You Will Anyway: Iraqi sovereignty

Monday, June 07, 2004

Iraqi sovereignty

If you've been reading YWA, you know that I think Bush uses a different dictionary than I do. In this particular case, we don't agree on the definition of the word "sovereignty".

U.S. President George W. Bush said in Paris Saturday the interim Iraqi government will be able to determine its security needs.

"Absolutely," Bush told a joint news conference with French President Jacques Chirac. "That's the definition of sovereignty." source

Now let's look at the agreement Russia is having trouble with over at the UN. There are two problems here. Okay, there are lots of problems, but for this particular concern, there are two. One is that it obviously contradicts George's assurance to Chirac, and two, as usual, we're having trouble with the definition of sovereignty.

Powell made clear the US military still would have the right to jail Iraqis, despite an outcry in Iraq and around the world over abuse of Iraqi prisoners in US-run jails.

His letter says the US military could intern suspects "where this is necessary for imperative reasons of security ..."

...US Ambassador Negroponte said the [Allawi and Powell] letters clearly showed "the full sovereignty" of Iraq was being respected.

Aljazeera article

Respect. I would have said Negroponte uses George's dictionary, but that word isn't in it.

I can't help but think that the right of a foreign power to arrest your citizens is a pretty big indication that you don't have sovereignty. But maybe that's just me.

Whatever the agreements are, whether the IGC 2.0 is an American puppet administration or not, the first order of business for Americans is to recognize the truth of the matter. Go along with it if you will, but stop trying to fool yourself about it. Somebody is demanding sovereignty, or they wouldn't keep throwing that word out there. This is not sovereignty, and any American who buys this kind of crap deserves George Bush for preznit and all his lying, manipulating, honorless cohort to boot.

The catch is, there's the rest of us living here who don't.

Daily Twain:

And other words of wisdom...

It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others. -- John Andrew Holmes

There is no inverse relationship between freedom and security. Less of one does not lead to more of the other. People with no rights are not safe from terrorist attack. -- Molly Ivins

[War] is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious [racket]. ... It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives ... It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. -- Major General Smedley Butler

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe. -- Albert Einstein

"The brain of our species is, as we know, made up largely of potassium, phosphorus, propaganda, and politics, with the result that how not to understand what should be clearer is becoming easier and easier for all of us." -- James Thurber

One of the fun aspects of Empire is how many ironies it creates. -- Glenn Greenwald

I had a slightly insane discussion the other day with a winger who wanted urgently for me to understand that the Haditha massacre is the kind of thing that happens in war. Whereas I was trying to point out to him that the Haditha massacre is the kind of thing that happens in war. -- Molly Ivins

Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception. --George Orwell

I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past's fugitive moments of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare. –- Howard Zinn

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it. --Upton Sinclair

If we're the greatest country in the world, then maybe we could have the greatest government. -- Lewis Black

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. -- Aristotle

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who loves his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair. -- H.L. Mencken

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -- James Madison, 4th President of the United States

No nation builds a wall out of strength. They build it out of fear. -- Michael Flynn

They call it The American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it. -- George Carlin

Texas justice is Texas justice. -- Victoria Nuland, US State Department spokeswoman

When you hold up your arm and swear to uphold the Constitution, you don’t say, “Except in wartime.” -- George McGovern

Sometimes I go about with pity for myself, and all the while Great Winds are carrying me across the sky. ~Ojibway saying