Hacker News Reader

> They are there at the will of the democratically elected Iraqi government in a deployment sanctioned by the UN Security Council.

Please. The alternative is a total power vacuum, you can't really say that they're there because the locals invited them in.

View on HN

I just pointed out that calling them 'foreign occupiers' is not accurate. Although as a practical matter it's difficult for the Iraqis to boot the US out because of the power vacuum that would result, that does not change the fact that under the current legal situation the US forces are there at the behest of the Iraqi government and that they would have to leave if requested to do so.

For what it's worth I did not claim that the locals invited them in. That one's a straw man.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com