Sadr Threatens Weekly Demos;
The Forgotten Refugees;
Same old Retired Guys on the Take, on TV
Muqtada al-Sadr is urging Iraqis to hold weekly demonstrations after mosque prayers on Fridays against the proposed security agreement being negotiated by the al-Maliki government with the US. Sadr fears al-Maliki will give up too much of Iraq's sovereignty.
McClatchy says that Bush wants to give $600 million for the Iraqi police; but he wants to cut back support for American police!
Blue Girl reminds us about the millions of displaced Iraqis, whose lives have not improved despite Bush's renewed optimism on Iraq.
Not only did the corporate television news channels ignore the NYT report outing their "defense analysts" as deeply intertwined with private defense contractors and privy to special briefings by Bush's Pentagon, but they apparently intend to go on shamelessly serving up the same fare.
Let's just imagine that you are a retired senior officer, and that you have a cushy deal with a corporation that depends on Pentagon contracts. And lets say you are asked if it is a good idea to get up a war with Iran. Remember, your friends' contracts and your own retirement home in Palm Springs depend on it.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 5/28/2008 12:25:00 AM
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Muqtada al-Sadr is urging Iraqis to hold weekly demonstrations after mosque prayers on Fridays against the proposed security agreement being negotiated by the al-Maliki government with the US. Sadr fears al-Maliki will give up too much of Iraq's sovereignty.
US-Iraq Deals Overshadowed by Rising Concerns
The Iraqi and U.S. governments have been negotiating for months the formulation of two agreements, as the U.N. mandate under which U.S. troops currently operate in Iraq will terminate in December.
One is known as a Status of Forces Agreement, which sets up the legal basis for the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. The other one is called a Strategic Framework Agreement, and would devise a blueprint for the wider bilateral relationship between the two countries in political, economic and cultural areas.
The concerns by Iraqi lawmakers come as their counterparts in Washington are pressing the administration hard not to sign any deals with the Iraqi government on defence and security matters without congressional approval.
Despite that, the U.S. Senate failed last Wednesday to include a provision in a bill to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan that would constrain Bush's power to unilaterally sign any security agreements with Iraq.
The explicitly aggressive tone of the Bush-Maliki agreement on protecting Iraq against foreign intervention has set off alarms in Washington that the administration may seek to use it as a cover to attack Iran, which has been repeatedly accused by U.S. civilian and military officials of destabilising Iraq.
In an unexpected move that could further increase tensions, the U.S. military has established a station near the Iranian border without the consent of Iraqi authorities, and which sparked Iranian protests, Iran's English-language Press TV reported in late April.
With a July deadline for the agreements approaching fast, Iraq's clerical class has become more vocal against the possible deals as well. Iraq's most powerful religious figure, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, joined other dissenting voices when he recently said he would not allow Iraq to sign such a deal with "the U.S. occupiers" as long as he was alive, Press TV reported last Saturday.
Another senior Iraqi cleric, known as Sayyed Kazem Haeri, had earlier ruled against the agreements and had said that those agreements would "legitimise" the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq.
McClatchy says that Bush wants to give $600 million for the Iraqi police; but he wants to cut back support for American police!
This is one case where money squandered in Iraq doesn't bother me much. The United States is rapidly becoming a police state anyway (it's already become a police state, actually) and anything that diverts funds from the american internal suppression services is a good thing for the public. That money would be better spent on critical energy and infrastructure problems inside the United States of course. But foreign wars and foreign enemies provide a convenient distraction for the elites who realise that fixing America may be impossibly expensive and will require sacrifices many Americans would find unacceptable. So they and we continue to ignore what needs to be done and lurch toward eventual but assured disaster. Reduced funding for the American CHeKa is an unintended benefit of the latest american war of conquest however.
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"but he wants to cut back support for American police!"
Oh Heaven forbid! Then we might not have the world's largest prison population.
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