"In a shift, Iraq urges Syrian president to step down" September 21, 2011|By Michael S. Schmidt and Yasir Ghazi, New York Times
BAGHDAD - After months of striking a far friendlier tone toward the government of Syrian president Bashar Assad, the Iraqi government has joined a chorus of other nations calling on him to step down....
The statements from Ali al-Moussawi, an adviser to the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, in an interview with the New York Times yesterday, mark a significant change for Iraq. When the United States and several of its major allies called last month for Assad to cede power, the Iraqi government appeared to be more in line with Iran, which has supported Assad. The same day as the US statement, Maliki gave a speech warning Arab leaders that Israel would benefit the most from the Arab Spring.
“There is no doubt that there is a country that is waiting for the Arab countries to be ripped and is waiting for internal corrosion,’’ Maliki said in that speech. “Zionists and Israel are the first and biggest beneficiaries of this whole process.’’
How often do you see the Z-word in the AmeriKan newspaper, 'eh? These types of statements can not have gone over well in the halls of power in USrael.
As violence began to spread across Syria in June, Maliki received a delegation of visiting Syrian businesspeople and government officials, including the foreign minister, to discuss closer economic ties between the two countries. At the time, Maliki called on Syrians to stick to peaceful protests and rely on the government to enact reforms.
Moussawi said yesterday that the Iraqi government was very worried that if Assad’s government collapses, violence will spill over the border and further destabilize Iraq.
And yet they are calling on him and his to step down?
Mixed messages from my media in a very strange article.
He said the Iraqi government was asking Washington what the US plans were in the event of Assad’s departure.
Then the wheels are in motion, 'eh?
--more--"
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Sunday Globe Special: Occupation Iraq Cut Short
"US to slow diplomatic efforts in Iraq" by Michael S. Schmidt and Tim Arango New York Times / October 23, 2011
Beyond the final withdrawal of troops that President Obama announced Friday, U.S. fiscal troubles are dictating a drastic scaling back of plans to expand diplomatic and cultural programs once deemed vital to steadying Iraq and prying it from Iran’s tightening embrace. As recently as this summer, the State Department had planned to establish a consulate in the still-restive northern city of Mosul, with 700 staff members and security personnel. And as recently as the spring, the United States was moving ahead with plans for a consulate in Kirkuk.
Soft power is a fancy way to say economic and political coercion.
But the expansion of a diplomatic presence will be much smaller than imagined, a victim not only of budgetary constraints but also of a growing awareness that the decision to withdraw American soldiers makes it much harder for diplomats to safely do their work....
The reactions in Baghdad on Friday night and Saturday, after Mr. Obama’s remarks, were muted, a possible reflection of the country’s mixed emotions.
Many Iraqis — especially ethnic Kurds, secular intellectuals and Sunnis skittish about Shiite power — have expressed anxiety about what the country might become without an American military presence.
But others, like those who recently celebrated the closing of a major American base in Mosul, saw only possibilities in the increasing signs that the United States was definitively pulling back. Students, poets and local officials raised the Iraqi flag on Monday and held placards that read, “Congratulations to the city of Mosul on this great day, the last occupier soldier has left.”
One celebrant, Sheik Shakir Ghalib, said: “The day of the end of the occupation means such a great happiness I can’t describe it. The happiness is overwhelming to me. As I see the people of my city celebrate the departure of the Americans from the city of prophets, my eyes cry and we pray for God to bless our martyrs and release our detainees.”
The discussions over the last year about America’s future role in Iraq, both within the United States government and between the two countries, have laid bare the diminishing ability of the United States to shape outcomes in Iraq, as well as a relative lack of interest in a Congress consumed by domestic issues.
“I guess very thoughtful people believe there should be some residual presence in Iraq,” said Christopher R. Hill, a former United States ambassador to Iraq who now runs the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. “But there are many Americans who don’t want to hear the word ‘Iraq’ and are not really behind a continued presence.”
Given that, Mr. Hill said, “I’m not surprised there is downward gravity about what we really want to see there.”
The State Department’s plans still need approval from the Iraqi government and financing from Congress. The department has requested $6.2 billion to finance its operations for the 2012 fiscal year.
That is what my printed Globe carried.
On Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stressed the ties that will remain — and issued what appeared to be a barely veiled warning to Iran.
“As we open this new chapter in a relationship with a sovereign Iraq, to the Iraqis we say: America is with you as you take your next steps in your journey to secure your democracy,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. “And to the countries in the region, especially Iraq’s neighbors, we want to emphasize that America will stand with our allies and friends, including Iraq, in defense of our security and interests.”
“Obama’s announcement to withdraw all U.S. troops is a victory for the Iraqis, but we have to be aware of Iranian influences and their attempts to exert control over Iraq,” said Haidar al-Mulla, a spokesman and lawmaker with Iraqiya, the political bloc that won the most seats in last year’s parliamentary elections.
--more--"
Beyond the final withdrawal of troops that President Obama announced Friday, U.S. fiscal troubles are dictating a drastic scaling back of plans to expand diplomatic and cultural programs once deemed vital to steadying Iraq and prying it from Iran’s tightening embrace. As recently as this summer, the State Department had planned to establish a consulate in the still-restive northern city of Mosul, with 700 staff members and security personnel. And as recently as the spring, the United States was moving ahead with plans for a consulate in Kirkuk.
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--nomore--"
"U.S. Scales Back Diplomacy in Iraq Amid Fiscal and Security Concerns" by TIM ARANGO and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT, October 22, 2011
BAGHDAD — Beyond the final withdrawal of troops that President Obama announced Friday, America’s fiscal troubles are dictating a drastic scaling back of plans for diplomatic, economic and cultural programs once deemed vital to steadying Iraq, building a long-term alliance and prying the country from Iran’s tightening embrace....
Taken together, the shrinking of the United States’ military and diplomatic ambitions underscores the reality that a post-America Iraq is taking shape more rapidly and completely than many Iraqis and Americans had envisioned. That has heartened many Iraqis and Americans, weary of more than eight years of war and occupation, but left others fearful.
“The United States should not turn its back on Iraq,” Labid Abawi, the deputy foreign minister, said in an interview on Saturday. “Iraq needs the United States, and the United States needs Iraq.”
The shifting relationship comes at a delicate time for Iraq and the region. The country finds itself surrounded by nations undergoing significant change.
Iran, which has long sought to increase its influence on its neighbor, has been emboldened by the Arab Spring, which ousted or diminished several Western-leaning leaders. At the same time, Syria has been suffering through months of unrest that Iraqi leaders fear could spill over the border, reopening what was once a thoroughfare for fighters from Al Qaeda.
American officials emphasize that they still plan a major increase in diplomatic and cultural programs — the building blocks of so-called soft power — scattering branch offices across the country in the largest diplomatic mission since the Marshall Plan.
BAGHDAD — Beyond the final withdrawal of troops that President Obama announced Friday, America’s fiscal troubles are dictating a drastic scaling back of plans for diplomatic, economic and cultural programs once deemed vital to steadying Iraq, building a long-term alliance and prying the country from Iran’s tightening embrace....
Taken together, the shrinking of the United States’ military and diplomatic ambitions underscores the reality that a post-America Iraq is taking shape more rapidly and completely than many Iraqis and Americans had envisioned. That has heartened many Iraqis and Americans, weary of more than eight years of war and occupation, but left others fearful.
“The United States should not turn its back on Iraq,” Labid Abawi, the deputy foreign minister, said in an interview on Saturday. “Iraq needs the United States, and the United States needs Iraq.”
The shifting relationship comes at a delicate time for Iraq and the region. The country finds itself surrounded by nations undergoing significant change.
Iran, which has long sought to increase its influence on its neighbor, has been emboldened by the Arab Spring, which ousted or diminished several Western-leaning leaders. At the same time, Syria has been suffering through months of unrest that Iraqi leaders fear could spill over the border, reopening what was once a thoroughfare for fighters from Al Qaeda.
American officials emphasize that they still plan a major increase in diplomatic and cultural programs — the building blocks of so-called soft power — scattering branch offices across the country in the largest diplomatic mission since the Marshall Plan.
Soft power is a fancy way to say economic and political coercion.
But the expansion of a diplomatic presence will be much smaller than imagined, a victim not only of budgetary constraints but also of a growing awareness that the decision to withdraw American soldiers makes it much harder for diplomats to safely do their work....
The reactions in Baghdad on Friday night and Saturday, after Mr. Obama’s remarks, were muted, a possible reflection of the country’s mixed emotions.
Many Iraqis — especially ethnic Kurds, secular intellectuals and Sunnis skittish about Shiite power — have expressed anxiety about what the country might become without an American military presence.
But others, like those who recently celebrated the closing of a major American base in Mosul, saw only possibilities in the increasing signs that the United States was definitively pulling back. Students, poets and local officials raised the Iraqi flag on Monday and held placards that read, “Congratulations to the city of Mosul on this great day, the last occupier soldier has left.”
One celebrant, Sheik Shakir Ghalib, said: “The day of the end of the occupation means such a great happiness I can’t describe it. The happiness is overwhelming to me. As I see the people of my city celebrate the departure of the Americans from the city of prophets, my eyes cry and we pray for God to bless our martyrs and release our detainees.”
The discussions over the last year about America’s future role in Iraq, both within the United States government and between the two countries, have laid bare the diminishing ability of the United States to shape outcomes in Iraq, as well as a relative lack of interest in a Congress consumed by domestic issues.
“I guess very thoughtful people believe there should be some residual presence in Iraq,” said Christopher R. Hill, a former United States ambassador to Iraq who now runs the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. “But there are many Americans who don’t want to hear the word ‘Iraq’ and are not really behind a continued presence.”
Given that, Mr. Hill said, “I’m not surprised there is downward gravity about what we really want to see there.”
The State Department’s plans still need approval from the Iraqi government and financing from Congress. The department has requested $6.2 billion to finance its operations for the 2012 fiscal year.
That is what my printed Globe carried.
On Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stressed the ties that will remain — and issued what appeared to be a barely veiled warning to Iran.
“As we open this new chapter in a relationship with a sovereign Iraq, to the Iraqis we say: America is with you as you take your next steps in your journey to secure your democracy,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. “And to the countries in the region, especially Iraq’s neighbors, we want to emphasize that America will stand with our allies and friends, including Iraq, in defense of our security and interests.”
“Obama’s announcement to withdraw all U.S. troops is a victory for the Iraqis, but we have to be aware of Iranian influences and their attempts to exert control over Iraq,” said Haidar al-Mulla, a spokesman and lawmaker with Iraqiya, the political bloc that won the most seats in last year’s parliamentary elections.
--more--"
Boston Sunday Globe Stinks
"On the menu, but not on your plate" by Jenn Abelson and Beth Daley Globe Staff / October 23, 2011
A five-month Globe investigation into the mislabeling of fish showed that Massachusetts consumers routinely and unwittingly overpay for less desirable, sometimes undesirable, species - or buy seafood that is simply not what it is advertised to be.
Americans are so numb to that they can't even smell the stink anymore.
In many cases, the fish was caught thousands of miles away and frozen, not hauled in by local fishermen, as the menu claimed. It may be perfectly palatable - just not what the customer ordered. But sometimes mislabeled seafood can cause allergic reactions, violate dietary restrictions, or contain chemicals banned in the United States.
The Globe collected fish from 134 restaurants, grocery stores, and seafood markets from Leominster to Provincetown, and hired a laboratory in Canada to conduct DNA testing on the samples....
The results underscore the dramatic lack of oversight in the seafood business compared with other food industries such as meat and poultry. Nationally, mislabeled fish is estimated to cost diners and the industry up to hundreds of millions of dollars annually, according to the National Fisheries Institute, a trade group.
Just like any other AmeriKan industry.
It happens for a range of reasons, from outright fraud to a chef’s ignorance to the sometimes real difficulty of discerning one fillet from another. But industry specialists say money is commonly the motivator: It’s a way to increase profits - a cheaper fish sold as something more pricey - on the assumption that customers will not detect the difference....
Just like any other AmeriKan industry.
Imported fish - most of it frozen - makes up 86 percent of the seafood Americans eat, compared with less than 50 percent in 1980. Last year, the United States imported about 5.5 billion pounds of fish worth almost $15 billion, much of it from China.
As consumption of foreign seafood has increased, so has mislabeling, according to industry specialists. Because the sea-to-plate process has become so long and complicated, there are more opportunities for fraud and mistakes to take place. And the absence of regular testing by federal and state agencies has allowed fish substitution to thrive....
I'm glad I rarely ever eat fish.
--more--"
The Globe makes you about as sick, too.
A five-month Globe investigation into the mislabeling of fish showed that Massachusetts consumers routinely and unwittingly overpay for less desirable, sometimes undesirable, species - or buy seafood that is simply not what it is advertised to be.
Americans are so numb to that they can't even smell the stink anymore.
In many cases, the fish was caught thousands of miles away and frozen, not hauled in by local fishermen, as the menu claimed. It may be perfectly palatable - just not what the customer ordered. But sometimes mislabeled seafood can cause allergic reactions, violate dietary restrictions, or contain chemicals banned in the United States.
The Globe collected fish from 134 restaurants, grocery stores, and seafood markets from Leominster to Provincetown, and hired a laboratory in Canada to conduct DNA testing on the samples....
The results underscore the dramatic lack of oversight in the seafood business compared with other food industries such as meat and poultry. Nationally, mislabeled fish is estimated to cost diners and the industry up to hundreds of millions of dollars annually, according to the National Fisheries Institute, a trade group.
Just like any other AmeriKan industry.
It happens for a range of reasons, from outright fraud to a chef’s ignorance to the sometimes real difficulty of discerning one fillet from another. But industry specialists say money is commonly the motivator: It’s a way to increase profits - a cheaper fish sold as something more pricey - on the assumption that customers will not detect the difference....
Just like any other AmeriKan industry.
Imported fish - most of it frozen - makes up 86 percent of the seafood Americans eat, compared with less than 50 percent in 1980. Last year, the United States imported about 5.5 billion pounds of fish worth almost $15 billion, much of it from China.
As consumption of foreign seafood has increased, so has mislabeling, according to industry specialists. Because the sea-to-plate process has become so long and complicated, there are more opportunities for fraud and mistakes to take place. And the absence of regular testing by federal and state agencies has allowed fish substitution to thrive....
I'm glad I rarely ever eat fish.
--more--"
The Globe makes you about as sick, too.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Occupation Iraq: US Returning in 2012
"Negotiations will continue, and some of those troops might find themselves redeployed to Iraq in 2012 or beyond, a US official said yesterday.... Possibilities being discussed are for some troops to come back in 2012.... Other scenarios being discussed include having some US troops come back under the auspices of NATO."
Oh, I'll bet the troops are happy as hell to read that.
Of course, the article has been totally rewritten from the printed pos I'm staring at in my Boston Globe.
Any wonder why I really am sick of reading their s***?
Also see: Occupation Iraq: 2012 and Beyond
Oh, I'll bet the troops are happy as hell to read that.
Of course, the article has been totally rewritten from the printed pos I'm staring at in my Boston Globe.
Any wonder why I really am sick of reading their s***?
Also see: Occupation Iraq: 2012 and Beyond
Occupation Iraq: Decisive Iraqis
If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice!
"US drops plans to extend Iraq stay" October 16, 2011|By Lara Jakes and Rebecca Santana, Associated Press
BAGHDAD - The United States is abandoning plans to keep troops in Iraq past a year-end withdrawal deadline, the Associated Press has learned. The decision to pull out fully by January will effectively end more than eight years of US involvement in the Iraq war, despite ongoing concerns about its security forces and the potential for instability.
The decision ends months of uncertainty by US officials over whether to stick to a Dec. 31 withdrawal deadline that was set in 2008 or to negotiate a new security agreement to ensure that gains made and more than 4,400 American military lives lost since March 2003 do not go to waste.
I hate to say it, but they already have. The whole thing was based on lies. And what of the millions of dead Iraqis? Will they even enter the view of the AmeriKan media?
In recent months, Washington has been discussing with Iraqi leaders the possibility of several thousand American troops remaining to continue training Iraqi security forces.
But a senior Obama administration official in Washington confirmed yesterday that all American troops will leave Iraq except for about 160 active-duty soldiers attached to the US Embassy.
A senior US military official confirmed the departure and said the withdrawal could allow future but limited US military training missions in Iraq if requested. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Throughout the discussions, Iraqi leaders have adamantly refused to give US troops immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts, and the Americans have refused to stay without it. Iraq’s leadership has been split on whether it wanted US forces to stay. Some argued the further training and US help was vital, particularly to protect Iraq’s airspace and gather security intelligence. But others have deeply opposed any US troop presence, including Shi’ite militiamen who have threatened attacks on any US forces who remain.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has told US military officials that he does not have the votes in Parliament to provide immunity to the American trainers, the US military official said.
A western diplomatic official in Iraq said Maliki told international diplomats he will not bring the immunity issue to Parliament because lawmakers will not approve it.
Iraqi lawmakers excel at last-minute agreements. But with little wiggle room on the immunity issue and the US military needing to move equipment out as soon as possible, a last-minute change between now and Dec. 31 seems almost out of the question.
Regardless of whether US troops are here or not, there will be a massive American diplomatic presence.
The US Embassy in Baghdad is the largest in the world, and the State Department will have offices in Basra, Irbil, and Kirkuk as well as other locations around the country where contractors will train Iraqi forces on US military equipment they are purchasing.
About 5,000 security contractors and personnel will be tasked with helping protect American diplomats and facilities around the country, the State Department has said.
Oh, the TROOPS are leaving but the MERCENARIES are STAYING!
The US Embassy will still have a handful of Marines for protection and 157 US military personnel in charge of facilitating weapons sales to Iraq. Those are standard functions at most American embassies around the world and would be considered part of the regular embassy staff.
Weapons sales are a main function of our diplomats and embassy?
When the 2008 agreement requiring all US forces leave Iraq was passed, many US officials assumed it would inevitably be renegotiated so that American forces could stay longer.
So did I.
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My news being brought to me by fascists and supremacists. Great.
The United States said repeatedly this year it would entertain an offer from the Iraqis to have a small force stay behind, and the Iraqis said they would like American military help.
In other words, we were begging them to let us stay.
But as the year wore on and the number of American troops that Washington was suggesting could stay behind dropped, it became increasingly clear that a US troop presence was not a sure thing.
The issue of legal protection for the Americans was the deal-breaker.
Iraqis are still angry over incidents such as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal or Haditha, when US troops killed Iraqi civilians in Anbar Province, and want American troops subject to Iraqi law.
Or the Blackwater killings.
Yeah, the Iraqis are so unreasonable for not giving foreign soldiers immunity for killing their friends and families.
--more--"
"US drops plans to extend Iraq stay" October 16, 2011|By Lara Jakes and Rebecca Santana, Associated Press
BAGHDAD - The United States is abandoning plans to keep troops in Iraq past a year-end withdrawal deadline, the Associated Press has learned. The decision to pull out fully by January will effectively end more than eight years of US involvement in the Iraq war, despite ongoing concerns about its security forces and the potential for instability.
The decision ends months of uncertainty by US officials over whether to stick to a Dec. 31 withdrawal deadline that was set in 2008 or to negotiate a new security agreement to ensure that gains made and more than 4,400 American military lives lost since March 2003 do not go to waste.
I hate to say it, but they already have. The whole thing was based on lies. And what of the millions of dead Iraqis? Will they even enter the view of the AmeriKan media?
In recent months, Washington has been discussing with Iraqi leaders the possibility of several thousand American troops remaining to continue training Iraqi security forces.
But a senior Obama administration official in Washington confirmed yesterday that all American troops will leave Iraq except for about 160 active-duty soldiers attached to the US Embassy.
A senior US military official confirmed the departure and said the withdrawal could allow future but limited US military training missions in Iraq if requested. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Throughout the discussions, Iraqi leaders have adamantly refused to give US troops immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts, and the Americans have refused to stay without it. Iraq’s leadership has been split on whether it wanted US forces to stay. Some argued the further training and US help was vital, particularly to protect Iraq’s airspace and gather security intelligence. But others have deeply opposed any US troop presence, including Shi’ite militiamen who have threatened attacks on any US forces who remain.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has told US military officials that he does not have the votes in Parliament to provide immunity to the American trainers, the US military official said.
A western diplomatic official in Iraq said Maliki told international diplomats he will not bring the immunity issue to Parliament because lawmakers will not approve it.
Iraqi lawmakers excel at last-minute agreements. But with little wiggle room on the immunity issue and the US military needing to move equipment out as soon as possible, a last-minute change between now and Dec. 31 seems almost out of the question.
Regardless of whether US troops are here or not, there will be a massive American diplomatic presence.
The US Embassy in Baghdad is the largest in the world, and the State Department will have offices in Basra, Irbil, and Kirkuk as well as other locations around the country where contractors will train Iraqi forces on US military equipment they are purchasing.
About 5,000 security contractors and personnel will be tasked with helping protect American diplomats and facilities around the country, the State Department has said.
Oh, the TROOPS are leaving but the MERCENARIES are STAYING!
The US Embassy will still have a handful of Marines for protection and 157 US military personnel in charge of facilitating weapons sales to Iraq. Those are standard functions at most American embassies around the world and would be considered part of the regular embassy staff.
Weapons sales are a main function of our diplomats and embassy?
When the 2008 agreement requiring all US forces leave Iraq was passed, many US officials assumed it would inevitably be renegotiated so that American forces could stay longer.
So did I.
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The United States said repeatedly this year it would entertain an offer from the Iraqis to have a small force stay behind, and the Iraqis said they would like American military help.
In other words, we were begging them to let us stay.
But as the year wore on and the number of American troops that Washington was suggesting could stay behind dropped, it became increasingly clear that a US troop presence was not a sure thing.
The issue of legal protection for the Americans was the deal-breaker.
Iraqis are still angry over incidents such as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal or Haditha, when US troops killed Iraqi civilians in Anbar Province, and want American troops subject to Iraqi law.
Or the Blackwater killings.
Yeah, the Iraqis are so unreasonable for not giving foreign soldiers immunity for killing their friends and families.
--more--"
Occupation Iraq: Indecisive Iraqis
Maybe the false flag terror attacks by western intelligence agencies and assets can convince them.
"After more than eight years of war, many weary Iraqis are ready to see US troops go, and staunchly defend their national sovereignty against an American force they see as occupiers....
Doesn't look like indecision to me.
--more--"
Nevertheless (sigh):
"Iraqis fear power vacuum after US withdrawal; Pullout reveals deep ambivalence over occupation" September 11, 2011|By Michael S. Schmidt, New York Times
BAGHDAD - Sheik Kamal Maamouri, the leader of one of the largest Shi’ite-dominated tribes in Iraq, used to call the US troops here occupiers, demanding that they withdraw because he said they killed and imprisoned innocent members of his tribe.
But now he is not so sure he wants the Americans to go, at least not yet. Like many others across Iraq, he felt conflicted, and a bit frightened, after it was revealed last week that the United States may keep 3,000 to 4,000 troops in Iraq next year.
“The political changes that have occurred here and the security problems have led a lot of Iraqis, including me, to change our minds about the withdrawal of US forces,’’ Maamouri said. That was a view that few Shi’ites, empowered by the fall of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni government, would ever have spoken when it seemed the United States was never going to go.
The propaganda stream is running thick.
Ready for a World War?
--more--"
Also see: Occupation Iraq: Iran All In
Who are the terrorists again?
"More than 20 people killed in terrorist attacks in Iraq" September 15, 2011|By Yasir Ghazi, New York Times
BAGHDAD - Terrorist attacks across Iraq killed more than 20 people yesterday, including in Anbar Province, where an increase in violence has heightened sectarian tensions....
And CUI BONO?
In Babil Province, south of Baghdad, a parked car packed with explosives was detonated in front of a busy restaurant on the highway connecting the capital and Basra. The restaurant was crowded with travelers who had stopped for breakfast. The police said the blast had killed 13 people and wounded 46 more, including women and children.
Absolutely STINKING of an INTELLIGENCE AGENCY OPERATION!!
Later, the bodies of three Shi’ite men believed to have been laborers were found along a highway in Babil Province. The men’s hands had been tied, and they had been shot multiple times, the police said.
In Baghdad, gunmen killed two police officers at a security checkpoint and wounded a third.
Violence in Anbar Province has worsened in recent weeks as the United States has begun to withdraw....
No group claimed responsibility for the attacks yesterday, but US military officials said they appeared to have been the work of the insurgent group known as Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
Oh, I believe it was "Al-CIA-Duh!"
That group has tried to mount attacks on both Sunnis and Shi’ites, apparently in the hope that each will blame and attack the other, plunging Iraq back into civil war.
“I have seen a change over time with Al Qaeda in Iraq,’’ said Major General Jeffrey Buchanan, the US military’s spokesman in Iraq, in an interview at Umm Qasr, the port where the Iraqi military was celebrating Navy Day. “They seem to be attacking groups to get a sectarian conflict regenerated. But unlike years past, especially in the worst days of 2006 and 2007, the Iraqi people seem determined to deal with terrorists as terrorists, and not make it a sectarian conflict.’’
Then WE CAN LEAVE, right?
--more--"
"Sadr supporters call for aid in Iraq; Demands include services, jobs, and oil revenue" by Bushra Juhi, Associated Press / September 17, 2011
BAGHDAD - An anti-American cleric galvanized thousands of followers to rally yesterday for more jobs and government aid in demonstrations that showed his support among Shi’ites, who are vital supporters of Iraq’s political leaders.
Caskets carried through the streets of Sadr City in northeast Baghdad symbolized Iraq’s electricity outages, slim food rations, and unemployment.
It's called liberation and victory over here.
Police estimated that 25,000 protesters turned out in Sadr City, the political stronghold of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Similar demonstrations took place in the southern cities of Basra and Najaf.
“We want services, jobs, and a portion of the oil revenue to be distributed to people. Immediately, immediately, immediately,’’ Sadrist official Ibrahim al-Jabiri told the Shi’ite crowds in Baghdad.
Iraqi and Shi’ite religious flags were hoisted in the air, and protesters held up broken lamps, fans, air coolers, heaters, and generators as a sign of their frustration over electricity outages that have plagued the country since the 2003 US-led invasion.
We didn't rebuild s***. So where did all that money go?
Sadr is in Iran, where he has been studying at religious schools. He is the fiercest opponent of the US military presence in Iraq. He has repeatedly demanded full withdrawal of US troops by the end of the year, as required under a 2008 security agreement between Baghdad and Washington.
Negotiations between the two countries are underway over the possibility that some US troops might remain after the deadline.
Though he has mostly lived in Iran for several years, his influence has grown since last fall, when he publicly endorsed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to remain in power, even though the Maliki’s party fell short of winning national elections. Most of Sadr’s followers are among the poorest Iraqis, and he has often hammered the government to produce more aid for them.
Aren't those the people we went to liberate?
At the Basra and Najaf rallies, hundreds of Sadrists also shouted anti-American slogans among their calls for better services.
“The people want the occupiers to leave,’’ they shouted. “The people want to reform the regime.’’
Not according to the New York Times.
Continued instability in Iraq’s government and security forces, combined with Iran’s growing influence in Baghdad, has led Maliki and President Obama to weigh whether to keep between 3,000 and 10,000 US troops in Iraq beyond the Dec. 31 deadline.
Is it not ONLY NATURAL that Shi'ite Iraq would draw closer to their immediate Shi'ite neighbor Iran?
Related: Memory Hole: The Dream Vacation
Oh, they vacation there?
In a letter released early yesterday, 41 experts, former lawmakers, and top officials in the administration of President George W. Bush called on Obama to keep far more than 4,000 troops in Iraq - a figure the White House is reportedly considering. The letter released by the Foreign Policy Initiative, a conservative-leaning group in Washington....
Among the letter’s mostly Republican signers were L. Paul Bremer, who ran the US occupation of Iraq until June 2004 and was then involved in a long and destabilizing struggle to elect a government and write a constitution, and Bush political adviser Karl Rove.
--more--"
Yeah, let's stay:
"The US military said an American soldier died yesterday in a nonhostile incident in northern part of the country. No name or other details were immediately available.
The death brings to 4,476 the number of US troops who have died supporting military operations in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, according to an Associated Press count....
--more--"
"4 bombs target Shi’ite holy city in Iraq" September 26, 2011|Associated Press
BAGHDAD - Bomb blasts ripped through Karbala yesterday, one of the holiest cities in Shi’ite Islam, killing at least 10 people in a community still reeling from a deadly bus hijacking earlier this month that left 22 dead and Iraq’s Shi’ites again feeling hunted....
By who?
“Once again, the terrorist enemies of both Iraq and humanity have committed a new crime against the innocent people of Karbala,’’ said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shi’ite.
He called the bombings a “heinous crime,’’ promised that those behind them and the earlier attack on the bus would be punished, and warned people not to be drawn back into sectarian revenge killings.
Violence in Iraq has fallen dramatically since the bloodletting of 2006 and 2007, but militant attacks still appear aimed at reigniting the nation’s volatile ethnic and religious divide.
The Sept. 12 bus attack targeted Shi’ite pilgrims from Karbala who were headed to a shrine in neighboring Syria.
Maliki has been trying to reduce tensions between officials in Karbala and Anbar since the hijacking. Four suspects are being held in the case, and Maliki’s military advisers say at least some foreigners were involved.
Oh, I believe that.
Yesterday’s bombings in Karbala were meant to raise those tensions further, officials said....
--more--"
"Car explosion in Iraq kills 17 attending Shi’ite sheik’s funeral" by Lara Jakes and Qassim Abdul-Zahra Associated Press / October 1, 2011
BAGHDAD - A car bomb exploded yesterday near a Shi’ite mosque south of Baghdad where mourners had gathered for a funeral, killing 17 people, Iraqi officials said.
I don't believe any Muslim would do that, even the most pious "Al-CIA-Duh."
The explosion triggered new anger at Iraq’s leaders and their armed forces, who will soon take over responsibility for the country’s security as US troops rapidly leave the country. Violence has dropped since the height of Iraq’s bloodshed a few years ago, but Iraqi forces have failed to stop attacks that continue to claim lives daily....
So if you want us to stay you better ask quick!
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Sunni militants such as Al Qaeda often target Shi’ite mosques and neighborhoods to stir sectarian violence.
A hallmark of intelligence agency false flags.
Last evening’s blast happened not far from where another strike killed 15 people and wounded 41 last month, police and hospital officials said.
In that Sept. 14 attack, a car bomb parked outside a restaurant in the village of al-Shumali exploded as police were eating breakfast inside.
The attacks come at a precarious time for Iraq, torn between wanting to assert its sovereignty without the help of US forces while also recognizing that its own soldiers and police are not ready to stop militants on their own.
Iraqi leaders are grappling with whether they will formally ask the Obama administration to keep a few thousand US troops in Iraq beyond the military’s Dec. 31 withdrawal deadline.
Talks among the leaders of Iraq’s top political groups are expected to ramp up next week. But Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has signaled that the final decision will be left to Parliament, where most lawmakers have been reluctant to embrace a continued US troop presence that is unpopular with many voters.
There are currently about 44,000 US troops in Iraq. There are also about 7,000 private security contractors hired by the US Embassy in Baghdad to protect American government offices and residential buildings in Iraq.
--more--"
"Donning disguises, Iraqi gunmen seize station in standoff" by Associated Press / October 4, 2011
BAGHDAD - Gunmen disguised as police officers seized control of a police station in western Iraq yesterday morning, killing four people and taking dozens of hostages before Iraqi forces swept in and ended the standoff, Iraqi officials said.
The three-hour hostage crisis demonstrated the vulnerability of the Iraqi security forces as American troops swiftly draw down their presence after more than eight years of war....
Then we have lost the war, haven't we?
“Some of the terrorists entered my office and one of them picked up my landline phone when it was ringing and said: ‘We are the fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq,’ ’’ said the mayor, Muhanad Zbar Mutlaq.
The Islamic State of Iraq is a front group for Al Qaeda.
Yeah, it's a CIA FRONT!
Two of the insurgents blew themselves up when Iraqi police stormed the station to free the estimated 40 people held inside, said Brigadier General Mohammed al-Fahdawi of the Iraqi army’s Seventh Division in Anbar province. Security forces killed the other two assailants, he said.
--more-"
"String of blasts kills 10 in Baghdad" October 11, 2011|Associated Press
BAGHDAD - A string of explosions targeting security officials and people who rushed to the scene to help the injured killed at least 10 people in western Baghdad last night, officials said.
The first explosion came from a roadside bomb in a Shi’ite neighborhood, targeting an Iraqi army patrol, a police official said. Minutes later, a second bomb exploded nearby, targeting a passing police patrol.
As firefighters arrived on the scene of the first blast, the third bomb went off.
Officials said 19 people were wounded in the attacks. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Violence is nowhere near the peaks seen in 2006 and 2007, but bombings and shootings still occur with regularity.
As US forces prepare to go home by the end of this year, security will rest in the hands of the Iraqi security forces. Some US and Iraqi officials would like to see American forces stay in Iraq into next year to help maintain the fragile stability and train Iraqi troops.
Disagreements over whether to grant the Americans the type of legal protections they are demanding have threatened to derail any plans to have American troops in Iraq past their Dec. 31 departure date.
In another incident, six members of a land mine removal team died when a controlled detonation of old land mines went wrong, a police official said. The accident happened near the city of Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, on Saturday.
--more--"
"5 blasts across Bagdad kill 22" October 13, 2011|By Asaad Majeed and Dan Zak, Washington Post
BAGHDAD - Five explosions targeting local police shook the capital within an hour yesterday morning, two days after Iraq’s leaders requested that at least 5,000 US military trainers remain into 2012 to advise the country’s fledgling security forces....
Local police, whose capability and readiness have been questioned by US and Iraqi officials, are constant targets for insurgents aiming to destabilize Iraq as the American military rapidly withdraws its forces.
In a meeting with Iraqi journalists Monday, President Jalal Talabani said Iraq’s political blocs have agreed that 5,000 or more US military trainers are required to assist the country’s local and national security forces. Iraq will not, however, grant immunity from prosecution to military trainers who stay past the Dec. 31 expiration of the countries’ security agreements.
“The American side has been approached, and we are waiting for an official response,’’ Talabani said, according to the government-funded newspaper Assabah.
Both the US military and the American Embassy declined yesterday day to comment on the number, though it is within the upper range of figures discussed in the past.
The radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has steadfastly opposed any American presence in Iraq, shifted his stance following Talabani’s announcement, indicating that he would support “indirect’’ training by the United States because it would mean fewer expenses and better weapons for Iraq. But such training, he said through a spokesman in Najaf, can take place only after the United States reimburses Iraq for damage caused during and after the 2003 invasion.
The United States and Iraq agree on the need for continued military training, though Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last week that any remaining troops must have immunity.
We insist our troops can kill anyone, anytime, anywhere. Some liberation?
Wasn't that one of the propaganda reasons for invading the place?
Since then, officials in Washington and Baghdad have rushed to outline training proposals that would enlist private security contractors, NATO or some other entity that could be legally covered despite the denial of military immunity....
Car bombs, assassinations, and collateral civilian deaths continue to be a daily occurrence in Iraq....
And they called it victory!
--more--"
Also see: Gunmen assassinate Iraqi finance official
Bomb kills 4 Iraqi militia members
US has 1st combat death in Iraq since July
Wasn't combat declared officially over over a year ago?
One thing they did decide on:
"Iraq to pay $3b for 18 fighter jets from US" September 28, 2011|Associated Press
BAGHDAD - Iraq has signed an estimated $3 billion deal to buy 18 fighter jets from the United States, officials said yesterday, in a measure aimed at protecting its air space alone, after years of relying on help from American pilots.
The F-16s aren’t expected to arrive in Iraq until next fall at the earliest, and probably not until 2013, meaning US troops may still be asked to patrol the country’s skies and train its air force for months, if not years, to come.
Actually, I don't think so.
But US Army Lieutenant General Michael Ferriter called the F-16 deal “a game-changing capability.’’
“It provides the basis for their air sovereignty,’’ Ferriter told reporters in his Baghdad office.
There are 44,000 US troops in Iraq, with all scheduled to leave by the end of this year. But concerns about Iraq’s stability and continued attacks have spurred Washington and Baghdad to reconsider the deadline in a drawn-out political process that may not be decided until the 11th hour.
Underscoring Iraq’s security gaps, a militant group linked to Al Qaeda issued a list of attacks yesterday that it claimed it carried out in Iraq during the holy Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The Islamic State of Iraq said in the statement that it carried out 68 attacks in the country’s western Sunni-dominated Anbar Province in August and September, killing at least 90 people. The claims could not be immediately verified.
Officials in Baghdad and Washington worry that the US military withdrawal will leave behind partially trained Iraqi security forces unable to protect the country from foreign threats, especially during the rash of instability across the Mideast.
Iraq has said its air force is not ready to protect its air space alone.
Who would they have to protect it from? Israel?
--more--"
"After more than eight years of war, many weary Iraqis are ready to see US troops go, and staunchly defend their national sovereignty against an American force they see as occupiers....
Doesn't look like indecision to me.
--more--"
Nevertheless (sigh):
"Iraqis fear power vacuum after US withdrawal; Pullout reveals deep ambivalence over occupation" September 11, 2011|By Michael S. Schmidt, New York Times
BAGHDAD - Sheik Kamal Maamouri, the leader of one of the largest Shi’ite-dominated tribes in Iraq, used to call the US troops here occupiers, demanding that they withdraw because he said they killed and imprisoned innocent members of his tribe.
But now he is not so sure he wants the Americans to go, at least not yet. Like many others across Iraq, he felt conflicted, and a bit frightened, after it was revealed last week that the United States may keep 3,000 to 4,000 troops in Iraq next year.
“The political changes that have occurred here and the security problems have led a lot of Iraqis, including me, to change our minds about the withdrawal of US forces,’’ Maamouri said. That was a view that few Shi’ites, empowered by the fall of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni government, would ever have spoken when it seemed the United States was never going to go.
The propaganda stream is running thick.
Pro-Israel Americans:Help keep Israel secure by ensuring U.S. support remains strong www.AIPAC.org
And that's who is paying for it.
“They bring a balance to Iraqi society,’’ he said.
Though Iraqis have called for Americans to leave from the start of the occupation in 2003, the prospect of such a drastic drawdown, from the 48,000 troops here now, has revealed another side of the Iraqi psyche.
Did I say I was sick of the elite insults?
This is a nation that distrusts itself, with little faith in the government’s own security forces or political leaders.
Judging by that last sentence they sound just like Americans.
It is as if people here never actually believed that the United States would leave, so all along demands for a pullout were never carefully weighed against the potential fallout.
I must admit, I never did -- and still don't.
This is not to say that Iraqis no longer want to be liberated from a foreign military, which of course they say they do. But Iraqis who once cheered the fall of a dictator recall all too vividly the chaos and bloodshed that came after Hussein’s iron rule was broken.
The politics of occupation have not changed. For months, US officials warned the Iraqis that if they did not issue a formal request to stay, and soon, it would become logistically impossible to slow the pullout. After months of stalling, the government agreed to open negotiations to leave some forces behind.
Then last week it was revealed that Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is supporting a plan to keep as few as 3,000 soldiers in Iraq, enough to provide some training to Iraqi forces, and not much else. From the north to the center to the south, many Iraqis said they were shocked by such a small number and feared that the few Americans would become irresistible targets for violence, unable to safeguard themselves, let alone Iraq.
“If the Americans withdraw, there will be problems because there will be no great power in the country that everyone respects,’’ said Mateen Abdullah Karkukli, a 43-year-old Turkmen from Kirkuk.
But, reflecting his own mixed feelings, he said, “If they stay, there will be a bigger problem because insurgents and militias will have justification to resume their armed activities.’’
It is not altogether surprising that Kurds or Sunnis, minorities in the Shi’ite-majority nation, would be more apprehensive about an American withdrawal. Kurds worry that a strong Shi’ite-dominated government will upset the virtual autonomy they enjoy in the north. And Sunnis worry about violence from Shi’ite militias.
But there is also anxiety in unexpected places, like Babil, a Shi’ite-dominated city where residents have bitterly complained about midnight raids by American forces since 2003.
Yeah, stuff like that never gets much print though.
Those feelings have not diminished, but they have been overshadowed by concerns that the Iraqi government would not able to fill the vacuum the US forces would leave behind.
Who got us in there in the first place?
And that's who is paying for it.
“They bring a balance to Iraqi society,’’ he said.
Though Iraqis have called for Americans to leave from the start of the occupation in 2003, the prospect of such a drastic drawdown, from the 48,000 troops here now, has revealed another side of the Iraqi psyche.
Did I say I was sick of the elite insults?
This is a nation that distrusts itself, with little faith in the government’s own security forces or political leaders.
Judging by that last sentence they sound just like Americans.
It is as if people here never actually believed that the United States would leave, so all along demands for a pullout were never carefully weighed against the potential fallout.
I must admit, I never did -- and still don't.
This is not to say that Iraqis no longer want to be liberated from a foreign military, which of course they say they do. But Iraqis who once cheered the fall of a dictator recall all too vividly the chaos and bloodshed that came after Hussein’s iron rule was broken.
The politics of occupation have not changed. For months, US officials warned the Iraqis that if they did not issue a formal request to stay, and soon, it would become logistically impossible to slow the pullout. After months of stalling, the government agreed to open negotiations to leave some forces behind.
Then last week it was revealed that Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is supporting a plan to keep as few as 3,000 soldiers in Iraq, enough to provide some training to Iraqi forces, and not much else. From the north to the center to the south, many Iraqis said they were shocked by such a small number and feared that the few Americans would become irresistible targets for violence, unable to safeguard themselves, let alone Iraq.
“If the Americans withdraw, there will be problems because there will be no great power in the country that everyone respects,’’ said Mateen Abdullah Karkukli, a 43-year-old Turkmen from Kirkuk.
But, reflecting his own mixed feelings, he said, “If they stay, there will be a bigger problem because insurgents and militias will have justification to resume their armed activities.’’
It is not altogether surprising that Kurds or Sunnis, minorities in the Shi’ite-majority nation, would be more apprehensive about an American withdrawal. Kurds worry that a strong Shi’ite-dominated government will upset the virtual autonomy they enjoy in the north. And Sunnis worry about violence from Shi’ite militias.
But there is also anxiety in unexpected places, like Babil, a Shi’ite-dominated city where residents have bitterly complained about midnight raids by American forces since 2003.
Yeah, stuff like that never gets much print though.
Those feelings have not diminished, but they have been overshadowed by concerns that the Iraqi government would not able to fill the vacuum the US forces would leave behind.
Who got us in there in the first place?
Pro-Israel Americans:Help keep Israel secure by ensuring U.S. support remains strong www.AIPAC.org
Oh, yeah, right.
“The leading parties now in the government tend to act like dictators,’’ said Maamouri, the tribal leader. “I am afraid if the Americans withdraw from Iraq, these parties will act even more like dictators. Three thousand troops will not be enough to deal with any of the threats facing Iraq.’’
Iraqis have little faith in their government preserving modest gains and in restoring stability because of bombings, assassinations and rocket attacks that are still carried out on a daily basis.
And yet we read so little about them in our AmeriKan newspapers.
And to a large extent they blame the United States for rupturing their society, and then planning to pull out before repairing the damage it caused.
Analysts here say the Iraqi security forces have concentrated so much energy on trying to stop violence within the country’s borders that they failed to guard against an external threat....
Gee, who could that be?
“The Iranians.’’
Oh, yeah, right.
“The leading parties now in the government tend to act like dictators,’’ said Maamouri, the tribal leader. “I am afraid if the Americans withdraw from Iraq, these parties will act even more like dictators. Three thousand troops will not be enough to deal with any of the threats facing Iraq.’’
Iraqis have little faith in their government preserving modest gains and in restoring stability because of bombings, assassinations and rocket attacks that are still carried out on a daily basis.
And yet we read so little about them in our AmeriKan newspapers.
And to a large extent they blame the United States for rupturing their society, and then planning to pull out before repairing the damage it caused.
Analysts here say the Iraqi security forces have concentrated so much energy on trying to stop violence within the country’s borders that they failed to guard against an external threat....
Gee, who could that be?
“The Iranians.’’
Ready for a World War?
--more--"
Also see: Occupation Iraq: Iran All In
Who are the terrorists again?
"More than 20 people killed in terrorist attacks in Iraq" September 15, 2011|By Yasir Ghazi, New York Times
BAGHDAD - Terrorist attacks across Iraq killed more than 20 people yesterday, including in Anbar Province, where an increase in violence has heightened sectarian tensions....
And CUI BONO?
In Babil Province, south of Baghdad, a parked car packed with explosives was detonated in front of a busy restaurant on the highway connecting the capital and Basra. The restaurant was crowded with travelers who had stopped for breakfast. The police said the blast had killed 13 people and wounded 46 more, including women and children.
Absolutely STINKING of an INTELLIGENCE AGENCY OPERATION!!
Later, the bodies of three Shi’ite men believed to have been laborers were found along a highway in Babil Province. The men’s hands had been tied, and they had been shot multiple times, the police said.
In Baghdad, gunmen killed two police officers at a security checkpoint and wounded a third.
Violence in Anbar Province has worsened in recent weeks as the United States has begun to withdraw....
No group claimed responsibility for the attacks yesterday, but US military officials said they appeared to have been the work of the insurgent group known as Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
Oh, I believe it was "Al-CIA-Duh!"
That group has tried to mount attacks on both Sunnis and Shi’ites, apparently in the hope that each will blame and attack the other, plunging Iraq back into civil war.
“I have seen a change over time with Al Qaeda in Iraq,’’ said Major General Jeffrey Buchanan, the US military’s spokesman in Iraq, in an interview at Umm Qasr, the port where the Iraqi military was celebrating Navy Day. “They seem to be attacking groups to get a sectarian conflict regenerated. But unlike years past, especially in the worst days of 2006 and 2007, the Iraqi people seem determined to deal with terrorists as terrorists, and not make it a sectarian conflict.’’
Then WE CAN LEAVE, right?
--more--"
"Sadr supporters call for aid in Iraq; Demands include services, jobs, and oil revenue" by Bushra Juhi, Associated Press / September 17, 2011
BAGHDAD - An anti-American cleric galvanized thousands of followers to rally yesterday for more jobs and government aid in demonstrations that showed his support among Shi’ites, who are vital supporters of Iraq’s political leaders.
Caskets carried through the streets of Sadr City in northeast Baghdad symbolized Iraq’s electricity outages, slim food rations, and unemployment.
It's called liberation and victory over here.
Police estimated that 25,000 protesters turned out in Sadr City, the political stronghold of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Similar demonstrations took place in the southern cities of Basra and Najaf.
“We want services, jobs, and a portion of the oil revenue to be distributed to people. Immediately, immediately, immediately,’’ Sadrist official Ibrahim al-Jabiri told the Shi’ite crowds in Baghdad.
Iraqi and Shi’ite religious flags were hoisted in the air, and protesters held up broken lamps, fans, air coolers, heaters, and generators as a sign of their frustration over electricity outages that have plagued the country since the 2003 US-led invasion.
We didn't rebuild s***. So where did all that money go?
Sadr is in Iran, where he has been studying at religious schools. He is the fiercest opponent of the US military presence in Iraq. He has repeatedly demanded full withdrawal of US troops by the end of the year, as required under a 2008 security agreement between Baghdad and Washington.
Negotiations between the two countries are underway over the possibility that some US troops might remain after the deadline.
Though he has mostly lived in Iran for several years, his influence has grown since last fall, when he publicly endorsed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to remain in power, even though the Maliki’s party fell short of winning national elections. Most of Sadr’s followers are among the poorest Iraqis, and he has often hammered the government to produce more aid for them.
Aren't those the people we went to liberate?
At the Basra and Najaf rallies, hundreds of Sadrists also shouted anti-American slogans among their calls for better services.
“The people want the occupiers to leave,’’ they shouted. “The people want to reform the regime.’’
Not according to the New York Times.
Continued instability in Iraq’s government and security forces, combined with Iran’s growing influence in Baghdad, has led Maliki and President Obama to weigh whether to keep between 3,000 and 10,000 US troops in Iraq beyond the Dec. 31 deadline.
Is it not ONLY NATURAL that Shi'ite Iraq would draw closer to their immediate Shi'ite neighbor Iran?
Related: Memory Hole: The Dream Vacation
Oh, they vacation there?
In a letter released early yesterday, 41 experts, former lawmakers, and top officials in the administration of President George W. Bush called on Obama to keep far more than 4,000 troops in Iraq - a figure the White House is reportedly considering. The letter released by the Foreign Policy Initiative, a conservative-leaning group in Washington....
Among the letter’s mostly Republican signers were L. Paul Bremer, who ran the US occupation of Iraq until June 2004 and was then involved in a long and destabilizing struggle to elect a government and write a constitution, and Bush political adviser Karl Rove.
--more--"
Yeah, let's stay:
"The US military said an American soldier died yesterday in a nonhostile incident in northern part of the country. No name or other details were immediately available.
The death brings to 4,476 the number of US troops who have died supporting military operations in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, according to an Associated Press count....
--more--"
"4 bombs target Shi’ite holy city in Iraq" September 26, 2011|Associated Press
BAGHDAD - Bomb blasts ripped through Karbala yesterday, one of the holiest cities in Shi’ite Islam, killing at least 10 people in a community still reeling from a deadly bus hijacking earlier this month that left 22 dead and Iraq’s Shi’ites again feeling hunted....
By who?
“Once again, the terrorist enemies of both Iraq and humanity have committed a new crime against the innocent people of Karbala,’’ said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shi’ite.
He called the bombings a “heinous crime,’’ promised that those behind them and the earlier attack on the bus would be punished, and warned people not to be drawn back into sectarian revenge killings.
Violence in Iraq has fallen dramatically since the bloodletting of 2006 and 2007, but militant attacks still appear aimed at reigniting the nation’s volatile ethnic and religious divide.
The Sept. 12 bus attack targeted Shi’ite pilgrims from Karbala who were headed to a shrine in neighboring Syria.
Maliki has been trying to reduce tensions between officials in Karbala and Anbar since the hijacking. Four suspects are being held in the case, and Maliki’s military advisers say at least some foreigners were involved.
Oh, I believe that.
Yesterday’s bombings in Karbala were meant to raise those tensions further, officials said....
--more--"
"Car explosion in Iraq kills 17 attending Shi’ite sheik’s funeral" by Lara Jakes and Qassim Abdul-Zahra Associated Press / October 1, 2011
BAGHDAD - A car bomb exploded yesterday near a Shi’ite mosque south of Baghdad where mourners had gathered for a funeral, killing 17 people, Iraqi officials said.
I don't believe any Muslim would do that, even the most pious "Al-CIA-Duh."
The explosion triggered new anger at Iraq’s leaders and their armed forces, who will soon take over responsibility for the country’s security as US troops rapidly leave the country. Violence has dropped since the height of Iraq’s bloodshed a few years ago, but Iraqi forces have failed to stop attacks that continue to claim lives daily....
So if you want us to stay you better ask quick!
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Sunni militants such as Al Qaeda often target Shi’ite mosques and neighborhoods to stir sectarian violence.
A hallmark of intelligence agency false flags.
Last evening’s blast happened not far from where another strike killed 15 people and wounded 41 last month, police and hospital officials said.
In that Sept. 14 attack, a car bomb parked outside a restaurant in the village of al-Shumali exploded as police were eating breakfast inside.
The attacks come at a precarious time for Iraq, torn between wanting to assert its sovereignty without the help of US forces while also recognizing that its own soldiers and police are not ready to stop militants on their own.
Iraqi leaders are grappling with whether they will formally ask the Obama administration to keep a few thousand US troops in Iraq beyond the military’s Dec. 31 withdrawal deadline.
Talks among the leaders of Iraq’s top political groups are expected to ramp up next week. But Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has signaled that the final decision will be left to Parliament, where most lawmakers have been reluctant to embrace a continued US troop presence that is unpopular with many voters.
There are currently about 44,000 US troops in Iraq. There are also about 7,000 private security contractors hired by the US Embassy in Baghdad to protect American government offices and residential buildings in Iraq.
--more--"
"Donning disguises, Iraqi gunmen seize station in standoff" by Associated Press / October 4, 2011
BAGHDAD - Gunmen disguised as police officers seized control of a police station in western Iraq yesterday morning, killing four people and taking dozens of hostages before Iraqi forces swept in and ended the standoff, Iraqi officials said.
The three-hour hostage crisis demonstrated the vulnerability of the Iraqi security forces as American troops swiftly draw down their presence after more than eight years of war....
Then we have lost the war, haven't we?
“Some of the terrorists entered my office and one of them picked up my landline phone when it was ringing and said: ‘We are the fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq,’ ’’ said the mayor, Muhanad Zbar Mutlaq.
The Islamic State of Iraq is a front group for Al Qaeda.
Yeah, it's a CIA FRONT!
Two of the insurgents blew themselves up when Iraqi police stormed the station to free the estimated 40 people held inside, said Brigadier General Mohammed al-Fahdawi of the Iraqi army’s Seventh Division in Anbar province. Security forces killed the other two assailants, he said.
--more-"
"String of blasts kills 10 in Baghdad" October 11, 2011|Associated Press
BAGHDAD - A string of explosions targeting security officials and people who rushed to the scene to help the injured killed at least 10 people in western Baghdad last night, officials said.
The first explosion came from a roadside bomb in a Shi’ite neighborhood, targeting an Iraqi army patrol, a police official said. Minutes later, a second bomb exploded nearby, targeting a passing police patrol.
As firefighters arrived on the scene of the first blast, the third bomb went off.
Officials said 19 people were wounded in the attacks. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Violence is nowhere near the peaks seen in 2006 and 2007, but bombings and shootings still occur with regularity.
As US forces prepare to go home by the end of this year, security will rest in the hands of the Iraqi security forces. Some US and Iraqi officials would like to see American forces stay in Iraq into next year to help maintain the fragile stability and train Iraqi troops.
Disagreements over whether to grant the Americans the type of legal protections they are demanding have threatened to derail any plans to have American troops in Iraq past their Dec. 31 departure date.
In another incident, six members of a land mine removal team died when a controlled detonation of old land mines went wrong, a police official said. The accident happened near the city of Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, on Saturday.
--more--"
"5 blasts across Bagdad kill 22" October 13, 2011|By Asaad Majeed and Dan Zak, Washington Post
BAGHDAD - Five explosions targeting local police shook the capital within an hour yesterday morning, two days after Iraq’s leaders requested that at least 5,000 US military trainers remain into 2012 to advise the country’s fledgling security forces....
Local police, whose capability and readiness have been questioned by US and Iraqi officials, are constant targets for insurgents aiming to destabilize Iraq as the American military rapidly withdraws its forces.
In a meeting with Iraqi journalists Monday, President Jalal Talabani said Iraq’s political blocs have agreed that 5,000 or more US military trainers are required to assist the country’s local and national security forces. Iraq will not, however, grant immunity from prosecution to military trainers who stay past the Dec. 31 expiration of the countries’ security agreements.
“The American side has been approached, and we are waiting for an official response,’’ Talabani said, according to the government-funded newspaper Assabah.
Both the US military and the American Embassy declined yesterday day to comment on the number, though it is within the upper range of figures discussed in the past.
The radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has steadfastly opposed any American presence in Iraq, shifted his stance following Talabani’s announcement, indicating that he would support “indirect’’ training by the United States because it would mean fewer expenses and better weapons for Iraq. But such training, he said through a spokesman in Najaf, can take place only after the United States reimburses Iraq for damage caused during and after the 2003 invasion.
The United States and Iraq agree on the need for continued military training, though Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last week that any remaining troops must have immunity.
We insist our troops can kill anyone, anytime, anywhere. Some liberation?
Wasn't that one of the propaganda reasons for invading the place?
Since then, officials in Washington and Baghdad have rushed to outline training proposals that would enlist private security contractors, NATO or some other entity that could be legally covered despite the denial of military immunity....
Car bombs, assassinations, and collateral civilian deaths continue to be a daily occurrence in Iraq....
And they called it victory!
--more--"
Also see: Gunmen assassinate Iraqi finance official
Bomb kills 4 Iraqi militia members
US has 1st combat death in Iraq since July
Wasn't combat declared officially over over a year ago?
One thing they did decide on:
"Iraq to pay $3b for 18 fighter jets from US" September 28, 2011|Associated Press
BAGHDAD - Iraq has signed an estimated $3 billion deal to buy 18 fighter jets from the United States, officials said yesterday, in a measure aimed at protecting its air space alone, after years of relying on help from American pilots.
The F-16s aren’t expected to arrive in Iraq until next fall at the earliest, and probably not until 2013, meaning US troops may still be asked to patrol the country’s skies and train its air force for months, if not years, to come.
Actually, I don't think so.
But US Army Lieutenant General Michael Ferriter called the F-16 deal “a game-changing capability.’’
“It provides the basis for their air sovereignty,’’ Ferriter told reporters in his Baghdad office.
There are 44,000 US troops in Iraq, with all scheduled to leave by the end of this year. But concerns about Iraq’s stability and continued attacks have spurred Washington and Baghdad to reconsider the deadline in a drawn-out political process that may not be decided until the 11th hour.
Underscoring Iraq’s security gaps, a militant group linked to Al Qaeda issued a list of attacks yesterday that it claimed it carried out in Iraq during the holy Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The Islamic State of Iraq said in the statement that it carried out 68 attacks in the country’s western Sunni-dominated Anbar Province in August and September, killing at least 90 people. The claims could not be immediately verified.
Officials in Baghdad and Washington worry that the US military withdrawal will leave behind partially trained Iraqi security forces unable to protect the country from foreign threats, especially during the rash of instability across the Mideast.
Iraq has said its air force is not ready to protect its air space alone.
Who would they have to protect it from? Israel?
--more--"
Occupation Iraq: British Look Back
Whatever happened to that inquiry anyway?
"Lack of training of UK troops blamed in death of Iraqi man; But inquiry didn’t find evidence of widespread abuse" September 09, 2011|By Cassandra Vinograd, Associated Press
LONDON - The brutal death of an Iraqi man held by British soldiers months after the US-led invasion of the country was an “appalling episode of serious gratuitous violence’’ and partly a result of the United Kingdom’s failure to properly train troops on interrogation techniques, a report said yesterday.
The inquiry into 26-year-old Baha Mousa’s killing underscores a sordid episode in British military history, one that gave the United Kingdom its first convicted war criminal. But the 1,400-page report stops short of finding systematic, widespread abuses, and officials say many issues raised already have been dealt with.
Mousa was working at a hotel in the southern Iraqi city of Basra that was raided by soldiers looking for weapons in September 2003. It was a particularly sensitive time in Iraq, as the ousted dictator, Saddam Hussein, and many of his loyalists were still at large.
The Iraqi was taken to a British base, where he sustained 93 injuries, including fractured ribs and a broken nose. An autopsy said he died of asphyxia, caused by a stress position that soldiers forced him to maintain.
Britain’s defense ministry later apologized for the mistreatment of Mousa and nine other Iraqis and paid a $4.8 million settlement. Six soldiers were cleared of wrongdoing at a court martial in 2007. A seventh pleaded guilty to inhumanely treating Iraqi civilians and served a year in jail.
Related: Occupation Iraq: Empires Never Have to Say Sorry
The inquiry was requested by Mousa’s family and also covered the general subject of British military abuses of Iraqi prisoners....
The report also criticizes a “corporate failure’’ at the Ministry of Defense in allowing interrogation techniques that had been banned by the United Kingdom in 1972 - such as hooding and forcing prisoners to stand in uncomfortable positions - to be used by the soldiers in Iraq....
Yeah, it's called torture and have you ever noticed our -- and I only use the term because I am a citizen of a government that tortures in my name and with my condemnation -- torture is always minimized while that of official enemies is magnified if not distorted or lies?
--more--"
"Lack of training of UK troops blamed in death of Iraqi man; But inquiry didn’t find evidence of widespread abuse" September 09, 2011|By Cassandra Vinograd, Associated Press
LONDON - The brutal death of an Iraqi man held by British soldiers months after the US-led invasion of the country was an “appalling episode of serious gratuitous violence’’ and partly a result of the United Kingdom’s failure to properly train troops on interrogation techniques, a report said yesterday.
The inquiry into 26-year-old Baha Mousa’s killing underscores a sordid episode in British military history, one that gave the United Kingdom its first convicted war criminal. But the 1,400-page report stops short of finding systematic, widespread abuses, and officials say many issues raised already have been dealt with.
Mousa was working at a hotel in the southern Iraqi city of Basra that was raided by soldiers looking for weapons in September 2003. It was a particularly sensitive time in Iraq, as the ousted dictator, Saddam Hussein, and many of his loyalists were still at large.
The Iraqi was taken to a British base, where he sustained 93 injuries, including fractured ribs and a broken nose. An autopsy said he died of asphyxia, caused by a stress position that soldiers forced him to maintain.
Britain’s defense ministry later apologized for the mistreatment of Mousa and nine other Iraqis and paid a $4.8 million settlement. Six soldiers were cleared of wrongdoing at a court martial in 2007. A seventh pleaded guilty to inhumanely treating Iraqi civilians and served a year in jail.
Related: Occupation Iraq: Empires Never Have to Say Sorry
The inquiry was requested by Mousa’s family and also covered the general subject of British military abuses of Iraqi prisoners....
The report also criticizes a “corporate failure’’ at the Ministry of Defense in allowing interrogation techniques that had been banned by the United Kingdom in 1972 - such as hooding and forcing prisoners to stand in uncomfortable positions - to be used by the soldiers in Iraq....
Yeah, it's called torture and have you ever noticed our -- and I only use the term because I am a citizen of a government that tortures in my name and with my condemnation -- torture is always minimized while that of official enemies is magnified if not distorted or lies?
--more--"
The Boston Globe is a Grind
Right up front, readers:
"Close, explicit dance puts students, schools far apart" October 21, 2011|By Peter Schworm, Globe Staff
The sexually charged dance style known as grinding is more popular than ever, and feeding a wave of dance cancellations, angry protests, and tensions between school administrators and students.
Is this the 1950s?
A growing number of schools in New England have banned the explicit gyrations, saying they border on obscene and embarrass adults and students alike.
Well, if the kids are doing them it obviously is not embarrassing them. And however you feel about the topic, the kids sure are getting a first rate education when it comes to the fascist society they will be immersed in as an adult.
But many students are unfazed by the protests of their elders, and engage in an endless tug of war with their shoulder-tapping chaperones. In some schools, students have protested dirty-dancing crackdowns by boycotting dances. They will dance their way or not dance at all.
It's a start for the kids while the whole world is protesting right now.
The standoff comes as the remake of “Footloose,’’ the dance-as-rebellion movie, opens.
Aaaaaaaaaah!!
A high school in Great Barrington canceled dances indefinitely after some students flouted a ban on the risque dance moves, then left the dance in protest. Last month, a New Hampshire high school called off its homecoming dance, saying so many students were grinding that the chaperones could do little to stop them.
In Hampton, N.H., monthly dances were canceled because of plummeting attendance blamed on the school’s recent ban on the suggestive dancing. Earlier this year, in South Burlington, Vt., the winter ball was called off after grinding was banned.
Principals and teachers have long tangled with teenagers over dance-floor decorum, but the clash over grinding, also known as freak dancing, has at times reached an impasse. In Princeton, N.J., a recent homecoming dance was replaced with a movie. Administrators in Lincoln, Neb., sent a letter home to parents last month explicitly barring dirty dancing among students.
Wasn't that another '80s movie?
Students say the dancing is social, not lascivious as it may seem to adults who are observing, and often involves groups of boys and girls. But administrators say the close-contact bumping and grinding - often done front-to-back - crosses the bounds of good taste, making the days of leaving room for the Holy Spirit seem hopelessly quaint.
Looks like we have a good old generation gap here, huh?
“It’s a little shocking,’’ said Greg Smith, assistant principal of Oakmont Regional High School in Ashburnham.
Last year, administrators became increasingly frustrated with student behavior on the dance floor, and decided it was time to establish clear limits.
“We really couldn’t stand by and watch that,’’ Smith said.
But you can stand by and watch them be sent into wars based on lies, or remain silent while so many lies are spewed forth by the government and its mouthpiece media?
Oh, right, to speak out means the end of the career for the individual, loss of money for the school, and crucifixion of the person in the media (if they are not just ignored).
New rules were spelled out to avoid confusion, and even printed in the student handbook. No movements or gestures that “simulate sexual activities.’’ Hands must remain above the waist and “avoid sensitive areas.’’ No excessive displays of affection.
Yeah, God forbid the schools would want to promote love in this world. Well, they will when it is to bend over for gays. Of course, you can always go talk to the military recruiter, right?
Over time, and with regular reminders from chaperones, students got the message, Smith said.
With accompanying sieg heil salute I hope (editor sardonically sneers).
“Our dances have really calmed down,’’ he said. “Adolescent dancing is always going to push the limits of what’s acceptable, but you have to respect the fact that you’re in a public space.’’
Administrators say dances are an important part of school social life, and most are reluctant to cancel them....
The dances I went to in school way back when pretty much sucked, and I did not do much dancing. Never got to bump-and-grind like today, though.
--more--"
I know it's only rock-and-roll, but I like it.
Just reading the Globe has become a grind these days, readers, and not the kid's kind.
"Close, explicit dance puts students, schools far apart" October 21, 2011|By Peter Schworm, Globe Staff
The sexually charged dance style known as grinding is more popular than ever, and feeding a wave of dance cancellations, angry protests, and tensions between school administrators and students.
Is this the 1950s?
A growing number of schools in New England have banned the explicit gyrations, saying they border on obscene and embarrass adults and students alike.
Well, if the kids are doing them it obviously is not embarrassing them. And however you feel about the topic, the kids sure are getting a first rate education when it comes to the fascist society they will be immersed in as an adult.
But many students are unfazed by the protests of their elders, and engage in an endless tug of war with their shoulder-tapping chaperones. In some schools, students have protested dirty-dancing crackdowns by boycotting dances. They will dance their way or not dance at all.
It's a start for the kids while the whole world is protesting right now.
The standoff comes as the remake of “Footloose,’’ the dance-as-rebellion movie, opens.
Aaaaaaaaaah!!
A high school in Great Barrington canceled dances indefinitely after some students flouted a ban on the risque dance moves, then left the dance in protest. Last month, a New Hampshire high school called off its homecoming dance, saying so many students were grinding that the chaperones could do little to stop them.
In Hampton, N.H., monthly dances were canceled because of plummeting attendance blamed on the school’s recent ban on the suggestive dancing. Earlier this year, in South Burlington, Vt., the winter ball was called off after grinding was banned.
Principals and teachers have long tangled with teenagers over dance-floor decorum, but the clash over grinding, also known as freak dancing, has at times reached an impasse. In Princeton, N.J., a recent homecoming dance was replaced with a movie. Administrators in Lincoln, Neb., sent a letter home to parents last month explicitly barring dirty dancing among students.
Wasn't that another '80s movie?
Students say the dancing is social, not lascivious as it may seem to adults who are observing, and often involves groups of boys and girls. But administrators say the close-contact bumping and grinding - often done front-to-back - crosses the bounds of good taste, making the days of leaving room for the Holy Spirit seem hopelessly quaint.
Looks like we have a good old generation gap here, huh?
“It’s a little shocking,’’ said Greg Smith, assistant principal of Oakmont Regional High School in Ashburnham.
Last year, administrators became increasingly frustrated with student behavior on the dance floor, and decided it was time to establish clear limits.
“We really couldn’t stand by and watch that,’’ Smith said.
But you can stand by and watch them be sent into wars based on lies, or remain silent while so many lies are spewed forth by the government and its mouthpiece media?
Oh, right, to speak out means the end of the career for the individual, loss of money for the school, and crucifixion of the person in the media (if they are not just ignored).
New rules were spelled out to avoid confusion, and even printed in the student handbook. No movements or gestures that “simulate sexual activities.’’ Hands must remain above the waist and “avoid sensitive areas.’’ No excessive displays of affection.
Yeah, God forbid the schools would want to promote love in this world. Well, they will when it is to bend over for gays. Of course, you can always go talk to the military recruiter, right?
Over time, and with regular reminders from chaperones, students got the message, Smith said.
With accompanying sieg heil salute I hope (editor sardonically sneers).
“Our dances have really calmed down,’’ he said. “Adolescent dancing is always going to push the limits of what’s acceptable, but you have to respect the fact that you’re in a public space.’’
Administrators say dances are an important part of school social life, and most are reluctant to cancel them....
The dances I went to in school way back when pretty much sucked, and I did not do much dancing. Never got to bump-and-grind like today, though.
--more--"
I know it's only rock-and-roll, but I like it.
Just reading the Globe has become a grind these days, readers, and not the kid's kind.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Palestinians Put U.S. on Spot
And shows that Israel controls US foreign policy:
"the United States is in the unenviable position of leading the opposition to something it actually supports"
Of course, to say such a thing means you are an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist (thank you).
What more is there to say?
"Palestinians launch blitz for recognition; Protests aimed at influencing United Nations" September 09, 2011|By Mohammed Daraghmeh, Associated Press
RAMALLAH, West Bank - The Palestinians launched a campaign yesterday to rally support for UN recognition as an independent state, planning demonstrations in the Palestinian territories and worldwide before asking the world body to accept them as a full member state later this month.
The public relations blitz helps set up a diplomatic showdown at the United Nations, where Israel and the United States are leading opposition to the bid, and adds to concerns in Israel that mass demonstrations could turn violent.
The US administration said for the first time yesterday that it would veto any Security Council resolution to recognize Palestinian statehood....
--more--"
"Palestinians set to seek UN seat; US promises to veto Security Council move" by Isabel Kershner and Rick Gladstone, New York Times / September 17, 2011
JERUSALEM - The Palestinian president announced that he would seek membership for a Palestinian state at the United Nations Security Council next week, a move strongly opposed by Israel and the United States that adds significant tension to one of the most intractable conflicts in the Middle East....
US, Israeli, and European diplomats have struggled to dissuade Abbas and his aides from taking such a step, and his decision to proceed anyway represents what could become a foreign policy debacle for the Obama administration....
The United States has said it will use its veto at the Security Council to stop any Palestinian statehood bid, adhering to the US-Israeli view that the only way to achieve peace is through direct talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel....
That's why I sometimes call it USrael.
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel issued a brief statement after the speech, saying, “Peace will not be achieved by a unilateral approach to the United Nations.’’
Proved since 1948.
*******************
A US veto of the Palestinian bid for full membership would serve as another blow to American credibility in the Arab world, as the Obama administration tries to place itself on the side of protesters in Arab autocracies seeking freedom and justice....
As if we had any left.
Critics view US policy as muddled as the Obama administration supports uprisings in Libya and Syria, but looks the other way at a crackdown by its ally Bahrain.
And the support of the butcher of Yemen. Btw, the policy isn't muddled if you understand PNAC/Neo-Con plans for world domination. The agenda is still being advanced despite the change in presidents.
A veto of Palestinian statehood would intensify perceptions of US double standards.
It's already glaring.
In recent days, senior administration officials said, the United States had been trying to get agreement on a statement by the so-called Middle East Quartet - the United States, European Union, United Nations, and Russia - affirming President Obama’s proposal in May to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state, using as a baseline the pre-1967 boundaries of Israel, with land swaps.
With such a clear roadmap in hand, these officials said, the United States hoped the Palestinians would feel comfortable abandoning their statehood campaign and return to direct negotiations with the Israelis.
--more--"
"Obama looks past bid for statehood" September 17, 2011
WASHINGTON - Facing a potentially destabilizing diplomatic clash, President Obama heads to the United Nations next week looking beyond a vote on Palestinian statehood and toward laying the groundwork for the resumption of stalled Middle East peace talks.
Obama had hoped to focus his efforts at the meetings of the UN General Assembly on boosting the standing of Libya’s former rebel leaders and touting the United Nations’ role in dismantling Moammar Khadafy’s regime. But success in Libya seems likely to be overshadowed by a Palestinian push for full UN membership, an effort over which Obama has little influence.
Truer words have never appeared in my printed paper.
White House officials say it is still unclear what course the Palestinians will take in New York next week. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said yesterday that he will ask the UN Security Council to endorse his statehood bid, though he said he was open to other unspecified options. The United States has pledged to veto the bid.
But the White House insists its main focus is not on what happens at the UN but on resuming direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. US officials contend that those negotiations provide the only credible pathway for the Palestinians to achieve statehood.
“Whatever happens at the United Nations, there’s going to have to be a process to get these two parties back to the table when we get beyond next week,’’ White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said.
As part of the effort to revive the stalled negotiations, Obama will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on the sidelines of the UN meeting next week. But whether Obama can make any progress is highly uncertain.
Where he will tell Obama what to say at the UN.
--more--"
"US, Europe try to delay Palestinian UN bid; Seek to head off vote and a return to talks with Israel" by Matthew Lee Associated Press / September 19, 2011
WASHINGTON - The United States and Europe are racing to avert or delay a looming showdown over Palestinian statehood at the United Nations....
It is sickening to see these lap-dog governments groveling at the feet of Israel.
Officials say the effort may be more about damage control than diplomacy.
The Palestinians are frustrated by their inability to win from Israel concessions such as a freeze on settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They want to seize the moment to try to gain greater standing and attention with a high-stakes wager on statehood and UN membership. The United States and Israel vehemently opposed this move.
Gee, the Palestinians sure do seize a lot of things accoding to the AmeriKan media.
Only 12 months ago, President Obama said he wanted the UN to be welcoming Palestine as its newest member this year. But talks long have broken down, and the United States is in the unenviable position of leading the opposition to something it actually supports.
See how the slipped that truth into the back of a sentence in the middle of the piece?
The United States has promised a veto of the Palestinian bid at the Security Council, leading to fears the action could spark violence in the region.
The American side was working to secure additional opposition to recognition, officials said. Without nine affirmative votes in the 15-member Council, the Palestinian resolution would fail and Washington is hoping it will not have to act alone.
Against their own policy.
US officials believe that six other members may vote against or abstain, meaning the Palestinians would fall short. That tally could not be immediately confirmed.
Heading off or watering down the Palestinian resolution had been the goal of international diplomats. They hoped to parlay that success into a meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders where the two sides would revive negotiations.
Yet the Palestinians have refused to back down and give up the little leverage they hope to win....
Even with a loss in the Security Council, the Palestinians were expected to take their case for recognition to the General Assembly, where they enjoy widespread support and the United States cannot block it.
--more--"
"Palestinians set to formally seek UN membership; Israeli leader also asks Abbas to meet in NYC" by Mohammed Daraghmeh Associated Press / September 20, 2011
UNITED NATIONS - The Palestinians brushed aside heated Israeli objections and a promised US veto yesterday, vowing to submit a letter formally requesting full UN membership when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addresses the General Assembly.
As the Palestinians edged closer to seeking statehood recognition from the United Nations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for Abbas to meet with him in New York. The Israeli leader said he wanted to resume peace talks, upping the pressure on Abbas and building on the frenzied diplomacy swirling around the Palestinians bid.
Regardless, Abbas said he had not been swayed by what he called “tremendous pressure’’ to drop the bid for United Nations recognition and instead to resume peace talks with Israel. Senior aides to the Palestinian leader said Abbas was undaunted by threats of punitive measures.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, however, there was still time to find a solution to the diplomatic crisis. Clinton told reporters in New York that the United States is talking with all sides to defuse the standoff, noting that the week was young and there were still several days to seek compromise....
The push at the world body is the first step to statehood for Palestinians who have for decades complained of being guests in their own land.
Sure haven't been treated like guests.
Although any submission by the Palestinians could wait weeks or months for the UN action, it has sparked a flurry of diplomatic activity with Mideast mediators scrambling to find a way to draw the two sides back to a negotiating table.
Each side in the Israeli-Palestinian talks has accused the other of being untrustworthy and intransigent participants in the peace process.
In a statement, Netanyahu called on Abbas to begin “direct negotiations in New York and continue them in Jerusalem and Ramallah.’’ But the statement provided no other details or indications that Netanyahu was willing to cede to any of the Palestinians’ demands.
The quartet of Mideast mediators - the United States, the UN, the European Union, and Russia - has said that Palestinian statehood should not be granted before a resumption of peace talks. The long-stalled negotiations have been unable to solve the key issues of Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and the status of east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as their capital....
--more--"
"Palestinians push forward in mission to obtain UN membership; Sarkozy presses officials to drop statehood bid" September 21, 2011|By Mohammed Daraghmeh and Steven R. Hurst, Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS - The Palestinian delegation relentlessly knocked on diplomatic doors at the UN trying to sell their case for international recognition. Israel’s prime minister, meanwhile, issued dire warnings against hasty action as he boarded his jet for New York.
The issue of the unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood has consumed diplomats who are gathering for today’s opening of the annual UN General Assembly ministerial meeting....
For his part, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, in a meeting with members of his hardline Likud Party before leaving Jerusalem late yesterday, vowed to speak “the truth’’ in New York - “the truth of a people that wants peace, a nation that was attacked time after time and that is being attacked time after time by those that don’t oppose our policies but rather our very existence.’’
Did his tongue turn to sand after he said all that?
He said he would warn world leaders against prematurely establishing a Palestinian state when many issues in the conflict must still be resolved. He did not elaborate, saying this would be the focus of his speech to the UN on Friday, scheduled shortly after Abbas’s.
Uh-oh.
The White House said late yesterday that President Obama would meet with Abbas on the sidelines of the UN gathering today....
Officials close to the US and European delegations indicated Obama would be making a last effort to steer Abbas away from a move in the Security Council that would force Washington to act on its promise to block the move. American diplomats have worked at a furious pace to lure the Palestinians back to negotiations, knowing a US veto was certain to inflame anti-American sentiment in the Arab world.
Who could force AmeriKa to do anything?
While the United States has said it will vote no, the other 14 members of the UN Security Council have not declared their positions.
China, Russia, India, Lebanon, South Africa, and Brazil were expected to vote yes. Germany was expected to vote no with the United States or abstain. Still unknown were the positions of France, Britain, Bosnia, Colombia, Gabon, Nigeria, and Portugal, with many saying they needed to see the text of a draft resolution before making a decision.
Related: The Map That Explains Everything
US and other diplomats say the European Union, supported by the United States, was now trying to work out wording of an agreement that could avert the UN showdown over Palestine. There was no sign, however, that Israel or the Palestinians will agree.
Officials say Israel is being asked to accept its pre-1967 borders with land swaps as the basis for a two-state solution. The Palestinians would essentially have to recognize Israel’s Jewish character.
Those issues remain sticking points.
Officials say there is also disagreement among the mediators as Russia finds some elements unacceptable.
Those officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the diplomatic negotiations.
Were the Palestinians to take Sarkozy’s advice, they would become a nonmember observer state, a status like that of the Holy See.
That would give them an opportunity to seek membership in UN agencies and join treaties, including the Rome statute that established the International Criminal Court.
But Mohammed Ishtayeh, an Abbas aide, said President Michel Suleiman of Lebanon, which holds the Security Council presidency this month, urged the Palestinian leader to proceed with the application for UN membership.
--more--"
And it's not just Obama slaving for Israel:
"GOP candidates blast Obama’s Mideast stance
NEW YORK - Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and their GOP presidential rivals slammed President Obama’s Middle East policies yesterday while declaring their support for Israel as the United Nations considered a bid for Palestinian statehood.
Perry, the Texas governor, denounced the president’s Israel policy as “misguided and dangerous,’’ speaking to supporters in New York as the Obama administration worked a few miles away to thwart a UN vote to grant formal recognition to the Palestinian Authority.
Perry also accused Obama of appeasement, as did Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann. Former Massachusetts governor Romney issued a statement accusing Obama of “throwing Israel under the bus.’’
The Republican campaigns have similar goals: establish contrasts with Obama on an issue where he’s struggled; chip away at American Jews’ support for Democrats; and prove their pro-Israel bona fides with the evangelical voters who will play a significant role in the primaries.
I sit here and wonder why that should matter in an American presidential election.
During the 2008 campaign, Obama worked hard to reassure nervous Jewish voters that he would defend Israel as president. But he’s faced doubts and criticism since then.
Perry criticized Obama’s stated goal that any negotiations should be based on Israel’s borders before the 1967 Mideast war, with mutually agreed adjustments and land swaps. Perry, speaking to a group of ultraconservative Jewish and Israeli leaders, called that stance “insulting and naïve.’’
Romney said, “What we are watching unfold at the United Nations is an unmitigated diplomatic disaster.’’ He called for an end to foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority if the UN vote went the Palestinians’ way.
And if it goes Israel's will he call for an end to that aid?
--more--"
"Obama firm against Palestinian bid; UN speech calls for peace talks Tries to keep a delicate balance" September 22, 2011|By Helene Cooper, New York Times
UNITED NATIONS - President Obama declared his opposition to the Palestinian Authority’s bid for statehood through the Security Council yesterday, throwing the weight of the United States directly in the path of the Arab democracy movement even as he hailed what he called the democratic aspirations that have taken hold throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
The world knows hypocrisy when it sees it.
“Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the UN,’’ Obama said, in an address before world leaders at the General Assembly. “If it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now.’’
Then let's get rid of the globalist tool and let it go condo.
Instead, Obama said, the international community should continue to push Israelis and Palestinians toward talks on the four intractable “final status’’ issues that have vexed peace negotiations since 1979: The borders of a Palestinian state, security for Israel, the status of Palestinian refugees who left or were forced to leave their homes in Israel, and the fate of Jerusalem, which both sides claim for their capital.
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I just wanted you to see who was paying to bring me my news.
Related: Six Zionist Companies Own 96% of the World's Media
Declassified: Massive Israeli manipulation of US media exposed
Now the newspaper makes sense.
Less than an hour after Obama spoke, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France stood at the same podium in a sharp repudiation, calling for a General Assembly resolution that would upgrade the Palestinians to observer status, as a bridge toward statehood. “Let us cease our endless debates on the parameters,’’ Sarkozy said. “Let us begin negotiations and adopt a precise timetable.’’
For Obama, the challenge in crafting the much-anticipated General Assembly speech was how to address the incongruities of the administration’s position: The president who committed himself to making peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians a priority from Day One, who still has not been able to even get peace negotiations going after 2 ½ years; the president who opened the door to Palestinian state membership at the United Nations last year ending up threatening to veto that very membership; the president who was determined to get on the right side of Arab history ending up, in the views of many on the Arab street, on the wrong side of it on the Palestinian issue.
The Arab Spring quandary has been enormously troublesome for Obama. White House officials say he has long been keenly aware that he, like no other US president, stood as a potential beacon to the Arab street as the ultimate symbol of the hopes and rewards of democracy. But since he is the president of the United States, he has had to put US interests first.
Meaning putting Israel's interests first.
So Obama’s 47-minute address appeared, at times, an effort to thread the needle and balance his efforts in support of democratic movements against his efforts to stand behind Israel, America’s foremost ally....
Then why have they spied on us, and why did they do 9/11?
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There they are again.
He hailed the democratic movements in the Ivory Coast, in Tunisia, in South Sudan. Of Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak fell after 30 years, Obama said, “we saw in those protesters the moral force of nonviolence that has lit the world from Delhi to Warsaw; from Selma to South Africa - and we knew that change had come to Egypt and to the Arab world.’’
He hailed the Libyan toppling of Moammar Khadafy and threw his weight behind the protesters in Syria.
The way I read that is all are either U.S.-instigated or still under control.
But, he said, Palestinians must make peace with Israel before gaining statehood themselves....
And if Israel really only wants piece (as in a piece of Palestine, a piece of Lebanon, a piece of Syria....)
Several times as Obama spoke, the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, seated in the room, put his forehead in one hand. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, whose relationship with Obama has often been tense, expressed appreciation after the speech, calling it a “badge of honor’’ when both leaders met later in the day.
Maybe politicians should be badged with those that own them.
Obama also used his speech as a platform to make other criticisms. He rebuked Iran as a “government that refuses to recognize the rights of its own people’’ - even as Iranian authorities were releasing two US hikers convicted on spying charges there, a sore point in the estranged US-Iran relationship for the past two years. Obama also accused Syria’s government of torturing, detaining, and murdering its citizens in that country’s uprising, and he called for the Security Council to slap sanctions on that country.
There he is PUSHING ISRAEL'S AGENDA!!!
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Just wanted to remind you who was bringing us this fine report.
--more--"
"Palestinians buck Obama, press UN for admission" September 24, 2011|By Neil MacFarquhar and Steven Lee Myers, New York Times
UNITED NATIONS - President Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, formally requested full United Nations membership yesterday for his as yet undefined country. But before the thunderous applause greeting his announcement in the General Assembly had faded, international powers laid out a new plan to resume direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that was designed to delay a contentious vote on the Palestinian request as long as possible.
In a day full of diplomatic theater, Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel each laid out the tangled history of their bloody conflict in passionate, lengthy speeches less than an hour apart, while the United States, Russia, and European powers haggled in a back room for a formula to bring the parties back to the negotiating table and prevent the Palestinian bid for membership from becoming a cause for violence.
Continents away, thousands of Palestinians celebrated across the West Bank, with cheers erupting from the rapt crowds watching live when Abbas held aloft four pages of the United Nations application letter - a symbolic step toward international recognition of statehood that many Palestinians also saw as a form of peaceful defiance against Israel....
I know one who was not celebrating:
"I simply oppose it because I was never asked what I want as a Palestinian. I was marginalised like millions of Palestinians"
That's a tremendous point; no one has ever asked the Palestinians.
Related:
"Ayatollah decries two-state solution
TEHRAN - Iran’s supreme leader assailed a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians yesterday, saying the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations is doomed to fail. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the Palestinians should not limit themselves to seeking a country within the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip - which would implicitly recognize Israel - because “all land belongs to Palestinians.’’ Iran doesn’t recognize Israel and considers it an archenemy (AP)."
I didn't always see it that way, but I do now after the way Israel has behaved.
Netanyahu said Israel could not return to its 1967 borders because it needed strategic depth to defend itself, particularly from the threat of militant Islam.
I am so sick of intelligence agency created bogeymen.
Much is riding on how international powers handle the Palestinian request, with expectations soaring in the West Bank and the Arab world that the step Abbas has taken will result in genuine change.
“The status quo is completely unacceptable,’’ the French foreign minister, Alain Juppé, said in an interview. “If there is a veto or a ‘no’ vote in the Security Council, what will happen on the ground? What will happen in the Arab street, in the Palestinian street?
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Just wanted to remind you, well, you know.
“There is a very high risk of violence and demonstrations,’’ he said. “I think that Israel will be completely isolated in the region. The situation has changed to the extreme around Israel - in Egypt, in Syria, with Turkey and so on. It’s unreasonable to say, ‘We don’t move; we wait.’ ’’
*****************************
The administration is caught between not wanting to inflame Arab public opinion by exercising yet another veto in support of Israel and the domestic political perils of pressuring Israel, which can alienate Jewish voters and campaign donors....
They are 2% of the population $o why the catering?
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"Abbas may reject international blueprint for peace talks; Palestinian terms ignored, he says" by Amy Teibel Associated Press / September 25, 2011
UNITED NATIONS - President Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, strongly suggested yesterday that he would reject a peacemaking blueprint put forward by international mediators, saying he would not agree to any proposal that disregarded Palestinian conditions for the resumption of peace talks.
Abbas' willingness to stand up to Washington has won him newfound respect at home, where he had been considered a lackluster leader. The unilateral bid for statehood and UN membership reflects deep-seated Palestinian exasperation over 44 years of Israeli occupation.
Israel has had no comment on the Quartet plan to resume long-stalled negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel, which mediators regard as the only way to establish a Palestinian state. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has rejected the long-standing conditions Abbas has put forth, saying talks must go forward without imposing terms.
Netanyahu opposes negotiations based on 1967 lines, saying a return to those frontiers would expose Israel’s heartland to rocket fire from the West Bank. And he says the fate of settlements should be left to negotiations.
The Quartet urged both parties to draw up an agenda for peace talks within a month and produce comprehensive proposals on territory and security within three months....
The Quartet plan was meant to rechannel to negotiations any momentum the Palestinians would gain from their statehood application. A UN nod would not deliver any immediate changes on the ground: Israel would remain an occupying force in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and continue to restrict access to Gaza, ruled by Palestinian Hamas militants.
But Palestinians are hoping that any upgrade in their international status would give them more clout in any future talks with Israel.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon relayed the Palestinians’ statehood request to the Security Council on Friday, shortly after Abbas formally submitted it. It is expected to be shot down there, either because it won’t win the required support of nine of the Security Council’s 15 members, or because the United States will make good on its threat to veto it.
The Security Council will meet tomorrow to deal with the membership request, but final action is likely to take weeks or months....
Washington has been lobbying hard to muster enough support in the Security Council to block the statehood application so the United States won’t have to resort to a veto - something that would be frowned upon by the Arab world at a time when autocratic regimes are coming under assault there.
And something that would expose the U.S. as a servant of Israel.
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"Israeli panel drafts $8b social plan" September 27, 2011|By Isabel Kershner, New York Times
JERUSALEM - In a separate development, the UN Security Council said it will meet tomorrow to start the process of formally considering the Palestinian request for membership in the world body.
Lebanon’s ambassador, Nawaf Salam, who holds this month’s rotating presidency, made a brief appearance before reporters and issued a statement.
He said the council had met yesterday afternoon and decided to take up a decision on referring the issue for further consideration two days hence. That will consist of forming a committee to study the Palestinian submission.
The United States has said it would use its Security Council veto to block Palestinian membership should the measure receive the necessary nine of 15 votes. That would keep the membership bid from advancing to the 193-member General Assembly for the needed two-thirds vote.
The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, said he was grateful to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for quickly forwarding the request to the Security Council. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday submitted the application that Palestine become the United Nations’ 194th member.
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"Israel OK’s more building in East Jerusalem; Follows UN plea by Palestinians" September 28, 2011|By Josef Federman, Associated Press
JERUSALEM - Israel granted the go-ahead yesterday for construction of 1,100 new Jewish housing units in East Jerusalem, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruled out any freeze in settlement construction, raising already heightened tensions after last week’s Palestinian move to seek UN membership.
Israel’s Interior Ministry said the homes would be built in Gilo, a sprawling Jewish enclave in southeast Jerusalem. It said construction could begin after a mandatory 60-day period for public comment, a process that spokesman Roi Lachmanovich called a formality.
Yeah, that will help the cause of piece.
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Just wanted to.... you know.
The announcement drew swift condemnation from the Palestinians, who claim East Jerusalem as their future capital. The United States, European Union, and United Nations all expressed disappointment with Israel’s decision.
That's all?
In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the Israeli announcement was counterproductive....
Oh, how harsh! How about threatening to cut off their aid?
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"The sense during the past two years that President Obama was steering US policy away from its interests subsided last week. The parts of Obama’s UN speech about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could have been written by any Israeli official....
And probably was via some dual national.
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"Palestinians to push for UN membership Nov. 11" by Frank Jordans Associated Press / October 20, 2011
GENEVA—Palestinian diplomats are trying to muster support for a U.N. Security Council vote in New York on Nov. 11 on their bid for membership in the global body, a senior Palestinian official said Thursday.
U.N. diplomats said earlier this week that a Security Council committee considering the membership bid would deliver a report on that day, and that ambassadors would then decide on the next steps.
Any member of the Security Council can request a vote on the Palestinian request, but a resolution recommending membership requires a minimum of nine "yes" votes and no veto by one of the council's five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the U.S.
Once the 15-member Security Council recommends a country's membership its application must be approved by a two-thirds vote in the 193-member General Assembly.
Washington, Israel's closest ally, has already pledged to use its veto if Palestinian membership gets the support of nine or more council members.
"We still have time until Nov. 11, so there is a lot of efforts pushing certain countries to voting in favor," the Palestinian envoy to the U.N. in Geneva, Ibrahim Khraishi, told The Associated Press.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki told reporters in late September that the membership bid has support so far from eight Security Council members: Russia, China, India, South Africa, Brazil, Lebanon, Nigeria and Gabon....
That's where today's printed Globe cut it.
He said the Palestinians are lobbying for more votes, including from Bosnia and Colombia.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited Colombia on Oct. 11 and was told by President Juan Manuel Santos that Colombia will only recognize a Palestinian state that has been established through negotiations with Israel, which leaves Bosnia as the likely key to a ninth "yes" vote.
Khraishi said "several parties are working" to secure the votes, but declined to elaborate. "I think that we will succeed to get the nine," he added.
Elections to replace five nonpermanent members of the Security Council on Friday could create a grouping even less likely to approve the Palestinians' bid, if it rolls over into the new year.
Winners will take their posts Jan. 1. Strong Palestinian backers Brazil and Lebanon, along with Nigeria and Gabon, will be leaving the council at the same time.
Guatemala, running unopposed for the lone Latin America seat, has never recognized a Palestinian state. Neither has Slovenia, one of three candidates for the East European seat being vacated by Bosnia.
The rest of the candidates have all recognized a Palestinian state: Togo, Mauritania, Morocco, Azerbaijan, Hungary, Pakistan and Kyrgystan.
"The addition of Guatemala and the subtraction of Brazil would make it a bit more difficult" to get statehood approved, if the vote is held over, said Warren Hoge, senior adviser for external relations at the International Peace Institute, a New York think tank....
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"the United States is in the unenviable position of leading the opposition to something it actually supports"
Of course, to say such a thing means you are an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist (thank you).
What more is there to say?
"Palestinians launch blitz for recognition; Protests aimed at influencing United Nations" September 09, 2011|By Mohammed Daraghmeh, Associated Press
RAMALLAH, West Bank - The Palestinians launched a campaign yesterday to rally support for UN recognition as an independent state, planning demonstrations in the Palestinian territories and worldwide before asking the world body to accept them as a full member state later this month.
The public relations blitz helps set up a diplomatic showdown at the United Nations, where Israel and the United States are leading opposition to the bid, and adds to concerns in Israel that mass demonstrations could turn violent.
The US administration said for the first time yesterday that it would veto any Security Council resolution to recognize Palestinian statehood....
--more--"
"Palestinians set to seek UN seat; US promises to veto Security Council move" by Isabel Kershner and Rick Gladstone, New York Times / September 17, 2011
JERUSALEM - The Palestinian president announced that he would seek membership for a Palestinian state at the United Nations Security Council next week, a move strongly opposed by Israel and the United States that adds significant tension to one of the most intractable conflicts in the Middle East....
US, Israeli, and European diplomats have struggled to dissuade Abbas and his aides from taking such a step, and his decision to proceed anyway represents what could become a foreign policy debacle for the Obama administration....
The United States has said it will use its veto at the Security Council to stop any Palestinian statehood bid, adhering to the US-Israeli view that the only way to achieve peace is through direct talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel....
That's why I sometimes call it USrael.
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel issued a brief statement after the speech, saying, “Peace will not be achieved by a unilateral approach to the United Nations.’’
Proved since 1948.
*******************
A US veto of the Palestinian bid for full membership would serve as another blow to American credibility in the Arab world, as the Obama administration tries to place itself on the side of protesters in Arab autocracies seeking freedom and justice....
As if we had any left.
Critics view US policy as muddled as the Obama administration supports uprisings in Libya and Syria, but looks the other way at a crackdown by its ally Bahrain.
And the support of the butcher of Yemen. Btw, the policy isn't muddled if you understand PNAC/Neo-Con plans for world domination. The agenda is still being advanced despite the change in presidents.
A veto of Palestinian statehood would intensify perceptions of US double standards.
It's already glaring.
In recent days, senior administration officials said, the United States had been trying to get agreement on a statement by the so-called Middle East Quartet - the United States, European Union, United Nations, and Russia - affirming President Obama’s proposal in May to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state, using as a baseline the pre-1967 boundaries of Israel, with land swaps.
With such a clear roadmap in hand, these officials said, the United States hoped the Palestinians would feel comfortable abandoning their statehood campaign and return to direct negotiations with the Israelis.
--more--"
"Obama looks past bid for statehood" September 17, 2011
WASHINGTON - Facing a potentially destabilizing diplomatic clash, President Obama heads to the United Nations next week looking beyond a vote on Palestinian statehood and toward laying the groundwork for the resumption of stalled Middle East peace talks.
Obama had hoped to focus his efforts at the meetings of the UN General Assembly on boosting the standing of Libya’s former rebel leaders and touting the United Nations’ role in dismantling Moammar Khadafy’s regime. But success in Libya seems likely to be overshadowed by a Palestinian push for full UN membership, an effort over which Obama has little influence.
Truer words have never appeared in my printed paper.
White House officials say it is still unclear what course the Palestinians will take in New York next week. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said yesterday that he will ask the UN Security Council to endorse his statehood bid, though he said he was open to other unspecified options. The United States has pledged to veto the bid.
But the White House insists its main focus is not on what happens at the UN but on resuming direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. US officials contend that those negotiations provide the only credible pathway for the Palestinians to achieve statehood.
“Whatever happens at the United Nations, there’s going to have to be a process to get these two parties back to the table when we get beyond next week,’’ White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said.
As part of the effort to revive the stalled negotiations, Obama will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on the sidelines of the UN meeting next week. But whether Obama can make any progress is highly uncertain.
Where he will tell Obama what to say at the UN.
--more--"
"US, Europe try to delay Palestinian UN bid; Seek to head off vote and a return to talks with Israel" by Matthew Lee Associated Press / September 19, 2011
WASHINGTON - The United States and Europe are racing to avert or delay a looming showdown over Palestinian statehood at the United Nations....
It is sickening to see these lap-dog governments groveling at the feet of Israel.
Officials say the effort may be more about damage control than diplomacy.
The Palestinians are frustrated by their inability to win from Israel concessions such as a freeze on settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They want to seize the moment to try to gain greater standing and attention with a high-stakes wager on statehood and UN membership. The United States and Israel vehemently opposed this move.
Gee, the Palestinians sure do seize a lot of things accoding to the AmeriKan media.
Only 12 months ago, President Obama said he wanted the UN to be welcoming Palestine as its newest member this year. But talks long have broken down, and the United States is in the unenviable position of leading the opposition to something it actually supports.
See how the slipped that truth into the back of a sentence in the middle of the piece?
The United States has promised a veto of the Palestinian bid at the Security Council, leading to fears the action could spark violence in the region.
The American side was working to secure additional opposition to recognition, officials said. Without nine affirmative votes in the 15-member Council, the Palestinian resolution would fail and Washington is hoping it will not have to act alone.
Against their own policy.
US officials believe that six other members may vote against or abstain, meaning the Palestinians would fall short. That tally could not be immediately confirmed.
Heading off or watering down the Palestinian resolution had been the goal of international diplomats. They hoped to parlay that success into a meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders where the two sides would revive negotiations.
Yet the Palestinians have refused to back down and give up the little leverage they hope to win....
Even with a loss in the Security Council, the Palestinians were expected to take their case for recognition to the General Assembly, where they enjoy widespread support and the United States cannot block it.
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"Palestinians set to formally seek UN membership; Israeli leader also asks Abbas to meet in NYC" by Mohammed Daraghmeh Associated Press / September 20, 2011
UNITED NATIONS - The Palestinians brushed aside heated Israeli objections and a promised US veto yesterday, vowing to submit a letter formally requesting full UN membership when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addresses the General Assembly.
As the Palestinians edged closer to seeking statehood recognition from the United Nations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for Abbas to meet with him in New York. The Israeli leader said he wanted to resume peace talks, upping the pressure on Abbas and building on the frenzied diplomacy swirling around the Palestinians bid.
Regardless, Abbas said he had not been swayed by what he called “tremendous pressure’’ to drop the bid for United Nations recognition and instead to resume peace talks with Israel. Senior aides to the Palestinian leader said Abbas was undaunted by threats of punitive measures.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, however, there was still time to find a solution to the diplomatic crisis. Clinton told reporters in New York that the United States is talking with all sides to defuse the standoff, noting that the week was young and there were still several days to seek compromise....
The push at the world body is the first step to statehood for Palestinians who have for decades complained of being guests in their own land.
Sure haven't been treated like guests.
Although any submission by the Palestinians could wait weeks or months for the UN action, it has sparked a flurry of diplomatic activity with Mideast mediators scrambling to find a way to draw the two sides back to a negotiating table.
Each side in the Israeli-Palestinian talks has accused the other of being untrustworthy and intransigent participants in the peace process.
In a statement, Netanyahu called on Abbas to begin “direct negotiations in New York and continue them in Jerusalem and Ramallah.’’ But the statement provided no other details or indications that Netanyahu was willing to cede to any of the Palestinians’ demands.
The quartet of Mideast mediators - the United States, the UN, the European Union, and Russia - has said that Palestinian statehood should not be granted before a resumption of peace talks. The long-stalled negotiations have been unable to solve the key issues of Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and the status of east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as their capital....
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"Palestinians push forward in mission to obtain UN membership; Sarkozy presses officials to drop statehood bid" September 21, 2011|By Mohammed Daraghmeh and Steven R. Hurst, Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS - The Palestinian delegation relentlessly knocked on diplomatic doors at the UN trying to sell their case for international recognition. Israel’s prime minister, meanwhile, issued dire warnings against hasty action as he boarded his jet for New York.
The issue of the unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood has consumed diplomats who are gathering for today’s opening of the annual UN General Assembly ministerial meeting....
For his part, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, in a meeting with members of his hardline Likud Party before leaving Jerusalem late yesterday, vowed to speak “the truth’’ in New York - “the truth of a people that wants peace, a nation that was attacked time after time and that is being attacked time after time by those that don’t oppose our policies but rather our very existence.’’
Did his tongue turn to sand after he said all that?
He said he would warn world leaders against prematurely establishing a Palestinian state when many issues in the conflict must still be resolved. He did not elaborate, saying this would be the focus of his speech to the UN on Friday, scheduled shortly after Abbas’s.
Uh-oh.
The White House said late yesterday that President Obama would meet with Abbas on the sidelines of the UN gathering today....
Officials close to the US and European delegations indicated Obama would be making a last effort to steer Abbas away from a move in the Security Council that would force Washington to act on its promise to block the move. American diplomats have worked at a furious pace to lure the Palestinians back to negotiations, knowing a US veto was certain to inflame anti-American sentiment in the Arab world.
Who could force AmeriKa to do anything?
While the United States has said it will vote no, the other 14 members of the UN Security Council have not declared their positions.
China, Russia, India, Lebanon, South Africa, and Brazil were expected to vote yes. Germany was expected to vote no with the United States or abstain. Still unknown were the positions of France, Britain, Bosnia, Colombia, Gabon, Nigeria, and Portugal, with many saying they needed to see the text of a draft resolution before making a decision.
Related: The Map That Explains Everything
US and other diplomats say the European Union, supported by the United States, was now trying to work out wording of an agreement that could avert the UN showdown over Palestine. There was no sign, however, that Israel or the Palestinians will agree.
Officials say Israel is being asked to accept its pre-1967 borders with land swaps as the basis for a two-state solution. The Palestinians would essentially have to recognize Israel’s Jewish character.
Those issues remain sticking points.
Officials say there is also disagreement among the mediators as Russia finds some elements unacceptable.
Those officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the diplomatic negotiations.
Were the Palestinians to take Sarkozy’s advice, they would become a nonmember observer state, a status like that of the Holy See.
That would give them an opportunity to seek membership in UN agencies and join treaties, including the Rome statute that established the International Criminal Court.
But Mohammed Ishtayeh, an Abbas aide, said President Michel Suleiman of Lebanon, which holds the Security Council presidency this month, urged the Palestinian leader to proceed with the application for UN membership.
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And it's not just Obama slaving for Israel:
"GOP candidates blast Obama’s Mideast stance
NEW YORK - Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and their GOP presidential rivals slammed President Obama’s Middle East policies yesterday while declaring their support for Israel as the United Nations considered a bid for Palestinian statehood.
Perry, the Texas governor, denounced the president’s Israel policy as “misguided and dangerous,’’ speaking to supporters in New York as the Obama administration worked a few miles away to thwart a UN vote to grant formal recognition to the Palestinian Authority.
Perry also accused Obama of appeasement, as did Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann. Former Massachusetts governor Romney issued a statement accusing Obama of “throwing Israel under the bus.’’
The Republican campaigns have similar goals: establish contrasts with Obama on an issue where he’s struggled; chip away at American Jews’ support for Democrats; and prove their pro-Israel bona fides with the evangelical voters who will play a significant role in the primaries.
I sit here and wonder why that should matter in an American presidential election.
During the 2008 campaign, Obama worked hard to reassure nervous Jewish voters that he would defend Israel as president. But he’s faced doubts and criticism since then.
Perry criticized Obama’s stated goal that any negotiations should be based on Israel’s borders before the 1967 Mideast war, with mutually agreed adjustments and land swaps. Perry, speaking to a group of ultraconservative Jewish and Israeli leaders, called that stance “insulting and naïve.’’
Romney said, “What we are watching unfold at the United Nations is an unmitigated diplomatic disaster.’’ He called for an end to foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority if the UN vote went the Palestinians’ way.
And if it goes Israel's will he call for an end to that aid?
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"Obama firm against Palestinian bid; UN speech calls for peace talks Tries to keep a delicate balance" September 22, 2011|By Helene Cooper, New York Times
UNITED NATIONS - President Obama declared his opposition to the Palestinian Authority’s bid for statehood through the Security Council yesterday, throwing the weight of the United States directly in the path of the Arab democracy movement even as he hailed what he called the democratic aspirations that have taken hold throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
The world knows hypocrisy when it sees it.
“Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the UN,’’ Obama said, in an address before world leaders at the General Assembly. “If it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now.’’
Then let's get rid of the globalist tool and let it go condo.
Instead, Obama said, the international community should continue to push Israelis and Palestinians toward talks on the four intractable “final status’’ issues that have vexed peace negotiations since 1979: The borders of a Palestinian state, security for Israel, the status of Palestinian refugees who left or were forced to leave their homes in Israel, and the fate of Jerusalem, which both sides claim for their capital.
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I just wanted you to see who was paying to bring me my news.
Related: Six Zionist Companies Own 96% of the World's Media
Declassified: Massive Israeli manipulation of US media exposed
Now the newspaper makes sense.
Less than an hour after Obama spoke, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France stood at the same podium in a sharp repudiation, calling for a General Assembly resolution that would upgrade the Palestinians to observer status, as a bridge toward statehood. “Let us cease our endless debates on the parameters,’’ Sarkozy said. “Let us begin negotiations and adopt a precise timetable.’’
For Obama, the challenge in crafting the much-anticipated General Assembly speech was how to address the incongruities of the administration’s position: The president who committed himself to making peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians a priority from Day One, who still has not been able to even get peace negotiations going after 2 ½ years; the president who opened the door to Palestinian state membership at the United Nations last year ending up threatening to veto that very membership; the president who was determined to get on the right side of Arab history ending up, in the views of many on the Arab street, on the wrong side of it on the Palestinian issue.
The Arab Spring quandary has been enormously troublesome for Obama. White House officials say he has long been keenly aware that he, like no other US president, stood as a potential beacon to the Arab street as the ultimate symbol of the hopes and rewards of democracy. But since he is the president of the United States, he has had to put US interests first.
Meaning putting Israel's interests first.
So Obama’s 47-minute address appeared, at times, an effort to thread the needle and balance his efforts in support of democratic movements against his efforts to stand behind Israel, America’s foremost ally....
Then why have they spied on us, and why did they do 9/11?
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There they are again.
He hailed the democratic movements in the Ivory Coast, in Tunisia, in South Sudan. Of Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak fell after 30 years, Obama said, “we saw in those protesters the moral force of nonviolence that has lit the world from Delhi to Warsaw; from Selma to South Africa - and we knew that change had come to Egypt and to the Arab world.’’
He hailed the Libyan toppling of Moammar Khadafy and threw his weight behind the protesters in Syria.
The way I read that is all are either U.S.-instigated or still under control.
But, he said, Palestinians must make peace with Israel before gaining statehood themselves....
And if Israel really only wants piece (as in a piece of Palestine, a piece of Lebanon, a piece of Syria....)
Several times as Obama spoke, the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, seated in the room, put his forehead in one hand. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, whose relationship with Obama has often been tense, expressed appreciation after the speech, calling it a “badge of honor’’ when both leaders met later in the day.
Maybe politicians should be badged with those that own them.
Obama also used his speech as a platform to make other criticisms. He rebuked Iran as a “government that refuses to recognize the rights of its own people’’ - even as Iranian authorities were releasing two US hikers convicted on spying charges there, a sore point in the estranged US-Iran relationship for the past two years. Obama also accused Syria’s government of torturing, detaining, and murdering its citizens in that country’s uprising, and he called for the Security Council to slap sanctions on that country.
There he is PUSHING ISRAEL'S AGENDA!!!
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Just wanted to remind you who was bringing us this fine report.
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"Palestinians buck Obama, press UN for admission" September 24, 2011|By Neil MacFarquhar and Steven Lee Myers, New York Times
UNITED NATIONS - President Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, formally requested full United Nations membership yesterday for his as yet undefined country. But before the thunderous applause greeting his announcement in the General Assembly had faded, international powers laid out a new plan to resume direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that was designed to delay a contentious vote on the Palestinian request as long as possible.
In a day full of diplomatic theater, Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel each laid out the tangled history of their bloody conflict in passionate, lengthy speeches less than an hour apart, while the United States, Russia, and European powers haggled in a back room for a formula to bring the parties back to the negotiating table and prevent the Palestinian bid for membership from becoming a cause for violence.
Continents away, thousands of Palestinians celebrated across the West Bank, with cheers erupting from the rapt crowds watching live when Abbas held aloft four pages of the United Nations application letter - a symbolic step toward international recognition of statehood that many Palestinians also saw as a form of peaceful defiance against Israel....
I know one who was not celebrating:
"I simply oppose it because I was never asked what I want as a Palestinian. I was marginalised like millions of Palestinians"
That's a tremendous point; no one has ever asked the Palestinians.
Related:
"Ayatollah decries two-state solution
TEHRAN - Iran’s supreme leader assailed a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians yesterday, saying the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations is doomed to fail. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the Palestinians should not limit themselves to seeking a country within the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip - which would implicitly recognize Israel - because “all land belongs to Palestinians.’’ Iran doesn’t recognize Israel and considers it an archenemy (AP)."
I didn't always see it that way, but I do now after the way Israel has behaved.
Netanyahu said Israel could not return to its 1967 borders because it needed strategic depth to defend itself, particularly from the threat of militant Islam.
I am so sick of intelligence agency created bogeymen.
Much is riding on how international powers handle the Palestinian request, with expectations soaring in the West Bank and the Arab world that the step Abbas has taken will result in genuine change.
“The status quo is completely unacceptable,’’ the French foreign minister, Alain Juppé, said in an interview. “If there is a veto or a ‘no’ vote in the Security Council, what will happen on the ground? What will happen in the Arab street, in the Palestinian street?
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Just wanted to remind you, well, you know.
“There is a very high risk of violence and demonstrations,’’ he said. “I think that Israel will be completely isolated in the region. The situation has changed to the extreme around Israel - in Egypt, in Syria, with Turkey and so on. It’s unreasonable to say, ‘We don’t move; we wait.’ ’’
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The administration is caught between not wanting to inflame Arab public opinion by exercising yet another veto in support of Israel and the domestic political perils of pressuring Israel, which can alienate Jewish voters and campaign donors....
They are 2% of the population $o why the catering?
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"Abbas may reject international blueprint for peace talks; Palestinian terms ignored, he says" by Amy Teibel Associated Press / September 25, 2011
UNITED NATIONS - President Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, strongly suggested yesterday that he would reject a peacemaking blueprint put forward by international mediators, saying he would not agree to any proposal that disregarded Palestinian conditions for the resumption of peace talks.
Abbas' willingness to stand up to Washington has won him newfound respect at home, where he had been considered a lackluster leader. The unilateral bid for statehood and UN membership reflects deep-seated Palestinian exasperation over 44 years of Israeli occupation.
Israel has had no comment on the Quartet plan to resume long-stalled negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel, which mediators regard as the only way to establish a Palestinian state. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has rejected the long-standing conditions Abbas has put forth, saying talks must go forward without imposing terms.
Netanyahu opposes negotiations based on 1967 lines, saying a return to those frontiers would expose Israel’s heartland to rocket fire from the West Bank. And he says the fate of settlements should be left to negotiations.
The Quartet urged both parties to draw up an agenda for peace talks within a month and produce comprehensive proposals on territory and security within three months....
The Quartet plan was meant to rechannel to negotiations any momentum the Palestinians would gain from their statehood application. A UN nod would not deliver any immediate changes on the ground: Israel would remain an occupying force in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and continue to restrict access to Gaza, ruled by Palestinian Hamas militants.
But Palestinians are hoping that any upgrade in their international status would give them more clout in any future talks with Israel.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon relayed the Palestinians’ statehood request to the Security Council on Friday, shortly after Abbas formally submitted it. It is expected to be shot down there, either because it won’t win the required support of nine of the Security Council’s 15 members, or because the United States will make good on its threat to veto it.
The Security Council will meet tomorrow to deal with the membership request, but final action is likely to take weeks or months....
Washington has been lobbying hard to muster enough support in the Security Council to block the statehood application so the United States won’t have to resort to a veto - something that would be frowned upon by the Arab world at a time when autocratic regimes are coming under assault there.
And something that would expose the U.S. as a servant of Israel.
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"Israeli panel drafts $8b social plan" September 27, 2011|By Isabel Kershner, New York Times
JERUSALEM - In a separate development, the UN Security Council said it will meet tomorrow to start the process of formally considering the Palestinian request for membership in the world body.
Lebanon’s ambassador, Nawaf Salam, who holds this month’s rotating presidency, made a brief appearance before reporters and issued a statement.
He said the council had met yesterday afternoon and decided to take up a decision on referring the issue for further consideration two days hence. That will consist of forming a committee to study the Palestinian submission.
The United States has said it would use its Security Council veto to block Palestinian membership should the measure receive the necessary nine of 15 votes. That would keep the membership bid from advancing to the 193-member General Assembly for the needed two-thirds vote.
The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, said he was grateful to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for quickly forwarding the request to the Security Council. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday submitted the application that Palestine become the United Nations’ 194th member.
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"Israel OK’s more building in East Jerusalem; Follows UN plea by Palestinians" September 28, 2011|By Josef Federman, Associated Press
JERUSALEM - Israel granted the go-ahead yesterday for construction of 1,100 new Jewish housing units in East Jerusalem, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruled out any freeze in settlement construction, raising already heightened tensions after last week’s Palestinian move to seek UN membership.
Israel’s Interior Ministry said the homes would be built in Gilo, a sprawling Jewish enclave in southeast Jerusalem. It said construction could begin after a mandatory 60-day period for public comment, a process that spokesman Roi Lachmanovich called a formality.
Yeah, that will help the cause of piece.
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The announcement drew swift condemnation from the Palestinians, who claim East Jerusalem as their future capital. The United States, European Union, and United Nations all expressed disappointment with Israel’s decision.
That's all?
In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the Israeli announcement was counterproductive....
Oh, how harsh! How about threatening to cut off their aid?
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"The sense during the past two years that President Obama was steering US policy away from its interests subsided last week. The parts of Obama’s UN speech about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could have been written by any Israeli official....
And probably was via some dual national.
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"Palestinians to push for UN membership Nov. 11" by Frank Jordans Associated Press / October 20, 2011
GENEVA—Palestinian diplomats are trying to muster support for a U.N. Security Council vote in New York on Nov. 11 on their bid for membership in the global body, a senior Palestinian official said Thursday.
U.N. diplomats said earlier this week that a Security Council committee considering the membership bid would deliver a report on that day, and that ambassadors would then decide on the next steps.
Any member of the Security Council can request a vote on the Palestinian request, but a resolution recommending membership requires a minimum of nine "yes" votes and no veto by one of the council's five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the U.S.
Once the 15-member Security Council recommends a country's membership its application must be approved by a two-thirds vote in the 193-member General Assembly.
Washington, Israel's closest ally, has already pledged to use its veto if Palestinian membership gets the support of nine or more council members.
"We still have time until Nov. 11, so there is a lot of efforts pushing certain countries to voting in favor," the Palestinian envoy to the U.N. in Geneva, Ibrahim Khraishi, told The Associated Press.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki told reporters in late September that the membership bid has support so far from eight Security Council members: Russia, China, India, South Africa, Brazil, Lebanon, Nigeria and Gabon....
That's where today's printed Globe cut it.
He said the Palestinians are lobbying for more votes, including from Bosnia and Colombia.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited Colombia on Oct. 11 and was told by President Juan Manuel Santos that Colombia will only recognize a Palestinian state that has been established through negotiations with Israel, which leaves Bosnia as the likely key to a ninth "yes" vote.
Khraishi said "several parties are working" to secure the votes, but declined to elaborate. "I think that we will succeed to get the nine," he added.
Elections to replace five nonpermanent members of the Security Council on Friday could create a grouping even less likely to approve the Palestinians' bid, if it rolls over into the new year.
Winners will take their posts Jan. 1. Strong Palestinian backers Brazil and Lebanon, along with Nigeria and Gabon, will be leaving the council at the same time.
Guatemala, running unopposed for the lone Latin America seat, has never recognized a Palestinian state. Neither has Slovenia, one of three candidates for the East European seat being vacated by Bosnia.
The rest of the candidates have all recognized a Palestinian state: Togo, Mauritania, Morocco, Azerbaijan, Hungary, Pakistan and Kyrgystan.
"The addition of Guatemala and the subtraction of Brazil would make it a bit more difficult" to get statehood approved, if the vote is held over, said Warren Hoge, senior adviser for external relations at the International Peace Institute, a New York think tank....
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