Degree of Sovereignty Depends on Violence

[GreenPartyVoter]

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Regardless of Security Council resolutions and other legal documents, it is the insurgents who will determine how much genuine authority the newly sovereign Iraqi government will have as it begins the march to democratic rule.

Insurgents even influenced the pace of the transfer of sovereignty from the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority to the appointed government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. The handover had been expected Wednesday but was pushed forward two days - in large part to prevent the militants from disrupting the historic step.

No advance word about the change in handover plans was announced. Instead, journalists were summoned early Monday to what they were told was a short-notice press conference by the outgoing U.S. governor, L. Paul Bremer.

Only after journalists were ushered into a conference room and their mobile phones taken were they told what they were about to witness.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20040628/D83FVHS80.html

[Veggie Meathead]

1. After looking at this sham ceremony, I am more than ever

convinced that we are going to be driven away from Baghdad just as we were driven away from Saigon. The idea that the sovereignty of a nation is something to be taken away and given back by an occupying force is insulting in the extreme to a proud nation.To think that the same occupying force has committed torture, killings and rapes on innocent citizens after invading that country on false premises only adds insult to injury.

By conducting itself in this haughty manner the U.S. and its puppets in Iraq ensure that the days of this puppet government are numbered.Our folly seems to know no bounds.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. But how long will it take?

[Veggie Meathead]

3. In Vietnam, it took more than a decade for the writing on the wall to

make itself plain to our rulers.I would think a similar time table and untold suffering of the Iraqi people will occur before we come to our senses once more.It is an axiom of history that the powerful are blind.We are no exception to that rule.