Iraqi Journalist's Death Sends a Warning "To Whomever Listens"

By Lt. Colonel James Zumwalt, USMC (ret)

 

Hadi al-Mahdi, who was shot dead on September 8th.

 

He was home alone. According to the ominous entry on his Facebook page reporting his life was in danger, it was approximately 2:30 pm. He was right—he had but minutes to live. An Iraqi journalist,  Hadi al-Mahdi hosted a three-day-a-week radio program—“To Whomever Listens”—on which he voiced concerns that the fear and intimidation so much a signature of Saddam Hussein’s regime was returning under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s. Soon after Mahdi’s last Facebook entry, there was a knock on his door. He apparently recognized his visitor(s), inviting him/them into his house. He went into the kitchen to pour water for his guest(s). As he did so, someone came up behind him. The last sound Mahdi would hear in this life was the report of a small handgun as two bullets were fired into the back of his head. He fell to the floor, still clutching the water jug in his hand. His last worldly act of kindness towards a guest in his home was reciprocated with a cowardly, violent act to silence the journalist forever.

 

It was a bitterly ironic end for Mahdi as he always sought to preserve life and avoid violence, even by those supporting the concerns he voiced over the radio. In February, riots erupted in Baghdad over widespread corruption and lack of services. Demonstrators began throwing rocks at police who attacked them. Mahdi led an effort to form a human chain, interlocking arms with one another, to separate the two groups and restore calm. For his peaceful efforts, he was arrested, blindfolded, interrogated, tortured and threatened with rape. He was forced to sign a criminal confession and to agree not to participate in future demonstrations. 

 

Released the next day, Mahdi continued organizing and participating in weekly protests to focus the al-Maliki government on issues of social inequality. For these efforts, he began receiving numerous warnings, followed by threats. Despite these, he organized a major protest for the end of Ramadan, to take place on September 9.     

 

Mahdi’s last Facebook entry reveals his fear and frustration as well as his determination to give power to the people:

 

“Enough ... I have lived the last three days in a state of terror. There are some who call me and warn me of raids and arrests of protesters…I will take part in the demonstrations, for I am one of its supporters. I firmly believe that the political process embodies a national, economic, and political failure. It deserves to change, and we deserve a better government…I do not represent any political party or any other side, but rather the miserable reality in which we live. ... I am sick of seeing our mothers beg in the streets and I am sick of news of politicians’ gluttony and of their looting of Iraq's riches.”

 

Mahdi was murdered September 8, the day before the demonstration he helped organize took place.

 

Iraq is proving to be one of the most dangerous places to be a journalist. A 2010 UN report indicated within a four year period, 77 journalists lost their lives while countless others were threatened or attacked. While some simply were in the wrong place at the wrong time, a concerted effort is now underway to silence those seeking to awaken the Iraqi people to groups trying to maximize their control at the expense of minimizing the freedoms of the people.

 

Another journalistic critic of the Maliki government, Emad al-Ebadi, suffered a violent attack in 2009. Despite three gunshots to the head and a fourth to the neck by unknown attackers, he miraculously survived the attempt on his life. 

 

Each time a journalist has been attacked or killed, a call has gone out for an investigation. However, just like in countries, such as Russia, where powerful people seek to murder their journalistic critics, the calls for investigation go unheeded or are undertaken without any intention of solving the crime.

 

Three groups benefit from Mahdi’s death and should be targeted for investigation. Interestingly, all share a common bond—Iran.

 

First, Maliki and his supporters should be investigated as possible suspects. As the Prime Minister looks to solidify his control, the last thing he needs are independent journalists spotlighting his lack of interest in the welfare of the Iraqi people. Stirring up social unrest with protests such as the one scheduled for September 9 ran contrary to Maliki’s interests.

 

Second, Tehran is not above suspicion. As the withdrawal date of all US forces from Iraq draws near, Maliki has drawn closer to Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He has unabashedly become his puppet for ridding Tehran of an Iranian opposition group—the MEK—residing at Camp Ashraf in Iraq. Despite the fact MEK was disarmed by US forces in 2003, Maliki has launched several unprovoked attacks against the Camp, murdering dozens of Iranians. As majority-Shia Iran seeks to dominate majority-Shia Iraq through Maliki, any journalistic attacks against the Prime Minister run contrary to this interest. Special units of Iran’s paramilitary Qods force operate freely in Iraq, affording them the opportunity to coordinate such assassinations.

 

Third, also suspect is one of the most influential religious and political leaders in Iraq—Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr (the name “Sayyid” indicating he is a direct descendent of the Prophet Muhammad). He is not a stranger to murder. Ever since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, al-Sadr has demanded the withdrawal of all foreign troops, organizing a militia force that violently sought to achieve this end. After promoting instability in Iraq, al-Sadr suddenly departed for Iran in 2007. Allegedly, this was due to a lack of formal religious training and the opportunity to pursue same to “earn his wings” as an Ayatollah. However, a possible criminal prosecution also provided motivation for his four-year hiatus that followed. 

 

In April 2003, Imam Abdul Majid al-Khoei—a moderate Islamic leader who sought to mediate a sensitive issue involving control of the shrine of Imam Ali—was attacked by al-Sadr supporters. Bloodied and semi-conscious, he was dragged before al-Sadr who directed the mob execute him. They did. An arrest warrant was issued for al-Sadr and his lieutenants by an Iraqi judge in April 2004, only to be sealed by the Coalition Provisional Authority—undoubtedly as enticement for al-Sadr to lower his profile.  As al-Sadr later became active again in stirring up violence, he felt more secure directing it from the safe haven provided by Iran. 

 

In January 2011, with US influence waning in Iraq, al-Sadr returned again to ensure a complete US withdrawal by year’s end. He claims he wants foreign forces out and an “Islamic democracy,” similar to Iran’s, established. As we saw with Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei who made the same claim 32 years ago as he sought to replace Iran’s Shah, Islamic “democracy” is code for “theocracy.” Al-Sadr has been called “the single greatest threat to US military and economic control of Iraq.” As such, al-Sadr had no use for journalists such as Mahdi who sought to maximize the rights of the people at the expense of minimizing authoritarian control.

 

Next month, in Washington DC, a memorial will be dedicated to honor an American hero, Dr. Martin Luther King, who embraced nonviolent resistance in the 20^th century fight he led for social equality. Like Mahdi, King had a dream “to make justice a reality to all of God’s children.” Like Mahdi, King’s nonviolent push for equality met with an act of cowardly violence when he was gunned down in 1968. Perhaps the future holds a memorial dedication in Baghdad to honor Hadi al-Mahdi—a martyred hero who embraced nonviolent resistance in the 21^st century fight he led for social equality. If so, it will be despite the violent efforts of Al-Maliki, Ahmadinejad and al-Sadr to ensure such a day never happens.  

 

Like the title of his radio program, Mahdi’s life and death sends an important warning “To Whomever Listens.”

 

 

Family Security Matters Contributing Editor Lt. Colonel James G. Zumwalt, USMC (ret) is a retired Marine infantry officer who served in the Vietnam War, the US invasion of Panama and the first Gulf war.  He is the author of “Bare Feet, Iron Will–Stories from the Other Side of Vietnam’s Battlefields” and frequently writes on foreign policy and defense issues.

Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are - our Nation Needs a Leader

By Carol A. Taber    President – Family Security Matters

Republicans, we’ve got a problem.  Or better said, boy, do we have an opportunity!

All our putative frontrunners (ever narrowing) are either retreads, dull, old, polarizing, odd, not trustworthy, not ready, or not telegenic.  They have excess baggage, brain deficits, name recognition challenges, peculiar wives, policy mistakes, even less experience than Obama had in 2008, and/or shortages of charisma.  Even so, many people — if not all Republicans and the majority of independents — gladly would vote for these candidates over the unpopular Obama any day of the week; yet, despite the fact that this current president is eminently beatable, no new, exciting face has yet stepped forward to claim the crown, or to electrify the crowd.

And why ever not?  Two recent polls show Obama to be nearly dead in the water.  The numbers from these polls, for an incumbent, are devastatingly ominous.  The Hill newspaper’s recent poll shows that nearly half of American voters (46 percent) say they feel worse off than they did a year ago.  And then the Fox News poll revealed that enormous numbers of Republicans (82 percent) and independents (71 percent) think the country is now weaker than it was five years ago.

What opposition candidate would not want to jump into this slam dunk? America is crying out for a candidate to bring true (as my friend Ruth King says)…change and hope.

Republicans are disappointed too.  A pollster said recently that 75% of the GOP base is unhappy with its candidate selection for 2012.  But what should Republicans do?  First, we’ll have to get over our pesky habit of choosing the “next guy in line,” journeymen who masquerade as stars.  Folks like lukewarm Bob Dole in 1996 and lukecold John McCain in 2008, who naturally enough went down to defeat to electoral steamrollers like Bubba the Philanderer and The Stranger With No Background — candidates who, in their own right, would otherwise have been truly lousy choices.  We can’t afford to repeat this senseless pattern.

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Voters Speak: No To Soak-The-Rich Schemes

By Michelle Malkin

Do Americans share President Obama’s desire to impose redistributive social justice on the well off? In liberal Washington State, of all places, voters gave a definitive answer this Tuesday: No! The resounding rejection of a punitive “Robin Hood” initiative shows that it’s not just red-state Republicans who oppose extreme tax hikes on the nation’s wealth generators.

As Capitol Hill resumes debate on whether to extend the so-called “Bush tax cuts,” the White House should pay special heed to the fate of little-noticed Initiative 1098. Its defeat by a whopping 65-35 margin doesn’t bode well for Team Obama’s class warriors still clinging bitterly to their soak-the-rich schemes. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner insisted this summer that saddling higher earners with higher taxes was “the responsible thing to do.” Given the chance to weigh in at the ballot box, a diverse majority of voters in the other Washington determined otherwise.

The Evergreen State is just one of seven states in the nation without a personal income tax. The ballot measure, which would have enacted a state income tax on the wealthiest 1 percent of Washington residents to raise $2 billion for bankrupt public schools, was sponsored by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his left-wing corporate lawyer father. Top donors? The Service Employees International Union, whose state and national chapters threw in a combined $2.5 million of its members’ hard-earned dues money, and the National Education Association, which pitched in nearly $760,000.

Hiding behind kiddie human shields, the I-1098 campaign assailed the wealthy for “not paying their fair share” and plastered their campaign literature with sad-faced students and toddlers. Big Labor has been pushing a punish-the-wealthy movement for months. According to Forbes magazine, “six of the 10 states with the highest income tax rates — Oregon, California, Hawaii, New York, New Jersey and North Carolina — raised their levies on high earners, at least temporarily” last year.

But business owners large and small, representing companies from Bartell Drugs to Amazon.com, successfully fought back against the job-killing measure in Washington State. Disavowing the Gateses, Microsoft honcho Steve Ballmer also joined the opposition. The software company’s senior executives expressed grave concern “about the impact I-1098 will have on the state’s ability to attract top tech talent in the future.” Liberal newspaper editorial boards including the Seattle Times and Tacoma News Tribune added their objections, citing I-1098′s reckless targeting of wealth-creation in the middle of a recession and the inevitable extension and increase of income taxes to the middle class. And economists at the independent, nonpartisan Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University found that I-1098′s tax burdens would lengthen and deepen the current economic downturn by destroying private sector jobs, reducing residents’ disposable income and prolonging the state’s high unemployment rate.

Amber Gunn of the free-market Evergreen Freedom Foundation in Olympia, Wash., gave the bottom line on I-1098′s unreality-based advocates: “Initiative proponents like to operate in a Keynesian world where higher tax rates and their effects on human behavior and competitiveness among states don’t matter. But those effects are present in the real world and must be accounted for.”

I-1098′s promoters tried to disguise their wealth-suppression vehicle as tax “relief” by tossing in a few stray targeted cuts. But they were called out by a judge and slapped with a court order to make the income tax burden explicit in the ballot title.

If only the taxmen in Washington, D.C., were required to do the same. Obama’s budget proposal is a soak-the-rich scheme adorned with a few business tax breaks that would — for starters — impose nearly $1 trillion in higher taxes on couples making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000. Some “relief.”

On Thursday afternoon, still smarting from the nationwide “shellacking” the Democrats received on Election Day, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs signaled that Obama would be willing to “entertain” temporary — not permanent — tax relief for the nation’s highest earners. But a time-limited reprieve in prolonged economic hard times is expedient politics and bad policy. Tax relief should be all or none. The new House majority should force the Democrats to choose.

Republicans must stop allowing the White House to demonize America’s entrepreneurs and producers. By continuing to refer to them as beneficiaries of the “Bush tax cuts” instead of as the besieged victims of Obama tax increases, the GOP cedes the moral high ground. It’s time to make the White House own its noxious war on wealth.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Michelle Malkin is the author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies (Regnery 2009).

Read more excellent articles from Family Security Matters

That %@?#&% New York Times!

By John Howard

I would call the New York Times my “guilty pleasure” if there were any pleasure in it. But there isn’t. There is, though, plenty of guilt at having been a subscriber for thirty years. I just don’t have the heart to stop my subscription.

Call it sentimentality. Call it masochism. But it is a high maintenance habit.

 

Among the traits I love most among Americans is an acute sense of irony. Perhaps that explains the Times’ pretensions to objectivity. But I have to admit that if I did not have a sense of humor, it would probably drive me to distraction.

 

Maybe it is the unintentional humor in the pretentious lead editorials that presume to constitutional interpretation in such stentorian tones. The constitutional geniuses on the Times’ editorial board furnish analysis that might have inspired Holmes had he not actually given some thought to the meaning of the Constitution. Or actually read the Constitution. Or, for that matter, actually read. 

 

Or maybe it is the vapid prattle of Maureen Dowd – all vapors and venom – whose studied send up of Scarlett O’Hara wrapped together with a little Carrie Bradshaw – without, of course, the sex – is a bit cloying. But any suggestion of seriousness is belied by her preoccupation with the most inane features of popular culture. The very idea that from that vacuum could emerge anything passing for political analysis is beyond absurd. I almost expect her to finish each column with “fiddle dee dee”.

 

 I have, as have so many, tried to mollify my frustration by firing off the occasional letter to the editor, only increasing my irritation as I realize the futility of the act. We all know, don’t we, that the Times does not print letters from conservatives. In all the years the truthless Paul Krugman has been writing, not one letter critical of him from the right has appeared in the letters column. Not one. Is it really possible that the Times receives no letters critical of a man so dishonest that its own “Public Editor” criticized him for “slicing and dicing his facts” – a man so mendacious that the Times itself felt constrained to write a half page correction and apologize for him at one point?  The question not rhetorical. The answer is “no”.

 

There are a number of possible explanations, but the one I favor is this: maybe – just maybe – Krugman is the true voice of the Times; the angry, deranged howl of an increasingly irrelevant institution teetering on the precipice of oblivion and clinging to the slender reeds that keep it from tumbling to its death: occasional sedition and breathless exposés most of which don’t actually turn out to be true. (Recall the horrified announcement of the melting of polar ice that the Times reported had not happened in twenty thousand years (It actually happens every year.) and Krugman’s continued (and completely false) suggestion that recounts in Florida in 2000 would have yielded a Gore victory when the Times’ own consortium recounts showed that Bush would have won in three of the four methods of counting.

 

There is really no changing the New York Times. It has no capacity for intellectual growth. So we have come up with a solution. It is www.letterstothetimes.com, a website devoted to sending messages to the Times by publishing the letters you would have sent had you thought they had the remotest chance of appearing in the Times’ pages.

 

Regard this as your invitation to the party. We cannot guarantee your letter will appear on our site either. We hope to receive too many to make that possible. But we will guarantee that letters critical of the Times and its columnists will appear every day as we receive them. Our voices (or pens) will be still no longer. The wonder of the web is that information is no longer a closed loop. Time to have a little fun with it.

 

Family Security Matters Contributing Editor John W. Howard is a lawyer (www.jwhowardattorneys.com), specializing in corporate and business litigation who also founded a non-profit, public interest law firm specializing in First, Second and Tenth Amendment issues.

Obama Attorney Threatens Distinguished Veteran on Obama Birth Certificate Issue: Why?

Exclusive by Margaret Calhoun Hemenway

(Editor's note: Barack Obama's lawyer, Robert F. Bauer, is threatening a D.C. attorney with "sanctions," because the attorney is simply requesting that Obama show proof of his birth. No legalizing on our part. No exaggeration. No political manipulation. Just the facts in black and white. We have the shocking letter dated April 3 . The president of the United States is threatening sanctions - and the word "sanctions" is used in the threat -- against attorney John Hemenway. Read on.)

After the flippant dismissal by U.S. Circuit Court Judge James Robertson of the lawsuit to attempt to determine whether Barack Obama is constitutionally eligible to serve as President, D.C. attorney John Hemenway received a letter from a lawyer representing Barack Obama and Joe Biden, his Vice President. (Hemenway had joined the suit launched by Hillary Clinton's ally, Philip Berg, the former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania and attorney Lawrence Joyce of Arizona, in an attempt to force President Obama to disclose his birth records, currently being protected against public scrutiny by the Obama legal team at a reported cost of as much as one million dollars.) The entire letter , written by Obama attorney Robert F. Bauer, states the following (and we note that there is no reference in this letter to an existing valid Birth Certificate for Barack Obama, as opposed to a Certificate of Live Birth, and there is no claim that a valid Birth certificate exists which can be shown to the American people, an act that immediately would shut down this query):

"I represent President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden. I write to request that, in light of the District Court's March 24, 2009 Rule 11 order in Hollister v. Soetoro, No. 08-2254, you withdraw the appeal filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, No. 09-5080. For the reasons stated in Judge Robertson's order, the suit is frivolous and should not be pursued.

Should you decline to withdraw this frivolous appeal, please be informed that we intend to pursue sanctions, including costs, expenses, and attorney's fees, pursuant to federal Rule Appellate Procedure 38 and D.C. Circuit Rule 38."

Mr. Hemenway's response to the letter was a promise to "write and protest and attack those against the demand that Obama show proof of his birth, and I will continue to do anything I can think of doing that might perhaps deter or injure those who are opposed to "transparency" and "openness" and honesty in governmental operations-all those good and vague promises that Obama threw out in speeches read from his teleprompter."

Mr. Hemenway added, "The lawyer for Obama, Robert Bauer, has abused his privileges as an attorney, because I can regard his premature (and totally inaccurate) threats to seek some sanction against me as a threat to keep me from performing my duty to my client. It won't work and he will soon see that it has not worked to intimidate me." In his opinion, "many judges and other officials are simply crassly violating their oaths of office. Since I had been in the Department of State and served in Moscow for two years, I am mindful of an expression used by the Russians: "Nada dakazat' kulak!" (You must show them your fist!)"

Hemenway also pledged:

"...to appeal the slap taken at me (the so-called "reprimand") by Judge James Robertson who tried unsuccessfully to label our efforts as "frivolous" but who did not have the guts to sanction me under Rule 11. (This would have given me-and others engaged in this important battle -standing in the Court of Appeals.) I will do my duty to Colonel Hollister, who technically is a client, even though I never agreed initially to follow the case in the Court of Appeals. The military, as Colonel Hollister's interest demonstrates, is quite concerned with the basic issue of ‘legal' and ‘illegal' orders originating from a ‘legitimate' or ‘illegitimate' commander-in-chief. Recall that Judge Robertson never did admit attorneys Berg or Joyce to practice in his court, never had a hearing and never examined evidence because he didn't seek any. The Judge gave the impression that his decision was predicated solely on ‘blogging and twittering'."

For the many others who have contacted him and expressed interest in this cause, Hemenway invoked Churchill's admonition: "If a matter of principle is involved in a course of action, then never give up-never - never - never." The most important part of that quote is the "matter of principle." It was not just a display of the stubborn nature of Churchill. Following that advice, we can see that here, we have a grave matter of principle.

If Obama can break such a basic, fundamental rule of the Constitution, then what is to keep him from ignoring or suspending other basic rights, such as the Writ of Habeas Corpus?

Last, Hemenway points out: "Mr. Bauer claims his father was an attorney in Vienna who opposed the union with Germany (the so-called "Anschluss") and promoted anti-Nazi political movements while he was in Austria. He says his father left Austria in 1940. Very few people left greater Germany after 1939, when the war started. In any event, if Bauer's background includes such a family history of opposition to anti-rule-of-law monsters, how does he explain his support for this Chicago-styled conspiracy to violate a basic requirement of the United States Constitution?"

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Margaret Calhoun Hemenway is a retired federal employee, having served fifteen years in the U.S. Congress and five years as a White House appointee at DoD and NASA.