Daily Archive

The Guardian:

A confidential draft agreement covering the future of US forces in Iraq, passed to the Guardian, shows that provision is being made for an open-ended military presence in the country.

The draft strategic framework agreement between the US and Iraqi governments, dated March 7 and marked “secret” and “sensitive”, is intended to replace the existing UN mandate and authorises the US to “conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security” without time limit…

Well, there’s a policy shocker: no one had had any idea.

Or, actually, maybe we all had? Or perhaps the paper hadn’t been reading The London Review Of “Definitely Noncommittal Stances”. And maybe it hadn’t stumbled on the “secretive” and “sensitive” February 1 Democratic debate on CNN. Also, most recently, the Guardian must have missed those “secret” and “sensitive” American Sunday television newsmaker interview programs yet again.

Nevertheless, with a huge issue brewing much closer to its own journalistic base, the paper needn’t worry about its U.S. flank. Despite the Guardian’s regular lament over there having been no “long-term plan” for the recovery of Iraq, now that there seems to be one developing Americans promise not to take umbrage at any possible guardian-ite mischaracterizations of some of its policymakers’ motives in perhaps looking to agree with Iraq on a location or two which in decades to come might serve as another Rhein-Main (which, by mutual agreement, somehow existed “open-endedly” . . . until it was closed down) or Incirlik. For while the U.S. is obviously expansionist and all around out of control, hyperpower-scary, as the Guardian is discovering to its chagrin the U.S. still doesn’t seem nearly as fearsome an opponent as Tesco.

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UPDATE: This just in from another imperial outpost. There, conquest long since completed, the disgraceful occupying presence continues to make itself felt:

Airmen pitch in to help clean local community

And Sen McCain actually dares ponder on such oppression being inflicted upon somewhere in Iraq, c. 2050? It’s incredible.

In case you’re interested, the Voice of America is running a series in “Special English” (meaning simple, clear “American” for people learning the language) on U.S. history. You can listen to the broadcasts yourself on the VOA web site. Here’s a sample from the written transcript on one of the episodes:

…Washington was especially happy and proud that the United States would protect people against oppression for their religious beliefs.

He did not care which god people worshipped. He felt that religious freedom was a right of every person. Good men, he said, are found all over the world. They can be followers of any religion…or no religion at all.

Washington’s feelings about racial oppression were as strong as his feelings about religious oppression. True, he owned Negro slaves. But he hated slavery. “There is not a man alive,” he once said, “who wishes more truly than I to see a plan approved to end slavery.” By his order, all his slaves were freed when he died…

Up to now, the programs have focused on the founding. As Americans, we take much of it for granted, because we have been raised with all of this: it is (at times, tediously) maybe too familiar. Yet it is intriguing to sit back and listen for a bit to how the radio/internet voice of the U.S. shares from scratch American history for limited English-proficient people for whom many of these names, dates and happenings are unfamiliar at best.