.  February 6, 2009, she was in the news when she resigned because her ministry was not properly funded (a meager monthly budget of $7,500 a month was slashed to $1,400) and she states, "I reached to the point that I will never be able to help the women." That was very embarrassing for Nouri. So naturally the New York Times worked overtime to ignore it. (See Third Estate Sunday Review's "NYT goes tabloid.") NPR's Corey Flintoff covered it for Morning Edition (link has text and audio).

Nouri didn't care for Nawal al-Samarraie or the needed attention she raised. Which was reflected in his second term when he tried to erase women completely. From the December 22, 2010 snapshot:


Turning to Iraq, Liz Sly and Aaron Davis (Washington Post) note, "A special gathering of the nation's parliament endorsed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for a second term in office, with lawmakers then voting one by one for 31 of the eventual 42 ministers who will be in his cabinet." AFP notes that all but one is a man, Bushra Hussein Saleh being the sole woman in the Cabinet. And they quote Kurdish MP Ala Talabani stating, "We congratulate the government, whose birth required eight months, but at the same time we are very depressed when we see the number of women chosen to head the ministries. Today, democracy was decapitated by sexism. The absence of women is a mark of disdain and is contrary to several articles of the constitution. I suggest to Mr Maliki to even choose a man for the ministry of women's rights, as you do not have confidence in women." Ala Talabani is the niece of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. Imran Ali (Womens Views On News) reminds, "The new constitution stipulates that a quarter of the members of parliament be women and prohibits gender discrimination." Apparently concern about representation doesn't apply to the Cabinet (and, no, Nouri's attempts at offering excuses for the huge gender imbalance do not fly).

 

42 posts to fill and Nouri couldn't think of a single woman? And wouldn't have if Iraqi women hadn't gotten vocal on the issue. And note that Nouri increased the Cabinet from 31 in his first term to 42.   That tells you just how inclusive Nouri isn't. Also note that it was Iraqi women and they did it without any help from the United Nations which is so cowed that it refuses to stand up for women in Iraq.   Nouri also oversaw the appointment of commissioners to the so-called Independent High Electoral Commission.  While the United Nations tried so hard to find a rainbow in manure, the reality is that one third of the members were supposed to be women.  This is a point that the UN was making as late as the summer.  But when only one woman was named a commissioner, the UN decided to just pretend that didn't take place -- even when the Iraqi court ruled that, yes, a third of the commissioners should be women.  Maybe if the UN had pushed for the law and for women, that would have happened.  But it was much more important to the United Nations to use up all their happy face stickers that day than it was to stand up for Iraqi women. 

 

 

At the end of 2011, Iraqiya MP Nada Ibrahim explained to AFP, "It has been a very bad regression" for women in Iraq.  Last January, Equality in Iraq featured Emily Muna's interview with Housan Mahmoud (Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq) for Workers Liberty:

 

What issues do women in Iraq face?

 

Many: kidnapping, prostitution, sexual slavery, honour killings, stigmatising and marginalisation from wider society, as well as lack of employment and poor pay, so many different issues.

Also, women aren't the only ones who suffer at the hands of patriarchy in the country.

OWFI was the only organisation that stood up against homophobia and the murder of homosexuals in Iraq. We raised issues homosexual Iraqis face with Shi'a Islamists.

 

How usual is it for women to be employed? Has it become less usual as Iraqi society 

moves towards Islamism?

 

It depends. Some places have always been deeply religious, while others are progressing towards Islamism.

If a woman finds a job, she works, but it is all about who you know. Even prostitution is now an income for some women, if they get paid at all.

Prostitution itself is illegal and we stand up for the welfare and employment and human rights of sex workers because they are victimised and dehumanised in such societies.

I met some ex-prostitutes, and they were still in danger. They sought help from many women's groups, but were turned away for moral or security reasons.

 

 

Zhala Aziz (Warvin) reports that Sunday, October 21st, a marathon was held in Hawler.  (Hawler is in Erbil, a province of the Kurdistan Regional Government -- semi-autonomous area in northern Iraq.)  The marathon was for breast cancer and the city's Director of Health, Qasim Ali Aziz, explained, "To raise awareness among women and protect themselves against this disease, in the memory of breast cancer, we organized a marathon between the female high schools students with the commerical high schools girls." In addition, Jim and Deb Fine (Mennonite Central Commitee Iraq) reports on how bee keeping is creating opportunites for Iraqi women living in the KRG:

 

In the Yezidi village of Beban we met our first woman participant, Aasimah (not her real name), whose husband was kidnapped in Baghdad in 2006.  The family sold goods from the camera shop they owned to raise the $50,000 ransom the kidnappers demanded.  They paid the ransom but to no avail.  The kidnappers killed Aasimah's husband and Aasimah fled Baghdad with her four children to live in the safety of Beban, her family village.

Aasimah reported that she had already sold 4 kg. of honey for $50 a kg., although her five hives had been working for only three months.  Aasimah, like the 25 other displaced female heads of household participating in the ZSVP project, can expect to earn some $2,000 a year in the first years of the project and could earn much more as the bees swarm and populate new hives. (On our visit we met one man who had been the beneficiary of an earlier ZSVP beekeeping project.  He received five beehives in 2009.  He now maintains fifty hives and sells bees as well as honey to customers in the area.)

 

 

October 22nd, in London, the Women of the Year Lunch & Awards was held and one of the Barclays Women of the Year Award winners was "Iraqi-American women's rights activist, author and co-founder of Women for Women International Zainab Salbi."  (For more on the awards, click here and read about the Lifetime Achievement Award which went to internationally known singer, actress and activist Lulu.)  For more on Zainab Salbi, you can refer to Sarah Morrison's profile on her which ran in Sunday's Independent of London.  As well as WBAA's From Scratch (link is audio) today which found Jessica Harris interviewing Zainab. 

 

 

 

Still on the topic of Iraqi women, Tupperware is one of the few international companies that has been working to empower Iraqi women.  US Ambassador at Large for Global Women's Issues (US State Dept) Melanne Verveer was to have spoken at Rollins College Monday about empowering women and girls globally but the event was postponed.  The Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College has partnered with Tupperware and the Office of Global Women's Issues to create Global Links "a yearlong esternship designed to inspire a new generation of Iraqi women entrepreneurs and, in turn, help strengthen the country's struggling economy and rebuild its middle class."

 

 

Voices for Creative Nonviolence's Cathy Breen is in Iraq and she will be writing about this latest trip for The Progressive.  (Good for The Progressive for remembering Iraq.)  Her first report includes:

 

 

It is almost ten years since the U.S.-led war against Iraq. The electricity keeps going off here and all throughout the country. Sami, whose family is hosting me in Najaf, remarked yesterday with no ill intent, "Maybe we could send them some of our electricity!"  We had to laugh.

I read another email this morning from an Iraqi friend of Sami's whom we were unable to see in Basra. He spoke about the lack of electricity and the high humidity in Basra, where temperatures reached almost 50 degrees Centigrade last summer (about 120 degrees Fahrenheit), and this was during the fasting month of Ramadan when no water, or food, is taken from dawn to dusk. "How is it," this friend asks, "that the U.S. has poured billions of dollars into Iraq and yet there was no project for a [national] electrical power station to help cool temperatures and calm temperaments that went along with the political instability, the insecurity and the sectarian killings…?"

 

 

On violence, yesterday was the end of the month.  Iraq Body Count's counts 253 reported violent deaths in Iraq for the month of October.  Last month, their total was 356 which means a reduction of about 100 deaths.  AFP, forgetting fairy tales are for bedtime, notes the government total for October is 136.  AFP also forgets to note that there were over 550 reported mass arrests in Iraq in the month of October.  Nouri's round up largely focused on Sunnis.

 

And not just 'terrorists.'  No, Nouri brought in a new charge in the Baghdad area: prostitution.  Over 180 women were arrested for prostitution in the Baghdad area alone.  Two weeks ago, a reporter attempting to report on that was killed: Zia Medhi.  From the October 24th snapshot:

 

Iraq's Journalistic Freedoms Observatory notes the investigative journalist was in Baghdad's Tahrir Square at ten a.m. Monday morning conducting meetings and interviews and she was also working on a story about prostitution and brothels in Iraq.  She went to a police station to interview some of the 180 women arrested but a police officer prevented her from entering and he denied that there were any prostitutes among the arrested.  He left and then moments later re-appeared telling her she could enter but without her colleagues.  Zia Mehdi didn't feel comfortable with that offer and instead returned to Tahrir Square to continue her LGBT interviews.  Later she was discovered dead, stabbed to death, still in her jacket that noted she was a journalist.

 

Approximately a fourth of the deaths from violence in October took place last weekend.  The Islamic State of Iraq, as Fars News Agency reported, claimed credit for the "shootings and bombings over the Eid al-Adha holiday that killed dozens of people nationwide."  July 22nd, the Islamic State of Iraq released an audio recording announcing a new campaign of violence entitled Breaking The Walls which would include prison breaks and killing "judges and investigators and their guards." Since they made their July announcement there have been minor and major attacks throughout Iraq.  Ashley Fantz (CNN) reported a very important detail about the Islamic State of Iraq's announcement, "In the statement, the ISI claims that the Shiite Rafidi government have conducted a series of arrests that targeted Sunni women in order to pressure their relatives to surrender to authorities or to blackmail their relatives. Attacking during Eid was intended to deliver a message: You are not safe, even during a holiday built around peace."  Yes, we're back to the issue of Nouri's government targeting Sunni women for arrests.  Today, Michael Jansen (Irish Times) reports on the way Sunnis are shut out:

 

While Iraq's Sunnis largely back Syria's rebels, the Shia prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, fearing the establishment of a Sunni fundamentalist regime on Iraq's western flank, supports the secular Syrian regime.

Iraq's armed forces and civil administration, dismantled after the US occupation, have not been restored. The military, where most soldiers were always from the majority Shia community, has been transformed into a sectarian Shia force by Maliki.

Sunni fighters who helped the US defeat al-Qaeda and its offshoots have been denied recruitment into the armed forces, creating a wellspring of resentment in Sunni provinces that border on Syria. Youngsters are encouraged to join radical Sunni groups. Some have gone to Syria to fight against the Assad regime while others are mounting deadly attacks on Shias and Iraqi regime targets.

 

Nouri's most famous Sunni target in recent years has been Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi. 

Let's drop back to the April 30th snapshot:


The political crisis was already well in effect when December 2011 rolled around.  The press rarely gets that fact correct.  When December 2011 rolls around you see Iraqiya announce a  boycott of the council and the Parliament, that's in the December 16th snapshot and again in a December 17th entry .  Tareq al-Hashemi is a member of Iraqiya but he's not in the news at that point.  Later, we'll learn that Nouri -- just returned from DC where he met with Barack Obama -- has ordered tanks to surround the homes of high ranking members of Iraqiya.  December 18th is when al-Hashemi and Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq are pulled from a Baghdad flight to the KRG but then allowed to reboard the plane. December 19th is when the arrest warrant is issued for Tareq al-Hashemi by Nouri al-Maliki who claims the vice president is a 'terrorist.' .

 

al-Hashemi has been in Turkey where he remains.  He was there while a Baghdad court controlled by Nouri pretended to hear charges against him in a faux trial.  This despite the Baghdad judges declared him guilty in February at their press conference and while one judge was stating that he had been threatened by al-Hashemi, before the trial even started, they declared al-Hashemi guilty.  That press conference demonstrated that al-Hashemi was correct, he would not get a fiar trial in the Baghdad courts (he had asked that the trial be moved to the KRG or to Kirkuk).  In May, the trial began.  The judges have also refused to allow Vice President al-Hashemi to call President Jalal Talabani to the stand as a character witness -- in fact, they refused all the requests for character witnesses.  Among other problems with the trial?  The use of so-called confessions obtained via torture, the refusal to make the proceedings open and transparent (the press was kicked out during some of the trial) and the simple fact that, even after his September 9th 'conviction,'  Tareq al-Hashemi remains Vice President of Iraq.  He was never removed from his position and while he holds that position -- as he currently does -- the Constitution does not allow for him to stand trial.  He can stand trial after he leaves office.  He can be removed from office by the Parliament immediately and then legally stand trial.  But he was never removed from office and his term has not expired so he can't legally be tried.

 

He can't legally be tried?  You'd assume that Iraqi judges would grasp that Constitutional fact and stop the trial.  But that assumption would be built upon the fact that the Baghdad judiciary was independent of Nouri and that it was interested in practicing the law and not just delivering rubber stamp verdicts on Nouri's orders.

 

Tareq and the ridiculous criminal court in Baghdad are back in the news today.  Vestnik Kavkazza has the best headline, "Iraqi vice president Tariq al-Hashemi to be executed twice." AP gets this right: "The verdict was the second death sentence for Tariq Al-Hashemi in less than two months, and is likely to stoke further resentment among Iraq's minority Sunni Muslims against the Shiite-led government."  Press TV also notes this is Tareq's "second death sentence."

 

 

Gordon Campbell writes about Nouri's efforts to be Little Saddam at Scoop Independent News:

 

 

Subsequently, and despite all the fond hopes of a diverse, secular and democratic new order emerging in Iraq – remember all those earnest discussions post invasion, about whether a 'liberated' Iraq would have a loosely federal structure or a strongly centralized one? – something quite different has emerged. Namely, a virtual Shi'ite dictatorship led by Nouri al-Maliki and subservient to Iran. Instead of liberating Iraq and containing Iran, the US invasion has enabled a tyrannical client regime of Teheran to be installed in Baghdad. Nice work.

In the process of setting up his new tyranny, al-Maliki has made a joke out of those fond hopes of peaceful power sharing with Sunni legislators. Amid terrible bloodshed since 2003, many of the Sunni fighters have been killed or driven out, and Kurdish aspirations have been sidelined. However, those residual Sunni elements from Iraq - and Kurdish fighters from all over the region – have now poured into Syria to fight the Assad regime, and as the New York Times recently pointed out, Iraq is already feeling the blowback.

 

Nouri is moving towards a majority government which is his effort to shut out political rivals.  Dar Addustour reports Nouri and Ammar al-Hakim (Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq) have been meeting and bonding over this move and that al-Hakim has declared such a move "wise."   From Monday's snapshot:

 

With that in mind, it's ridiculous that, as All Iraq News reports, State of Law is telling the Kurdistan Alliance that either the blocs 'come on board,' or Nouri will attempt to form a majority government.  A majority governmnent would shut out non-Shias.  In other words, State of Law's Salman al-Moussawi is stating either you drop your demand that we honor this contract or we will move towards forming a majority government.  Possibly these threats from State of Law are why MP Hussein Mansouri of Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc states that a national conference alone will not solve the political crisis.

 

 

Dar Addustour notes today that Iraqi President Jalal Talabani feels betrayed by this move.  Talabani was supposed to be working on getting the political blocs together.  Before the four-day holiday kicked off on Friday, Nouri and his State of Law political slate were singing Jalal's praises, saying he was going to fix the political stalemate.  He was also saying that he wanted the National Conference (a meet-up of the political blocs to resolve the political crisis) that Jalal and Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi have been calling for since December 21st.  Not only does Dar Addustour report Jalal feels betrayed, they also report that he's met up with Iraqiya's al-Nujaifi and the two are discussing what their options are.  Dar Addustour feels ther are three ways this can play out: a vote in Parliament to withdraw confidence from Nouri (in which case a caretaker government would be put in place until elections can be held), the majority government that Nouri wants or a Nouri's using his control of the military to seize total control of Iraq (Little Saddam would become the Hussein he always wanted to be).

 

 

Meanwhile Josh Rogin (Foreign Policy) speaks with the second US Ambassador to Iraq during Barack's almost four years in the Oval Office:

 

Jeffrey was a key player on both the Washington and Baghdad sides of the 2011 negotiations that were meant to agree on a follow on force to extend the Bush administration's Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) after it was set to expire last December. Those negotiations ultimately failed. The White House has said the Iraqis refused to grant immunity for U.S. troops in Iraq after 2011 and submit a new SOFA through their own parliament, two things the United States needed to extend the troops' mission.

Jeffrey said that he and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki personally discussed the idea of extending the U.S. troop presence in Iraq via an executive agreement, which would not have to go through the Iraqi parliament.

"Maliki said at one point, 'Why don't we just do this as an executive agreement?'" Jeffrey said. "I didn't think he was serious, and I didn't think he had thought it through."

 

That was the 2011 negotiations.  Remember that negotiations are going on right now.  September 26th, Tim Arango (New York Times) reported:

 
Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with intelligence.

 

 

Yesterday's snapshot: noted that the current US Ambassador to Iraq Robert S. Beecroft had blown his credibility (claiming there were no US troops remaining in Iraq to the Iraqi press and, as All Iraq News pointed out, also claiming that there was no desire for US troops to be sent back into Iraq) and that this wasn't a good time for that to happen:

 

All Iraq News reports Iraqis state they have found Israeli recording devices on the F-16s the US has supplied so far.  The Iraqi Air Force leadership has sent a letter objecting to the device to Lockheed Martin, manufacturers of the F-16s.  Fars News Agency adds, "Iraq's air force has found out Israeli company RADA has planted information recording systems in its F-16 fighters recently purchased from the American Lockheed Martin Company."

 

 

Dar Addustour reports today that the Iraqi Air Force first sought comment from the US government and when they received no answer from the US government, about what they see as spying devices, they asked Lockheed Martin.  I have no idea of whether they're spying devices or not.  But at some point, someone in leadership in Iraq is going to realize that if there is one set of spying devices, there may be two or more.  Someone will shortly grasp that the set discovered may have been intended to be discovered in order to conceal more important devices.  That's sleight of hand -- look here, not over there.  Again, this wasn't a time where the US face to Iraq should have thrown away credibility by lying that all US troops were out of Iraq and that the US government wasn't attempting to work on a new agreement with Iraq governing US troops.

 

 

 

 

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