Monday, October 19, 2015

Whoria Steinem weighs in

As an African-American woman, I've never been overly impressed with Gloria Steinem who has repeatedly struggled with minorities over the years -- including trans persons.

But I was still shocked to Whoria's piece at the Guardian endorsing Hillary.

Yes, she endorsed Hillary in 2008.

But she's a Democratic-Socialist.

Like Bernie.

So she's refusing to endorse someone with her own political beliefs?

She's such a whore.

And an old whore.

I'd say she needs to retire but clearly she has no life.

She's nothing but a fake ass.

Her CIA past is too well known for her to run from at this point.

And the way she's failed feminism repeatedly goes to the fact that her failures have probably been intentional.



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



Monday, October 19, 2015.  Chaos and violence continue, War Criminal Tony Blair gets media attention (but not enough), we survey panhandle media to see which outlets that beg for your money bothered to cover the latest Iraq revelations, five months and counting and the Iraqi forces still can't take Ramadi, a journalist en route to Iraq dies mysteriously in Istanbul, and much more.

Jon Stone (Independent) reports that Andrew MacKinlay, Labour MP during the lead up to the Iraq War, has declared himself "ashamed" for having faith in Tony Blair:


Andrew MacKinlay, who sat on the foreign affairs select committee in the run-up to the war, told LBC Radio that a new memo shows Tony Blair “duped” him along with the rest of the country. 

“Looking at this these documents this morning and everything else that has gone before we know that this was a complete and utter deceit to me and to others,” he said.


What's he talking about?


Telesur notes, "A 2002 memo from former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to President George Bush suggests that then-U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair had already committed support for an invasion of Iraq – almost 1 year before the invasion took place.

News of the agreement surfaced Saturday.

Sunday saw a denial on behalf of Blair.  Olivia Goldhill (Quarts) reports:

A spokeswoman from Tony Blair’s office said in an email to Quartz that the memo did not contradict what Blair has said in public. “This story is nothing new. The memo is consistent with what Mr. Blair was saying publicly at the time and with Mr. Blair’s evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry,” she said, referring to Britain’s public inquiry into the Iraq war.


But others aren't so quick to buy that spin.  Rowena Mason (Guardian) reports:


Alex Salmond, the SNP’s foreign affairs spokesman and Scotland’s former first minister, said “the net was now closing” around Blair and added to concern over Chilcot’s conduct.
“The memo contradicts claims from Mr Blair that all that time he had been seeking diplomatic ways to avoid an invasion. It also adds weight to the evidence given by Sir Christopher Meyer, the former UK ambassador to the United States – to the Chilcot inquiry – that the military timetable and preparation for invasion took precedence over any diplomacy and specifically over the timetable for the weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix,” Salmond said.



And BBC News notes, "BBC political correspondent Chris Mason said the document appeared to offer a revealing insight into how Mr Blair was perceived at the very highest level in Washington, in the year before the Iraq War."  Samuel Osborne (Independent) adds, "Mr Blair, who served as prime minister between 1997 and 2007, has repeatedly denied rushing to war in Iraq."





What stood out most about the story this morning is how it echoed The Downing Street Memo in that major American outlets avoided it.  This morning, the only US outlet covering it seriously was the Associated Press (click here for Danica Kirka's story).


Since then?

Global Research has covered the story.  Dissident Voice carries a serious examination by Felicity Arbuthnot which ties up many ends and also notes:

Also notable is that so keen was Tony Blair to ally George W. Bush in invasion-plotting that he left the UK during the ten days national mourning for Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. The longest living member of the Royal family had died on March 30, 2002. Queues lined to pay their last respects as she lay in state in Westminster Abbey, the Monarchy grieved and Her Majesty’s Prime Minister, Blair, boarded a ‘plane to the US.


Jennifer Deutschmann covers the subject for Inquisitr.  Sophia Tesfaye publicly embarrasses herself (it's all about the GOP race for president!!!!!) at Salon but Salon's where all the non-thinkers go.  That said, she should be greeted with rotten fruit wherever she dares to show her face after taking the revelations and trying to turn them into whore points for the Democratic Party.  She's a real piece of trash so it's good that she works at a garbage dump.  For an example of crazy on the right-wing side of the spectrum, you can check out the loony tunes Michael Rubin serves up at Commentary.


And what of 'brave' McClatchy Newspapers?


As we've long noted, McClatchy didn't do a damn thing to report the truth in the lead up to the Iraq War.

Knight-Ridder did.

And McClatchy purchased the Knight-Ridder chain in June of 2006.

But McClatchy was as cowardly as most other outlets -- cowardly and craven -- in 2002 and 2003.


They remain so today.



The lack of interest from US outlets is appalling given that the US Defense Dept announced Sunday:




Airstrikes in Iraq
Bomber, fighter, attack, ground-attack and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 18 airstrikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government:
-- Near Beiji, a strike struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL bunker, an ISIL heavy machine gun, three ISIL weapons caches, and an ISIL tactical vehicle.
-- Near Habbaniyah, a strike destroyed an ISIL mortar system.
-- Near Kisik, two strikes suppressed an ISIL sniper position and an ISIL light machine gun position.
-- Near Mosul, three strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed three ISIL heavy machine guns, six ISIL fighting positions and an ISIL tactical vehicle.
-- Near Qayyarah, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL roadside bomb and an ISIL vehicle.
-- Near Ramadi, three strikes destroyed an ISIL supply cache and denied ISIL access to two separate terrain locations.
-- Near Sinjar, five strikes struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL command-and-control node, an ISIL cache, an ISIL assembly area, 26 ISIL fighting positions, an ISIL bomb factory, and suppressed an ISIL rocket position.
-- Near Sultan Abdallah, a strike destroyed an ISIL fighting position.


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


And today the DOD announced:

Airstrikes in Iraq

Attack, bomber, fighter, remotely piloted aircraft and rocket artillery conducted 17 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government:

-- Near Baghdadi, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit, destroyed an ISIL bunker and wounded an ISIL fighter.

-- Near Beiji, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL mortar system.

-- Near Fallujah, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL weapons cache, an ISIL building, and an ISIL mortar system.

-- Near Kisik, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit, destroyed an ISIL vehicle and wounded an ISIL fighter.

-- Near Ramadi, four strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units; destroyed four ISIL fighting positions, four ISIL buildings, four ISIL heavy machine guns, and two ISIL vehicles; and denied ISIL access to terrain.

-- Near Sinjar, four strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed 17 ISIL fighting positions, two ISIL vehicles, an ISIL assembly area, and two ISIL command-and-control nodes.


-- Near Tal Afar, four strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit, destroyed an ISIL vehicle and four ISIL fighting positions, and wounded an ISIL fighter.




In addition, Barack Obama continues to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to carry out his plan or 'plan' for Iraq.


And yet the news of the memo is not considered major news at all in the US.

And let's note our 'friends' and their silence.

The Progressive posted today . . . but couldn't be bothered to post about the revelations.

Ruth Conniff couldn't bother to Tweet about it.

It's not even as important as her obsession with David Brooks.

But remember that the current editor of The Progressive bragged on KPFA that no one she knew was touched by the Iraq War.

In These Times also can't be bothered with the Iraq revelations.

At The Nation, they can post a huge photo of Katrina vanden Heuvel's hagged out face (she's looking really bad -- it's called karma) but they ignore this topic, they ignore the revelations.


At Mother Jones, Kevin Drum and David Corn vie for the title of F**king Ugliest Person on the Face of the Planet so you might think they'd have plenty of down time -- but they don't use it to cover the Iraq revelations.  Nor does anyone else at Mother Jones despite their (laughable) boast of providing "fearless journalism."

Give credit to Deidre Fulton and Common Dreams for covering the topic (and, in addition, Fulton's written a very strong report).

Shame and scorn to the increasingly pathetic Antiwar.com.

They offer only one article:


  • Tony Blair Will Help US on Iraq, 2002 Memo Says
    10/18/2015



  • Oops!

    It's not their article.

    It's a link to The Daily Mail.

    The so called "Antiwar" website hasn't seen fit to write one damn word about the revelations.

    We covered it in Saturday's snapshot.

    It's Monday and they're still too weary to write about it.

    Poor little tykes.


    Amy Goodman did cover it briefly on Democracy Now! today:


    A newly published document shows former British Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed to support U.S. military action in Iraq in 2002—a year before the invasion. The memo, written by then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, was obtained by the Daily Mail as part of a batch of emails on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s private server. Powell writes, "On Iraq, Blair will be with us should military operations be necessary." The memo is dated a week before Blair met with President George W. Bush at Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, and publicly said, "We are not proposing military action at this point in time."


    So much for the so-called "war and peace report."


    And what of the paper that sold the illegal war?

    While the New York Times cannot make room for the revelations they do run Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt's heavy panting:
      
    Struggling to regain the initiative after a long impasse in the battle against Islamic State militants, the Iraqi government and the American-led coalition are for the first time in months putting military pressure on the jihadists on multiple fronts, officials say. 
    Supported by increased American air power, Iraqi forces are on the outskirts of Ramadi, pressing to encircle the capital of Anbar Province, which the militants took in May, and cut it off from resupply and reinforcements.
    To the north of Baghdad, Iraqi military forces and Iranian-backed Shiite militias are trying to expand their foothold at the Baiji oil refinery after retaking it from the Islamic State on Friday.


    The two say that the Islamic State has 600 fighters holding Ramadi.  
    And they say that there are 10,000 Iraqi forces prepared to take it.
    As we noted at Third in "Editorial: Operation Inherent Failure:"
    For those who misplaced their trading cards, the assault on Ramadi began in May.

    They're still not in Ramadi -- the Iraqi forces.

    It's October.

    For those who struggle with basic math, let's count it out together: 1 (May), 2 (June), 3 (July), 4 (August), 5 (September) and 6 (October).

    But you can call it just five, if it makes it easier for you.

    Five months.

    Five months to try to take Ramadi.
    Five months and still on the outside of Ramadi.
    Meanwhile, Nina Golgowski (New York Daily News) reports:

    The organization's executive director, Anthony Borden, said Sutton would have known that they would have paid for a new flight which is a relatively common occurrence.
    "Clearly there would have been no issue (with money). It's really inconceivable. We change tickets all the time," he said.
    Sutton?  A 50-year-old British journalist who died in Istanbul under questionable circumstances.
    The Institute for War & Peace Reporting issued the following:



    We at the Institute for War & Peace Reporting are devastated to announce the death of our country director in Iraq, Jacky Sutton.
    Jacky, who was 50, was found dead at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport on October 17. She had flown from London to take an onward flight to her base in Erbil in the Kurdish Region of Iraq.
    The circumstances of her death are unclear, and we are trying to establish the facts.
    Jacky was appointed IWPR’s acting country director in Iraq at the end of June. She replaced Ammar Al Shahbander, who was killed in a car bomb attack on May 2. She had been in London to join Ammar’s family, friends and colleagues at a memorial service held for him at St Bride’s Church in Fleet Street last week.
    “Jacky was one of the top development professionals working on Iraq, and she devoted nearly ten years of her life to helping the country,” said Anthony Borden, Executive Director of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting. “She was extremely bright, highly competent, and well able to handle herself in difficult environments, and she was universally loved. We are in total shock.”
    Jacky Sutton was a veteran journalist and media development expert, and worked closely with IWPR long before joining us. She spent two years at the BBC World Service in 1998-2000, reporting from Africa and the Middle East as well as in London. She went on to serve with the United Nations in numerous senior roles that took her from Afghanistan and Iran to West Africa and Gaza, and in 2008, Iraq. After running a media and elections project for UNDP in Baghdad, she became country director for IREX and then a consultant for the International Foundation for Electoral Systems in Baghdad.
    Jacky earned multiple advanced academic qualifications including in constitutional law and international development, all of which brought intellectual rigour and a broad vision to her professional roles. Her LLM, for example, focused on Iraq’s regulatory framework for media and telecoms and its impact on freedom of expression. Most recently, she was working on a PhD on the position of female journalists in Iraq and Afghanistan, studying at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra.
    Jacky was returning to Iraq full of plans for innovative new work, including projects to counter violent extremism that threatens a country to which she was so committed. Our condolences go out to her family and all those who knew her.



    Alexandra Topping and Constanze Letsch (Guardian) report, "Former BBC journalist Jacky Sutton, 50, is understood to have been found dead in a toilet at the city’s main airport. The circumstances of her death are as yet unknown. Local media reported that it appeared that Sutton, who is believed to have been travelling to Irbil, northern Iraq had killed herself after missing a flight connection, a claim colleagues said was unlikely."


    Jordan Hayne and Tegan Osborne (Australia's ABC) report that Ammar Al Sha held the position of Iraq director at IWPR before Sutton but he "was killed in a car bomb attack on Baghdad in May."  And they note:



    Friend and ANU colleague Susan Hutchinson told the ABC she was in "complete shock" over Ms Sutton's death, and had trouble believing her friend took her life.
    "I am unconvinced that she would have committed suicide ... I am sceptical of the idea. I absolutely think that there needs to be a full investigation," she said.
    "I hope that the (UK) Foreign Office has full access in order to be able to conduct a proper investigation about the circumstances in which Jacky died and I hope that that is done internationally and in a transparent and cooperative way."
    David Barrett (Telegraph of London) adds:

     Christian Bleuer, a research fellow at the Australian National University who knew her well, tweeted: "Toughest woman u could meet. Turkish police say she committed suicide cuz she missed her flight?"


    He added: "I'm not into conspiracies, but if the Turks say a security camera at Istanbul-Ataturk was 'malfunctioning', then Jacky Sutton was murdered." 


    Mark Duell, Laura Wells and Simon Tomlinson (Daily Mail) note additional doubts and calls for a thorough investigation.  Danica Kirka and Suzan Fraser (AP) add:

    "None of us believes she took her own life," said Vanessa Farr, who worked with Sutton in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. "But all of us know she was attracting negative attention for her absolute refusal, before U.N. officials, politicians and warlords alike, to stay silent in the face of what she was witnessing women suffer."




    Lastly, new content at Third:







  •  


  • eric schmitt
    guardian

    Sunday, October 18, 2015

    Rita Hayworth

    These days, women over 40 can have careers in film -- more likely on TV or in streaming.

    Women look better -- make up and society's attitudes -- now over-forty than they used to.

    I'm writing that in reference to Pal Joey which just went on Netflix.

    Rita Hayworth was known as "the love goddess."

    And she was a very beautiful woman.

    But not in Pal Joey.

    In that film, she just looks old.

    That was 1957.

    Photos after and films after (Separate Tables, for example) found her looking very well.

    (Looking beautiful, not striking.)

    So I have to wonder if Harry Cohn (head of Columbia) was attempting to destroy Hayworth?

    She was nearing the end of her contract, he'd built Kim Novak up into a star.

    He'd long battled with Hayworth.

    I think he elected to ensue she was filmed poorly.

    The hairstyle's are never flattering.

    She's frequently in a close up with wrinkles and the make up's way too much (only deepening the wrinkles).

    She's at her best when she's moving -- she's a natural dancer.

    By contrast, Kim Novak is awkward anytime she's on the club stage even though she's playing a dancer.




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


    Saturday, October 17, 2015.  Chaos and violence continue, Tony Blairs lies leak out, Hillary and Colin are caught with their pants down, Eleanor Smeal embraces (and engulfs) war and destruction, and much more.



    "Save the cheerleader, save the world," NBC's Heroes insisted throughout its original run but the imprisonment and/or death of at least one cheerleader might have saved the world -- at least when that cheerleader was Tony Blair.

    War Criminal Blair lied to the Iraq Inquiry when he testified just a few years ago but he's been lying since 2002.  He's a War Criminal and he's a liar.

    David Millward (Telegraph of London) reports:



     The controversy over Tony Blair’s decision to back George Bush over the Iraq war has been rekindled after a memo emerged showing the Prime Minister pledged to support an invasion a year ahead of the conflict.
    Details of the Prime Minister’s readiness to back the US in bringing down Saddam Hussein are contained in a note from Colin Powell, then Secretary of State, to George Bush, ahead of Mr Blair’s April 2002 summit with the President in Crawford Texas.
    The memo was found in a batch of secret emails on the private server of Hillary Clinton, the former Secretary of State, which was made available by the US courts. 


    As Millward reminds, a year before the start of the Iraq War, Tony Blair was lying to the world by insisting the efforts were towards a diplomatic solution.  Millward also reports, "A second memo says that Mr Blair used spies within the Labour party to help influence public opinion in favour of the war."


    Tony Blair is exposed as the liar he always was, yes.

    But it also exposes two other liars: Colin Powell and Hillary Clinton.


    Colin The Blot Powell.

    Remember when that piece of trash went on 20/20 insisting his lies to the United Nations were unknown by him at the time (he knew, use the link).

    He's a dam liar.

    He's a piece of filth trash.

    And that brings us to the little puppy following around sniffing at his crotch little Larry Wilkerson.

    MSNBC tried to turn him into a star and saint but the Scott Pritchard to Colin Powell's David Brice never took because he's unphotogenic and highly off putting.

    But MSNBC tried, didn't they?

    Rachel Maddow had him on countless times, this apologist for Colin Powell, this member of the War Machine, this liar to the American people.

    It's not just the original liars, it's these news ones.  Rachel Maddow's Iraq special, for goodness sake, was even called out as fraudulent by Randi Rhodes.

    Yet Rachel is held up as a truth teller when all she's ever been is a little liar.  She was for the Iraq War -- she was even calling for it to continue when Air America Radio started and repeatedly insisted on air that "if you break it, you own it.  That's the Pottery Barn policy."  But it wasn't the Pottery Barn policy and Iraqis -- the owners of Iraq, please grasp -- were not asking US forces to stay in Iraq.

    But a liar like Rachel, a corporate whore, just sets up her own end.  So she lied when Lizz Winstead walked from Unfiltered and told people Lizz was just sick.  She lied about the fact that Unfiltered had only a month left and that they would be replaced by trash TV merchant Jerry Springer.  She had her father being a sock puppet on the Unfiltered message board.  And she was paid off for her lies by getting her own Air America Radio show.

    To get her MSNBC show, she insisted to AP that Chris Matthews was sexist and then, when informed she'd have her own show, she carried out her tit-for-tat part of the agreement by insisting Chris Matthews was not a sexist.

    Chris Matthews is a sexist.

    This was a known reality long before Rachel used the charge in 2008 to leverage her own show.

    But not according to Rachel.

    She's a liar who'll say anything and only the ridiculous idiots at The Nation magazine will pretend otherwise and pretend that her corporate and centrist politics are at all left -- she's actually about as left as Joe Lieberman.

    The same woman (who along with Lizz -- sorry, Lizz) refused to have war resisters on Unfiltered continues to preach and promote policies and candidates who are not left.

    She's the perfect foil for Hillary Clinton's campaign of destruction that runs right through the White House.


    And Hillary . . .

    She feels so sorry about her Iraq War vote, right?

    That's her lie she insists.

    But she won't talk about it.

    Turns out, she wouldn't talk about the arrangement Bully Boy Bush and Tony Blair had.

    She'd communicate it in e-mails.

    But to the American people, the ones she needs to vote for her?

    She just continued the lies because she is a liar.

    This was a Republican deal -- Bully Boy Bush was in the White House.

    So why has she covered up for them?

    She (ghost)wrote that bad book Hard Choices Easy Whoring and supposedly that told the truth about Iraq.

    Supposedly.

    Turns out the whore can't stop lying about Iraq.

    She'll say anything, put her name to any text someone else writes, because she's a dishonest liar.

    And she and Colin are now exposed as the eternal liars they both are.

    For years now, both gutter dwellers have insisted they were misled -- by intel, by this, by that.

    They're just liars who cover up for other damn liars.


    From liars and cheerleaders to beauty queens . . .



    Iraq is scheduled to hold the county's first Miss Iraq pageant since 1972.  Alexander Smith (NBC News) reports that over "150 women have applied" to compete but "15 hopefuls have already dropped out amid a barrage of criticism -- and even death threats."  Meg Warner (New York Daily News) explains, "The 2015 pageant won’t be a direct copy of its Western counterparts --  for example, the swimsuit round will be replaced with a segment featuring more conservative outfits -- but still sticks to the requirements that would make the winner eligible to compete in Miss Arab and potentially Miss World. Following those regulations, Miss Iraq hopefuls will not wear headscarves."

    Last month, Stephen Kalin (Reuters) revealed the contest had already been postponed from October 1st to some time in December and that:


    A pro-Shi'ite Muslim television channel warned this month that the event would corrupt public morals and "create a base culture while our people face the danger of terrorism".

    It accused the organizers of being Freemasons, a loaded insult in the Middle East where the secretive, fraternal organization is widely seen as pro-Zionist and hostile to Islam.


    Reuters has a photo here of Wijdan Burhan al-Deen who was crowned Miss Iraq in 1972 and competed in the Miss Universe Contest.


    The hope is that the pageant will be a step forward for Iraq and, specifically, for Iraqi women.

    But allegedly filled with remorse over what her support of the Iraq War did to Iraq, Hillary hasn't bothered to even note this possible pageant.  This despite many noting her non-stop references to her gender.

    There's a world of difference between self-obsession and feminism.

    Hillary trying to garner support by insisting her being a first elevates all women is a bit hard to believe when her entire campaign is about I-I-I and me-me-me.

    Feminism?

    Gray, ugly and disappointing, 76-year-old 'feminist' Eleanor Smeal (mis)used her position at the laughable Feminist Majority Foundation and as publisher of the now-embarrassing Ms. magazine to promote war this week.  If that's news to you, see "Eleanor Smeal, Ms. magazine and the Feminist Majority Foundation embrace war" and you'll find a link there for Smeal's trash that we linked to Friday only in fairness and that we won't link to again.

    Ellie's sexually excited and delighted that US President Barack Obama broke another promise and has decided to extend the Afghanistan War beyond 2017 (he leaves office in January 2017).


    Ellie finger-banged herself relentlessly at the prospect of more years for US troops in Afghanistan.

    "Feminist" Ellie loves the fact that the US government, as the New York Times exposed last month, is aiding, abetting and assisting with pedophilia in Afghanistan.

    As a feminist, I wasn't aware pedophilia was something we were supposed to support but that's Eleanor Smeal for you -- always breaking new ground . . .  in shame and self-embarrassment.


    You go a long way, baby, straight to the pits of hell.





    Apparently since the victims of these assaults are young boys -- not girls -- Eleanor Smeal sees this as 'progress' and something to stand up for.

    Not everyone sees continuing the Afghanistan War as something to have a sexual orgasm over.








  • Ultimately the challenges in Afghanistan must be resolved through political means by the Afghan ppl. US military force can’t solve this.







  • War in Afghanistan is the longest in US history & there’s no end in sight. Time to recognize there is no military solution.



  • But Eleanor Smeal feels differently.  Having created her own organization (because she couldn't work with others) and used that organization to destroy Ms. magazine (non-profit is the biggest political con job there is -- and effectively silences your voice which is why more and more left activist oppose the move), she now wants to make clear that she supports US airstrikes on Afghanistan hospitals.



    Continuing the Afghanistan War also means continuing The Drone War in Afghanistan (and elsewhere).  Eleanor's a-okay with that.

    She's a 'publisher' who lies for officials.




    1. To manipulate drone numbers, Obama adm calls all victims "enemies killed in action" when their identity is unknown


  • New docs: "Nearly nine out of 10 people who died in airstrikes were not the Americans' direct targets," by



  • Full story revealed of how Bilal el-Berjawi had his citizenship revoked by UK so he could be killed by a US drone









  • The secret process of how Obama chooses which people will be put on their assassination list, by



  • She's not bothered by any of that.

    Not a bit, not a bit.

    Some might point out that Afghanistan is a failed policy but if Eleanor Smeal couldn't embrace a failed policy how could she keep from slitting her own wrists when surveying what passes for her life?



    FTFCOTESWFP.

     



    13 hours ago




  • The New York Times tries to sugar coat it:





    President Obama abandoned his hopes of ending the two wars he inherited



    Abandons hope?


    Abandons promise.

    But you can't expect honesty on Iraq from the New York Times at this late date unless you're a hopeless full or an illiterate.




    On the topic of The Drone War:












  • While the drone crashes, the US and others continue to drop bombs on Iraq.

    This includes the government of Turkey which violates Iraq's sovereignty with these bombings as well as with on the ground raids.  US-installed Haider al-Abadi, like a good puppet, has learned to be silent on these actions.  But all the silence in the world will not sugar coat the destruction Turkey's war planes are carrying out.


    Pieter Stockmans (Middle East Eye) reports:

    Turkey continues to conduct airstrikes against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in spite of the unilateral ceasefire brought forth by the PKK. As the bombings go on, Turkey has scheduled critical elections less than three weeks away.
    The announcement of the PKK’s ceasefire offer came immediately after the largest attack in Turkey’s modern history. On 10 October, two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a peace rally in Ankara, only five days after Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met EU leaders in Brussels to discuss the situation of Syria's refugees. In return for keeping Syrian refugees from reaching Europe, Erdoğan is asking the EU to support his war on the PKK.
    Civilians, however, have bared the brunt in this war. Most of the casualties have been non-combatants, and a significant portion of those killed never took up arms against Turkey, but instead fought the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria and Iraq.




    We're closing with the following regarding Barack's extension of war on Afghanistan:



    http://worldbeyondwar.org/reject-plan-to-continue-war-on-afghanistan/
    Signers of this statement are listed below.
    “The U.S. and NATO occupy my country under the name of all the beautiful banners of democracy, women’s rights, human rights. And for this long time, they shed the blood of our people under the name of the war on terror…” —Malalai Joya
    President Obama’s decision to leave actually ending, as opposed to officially “ending,” the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan to his successor (barring Congress developing the nerve and the decency to act) illustrates our collective and his personal failure to overcome what candidate Obama once called the mindset that gets us into wars. The idea that year 15 or year 16 is going to go better in Afghanistan than the first 14 years have gone is based on no evidence whatsoever, but merely the hope that something will change combined with a misguided and arrogant sense of responsibility to control someone else’s country. As numerous Afghans have been saying for nearly 14 years, Afghanistan will be a disaster when the U.S. occupation ends, but it will be a larger disaster the longer it takes to do so.
    This longest-ever U.S. war since the destruction of the Native American nations is, when measured in deaths, dollars, destruction, and numbers of troops and weapons, far more President Obama’s war than President Bush’s. Yet President Obama has been given credit for “ending” it, without actually ending it, for nearly seven years, including while he was more than tripling the U.S. troop presence. The idea that escalating a war helps to end it, built on myths and distortions about past wars (Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Iraq “surge”), has to be set aside after these many years of failure. The pretense that a military can both end and not end the occupation of another people’s country by shifting to “non-combat” troops (even while bombing a hospital) must be abandoned.
    The view that further war, in particular with drones, is counterproductive on its own terms is shared with us by
    —U.S. Lt. General Michael Flynn, who quit as head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in August 2014: “The more weapons we give, the more bombs we drop, that just… fuels the conflict.”
    —Former CIA Bin Laden Unit Chief Michael Scheuer, who says the more the United States fights terrorism the more it creates terrorism.
    —The CIA, which finds its own drone program “counterproductive.”
    —Admiral Dennis Blair, the former director of National Intelligence: While “drone attacks did help reduce the Qaeda leadership in Pakistan,” he wrote, “they also increased hatred of America.”
    —Gen. James E. Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: “We’re seeing that blowback. If you’re trying to kill your way to a solution, no matter how precise you are, you’re going to upset people even if they’re not targeted.”
    —Sherard Cowper-Coles, Former U.K. Special Representative To Afghanistan: “For every dead Pashtun warrior, there will be 10 pledged to revenge.”
    —Matthew Hoh, Former Marine Officer (Iraq), Former US Embassy Officer (Iraq and Afghanistan): “I believe it’s [the escalation of the war/military action] only going to fuel the insurgency. It’s only going to reinforce claims by our enemies that we are an occupying power, because we are an occupying power. And that will only fuel the insurgency. And that will only cause more people to fight us or those fighting us already to continue to fight us.” — Interview with PBS on Oct 29, 2009
    —General Stanley McChrystal: “For every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies.”
    Afghanistan need not be “abandoned.” The United States owes Afghanistan reparations in the form of significant actual aid, the cost of which would of course be less than that of continuing the war.
    The U.S. air strikes on the Kunduz hospital have generated more attention than many other U.S. atrocities committed in Afghanistan. Yet horrific attacks have been the mainstay of this war which was begun illegally and without U.N. authorization. The motivation of revenge for 9-11 is not a legal justification for war, and also ignores the Taliban’s offer to have bin Laden face trial in a third country. This war has killed many thousands of Afghans, tortured and imprisoned, wounded and traumatized many more. The top cause of death among members of the U.S. military who have gone to Afghanistan is suicide. We shouldn’t allow continuation of this madness to be depicted as reasonable and cautious. It is criminal and murderous. A third U.S. president should be given no opportunity to continue “ending” this war for additional years.
    End it now.
    SIGNED BY:
    David Swanson, director of World Beyond War
    Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate
    Medea Benjamin, Co-founder, Code Pink
    Ret. Col. AnnWright, former U.S. diplomat, including in Afghanistan
    Mike Ferner, former Navy Hospital Corpsman and president of Veterans For Peace
    Matthew Hoh, Former Marine Officer (Iraq), Former US Embassy Officer (Iraq and Afghanistan)
    Elliott Adams, former National President, Veterans for Peace, FRO
    Brian Terrell, co-coordinator, Voices for Creative Nonviolence
    Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator, Voices for Creative Nonviolence
    Ed Kinane, Steering committee, Syracuse Peace Council
    Victoria Ross, Interim Director, Western New York Peace Council
    Brian Willson, Esq., Veterans for Peace
    Imam Abdulmalik Mujahid, Chairperson, World Parliament of Religions
    David Smith-Ferri, Co-coordinator, Voices for Creative Nonviolence
    Dayne Goodwin, secretary Wasatch Coalition for Peace and Justice, Salt Lake City
    Alice Slater, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
    Randolph Shannon, Progressive Democrats of America – PA Coordinator
    David Hartsough, Peaceworkers
    Jan Hartsough, San Francisco Friends Meeting
    Judith Sandoval, Veterans for Peace, San Francisco
    Jim Dorenkott, Veterans for Peace
    Thea Paneth, Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, Arlington United for Justice With Peace
    Rivera Sun, author
    Michael Wong, Veterans for Peace
    Sherri Maurin, Global Days of Listening co-coordinator
    Mary Dean, Witness Against Torture
    Dahlia Wasfi MD, Iraqi-American activist
    --
    David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director ofWorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books includeWar Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio.He is a 2015 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.
    Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook.




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