Tuesday, October 31, 2006

I thought it was against the law for our soldiers to take orders from foreign countries.

So when did al-Maliki get to be commander of our troops?

Update: sockeye over at DailyKos takes it further.

Update: Steve Bates finds more evidence at Needlenose of the complications and tangles of meaning this has:

(from WaPo) "U.S. forces ended a five-day-old military blockade of Baghdad's impoverished Sadr City section Tuesday, meeting a deadline set by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki amid tensions between U.S. and Iraqi officials and pressure from the anti-American cleric whose militia controls the sprawling Shiite slum.

"Maliki ordered that the security cordon be lifted hours after cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called for a civil disobedience campaign in Sadr City to protest the blockade, which the U.S. military launched Wednesday in an effort to find an abducted U.S. soldier and capture a purported Iraqi death squad leader.

"It was the Maliki government's greatest demonstration of independence from the occupying U.S. military forces, following two weeks of increasingly pointed exchanges between Iraqi and U.S. officials. But it was also a reminder of the degree to which Maliki must cooperate with Sadr, who leads the political party that comprises one of the biggest blocs in the governing alliance and who effectively runs the Shiite Muslim stronghold named for his deceased father."


Take a look at the sea of outrage in the photos Needlenose has posted. This is more than complicated, it is impossible.

2 comments:

Steve Bates said...

Under some circumstances, e.g., acting in behalf of NATO or (in the old days) the UN, US troops may be placed under the command of foreign nationals. But the notion that Maliki can call off US troops' search for one of their own is simply outside the pale. Sockeye is right: this should be splashed all over the talking-heads shows.

Steve Bates said...

Update: evidently it's more complicated than that.