Ellen, while perhaps technically valid, your assertion becomes rather specious when regarded through the prism of the economic, military and psychological influence the US wields in Iraq. It verges on ridiculous when the track record of the Bush administration is thrown into the mix.

Iraq says go, Bush says no. Now what? Nobody wants us there as it is. The efforts to drive us out have been well documented. A stern disinvitation is hardly a solution, not even hypothetically.

Extraterritoriality does not imply immunity.  The failure of "our" government to hold its contractors and their employees liable for their actions is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

1. You are right extraterritoriality does not imply immunity. It explicitly grants it. The reason imperial governments demand extraterritoriality is so that their people may run roughshod over the heathens.

2. It is not "our" government, it is our government. We are responsible colectively for its actions. It is one of the responsibilities with which we pay for the rights of citizenship in a democracy.

Do you have any source for this? My understanding was that the support of even the Iraqi government was tepid at best.

Should the Haditha Marines have been tried in the Iraqi courts?

The Coalition Provisional Authority went out of business June 28, 2004.

Why would Bremer's decrees have the force of law, thereafter? 

Just to put the 'extraterritoriality' issue in some context, the very reason that there has been a long-standing controversy -- with broad opposition, not only by W Repugs but treated sympathetically in the mainstream media -- to having US military forces ever placed under the flag of the UN; the objection is precisely because US forces do not want ANY serious accountability other than to the US. Let us also remember that, unlike the agenda-and-laundering dog-and-pony show over Monicagate, all personnel of the US armed services, down to the lowest rank, are immune from civilian US accountability to civil suit, (even for major felonies that are also torts), until they have completed their terms of service.

This issue, so intimately close to the current dispute over Blackwater and US forces in Iraq, is yet another example of the many misleading suggestions or implications that 'imperialism' and 'neoimperialism' are basically a REPUG affair rather than a practice of BOTH parties, little questioned even by most mainstream 'hopeful' liberals in the US punditocracy. Let us just keep in mind the impunity with which US servicepeople in PRACTICE are free to violate the rights of foreign civilians, whether in the Korean War, or in wars since.

Sure there is indeed SOMETIMES accountability at the hands of the US government, and private corporations pose a qualitatively more difficult case of accountability (not having the internal military justice system to answer to) but the basic policy is pretty similar throughout the mainstream, on this issue.

(crossposted)
"Darth", the Emperor used to say to me, "Darth, my boy, nothing binds the people's hearts and minds to the Imperium like having our stormtroopers rape their daughters and kill their aged parents with impunity. I tell you, when people see that very same trooper next day, walking his beat unpunished, they show him some RESPECT!

Nobody wants us there as it is. Excepting, that is, the great majority (almost all?) of the members of the Iraqi government -- legislative and administrative included.

Tom Hayden (Oct 3, 2006):
On September 12, just over two weeks ago, 104 Iraqi parliamentarians signed a petition calling for a withdrawal timetable. There are 275 members of the Iraq parliament, and frequently as many as eighty are not present. The constitution allows a measure to become law if supported by a majority of those present and voting. So the withdrawal proposal suddenly would have become law if it wasn't arbitrarily ordered to a committee for "review".

A similar scenario occurred in July 2005 when at least 82 parliamentarians signed a petition for the "speedy departure of the occupation", and denounced the Iraqi executive for failing to consult parliament as required by law.

Since this year's parliamentary election, when large numbers of Sunnis chose to vote rather than abstain, the number of anti-occupation parliamentarians inevitably grew. According to one Iraqi analyst I have interviewed, between 140 and 160 members would vote for a timetable if one was proposed.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1003-34.htm

ecotourism
WeGoEco.com

Well I think either it's Neo-Imperialism or we really really SUCK at it.

Britain and France didn't have problems with their colonies on this level 150 years ago!

When our country has a sane president, the military occupies a country that has attacked us and is now defeated by our military, who are in control. There is no civilian government to charge or try US military personnel for whatever they do. Then it is the Geneva Conventions that are the law.

Since the excuse for our continued presence in Iraq is that we are assisting the Maliki government to maintain order, we should be subject to Iraq laws, so if our military personnel breaks those laws they should be charged and tried under those laws.

Hoppy in Sacramento

Extraterritoriality hardly is unique to the US. It wasn't pretty in pre-WWII China or other places where the presence was clearly colonial, although there some dramatic actions by Americans and Europeans during an event like the Rape of Nanking, where the Japanese rarely took on the foreigners.

Once there is a functioning local government, the argument for their jurisdiction becomes stronger -- but there will be cases where it isn't ready yet, and the UCMJ and Geneva Conventions, promptly applied, are the only reasonable alternative.

I totally reject the idea that contractors are not subject to UCMJ or Geneva jurisdiction, regardless of who contracts them. If the local law enforcement isn't working yet, the military has jurisdiction over them; that they are contracted to State is a thin excuse.

There does need to be due regard for things that the locals might consider criminal, but are rights for Americans. Before assuming the locals should have jurisdiction, consider difficulties, such as happened in Saudi Arabia before some wise people found ways of avoiding conflict. A female American soldier, on duty, had her sleeves rolled up. When a Saudi religious policeman saw her, he struck the ungodly, tempting woman with his whip of office. She responded as a soldier being attacked, but with restraint -- she didn't shoot him, but spun around and knocked him to the ground with her rifle butt. That was self-defense and a proportionate level of force, in that she didn't shoot him.

Also consider that an American religious observance might be criminal by the laws of an Islamic state. That's the sort of thing where a status of forces agreement is necessary.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

"Britain...didn't have problems with their colonies on this level 150 years ago!"

True, but 230 years ago the King of England did find himself on the wrong end of a paramilitary militia which justified their hostile actions, in part, because they felt themselves to be victims of an occupying power, operating outside of the law and accountability...viz:

"For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
"For protecting them, by a *mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:"

*note that the British at least had the good manners to pretend to have a trial...

As best I can tell, these Backwater mercenaries serve three essential functions. They allow the President to understate the true number of soldiers deployed, and to low ball the true cost of deploying them. They act as human shields against accountability for what amounts to a rampaging death squad. And they help Republicans grease the palms of one of their most generous contributors.

Backwater's existence is an unmitigated detriment to the national security interests of the United States. The company should be summarily fired and permanently blacklisted from government work of any kind.