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Secret US-Iraq 'Status of Forces' Agreement Would Preserve Human Rights Violations, Torture Policies in Iraq
The Bush-Cheney administration is engaged in secret talks with their Iraqi counterparts to craft a binding executive agreement renewing current US military and detention policies when the United Nations authorization expires this December. The "status of forces" proposal is bogged down in disputes between the Pentagon and key Iraqi factions, and faces potential sharp questions in the US Congress in the coming weeks.
Assuming the administration has its way, which is by no means certain, the agreement between the two executive branches will preserve the right of US forces to initiate unilateral military action and continue rounding up tens of thousands of Iraqis in abusive preventive detention facilities where human rights are violated routinely.
Senators including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama oppose any such bilateral executive agreement without Senate hearings and concurrence. House critics like Rep. Bill Delahunt and Jim McGovern already are engaged in hearings on the proposed agreement. House Judiciary Chair John Conyers also has questioned the constitutionality of the measure.
At stake for the anti-war movement and the progressive blogosphere is whether the current administration can bind the next president to its current Iraq policies.
In a June 13 letter to the United Nations Security Council, Human Rights Watch [HRW] called for a rejection of the American rationale for preventive detention. In legal terms, the US currently claims the right of internment "for imperative reasons of security." But with the declared end of "belligerent occupation" in 2004, HRW argues, the Iraq war is a conflict where Article 3 of the Geneva convention and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights should apply to the treatment of all detainees and prisoners. Those protocols require that "all persons arrested be brought promptly before a judge; have access to legal counsel and family members; be charged with a cognizable criminal offense and receive a prompt fair trial meeting international fair trial standards." Those standards are systematically violated in Iraq [and Afghanistan] where as many as 100,000 detainees are held without charges, without lawyers, and without an independent judicial process, in life-threatening conditions. American taxpayers spent more than $20 billion during the past five years supporting the repressive Iraqi police and prison apparatus.
In careful language, the HRW letter goes on to "recognize the problem of torture and other mistreatment in Iraqi detention facilities. International law prohibits the transfer of individuals to the custody of a state where there are substantial grounds for believing they are in danger of being tortured." That's the prohibition which the proposed "status of forces" agreement attempts to circumvent.
Whether HRW can achieve enforcement of the Geneva Conventions in Iraq and Afghanistan is doubtful since their appeals are to the very authorities who installed the sectarian, Shi'a-controlled governing coalition in Baghdad complete with brutal militias and secret prisons. The complicity of the US was revealed in a 2004 article by a top counterinsurgency adviser to the US Command urging a "global Phoenix program" as the solution to global jihad. First implemented in South Vietnam, that is the program now being carried out in Baghdad with little questioning by the American media.
The UN Security Counsel is unlikely to intervene on its own against the proposed "status of forces" language. But increased rumblings in the Iraqi parliament and the US Congress, under pressure from human rights, clergy and anti-war groups, could become a tipping point revealing the heart of darkness the Iraqi and Afghani gulags have become.
US law [the Leahy Amendment, 1997] already prohibits any assistance to military or police entities known to be human rights violators. Key Congressional staff are preparing official letters inquiring why the Leahy Amendment doesn't apply to Iraq. The Center for American Progress and the recently-formed Campaign Against Torture in Iraq and Afghanistan have demanded the Leahy Amendment be implemented.
That would undermine the remaining authority of the al-Maliki regime in Baghdad and, by threatening to de-fund official repression, force an ultimate choice on Baghdad and Washington. Ending preventive detention policies, holding provincial elections as promised, while keeping US troops in a holding pattern, might well bring about a legitimate Iraqi government that would insist on a timetable for US withdrawal. It may be that or a new generation of suicide bombers born in detention camps.
Tom Hayden is a former state senator and leader of Sixties peace, justice and environmental movements. He currently teaches at Pitzer College in Los Angeles. His books include The Port Huron Statement [new edition], Street Wars and The Zapatista Reader. For more information, go to www.stopfundingtorture.com
Copyright © 2008 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
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11 Comments so far
Show Allwhat good are laws when they are simply ignored by top class elites, who believe that they are above it?
News Flash-The United States under Georgethesecond engages in Torture and Massive Human Rights Violations! Will any European Country begin war crimes investigations?
How does the proposed Status of Forces Agreement square with Maliki's recent demand that the US establish a timetable for leaving Iraq or alternatively, to leave Iraq immediately?
Tom Hayden said: "At stake for the anti-war movement and the progressive blogosphere is whether the current administration can bind the next president to its current Iraq policies."
Don't believe it. As we have seen, NOTHING binds executive power. If the next President wanted to abrogate the SOFA, he could do so.
However, I see it as unlikely that Obama/McCain will do anything to change status quo.
@chet
Given the friction between Iraq and the US, it is unlikely that a SOFA will be signed. In all of Maliki's talks he mentions MOUs - Memorandum of Understanding - to tide things over until the next President negotiates a SOFA.
Maliki may be a dipwad, but he is smart enough that he wants to negotiate with the next Administration, not Bush's White House.
Hayden ought to be writing science fiction scripts for holliwood instead of wasting our time. Today, the Senate passed the FISA Bill taking away our rights thanks to Hayden's handpicked boy, Barrack Obama. They keep chipping away our rights thanks to the Democrat Party that rubber stamps everything from extreme judges, to fascist legislation like FISA. The facists have already won thanks to a spineless wimp like Hayden.
As more right fall by the wayside, how long before they start knocking on doors and people are taken away never to be heard of again?
Funny? It happened in Argentina twenty years ago: they called those people "the disappeared one's."
Yeah, as for Hayden: boom, boom, boom, ... another one takes the bait.
Come on over with us, Tom. It's where the action is - or should be. You could help!
Obama has said nothing opposing this. In fact, since he's promised often to make sure there are still troops in Iraq at the end of his first term, he needs exactly the same sort of agreement.
The only thing Obama has said is that he felt such an agreement should come to the Congress for approval like any other 'treaty'.
But this is a very typical Obama\Democrat trick. They find some point they can disagree with, and use that project an image that implies a much larger disapproval. But the really don't disapprove and have no intention of doing so. They just trumpet their one little point of disagreement loudly to fool people into thinking there is more there.
This for instance is exactly what the Dems did about the Iraq war in 2006 elections. They criticized Bush's tactics. They criticized Bush for making mistakes in executing the war. But if you listened closely, they never criticized the war itself. They never said they would end the war. What they did was to loudly trumpet their complaints over Bush's tactics and mistakes to create the false impression of opposing the war. To someone who listened closely, there was no surprise when the Democrats have consistently worked to keep the war going.
And, one can possibly say that Obama has now backtracked even on his weak, non-opposition statements about the agreement coming up to a vote. He says he now agrees with Maliki. Everyone is trumpeting that as agreement on timetables. But what I'm not hearing is that Maliki is also proposing that any such agreement he signs not go to either his Parliment or our Congress for approval.
If Obama agrees with that point, and he just trumpets his overall agreement with Maliki with no qualifiers, then Obama is once again flip-flopping on his earlier statements that this agreement should ocme to Congress for approval.
Hayden's had a long political journey. He was once one of the Yippies who helped organize the protests at the Chicago DNC in '68. And he was one of the Chicago 7 who went on trial after that.
But, then he went on to become a CA State Rep and a member of the Democratic Party. So these days he's much more of a Democrat than a Yippie.
I sure don't expect to see him for instance joining in with the Recreate 68 folks here in Denver! These bs pieces about how we all must abandon our soul and vote Dem are more typical for the old-age Hayden.
I have been told that the demands of the Iraqis on the "Status of Forces Agreement" are exactly what Senator Obama will do once he is elected President. Nonsense. The Iraqis demand the withdrawals of ALL foreign troops while Obama only promises the withdrawal of combat units, leaving tens of thousands of "trainers/advisers" behind.
A few weeks ago I commented on this site that the anti-war movement in our country is dead and that it is now growing strong in Iraq. At that time I referred to the demonstrations of thousands of Iraqis in Baghdad and other cities against the so-called "understanding for continued occupation of Iraq by the USA." I had not expected that Iraq's Government would join the movement so soon. Anyone who believes that Maliki et al. are only posturing before their own people to generate popularity will be shocked to learn that they mean what they say.
One of the many tragic by-product of this illegal war and occupation is that millions of Iraqi Christians who were never harassed by Saddam Hussein have either fled the country or have been killed.
Off topic yet not, Homeland Security is wrking with some type Halliburton assholes that make "Shock Bracelets", they want the passengers on airlines to wear these instead of having a boarding [pass a potentially lethal replacement. You'll be at the hands of the Flight Attendants! Seriously, this is the site.
http://www.lamperdlesslethal.com/video_gallery.asp?video=http://www.lamperdlesslethal.com/video/EMDsafetybracelet.flv&title=
Take a look at their handy dandy video!
under the bus progressives... make yourself at home
Obama's integrity is all tapped out - He had me at hope and change. He lost me with lies and deceit.