This diary presents an idea that I have not seen discussed anywhere, and I would like to begin a discussion here, if people find it worthwhile. Consider it solution, or an opportunity to once again say 'Mission Accomplished', or, as I like to see it: A way to stop the deaths of American soldiers.
There are a handful of assumptions that I make at the beginning that I think are not that controversial to people in the know, to people who are willing to be honest about the war, the Bush Crime Family, and the next several months that remain in this wretched regime.
First, governments can go into exile for a number of reasons. But, suffice it to say at this point, that a government goes into exile for its protection and in order to govern safely from another location, when conditions in the state are no longer conducive to proper governance.
The State of Iraq is a such a place, and, its government, led by Maliki could find benefits in departing the State and taking refuge in another. The actual location is not relevant, and, need not be disclosed. The important variables are that it is considered representative of the State, and it is recognized as such by other States. An argument could be made that Maliki's government fits those criteria.
Now, I know you have no reason to believe me, and I do not have the links to back up my claims. Well, there are two reasons for that: 1) there are no links that I find of sufficient scholarship to link; I find wikipedia utterly ridiculous for serious discussion, for example, and although it is a good source of maps and flags and other things, to cite it as something more is just silly; and, 2) serious scholarship on 'governments-in-exile' are in international law books, and aren't just out there in the public domain to be linked.
Getting that out of the way, and having set a simple explanation of what it means to be a 'government-in-exile', it is time to move on to my assumptions:
- The Bush Crime Family had a simple goal in mind when it lied to the American public about its invasion and occupation of Iraq: 1) The capture of the production of and distribution of oil; and 2) the elimination of a threat to middle-eastern security by assassinating Saddam Hussein and his leadership. Both of these goals have been achieved, but details of the oil bill are still being debated.
- The Bush Crime Family has installed a puppet government in Iraq to replace the risk that Saddam Hussein could shift the power relationships in the middle-east, and has also written legislation that the puppets are soon to pass assuring that American and European interests share in the plundering of the oil reserves of Iraq for the near future.
- The Bush Crime Family does not particularly care for American service-people, their protection, their health, their after-care. The fact that there are over 100,000 mercenary forces throughout Iraq further marginalizes the value of the American service-person, making them even less important than they would be absent the mercenaries.
- The Bush Crime Family does not care about the people of Iraq, and the number of their dead are irrelevant to their interests.
- The Bush Crime Family does not care about the State of Iraq as anything more than an entity that does not shift the power base in the middle-east, and continues to allow its plundering by western corporate interests. Its culture, its history, its people, its destiny are irrelevant.
This is a good set of basic assumptions. Now we must ask why the Malaki government might go into exile.
- It protects the leadership and locks the leadership in so that the people of Iraq cannot change its business relationships with western interests by renegotiating the terms of its oil contracts, to the detriment of the west.
- It allows the Bush Crime Family to begin to withdraw American troops, while maintaining the mercenary forces. This will be a consideration as we approach the 2008 election. If the war-party can campaign on the withdrawal of Americans, show the returning troops holding their babies on American tarmacs; spouses crying, and all the other propagandistic images, the war-party may not lose as much ground in the 2008 elections.
- It allows the Bush Crime Family to turn Iraq truly into a police state, and instead of having to carefully consider the results of their carnage and murders on the Malaki government, they can act with full impunity. The 'If something moves, shoot first, ask questions later' mantra can be a persistent state of doing business.
- The Bush Crime Family can demand that all press and all international observers leave Iraq while the government is in exile for 'their own safety'. This will allow the mercenaries and the remaining troops to "Fallujahize" Baghdad: Use chemical weapons, blanket bomb entire sections of the cities, and kill as many people as they wish to kill to 'stabilize' the region.
- Since anyone who could afford to leave Iraq have done so, all that really remains in Iraq are the Rumsfeldian 'bottom-feeders'. The poor, and the disenchanted. Iraq is the Ninth Ward writ large, but for the fact that the residents are slightly less dark-skinned than those who no longer live in New Orleans. In other words, if no one is there to see them being killed, it is really no big deal to anyone, especially the Bush Crime Family.
- It allows the mercenaries to simply find al-Sadr and any opposition that may arise to fill what they see as a leadership vacuum, and destroy them with impunity. If Maliki were not concerned over his own safety, al-Sadr would already be dead.
So there you have it. My plan for the Summer. A road-trip for Maliki to an undisclosed location where the Bush Crime Family can assure his safety at a much lower cost than what is presently being spent to do so in Baghdad. Will more people die? Yes. Does the Bush Crime Family care? No. Will the American people care if they see the troops come home earlier? Probably not.
If there is any traffic to this diary, and if people really want to know more about a 'government-in-exile', I will come back and update the diary with references to further reading. But, I suppose that this diary will go nowhere...
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Suggested Reading:
Talmon, Stefan (1999), 'Who is a Legitimate Government in Exile?: Towards a Normative Criteria for Governmental Legitimacy in International Law", in The Reality of International Law: Essays in Honour of Ian Bwownlie (Oxford: OUP)
Crawford, James (1979), The Creation of States in International Law (Oxford: OUP)
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Tags: George W. Bush, Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq, oil