Yes Firedoglake swamp dweller Spencer Ackerman is swallowing whole the absurd assertions of NY Times reporter Alissa J. Rubin who claims the election of Barack Obama has “already shifted the political ground” in Iraq?

ATTACKERMAN » The Sky Will Open Up

Barely a week ago, the Iraqi government was refusing to sign a status of forces agreement with the U.S. military, despite the agreement’s guarantee of a full-scale troop withdrawal by 2011. Prominent Iraqi dignitaries were talking about scrapping the document entirely and securing another 12-month United Nations mandate for the occupation. The discussion bogged down so much that Gen. Ray Odierno, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, practically threatened to take his toys and go home.

Then, on Tuesday, Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. And lo, the waters have parted. Reports the New York Times:

Just a few facts:

• Hadi al-Ameri as leader of the Badr Organization, had a very close ties to the Iranian leadership, and in particular the Islamic Revolutionary Guards which was responsible for training the Badr Brigade during Saddam Hussein’s rule.

While al-Ameri was for the ousting of Saddam Hussein, he is no friend or fan of democracy or the U.S., he is a radical Shiite who believes his role is to help bring a just global caliphate into being.

And where is al-Ameri’s home office?

• SCIRI has secret cells all over Iraq which are involved in gathering information, media work and military activities. The head office of SCIRI is based in Iran among the largest Iraqi community outside Iraq temperarely estimated at one million Iraqis. SCIRI has main offices in different parts of the liberated areas of Iraqi Kurdistan.

So it makes perfect sense for the NY Times and Firedoglake to embrace Hadi al-Ameri and for al-Ameri to support Obama.

Obama Victory Alters the Tenor of Iraqi Politics - NYTimes.com

Barack Obama may have been elected only three days ago, but his victory is already beginning to shift the political ground in Iraq and the region.

Iraqi Shiite politicians are indicating that they will move faster toward a new security agreement about American troops, and a Bush administration official said he believed that Iraqis could ratify the agreement as early as the middle of this month.

“Before, the Iraqis were thinking that if they sign the pact, there will be no respect for the schedule of troop withdrawal by Dec. 31, 2011,” said Hadi al-Ameri, a powerful member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a major Shiite party. “If Republicans were still there, there would be no respect for this timetable. This is a positive step to have the same theory about the timetable as Mr. Obama.”

Alissa J. Rubin is the same hack who spit on the graves of three murdered Service Members by trying to tie them to the rape of a 14 year old Iraqi girl.

Iraqi Court Sentences Man to Die for Killing 3 G.I.’s - NYTimes.com

Specialist David Babineau, 25, Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Pfc. Thomas Tucker, 25, of the First Battalion, 502nd Infantry of the 101st Airborne Division, were attacked by insurgents as they sat in their Humvee under a bridge near the Euphrates River.

The attack was one chapter in a brutal history of this army unit. Just four months earlier, American soldiers from the same unit raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and then killed her, her parents and sister, burning the bodies afterward.

Four soldiers were convicted and sentenced in the rape case and a fifth soldier was discharged from the military. A sixth had already left the military when the others were court-martialed; he is scheduled to be tried in federal court.

None of the soldiers captured and killed on June 16 were among those implicated in the rape and murder case.

Get that…”None of the soldiers captured and killed on June 16 were among those implicated in the rape and murder case” but NY Times fabulist figured it would make for good U.S. Troop smearing if she wove it into her screed.

Somehow I don’t think Ms. Rubin is remotely capable of producing a factual unbiased story when it comes to Iraq and U.S.Troop events.

A little more on al-Ameri and his ties to Iran and The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution

The relationship between the SCIRI the IRCG (the mullahs who control Iran) has persisted and deepened recently. For example, the main Badr Corps training center, located just west of the Vahdati Air Force base in Dezful, and most of its other facilities in Western Iran and Tehran are located on IRGC property. Today, the Badr Corps is believed to have between 10,000-15,000 militia fighters. They are used by the current government in Iraq to terrorize Sunnis into submission.

Here’s the best part, Spencer Ackerman, who now praises al-Ameri and his support for Obama had no problem revealing al-Ameri for what he is when it suited his America bashing storyline at Talking Points Memo last year:

It’s appropriate to treat this report with skepticism. Hadi al-Ameri is a ruthless militia commander, and SCIRI has long and deep ties to Iran, so it’s hardly surprising that al-Ameri would seek to exonerate his sponsors.

Unbelievable.

obama, nutroots, ny times, iraq, troop withdrawl, al-ameri, Alissa Rubin

Posted in Featured, Left, Nutroots, iran, iraq, obama, radical islam, terrorism