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The late, great Jim White, overnight host on KMOX when radio was king, had certain rules he lived by. One of them was that he wouldnt let callers talk about religion. Reason: Religion is too touchy a topic and the discussions rarely get anywhere.

Nevertheless.

When religion enters the public sector, as it did prominently in two instances last week, the rule goes out the window. One instance was the assertion by Jack Phillips, the Colorado bakery owner whose refusal to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, that Jesus would not have baked such a cake in similar circumstances.

The second instance was the U.S. Department of Justices lawsuit against Hobby Lobby and its president charging that the crafts store had illegally imported thousands of Iraqi artifacts, mislabeling them and lying about their origin. This is the same company that won a 2014 Supreme Court case over its objection to providing contraceptive coverage to its employees because of its owners religious beliefs.

The Hobby Lobby decision was seen as an important religious freedom case. It is a key part of Phillips argument that he should have the religious freedom not to bake a cake for a gay couple.

My personal belief is that any God reflected in any religious text anywhere would look at the Jesus-bakes-a-wedding-cake furor and the apparent flexibility of Hobby Lobbys religious beliefs and say, Really? This is the kind of thing youre arguing about?

Religion, as we have learned through the millennia, is sort of like Spandex: It can be stretched to smooth out all sorts of bumps. Crusades? No problem. Slaughter some Muslims, well make you a saint and name a city in the Midwest after you. Spanish Inquisition? No problem. Hijack some planes and fly them into buildings? Seventy virgins for you, my friend.

Thus Phillips claim, made June 30 on ABCs The View, pales in comparison. I believe the Bible clearly teaches marriage is between one man and one woman, Phillips said. Im not judging these two gay men who came in. Im just trying to preserve my right as an artist to decide which artistic endeavors Im going to do and which ones Im not.

See, hes an artist, not a baker, because an artist might have First Amendment protection that a baker, operating merely under the Commerce Clause, might not. These religious freedom cases attract shrewd lawyers from well-funded legal groups.

Asked by one of The Views hosts what Jesus might have done in his situation, the artist known as Masterpiece Jack said, Would Jesus have made the cake? I dont believe he would have, because that would have contradicted the rest of the biblical teaching. I dont believe that Jesus would have made the cake if he had been a baker.

This touched off one of those social media flaps that make the Internet the worst invention since the hydrogen bomb. Careful reading would have led you to a discussion of Judean cuisine 2,100 years ago and the likelihood (sparse, was the consensus) that a Galilean carpenter of that era would have been taught to bake. The gospels references to Jesus and baked goods are limited to the loaves-and-fishes thing and the Last Supper thing, when he merely shared them.

So thats inconclusive, as are biblical admonitions about homosexuality. We know Jesus had a pretty open attitude about his followers and fierce opposition to Scribes, Pharisees and other hypocrites (whited sepulchers).

Speaking of which, Steve Green, the president of Hobby Lobby and son of the founder, is chairman of the Museum of the Bible. His company has donated $800 million toward the 430,000-square-foot edifice, scheduled to open this fall just two blocks from the National Mall in Washington. At least some of the 5,500 artifacts that the Justice Department said were illegally obtained in Iraq were destined for this temple.

Green admitted being involved in obtaining the artifacts, despite being warned that their provenance was sketchy. The artifacts, labeled as tile samples, were Fed Exd to various Hobby Lobby stores with labels describing Turkey as their country of origin. Payment for them was made with wire transfers to multiple personal bank accounts. The Ten Commandments do not proscribe wire transfers, but one of them concerns bearing false witness.

In a statement, the company said regrettable mistakes were made. Hobby Lobby, which has estimated annual revenues of $4.5 billion, will pay a fine of $3 million. Green said the whole affair had been consistent with the companys mission and passion for the Bible.

Concerning the Bible, its amazing how some people can read the words and not hear the music. Something else Jim White used to say: Protect me from the good people.

Read more here:
Horrigan: Consult your Bible on Jesus' baked goods and looting Iraq - STLtoday.com

Members of the US Army Special Forces provide training for Iraqi fighters from Hashid Shaabi at Makhmur Camp, Iraq, Dec. 11, 2016. (photo byREUTERS/Mohammed Salem)

Author:Jack Detsch Posted July 7, 2017

The Senate Armed Services Committees defense budget proposal will give the United States greater authority to support Iraqi agencies tasked with securing the homeland.

The upper chambers version of the National Defense Authorization Act, set for release next week, allows the Office of Security Cooperation in Iraqa US office tasked with developing Iraqs militaryto extend their support to police and civilian security organizations, including the Ministry of the Interior, according to a committee aide.

The Office of Security Cooperation, housed in the US Embassy in Baghdad, has traditionally focused on supporting Iraqs Ministry of Defense and Counterterrorism service. The bill, aides say, will give US officials more leeway to support Iraqi police and homeland protection agencies as they develop a long-term strategy to secure the country.

Those plans are progressing as US-led troops and Iraqi forces clear out the final streets of the strategically vital city of Mosul after more than eight months of intense block-by-block combat that has left much of the city in ruins. On Thursday, officials for the US-led coalition said that Iraqi security forces had pushed into the last 500 square meters of Islamic State (IS) holdings in the city.

The multinational coalition fighting in Iraq is currently working on a two-year plan for the Ministry of Defense. It also is continuing to work with the Ministry of Interior on a plan that aims to prepare Iraqs police and border guards for duty in provinces that have been liberated from IS.

The specific amounts authorized for the office will appear in the full version of the Senate bill, set for release next week. But a summary of the bill that appeared last week authorizes nearly $1.3 billion for the US-led anti-IScoalition fulfilling an entire Defense Department request made in Mayto train and equip Iraqi troops and police units over the next year, providing them with thousands of M16 and AK-47 assault rifles, as well as hundreds of Humvees and armored vehicles.

That assistance could continue for some time. In a briefing on Thursday, Canadian Brig. Gen. D.J. Anderson, the director of force for the country coalition fighting ISin Iraq and Syria, told reporters that the effort had trained 106,000 Iraqi security force members, including 40,000 army soldiers, 15,000 policeand 14,000 counterterrorism fighters.

On Thursday, Anderson also announced a $50 million coalition initiative to provide police in a box to Iraq that will begin later this summer: Using 100 mobile shipping containers that include equipmentsuch as vehicles, weaponsand GPS trackers, that can help Iraqi quickly establish ad hoc police stations in areas devastated by ISfighters.

A Defense Department budget request submitted to Congress in May said Iraqi counterterrorism forces will require coalition financing for the next three years to grow to 20,000 members. The Pentagon expects its costs for training and equipping Iraqi forces to fall in next years budget and beyond as Baghdad gets better at sustaining its own military or those funds are shifted to other US security assistance programs.

But Anderson did not put exact timelines on coalition supportor when Iraqi security forces could fight on their own.

We'll be here as long as we need to be here, Anderson said. Our mission is to make sure that it's a self-sustaining force, and a self-sustaining force means that it's able to train itself, it's able to feed itself and it's able to fight by itself.

Read More: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/07/defense-budget-broad-support-iraq-security-services-police.html

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Defense budget to provide broader Iraq security support - Al-Monitor

In a wide ranging interview with the BBC, Sir John Chilcot said Tony Blair was not straight with the nationand relied on belief rather than fact to take Britain into the Iraq War.

That the conflict was an unmitigated disaster, a historic mistake that casts a pall over the body politic to this day, is now accepted by just about everyone not completely won over by that belief at the time. And even by some who were.

But have we really learned anything? Has Sir Johns report into the conflict, and what he said during that interview, taught us anything?

With the country embarking on another historic mistake Brexit Id say not.

On the face of it, there wouldnt appear to be all that many parallels between the two, but there are if you think about it.

Brexit, too, is motivated by belief in opposition to fact, and expert advice.

Just as happened prior to the Iraq war, it had a corps of fierce partisans backing it, people who were willing to deploy a tissue of lies and half truths to convince a narrow majority of the public of their case.

Just as then, tens, hundreds, of thousands have taken to the streets in protest, only to be ignored or, worse still, to have their patriotism and loyalty called into question.

I think the countrys had enough of experts, said the member for Murdoch Central, Michael Gove, who was, at the time, the home news editor of The Times, a newspaper that supported the war. It speaks volumes, doesnt it?

The big difference between the two is, of course, that Brexit will not see brave young men and women put in harms way. Nor will there be any killing of civilians by stray ordinance.

Poverty kills, mind. So, if the economic fallout from Brexit is as bad as some fear, there will be blood on the hands of its backers. A lot less than was shed in Iraq, it is true, but blood all the same.

Minister appointed to negotiate Brexit wanted EU 'torn down'

Belief rather than fact. In a modern, wealthy democracy, which provides an education for its people, it shouldnt be that way. But it is.

Blairs reliance on belief is what makes him such a problematic figurehead for those who would oppose the countrys current lunacy. Hes a big beast. A genuine talent, in an age when they are extraordinarily hard to find in British politics.

By comparison to him, both sides of the continuing Brexit debate look small, mean and timid.

But it is all but impossible to call upon the man who once led the country down a deep, dark hole to try and save it from another, as has sometimes been mooted.

Chilcots comment doesnt really cast any new light on things. Most everyone who has followed this story will already have been aware that belief won with Blair. And those who still back his decision, in the face of all the evidence showing that it was a bad one? Their minds will never be changed. They too are motivated by a belief, one that has turned into a faith, just as it is faith that motivates Brexiteers.

Faith can be a dangerous thing if the certainty it confers on adherents is destructive.

Iraq proves that too. The pity of it is we are still prone to blindly follow zealots.

There was a brief moment when it looked like we had understood, or least when MPs showed that they might have understood.

Despite intense pressure being put upon them, they denied David Cameron when he asked for permission to bomb Syria in the wake of an appalling chemical attack that was almost certainly the work of the Assad regime.

Another Labour leader, Ed Miliband, speaking after the vote, said Britain had learned the lessons of Iraq.

It looks like he got that wrong.

Given the pit into which politics has descended of late, the shabby deal the Conservatives entered into with a party of faith-based sectarian zealots from Northern Ireland, Im not sure we will be able to trust Parliament to save us the next time it is tested.

Brexit is an act of economic and geopolitical stupidity, but despite the paranoid fantasies of some in the Brexit camp about EU armies with designs on forcing Britain into a superstate and yes there are people who actually think that no weapons will be drawn. No gun will be fired and no bomb will be dropped. Lets be thankful for that, at least.

However, there will come a time, and perhaps quite soon, when a Prime Minister calls for weapons to be raised and bombs to be dropped, based on the belief that it is the only way to solve some awful problem somewhere.

It will matter not that the facts show that violence only results in more violence, and solves nothing, particularly in the quagmire that is the Middle East.

Belief will win out. And people will die.

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We should have learned after Iraq but Brexit shows we are still willing to blindly follow politicians into disaster - The Independent

By Samia Nakhoul | ERBIL, Iraq

ERBIL, Iraq After almost nine months of fierce fighting, the campaign to recapture Mosulfrom Islamic State is drawing to a bitter end in the ruins of the city's historic quarter, but the struggle for Iraq's futureis far fromover.

Aside fromMosul, across the border inSyriaa battle is raging to dislodge IS from Raqqa, the second capital of its self-declared caliphate. Fighting will push down the Euphrates valley toDeir al-Zour, the jihadis last big urban stronghold.

But the fall of Mosul also exposes ethnic and sectarian fractures that have plagued Iraq for more than a decade.

The victory risks triggering new violence between Arabs and Kurds over disputed territories or between Sunnis and Shiites over claims to power, egged on by outside powers that have shaped Iraqs future since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Husseins Sunni minority-rule and brought the Iran-backed Shiite majority to power.

ForIraq, stunned by the blitz on Mosul by Islamic State in 2014 and the collapse of its army, victory could thus turn out to be as big a problem as defeat.

The federal model devised under the Anglo-American occupation and built on a power-sharing agreement between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds collapsed into ethno-sectarian carnage spawned by the al Qaeda precursors of Islamic State.

In the three years since the jihadis swept across the border fromSyria where they had regrouped in the chaos of the rebellion against Syrian President Bashar al-Assads rule, ISwas the rallying point uniting a fracturedIraq.

But now that the group faces military defeat, the unity that held Iraqtogether is starting to come apart.

NO POST-BATTLE PLAN

One challenge is the future ofMosulitself, a city traumatized by Islamic State's brutal rule and shattered by the latest U.S.-backed offensive, with thousands dead and nearly one million people displaced.

Western, Iraqi and Kurdish officials say they are astonished that Iraqi authorities neglected to prepare a post-battle plan for governance and security.

A high-level committee formed by the Kurdish region, the Baghdad government and a U.S.-led military coalition to help Mosul leaders rebuild the city had never convened, they said.

"Prime Minister (Haider) al-Abadi kept dragging his heels. Every time we raised this issue with him, he said, 'Lets wait until military operations are over'," said Hoshyar Zebari, an internationally respected former finance and foreign minister.

"A whole city is being decimated. Look how much the government is contributing, as if they dont care."

The first indication of possible future conflict came when Masoud Barzani, president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, announced a Sept. 25 referendum for an independent state.

Another omen was a push by Iran-backed Shi'ite militias, grouped under the government-run Hashid Shaabi, to deploy alongside Kurdish areas and advance towards the Syrian border, motivated byIran's desireto join Iraq and Syria and establish a corridor from Tehran to Beirut.

"Today the highway of resistance starts in Tehran and reaches Mosul, Damascus and Beirut," Ali Akbar Velayati, the top adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader, said last week.

JIHADI FIGHTERS

All this comes against a backdrop of simmering rivalries between regional powers Iran and Turkey, and above all declining U.S. influence and Irans vigorous attempts to consolidate its control in Iraq.

While theadministration of U.S.President Donald Trump regards Syria and Iraq purely in terms of the military campaign to destroy IS, local jihadi fighters will simply melt back into the population, and could regroup in a new insurgency.

Sunni and Kurdish leaders in and around Mosul largely agree with this grim prognosis, alarmed that Abadi has refused even to discuss the future governance of Mosul, and suspecting that Iran is calling the shots.

The disputed territories stretch along an ethnically mixed ribbon of land dividing the autonomous Kurdish area in the north of Iraq from the Arab-majority part in the south - more a minefield than a mosaic - at a time when both the Kurds and Sunni Arabs are giving up on Shiite rule in Baghdad.

Atheel al-Nujaifi, who was Nineveh governor when the provincial capital Mosul was captured in 2014, says: We are back to where we were before Mosul fell, (because) there is an idea among the hardline Shiite leadership to keep the liberated areas as loose areas, with no (local) political leadership, or security organizations, so they can control them.

Moderate Shiite leaders, among whom he counts Abadi, are wary of a winner-take-all logic of victory, fearing this could lead to the creation of radicalism again and they know this would destroy not only Iraq but the Shiites.

The problem, he believes, is that Iraqi Shiism is badly fractured, helpingIrancontrol almost all its factions.

The former governor, a Sunni who now has at his command an armed force trained byTurkey, says he is bowing out of office but not politics. He acknowledges there is a lack of mainstream Sunni leaders, but blamesBaghdadfor making sure none emerges.

WHITHER THE SUNNIS?

Talk of Kurdish secession has sparked discussion of whether Sunni Arabs should set up a separate state, though most officials say this is not practical, because: Sunni territory lacks the oil base the Shiites and Kurds have; the experience of Islamic State would hover like a specter over any new entity; and Sunnis are too intermingled across Iraq.

Some Sunni and Kurdish leaders believe one solution is to makeMosul a self-governing region like Kurdistan, with smaller units of self-rule to accommodate the plethora of minorities, which they say is permitted by the constitution.

Before, the Sunnis were very sensitive to believing (devolution) would lead to secession, to the breakup ofIraqbut now theyre coming to terms with it, says Zebari.

The Sunnis are not the only ones who repudiate Baghdad's Shiite-dominated government. The northern Kurdish region has called a referendum to move from autonomous self-rule to an independent state.

Kurdish leader Barzani told Reuters timing for independence after the vote was flexible but not open-ended.

Yet there is growing concern the real purpose of the referendum is not immediate secession, but to strengthen Kurdish claims over the disputed territories, such as the oil-rich region and city of Kirkuk, whose future has been in play for over a decade.

"WE LOST HOPE AND FAITH"

Zebari, a senior official in Barzanis Kurdish Democratic Party who devoted over a decade inBaghdadtrying to make power-sharing work, said the time was ripe for independence.

We lost hope and faith in the newIraqthat we had built. The government has failed us on each and every constitutional provision and article to establish a new country with equal citizenship, with no discrimination, with partnership. All those dreams have evaporated, he told Reuters.

The problem, he says, is that senior Iranian officials have left no doubt their priority a corridor for Shiite forces carved through the north and policed by Shi'ite recruits trumps everything else.

"They are breathing down our neck all along the Kurdish frontline from Sinjar to Khanaqin," he said.

"So far we have been accommodating, patient, coordinating to prevent skirmishes or flashes but this is building up."

(For a graphic on destruction in Mosul's old city, click tmsnrt.rs/2u0o515)

(Additional reporting and editing by Stephen Kalin)

HAMBURG The United States, Russia and Jordan have reached a ceasefire and "de-escalation agreement" in southwestern Syria, one of the combat zones in a six-year-old civil war, Washington and Moscow said on Friday.

HAMBURG U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Friday there would not be many good options left on North Korea if the peaceful pressure campaign the United States has been pushing to curb Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs failed.

The rest is here:
As Mosul battle ends, struggle over Iraq's future intensifies - Reuters

Eleven years ago, two Iraqi brothers stranded at a refugee camp in Jordan made a fateful choice they thought was really no choice at all.

Determined not to return to a country where they thought they would be killed, they obscured their relationship with a third brother, who was accused of terrorist ties, and ultimately linked to the kidnapping of a U.S. contractor and others in Iraq.

The brothers, with their wives and chidren, were allowed into the United States. And over the past decade, they built a life in Fairfax, Va., finding work and making friends, having picnics and visiting the zoo. Each brother has two children born in the United States.

Now, Yousif al-Mashhadani, 35, his brother, Adil Hasan, 39, and Hasans wife, Enas Ibrahim, 32, have been convicted in federal court in Alexandria on fraud charges. With all three at risk of deportation, friends and supporters say a good family is being torn apart and are pushing for them to be allowed to remain in the country.

Justice cries out for compassion in this case, Marie Monsen, who worked with the refugees as a church volunteer, wrote in a letter to the court.

Federal prosecutors said they pursued the cases in hopes of catching Majid al-Mashhadani, who the government believes was involved in the kidnapping and had been released from prison in Iraq after only a couple of years. But authorities have given no indication that the three refugees have provided useful information about the crime or Majids whereabouts.

Im not sure how it accomplished anything, Ibrahims attorney, Lana Manitta, said. I dont think theyre any closer to getting the answers they need.

[Iraqi refugees in Va. accused of hiding ties to a kidnapper to get into U.S.]

Judge Leonie M. Brinkema last month sentenced the brothers to only the three months they have spent in jail for their crimes, but acknowledged that they would be transferred immediately to immigration custody.

This is a tragic case, she said in court. But the law is what it is.

She questioned why Ibrahim, who has not yet been sentenced, was targeted at all. She was prosecuted in large part to give incentives for her husband and brother-in-law to give information on the kidnapping and torture of an American citizen, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg said in court.

He said she was also complicit in the decision to lie to a United Nations refugee agency.

The brothers and their families fled Iraq in 2006, when sectarian violence in the country was at its height. When the family arrived in Jordan, Ibrahim was pregnant with her first child. She and her sister Rashad, Yousif al-Mashhadanis wife, both had their first children at the refugee camp.

While pleading guilty, Hasan explained his fear of being sent back to Iraq.

I am Sunni, and I will be killed by the Sunnis because I was working in the Green Zone, he said. The Shiites will kill me because I am Sunni.

Both brothers had worked for a U.S.-supported anti-corruption agency in Iraq known at the time as the Commission on Public Integrity. Dozens of their co-workers were assassinated to keep investigations from coming to fruition.

In court, Hasan said he personally knew 56 people who had been killed. According to court filings, 65 members of the watchdog agency have been assassinated. Arthur Brennan, who worked on corruption in Iraq for the State Department in 2007, wrote to the judge that Iraqis connected to law enforcement at the time were in an extremely dangerous situation.

So, knowing their brother had been arrested and accused of involvement in terrorism, Hasan and Mashhadani hid their relationship. For good measure, they exaggerated the intensity of the threats they had faced for working with Americans in Baghdad. And when they filled out their U.S. naturalization forms, they did not correct the errors.

Hasan has pleaded guilty to naturalization fraud, Mashhadani to conspiracy to commit immigration fraud. Both agreed to cooperate with immigration authorities. Ibrahim admitted lying about her income to secure a car loan two years ago, a charge that does not automatically trigger deportation proceedings. The families declined to comment for this story.

While in Virginia, the families lived a spartan existence so they would not rely on charity for too long, Monsen recalled, although they always scrounged to serve volunteers huge home-cooked meals. They went on to help new refugees as they were helped, and neighbors say they were always willing to lend a tool or offer a ride.

Yousif and his family had very little during this trying time, but this never stopped their generosity, said Aaron Weiss, who met the family as a volunteer with the International Rescue Committee.

Ninos Youkhana, whose parents fled Iraq in the 1970s, met Hasan working at the Iraqi Embassy in Washington. Only weeks later, when she was having trouble with her roommate, Hasan and Ibrahim invited her to live with them.

For six months they housed her and cooked her meals, and not once did they ever ask for any financial reimbursement from me, she wrote in a letter to the court.

She said Hasan also helped fight an attempt to block Iraqi Christians abroad from voting in 2014 parliamentary elections.

When interviewed by FBI agents this year, Hasan described a life of fear in Iraq, telling them he was once shot at while driving to work and was detained for several hours by members of a Shiite militia.

But while in Jordan applying for refugee status, the brothers fabricated a far more elaborate tale in which Hasan was kidnapped for a month and their parents home was set on fire.

Although they have admitted those lies and expressed regret, both brothers maintain that they know nothing about the actions or whereabouts of Majid al-Mashhadani, who according to prosecutors had admitted his involvement in the 2004 kidnapping of an American contractor and four others.

A paper with Yousif al-Mashhadanis fingerprint on it was found in the farmhouse where the hostages were kept. However, there is no evidence the print was left during the kidnapping and he has not been charged in connection with that crime.

Another brother, according to court filings, listed Majid al-Mashhadani on his immigration papers and is now a U.S. citizen.

Roy Hallums, the contractor who was kidnapped and rescued 10 months later, was unable to see or understand his captors. But he is sure the brothers are lying now.

In the Middle East and in Iraq, everything is based on family, Hallums said. So I dont believe for one second that these guys didnt know what was going on.

Even if they didnt, immigration foes see justice being done.

Their first interaction with the U.S. government was to lie, said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that opposes most new immigration.

Until this March, the family would not have had to worry about being sent back to Iraq. Only in April, after years of refusal, did the Iraqi government agree to start cooperating with American deportation efforts.

But a federal judge in Detroit has temporarily halted those deportations in response to a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union arguing that it is too dangerous to deport people to the country .

Although it is unclear what will happen to the three refugees, in court last week Hasan spoke as if he was saying goodbye.

Thank you to the United States for hosting me for nine years, he said.

Before he was taken back to jail and then to immigration custody, he shook the hands of the prosecutors who had put him there.

Im really thankful, he said, and I love this country.

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These refugees lied to escape Iraq a decade ago. Now, the US might send them back. - Washington Post