GWB was asked in Germany today about the “increasing controversy in Iraq over the security agreement that’s being negotiated… Does this concern you that the direction of those negotiations are going in?”
(Note, “controversy” is already a significant understatement of the tsunami of nationalist opposition the Bushists’ SOFA-plus proposal has awakened among Iraqis.)
He replied:
- First of all, I think we’ll end up with a strategic agreement with Iraq. You know, it’s all kinds of noise in their system and our system. What eventually will win out is the truth. For example, you read stories perhaps in your newspaper that the U.S. is planning all kinds of permanent bases in Iraq. That’s an erroneous story. The Iraqis know — will learn it’s erroneous, too. We’re there at the invitation of the sovereign government of Iraq.
Actually, no. The Iraqi government still doesn’t have meaningful sovereignty. The US forces are still in Iraq as a belligerent occupation force whose occupation of the country has had a bit of pig’s-lipstick put on it by Security Council resolution 1511.
The contempt with which Bush refers to the efforts made by elected lawmakers in both countries to learn the content of international agreements being negotiated by their national leaders, and to hold these leaders accountable to them is on a par with the lip-sneering “So?” with which Dick Cheney met a journalist’s recent observation that Bush’s record in Iraq was judged a failure by some two-thirds of Americans.
Is there anyone left on earth who thinks George W. Bush understands anything about democracy and good governance?
I’m not much for bumper stickers, but “Noise in the System” is one I could imagine slapping on my car.
Every president naturally will have the tendency to push executive privilege, his own king-like power. We ought to just expect it. In a democracy it is the duty of the people, acting through their Congress and the media, and observers like us, to push back against this authoritarian tendency. From this natural tension, and not from any wished-for presidential good intentions, should come “good governance.”
Executive privilege has existed in the US since our first president. Clinton and Bush-43 have raised it to new heights, or rather depths, particularly in their unrestrained foreign aggression. The Congress, the Supreme Court and the media have been accessories to these crimes — that is the pity.
Currently US pundits are parsing every word that Obama and McCain utter. What will the new Decider decide? Wrong. This is not democracy. Let us not pay so much attention to what our “leaders” want to do, or what they get away with doing, and pay more attention to what we can do to fetter their malignant tendencies.
This is exactly why we need the Friends Committees, Just World News, anti-war.com, Juan Cole and all the other voices and activities to counter a human, the US president, to whom our system gives too much power to do the wrong thing.
Abdul Aziz Al Hakim’s son Ammar [owner of the Pepsi Cola production in Iraq, his nickname Al-Hawza-chick],
عمار الحكيم لـ الجريدة:
من الطبيعي أن يحمل المالكي ملف الاتفاقية إلى طهران لتبديد مخاوفها
Chalabi’s new party
يعلن في بغداد غداً الخميس عن تشكيل كتلة سياسية جديدة برئاسة الدكتور أحمد الجلبي، رئيس حزب المؤتمر الوطني العراقي. وقالت مصادر مطلعة «إن الكتلة ستضم مجموعة من الكفاءات والتكنوقراط، وتحمل اسم الاستقلال».
http://www.albayan.ae/servlet/Satellite?c=Article&cid=1212501887148&pagename=Albayan%2FArticle%2FFullDetail
From Florida in 2000 to Iraq and elsewhere, Bush’s concept of “democracy” has always been “elections are held, and the right person wins.” Their purpose is not to determine the will of the people, but to provide a veneer of legitimacy for a Leader whose every decision is by definition right and should be supported. The fact that only autocrats would agree with him bothers him not, the difference between him and them is not their methods, but that he is “good” and they are “evil.”
Dear oh dear. Those ELECTED LAWMAKERS of the elected representative democratic government of Iraq, challenge their executive under the powers given them by the new Iraqi constitution and the free media, free speech in Iraq … all of which arises from the removal of the totalitarian Baath regime by George W and his cohorts?
Is there no gratitude?
Ah well, Mr Kissinger might live again in the person of President Obama and the Iraqis might get fixed up with forced partition after all? Will Helena be cheerig then?
Dear oh dear. Those ELECTED LAWMAKERS of the elected representative democratic government of Iraq, challenge their executive under the powers given them by the new Iraqi constitution and the free media, free speech in Iraq … all of which arises from the removal of the totalitarian Baath regime by George W and his cohorts?
Is there no gratitude?
Ah well, Mr Kissinger might live again in the person of President Obama and the Iraqis might get fixed up with forced partition after all? Will Helena be cheerig then?