The Status of Forces Agreement and an economic and political accord are expected to be completed by July and must pass the parliament before being finalized. Already voices of dissent are in the air.
The United Nation's mandate that allows foreign forces to occupy Iraq will not be renewed at the end of the year. So any future U.S. military involvement in the war-torn nation can only continue with such an agreement.
From Sadr City to Kufa in southern Iraq, thousands of followers of Sadr prayed and then peacefully stood in protest. In Sadr City, followers set fire to an American flag and an image of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki in Saddam Hussein's green military uniform.
"A curse upon him who agrees!" demonstrators chanted. "We are with you Sayyed Muqtada for liberating Iraq from the aggressors."
The above is from Leila Fadel's "Iraqi officials worry about security deal with U.S." (McClatchy Newspapers). We noted that in yesterday's snapshot but the call on that came in late and I said we'd note the article Saturday but I wasn't sure I could plug it into the snapshot. Had the piece been filed earlier on Friday, it would have been featured heavily in the snapshot. (As it was, the ABC News' article had already been used with a first-hand description of one protest.)
On the same topic, from Ned Parker and Saif Hameed's "Iraqis protest U.S. security pact" (Los Angeles Times):
The Iraqi leader signed a joint declaration with President Bush late last year that set principles for the negotiations on the status of forces agreement, which aims to cover military, trade and cultural relations. They planned to finalize a new security agreement by July 31.
Sadr, whose movement battled U.S. and Iraqi forces in spring in Sadr City and the southern port city of Basra before agreeing to truces in both places, came out strongly this week against any agreement legitimizing the presence of U.S. forces after 2008.
The cleric warned in a statement that his movement would hold protests every week until the Iraqi government renounced plans for the pact.
Members of Maliki's U.S.-allied government also have started to speak out in favor of imposing major restrictions on U.S. forces after the United Nations mandate authorizing their presence expires Dec. 31.
Iraq has said it will submit the agreement to parliament for approval, whereas the White House has argued that the agreement is administrative and does not need to be voted on in Congress.
The negotiations are an emotional issue in Iraq, which won full sovereignty from British colonial rule in 1932 under a treaty that allowed Britain to keep military bases and which paved the way for it to later intervene in Iraqi affairs.
I wish we could quote that one in full and, if the above excerpt interested you and you have the time, please click on the link to read the entire article. Regarding the submission of the treaty to the Iraqi parliament, an e-mail came in from a visitor regarding that aspect in yesterday's snapshot and stating, "It's been agreed to!" A lot of things are agreed to in Iraq. Very few happen. Take the provincial elections which have been pushed back now how many times? al-Maliki is a puppet and the White House doesn't want to submit the treaty to the Senate. In April, Representatives and Senators pointed out the glaring inconsistency during the week of The Crocker & Petraeus Variety Hour (whose final days were filled with B-list guesters offering testimony to Congress). You better believe that there is and will be pressure on the puppet not to submit the treaty to Parliament. (And considering that al-Maliki violated Iraq's constitution and ignored the Parliament to illegally renew the UN 'authorization,' it's hard to believe any but the blind faith crowd would automatically assume such a treaty would go before the Iraqi Parliament.)
One of the Senators loudly calling out the nonsense that the Senate's being bypassed for this treaty while Iraq's Parliament's being consulted was Senator Hillary Clinton (other senators included Joe Biden, Russ Feingold and Norm Coleman -- the latter is a Republican and he wasn't the only one to call out the nonsense; in the House Susan Davis spoke at length about it and there were many others doing so). Which is our transition to Susan Saulny's "Mocking of Clinton at Obama’s Church Reverberates" (New York Times) about the attack from Michael Pfleger -- longtime friend, campaigner of Barack's -- on Hillary at Barack's church last Sunday:
The Clinton campaign repeated on Friday, for a second day, its displeasure with how Mr. Obama has handled the situation, calling for him to reject Father Pfleger more forcefully.
In a statement issued Thursday, Mr. Obama, who was not at the church during the sermon, said he was "deeply disappointed" with Father Pfleger’s "backward-looking" remarks.
The Clinton camp said it had hoped for more.
"Divisive and hateful language like that is totally counterproductive in our efforts to bring our party together and have no place at the pulpit or in our politics," said Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton. "We are disappointed that Senator Obama didn't specifically reject Father Pfleger's despicable comments about Senator Clinton, and assume he will do so."
On Friday, an Obama spokesman said the campaign had nothing new to add.
You're seeing the same arrogance the Obama campaign has demonstrated throughout the primary campaign (and the same arrogance that would doom him as a general election nominee). As noted in the snapshot yesterday, the archbishop has called out Pfleger, has stated that the remarks were "a personal attack" on Hillary. But despite the fact that Pfleger was one of the first friends Barack made in Chicago, despite the fact that Pfleger was part of (until two weeks ago) the Barack Obama campaign, despite the fact that Pfleger has donated to Barack's campaigns and Barack has steered over $100,000 to Pfleger's church (tax-payer money) and despite the fact that the Obama campaign utilized Pfleger twice publicly in the primary campaign (Pfleger campaigned for Obama in Iowa and was also used by the Obama campaign in March to insist to reporters -- that the campaign steered to Pfleger -- that Wright's appalling remarks were not 'shocking'), depite the fact that the attacks came at the church Obama has attended for over twenty years, the Obama campaign wants to act as if they don't owe an apology. The pathetic groupies in The Cult of Obama think this is playing well. But, then, they also thought Wright was a non-issue if they spun hard enough. They also think Ayers & Dohrn are non-issues if they spin hard enough (and did anyone whitewash the realities of Weather more than David Corn?). It's a doomed campaign as a general election campaign and the coddling it has received from allged members of the press can take some blame for that if Barack becomes the nominee.
And it is past time that others join Andrew S. Ross' "Campaign question-5: Obama's latest racial problem" (San Francisco Chronicle) in wondering, "Apart from the appallingly racist nature of Father Michael Pfleger's remarks about Hillary Clinton, what is one to make of the congregation who seemed to lap it all up?"
Micah notes Howard Wolfson's "HUBdate: 'Top Candidate for Dems':" (HillaryClinton.com):
Argus Leader Endorses Hillary: South Dakota's Argus Leader today endorsed Hillary, calling her the "Top Candidate for Dems...Clinton is the strongest Democratic candidate for South Dakota. Her mastery of complex policy detail is broad and deep, and her experience as a senator and former first lady matches that…Her resilience and determination never should be questioned. She has met or overcome every challenge or roadblock in her way, and there have been many." Read more.
Automatic Delegate Watch: Washington State Democratic Party Chair Eileen Macoll endorsed Hillary yesterday: "On the issues that matter most -- from establishing universal health care to improving our schools to ending the war in Iraq--she has never backed down and never wavered. Hillary has what it takes to beat John McCain this Fall and win back the White House." Read more.
Endorsement Watch: Puerto Rican music artist Ricky Martin yesterday endorsed Hillary: “These elections will have historic repercussions both in the United States and the world. Senator Clinton has always been consistent in her commitment with the needs of the Latino community…she has always fought for what is most important for our families." Read more.
"She's Going to Pull It Off" Hillary had "one of the best turnouts of her South Dakota campaign" yesterday at a stop in Huron, where supporters waited to see her "in a line stretching down the block." One supporter said, "She's what we're for. She's against the war in Iraq…Hillary doesn't crack under pressure." Another supporter remarked, "We really think she’s going to pull it off in the end." Read more.
On the Air in Montana: Hillary began airing her first television ad "Only One" in Montana: "She's the only one in this campaign who voted against the Bush energy bill against six billion dollars to the oil companies, the only one taking on the insurance companies to guarantee health coverage for every American and she's the one who'll end fifty five billion dollars in giveaways to corporate special interests and cut taxes for the middle class instead." Watch here.
Previewing Today: Hillary travels to Puerto Rico to host a rally in Old San Juan.
I'm going to be replying to e-mails in this entry and the next one. One question was about Huron in yesterday's snapshot? The person I dictated the snapshot to sarcastically said, "Where the hell is Huron?" Which is why the bit of trivia was added (Cheryl Ladd was born there). If anyone else had never heard of Huron, South Dakota it gave them a bit of trivia about a great city they were unaware of previously.
Another question was about no videos on Friday. There won't be videos on Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays. Limiting the videos to community members who can enjoy them, there is a huge increase iin the number of members pulling up the site over the weekend. We have members who exclusively have dial up. We have members who have access to broadband at work but, on days off, do not. The videos (especially campaign ones) cause an Adobe script error for a lot of dialup members. Not only do they get the error message, their computers run slower while they have TCI pulled up. This has been raised in e-mails and I've always replied, "We don't have to post videos at all." But they're willing to deal with it (partly to get the word out on the Hillary campaign). Gina and Krista polled last week to see if everyone would be fine with no videos for the weekend since the number of dial up users increases significantly? The community was fine with that. What Gina and Krista didn't factor in is that 5 entries show up when you pull up this site at any time. There are usually two entries on Saturdays. That means the other three are from Friday. So I made the decision not to include videos on Friday. If they're on the page, the error message will (slowly, I'm told) pop up and, while on the page, the computer will run slowly (as they try to page up or down). And if you missed it, the UK Computer Gurus encourage you to use Crazy Browser if you're having a problem in Explorer with that Adobe message (some are clicking and reclicking on "OK" -- to end "script" -- and it never goes away).
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
iraq
leila fadel
mcclatchy newspapers
saif hameed
ned parker
the los angeles times
susan saulnythe new york times
andrew s. ross
