Bright sunshine with a wisp of a cool breeze this afternoon here on California’s north coast — another weekend in store.
As a retiree, I’ve come to appreciate the work week way-more than the next couple of days, and how a certain sense can maybe make no sense.

So be it crazy (via antiwar.com): ‘At least 4,811 people were killed in Iraq during April, and 1,358 were wounded. Of those 168 were killed in the last day or so.’

And the carnage reported is most-likely under-valued: ‘These should be considered low estimates.’

(Illustration: Ghassan Ghaib’s ‘My Shadow on Paper,’ found here).

Iraq from all indications is getting ready to collapse, and what that means to the Mid-East as a whole furnace, instead of several small ovens, is not good for anybody. The country is in a clusterfuck meltdown, an internal war of nasty parts, a shaky, corrupt government with an useless army, the blood-feud of Sunnis vs Shi’ites, and the seemingly continuing barbarous onslaught of the ISIS, who have taken over large parts of the north and west regions.
In the last year, those displaced by all that violent shit has quadrupled; shows no signs of decreasing, now with about 2.7 million displaced people inside Iraq. Just in the past two weeks, 110,000 people have fled western Anbar province.
Other than that…cruel deceit.
Via CBS News: ‘Iraq’s Sunnis fleeing the fighting in western Anbar province have provided a cover for Islamic State militants to carry out a wave of bombings that struck Baghdad, political and security officials in the Iraqi capital claimed on Friday.’

All this since yesterday, when Jean-Louis de Brouwer, European Union’s humanitarian aid department, had way-warned everybody Iraq is about to go to shit in a wire basket (via ABC News):

“The worst is still to come,” he said.
“The situation is deteriorating, humanitarian aid is becoming even more essential than it was, the problem is funding.”
…
“This is quite a matter for concern as the needs are skyrocketing and the resources are not increasing,” said de Brouwer.
“I’m afraid there is also — not donor fatigue — but donor exhaustion.”

As Iraq falls apart, another familiar voice echoes the real source of the country’s troubles — the US invasion. Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was in Moscow this week with the Elders, a group of prominent public figures, which calls itself “an independent group of global leaders who work together for peace and human rights.”
Founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007, the Elders include Jimmy Carter, former conflict mediator and UN diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, the first woman prime minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtlandand, Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico, and Annan, the group’s current chair.
In an interview at RT Annan continued to discuss the reality of the Iraqi war:

“You cannot disassociate the situation in Iraq today from the US intervention of 2003. Because not only did the intervention take place, but they dismantled the Iraqi Army, which was the tool of Saddam to maintain law and order,” Annan said in Oksana Boyko’s Worlds Apart show.
“The civil service, the Baathist Party were all [dismantled].
“So the structures and state institutions vanished overnight, creating a very serious vacuum, which has led to where we are today. So I don’t think anybody can argue with that.
“The link is clear,” he added.

Annan was clear, too, in September 2004 (via the Guardian):

In an interview with the BBC World Service broadcast last night, he was asked outright if the war was illegal.
He replied: “Yes, if you wish.”
He then added unequivocally: “I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view and from the charter point of view it was illegal.”

And another installment in the bushwhacking of Iraq…