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the value of sovereignty .....
President Bush has been making a big hullabaloo over the fact that the Iraqi regime has not signed on to an agreement that would authorize U.S. forces to remain in Iraq after December 31.
Bush says that if an agreement is not signed between him and the Iraqi government, he will cease military operations in Iraq, keeping his military forces inside U.S. bases within Iraq.
Bush says that “the law” and “Iraqi sovereignty” would require him to do this, even though he has yet to clarify how “the law” and “Iraqi sovereignty” permit him to keep any forces in Iraq, whether inside U.S. bases or not, if there is no agreement signed extending Bush’s occupation of the country.
In any event, apparently “the law” and the concept of “sovereignty” don’t apply to Syria and Pakistan. Those are two independent countries that Bush’s military forces have recently attacked, killing scores of Pakistanis and Syrians.
Bush says that “the law of self-defense” authorizes his military attacks against these two sovereign and independent countries. He says that people who are trying to evict Bush’s forces from Iraq are using these two countries as bases of operations.
There is at least one big problem, however, with Bush’s interpretation of “the law”: In Iraq Bush is the aggressor — the attacker — not the defender. Iraq is the defender. Therefore, as the attacker Bush is precluded from claiming self-defense when the defender attempts to defend itself.- By John Richardson at 3 Nov 2008 - 10:12pm
- John Richardson's blog
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beware the fine print .....
"There's been no shortage of controversy surrounding what has been termed the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the governments of the United States and Iraq. After battling away for most of the year at what the terms of the agreement should be, the text was at last finalized this month.
The terms of the agreement effectively allow the U.S. to continue to control billions of dollars of proceeds from the sale of exported Iraqi oil held in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It also contains numerous loopholes that could allow the continuing long-term presence of U.S. military forces and would effectively maintain U.S. jurisdiction over crimes committed by American soldiers.
Iraq's cabinet approved the agreement a week ago with 27 members voting in favor, out of 28 ministers who were present, with nine ministers absent. It is now being debated in the Parliament.
Abdul Qadir al-Obaidi, Iraq's minister of defense, issued a dire warning that without the agreement and continued presence of U.S. forces, "then what happened in the Gulf of Aden will happen in the Arabian Gulf too. Pirates will start in these ports in a way you can't even imagine."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21301.ht