Patrick Cockburn. The Independent.

"unbelievable", indeed.

You people will believe any source whatsoever if you find what they say to be pleasing.

Why can't President Obama get out of it? After all, the President now makes and breaks the law with impunity, right?

"Patrick Cockburn. The Independent.

"unbelievable", indeed."

What, is he supposed to be less reliable than, say,
Fox News or Rush?

And then, when someone flies a plane into a building, Americans cry "why do they hate us?"

"...now makes and breaks the law with impunity, right?"

Repudiates treaties too.

This means that Iraq is still considered a threat to international security and stability under Chapter Seven of the UN charter.

While that's a bit hyperbolic, Iraq reparations are one of the more ludicrious and shameful aspects of this episode, and it's been building for quite a long time. In particular, corporate claims and payments:

Halliburton ($18m), Bechtel ($7m), Mobil ($2.3m), Shell ($1.6m), Nestlé ($2.6m), Pepsi ($3.8m), Philip Morris ($1.3m), Sheraton ($11m), Kentucky Fried Chicken ($321,000) and Toys R Us ($189,449). In the vast majority of cases, these corporations did not claim that Saddam's forces damaged their property in Kuwait - only that they "lost profits" or, in the case of American Express, experienced a "decline in business" because of the invasion and occupation of Kuwait. One of the biggest winners has been Texaco, which was awarded $505m in 1999.

p.s. a -- More available on the UNCC web site here if you can stomach the facts.

I'm not able to vouch for The Independent, but assume for the sake of argument that the Bush administration would like to constrain its successor with a status of forces agreement. Wouldn't at least one of Bush's potential successors be well advised to say publicly now that he hopes the Bush administration will not try to limit its successor's options?

If he wanted to, Sen. Obama could call for a more limited (in scope or duration) agreement to fill the gap between the expiration of the UN mandate and the next administration's negotiation with the Iraqi government. Or he could call for an agreement to be submitted to the Senate for ratification; though I understand this is not the custom for status of forces agreements, in this case the argument that the Iraqi legislature can vote on this but the American Congress cannot is one the White House should be forced to make publicly. At the very least he could ask that nothing be agreed to before he and Sen. McCain had been thoroughly briefed on the negotiations.

Partly this is a matter of campaign tactics, of course; Bush's administration is very unpopular, and any issue that puts administration officials (or better still, President Bush) on camera arguing a dubious case and forces McCain to go on camera defending Bush is an issue Obama and his campaign ought to raise. On the substance, though, no one on the administration side has ever been unclear that they expect the American commitment in Iraq to stretch into the indefinite future. If Obama would follow a different course in the White House, now's the time to say so.

NEITHER of the 2 major parties intend to ever leave Iraq. Both WANT that OIL. Sadly, THE IRAQIS will never sign over that OIL until they are ALL dead. (1 million down ONLY 25 million more to kill and the OIL IS OURS)

Is it really a secret that Bush & Cheney want a permanent base in Iraq? I thought this was common knowledge.

Is it really a secret that Bush & Cheney want a permanent base in Iraq? I thought this was common knowledge.

And now, perhaps, the intentional f*cking up of the war from the very earliest days after the initial invasion starts to make sense to people.

Had it all gone smoothly, we would have been expected to pull all troops out and go home.

Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice attacked Iraq with the idea of a permanent occupation in mind, and had the American people known that, they never would have stood for it.

"NEITHER of the 2 major parties intend to ever leave Iraq. Both WANT that OIL. Sadly, THE IRAQIS will never sign over that OIL until they are ALL dead. (1 million down ONLY 25 million more to kill and the OIL IS OURS)"

In the above statement, substitute "land" for "oil" and "Palestinians" for "Iraqis", then dicker with the number of people and it sounds just like Israel's game plan. No wonder we love Israel so much. We're on the same page.

Zathras: Or he could call for an agreement to be submitted to the Senate for ratification; though I understand this is not the custom for status of forces agreements...

It depends, and historically has depended on the sensitivity of the relationship. Some SOFA's are purely administrative in nature; others are treaties containing administrative aspects of a typical SOFA.

The bright line appears to be the level of commitment, most typically in the form of a mutual defense arrangement (MDA) or equivalent that commits one party to act on behalf of the other (e.g., NATO is a treaty, but embodies some aspects of a SOFA, while leaving some administrative issues to separate agreements).

The general rule of thumb appears to be that if the arrangement binds the US to action, then it is a treaty and must be submitted to the Senate, otherwise it is an administrative matter. That said, IIRC there have been SOFA's that have been treated as treaties, even though not required in order to make a political statement and ensure consensus (sorry, don't have any references handy).

Based on what has been reported so far, the Iraq SOFA doesn't appear to meet the requirement for a treaty, and hence the need for Senate approval (but it's hard to tell). However, regardless of our view, if the SOFA is subject to parliamentary approval (or a referendum) in Iraq, it would seem to make sense that there be some form of equivalent Congressional agreement/approval.

The Hagees will be saddened to know that its not about Armageddon after all.

Interesting thought, Ted Mannon 12:02, though I have a little trouble crediting BushCo with it. They thought a pliable pro-American Iraq would fall into their laps, I think, and invite us to stay forever.

1. Bush said he was going to do this two years ago. What's the big surprise?

2. What's the difficulty with Obama getting out of it? Any deal can be renegotiated, any contract can be terminated.

3. And what prevents the Iraqis from stonewalling for the next 9 months? The Republican Senate did that quite effectively in Clinton's last year. Surely it is easier for a sovereign country.

I'm vaguely amused at how much the conversation takes for granted that the politicians in Washington have the power and ability to control our destiny in Iraq. The public hates it. We can no longer afford it.

The economy is getting worse. The military is exhausted and structurally broken. The Taliban's back. The Iraqi insurgency waxes and wanes, but never goes away.

If it gets bad enough economically, we're out. No document is going to change that, no matter how compelling the legalese. We will have no more choice in leaving than the British had in abandoning their empire.

let's see it i can help you figure this out.

the bushits are rockefeller creations.

the clintons are rockefeller creations.

the obamist is a rockefeller creation.

now, since the rockefellers are controlling all pretenders to the throne, what is it that they want?

well, that is very clear. they want to continue controlling the usa.

do they want to manipulate iraqi hyrdocarbons? you bet.

scythes and pitchforks, mes amis.

Obama has to state very clearly to the US public, and by extension the Iraqi government, that as president he is not going to be bound by any rushed deals concluded at the last minute between the Iraqi government and the lame duck Bush administration as the latter prepares to leave office, and that once in office he will revisit and re-evaluate any such deals in the course of his administration's planned re-assessment of the entire US presence in Iraq.

That should do it. If he lets the Iraqis know unambiguously that they cannot automatically count on the next administration standing by any such Bush administration agreements, the Iraqi government will not be able to go forward with this proposed deal, which is deeply unpopular in their country.

Obama should then publicly deplore any attempts by the Bush administration to blackmail our Iraqi friends into accepting an enduring military presence in Iraq. He should say something like, "The United States does not conduct foreign policy by shakedown. When I am elected, we will have frank, good faith discussions with the Iraqis on the future of the US mission in Iraq, and respect for the will of the Iraqi people will be a guiding principle of that process."

Surely 20Bn is chickenfeed for a country with (possibly) the biggest reserves of black oil on the planet.

This is extortion, not blackmail. It's appalling behavior either way, but let's get our terms straight.

Anyone who has read John Perkin's book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man knows that the United States routinely uses economic extortion to get Third World countries to bend to our will. That's why it is so exasperating that a significant percentage of Americans still believe that our military is in Iraq because of the "war on terror" or to "protect our national security" or any of the other myriad bogus causes that have been put forth by these liars. Bush and Cheney could care less about stopping terrorism. If they did, they would have invaded Saudi Arabia and would cut off all U.S. aid, military and otherwise, to places like Pakistan, which is a much more dangerous place than Iraq.

Our invasion and occupation of Iraq is about securing a source of oil for American corporate interests, and secondarily, to give George W. Bush a chance to assuage his bloated ego and prove he is more macho than his Daddy. Period.

Lucky for the Iraqis, Uncle Sam has never been a reliable treaty partner. Just ask the Cherokees.
Those "permanent" bases will make lovely, secure convention centers.

"Why can't President Obama get out of it? After all, the President now makes and breaks the law with impunity, right?"

Actually, Obama can get out of it....Despite the Bush Administration's claims to the contrary, the Iraqi security agreement is a treaty. Only congress, not the president, has the constitutional authority to make treaties. And congress has not created or voted on Bush's Treaty.

Why can't President Obama get out of it? After all, the President now makes and breaks the law with impunity, right?

Posted by: craigie

Because they inserted the "No Take Backs" clause.
(in fine print)

.

Actually, Obama can get out of it....Despite the Bush Administration's claims to the contrary, the Iraqi security agreement is a treaty.

Well, either it is a treaty and must be ratified by the Senate to have the force of law, or it is a non-treaty that requires implementing legislation by Congress to have the force of law (a "congressional-executive agreement", like NAFTA), or its a "sole-executive agreement" and has force similar to an executive order (and can simply be revoked by future executive action), or it is pure PR posturing with no force at all.

In any case, barring Senate ratification or legislation, it isn't going to legally bind a future administration.

This is outrageous, but ever since this topic arose people have been saying the agreement would committ or bind the next president. This is just wrong.

Basing rights are just that -- rights. Obama could say "Thanks for the rights, but i'm not going to use them. So let's renegoiate the agreement." Game over. The Bush/Cheney policy is a disaster as usual, but once they're gone they're gone.

This is outrageous, but ever since this topic arose people have been saying the agreement would committ or bind the next president. This is just wrong.

Basing rights are just that -- rights. Obama could say "Thanks for the rights, but i'm not going to use them. So let's renegoiate the agreement." Game over. The Bush/Cheney policy is a disaster as usual, but once they're gone they're gone.

What's amazing is that none of this suprises me at all.

Republicans do not call it blackmail, they call it business as usual.

Well, there is a lot of time before 1/20/09, and this malevolent bunch has damage to do.
Did not the VP say congress was irrelevant when the subject of this business came up before?

Yet another reason to end his presidency early through impeachment

Published on Friday, November 4, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Orwell's Oceania and Bush's America: Coming Together
by David Benjamin

Paris -- Lately, I'm re-reading many of the books I read when I was in high school. Predictably, it's a checkered experience. Some of these cherished works recall, revive and even expand the literary pleasures I enjoyed some 40 years ago; other beloved books betray flaws I overlooked when I was 16. And some of these books reveal insights that were inconceivable back then.

Among my more revelatory experiences has been re-visiting George Orwell’s dystopian classic, "1984." Although Orwell failed to anticipate Western cultural and political reality in the year of his prophecy -- when Reagan and Thatcher ruled real-life Oceania -- he eerily foresaw both the corruption of language and the erosion of civil liberties that marks the second Bush administration, some 20 years beyond 1984 (the year, not the book).

In rereading Orwell, I didn't plan to draw parallels between Big Brother and Boy George. They just kept popping up. I recorded 11 instances in which Orwell somehow anticipated White House jive in the first decade of the 21st century.

For instance, like Orwell's Oceania, Bush's America relies on a constant state of war to instill fear and passion in the masses, and -- in both regimes -- the enemy's identity is an afterthought. Big Brother shifted his enmity from Eurasia to Eastasia and back again. Bush began his bellicose ascendancy by targeting Al Qaeda, then switching to Saddam's Iraq, and now he’s screen-testing among Syria, Iran and Al Qaeda (again) for the role of supervillain. The key, said Orwell is this: "The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible."

Note Orwell's stipulation that the purity of the enemy's evil requires that "past" agreements, if they ever existed, must be either forgotten or expunged. Consider, for example, Donald Rumsfeld's visit to Baghdad during the Reagan era, when he was filmed hugging Saddam Hussein. But that never happened, right? We always hated Saddam, and we never sent him vast stockpiles of weapons to help him fight America's previous "enemy of the moment," Iran.

"History has stopped," explained Orwell. "Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right."

Indeed, this White House, as a matter of ideology, loathes even the suggestion that it ever erred. George Bush is pathologically reluctant to admit even the tiniest goof because, as Orwell says, "... by far the more important reason for the readjustment of the past is the need to safeguard the infallibility of the Party. It is not merely that speeches, statistics and records of every kind must be constantly brought up to date in order to show that the predictions of the Party were in all cases right. It is also that no change of doctrine or in political alignment can ever be admitted. For to change one's mind, or even one's policy, is a confession of weakness."

When you think about it, Orwell wrote the monograph for almost every utterance in the oratorical career of President Bush: "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words."

There is hardly a better thumbnail of the preparations -- by Presidential impresario Karl Rove -- for dog-wagging events such as the "Mission Accomplished" declaration of victory in Iraq on 1 May 2003, or the Grand Ole Opry 9/11 anniversary spectacle in 2005, or Bush's klieg-lit cameo in Jackson Square, New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, than this passage from Orwell: "Processions, meetings, military parades, lectures, waxwork displays, film shows, telescreen programs all had to be organized; stands had to be erected, effigies built, slogans coined, songs written, rumors circulated, photographs faked..."

The Bush regime, as a matter of public relations technique, has made into an art form "cognitive dissonance," the ability to sincerely profess two opposite propositions at the same time. Orwell had a simpler term for this skill: "doublethink." It's instructive to recall the definition of "doublethink" while reviewing, for example, Bush's insistence that Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, followed by Bush's later admission that there was no such link, followed by his recent revival of the Saddam-9/11 conspiracy. Orwell: "To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while take account of the reality which one denies..."

Set this sentence against the remarks of a "senior official" of the Bush White House, as quoted by Bob Woodward: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors."

This is the voice of raw power and sheer arrogance -- which is largely what "1984" was all about. Perhaps the point at which Orwell's Oceania and Bush's America converge are in each regime's attitude toward human cruelty. Orwell gave us the cynically named Ministry of Love and Room 101. Bush has given us Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and "extraordinary rendition" while declaring his personal exemption from the rules of basic human decency embodied in the Geneva Conventions. Power makes its own rules -- and its own reality.

Orwell wrote about this, too: "... But always -- do not forget this, Winston -- always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever..."

David Benjamin, novelist and journalist, lives and works partly in Paris and partly in Madison, Wisconsin. His latest book is The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked.

Bush/Cheney using blackmail tactics are not new.

Just google "bi-lateral immunity agreements" to see how many UN countries Bush/Cheney blackmailed before the invasion to Iraq.

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