When Is A Treaty Not A Treaty?

When is a treaty not a treaty? When the Bush administration says it isn’t. In an effort to once again prevent debate on Iraq and our ultimate objectives there the Bush administration has begun negotiations with the “Iraqi government” on replacing the soon to expire UN mandate with another agreement setting the terms for US involvement in Iraq. This agreement being negotiated is referred to as a military to military relationship agreement. This agreement will set the ground-rules and the parameters by which the US military can operate in Iraq. While there are many reasons that this agreement should be brought before the American people for debate I would like to discuss three.

This emerging American negotiating position faces a potential buzz saw of opposition from Iraq, with its fragmented Parliament, weak central government and deep sensitivities about being seen as a dependent state, according to these officials.

American officials are keenly aware that any agreement must be approved by Iraq’s fractured Council of Representatives, where Sunni and Shiite factions feud and even Shiite blocs loyal to competing leaders cannot agree.[1]

The first reason is the state of the Iraqi government. The Iraqi government is in disarray which makes any negotiations tricky at best. How can we expect a government that is unable to resolve its own internal struggles through compromise to be able to negotiate in good faith? The current government does not have the standing or the mandate to negotiate with anyone concerning anything. Hoping to seize on this vulnerable state the Bush administration is trying to lock not only the US, but also the Iraqis into an agreement that is one-sided and heavily tilted towards the US. The administration says they don’t want a permanent presence in Iraq, but based on the spending for the new embassy and bases which is over 1.5 billion dollars, it is hard to accept that line. It is precisely this type of heavy-handed negotiations that have endeared the US presence around the world. How many embassies must be attacked and countries overthrown before we get a clue? These negotiations only underscore the lack of sovereignty of the Iraqi government and further humiliate the Iraqi people.

However, the American quest for protections for civilian contractors is expected to be particularly vexing, because in no other country are contractors working with the American military granted protection from local laws. Some American officials want contractors to have full immunity from Iraqi law, while others envision less sweeping protections. These officials said the negotiations with the Iraqis, expected to begin next month, would also determine whether the American authority to conduct combat operations in the future would be unilateral, as it is now, or whether it would require consultation with the Iraqis or even Iraqi approval.[2]

The second reason is the immunity clause being forced upon the Iraqis. The US is trying to include in the agreement full immunity for civilian contractors in Iraq, which would be unprecedented in these types of agreements. This immunity would give the private security forces a license to kill in the literal sense, not only would they be shielded from Iraqi justice but as we are learning with the Blackwater case US justice as well. This would give the US government a private army that could be used for missions that would not be desirable for the regular military to undertake, all the while providing cover for US officials for any mission that went badly. It was a rouge band of private contractors that committed those atrocities. Sound familiar?

Representative Bill Delahunt, Democrat of Massachusetts, said that what the administration was negotiating amounted to a treaty and should be subjected to Congressional oversight and ultimately ratification.

“Where have we ever had an agreement to defend a foreign country from external attack and internal attack that was not a treaty?” he said Wednesday at a hearing of a foreign affairs subcommittee held to review the matter. “This could very well implicate our military forces in a full-blown civil war in Iraq. If a commitment of this magnitude does not rise to the level of a treaty, then it is difficult to imagine what could.”[3]

Finally, there is the small matter of oversight and debate. George Bush has succeeded in preventing any real debate on Iraq for almost 5 years. By using fear, hate, and false patriotism he has quashed any meaningful debate concerning not only the run-up to the war, but his policies since the invasion. Because we first had a Republican controlled and now a weak-kneed Democratic controlled Congress, the American public has been left out of the debate concerning Iraq. At one point the mid-term elections were supposed to have registered the American people’s concern and disenchantment with the war. Those concerns and that disenchantment have been brushed aside not only by the Bush administration, the MSM, but also the Democratic Congress. Many of those Congresspersons campaigned and won on ending the war platforms.

The Bush administration should not be allowed to commit this country to an open ended security agreement with Iraq. It is bad enough he got us there with lies and secrecy and now he wants to use the same tactics to keep us there for who knows how long. If it quacks like a duck?

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/world/middleeast/25military.html?pagewanted=2&hp
[2] Ibid.
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/world/middleeast/25military.html?pagewanted=2&hp

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Send Them Back To Iraq

Who says you can’t get away with murder. It just all depends on who you murder and where you murder them at. In what will surely be another case of justice delayed and justice denied, the Justice Department is laying the groundwork for not pursuing the case against the Blackwater employees involved in the killing of 17 innocent Iraqi civilians. In an effort to prepare us for their failure to bring charges, the people at Justice have been meeting with Congressional staffers to discuss the “difficulties” involved in the case.

WASHINGTON — Justice Department officials have told Congress that they face serious legal difficulties in pursuing criminal prosecutions of Blackwater security guards involved in a September shooting that left at least 17 Iraqis dead.

In a private briefing in mid-December, officials from the Justice and State Departments met with aides to the House Judiciary Committee and other Congressional staff members and warned them that there were major legal obstacles that might prevent any prosecution. Justice officials were careful not to say whether any decision had been made in the matter, according to two of the Congressional staff members who received the briefing.[1]

I guess we don’t have any laws on the books that cover the killing of innocent civilians by American corporate employees? Yeah, they hate us for freedoms. The freedom to go anywhere in the world and kill people without consequence is a great freedom to have, it’s no wonder the “terrorists” are angry. They kill innocent people and they get hunted down or have huge rewards offered for their capture, we do it and we don’t have anything to charge them with. I got it, how about pollution for breathing the same air that I breathe. Is this the height of arrogance or what? Americans have the freedom to kill anyone with no repercussions, unless you are a young blond white girl, no one is allowed to kill them.

If we do not have the laws or the jurisdiction to punish the guilty I have an idea, let’s send them back to Iraq and let the Iraqis put them on trial. I would be willing to bet that they have laws that deal with killing innocent Iraqis. In what would surely be seen as a move to demonstrate the sovereignty of the Iraqi government, we could give them the guards and let them put them on trial. But, no we can’t do that because that would equate the value of an Iraqi life with that of an American life and as many people around the world know that isn’t true. Just ask the many families that have witnessed the refusal of the US military to allow its members to be subject to the laws of their countries. There are well documented cases of US military personnel being sheltered from charges stemming from murder to rape in foreign countries.

The truth of the matter is that these guards will not face trial and it has nothing to do with “legal hurdles”. If these men were brought to trial it would open the flood gates and put the whole prosecution of the war on trial. It would reopen Abu Ghrab, water-boarding, and a whole host of other topics this administration would rather not revisit.

In a report to be issued Wednesday, the group, Human Rights First, argues that the laws are sufficient to prosecute contractors, including those working for the State Department, and that the Bush administration has failed to do so because of a lack of political will. The report specifically criticizes the government’s response to the September shooting in Baghdad.

“The U.S. government’s reaction to the shootings,” the report says, “has been characterized by confusion, defensiveness, a multiplicity of uncoordinated ad hoc investigations, and interagency finger-pointing. These failures underscored the Justice Department’s unwillingness or inability to systematically investigate and prosecute allegations of serious violent crimes.”[2]

Once again, the loss of innocent foreign life will fade into the darkness of past American atrocities. What are seventeen lives out of hundreds of thousands? The world will once again witness the hypocrisy that has characterized our foreign policy for decades and led to the backlash of anti-American feelings throughout the world. We talk about international law and respect for human life unless it runs contrary to our “national interest”, then it’s who needs French fries?

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/washington/16blackwater.html?hp
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/washington/16blackwater.html?hp

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Blackwater Highlights Bigger Issue In Iraq

The incident with the Blackwater Security Corporation in Iraq has been well documented. I certainly would not want to retrace the many stories detailing the charges and counter-charges. The Iraqis have completed their investigation and have concluded the attack against the civilians was unprovoked. The government of Iraq has asked the State Department to remove Blackwater from Iraq. It seems that the government of Iraq is tired of having its citizens being used for target practice for trigger happy mercs. This case and the findings of the Iraqi investigation brings up what I believe is the crux of the problem in Iraq. I think it is why the Iraqis have not worked harder at resolving their differences and trying to meet the benchmarks set up by the US.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Iraqi investigation into last month's Blackwater USA shooting is complete, and it proves that the private contractors committed unprovoked and random killings in the incident, an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Tuesday.

Adviser Sami al-Askari told CNN al-Maliki has asked the U.S. State Department to "pull Blackwater out of Iraq."

Al-Askari said the United States is still waiting for the findings of the American investigation, but the Iraqi leader and most Iraqi officials are "completely satisfied" with the findings of their probe and are "insisting" that Blackwater leave the country.[1]

The fly in the ointment is sovereignty. The Bush Administration is big on talking about Iraqi sovereignty, but the truth of the matter is they don’t have any. This administration talks about how they are the guest of the Iraqi government and that government can request the US to leave at anytime, but this is false. Here is a government under occupation; they can’t even prosecute the random murders of 17 of their citizens. The government can’t kick the perpetrators out of the country and so they appear impotent and unable to protect their citizenry.

The government on the other hand refuses to honor any timetable placed upon them by the US. Their only form of protest is to delay reconciliation and prolong the conflict. So you have the government we put in place fighting against the aims of our government. What is rarely reported on by the US media is the pride of the Iraqi people, that pride has been repeatedly ravaged by our insensitivity to their culture, their women, and their religion.

The government of Prime Minister al-Maliki is caught between a rock and a hard place, on the one hand they have the Americans dictating that they must meet this goal or that and then they have their people who want and expect them to show independence from the occupiers. The next election, if we get that far will be a real eye opener for Washington whoever is President. I have a feeling the Iraqi people are going to send a clear message to Washington by electing a nationalistic candidate, a candidate who will distance himself from the US and demand the removal of US troops. By our refusal to allow the al-Maliki government the semblance of sovereignty we are setting the stage for the next radical leader to ascend to the throne. You cannot continue to stick your thumb into the eye of your host and not expect there to be a backlash.

The blowback of the Iraqi people will take the form of a conservative Islamic militant leader, who will play to the Iraqis desire to remove the US occupying army. The one thing most Iraqis agree upon, whether they are Sunnis or Shia is the desire to have the US troops gone. The next leader will campaign on the weakness of this government and its inability to rein in not only US troops, but US civilians as well. The rage of the Iraqi people is seething just below the surface and is never reported by the US press, so to most Americans the results will come as a surprise and they will view the Iraqis as ungrateful and uncivilized. Because of the lack of security the US press doesn’t have a real sense of the mood of the Iraqi people; it is pretty difficult to gauge the mood of the average Iraqi from behind the Green Zone barricades.

The problem with Iraq is even if we accomplish our goals, we still lose. Eventually the “warm welcome” we have received will turn sour and no matter how big or secure our embassy will be it won’t be able to withstand the will of the Iraqi people. Once again we will overplay our hand and overstay our welcome and the end will be worse than the beginning. Instead of having a secular government open to relations we will have a fanatical Islamist in power who will overturn all of our “progressive” agenda and return Iraq to another Middle Eastern theocracy. How’s that for a legacy Mr. Bush and your Neo-Con friends?

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/10/16/iraq.blackwater/index.html

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We Shoot They Run, If They Run, They Are Insurgents

This appears to be the new engagement strategy for the US Military in Iraq. And who said the surge isn’t working? We’re killing everyone in sight, soon there won’t be anyone left to resist the occupation. The US Military has developed a new strategy for targeting insurgents in Iraq. According to testimony in the trial of three US Army snipers for murder, it works like this. The snipers plant various objects (ie. wiring, bullets, and detonation cords) in plain view and if anyone picks up the items and tries to leave with them, they are killed.

WASHINGTON -- Army snipers hunting insurgents in Iraq were under orders to "bait" their targets with suspicious materials, such as detonation cords, and then kill whoever picked up the items, according to the defense attorney for a soldier accused of planting evidence on an Iraqi he killed. Gary Myers, an attorney for Sgt. Evan Vela, said his client had acted "pursuant to orders."

"Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy," Didier said in the statement. "Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. forces."[1]

This has got to be the craziest idea ever. In a war zone, you lay out these items that anyone could pickup for a number of different reasons and if anyone happens to pick them up regardless of their status they are killed. It’s simple you are obviously an insurgent or why would you pick up this stuff?

I am reminded of a line in a movie, I think it was “Platoon” when a helicopter gunner was asked how he knew the people he was shooting at was VC. He said they were running. He said if they stood there they would be shot but they weren’t VC, if they ran they were definitely VC and shot.

While I do not claim to be a military genius, it seems to me that there are a number of small caveats to this strategy. The first of which is just natural human curiosity. How many people collect crap they have no intention of using. I know of many examples of pack rats, who just collect crap for the hell of it. These people just go around picking up stuff, many times off the street. Can you imagine if you were walking down the street and you saw a shiny piece of junk and when you picked it up and turned to leave, you were executed? We would never have had Sanford and Son.

Also, there is the fact that these people are in a war zone. There has to be loads of this crap lying around all over the place. How about the guy who wants to remove something dangerous so it doesn’t kill his wife or kids? Oops, you pick it up, you are an insurgent. There can be many scenarios of why a person would pick up this stuff, besides being an insurgent. Under this strategy none of those will matter, because guess what? Everyone is an insurgent. This has always been the problem from a military standpoint of fighting in an urban setting and in a civil war, how do you distinguish the friendlies from the bad guys?

Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said such a baiting program should be examined "quite meticulously" because it raises troubling possibilities, such as what happens when civilians pick up the items.

"In a country that is awash in armaments and magazines and implements of war, if every time somebody picked up something that was potentially useful as a weapon, you might as well ask every Iraqi to walk around with a target on his back," Fidell said.[2]

I hate to tell you Mr. Fidell but this is precisely the situation we have placed our military in, everyone is walking around with a target on their back. The problem with occupying a country is that the more insurgents you kill, the more insurgents you create. Insurgents don’t die, they multiply. They multiply because no matter how cautious you try to be, there will always be civilian casualties. If you are too cautious then you are a casualty. It becomes a never ending cycle. If you run, you are an insurgent.

Now not only is it the military snipers, but also the armed private American militias that have this shoot first mentality. You are going to have a difficult time winning hearts and minds when you are shooting everyone in sight. No matter how this ends, it will be a black-eye for America. Anyone crazy enough to believe we can salvage something good from this should be committed immediately, no questions asked.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/23/AR2007092301431.html
[2] Ibid.

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