Massaging the Text

Bush & Co are just playing semantics when they say the US occupation will be handed over to a provisional national assembly. Their selected puppets haven't even been able to write a draft consititution, so US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, will be writing it for them (in US English, using MS Word and Times Roman font, no doubt).

When the provisional government is chosen in June, US presence will change, Mr Bremer said, "from an occupation to an invited presence. I'm sure the Iraqi government is going to want to have coalition forces here for its own security for some time to come".

The same thing happened in Japan after WWII, and the US still refuses to pull out its troops. Today, the governor of Okinawa sprung a surprise on Donald Rumsfeld, using a media conference to air a list of grievances about US bases.

Mr Inamine said that "incidents and accidents caused by US military personnel, and environmental problems stemming from the bases, have created enormous impacts on people's lives, while the facilities became the outstanding hindrance to urban development and economic promotion". The Governor's list of complaints included noise pollution, the level of military training conducted in Okinawa and the Navy's effect on marine wildlife.

After nearly 40 minutes, Mr Rumsfeld said it was time to end the discussion. "We've listened," he said politely but firmly.

At least the US occupation of Japan after WWII was legal and had genuine international support from a genuine "Coalition of the Willing".