Rudy The Day
Why Rudy Giuliani thought that Bernie Kerik's various shenanigans would not somehow hurt his presidential chances is a matter for the pop psychologists out there. All I can fathom is that he simply thought that Americans would forget that Giuliani Security and Safety was originally Giuliani-Kerik LLC.
[Kerik's resignation] severs a lucrative professional relationship with his mentor, Mr. Giuliani, who made him first correction commissioner and then police commissioner and who helped make Mr. Kerik a wealthy man in the law enforcement consulting field. Mr. Kerik became a national figure after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, writing a best-selling book and earning the admiration of President Bush, who sent him to Iraq in 2003 as interim minister of the interior to rebuild that nation's police force....
Mr. Kerik, who served as police commissioner from Aug. 19, 2000, until Dec. 31, 2002, said he had decided to resign immediately from his positions as senior vice president of Giuliani Partners L.L.C. and chief executive of Giuliani-Kerik L.L.C., an affiliate. He said the furor that followed the Dec. 10 withdrawal of his nomination - when he said he discovered he had not paid taxes for a nanny and did not know her immigration status - was beginning to affect the firm.
That Bernie Kerik was involved in the "rebuilding" of the Iraqi police force, a force so robust and powerful that tens of thousands of American troops are somehow still needed to keep the peace, should not surprise anyone.
Labels: Bernie Kerik, blast from the past, Iraqi "government", Rudy Giuliani
Our Liberal Media, Part II
At least our news magazines, which have staff that can reflect on seven days of news for each issue, and which are less burdened by the minutiae that can bog down newspapers, radio, and television, can look at the morass in Iraq from a reflective and historical bent.
The past week shows that major weekly news magazine investigated how the Bush administration is working with Saddam Hussein's old henchmen.
Sorry. That is not an American news magazine. It is a Canadian news magazine, Maclean's. I apologize for mixing it up with its American counterparts, one of which devoted its cover last week to the presidential candidates' spouses.
Labels: Bush, Iraqi "government", Stupid reporting tricks
Iraqi "Sovereignty"
How sad is the notion of an Iraqi state? Sad enough that it is not enough for the American army to prop it up, but that is also needs American soldiers of fortune.
Iraq's probe into a deadly shooting by Blackwater USA in Baghdad last weekend has expanded to include allegations about the security firm's involvement in six other violent episodes this year that left at least 10 Iraqis dead....
Bassam Ridha, a senior adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, conceded that the Iraqi government, at least for now, cannot follow through on a ban on Blackwater, even though the firm has been operating without a license for more than a year. "The reality of the matter is we can't do that," Ridha said.
One could compare Iraq to South Vietnam, circa 1970, but that hardly seems fair to the Vietnamese.
What one can see with respect to Blackwater is merely an exemplar for the whole Iraq fiasco. The Iraqi state is a wisp of a shell of a phantom. The people of Iraq are united by only one thing—they all want the Americans, their "security consultants," their army, their Green Zone, and their photo-ops, gone.
From another story on Blackwater, we are reminded of just how ludicrous the situation of Blackwater is.
It is unclear whether Blackwater could be criminally prosecuted in Iraq. A U.S. regulation called Order 17 enacted after the invasion by Iraq's U.S. administrators provides immunity from prosecution for private security contractors.
[Iraqi Lieutenant General Hussein] Kamal, a lawyer by training, suggested that Iraq's government could file lawsuits against Blackwater in U.S. courts to seek compensation for the victims.
"If Order 17 provides them with immunity from being questioned or the right to be tried under Iraqi law, it does not prevent the Iraqi government from filing suit in an American court," he said.
Imagine, if you will, if Americans helping to maintain order in an actually functioning country were immune from prosecution in that actually functioning country's actually functioning courts.
Labels: Blackwater, Iraqi "government", stupid consultant tricks
