Diabetic, In US Since 6-Months-Old, Dies In Iraq After Being Deported By Trump Administration

The Trump administration deported a man who had lived in America since he was six months old to Iraq where he has died from lack of access to insulin.

The man knew no one in Iraq, nor did he speak the language. He had never been there.

From Politico:

A 41-year-old Detroit man deported to Iraq in June died Tuesday, according to the American Civil Liberties Union and two people close to the man’s family.

The man, Jimmy Aldaoud, spent most of his life in the U.S., but was swept up in President Donald Trump’s intensified immigration enforcement efforts.

Edward Bajoka, an immigration attorney who described himself as close to Aldaoud’s family, wrote on Facebook that the death appeared to be linked to the man’s inability to obtain insulin in Baghdad to treat his diabetes. Aldaoud was an Iraqi national, but he was born in Greece and came to the U.S. as a young child, his family friend said. He had never lived in Iraq and did not speak Arabic, according to Bajoka.

[snip]

Aldaoud spoke about his deportation in an undated video posted to Facebook this week. In the video, he appears to be sitting on a sidewalk stoop in Baghdad.

“Immigration agents pulled me over and said I’m going to Iraq,” he said. “I said, ‘I’ve never been there. I’ve been in this country my whole life, since pretty much birth.’ … They refused to listen to me.”

Aldaoud said in the video that he had been homeless, vomiting because of a lack of access to insulin and unable to speak the language in Iraq. He also said he had been kicked while sleeping in the street.

“I begged them,” he said of his conversations with ICE agents. “I said, ‘Please, I’ve never seen that country, I’ve never been there.’ However, they forced me.”

This video is of Jimmy taken in Baghdad two weeks after his deportation. I’m sharing with permission from Jimmy’s lawyers. Jimmy has been in the US since he was 6mo old—he was born in a refugee camp in Greece to Iraqi Christian parents. RIP#JimmyAldaoud https://t.co/1182x6GRAY pic.twitter.com/KF8RUOtKiH

— Mari Manoogian (@MariManoogian) August 8, 2019

(h/t Boy Culture)

Trump Visits Troops In Iraq, Lies About Pay Increase, Reveals Navy Seal Team & Pisses Of Iraq

Donald Trump speaks to troops in Iraq

So, to give credit where credit is due, Donald Trump finally visited US troops in a combat zone for the first time since taking office.

Trump flew to Iraq for a few hours yesterday to meet and take photos with military service members.

However, while speaking to the troops, he lied to the soldiers he says he loves so dearly saying he had given them their first pay raise in ten years (nope) and it was a 10% raise (nope).

“You protect us. We are always going to protect you. And you just saw that, ’cause you just got one of the biggest pay raises you’ve ever received. You haven’t gotten one in more than 10 years. More than 10 years. And we got you a big one. I got you a big one. I got you a big one."

“They had plenty of people that came up, they said, ‘You know, we could make it smaller. We could make it 3%, we could make it 2%, we could make it 4%.'"

“No. Make it 10%. Make it more than 10%. Cause it’s been a long time, it’s been more than 10 years. Been more than 10 years, that’s a long time.”

HuffPost has the facts:

In fact, military members have seen a pay raise in each of the last 10 years, ranging from 1 percent to 3.9 percent, according to the Defense Department. They even saw pay bumps when other federal workers were subjected to a three-year pay freeze in the wake of the Great Recession.

The pay increase for 2019 passed by Congress and signed by the president in August will be 2.6 percent, the largest since 2010. It is not far above last year’s raise for troops, which was 2.4 percent.

Trump to the troops in Iraq:
"You haven’t gotten [a raise] in more than ten years. More than ten years. And we got you a big one. I got you a big one....I said no. Make it ten percent. Make it more than ten percent. Because it’s been a long time."
Just FYI, none of this is true.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) December 26, 2018

Trump then makes two flagrant lies in a row: 1) He said the US military got its first pay raise in 10 years. FACT: The military has received a pay increase each year except for '83 and that was a technical glitch. @PolitiFact rated it Pants on Fire. https://t.co/MvE0T8NOQH

— Ali Rogin (@AliABCNews) December 26, 2018

Then 2) He said he raised the military's pay by ten percent. FACT: It was raised 2.8% in 2018 and another 2.6% in the current NDAA.

— Ali Rogin (@AliABCNews) December 26, 2018

Note to @realDonaldTrump: Had you served in the military you would know that each month we get a Leave and Earnings (LES) statement that shows our pay. So many military members know you are lying about their paycheck, but they are respectful so they don't say that to your face. https://t.co/4K5ZZKBZZn

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) December 27, 2018

Trump also appeared to have compromised the mission of a Navy Seal team by tweeting video of the team without blurring their faces which a break from protocol designed to keep secret locations of special forces secret.

Newsweek reports, "The president’s video posted Wednesday did not shield the faces of special operation forces. Current and former Defense Department officials told Newsweek that information concerning what units are deployed and where is almost always classified and is a violation of operational security."

After Trump visited Iraq, he posted a video to his Twitter account that may have compromised operational security and violated procedures designed to safeguard the identities of U.S. special operation forces, especially when deployed to a combat zone. https://t.co/UOQjskCJsn

— VoteVets (@votevets) December 27, 2018

And finally, Trump managed to piss off the Iraqis.

From Rolling Stone:

The nation’s lawmakers called the trip an infringement on its independence, as Trump failed to stop by Baghdad or meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi. “Trump’s visit is a flagrant and clear violation of diplomatic norms and shows his disdain and hostility in his dealings with the Iraqi government,” read a statement from Iraqi parliament’s Bina bloc.

Just remember I gave him credit for at least visiting the troops.

Matt Lauer Getting Terrible Reviews For Lack Of Follow-Up During Presidential Forum

News outlets are howling at NBC News' Matt Lauer after he allowed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's claim he never supported the Iraq war to go unchecked with no follow up questions at last night's "Commander In Chief" Forum broadcast on NBC and MSNBC.

Meanwhile, Lauer spent almost 13 minutes of his time (and several follow-up questions) with Democrat Hillary Clinton on her email controversy which has been  investigated and found to be a non-starter by the FBI.

Reporters across the internet were live fact-checking Trump even as he repeated his often debunked version of history that he always opposed the war in Iraq.

As many now know, back in 2002 in an interview with Howard Stern, Trump was asked if he supported an invasion of Iraq and he responded, "Yeah, I guess so," Trump responded. "I wish the first time it was done correctly."

Trump's statement last night via Politico:

"The main thing is: I have great judgment,” Trump said in response to a question as what he has done in his life that prepared him to send America's men and women into harm's way. "I heard Hillary Clinton say I was not against the war in Iraq. I was totally against the war in Iraq. You can look at Esquire magazine from 2004. You can look at before that. And I was against the war in Iraq, I said it's going to totally destabilize the Middle East, which it has. It's been a disastrous war. And perhaps almost as bad was the way Barack Obama got out. That was a disaster."

NBC News eventually posted a fact-check online showing Trump lied during the forum after the fact.

Just a few responses from journalists:

Trump says he was against the 2003 war in Iraq, and cites a 2004 source. (In fact, at the time, he supported it.) #NBCNewsForum

— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) September 8, 2016

I hate media-on-media violence, but Trump's support for the invasion of Iraq has been...rather well documented. No Lauer follow-up?

— Olivier Knox (@OKnox) September 8, 2016

Seriously -- everyone, and I mean everyone, knew this would happen. And Matt Lauer didn't have a followup planned? https://t.co/mm5ufZKjEx

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) September 8, 2016

Lauer says the night was a "success" Fact check: Pants on fire

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) September 8, 2016

Maybe if Matt Lauer hadn't spent 13 minutes on emails there'd be more time for ISIS. https://t.co/etCoYOiL28

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) September 8, 2016

To sum up, in the end probably helps Clinton, especially uproar. Trump said idiotic things even with softballs. Lauer lost big time and...

— Mike Signorile (@MSignorile) September 8, 2016

…rest of media is now on notice — including NYT & others. You’ll be Lauered (it had started already) unless you start dong real reporting

— Mike Signorile (@MSignorile) September 8, 2016

Video: Vice-President Dick Cheney "Wrong Then, Wrong Now"

As former Vice-President Cheney continues the rounds of interviews opposing the Iran Nuclear agreement (which gained it's 42nd vote of support in the Senate yesterday assuring it's passage), the White House shares this trip on the way-back machine to remind us of how exactly Iran came to even approach being a nuclear threat.

Here's a hint: Before the Bush/Cheney years, Iran had zero centrifuges. As Bush/Cheney left office, Iran had 5,000.

From the White House YouTube channel:

Vice President Dick Cheney opposes the Iran nuclear deal. If his reasoning sounds familiar, it's because we've heard it from him before on the Iraq war.

U.S. Army Chief Of Staff Corrects Jeb Bush: Your Brother Negotiated The Iraq Exit

U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno, the former highest-ranking officer in Iraq and one of the architects of the 2007 troop surge there, recently took time in a speech Wednesday to correct GOP hopeful Jeb Bush, who has "blamed" the current situation in the Middle East on President Obama due to the military drawdown in Irag in 2011.

“I remind everybody that us leaving at the end of 2011 was negotiated in 2008 by the Bush administration. That was always the plan, we had promised them that we would respect their sovereignty,” Odierno said during his final press conference at the Pentagon.

Here's what Jeb Bush had to say this past Tuesday at the Reagan Library:

“So why was the success of the surge followed by a withdrawal from Iraq, leaving not even the residual force that commanders and the joint chiefs knew was necessary?" Bush asked. "And where was Secretary of State Clinton in all of this? Like the president himself, she had opposed the surge, then joined in claiming credit for its success, then stood by as that hard-won victory by American and allied forces was thrown away."

While Bush may like to pivot from his brother's record while in the White House, the withdrawal timetable was in fact set long before Obama took office. In November 2008, both the U.S. and Iraq agreed that “All the United States Forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011.”

(via Huffington Post)

Sen. Marco Rubio: The Iraq War Was Not A Mistake

Sen. Marco Rubio, speaking to Chris Wallace of Fox News, gets into a bit of a word salad here trying to answer the question "Knowing what we know now, would you have invaded Iraq?"

Clearly Rubio doesn't want to criticize the decision made a decade ago, but he won't come out and say "no - knowing what we know today I would not have gone to war with Iraq."

He hedges on "the world is better off without Hussein" and "we may have done things differently" but never actually says he would have chosen differently. A lot of parsing going on here so as to not inflame the hawks.

Oh, and he seems to say that he thought Manny Pacquiao was going to win his recent boxing match. That says something in itself about his observations of the world.

Aussie comedian has a great idea for Westboro Baptist Church

After the passing of Robin Williams, the always inappropriate Westboro Baptist Church have said they will picket his funeral for his crime of being "a fag lover."

The Last Leg Australian comedian Adam Hills has a proposition for WBC - Hills offers to fly 12 members of the church first class to Iraq so they can picket those who are beheading Christians who refuse to convert.

Sounds like a great idea. I'd even chip in to make it happen.

(tipped by TRR reader William)

Dick Cheney's war

Via Blue Street Journal

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney is banging the drums wanting to go to war again.

By the way, did you know he has a huge financial stage in Halliburton which made almost 40 billion dollars from the Iraq war?

Things that make you go hmm....

FOX News Megyn Kelly to Dick Cheney: You got it wrong on Iraq

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney went on FOX News with Megyn Kelly to try to promote their new nonprofit organization, Alliance for a Strong America.

But Kelly wasn't having any of it. After introducing Cheney "the man who helped lead us into Iraq in the first place," she quoted his recent Wall Street Journal op-ed where he blamed President Obama for all things Iraq. "Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many," they wrote.

And then she said, “Time and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong as well in Iraq, sir.”

Watch the exchange below.

(via Talking Points Memo)

Rachel Maddow chats on The Daily Show about new documentary "Why We Did It"

Rachel Maddow stopped by The Daily Show to chat on her new documentary Why We Did It on MSNBC.

Of course, Maddow's detractors will hate it, but I've always thought it odd that after all those years in Iraq, and the lives lost and injured, so many conservative hawks never want to own up to the fact that the reasons we were at war kept changing. And our goals kept changing.

Remember "weapons of mass destruction?" None found. Remember "shock and awe?" It was going to be over in a matter of days. The Iraqis won't know what hit them. We'll be welcomed as liberators. The oil in Iraq will pay for the war.

None of that was true. And no one ever stepped up and said "we screwed up."

If you care about America, surely these questions would concern you. As would the absence of answers.

Rachel Maddow's documentary is available online here.

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Ten years ago today: May 1, 2003

• 4,474 soldiers dead
• Nearly 32,000 wounded US soldiers
• Veteran suicide rate now at 22 per day
• At least 112, 000 Iraqi civilians dead
• Total direct death tol of at least 176,000
• Estimated excess death toll of more than 650,000 Iraqis
• $1.7 trillion spent by the USA
• Projected total expense of more that $6 trillion
• Still no WMDs

But remember - "Mission Accomplished..."

Rick Perry would send US troops back to Iraq

Texas Gov. Rick "bang bang" Perry said he “would send troops back into Iraq” at the GOP presidential debate in Manchester, NH.

With American forces out the country, Perry said, Iran would take over Iraq, “literally at the speed of light.”

The last American troops left Iraq before Christmas, after eight years of war that cost the lives of 4,400 U.S. troops and between $3 trillion and $5 trillion in lost economic output.

Last U.S. troops leave Iraq

The last U.S. soldiers rolled out of Iraq across the border to neighboring Kuwait at daybreak Sunday, whooping, fist bumping and hugging each other in a burst of joy and relief.

The mission cost nearly 4,500 American and well more than 100,000 Iraqi lives and $800 billion from the U.S. Treasury. The question of whether it was worth it all is yet unanswered.

The low-key exit stood in sharp contrast to the high octane start of the war, which began before dawn on March 20, 2003, with an airstrike in southern Baghdad where Saddam was believed to be hiding.

The Iraq Body Count website says more than 100,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion. The vast majority were civilians.

The U.S. plans to keep a robust diplomatic presence in Iraq, foster a deep and lasting relationship with the nation and maintain a strong military force in the region.

More at NPR

Chris Matthews: Hearings on no Iraq WMD

I watch Chris Matthews "Hardball" everyday. He is absolutely honest, direct and fair with every guest that comes on his show. Democrat or Repub, he demands honesty and direct answers. I've seen him call out anyone who tries to double-speak their way out of something.

Yesterday, in light of the fact that more and more people have come forward saying there was no evidence of WMD in Iraq. Over 4,500 American soldiers have died and over 100,000 Iraqis have died. "Curveball" - the Iraqi who said the weapons were there now admits he made it up. Rumsfeld now admits we had no evidence.

The war in Iraq was sold to the US people with the scare tactic that Iraq HAD Weapons of Mass Destruction and they were "coming to get us." This, after 9/11, made the US people so afraid that they supported the war.

If the last administration had come to the US people and said "Hussein's a bad guy - we're going to invade a country that has never attacked us and lose 4,500 American lives to free the Iraqi people" the country never would have supported the war.

We've also spent over $770 billion on the war there. Talk about spending and deficits!

Watch Chris Matthew's end of show yesterday. He tells it straight. I want answers too.