Dona: Sure. Ava and C.I. cover FlashForward in a lengthy and often humorous essay. It'll be a huge crowd pleaser for our readers. One of our readers just found out she's being deployed. At her request, we did another magazine survey. She's also a music fan so we not only did our political magazine survey, we also did an article that's a survey of four music mags and also offers some bands to check out. Rebecca and Marcia lead on books in the community. That's not taking anything away from Shirley and Martha who do a great look back at the year books each January. But in terms of book discussions, it's Rebecca and Marcia. They've done a two part discussion -- two parts on each of their blogs, so a four-part discussion -- on William Mann's book on Elizabeth Taylor, they've discussed a book about pioneering director Oscar Micheux, they've discussed a book about Steve McQueen, one about Warren Beatty, one by Pam Grier and it feels like I'm forgetting one. [See "book 'em friday" and "Oscar Micheaux"; "book 'em friday" and "Oscar Micheaux"; "book 'em friday" and "How To Be A Movie Star"; "book 'em friday," "skimming kitty kelley," "How To Be A Movie Star II"; "he wasn't gay, he just swallowed our ..." and "Steve ordered us to rape him"; "Foxy: My Life In Three Acts (Pam Grier)" and "book 'em friday."]
Marcia: Rebecca also did a piece, an overview, on the new Kitty Kelley book on Oprah ["skimming kitty kelley"].
Dona: Thank you. And while they lead, we've done a number of features on books of late and due to the positive response, we're trying one more. This is 4 Books You Should Avoid. We went through books sent to C.I. and picked the four worst ones. One is softcover, the others are hard cover. And we explain why they should be avoided. Mike and the gang have written this week's "Hightlights" piece. We've picked out two truests for the week. We've still got to do an editorial and we've got a lot left to cover so a roundtable seemed a way to tackle that. For one thing, we'd hoped to do a magazine parody last week and that was kicked over to this weekend. Elaine and C.I. would lead on that piece and they're not in a very funny mood. They'll tell you that right out. So that piece is postponed and may not take place. Iraq's our big concern so let's start with that. Ty, you have an e-mail about me.
Ty: In Mike's "Barack's got troubles," he explains that you edited out references to Iraq's religious minorities in last week's "Editorial: It matters." It was noted, less specifically, in Jim's note last week. Reader Carrie thinks it was a mistake and wonders why you did that?
Dona: Thank you. Carrie, I make a ton of mistakes and I won't argue you're wrong to see this as one. First off, Mike did check with me before noting the edit at his site. He didn't have to but he did and I told him he could write about it. Was it wrong for me to edit it out? I favor short pieces and the paragraphs in question took the editorial in another direction. Now with what ended up happening much later that day, I made a huge mistake. Late Sunday, Iraqi Christian college students were targeted with bombings. At least eighty were injured. That had not happened or hit the wires when the editorial was published, let alone when I was editing it. It would dominate the Sunday evening Iraq news but it wasn't in the cycle that morning or I would have left the paragraphs in. I'll also note that Carrie feels we haven't done enough hear on Iraqi Christians and I will absolutely agree with her on that. We haven't. We're not a religious site, for one reason. For another, we average about one Iraq piece -- this will probably be it for this edition -- per week. Now here, Ava and C.I. have managed to cover Iraqi Christians in pieces over the year. And, of course, at The Common Ills, C.I. covers Iraqi Christians all the time.
Mike: And Ruth's covered them. Which makes me feel bad to be honest because Ruth is Jewish and she's covering Iraqi Christians. I'm Catholic and even with the Church being one of the few organizations consistently issuing alerts and, via Vatican News, covering the assaults, I don't note it at my site.
Betty: I'm never shy about discussing my own beliefs, religious beliefs, so I should actually be blogging about the subject, Mike, and I haven't either. For me, that's due to my middle child having difficult homework this semester. Work is work and that's tiring as anyone who works knows. But then I come home and I've got to help with that. Let me back up and note that Dona, Ty, Jess and Jim are helping my kids with their homework all the time. Dona's like the math expert and all three of my kids make her their go-to. But there's a subject I'm helping with that requires me and I'm usually wiped out because I've worked, I've done that and I've tried to spend some time with the kids and wasn't that a long winded excuse for why I never note the subject. In reality, offline, I talk about it a lot. And not the recent attack, but when the Mosul attacks flared up again a few months back -- the bombings from last week were just the latest wave in the Mosul attacks -- I was discussing this with four friends at work and I should have written about it because one of them, 62-years-old, female, Black, said she didn't know about any of this and couldn't believe that things like this still happened. She's a Christian, by the way. And it's really amazing how little attention the attacks on Iraqi Christians receive in this country. C.I. had a comment online last week about the sources she was highlighting and she noted that she didn't want e-mail drive-bys about 'this is a right-leaning site you're quoting' because you go with what you have and on this topic the political left has been grossly silent.
Rebecca: And that is true, the political left largely ignores this. I think that's very telling. Iraqi Christians are a small part of the country's population but they are a huge part of the refugee population. And they're certainly news when they're being targeted.
Betty: How many Christians were in Iraq before the US invasion?
C.I.: That's difficult because that's an estimate and the most accepted estimate is that there were 750,000 Iraqi Christians prior to the US invasion.
Betty: So that's like 1/26th of the population or there abouts.
Mike: I'm going to insert something here from John Pontifex of Aid to the Church in Need and I'll i.m. Dallas with it so Ava and C.I. can just put "quote" in their notes and not take it down word for word:
Archbishop Georges Casmoussa of Mosul spoke of possible collusion between anti-Christian terrorists and fringe political parties and criticised the authorities, saying they were “too busy holding meetings” to ensure the safety of minority groups. In his interview with Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, which supports persecuted and other suffering Christians, the Syrian Catholic prelate said that a failure of Iraq’s army, police and government to “coordinate” meant that they were “opening the door to terrorists”. The archbishop, who has called for UN intervention to protect Christians, was speaking after going to hospital to visit some of the 163 people – most of them youngsters – who were injured in a bomb blast which targeted a convoy of buses packed with Christian students. One male student – as yet unnamed – died instantly and two female students were reported to be in a critical condition following the attack which took place on Sunday (2nd May) on the edge of Mosul, in the north of the country. Describing how one student had had a leg amputated and another had suffered a serious eye injury, Archbishop Casmoussa said three students were in a critical condition and that plans were underway to transfer 15 people to hospital in Turkey. The violence is the latest in a series of anti-Christian attacks since 2004 which are widely understood to be part of a coordinated campaign to extinguish the presence of Iraq’s ancient Church, which dates back to earliest times. Amid reports that Sunday morning’s explosions took place between two checkpoints, Archbishop Casmoussa blamed the authorities for failing to clamp down on terrorists. He said: “We feel angry about what happened – and we are full of sadness for those who have suffered so much. “We feel there is no central power here. The authorities are too busy holding meetings and not enough is being done.” He continued: “The army is not close to the government, the government is not close with the police. “You have people who are responsible but they are not coordinated in their actions and this opens the door to terrorists.”
Mike (Con't): I wasn't aware that there were deaths.
C.I.: As many as four deaths have been reported. These were apparently deaths from injuries -- I mean that the people were injured and efforts to treat their injuries did not pan out. By the time the deaths were taking place, there was so much other news out of Iraq that the Sunday events seemed very, very long ago.
Ty: So whose targeting Iraqi Christians?
Trina: Well no one knows. That's part of the problem and an issue that's been brought before the Vatican: There have been no arrests in any of these assaults. Betty was pointing out that Sunday's bombings were part of a wave of attacks that had been going on since at least February and she noted it was "this wave." There have been non-stop waves. 2008, for example, saw a wave. No one has been caught, no one has been tried. The hunches include the always popular scapegoat al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The hunches also include Shi'ite militias and Nouri's own forces. The hunches also include the KRG's peshmerga. In fact, a Human Rights Watch report pretty much pinned it on them. No one knows --
Jim: Why the KRG peshmerga? Why would they be behind it?
Trina: The hunch -- I don't call any of these guesses a "theory" -- is that the KRG wants the support of the Iraqi Christians in getting more areas declared Kurdish and so they create violence for the Christians that they then ride in as the big protectors on and make the Christians grateful.
Jim: Really?
Ava: Yes. That's a hunch. And the report Trina referred to included quoting Iraqi Christians who felt that way but they've been quoted stating that for some time now. For years now. The 2007 wave of attacks led to many Christians charging that the peshmerga were behind the attacks. I'm not saying they are, I have no idea. I'm just stating this isn't an uncommon hunch. No one knows, as Trina pointed out, and there have been no arrests in all this time.
Jim: And last Sunday's bombings may have resulted in as many as four deaths?
C.I.: The Vatican expressed sympathies for four dead. That was -- I think -- on Tuesday. A telegram was sent on behalf of the Pope to the Archbishop in Mosul.
Jim: Jess just slid me a note saying I need to amend the earlier list of who has covered the persecution of Iraqi Christians to read Ava and C.I., C.I. solo, Ruth and Trina because Trina's also covered it at her site.
Trina: Like Betty, I have no worries about talking religion at my site. Thank you, Jess, for remembering my coverage.
Jess: No problem. Now if the worst case scenario came true, Iraq could be Christian-free.
Ruth: The way the Jewish population has been driven since the start of the Iraq War?
Jess: Exactly. Iraq had a Jewish population. It no longer really does. How many are estimated to be in Baghdad now?
C.I.: There is supposedly one Jewish Iraqi in Baghdad. That may or may not be true, the number may even be larger. The person that is being trusted with that count was caught lying publicly to a committee and insisting -- while there were seven Iraqi Jews in Baghdad -- that they were all out. When he found out, after his testimony, that reporters were present and going to be reporting on his testimony, he berated them. In terms of all of Iraq, it is thought that there are less than ten Jews in the country.
Jim: Ruth, you are Jewish. How does it make you feel to see Iraq's Jewish population killed or turned into refugees?
Ruth: I am not really surprised. Look at the Palestinians in Iraq who have been relegated to a 'camp' on the border. It's not as if Iraq treats any minorities with respect. What does bother me is a story that was in the news last week. When the US invaded, one of the things they found was a Jewish Archive in an old police building. It had been damaged by water and the Americans saved it. They brought it back to the US to finish preserving it. Now Israel wants it and so does Iraq. Should Israel get it? I don't see Israel as the sole repository for all things Jewish. It may deserve it, it may not. But I do not believe we should hand it over to the Iraqis. The Iraqi government did nothing to protect the Jewish people. They've either all left or still have one in the country. They don't deserve it. Send it to Israel, keep it in the US, turn it over to a Jewish organization. But the Iraqi government has no right to it. The treatment of Jews in Iraq demands that the Iraqi government have no right to it. That is my opinion. As a Jewish woman, that is my opinion.
Betty: I agree with Ruth. Nouri and others have allowed the Jews to be targeted, the Christians to be targeted, go down the list. And now because something has historical value they think they have a right to it? No. Jews have a right to that, the Iraqi government has no right to it. And there lack of right to it predates even Nouri's government.
Ruth: Right. Jews under Saddam Hussein's regime regularly had their books confiscated. So it needs to be made clear that these papers are not the work of non-Jewish people. They were the property of Jews in Iraq and they were taken from them. They were stolen from them by the police. To now say, "Well the Iraqi government has a right to them," is a huge insult. The government stole from the Jewish people and now the Iraqi government wants to claim that these stolen goods are their property? That makes no sense at all.
Jim: Other violence last week included the death of Sardasht Osman. Cedric, I'm going to toss to you for his backstory.
Cedric: Okay. He was a 23-year-old Iraqi journalist. He was also in his last year of college. He was regularly calling out corrupt figures in the KRG. Early last week, he was on his college campus when he was abducted. He emerged two days later, his corpse did. He was kidnapped and murdered. Just a few minutes ago, it was being pointed out that the people behind the assualts on Christians were never tracked down. That is also true of those who kill Iraiq journalists. Due to that, a number of Iraqi journalists called on the KRG to find Sardasht's killer. And Saturday, college students and journalists demonstrated to underscore the call.
Jim: Great job, Cedric. Thank you. A truest nominee came from Wally this week and it was a good one but we ended up going with others -- Wally's nomination wasn't the only one not to make it as truest statment. But I told Wally after the votes were tallied up that we'd bring up Sardasht Osman during the roundtable and he could include it here.
Wally: Thanks, Jim. This is from Sam Dagher's "Abducted Kurdish Journalist in Iraq Is Found Dead" which ran in Friday's New York Times:
The family and friends of the journalist, Zardasht Osman, 23, said he was killed because of his scathing articles about the region's two governing parties and its leaders, including the dominant Barzani family. Mr. Osman was a university student who freelanced for a number of publications and often wrote on the Internet under a pseudonym.
"I am in love with Barzani's daughter," read a satirical and irreverent Web post by Mr. Osman in December, which appeared to violate a taboo in the region’s deeply conservative and clan-based culture by referring to a female family member of the region's president, Massoud Barzani. Mr. Osman mused about how he could rise from his poor surroundings by marrying one of Mr. Barzani's daughters.
Wally (Con't): I think it's appalling that he or anyone else died. But I think I was especially appalled because of what Cedric and I do at our sites. We're doing humor sites and we're doing parody and we aim at the most poweful. Before November 2008, that was Bully Boy Bush. Now it's Barack Obama. And even living in a safer country, I don't think we'd do a piece that kicked off, "I am in love with Obama's daughter." I think Osman had real guts and courage and applaud him and his memory for that.
Ty: I can see why you and Cedric would feel that way and I agree that Osman showed real bravery. And, knowing the hate mail that comes in when you don't drink the Kool-Aid, I'd add you and Cedric show bravery. But I wanted to just note that in Friday's snapshot, C.I. called out James Kitfield of The National Journal for his performance on that day's The Diane Rehm Show (NPR) where he was praising the drone attacks in Pakistan -- which have killed a large number of civilians -- and saying "we" over and over, that "we" did this and, as C.I. pointed out, it's not only demonstrating a lack of objectivity, it's putting at risk every US journalist stationed overseas because Kitfield's drawing no line between a government and a reporter, no line between military actions and reporters. When he does that, he begs for US reporters to be kidnapped in other countries and worse.
Jim: Solid point, Ty. Back to Iraq and we've still got a few things on the agenda. C.I., this morning an e-mail came in insisting that you are backing up Max Boot -- a conservative -- with your comments about Chris Hill because Max Boot calls out the administration in today's Los Angeles Times.
C.I.: Of course. I picked up my Early Edition newspaper last week and saw that today Max Boot would publish a column and I decided I would spend a larger part of last week paving the road for Boot to drive down.
Jim: That was sarcasm.
C.I.: It's a grossly uninformed e-mail. You're accusing me of doing something last week that copies Max Boot today. Am I a prophet? So I don't understand the e-mail. I haven't read Max Boot's column and, as far as I know, I've never read a word Max Boot has written. I couldn't pick him out in a lineup. I've called out Chris Hill since his confirmation hearing. I heard good things and I heard bad things and I heard really bad things after Barack nominated him to be US Ambassador to Iraq. I decided I would attend the confirmation hearing with an open mind. Hill hung himself in that hearing. He didn't know what he was talking about, he was ignorant of the region and uninformed on all the issues -- including the dispute over Kirkuk -- and, on top of that, he not only had a stain on his shirt from lunch, he forgot to comb his hair which was flying all over the place. This is how he appears before the US Senate when he's asking them to confirm him?
Kat: We were at that hearing -- Ava, Wally and myself -- with C.I. And I swear, you could have taken someone with maybe a glancing knowledge of Iraq and put them in the chair and they would have been able to tell you more about Iraq than Hill did. It was embarrassing. And C.I. warned what would happen. C.I. gave two warnings actually. The first warning was that Hill was unqualified. The second warning was that Republicans wanted him confirmed because they intended to make Hill the anchor around Barack's neck.
Wally: Right and we were present when C.I. confronted a Republican senator -- one she knows -- about how he wasn't backing up some Republican, I can't remember who, that had strong, public objections to Hill. She was furious because Hill was unqualified and she didn't understand why the Republican Party was just objecting and not blocking the nomination. He stood up and closed his door and then explained to C.I. and us that the Iraq War was not going well, had never gone well and that probably wasn't going to change. He explained that they could take the failed war and sell it as Barack's failed war if he was stupid enough to put Hill in charge in Baghdad. At which point, C.I. finishes his sentence for him saying that the Republicans could never attack Odierno because that would play poorly with their base but they could easily put the blame on Chris Hill. Because he's an egg head, he's the stereotype of an absent minded professor.
Jim: Just to add, Odierno is General Ray Odierno who is the top commander in Iraq. And we've called out Chris Hill here. Last week demonstrated yet again how inept Chris Hill is. Ava, I'm going to toss to you and anyone else can jump in -- that's Kat and Wally or anyone. C.I.'s big concern with Iraq being the focal point of the roundtable was that it would be her talking so I'm tossing to you, Ava.
Ava: And a valid concern. I'm sure the previous parts where she's speaking, largely reads like a mop up as she provides information and numbers that were left out of the discussion. Okay, March 7th, Iraqi held parliamentary elections. The big winner getter was Iraqiya with 91 seats in Parliament. That is Ayad Allawi's political slate. He is a Shia and his slate is a Shia and Sunni combination. The next biggest winner was State Of Law, which is Nouri al-Maliki's slate. Ayad Allawi is a former prime minister of Iraq. Nouri is the current one. By the Constitution, Allawi has first dibs on forming the new government. Last week, Nouri sidestepped that and it was announced that State Of Law and the Iraqi National Alliance -- another Shi'ite slate like Nouri's -- had formed a coalition. The formation puts them a few seats shy of the needed seats. But they weren't supposed to do this, it was supposed to be Allawi's chance first. Last week also saw Nouri get the start of recounts in Baghdad. Despite international observers feeling the elections were basically clean. Both moves can be seen as driving Sunnis away from a feeling that they will be part of the new Iraq. Both moves happened with Chris Hill as the US Ambassador and with him doing nothing. He was useless the entire time. At various points since the elections, I'm speaking of what I know from DC, not from what I've read or seen on TV, the KRG was shaky and needed reassuring or counseling or something else. When that took place, Hill was useless and Joe Biden's office stepped in. As a result, Hill's duties were even less but he still couldn't use his diplomatic abilities to provide any assistance or help. He enraged the White House and he's now going to be replaced. He never should have been confirmed.
Ann: And if Nouri goes through with his coalition, Iraq's probably going to face a return of the 2007 levels of violence. And that means in the next two years. That means in the lead up to the presidential election here, in the US. It was not smart to have put an idiot in charge of the US Embassy in Iraq. Last week saw a huge number of articles arguing that point. But, in reality, for months and months, there were only two people who called Hill out: C.I. and Thomas E. Ricks. They were warning about this, they were highlighting it, they were drawing attention to it. People should have paid attention. The White House should have paid attention. The press should have paid attention.
Stan: The press can't even get his name right: "Christopher Hill." He's made clear that he prefers to be called "Chris Hill."
Jim: Betty, you were writing last week, right after the power-sharing coaltion was announced, "I did have a preference on prime minister. I was hoping it would be Allawi. Not because I think he's a wonderful guy. But because I liked the idea of his party, Shia, Sunnis and others, coming together. And I liked the idea of the thug Nouri not being given four more years to destroy Iraq. You know union busting comes right after he pushes through the last bits of the oil law. I'm not sure he'll be prime minister but check out C.I.'s snapshot and you'll see his party has formed a coalition that puts them within four seats of forming a government."
Betty: Right. I just see as very demoralizing for the country that Allawi's party was shut out. In the press, people keep talking about the Sunnis and I agree that's part of it. But are we not grasping that Sunni votes alone would not have put Iraqiya over the top? It took Shi'ites as well. There were Shi'ites supporting a political slate that wasn't sectarian. They had hope. Their hopes got dashed as well. I don't know how to make it any clearer? Okay. I'm Christian, Ruth's Jewish. She and I work together on an issue and we think we've succeeded. Then we're trumped by someone else breaking the law. It's not only demoralizing for us personally, it's demoralizing that we did some thing interfaith and it didn't help any. It's personally upsetting to us but it also upsets us in terms of the message that even working as a team we didn't accomplish it. I see it as a huge setback for the Iraqi people who have already suffered more than enough.
Jim: Really good points, Betty. Isaiah, I'm looking at your comic from two Sundays ago, The World Today Just Nuts "Iraq's Got Tyrants." It features Allawi, al-Maliki and Moqtada al-Sadr. Now explain why Sadr's in there because, believe it or not, some e-mails insisted it should be Ammar al-Hakim.
Isaiah: Really? Okay, Ammar is the 'head' of a political party in Iraq. He inhereted that post. It had been his father's. But his father died last August. He is part of the National Iraq Alliance. So is Moqtada al-Sadr. Moqtada's supporters won 40 out of the 70 seats the National Iraq Alliance got in the elections. Meaning Moqtada is in the driver's seat. Ammar is not seen as a leader or anyone with driving ambition. Moqtada was the one to be wooed. He loathes Nouri al-Maliki and for the National Alliance and State Of Law to form a coalition, he was the one that had to sign off.
Jim: The comic features Nouri in a dress, Allawi in a suit and al-Sadr in his usual outfit.
Isaiah: Yeah. It's a spoof on America's Got Talented, the TV show. And so I put Allawi in a cheap suit -- it's cheap look at it -- and I threw Nouri in a dress because his security forces attack men they feel are feminine acting. For Moqtada? That's how the press always pictures him and I thought it be kind of funny to have the other two in that garb and then him not. The underlying message is that both Allawi and al-Maliki have catered to the US. Moqtada has never catered to the US. Even a week ago, he was calling attacks on US forces appropriate.
Jim: Is the comic saying Moqtada could be the next prime minister?
Isaiah: It's saying that "Here are three tyrants who want more power." That's my take on three. Remember, like Cedric and Wally, my job is to mock the leaders, my job is to show no mercy for the ones calling the shots. That's called accountability and everyone participating grasps it but so many on the left now see their role as cheerleader to a world leader, Barack Obama. I have no idea who's going to be prime minister. As I understand, from reading C.I. mainly as well as PRI programming, if it were being chosen right now, it would either be the second post-invasion prime minister of Iraq or it would be a weakingly that the National Alliance favors -- a man who's a cousin of Moqtada al-Sadr's.
Jim: It's now been two months since the elections. Any guesses on how long before we know something?
Stan: Well the last go round, elections were held in December 2005 and it wasn't until April 2006 that Nouri was picked as prime minister. So we may only be half way there.
Jim: True. And glad you spoke up because Dona said we had to wind down in a note she just slid me and she noted that you needed to speak more and Elaine needed to speak because she hasn't spoken once.
Elaine: I'm sorry. I was listening. Can I do closing thoughts?
Jim: Sure.
Elaine: For any drive-bys, no one is saying Chris Hill should have declared what Iraq should do. We are saying that as the ambassador from the US -- a country Nouri depends upon for financial support and for military support -- Chris Hill had powers he could have used and instead he sat it out. Chris Hill's a joke. He appears to have thought that he'd go to work each day, goof off for most of the work day and then find other things to worry about. Iraq was not a country that could watch itself. It's an emerging country and what it's going to become no one knows. He could have provided feedback, he could provided cautions. He did neither. Nouri has demonstrated yet again that he has no respect for the process and no respect for the Constitution. That sends a message that's chilling to many Iraqis and that's encouraging to future tyrants in Iraq in that Nouri got away with it so so can they. Iraq's a disaster. The US broke it, they can't fix it. That is why all US troops need to leave Iraq and need to do so immediately.
Jim: Thank you, Elaine. We're going to call this the Iraq roundtable since there wasn't time to touch on other issues. This is a rush transcript. Mike made a reference earlier to Dallas, Ava and C.I. Ava and C.I. take notes during the roundtable that we type up the transcript from. Dallas hunts down links during the roundtable. We thank all three for that. Our e-mail address is thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com. Reader Page wrote she had to "search like crazy" to find it because it wasn't on our profile. Again? It wasn't. It's back up again. I'll try to also include it in this edition's note to the readers.
