Posted on 11/29/2008 12:59:09 PM PST by WilliamReading
NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraq's influential Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has reservations about a pact allowing U.S. troops to stay for three more years, but politicians must decide its value, a source said on Saturday.
Iraq's parliament passed a law approving the long-awaited security pact on Thursday, paving the way for U.S. forces to withdraw by the end of 2011 and taking the country a step closer to full sovereignty. They agreed it should be put to a national referendum by the end of July next year.
The revered cleric's acceptance of the pact is crucial for it to be accepted by Iraq's mostly Shi'ite population, many of whom are at best ambivalent about the continuing presence of U.S. troops on their soil.
"In this agreement there are unsatisfactory things ... Therefore he declares his reservations. His reservations do not mean rejection, but neither does that mean absolute acceptance," a source close to Sistani's office told Reuters.
Sistani had signaled the week before the vote that he would abstain from judging the pact and leave it to lawmakers to decide its fate, on two conditions: that it does not violate Iraq's sovereignty and that it gets consensus from all of its communities. Shi'ites have eagerly awaited his final verdict.
The source said Sistani would not make public which parts of the pact he had concerns about. But he said Sistani wanted politicians to decide "whether the positive aspects outweigh the negative."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
President Bush should have done a better job on the borders. However, our borders with Canada and Mexico have always been unguarded. And more has been done by him to secure the borders than has ever been done in our history.
There is more to democracy than just sticking your finger in a pot of purple ink and holding it up in the air. A lot more.
Kristinn is not a "lady," he is a FReeper who has done much for conservatism and is in very good standing here. He has also visited Iraq. So, drop the condescension.
There has been a lot more to Iraq's democracy than purple fingers. I personally have watched Iraq knock down hurdle after hurdle in their quest for a strong democracy.
You appear to have gotten all of your information from the drive-bys. That lends you no credibility at all.
Which still equals diddly squat. (.00001 is still greater than 0.0000, much greater.)
Your condescension is getting tedious.
If you have other information, please post it.
Why can't you look it up yourself, rather than just let CNN drone their spin at you? You do have it all wrong, though.
The Status of Forces Agreement calls for combat troops to withdraw. Base-lease agreements are coming up on the docket shortly.
It also has yet to be passed by the Iraqi people in a referendum.
OK, that's the simple stuff. Look the rest of it up. Educate yourself. Try the Multi-National Forces Iraq site or something a little more credible than AP and Reuters and all of that other garbage you ingest.
Sure, a lot more should have been done, but please don't act like nothing has been done.
I have read your post 32 multiple times and it reeks. To hijack the blood of 3,000 Americans for your border issue is despicable. When the next busload of French-Canadians or Mexicans take out the White House and Wall Street, then you’ll have a point. Would ANYTHING you advocate as to our borders have kept out the 9/11 hijackers? No.
Correction, your Post 36.
Yes. This wave is like a "clean-up crew" here with their little mission: smash any possibility of a legacy for President Bush. Simply "winning" the election will never be enough, they need to be sure that Bush receives credit for nothing and they will pound and pound and pound away until they feel certain their BDS will be validated by the history books because there won't be anyone around who hasn't been bludgeoned into submission and/or disinformationed to death. Lovely people.
Yep. McCain did not want to win. It’s as simple as that.
Oh, are we obeying the constitution now?
Ask the President-Elect.
You bet I am angry with George W. Bush for the way he has destroyed our Republican Party. For him it wasn’t a matter of being a liberal or “compassionate” conservative, it was his sheer incompetence.
Why do we need to praise his deal with Teddy Kennedy to destroy school choice and pass No Child Left Behind. Or the orgy of spending with no revenue to pay for it? Or the Prescription Drug entitlement he refused to pay for. Or the appointments of Paul Bremer and Hank Paulson.
Is GWB a nice guy? Most definitely. But Jimmy Carter was also a nice guy. I want someone who has an approval rating above 22 percent when he leaves office.
You actually bolstered my point, while not denying you are part of this clean-up crew (but good job throwing in “our” Republican party!). Your mission here appears to be to shredding President Bush to smithereens (while heralding Obama).
You nailed it. ;-)
Bush said he care about keeping the country safe, whereby normal people would assume he means the lives and property of its citizens. While no one can diminish the horror of 9/11, a rational human would doubt that it's any comfort to the friends and families of people murdered by illegal aliens let into this country under Bush's watch that they died at the hands of people who snuck into this country instead of being murdered by terrorists who flew a plane into a buildings.
Murdered is murdered. It doesn't matter a wit if it's Arab terrorists or illegal aliens who did it.
Let's hope so.
Well, since you proposed on another thread that neocons “should be taken out and shot”, you’re no better than the Arab terrorists or illegal aliens. Thank God you’re just in front of a computer in your underwear, probably getting your jollies from looking at your screen name.
You're right: it would be wrong to pretend as if Bush had done nothing.
Squandering his rapidly shrinking cache of political capital trying to ram through amnesty TWICE, his prosecution of Ramos and Compean definitely were something: A clear signal to the rest of the world that our "leaders" don't give an iota to protect American sovereignty.
Actually, I'll just settle for a guarantee that this neocon crap and "compassionate conservatism" don't raise their traitorous heads again this generation.
Until I make plans to actually do it (I won't), your analogy falls flat.
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