U.S. Bullies Iraq's Bogus Democracy

Anyone who still thinks that the U.S. "liberated" rather than occupied Iraq, so we can force our military bases upon them, should read Jim Washburn's report in the L.A. City Beat.

Here's an excerpt:

Do you know much about the “status for forces” agreement the U.S. is trying to hammer out with – i.e. hammer upon – Iraqi lawmakers? The U.S. press hasn’t reported much on it, and what little detail they’ve provided has been entirely due to reports in Britain’s Independent newspaper by Patrick Cockburn.

While the Bush administration has been saying “it’s just routine, nothing to see here, folks, move along,” Cockburn revealed that it could well lock us into Iraq for McCain’s 100 years, with the U.S. maintaining 58 permanent bases, controlling the airspace, and able to conduct military operations and arrests without regard to the Iraqi government, while all U.S. personnel and contractors would be immune from prosecution (as apparently are the Blackwater forces who shot 19 innocent Iraqi citizens in one incident last year).

Iraqi leaders balked at this, since – as Cockburn pointed out onDemocracy Now! – it requires the ostensibly sovereign nation to relinquish every aspect of its sovereignty to its occupiers. Cockburn also broke the news that the U.S. is blackmailing Iraqi legislators, threatening to permanently withhold access to tens of billions of dollars in Iraqi funds that have been locked up in the Federal Reserve since the first Gulf War.

Again, read the entire report.