al-Maliki Predicts Protesters Deaths, FBI In California And On The High Seas

Paul Krugman
Dana Milbank
Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdullahziz Al-Saud

"Under Walker's tribal political theory, governing is a never-ending cycle of revenge killings." - Dana Milbank

"Union-busting and privatization remain G.O.P. priorities, and the party will continue;its efforts to smuggle those priorities through in the name of balanced budgets." - Paul Krugman

I know the US government likes him, but Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is a thug wannabee... he wants to become the next strong-man dictator, a Saddam mini-me at just the wrong time in history. Sorry Nuri, but a balding, short man wearing glasses doesn't instill fear in the hearts of your enemies. The Iraqi military and factions in the government have been recruiting and providing the means for suicide bombers, and blaming them on al-Qaeda for years.

Last night, al-Maliki went on television to discourage people from attending protest rallies, saying that he had evidence that insurgents would try to use the protests to create unrest, no, wait, it's the doings of sympathizers ti Saddam, or actually it's the planning of "those who would destroy Iraq", sounding suspiciously like the US, or Iran, or all of those faceless plotters that keep him awake in the night... Sure enough, things got ugly this morning, with several instances of troops firing into crowds and killing protesters, all before noon prayers: "In Mosul, a restive, ethnically mixed city in the north, two people were killed when local security forces fired on demonstrators who tried to storm two government buildings.


In Baghdad, hundreds of people walked through the sprawling city to Tahrir Square, which has been a gathering point for demonstrations over the last few weeks, shouting and waving flags in a tumultuous call for government reform. The protesters in Baghdad pulled down two concrete blast walls that blocked access to a bridge leading to the Green Zone. Rock-throwing demonstrators clashed with security forces who, in turn, beat many of the protesters and kept them from crossing the bridge.


Demonstrations elsewhere in the country seemed to spiral out of control.


Iraqi soldiers fired on about 250 demonstrators in Ramadi in the west, killing one person and wounding eight. Those protesters were calling for the resignation of the provincial governor.


In Salahuddin Province north of Baghdad, Army troops fired on protesters, wounding five people.

Protesters tallied one surprising success in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. The provincial governor appeared before a crowd of 10,000 people who were demanding his resignation and announced that he would step down. A report on Iraqi television said the governor resigned at the behest of Prime Minister Maliki." Notice in each instance the Army troops are the ones who fired, not any imaginary insurgents. These protesters weren't even calling for a new government, at best they wanted a couple of provincial governors removed, electricity available more often, and not having to pay so many bribes to the police and officials. for this, they lose their lives. Perhaps this is what war does to a country, it cheapens the value of a human life...

And then there's the insanity in Libya, brought on by hallucinating dogs and cockroaches... The cleverest response I can find in the media is this kind of crap from David Letterman's The Late Show:

Top Ten Ways To Mispronounce Muammar Qaddafi

10.  Mallomar Cookie
9.   Milli Vanilli
8.   Grande No-Foam Latte
7.   Live! with Regis and Kelly
6   .Lady QaQa
5.   Mumizzle Qadizzle
4.   Mouthful of Taffy
3.   Kathy Mavrikakis
2.   Qadaffi Duck
1.   Qarmelo Anthony

Meahwhile, while the whole of the Middle East is desiring to live in a state of democracy, the anti-democratic powers that rule our lives are doing their best to tear down our institutions and foment hate and fear towards anyone of the Islamic faith. It seems that the FBI kept trying to hire informers to infiltrate California mosques. Once there, they start talking extremist trash and wait to see who rises to the bait...

Unfortunately, the dumbass who thought up this operation must have been watching the television series White Collar for inspiration, because he used a conman to do the infiltration. It didn't work out like it does on the tube, as soon as this guy started spouting jihad, jihad, the other members in the mosque called the FBI and reported him... If we want to cut back on government waste, we could start with operations like these...

Yesterday, there was another case of FBI screwing things up, only this time it cost four lives... The yacht that was hijacked by Somalian pirates, with four Americans aboard, was trailed and eventually surrounded by four US warships. The two head pirates came aboard the US flagship to negotiate, and they told the remaining pirates on the yacht that if they didn't hear from them by such and such a times, to go ahead and shoot the hostages.

The pirates knew that they were negotiating for their lives, and the negotiator for the US was an FBI hostage negotiator. Why, oh why was an idiot like this doing off of american soil is one question Washington has refused to answer... The FBI guy got impatient with the answers he was being given, so he had them put into the brig, which made the remaining pirates freak out when told that over the radio, so they shot the four Americans and forfeited their own lives. An investigation is discreetly being initiated to determine how much the FBI contributed towards the Americans losing their lives, but if it turns out like all other government whitewash investigations, he will be exonerated. He would have more of a chance of being reprimanded if the condom broke and he knew it...

And if you want to read the article in Rolling Stone about the Afghan psy-op team trying to ply their trade on visiting US Senators, the link is here. The article was written by the same guy who outed the irreverent staff of General McChrystal and cost him his job. Hopefully, this will do the same for Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, a three-star general in charge of training Afghan troops, and a man who evidently uses shoe polish on his head to make his hair look more youthful and darker. Never trust a bad dye job, but maybe this explains John McCain's behavior this past year, his erratic stance on the issues and turnabout becoming the most conservative voter in Congress...


All in all, it's been a busy week for our spies, and I haven't even touched on the boondoggle with the mercenary hired by the CIA getting caught killing tow guys in Lahore, Pakistan. We won't find out until March 14 just how much of a mess was created, then compounded by the US Embassy by their killing of two more innocent bystanders in a hit and run sent to rescue the merc... Do you feel closer to your Muslim neighbor or to the protesters in Egypt and Libya? If the answer was the latter, you love your television more than you love your fellow human beings. It's Friday night, so go get a brewski and turn on CNN for a dose of empathy...