Above is Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Barack's Shrinking Stature" and Barack the War Hawk is the focus of an e-mail from Fred who asked me if I would include a sample of something by Yves Smith ("Naked Capitalism") about Barack:
His pattern of grand promises producing at-best-in-name only and at worst outright bait and switch was well established by his 2008 campaign. Some close observers pointed out his past legerdemain, for instance, his misleading account of his years in New York, his record of fronting for finance and real estate interests in Chicago, his promise to bring a state-wide health care program to Illinois, which in the end was walked back to a mere study. And there were more decisive tells in 2008: the high level of Wall Street funding for his campaign, the inclusion of neoliberal “Chicago boys” in his economics team, his reversal on FISA after promising to filibuster it, which gave retroactive immunity to telecoms for aiding and abetting illegal wiretapping, and his whipping for TARP.
Obama didn’t make compromises necessary to lead effectively. He entered office with majorities in both houses and a country eager for a new direction. He has repudiated or retraded every pledge he made. He promised transformational leadership, and instead emulated Wall Street, devising complex programs that to sell average Americans short and reap his funders handsome rewards in the process. Rather than elevate his fellow citizens, Obama’s transactional focus and neoliberal philosophy have kicked the struggling middle class down the road greased by the right.
The ugly facts about how Obama has governed are beyond dispute. Numerous writers have set forth well documented bills of particulars against him, including “‘Lucy’ Obama and His ‘Charlie Brown’ Progressives” to “21 reasons why I will not vote for Obama in 2012” or “Obama’s Scandal List” (304 items long in 2009). And that’s before you get to the even longer list of despairing or outraged assessments on specific policy beats, such as this blog’s criticism of his coddling of the financial services industry, his failure to address festering problems in the housing market, his long-standing commitment to cutting Social Security and Medicare, and his refusal to address widening income inequality.
I'm voting Jill Stein.
Okay, this was a better May than past Mays. Generally, this time of year, I have two or three favorite shows and they all get the axe.
One got the axe this time: "Missing."
"The Good Wife" will be back next year. I'm not sure what I'll replace "Missing" with yet. I'd love it if there was a sci fi or superhero show. Oh, Jami Gertz is going to be back on. C.I. was telling me about that. It's a comedy. I think ABC is the network. And it's about aliens in New Jersey. That might be good. I really enjoyed "3rd Rock From The Sun."
(Sidebar: Netflix better not pick up the awful "Jericho." If they're going to pick up a show, it should be something like "The Cape" or "The Event.")
Going out with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
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Monday,
May 14, 2012. Chaos and violence continue, the State Dept trashes Tim
Arango's report . . . while also confirming it, two consevatives seem
to think they read tea leaves but all they had to do was pay attention
to Congressional hearings, at least 75 people have died from violence
so far this month in Iraq, the politcal crisis continue, and more.
At the conservative blog American.com (American Institute Enterprise), Marc Thiessen is noting "what a different five months make," contrasting Barack's December words of eternal ties with Iraq with the New York Times report yesterday, Tim Arango's "U.S. May Scrap Costly Efforts to Train Iraqi Police."
Arango reported that the police training program has already cost US
taxpayers $500 million since October alone and is an utter failure with
Iraqis having ceased attending training on US facilities and Americans
unwilling to train the Iraqi police on Iraqi facilities due to safety
concerns. If it accomplishes nothing else, Arango's article forced the
State Dept and spokesperson Victoria Nuland to address Iraq in their
daily briefing today (here for transcript and video):
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION:
I realize this was addressed by the Embassy yesterday, but I just want
to get from here -- you know what I'm talking about, yes? -- in terms
of the elimination, or reported elimination, of the Iraqi police
training program. This -- the report said that it was being considered
that the whole program could be -- could vanish, that it could go away.
The Embassy, while it denied that, didn't say that it wouldn't be
substantially cut or whittled down to a mere fraction of what it
originally had been planned to be. Can you just clarify what exactly
is -- what are the plans for the police training program?
MS.
NULAND: Well, first let me clarify we have no intention to cancel our
police training program in Iraq. What we are engaged in, in
collaboration with the Iraqis, is a right-sizing exercise for this
program along with all of our programs. As you know, we are absolutely
committed to, first of all, supporting Iraqi self-reliance. So if they
tell us they need less support, we are going to downsize. And in this
case, they are asking us to continue the advisory and training program
but to downsize it, and also to saving the U.S. taxpayer money wherever
we can. So I can't give you a final size for this. We are in the
evaluation process now, working with the Iraqis. But we do anticipate
we're going to be able to downsize it considerably while continuing to
be able to support the Iraqis on the police training side.
QUESTION:
Okay. This is the second time in -- since the beginning of the year
that this particular publication has written something about the
Embassy which you had a serious dispute with. Both times it has been
cast -- the reports have cast these reductions or slashing of personnel
as serious miscalculations by the Administration in terms of its Iraq
policy. What's your feeling about that, that characterization of it?
MS.
NULAND: Well, again, it's important to appreciate that we are in a new
phase with Iraq. We're in a phase where it is up to the Iraqis to
decide precisely what kind of footprint they want by foreign support,
foreign countries offering support, offering assistance in the context
of their overall approach to their sovereignty. So we very much need to
respect that this is a collaborative decision how much support they
want on the police training side. So we're trying to
be in step with their increasing self-reliance. We're trying to do this
in a negotiated, phased, managed way. But we're also trying to make
clear to Iraqis that we think we have valuable training, valuable
advice to offer, as we do to some hundred countries around the world.
So we're going to work this through, but I think folks need to get on
the program that we have a sovereign Iraq who's going to make its own
decisions about how much outside support it wants.
QUESTION:
All right. So you agree or disagree with the characterization that this
is -- that this represents a serious political -- or a serious policy
miscalculation?
MS. NULAND: Well, of course I'm going to disagree with that. Thank you.
QUESTION: Was the report correct that the Administration has spent $500 million so far on the police training program?
MS.
NULAND: I don't have the total amount here, but as you know, we've been
involved in police training from the beginning of the Iraq operation,
as far back as 2003. I can take the question if it's of interest to you
to sort of tote it all up. But we were involved in police work
ourselves, police training for the Iraqis from the beginning, the
standing up of their own professional police forces. I don't think
anybody in that country wanted to submit themselves to the old
Saddam-ite police, so it needed a bottom-up work and cleansing. So --
QUESTION:
One other thing. The report alleged that much of the training provided
by the United States, and in particular by the State Department since
the departure of the U.S. military from Iraq, was not helpful to the
Iraqis, that it consisted of retired or late-in-their-career American
state troopers telling war stories about how they conduct their
activities in the United States. And it cited one anecdote in which it
said that the two key indices of someone possibly going to -- planning
to launch a suicide bombing were: one, that they would withdraw a lot
of money from the bank; and two, that they'd go out and get drunk. And
it suggested that those were perhaps not very apposite indicators for
Iraq where: one, a lot of Iraqis don't have bank accounts; and two, a
lot of Iraqis don't drink. Do you -- how do you address the criticisms
in the story that regardless of how many millions were spent on this,
that the training wasn't actually all that useful?
MS.
NULAND: Well, first of all, I'm not going to get drawn into parsing the
anecdotes in a story with which we took considerable issue, both in its
macro assertions and in many of its details. We had considerable
difficulties with that story, as the statement from Embassy Baghdad
made clear. With regard to the integrity of the police training that
we do -- we have done in Iraq over these many years, we stand by it.
The Iraqis have a new, modern, more democratic police force largely as
a result of the support of the international community led by the
United States. I'm obviously not in a position to speak to every
individual involved in this, but all over the world we rely on the
expertise of retired officers from the United States, from other
countries, who are willing to participate in these training programs.
And they participate on the basis of their experience in democratic law
enforcement, not to hang around and tell inappropriate war stories. So
we stand by the program. And if you'd like more on the numbers, et
cetera, we can get you a separate briefing.
QUESTION: Can I just -- the last one this?
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION:
Just given the severity of the differences that you had with this, has
there been any contact between the Department or anyone -- any senior
officials in the Department and the editorship of the publication in
question?
MS. NULAND: Well, I'm not going to get into our discussions with the --
QUESTION: Well, have you asked for a correction or clarification or --
QUESTION: Or a retraction?
MS.
NULAND: We have made absolutely clear in our public statements and in
our messages to that publication how we feel about the story.
QUESTION:
But does that mean that you've asked for a retraction or a correction
or some kind of -- I mean, after the first one, you demanded one. And
you were quite open about it, and you got one.
MS. NULAND: Yeah. I think we're still working on that set of issues.
They should work on those issues.
They
should also work on Victoria Nuland's status of spokesperson. That's
the full exchange on Iraq so we're not accuesed of misquoting her. But
the key passage to her response was this: "What we are engaged in, in
collaboration with the Iraqis, is a right-sizing exercise for this
program along with all of our programs. As you know, we are absolutely
committed to, first of all, supporting Iraqi self-reliance. So if they
tell us they need less support, we are going to downsize. And in this
case, they are asking us to continue the advisory and training program
but to downsize it, and also to saving the U.S. taxpayer money wherever
we can."
That's exactly what Tim Arango
reported. That the program was being downsized, that cuts were being
considered and that the program might get scrapped. That is what he
reported. Nuland can pretend to be upset and outraged but she should
be most upset and outraged with herself because she confirmed Arango's
report. Arango did not report, "The State Dept is closing the police
training program!" His opening sentence established the main point of
the article: "In the face of spiraling costs and Iraqi officials who
say they never wanted it in the first place, the State Department has
slashed -- and may jettison entirely by the end of the year -- a
multibillion-dollar police training program that was to have been the
centerpiece of a hugely expanded civilian mission here." That jibes
exactly with what she said in the paragraph above.
At the conservative opinion journal Commentary, Max Boot also takes to gloating
("also" refers back to Marc Thiessen -- not to Victoria Nuland or Tim
Arango). Boot insists, "All of this was utterly predictable -- and in
fact was predicted by numerous commentators, including yours truly, who
had no faith in State's ability to run such an ambitious undertaking in
a coutry that remains so dangers." So there's Max Boots crowing about
his crystal vision. I think, by contrast, I'll just sing along with Carly Simon, "I'm no prophet and I don't know natures way" ("Anticipation," written by Carly, first appears on her album of the same name).
I
didn't need to be a prophet and I don't understand why the
conservatives are gloating? If they really think they stumbled onto
something, they've just demonstrated how out of touch they are. Let's
go back to the February 8, 2012 snapshot:
We covered the November 30th House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the MiddleEast and South Asia in the December 1st snapshot
and noted that Ranking Member Gary Ackerman had several questions. He
declared, "Number one, does the government of Iraq -- whose personnel
we intend to train -- support the [police training] program?
Interviews with senior Iaqi officials by the Special Inspector General
show utter didain for the program. When the Iraqis sugest that we take
our money and do things instead that are good for the United States. I
think that might be a clue." The State Dept's Brooke Darby faced that
Subcommittee. Ranking Member Gary Ackerman noted that the US had
already spent 8 years training the Iraq police force and wanted Darby
to answer as to whether it would take another 8 years before that
training was complete? Her reply was, "I'm not prepared to put a time
limit on it." She could and did talk up Deputy Minister of the
Ministry of Interior Adnan al-Asadi as a great friend to the US
government. But Ackerman and Subcommittee Chair Steve Chabot had
already noted Adnan al-Asadi, but not by name. That's the Iraqi
official, for example, Ackerman was referring to who made the
suggestion "that we take our money and do things instead that are good
for the United States." He made that remark to SIGIR Stuart Bowen.
Brooke
Darby noted that he didn't deny that comment or retract it; however,
she had spoken with him and he felt US trainers and training from the
US was needed. The big question was never asked in the hearing: If the
US government wants to know about this $500 million it is about to
spend covering the 2012 training of the Ministry of the Interior's
police, why are they talking to the Deputy Minister?
In
that hearing, nearly a month before Barack's speech, Stuart Bowen and
Brooke Darby confirmed that the puppet Nouri al-Maliki had over the
Minister of the Interior had said he didn't want the US training
Iraqis.
In that same House Foreign Relations Committee hearing, it was also established that the State Dept had no real plan.
Ranking Member Gary Ackerman: When will they be willing to stand up without us?
Brooke Darby: I wish I could answer that question.
Ranking Member Gary Ackerman: Then why are we spending money if we don't have the answer?
[long pause]
Ranking
Member Gary Ackerman: You know, this is turning into what happens after
a bar mitzvah or a Jewish wedding. It's called "a Jewish goodbye."
Everybody keeps saying goodbye but nobody leaves.
Given the chance, by Darby, to retract his remark, he stood by it. We could drop back further but there's no need to bother, Peter Van Buren's already beaten us to it as he explains (at Huffington Post):
In October I reported on my blog wemeantwell.com
that the State Department was on Capitol Hill in front of the
Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign
Operations, begging a skeptical Congress for more money for police
training in Iraq. "Training" was again being cited as the cure-all for
America's apparently insatiable desire to throw money away in
Mesopotamia. That latest tranche of taxpayer cash sought by State was
one billion dollars a year, every year for five years, to pay police
instructors and cop salaries in Iraq.
The
U.S. has been training Iraqi cops for years. In fact, the U.S.
government has spent $7.3 billion for Iraqi police training since 2003.
Ka-ching! Anybody's hometown in need of $7.3 billion in Federal funds?
Hah, you can't have it if you're American, it is only for Iraq!
Ever-reliable State Department tool Pat Kennedy
led the pack of fibbers in asking Congress for the cash: "After a long
and difficult conflict, we now have the opportunity to see Iraq emerge
as a strategic ally in a tumultuous region." He went on (... and on)
promising "robust this" and "robust that." Best of all, Pat Kennedy
also said that providing assistance to the Iraqi police and security
forces "will eventually reduce the cost of our presence as security in
the country improves and we can rely on Iraqi security for our own
protection."
Peter Van Buren is the author of We Meant Well: How I helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People.
Now
apparently Max Boot never heard of these hearing or others like it --
there were others -- but he's happy because he had a vision and turned
out to be true.
Back in the land of reality, Nicholas Noe and Walid Read (Bloomberg News) note Ahmad al-Muhanna's Al Mada column
about "the bitter power struggle between the Shiite Maliki on the one
side and the main Kurdish and Sunni leaders on the other. In addition,
Maliki is in a scrape with his fellow Shiite Muqtada al-Sadr, whose
parliamentary bloc froms the ruling coaling with the PM's party. Sadr,
who unlike Maliki is a determined foe of the U.S., has openly
criticized Maliki for isolation Shiites by mopolizing governming
powers. He joined Maliki's opponents recently in issuing the Irbil
Paper, a list of demands including one that Maliki not run again after
his current term expires in 2014."
Yesterday Al Rafidayn reported
that the prime minister stated he was willing to dialogue about the
issue of Saleh al-Mutlaq -- Deputy Prime Minister whom Nouri's State of
Law is still trying to have stripped of his post in Parliament -- but
that there would be no discussions or meetings on the issue of Vice
President Tareq al-Hashemi. Al Mada notes
that al-Hashemi declared yesterday that he was optimistic about the
possibility of returning to Baghdad and that he feels negotiations will
result in the charges against him being dropped. Alsumaria reports
that Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc is declaring that they have candidates to
replace Nouri and are ready to go forward with a no-confidence vote if
Nouri doesn't meet the demands. The demands include a multi-point
agreement by Moqtada which the press still hasn't reported on in any
real depth. The demands also include the implementation of the Erbil
Agreement.
The March 2010 elections were followed by eight
months of political stalemate after Iraqiya (led by Ayad Allawi) came
in first, besting State of Law (led by Nouri). Nouri didn't want to
give up the post of prime minister and with both Tehran and the White
House backing him, he knew he could dig his heels in. The US-brokered
the Erbil Agreement in November 2010. Allowing Nouri to have the
second term the White House wanted meant that Nouri would conceed on
various other points. Nouri used the agreement to become prime
minister and then went back on his word and refused to honor the
agreement. This is the cause of the current political crisis in Iraq
and it's been ongoing for over a year and a half.
Bashdar Pusho Ismaeel (Kurdish Globe) observes,
"Iraq has been gripped by a grave political crisis for several months
and there appears little intent on the part of Iraqi Prime Minister
Nouri al-Malik's government to soothe tensions by working towards
national reconciliation and resorting to constitutional principles."
Moqtada al-Sadr has given Nouri a 15 day deadline to take action on the demands agreed to at the April 28th meet-up in Erbil
attended by, among others, Moqtada, Allawi, Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani, KRG President Massoud Barzani and Speaker of Parliament Osama
al-Nujaifi. Al Mada reports
State of Law states that they don't understand the deadline and that
Nouri didn't attend because the meeting was with the Kurds and the
Kurds follow their bloc and the KRG Prime Minister and not Nouri.
State of Law does love the insults. But, reality, Nouri wasn't invited
to the April 28th meeting.
Of that meeting, Mohammad Akef Jamal (Gulf News) observes:
Former
prime minister Ebrahim Al Jaafari, who is also the INA's chairman, did
not attend the meeting, neither did the representative of the Islamic
Supreme Council of Iraq.
These absences that
may seem innocent are usually due to political reasons. The policies of
the State of Law Coalition headed by Al Maliki pushed Iraq into a maze,
domestically and regionally. They also created a ripe atmosphere for a
mutiny against the current set-up by the blocs that make up the INA.
And
although the 'news' that is planted from time to time about the
conflicts inside the alliance is either exaggerated or played down, one
cannot deny the existence of a serious crisis facing the Shiite
alliance for the first time.
And on the subject of Tareq al-Hashemi, Ayhan Simsek (Deutsche Welle) explains:
Despite
a "red notice" issued by Interpol, Ankara has declined to deport its
close political ally to Iraq. "Mr. al-Hashemi has a health problem and
is in Turkey for medical treatment," a Turkish Foreign Ministry
spokesman told the press. "We expect him to return to Iraq when the
treatment is completed."
"The red notice
doesn't mean that an arrest is required," he added. "Individual states
have their own legal jurisdiction and can respond with whatever action
they want."
This is the latest bout of a
Turkish-Iraqi spat that has lasted for weeks, and has added to the
concerns over a growing Sunni-Shi'ite rift in the region.
Today's violence? Alsumaria notes a Kirkuk roadside bombing has left four people injured -- at least two of which were police officers, a Baquba roadside bombing targeted a teacher's home and left a 12-year-old girl injured, and late last night there was a Baghdad home invasion which left a police officer and two members of his family injured. AGI adds
that a Falluja car bombing claimed 5 lives and left eight people
injured, intelligence officer Abbas Fatih Ahmed died in a sticky
bombing attack, two armed attacks in Falluja left ten people wounded. Iraq Body Counts notes that, as of Sunday's violence, 75 people have died so far this month from violence.
In other violence news, Al Rafidayn reports
that Iraq's Human Rights Minister Mohammed Shiya al-Sudani has
declared that over 300,000 Iraqis were killed by "insurgents" since
2003 and that the international community must understand that when
Iraq is handing out death sentences today. He refers to it as a
process of transition. Of course, similar excuses have been given
before. Clare O'Dea (Swiss Info) reported
in 2009 of then Iraqi Minster of Human Rights Wijdan M. Salim, "Salim
said the death penalty might be abolished at some point but not at
present. 'The violence in Iraq is so high, the number of terrorist
victims is so large. It's not for me to stop it or not. I think it
will not stop until another time."
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