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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GST who wrote (199201)	8/24/2006 8:08:47 PM
From: geode00	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Bush and the Republicans don't care about the soldiers and marines anyway. They only care about oil. sfgate.com "...Now, a potentially explosive executive order has just been discovered by SEEN, the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network. Signed on May 22, it appears to give U.S. oil companies in Iraq blanket immunity from lawsuits and criminal prosecution. Here's what happened: On May 22, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1438, which provided gas and oil companies in Iraq with limited immunity until Dec. 21, 2007. Their reason? To protect the flow of oil revenues into the development fund that will be used to reconstruct Iraq. The U.N. resolution, however, did not provide immunity from human rights violations or environmental damage. Nor did it protect any employee or any company after the oil was produced and extracted in Iraq. ... These are the kind of legal protections that most corporations could only dream of enjoying. If, for example, a U.S. oil company engages in criminal behavior in California, and its assets can be traced back to Iraqi oil, it could be immune from any kind of prosecution. Tellingly, the president's order provides no such legal immunity for companies who are helping to reconstruct Iraqi communications, computer or electrical infrastructure. "In terms of legal liability," said Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, a Washington nonprofit group that defends whistle blowers, "the executive order cancels the concept of corporate accountability and abandons the rule of law. It is a blank check for corporate anarchy, potentially robbing Iraqis of both their rights and their resources." ...

To: GST who wrote (199201)	8/29/2006 7:30:41 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Japan and Germany have a tradition of fair trials with respect for the rights of defendants. That tradition might not go back forever, and might not be perfect, but its long enough and good enough to trust them in prosecuting our soldiers. Iraq has no such tradition. Also sometimes our soldiers are protected from prosecution, at least to an extent by status of forces agreements or other agreements with the host nation. So as I said before such an agreement isn't unusual, and doesn't make us in to an occupying empire. For example in the Philippines there is the Visiting Forces Agreement. Which prevents the Philippines from prosecuting American soldiers for most crimes. Whether such agreements are good ideas for the host country or not could certainly be debated. In many cases they are probably not, and they are often controversial. But they don't mean that we have some "permanent rights of conquest", or that we are acting as an occupying empire, or that American soldiers are above the law and not subject to any prosecution.