There's nothing surprising about the fact that the Bush administration seems to be seeking to ensure that US mercenaries contractors serving in Iraq be legally unaccountable but it is shocking. That's not something any genuinely sovereign government in Iraq or anywhere else would ever agree to, and it makes a mockery of the pretense that the purpose of our policy in Iraq is to help Iraqis (for a way to help Iraqis, check out this refugees bill) or that we're doing everything we can to shield civilians from harm.
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Ah, Sovereignty
25 Jan 2008 08:40 am
Comments (27)
Coming next
Is extraterritoriality.
Noting text
Say "extraterritoriality."
You perplexed
By "extraterritoriality"?
Just noting clause
(Don't touch the coat!)
Which say your laws
Do not apply
(Don't touch the coat!)
When we drop by —
Not getting shot,
No matter what:
A minor scrape,
A major rape,
And we escape
(Don't touch the cape!)
That's what is extraterritoriality.
-Steven Sonheim, Pacific Overtures
I think the position of the administration and its supporters is that we're not going to let any government in the world tell us what to do -- we don't need anyone's permission to act in our self-interest, and anyone who says different is a dam' internationalist who hates America.
It astounds me that coverage of the occupation, even up to and including Goldberg's very nice piece about the different ways the country could fracture in the last print edition (yes I subscribe) conveys the false administration message that there is a sovereign Iraqi state. Not only does it not have a monopoly on the use of force, it has not say in the disposition of its own military. It cannot even arrest foreign nationals who commit murder. Periodically the US Congress dictates what laws it should pass.
This is not a recent development. It is profoundly dishonest to talk about an Iraqi government, and yet that is a running foundation for any story reported out of the country, reinforcing US propaganda of the US role in Iraq.
Your assertion that this is something that no sovereign government would agree to is, well, wrong. Take a look, for instance, at the 1986 Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency. Upon a nuclear disaster in country A, whereafter country B agrees (with consent of A) to provide assistance and aid in recovery, country B is immune from civil responsibility for any damage it may cause in the process.
We are, of course, an empire. So far as I can tell, a uniquely dishonest empire. It's too bad our presidential candidates aren't addressing the issue. I'd like to hear some talk on what the hundred years occupation is supposed to look like, and what it is meant to achieve. I want an acknowledgment of the plain fact that we are an aggressive, imperial power. Our journalists appear to be strangely frightened of confrontation, so I do not have much hope. They are too close to power. In the course of my work day I meet three women with sons or husbands facing death in Iraq and they hate the war. It's a class thing. You can lie about Iraq more easily if your only son isn't driving a Bradley fighting vehicle. You can write about haircuts and laughs if you don't see the pain and exhaustion on their faces. It's a class thing, and politicians and journalists are members of a class that can insulate themselves. Which is a big part of why they are so despised and why there is so much despair.
No, apparently they don't need to be held accountable in Iraq because the industry does such an excellent job of self-regulation. What's a little human rights abuse between friends?
Upon a nuclear disaster in country A, whereafter country B agrees (with consent of A) to provide assistance and aid in recovery, country B is immune from civil responsibility for any damage it may cause in the process.
What if Country A invades Country B (or, more appropriately, Country I), then sets up a facade "Country B" government with no real authority? Does it matter a Rat's A what conventions the "Country B" government might be signatory to, if its powers are not derived from the consent of the governed?
I blame the Iraqis.
Clearly, they are open to agreeing to these terms. So why should we not sign the agreement to occupy them for the next hundred years?
This whole argument is totally silly!
Of course the Iraqi Government is fully sovereign. After all, the American general in control of Iraq ordered them to be fully sovereign, and they certainly take his orders if they know what's good for them...
@james gary
I congratulate you for whistling past my coment, but the point is that it is actually quite possible for a "genuinely sovereign" country to indemnify another's operations on their territory. The nuclear assistance agreement is but one example. The current agreement in Iraq is obviously more problematic, but I'm just responding to the blanket statement that Matt made that, in fact, has no basis in reality or fact.
NVS:
Do you consider the present Iraqi government to be genuinely sovereign?
Also, if you're going to simply gainsay my comment, you could just write "you're wrong, dude," instead of trying to wrap it in five lines of pompous diction.
Attached is a link to a commentary on the relationship between the Bush administration and the fascist cocksuckers who run the Blackwater thugs for rent corporation.
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/01/blackwater_a_subsidiary_of_bus.php#more
@james gary
For the sake of clarity--no.
I'll add, however, that sovereignty--to the extent that it is used and misused by people who don't realize the context in which they're talking about the term--is a very complicated concept.*
That is, even conceding that the Iraqi government isn't genuinely sovereign, which I do, it is not automatically true that every decision it makes is thereby illegitimate or even coerced. In fact, I can think of some good reasons why the Iraqi government would, in fact, indemnify civilian contractors, the simplest one being that the Iraqi government needs the civilian contractors (as does the U.S. military to supplement its ranks), in spite of the many terrible things they are responsible for.
*: this is not a slight at you. I'm just stating something that a review of poli sci and international law docs will undeniably show.
Well goodness gracious, our "excitable" friend SLC suddenly seems totally outraged at the misdeeds of some of our bloodthirsty mercenaries in Iraq.
I wonder if this could possibly have anything to do with that particular company being run by an Evangelical Christian (though perhaps not so "Christian" a Christian if you know what I mean).
I honestly don't know whether I've ever noticed anyone on the Internet who remarks have long expressed such a total and abiding hatred for all Christians and Christianity...
Though admittedly, he also seems to totally hate all Muslims as well.
Can't possibly imagine why this would be the base...
No matter how rotten you think this Presidency is, it is more rotten than you think.
Matt's statement has no basis in law or historical fact. Fortunately for him, and people like James Gary, at least they can say they get their ignorance from the NYTimes:
However, the American quest for protections for civilian contractors is expected to be particularly vexing, because in no other country are contractors working with the American military granted protection from local laws.
Which is a colossal pile of deliberately or simply misinformed shit by the NYTimes reporters "spinning" their anti-Iraq War narrative.
We have military contractors in several countries covered under Status of Forces agreements. I was one in beautiful KSA. The agreements can be blanket, like diplomatic immunity is for contractors under State, or similar to limited diplomatic immunity. The KSA one was that we contractors were subject to and protected by US law while obeying all relevant local laws and customs or we were gone the next day.
The matter is in the details negotiated with each country, unless it is universal like the NATO SOF, which is also the general basis of many non-NATO countries. The general rule distinguishes between problems arising in conduct of mission and incidentals arising from mission - and stuff done on free time. In KSA, that would mean that getting in a fight with a Saudi while driving out to a radar link tower would likely involve KSA "kops" but prosecution by USA. But a contractor in town shopping and punching out a merchant would involve Saudi law, though both DOD and the Saudis would probably seek the USA to take the offender, pay off the Saudi offended...to avoid all the diplomatic hassles,
SOF also covers military dependents.
The basic agreement we ALWAYS seek protecting American civilians working with military has been around since the late 19th Century, when the USA first had overseas basis and interests (China, US Navy coaling stations, then what we got from Spain in the 1898 War.) It was patterned after the British law protecting their nationals accompanying their military on global missions of Empire. It is US Code 32, Chapter I, Part 153.
And it expands to cover any contractor or dependent of any Federal agency supporting the military mission or non-military projects supported by DOD.
*************************
Some nationalistic Iraqis may snivel and bitch, but what we will seek with the SOF is no different than the SOF of other Muslim nations we are in save that US contractors have a heightened security function capacity in Iraq to protect other contractors American and foreigners we employ like Turks and Filipinos and Egyptians doing the truck driving and base services jobs.
AS the Iraqis develop the ability to reliably assure the safety of foreign nationals, the US security contractors and military security of contractors gives way to Iraqi cops, secret police, military taking over those functions. Just like other areas of Iraq still broke - like Iraq having no indigenous air defense or air force to protect themselves at this time...We do that as Iraq begins its transition to be able to protect it's own naval and airspace territorial sovereignity.
In other countries in Iraq's situation, we have scaled back SOF protection of contractors by mutual agreement because we have bilaterally agreed that certain countries have such decent law enforcement and justice systems that contractors and military dependents, but not US military under unique UCMJ law - are basically under host nation law unless directly involved in military job assignment duty. (Japan, Singapore, Spain, post-Franco...)
But in certain countries that never get their shit in one sock, we keep up a highly protective SOF, or the contractors wouldn't sign up, the dependents not allowed in...
Representative Bill Delahunt, Democrat of Massachusetts, said that what the administration was negotiating amounted to a treaty and should be subjected to Congressional oversight and ultimately ratification.
“Where have we ever had an agreement to defend a foreign country from external attack and internal attack that was not a treaty?” he said Wednesday at a hearing of a foreign affairs subcommittee held to review the matter. “This could very well implicate our military forces in a full-blown civil war in Iraq. If a commitment of this magnitude does not rise to the level of a treaty, then it is difficult to imagine what could.”
That seemed like an important part of the article too, and in the long run this kind of decision may be the most dangerous thing the current administration is doing. (Not that there isn't plenty of competition, of course.) Signing statements and agreements that aren't treaties and hollowing out precedents — why break or change the rules when you can ignore them?
Some nationalistic Iraqis may snivel and bitch,
Wouldn't you?
But in certain countries that never get their shit in one sock, we keep up a highly protective SOF, or the contractors wouldn't sign up, the dependents not allowed in...
I think this gets to the heart of the matter, really. Why would it be bad for the U.S. government to no longer be employing mercenaries? What's the point of having rules of engagement or a UCMJ at all if the government can have an arbitrarily large group of soldiers who operate outside them? I'm genuinely asking, here.
They are not mercenaries. They don't join our forces in battle, they don't secure the streets, they don't do snatch and grab arrests, and they don't do black operations. They do rehabilitation tasks, or they protect those doing rehabilitation tasks.
This is one of the silliest things to complain about out of all the silly things Matt chooses to complain about -- and there are many.
When we ask American civilians to risk their lives doing menial tasks for foreign people in foreign hostile territory, this is how it has to be done.
Good pay, legal umbrella, accountable only to the home team. If you have a better suggestion, one that is not the kind of masturbation in the dark that is usually splashed around here, have at it. But keep in mind the one constant here: the job must be done -- preferably, done well.
And yes, we could just reinstate the draft. Fill out the non-kinetic roles with undermotivated teenagers, and set them loose on foreign soil. That's one way to do it.
And yes, the average Iraqi probably bitches about it. We kind of, you know, created that problem when we invaded and took responsibility for the country. Congratulations to all who think this is some hard-hitting insight.
In other words, contractors are a necessary part of the whole.
If you have a problem with the whole, fine. I do too. I'd much rather we had stayed with the punitive squeeze strategy, rather than the remake-a-baked-cake crap we got ourselves into.
But to complain about the types of protection we afford civilian contractors in hostile territory? That's just throwing a tantrum, lashing out in all directions.
Children do that, you know?
Re RKU
I don't like fucking born-agains of any persuasion. That includes Moslem, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddist, Shintoist, or Wiccan born-agains. Although, as my Syrian friend Ammar Kanaan says, I am prejudiced against everybody, I am especially prejudiced against fucking born-agains.
Here is another article about the connection of the Bush Administration and a crooked contractor on the Iraq gravy train. As Ms. Jennifer says, it is impossible to overstate the corruption of the Bush Administration.
http://www.michiganmessenger.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=727
Cyrus - JA answered you on your "all contractors are mercenaries" confusion.
Teddy crony Delahunt sows more liberal confusion:
said that what the administration was negotiating amounted to a treaty and should be subjected to Congressional oversight and ultimately ratification.
“Where have we ever had an agreement to defend a foreign country from external attack and internal attack that was not a treaty?”
Delahunt is ignorant that by Hague Conventions we became obligated to defend Iraq from external and internal attack once we conquered it. And the Congresssional acquiescence of that was in the original AUF. Once we were there and saw it was a broke place, we asked for and got a UN Mandate of Occupation, again with Congressional acceptance - agreeing to defend Iraq from external attack and internal attack. No treaty needed.
A transition away from UN Mandate of occupation to Joint Control of defenses on ground with US keeping air and naval control until the Iraqi Navy and Air Force is reconstituted requires no treaty. Just a SOF, not subject to Senate treaty approval, and Lefties have no legal case as the 80 or so other SOFs were signed without the Senate. That looks to be 5-7 years minimum, with technical assistance for Air defense adquate against regional threats, civilian technical assistance taking at least 10 years.
There is no basis for a mutual defense treaty that would require Senate approval. Iraq is not interested in defending the USA if it is attacked.
Congress still has the power of the purse. It can abandon Iraq and invite in the Chinese, Russians, Iranians, or Turks to go in instead and fill the power vacuum and control Iraqi oil. If they want to embrace defeat and act profoundly against Western security interests...Congressman Delahunt should go for it...
They are not mercenaries. They don't join our forces in battle, they don't secure the streets, they don't do snatch and grab arrests, and they don't do black operations. They do rehabilitation tasks, or they protect those doing rehabilitation tasks.
Not mercenaries? Many if not all of their employees have military experience, and many are not U.S. citizens. (I didn't know until today, but apparently not being a national of the country is part of the technical definition of a mercenary. It doesn't seem relevant for casual use, though.) They fired first in 163 of the 195 shooting incidents they have been involved in, been assigned to guard high-ranking American officials, and worked in concert with legitimate soldiers. It's simply Orwellian to say that Blackwater employees aren't mercenaries, at least some of them.
Today's editing project:
They are not to be called mercenaries because that sounds bad. They don't join our forces in battle, they fight their own separate battles... they don't secure the streets, because we arm Iraqi mercenaries to do that... they don't do snatch and grab arrests, but they occasionally murder civilians and walk free... and they don't do black operations because the CIA has their own mercenaries for that. They work as bodyguards or hired thugs, which is Newspeak is called "doing rehabilitation tasks or protecting those doing rehabilitation tasks."
When we ask American civilians to risk their lives doing menial tasks for foreign people in foreign hostile territory, this is how it has to be done because we've got the bomb and the ordinary rules of civilization don't apply to us.
There, that's better.
If all those buffed-up former South African commandos wearing wrap-around sunglasses and carrying Uzi submachine guns while risking their lives at salaries of $200K/year AREN'T mercenaries...well, then they sure LOOK like mercenaries...
This issue was argued over at TPM some time back, and H. C. Berkowitz argued persuasively that the military contractors in Iraq WERE mercenaries under international law - and thus illegal under both US and international law.
Ford: "There is no basis for a mutual defense treaty that would require Senate approval. Iraq is not interested in defending the USA if it is attacked."
Bullshit. Nobody said ANYTHING about a "mutual defense" treaty. We're talking about the guarantee of the Iraq government's security against internal and external threats. No other country in the world has such a treaty with the US - and that exceeds any "Status of Forces" agreement the US has with any other country.
Take your troll shit and eat it.
Comments closed February 08, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Iraqis aren't human. Nor are most other beings (we can't stoop to calling them humans) inhabiting other lands. We can kill, maim, oppress or impoverish them at our whim. Get with the program.
Posted by steve duncan | January 25, 2008 8:53 AM