That's Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Hillary's Shoe Response" which went up Sunday along with
Kat's "Kat's Korner: Do The Beast."
I really loved both.
You know what else I love right now?
Diet Coke on ice. It's been a long day and I just popped open a can of Diet Coke and poured it in cup of ice. Again, it was a long day so maybe that's why it tasted so good but, goodness, did it taste good.
And I was relaxing and reading the book Ruth and Mike reviewed:
"Robert Altman (Ruth and Mike)" and "Robert Altman (Ruth and Mike)"
It's Mitchell Zuckoff's Robert Altman: The Oral Biography.
It's a 'transcript' book.
Like a script actually.
I can see, in portions, why it would be a bit simplistic if you know a great deal about Altman.
I don't.
I know many of his movies but had no idea about his life (other than he opposed the Iraq War and spoke out against it).
So I'm enjoying it so far.
But I'm not even up to Nashville yet (considered to be one of his masterpiece films).
I'll probably blog about it again this week.
I doubt I'll be done with the book by the end of the week (unless I start reading it out loud to the baby).
The last book I read was The Three Musketeers. Yes, the Alexandre Dumas classic.
I'd never read it. And was looking for something to read last month and Cedric had a copy of it so I grabbed it off our bookshelves.
I had seen the movies (black and white up to the version with Chris O'Donnell) so I knew the basic plots. But, of course, a Dumas novel is so much more than just a plot.
I really got taken away by the book and wondered why I hadn't read it sooner since I enjoyed Dumas' The Corsican Brothers and loved The Count of Monte Cristo.
I would rank The Count of Monte Cristo and Jane Austen's Emma as my two favorite pieces of classical literature.
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Monday, April 14, 2014. Chaos and violence continue, the assault on
Anbar continues, OpEd News needs writers who know history, the Pulitzer
winners are announced, Jane Arraf win The Quil Lawrence Award and so
much more.
Let's start with Iraq, move to awards and then come back to Iraq.
Hamma Mirwaisi and Alison Buckley flaunt their ignorance at OpEd News which really seems to be on a losing streak with regards to Iraq these days.
Barzanni may be saying what he's saying for any number of reasons but he's not lying.
Ignorant and uninformed Mirwaisi and Buckley are the liars.
The Iraqi Constitution calls on the issue of oil-rich Kirkuk to be resolved in Article 140. This calls for a census and referendum in the province to determine whether it's part of the Kurdistan Regional Government or part of the central-government out of Baghdad. The US government installs Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister in 2006 (under Bully Boy Bush). Article 140 is supposed to be implemented no later than the end of 2007. It isn't. The US continues to support Nouri. In 2010, they want him to have a second term even though he loses the election. So Barack orders the negotiation of a legal contract known as The Erbil Agreement. The contract is to give Nouri a second term. To get the leaders of the political bloc to sign it, the US has clauses put in for them. So, for example, the Kurds sign on in exchange for it being written into The Erbil Agreement that Nouri will implement Article 140. To pretend it's going to happen, Nouri even announces a census will start the first week of December (2010). But Nouri gets named prime minister-designate, cancels the census and never honors the promises he made in the contract.
And the White House that swore the contract had the full backing of the US government suddenly played dumb. That's the same government that repeatedly insists its staying out of Iraq's internal oil issues while at the same time insisting Nouri is in the right and the Kurds are in the wrong. (There is no national oil & gas law -- Nouri swore to get it passed in 2007 but never did.) Time and again, the Kurds have been asked to give. They're tired of being lied by the US government. And it's not just Bush and Barack. The lying started under Henry Kissinger.
The US government has never cared about the Kurds and has a pattern and history of lying to the Kurds..
That is not my opinion. That is what the US Congress found in the Pike Report. February 16, 1976, The Village Voice published Aaron Latham's "Introduction to the Pike Papers." Latham explained:
In 1972, Dr. Henry Kissinger met with the Shah of Iran, who asked the U.S. to aid the Kurds in their rebellion against Iraq, an enemy of the Shah. Kissinger later presented the proposal to President Nixon who approved what would become a $16 million program. Then John B. Connally, the former Nixon Treasury Secretary, was dispatched to Iran to inform the Shah, one oil man to another.
The committee report charges that: "The President, Dr. Kissinger and the foreign head of state [the Shah] hoped our clients would not prevail. They preferred instead that the insurgents simply continue a level of hostilities sufficient to sap the resources of our ally's neighboring country [Iraq]. The policy was not imparted to our clients, who were encouraged to continue fighting. Even in the context of covert action, ours was a cynical enterprise."
During the Arab-Israeli war, when the Kurds might have been able to strike at a distracted Iraqi government, Kissinger, according to the report, "personally restrained the insurgents from an all-out offensive on the one occasion when such an attack might have been successful."
Then, when Iran resolved its border dispute with Iraq, the U.S. summarily dropped the Kurds. And Iraq, knowing aid would be cut off, launched a search-and-destroy campaign the day after the border agreement was signed.
A high U.S. official later explained to the Pike committee staff: "Covert action should not be confused with missionary work."
That is the history. Deception on the part of the US. Promises are made to the Kurds with no intention of them being kept. In part, these promises are made to destabilize all of Iraq, to pit one region against the other which does ensure that while Nouri al-Maliki may get cozy and fall into bed with Iran, the two won't be hitting any wedding registries. Maybe next time, Mirwaisi and Buckley might try doing a little research before making asses of themselves in public?
Despite OpEd News, today was a notable day for journalism as the Pulitzer Prizes were announced. Journalism is supposed to serve the public, to inform the public. This is required in a democracy because the people determine the government and they need to hold their officials accountable. So the big prize is "PUBLIC SERVICE" and the award there went to the Washington Post and the Guardian US for their coverage of the illegal spying. NSA whistle-blower Ed Snowden issued a statement via the Freedom of the Press Foundation:
Ed Snowden is an American citizen and whistle-blower who had been employed by the CIA and by the NSA before leaving government employment for the more lucrative world of contracting. At the time he blew the whistle, he was working for Booz Allen Hamilton doing NSA work. As he notes in his statement, many reporters at both outlets reported on the very important story. Glenn Greenwald (Guardian) had the first scoop on Snowden's revelations that the US government was spying on American citizens, keeping the data on every phone call made in the United States (and in Europe as well) while also spying on internet use via PRISM and Tempora.
The other winners in the field of journalism were:
BREAKING NEWS REPORTING - The Boston Globe Staff
INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING - Chris Hamby of The Center for Public Integrity, Washington, D.C.
EXPLANATORY REPORTING - Eli Saslow of The Washington Post
LOCAL REPORTING - Will Hobson and Michael LaForgia of the Tampa Bay Times
NATIONAL REPORTING - David Philipps of The Gazette, Colorado Springs, CO
INTERNATIONAL REPORTING - Jason Szep and Andrew R.C. Marshall of Reuters
FEATURE WRITING - No award
COMMENTARY - Stephen Henderson of the Detroit Free Press
CRITICISM - Inga Saffron of The Philadelphia Inquirer
EDITORIAL WRITING - The Editorial Staff of The Oregonian, Portland
EDITORIAL CARTOONING - Kevin Siers of The Charlotte Observer
BREAKING NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY - Tyler Hicks of The New York Times
FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY - Josh Haner of The New York Times
On the award to the Colorado Springs Gazette's David Philipps, Greg Avery (Denver Business Journal) notes:
An investigation into veterans being discharged from the military without benefits after relatively minor offenses won the Colorado Springs Gazette newspaper and reporter Dave Philipps a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.
[. . .]
Philipps’ three-day series, called “Other Than Honorable,” looked into how soliders’ discharge status after they returned home from overseas tours of duty left them struggling. The stories were published May 19-21, 2013.
The Pulitzers also honor the world of publishing -- fiction and non-fiction -- and the arts. The winners in the Books, Drama and Music field:
HISTORY - "The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832" by Alan Taylor (W.W. Norton)
BIOGRAPHY - "Margaret Fuller: A New American Life" by Megan Marshall (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
POETRY - "3 Sections" by Vijay Seshadri (Graywolf Press)
GENERAL NONFICTION - "Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation" by Dan Fagin (Bantam Books)
MUSIC - "Become Ocean" by John Luther Adams (Taiga Press/Theodore Front Musical Literature)
Norman Solomon used to do the P.U.-litzer awards each year with Jeff Cohen until recently. In the Age of Barack, there's just too much whoring for two people nail down. However, Norman does have a piece entitled "Why We Need Media Critics Who Are Fiercely Independent" (Huffington Post).
There's one more award for today. The Quil Lawrence Award.
You can reference the following "Iraq snapshot" from March 2010. March 7, 2010, Iraqis voted in parliamentary elections. The next morning, Quil was on NPR's Morning Edition where he explained to Steve Inskeep, "He seems to have done very well. I'm talking to people all over Baghdad, as well as hearing reports from friends in the south, but it's probably not possible for him to form a government without a couple of allies."
Voted hadn't even been counting but Quil was selling victory for Nouri. It would take days to count the votes the first time (and Nouri's loss would lead to Nouri demanding a recount -- which he'd also lose). But with no votes counted, Quil was whoring for Nouri.
The Quil Lawrence Award recognizes an individual posing as a reporter in order to whore.
The Quil Lawrence Award this years goes to Jane Arraf who has surpassed her Saddam Hussein-era whoring while she was Baghdad Bureau Chief for CNN. April 11, 2003, the New York Times published Eason Jordan's "The News We Kept To Ourselves." Other who worked for CNN during the Hussein-era have offered their own examples. Jane never has.
But she's outdone herself. Yesterday, the Christian Science Monitor published an 'analysis'/'report' by Jane which was pure whoring. As we noted at Third yesterday:
She takes the sewer that is The Christian Science Monitor deeper into the filth by writing, "In Anbar Province in the west, protests by Sunnis over marginalization and mistreatment flared into violence as what started as a peaceful protest movement became radicalized."
No, they did not flare into violence.
It takes a cheap and tacky whore to turn a year's worth of peaceful protest into violence.
Human Rights Watch has noted, "Government security forces had withdrawn from Anbar province after provoking a tribal uprising when they raided a Sunni protest camp in Ramadi on December 30, killing 17 people."
Jane also overlooks the April 23rd massacre of the sit-in in Hawija which resulted from Nouri's federal forces storming in. Alsumaria noted Kirkuk's Department of Health (Hawija is in Kirkuk) announced 50 activists have died and 110 were injured in the assault. AFP reported the death toll rose to 53. UNICEF noted that the dead included 8 children (twelve more were injured).
It's actually worse than that -- it usually is with Jane.
She's not just being stupid, she's lying. Check her Twitter feed. She knows better than anyone what happened in Hawija. There was a push to portray it as though Friday April 19, 2013, poor innocent security forces were attacked by protesters. No, they weren't. The attack took place near empty houses, not at the protest site. More importantly, there was a blackout on the fact that prior to that, the protesters were attacked by the security forces -- one was killed. Jane Tweeted about it -- she never used in any reporting and she acts as though it didn't take place. But it exists:
How do you Tweet it and then forget it, never write about it, never report on it?
How indeed.
Maybe it's just a coincidence that Nouri comes off better in her Christian Science Monitor article if she pins the blame for the violence on the protesters?
And it's also just a coincidence that she also offers 'analysis' that is wrong but helps Nouri:
A surprise move by influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to withdraw from the political process is expected to benefit Maliki. It allows him to go after large numbers of votes from poor, dispossessed Shiites hoping for more jobs and better services.
Maliki might be aided, too, by political disarray among the Kurds. The absence of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who has been undergoing medical treatment, has led to a leadership struggle for his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the three main Kurdish parties. Almost six months after provincial elections, the main Kurdish parties have not been able to agree on their own regional government.
A) Moqtada. The cleric and movement leader's followers will not be voting for Nouri. We went into the whys of that in the February 18th snapshot. You can refer to that. Since then, Moqtada has twice called for Nouri not to seek a third term (the last time was last week). In addition, Moqtada's now-ended 'retirement' never meant that candidates from the Sadr bloc weren't going to run. When Moqtada made the announcement, the Sadr bloc immediately had to decide whether they would field candidates or not and they decided they would.
Jane's just a nasty, dirty liar. And what's the Christian Science Monitor? It prints that lie that Moqtada's out of politics when even Dan Murphy has reported for the Monitor that Moqtada got back in?
B) The Kurds.
Jalal Talabani is the head of the PUK. But he's not in Iraq, is he?
He's in Germany. He's been there since his stroke. December 2012, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani suffered a stroke. The incident took place late on December 17, 2012 following Jalal's argument with Iraq's prime minister and chief thug Nouri al-Maliki (see the December 18, 2012 snapshot). Jalal was admitted to Baghdad's Medical Center Hospital. Thursday, December 20, 2012, he was moved to Germany. He remains in Germany currently.
Jane may not tell you about that but the PUK can. They can tell you about the screaming Nouri did at Jalal, about the threats he made to Jalal and about how, as soon as Nouri left Jalal's office, Jalal had his stroke.
The Iraq Times and Kitabat are both reporting that insiders are saying the collapse Monday night followed a verbal altercation with Nouri al-Maliki. According to an unnamed source or unnamed sources with Talabani's office, Nouri arrived last Monday evening at Talabani's office and as the political crisis was discussed, Jalal called for Nouri to lower the rhetoric (as he has done publicly) but he was referring to what Nouri was stating to him at that moment. This call to lower the rhetoric was met by a "violent explosion" from Nouri who called into question whether Jalal was able to be impartial or neutral. Nouri is said to have brought up the effort last spring to seek a no-confidence vote on Nouri in Parliament. Jalal is said to have remained civil, asked that Nouri consider the options for resolving the crisis, Nouri was shown out and as soon as he was out of the office, Jalal complained of ill health.
Even setting aside all that, what do Kurds want?
Autonomy to be sure. The KRG is only semi-autonomous.
But in the immediate future, they want Kirkuk.
Kirkuk is oil-rich, it's also disputed. The KRG claims it and so does the central government out of Baghdad.
In 2006, Nouri became prime minister.
Per the 2005 Iraqi Constitution -- which Nouri took an oath to uphold -- specifically Article 140, there was supposed to be a census and referendum to resolve the issue of who got Kirkuk.
And that was supposed to have taken place no later than the end of 2007.
But Nouri refused to implement Article 140.
His first term ended in 2010. He lost that year's parliamentary elections. Thank to the White House, he got a second term. This was via a contract known as The Erbil Agreement. In it, the head of the other political blocs gave election loser Nouri al-Maliki a second term in exchange for his contractual guarantees to them. What did the Kurdish leaders have put in The Erbil Agreement?
That Nouri would finally implement Article 140.
Nouri signed off on that. He used the contract to get a second term.
But once he got a second term?
He refused to honor the promises he made in that contract.
So, as happened in his first term, there's been no implementation of Article 140.
Nouri and the KRG are arguing about oil currently. Nouri's cut off funds to the KRG -- funds they're owed -- in order to blackmail them. This has hurt government workers in the KRG.
Does any of this say, "I'm a Kurd and so I'll vote for Shi'ite Nouri"?
No.
Parliamentary elections are supposed to take place April 30th.
BBC reminds, "The inquiry was set up in June 2009 and heard from final witnesses in February 2011. It examined the background to the war, the conduct of military operations, post-war planning and the UK's role in post-war security and governance until British troops left in 2009." James Lyons and Tom McTague (Daily Mirror) report:
Let's start with Iraq, move to awards and then come back to Iraq.
Hamma Mirwaisi and Alison Buckley flaunt their ignorance at OpEd News which really seems to be on a losing streak with regards to Iraq these days.
Recently the President
of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Massoud Barzani informed a
delegation from the US based Middle East Institute (MEI) of the reasons why he
believes the Kurdish people still have not established an independent political
entity. (1) The MEI is a non-profit, non-partisan think tank and cultural
center in Washington, DC. Founded in 1946, it is the oldest institution in
Washington dedicated exclusively to the study of the Middle East. The mission
of the institute is 'to increase knowledge of the Middle East among the
citizens of the United States and to promote a better understanding between the
people of these two areas.'
President Barzani's
claim that the US Government is responsible for the apparent failure of the Kurdish
independence movement is an implausible attempt to deflect the blame for the
impasse from himself and his partner, Jalal Talabani, both of whom have placed
obstacles in the path of the Kurdish people's freedom.
Barzanni may be saying what he's saying for any number of reasons but he's not lying.
Ignorant and uninformed Mirwaisi and Buckley are the liars.
The Iraqi Constitution calls on the issue of oil-rich Kirkuk to be resolved in Article 140. This calls for a census and referendum in the province to determine whether it's part of the Kurdistan Regional Government or part of the central-government out of Baghdad. The US government installs Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister in 2006 (under Bully Boy Bush). Article 140 is supposed to be implemented no later than the end of 2007. It isn't. The US continues to support Nouri. In 2010, they want him to have a second term even though he loses the election. So Barack orders the negotiation of a legal contract known as The Erbil Agreement. The contract is to give Nouri a second term. To get the leaders of the political bloc to sign it, the US has clauses put in for them. So, for example, the Kurds sign on in exchange for it being written into The Erbil Agreement that Nouri will implement Article 140. To pretend it's going to happen, Nouri even announces a census will start the first week of December (2010). But Nouri gets named prime minister-designate, cancels the census and never honors the promises he made in the contract.
And the White House that swore the contract had the full backing of the US government suddenly played dumb. That's the same government that repeatedly insists its staying out of Iraq's internal oil issues while at the same time insisting Nouri is in the right and the Kurds are in the wrong. (There is no national oil & gas law -- Nouri swore to get it passed in 2007 but never did.) Time and again, the Kurds have been asked to give. They're tired of being lied by the US government. And it's not just Bush and Barack. The lying started under Henry Kissinger.
The US government has never cared about the Kurds and has a pattern and history of lying to the Kurds..
That is not my opinion. That is what the US Congress found in the Pike Report. February 16, 1976, The Village Voice published Aaron Latham's "Introduction to the Pike Papers." Latham explained:
In 1972, Dr. Henry Kissinger met with the Shah of Iran, who asked the U.S. to aid the Kurds in their rebellion against Iraq, an enemy of the Shah. Kissinger later presented the proposal to President Nixon who approved what would become a $16 million program. Then John B. Connally, the former Nixon Treasury Secretary, was dispatched to Iran to inform the Shah, one oil man to another.
The committee report charges that: "The President, Dr. Kissinger and the foreign head of state [the Shah] hoped our clients would not prevail. They preferred instead that the insurgents simply continue a level of hostilities sufficient to sap the resources of our ally's neighboring country [Iraq]. The policy was not imparted to our clients, who were encouraged to continue fighting. Even in the context of covert action, ours was a cynical enterprise."
During the Arab-Israeli war, when the Kurds might have been able to strike at a distracted Iraqi government, Kissinger, according to the report, "personally restrained the insurgents from an all-out offensive on the one occasion when such an attack might have been successful."
Then, when Iran resolved its border dispute with Iraq, the U.S. summarily dropped the Kurds. And Iraq, knowing aid would be cut off, launched a search-and-destroy campaign the day after the border agreement was signed.
A high U.S. official later explained to the Pike committee staff: "Covert action should not be confused with missionary work."
That is the history. Deception on the part of the US. Promises are made to the Kurds with no intention of them being kept. In part, these promises are made to destabilize all of Iraq, to pit one region against the other which does ensure that while Nouri al-Maliki may get cozy and fall into bed with Iran, the two won't be hitting any wedding registries. Maybe next time, Mirwaisi and Buckley might try doing a little research before making asses of themselves in public?
Despite OpEd News, today was a notable day for journalism as the Pulitzer Prizes were announced. Journalism is supposed to serve the public, to inform the public. This is required in a democracy because the people determine the government and they need to hold their officials accountable. So the big prize is "PUBLIC SERVICE" and the award there went to the Washington Post and the Guardian US for their coverage of the illegal spying. NSA whistle-blower Ed Snowden issued a statement via the Freedom of the Press Foundation:
I
am grateful to the committee for their recognition of the efforts of
those involved in the last year's reporting, and join others around the
world in congratulating Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Barton Gellman,
Ewen MacAskill, and all of the others at the Guardian and Washington
Post on winning the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.
Today's decision is a vindication for everyone who believes that the public has a role in government. We owe it to the efforts of the brave reporters and their colleagues who kept working in the face of extraordinary intimidation, including the forced destruction of journalistic materials, the inappropriate use of terrorism laws, and so many other means of pressure to get them to stop what the world now recognizes was work of vital public importance.
This decision reminds us that what no individual conscience can change, a free press can. My efforts would have been meaningless without the dedication, passion, and skill of these newspapers, and they have my gratitude and respect for their extraordinary service to our society. Their work has given us a better future and a more accountable democracy.
Today's decision is a vindication for everyone who believes that the public has a role in government. We owe it to the efforts of the brave reporters and their colleagues who kept working in the face of extraordinary intimidation, including the forced destruction of journalistic materials, the inappropriate use of terrorism laws, and so many other means of pressure to get them to stop what the world now recognizes was work of vital public importance.
This decision reminds us that what no individual conscience can change, a free press can. My efforts would have been meaningless without the dedication, passion, and skill of these newspapers, and they have my gratitude and respect for their extraordinary service to our society. Their work has given us a better future and a more accountable democracy.
Ed Snowden is an American citizen and whistle-blower who had been employed by the CIA and by the NSA before leaving government employment for the more lucrative world of contracting. At the time he blew the whistle, he was working for Booz Allen Hamilton doing NSA work. As he notes in his statement, many reporters at both outlets reported on the very important story. Glenn Greenwald (Guardian) had the first scoop on Snowden's revelations that the US government was spying on American citizens, keeping the data on every phone call made in the United States (and in Europe as well) while also spying on internet use via PRISM and Tempora.
The other winners in the field of journalism were:
BREAKING NEWS REPORTING - The Boston Globe Staff
INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING - Chris Hamby of The Center for Public Integrity, Washington, D.C.
EXPLANATORY REPORTING - Eli Saslow of The Washington Post
LOCAL REPORTING - Will Hobson and Michael LaForgia of the Tampa Bay Times
NATIONAL REPORTING - David Philipps of The Gazette, Colorado Springs, CO
INTERNATIONAL REPORTING - Jason Szep and Andrew R.C. Marshall of Reuters
FEATURE WRITING - No award
COMMENTARY - Stephen Henderson of the Detroit Free Press
CRITICISM - Inga Saffron of The Philadelphia Inquirer
EDITORIAL WRITING - The Editorial Staff of The Oregonian, Portland
EDITORIAL CARTOONING - Kevin Siers of The Charlotte Observer
BREAKING NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY - Tyler Hicks of The New York Times
FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY - Josh Haner of The New York Times
On the award to the Colorado Springs Gazette's David Philipps, Greg Avery (Denver Business Journal) notes:
An investigation into veterans being discharged from the military without benefits after relatively minor offenses won the Colorado Springs Gazette newspaper and reporter Dave Philipps a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.
[. . .]
Philipps’ three-day series, called “Other Than Honorable,” looked into how soliders’ discharge status after they returned home from overseas tours of duty left them struggling. The stories were published May 19-21, 2013.
The Pulitzers also honor the world of publishing -- fiction and non-fiction -- and the arts. The winners in the Books, Drama and Music field:
FICTION - "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt (Little, Brown)
DRAMA - "The Flick" by Annie BakerHISTORY - "The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832" by Alan Taylor (W.W. Norton)
BIOGRAPHY - "Margaret Fuller: A New American Life" by Megan Marshall (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
POETRY - "3 Sections" by Vijay Seshadri (Graywolf Press)
GENERAL NONFICTION - "Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation" by Dan Fagin (Bantam Books)
MUSIC - "Become Ocean" by John Luther Adams (Taiga Press/Theodore Front Musical Literature)
Norman Solomon used to do the P.U.-litzer awards each year with Jeff Cohen until recently. In the Age of Barack, there's just too much whoring for two people nail down. However, Norman does have a piece entitled "Why We Need Media Critics Who Are Fiercely Independent" (Huffington Post).
There's one more award for today. The Quil Lawrence Award.
You can reference the following "Iraq snapshot" from March 2010. March 7, 2010, Iraqis voted in parliamentary elections. The next morning, Quil was on NPR's Morning Edition where he explained to Steve Inskeep, "He seems to have done very well. I'm talking to people all over Baghdad, as well as hearing reports from friends in the south, but it's probably not possible for him to form a government without a couple of allies."
Voted hadn't even been counting but Quil was selling victory for Nouri. It would take days to count the votes the first time (and Nouri's loss would lead to Nouri demanding a recount -- which he'd also lose). But with no votes counted, Quil was whoring for Nouri.
The Quil Lawrence Award recognizes an individual posing as a reporter in order to whore.
The Quil Lawrence Award this years goes to Jane Arraf who has surpassed her Saddam Hussein-era whoring while she was Baghdad Bureau Chief for CNN. April 11, 2003, the New York Times published Eason Jordan's "The News We Kept To Ourselves." Other who worked for CNN during the Hussein-era have offered their own examples. Jane never has.
But she's outdone herself. Yesterday, the Christian Science Monitor published an 'analysis'/'report' by Jane which was pure whoring. As we noted at Third yesterday:
She takes the sewer that is The Christian Science Monitor deeper into the filth by writing, "In Anbar Province in the west, protests by Sunnis over marginalization and mistreatment flared into violence as what started as a peaceful protest movement became radicalized."
No, they did not flare into violence.
It takes a cheap and tacky whore to turn a year's worth of peaceful protest into violence.
Human Rights Watch has noted, "Government security forces had withdrawn from Anbar province after provoking a tribal uprising when they raided a Sunni protest camp in Ramadi on December 30, killing 17 people."
Jane also overlooks the April 23rd massacre of the sit-in in Hawija which resulted from Nouri's federal forces storming in. Alsumaria noted Kirkuk's Department of Health (Hawija is in Kirkuk) announced 50 activists have died and 110 were injured in the assault. AFP reported the death toll rose to 53. UNICEF noted that the dead included 8 children (twelve more were injured).
It's actually worse than that -- it usually is with Jane.
She's not just being stupid, she's lying. Check her Twitter feed. She knows better than anyone what happened in Hawija. There was a push to portray it as though Friday April 19, 2013, poor innocent security forces were attacked by protesters. No, they weren't. The attack took place near empty houses, not at the protest site. More importantly, there was a blackout on the fact that prior to that, the protesters were attacked by the security forces -- one was killed. Jane Tweeted about it -- she never used in any reporting and she acts as though it didn't take place. But it exists:
jane arraf
Protestor killed in clashes with #Iraq army in Huwaijah near Kirkuk. Army says it was defending position. Witnesses say soldiers opened fire
How do you Tweet it and then forget it, never write about it, never report on it?
How indeed.
Maybe it's just a coincidence that Nouri comes off better in her Christian Science Monitor article if she pins the blame for the violence on the protesters?
And it's also just a coincidence that she also offers 'analysis' that is wrong but helps Nouri:
A surprise move by influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to withdraw from the political process is expected to benefit Maliki. It allows him to go after large numbers of votes from poor, dispossessed Shiites hoping for more jobs and better services.
Maliki might be aided, too, by political disarray among the Kurds. The absence of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who has been undergoing medical treatment, has led to a leadership struggle for his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the three main Kurdish parties. Almost six months after provincial elections, the main Kurdish parties have not been able to agree on their own regional government.
A) Moqtada. The cleric and movement leader's followers will not be voting for Nouri. We went into the whys of that in the February 18th snapshot. You can refer to that. Since then, Moqtada has twice called for Nouri not to seek a third term (the last time was last week). In addition, Moqtada's now-ended 'retirement' never meant that candidates from the Sadr bloc weren't going to run. When Moqtada made the announcement, the Sadr bloc immediately had to decide whether they would field candidates or not and they decided they would.
Jane's just a nasty, dirty liar. And what's the Christian Science Monitor? It prints that lie that Moqtada's out of politics when even Dan Murphy has reported for the Monitor that Moqtada got back in?
B) The Kurds.
Jalal Talabani is the head of the PUK. But he's not in Iraq, is he?
He's in Germany. He's been there since his stroke. December 2012, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani suffered a stroke. The incident took place late on December 17, 2012 following Jalal's argument with Iraq's prime minister and chief thug Nouri al-Maliki (see the December 18, 2012 snapshot). Jalal was admitted to Baghdad's Medical Center Hospital. Thursday, December 20, 2012, he was moved to Germany. He remains in Germany currently.
Jane may not tell you about that but the PUK can. They can tell you about the screaming Nouri did at Jalal, about the threats he made to Jalal and about how, as soon as Nouri left Jalal's office, Jalal had his stroke.
From the December 19, 2012 snapshot:
The Iraq Times and Kitabat are both reporting that insiders are saying the collapse Monday night followed a verbal altercation with Nouri al-Maliki. According to an unnamed source or unnamed sources with Talabani's office, Nouri arrived last Monday evening at Talabani's office and as the political crisis was discussed, Jalal called for Nouri to lower the rhetoric (as he has done publicly) but he was referring to what Nouri was stating to him at that moment. This call to lower the rhetoric was met by a "violent explosion" from Nouri who called into question whether Jalal was able to be impartial or neutral. Nouri is said to have brought up the effort last spring to seek a no-confidence vote on Nouri in Parliament. Jalal is said to have remained civil, asked that Nouri consider the options for resolving the crisis, Nouri was shown out and as soon as he was out of the office, Jalal complained of ill health.
Even setting aside all that, what do Kurds want?
Autonomy to be sure. The KRG is only semi-autonomous.
But in the immediate future, they want Kirkuk.
Kirkuk is oil-rich, it's also disputed. The KRG claims it and so does the central government out of Baghdad.
In 2006, Nouri became prime minister.
Per the 2005 Iraqi Constitution -- which Nouri took an oath to uphold -- specifically Article 140, there was supposed to be a census and referendum to resolve the issue of who got Kirkuk.
And that was supposed to have taken place no later than the end of 2007.
But Nouri refused to implement Article 140.
His first term ended in 2010. He lost that year's parliamentary elections. Thank to the White House, he got a second term. This was via a contract known as The Erbil Agreement. In it, the head of the other political blocs gave election loser Nouri al-Maliki a second term in exchange for his contractual guarantees to them. What did the Kurdish leaders have put in The Erbil Agreement?
That Nouri would finally implement Article 140.
Nouri signed off on that. He used the contract to get a second term.
But once he got a second term?
He refused to honor the promises he made in that contract.
So, as happened in his first term, there's been no implementation of Article 140.
Nouri and the KRG are arguing about oil currently. Nouri's cut off funds to the KRG -- funds they're owed -- in order to blackmail them. This has hurt government workers in the KRG.
Does any of this say, "I'm a Kurd and so I'll vote for Shi'ite Nouri"?
No.
What does it matter? And why does it merit Jane Araf being handed The Quil Lawrence Award?
Parliamentary elections are supposed to take place April 30th.
Quil spun the 2010 elections, the day after to make it appear Nouri was the winner.
This go round, a lot of whores have used the lead up to spin Nouri as the winner.
Spin and confusion -- these exist for a reason.
Let's look at how Jane lies about how Nouri got into power:
Over the past four years, the prime minister has presided over a fragile
coalition government cobbled together with other Shiite political blocs
and Kurdish parties after his party failed to win enough votes to
govern alone.
Oh, is that what happened?
Only a cheap whore would ignore The Erbil Agreement. We've covered it
until I'm sick of it. You can check out the archives starting with
November 10, 2010. It's the legal contract that gives Nouri his second
term. Here's the Telegraph of London from November 12, 2010:
A power-sharing pact that saw Nuri al-Maliki named as prime minister-elect was looking frayed on Friday after parliament ended in disarray over claims the deal was broken just hours after being sealed.
Telling the truth about how Nouri got into power? Jane can't do it.
It's public record but she vanishes it.
And by vanishing it, it just so happens -- another coincidence! -- that Jane's lies and distortions again benefit who?
Nouri al-Maliki.
Why do these lies matter?
Because Nouri may be about to steal another election.
The White House (Bully Boy Bush) installed him as prime minister in 2006
(when the Iraqi Parliament wanted to name Ibrahim al-Jafaari). In
2010, the Iraqi voters made Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya the winner but the
White House (Barack Obama) insisted Nouri get a second term.
Now he wants a third term.
He's never been the choice of Iraq.
He gets away with it because people don't pay attention. And because people don't pay attention, Jane Arraf can lie.
And she all the other liars are making it real easy for Nouri to steal another election.
They're creating the perception that he is the winner before the actual election.
Now it's true this can influence voting. But it probably won't. In
areas like Iraq -- unstable and violent -- the people who might be
influenced would -- if past patterns hold -- tend to stay away from the
polls. It would more likely influence Nouri supporters and, thinking he
was going to win, they'd stay home. It would also be -- if past
patterns hold -- a small sliver of voters (3 to 5 percent most likely).
So the issue is the perception. This is why it matters.
If you're American and you're not understanding what's going on here,
you need to think back to the 2000 presidential election and how Karl
Rove and company rushed to make Bully Boy Bush the winner in a contest
too close to call. By building the perception that he was the winner,
they could run with "Sore and Loserman" (Al Gore and Joe Lieberman)
trying to 'steal' the White House from BBB.
The real snafu here was that Karl Rove knew Bully Boy Bush had to act
like a president to pull this off but BBB woke up the day after the
election with a huge boil on the side of his face. Not only was it
unattractive but they also had to worry that some religious voters might
see it as "the mark of the beast" (the Devil) and think BBB the
anti-Christ. Early in the day, he attempted to cover it with a large
band-aid and be filmed acting presidential. But that only caused more
problems as people noted a big band-aid on the side of his face. So
they stopped the media push for a moment, brought in a doctor and lanced
the boil.
Al Gore had idiot advisors poorly advising him. He should have been
acting presidential for perception reasons as well and, had they done
that on day one, Gore would have won the perception because of Bully Boy
Bush's ugly facial boil.
Perception matters. It has an impact.
And what Jane Arraf especially (but others as well) are doing is
presenting Nouri as the next prime minister. If he loses in another
close vote, he'll be able to steal the election again because the press
has worked so hard to make Nouri the winner.
Jane Arraf's not a reporter, she's a propagandist.
As noted, the end of the month is supposed to see parliamentary elections. Al Mada reports
that cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr met with Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf and the two discussed current
conditions in Iraq. That was yesterday. NINA reports
Moqtada met with Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi today --
al-Nujafi's electoral coalition is the Muttahidoon Coalition. Meanwhile
Nouri's been insisting over the weekend
that he will form a political majority government. Today, All Iraq News reports Kurdish MP Mahma Khalil has declared such talk is premature -- another rebuke to Nouri. Yesterday, MP
Sheikh Hamid Maala al-Saedi (with the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq)
also called out the propaganda and noted that the first thing that has
to happen is elections. On the elections, this report re: Talabani is huge. But no other outlet's reporting it so we'll wait to see if indeed Jalal has left the PUK to join Barazni's KDP.
Part of Anbar won't be voting, Nouri's punishing them. He's also
attacking them. Yes, he continues to terrorize the people of Falluja.
In his latest
bombing of Falluja residential neighborhoods, NINA reports, 2 women have been killed and two children badly wounded.
These are War Crimes and not only has the US government provided the weapons for Nouri to kill civilians, they're also training and advising on how. World Tribune reports, "Officials said U.S. advisers were training and mentoring Iraqi SOF units in the war in Anbar. The officials said the advisers were training the Iraqis in urban warfare, counter-insurgency techniques, bomb detection and coordinated helicopter assaults."
Al Mada notes Iraqiya leader Ayad Allawi says the ongoing assault on Anbar has been prolonger in order to decrease voter turnout in the province.
In other violence, National Iraqi News Agency reports Joint Operations Command announced they killed 4 suspects, a Hit roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 police member and left three more injured, a Baquba shooting left two people injured, 1 person was shot dead southeast of Baghdad, Baghdad Operations Command said they killed 10 suspects, and 1 traffic police member was shot dead in Mosul, 1 Iraqi soldier was shot dead in Mosul. Alsumaria reports 1 Sahwa was killed and three more were injured in a hand grenade attack on a Tal Barley Village checkpoint. All Iraq News adds 1 police member was killed in Tikrit and his body set on fire.
Over in England, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has a made a few headlines. Roweana Mason (Guardian) reports:
Nick Clegg has called for the immediate publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war and urged those likely to be criticised to accept the public scrutiny.
Negotiations with the Cabinet Office for the release of about 200 cabinet-level discussions, 25 notes from Tony Blair to George W Bush and more than 130 records of conversations between the US president and either Blair or the then chancellor, Gordon Brown, are thought to have reached near-deadlock.
Chris Ames (Iraq Inquiry Digest) examines the press and Clegg's statements and offers:
These are War Crimes and not only has the US government provided the weapons for Nouri to kill civilians, they're also training and advising on how. World Tribune reports, "Officials said U.S. advisers were training and mentoring Iraqi SOF units in the war in Anbar. The officials said the advisers were training the Iraqis in urban warfare, counter-insurgency techniques, bomb detection and coordinated helicopter assaults."
Al Mada notes Iraqiya leader Ayad Allawi says the ongoing assault on Anbar has been prolonger in order to decrease voter turnout in the province.
In other violence, National Iraqi News Agency reports Joint Operations Command announced they killed 4 suspects, a Hit roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 police member and left three more injured, a Baquba shooting left two people injured, 1 person was shot dead southeast of Baghdad, Baghdad Operations Command said they killed 10 suspects, and 1 traffic police member was shot dead in Mosul, 1 Iraqi soldier was shot dead in Mosul. Alsumaria reports 1 Sahwa was killed and three more were injured in a hand grenade attack on a Tal Barley Village checkpoint. All Iraq News adds 1 police member was killed in Tikrit and his body set on fire.
Over in England, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has a made a few headlines. Roweana Mason (Guardian) reports:
Nick Clegg has called for the immediate publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war and urged those likely to be criticised to accept the public scrutiny.
Negotiations with the Cabinet Office for the release of about 200 cabinet-level discussions, 25 notes from Tony Blair to George W Bush and more than 130 records of conversations between the US president and either Blair or the then chancellor, Gordon Brown, are thought to have reached near-deadlock.
Chris Ames (Iraq Inquiry Digest) examines the press and Clegg's statements and offers:
Note that he has suggested twice, while claiming not to know “exactly
what the hold-up now is”, that people who might be trying to avoid
scrutiny are responsible for said hold-up. This could be a reference to
Blair, or it could be a reference to the Cabinet Secretary, Jeremy Heywood. But, according to a further report from the Independent, Blair has gone for the former interpretation [. . .]
BBC reminds, "The inquiry was set up in June 2009 and heard from final witnesses in February 2011. It examined the background to the war, the conduct of military operations, post-war planning and the UK's role in post-war security and governance until British troops left in 2009." James Lyons and Tom McTague (Daily Mirror) report:
Tony Blair hit back tonight after Nick Clegg hinted that he could be
delaying the publication of a critical report on the war in Iraq.
The ex-PM is expected to bear the brunt of the criticism in Sir John Chilcot’s report after a £7.5million inquiry into the conflict.
All those censured – also expected to include Gordon Brown – have been given a chance to respond before the report is made public.
But four years, four months and 22 days after the inquiry began and two years after it was due to report, that process has still not been completed.
The ones needing the report out quickly? The Labour Party. Tony Blair refuses to go away. He continues to tie Labour to the Iraq War and there's a chance the report could come out ahead of the elections. May 7, 2015 is when the United Kingdom is expected to hold a general election. The more time between that date and the release of the report the better for Labour. Even if the report should magically give War Criminal Tony Blair a pass, the reaction to such a move would be to inflame the public.
Labour has tried to draw a line between Labour 'today' and War Criminal Tony but with him refusing to crawl back under his rock, there's a feeling that a very public rebuke may be needed.
Nick Clegg may care about the report being released for truth reasons or he may be using it for electoral purposes (or a combo of both). He's a Liberal Democrat and Labour's fall has helped his party. (He's Deputy Prime Minister due to the Liberal Democrats partnering up with the Conservative Party to form the government.)
In the UK, the equivalent of the Democratic Party was Tony's Labour (actually 'New Labour' -- they sold out to corporations in the 90s, back when Tony danced for Rupert Murdoch -- Gore Vidal wrote a telling essay on that in real time). But they were in power in 2002 so they were the ones -- specifically Tony -- who sold the illegal war to the British people with multiple lies. Liberal Democrats are the center party in England -- and with New Labour moving Labour to the right, Liberal Democrats are now center-right.
iraq
pulitzer prize
illegal spying
the guardian
glenn greenwald
the washington post
norman solomon
npr
morning edition
quil lawrence
steve inskeep
the christian science monitor
the guardian
rowena mason
chris ames
dan murphy
The ex-PM is expected to bear the brunt of the criticism in Sir John Chilcot’s report after a £7.5million inquiry into the conflict.
All those censured – also expected to include Gordon Brown – have been given a chance to respond before the report is made public.
But four years, four months and 22 days after the inquiry began and two years after it was due to report, that process has still not been completed.
The ones needing the report out quickly? The Labour Party. Tony Blair refuses to go away. He continues to tie Labour to the Iraq War and there's a chance the report could come out ahead of the elections. May 7, 2015 is when the United Kingdom is expected to hold a general election. The more time between that date and the release of the report the better for Labour. Even if the report should magically give War Criminal Tony Blair a pass, the reaction to such a move would be to inflame the public.
Labour has tried to draw a line between Labour 'today' and War Criminal Tony but with him refusing to crawl back under his rock, there's a feeling that a very public rebuke may be needed.
Nick Clegg may care about the report being released for truth reasons or he may be using it for electoral purposes (or a combo of both). He's a Liberal Democrat and Labour's fall has helped his party. (He's Deputy Prime Minister due to the Liberal Democrats partnering up with the Conservative Party to form the government.)
In the UK, the equivalent of the Democratic Party was Tony's Labour (actually 'New Labour' -- they sold out to corporations in the 90s, back when Tony danced for Rupert Murdoch -- Gore Vidal wrote a telling essay on that in real time). But they were in power in 2002 so they were the ones -- specifically Tony -- who sold the illegal war to the British people with multiple lies. Liberal Democrats are the center party in England -- and with New Labour moving Labour to the right, Liberal Democrats are now center-right.
iraq
pulitzer prize
illegal spying
the guardian
glenn greenwald
the washington post
norman solomon
npr
morning edition
quil lawrence
steve inskeep
the christian science monitor
the guardian
rowena mason
chris ames
dan murphy
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