Barack Obama wanted to keep some troops in Iraq past the 2011 deadline, but he also wanted those troops to have immunity from Iraqi prosecution. He might have worked out this deal with prime minister al-Maliki, but a Wikileaks revelation may have scuttled the back room deal. In 2006, "U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence, during a controversial 2006 incident in the central Iraqi town of Ishaqi."
There were numerous atrocities committed during the eight year long occupation, but this particular incident was revealed in the release of a Wikileaks cable and the resulting revulsion made it impossible for business as usual to take place.
If this revelation did keep the U.S. from continuing its occupation, the two men most responsible for ending the terror which America inflicted on Iraq are Julian Assange and Bradley Manning. Manning has been imprisoned without trial for over one year. He has not been brought to trial and yet president Obama has declared him guilty. Julian Assange will probably be extradited to Sweden to face sexual assault charges from the UK and will likely then be extradited to the United States.
These two heroes should be recipients of the nobel peace prize instead of Barack Obama, instead they have been caught in the maw of American law. Why should Moammar Gaddafi have been killed by a lynch mob when George Bush and Tony Blair live without fear of prosecution? He didn't do anything that American and European leaders haven't done, yet he was summarily executed. Bush, Blair and now Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy have killed thousands. They will be lionized, make millions when they leave office, and be allowed to die peacefully in their beds.
There is no justice in this world.
