Tuesday, March 29, 2016

We need Cynthia

hillaryresponds

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Hillary Responds To Her Weekend Losses" went up.


The wicked War Hawk lost all three contests over the weekend to Bernie Sanders.

Thank goodness.

No one wants the disgusting Hillary Clinton.

I also don't want the disgusting Jill Stein.

I want Cynthia McKinney to run for the Green Party's presidential nomination.

This is from Cynthia McKinney's latest at RT:


          

Either by omission or by commission, the US media actively misinforms the public on crucial issues that matter. The reason they do this is because they legally can.
My mentor and dissertation committee member, Dr. Peter Dale Scott, recently wrote on his Facebook page: “Inadequate decently priced housing is one of America's most urgent domestic problems, with developers vacating neighborhoods to build third and fourth homes for the one percent. It is a symptom of what's wrong that Cynthia McKinney, one of the relatively few former members of Congress with a Ph.D., has to go to RT to discuss a crisis that is so under-reported in the US media.”
And therein lies the problem with US media: The news is so filtered and in some cases propagandized that it bears little resemblance to the day-to-day intellectual needs of the average US citizen. It fails to provide solutions, let alone information that allows US citizens to cast informed votes. Either by omission or by commission, the US media actively under-, ill-, or misinforms the public on crucial issues that matter! The reason they do this is because they legally can. Media in the US has at least one court ruling that allows them to knowingly lie to the public.



We need Cynthia!!!!

Let me note the latest at Third:



And that, along with Dallas, the following wrote it:





The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.







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



Monday, March 28, 2016.  Chaos and violence continue, Haider al-Abadi's given until Thursday to alter his Cabinet, US State Dept spokesperson John Kirby's spin gets a push back, where the hell are Iraq's national elections (now two years overdue), and much more.


Today, the US military continued bombing Iraq -- an action that has taken place daily ever since August 2014.  The US Defense Dept announced/bragged:


Strikes in Iraq
Attack and fighter aircraft conducted 10 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:

-- Near Mosul, four strikes struck an ISIL security headquarters and an ISIL tactical unit, destroyed an ISIL assembly area and suppressed an ISIL mortar position and an ISIL tactical unit.

-- Near Qayyarah, three strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units; destroyed four ISIL mortar positions, an ISIL machine gun and an ISIL supply cache; and suppressed an ISIL mortar position.

-- Near Sinjar, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL heavy machine gun position.

-- Near Sultan Abdallah, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed five ISIL fighting positions and an ISIL assembly area.


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



While the bombing has become a daily feature, at the US State Dept today, something different emerged.  In the midst of spokesperson John Kirby's daily nonsense, a participant refused to play along.




QUESTION: Yes. The Iraqi prime minister, Mr. Al-Abadi, has been pushing ahead for reform in its government, and he claims to reshuffle his own cabinet. I was curious about your position on these claims about Abadi has been trying to accomplish.


MR KIRBY: What you call claims I think are, in fact – you almost – it makes it sounds like he’s doing something wrong here. Prime Minister Abadi is --


QUESTION: (Inaudible.)


MR KIRBY: Prime Minister Abadi is trying to make necessary political reforms in his country and he has moved some officials around, and that’s the obligation, that’s the responsibility; those are the choices that a prime minister has to make. We continue to support his efforts to improve governance in Iraq and to enact appropriate reforms to try to facilitate that process.


QUESTION: But bringing what he calls technocrats into his cabinet at this moment would definitely make a lot of people angry because he is going to exclude a lot of party appointed into his government. How would you react to that?


MR KIRBY: Again, these are decisions that he has to make and his government has to make and the Iraqi people have to make, and those are internal decisions that we aren’t going to involve ourselves in each individual appointment that he makes. These are internal matters for Iraq to speak to and for him to speak to. In general, we support his efforts at reform and we support his efforts at trying to get a government in place – and keep a government in place – that can be responsive to the needs of the Iraqi people and can help them deal with the very real threat inside their own country represented by [the Islamic State].


QUESTION: So wait, wait. So this – the position of the U.S. is that you’re not going to interfere in the president – or the leader of a country, his choices for cabinet, but you will interfere in who the – or you will choose who should be the leader of the country, but once your selected person is in power, they can have whoever they want in the cabinet? Is that basically what --


MR KIRBY: Well, it was the Iraqi people that --


QUESTION: After you guys --


MR KIRBY: -- put Prime Minister Abadi in the position he’s in.


QUESTION: After the U.S. pulled the rug out from under --

MR KIRBY: We’re not – we don’t involve ourselves in the internal decisions of an electorate like that.

QUESTION: Except in Syria.

QUESTION: (Off-mike.)

QUESTION: And --

MR KIRBY: No.

QUESTION: No?

MR KIRBY: How is that – I’m not sure I follow how we’re doing that in Syria.

Yeah.


John Kirby's not just an embarrassment, he's a damn liar.

In 2010, following the March elections and an eight month political stalemate, the US government gave Nouri al-Maliki a second term (even though he lost the 2010 election) via The Erbil Agreement.

In 2014, the US appointed/backed Haider al-Abadi to replace Nouri.


Reality: the Iraqi people did not vote on Haider.

Bigger reality:  Iraq is over two years later on national elections.

Is no one ever supposed to notice that?

John Kirby's lie brings attention to that reality.

Where are the national elections which should have taken place already?

Where are they, John Kirby?

More reality, what Haider's trying to do with the Cabinet?  It's not in the Constitution.

Strange how Kirby and company back the Constitution -- except when they don't.

Any observer of Iraq needs to be asking: Where are the national elections.

Every member of Parliament?

Their term has expired.

They were elected in the 2010 elections.

Where are the national elections?


REUTERS notes:


 Iraq’s parliament on Monday gave prime minister Haider Al Abadi three days to present a new non-party cabinet to fight corruption or risk a no-confidence vote.
A flash on state television called Thursday the “final deadline" for Mr Al Abadi, who said more than six weeks ago that he would replace ministers with technocrats unaffiliated with political parties.
But other politicians, including some within his own party, have pushed back against a reshuffle, fearing it could weaken the political patronage networks that have sustained their wealth and influence for more than a decade.


Muayed al-Tarifi (ANADOLU AGENCY) adds:


"Thursday will be the final deadline for [al-Abadi] to present his new cabinet," MP Rahim al-Draji told Anadolu Agency.
He said parliament would hold a confidence vote on Saturday if al-Abadi failed to present his government lineup by Thursday.


Why is the State Dept not demanding elections?

Why is the White House not insisting upon them?

They are now two years overdue.

The US government isn't interested in Iraq following its Constitution, they're just interested in bullying the country around.

And their puppet Haider al-Abadi?

Even if he wants to do this by Thursday, there's little chance he'll be able to.

Following elections, putting together the Cabinet has been problematic.

Even doing it partially has required weeks and weeks.


 Meanwhile, Kareem Raheem and Stephen Kalin (REUTERS) report,  "Powerful Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim leader Moqtada al-Sadr entered Baghdad's Green Zone, the heavily-fortified center of the capital housing government buildings and embassies, on Sunday to keep up pressure on the government to enact reforms."
With a series of self-serving statements, Moqtada announced he would rally in the Green Zone while his supporters rallied outside.
How brave.
Within the safety of the Green Zone.


XINHUA notes:


"Our project is to reform, we will not give it up, and I will enter the Green Zone by myself and will sit-in inside the Green Zone and represent the Iraqi people, and you (his followers) keep your sit-in at the gates. None of you move," Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr told hundreds of his followers before walking across the security checkpoint near the parliament building inside the government district. 


All by himself?


Except for his brigade of bodyguards.

Moqtada's been desperate for days now to get some publicity.
His rallies have been covered less and less -- even by Iraqi media.

None of it really worked and, by Friday evening, really only NINA was reporting on him and his rally.


Entering the Green Zone changed that.  He is said to have met with Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and ALSUMARIA reports that Saleh al-Mutlaq joined Moqtada in the tent he's set up inside the Green Zone.
While he gets a flurry of attention (please note, Mariah Carey cancelling Brussels concert is a much bigger topic on Arabic media currently), the western media ignores Falluja.



NINA reports that Arshad al-Salhi, head of Parliament's Human Rights Committee, states "that thousands of families in the besieged district of Fallujah die of hunger and pain caused by lack of food and water availability, calling on the government to assume its responsibilities in securing the requirements of insulated people."  ALSUMARIA notes that Iraqiya head Ayad Allawi is also noting the dire conditions in Falluja and calling for the Iraqi government and the United Nations to provide assistance.
Felicity Arbuthnot (DISSIDENT VOICE) notes:

In Fallujah, besieged by militias and according to another contact: “ … bombed since  January 1, 2014 by the government (armed by the USA and with US military advisers this whole time) and since August 2014 by the US Coalition”, the people are starving: “ On March 17th a husband threw himself his wife with their three children in to the river (Euphrates) from a bridge and drowned. They were desperate from hunger …” And the bodies of: “Nearly four thousand killed civilians have been taken to the hospital since January 2014.”


In other problems for the country, Daniel J. Graeber (UPI) reports:

The World Bank, meanwhile, said Iraq "needs to put its economic house in order" by reforming state-owned enterprises, enacting more even distribution of oil revenues and addressing chronic shortages of electricity.
"Through demonstrating a commitment to such real changes, we hope Iraq can find the support it seeks to relieve its immense fiscal pressures in the light of significantly reduced oil prices," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said.


And that's why you don't take money from the World Bank or the IMF.  They loan it.

And then they make demands.

It's never handed out freely.

And Iraq never needed the loans.

Corrupt leaders have stolen billions from the country since 2003.


And the problems never end for Iraq.  Jamal Hashim (XINHUA) reports:


A potential catastrophe set forth by the condition of the Mosul dam, Iraq's largest dam, raised alarms as the rainy season approaches.
The collapse of the Mosul dam could unleash a flood that may kill hundreds of thousands of people and trigger an environmental disaster, experts warned.

It is 113 meters high and 3.4 km long and is located 50 km north of Iraq's second largest city of Mosul, the capital of the province of Nineveh in northern Iraq.


Now let's move over to VOGUE and Julia Felsenthal's latest review:

There’s a particularly wrenching moment early in Only the Dead See the End of War, the gripping, graphic new documentary about the Iraq war airing tonight on HBO. The Australian conflict journalist Michael Ware is filming the aftermath of a 2003 suicide bombing of the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad. Iraqi first responders dig through rubble, pulling out maimed and dead bodies. One man notices Ware. He puts his hand in front of the journalist’s lens. “Why do you film the dead?” he asks angrily.
Ware doesn’t reply, nor does he lower his camera. More than a decade later, this documentary seems to offer an answer.


Phil Zabriskie (TIME magazine) also weighs in:

Only the Dead shows that while Ware may have escaped his time in Iraq with his life, his mind and soul were badly scarred. “I became a man I never thought I’d be,” he intones at one point. The most uncomfortable example of this comes when Ware films a dying man who’d been shot by American troops, doing nothing to intervene or remind the soldiers that the laws of war require them to provide medical assistance to wounded enemy combatants. The most poignant example comes when Joe Walker, a young Marine 2nd Lieutenant, shows Ware and photographer Yuri Kozyrev around Observation Point Hotel, a crumbling shell of a building in Ramadi that was taking fire every single day. Walker openly wrestles with the impact the experience is having. “I try my best to keep the big picture in mind,” he says. “When I got guys getting shot, getting killed, you start getting tunnel vision. You start hating this place. You start hating everybody here.”
Ware’s camera catches a dazed, baleful expression across the Marine’s face. “I could see good men here losing their grip, losing themselves,” Ware narrates. He knows whereof he speaks, because the same thing, of course, was happening to him.


No surprise, SALON and their critic Sonia Saraiya are lost.

Saraiya expects every movie to tell her exactly what to think.

Feeling clearly scares her as much as independent thought.


By contrast, Hannah Block (NPR) concludes:


Only the Dead is as much a reflection on the choices journalists make, and at what cost, as it is on the nature of war. We see Ware's face grow haggard and haunted as the film progresses. "I became a man I never thought I'd be," he says. In making this film, he's taken a brave look at himself as much as he has at the war that consumed him for so long.




Earlier tonight, Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Hillary Responds To Her Weekend Losses" went up.  It notes that, over the weekend, Hillary lost Washington, Alaska and Hawaii to Senator Bernie Sanders in their battle to win the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.


And it's not just those three Hillary's lost.  From the opening of Ava and my latest TV critique:


"We've just won six out of the last seven contests," Senator Bernie Sanders told Jonathan Karl this morning on ABC's THIS WEEK about his repeatedly defeating Hillary Clinton in Democratic primaries and caucuses. "We have the momentum."



On the topic of Hillary, we'll close with this:








  • . I didn't like her tone when she smirked at her "mistake" of sending 1000s of troops to their death in !
















  • Saturday, March 26, 2016

    Tweet of the week



  • President Obama now sending more U.S. ground troops into Iraq.


  • Cynthia needs to run for the Green Party's presidential candidate.

    She would make a great nominee in 2016 -- as she did in 2008.

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



    Saturday, March 26, 2016.  Chaos and violence continue, the Islamic State launches more attacks in Iraq, more US troops will be heading to Iraq, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visits the country, and much more.



    AP reports that the death toll has now climbed to 41 with at least one hundred and five more people left injured from a Friday bombing in Iraq.  AL JAZEERA reports:

    Mobile phone footage widely shared by Iraqis on social media showed players in football kits gathering to collect trophies and footballs as at least one child stood nearby.
    One man throws a new football to the crowd, before the camera shakes violently and the footage ends, at what witnesses said was the moment a bomber in the crowd detonated an explosives belt.

    NATIONAL IRAQI NEWS AGENCY explains that a bomber blew himself up on the field of a soccer stadium in  Iskanderiyah. Abbas al-Ani (AFP) notes, "The mayor, Ahmed Shaker, was among the dead, as was one of his bodyguards and at least five members of the security forces."  BBC News reports that burying of the dead began today and "Many of the dead were young boys who were in a trophy ceremony hit by the bomber, himself said to be a teenager."  Michael D. Regan (THE NEWSHOUR, PBS) notes that the Islamic State has claimed they orchestrated the attack.



    The attack was condemned by the United Nations via Jan Kubis but more talk on Arabic social media revolved around Kubis' inability to find a suit that fits his body than focused on his words regarding "evil doers."

    The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is in Iraq today and has met with KRG President Massoud Barzani.



    : Ban Ki-moon, WB, IDB Presidents in ,meet President Masoud Barzani, PM Nechirvan Barzani





    The visit was part of an economic effort -- for Iraq or for those who prey on Iraq? not yet clear -- which also featured Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank.  The two held a press briefing with Haider al-Abadi, prime minister of Iraq, and Ahmed Mohamed Ali al-Madani, president of the Islamic Development Bank.






    Saif Hameed (REUTERS) reports the UN Secretary-General again stressed the need for national reconciliation in Iraq.  This go round, he attempted to tie it in with the efforts to defeat the Islamic State but talk, without pressure or incentive, is just talk.


    Some of today's violence?

    AL JAZEERA reports that the Islamic State sent 10 suicide bombers to attack Ein el-Assad base today resulting in 8 of the bombers being killed by Iraqi forces, 2 of the bombers blowing themselves up and "at least 18 soldiers" being killed.  GULF NEWS explains, "Al Assad airbase, located about 180 kilometres northwest of Baghdad in Anbar province, is one of the largest military installations in the country."


    Meanwhile,  "The secretary and I both believe that there will be an increase to the U.S. forces in Iraq in the coming weeks."


    This announcement was made by Gen Joseph Dunford at the press briefing he and Secretary of Defense Ash Cater held on Friday.



    Q: The Marines this week in their support of the Iraqi offensive operation, is this something we will see more of, do you think, as time goes on in the fight to get to Mosul? And is -- can you talk about the accelerants that the secretary has talked about before and whether this is a key part of what you want to see the military do more of in Iraq over the next several months?


    GEN. DUNFORD: I mean, Lita, we've talked I guess now for some months about setting the conditions for success in Mosul and -- and facilitating the Iraqi forces and staging around Mosul to begin to isolate Mosul, and as the Iraqis have announced, that has begun. These Marines that were there, the artillery battery that were there were in direct support of that. We put the -- we put the battery there to support the Americans that are there advising the Iraqi forces and also in a position to provide support to the Iraqi forces.

    And from my perspective, this is no different than aviation fires we've been delivering. This happens to be surface fires -- (inaudible) -- artillery. But certainly no different conceptually than the fire support we've been providing to the Iraqis all along.

    And with regard to further accelerants, the secretary and I do expect that there'll be increased capabilities provided to the Iraqis to set the conditions for their operations in Mosul. Those decisions haven't been made yet, but we certainly -- we certainly do expect more of the kinds of things that we saw in Ramadi, albeit a bit different tailored for operations in Mosul. But it's -- but again, the primary force fighting in Mosul will be Iraqi security forces and we'll be in a position to provide advise, assist and enabling capabilities to make them successful.

    Q: It appears to be part of a -- more of a ground combat role than we've seen before.

    GEN. DUNFORD: No, it's not. I mean, we have -- we have -- we have surface fires in Al Asad and other places, as an example, and we've used those in the past. And so this is not a fundamental shift in our approach to supporting the Iraqi forces. This happens to be what was the most appropriate tool that the commander assessed needed to be in that particular location.

    [. . .]
    Q: But General Dunford, we've just heard this week that there are actually 5,000 U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq. Why is the Pentagon and senior military leadership reluctant to say that it's more than 3,800?

    GEN. DUNFORD: We're not reluctant, Jennifer. What we track is the number that are in our force management level. That's 3,800. But this is nothing that's inconsistent with what's been going on for the last 15 years in terms of people that are in and out on temporary duty less than a certain period of time, people that are in direct support of the embassy. Those have -- those have not been counted. In other words, there's a consistency in the way we've been counting people that's been going on for the last 15 years.

    And at any given time, we have 3,800 directly in support of the mission. When units rotate, for example, we don't double-count those numbers, so if there's a unit of 200 that's being replaced by a unit of 200 and they both happen to be on the ground at the same time, we don't count that as 400, we haven't in the past 15 years, because that hasn't -- that hasn't counted against our force management level.

    So the accounting of our people has been consistent. We're not denying that there's more people than 3,800; I think you got the numbers from us. But in terms of what we count in the mission, and that's in accordance with the direction that we've been given, the 3,800 is what's against the mission.

    SEC. CARTER: Jim.

    Q: (Off-mic.)

    GEN. DUNFORD: No, I didn't say 5,000 was accurate, I said 3,800 was the force management level and there's some number above that on any given day as a result of people that support the embassy, people at a TDY and people in other categories that don't count against that 3,800.

    SEC. CARTER: Jim?

    Q: I'd like to follow up, if I could, on Lita's questions about the Marines and that fire base. Unlike the previous U.S. military combat positions and fire support, this is an independent base, these are U.S. military only. And by all indications, they are not just defensive, but in this latest movement by Iraqi forces, they provided fire support for offensive operations against ISIS. So why is this not the first footprint of a U.S. combat ground operation there in Iraq?

    GEN. DUNFORD: Jim, the reason they're in a different base is simply a function of geometry. They're designed to support forces in an area called Makhmur. The artillery can't be co-located with the ground forces in Makhmur and provide effective fire support, so this position was selected because of the geometry necessary to support that particular location.

    And with regard to providing support to Iraqi offensive capability, once again, I mean, to me, there's no inconsistency between what this artillery unit did and what our aviation support is doing every single day. I don't draw a distinction with it. In other words, we've said that we're providing enabling support to include combined arms capability to Iraqi forces as they conduct operations, which is exactly what this artillery unit was doing.

    Q: Well, we have all indications that this is a pretty permanent position right now; that after a short period of time, U.S. Army personnel are going to replace the 26 MEU Marine there. And it still has all indications that the U.S. military is directly involved in the ground operations of -- with the U.S. -- with the Iraqi.

    SEC. CARTER: Yes, maybe very quickly just say, even since last week now, as the Iraqis have started to consolidate their positions, the situation on the ground has changed in terms of where the Iraqis are in the relationship to the support, the defense of support they're providing to our artillery unit that's there. So that's already changed, you know, through the course of the week.

    But in all honesty, I just cannot see this being inconsistent with everything that we've been doing over the last several months.

    SEC. CARTER: And let me just add to that, what we'll be doing in coming months. This is our approach to eliminating ISIL from Mosul. The Iraqi Security Forces are the ones who are carrying out the assault, the envelopment, the assault, but we're helping them.

    That's our -- that's been our approach and we'll continue to do that. Started in Ramadi, we'll continue to going up to Mosul. Carla?

    Q: When do you anticipate seeing U.S. American ground forces closer to the front lines as the battle towards Mosul looms?

    GEN. DUNFORD: Jim, one thing that I probably just need to clarify, this position is behind what is known as the forward line of troops for the peshmerga and Kurds. So it's by no means out in front on its own.

    And secondly, what I would say about your question about the future is we have a series of recommendations that we will be discussing with the president in the coming weeks to further enable our support for the Iraqi security forces.

    So again, the secretary and I both believe that there will be an increase to the U.S. forces in Iraq in the coming weeks. But that decision hasn't been made.

    Nor -- you know, you alluded to decisions that have already been made about Army units replacing the Marine units. All that is pre-decision. There's been no decisions made about what's going to happen to this particular position in the future.

    But it is going to be decided in the context of the broader issue that the secretary will bring to the president again, focused on what it is we need to do to maintain a minimum money campaign and what specifically do we need to do to enable operations in Mosul.



     "The secretary and I both believe that there will be an increase to the U.S. forces in Iraq in the coming weeks."


    So much for Barack Obama's promise of no boots on the ground and of no US troops in combat.

    Like every other promise, it was just another lie.


    The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in '68
    And he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday
    Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark café
    You laugh he said you think you're immune
    Go look at your eyes they're full of moon
    You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you
    All those pretty lies pretty lies
    When you gonna realize they're only pretty lies
    Only pretty lies just pretty lies

    -- "The Last Time I Saw Richard," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on BLUE


    Lies and more lies from Barack.


    And lies have consequences.


    On the 13th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, March, 19, 2016, another US service member died in Iraq.


    Dropping back to Tuesday's snapshot:

    Barbara Starr (CNN) reports, "A U.S. Marine stationed at Firebase Bell was killed by an ISIS Katyusha rocket attack on Saturday. Eight U.S. troops were also wounded in the attack. Three were medivaced to Germany where one is described as having serious injuries a defense official told CNN."  Spencer Ackerman (GUARDIAN) notes of the attack:

    The US marine who was killed in a rocket attack on Saturday died at the first exclusively American base established in Iraq since the Pentagon returned forces to the country in 2014, a spokesman said on Monday.
    The base, whose existence had not previously been public, has come under fire from ever closer range over recent days, an indication that Isis knew about the outpost before the Pentagon announced its creation.



    Dan Lamothe (WASHINGTON POST) offers a photo essay on the new base.


    Barack's sending US troops into Iraq again.

    And this as Iraqi soldiers are still deserting.  Wladimir van Wilgenburg (DAILY BEAST) reports:

    At first, Iraqi soldiers involved in an operation to capture villages close to Mosul on Friday were in good spirits. “Allah Akbar,” Arabic for “God is Great,” they shouted after they hit an alleged Islamic State (ISIS) suicide bomber with US-provided mortars. But just one hour later many of them fled, fearing ISIS would strike back.
    Early in the day, there were already signs of trouble. A sergeant named Hussein from the artillery battalion told The Daily Beast, “There has been some delays in what we expected, but it’s mostly because of their heavy use of sniper fire and of IEDS. We have not been really advancing today, but that is not part of our plan as of yet, but in coming hours, we are planning to move forward.”
    [. . .]

     When their artillery struck something that created a huge explosion inside Nasr, Jibouri and his men shouted with joy. They thought maybe they’d hit an ISIS suicide bomber. General Jibouri looked with his binoculars over the trench to see the result of the artillery, and it seemed he already thought he achieved victory over ISIS militants in the village. 
    Yet one hour later, his men were not so joyful, when most soldiers ran in panic, fleeing in their Humvees, fearing ISIS mortar attacks. Just a few of his men, including the artillery officers, stood their ground.
    This seems to be exactly the biggest problem for the Iraqi army: the lack of morale. One week ago Iraqi soldiers abandoned their base, which forced the United States to send in more Marines in support, and one of them was killed. Again this time, Iraqi army soldiers almost completely deserted their positions, fearing an ISIS response to their artillery when,  in reality, not one mortar shell or bullet hit close to their positions.



    Patrick Cockbun (INDEPENDENT) attempts to address what's going on:



    Without any pubic admission or even telling the families of the US soldiers involved, they sent 200 Marines from the Marine Expeditionary Unit with four artillery units to the by now largely abandoned base. Their arrival was wholly contrary to the impression the Pentagon had previously given that US soldiers in Iraq are limited in number and not engaged in front line combat duties. Though the Marines were within rocket range of Isis ten miles away, they were not added to the official US roster of 3,870 troops in Iraq because they were supposedly there on a temporary assignment.
    The US public may not have known that their soldiers were back in Iraq defending a fire base, but Isis certainly had observed the arrival of the Marines and the artillery. They began firing rockets at the base, one of which hit a bunker on 19 March, killing Master Sergeant Louis Cardin, a 27-year-old Marine from California, and injuring eight other Marines, three of them seriously. Two days later they made a ground attack in which two Isis fighters were killed.  At this point, the Pentagon was forced to become more open about where Sergeant Cardin had been when he died and admit that Marines were not just acting in support of the Iraqi Army and Peshmerga.

    The purpose of sending the Marine unit into such as dangerous place was to revive the morale of the 15th Division and to some extent this was successful. 


    Attempts?

    Where's the subject, where's the noun?

    He writes an overly long article but never names Barack Obama, the president of the United States.  Instead, things just happen, "they" do things.

    As opposed to Barack Obama sending "200 Marines" on the mission.


    Today, the US Defense Dept announced/bragged/boasted/claimed:



    Strikes in Iraq
    Using rocket artillery along with ground-attack, attack, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft, coalition forces conducted 22 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government:
    -- Near Fallujah, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units.
    -- Near Hit, five strikes struck an ISIL improvised weapons factory, an ISIL communications facility, an ISIL weapons storage facility and two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL vehicles and an ISIL fighting position.
    -- Near Kisik, two strikes destroyed an ISIL artillery piece and suppressed an ISIL fighting position and an ISIL mortar position.
    -- Near Mosul, four strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units, suppressed two ISIL mortar positions, and destroyed two ISIL supply caches and three ISIL assembly areas.
    -- Near Qayyarah, six strikes struck four separate ISIL tactical units, suppressed an ISIL mortar position, and destroyed three ISIL mortar positions, an ISIL artillery piece, an ISIL supply cache, an ISIL vehicle, and five ISIL assembly areas.
    -- Near Sinjar, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL heavy machine gun position and an ISIL assembly area.
    -- Near Sultan Abdallah, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units, destroyed an ISIL fighting position and denied ISIL access to terrain.

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


    On the topic of US-led coalition bombings, we'll note this:






  • Reports confirm that about 30 Iraqi soldiers were hit mistakenly by US led coalition airstrike near Mosul.





















  • The ridiculous Rolling Stone

    Rolling Stone used to be a rock magazine.

    Then it became a 'laddy magazine' and it's never recovered.

    It was during that time that it featured the now discredited 'bug chaser' 'report.'

    Back then publisher Jann was still in the closet.

    It took him over 50 years to come out.

    All of that should be factored in when noting that the magazine has now endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

    A middle-aged magazine that's lost its way and that's run by a serial closet case.

    That's probably the best definition of a Hillary Clinton supporter I've yet to come across.




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


    Friday, March 25, 2016. Chaos and violence continue, an operation to retake Mosul begins, Bernie Sanders receives a major endorsement, and much more.



    Thursday, the US Defense Dept announced/claimed:




    Strikes in Iraq
    Attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft and rocket artillery conducted 26 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:


    -- Near Hit, three strikes struck an ISIL weapons storage facility and an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL rocket rail and five ISIL bunkers.

    -- Near Kirkuk, a strike struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two ISIL vehicles, an ISIL command and control node and an ISIL weapons cache.

    -- Near Kisik, a strike destroyed an ISIL tunnel.

    -- Near Mosul, eight strikes struck four separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL vehicles, an ISIL vehicle bomb and six ISIL assembly areas and suppressed an ISIL mortar position.

    -- Near Qayyarah, three strikes struck an ISIL communication facility, destroyed an ISIL-used bridge section and denied ISIL access to terrain.

    -- Near Ramadi, a strike denied ISIL access to terrain.

    -- Near Sinjar, five strikes struck five ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL vehicle and four ISIL assembly areas.

    -- Near Sultan Abdallah, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit, destroyed an ISIL mortar position and denied ISIL access to terrain.

    -- Near Tal Afar, two strikes destroyed an ISIL assembly area and suppressed an ISIL mortar position.

    -- Near Hit, a strike destroyed two ISIL staging areas and two ISIL supply caches.


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




    In other news, a supposed major move is taking place on the ground.


    |i army starts offensive in region around , according to State TV






    Larisa Epatko (THE NEWSHOUR) explains, "About 2 million people lived in Iraq’s second largest city before the Islamic State, or ISIL, siege in June 2014. Since then, some residents, including Yazidis, Turkmen and other ethnic and religious minorities have fled to other parts of the country."
    The ASSOCIATED PRESS notes, "It was not immediately clear how long such a complex and taxing offensive would take."










  • While Iran's PRESS TV is rah-rah, others are a bit more down to earth.  For example, CBS NEWS offers:


    Indeed, a senior U.S. military official told CBS News that Thursday's advance was a "small operation to liberate some villages near Makhmour and push the foreign line of troops west." A commander of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces characterized the operation in the same way. 

    And Jane Onyanga-Omara and Jim Michaels (USA TODAY) provide this clarity:

    Still, the Iraqi ground operations are preliminary and Iraqi forces are still about 75 miles away from Mosul.
    Iraq's military has yet to assemble enough trained forces needed to seize the city, a complex operation that will exceed anything Iraqi forces have accomplished since the country's military collapsed in the face of an Islamic State onslaught two years ago.


    Jason Ditz (ANTIWAR.COM) sees something more than liberating Mosul as the point of the current operation focusing on Makhmour:

    The Makhmur District is also a key to holding oil fields around Kirkuk, and the ISIS offensive is seen by many analysts as part of an effort to ultimately regain control over those lucrative oil fields, and have been “outgunning” the thousands of Iraqi troops in the area.
    Whether they’re trying to save Iraqi ground troops who still can’t stand up to ISIS, or save oil fields, however, the latest escalation puts US troops even further in harm’s way, and has put the war even further afield from the “no boots on the ground” affair initially promised by the Obama Administration.


    The "no boots on the ground" promise is now forgotten.

    As pointed out on DEMOCRACY NOW!:

    The Pentagon is facing increasing questions about the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, following the death of Staff Sgt. Louis Cardin and the revelations of a newly disclosed U.S. base in northern Iraq. Unnamed Pentagon officials told The Washington Post that there are currently about 5,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq—a far higher number than previously reported. The U.S. troop level in Iraq is supposed to be officially capped at 3,870. But U.S. military spokesperson Colonel Steve Warren said, "People come through on a temporary basis and go above and below the force cap all the time."





    On Thursday's THE NEWSHOUR (PBS), Judy Woodruff spoke with Senator Bernie Sanders about the Islamic State:


    SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (VT-I), Democratic Presidential Candidate: Well, I think it has to be destroyed.
    This is a barbaric organization that is a threat not only to the people in the Middle East, to the people in Europe, but obviously to the people in the United States as well. It has to be destroyed.
    And here is how we destroy it. We do not destroy it by doing what we did in Iraq and getting into perpetual warfare. I voted against the war in Iraq. In fact, Secretary Clinton, when she was in the Senate, voted for that war.
    What we do, as King Abdullah of Jordan has told us, is we work to put together a very effective coalition of Muslim nations who lead the effort on the ground, supported by the United States, the U.K., France, and other major powers in the air and through training.
    Now, in the last year, we have had some success. Ramadi has been recaptured. ISIS has lost about 20 percent of the ground that it controlled. But we have a lot more to do. So, I think what we need is strong coalition.
    And, by the way, Judy — and very few people talk about this — we have got to bring in some of the Gulf region countries who have kind of sat it out, countries like Qatar, one of the wealthiest countries on earth, who are spending $200 billion in preparation for the World Cups in 2022.
    They’re spending $200 billion for the World Cup. Well, they may want to spend some money helping us destroy ISIS. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait are going to have to play a greater role.


    JUDY WOODRUFF: But, Senator, as the United States waits for these other countries to get on board to form this coalition, ISIS is not only strong in its base in Iraq and Syria. It’s now sending, we know, hundreds of fighters into Europe, the AP reporting today 400 trained fighters planing attacks in Europe.
    That’s going on right now.


    SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Right, and that raises the other issue.
    First of all, we have got to destroy ISIS. Second of all, we have got to protect the United States from attacks and protect our allies throughout the world. And that means we need to do a much greater job in sharing intelligence. We need to do a much better job in monitoring those young people who are being drawn into terrorism.
    We have got to monitor how they communicate with each other to plan attacks. So, there is a lot of work to be done to protect our country, as well as to protect our allies in Europe and elsewhere, by the way.


    JUDY WOODRUFF: But how do you do that, when there are people right now in Europe, in Belgium, and other countries and presumably here in the United States who are prepared to die for this cause?


    SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, Judy, no one ever said that this is going to be simple.
    What we have got to do is work with increased intelligence capabilities, shared intelligence capabilities. We have to work with increased law enforcement, with increased monitoring, with increased tracking of people who come into this country. This is not easy. Your point is right.
    If somebody is willing to blow themselves up and walk into an airport, or walk into a movie theater, you know what? It is tough to defend ourselves against that. But, obviously, we must do everything that we can.


    JUDY WOODRUFF: But I don’t understand how you destroy ISIS, to use your word, when you’re talking about intelligence operations and cooperation and coalitions.


    SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: You don’t understand how we destroy ISIS?
    We destroy ISIS because there are millions of soldiers in the Middle East who are under arms right now. ISIS has perhaps 30,000 or 40,000 fighters. Our goal is to bring those countries together, to put troops on the ground to destroy ISIS, not to get the United States involved in perpetual warfare.

    Can ISIS be destroyed? Of course they can. It’s a question of a coalition. It’s a question, as King Abdullah has said, Muslim troops on the ground, not American troops. And, by the way, it is not a question of going to war against a religion, as some of my Republican colleagues would have us do. We’re taking on terrorism and ISIS, not Islam as a religion.



    Bernie Sanders is running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.  US House Rep Tulsi Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, Tweeted the following:









  • THE YOUNG TURKS Cenk Uygur interviewed Bernie:












  • Rosario Dawson Tweets:






  • And Bernie just keeps picking up endorsements -- including this major endorsement:

    ILWU endorses Senator Bernie Sanders for President


    SAN FRANCISCO, CA – The ILWU’s International Executive Board voted today to endorse U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders for President.
    “Bernie Sanders is the best candidate for America’s working families,” said ILWU International President Robert McEllrath. “Bernie is best on the issues that matter most to American workers:  better trade agreements, support for unions, fair wages, tuition for students and public colleges, Medicare for all, fighting a corrupt campaign finance system and confronting the power of Wall Street that’s making life harder for most Americans.”
    Many longshore union members have expressed enthusiastic support for Sanders at the local level.
    The ILWU represents approximately 50,000 women and men who work in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii – in addition to ILWU Divisions representing workers in Canada and Panama.