Editorial: Who is the US military propping up?

It's truly amazing, week after week, to watch as so much of the US press pretends that Iraq is a democracy. Excuse us, as so much of the small portion of the US press which pays attention to Iraq insists that it's a democracy.

As in the US, Iraq has three branches of government: Executive, legislative and judicial. Iraq, like the US, has a Constitution. Like the US, the Iraqi Constitution outlines what the powers of each branch are.

Last week, New Sabah reported that Nouri al-Maliki was continuing to assert that he, as prime minister, has the right to write the laws and all Iraq's legislative branch, the Parliament, has the power to do is to vote up or down on the proposed legislation Nouri submits. Only he or the country's ceremonial president (Jalal Talabani), according to Nouri, can write laws.

This is what the US lost lives for? To install a new dictator?

This is why the US has to stay in Iraq past 2011? To maintain Nouri's dictatorship?

(On staying in Iraq past 2011, check out Kelly McEvers report for today's Weekend Edition.)

Nouri is targeting the press, he's targeting the Iraqi people (especially protesters) and the answer, to the White House, is to keep propping up Nouri?

Something was birthed in Iraq after the invasion, but it wasn't democracy.






Illustration is Isaiah's "Not Quite There."