Iraqi State of Emergency for Elections?

Iraq: State of emergency considered as elections approach

The Mahdi Army of the Antichrist

Fears of return of “state of emergency” in Iraq after government sends National Safety Law to parliament for ratification.
Baghdad, Asharq Al-Awsat—Iraqi parliamentarians said Friday that the government is seeking to send a draft law to parliament that would allow the announcement of a state of emergency ahead of elections scheduled for April 30.
Iraqi parliamentary rapporteur Mohamed Al-Khalidi told Asharq Al-Awsat that parliament had received the draft National Safety Law on Friday, but warned that it would not be able to ratify the bill due to how late it was submitted.
“This bill arrived at a time when parliament is preparing to end its current session, so there is no time to approve this bill. This is something that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, who submitted this draft law on behalf of the government, is well aware of,” he said.
Khalidi, who is also a member of the Sunni-majority Mutahidoun Coalition that has been very critical of the Baghdad government in the run-up to the elections, said the submission of this bill at this time and in this manner, “represents definitive proof of the government’s security failures and its inability to deal with the security file in the correct manner.”
Also on Friday, Iraqi Shi’ite leader Muqtada Al-Sadr renewed warnings about the return of “dictatorship” in Iraq following the exclusion of a number of MPs from the elections race, in addition to the controversial draft bill.
Sadr expressed hopes for the success of his parliamentary bloc, Al-Ahrar, in the elections, but reiterated that he personally has withdrawn from politics.
“The decision to exclude candidates from the elections . . . seeks to silence the right opposition voices and the voices that expose corruption,” he said.
Sadr also called on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki not to run for a third term in office, accusing him of targeting Sunnis.
“Brother Maliki thinks he served Iraq. Let him rest for four years, and see if whoever comes next would serve better . . . If not, let him come back four years after that—it would not be a problem.”
In comments to Asharq Al-Awsat, current Iraqi MP Sabah Al-Saidi, who was excluded from running in these elections by Iraq’s election commission, thanked Sadr for “rejecting the process of political eradication,” which he said “clearly confirms that there is an approach to restore dictatorship to the country again.”
Saidi said he and other excluded candidates will continue their efforts to return to the parliamentary race in a bid to confront “the corrupt” who are trying to “exclude all honest opposition voices.”
Another Iraqi MP for the Al-Ahrar Bloc, Hakim Al-Zamili, told Asharq Al-Awsat that some parties “have mistakenly gambled on Sadr’s disappearance or withdrawal paving the way for them to reinstate dictatorship.”
In his annual speech earlier this week, an embattled Maliki sought to frame the National Safety Law as a key means to bolster security during the election phase.
“The terrorists have failed and will be met with long lines of voters at the elections. We are in need of these votes, and change, and the election of a government that will continue the rebuilding process and secure services and stability for the Iraqi people,” he said. “This will only happen if the citizens choose well.”
Maliki called for the election of what he termed a “majority political government,” denying this would mean marginalizing opposition parties.
Following the speech on Wednesday, the Shi’ite Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) announced their support for a “political majority government.”
ISCI Mawatan parliamentary bloc leader Abdul Hassan Abtan told Asharq Al-Awsat that the “ISCI supports a political majority government, but on the basis of programs, not portfolios.”
“The most important thing for us is how we secure services for citizens at all levels, and improve different areas of the economy, particularly reconstruction, industry, oil and agriculture,” he said.
By Hamza Mustafa
This article was originally published in Asharq Al-Awsat.

Antichrist's Men Set For Battle

Sadrists set for poll battle

Last updated: Saturday, April 05, 2014 12:02 AM

Sadrists Ready For Battle

Dina Al-Shibeeb

Powerful Iraqi figure Muqtada Al-Sadr quitting politics will not hinder his movement’s performance in parliamentary elections scheduled for late April, analysts say.
Sadr, who comes from a prominent Shiite family and is the fourth son of the late Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq Al-Sadr, made headlines in February when he said he was quitting politics and there was no longer a political entity representing him or his family.
The Sadrist movement is represented by the Ahrar Coalition, which has 40 seats in the 325-member parliament.
Amer Fayadh, dean of the political science department at Al-Nahrain University in Baghdad, says Ahrar will be unaffected as Sadr’s leadership has long been “symbolic.”
His presence “was never official. He wasn’t even a member of Ahrar’s political committee.”
Editor-in-chief of Al-Mada newspaper, Adnan Hussain, told Al Arabiya News that Ahrar “is entering the upcoming elections with strength.” He expects the Sadrists to keep their 40 parliament seats, particularly since Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, whom Sadr has described as a “dictator,” is in a shaky position.
“Maliki didn’t achieve anything in the past four years. On the contrary, the situation in Iraq has deteriorated,” said Hussain.
Baghdad-based TV commentator Ahmad Al-Abyadh said he expects Ahrar to at least consolidate its position or win about 45 seats in the upcoming elections.
Abyadh, who is also a spokesman for the more secular Coalition of Iraq, said Ahrar attracts the poor, and its campaigning methods in the 2013 provincial elections proved to be successful as it garnered more than 60 seats.
During those elections, “it sought one candidate per constituency,” while other parties fielded more than one, which split their voters, Abyadh said.
Ahrar is “following the same organized method” for the upcoming elections, he added.
Abyadh described the mayors of Baghdad and the southern province of Maysan, both from Ahrar, as “successful,” as opposed to the “mediocre” achievements of Maliki’s State of Law bloc.

“Sadr’s latest rhetoric against Maliki, corruption, and sectarianism all stir people’s emotions in favor of Ahrar and the Sadrists,” Abyadh said. — Al Arabiya News

US Continues to Subsidize Pakistan's Nuclear Program

The Third Horn of Pakistan

Pakistan is estimated to be in possession of more nuclear weapons than India and is currently spending about $ 2.5 billion a year to develop its arsenal, According to a news report published in The Hindu. The report titled ‘Assuring Destruction Forever: Nuclear Modernization Around the World’, states that “Pakistan is moving from an arsenal based wholly on HEU (Highly Enriched Uranium) to greater reliance on lighter and more compact plutonium-based weapons, which is made possible by a rapid expansion in plutonium production capacity”.
According to the findings of the report Pakistan is estimated to have “90-110 nuclear weapons”.
Pakistan has developed a “second generation of ballistic missile systems” over the past five years and significantly upgraded its capabilities.
Pakistan is not a signatory to the NPT nor has it signed the CTBT and it appears to recognize “no legal obligation to restrain or end its nuclear weapons and missile program”. It is unrestrained in its attempts to develop more nuclear weapons…
Pakistan has a wide range of nuclear weapons including “short, medium and longer range missiles, road-mobile ballistic surface-to-surface missiles in various stages of development”, the report noted (see: Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program – a rising threat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkK0OQvg-Rk ). See also Pakistani test of “terrain hugging” stealth cruise missile capable of delivering a nuclear warheads, as senior officers, elected officials engineering specialists watched http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21sfrzyHlAM .

WHY IS THE US SUBSIDIZING PAKISTAN’S NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM?
“We are effectively subsidizing Pakistan’s entire nuclear program with US tax dollars”, said one analyst in Wichita, Kansas who declined to be named in this report. At a time when anti Americanism is at a all time high (see: Raw Video: Anti-American Protest in Pakistan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-z1dwv8LOM . See also: Bin Laden Supporters in Pakistan Protest His Killing; Burn American Flagshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlgVpBxUNvs
PAKISTAN IS ONE OF THE LARGEST RECIPIENTS OF US ASSISTANCE

Pakistan is one of the largest recipients of U.S. assistance. Nearly $3 billion in U.S. aid to Pakistan is planned for fiscal 2012. About $1.6 billion of the FY2012 funds are security-related and most of the remaining $1.4 billion is for economic development. Pakistan has received over $20 billion in military and non-military aid since 2001. About $9 billion of that total went to reimburse Pakistan for its expenses incurred in supporting U.S. military operations in Afghanistan.
$ 3 BILLION IS A LOT OF MONEY!
When you look at it $3 billion covers almost the entire cost of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. They get to devote money to that because we are supporting them in other areas. Pakistan says it faces a threat from India and other nations and needs nuclear weapons to protect itself. Some private Intelligence analysts over the years have indicated that the threat of terrorists gaining control over Pakistan’s nuclear weapons is greater than the threat posed by Iran, which claims it has no interest in developing nuclear weapons. These private analysts may be correct in there assumptions.
PAKISTAN TIES TO TERRORISM – RUNS DEEP!

Pakistan hosts 12 domestic terrorist groups in country, including those directly affiliated with the Taliban, which is responsible for a majority of insurgent attacks in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s has some 32 International terrorist organizations represented in the country, including those recognized as some of the most dangerous in the entire world: “Laskhar e-Taiba, Al-Jehad, Mahaz e- Azadi, Muslim Mujahideen, Islami Jaamat e- Tulba, just to name a few (See: Terrorist and Extremist groups in Pakistan http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/terroristoutfits/group_list.htm ).
“In many ways Pakistan is a greater threat to America than Iran which doesn’t even have one nuke that we know of. Yet we pay the one and sanction the other…”, said Philip Marks of Wichita, who agreed to speak to me on the phone regarding the threat of Pakistani terrorism.
I found no one in Wichita, Kansas willing to defend US foreign and military aid to Pakistan at this time.
Wichita has been hit hard by a huge reductions in state and federal spending on education and other social programs…at a time when US military aid has been increased? People here are worried about how they are going to feed their kids, pay for gas and fund their schools.

Israel Ready To Attack Iran

Iran closer to nuclear capability
 

Israel closer to attacking Iran

Israel may be closer than ever to not letting that happen. I wrote an opinion piece for Montana newspapers nearly nine years ago about a visit I had just returned from to Israel. The topic of that piece is more timely now than it was then.
I was in Israel in 2005 with a delegation invited by the American Israel Friendship League. Our guide was a retired colonel in the Israeli Army with degrees in history and archeology from Hebrew University. We called him Ron. He had performed a similar function a few weeks before for former President Bill Clinton.
We saw into Syria from the Golan Heights and could practically hear the guns and smell the gun smoke as Ron dramatically recreated the massive attack of Russian-built tanks that were miraculously held off at the crest of the ridge by a handful of superior American tanks commanded by the now legendary Israeli hero, Major Victor Kahalani. In the backdrop of the Golan Heights, and hanging in the balance of the outcome of the battle, is the heart shaped religiously and strategically significant Sea of Galilee, place of Biblical miracles and Israel’s vital source of fresh water.
The day before we departed, a terrorist bomb killed several teenagers in a popular Tel Aviv nightspot. I broke the rules a little bit, and on foot found the location. I literally smelled the smoke still arising from the ruins, surrounded by emergency vehicles. Nearby was a sad and sobbing huddle I assumed were grieving family members.
That evening, following a farewell talk by U.S. Ambassador Dan Kurtzer, I had an after dinner conversation with two gentlemen that remains the most significant lesson I learned in Israel. One was a member of the Israeli Knesset, the other a retired major general in the Israeli army. They were of opposite political parties, and I had greatly enjoyed listening to their banter over dinner.
There was one thing on which they definitely did not differ, however. With the politician in animated agreement, the general said that America had allowed itself to get needlessly bogged down in Iraq. He said the important enemy of stability in the Middle East was not Iraq or Afghanistan. The real nuclear threat was the larger, more technically advanced and more fanatical country of Iran.
The Iranians are believers in their historical greatness, and it was preposterous to believe that they were developing a nuclear capability for nonmilitary purposes. He told me although the United States has been Israel’s indispensible ally, during World War II we didn’t bomb the railroads we knew were carrying Jews to death camps.
In our 2005 visit he thought the Iranians were closer to the bomb than they actually were, but with directness he told me that a nuclear-armed Iran would again threaten annihilation of the Jewish people, and that his country wouldn’t wait for the U.S. to ride to the rescue. Israel would unhesitatingly attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Now, with the world’s attention concentrated on the Ukraine, Iran is ever closer to nuclear capability.

Israel may be closer than ever to not letting that happen.

Antichrist Prepares To Overtake Iraq Government

Sadr urges Iraqi PM Maliki not to run for third term

Antichrist Prepares to Take Over Iraq

Staff writer, Al Arabiya News
Thursday, 3 April 2014

Iraq’s Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr urged Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday not to run for a third term, accusing him of terrorizing Sunnis so that they don’t go to the polls in the upcoming April 30 general election.
“I advise brother Maliki… brother Maliki thinks he served Iraq, let him rest for four years, and see if whoever comes next would serve better… if not let him come back after four years, it is not a problem,” Sadr told reporters in Najaf, 60 kilometres south of Baghdad.
The Shiite leader, who had announced his withdrawal from active politics, accused Maliki’s government of “building a dictatorship” by excluding candidates from the parliamentary elections.
“The decision to exclude candidates from the elections, regardless of who they were excluded…seeks to silent the right opposition voices and the voices that expose corruption,” he said.
“Building of a dictatorship is clear, building of a one-party [system] is clear” he added.
He also accused Prime Minister Maliki of targeting Sunnis ahead of the elections.
“I know they want to marginalize the Sunnis so they don’t vote, and they shelled and terrorized their provinces so they don’t vote,” the influential cleric said.
Campaigning for Iraq’s April 30 general election opened on Tuesday, with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki bidding for a third term as his government grapples with the country’s worst bloodshed in years, AFP reported.
Posters went up around Baghdad and across the country as candidates vie for one of 328 parliamentary seats.
No single party is expected to win an absolute majority and previous elections have seen lengthy periods of government formation.
Though not officially confirmed, the vote appears unlikely to take place throughout parts of the western desert province of Anbar, which has been wracked by violence since the beginning of the year, with militants holding control of an entire town on Baghdad’s doorstep.
Iraqi voters have a laundry list of complaints, ranging from lengthy power cuts and poor running water and sewerage to rampant corruption and high levels of unemployment, to say nothing of near-daily attacks that have killed more than 2,200 people this year.
But elections in Iraq are rarely fought over political issues, with parties instead appealing to voters along sectarian, ethnic or tribal lines.

The Beast of the Sea, Dick Cheney, Speaks (Revelation 13)

Speech, Dick Cheney Talks Bombing Iran and GOP Donors Applaud

Revelation 13:1-10

What do former Vice President Dick Cheney, billionaire megadonor Sheldon Adelson, and Republican activists and funders talk about—and applaud—when they’re behind closed doors at a Las Vegas hotel? Bombing Iran.
This past weekend, the Republican Jewish Coalition held its spring leadership meeting at Adelson’s Venetian hotel, where several possible 2016 contenders, including ex-Gov. Jeb Bush and current Govs. Chris Christie, Scott Walker, and John Kasich, showed up to kiss the ring of the casino magnate, who’s looking to bankroll a viable Republican presidential candidate. Though the heavy-on-Israel speeches of the White House wannabes were open to the press, the keynote address delivered by Cheney on Saturday night was off-limits to reporters and the public. But Mother Jones has obtained a recording of Cheney’s talk, during which he once again derided President Barack Obama on foreign policy, blasted the isolationists within his own party, assailed critics of the National Security Agency, and seemingly endorsed the idea of an Israeli strike against Iran.
Speaking about the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon, Cheney dismissed Obama’s negotiations with Tehran, and he recalled a dinner meeting he had in 2007 with Israeli General Amos Yadlin. Yadlin had flown in the Israeli Defense Force’s mission in 1981 that destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, and he was the country’s military intelligence chief in 2007 when the Israel Defense Forces obliterated Syria’s nuclear reactor in the Deir ez-Zor region. Recalling his conversation with Yadlin, Cheney said, “He looked across the table over dinner, and he said, ‘Two down, one to go.’ I knew exactly what he meant.”
“One to go” was an obvious reference to bombing Iran’s nuclear program. The crowd responded approvingly with laughter and applause. (Last October, Adelson publicly proposed that the US drop a nuclear bomb in the Iranian desert to show Tehran what will happen to Iran if it develops nuclear weapons.)
During his behind-closed-doors talk, Cheney took multiple shots at Obama. The former vice president said Obama has been a bust at home and abroad, proving to be a weak commander-in-chief and failing to project strength around the world. “The bottom line is,” Cheney groused, “the United States’ position in [the Middle East] is worse than at any time in my lifetime.” He added, “It’s reached the point where Israel and Egypt, [the United Arab] Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan are closer to one another—imagine that!—than any of them is to us…Nobody who’s been our friend in the past any longer has any sense of trust in we’ll keep our commitments, that we’ll be there in a crisis when they need us. On the other hand, none of our adversaries need fear us.” Noting that the chief responsibility of a president is to protect the United States against “all enemies, foreign and domestic,” Cheney claimed that today that charge ”is not being pursued in any kind of coherent manner.”
Without naming names, Cheney also slammed the less hawkish members of his own party—such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)—for believing that the United States “can afford to turn its back on that part of the world,” referring to the Middle East. “One of the things that concerns me first about the campaign, that I’m worried about,” he said, “is what I sense to be an increasing strain of isolationism, if I can put it in those terms, in our own party. It’s not taking over, by any means, but there is without question a body of thought now that’s supported by many Republicans and some candidates that the United States can afford to turn its back on that part of the world.” Cheney complained that “some candidates” think that the Middle East is “not our problem…Bring the boys home. There’s no reason in the world for us to be involved in that part of the world.” But, he remarked, “anybody who thinks back on the problems of 9/11″ knows “it makes absolutely no sense at all for us to contemplate that course of action.”
Cheney devoted much of his speech to defending the National Security Agency and its massive collection programs. There is the belief, he said, “that we have created in the National Security Agency this monster bureaucracy that’s reading everybody’s mail, listening to everybody’s phone calls, infringing upon our civil liberties and civil rights. Hogwash.” He claimed that there has not been a single case of NSA abusing its authority. (Cheney must have missed this and this.) And he asserted that if these programs had been in place, “it probably would’ve allowed us to stop 9/11.” Not surprisingly, he blamed the NSA’s current woes on Obama: “We don’t have a president who can stand up and defend the program. Nobody believes him—for good reason. Look what he did with health care.”

New York Will Be Destroyed Not By Nukes, But The Sixth Seal

New York Destroyed by the Sixth Seal

At a news conference at the end of Nuclear Security Summit at The Hague on March 25, President Obama sought to put in perspective any threat to U.S. national security that Russia’s annexation of Crimea might pose. “I continue to be much more concerned when it comes to our security with the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan.”
In a new book titled Overcoming Pakistan’s Nuclear Dangers (IISS Adelphi), Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London maintains that, as reported by Agence France-Press, that “the risk of a much-discussed scenario in which Islamic extremists seize nuclear weapons was exaggerated, and that the larger danger was that Pakistan-linked militants would launch a new attack inside India and trigger a devastating nuclear war.”
Even if confined to South and Central Asia, a nuclear war would have devastating consequences to the world. But, when it comes to a nuclear attack on New York, the source is much less unlikely (or marginally more likely) to be Islamist extremists than Russia.
Thus when President Obama states that he’s more concerned with a nuclear strike on Manhattan, he’s actually speaking about a Russian attack without necessarily realizing it. In the same vein, if President Putin voiced similar concerns about Moscow, the source of a nuclear attack is much less likely to be Islamist extremists than the United States. In other words, nuclear war remains the domain of the superpowers.
Russ Wellen edits the Foreign Policy in Focus blog Focal Points for the Institute of Policy Studies. A student of the metaphysics of nuclear weapons, he has written about disarmament for a variety of publications such as AlterNet, Asia Times Online, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Journal of Psychohistory, and Truthout. Originally published in Foreign Policy in Focus under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.