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Positions and actions taken by Saudi Arabia and Iraq argue for an extension of the OPEC cut deal into the second half of the year. But will KSA agree to a rollover if its cut is being replaced by Iraq's production?

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said that OPEC would extend the cuts after they expire in June if oil stockpiles were "still above the five-year average." However, he said it was too early to know whether they would be down to that average by June.

Khalid al-Falih. Photo: Bloomberg.

Saudi Arabia will not allow itself to be used by others. My colleagues have heard that privately, and I am saying it publicly we will not bear the burden of 'free rides.'"

Mr. Al-Falih had said in a press conference in December, that KSA had limited its tanker nominations in-line with the agree-upon cuts. But U.S. import data show that crude oil from Saudi Arabia had jumped from the December baseline, and were significantly higher than a year ago. The data disprove what he said in December.

Furthermore, OPEC reported its production for February, and Saudi Arabia reported output at 10.011 million barrels per day, a gain of 263,000 b/d from January. The level was still in full compliance but underscored his recent message about not being used.

Although he said he did not know if the extension would be needed, data from OPEC and the Energy Department clearly show that OECD inventories will remain far above the 5-year averages, which are rising due to the persistence of high inventories.

Based on February production (as reported by the individual members), global demand and non-OPEC supply implies a "call" on OPEC oil. Assuming OPEC production continues at the February level as reported by members, global stocks would build by over 200 million barrels in the first half of 2017.

1Q

2Q

Demand

94.8

94.9

Non-OPEC

63.8

63.3

Call On OPEC

31

31.6

OPEC Prod

32.541

32.541

Stock Ch

1.541

0.941

Stock Ch

138.7

84.7

If the lower production level reported by secondary sources is used, inventories will still build by over 100 million barrels.

1Q

2Q

Demand

94.8

94.9

Non-OPEC

63.8

63.3

Call On OPEC

31

31.6

OPEC Prod

31.959

31.959

Stock Ch

0.959

0.359

Stock Ch

86.3

32.3

Projections by the U.S. Dept of Energy show that OECD stocks will build by 26 million barrels from December 2016 through the end of June. There is little doubt that an extension of the deal would be needed under the Saudi minister's criterion.

Finally, Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salmon met with President Trump last week. The "readout" from the meeting stated:

On energy, the two countries affirmed their desire to continue bilateral consultations in a way that enhances the growth of the global economy and limits supply disruption and market volatility."

I interpret this to mean that Saudi Arabia was agreeing not to push prices up much, if at all, with larger production cuts and supply disruption.

Iraq

In the months leading up to OPEC's "Vienna Agreement," Iraq's oil minister was quite blunt. Iraq's new oil minister, Jabar Ali al-Luaibi, had said, in effect, it is willing to play along but will not actually restrain production.

Iraqi Oil Minister Jabar Ali al-Luaibi. Iraqi News File Photo.

The ministry has new ambitious plans to develop the oil sector Among them, the most important is to increase crude output to reach a level that suits Iraq's needs; we don't want to specify a ceiling for future production like in the pastIraq is seeking to play an active role in order to support oil prices while preserving a share that is proportionate to its reserves."

Meanwhile, a senior government official close to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told Reuters:

OPEC must submit to the fact that Iraq must stay away from any possible output cut deal because the country is in the middle of a tough war and every single dollar is needed to keep it standing on its feet."

Falah al-Amri, Iraq's OPEC governor and head of the country's state marketer SOMO, was even more direct in saying that Iraq would not cut production, "Not for OPEC, not for anybody else."

Oil majors BP (NYSE:BP), Shell (NYSE:RDS.A) (NYSE:RDS.B) and Lukoil (OTCPK:LUKOY) have agreed to resume investments in oil fields the foreign groups are developing, which was expected to raise the country's crude output by 250,000-350,000 barrels per day in early 2017, Reuters reported. Iraq's oil minister Jabar Ali al-Luaibi pledged to work "day and night on increasing the national production of oil and gas."

According to the OPEC agreement, Iraq is required to cut 210,000 b/d from its October output levels, according to the table, for a quota of 4.351 million b/d. Iraq reported that its production averaged 4.6 million barrels a day over the first two months.

In a press statement issued on Thursday, Iraqi Ministry of Oil spokesman, Assem Jihad, said that the daily average national crude oil production in all oil fields in Iraq reached 4.665 million barrels per day. He confirmed that Iraq is committed to cutting national crude oil production in line with OPEC's agreement to support oil prices and take control over the abundance of oil supply in the global markets. With the agreement almost half over, Iraq is proving that it will comply verbally with the agreement, but it will not cut its production for OPEC.

Data on U.S. crude imports from Iraq show that it is picking up market share. Imports in the year-to-date are up 230% v. the same weeks in 2016.

In what may be a red herring, the Iraqi oil minister said the OPEC deal was based on exports and not production totals. "This time, for the first time, OPEC implied that production should be separate from export and their baseline is exports not production."

The agreement clearly states production, not exports. "All countries -- export," Luaibi said when asked whether only Iraq was required to reduce exports, not production, under the deal. "It's export."

He went on to state that production was on an upward trajectory, and by the end of this year "definitely we are going to reach the level of 5 million b/d." The latest addition to Iraq's production came from the Badra oil field, which is operated by Russia's Gazprom Neft. The company commissioned three new production wells earlier this month.

Iraq's long-term ambition is to double production to Saudi's level. Iraq recently awarded seven contracts to increase its production by over 4.7 million barrels per day (mmbd) in the years ahead. Lukoil, the largest oil firm in Russia, signed a deal to develop one of the world's largest untapped oil fields, the West Qurna-2 reservoir. Norway's Statoil (NYSE:STO) will share in the project. "We can announce that Lukoil has won the contract to develop the West Qurna-2 oilfield," Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani said. The projected output for the field is 1.8 mmbd.

The equally large Majnoon field was auctioned to Shell and Petronas (OTC:PNADF). In total, seven deals were signed in a two-day auction process.

Conclusions

Global inventories will not be much closer to their 5-year average by the May OPEC meeting. Therefore, I believe the Saudis will want to extend it for the full year.

However, with Iraq only complying verbally, it is questionable whether the Saudis will tolerate their non-compliance. They may "torture" them by increasing their own production. It will be a tough call for the Saudis to make if Iraq is effectively offsetting their production cut.

If Iraq does increase its production to 5 million barrels per day, instead of decreasing it by the 210,000 b/d it had agreed to, OPEC's production cut would be reduced by about 650,000 b/d, to about 500,000 b/d. And that cut could even be offset by rising production in Libya and Nigeria.

Finally, the non-OPEC production cut of about 400,000 b/d (less than the 600,000 b/d cut agreed upon) may be replaced with American shale production by the end of 2017. And it may happen more quickly than that because the Dakota Access Pipeline is expected to be "fully line-packed and ready to go" prior to 1 June.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Link:
Saudi Arabia And Iraq On A Collision Course In OPEC Deal Extension - Seeking Alpha

(Beirut) The Iraqi parliament should set penalties for the crime of domestic violence, remove provisions that prioritize reconciliation over justice, and improve victim protections in a domestic violence bill, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter and memorandum to the speaker of parliament.

Parliament is completing its review of the draft Anti-Domestic Violence Law, which was introduced in 2015. Parliament should make key amendments and then urgently approve the bill.

Demonstrators in Baghdad call International Women's Day a day of mourningin protest of Iraq's new draft Jaafari Personal Status Law, which would restrict women's rights in matters of inheritance, parental and other rights after divorce, make it easier for men to take multiple wives, and allow girls to be married from age 9. March 8, 2014. In March 2016, the Iraqi government told a UN treaty body that the draft Jaafari law has been withdrawn and the Iraqi Government has no plans to resubmit it, let alone adopt it.

2014 Iraqi al-Amal Association

A strong domestic violence law could help save Iraqi womens lives, said Rothna Begum, Middle East womens rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. The Iraqi parliament should make sure the final bill includes essential provisions to prevent domestic violence, protect survivors, and prosecute the abusers.

Domestic violence is a global phenomenon and remains a serious problem in Iraq. The Iraq Family Health Survey (IFHS) 2006/7 found that one in five Iraqi women are subject to physical domestic violence. A 2012 Ministry of Planning study found that at least 36 percent of married women reported experiencing some form of psychological abuse from their husbands, 23 percent reported verbal abuse, 6 percent reported physical violence, and 9 percent reported sexual violence. While more recent national studies are not available, womens rights organizations continue to report a high rate of domestic violence.

The strengths of the draft bill include provisions for services for domestic violence survivors, protection orders (restraining orders) and penalties for their breach, and the establishment of a cross-ministerial committee to combat domestic violence. However, the memorandum identifies several gaps and approaches in the bill that would undermine its effectiveness.

Middle East womens rights researcher

The draft law calls for the parties to be referred to family reconciliation committees and for prosecutions of abusers to be dropped if reconciliation is reached. But women in Iraq are often under tremendous social and economic pressure to prioritize the family unit over their own protection from violence. United Nations guidance provides that mediation should be prohibited in all cases of violence against women and at all stages of legal proceedings because mediation removes cases from judicial scrutiny. Promoting such reconciliation incorrectly presumes that both parties have equal bargaining power, reflects an assumption that both parties may be equally at fault for violence, and reduces accountability for the offender.

By promoting family reconciliation as an alternative to justice, the draft law undermines protection for domestic violence survivors, Begum said. The government should send a message that beating up your wife wont be treated leniently through mediation sessions, but instead be regarded as a crime.

While the draft law defines domestic violence as a crime, it fails to set penalties. It also does not repeal provisions in the Iraqi Penal Code that condone domestic violence. These include provisions that husbands have a right to punish their wives and that parents can discipline their children. Those responsible for honor violence or killings can benefit from reduced sentences as the Penal Code provides for mitigated sentences for violent acts including murder for so-called honourable motives or if a man catches his wife or female relative in the act of adultery or sex outside of marriage.

Other recommended changes include:

The bill provides for the establishment of government shelters, but it should require coordination with local womens rights organizations on the administration, training, and operation of such shelters, and permit privately run shelters for survivors of domestic violence. This is particularly important given that womens rights nongovernmental organizations, which have provided such shelters, have often been subject to physical attack and threats by offenders and have faced hostility by some government officials, Human Rights Watch said.

Womens rights groups in Iraq have campaigned for years for legislation on domestic violence. The Iraqi constitution expressly prohibits all forms of violence and abuse in the family. But only the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has a law on domestic violence. Iraqs Anti-Violence against Women Strategy (2013-2017), and the National Strategy on Advancement of Women in Iraq, adopted in 2014, call for legislation on domestic violence/violence against women.

Iraq has international human rights obligations to prevent and respond to these abuses. Several international treaty bodies, including the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which oversees the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) treaty, have called for states parties to pass violence against women legislation. Iraq ratified the treaty in 1986.

Some members of parliament have voiced concerns that the bill might be against Islamic principles. However, womens rights organizations and some parliament members met in February 2017, with prominent clerics in Najaf, south of Baghdad, the capital, and found that they had no objections to the bill. Moreover, most Muslim-majority countries outside of the Middle East and North Africa region have adopted such legislation.

In recent years, several countries and autonomous regions in the Middle East and North Africa have also introduced some form of domestic violence legislation or regulation, including Algeria, Bahrain, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. These laws vary in the degree to which they comply with international standards. Several other countries, including Morocco and Tunisia, are considering draft legislation on domestic violence.

Iraq should ensure that its legislation on domestic violence is in line with international standards, as a model for the region, Begum said.

Read more here:
Iraq: Strengthen Domestic Violence Bill - Human Rights Watch

By Abdelaziz Boumzar | MOSUL, Iraq

MOSUL, Iraq Thousands of Iraqis surged out of western Mosul on Saturday during a lull in heavy fighting in districts around the densely populated Old City where Iraqi forces are facing fierce resistance from Islamic State militants.

Five months into the battle to take Islamic State's last bastion in Iraq, government forces have cleared the east and half of western Mosul, and are now focused on controlling the Old City as well as the strategic al-Nuri Mosque.

As fighting has entered into the narrow alleyways and densely populated parts of the west, more residents are fleeing liberated areas where food and water are scarce, security fragile and where homes are often caught in shelling.

"We have been trapped for 25 days. No water, no food, everyone will die and they will have to pull us from the rubble," said one resident of Bab Jdid district, not giving his name because relatives remained inside Mosul.

Families with elderly relatives and children marched through western Mosul's muddy streets, past buildings pock-marked by bullet and bombs. Some said they had hardly eaten in weeks, scrambling for supplies handed out by a local aid agency.

"It is terrible, Islamic State have destroyed us. There is no food, no bread. There is absolutely nothing," said another resident.

As many as 600,000 civilians may be caught inside the city with the militants.

Iraqi forces cut off Mosul from the remaining territory that Islamic State controls in Iraq and Syria. But even in liberated areas, many prefer to leave the city amid heavy fighting.

Around 255,000 people have been displaced from Mosul and surrounding areas since October, including more than 100,000 since the latest military campaign in western Mosul began on Feb. 19, according to United Nations figures.

The last week has seen the highest level of displacement yet, with 32,000 displaced between March 12 and 15.

Heavy rains and clouds this week restricted air cover and helicopters, slowing the advance of Federal Police and Rapid Response forces who are consolidating positions around the Old City and the al-Nuri Mosque.

"The weather is cloudy and rainy but our forces are advancing toward their targets," Federal Police Major General Haider Dhirgham told reporters at the forward base inside Mosul. "In a few steps and strikes we will reach the Nuri mosque."

As militants retreat into the confined streets of the Old City, Islamic State has been resisting with snipers, mortars and the armored suicide car bombs that plow into army positions.

The fall of Mosul would be a significant blow to Islamic State, whose leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi used the al-Nuri mosque to declare a self-proclaimed caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria in 2014.

U.S. officials have estimated that around 2,000 fighters remain inside the city. But even after the liberation of Mosul, there are risks that militants will return to the kind of guerrilla warfare and bombings they have used in the past.

(Click here for a graphic on 'Battle for Mosul' here)

(Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Julia Glover)

BERLIN German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday rejected U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that Germany owes NATO and the United States "vast sums" of money for defense.

MANILA Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday welcomed the prospect of the International Criminal Court (ICC) putting him on trial over his bloody war on drugs, saying he would not be intimidated and his campaign would be unrelenting and "brutal".

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan Three U.S. troops were wounded on Sunday after an Afghan soldier opened fire on them at a base in the southern province of Helmand, the NATO-led Resolute Support mission said.

Excerpt from:
Thousands flee Iraq's Mosul as battle edges into Old City - Reuters

If you want to know where President Donald Trump came from, if you want to trace the long winding road (orescalator) that brought him to the Oval Office, dont look to reality TV or Twitter or even the rise of the alt-right. Look someplace far more improbable: Iraq.

Donald Trump may have been born in New York City. He may have grown to manhood amid his hometowns real estate wars. He may have gone no further than Atlantic City, New Jersey, to casino-ize the world and create those magical golden letters that would become the essence of his brand. He may have made an even more magical leap to television without leaving home, turning Youre fired! into a household phrase. Still, his presidency is another matter entirely. Its an immigrant. It arrived, fully radicalized, with its bouffant over-comb and eternal tan, from Iraq.

Despite hisdenialsthat he was ever in favor of the 2003 invasion of that country, Donald Trump is a president made by war. His elevation to the highest office in the land is inconceivable without that invasion, which began in glory and ended (if ended it ever did) in infamy. Hes the president of a land remade by war in ways its people have yet to absorb. Admittedly, he avoided war in his personal life entirely. He was, after all, a Vietnamno-show. And yet hes the president that war brought home. Think of him not as President Blowhard but as President Blowback.

Go Massive. Sweep It All Up

To grasp this, a little escalator ride down memory lane is necessary all the way back to 9/11; to, that is, the grimmest day in our recent history. Theres no other way to recall just how gloriously it all began than amid the rubble. You could, if you wanted, choose the moment three days after the World Trade Center towers collapsed when, bullhorn in hand, President George W. Bush ascended part of that rubble pile in downtown Manhattan, put his arm around a firefighter, andshoutedinto a bullhorn, I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.

If I were to pick the genesis of Donald Trumps presidency, however, I think I would choose an even earlier moment at a Pentagon partially in ruins thanks to hijacked American Airlines flight 77. There, only five hours after the attack, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, already aware that the destruction around him was probably Osama bin Ladens responsibility, ordered his aides (according to notes one of them took) to begin planning for a retaliatory strike against yes, Saddam Husseins Iraq. Hisexact words: Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not. And swept almost instantly into the giant dust bin of what would become the Global War on Terror (or GWOT), as ordered, would be something completely unrelated to 9/11 (not that the Bush administration ever admitted that). It was, however, intimately related to the deepest dreams of the men (andwoman) who oversaw foreign policy in the Bush years: the elimination of Iraqs autocratic ruler, Saddam Hussein.

Yes, there was bin Laden to deal with and the Taliban and Afghanistan, too, but that was small change, almost instantly taken care of with some air power, CIA dollarsdeliveredto Afghan warlords, and a modest number of American troops. Within months, Afghanistan had been liberated, bin Laden had fled the country, the Taliban hadlaid downtheir arms, and that was that. (Who in Washington then imagined that 15 years later a new administration would be dealing with arequestfrom the12thU.S. military commander in that country for yet more troops to shore up a failing war there?)

Within months, in other words, the decks were clear to pursue what George W. Bush, Dick Cheney & Co. saw as their destiny, as the key to Americas future imperial glory: the taking down of the Iraqi dictator. That, as Rumsfeld indicated at the Pentagon that day, was always where they were truly focused. It was what some of them haddreamed ofsince the moment, in the first Gulf War of 1990-1991, when President George H.W. Bush stopped the troops short of a march on Baghdad and left Hussein, Americas former ally and laterHitleriannemesis, in power.

The invasion of March 2003 was, they had no doubt, to be an unforgettable moment in Americas history as a global power (as it would indeed turn out to be, even if not in the way they imagined). The U.S. military that George W. Bush wouldcallthe greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known was slated to liberate Iraq via a miraculous, high-tech,shock-and-awecampaign that the world would never forget. This time, unlike in 1991, its troops would enter Baghdad, Saddam would go down in flames, and it would all happen without the help of the militaries of28other countries.

It would instead be an act of imperial loneliness befitting the last superpower on planet Earth. The Iraqis would, of course, greet us as liberators and we would set up a long-termgarrison statein the oil heartlands of the Middle East. At the moment the invasion was launched, in fact, the Pentagon already hadplanson the drawing boards for the building of four permanent U.S. mega-bases (initially endearingly labeled enduring camps) in Iraq on which thousands of U.S. troops could hunker down for an eternity. At the peak of the occupation, there would bemore than 500bases, ranging from tiny combat outposts to ones the size ofsmall American towns many transformed after 2011 into theghost townsof a dream gone mad until a few were recentlyreoccupiedby U.S. troops in the battle against the Islamic State.

In the wake of the friendly occupation of now-democratic (and grateful) Iraq, the hostile Syria of the al-Assad family would naturally be between a hammer and an anvil (American-garrisoned Iraq and Israel), while the fundamentalist Iranian regime, after more than two decades of implacable anti-American hostility, would be done for. The neoconquipof that moment was: Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran. Soon enough it was inevitable Washington would dominate the Greater Middle East from Pakistan to North Africa in a way no great power ever had. It would be the beginning of aPax Americanamoment on planet Earth that would stretch on for generations to come.

Such was the dream. You, of course, remember the reality, the one that led to a looted capital; Saddams armytossed outon the streets jobless to join the uprisings to come; a bitter set of insurgencies (Sunni and Shia); civil war (and localethnic cleansing); a society-wide reconstruction program overseen by Americanwarrior corporationslinked to the Pentagon thatresultedin vastboondoggle projectsthat achieved little and reconstructed nothing; prisons from hell (includingAbu Ghraib) thatbredyet more insurgents; and finally, years down the line, the Islamic State and the present version of American war, now taking place in Syria as well as Iraq and slated to ramp up further in the early days of the Trump era.

Meanwhile, as our new presidentreminded usrecently in aspeechto Congress, literallytrillions of dollarsthat might have been spent on actual American security (broadly understood) were squandered on a failed military project that left this countrys infrastructure indisarray. All in all, it was quite a record. Thought of a certain way, in return for the destruction of part of the Pentagon and a section of downtown Manhattan that was turned to rubble, the U.S. would set off a series of wars, conflicts, insurgencies, and burgeoning terror movements that would transform significant parts of the Greater Middle East intofailedor failing states, and their cities and towns, startling numbers of them, into so muchrubble.

Once upon a time, all of this seemed so distant to Americans in a Global War on Terror in which President Bush quickly urged citizens to show their patriotism not by sacrificing or mobilizing or even joining the military, but byvisitingDisney World and reestablishing patterns of pre-9/11 consumption as if nothing had happened. (Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed.) And indeed, personal consumption wouldrise significantlythat October 2001. The other side of the glory-to-come in those years of remarkable peace in the United States was to be the passivity of a demobilized populace that (except for periodicthank-yousto its military) would have next to nothing to do with distant wars, which were to be left to the pros, even if fought to victory in their name.

That, of course, was the dream. Reality proved to be another matter entirely.

Invading America

In the end, a victory-less permanent war across the Greater Middle East did indeed come home. There was all the new hardware of war thestingrays, theMRAPs, thedrones, and so on that began migrating homewards, and that was the least of it. There was themilitarizationof Americas police forces, not to speak of the rise of the national security state to the status of an unofficialfourth branchof government. Home, too, came the post-9/11 fears, the vague but unnerving sense that somewhere in the world strange and incomprehensible aliens practicing an eerie religion were out to get us, that some of them had near-super powers that even the worlds greatest military couldnt crush, and that their potential acts of terror were Topekas greatest danger. (It mattered little that actual Islamic terror was perhapsthe leastof the dangers Americans faced in their daily lives.)

All of this reached its crescendo (at least thus far) in Donald Trump. Think of the Trump phenomenon, in its own strange way, as the culmination of the invasion of 2003 brought homebigly. His would be a shock-and-awe election campaign in which he would decapitate his rivals one by one. The New York real estate, hotel, and casino magnate who had long swumcomfortablyin thewatersof the liberal elite when he needed to and had next to nothing to do with Americas heartland would be as alien to its inhabitants as the U.S. military was to Iraqis when it invaded. And yet he would indeed launch his own invasion of that heartland on his private jet with itsgold-platedbathroom fixtures, sweeping up all the fears that had been gathering in this country since 9/11 (nurtured by both politicians and national security state officials for their own benefit). And those fears would ring a bell so loud in that heartland that it would sweep him into the White House. In November 2016, he took Baghdad, USA, in high style.

In this context, lets think for a moment about how strangely the invasion of Iraq, in some pretzeled form, blew back on America.

Like the neocons of the Bush administration, Donald Trump had long dreamed of his moment of imperial glory, and as in Afghanistan and again in Iraq in 2001 and 2003, when it arrived on November 8, 2016, it couldnt have seemed more glorious. We know of those dreams of his because, for one thing, only six days after Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama in the 2012 election campaign, The Donald firsttried to trademarkthe old Reagan-inspired slogan, Make America great again.

Like George W. and Dick Cheney, he was intent on invading and occupying the oil heartlands of the planet which, in 2003, had indeed been Iraq. By 2015-2016, however, the U.S. had entered the energy heartlands sweepstakes, thanks to fracking and other advanced methods of extracting fossil fuels that seemed to be turning the country into Saudi America. Add to this Trumps plans to furtherfossil-fuelizethe continent and you certainly have a competitor to the Middle East. In a sense, you might say, adapting his description of what he would have preferred to do in Iraq, that Donald Trump wants to keep our oil.

Like the U.S. military in 2003, he, too, arrived on the scene with plans to turn his country of choice into a garrison state. Almost thefirst wordsout of his mouth on riding that escalator into the presidential race in June 2015 involved a promise to protect Americans from Mexican rapists by building an unforgettably impregnable great wall on the countrys southern border. From this he never varied even when, in funding terms, it became apparent that, from the Coast Guard to airport security to theFederal Emergency Management Agency, as president he would becuttingintogenuine securitymeasures to build his big, fat, beautiful wall.

Its clear, however, that his urge to create a garrison state went far beyond a literal wall. It included thebuild-upof the U.S. military tounprecedented heights, as well as the bolstering of the regular police, and above all of theborder police. Beyond that lay the urge to wall Americans off in every way possible. His fervently publicized immigration policies (less new, in reality, than they seemed) should be thought of as part of a project to construct another kind of great wall, a conceptual one whose message to the rest of the world was striking: You are not welcome or wanted here. Dont come. Dont visit.

All this was, in turn, fused at the hip to the many irrational fears that had been gathering like storm clouds for so many years, and that Trump (and his alt-right companions) swept into the already looted heartland of the country. In the process, he loosed a brand of hate (includingshootings,mosque burnings, a raft ofbomb threats, and arisein hate groups, especially anti-Muslim ones) that, historically speaking, was all-American, but was nonetheless striking in its intensity in our present moment.

Combined with his highly publicized Muslimbans andprominently publicizedacts of hate, the Trump walling-in of America quickly hit home. A drop in foreigners who wanted to visit this country was almost instantly apparent as thewarning signsof a tourism Trump slump registered, business travel bookings took an instant$185 millionhit, and the travel industry predicted worse to come.

This is evidently what America First actually means: a country walled off and walled in. Think of the road traveled from 2003 to 2017 as being from sole global superpower to potential super-pariah. Thought of another way, Donald Trump is giving the hubristic imperial isolation of the invasion of Iraq a new meaning here in the homeland.

And dont forget reconstruction, as it was called after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In relation to the United States, the bedraggled land now in question whose infrastructure recently was given aD+ gradeon a report card issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers, Donald Trump promises a trillion-dollar infrastructure program to rebuild Americas highways, tunnels, bridges, airports, and the like. If it actually comes about, count on one thing: it will be handed over to some of the same warrior corporations that reconstructed Iraq (and other corporate entities like them), functionally guaranteeing an American version of thebudget-draining boondogglethat was Iraq.

As with that invasion in the spring of 2003, in 2017 we are still in the (relative) sunshine days of the Trump era. But as in Iraq, so here 14 years later, the first cracks are already appearing, as this country grows increasingly riven. (Think Sunni vs. Shia.)

And one more thing as you consider the future: the blowback wars out of which Donald Trump and the present fear-gripped garrison state of America arose have never ended. In fact, just as under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, so under Donald Trump, it seems they never will. Already the Trump administration is revving up American military power inYemen,Syria, and potentiallyAfghanistan. So whatever the blowback may have been, youve only seen its beginning. Its bound to last for years to come.

Theres just one phrase that could adequately sum all this up:Mission accomplished!

See the article here:
President blowback and the Iraq connection - Salon

Brian Mancini with his service dog Romeo.(Photo: Family Photo)

His death certificate will read that Brian Scott Mancini, 38, passed away earlier this month in Arizona.

That would be accurate, but it is not true.

The record will state that Mancini died by his own hand.

This, too, would be factual, but it is not correct.

The truth is, Sgt. 1st Class Brian Mancini was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2007.

Back then he was a combat medic with the army serving his second tour in the war zone. Hed saved a number of lives. Hed seen a lot, been through a lot.

When his unit was ambushed Mancini was among the most seriously wounded.

Years later he told a reporter, I knew my face had been hit really bad. I was peeling my glasses away from my face. I was choking on my blood and teeth. I reached in with my fingers and did a finger sweep, and took my teeth out. I remember I opened my airway as much as I could.

He lost an eye. There were severe facial injuries. Severe skull and brain injuries. The surgeries and rehabilitation would go on for years.

Mancini contemplated suicide, but he fought through it.

His marriage fell apart. He struggled to readjust. But after his medical discharge in 2011 he found a calling in helping other vets, just as hed helped wounded soldiers in the field.

He founded an organization called Honor House, which assists veterans like him.

Mancini learned firsthand that wounds mended are not necessarily healed, and that unseen injuries are just as deadly.

He was the kind of boy who always wanted to help, said his mother, Jackie Williams. When he was four or five we saw a bad traffic accident. He said to me, Mama, weve got to pray for those people. Weve got to pray for those people. Thats how he was loving a gentle soul before everything

For a 2014 article on problems at the Veterans Administration Mancini told The Arizona Republics Dennis Wagner, "There was a really dark period of my life when I literally just lay on the floor in my house crying I just was really frustrated with the lack of care. I felt betrayed All they wanted to do was throw a lot of drugs at me, and those were having an adverse effect. They had me on 12 medications at one point. ... I finally said, 'You know what? I'm done.'

He persevered. He got a therapy dog named Romeo. He took up fly fishing. He worked with fellow vets.

But his injuries, physical and otherwise, were severe. And recently they caught up with him.

I feel like we lost him in the past four or five weeks, Mancinis mother told me. That strong young man was gone. He was in such physical pain.

Mancinis war injuries and other complications worsened.

It was just too much for him, Jackie said. Too much pain. Too much.

She paused and added, Brian was always broke. Always using his money to help others. One of the last things he did was write a check -- pretty much emptying his bank account -- to his church.

News of Mancinis death drew phone calls, letters and emails from all over the country.

We have a letter from a woman he served with and a photo of her baby, Mancinis aunt Donna Winston said. She says in it that without Brian she wouldnt be here.

Many of those who served with Mancini (called Doc in the army) have contacted the family or left messages.

One reads: Doc - your entire Battalion misses you; thanks for taking care of so many Black Lions on the battlefield - you are a hero to so many. You lived the Warrior Ethos and Never Left A Fallen Comrade - Black Lions.

A scholarship fund at the Maricopa County Community College District has been set up in Brians name. Its called the Sergeant First Class Brian Mancini Memorial Fund.

Too many of these young veterans are dying, Mancinis mom said. Weve got to help them more. Weve got to do more for them.

We forget about them. They can be hard to deal with. So we move on. We forget what theyve sacrificed for us. We hardly notice when another one, like Brian, is lost.

We mistakenly call it a civilian death when it is a combat death.

Sgt. 1st Class Brian Mancini is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona on Cave Creek Road. He served over a decade in the military. He received two Purple Hearts, the Combat Action Badge, Combat Medical Badge, Air Assault Badge and Flight Medic Badge.

Brians father, William Mancini, left a brief note on an online memorial guest book for his son. He wrote:

When I was a young man I went to hear a speaker. He said I want to be everything my father wasn't and I want my kids to be everything I can't. My son Brian became that man. My heart is broken. I've never been so sad. My hero, my son, my friend is gone.

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Montini: Hero who 'died' in Iraq, passes away here - AZCentral.com