Might have to put John McCain in a flak vest and march him through a market with an armed guard again:
At least four Sunni Muslim candidates who appear to have won parliamentary seats on the winning ticket of secular leader Ayad Allawi have become targets of investigation by security forces reporting to the narrowly defeated Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, according to interviews Saturday with relatives, Iraqi security forces and the U.S. military.
All four candidates ran in Diyala province, a restive mainly Sunni area north of Baghdad. One candidate who won more than 28,000 votes is being held incommunicado in a Baghdad jail, two other winners are on the run and the whereabouts of the fourth, a woman, are unknown.
Keep your eye on this.
Linda Featheringill
Oh dear. That makes me nervous. I am afraid that somebody will say that the Iraqis are obviously not ready for self government and they need us to babysit them for a while longer. And that may be factually correct. But I don’t want it to be us. I want to bring our children home. And keep them there for a while.
Yes, I do have a pacifist streak in me.
On the other hand, I guess it would not hurt for the press to watch this and for us to watch it and publicly complain about it.
We could bring all of our children home and then sit around and bitch at everybody. Sounds good to me. :)
Malron aka eclecticbrotha
al-Maliki being a sore loser maybe?
demkat620
Yeah, this could get messy. Maliki is definitely acting like he is not going to let go.
demo woman
John, Can you update us on the babies? How did they sleep? My guess is that Tunch spent the night exploring all the new hiding places. Dogs seem to think that home is where the master is so she probably slept peacefully.
Linda Featheringill
Lovely essay in The Guardian in praise of Obama’s presidency.
http://tinyurl.com/yzg22c8
Good for my little Obot heart!
John Cole
@demo woman: They both slept fine, I assume. Lily was under the comforter next to my thigh when I woke up, Tunch was meowing for breakfast in my left ear. Same as every other day.
Tunch has been very active, though. Walking around sniffing, rubbing his whiskers on everything marking his territory, checking out all the windows, etc.
Nethead Jay
Rachel Maddow had a great segment friday with Richard Engel about the results of the Iraqi elections that ties right in with this.
Obviously, this is worrying but let’s see how it plays out. There’s probably a lot of maneuvering going on right now, and people trying to get things calmed down and sorted out.
Nethead Jay
@John Cole: Sounds idyllic. Let me guess, Tunch’s meowing is more like an order than a request, right…
That sounds like a video waiting to happen ;)
demkat620
My Jack does that. I always assume it means he is cold.
Good for you John. I hope they settle in quickly. Has Tunch checked out his window yet?
flukebucket
All hail the power of the purple finger!
Bob K
If only we had listened to Walnuts. By now Iraq would be a vacation paradise and we would have been putting up Starbucks, McDonalds and TGI Friday locations in Tehran. Then again the Iraqi factions do seem to share one trait of conservative republicans – “Plays well with others” seems to have no place in their political lexicon. Yay Democracy!
Brick Oven Bill
Barry promised us that he would close Guantanamo Bay twelve (12) months after his inauguration.
Barry promised us that he would have our forces out of Iraq sixteen (16) months after his inauguration. That is, like, this month. Afghanistan was the right war, we were told.
Barry promised us that there would be no lobbyists in his Administration. Mark Patterson, Goldman Sachs lobbyist, who surely does not have access to the records of Columbia University, is Geithner’s Chief of Staff and owns the printing presses.
Religion is Belief in the absence of Perception.
SteveinSC
“Thank you dear God for victory in Eye-rak!”
–Newsweek
Bill E Pilgrim
I’d like to see John McCain walk through the Tea Bagger Woodstock “with only a lightly armed guard” and then he can claim that “it’s just like walking through any place in America”.
Linda Featheringill
16 months after inauguration would be close to the last week in May. Although it might actually take a little longer to actually get our troops out of there.
But yes, I share in the disappointment that it is taking so long to shut down Gitmo. Intellectually, I understand that there are problems but emotionally, I am disappointed.
Humans are not perfect. All of them always disappoint from time to time. Even the good ones. Even you and me.
Svensker
@demkat620:
Husband or dog?
Malron aka eclecticbrotha
@Brick Oven Bill:
Fixt. Paraphrased but you ain’t listening anyway…
soonergrunt
Somehow I don’t think BoB is calling or writing the GOP congressmen or senators to support these things.
The opinion of a guy who thinks Ted Nugent is an authority on anything other than bad 70’s hair rock and shitting oneself is a waste of electrons.
Joey Maloney
Aw, gee, Senator, we seem to be fresh out of flak jackets. Never mind, it’s perfectly safe, remember? You said so yourself.
demkat620
@Svensker: My dog. Jack likes to sleep between us.
LOL!
Ash Can
So the guy hand-picked by the Cheney administration to head up the Iraq clusterfuck doesn’t want to relinquish power. No one could have predicted.
Uloborus
@Joey Maloney:
I’m pretty sure it IS perfectly safe for McCain. Who in Iraq knows or cares about a washed up American politician who failed in every presidential bid? Are they going to go out of their way to assassinate Nader?
Linda Featheringill
To soonergrunt:
Ah come on – Ted did a couple of good songs. Well, okay. He did one good song [Stranglehold].
But seriously, Nugent reminds me of all other reformed folks. He seriously indulged in every whim for several years and now he wants to make sure that no one else will ever do that.
Kind of funny, really.
[BTW, are you in OK?]
New Yorker
@demkat620:
Yeah. Christopher Hitchens said on Bill Maher that it’s a good sign when the ruling party demands a recount, but what he failed to mention is all the times in history when the ruling party, unhappy with the results of an election, just ignored it and threw the winners in jail.
I was cautiously optimistic when I first heard about Allawi’s win. Now I’m not so sure.
soonergrunt
@Linda Featheringill: I’m in OK for the moment. I just joined the ranks of the unemployed, so I may be moving to where the work is. I’m waiting to see what my company has now that our project here folded.
NobodySpecial
Not being fair. He did several good songs. His problem is, he’s just a raging dick. That’s ok, though, I don’t listen to his music for raging dickishness, just like I don’t listen to Elton John for the gay.
Conservatives would be much happier if they’d disassociate the medium from the messenger, I think. (Not meaning you, but the way they treat artists who go off message.)
Cassidy
I just got back from Diyala. There is a lot of shit going on that isn’t considered newsworthy.
celticdragonchick
@Cassidy:
Christ!
What the frak were you doing there?!?
sukabi
no burka left un-turned.
Cain
@Cassidy:
what’s going on over there, or can you not tell?
cain