MoJo: Freedom as theft

... When it came to the freedoms of Western occupiers (or liberators, if you will), including armed mercenaries, however, Bremer achieved a true medal-snatching feat. He essentially turned that Baghdad clock back to the nineteenth century and made that "time" stick to this very day. On the eve of his departure, he issued a remarkable document of freedom -- a declaration of foreign independence -- that went by the name of "Order 17" [PDF file] and that, in the U.S. mainstream media, is still often referred to as "the law" in Iraq.

Order 17 is a document well worth reading. It essentially granted to every foreigner in the country connected to the occupation enterprise the full freedom of the land, not to be interfered with in any way by Iraqis or any Iraqi political or legal institution. Foreigners—unless, of course, they were jihadis or Iranians—were to be "immune from any form of arrest or detention other than by persons acting on behalf of their Sending States," even though American and coalition forces were to be allowed the freedom to arrest and detain in prisons and detention camps of their own any Iraqis they designated worthy of that honor. (The present prison population of American Iraq is reputed to be at least 24,500 and rising.)

[ ... ]

Of course, the very idea of taking "freedom" abroad through what our President has hailed as "the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known—the men and women of the United States Armed Forces," is an absurdity, unless you realize who is being freed. Ostensibly entering Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction, our military proved itself—what are massively armed forces for, after all—a weapon of massive destruction. It finished the task of breaking an already oppressed and half-broken land. What the "greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known" opened the way for was a looter's paradise; the freedom it brought was the freedom to plunder.

The Iraqi looting began almost as soon as American troops entering Baghdad in April 2003—and those occupying troops, without orders to lift a finger, did just about nothing (except, tellingly, guard the Oil Ministry) as Baghdad burned. Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld signaled just what kind of an era of liberation was indeed dawning. At a press briefing, with the verbal equivalent of a wink and a nod, he responded to a question about the looting of the Iraqi capital by saying, "Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here." And he offered his infamous tag line for the ongoing disaster, "Stuff happens." ...

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http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/tomdispatch/2007/09/freedom-as-theft.html