The Iraqi parliament has voted to accept a deal on the future presence of US troops in their country, and the result is they want the last one out by year end 2011.
The grandly titled 'Agreement on the Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq and the Organisation of Their Activities during Their Temporary Presence in Iraq' sets out the disentanglement of the invading US forces from the devastated Iraq and though it is not the embarrassment of previous military adventures that have turned sour and resulted in airlifts off the top of US Embassy's, it is a end of the Bush regimes plans for a friendly middle east country moulded in its image.
Concessions handed over by the US include allowing Iraqi courts jurisdiction over crimes committed by American troops, veto over all US military operations, with a nod towards the recent incursion into Syria, a clause says that Iraqi land, sea and air may not be used by the US as a launch pad for attacks on other countries.
No Iraqi can be arrested by US forces except with permission from Iraqi authorities and the thousands of detainees in US custody must either be released or turned over to the Iraqis immediately. US troops may not enter or search any Iraqi house without an Iraqi judge's warrant, US contractors to lose their immunity and be subject to Iraqi law, US troops who commit any crime while off duty and off base will have to stand trial in Iraqi courts.
The death toll from the illegal, unnecessary disaster is a scandal which will be debated for years to come and people from both the pro and anti war camps are declaring this as a victory but it seems neither Iraq or the United States come out of this well. Iraq has a shattered and war scarred country to rebuild while America's reputation in the eyes of the majority of the World is in the gutter.
Of course what America does come out of it with, is its back pocket full of contracts for Iraqi oil and is there anyone still gullible enough to think that it was about WMD's or installing Democracy?
Seems that the neo-cons got there victory after all, 115bn barrels of crude oil's worth. Mission accomplished.
5 comments:
Lucy,
I'm surprised this got no comments. Maybe this topic is finally dead. I know I'm sick of it.
Q
The 2011 withdrawal was all over the newspapers recently and i had quite a few conversations about it (my view is stay until its secure and avoid the obvious power vacuum that Al Queada have now pencilled in for Dec 2011) but maybe you are right and although i try and post about what is making the big headlines, people are fed up hearing about it Q.
Sometimes just reading/lurking here is sufficient.
I bet there are plenty of people who are fed-up or sick of the Iraq War topic. As for myself, I'm fed up or sick of all war. Surprise, surprise.
I haven't read Lucy for a while because there was a real pile up mentality from people like mark, joe the troll and daniel who just wanted to piss off everyone else and not participate and for me ruined a very good blog.
Chris: I hear what you're saying about those commenters... however I would also say that while the Comments section of this blog aren't always worth reading (my own contributions are rarely compulsory-reading, for example!) the original posts always are.
PS: I disagree with you about Joe, by the way (if not the two others that you name). I don't think Joe's aim has ever been to piss people off.
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