ILSM Looks at the Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq

Here’s a post by ILSM…

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On Friday, Feb 8, 2008 the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight heard testimony from Douglas MacGregor, Col USA (ret) senior fellow at Center for Defense Information.

His topic was the “Status of Forces Agreement” (SOFA) recently agreed to by the Bush Administration and the Maliki government in Iraq. The SOFA does more than state what will happen if a drunken GI is hauled in by Iraqi civil authorities. It states the US will engage Maliki’s enemies foreign and domestic to defend Iraq’s “democratic system”.

Mr. MacGregor points to several issues with the SOFA.

One, the SOFA’s the US has with South Korea and Germany were part of a treaty ratified by the US Senate. This commitment to defend Iraq’s “democratic system” is not contained in any thing approved by the US congress. How can the administration edge into a long term contravention of the US Constitution?

Second point is that the SOFA addresses protecting the Maliki government from internal threats as well as external. Nothing in NATO or South Korea’s treaties addressed defending the sitting government against internal threats. The place you have to go to see that kind of treaty establishment is the Warsaw Pact treaty with the soviet dominions behind the Iron Curtain.

The SOFA appears to do what the soviets attempted to do; impose a system on a population with culture and social traditions we have no concern for.

Worse, we are protecting the Shia’a side of the Iraqi coalition causing the country to fragment along ethnic and religious lines.

Good for the 100 year occupation and bankrupting the US.

Not good for anything else.

Here is a link to the testimoney. (Warning – PDF file.)

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This one was by ILSM.