Big turnout in Iraq

[KeyboardJockey]

Face it mears, not only are you fucked in Iraq, you are only starting to come to terms with the fact that 'you' have completely blown any claim to the moral high ground. The Chinese and Iranians rightly laugh in your face, and the Zimbabweans think you're moving in on their moral patch.

Good point. Re Zimbabwe we (HM Government) have a very comprehensive arms embargo against Mugabe's Government the same conditions should apply against the USA.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Now its a fradulent election. Why not wait to see how this plays out. The powers that be in Iraq are not calling it a victory for the constitution. They are auditing the vote. You are trying to call the results before the game is over.

What like Fox News called Bush's election victory before all the votes were counted?

Besides, given the corruption in the Iraqi government and the billions of dollars of reconstruction money syphoned off by lord only knows who, why be so surprised? its not as if there wasn't vote rigging in the January elections - but I notice you chose to ignore that.

 

[oi2002]

This is much better than the sham election where Saddam won 99 percent of the vote...

Almost certainly better than last months election in which Mubarak achieved a modest, by Arab despot standards, 88.5% of the vote.

 

[mears]

I think in the current circumstances and with your government and turnout you are in no position to speak of sham elections.

If there was a situation in the Middle East or elsewhere where the manufacturers of electoral teller machines was connected to one of the candidates you'd be jumping up and down shouting about how unfair and abusive such a thing is.

Try taking the plank from your own eye before complaining about the speck in someone elses.

Also as a previous poster said removing the US flag from your japseye might help as well.

Uhm, fraud was never proven in the 2000 election. But nice try.

 

[mears]

What like Fox News called Bush's election victory before all the votes were counted?

Besides, given the corruption in the Iraqi government and the billions of dollars of reconstruction money syphoned off by lord only knows who, why be so surprised? its not as if there wasn't vote rigging in the January elections - but I notice you chose to ignore that.

It was rigged?

 

[Barking_Mad]

It was rigged?

What, the US election or the Iraqi one? I dont know about the US one, although the Iraqi election certainly had some dodgy things going on. You know for one so keen on democracy and elected leade3rs who represent the country, Mears sure is quick to turn a blind eye to dubious going on.

Mears, would you want to be represented by crooked politicians? Or does it just not matter in Iraq? Start off on the bad foot and it'll just get worse.

 

[KeyboardJockey]

Uhm, fraud was never proven in the 2000 election. But nice try.

The 04 election didn't seem too clean from oberservers this side of the Atlantic either.

 

[nino_savatte]

Uhm, fraud was never proven in the 2000 election. But nice try.

Oh really? I beg to differ my Bushbot friend. Please produce some evidence.

 

[KeyboardJockey]

Oh really? I beg to differ my Bushbot friend. Please produce some evidence.

You are asking a hard one there nino. Mears is the original 'evidence! evidence! I don't need no steeeenking evidence I have my faith'

 

[nino_savatte]

You are asking a hard one there nino. Mears is the original 'evidence! evidence! I don't need no steeeenking evidence I have my faith'

I know, that's why I asked him because I know he's above us ordinary mortals.

A puff of smoke is all that's left of Ayn Rand.

 

[mears]

The 04 election didn't seem too clean from oberservers this side of the Atlantic either.

Where do you get this?

 

[mears]

What, the US election or the Iraqi one? I dont know about the US one, although the Iraqi election certainly had some dodgy things going on. You know for one so keen on democracy and elected leade3rs who represent the country, Mears sure is quick to turn a blind eye to dubious going on.

Mears, would you want to be represented by crooked politicians? Or does it just not matter in Iraq? Start off on the bad foot and it'll just get worse.

Well either one. I'm not talking speculation but fact. What facts do you present that either was rigged?

 

[Barking_Mad]

Well either one. I'm not talking speculation but fact. What facts do you present that either was rigged?

Do you read the linked articles?

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=3681931&postcount=53

 

[nino_savatte]

Where do you get this?

And where is the proof for your assertion that electoral fraud "was not proven" in Florida in 2000? Hmmmmmmmmm? Your silence is deafening btw. in other words, your silence says one thing: you lie.

 

[KeyboardJockey]

Where do you get this?

Voting Machines

Guardian article

that do for starters Mears - or are you going to start whining about 'liberal media conspiracy of some such shite.

 

[nino_savatte]

All America all the crime.

 

[newharper]

Where do you get this?

Well these guys give it a go.

Why Can't the Left Face the Stolen Elections of 2004 & 2008?

"That Kerry and the spineless Ohio and national Democratic Parties have been complicit is a crucial part of the problem much of the left also seems unwilling to face. But if you live in Franklin County, Ohio, and watch the Republican and Democratic Parties run joint pickets against progressive candidate, and cut backroom deals allowing incumbents of either party run unopposed, you may miss the full scope of the disaster."

"For a quickie reporting job, Anthony is a dream. He's well-spoken, charming and convincing. As an African-American with union connections, he would seem the perfect liberal source.

In 2003, Anthony endorsed the Republican mayor's former press secretary for the Columbus School Board. He then supported two Republican candidates on a "Reform Slate" aimed at ousting the Board's only progressive Democrat, an African-American."

They then go on to critisize US journalism in much the same way asJuan Cole

"It's not just from Iraq. It's our picture of the world. The United States is a peculiarly insular society. Most people here haven't traveled very much and our mass media, all television news of any significance, is controlled by about five corporations. We have a tradition in the State Department and our press corps of preferring generalists and being suspicious of deep expertise as a form of bias. So a journalist covering Iraq, who knows the Middle East well and knows Arabic, might well be seen as someone too entangled with the region to be objective. The American way of ensuring objectivity is to parachute generalists into a situation and have them depend on local informants. The whole theory of it is wrong."

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Meanwhile, back at the Iraq constitutional referendum, it increasingly looks like the result is going to be a very close run thing, with the constitution (which many Iraqis appear not to have seen yet) passing among widespread accusations of vote-rigging, polling stations being close where "no" votes were likely to be in the majority and so on.

Even if every one of these claims is untrue, ultimately what matters is that most Sunnis seem to think they're true. So while the White House will undoubtedly view a "yes" vote as a big success, it only helps them pretend that they are "bringing freedom", it doesn't actually help stop the killings.

Most likely it just pours some more petrol on an already raging fire.

 

[mears]

Well these guys give it a go.

Why Can't the Left Face the Stolen Elections of 2004 & 2008?

"That Kerry and the spineless Ohio and national Democratic Parties have been complicit is a crucial part of the problem much of the left also seems unwilling to face. But if you live in Franklin County, Ohio, and watch the Republican and Democratic Parties run joint pickets against progressive candidate, and cut backroom deals allowing incumbents of either party run unopposed, you may miss the full scope of the disaster."

"For a quickie reporting job, Anthony is a dream. He's well-spoken, charming and convincing. As an African-American with union connections, he would seem the perfect liberal source.

In 2003, Anthony endorsed the Republican mayor's former press secretary for the Columbus School Board. He then supported two Republican candidates on a "Reform Slate" aimed at ousting the Board's only progressive Democrat, an African-American."

They then go on to critisize US journalism in much the same way asJuan Cole

"It's not just from Iraq. It's our picture of the world. The United States is a peculiarly insular society. Most people here haven't traveled very much and our mass media, all television news of any significance, is controlled by about five corporations. We have a tradition in the State Department and our press corps of preferring generalists and being suspicious of deep expertise as a form of bias. So a journalist covering Iraq, who knows the Middle East well and knows Arabic, might well be seen as someone too entangled with the region to be objective. The American way of ensuring objectivity is to parachute generalists into a situation and have them depend on local informants. The whole theory of it is wrong."

You see, no proof. That is an opinion piece.

Is that article implying Kerry helped Bush steal the election.

Common Dreams is really a piece of work. Hard not to laugh when reading it. If you do read it, I hope you supplement your reading with other works. Economist, Guardian, New York Times, Financial Times.

Common Dreams is way out there.

 

[mears]

Meanwhile, back at the Iraq constitutional referendum, it increasingly looks like the result is going to be a very close run thing, with the constitution (which many Iraqis appear not to have seen yet) passing among widespread accusations of vote-rigging, polling stations being close where "no" votes were likely to be in the majority and so on.

Even if every one of these claims is untrue, ultimately what matters is that most Sunnis seem to think they're true. So while the White House will undoubtedly view a "yes" vote as a big success, it only helps them pretend that they are "bringing freedom", it doesn't actually help stop the killings.

Most likely it just pours some more petrol on an already raging fire.

So should Iraq just declare a ditatorship and forget the whole thing?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I'm sure talking about the US elections is much easier than talking about the Iraqi constitutional referendum. After all, the Democrats are much less prone to expressing their doubts about electoral legitimacy with high explosives.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

So should Iraq just declare a ditatorship and forget the whole thing?

Where do you get that rather peculiar conclusion from?

 

[mears]

I'm sure talking about the US elections is much easier than talking about the Iraqi constitutional referendum. After all, the Democrats are much less prone to expressing their doubts about electoral legitimacy with high explosives.

Yes, its a problem with the Sunnis. They should present their own constitution instead of complaining about the one voted on.

 

[mears]

Where do you get that rather peculiar conclusion from?

It sounds as though you think the constitution will make things worse. Should they shelve the idea of a constitution, in your opinion?

 

[Barking_Mad]

For the benefit of Mears, who 'missed' this the first time round and then asked for proof before ignoring my link again.......

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GI30Ak02.html

Cruz, now back in Los Angeles, provided a detailed account of the election in Nineveh to IPS in interviews.

...........

On election day, Cruz recalled, the US military tried to find helicopters to carry the ballot materials out to the six remaining district towns on the list, but was able get ballots before the 5pm close of voting to only one town, Bashiqa, which is almost entirely Christian, Shabak and Yezidi. But according to Cruz, Kurdish militiamen stole the ballot boxes from the polling place, returning them later after obviously tampering with them and offering bribes to the election workers to accept them.

Meanwhile, a much more ambitious vote-fraud scheme was unfolding in Sinjar, a relatively small district town in the west known to be a predominantly Sunni Arab area.

About 12,000 ballots had been sent to Sinjar, but on election day KDP officials in Sinjar requested a number of ballots far in excess of the estimated electorate in the town and surrounding villages, according to Cruz. He recalled that the request was supported by the office of the interim president of Iraq, Sunni Arab Ghazi al-Yawer.

Cruz remembers joking about the "500% voter-participation rate" in Sinjar. Nevertheless, the Stryker Brigade Combat Team complied with the request for the ballots.

Later, the province's Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI) forwarded 38 ballot boxes, 174 plastic sacks and 14 cardboard cartons of ballots that had obviously been tampered with to the national IECI. In some boxes, reams of ballot papers that had not even been folded were visible. In others, boxes had been resealed with red and green duct tape.

When Cruz asked the local IECI director how many of the fraudulent ballots had come from Sinjar, he was told, "all of them".

 

[Jangla]

Yes, its a problem with the Sunnis. They should present their own constitution instead of complaining about the one voted on.

What a load of crap - they're quite reasonably concerned that certain parts of the constitution will mean revenues from the country will be unfairly distributed i.e. they'll get none. They've been lobbying to have it changed and every request knocked back. Democracy in action eh mears?

 

[nino_savatte]

You see, no proof. That is an opinion piece.

Is that article implying Kerry helped Bush steal the election.

Common Dreams is really a piece of work. Hard not to laugh when reading it. If you do read it, I hope you supplement your reading with other works. Economist, Guardian, New York Times, Financial Times.

Common Dreams is way out there.

ROTFLMAO!!!!! How about Human Events or National Review? They're "way out there". I'd take Common Dreams over your sources any day, my viral friend.

 

[nino_savatte]

So should Iraq just declare a ditatorship and forget the whole thing?

In case you hadn't noticed it practically is a dictatorship.

All America, all the crime.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

It sounds as though you think the constitution will make things worse. Should they shelve the idea of a constitution, in your opinion?

I don't think the idea of a constitution is an intrinsically bad one, but this particular constitution is likely to cause more problems than it solves for a variety of reasons that I've already explained. Just to recap though ...

If you look at the successive drafts of the constitution, as analysed by FPIP

The Iraqis—even those who were willing to cooperate with the Americans—wanted, at least on paper, to build a Scandinavian-type welfare system in the Arabian desert, with Iraq’s vast oil wealth to be spent upholding every Iraqi’s right to education, health care, housing, and other social services. “Social justice is the basis of building society,” the draft declared. All of Iraq’s natural resources would be owned collectively by the Iraqi people. Everyone would have the right to work and the state would be legally bound to provide employment opportunities to everyone. The state will be the Iraqi people’s collective instrument for achieving development. (See key provisions in matrix below.)

What they actually got was a constitution that facilitated the privatisation of Iraq and as fast as the social provisions disappeared, provisions providing for Islamic law and partition were introduced, very likely in order to secure the agreement to privatisation of the pro-Iranian Shiites.

Strong majorities of the Iraqis themselves have clearly indicated that they don't want partitioning (see e.g. http://www.brookings.edu/iraqindex ), want the US/UK to leave either immediately or after the elections and think that the insurgents are fighting because US/UK is primarily there to steal their oil.

Under these circumstances, a consititution which just barely passes, amid loud accusations of vote-rigging is likely to make matters worse, not better.

 

[Streathamite]

So should Iraq just declare a ditatorship and forget the whole thing?

how in the name of God, Yahweh and Allah did you arrive at that particular notion?