Getting Away With It.

Conditions: Vicious.


How Much Longer In Iraq?

Recently the Iraqi parliament passed a security pact, called a SOFA, naturally, that require American forces to withdraw from the country by 2011. Three more years in Iraq can be seen as both a triumph and a calamity. Triumph in the sense that there finally is a path to peace in the country, Calamity in that the people of Iraq will have to put up with three more years of occupation and threat. But is that actually true? How safe is the SOFA?

Iraqis are quite likely to vote the pact down, preferring a quicker withdrawal, according to Raed Jarrar, Iraq consultant to the American Friends Service Committee. Although some in the government may try to "play games" and prevent the referendum from moving forward as planned, many in Iraq will push for a timely public vote, according to Jarrar. Polls in Iraqi media have shown that most Iraqis oppose the pact's three-year time frame.

The SOFA has gotten as far as it has largely because the government's executive branch, led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and backed by the Bush administration, has pushed ardently for its passage, and itself approved the agreement almost unanimously two weeks ago.

"The vast majority of Iraqis are against it," Ali al-Fadhily, an independent correspondent living in Baghdad, told Truthout. "But those in power realize that it is the US existence in Iraq that keeps them in power, and so they [were] keen on signing it as soon as possible regardless of its conflict with the interests of Iraq and its people."

So, while the writing on the paper reads three years, in reality it will likely be less than that, once the will of the people properly starts to be expressed through their representatives. Huzzah for government. But putting up with the American military is only half of the problem.

According to Jarrar, working from a leaked copy of the English version of the agreement, some "discrepancies in translation" exist, which could lead to misunderstandings. Discrepancies also exist between the US and Iraqi interpretations of the pact: While an Iraqi government spokesman stated last week that the agreement would ensure that all American troops leave by December 2011, American commanders said otherwise.

"Three years is a long time. Conditions could change in that period of time," Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated at a Defense Department briefing last week. When asked whether the agreement's absolute 2011 deadline could be extended, Mullen replied, "Well, clearly that's theoretically possible."

- www.truthout.org/

Oh, perfect. So we're left with a mangled half-agreed agreement that both sides are bitter over, and the whole thing could be rejected at the drop of a Molotov cocktail. Another bang-up job.



Pardon Me.

In the waning days of the Bush administration, the President is busy in that traditional activity of all soon-to-be former Presidents, pardoning criminals.

So far Mr. Bush has been sparing in granting clemency, handing out a total of 117 pardons and eight commutations during his two terms in office, including cutting the two-and-a-half year sentence of Scooter Libby, the former White House aide to Vice-President Dick Cheney.

He has turned down more than 8,000 pleas for pardon, and the number he has issued to date is less than half as many as either Presidents Clinton or Reagan.

More are however expected before he leaves the White House, and several high-profile individuals are hoping to benefit.

- www.alternet.org/

Needless to say, I really don't approve of this practice, regardless of who the president is. Either the justice system works or it doesn't, I don't see how justice or democracy is served by the president just letting a lot of people off free. But anyway, the real controversy isn't who Bush has pardoned, it's over who he could yet pardon, namely himself.

We know that a president can pardon anyone, for any reason, and for any federal crime (except in cases of impeachment), not only after a conviction has been handed down in trial, but before any trial has even taken place, indeed before any charges have even been filed -- as Gerald Ford infamously pardoned Richard Nixon for Watergate; as George H. W. Bush pardoned Caspar Weinberger, Elliott Abrams and various CIA officials accused and/or convicted in connection with the Iran-Contra affair; as Bill Clinton pardoned his brother, Roger, for drug trafficking and financier Marc Rich for tax evasion (after Rich's wife made a significant donation to the Clinton Presidential Library); and as current President George W. Bush more recently commuted "Scooter" Libby's prison term.

So -- can Bush do it? Can he pardon himself before leaving office?

According to attorneys whom I asked, there is no definitive legal answer.There is no case law on the subject and not even much legal analysis of the possibility. All there seems to be are three law review articles that analyze the self-pardon power with arguments for and against its legality. (I am convinced by the arguments against its legality, but given the present Supreme Court, who knows?).

- www.alternet.org/rights/

See, here's the thing. Nobody likes President Bush. He has lower approval ratings than cancer. So, in that light, from his perspective, why wouldn't he just pardon himself? And Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bremer, and all the other idiots involved in God-knows what over the last eight years for that matter? He's already hated, so what does it matter if he's hated more. And of course from his perspective he'd be pardoning patriots who did what they thought was the right thing to do in times of great uncertainty., or some such similar crap.

So, in the event that does happen, can the incoming Obama presidency do anything about it? Don't get your hopes up.

Despite the hopes of many human rights advocates, the new Obama Justice Department is not likely to launch major new criminal probes of harsh interrogations and other alleged abuses by the Bush administration. But one idea that has currency among some top Obama advisers is setting up a 9/11-style commission that would investigate counterterrorism policies and make public as many details as possible. "At a minimum, the American people have to be able to see and judge what happened," said one senior adviser, who asked not to be identified for talking about policy matters. The commission would be empowered to order the U.S. intelligence agencies to open their files for review and question senior officials who approved "waterboarding" and other controversial practices.

- www.newsweek.com/

Well this is disappointing. Not least because of the simple precedent not-prosecuting these people would set for the future. I realize new president Obama already has a lot on his plate, and he's certainly not short of items in his In-tray. But seriously, some kind of balance and action is desperately needed to account for the terrible battering justice and democracy have taken under eight years of President Bush. The rule of law and the code of morals we as a civilization live under are a lot more delicate and fragile than people think, and on some subconscious level, horror over what has happened to ourselves has had a large part in electing Obama in the first place. Something on this needs to be done.

More: www.alternet.org/



- Peace out.